Tell No One (25 page)

She turned and checked the screen. Next to British
Airways Flight 174, the word Boarding started to flash.

Her flight was being called.

Carlson and Stone, along with their local buddies Dimonte and Krinsky, stood with the British Airways reservation manager.

“He’s a no-show,” the reservation manager, a blue-and-white-uniformed woman with a kerchief, a beautiful accent, and a name tag reading Emily told them.

Dimonte cursed. Krinsky shrugged. This was not unexpected. Beck had been successfully eluding a manhunt all day. It was a long shot that he would be dumb enough to try to board a flight using his real name.

“Dead end,” Dimonte said.

Carlson, who still had the autopsy file clutched against his hip, asked Emily, “Who is your most computer-literate employee?”

“That would be me,” she said with a competent smile.

“Please bring up the reservation,” Carlson said.

Emily did as he requested.

“Can you tell me when he booked the flight?”

“Three days ago.”

Dimonte leapt on that one. “Beck planned to run. Son of a bitch.”

Carlson shook his head. “No.”

“How do you figure?”

“We’ve been assuming that he killed Rebecca Schayes to shut her up,” Carlson explained. “But if you’re going to leave the country, why bother? Why take the risk of waiting three days and trying to get away with another murder?”

Stone shook his head. “You’re overthinking this one, Nick.”

“We’re missing something,” Carlson insisted. “Why did he all of a sudden decide to run in the first place?”

“Because we were onto him.”

“We weren’t onto him three days ago.”

“Maybe he knew it was a matter of time.”

Carlson frowned some more.

Dimonte turned to Krinsky. “This is a waste of time. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He looked at Carlson. “We’ll leave a couple of uniforms around just in case.”

Carlson nodded, only half listening. When they left, he asked Emily, “Was he traveling with anyone?”

Emily hit some keys. “It was a solo booking.”

“How did he book it? In person? On the phone? Did he go through a travel agency?”

She clicked the keys again. “It wasn’t through a travel agency. That much I can tell you because we’d have a marking to pay a commission. The reservation was made directly with British Airways.”

No help there. “How did he pay?”

“Credit card.”

“May I have the number, please?”

She gave it to him. He passed it over to Stone. Stone shook his head. “Not one of his cards. At least, not one we know about.”

“Check it out,” Carlson said.

Stone’s cell phone was already in his hand. He nodded and pressed the keypad.

Carlson rubbed his chin. “You said he booked his flight three days ago.”

“That’s correct.”

“Do you know what time he booked it?”

“Actually yes. The computer stamps it in. Six-fourteen in the
P.M.
”

Carlson nodded. “Okay, great. Can you tell me if anyone else booked at around the same time?”

Emily thought about it. “I’ve never tried that,” she said. “Hold on a moment, let me see something.” She typed. She waited. She typed some more. She waited. “The computer won’t sort by booking date.”

“But the information is in there?”

“Yes. Wait, hold up.” Her fingers started clacking again. “I can paste the information onto a spreadsheet. We can put fifty bookings per screen. It will make it faster.”

The first group of fifty had a married couple who booked the same day but hours earlier. Useless. The second group had none. In the third group, however, they hit bingo.

“Lisa Sherman,” Emily pronounced. “Her flight was booked the same day, eight minutes later.”

It didn’t mean anything on its own, of course, but Carlson felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Oh, this is interesting,” Emily added.

“What?”

“Her seat assignment.”

“What about it?”

“She was scheduled to sit next to David Beck. Row sixteen, seats E and F.”

He felt the jolt. “Has she checked in?”

More typing. The screen cleared. Another came up. “As a matter of fact, she has. She’s probably boarding as we speak.”

She adjusted her purse strap and stood. Her step was brisk, her head high. She still had the glasses and
the wig and implants. So did the photograph of Lisa Sherman in her passport.

She was four gates away when she heard a snippet of the CNN report. She stopped short. A man wheeling an industrial-size piece of carry-on ran into her. He made a rude hand gesture as though she’d cut him off on a freeway. She ignored him and kept her eyes on the screen.

The anchorwoman was doing the report. In the right-hand corner of the screen was a photograph of her old friend Rebecca Schayes side by side with an image of … of Beck.

