The Tempest (2 page)

 

Chapter Two

T
his has to be in strict confidence,” Susan Champlain said, moving Luke's paper-­clip holder several inches to one side.

“Sure,” he said, wondering for a moment what the difference was between “strict” confidence and regular confidence.

“Because I could be in trouble if it ever came out that we were doing this.”

Her eyes checked with his before she went on. Luke gave her a reassuring nod.

At first, the story Susan told struck Luke as sadly predictable. Champlain and her husband—­“an older man,” she called him—­had been having problems in recent weeks—­months, really. Part of it was just the stress of his being away so much, she said. “We never seem to be able to get into a rhythm, so to speak.” But at the same time, he'd begun keeping tabs on her, watching where she went when he was in town. It had gotten to the point where there were only a few places she felt she could go anymore—­the Old Shore Inn, the public library, the wildlife sanctuary, the Humane Society, and the church.

“Not to alarm you,” she said, “but—­he knows I'm here right now. And I think the only reason he's okay with me coming to church is he assumes I won't get into any trouble here. I told him I was going to see you about volunteering.” Her blue eyes seemed to widen slightly, as if letting in light. “You do have volunteers, right?”

“Sure.”

Five nights ago, she said, her voice thickening for a moment, Nicholas had returned from Philadelphia and they'd gotten into it “big-­time.”

“It's reached the point where it's starting to scare me a little. I'm just afraid something's going to happen, someone's going to get hurt. Have you met my husband?”

“Not yet, no. I've seen him in town.”

“Well.” Her eyes turned briefly to the window. “I mean, you see him in public, he's very personable. Always sounds perfectly reasonable. He used to be a politician, and in a way, he still is. He's a very clever man. But, I mean—­I hate to have to put it this way but, basically, he's been threatening me.”

That was when Susan Champlain's story stopped being predictable.

“He hasn't hit me, if that's what you're thinking. But the other night—­” She leaned back and took a long, deliberate breath. “The other night, he said to me—­he was kind of jacked up, and he said, ‘You know, I could make you disappear if I had to, and no one would ever find you.' ”

She stared at Luke and he watched her eyes moisten. “No one would believe that, of course. And he always tries to turn it around after the fact. Make it seem, oh, I was only joking, or I was just trying to make a point. He has a very sneaky style of arguing.”

Susan lowered her head and seemed to clear her throat; moments later, Luke realized that she was crying. He rushed around the desk and plucked a box of tissues from Aggie's office. Aggie kept her eyes on her computer screen, pretending not to notice. ­People came to Luke for all sorts of reasons. Often it was just the idea that he represented some sort of higher authority, which had somehow gone missing in their lives.

“Sorry. Thank you,” Susan said, dabbing her eyes. “I guess I'm kind of a mess right now.”

“No, take your time.”

Aggie, whose own inquisitiveness knew no bounds, knocked softly on the door. “Is there anything I can get for you?” she said, peering in. “Water?”

“We're fine,” Luke said.

Her eyes made a quick assessment of Susan Champlain before she closed the door.

“What was this argument about the other night?” Luke asked once she had regained her composure. “If you don't mind my asking.”

“It was over
noth
ing. Well, I mean it was over
some
thing, of course.” She touched the tissue to each eye. “It was basically over a picture I had.”

“A picture.”

“Yes. Just a
photo
I'd taken, last year, with my iPhone. I take candids, it's part of what I do.

“For my art,” she added, reading his frown. “I create photographic art, incorporating images of real life. You know, like Irving Herzberg?” Luke raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “He secretly photographed ­people on the New York City subway, back in the sixties. Or, like, Weegee, who'd go out in the middle of the night and do candids of ­people on the streets. In that tradition.” She blinked, her eyes nearly dry again. “I mean, I'm not trying to be a
spy
, but I've even taken a ­couple of shots surreptitiously during your Sunday ser­vice. I hope you don't mind.”

Luke shook his head, although he couldn't imagine that members of the congregation would be pleased to hear she'd been taking “candids” during Sunday ser­vice.

“But he saw this one
particular
picture . . .” She straightened her back. “. . . and went ballistic. Absolutely ballistic. He didn't hit me, but he grabbed my arm. And that was it—­that's when he said he could make me disappear.”

“What was this photo of, that it would have caused such a reaction?”

“Well—­that's the funny part. It was nothing, really. Just someone's house. But I guess . . . In fairness, he did make a point of saying, ‘Don't even think about taking pictures here,' and I did, anyway. So in a sense, it was my own fault. I mean, I know Nicholas is involved in some things that are sensitive, that he's legally prohibited from talking about.”

