The Shadow Box (57 page)

She tried. But it wouldn't go.

And now she saw the man. And the body he was car
rying. He was little more than a shadow but she knew that
he was young and strong because he carried the body in his arms. It was wrapped in blankets. He lowered it into
the grave. He seemed to do it very tenderly.

“Michael?”

She did not know why she called his name. She had no feeling that the man was Michael Fallon. This man was
younger, darker, very powerful shoulders. His hands
seemed unusually large. It was
not
Michael. And yet she
felt his presence there.

Megan felt that chill again. It began to swell into panic. She squeezed her eyes tight and tried to see Michael, hear
him whistling, anything, but there were too many faces
and voices.

Clutching her towel, more nude than covered, she
climbed the hatchway stairs. Perhaps if she got higher.
Faces on the ferry, others in the parking lot, turned in her
direction. She heard the buzzing of their voices. She ig
nored them. She climbed higher, onto the foredeck. Her
eyes, her mind, that part of it, were locked in the direction
of Edgartown. Her temples throbbed, her heart was pound
ing. She listened hard.

The last of the cars clanked onto the ferry. Its engine
growled as it climbed the ramp. As that sound faded, so
did the image of that wooded grave. The man, the shadow,
lingered but he too was beginning to fade. Like Andrew,
the man up in Braintree, he was driving away.

At last, minutes later, she felt Michael.

He was alive. He seemed vaguely troubled, that was her
sense, but Michael was definitely alive. He was not the
man who dug that grave. He was not the figure she saw
buried there. She allowed herself to breathe again.

Megan pulled at the towel to cover a bit more of herself. But what was Michael doing? She knew that he was well
because she could feel him tugging at his face. Contorting
it as if in anguish. And yet she felt no great distress. At
last, she realized why.

Michael, damn him, was shaving.

She's standing here naked, half crazy with worry, and
Michael Fallon is shaving.

Moon had no idea what that boat girl was doing.

Except trying to cause rear end collisions.

“Hey look! Hey look! That blond's bare-ass naked.”

The young man who yelled that was driving a Chevy
Blazer. He nearly climbed right up Moon's tail.

Moon parked in the line the crewman waved him into,
locked up, and made his way to the upper deck. A sign
said there were refreshments up that way. He thought he'd
earned himself a beer.

Hobbs wasn't dead. At least not when he left. The bullet
had punched a hole up through his tongue and the roof of
his mouth and on up into his brain. Must have scrambled
it some but he was still alive. The other one sure wasn't.
He died on the spot and all he had were belly wounds.
You never know about gunshots.

After Moon had calmed Maureen down, put a wet cloth on her cheek and a hanky to his bleeding head, he called Doyle at home and told him what happened. Doyle didn't
yell at him for once. He was glad to hear his voice. He
told him of the threat against Sheila and wanted him to
call an ambulance, take Maureen and come right over.
Doyle would handle the police.

Moon knew that he would not have been arrested but
he wouldn't have been let go either. Captain Hennessy
might have helped sneak him in and out, might have kept
the cameras away, but he wouldn't have had much free
dom. It was as good a time as any to go look in on
Michael. He dropped Maureen off, visited just a few min
utes with Doyle, got hugged by Sheila, then headed on
north.

This might, he'd decided, be a
real
good time to look
in on Michael. Arnie Aaronson has been snatched. Doyle
said Arnie had asked him where Michael is and the answer
had almost slipped out. He said he's pretty sure he caught
himself in time. Not dead sure. Just pretty sure.

It was almost a four-hour drive. He wanted to get going because he wouldn't feel easy until he got past Greenwich.
It's like in cowboy movies where the soldiers ride through
this narrow pass and you know damned well there's going
to be an ambush. But there wasn't and he had three more
hours to think.

Doyle knew that Rasmussen had cocooned himself. That
he'd lost all his flab, got a tuck here and there, made
himself a Baron. But he'd only just found that out. Doyle had that AdChem brochure all along but he never thought to open it before today. Can't fault him for that, though.
Doyle had never laid eyes on Rasmussen so it wouldn't
have mattered. But if he, Moon, had seen it back last
November, and if he hadn't got sick, he would have saved
everyone a lot of grief. Rasmussen would not have lived
to see December.

