Stealing the Countess (33 page)

“Convince me,” Camby said. “Why did you come here?”

I pointed at Donatucci.

“I came for him.” To play off Camby's obvious affection for her, I added, “And to protect Heavenly in case the good doctor thought she was the one playing him.”

“He's lying,” Donatucci said. “He didn't know I was the one on the flip phones.”

“I guessed a long time ago. I wanted Doc to confirm it. He did.”

“I promise you, McKenzie and Petryk have the Countess. They're just trying to shake you down.”

“I'll make it easy for you.” Doc was still bouncing on the balls of his feet when he spoke; his face was still flushed. “You deliver the violin, I'll not only let you both live, I'll let you keep the fifty.”

“Fifty-five,” I said.

I had to give Heavenly credit. Throughout the entire episode, she didn't bat so much as an eyelash. She nudged me with her good arm.

“Hungry?” she asked.

I nearly reminded her of the Schmitter. Instead, I said, “I could eat.”

“Let's get a cheesesteak.”

“Pat's or Geno's?”

“We'll decide on the way.”

“You think you can just walk away?” Doc pounded his chest. “From me?”

“We don't have your violin, Doc.” I pointed at Donatucci. “He does. You don't believe us—there's nothing we can say.”

I directed Heavenly toward the left field gate.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered.

“Get as far away from these guys as possible.”

I glanced over my shoulder.

“Don't do this, McKenzie,” Donatucci said. “Don't you do this.”

“How far do you think you'll get?” Doc said. “How far? This is my town.”

The inning had ended, and many more fans were moving to the food stands and restrooms, which might have been why Doc's thugs didn't attempt to stop us. We weaved around them, walking briskly. When we reached the gate, I threw another glance over my shoulder. The two thugs were standing next to Doc Young, who was talking to Camby; Camby was nodding his head. Donatucci was on his cell phone.

I was about to say, “Run,” but Heavenly broke into a sprint before I could.

I hadn't parked in the stadium's lot. Instead, I rented a spot at the Holiday Inn at Tenth and Packer just across from the stadium, partly because it was cheaper, but mostly because it allowed us to get out on the street quicker. Unfortunately, it was also much farther away. We had to cut through the stadium lot to reach it.

Running wasn't doing Heavenly's shoulder any good; she braced it with her right hand, but I knew it was hurting. I kept glancing over my shoulder; I couldn't see anyone following us, couldn't see anyone in the parking lot at all, and thought maybe we could slow down. It was because I was looking behind me that I didn't see Weldon Lamm until he was ten feet away and standing between us and where we wanted to go.

That's who Donatucci was calling on his cell,
my inner voice told me—long after the information would have been useful.

Lamm was carrying a rifle.

I stopped when I saw it; I would have bet the ranch it fired a .243 Winchester slug.

Heavenly and I were trapped between parked cars with nowhere to go, Heavenly in front of me. I wanted to get past her, put myself between her and Lamm. She wouldn't move. Instead, she straightened up, almost as if she were accepting the situation, and slid her right hand into her sling.

Lamm brought the rifle up.

“I said I'd fuck you up,” he said.

Heavenly shot him three times.

The bullets tore through her sling.

They lifted Lamm up and threw him onto the asphalt.

She pulled the Smith & Wesson out from under her sling and centered the sights on his unmoving chest.

At the same time, she shook her left arm; empty shell casings fell out of the sling.

“That hurt,” she said. “Hot.”

I thought, Heavenly couldn't fool the metal detectors at the entrance to the ballpark, but she had no trouble at all fooling the rent-a-cops that supervised them; they'd hovered around her, convinced that it was the bullet in her shoulder that set off the alarm, the poor woman.

“Don't move.”

The order came from behind me.

I turned toward it.

Donatucci was standing there; he was breathing hard, and his face was flushed.

He was holding a handgun as if he knew how to use it.

C'mon,
my inner voice said.
You're supposed to be too old to run.

