She parked the car on Main Street and made her way to a café called Corinda’s Corner. Corinda was a thousand-year-old country singer waiting to be discovered. At night, she sat on the low stage, crooning her own compositions, amid the smoke and alcohol. Rebecca took a booth in the front, near the window, so that she could watch the parking lot. A robust waitress whose name tag christened her Zeelie brought a light beer. The place was half empty—Beck supposed due to the lateness of the hour, although another possible cause was the music. Or maybe it was never full. She had never been here before. She had used her cell to call Phil Agadakos as soon as she was far enough down the mountain to have service, and this was the place he had named. Ten sharp, Dak had insisted, and it was five minutes past. The drive had been longer than she remembered. She hoped he had not left because
she was late. Beck sat and sipped and wondered if she might be on a fool’s errand.
Jericho had already been crazy when they met. That was the sum of the message Dak had delivered this afternoon. She had been in love with a madman. All those memories, the fantasy life he had bestowed on her, the money, the gifts, the flowers, the places: the entire romance had been the product of a diseased mind.
All these years, in her secret self, Rebecca had looked back at her time with Jericho with the knowledge that she had, just once in her life, snared the storybook prince. Whatever else might have happened in the course of her existence—so Beck would whisper to herself in the long chilly nights—a rich and powerful man had once been madly in love with her. The former Secretary of Defense, former Director of Central Intelligence—
-former everything
, as Dak put it—wealthy and powerful and dashing on top of it, madly in love with her.
Madly
is right.
“What’s that, honey?” said Zeelie, back with a fresh bottle, and Rebecca realized she must have spoken aloud.
“I didn’t order another,” Beck protested, for she wanted to keep a clear head.
“You’ve got an admirer,” said the waitress, nodding toward a dark corner near the stage, where a couple of men had their heads together.
“Who?”
“Name’s Pete. He’s in here most nights. He’s a cop.”
“His last name wouldn’t be Mundy, would it?”
“Oh, so you guys know each other. How cool is that?”
A moment later, Deputy Mundy and the other man were standing beside her booth. “Good to see you again,” he said, eyes taking her in with a good deal more enthusiasm than he had shown earlier today. He introduced the darker man beside him, his fellow deputy and occasional partner, Tony Frias, “who was just on his way out.”
“I was?” said Tony. He grinned. “Oh, right. I was.” He winked at Beck. “Be careful. He’s a married man.”
Frias made his exit, flirting with Zeelie and any other woman in earshot. Rebecca watched him go. She felt Mundy watching her.
“I looked you up,” said the deputy, sliding into the booth.
Beck turned toward him. He sipped his own beer. Behind the glasses, his eyes were warmer than this morning, but still appraising. “Looked me up?”
He nodded. “You were the only stranger in the house. You could have done the dog, and lots of the other shit that’s been going on. Excuse my French. Anyway, I looked you up.” He had carried the ugly remains of a roast-beef sandwich from his own booth. He bit into it now, chewed slowly. “I didn’t realize. You’re the one he had the affair with, aren’t you?”
She colored. “I guess you could put it that way.”
“I thought you’d be older. That was a long time ago.”
“I am older.”
The deputy almost smiled. Not quite, but almost, and the florid cheeks grew round and friendly. “You don’t look older. You look— nice.”
Not sure how to take this, Rebecca just nodded and sipped her beer. She looked around. The small crowd was mostly strangers hunting desperately for one another as they fought to stay young. There was country music, disconsolate dancing, and the sad barroom smell of rancid beer and ancient sweat.
“There’s a lot of strangers in town lately, Ms. DeForde,” said Mundy after a moment. “We’re not sure what they’re all doing here—”
“Please, call me Beck.”
“I’m Pete.” A pause, each feeling the other out. “Just this week, six or seven people we’ve never seen before are here. You’re just one of them. A town like this, that many strangers—you get my meaning.”
“I’m not sure I do.” She hesitated. “Pete.”
