Hocus (17 page)

“I’ve never met her,” I said, not looking up from my notebook.

He waited a moment. I could hear the amusement in his voice when he said, “Okay. But you know who she is.”

I looked him right in the eye and said, “Frank’s exfiancée. She still lives around here, and, yes, we should probably try to talk to her.”

I half expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. If anything, he seemed to regret pressing me.

“I’m going to call Jack and Pete. They’ll be worried,” I said, and reached for my purse.

“Lunch is on me,” he said. “First time I ever bought a woman a teaspoon of soup.”

I made the call, did my best to reassure Pete. A hopeless task. Jack, on the other hand, did his best to encourage me, so I guess everything evened out. Cassidy used the pay phone to make a few reports, then let me drive to Bea Harriman’s place while he made other calls on his cell phone. Almost all of the calls were requests for current addresses and background information on the people I had on my own list.

“So why did Neukirk and Ryan let us know who they are?” I asked.

“If that’s who they are, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“They’ve been a little publicity mad all along, I’d say. They’re big on drama. They’re leading up to something. With luck, we’ll know soon.”

I hadn’t been to Bea Harriman’s home very often, but I remembered the way. I did the driving, while Cassidy tried to coach me in preparation for the call. He would play the role of the caller, I would try to respond in a way that kept him talking and would also gradually allow me to hand off the call to a hostage negotiator.

“Your work as a reporter will help you in one way,” he said. “You’re used to asking open-ended questions, ones that encourage longer responses. Same thing with silences; you know to let them stretch. But you won’t find it easy to stay calm if they start making threats against your husband — and that’s very common at first. That’s one reason we prefer not to let family members be involved. Your fear for Frank is likely to heighten the tension, which we are trying to lower. More than anything, you’ve got to try to stay calm, no matter what’s said or threatened. And remember — if you keep dwelling on the subject of Frank’s well-being, your concern for him may only make him seem more valuable as a hostage. We want to know his condition, but we don’t want to focus the conversation on him.”

I tried to set aside my fears, to imagine myself behaving just as I should when the time came. I tried not to contemplate the price of failure.

“I’ll be right there with you,” Cassidy said, watching me. “You won’t be alone.”

I made the turn onto Bea Harriman’s street. The house was a Craftsman, built in the late 1920s on a large lot. It was painted white, as if it intended to provide a canvas for the flowers blooming all around it in a wide spectrum of colors — blues, reds, oranges, yellows, purples, and lush green foliage. The big wooden swing on the front porch was still and empty.

Lots of cars were parked in front of the house, so I had to park a few houses down the street. Cassidy took the keys and opened the trunk of the car, which had a number of hard-shell and soft cases of varying sizes in it. He pulled one out; it was a silver-colored hard-shell case, about the size of a briefcase.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Cassette recorder for the call,” he said. “Not as fancy as the reel-to-reel Hank was using at your place, but easier to hook up. If we end up being here for a while, I’ll bring in the fax and computer and other equipment. But for now, this will do.”

Birds sang as we walked to the house, and I tried to listen to them rather than to the worst of my thoughts.

“Now, that swing makes me think of summer nights back home,” Cassidy said as we approached.

At that moment the front door opened, and Bea Harriman walked out. An attractive, dark-haired woman accompanied her. The woman had her arm around Bea’s shoulder, and their heads were bent together in a tête-à-tête. They looked up at us and straightened suddenly. As Cassidy and I came closer, the stranger didn’t spare more than a quick glance toward him — but her eyes raked over me. Sizing me up, I realized.

I knew in that instant who she was.

Somewhere in the mess of words that was Bea Harriman’s stumbling introduction, she confirmed that I could no longer say I had never met Cecilia Parker.

“A
NY FURTHER WORD ON
F
RANK
?” Cecilia asked without preamble, continuing to stare at me.

“Nothing new,” Cassidy said before I could answer. I had been dreading trying to come up with some social nicety if she had said, “So glad to meet you,” and now, oddly, I was miffed that she hadn’t.

“And you are?” Cecilia said to him, apparently irritated that she had to make eye contact with anyone else.

