Gibbon's Decline and Fall (58 page)

He pushed himself up against the head of the bed, frowning thoughtfully. “You don't want me to go along?”

“Hal, I can't imagine a seven- or eight-hour drive plus several miles' walk would do a thing for your leg! Besides, someone needs to be here, and …” Her voice trailed off. And, she'd been going to say, she had a feeling this was DFC business—among them, only among them.

“I don't like the idea of your going off alone,” he said firmly.

“I won't be alone. There's six of us. And here we're sitting ducks. At least on the road we'll be a moving target.”

She hurried through dressing, chivvying Jessamine and Ophy into the car and giving them her beeper. “Stay within range. I'll call as soon as I know something.” She was in the courtroom by a quarter to nine. The door to the judge's chamber was open, and Judge Loretta Frieze stood in the doorway, talking with the clerk. Seeing Carolyn, she nodded and raised her hand, summoning.

“When Mr. Jagger arrives, I'll have an announcement,” she said. “Meantime, I can't see leaving the accused in jail. She's … subject to … well, she's simply been there far too long.” She glared at Carolyn, who had never raised the subject of bail.

“I didn't ask for bail, because she'd been threatened,” Carolyn explained. “There was no one to help her on the outside. She was safer where she was.”

“Given the current situation, she should be quite safe, don't you think? May I release her in your custody?”

Carolyn fought down an urge to scream. It was the worst possible time for such an arrangement. Judge Frieze had obviously made inquiries into Lolly's welfare, however, and any such gesture should be received generously. She nodded, trying to sound accepting as she said, “Of course, Judge Frieze. She can stay out at the farm.” All the beds were taken, but there was a comfortable couch in the study. Probably as comfortable as any other place Lolly had ever slept. But then she couldn't saddle Hal with Lolly while the rest of them went off on this wild-goose chase. They'd have to take Lolly with them.

Carolyn brought up the matter of the perjured jurors. The judge said something brief and unexpectedly obscene, then moved back to her discussion with the clerk. They were obviously trying to rearrange the court calendar, as there was much flicking of pages and penciling of notes.

The double doors at the rear of the courtroom banged open, and Jagger, his anger preceding him like a hot wind, burst into the room with a couple of flunkies in tow. He snarled at Carolyn, grinned viciously in the judge's direction, and threw himself into a chair as though he wanted to destroy it. Judge Frieze gave him an admonishing look and beckoned him to join her and Carolyn.

“I've reviewed the court reporter's transcript. I don't see anything obviously leading to mistrial, though closer reading may bring something to light. Neither of you is precluded from moving for a mistrial.”

Jagger merely glared.

Carolyn shook her head. “Not if that jury matter is taken care of.”

The judge nodded. “There's no way to proceed with the case today, however. No one's available. In five minutes I'm due to hear another case, but it should be over by the end of the week, and we could continue this case on Monday. There's only summation, right?”

They agreed on Monday. The bailiff went to inform the jurors. Jagger left, glaring straight ahead, not sparing Carolyn a glance. Carolyn called her pager, and Ophy said they'd be back within minutes. They had a few minutes' wait before a guard brought Lolly in, clad as she had been on the previous day, her face blank. The clerk made note of Judge Frieze's order concerning her, and Ophy took her in tow while Carolyn stopped to call Hal and see if he'd arranged for the car. It was in the drive, he said. Fully gassed and ready to go. He'd even started putting together the camp stuff.

Jagger, raging, received a phone call from Martin.

“Checked it out, like you said. I took a look from the hill across the road. They had a big cross-country kind of vehicle in the drive, and the man was packing stuff. I came back here to the office and ran all the tapes. The Crespin woman just got back to her place a few minutes ago. The other women are all there, including the girl. They're mostly moving around outside, so I can't hear what they're saying, but they're going somewhere.”

“A cross-country vehicle would indicate someplace remote?”

“That's how I'd see it.”

“All of them?”

“They're all packing up. Hunting the one that disappeared, maybe?”

