Retribution (#3) Read online

  “Amanda, honey, get hold of yourself. You’re no good to anyone if you let this drag you down. And Laurel’s not doing herself any favors if she persists in that thinking. Listen to me—and feel free to share with Laurel what I have to say. Old Mr. Chandler obviously was not stable enough to cross the Atlantic or he wouldn’t be dead now, would he? And consider this possibility. What if this had happened while he was in transit? She’d then blame herself for having attempted to relocate him. Wouldn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Amanda says after a long silence. “I’ll try to suggest that to her when the time’s right. Thank you.”

  “You don’t need to thank me . . . ever.”

  He hears some of her spunk return before they say goodbye with promises to update whenever possible.

  — TWO —

  Morning, August 15, 1987

  Until he received word that Amanda and her charges would be boarding a plane at London’s Gatwick Airport a little after three a.m. EST, there was no point trying to sleep. And once Nate was sure they were in the air, he couldn’t sleep.

  The last time he felt this way was after a night spent trying to quiet an inconsolable newborn in a Northern Michigan motel room. He wouldn’t feel more depleted if he had been pacing the floor instead of just tossing and turning all night; he couldn’t feel less like driving to New Jersey if it were in Outer Mongolia.

  He takes a look at the bedside clock. Going on eight a.m. The charter flight Amanda is on won’t land for another two and a half hours at the earliest.

  Two and a half hours. Not long enough to take care of things in Jersey and be back here in time to field Amanda’s arrival call. And not long enough to make a dent in his sleep deficit, so he resigns himself to facing the day at a disadvantage. But at least he doesn’t have a hangover. Or an infant to deal with.

  A look at Saturday morning television discovers mainly cartoon shows and home shopping opportunities. He tries the music channels, cable news, sees and hears nothing that would either prevent or encourage his drowsing for a while.

  Closer to ETA than he would have thought possible, Amanda calls from the Franklin Aviation terminal at JFK. “I’m going with Bemus, Tom Jensen, and Colin to the hotel. David and Laurel are going to her house for something she needs,” she says.

  “Can’t I get it? I still have a key and I’m leaving for Jersey shortly.”

  “You’re nice to offer, but I don’t think so. Laurel wants to collect a few personal items along with burial clothes for her father. It’s something she needs to do herself.”

  “What about the others, her brothers and sister? Where are you stashing them?”

  “They’re coming to the hotel under separate cover, so to speak. A generic minivan was rented for them even though they may not be that recognizable to the press. At least not yet.”

  “I’m relieved to hear no one will be staying at the Chandler house. I guess I don’t have to say why.”

  “No, you don’t, and I was relieved when Laurel agreed to the arrangements without an argument. Colin’s the only one who objected to anything.”

  “To what, for chrissake? You got them all into his beloved Plaza Hotel, didn’t you? You got them across the Atlantic on extremely short notice and at no expense to him. What the fuck has he to complain about other than having to scrap his honeymoon?”

  “He’s not happy about the David and Laurel pairing even though he knows it makes more sense to handle things that way,” she says.

  “Okay, sounds like everything’s under control, so I’ll head out for the nursing home and catch up with you later at the hotel.”

  There’s still no hurry, he realizes as he showers and shaves. Amanda won’t finish directing traffic and wrangling rock stars before midafternoon, if he’s any judge. He calls downstairs for his car to be brought around, then takes his time dressing in a tropical-weight business suit, soft shirt without tie, and tasseled slip-ons without socks—it is summer, after all.

  In the kitchen, he grabs a banana and a stale bagel and is almost out the door when he remembers he’ll need something to put Benjamin Chandler’s personal effects in. The handiest receptacles are three empty recycling bins he takes from their usual place in the back hall. At the very last minute he thinks to toss in a stack of old newspapers for wrapping breakables.

