A Killing Sky (3 page)

“Okay.”

She gave me the number, along with her sister's cell phone number and Jed Haynes's number and home address. When we finished, I paid the bill and walked her out of the restaurant.

The spring sun was still a no-show. A gunmetal-gray sky arched over the downtown mall. The chill hit us and we both zipped up.

“Thank you,” she said, standing on the bricked-in pedestrian Main Street, steam rolling from her pretty mouth. She stuck out her hand and I took it again. The fingers were still cold.

“Don't thank me yet.”

I had a troublesome inkling neither one of us would be so grateful when we found out what was happening with her look-alike sister and Mr. Jed Haynes.

The cold washed over me like a purifying balm as I tried to shake the feeling, trudging back down the mall toward my office. I picked up the turnip when I made the turn down Second toward Water Street. It was all the guy could do, I noticed, to keep from breaking into a run. Not much experience, apparently, running a tail.

He had been standing at the kiosk at the far end of the mall as we left the restaurant, pretending to talk on the phone. A pudgy little man in a long black raincoat. He kept shifting his gaze our way as Cassidy Drummond and I parted company, and for a few moments afterward he seemed uncertain about which one of us to try to follow, but then he took off after me. I'm sure he wouldn't have found my nickname for him flattering, but that was my first impression. Purplish skin with a bushy mustache and bulging eyes—a ripe, overgrown turnip packed into clothes.

After rounding the corner out of his line of vision, I stopped, folded my arms, and leaned against a lamppost. It took only a few seconds for him to come panting around the corner in pursuit. At the sight of me waiting, he pulled up short.

“We need to talk,” I said.

We exchanged hard looks. His mustache twitched. He knew he was made. He shook his head and put his index finger to his lips as if to shush me, but what he was doing with his other hand interested me more. He moved it deftly beneath his long coat and came partway out with the barrel of a very large handgun, loosely pointing it in my direction.

Not so obvious to anyone behind him or walking past, but he made sure it was plenty obvious to me. Since I'd left my .357 hanging in its shoulder holster over the hat rack in my office, I was in no position to play Wyatt Earp. Even if I had wanted to, the barrel of his gun looked about the size of your average redwood, so I would have been decidedly outgunned. Oh, well, you know what they say—the bigger the gun, the smaller the … ah, brain.

“Here? In broad daylight?” I said. “There must be twenty witnesses within earshot who could ID you before you'd make it out of sight.”

Something in his eyes told me such a problem was not a big concern for him.
My
identifying him, on the other hand, might be. He seemed to reflect on the possibilities for a moment. Then he put his finger to his lips again, turned, and disappeared back around the corner.

When I got around to breathing, I decided—discretion in this instance being the better part of valor—not to follow. He'd made his choice when he came after me, so he had little if any chance of picking up Cassidy Drummond again. It was cold consolation as I made my way back to the co-op.

“Sounds wild, my man.” Jake Toronto lifted his mustang boots onto the edge of my desk, put his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair. “Even if I wanted to pull a hoax, not sure I could come up with something that good.”

Toronto is my ex-homicide partner from New York. He is also my falconry sponsor and best friend. Now and then we even manage to still do a little work together. He lives like a monk in the mountains, flying his goshawk and surviving mostly off his investments, but he's also been known to perform “certain security functions,” as he puts it, for a select clientele, not all of whom I would want to meet in broad daylight.

Today, however, I felt like I was grubbing next to him. He was decked out in a dark Jos. A. Bank suit, indigo shirt, rep tie. Said he'd come over to Charlottesville to take care of “some legal work and some banking.” All legal, he assured me. His slicked-back hair made him look like a compact version of Steven Seagal.

“I just heard one of Drummond's ads on the radio coming over here,” he said. “Guy's starting early. The election's not for seven months.”

“Guess he figures he's vulnerable. Wants to make sure he keeps the party's nomination.”

He shrugged. “Politics,” he said.

