Blood Foam: A Lewis Cole Mystery (Lewis Cole series) (18 page)

“Mark?”

Two small bedrooms, beds neatly made. In one bedroom, there was a black roll-on piece of luggage, with a laptop set on top. The other bedroom was empty, as was a tiny bathroom in the rear.

I went back out through the cottage, holstered my Beretta, and stepped out onto the porch. From here I could make out the dock, my boat and the other boat, and a bit of the sandy beach. Time to tour the island.

I got off the porch, and a man emerged from behind a thick birch tree, carrying a shotgun, said shotgun’s barrel poking into my chest.

I stepped back. Mark Spencer stood there, breathing hard, wearing tan chinos, a red L.L. Bean jacket, workboots. He had a four- or five-day-old growth of beard. His hair was messy and mussed, like he had just gotten up a minute or so ago.

“Cole,” he said. “I’ll be damned.”

“Counselor Spencer, I presume,” I said, holding my hands up in a reflexive move. Hard not to do with a shotgun about a foot away from my chest. “Mind pointing that somewhere else?”

His hard breathing continued. The shotgun didn’t waver. “How the hell did you find me?”

“Trade secrets,” I said. “Look, mind putting that shotgun down? You know I’m not the enemy.”

“Really? What makes you say that?”

Enough was enough, and I took three hard and fast steps forward, got close to him, the shotgun harmlessly sliding past my ribs, and after slapping his face I grabbed and twisted the weapon away from him. I stepped back, now armed, and Mark stood there, shocked, hand up against his face.

“You didn’t have to do that!”

“The hell I didn’t,” I said, checking the shotgun out. It was twelve-gauge, single-shot. I broke open the breech, retrieved the cartridge, snapped it shut, put the cartridge in my pocket. “I politely asked you twice to stop pointing your shotgun at me. You didn’t move. I wasn’t going to ask a third time.”

Voice sullen, he said, “I wasn’t going to shoot you.”

“Of course not,” I said. “But a sudden move on your part, a sneeze, a cough, or a stumble could cause you to pull the trigger, and you’d put a good-sized hole in my chest. It’s not a particularly tough or muscled chest, but it works for me.”

“How the hell did you find me?”

“Didn’t you hear me the first time around? Trade secret. Now, not to get all pushy and such, but we’ve got to get you out of here.”

Mark said, “Suit yourself. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh, yes, you are,” I said. “I’ve got Paula Quinn on the town beach, along with Felix Tinios, and—”

“What, Felix Tinios, the mob guy?”

“You can discuss his career options later,” I said. “But right now, the Stonecold Falcons are hard on your trail, and if
I
could find your hidey-hole, so can they.”

He swallowed and said: “I don’t care. I’m . . . I’m doing something important, and I don’t care if they’re after me. I need to see it through.”

I stepped forward, thinking about giving him another healthy slap or two. “Listen, nitwit, there’s a woman back at the town beach who’s been heartsick over you ever since you bailed out. And you’re coming back with me, tell her you’re fine, and then you can go on your death quest or whatever the hell it is you’re doing. Do you understand, Mark? And what, I leave without you and you plan to hold off motorcycle gang members with a shotgun that holds and fires one round? Is that your plan? All right, you might get one shot off, but these are very hard men after you. They’ll accept that one shot, and while you’re trying to reload while breathing hard and your hands shaking, they’ll rush you and then nail your testicles to a log . . . and then they’ll really get angry. And whatever important crap you’re doing, well, forget about it.”

Mark’s eyes flickered and he looked to the cottage, to the trees, and then to the waters of the lake. “Paula’s back there? With Felix Tinios?”

“Yes,” I said. “So gather up your gear, we’ll head on back, and we’ll drive off. Then you and Paula can have a nice reunion, you can tell her what the hell you’re up to, and we can get away from the lake.”

He shifted his feet, and I said, “Christ, Counselor, do I have to draw a diagram for you? I’m here to save your sorry ass . . . not because I particularly like you, but because Paula asked me. So you’re leaving this island. Your choice if you leave free or tied up.”

“You think you can tie me up? Really? An old man like you?”

I spun the shotgun around so it was rising up between his legs, and I managed to stop my movements before the metal barrel struck something near and dear to the town counsel of Tyler.

