The Barbed-Wire Kiss (38 page)

He stood, moved the arc of light along the floor.

Dunleavy lay faceup near the window, eyes wide, one leg folded beneath him. The handle of the knife stuck out from the left side of his chest near the shoulder. His shirt was soaked with blood, a puddle of it fanning out on the floor around him. His right hand still held the automatic, finger in the trigger guard. The Glock had slid halfway out of his jacket pocket.

Harry bent, touched the side of the neck. No pulse, no flutter, the skin already cooling. He picked up the Glock and stuck it in his belt, turned away from the body, played the light across the rest of the room.

He was alone.

•  •  •

He searched the building from the top down.

There was no access to the roof, so he started on the twelfth floor. He walked the length of each cavernous room, sweeping the light from one side to the other, calling her name. Every floor was the same, strewn with trash, marked with graffiti, empty.

When he reached street level, he went back outside. He walked around the lot, shining the light into patches of high weeds, checking the recesses behind the precut concrete slabs propped against the building. He felt the panic rising steadily, fought it.

At the trailer he shone the light through the broken window, saw a dented metal desk, stacked milk crates, a seven-year-old calendar on the wall. The beam moved across the floor, illuminated the back of an old couch, the upholstery slashed and bleeding foam.

The door was unlocked. He pushed it open, flashed the beam inside. There was a bundle on the couch, a gray blanket over it. He moved closer and the light caught her wet and frightened eyes.

He knelt beside her, set the flashlight on the floor. She still wore the bathing suit. Her wrists and ankles were bound with clothesline, an X of electrician’s tape across her mouth. He peeled away the tape and she gasped for air, coughed. He tried to untie her feet, found he couldn’t. He took out his pocket knife, sliced through the line, undid her hands.

“Are you all right?” he said.

He put the knife away, began to massage her wrists.

“I heard shots,” she said. “I thought it was him. Coming back.”

He shook his head. “He’s not coming back.”

She was barefoot, so he bundled the blanket around her, gathered her in his arms, lifted. He held her tight as they left the trailer, felt her trembling against him despite the night’s warmth.

He carried her through the fence and to the station wagon, got her into the front seat, the blanket around her. He took out the Glock, laid it on the seat.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Don’t …”

“Just a few minutes. I promise.”

He kissed her forehead, locked her door. He walked back to the site, the left side of his chest throbbing, a deep, slow pain that seemed to worsen with every step.

Back at the trailer, he flashed the light around the office until he found what he wanted, a small, paint-stained drop cloth. He folded it, tucked it under his arm, and carried it back up to the sixth floor.

He shone the light along the concrete until he found the body. Something skittered away at the edge of the light, ran along the bottom of the wall. Rats.

With the flashlight propped on a windowsill, he opened the cloth on the floor. He knelt over Dunleavy, tried not to look at the damage the bullets had done. He took hold of the handle of the knife and slowly began to work it back and forth. It came out wetly and all at once, the blade slick with blood. He dropped it in the center of the cloth.

It took him fifteen minutes to find all the shell casings from the Grendel. There were eleven of them, shorter and stubbier than the ones from Dunleavy’s weapon. He found the empty Grendel, put it with the knife, dropped the shell casings beside them. Then he folded up the bundle, tied the edges.

The leather pack lay where Dunleavy had dropped it. He put it in his sling.

He used the flashlight to take a final look around the room. When he was sure he had everything he’d brought with him, he picked up the bundle and headed for the stairs.

He stowed the bundle and the money pack beneath the spare tire, unlocked the driver’s side door, and slid behind the wheel. She lay against the passenger door, the blanket tight around her, watching him. He touched her leg.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?”

She shook her head, looked out at the empty boardwalk and the ocean beyond.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I want to go home.”

“Home?”

“With you.”

He started the engine, drove them away from there.

