Never Trust A Lady

Chapter 12

“Impossible,” Hawk muttered. He stood by the windows, tensely smoking. Not Jane. No way. I don’t believe it. Impossible.

“I’m afraid,” the coordinator said mildly, “it’s not only possible, it’s a fact.” He glanced at Campbell, who nodded.

“Atkinson says he’s never seen IAFIS get a hit so fast, or so positively. The thumbprint lifted from that toothpaste tube you sent them is a perfect match with the one you guys found on the shopping list in Loizeau’s pocket. And-” it was his turn to flick a confirming glance at Devore “-the one from the Flight 310 bomb fragment.”

“I’m not saying it isn’t,” growled Hawk, “I’m just saying it can’t be Jane’s. My God, if you’d ever met the woman-”

“I have met her,” Campbell said under his breath. There was a rueful twist to his mouth, and he was absently rubbing a spot on his midsection, just below his ribs.

Hawk snorted, and muttered for the FBI agent’s ears only, “Why in the hell didn’t you just ID yourself?”

“I was about to when she decked me. I don’t know how-”

“Lucky shot. Don’t feel bad. Believe me, she was at least as surprised as you were.”

Then aloud he said as he strode angrily across the room to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray the coordinator had politely produced, “Dammit, I’m just saying this woman is no terrorist. There has to be some explanation.”

“I can think of one,” Campbell unexpectedly said. Three pairs of eyes focused on him. It was Hawk’s he chose to meet, his own eyes glittering dangerously. “Cadysle wasn’t alone at that auction. She shared a ride, and she shared a hotel room. Maybe that’s not all she shared.”

No one spoke. Hawk felt his heart lurch and his pulse quicken, not sure whether or not to be glad that someone else had finally given voice to the suspicion that had been nibbling at him for a white, now.

Devore coughed and said, “You are suggesting Carlysle had an accomplice? The woman she was with…”

The coordinator glanced down at his file and supplied, “Connie Vincent.”

“I’m saying, when I went down-” and Campbell flushed brick red under his olive skin “-Cartyste was in her seat, bidding. Vincent wasn’t. I felt something-a prick, like an insect bite-on my thigh. I remember thinking I must have an ant in my pants, and what the hell was I going to do about it, because I couldn’t leave the bidding right then, and the next thing I know I’m looking up at all these worried faces.” He shook his head and made a sound replete with self-disgust. “All I know is, there’s no way Carlysle could have been responsible.”

Again there was silence, until Devore diffidently cleared his throat and said, “Agent Hawkins?”

“Vincent bought the other paintings,” Hawk said with a carefully noncommittal shrug. “She could have pulled the switch.”

And Jane knows it, he thought. He was remembering their conversation in the truck, Jane’s sudden silence and subsequent evasiveness.

He paced again to the windows, reaching for his cigarettes with jerky, angry motions. He was furious with her for not telling him her suspicions, with himself for not figuring it out sooner. Most of all, though, he was furious with himself for dismissing someone as a suspect solely because she was a woman. Well, perhaps not solely-he’d suspected Jane, after all.

But for God’s sake, he thought in disgust, Vincent looks like somebody’s mother. All right, so Ma Barker was somebody’s mother, too. But…she wore those damn glasses on the end of a chain, like a librarian, or his second-grade music teacher. And button-up-the-front sweaters.

He stared out the window and drew deeply on his cigarette while a chill scattered goose bumps down his spine. Pink sweaters. That’s what he was thinking of. Pink sweaters made of Merino wool.

She knows.

Yes, there was no doubt in his mind that Jane had figured it out. The question was, what was she thinking of doing about it? He thought again of Loizeau, and the possibilities terrified him.

Behind him, Devore coughed and said, “If Vincent does have Jarek Singh’s painting…”

“I think it’s safe to assume it’s for sale,” said the DECCA coordinator.

“And.” said Campbell, “we’re fairly sure she hasn’t moved it yet”

“How do you know she hasn’t?” Hawk asked, turning.