“Oh? What might those be?” Luke asked.

“Government contracts?” She lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I don't even go there. We don't talk about his business.”

“Okay.”

It was clear by now that Susan hadn't come to Luke seeking advice. She'd come seeking help. And he didn't know that he could provide the kind of help that she needed.

“Have you told anyone else about this? Sometimes talking about something—­”

Susan was shaking her head. “If he knew I was telling you this, he'd have a fit. I mean, I've mentioned a few things in the past to my sister. She's in Iowa, though; there's not much she's going to do.”

She reached into her purse, rooting around for something, maybe another tissue, Luke thought.

“Do you want to see it?”

“See it?”

“The picture.”

“You mean you still have it?”

“A copy, yeah.”

She smiled quickly and Luke saw something unexpected in the way the muscles of her face aligned—­a determined recklessness, it seemed. Briefly, he wondered if he
should
look, if doing so would make him complicit.

But Susan had rounded the desk by then and was holding the phone in front of his face.

“There,” she said, not quite letting him touch it.

The picture was of two men, standing in a large, empty room that appeared old and once-­elegant. It might have been a palace in Italy: polished wooden floor, ornate wallpaper, a large French-­style gilded mirror reflecting another room. The men were turned from the camera, one slender, wearing a dark suit, the other stockier, African-­American, in jeans, a light green jacket and running shoes, gesturing with his right hand.

“What was the issue he had with this photo?”

“See? You don't get it, either.” Susan studied the photo herself before turning it off. “I guess the gentleman, his client, just had an issue with pictures.”

“But he didn't know you were taking it, right?”

“No,” she said. “He didn't. Nicholas was the only one who knew I had this. He took away my phone as soon as he found out. But I have it on iCloud.” She allowed a thin smile. “He's not especially computer literate. But he was looking through my cell photos the other night—­on the pretense that he needed to find something to send his daughter—­and he discovered that I still had this, which I'd more or less forgotten. And that's when he went ballistic. Telling me, ‘I can't believe you still have this. ­People could get killed, you wave this thing around.' I thought he was absolutely nuts.”

“And you don't have any idea why he was so upset? Or what sort of client this is?”

“No, it's—­ That isn't my business, like I say. We were, um, on our way to the airport at the time. And this man called, he asked Nicholas to stop by, pick up some papers or something.” She was moving her hands again. “Normally, he wouldn't have taken me, of course, but it was all sort of impromptu. He told me, ‘Wait in the car.' But then it dragged on. After a while, I needed a bathroom. There was a side door open, like a servants' entrance, so I walked down the hallway, and saw this empty ballroom. I decided I'd take a quick picture as I walked past.”

“It looks like it's Europe.”

“Yes, I know. It's actually Philadelphia. The suburbs. Main Line.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“The picture?” Her eyes went a little funny then. “No one, really.” She took a breath, leaned back and crossed her arms. Luke realized after a moment that she was waiting for him, as if he might be able to wave a wand and make her problem disappear.

“Well, I'd like to help,” Luke said. “I do think it's important sometimes that we step back and look at things in a larger context. And understand that our problems are better dealt with on God's terms rather than our own. Sometimes we only make things worse when we try to fix them on our own.”

Realizing that this might not be the most practical advice for the situation, Luke added, with a quick throat-­clearing, “I also think, if he's threatening you, and you feel you're in danger, as you say, you probably ought to talk with the police.” Susan leaned forward and her eyes dropped to his desk, her blond hair falling forward. “I could recommend someone,” Luke said, “who would talk with you in confidence.” Her right index finger began to trace a triangle shape on his desk. “Also, there are counselors with county health ser­vices, trained for this sort of thing. No charge involved. We have ­people here, too—­why are you shaking your head?”

“I couldn't do that,” she said. “Any of what you said.”

“Why not?”

“I'm afraid what would happen if he found out. Also, I think he may have some sort of connection with the sheriff and state's attorney here. I'm not sure. He becomes friendly with ­people quite easily when he wants to, wherever we go. I know he's given a lot of money to the local Fraternal Order of Police.” She was still tracing the triangle on his desk.

“Does your husband ever come to church? It might be helpful if you—­”

“No,” she said. She raised her eyes to his. “No interest. If you ask him, he'll tell you he believes in God, but that religion's a
personal
matter. He has a whole speech about it.” She made a surprising snort, most of it unintended. “I can count on one finger the number of times I've seen him pray.”

“One finger?” Luke said. “Or one hand?”

“Finger.”

Luke closed his eyes for a moment, deciding what to do. “How about if we pray,” he said.