He took her back to the farm, carried her up to the bedroom. When he got her undressed and into bed, he saw that the soles of her feet were cut and bruised. He ran a washcloth under hot water, cleaned them, used tweezers to pick out specks of glass and stone. She winced but didn’t cry. When he was done, he swabbed the cuts with iodine, then got her a Percocet from the medicine cabinet, a glass of water. He could already see the fatigue working in her.

“Take this,” he said. “It’ll help you sleep. I have to go out, but it won’t be long. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He went into the bathroom, undid the sling, and peeled off his sweatshirt. There was a indentation in the vest where the bullet had hit him. He unsnapped the Velcro stays, let the vest fall away. The skin on the left side of his chest was purple and swollen, pain radiating from it.

He undressed, splashed water in his face. When he went back, the bedroom was dark. He could hear her snoring softly. He took a T-shirt and another pair of jeans from the bureau, dressed in the hallway. He closed the bedroom door quietly, went downstairs and out into the final hours of the night.

By the time he got the boat out, the first traces of dawn were lightening the sky. He steered toward the horizon glow until he was far enough from shore, then eased back on the throttle, killed the engines and the running lights.

He looked back to the darkness of the shore. There were no other boats in sight. He got the drop cloth from the cabin, spread it open on the starboard engine cover.

The day was coming fast, the dawn a pink and blue bar on the horizon. He took the Glock from his sling, ejected the clip, and set both on the engine cover. Then he closed his eyes for a moment, felt the wind on his face, the motion of the boat beneath his feet.

He threw the knife first, flung it out as far he could against the wind, saw it drop and vanish beneath the surface. The shell casings came next, side-armed one by one out over the water. Then he field-stripped the Grendel into four parts and tossed them in different directions, heard them splash.

Bobby’s Glock was last. He scaled the clip out over the water, then cleared the breech, locked the slide back, and gripped the gun by the barrel. He held it low behind him and turned with the throw, twisting his hip into it as he let go.

The gun soared out against the brightening blue of the sky, like a dark and graceless bird. He watched it fall, its flight over, saw it hit the water and disappear from sight.

There was a Catholic church not far from the marina. He parked on the street, made his way up the wide stone steps. He pulled open the door, stepped through into fragrant coolness.

The church was empty except for a young priest lighting candles in an alcove near the altar. He looked at Harry, nodded, turned back to the flames. The stained-glass windows were glowing with the first full light of day.

Harry looked up the wide aisle to the altar, dipped his fingers into the bowl of holy water. He put one knee to the marble, crossed himself, the movement unpracticed for years but instinctive. He rose and made his way up the aisle, then slipped into one of the long pews. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the coolness of wood, feeling the pain in his chest and something deeper too. His lips moved as he tried to remember the words from his childhood.

He found them, as he knew he would. He prayed until the day filled the church and pushed back the shadows around him.

In that last week of august, the first hurricane of the season formed off South America and slowly made its way up the Atlantic coast. It stalled off Virginia, but the low-pressure front it pushed ahead of it brought the summer to an early end. The temperature dropped twenty-five degrees in two days, the skies turning a slate gray. The surf, kicked up by the storm’s death throes, was rough enough that it closed beaches from Cape May to Sandy Hook. It was a good time to leave.

In the end, they decided on a place neither of them had ever been, Captiva Island on the west coast of Florida. He called a realtor and arranged to rent a one-bedroom cottage near the beach for September and October. They would drive down, take their time, make it last.

Their first days at the farm were awkward. She’d chosen not to go to the funeral and, in a mutual but unspoken agreement, they hadn’t mentioned Fallon by name again. They were each questioned twice, first by the Spring Lake police, then by the county prosecutor’s office, with Wesniak sitting in. The county men made another run at them three days later at the farm, but they stuck to their story. She told them she’d been separated from her husband for a month before his death, had planned to file for divorce. She had no idea who might have killed him.