“Without a doubt,” I said.

After I persuaded him to leave his groceries behind, we made good progress getting out of the cottage. He had his luggage and left the shotgun behind, since it belonged to the owner of the cottage. He locked the door and went around to the side of the cottage, where there was a brick foundation that had seen better days. Mark pulled a brick out and put the key inside, and replaced the brick.

“Breaking and entering, Counselor?” I asked.

“I had permission.”

“Really? Permission to come here in November?”

He glared at me and started walking away. I joined him at his aluminum skiff and tied the smaller boat to the stern, so we could return both at the same time to the generous Mister Pete Kimball. I had a lot of questions to ask him, and probably a lot of information to pass along—from the death of Carl Lessard to the arson at his place of work—but he was up forward in the skiff, slumped, staring at the water and the surroundings, not at all looking like the arrogant and self-confident town counsel I had gotten to know over the past months.

Mark’s rented skiff had a more powerful engine than mine, so we made good time, heading back to the town beach, and there was the Tahoe, and there was Felix.

But no Paula.

Well . . . maybe she was in the Tahoe, warming up.

Maybe.

But why was the Tahoe parked facing the other direction?

Mark lifted his head and was going to say something—

I yelled at him: “Put your head down! Now!”

Felix was on the beach, at the water’s edge, something over his shoulder, and he gave me a long, sweeping wave.

Felix’s not one for waving.

I turned the skiff around, the smaller boat bumping into us, and Mark asked “What’s going on? What’s up?”

“I don’t know, but something’s wrong.”

When we were parallel to the beach is when it happened.

A black Honda CRV roared in from the left, braked to a halt by the beach. Three men bailed out and by now Felix was trotting up to the beach, unlimbering what he had over his shoulder, which was an H&K MP5 semi-automatic rifle. The three men were reaching under their coats and Felix was first, firing off a series of rapid three- and four-round bursts. The CRV’s windshield and fender were pockmarked with Felix’s outgoing rounds, and I completed the turn with the boat, slammed the throttle wide open.

We roared back out onto the open lake. I spared a glance back.

The Tahoe was gone. The CRV was still there, with the three men. Two were standing by themselves, but the third was looking out at us with binoculars.

I turned and lowered my head, but I knew it was too late.

Reeve Langley had spotted me.

T
o get out of view of the beach, I made a turn as quickly as I could, trying not to swamp our boat. Mark’s face looked the color of the lake water, and he started stammering, trying to look behind me. “What . . . who . . . why was Felix shooting . . . was Paula there. . . .”

“Where’s your car?”

“Hunh?”

“You didn’t fly up here, Mark. You took your car. Where is it?”

He pointed. “Up there a bit. There’s a house under construction, looks abandoned. I parked there and hiked over to where I rented the boat.”

“All right, then.” There were half-submerged boulders up ahead. I maneuvered to miss them, but didn’t do a particularly good job of it. The smaller boat I was towing scraped up against a boulder with an ungodly screech.

“But what happened—”

“Out of order, Counselor,” I said. “There’ll be time to talk later.”

Lots of questions rattling around, but I didn’t want to get into a discussion of all that had gone on earlier. I wanted to get to Mark’s car, get moving, get in contact with Felix, and then try to meet up . . . and find out what had prompted Felix to start firing off 9mm rounds so quickly.

I had no doubt that Felix had done the right thing. I just wanted to know why.

Mark turned and hunched his shoulders. Poor fellow. Just a week ago he’d been the lawyer for a prosperous town, had a nice little law practice, even considered a run for state senate, and was engaged to one of the finest women I knew.

Now he was a refugee of sorts, with a deadly motorcycle gang chasing him, depending for his safety on a Tyler Beach resident who didn’t hold him in high esteem. Or low esteem.

“There,” he said. “That’s the house.”

As he said, it was a home still under construction, though it looked like construction had started a couple of years ago. It was a two-story, built in the triangular Swiss chalet style. On its walls, old Tyvek siding was torn and slapping in the slight breeze, the plywood underneath dark from moisture and rot. Its shore was rocky, but there was a short, fixed dock where I maneuvered Mark’s boat in close. Mark took the initiative to tie us off at the dock, and I switched off the engine.