“We’ve had agents in Cooper’s Mill since early yesterday,” the coordinator said blandly, while Campbell again flushed dark underneath his tan. “Since we, uh, lost track of Mrs. Carlysle in Georgetown. They’ve been concentrating on Carlysle, of course, but it’s a small town. They haven’t reported any unusual activity, any strangers in town. My guess is, it’ll take some time to broker a deal and arrange for pickup or delivery-”

“But not too much,” murmured Devore. “She must know we would be onto her sooner or later.”

The coordinator nodded, looking grim. “It’s possible Mrs. Carlysle has been a red herring-designed to give Vincent just enough time to complete her deal. Once Singh’s key is out of her hands, we’d have a devil of a time proving it was ever there.”

Hawk made a growling sound deep in his throat. The DECCA coordinator glanced at him as he placed both hands on the table and abruptly stood. “All right then-Agent Campbell, you will leave immediately for Cooper’s Mill. You will coordinate the surveillance efforts down there, concentrating now, of course, on Mrs. Vincent. And we’ll have a Hostage Rescue Team in place and ready to move in if anything does break.

“I imagine you-” he nodded to Hawk with a thin smile “-win want to clarify as soon as possible exactly which of the prints on that tube of toothpaste belong to Mrs. Carlysle and which do not.” Hawk nodded a grim confirmation. The coordinator also nodded, making it a dismissal. “A helicopter is standing by. Agent Hawkins, you’re welcome to hitch a ride.”

Hawk glanced at Devore for a confirming nod, then muttered, “Thanks,” and headed for the door. Behind him, Aaron Campbell pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. Hawk could feel the FBI man’s glittering black eyes resting appraisingly on him as he followed him out of the room.

It was late afternoon by the time Jane got home, tired, depressed and still frustrated and fuming over the fact that she’d been forced to fly all the way to Charlotte, for heaven’s sake, and then wait for another connection back to Raleigh-Durham, because, as it turned out, there was no such thing as a direct flight from Greenville to Raleigh.

Then she’d had to explain to Lynn, who’d been anxiously waiting for her at the gate, why she’d arrived on a flight from Charlotte instead of Washington. But that was easy. She’d simply told her daughter the truth, that she’d been unable to get a direct flight. These days, who could?

And it had been equally easy explaining her lack of luggage. “It got lost-they’re sending it on later,” she’d said in an irritable tone, and instantly won her well-traveled daughter’s sympathy.

“Did you file a claim?” was the first thing Lynn had thought of. “You know-in case it doesn’t turn up. The things you bought at the auction-”

“Those I have,” Jane had said, holding up her tote bag. “And I took care of everything in Charlotte. By the way, where’s Tracy?”

“She’s at Dad’s. And could you please drop me by there, on your way home? That’s why we haven’t been home all day. Good thing we thought about checking the messages, huh? We’ve been trying to reach you at the hotel all weekend. Dad wants us to go skiing with him. We’re driving up tonight. He’s got the resort booked for the whole week, isn’t that cool? He got this great deal at the resort, because it’s the end of the season, you know? That’s always the best time to go-either that or really early. He said I could bring Kevin, and Tracy could bring anybody she wanted, but it was such short notice Kevin couldn’t get off work, and Tracy couldn’t find anybody that could go either, so it’s just us. And Dad and Pamela, of course.”

“Who’s Pamela?”

“Dad’s new girlfriend. She’s pretty cool. She’s only a couple years older than me, I think.”

“Than I,” Jane had murmured automatically, feeling unspeakably tired.

Much too tired to fight David on this ski-trip notion of his, not that she would probably have done so anyway. It wasn’t that she never stood up to her ex-husband; she’d just learned to pick her battles carefully.

And so, it was without further argument that Jane made the detour into Raleigh to drop off Lynn and her baggage at her father’s tree-shaded two-story brick house on its elegant, old-money street. Though maybe there was a little bit of selfishness in her lack of resistance, as well. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, she thought, to have a week by herself to decompress. Recover her equilibrium. Reestablish contact with reality.