“Detective Tom Cassidy, Las Piernas Police Department,” he said easily. “Now, this has been an extremely difficult day for Mrs. Harriman,” he continued, and when Cecilia’s eyes slewed to Bea, he put a firm hand on my shoulder. “Oh, for everyone, but especially Mrs. Frank Harriman. So I’ll just take her on in while you two say your good-byes.”

Bea floundered only for a second. Her own initial reaction to Frank’s kidnapping having passed, she snapped into a role in which she excelled — taking care of someone else in a crisis. I could see her home in on me like a smart bomb. “Thanks for coming by, Cecilia,” she said, and turned and started to lead the way in.

“Excuse me,” I said, halting the parade. Cassidy loosened his grip, and I straightened my spine as I turned back to Cecilia.

She was still standing on the sidewalk, tight-lipped and unmoving.

“Do you really have to leave now?” I asked.

Her eyes widened (long-lashed, beautiful, big brown eyes — damn them). She relaxed out of her combat stance, though, and said, “Yes. I’m sorry, I can’t stay.”

“Will you be at home later?”

Openly puzzled, she said, “Yes.”

“Mind if I call you?”

She almost asked, “Why?” I saw the word begin to form on her lips, but she stopped herself and said, “Of course not. Bea has my number.”

She turned and walked away. When I looked back at Cassidy, he appeared to be amused. Bea was holding open the screen door. With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked between them and into the house.

I was met by Mike O’Brien, Frank’s brother-in-law, who simply said, “Oh, Irene,” and pulled me into a big, comforting hug; I felt tears well up. When Frank’s sister, Cassie, joined us, it was nearly too much. I might have broken down in their embrace had I not heard a gruff voice say, “Here, now, don’t smother the girl.”

When I saw the man who spoke those words, I smiled. I hadn’t seen him in years, and he was a little thinner and a little grayer, but I knew him right away. “You’re looking good, Bear.”

Bea introduced Cassidy to the others, her introduction of Bear Bradshaw reminding me that his first name was Gregory. Cassie said, “Cassie is short for Kathryn — perhaps with the two of us in the same house, Detective Cassidy, it would be easier to call me Kathyrn.”

“Heck, no,” Bear Bradshaw said. “We’ll just call this guy Hopalong.”

Bea and Bear enjoyed it, but the rest of us just looked at Cassidy in sympathy. He didn’t seem in the least bothered by it. “You could all just call me Tom,” he said.

“Actually, I prefer Kathryn,” my sister-in-law said. “Only the family and certain untrainable old coots insist on calling me by my childhood name.”

“You never told me—” I began.

“I never told you, because you’re part of the family,” she said with a quick reproachful glance at her mother. “Now, would either of you like some hot coffee?”

We both said yes, and she went off to the kitchen to make a fresh pot. Cassidy asked Bea if he could talk to her alone for a moment.

I glanced at my watch. Eighteen minutes before five o’clock. I moved closer to the phone, which was near Bear Bradshaw, on a table full of knickknacks. Bea was a big believer in knickknacks.

“I wondered if you were going to come over here and say hello to me,” Bradshaw said. “I’ve just had knee surgery, or I’d get up and greet you properly.”

“Sorry, Bear. I hadn’t noticed the cane. Are you doing okay?”

“Fine, I’ll be fine. Just need to baby it a little while it heals. It’s a typical cop’s problem, I guess. Getting in and out of the car all day is hard on the knees, they tell me. But never mind my puny little problems. How are you holding up?”

“My problems are puny, too. Frank’s the one to worry over.”

“Frank? No, the boy will be all right. I keep telling Bea, Frank has a good head on his shoulders. Just like his dad did. But Frank’s even smarter than Brian was. He’ll be okay.”

I didn’t bother arguing with him, because every word was said as if he wanted to reassure himself.

“You go back a long way with the Harrimans, don’t you, Bear?” Mike asked.

“You betcha. Brian was one of my best friends. After my first wife left me, Brian always included me in his family’s holiday get-togethers — you know, so I wouldn’t be alone.”

“You remarried?” I asked.

“Yes, I guess we have a lot of catching up to do. I’m a widower now. My second wife died about a year ago. But I hear my matchmaking finally paid off.”

“Your matchmaking?” Mike asked.

Bradshaw grinned at me. “With you and Frank, Irene. Remember?”

“Well, I guess you did get Frank to start talking to me.”