  At the approach to the nursing home in Wolcott, he spots a half-dozen or so paparazzi clustered near the main entrance. Word has spread, as Laurel anticipated, and that opens the door to the possibility the Chandler house is also staked out—all the more reason for David to drive Laurel there in something lower profile than a limo. Wishing he were behind the wheel of something less suggestive of the wealth and privilege associated with rock stars, he drives to the back of the building with his eye on the rearview mirror. But no one gives chase; they must assume he’s a doctor.

  He parks, grabs the bins and newspapers, and heads for the fire door—the allegedly malfunctioning fire door the Chandler clan regularly took advantage of, according to the disapproving orderly encountered on his last visit here. He can’t be sure the door hasn’t been activated since then, but he’d rather chance that it hasn’t than chance being recognized by one of the more astute paparazzi monitoring the front entrance.

  No alarms go off when he slips through the heavy door, and no one’s around to challenge his presence when he enters the corridor, where Benjamin Chandler’s room is the second one on the left.

  The door to the room is closed, maybe as a sign of respect, maybe because someone’s in there, already sifting through the deceased’s belongings for anything of value. Nate gives fair warning, knocks before entering.

  The room is unoccupied and undisturbed. To his critical eye, everything is exactly as remembered; nothing is missing except old Mr. Chandler. The windowsill picture gallery is intact, assorted items atop the dresser are in neat array, and the flower bouquet on the nightstand can’t be more than a day old. The hospital bed is tightly made and covered with the remembered quilt; even the plastic water carafe, tumbler, and drinking straw are prominent on the roll-around tray table, as they were the day when the orderly lectured on the importance of keeping the patient hydrated.

  Clearly, nothing has been touched since the body was removed, so his only concern is the actual packing up of the belongings.

  The framed photographs and other breakables fill two of the bins by the time they’re wrapped and padded with newspapers. Before he gathers up the meager wardrobe and the few toilet articles, he thinks to wash his hands of newsprint.

  On the previous visit he didn’t inspect the attached bathroom, so there is no before-and-after contrast to make. It does, however, appear that this room has also gone untouched since the death occurred because while drying his hands on a length of paper towel, he notices litter on the floor surrounding the lidded waste receptacle.

  He disposes of the paper towel and lets the lid drop with a whoosh that scatters the floor litter. A casual glance identifies the litter as torn pieces of packaging material—the water-resistant kind that emergency medical supplies come in. What he sees here could represent a last-ditch measure to save Mr. Chandler, he sadly concludes before returning to the other room to resume packing.

  On the third and final trip to the car, he’s relieved to have gone unchallenged throughout. But if he had a loved one stored in this nursing home, he’d be more than a little incensed by the relaxed visitor policy he just took advantage of. He closes the deck lid on the fully loaded bins, takes one last look at the otherwise exceptional facility as though still expecting someone to come chasing after him.

  Nothing. No one. Not even another clandestine visitor in evidence as he gets in the car and eases out of the parking space.

  Halfway to the street, something makes him brake so hard the car swerves off the pavement. The same something makes him execute a three-point turnaround on the narrow drive and speed back to the parking lot, where he leaves the car in the tow-away zone adjacent the fire door and
dashes for the building.

  Inside, he’s prepared to mow down anyone standing in his way and fortunately doesn’t have to. Again undetected, Nate reenters the late Benjamin Chandler’s room, zeroes in on the bathroom and snatches up a handful of the paper scraps surrounding the waste can. This closer look confirms that they are indeed portions of glassine envelopes, as suspected when the lightning bolt of possibility struck him in the driveway. And the contents of an intact envelope found inside the waste can tastes exactly like he thought it would—like the residue found in Laurel’s attic—except for the suggestion of an acidic additive. Aspirin? But who cuts blow with aspirin, for chrissake?

  Although he anticipated this outcome from the moment he did the one-eighty in the driveway, he’s slow processing the information, slow accepting what it could mean.