And there was that other matter, too. The one she’d been trying so hard not to think about. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow I’ll find out. Tomorrow I’ll know.

She pulled into her own graveled driveway just in time to watch the sun drop into a lake of molten gold.

No dogs came running to greet her as she drove her station wagon into the carport; no cat came to wind, complaining, around her ankles when she unlocked her door. Since dogs and cats did not tend to mix well with the local indigent wildlife, it had long ago been put to a family vote whether to opt for pets or for bird and squirrel feeders, and salt licks for the deer that came at twilight and dawn, and cracked corn for the mallard ducklings that hatched in the sheltered coves in the spring, and the Canadian geese that grazed and made messes on the sweep of grass that ran from the rear deck down to the water’s edge. The vote had been unanimous, although there had been times when the girls, particularly Tracy, had been sorely tempted by the frequent kitten-and-puppy giveaways in front of the Winn Dixie.

The house seemed unnaturally quiet, its rooms filled with an aura of expectancy, as if they waited in hushed suspense for the return of laughter and running footsteps and the blare of MTV. This is what it will be like soon, thought Jane. From now on.

From the kitchen windows she watched cardinals and chickadees and goldfinches peck at the overflowing feeders, pleased to see that Tracy had remembered to fill them before she left, as she’d been told to do.

Carrying her tote bag into the living room, she placed it on the couch and withdrew the painting. Eagerly, she tore off the wrappings. She carried the painting over to the nice little spinet piano she’d bought with part of her divorce-settlement money, and moving aside the metronome and her parents’ framed wedding portrait, placed the picture on top of the piano, leaning it against the wall. Then she took a step back.

She sighed. “Perfect.” As she’d known it would be.

The living room was part of the original cinderblock summer cottage, the walls paneled in a highly varnished and outdated knotty pine. She’d always intended to remodel someday, and modernize with sheetrock and wallpaper, but now she wasn’t so sure. For some reason, the painting’s vivid colors brought out the warmth in the old wood walls, so that they seemed to be lit by candle- and firelight.

Which, far from cheering, only made the house seem more empty.

Unable to bear it another minute. Jane pressed a disk of Strauss waltzes into the CD player and turned the volume up high. Throwing wide the French doors, she went out onto the deck and down the stairs, leaving the doors open even though the evening chill was settling in. Across the sparse winter lawn she went, running a little on the downhill slope, clattering along the board pier and onto the landing. There she stopped, hugging herself against the cold and her quickened breathing, to watch the salmon sunset fade to bronze, and then to softest mauve.

The helicopter deposited Hawk, along with FBI Agent Aaron Campbell, in a small field sandwiched between the high school and a textile plant. They were met by a sheriff’s deputy driving a white unmarked Ford with dashboard- and rear-window lights and siren. Beside him was a composed-looking black man wearing a navy blue windbreaker and Atlanta Braves baseball cap, who got out of the car and stood waiting as they ducked their heads and plowed toward him through the dust and chaff stirred up by the chopper’s rotors.

“We’ve got you rooms at the Best Western,” the man said, after identifying himself as Agent Monroe and the driver as Deputy Schaefer. “It’s pretty much the only game in town, if you don’t count a couple bed-and-breakfasts on Main Street. We’ve got a command post set up at the fire station-by the way, you guys are representatives of rural volunteer fire departments, in town to learn about firefighting techniques and equipment.” He shot Campbell a look. “So lose the suit.”

“I’m gonna need a car,” said Hawk, muttering around the cigarette he was lighting. He hadn’t been able to smoke on the flight down and was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to in that deputy’s car, either. Funny how it was getting so he could tell a nonsmoker just by looking at him. “Preferably something without red lights and a siren.”

“Radio?” Monroe inquired, politely deadpan.

Hawk thought about it, then shook his head. “Just a cellular phone’ll do.”