“Makes people nervous. That’s all I’m saying. One or two reporters. Fine. They interview the fella who picks up Dr. Ainsley’s trash. Talk to the gardener. No story, so they leave town. Then somebody does the dog up there on Dr. Ainsley’s property, and last week there was the break-in at the public library—I mean, who breaks into a library?—but the librarian’s desk gets rifled, all kinds of books get thrown on the floor. Miss Kelly—she’s the librarian—she gets a bunch of the ladies
together, they clean up the place, and then Miss Kelly tells us nothing’s missing. Not one book, not one file. The sheriff, well, he thinks it’s kids, having fun. I think it’s the strangers.”
Beck thought about what Jericho had said, that there were things Dak wanted him to tell. Pamela and Audrey had described his crazy behavior since the cancer reached his brain. She wondered if somebody—Phil Agadakos, say, or Lewiston Clark—thought Jericho had hidden something in the library. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Almost half past ten. Where was Dak?
“You’re meeting somebody,” said Pete, tracking her eyes.
“Yes. Sorry.”
He shrugged. “Nothing to be sorry for. I just thought you and I might have another drink.” He downed his beer. The wedding band glistened in the spill of light from outside. “Talk about what’s been going on in town.”
“What makes you think I know anything about it?”
“I want you to do something for me.” The gaze had turned earnest, the voice cold sober. “Very slowly. Raise your eyes, look over my shoulder, at the table in the back, under the fake boar’s head. See the couple?”
She did. A man and a woman, early thirties, heads together, smoking and drinking and giggling. Both wore black.
“Yes.”
“Now look at me, not at them.” She did that, too. “Notice how they picked the one booth in the bar that lets you see the whole room?” She had not noticed, but was willing to take his word for it. When Pete Mundy put on his serious cap, he had that quality that the best teachers possessed, the sort of authoritative voice that creates a pleasant buzz in the back of your head. She was gaining a fresh appreciation of this man. “They got here twenty minutes before you did. Now, they’re pretending to be so into each other they don’t notice a thing. Really, they watched the door till you came in, and since then they’ve been watching you.”
“Me?”
“You.” Hunching forward. “They’re two of the strangers. Staying at
the Motel 6, got here a week ago, all they do every day is go off on long drives, come back at nightfall.”
“Long drives.”
“Up the peak,” he said, and waited.
Strangers. Long drives. A week ago. “What kind of car—”
He was ahead of her. “Not a van. Not an Explorer. A Chevy Impala, blue. Rented in Denver, like yours.”
“I haven’t seen a car like that.”
“It’s not a car people notice. That’s my point, Beck. Now, I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but, the way those two are watching you, I have a hunch you might be in the middle of it. Anything you want to tell me?”
She shook her head in confusion. All of a sudden everybody wanted to protect her. First Jericho, then Dak, now Pete Mundy And she did not even know what she was being protected from.
“I have a lot of respect for Dr. Ainsley,” said the deputy, signaling for the check. “A lot of people don’t like him, but he’s a nice guy. He did good things for this country. We could use more like him. I’m sorry he’s dying.”
Dying
. He had spoken the word. She looked down, trying to remember when the third beer had arrived.
“That’s life,” she said, inanely.
Meanwhile, Pete was passing another business card over the table. “Keep it this time,” he said. “Call me if you need help.”
“Cell phones—”
“Don’t work up there. I know. But they work in town.”
“Town is thirty miles—”
“All you have to do is turn right out of the gate and drive eight, nine miles downhill, and your cell should work just fine. Okay?”
“Okay.” But she dropped her eyes, oppressed now by his intensity.
“If you need help, if you just want to talk—”
“I will.”
“Good. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.” Lifting his gaze. “I think your friend is here.”
She turned, but saw only the couple beneath the moose head. “I don’t see him.”
“In the front window. He was peeking in. I caught his face in the mirror. I’ve seen him around town. He’s always going up there. To Stone Heights.” He saw her expression. “I told you. It’s my town. I keep an eye out. I know who he is. Used to be in the CIA, right? Deputy Director?” Behind the glasses he winked. “And he was looking for you, Beck. Definitely. He’s pretty cautious. I’d guess he’s waiting outside.” He put a hand on her arm. “Listen. You go. Don’t worry about these two.”
“I wasn’t worried about them,” she lied, wondering whether the couple was watching her at all, or whether Pete was just trying to impress.
“Good. I’ve got this.” Pointing to the drinks. “See you around.”
