Deadout (21 page)

Way up ahead, I could see the motorcycles pulling over to the left, taking their places on either side of the grand entrance to the Renfrew house. The limousines turned up the driveway, and the security vehicles pulled over on either side of the street. By the time I pulled up behind Jimmy Frank's cruiser, it seemed like a reenactment of the previous day, only four times as big. I half expected Archie Pearce's helicopter to come screaming over the water, but I guess with this much security, even Archie Pearce knew better than to pull any stunts.

Jimmy and I got out of our cars at the same time. He gave me a short nod and mumbled, “Fancy meeting you here.” Then he ambled over to where the other local cops were standing, probably making snide comments about the feds and the private security types.

I strolled over to the driveway, near one of the motorcycle cops. “I just need a quick word with Mr. Renfrew,” I said, holding up my badge.

He laughed. “Yeah, I don't think so, but you can try.”

Before I could, though, the guy who had led me in on my last visit came striding down the driveway, shaking his head. “Sorry, sport,” he said. “You're not getting anywhere close to him until after six o'clock, after all this wraps up. No chance.”

I decided against leaving the message that I didn't want to work for Renfrew anymore and that his son the amateur screw-up was about to step up to the major leagues. Looking up at the roof, I saw the same sniper there, looking down at me. I waved to him, and this time he gave me the finger.

*   *   *

Whether he knew it or not, Teddy Renfrew was involved in something big and bad. I had tried to tell him, and I would try again. I had tried to tell his dad, and I would try to tell him again, too. I didn't know how close Nola had gotten to Teddy, but it was close enough that if he got hurt, she might get hurt. So I had to try to tell Nola, as well.

I wasn't looking forward to that, so I was kind of relieved when I got a text from Moose.

YOU STILL ALIVE?

YES.:)

I use smiley faces very sparingly, but I figured if not now, when, right?

IS MY TRUCK?

YES.

CAN I HAVE IT BACK?

*   *   *

Moose was back at Mocha Mott's getting lunch, but when I got there I could tell he was ready to go.

“Is my car okay?” he asked when I walked in.

“Without a scratch,” I said as I handed him the keys.

He nodded as he pocketed the keys. “Not yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“That guy came back and smashed one of your taillights.”

“Are you serious?”

“He looked pissed.” Moose sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair, giving me an appraising look. “What's the story there? You said he shot at you before? What's up with that?”

I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “Teddy Renfrew is involved in something big and messed up. The other night he was having this secret meeting with some guy in the dark behind the Tabernacle. I followed him, and that guy, the guy who was following me today, he came up behind me and tried to take me out. I got away from him, he chased me, started taking shots at me.”

“Why were you following Teddy?”

I didn't want to get into the whole thing. “It's a long story, but the other night, when I was staying in the cabin with Nola, Teddy was acting suspicious, and he went off for a secret meeting in the woods in the middle of the night.”

“So you followed him?” Moose snorted and rolled his eyes. “Dude, you're unbelievable. How do you know he wasn't, like, meeting someone for sex, or buying a bag of weed or something?”

“Huh?” I said, because that hadn't occurred to me. “Well, you're right, that would have explained a lot. But he wasn't. They were just talking, and I saw them again at another secret meeting, only this time I got a good look at the guy.”

“So you were following him.”

“Yes. I was. And maybe that was totally messed up, but Moose, believe me, this guy he was meeting with, he was bad news. Seriously bad news. I know Teddy's gotten into some minor trouble before—spiking trees and graffiti and stuff—but this guy, he's on a different level.”

“And how do you know this?”

“I just know.”

He shook his head. “You're a piece of work.”

I couldn't argue.

“Benjy's mom called.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, except she's pissed off that Benjy never showed up.”

“Really?”

He nodded his head. “I called him but there was no answer, so I borrowed a bike and rode over to his place, but there was no sign of him.” He fiddled with his cup. “Not like him to blow stuff off, but his mom's a bit of a pain, so maybe he just couldn't deal.”

“Huh.”

He shrugged and started to close his computer.

“Wait,” I said, grabbing the top of it. “Can I look something up before you go?”

He rolled his eyes. “Dude, I have stuff I have to do.”

“It'll only take a second.”

He stood up. “Okay. I gotta take a leak anyway.”

I opened a new tab in his browser and searched: “Senator Wilson Deveaux” “Jeffery Wilden” “George Burlholme.”

That got me a million hits about the Senate, but several of the top ten referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

I added Kenya, and it narrowed down a fair amount, but it was the same mix of results. I added “Thompson Company” and came up with nothing.

Moose was walking back from the bathroom. On a hunch, I removed “Thompson Company” and added “Stoma Corporation” and the results dropped down to nine hundred hits, but almost all of them were about an initiative called Agricultural Solutions for Sustainable Peace, or ASSP. It seemed to be a controversial foreign-aid program exporting genetically modified corn to third-world countries.

“All right,” Moose said as he walked up. “I'm out of here. I want to check the rest of the monitoring sites by tonight.”

I nodded. “Okay. Maybe I can help you later.”

“Where are you going now?”

“I have to go talk to Nola about Teddy.”

 

35

It felt strange being back at Teddy's farm. I'd never felt like I belonged there, but now it felt like enemy territory. The place seemed strangely quiet, and I wondered if there was something going on, or if it was all inside my head.

The door to Nola's cabin opened, and she stepped onto the porch. Part of me wanted to run to her, to take her in my arms, to tell her I was sorry. Tell her that I loved her.

I couldn't tell if any part of her wanted to do the same thing. Neither of us did it.

My duffel bag was dangling from her right hand, swaying slightly. She moved her hand just a bit, and when the bag swung out away from her, she let it drop onto the porch.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“Did you sleep with her?”