He laughed. “Oh, that was priceless! He’s always been quiet, but not the tongue-tied type, you know? But when he saw you — oh, God! First night, I kept waiting for him to say something, but not a word until we got back in the car. Then he’s
grilling
me. Wanted to know all about you. Now, I’ve known the boy since he was born. I’d never seen him act like that before. So I made a little wager with Cookie. Couple of times there, I thought I’d lost my money.”

“You bet that Frank and I would get married?”

“Yes, I did! Cookie said the boy would never marry a reporter, that the boy knew better than that. And damned if the SOB didn’t run around behind my back and load Frank up with a lot of crap about how cops and reporters should never fraternize, and so on. Well, it’s true, but you two were the exception, and Cookie has just never learned that there are exceptions in life.”

I looked at my watch. Five minutes to go.

“Sorry, guess I’m boring you.”

“Oh, no, Bear! Not at all. The call. I’m just worried about the call.”

“What call?” Mike asked.

“Hocus — the ones who have Frank. They told me they’d call me here at five.”

Bradshaw lost all color in his face. For an awful moment I thought he was going to pass out. Mike rushed over to him, but just as suddenly the Bear seemed to pull himself together. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, still shaken. “Damn, you don’t need that, Irene…. Bea — I’ve got to talk to Bea….” He began to lever himself up from the chair.

Over Bradshaw’s growling protests, Mike helped him to his feet, but before he could move forward, Bea and Cassidy came back into the room. Voices rose together. Cassidy calling my name; Bea saying, “Oh, Greg!” and Bradshaw saying, “Here, now,” as he reached out to her with his free hand; Mike trying to respond to his wife’s, “What’s wrong?” as she came into the room carrying coffee.

The phone rang. We reacted in the way a man walking through the desert alone reacts when he hears a rattle. We all stood stock still, silent.

It rang again, and Cassidy said, “Irene, come with me. The rest of you stay out here.”

I followed him as he all but ran to one of the bedrooms, where he had set up the recorder and a telephone headset that would allow him to listen in. Between us were two pads of paper and pens for scribbling notes.

On the third ring, as Cassidy nodded and turned on the recorder, I picked up the phone.

“What happened, Ms. Kelly?” the voice on the other end teased. “Did Detective Cassidy run out of tape cassettes?”

“You know I’m at my mother-in-law’s house,” I answered.
Speak slowly,
I reminded myself, trying to follow Cassidy’s instructions. “There are other people here. I didn’t know how private you wanted this conversation to be.”

I scribbled a note to Cassidy: “Different caller.”

Cassidy nodded.

“Oh, there is no privacy for people in our position,” the caller said.

“Your position?”

“Hocus is quite famous now. We’re almost as famous now as we were when we were little. Our fathers’ murders bought us our first fifteen minutes of fame.”

Show empathy.
“You survived a horrible ordeal then. People wanted to know more about you.”

“Good! You did your homework. We’re very pleased.”

“Am I speaking to Samuel or Bret?”

“Samuel, at the moment. Our fathers enjoyed stories about the Old West. Bret is named for Bret Harte. I’m named for Samuel Clemens. Detective Cassidy, you do know Samuel Clemens was the man who wrote as Mark Twain, don’t you?”

Cassidy pulled the small microphone on the headset down to his mouth. “Well, Samuel, contrary to Yankee propaganda, there are a few literate folks living south of the Mason-Dixon line.”

Samuel Ryan laughed; a false, nervous laugh. “What a wit, Thomas! You don’t mind if I call you Thomas, do you?”

“Not at all. Tom would be better. You prefer Samuel or Sam?”

“Samuel, please. And Ms. Kelly, would it seem disrespectful if I addressed you as Irene?”

“I’d prefer it to Ms. Kelly.”

“Fine. We really think the two of you are well suited for the task we have in mind. Tom is a virtual tower of equanimity. You are so lucky to have him along for the ride, aren’t you, Irene?”

“Forgive me if I say I’d rather not be on the ride in the first place.”

Cassidy shot me a warning look, but Samuel laughed again.

“Well, I’d love to sit here and chat,” Samuel said, “but that would lead to Detective Harriman being even more uncomfortable than he is now.”

“Uncomfortable?” Cassidy asked.

“The drugs, the restraints. Being without his own clothes. And of course, as the drugs wear off, there is pain.”