Frames Per Second (35 page)

The rear-facing cabin porthole shattered as he dove over the transom. “Go, go, go!” he called to Sarah and she hit both throttles.

The engines roared. As the bow rose, Ben rolled down to the transom and ducked as bullets pocked the cockpit floor. Then the gunmen apparently aimed at Sarah, trying to stop the boat before she got them around the barge.

Ben lay on his back watching her spin the wheel around. She laid the boat over on its side and remained at the wheel even as the Plexiglas windscreen on the flybridge cracked and splintered with two gunshots.

She swung them around the barge.

She looked back at him. “You all right?”

He gave her the thumbs-up and she grinned.

Ben lay back, regaining his breath. His camera lay in the cockpit where she dropped it. He pulled it over. Rewound the film. Put the roll in his pocket. He disengaged the tripod and put the camera strap around his neck before climbing the ladder to the flybridge.

She had been watching him. “You get the shots?”

“Sure did.” He patted his pocket. “We’ve got them.”

CHAPTER 41

SARAH KEPT THE RUNNING LIGHTS OFF AND THEY LOOPED PAST THE bridge and ran parallel to the shoreline of Boston.
Speed Dreams
was gaining in the distance, a dark shape against the lights of Charlestown.

The wind whipped Sarah’s hair about her face as she looked over her shoulder. She pushed the throttles, but there was nothing left to give. “We’re not going to last long on the water.”

Ben swept the shoreline with the binoculars. “Right there, then. There’s an open dock at the Charthouse.”

She put the wheel over. “This is going to be rough.”

She headed straight in and spun the wheel at the last minute, banging the boat hard against the dock. The two of them slid down the flybridge ladder and were jumping off the boat just as
Speed Dreams
roared up behind them, huge in the glow of dock lights. Ben looked back to see a tall, bony-looking man bracing a pistol on the rail.

He fired and the bow of the motorsailer beside Ben suddenly grew a hole about the size of a dime.

Ben pushed Sarah’s head down and they ran hunched over.

There were people on the dock, and although some turned at the sound of the gunshot, no one seemed to recognize it for what it was. “Please slow down, sir,” a dock boy said as Ben and Sarah ran around him to the ramp.

Ben risked a look back to see McGuire wheeling the big boat around, momentarily flummoxed by the drifting cabin cruiser.

Sarah grabbed Ben’s hand. “Come on.”

They hurried to the taxi circle in front of the Marriott Long Wharf and slid into the backseat of the first cab. “Let’s go, let’s go,” Sarah said.

The driver looked at the camera still clutched in Ben’s hand and then turned to slip the cab into gear. “Tourists,” he said.

The two of them leaned back a moment after the cab pulled into traffic. No one was following them so far. Ben gave the cabby the address of
Insider.

Ben saw Sarah still had her cell phone clipped to her belt. “Good going.”

She handed it to him.

Ben stared at the phone for a few seconds, thinking. It was certainly time to bring the cops in, but he still didn’t trust Brace or Randall. Parker, he trusted. And Ludlow was Parker’s man.

After sliding the window shut between them and the cabby, he found Ludlow’s card in his wallet and dialed the number.

Ben looked at his watch as the phone rang. Almost nine.

He gave Ludlow’s extension. After the phone rang four times, he was about to hang up when Ludlow himself answered.

Ben gave his name and said, “Sit down and get a pen and paper. You’re going to want this.” And he told Ludlow what they had seen.

“Jesus Christ,” Ludlow said. “
Senator Cheever?
Are you sure?”

“Positive. And I’ve got it on film. We’re heading to
Insider
to print the shots right now. You coordinate with the cops, all right? I’ve heard stuff about Brace and Randall, but I don’t know if it’s true.”

“I’ve heard shit, too,” Ludlow said. “After they blew the thing with Lee Sands, I started asking around. What I hear is incompetence more than corruption. But I’ll get my own team on this, and we’ll coordinate with them later.”

“Better get them going right now. I’d guess that McGuire is on his way back there on his boat to collect the body, dump it at sea.”

“Tell me again where to find Cheever’s body.”

Ben gave Ludlow detailed directions. He could hear the scratch of pencil on paper over the phone.

“What’s the name of McGuire’s boat?”

Ben told him, and gave him a description. “Of course, the guys that showed up to help out McGuire could’ve taken Cheever somewhere by car.’’

“Jesus,” Ludlow said. “Why’d McGuire do it?”

“The way I see it, he and Cheever had some sort of falling out and McGuire must’ve called his guys from the boat and told them to meet him.”

“If you thought that, we sure could’ve used this call back then,” Ludlow said. “Maybe the senator would still be alive.”

“I know,” Ben said, tiredly. “I thought we were watching a payoff. We never saw the gun until the moment he killed him.”

“Explain that to his widow and kids.”

“I will,” Ben snapped. “And I’ll explain how if the FBI kept their investigations open on McGuire, you’d have been there yourself.”

There was silence on the end of the line.

Ben took a deep breath, and then started again. “I think McGuire was going to dump Cheever at the site itself. There was some new construction underway and he could’ve been buried and left to be covered with cement the next day.”

“I suppose,” Ludlow said. “Yeah, I guess there’s not much chance they’d stick with that plan now.”

“Look, the film is the evidence,” Ben said. “You go look for McGuire and I’ll get that ready. Meet us at
Insider.
Also, we’re going to need protection on my family and on Sarah’s daughter.”

“Sure.” Ludlow took their addresses down and Sarah’s cell phone number. When he was done, he said, “I’ll say this, Harris—you and Taylor got yourselves a hell of a story.”