“What?” The question caught me off guard. “You mean Annalisa? No, of course not.” I let a little laugh creep into my reply. I was relieved she didn't ask me if I'd thought about it.

She shook her head. “Anybody else, then?”

“No.”

She sighed. “Then we can talk when I get home.”

Deep inside, part of me was giddy that she was still planning on coming home. “Did you sleep with him?”

She looked indignant, then kind of repulsed. I hoped at the thought of the person I was referring to. “No,” she said.

“Good,” I said. I laughed again, just from nerves, but it seemed to thaw things out a little. She took a step forward, down off the porch. I took a step toward her as well.

“Doyle,” she said. “I never … I just needed a break, okay? I needed some time to myself. That's all.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“Just go on home, okay? And I'll be home soon. Then we can figure out where to go from here.”

I started to nod, but then stopped abruptly.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You have to come away from here.”

“What?”

“I know you need time, I get that, but it can't be here. You can't stay here.”

“What are you taking about?”

“I can't explain all of it, because I don't know all of it, but Teddy is involved in something bad, something real bad. I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's about to blow up.”

“I don't understand.”

“Look, Teddy's done stupid stuff in the past, little stuff, but this is different.”

“It wasn't stupid, it was important. He was making a stand for what he believed in.”

“Well, this is different. He's been meeting with some hard-core bad guys. Secret meetings, off in the woods, in the middle of the night, that kind of stuff. And whatever it is, it's about to come to a head. I don't want you caught in the middle of it when it blows up.”

“Have you been
following
him?”

Uh-oh. I guess I'd known that question was coming, but I hadn't really prepared for it.

“Have you been spying on Teddy?” she asked, because apparently I was taking too long to answer. “Have you been spying on
me
?”

“I wasn't spying on you,” I snapped back. I took a deep breath. “Teddy's father said he was worried about him. About his safety. He asked me to keep an eye on him. It was a mistake. I should have said no and I didn't. I've been trying to get in touch with him to tell him I've quit. But the fact remains, Teddy is involved in something bad, and I don't want it to hurt you.”

Nola growled and grabbed the strap of my duffel bag, flinging it at me.

“Get out of here, Doyle,” she said. “And don't come back.” This time when she turned around, she didn't look back. She stormed into the cabin and slammed the door.

The whole building shook, and in the back of my mind, I thought that tiny little cabin wouldn't hold up to a medium-sized huffing and puffing. But I didn't like picturing myself as the big bad wolf, so I picked up my bag and got into my car.

It felt sad and final, leaving that place, but I was angry enough and indignant enough not to dwell on it too hard. I needed to get out of there, and I needed to do it in a hurry. The car fishtailed a bit as I swerved around the big house, and I was just straightening out onto the driveway when Teddy showed up on his dirt bike. I braked hard and he swerved hard, pulling off the driveway and onto the grass. He ground out a wide circle, looping around me, then circling a second time before stopping next to my door.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was just leaving,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Don't come back.”

“Look, whatever it is you think you're involved in, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. The people you're involved with, they're seriously bad news.”

He laughed. “You don't know shit about me or what I'm involved in. So here's my warning to you. You might think you know what's going on, but you have no idea, because you're an idiot, and an asshole, and a tool. So go on and get out of here before I call the real cops.”

He gunned the bike's engine, and spun a half circle so his back wheel peppered the car with dirt and gravel. I thought about running him over.

Instead I hit the gas and pulled away, listening to the gravel pelting the paint job and thinking how much I was going to enjoy it when that douchebag inevitably went down.

*   *   *

The Mustang had been fun, but it was conspicuous, it was known, and it was damaged. And it was a rental.

Steve at the airport auto rental was happy to see me, but not for long.

“Can't stay away from here, huh?” he said, smiling as he came outside. “Leaving town, or you back for round three?”

“Round three,” I replied. Then I lowered my voice. “I think I need something a little less flashy.”

“Whoa,” he said, walking around the back. “What happened here?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. I left it parked on the street. When I came back, boom.”

He came around to the driver's side, and when he saw what Teddy had done to the paint, he let out a little shriek. “Jesus! What happened?”

“I think it incites envy,” I told him. “The whole fancy sports car thing.” I punched him in the arm. “But I sure am glad we got the extra insurance.”

After filling out a lot more paperwork than before, I rolled off the lot in another Jeep.

 

36

When I called Moose, he told me he had finished checking the monitoring stations without me. He also said no one had seen Benjy, including his mom, who was freaking out and demanding we involve the police. I told Moose she might be right, and we arranged to meet Jimmy Frank at the Vineyard Haven police station.

Moose pulled up at the same time I did. “What happened to the midlife-crisis mobile? Did you wreck it?”

“Just traded it in for something less conspicuous,” I said, but I knew he wasn't buying it. The ribbing would have continued if Jimmy hadn't arrived just then.

“Thanks for meeting with us,” I said as he got out of his cruiser.

He waved me off. “Any excuse to get away from that damned security detail.” He gave me a wink. “Very sensible vehicle you got there.”

I changed the subject by introducing Moose, and Jimmy squinted at him. “October,” he said. “A warning for riding a moped in an unsafe manner.”

I was going to say I didn't know you could get a ticket for driving a moped too slow, but I kept it to myself.

“Dude, that was six months ago,” Moose said. “You remember that?”

Jimmy laughed. “What good's a first warning if you don't know when it's a second one?” He tapped his temple. “Part of your permanent record.”

He escorted us into a conference room, and we told him everything we knew about Benjy. Moose talked about his background, his work with the bees, and his whereabouts over the few days before he disappeared. I gave the chronology as I understood it of the last few days.