“I want to follow them, Martin. Can you arrange that?” If the women went somewhere remote, he should be able to overtake them, follow them until they found the missing one, then pick them off one at a time, like shooting deer, overpower the last one or two, and get the real information. He'd do it alone, no witnesses. When he got the information, Webster would give him a gold star. He felt the accolades, like champagne in his blood.

Martin said, “I can follow them in my car, put a transmitter on their car when they stop along the way somewhere. Women always do.”

“A transmitter I can follow from the helicopter?”

“Sure. I'll send somebody to the airport with the receiver, have them put it in your chopper.”

“Thank you, Martin. As usual, you're very helpful.”

“That's all right, Mr. Jagger. Always happy to be of service.”

Jagger hung up, pleased with the information. If that bitch lawyer and her bitch feminist friends thought she was going to prevail over him, they had another think coming. Webster didn't need to know the details. He would take care of the details himself, very quietly, no one the wiser!

Martin, in his office, hung up the phone and turned to the men seated across from him. “He wants to go after them.”

Raymond Keepe waited for Webster to speak. Ever since he had met Webster this morning, he had waited for Webster to speak, to move, to gesture, to indicate what was to be done.

Webster spoke. “I see. Will his machine hold three or four?”

“No, sir. It's a two-seater.”

Another wait, then the calculated question: “Can we get a machine large enough for three or four? With you as pilot?”

Martin bit down his feelings about this suggestion. He did not want to go anywhere with Keepe or Keepe's boss. Still, he managed to get the words out: “I've got a friend who's got one, if it's not out on charter. But if you want me to pilot, I'll have to get hold of a man quick to follow those women and put a transmitter on their car—”

“Do so. Shall we meet you at the airport?”

Martin asked, “You two
and
Mr. Jagger?”

Webster said, “No, Martin. You and Jagger and Keepe. I
may or may not join you. But you don't need to advise Mr. Jagger you're going with him. We'll let it come as a surprise.”

Martin went with them to the door. When he came back to the desk, he opened a bottom drawer and rummaged around for a half-empty bottle before he picked up the phone. He normally didn't drink on the job. He supposed he was on a job, though it was no longer Jagger's job. With Jagger he'd always known right where he was, known exactly what Jagger wanted, known exactly how to satisfy him. With this new man …

With this new man he felt as he had once in California when an earthquake had happened. Everything moving, and no way of knowing when it was going to stop or whether he'd be alive when it did. It wasn't Keepe so much as it was this Webster guy he worked for. Keepe … he was just some kind of shadow. All he'd done was sort of sit there and quiver. But Webster! When he spoke to you, it was like being a hooked fish. You could feel the barbs in there, hanging on. Then, after he left, it was as if the hook were still there and the line still attached. You could feel the pulling. As if he could reel you in anytime he wanted to.

Martin laughed at himself mockingly. Too much late-night stuff on TV. He took a long pull at the bottle and let it settle warmingly. Way too many horror movies on late-night TV.

The DFC was ready to go by eleven. The Land Rover had been serviced and all its fluids topped up, so said Hal. The spare had been checked, and all the parts to the jack were present and accounted for. Agnes, after a few cross words with Faye, had been convinced to change into blue jeans and shirt, and Bettiann had been nagged into sensible shoes.

They settled themselves inside the blocky vehicle, at first tentatively, shifting about, then with those small dispositions of belongings that mark temporary human territories. Carolyn's maps and thermos and sack of apples; Ophy's medical journals. Behind them, Agnes had her knitting and Bettiann her camera, while Faye spread her sketchbook and colored pencils in the backseat next to Jessamine's field glasses and bird book. Sleeping bags and personal things were in the roof carrier; coats went into the cargo space behind the backseat, with Lolly nesting among them, cushioned among pillows and blankets.

They were ready to leave when a FedEx truck came down the drive in a cloud of dust to deliver a packet addressed to Carolyn. The return address was innocuous. Winter Mercantile, Baltimore, Maryland. Mike Winter lived in Baltimore.

Carolyn signed for the packet and shoved it under the maps beside her, leaving the car window open to let in the morning air. Hal leaned in and kissed her. “Stay in touch,” he said.

