Palindrome (27 page)

"Just a moment, please." The woman dialed a number and spoke with someone.

A moment later, a man walked into the reception room. "May I help you?" he asked.

"I want to inquire about one of your customers, Elizabeth Barwick," Williams said, and held his breath.

"Oh, yes," the man said. "She's one of Bill Schwartz's customers. Follow me." Williams exhaled as slowly as he could and followed the man down a hallway to an office where he was introduced to a red-haired man with glasses who appeared to be in his early forties.

"Mr. Schwartz, I'm making inquiries about Elizabeth Barwick in connection with a police investigation." Schwartz looked alarmed.

"Surely Liz Barwick hasn't done anything wrong."

"Certainly not," Williams replied. "I didn't mean to imply that. We think she might have some valuable information for us, and we can't find her. Could you give me her address, please?"

"I'm afraid I can't do that," Schwartz said.

"Mr. Schwartz, let me be as plain as I can. I have reason to believe that Elizabeth Barwick is in great danger. I must tell you that if you decline to help me, you may be contributing to her violent death."

"I'm extremely upset to hear that," Schwartz said, and he looked upset. "But I'm afraid that I still cannot help you find Ms. Barwick."

Williams was starting to get angry now. "Mr. Schwartz, I'll go to the president of your bank if necessary, and—"

"Detective Williams," Schwartz interrupted, "you misunderstand me; I'm not refusing to tell you where Ms. Barwick is; I don't know where she is."

"Oh, no," Williams said, running a hand across his face. Schwartz got up and went to a filing cabinet. "In the circumstances I don't think I would be violating confidence if I told you that Ms. Barwick opened an account with us in July of this year. Her lawyer arranged it; I never even met her. She deposited ... certain funds with us and asked us to manage them. She also asked us to pay certain bills for her." He removed a file from the cabinet and consulted it. "In August she made a lot of purchases, the last among them, a car, on August thirtieth. I had a moderately large sum in cash delivered to her on the following day, at her written request, and that was the last contact I had with her."

"Do you know if she has any credit cards?"

"She does; the usual ones. The bills are sent to me."

"If I could have a look at the receipts, maybe I could track her that way."

"There haven't been any receipts; there haven't been any bills."

"Has she cashed any checks?"

Schwartz consulted the file, then tapped some instructions into the computer terminal on his desk. "No," he said. "Nor has she used her Private Banking Card, which lets her withdraw up to five hundred dollars a day from our teller machines and several thousand others around the country. I suppose the cash I sent her has been meeting her needs."

"What kind of car did she buy?" Schwartz picked up a piece of paper. "Here's the title. It was a Jeep Cherokee, black." He read off the license number. Williams jotted it in his notebook.

"I can at least put out a bulletin on the car. Is there anything else you can tell me that might help find her?"

"I wish there were. I can only tell you that she hasn't touched any of her investments; I handle those." Williams dug out a card. "If you hear from her, I would be very grateful if you would insist that she get in touch with me immediately, at any hour of the day or night. Just say that her life may depend on it."

"I will most certainly do that," Schwartz replied.

Williams sat in his car and telephoned his office. He was connected to Captain Haynes. "Captain, I need an APB on Elizabeth Barwick's Jeep Cherokee, black." He read off the license number.

"Sure thing. I'll do it right away. How far do you want to go on this?"

"I think she's in Georgia. She told me when she called that she read about Schaefer's death. It would only have made the Atlanta and LA papers, I think."

"We'll add the bordering states," the captain said, "just in case."

"Another thing. I think we have to assume that Ramsey knows where she is. I want to put a round-the-clock tail on him." There was a long silence at the other end of the line.

"Captain?"

"Lee," Haynes said finally, "I'm not going to be able to do that."

"But, Captain, it's the only real chance of finding the woman before Ramsey kills her."

"I understand your feelings," Haynes said carefully, "but I can't do it."

The man said "can't," not "won't," Williams thought. "Captain, have you been getting some pressure?"

"Let's just say that one Henry Hoyt, Jr., of a prominent Atlanta law firm, called the chief, and the chief called me."