She hurried closer to the screen. Under the images in a bloodred font were the words
Death in the Darkroom.

“… David Beck, suspected in the slaying. But is that the only crime they believe he’s committed? CNN’s Jack Turner has more.”

The anchorwoman disappeared. In her place, two men with NYPD windbreakers rolled out a black body bag on a stretcher. She recognized the building at once and almost gasped. Eight years. Eight years had passed, but Rebecca still had her studio in the same location.

A man’s voice, presumably Jack Turner’s, began his report: “It’s a twisted tale, this murder of one of New York’s hottest fashion photographers. Rebecca Schayes was found dead in her darkroom, shot twice in the head at close range.” They flashed a photograph of Rebecca smiling brightly. “The suspect is her longtime friend, Dr. David Beck, an uptown pediatrician.” Now Beck’s image, no smile, lit up the screen. She almost fell over.

“Dr. Beck narrowly escaped arrest earlier today after
assaulting a police officer. He is still at large and assumed armed and dangerous. If you have any information on his whereabouts …” A phone number appeared in yellow. Jack Turner read out the number before continuing.

“But what has given this story an added twist are the leaks coming out of Manhattan’s Federal Building. Presumably, Dr. Beck has been linked to the murder of two men whose bodies were recently unearthed in Pennsylvania, not far from where Dr. Beck’s family has a summer residence. And the biggest shocker of all: Dr. David Beck is also a suspect in the eight-year-old slaying of his wife, Elizabeth.”

Á photograph of a woman she barely recognized popped up. She suddenly felt naked, cornered. Her image vanished as they went back to the anchorwoman, who said, “Jack, wasn’t it believed that Elizabeth Beck was the victim of serial killer Elroy ‘KillRoy’ Kellerton?”

“That’s correct, Terese. Authorities aren’t doing much talking right now, and officials deny the reports. But the leaks are coming to us from very reliable sources.”

“Do the police have a motive, Jack?”

“We haven’t heard one yet. There has been some speculation that there may have been a love triangle here. Ms. Schayes was married to a Gary Lamont, who remains in seclusion. But that’s little more than conjecture at this point.”

Still staring at the TV screen, she felt the tears start welling up.

“And Dr. Beck is still at large tonight?”

“Yes, Terese. The police are asking for the public’s cooperation, but they stress that no one should approach him on their own.”

Chatter followed. Meaningless chatter.

She turned away. Rebecca. Oh God, not Rebecca. And she’d gotten married. Had probably picked out dresses and china patterns and done all those things they used to mock. How? How had Rebecca gotten tangled up in all this? Rebecca hadn’t known anything.

Why had they killed her?

Then the thought hit her anew: What have I done?

She had come back. They had started looking for her. How would they have gone about that? Simple. Watch the people she was closest to. Stupid. Her coming back had put everyone she cared about in danger. She had messed up. And now her friend was dead.

“British Airways Flight 174, departing for London. All rows may now board.”

There was no time to beat herself up. Think. What should she do? Her loved ones were in danger. Beck—she suddenly remembered his silly disguise—was on the run. He was up against powerful people. If they were trying to frame him for murder—and that seemed pretty obvious right now—he’d have no chance.

She couldn’t just leave. Not yet. Not until she knew that Beck was safe.

She turned and headed for an exit.

When Peter Flannery finally saw the news reports on the David Beck manhunt, he picked up the phone and dialed a friend at the D.A.’s office.

“Who’s running the Beck case?” Flannery asked.

“Fein.”

A true ass, Flannery thought. “I saw your boy today.”

“David Beck?”

“Yeah,” Flannery said. “He paid me a visit.”

“Why?”

Flannery kicked back his BarcaLounger. “Maybe you should put me through to Fein.”

W
hen night fell, Tyrese found me a room at the apartment of Latisha’s cousin. We couldn’t imagine that the police would unearth my connection with Tyrese, but why take the chance?

Tyrese had a laptop. We hooked it up. I checked my email, hoping for a message from my mysterious mailer. Nothing under my work account. Nothing under my home account. I tried the new one at bigfoot.com. Nothing there either.