  He returns to the bedroom to scrutinize the plastic pitcher, the tumbler, and the drinking straw lined up on the roll-around tray-table as though they’d just been used. There’s no doubt in his mind that he’s looking at the means of ingestion, and that an autopsy will show Laurel’s father to have died an unnatural death. How this was brought about he hasn’t yet begun to theorize, but he can think of a damn good reason why.

  That reason gets him focused, propels him into the corridor, where he all but collides with the burly orderly dealt with on his last visit—the first real break he’s caught today.

  The orderly recognizes him, surmises his purpose and launches into verbal handwringing about Mister Ben’s death.

  “No time for that,” Nate cuts in and draws him into the deceased’s room, where the big bear of a guy starts up again about how sorry he is and how stringent he was with his attentions to the deceased.

  “I’m not questioning that. No one is and no one will if you do exactly as I say.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You’ll be implicated in a homicide.”

  After a few more blunt words of explanation, the orderly is convinced to call the police and guard the room and its contents until they arrive.

  Satisfied that that’s the best he can do for now, Nate breaks for the fire door, sprints to the car, squeals out of the parking lot. He speeds along the driveway under the increasingly watchful eyes of paparazzi who had to have noticed his earlier maneuvering.

  He fishtails into the street and peels off in the direction of Glen Abbey and 13 Old Quarry Court by the shortest route he can think of.

  — THREE —

  Late morning, August 15, 1987

  They’re across Queens and Lower Manhattan before either has anything to say that isn’t related to the weather or the smooth flight over. Laurel finally breaks the ice by acknowledging that it’s her former Range Rover she’s riding in. “Lucky you left this car and not the Mercedes at the airport or Amanda wouldn’t have tapped you for the job,” she says half facetiously.

  “I don’t consider driving you to Glen Abbey a job and luck had nothing to do with it,” David answers, oblivious to her attempt to lighten the mood. “I’ve driven this car almost exclusively since I bought it from you.”

  “I see . . . and Amanda would have known that.”

  “More than likely.”

  “Well, however it came about, I do think it only makes sense to approach my old neighborhood in a relatively low profile car.”

  David concurs and they ride on in silence until she happens to glance at the visor on the driver’s side and the device clipped to it. “Is that the remote for my garage door opener?”

  “Yes, I never bothered to remove it and it never got in the way because I have no use for a remote in the city.”

  “Of course. About the same amount of use I have for the other set of keys I keep forgetting to hand over. They’re right here in my bag. Remind me later when you drop me off at the hotel.”

  Silence again until they’ve merged with Route 3 in New Jersey and can smell the barn. She doesn’t experience the twinge she thought she might as they enter familiar territory, and she doesn’t mind when he at last brings up the subject avoided until now.

  “I always knew you’d be a beautiful bride, but I didn’t know how beautiful,” he says.

  “Oh please . . . it was the dress, the hairdo, the jewelry.”

  He ignores her brush-off and goes on to praise the intimacy of the ceremony and the controlled abandon of the party afterward. “I have to say . . . that day when you came to me in London to allay your fears . . . and afterward we talked—”

  “I remember. I told you I wanted a small church wedding and a big party afterward where guests could enjoy themselves just short of getting falling-down shitfaced.”

  “At the time I thought you didn’t have a chance in hell of pulling that off—not with a guest list comprised mainly of world-class voluptuaries.”

  “There you go again, putting down your clients.” She gives him a playful poke in the arm to show she’s teasing this time around.

  “Not at all,” he says, giving her a dark look that indicates he again failed to get the message. “And as long as you’ve distracted me, I think it’s worth saying one more time that I continue to regret comments made when I learned you intended to marry Colin. I was completely out of line—the sore loser in ways you cannot begin to imagine.”

  “Perhaps I can if I’m allowed to believe you had designs on me that went beyond enlisting me as an attractant.”

  “Go ahead. You’re allowed, but I’d prefer to leave it right there if you don’t mind.”

  “Very well.”