He dropped his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and stepped on it, and they all got into the white Ford. Monroe sat in front but turned around to fill Hawk and Campbell in while Deputy Schaefer drove and mumbled unintelligibly into his radio mike.

“We’ve got surveillance in place on Vincent, both her home and the shop. She’s got a place just outside of town-we were able to get in this morning while she was at the shop unloading the stuff she bought at Arlington. It’s secluded, and there’s a field nearby big enough to land a chopper in. We’re watching that, too.”

A thought occurred to Hawk, and he said, “What about Mrs. Carlysle? You have ‘surveillance’-” a term he knew very well was just a big word for “bugs” “-on her too?”

Agent Monroe just looked at him and didn’t answer. Damned electronic toys, thought Hawk, inexplicably disturbed by the thought of Jane’s every move being scrutinized by unseen strangers. He definitely had mixed feelings about listening devices.

“According to our local sources,” Monroe continued, and was interrupted by Aaron Campbell.

“Which ate?”

Monroe grinned. “Name’s Loretta. She’s a waitress at the coffee shop next door to Vincent’s place. She says Vincent didn’t open the shop at all yesterday, and as far as she knows, never came near the place. We had a chance to go through Vincent’s home pretty thoroughly this morning and didn’t find anything, so we think we’re reasonably safe in assuming Singh’s key is still with the stuff she brought back from the auction, and is there in the shop now.”

“What makes you think she didn’t unload it somewhere on her way home from Virginia?” Campbell asked.

“I guess we don’t, for sure,” Monroe replied. “But I don’t think she did. For one thing, she couldn’t have known for sure she’d be successful in getting the merchandise, so I don’t see how she could have held her own auction and put together a deal in advance. It makes a lot more sense for her to put the word out she’s in possession, then go home and wait for the offers to come in. As long as we’re all hot on the trail of her red herring, she knows she’s got time. That’s assuming,” Monroe added, with a glance at Hawk, “she and Mrs. Carlysle aren’t in this together.”

Ignoring that, Hawk said, “What happens when Vincent finds out we’re onto her and not the herring?”

Agents Monroe and Campbell looked at each other and didn’t say anything. Hawk felt his jaw clench.

He was heading across the Best Western parking lot, thinking he’d have time to stow his bag and maybe wash up and at least put on a clean shirt before heading out to Jane’s place, when a sporty red Nissan pulled up behind him and the driver tapped the horn. Recognizing the young sheriff’s deputy, Schaefer, he went around to the driver’s-side window.

Schaefer ran the window down and grinned up at him. “How’ll this do? B‘longs to Sheriff Taylor’s wife, but he says you’re welcome to borry it, since she’s off visitin’ her mother till Wednesday. Got you your cell phone, too, right here. Sheriff says to just let him know in case there’s anythin’ else you need.”

“Thanks,” said Hawk as he waited with one hand on the door for the deputy to extricate himself from the low-slung driver’s seat, “this’ll do fine. And be sure and tell Sheriff Taylor I appreciate it.”

“No problem.” Half in and half out of the car, Schaefer paused suddenly to pull a folded piece of paper out of his uniform shirt pocket. “Agent Monroe said to give you this-said you’ll need it. Get’s confusin’ out there around the lake.”

Hawk unfolded enough of the paper to see that it was a hand-drawn map to Jane Carlysle’s house. He muttered, “Thanks,” to himself, since Deputy Schaefer was already loping off across the highway, where two regular police cruisers were pulled up in the Waffle House parking lot.

He was glad to have Monroe’s map, because there was no doubt he’d need one, and it saved him the time and trouble of stopping to ask for directions. But it bothered him, too. Bothered him to have the map spread there on the seat beside him, tangible evidence that FBI agents had already been to Jane’s house, had almost assuredly been inside it, invading her personal space and privacy. It bothered him even though he’d been doing just that himself, not so long ago.

But that was then, he thought. Things have changed.

He wasn’t even exactly sure when they’d changed, but he was only beginning to understand how much.

