Fixed in Fear (3 page)

Eddie walked away, this time with more determination in his step. Again, Lydia followed him.

She wondered if Dennis had had time to beg for his life before his best friend shot him twice in the neck and once in the shoulder.

The gun.
An insistent thought screamed inside Lydia's skull.
Follow him. Wait for your moment. Then reach into your purse, pull out the gun, and kill him.

Lydia kept her eyes on Eddie. She thought of Dennis Chait and his widow. She wondered what kind of man Dennis's son, Billy, would grow into. How much had he suffered being raised by a grieving, overworked mother? How long would he carry the bitterness of having been robbed of a father?

Settle this. Make it right. Follow him home. Take the gun and bring justice.

Her hand trembled. She pressed her arm against her purse and felt the outline of the Beretta's grip.

Help them. Spare Ann Louise and Billy the pain of justice denied.

Lydia watched Eddie unload his selections onto the checkout conveyor belt and breathed in her sovereignty. Her back straightened. Her shoulders squared.

She watched him leave, balancing two heavy paper bags in his arms. Lydia walked away from her cart and out the door. She saw him load his purchases into the back of his Subaru as she walked toward her car. She tracked his taillights as he pulled out of the lot, making the turn that would take him back to the sanctuary he'd created for himself. She got in her car, started the ignition, and gripped the steering wheel.

I will end this all tonight. I will make this right.

She sat in the parking lot of Shaw's grocery for a full minute, allowing the images of Ann Louise and her son to flood her with authority. Her pulse quickened and an appealing strength settled in her limbs.

Lydia Corriger would never be the victim again.

The Fixer would be her champion.

A vision of Mort intruded, only to be replaced by a flash of her own backyard. She saw the wide expanse of lawn dotted with bird feeders and lined on either side with giant Douglas firs. The Olympic Mountains in the distance across the deep green waters of Dana Passage.

Then she saw her patients. The blessed refuge of her office. She lifted a hand to touch her cheek, but instead felt the warm fingertips of Paul Bauer, her occasional lover who stood ready to be so much more if she'd only let him.

Her eyes filled with tears of rage. She pushed the images of her new life to the recesses of her awareness. No melancholy of hearth and home would serve her now. She bowed her head and willed the supremacy of justice to fill her again.

Then she reached into her purse, pushed the Beretta aside, and pulled out her phone. Her hand wavered in rebuttal as she attached a small digitizing microphone and punched in three numbers. The response was immediate.

“Nine-one-one. What is the location of your emergency?”

Lydia gave them Eddie's address. The technology of her digitizer allowed the dispatcher to hear a husky male voice.

“And what is the nature of your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.

“You'll find Edward Dirkin there. He's a fugitive wanted for homicide in Minnesota. Killed his best friend and walked away from the courtroom four years ago.”

Lydia ended the call before the dispatcher could ask another question. She fumbled as she shoved her phone back into her purse. She shifted the Accord into gear, turned left onto the road that would take her back to Boston, and tried to quiet the damning thoughts inside her own mind.

Mort called out to the kayaker approaching off his starboard side. “I've got an extra Guinness here if you're interested.”

Agatha Skurnik, his eighty-three-year old neighbor in Mort's Lake Union floating enclave, gave two hard pulls on her oar, twisted her hips, and glided to a stop parallel with her own houseboat. “I just finished a two-hour paddle. A beer sounds about as perfect as those guys in the commercials want me to believe.” She tied her kayak to her back dock and hoisted herself up and onto her deck. “Give me five minutes to wash my hands and pull a comb through this mop and I'll be right over.”

Mort leaned back in his lawn chair and surveyed the Monday evening activity on the lake. The air was warm, and the low rays of the setting sun cast ribbons of gold across the water. A fellow wearing a weathered Seahawks cap waved as he rowed past in a small bathtub of a boat. Mort didn't know his name, but the guy passed his house often about this time of day, and the two of them always acknowledged the other. That was one of the things Mort liked about houseboat living. Folks were polite and helpful if you needed them, but for the most part everybody kept to themselves—satisfied with a relationship based on passing nods and smiles and the occasional comment about the weather. He considered how different it was when he lived in the house he and Edie bought just after they were married.
We stayed there almost thirty years,
he thought.
The whole neighborhood raised one another's kids. Knew each other's business.
He thought about how it was the perfect place for that time in his life. But with Edie dead three years now and Robbie married with two daughters of his own, the big house didn't seem right for the current chapter of Mort's life. It was true he bought the houseboat on impulse, and there was a time he wasn't certain he'd last a month on the water. But he'd been here nearly a year, and it was feeling more and more like home. He turned and smiled as one of the main reasons his floating life felt so comfortable crossed the boardwalk separating their houses and stepped onto his boat.