We got off onto the dock and, carrying his luggage, Mark went up to the house. His light red Mazda 6 four-door sedan was pulled into a dirt rectangle near a couple of high rhododendron bushes, and he led the way. He unlocked the doors and I pulled out my cell phone, to find . . .

NO SERVICE.

“You know cell phones don’t work around here?”

He looked surprised as he tossed his luggage into the rear seat. “Of course. That’s why I didn’t like it when Paula and I vacationed here. Too damn isolated.”

“Then let’s get somewhere so you can call Paula, tell her you’re all right.”

He snorted. “She can wait. I’ve got other things to do.”

“I don’t think she can wait.”

“Look, I don’t care how long it’s been since you first met her, I know her best. All right? And I don’t want to get into a big weepy conversation with her over why I left and why I haven’t kept in touch. I don’t have the time.”

“You looking to piss her off?”

His smile wasn’t pleasant to look at. “Lewis, if I told Paula to eat a shit sandwich, not only would she do so, she’d thank me for the meal. That’s the kind of girl she is.”

I stepped forward and punched him hard in the jaw. Mark fell back against the Mazda and slid to the ground, legs splayed wide open, his eyes wide open as well. I bent down, grabbed his shirt collar, lifted him up for a better angle, and hit him again, harder this time.

“Hey!” he gurgled. “Stop that!”

Breathing hard, I stepped back, shaking my right hand. It hurt like hell. I shook it again. It hurt even worse.

“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I guess the hell you shouldn’t have!” He got up off the ground, rubbed his right hand against his face, worked his jaw once or twice. “All right . . . you snapped. I understand. Apology accepted.”

I shook my hand again, trying to ease the red-hot pain coursing through it. “What apology? I said I shouldn’t have done that, because I might have broken my hand against your thick skull. And I can’t use a pistol with my left hand if we run into bad guys. That’s the only thing I was sorry about.”

He worked his jaw again, and I said “Time for some info, Mark. Why the hell did you run off like you did?”

“Because I was scared I had gotten the attention of the Stonecold Falcons.”

“I guess the hell you did,” I said. “And what did you do to get their attention? Run over a motorcycle while you were out west? Get in a bar fight? Send somebody a nasty letter, threatening a lawsuit over something?”

Mark rubbed his face again. “No, nothing like that. I was looking for someone from the gang. And the Stonecold Falcons found out who I was looking for and it got nasty, real quick. I didn’t expect them to come out east after me.”

“Who were you looking for?”

“My dad.”

If Mark had told me he was the King of Belgium, I don’t think I could have been more surprised.

“Wait . . . your parents are dead. Paula told me that. Your boss told me that. Google told me that. What the hell are you talking about?”

“My real dad, Lewis. From Wyoming. My parents, in Vermont . . . they were my adoptive parents.”

He lowered his hand and I spotted something on his left wrist. A blotch or something I remembered from seeing the beach photo at his condo. I grabbed his wrist, pulled the shirtsleeve and jacket back so it became more visible. It was a splotch, about the size of a half dollar.

Mark pulled his arm away, lowered his shirt and jacket sleeves. I stood still, thinking, remembering, recalling what I had seen and heard.

“The Stonecold Falcons,” I started out. “I’ve seen some of their tattoos, close-up and on the Internet. All of the members have the falcons tattooed on their wrists. ‘Falcons for Life.’ That’s their motto.”

Mark looked enraged and embarrassed at the same time. I went on. “The missing-persons report that Paula Quinn filed. It said you had no distinguishing scars or tattoos. What did you tell her that was?”

“A skin blemish, a birth defect.”

“But that’s not true, is it? Your father . . . pretty prominent in the Stonecold Falcons at the time, am I right? Pretty hardcore, I bet. So hardcore that when you came along, even as a young kid, he probably arranged to have a falcon tattooed on your wrist. ‘Falcons for Life.’ And later on, it got burned off.”

He rubbed his wrist, probably self-consciously. I continued. “Your dad . . . you were probably told he was dead, right? But he was in witness protection, maybe after turning state’s evidence against the gang. You were born in Wyoming, and for some reason, you kept your correct Social Security number when you came out to Vermont and became a Little League player, honor student. But as a youngster, before Vermont, you started out life as the child of a motorcycle gang member.”