"I see," Williams said.

"I hope you do, Lee," the captain replied.

"I'll do what I can for you on this one, but I can't go much farther without some really substantial evidence to confirm your theories. Those are my instructions."

"I understand, Captain," Williams said, then he hung up, stunned at this turn of events. He started the car and began driving, with no particular destination in mind. He was numb with depression. Ramsey was going to walk on five murders, and probably commit a sixth, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

There was something, an old police method, one he had never used. He asked himself if he was really that angry, that frustrated. No, he told himself, I'm not. But Ramsey was certain to kill Elizabeth Barwick, unless he was stopped. Soon, he realized that he was driving home. The car seemed to know the way. He parked in the driveway of his West End House and unlocked the door.

It was only two in the afternoon; Martin was at school, and his wife was still at work. He moved slowly through the house, and, almost to his surprise, found himself walking down the stairs to the basement. He had a little workbench there, with a vise and some household tools. He took down a small toolbox from a shelf, found a key hanging on a nail under the workbench, and unlocked the padlock. He took hold of an oily rag and felt the resistance inside it. He peeled back the cloth to reveal a new-looking, Italian, 9-mm automatic pistol. He had taken it from a cache of weapons found in a drug bust two years before, and it had never been fired. He had run the serial number and learned that it had been stolen in a burglary in 1985. It had never been fired, and his fingerprints weren't on it, because he had never touched it with his fingers. Using a corner of the rag, he removed the clip, which held nine cartridges, the heads of which had been carefully ground flat. These bullets had been intended for cops, probably. He shelled out the bullets and wiped each of them carefully with the oily rag, then reinserted them into the clip and wiped the clip clean, too. He shoved the clip back into the pistol, then wiped the whole thing once more; then he wrapped the gun in his handkerchief and put it into his coat pocket. Back in his car, he drove aimlessly. He would have to think very carefully about how he was going to do this. He would have to stop shaking, for a start. He would have to put his oath, his personal guilt out of his mind, and he was not sure he could do that. He wished very badly that he could think of something else to do, but he could not.

CHAPTER 42

Liz sat at a light box in her darkroom, an eye pressed to a loupe, viewing a color transparency. She smiled a little, then added the shot to a stack of others and counted. One hundred even, counting the black-and-white shots. That should do for a start. She took the shots to her desk and packaged them carefully with the prospectus she had written, then addressed them to a New York publisher who had once expressed an interest in her work. It was time to find out whether anyone else thought that what she had done on the island was any good.

She got into the Jeep and drove to the inn. Germaine was issuing the morning's instructions to the chambermaids, and Liz waited until she had finished. "Hi, kiddo," Germaine said.

"Good morning, I've got a package for Federal Express; has the Aldred Drummond left yet?"

"I'll catch her," Germaine said. She took the package and ran out the back door. She was back in a moment, puffing. "Made it. Whew! I'm getting out of shape since Ron left."

Liz laughed. "I'll loan you my Jane Fonda videotape."

"Thanks, but that's not what I had in mind."

She started to say something else, but there was a roaring outside the back door and the crunch of tires skidding on gravel. Liz and Germaine walked outside to see James Moses running toward them, looking frightened. "Miss Germaine," he shouted, "it's Mister Angus! Call the doctor!"

Germaine caught him by the wrists. "Calm down, now, James, and just tell me what happened."

"He came down the front steps, and I had the gelding waiting for him, like always, and I said, 'Good morning, Mister Angus,' and he started to answer me, and he couldn't seem to say anything." James stopped and caught his breath. "Then he put his hands to his head, and he said, 'Oh, Lord,' and he fell down. I picked him up and put him on the couch in his study, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do for him, so I came to get you."

"James," Germaine said, "you go on back to the house and stay with him. I'll get some help." James ran for the jeep and Germaine headed for her office, Liz in tow.

"Is there anything I can do?" Liz asked.