“I'm pretty sure the other twin's just shacked up with this swimmer. Maybe something she doesn't want her sister to know about. On the other hand, I'm not too keen on strangers sticking howitzers in my face.”

“Don't recognize the guy you described. You said he seemed pretty familiar with the piece?”

“With the gun, yes. Didn't seem to really know much about tailing somebody.”

“Unless he wanted you to pick him up. Maybe send you a message.”

I nodded. The thought had occurred to me as well.

“We'll see… You bring Jersey with you?” Jersey was Toronto's falconry bird, a woodland accipiter a little like Toronto himself, a street fighter with near-mythic killing prowess. Bird or mammal mattered not to the northern goshawk. The element of surprise was one of its biggest weapons.

“Nah. We hunted this morning. How's that pretty redtail of yours?”

“Better than ever. Almost makes me think twice about letting her go.”

“Your call. When it's time, you'll know.” He stared out the open window, then up at Fauntleroy.

“Nicole and I are taking her out crow-hawking in an hour or so.”

“Ambitious.”

“Care to join us?”

“No, thanks. Got appointments.” For Toronto to turn down a chance at hunting must have meant something important.

“All right,” I said.

“Hey, you say Marsh used to be a volunteer for the congressman?”

“Yup. Seems pretty emotional about it, too.”

“Think he hit on her?”

“She wouldn't say so, but that would be his M.O.”

“Kind of makes things a bit personal, don't it?”

“Doing my best to reserve judgment.”

“Folks start waving iron in the air, gets your attention.”

“That it does.”

“You gonna need some help on this Drummond thing?” he asked.

“Thought you'd never ask. Can you check out a cell phone number for me, find out any numbers that may've been called since midnight last night?”

“Not that easily. Who's the carrier?”

I gave him the name of the company and Cartwright Drummond's cell phone number.

“It may take a while, but I think I can come up with what you want. You wanna know how much her last bill was too?”

I smiled. “Just the calls. Depending on what I hear from the swimmer, the way this thing's headed, I may have need of some of your other… uh, talents as well. I'll let you know.”

“I got the time. I got the talent,” he said. “I'll be around.”

After he left, I made a few more calls up to D.C. about the newspaper articles Cassidy Drummond had given me. Left a couple of messages. Talked to a couple of clerks and basically came up empty.

Old news is hard to find.

Not many people put a lot of stock in this anymore, but falcons used to be considered arbiters from God. When I say falcons, I mean hawks and eagles too, all species of birds of prey. Longwings, such as the peregrine or the prized gyrfalcon, often drop in a stoop from a thousand feet or more like a bolt commissioned by a sudden killing sky to choose among their slower-flying quarry. From antiquity birds of prey have been revered, even worshiped. To this day eagles are considered sacred by many Native Americans, and in many parts of the world falcons retain a mystique often associated with royalty.

Here in old Virginny, however, I wasn't feeling particularly royal at the moment.

Nicole drove the bouncing pickup down the farm road while I worked at holding Armistead low enough on my fist to keep her from seeing over the dash. Smoky clouds hung like a solid ceiling overhead. The temperature hovered in the forties. We hadn't spotted any crows yet, but that didn't mean they weren't somewhere about. Armistead was impatient, footing my glove.

“Pretty bird. Sit still now.” Nicole tried to soothe the redtail with her voice.

We were closing in on the end of Armistead's last season with us, and I wasn't sure who would miss the hawk more, my daughter or me. My apprentice bird was now a mature adult, a skilled hunter, ready to be released back to the wild to find a mate.

She would probably never find it necessary to try to take crows for food when on her own. They would be impossible game for your average redtail, and easier fare was almost always plentiful. But introducing her to new game at this point, I figured, would at least broaden her experience. Besides, I thought she just might be up to the challenge. The vineyard owner had approached me about ridding his acreage of the blackguards. Whether we caught anything or not, the very presence of such a raptor in the area would help keep the crows at bay.