Spilt milk.

He'll find Rasmussen in the end. Hobbs never got to
say where he is right now but he mostly lives in Munich.

Munich, Timbuktu, the North Pole. It doesn't matter.

The world isn't big enough for Rasmussen to hide. A
man can turn himself into a baron a lot easier than he can
turn himself back into . . . whatever Joe Blow is in Ger
man. He'll want to live rich. But he'll also want to live
restful so he'll be sending shooters after this dumb old
nigger who's hunting him. Trouble with that is most shoot
ers are what they call dysfunctional.

Dysfunctional, hell. They're morons. That's how come
they're shooters. Hiring them is like laying bread crumbs
right back to your door.

That Parker might be harder. A man like that knows
how to disappear. If he's smart, he will, now that he knows
Hobbs rolled over on him. And he'll see that grabbing
Arnie Aaronson won't slow Doyle down for more than a
day. It might have if he hadn't talked so trashy to Sheila.
Doyle's sure it was him. Doyle says, “Moon, that one's
mine. You leave that fucker for me.”

Moon paid for his beer, along with two hot dogs, and took them out on the deck. It was a pretty big ship, the biggest he'd ever been on unless you'd count the Staten
Island Ferry. It calmed him, being out on the water, every
thing smelling so clean, troubles left behind for a bit. He could see why people went on cruises. Didn't seem to do
much for that boat girl, though.

He saved half the roll from his second hot dog and tossed pieces of it to the gulls. They would catch it on
the wing. The last piece, he held up high until the boldest
of them sort of hovered in and nipped it from his fingers.
Boldness always takes the prize. He checked his watch,
found a bench, and unfolded the map he got with his
ticket.

From the schedule, he should still have a good hour of
daylight left by the time this thing docked and he drove
on to Edgartown. Time to find this Taylor House, check
out the town, get the lay of the land. He wasn't sure
whether he'd go ring the bell just yet. Michael would get
all emotional, drag him inside, want to know where he's
been. He'd ask too many questions, get told a few lies.
But like he said to Doyle, he didn't raise Michael stupid.

What he'd really like to do, truth be told, is find some
place quiet and lie down for a while. Those hot dogs were
disputin' him, as Satchel Paige used to say. He was feeling a little dizzy.

That boat girl. She kept popping into his head.

He'd push her out and back she'd come. It wasn't like
he was lusting for her. It's a good twenty years since a
young girl's body made him foolish. A white girl in partic
ular. It's more like . . . back there
...
for just a second, he had this flickery little feeling that it's him she was
looking for.

Sure, Moon. Sure she was. So is Whitney Houston.

Must be he's just tired. Tired and lonesome.

Doyle had spent an hour with Marty Hennessy.

Captain Hennessy then talked to his boss, who talked to
the district attorney, who talked to the precinct commander where the shootings had occurred. He wanted Hobbs kept
under wraps, his identity withheld from the press, at least
until after the weekend, or at least until Aaronson is found.
Mostly, he wanted time.

“Sorry,” he reported back to Doyle. ”I couldn't get
you a deal.”

Hennessy was a great rumply bear of a man who
smoked foul cigars, the best that thirteen cents can buy.
He had come to Doyle's town house because the office
was roped off as a crime scene. It was just as well, thought
Doyle. In the office, his cigar would have set off the
sprinklers.

“For one thing,” Hennessy told him, “you won't get
anything more out of Hobbs. You might as well talk to a
cauliflower. Second, if you're right that this Parker
snatched Arnie, we have to at least try to find him. We're
going to pick up Parker and sweat him. You knew he was
a cop once?”

“No.”

“He was. He went dirty.”

“I'm shocked.” Doyle curled his lip.

“Don't get smart, Brendan. I'm trying to be your
friend here.”

“Can you at least keep this out of the papers?”

“That I can do. We're also going to hit Parker's com
pany. He's got three floors in a loft building, 48th and
Ninth. If he doesn't know he's a suspect, maybe that's
where he has Arnie. Meantime, you have to give up
Moon.”