Even with the map he managed to make a couple of wrong turns, and the sunset’s glow was fading fast by the time he finally turned into the graveled driveway he was sure at last was Jane’s. When he turned off the Nissan’s engine, he could hear a stereo thumping. The daughters, he thought. Naturally they’d be home on a Sunday evening. It gave him a peculiar feeling to think of Jane in a warm, cozy kitchen, surrounded by boisterous teenagers. And yet, wasn’t that how he’d always pictured her? Supermom.

No, something inside him corrected, that’s how your conscience told you you Should think of her. You thought of her in a different context entirely.

He got out of the car, and then he could actually hear the music. A waltz? Strange choice for teenagers, he thought.

He went up to the front door and knocked, but the music was so loud he knew no one inside would ever hear him, so he went through the carport and stepped out onto a covered deck that ran the entire length of the back of the house. He saw planters filled with pansies and the green spears of budding daffodils, and hummingbird feeders hanging from the rafters. He saw wind chimes gently swaying, though he couldn’t hear their music. Just off the deck and reachable from it, he saw a bird feeder hanging from the branch of an oak tree, still rocking slightly from the customers scared away by his sudden appearance. He saw that a set of French doors leading into the living room was standing wide open, though the air temperature was dropping rapidly with the coming dusk. Alarmed, realizing now that the house was empty, he began to look around in earnest, his eyes lifting to scan beyond his immediate surroundings. And now at last he saw her.

She was standing on a broad platform-a boat dock, it looked like-far out on the water at the end of a long pier. She had her back to the house and was watching the sunset fade, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth. She couldn’t have been home long, he realized. Even from that distance he could see that she still had on the blazer and slacks she’d been wearing since yesterday.

He walked rapidly down the steps and across the lawn, slowing as he went, realizing he didn’t know how to approach her. He didn’t want to startle her, and with the music on she couldn’t possibly hear him. With her back to him, she wouldn’t even know he was here. As he stepped onto the pier, he could feel his heart beating.

He’d only taken a few steps before she turned and saw him. She’d felt him, he imagined, felt the vibrations of his footsteps on the wooden pier. He lifted his hand in greeting, knowing what light there was would be on his face, and that she should be able to identify him well enough. Her face was in purple shadow, and unreadable. She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t raise her hand in response to his wave, but simply stood with her arms crisscrossing her body, and waited for him to approach. Something in the way she held herself, in her very stillness, told him she wasn’t smiling.

What do I say to her? Hawk thought as he walked toward that silent, waiting figure, his heart thumping now in rhythm with his footsteps on the planks of the pier, to the music soaring out of the stereo into the cold, winy dusk. What am I doing? What’s my reason for being here? He realized that for once in his life he hadn’t prepared a cover story in advance.

At the join of the pier and the dock he paused, one hand resting on the railing. A few feet still separated him from Jane. He could see her face now but still couldn’t read it. She had the slightly dazed look of someone who couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

“Hi,” he said, making a feeble attempt to smile.

“Hi,” she responded, and he saw her shoulders hunch suddenly, as if a chill had just shaken her.

Now what? She didn’t say anything more, refusing to ask the expected question, “What are you doing here?,” to which he was certain inspiration would have provided him with a clever and believable reply. Instead, the music abruptly ceased and the evening filled with silence, a timeless void marked only by the faint creaking of the dock and the hollow thudding of his heart. My God, he thought, what’s happening here? Another minute and he’d be shaking like an adolescent standing on his first date’s doorstep.

The silence ended as abruptly as it had begun, on the opening chords of “The Blue Danube Waltz.” And Hawk, hearing the familiar melody of the introduction, felt something happening inside him. Something seemed to stretch and reach…to struggle, then suddenly lift, like a bird making its first leap toward the sky. For the first time in many years he felt…happy.

He kept his face straight as he made a small, stiff bow from the waist, but laughed as he held out his hand, making a joke of it when he said “Ma’am, may I have this dance?”