She smiled back, nervously. “Yes. Thank you, Pete.”
“You’re welcome. Now go.”
Beck walked to the door as calmly as she could. This was absurd. Outside, she glanced through the window in time to see the couple beneath the moose head slipping from their booth. The man threw some bills on the table. The woman in black was already threading her way past the tables. Then Pete Mundy was blocking her way, first serious, then laughing. The woman dropped her head and tried to shove past. Pete never budged. Her friend joined the argument. Tony Frias, Pete’s scowling partner, materialized. There was some bumping and grabbing. Somebody threw a punch, and the whole bar went into an uproar, but by that time Beck was around the corner, because Phil Agadakos had taken her by the arm and was hurrying her toward the car.
(ii)
“That was smoothly done,” said Phil Agadakos. “Who’s your new friend?”
They were sitting in her rental, and she was driving toward Route 24 and the commercial strip outside town. Dak wanted them moving, and warned her to keep the conversation going, because people riding in cars and not talking strike bystanders as angry, and angry people leave impressions.
“Pete Mundy Deputy sheriff.”
“What did he want?”
“Why were you late?” Her chin indicated the dashboard clock. “It’s twenty of eleven.”
But Dak would not be deflected. “What were the two of you talking about?”
“He wanted me to go somewhere with him. Have a drink.”
“You could have had a drink right there.”
She gave him a faux-sultry look. “I think he wanted to have a drink in more intimate circumstances,” she drawled.
Dak did not believe her. She was sure of it. For a moment, she saw in his eyes the fierce skepticism with which the A & A boys had once confronted a dangerous world, and the fierce energy with which they had marched off to fix it. But he only reached out and turned down the radio. “You have to be careful who you’re seen with,” he said.
“I thought spies always turned the volume
up.”
“Only in the movies. In real life, any engineer worth his salt can separate loud sounds from soft ones in about ten seconds. If you want to hide your words, use sound around the same volume.”
“And what words are we hiding, exactly?”
“I don’t know, Rebecca. You’re the one who called.” He nodded. “Something’s changed up there, or you wouldn’t be down here.”
“You said if I wanted more information, I had to earn it. That implies you’ll trade with me.”
“Depending on what you can tell me.” The eyes grew chilly again. “Now, Rebecca. The ball’s in your court. Tell me why I’m not asleep in my nice warm hotel room.”
And so she did: mostly truth, but a little bit of lie, because she had learned already, or perhaps remembered from the old days, when Jericho
would wax eloquent about the plaque in the town park, that in the world of men like the A & A boys, good facts mattered less than good stories.
(iii)
“I told you what Lewiston Clark said,” she began. “That he was helping Jericho write his autobiography.” They were sitting in the parking lot at Dunkin’ Donuts, drinking coffee from the drive-through. “I don’t know exactly what contacts the two of them have had. I do think part of his story was true. He’s interested in Jericho’s autobiography. He just isn’t the one writing it. Jericho is writing it himself.”
If Beck had hoped to surprise him, or perhaps to hear grateful hallelujahs, she was disappointed. Dak’s voice was calm. “How do you know?”
“I saw the manuscript. It’s in his bedroom.”
“Do you know
exactly
where it is?”
So she had been right. Whatever Jericho was writing, Phil Agadakos craved it every bit as much as Lewiston Clark did. She wondered why Dak had not noticed it on one of his visits. “Earlier tonight it was on a table near the bed. I couldn’t swear to where it is at the moment.”
“Have you read it?”
“No.” She swallowed. “Dak, he’s dying. He doesn’t think he’ll finish. He wants me to help him.” She left out the fact that Audrey had turned him down. “That’s why he asked me to come out here in the first place. To help him finish.”
The old spymaster looked alarmed. “I hope you told him no.”
“I haven’t told him anything.”
“That’s not good enough, Rebecca.” He sipped his coffee. “This is for your own good. You can’t go anywhere near his autobiography. And you have to tell him that as loudly and clearly as you can. Jericho is very good at going deaf when he wants to, so keep telling him till he accepts
it.” The calmness of his voice made the plea all the more chilling. “I’m not joking, Rebecca. You have to tell him no. Don’t hint, don’t delay, don’t beat around the bush. Say it loud and clear.”