When their Florida plans were complete, he called Wesniak, told him they’d be leaving for a while, and that any more questions would have to wait until they got back. Wesniak wasn’t happy, but he knew there was nothing he could do to stop them.

The week before they left, he went to the doctor Ray had referred him to. His ribs were bruised but not broken where the bullet had hit him, the discoloration already fading. They took X rays of his arm, and the doctor told him the cast could likely come off in a month or so. That same day, he returned Ray’s station wagon and leased a two-year-old Ford Explorer from a dealership in Freehold.

He was sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, a map of Florida in front of him, when she came into the room. She set the leather fanny pack on the map.

“Send it to that woman,” she said. “Tell her it’s her husband’s money. Tell her you got it back somehow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You said it was your money too. You said the price was cheap.”

“I thought we might need it.”

“And now?”

“I don’t even want it around.”

“I’ll write her a letter. We can FedEx it out tomorrow.”

“The sooner, the better.”

“You know, you may not see that much cash together in the same place again for a long time.”

“Send it,” she said.

When the phone rang, he was at the kitchen window, watching her throw scraps of bread to the birds in the backyard.

“How’s it going?” Wesniak said.

“Well enough, I guess. What can I do for you?”

“Do for me? Nothing. Just checking up on you. You still planning on leaving tomorrow, taking that trip?”

“We’re packed.”

“Good. I understand the prosecutor’s office sent some people over to your house to talk with the widow again.”

“Last week.”

“Can’t blame them. That didn’t look good, you know, her moving in with you after her husband got clipped.”

“She’d been here almost a month before it happened. She heard about it on the news, like everyone else.”

“Like you?”

“Like me.”

“I talked to Shandler, the assistant prosecutor. He said, when it came down to it, there was no concrete evidence that either of you had been involved …”

“He’s right.”

“… and he had nothing at hand that would justify pursuing it further. So I guess things worked out for you after all, didn’t they? You got lucky.”

“Lucky? I haven’t felt that way much lately.”

“Depends on how you define the concept, I guess. By the way, they found Dunleavy.”

Harry gave that a second.

“Where?”

“In Asbury Park. There’s a construction site there, abandoned. They found him a couple days ago. Shot to death. ME thinks he was in there a couple weeks at least. Some crackheads found him. Funny how these things end up, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s a hell of a way to go. Not much dignity to it.”

“Is there ever?”

“He had a gun. Looks like he got off a few shots at whoever killed him.”

“Any idea who the shooter was?”

“Not yet. One thing we did find, though. The gun he had with him is the same one that was used to kill Fallon. The bullets match. So that gets you off the hook, I guess. Makes it all kind of neat.”

“Neat? I think you should be talking to Paulie Andelli and his friends, not to me.”

“I will be. But I doubt if it’ll get me anywhere. If Andelli had Dunleavy whacked, it was the sloppiest job I’ve seen in years. Dunleavy took half a dozen hits, none of them aimed particularly well. And something tells me if Andelli’s crew was responsible, we’d never have found the body.”

“Heat of the moment,” Harry said. “Exchange of gunfire. Somebody forgot to be professional. It happens.”

“Yes, it does. Tell me, how’s the widow holding up?”

“As good as could be expected.”

“Under the circumstances?”

“Under the circumstances.”

“There could be more trouble for you two, you know, when the will comes around.”

“She’s already talked to an attorney. She doesn’t want anything. Whatever’s left after lawyers and taxes will go to his daughters. It was her decision.”

He watched as she stood up, brushed crumbs from her hands.

“I wish you luck, Harry. I really do.”

“Thanks.”

“But if you think Andelli and his people are going to forget this ever happened and let you get on with your life, you’re mistaken.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“For them, at the moment, it’s back to business as usual. It wouldn’t pay to go after you now, you’re not a threat. But Andelli won’t forget. And some day he’s going to be drinking espresso in some social club and he’s going to say your name, that’s all, and someone’s going to get up from the table and make a phone call.”

“So put him away in the meantime.”