She shrugged. “All right.” Susan Champlain squeezed her eyes tightly, as if doing so would make the prayer more effective. And Luke prayed, asking for guidance to help her through this difficult passage, citing St. Paul's admonition that we keep our faith in times of tribulation and quoting Psalm 37, the psalm of patience. After he said “Amen,” Susan opened her eyes again, blinking at the room as if expecting to have been transported somewhere else.

Before she stood, they exchanged phone numbers and agreed to talk again, in another day or two.

“And maybe you could think about what I've suggested,” Luke told her, standing in the gravel parking lot out front. It was a hot afternoon, but the breeze from the Bay was pleasant. Susan raised her eyebrows. Luke clarified: “About the police or county ser­vices, I mean.”

“Oh.”

“And please—­again—­feel free to call me at any time.”

“I will.”

Luke extended his right hand again to shake. She smiled, nodding at the sling. “You take care of that.”

“I will.”

As Luke came back in, Aggie asked, “Is she all right?”

Her eyes asked the real question:
What did she tell you?

“I think so,” Luke said. “Just having a little rough patch.”

Luke went in his office and closed the door. He watched Susan getting into her BMW with the Pennsylvania plates and pulling out, admiring the spark of courage that had prompted her to come see him.

Luke had a feeling he'd be hearing a lot more from Susan Champlain in the coming days.

But he was wrong about that.

T
HREE AND A
half hours later, Belasco watched the front porch light go on at the sprawling Victorian house on Cooper's Point. It was beginning to drizzle, the sky darkening early. Meaning there would be no sunset tonight; Susan Champlain would not be coming out again. How ironic that a storm had given her this reprieve.

Belasco watched through binoculars as she moved sleekly in and out of view, barefoot, wearing an oversized T-­shirt. Safe on the other side of the glass. A self-­assured woman, at least when she was alone. Bouncing a little, probably listening to some music. Belasco sighed, and turned away. They'd have to wait for her, then. One more day.

 

Chapter Three

L
ouis Nicholas Champlain.”

“That's him.”

Charlotte Bowers's face glowed in computer light. She was seated at the worktable in her tiny study, searching for information about Susan and Nicholas Champlain. Sneakers, their mixed yellow Lab, was curled contentedly on the floor beneath her, his favorite after-­supper spot. The house smelled of cream-­of-­crab soup.

This was the night that they had planned to talk about their “future,” although it was a subject they'd been flirting with for weeks, always managing—­artfully, for the most part—­to put it off. Tonight, the excuse would be Susan Champlain, Luke could see, and he'd have to take the blame for that. He had called Charlotte from work to ask if she wanted him to pick up a bottle of wine and ended up telling her all about their conversation. Charlotte's curiosity was legendary.

“What do you see?” he asked her.

“Not a lot.”

“Sorry.” Luke realized that he was blocking her light. “I'm hovering, aren't I?”

“No, please hover. Although if you wanted to hover in a different spot, I wouldn't object.”

“Tactful.”

“Thank you.”

Luke got a beer and leaned against the kitchen table, admiring Charlotte's profile as she scrolled down a web page. Charlotte was a historian, from a well-­to-­do D.C. family, who'd made her own quirky paths through life, often defying her parents' expectations. Marrying Luke, for instance. Luke had been raised by roaming, working-­class parents, mostly out West. Before joining the seminary, he'd been a paramedic and EMT for several years, while cultivating all sorts of odd interests, from rock climbing to sketching to wok cooking. They were opposites in many ways but temperamentally similar. Charlotte possessed a gentle inwardness that had always appealed to him. Although she played the role of pastor's wife to a T, she harbored her own peculiar spiritual ideas, drawing from sources as diverse as Greek mythology, Buddhism and Rastafarianism. She abhorred the phrase
new age
, although some in the congregation regarded her, disapprovingly, as a closet new-­ager.

Most days Charlotte worked at home alone, though she dressed as if she were in an office full of coworkers, not just her and Sneakers. Tonight she wore crisp tan capris and a short-­sleeved white blouse, her ash blond hair up in a claw clasp.

“We were going to have that conversation,” Luke reminded her.

“Past tense?”

“Not necessarily.”

Charlotte glanced at him and smiled, parenthetical grooves appearing on each side of her mouth. Then she looked back at the screen.

Luke edged a little closer to see what she was doing.

“The only negative I find on Nick Champlain is that he developed a condo project nine or ten years ago with a man who'd been convicted of cocaine possession. And later this man was charged with fraud and extortion.”

“Nice combination.”

“Yes.” Charlotte clicked to a different page. “Otherwise, he seems to have done all the right things. Makes a point of giving to charities.”

“Including the Tidewater FOP, I understand.”