Ben thought of Cheever, sitting drunk and defiant in Ben’s studio. Talking about his honor and how he still loved his wife and two boys. Ben had believed him then. Now, even with the evidence to the contrary encapsulated in the little black canister in his pocket, Ben realized he still believed the man. At least about the wife and kids.

Ben said, “Lucky us.”

The main lobby of the office building was dimly lit, but the elevator to the fifth floor was not locked out. “Somebody’s here,” Sarah said, putting her key away.

When they reached the floor, Ben put his finger to his lips and Sarah stepped out behind him quietly.

They could hear a faint electric clatter up ahead.

Ben and Sarah continued around the elevator bank to the news offices.

They heard the sound again. The unmistakable sound of a calculator printing on a paper ribbon. Light was spilling from Kurt’s office.

Ben walked quietly to the doorway. At first, Kurt didn’t see him. He was staring intently at the spool, his eyes worried. A pad of yellow paper covered with figures lay in front of him on the desk. Beside him, his laptop was open, a spreadsheet glowing on the color monitor.

Ben said his name quietly.

Kurt started, obviously surprised. “Jesus,” he said. And then his lips tightened when he saw who it was. “What’re you doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same.” Ben pulled Sarah into the light before Kurt could answer. Saving them that awkwardness.

Kurt looked at Sarah, hesitated, and then put on his blandest smile, and said, “Just trying to make the budget work.”

Ben looked at him. Considering it all. “Sarah,” he said. “Are you going to start writing this up?”

“Sure am,” she said.

He nodded. “Kurt, maybe you can join me while I do these prints.”

“Really?” she said. She looked at Kurt unhappily and he flushed.

“Really,” Ben said. “He’s the editor and like Ludlow said, this is a huge story.”

“What prints?” Kurt asked.

“Come on,” Ben said, and after a moment, Kurt followed him.

* * *

Ben asked Kurt to wait outside the darkroom until he had the film loaded into the developing tank. While it was rinsing, the two of them stepped into Huey’s cubicle and Ben told Kurt what had happened.

Kurt’s face turned sheet white. He put his hand on the edge of the desk. “Oh my God. They
killed
him? That woman and McGuire?”

Ben looked at Kurt carefully. “And she was the same woman— at least wearing the same clothes—as the woman that Peter photographed earlier. The one whose face we couldn’t see.”

Kurt’s hand was shaking. He reached out and grabbed Ben by the upper arm. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. You’ve got to believe me. I’ve told you everything. The beginning, middle, and end of it, you know everything I did. I had no idea this woman was connected with McGuire.”

Ben did believe him.

That didn’t make it any easier.

Kurt sighed. “Of course, there’s no way of knowing if what I did was a factor in his being killed, is there?”

“Not without an investigation,” Ben said.

Kurt sagged. He covered his face briefly, and then seemed to gather himself up. “Well. This changes everything.”

“I’m afraid it does.”

He straightened, and adjusted his tie and sleeves. “I’ll give a statement to this FBI agent when he gets here.”

Ben said. “You might want to call a lawyer.”

Kurt nodded. “Yeah. But Andi first. Come show me the pictures when you’re done. Unless they arrest me tonight, I’ll still help you get this story out.” He laughed bitterly. “Biggest of my career.”

Ben stopped outside of Sarah’s office with the contact sheet. She was working on the story, her fingers flying on the keyboard.

“Did you get the shot?” she asked.

“It’s dark, but it’ll do. Come look.”

They went into Kurt’s office. The three of them pored over the shot. Indeed, the gun flash had provided enough light for some detail.

“Should do the job,” Kurt said. His voice was wooden, but Ben could tell he was trying to stay focused. “Especially with the other shots identifying them in sequence.” He gestured to the computer. “May I?”

Ben locked eyes with him. Kurt could scan the negative and they could more quickly get a feel for the various printing options than it would take Ben to burn and dodge the shot for the most detail. But letting him muck with one of his shots was a little hard to swallow, considering.

“All right,” Ben said, finally. “Let’s see what it looks like.”

Minutes later, the shot was on the screen. Indeed the image was a bit murky, but recognizable. Following Ben’s requests, Kurt lightened some sections and darkened others to bring up the detail in the faces of the three people.

“It’s all there,” Kurt said, saving the file. “You’ve got everything you need on the negative.”

Ben looked at his watch. “I’m surprised Ludlow isn’t here yet.”

“He called me on the cell phone,” Sarah said. “He’s got men waiting outside my place and your family’s house.”

“Good,” Ben said. He asked Kurt if he had talked with Andi yet.

“Not yet.” Kurt avoided his eyes and said, “The trick on this is going to be holding on to the rights so that this shot doesn’t come out anywhere until we release it on the cover of
Insider.
I’ll push up the deadline immediately, and I’m going to get Huey in here so we can make sure we’ve got the best scan of every frame and that we’re happy with the prints before the FBI locks the negatives away in some evidence vault. If they want to guard us while we’re doing that, all the better.”

Just then, they heard the sound of the elevator door opening.

Ben took the negative and contact sheet and stepped out into the hallway. “That’d be Ludlow,” he said.

Sarah joined him as Kurt stayed behind, shutting down his laptop.

Ludlow came around the corner. He nodded to both of them. “Sorry it took a while.”

“What’d you find?” Ben asked.

“There wasn’t a body down at the site, but there was some blood. Looks like the body was dragged toward the boat dock.”

“Damn it! McGuire must have spun around right after losing us.”

Ludlow nodded. “Look, we’ve got to get down to the scene now. You need to lay out exactly what you saw so they can try to match as much physical evidence as they can. It’s a frenzy like you wouldn’t believe. A senator murdered? The
Globe
and the
Herald
are down there now, asking who the hell we’re looking for.”