Tyrese had been looking at me funny since we’d left Flannery’s office. “I ask you something, Doc?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“When that mouthpiece said about that guy being murdered—”

“Brandon Scope,” I added.

“Yeah, him. You look like someone hit you with a stun gun.”

It had felt it. “You’re wondering why?”

Tyrese shrugged.

“I knew Brandon Scope. He and my wife shared an office at a charitable foundation in the city. And my father grew up with and worked for his father. In fact, my father was in charge of teaching Brandon about the family holdings.”

“Uh-huh,” Tyrese said. “What else?”

“That’s not enough?”

Tyrese waited. I turned to face him. He kept his eyes steady and for a moment I thought he could see all the way to the blackest corners of my soul. Thankfully, the moment passed. Tyrese said, “So what do you want to do next?”

“Make a few phone calls,” I said. “You sure they can’t be traced back here?”

“Can’t see how. Tell you what, though. We’ll do it with a conference call to another cell phone. Make it that much harder.”

I nodded. Tyrese set it up. I had to dial another number and tell somebody I didn’t know what numbers to dial. Tyrese headed for the door. “I’m gonna check on TJ. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Tyrese?”

He looked back. I wanted to say thanks, but somehow it didn’t feel right. Tyrese understood. “Need you to stay alive, Doc. For my kid, see?”

I nodded. He left. I checked my watch before dialing Shauna’s cell phone. She answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“How’s Chloe?” I asked.

“Great,” she said.

“How many miles did you walk?”

“At least three. More like four or five.” Relief coursed through me. “So what’s our next—”

I smiled and disconnected the phone. I dialed up my forwarding buddy and gave him another number. He mumbled something about not being a goddamn operator, but he did as I asked.

Hester Crimstein answered as though she were taking a bite out of the receiver. “What?”

“It’s Beck,” I said quickly. “Can they listen in, or do we have some kind of attorney-client protection here?”

There was a strange hesitation. “It’s safe,” she said.

“I had a reason for running,” I began.

“Like guilt?”

“What?”

Another hesitation. “I’m sorry, Beck. I screwed up. When you ran like that, I freaked out. I said some stupid things to Shauna, and I quit as your attorney.”

“Never told me,” I said. “I need you, Hester.”

“I won’t help you run.”

“I don’t want to run anymore. I want to surrender. But on our terms.”

“You’re not in any position to dictate terms, Beck. They’re going to lock you up tight. You can forget bail.”

“Suppose I offer proof I didn’t kill Rebecca Schayes.”

Another hesitation. “You can do that?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of proof?”

“A solid alibi.”

“Provided by?”

“Well,” I said, “that’s where it gets interesting.”

*    *    *

Special Agent Carlson picked up his cell phone. “Yeah.”

“Got something else,” his partner Stone said.

“What?”

“Beck visited a cheap mouthpiece named Flannery a few hours ago. A black street kid was with him.”

Carlson frowned. “I thought Hester Crimstein was his attorney.”

“He wasn’t looking for legal representation. He wanted to know about a past case.”

“What case?”

“Some all-purpose perp named Gonzalez was arrested for killing Brandon Scope eight years ago. Elizabeth Beck gave the guy a hell of an alibi. Beck wanted to know all about it.”

Carlson felt his head doing a double spin. How the hell …?

“Anything else?”

“That’s it,” Stone said. “Say, where are you?”

“I’ll talk to you later, Tom.” Carlson hung up the phone and pressed in another number.

A voice answered, “National Tracing Center.”

“Working late, Donna?”

“And I’m trying to get out of here, Nick. What do you want?”

“A really big favor.”

“No,” she said. Then with a big sigh, “What?”

“You still have that thirty-eight we found in the Sarah Goodhart safety-deposit box?”

“What about it?”

He told her what he wanted. When he finished, she said, “You’re kidding, right?”

“You know me, Donna. No sense of humor.”

“Ain’t that truth.” She sighed. “I’ll put in a request, but there’s no way it’ll get done tonight.”

“Thanks, Donna. You’re the best.”

When Shauna entered the building’s foyer, a voice called out to her.

“Excuse me. Miss Shauna?”

She looked at the man with the gelled hair and expensive suit. “And you are?”