“Stay there,” Agatha commanded. “You need another?”

Mort held up his bottle. “Just sat down. Haven't taken my first sip.”

“Well, hang on. I'll raid your fridge and join you.” Agatha was back on Mort's deck in less than a minute, Guinness in hand. He liked how she took care of herself. He never had to worry about serving or tending Agatha. She settled her lean and tanned body into the chair next to him and clinked her bottle against his.

“To another day in paradise.”

“I'll drink to that.” Mort took a long sip. “You been busy?”

Agatha kept her eyes on the water as she answered. “Same old. Met the crew down at Bindy's for breakfast. You'll be happy to know Cissy Callaway sold her first book. New author, small house, but still. That first sale's something you always remember.”

Agatha retired at age eighty after a long and acclaimed career as a literary agent. She represented authors across a variety of genres, some of whose names even Mort recognized. Edie had always been the reader in the family, and Mort knew she'd get a kick out of his attempts to discuss the world of books with his accomplished neighbor. Though no longer actively negotiating for her client list, Agatha kept her hand in the business by mentoring young agents. Her only criteria were that they be serious about finding and nurturing talent and that they be women. She once told Mort the best thing about retirement was she no longer had to play the role of deferential less-than to the men who called the shots in the old boys' network of major publishing. She met the three women she called her “crew” for breakfast twice a week. While Mort knew nothing about what it meant to be an agent, he was certain the women she mentored were well served by his brilliant and no-nonsense neighbor and friend.

“Well, good for Cissy,” he said.

“Then I put in my time down at Crestwood.” Agatha referred to her volunteer reading gig at a nearby elementary school. “Came home, got to work sanding that front deck. I got about a third of it done.” She pointed to the railings on Mort's boat. “Wouldn't hurt you to get busy on your own, mister. Houseboat's not like a land house. You can't let maintenance slip by. The water's beautiful, but it's harsh.”

Mort took another sip and promised to get right on it.

“I mean it, Mort. If you expect me to come drag your sorry sack of a self out of the water when your boat's rotted away beneath you, you're a poor judge of my character. And I don't need you to be driving down my property values by being moored next to a decrepit eyesore.”

Mort chuckled. “Do an inspection, Aggie. My boat's a prime example of floating workmanship. You wouldn't let me have it any other way.”

Agatha raised a teasing eyebrow. “And you don't want to see what happens if I need to remind you twice.”

“No, ma'am. I do not.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, gazing at the water and enjoying their beer.

“You have fun on your paddle?” Mort asked.

Agatha nodded. “Nothing lovelier than an early evening in September here in Seattle. The sun is warm. The air is dry. It's our payoff for months of never-ending drizzle, I guess. I planned on a short float, but it was too delicious to call it a day.”

Mort looked up into a cloudless sky. “It's a beauty, that's for sure. Enjoy it while it lasts, because the rain will come soon enough. Always does.”

Agatha turned a gentle gaze toward him. “You speaking literally or metaphorically?”

Mort inhaled long and slow. “Both, probably. I'm trying real hard to stay here, you know? In this moment. Remind myself everything's fine if I can just stay focused on this time, these people, this task.” He reached over and patted the strong, age-marked hand of his neighbor. “Like right now. I'm here, on the lake. With you. This beer. These ducks.” He pointed to a spot in the water. “That jumping fish. There's no rain here. Not now.”

“What's pulling you away?” Agatha's voice dropped to a worried whisper. “Is it Allie?”

Mort's breath caught the way it always did whenever he heard his daughter's name. His lovely, brilliant, talented, headstrong firstborn. Allison Edith Grant had been a stubborn handful as a toddler, a willful challenge as a child, and a rebellious test as a teenager. Now Mort could no longer deny what kind of adult Allie had become.

His beautiful daughter, the woman with Edie's eyes and his nose, was a murdering criminal living a life inconceivable to him. A life in the shadows. On the run from everything Mort had dedicated his life to protecting.