“I will,” she promised, starting the car.

“We don't know if there's anything where we're going,” said Agnes, almost angrily.

Carolyn responded. “That's right, Aggie. We don't. We're playing hide-and-seek, just the way we did when we were kids, out in the dusk with the night coming, everything dark, ominous shadows all around, rather scary, as I remember. You've told us we've been hiding our eyes, refusing to see. Well, now they're open and all the counting is over. Ready or not, here we come.”

Agnes pinched her lips and subsided. Before they left Vermont, she had called the abbey, explaining that there was an emergency and asking Sister Honore Philip to take care of things in the interim. Conscience told her she should go back, leave this investigation to others. Conscience told her it was her investigation as much as theirs. Conscience told her she had made this quagmire for herself, and anything she did might be wrong. Truth was, conscience was no damned help. She was merely going along, letting the others take her where they would. She did not believe they would find Sophy, but if they did, she was sure Sophy would prove to be something terrible. All those years of religious education, all the times she had read how demons had tempted the saints, how the devil had tempted witches into his service, and she had never realized that she herself was being tempted by a demon. She had not felt important enough to be singled out for temptation. When she became Reverend Mother, she should have realized that she was important enough. And Sophy had probably known she would be abbess, known it years ago. Foreseen it. Devils could foresee things.

Beside her, Bettiann was wondering, as she had every now and then since the previous Sunday, whether William would want to stay married—assuming this current condition of mankind went on, as it seemed likely it would. William had phoned Bettiann last night, but during their conversation
they'd been careful to say nothing to one another. Of course, William had never said very much to her. He talked to her about as much as he talked to the Mercedes, or to the cook he'd hired away from the Morrisons. He talked more with the chauffeur than he did with her. Guy talk. Would he ever talk to her? If so, what would he say?

In the backseat Jessamine was trying unsuccessfully to think of nothing. Ever since Saturday morning she'd been unable to get the 1997 DFC meeting out of her mind. She kept going over and over it, all the details, all the things they'd done. She couldn't believe what Agnes had said about Sophy and the vial. The seal had been intact when she'd taken it back to the lab. Stupid and ridiculous of her to have taken it home to show the others, yes, she'd admit that. She could just as well have taken a dummy vial, but she'd been so excited about the stuff itself! A genetic key to behavior. A way to understand people better! Why hadn't she just described the stuff? God knows! But the seal had been intact. Intact. She'd broken the seal when she'd used the carrier to spray the bonobos.

Agnes could be right. The human race was certainly acting as though they'd been infected with something. Human lifestyles were changing remarkably. Daily motivations were changing. And there was that sign Lily had made, again and again, that circling sign. We! That's what the sign was. We! Not we bonobos. We, you and me, Jessamine. Jessamine and Lily … we females. We women! What about we women? Sophy was a woman. Sophy cared about women. Jessamine shut her eyes and shook her head slowly, side to side. Stop thinking. Thinking didn't help!

Beside Jessamine, Faye was sketching the line of Ophy's head and shoulder, wanting that particular line for the dryad in the fountain. The whole concept was coming together. She knew now it would be great! If the consortium honored their contract. If she could solve the problem of the central figure. If she had time to finish it.

Staring through the windshield, Ophy was thinking of Simon, wishing he were there with her. Only that. Nothing else.

Beside her, Carolyn, who had firmly resolved to stop thinking of anything unpleasant, found herself thinking of nothing else. Aggie had become a stranger who regarded them all with suspicion. As though they'd been contaminated … by Sophy, probably. The feeling of menace was still with her, also: an itch at the back of her neck, a pricking of her scalp, a
formless troubling in some corner of her mind, a ghost that wouldn't rest and wouldn't identify itself. What was she afraid of? Being killed by Jagger or by his minion? Surely he wouldn't try that unless she was alone, certainly not when there were seven of them. What else? Maybe she was afraid they'd find Sophy and learn that Aggie was right and Sophy had done something … weird. Was something … weird. But Sophy wouldn't have done anything evil. She just wouldn't have.