"You can take me to Dungeness as soon as I've called some help." She consulted a typed list taped to the wall next to the telephone, then dialed a number. When someone answered, she said, "Charley, this is Germaine Drummond on Cumberland. My grandfather is ill, and we need a chopper at Dungeness with a doctor right now. It sounds like it might be a stroke. Yes, I'll be there in ten minutes, and don't you take much longer than that, you hear me? Bring everything." She hung up the phone and turned to Liz. "I'll meet you in the Jeep in thirty seconds." She ran out of the office and up the stairs. Liz could hear her calling Hamish. She went to the Jeep, and, shortly, Germaine and Hamish burst out of the house and ran toward her.

The drive to Dungeness was fast and silent; nobody seemed in a mood to talk. Liz screeched to a halt before the big house, and the three of them ran up the front steps, through the front door, and left, into the study. Angus Drummond was stretched out on a leather lounge, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. James sat on the floor beside him, holding his hand and talking to him. "You just rest easy, Mister Angus," he was saying, "they're all on the way." Everybody crowded around the lounge, and Germaine knelt and took Angus's other hand.

"Grandpapa, can you hear me?" she asked. Angus nodded and looked at her, seemingly uncomprehending. Then he nodded his head again. "Can you talk to me?" Germaine asked. His jaw worked, but nothing came out.

"Grandpapa," Hamish said, "make a fist with your right hand."

Germaine smiled. "That's a good grip," she said. "Now make a fist with your left hand," Hamish said.James looked up at Hamish. "He can't do it," the boy said. The four of them sat for three-quarters of an hour with Angus, while Germaine and Hamish tried to make conversation with the old man, reassuring him.

"Okay," Angus said suddenly.

"You can talk, you old faker!" Germaine said. "You're going to be just fine!" From outside came the distant chop of a helicopter's rotors. Hamish ran outside. Liz, behind him, ran down the front steps and watched as Hamish stood, both hands raised, guiding the helicopter to a spot clear of the oak trees and the house. As soon as the copter was on the ground, a man and a woman alit, and the man ran with Hamish to the house. Liz went and helped the woman with two large cases. In a moment they were in the study, and the nurse was unpacking oxygen equipment while the doctor began his examination.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd all wait outside until I'm through," the doctor said.

Reluctantly, Hamish, Germaine, and Liz left the room. James stood aside, but stayed, and nobody quarreled with him. Hamish led them across the hall to the drawing room, one Liz had only glimpsed. It was a huge salon, decorated in the Victorian fashion, and hung with family portraits. Hamish flopped onto a velvet sofa. "I can't believe this," he said. "I can't remember him being ill with anything worse than the flu."

"It had to happen sometime," Germaine said, sitting beside him. "I felt it coming, I think."

"I didn't," Liz said. "I was with him yesterday, when they were reburying his grandmother's coffin at the new plot, and he seemed just as he always has since I've known him. He took me to a carpentry shop and showed me his coffin."

"He's had a coffin made?" Hamish asked.

"He's had three of them made," Liz replied. "He said one was for Buck Moses, who he wants buried with the family."

"And the other one?" Hamish asked, looking alarmed. "He said that one was for 'just in case. Hamish looked relieved.

"Who did you think it was for?" Liz asked.

"I don't know, I just wondered," Hamish said.

The doctor entered the room. "He's had a stroke."

"I knew it," Germaine said. "He's suffered some left side paralysis, and his speech is intermittent, but I think he's fairly stable—as stable, anyway, as anybody can be who's just had a stroke at his age, even a mild one."

"What now?" Hamish asked.

"He doesn't want to go to a hospital, and I can't disagree with that. There's not all that much we could do for him there."

"That's like him," Hamish said.

"I think the best thing to do is to get him into his own bed now, and my nurse will stay with him overnight. I'll arrange for some regular care by tomorrow. I assume that in a house this size there's somewhere for a nurse or two to sleep?"

"No problem there," Germaine said. "I'll tell the maid to get something ready."

"I sent the colored boy out to the chopper for a stretcher," the doctor said. "If you could give me a hand." A few minutes later, Angus Drummond was in his bed, and the nurse, an attractive brunette, was pottering about the room, arranging her equipment.

"You staying?" Angus asked her.

"Don't mind me," the woman said.