“Yes, and paramedics. He's a former city councilman in a small town in Pennsylvania . . . Has a grown daughter. He married Susan Wilkins four years ago, it looks like. Right after divorcing his second wife. She's thirty-­six now. Looks like—­let's see, twenty, twenty-­one-­year age difference.”
An older man.
“How's your arm, by the way?”

“Getting better. Beer helps.”

She turned and smiled at him.

“I'm getting used to you in a sling, actually. It kind of suits you.”

“Thanks,” Luke said. “Although that feels like a left-­handed compliment if I've ever heard one.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Sorry.”

“So, how worried is she?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“If we must.”

“Eleven.”

“And it's not possible she's embellishing a little—­because she feels ignored and wants someone to take greater interest in her?”

“I wondered that at first,” Luke said. “But, no, I don't think so. I think the fear's real. Although I, also, think she may have left out part of the story.”

“Which part?”

“The main part. The part about what she's really afraid of.”

Charlotte gave him an appraising look, with her intelligent pale blue eyes. “You know that there are some ­people you can't help, right?” she said, repeating something he'd told her.

Luke sighed but smiled. They'd been through this before. Charlotte knew he struggled sometimes with the disengaged attitudes of many churchgoers.

Sneakers sat up and began to scratch his side. He walked lazily around the chair and nudged Luke's leg. Sneakers was a rescue dog whom Charlotte had brought home from the Humane Society; he tended to become restless when he was excluded too long from conversations.

“What is it?” Luke said. “Didn't we already do our male bonding?” They had, in fact—­very thoroughly.

“You want to know what I think?” Charlotte said. “I think he's bucking to lead the pet blessing ser­vice.”

“Pastor Sneakers.”

“Yes.”

“I guess we'd better go out and discuss it, then. You ready?” Luke opened the front door and Sneakers galloped out across the lawn. It was drizzling, but that didn't bother Sneakers, who ran willy-­nilly alongside the marshlands, stopping to water the grass and to raise his nose several times at the seafood smells drifting across the harbor.

Luke walked to the edge of the bluff, recalling the haunted look on Susan Champlain's face. He gazed down at the Bay, and heard the loud but distant sounds of summer ­people dining by the water, feeling the cold truth of what Charlotte had said to him . . .
Some ­people you can't help
. . . It was a strange evening, and he looked back in the direction of their cottage, thinking for a second he'd seen something wild running through the marsh grasses . . . Just the wind . . . Luke took a deep breath of the wet air and began to walk back.

“She has a website, you know,” Charlotte said, as he came in. Sneakers was at his water bowl already, lapping with abandon.

Charlotte got up to give him a look while she went into the kitchen to pour a glass of white wine. It was a modest website, self-­constructed from a template. Luke remembered, as he clicked through it, that he had visited here once before, early in summer, the first time Susan had mentioned she was a photographer. Three samples of her art were posted now, each showing what seemed to be a reflection—­or a photo-­shopped image—­on a human eyeball. The first,
Light of Awareness
, was of an elderly Asian-­looking ­couple seated on an iron scroll bench in an overgrown tropical garden at night. The second,
Child's Eye
, was the only color picture—­bright balloons, candles, and presents from a child's birthday party in a woman's black-­and-­white eye. The third,
Trapped
, was of a seagull in flight, its wings extended upward, sunlight fringing the edges. Not trapped at all. Several lines of wavy script appeared to be superimposed on the bottom right corner of the image.

“I sort of know what you're thinking,” Charlotte said, coming in with her wine and leaning against the doorway. Hovering.

“What am I thinking?”

“As soon as you saw the photo on her camera, you felt you'd become involved.”

“Kind of, yeah.”

Luke stood, relinquishing the chair.

“Have you thought about mentioning something to your friend Hunter?”

“Well, that's an idea,” he said, as if he hadn't been thinking it.

Charlotte gave Luke a scolding glance as she sat back in front of the computer. Amy Hunter was the state police's chief homicide detective for Tidewater County. Young, independent, energetic, attractive. Charlotte had a small jealous bone, which grew more prominent whenever the topic of Amy Hunter came up. Suggesting he talk with her meant that she considered what Susan Champlain had told him to be serious business.

“Maybe I'll go see her in the morning,” he said.

“Good.” She turned off her computer and let the room darken. “Are we ready?”

They took their drinks and settled on Adirondack chairs under the deck awning, to watch what there was of the sunset, their evening ritual. It had been an unusual summer on the Bay, with lots of weekend storms and uncharacteristic cool fronts—­although as Manfred Knosum, the church's pastor emeritus, had told Luke when he first arrived, “Every summer's unusual in Tidewater County.”