“Drop the gun, Petryk,” he said. “Drop it now.”

Heavenly let the S&W slip from her hand onto the pavement.

“Goddamnit, McKenzie—if you had just done what I asked,” he said.

I was hoping to buy time with conversation, maybe convince him to let us go.

“We can still make this work,” I said.

“You made your choice.”

I gestured at his handgun and said, “Times have changed.”

“Where's the violin?”

“In Bayfield.”

“Where in Bayfield?”

“Give it up, Mr. Donatucci. If your wife knew what you were doing—”

Marcus Camby shot Donatucci in the back of the head.

He didn't say a word, just walked up to the old man from behind, pointed his own gun, and squeezed the trigger.

Donatucci's body lurched forward.

He fell at my feet.

I was surprised by the lack of blood.

Heavenly dove for her S&W.

“No, no,” Camby chanted. “Leave it.”

Heavenly straightened and moved away.

Camby brushed past me, bent at the waist, and picked up the gun.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Heavenly told him.

“I got this.”

“Marcus—”

“You and McKenzie, get out of here. Get out of Philadelphia. I'll smooth it over with Doc, tell 'im Donatucci confessed before I shot him, so you won't need to be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.”

Heavenly hugged him as best she could with her damaged arm.

“Thank you, Marcus,” she said.

“Call me in a couple of months. We'll go dancing.”

*   *   *

We walked to the Holiday Inn as casually as we could manage, found the Ford Focus, and fired it up. I drove randomly for half an hour to make sure we weren't being followed; drove longer than was necessary. It gave me a sense of control that I badly needed.

Heavenly suggested we stop at a tavern she knew near Logan Square. We ordered drinks, yet barely sipped them while we watched the rest of the Phillies game on the TV above the bar. The home team won; good for them.

“You knew Donatucci was the Voice all along,” Heavenly said.

“I suspected.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I was hoping I was wrong.”

“How did you figure it out?”

“Donatucci was in Philadelphia a week or so before the Countess was stolen; I saw the receipt from a tour he took to see the Liberty Bell. The flip phones that were sent to you and Ruland were activated in Philadelphia. Doc Young was in Philadelphia.”

“Intuitive thinking,” Heavenly said.

“Also, you and Ruland were involved with Donatucci in the past. Lamm, who was busted by an insurance investigator while trying to unload stolen jewelry—I bet he was, too. Donatucci knew we were speaking to Ruland in Duluth because I told him several hours before the meeting; Lamm must have followed Ruland instead of us. He knew you were in Bayfield, but I didn't tell him that you were going under the name Caroline Kaminsky. Did you tell him, tell the Voice, I mean?”

“No.”

“And yet he knew that, too. I thought Maryanne Altavilla was behind it all; at least I was hoping it was her, the way she behaved. I'll ask her about it when we get home.”

“If you had it all figured out, why didn't we just stay in Minnesota?”

“What about Trevor Ruland? What about the bullet you're going to carry in your shoulder for the rest of your life? There's no hard evidence; nothing that would've held up in a courtroom, that's for sure. Donatucci would have gotten away with all of it. Lamm, too.”

“You're saying we came here so you could manufacture a little justice?”

“Not really. I just wanted to know for sure if I was right. The justice part I was going to leave for later.”

“Jesus, McKenzie.”

“I wasn't going to kill him.”

“No?”

“I was going to call Special Agent Beatty at the FBI and make him angry some more.”

“Sure.”

*   *   *

I had stashed the SIG Sauer in the glove compartment of the Ford Focus. When we returned to the car, I wrapped it in Heavenly's shredded sling; she assured me she had another at the B&B. I drove to Penn's Landing and walked along the wharf while Heavenly waited for me. When no one was looking, I let it slide into the Delaware River.

Following Heavenly's directions, I drove back to the B&B; we were forced to park two blocks away.