Agatha was one of the few people with whom Mort discussed his daughter. She knew his frustration and anger, but she didn't know the details or the magnitude of Allie's crimes. There was only one other person who did. Another young woman. A woman who'd become a surrogate daughter to him. A woman so unlike his own firstborn, yet sharing one common experience. Both Allie and Lydia had killed.

“Allie's always going to be my rain.” Mort shook his head. “But I've got another cloud on my horizon. Maybe that's what you're seeing. You remember my friend Larry?”

“The whole world knows L. Jackson Clark, Mort. But, yes. I know your friend Larry. I met him when he helped move you in and again when you made that wonderful pot of chili. I brought the corn bread. Larry brought perfectly ripe avocados and told me that story about the time you and he decided to see which of you could eat the most jalapeño peppers. Really, Morton. He's a Nobel Prize winner and you're chief of homicide. Surely you two must have known how that would turn out. I like him very much. He's nothing like one might expect a man of his accomplishments to be. He's very human. Very real. What's happened? He's not ill, is he?”

“No. Unless you count heartsick as an illness.” Mort told her about Larry's visit to his office earlier in the day.

“Larry was married. A long time ago. To a lovely woman named Helen. She was the daughter of Abraham Smydon.”

“The Seafood King of Seattle?” Agatha asked. “That Smydon?”

“He's the one. Helen was Abraham's only child. Story goes he had plans for her to take over the business from him someday. But Helen met Larry, fell in love, and that was that.”

“What became of Helen?”

Mort breathed deep and let the salt air blow away the sorrow he felt for his friend. “She died. She and Larry weren't married a year.”

“Oh, my word. What happened?”

“She was murdered. Well, kidnapped first, then murdered. Abraham Smydon was having a birthday party up on Orcas Island. Helen didn't show. Turns out she'd been kidnapped before she could get there. Chained to a tree in the middle of some godforsaken forest. Her body was found with her skull bashed in. Larry couldn't make the trip up to Orcas. He was a new professor working hard to make a name for himself. Helen went alone. You can imagine how he blames himself for not going with her.”

“My word,” Agatha said with a gasp. “I had no idea.” She sounded stunned. “I've read everything the man's written. There's no hint he's living with such tragedy.”

“There wouldn't be. Larry believes we manage our own reactions to what life brings to us. He was devastated when Helen was murdered. When Edie died I thought I'd never draw a happy breath again. Wasn't sure I wanted to. But Larry reminded me I can have my own pain
and
find a way to build beyond it. Larry aches for the loss of his life with Helen. But he sets it aside, honoring the love of his life by making the decision to thrive.”

“Now
that
theme comes through loud and clear in his books. It's all so much more meaningful knowing he's had that kind of pain.” She paused. “So why is his heart breaking more today? Is it an anniversary?”

“No. It's Helen's uncle. He was one of the people killed in that sweat lodge incident.” Mort went on to explain about Helen's father and Larry's estrangement from him. How Carlton Smydon, Helen's uncle, had grown dear to him over the years. “He was a connection to Helen. And the two of them shared a love of learning, too. Especially about the spiritual side of things. Carlton's death is a loss in itself, of course, but it's also the end of Larry's link with the wife he lost twenty-five years ago.”

A gentle compassion settled on Agatha's face. “My heart breaks just hearing it. To have two people he loved so dearly both taken from him so brutally. From what I read in the paper, the scene was quite gruesome. Larry must be paralyzed with loss.”

Mort shook his head. “He's grieving, all right. But he's nowhere near paralyzed. He's on a mission. That's why he came by. He wants me involved.”

“In what?”

Mort took the last sip of beer as the sun disappeared over the horizon. “He wants me to solve Carlton's murder.”

“And you'll do it, of course.” Agatha reached across and held Mort's hand. “That's what you do, isn't it, Mort? You take care of people. You help them when they ask.” She withdrew her hand and patted his before standing. “Just make sure you take care of yourself, okay?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means I have a feeling you're heading into dangerous territory. There's too much death and grief around you. Too much loss. All the time. This isn't going to be some routine case you and your team make such a habit of solving.”

“Aggie, if you say ‘This time it's personal,' I'll throw you into the water.”

“Morton Grant, I expect a full apology for even thinking such a cliché would come from my mouth.” Her tone softened. “All joking aside. You know what I mean.”

Mort didn't have to respond or even say goodbye as Agatha left his boat, crossed the boardwalk, and boarded her own.

He knew exactly what she meant.