Their home was an old cedar-­shingled captain's cottage, owned by the church, small but charming, with a lovely view of the Chesapeake Bay from the back deck. The Bay was the country's largest estuary, where salt water met fresh, and this time of year the air off the water was often so salty it felt like sea breeze.

“To gratitude. And falling,” Charlotte said, tipping his beer bottle with her wineglass. Gratitude was going to be the theme of Luke's sermon this week, an appropriate topic for the end of July, with the cash registers all ringing, the crops headed for harvest. But he'd decided to amend it to talk about falling, too, after his own mishap.

“Will you still be in your sling on Sunday?”

“I'm thinking not. I may retire it before our dinner with your parents tomorrow, in fact.”

“It'd be a nice prop.”

Luke said nothing. He watched the fog moving across the wetlands.

“You're still thinking about Susan Champlain, aren't you?”

Luke saw her blue eyes watching in the dark.

“I am, too,” she said and gave him a smile that struck him as slightly sad. “How about if we talk about our future tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Luke said. “Good idea.”

N
I
NETY-­ONE MILES AWAY,
on a jag of land near Delaware Bay, Walter Kepler sat at a corner table in a little restaurant called Kirby's Fish House waiting for Nicholas Champlain.

Three hours earlier, Champlain had called him on a throwaway phone and said, “I'm picking the Phillies tonight.”

“So I'll go with the Braves,” Kepler replied.

In truth, Kepler didn't follow baseball and never had. But Champlain was talking in code. If he'd said he was choosing the Braves, they wouldn't be meeting.

He watched as Champlain took long strides through the light rain, not bothering with an umbrella. Nick Champlain was a large, sturdy man with a boyish smile and a thick head of dark hair going gray on the sides. He'd been a fullback in high school and might have played college ball if he hadn't quit to run his family's business. Kepler, who had the build of a smaller athlete, a wrestler or middleweight boxer, had learned all he could about Champlain since their previous meeting.

Kepler stood to greet him as Champlain was led to the table. Then, while the two men settled and began to peruse the menu, Kepler fought a familiar apprehension: having to negotiate his way through the carnival of mirrors again in order to make this deal work. Having to trust ­people like Nick Champlain.

Kepler glanced out at the rain. He thought of his father, walking hell-­bent down marble corridors past the “dispensable galleries” to the masterpieces; and he thought about the “miracle,” how it would be construed and covered by the news media in another week—­things he couldn't share with Nick Champlain.

He waited until they had ordered their entrées—­speckled trout for both, a late-­summer specialty at Kirby's—­and then he said, “So your message indicates we have a deal.”

Champlain showed his assent with a flat smile.

“Both?”

“Both have authorized it.”

“Good.”

They talked around it for a while, making conversation. Champlain bringing up Anthony Patello, the man who, indirectly at least, had brought them together. Everyone in the region had read about Patello, a seventy-­seven-­year-­old retired mechanic, who was living quietly in a modest suburb of Philadelphia, trying to blend in, spend his last years on his own terms. But eleven months ago, FBI agents had raided Patello's home on a concocted search warrant. The media had been all over it, dredging up Patello's purported organized crime ties, and his thirty-­year-­old felony conviction.

The raid was part of a larger strategy—­and that had been reported, too, bottom front page of the Philly
Inquirer
: The FBI and the Philadelphia state prosecutor believed that the raid might lift the cover on a twenty-­five-­year-­old crime—­the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist of 1990, considered the largest property crime in American history. A haul the papers liked to say was “worth” $500 million. Although, as Kepler knew, stolen art at that level was nearly worthless. There was no street value for stolen art.

The feds still didn't want to concede that the raid had been a mistake. They'd based the warrant on a statement given by a onetime Philadelphia capo, John Luigi, who had once run his family's New England operation. Luigi gave the FBI details about Patello that turned out to be true—­what they'd find if they were to raid his son Dante's pool hall in South Philadelphia, for instance. So the feds also believed the rest of what he told them, which
wasn't
true—­that Anthony Patello and his son not only knew about the stolen Gardner art, but that one or both of them could tell investigators where it was.

Luigi had made a mess of his own life by then and was dying of bladder cancer. But he hadn't lost his vindictive sense of humor. The feds didn't seem to recognize how unlikely it was that Anthony Patello, who never set foot in an art museum, would be hoarding stolen paintings in his suburban Philadelphia home.

It was apparent now that Luigi had simply been looking out for his own interests. But what the feds hadn't figured out—­and Kepler had—­was that he'd also been shielding his nephew, Vincent Rosa, who really 
did
  have knowledge of the stolen art.