“Hey.” Nicole held tight to the wheel as the truck bounced over another rut in the road. “You know, Congressman Drummond's house is just a mile or so over those hills.” She was looking at the highest point in the vineyard, a pair of swells covered, like the rest of the landscape surrounding us, with rows of arbors.

“Is that a fact?”

I had made the mistake of mentioning my new client to her before leaving the house with Armistead. Technically, Nicole was on my payroll, since she did some part-time work, mostly computer-related, and she was always interested in my cases. Nearing the end of her first year at the university, she was also talking about the possibility of moving to a house with a couple of male classmates to save money in the fall. I liked the saving money part. Not so sure I was wild about her sharing quarters with the male classmates.

La Casa del Pavlicek had seen some upheaval when my daughter had arrived on the scene a couple of years before. My on-the-job crash course in young-adult parenting had involved everything from late-night curfews to learning what a Def Leppard was, and though I wasn't exactly up for a remedial effort, since she was so determined to save money, I'd offered her the option of moving back in with me for a while. After all, I hadn't had to scrape the remains of lavender shaving cream off my shower wall in months. And my elderly landlords were getting bored by all the peace and quiet after a year of wall-shaking stereo.

One thing was certain. Nicole Mae Pavlicek, a.k.a. Nicky, a.k.a. my wanna-be partner in Eagle Eye Investigations, had a mind so quick it was all I could do to keep up with her at times.

“Aren't you curious about what your newest client might be up to?”

“You've got it wrong, Nicky. Normally, we spy
for
the client, not
on
the client.”

“I've never met them, but I've heard Cassidy and her sister are nice, not stuck up or anything.” She had already offered to cross-reference a bunch of search engines on the Web and print out a file of background material on Congressman Drummond and the twins, including photos. “You know this case could make you famous,” she said.

“Or infamous.” I was beginning to regret even mentioning Cassidy Drummond to her in the first place.

“You're always so negative, Dad.”

“Not negative. We're talking public figures here. No telling all that's going on. It's best you stay as far away as possible. You're still a student. You've got other priorities. Trust me, I'm being realistic.” At least I'd stopped short of giving her any details, especially about my encounter with the turnip and his over-sized gun.

The truck jolted through a bigger-than-usual washout. We had been climbing gradually, and now I noticed we were approaching the top of one of the hills. Nicole must have sensed this a long time before I did, which explained the grin that had been plastered on her pretty face.

Still no crows. Maybe they had heard we were coming and convened a powwow someplace to plan their escape. If we did manage to scare any up, our own plan called for lifting Armistead into the sight position and launching her out the window to start a tail chase. It wasn't all that elegant. But it was the tactic best suited to our habitat and our bird. Even Toronto, who had taught me most of what I knew about hawking, had adapted his falconry to suit the piedmont terrain.

Nicole was sitting higher in her seat, peering over the break of the hill. “I'm stopping here,” she said.

“Why? You see a crow?”

“No, but I'm pretty sure I can see the Drummond place down there in the valley.” She set the parking brake, jumped out, and began pulling her heavy jacket and a pair of binoculars out of her backpack.

“Nicky! We're supposed to be hunting here, not playing games.”

But my words fell on deaf ears. She was already several yards from the truck, bounding over the rocky terrain to a better vantage point. I could either sit there with a couple of pounds of anxious redtail tethered to my wrist or follow my daughter.

I jumped out with Armistead and opened one end of her giant hood, which was secured to the bed of the pickup. The hawk stepped inside onto her perch, and I latched the door.

“It's okay, girl. We won't be long.” At least I hoped we wouldn't.

By now Nicole had moved farther down the ridge to a break in the arbors. From up here you could see across open fields to another hillside and beyond to the Blue Ridge. She had the field glasses trained on something. As I came up beside her, I followed her line of sight to a cluster of buildings hugging the opposite hill in a grove of bare walnut trees maybe half a mile distant.

“That's gotta be it. We're closer than I thought. Look at the size of that limousine.”

She handed me the binoculars, I'm sure expecting me to raise them right away and look, but I stared wordlessly at her.

“C'mon, Dad. Don't you want to see what the Drummonds are up to?”