  Now they’re approaching the turnoff to Holbrook Road, where she definitely expected to feel a twinge—a pang, even—and she feels only relief that the task will soon be over.

  David is not through talking about the wedding, though. She lets him unspool without interruption, winces a little when he wishes he could have given her away despite knowing she was never his to give, winces again when he regrets that offering a toast was not in the cards either. “This may sound ridiculous, but I really wanted to state my sincere good wishes for you in front of witnesses . . . I wanted to be on record as an absolute yea-sayer.”

  “What you’ve done for us today speaks more than any toast you might have given. You couldn’t have done anything more positive, more supportive, than provide us with immediate transportation. And if you want witnesses, you’ll soon have them because I’ve authorized Amanda to publicly credit you with stepping in when it was needed. Colin, however, would rather reimburse you, so be prepared to—”

  “I won’t hear of it. Call it a parting gift, call it an unsolicited wedding gift. Call it my effort not to be outdone by Nate Isaacs.”

  At the entrance to Old Quarry Court, he slows the car to a crawl. For a bad moment she thinks he’s spotted paparazzi, but he only wants to know if she’s all right.

  “I’m fine. I’m over the shock, or maybe I should say surprise, because I knew my father couldn’t last a whole lot longer—I knew this was coming.”

  “Are you over blaming yourself? Someone said you were holding yourself responsible. For what, I can’t imagine.”

  “I was beating myself up for not moving him to England several weeks ago and I was shown the folly of that thinking right away.”

  “Good, saves me the trouble,” David says from behind an admonishing frown. “I’m relieved you’re not carrying anything extra. I speak from experience when I say guilt and grief can be a toxic mix—very.”

  He abruptly speeds up when they’re even with the Floss house, squeals around the curve and into the driveway of number 13 just as the overhead garage door clears the opening. They’re into the garage with the door already on the way back down before she grasps that David has ably executed her well-known ritual with the garage door opener.

  “I always wanted to try that,” he admits with a touch of his old insouciance. The mild laughter that produces is cut short when they realize they’re laughing in semidarkness. “Uh-oh, the bulb in the opener must be burned out. Sit tight while I swi
tch on the overhead,” he cautions.

  “That’s okay, I can manage.” Laurel leaves the car the same time David does, secretly amused that he too has overlooked the obvious—turning on the headlights—as she did the only other time she found herself in this mini-predicament.

  In the weak light from the partially blocked garage window she gropes her way to the front of the car, where she’s in direct alignment with the door into the house. When the door flies open, she’s blinded for a moment by the brightly lit interior, then confused when that brightness is overlaid by the silhouette of a man she first assumes is David.

  But the silhouette suddenly coils and leaps into the garage, colliding with another outline that can only be David’s, driving that outline to the floor with the sickening thud of skull hitting concrete. Then it’s the faint whistle of cleft air and the scrape of metal on a hard surface that assaults her ears when she should be hearing screams, especially her own.

  After that, her eyes take over, adjusted to the harsh light flooding the scene, nevertheless disbelieving of the scene until the assailant uncoils from his crouch over David’s motionless body and looks her way. She recognizes in his face her worst nightmare, her worst daytime fear; she recognizes Hoople Jakeway from the grainy photograph and the pencil sketch she was once shown and that spurs her to action.

  She’s backed against a pegboard holding a motley collection of gardening tools. She fumbles for the nearest one without taking her eyes off Jakeway, hoping the handle she feels is a long one with something sharp at the other end—anything at the other end that will even the odds against the bloodied blade he’s flaunting as he closes in on her.

  She wrenches what turns out to be a leaf rake off the wall, gives it a roundhouse swing that only grazes the opponent, makes him laugh. She gropes for something better, comes up with a long-handled spade she swings in an arc that catches Jakeway on the chin, where it leaves an ugly gash. She advances on him as he recovers, somehow catches him again with the backswing, knocking him to his knees long enough for her to make a lunge at the driver’s side door of the Range Rover.