Once we were inside, Heavenly moved directly to the rocking chair as if that had been her destination all the while. She sat down, hugging her left arm close to her torso; she rested her right hand on the arm of the chair.

“I'm tired,” she said.

“We need to think about getting out of Philly—the sooner the better.”

“I'll take care of it.”

“Heavenly—”

“I'm going to sleep here tonight. It's easier on my shoulder. If you want to use the big bed…”

“The double is fine.”

She closed her eyes.

I made myself ready for bed as quickly and as quietly as I could. When I emerged from the bathroom, I noticed that Heavenly was wearing her spare sling. She had kicked off her shoes and wrapped herself in a quilt that she had taken from the armoire. I extinguished the lights and crawled into the double.

“McKenzie?” she asked.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“I never shot anyone before. I never…”

“It's not an easy thing to live with,” I told her.

“Goodnight, McKenzie.”

“Goodnight, sweetie.”

 

EIGHTEEN

The moment the Airbus rolled to a halt, passengers clogged the aisle and gathered their belongings from the overhead luggage compartments—and then stood quietly for several minutes while waiting for the door to be secured. It was a ritual that I did not join. I never minded being one of the last to leave a plane.

Slowly, the aisle cleared. Only a few of us remained, including Heavenly, who sat staring out the window at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport terminal named after Charles A. Lindbergh. She had been the one to arrange our passage out of Philadelphia. From that moment to this I don't think she spoke more than twenty words.

“I'll get your bag,” I said.

“No. Thank you. I decided to go on to Phoenix.”

“Why?”

“Visit my mom.” Heavenly gently massaged her shoulder. “Heal.”

“I thought your mother lived in Denver.”

“How naïve you are, McKenzie, believing a liar like me.”

I yanked my bag out of the storage compartment and stood staring at Heavenly's nylon carry-on for a couple of beats. I had to ask about the $50,000.

“I once told you,” she said. “As long as I came out ahead—that's the main thing.”

“You're welcome to stay with Nina and me.”

“I know.”

“Bobby Dunston has a rack of baby backs with your name on it.”

“Tell him he was sweet to offer.”

“Heavenly…”

“McKenzie…”

I leaned in, cupped her chin, and tilted her head toward mine. I came
this
close to kissing her on the lips. Instead, I kissed her forehead.

“Take care of yourself, sweetie,” I said.

“You, too.”

“Don't be a stranger.”

I turned to leave. Heavenly called my name.

“Will you tell Nina something for me?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Tell her—we all have to be who we are in this world. Anything else is just pretending. It might be pleasant, but it never lasts.”

“I'm not sure what that means.”

“You're not supposed to. McKenzie, before you go, just out of curiosity, tell me—do you know who stole the violin?”

“What makes you think it was stolen?”

*   *   *

Nina was double-parked near the Frontier Airlines sign outside the entrance to the terminal. She was driving my Mustang, which annoyed me, I don't know why. She offered me the keys, but I told her to drive.

“Where's Heavenly?” Nina asked.

“She's going home.”

“Where's that?”

“Damned if I know. Nina, when we get back to the condo, I'm going to ask you to take my bag upstairs while I take off. There's something I need to do, and now's as good a time as any.”

“What exactly, if I may ask.”

“I'm either going to save a marriage or shatter it into so many pieces it can never be saved.”

“My experience, no outside force can help or hurt a marriage. Only the two people who are married can do that.”

*   *   *

The first words out of the Maestro's mouth when I entered his house—“Do you know where the Countess is?”

Renée Peyroux, on the other hand, wondered if I was all right.

“You look tired,” she said.

I asked for coffee, but that was just to get them sitting down. I positioned myself at the head of the kitchen table. Paul Duclos was on my left. Peyroux sat across from him on my right.

“Do you know where the Countess is?” Duclos repeated.

“I think so.”

“Where?”

“Do you have the money?”

“Upstairs.”

“Go get it.”

Duclos left the room in a hurry. I turned to his wife.