I would like to think it was only business on my part in agreeing to look for Cartwright Drummond, but to tell the truth, I bore a bit of the same sleazy curiosity as your average
National Enquirer
connoisseur. Why the rich and powerful incite such morbid nosiness is anybody's guess. Maybe we need to show they aren't really any better than the rest of us. Nevertheless, the feeling didn't sit well with me. Titillation coiled like a menacing viper in the pit of my stomach.

I shook my head and raised the glasses to my eyes.

The main house came into focus first: a contemporary design of glass and stone. There was a large terrace to one side that opened to a courtyard of sorts. Behind this stood two or three outbuildings, around which several vehicles were parked, including Tor Drummond's trademark Hummer and the black stretch limo to which Nicole had referred.

“It looks like Drummond's place.”

“Are they leaving for a trip or something?”

I focused more closely on the limo. I could see a garment bag and a roll-on suitcase propped against a retaining wall to one side, partially obscured by the rear fender. I wasn't sure, but I also thought I saw wisps of exhaust coming from the back of the vehicle and the silhouette of a driver behind the darkened glass.

“Something like that,” I said, lowering the binoculars.

“See anything to help you?”

“Not really.”

“What about the guy standing by the corner of the house?”

I'd missed that. I raised the glasses and scanned the house again. “There's nobody there.”

“He was just there a minute ago.”

“Wait a minute.” My stomach did a little rumba. Two men came around the corner of the house. One was clearly Tor Drummond. He hadn't donned either his Stetson or his trademark boots today, but he was easy enough to spot: a tall, angular man with a jutting jaw, dressed semicasually for travel. That famous jaw seemed to be working overtime at the moment. Next to him, listening intently, stood the same turnip in the trench coat I'd met a little while ago on the street.

“Something wrong?”

I let the eyepiece drop from my face. “No. It's nothing,” I said.

“For a father who makes his living exposing liars, you aren't a very good one yourself.”

I smiled, said nothing.

“Why won't you let me help you more with your business? I'm not a child, you know.”

“No, but you're my daughter. You can do better than mucking around with the likes of some of the folks I have to deal with.”

“You could at least give me a chance.”

I looked at her. Her hair blew about in the cold wind, but she didn't seem to mind it a bit. “What are you trying to prove, honey?”

“Nothing.” She glared at me.

I waited.

Gradually, her gaze softened. “You remember when you found out what really happened with Mom and Uncle Cat?”

“You cried.”

“Yup. And I told myself that was never going to happen to me again. In order to protect me, you kept going until you found out the truth. That's the kind of thing I want to do.”

I stared at the ground. She'd just ennobled what for me had became a very ignoble profession. “All right,” I said. “How about that computer search you offered to do? You can start with that. Should save me some time.”

She brightened considerably. “Now you're talking.”

“But classes and studying come first. Right now your most important job is to get your degree.”

“I'm getting all A's.”

“Good. Let's keep it that way. And remember, anything I ask you to do is confidential. You should be able to find plenty on Tor Drummond, but I'm especially interested in his family.”

“Sure thing. I think I remember reading something about the daughters in
C-ville Weekly
last year. It was right about the time the scandal over Drummond's affair broke.”

“Okay. Check it out.”

We walked in silence back to the truck. We took Armistead from her box and released her to hunt from a soar above us while we drove back down between the rows of arbors, hoping to scare up some game. I scanned the surrounding arbors and hedgerows with the binoculars. The crows, if there were any, had vanished into deep cover.

Nicole spun the wheel deftly to avoid a washout. “You know I would've voted for him last time if I'd been old enough.”

“Who, Drummond?”

She nodded.

“Still feel like voting for him?”

“Well, let's see. Mr. Congress-boy intimidates his secretary into bed with him, cops a plea, dumps his wife—I don't think so.”

“Awfully hard on the guy, aren't you? Remember, we need to maintain some professional distance.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “The guy's a first-class sleaze, Dad.”

So much for professional distance.