5.

A mile from Riviera Park, the rearview mirror in the Lexus showed Parker a battered old tan Plymouth Fury that tugged at his memory. It seemed to be pacing him, hanging two or three cars back in moderate traffic as he drove east across Ma.s.sachusetts toward the motel. Early afternoon, the thin September sun not yet low enough to obscure his view back there. Who was that? mile from Riviera Park, the rearview mirror in the Lexus showed Parker a battered old tan Plymouth Fury that tugged at his memory. It seemed to be pacing him, hanging two or three cars back in moderate traffic as he drove east across Ma.s.sachusetts toward the motel. Early afternoon, the thin September sun not yet low enough to obscure his view back there. Who was that?

Elaine Langen's house, when he'd gone there to get her gun. No other car parked outside when he arrived. The meeting with Mrs. Langen cut short because a "lady policeman" had come to the house. That tan Plymouth Fury parked next to his Lexus when he came around from the kitchen door and drove away.

So she recognized him, too. She was watching Jake's place, to see what activity might take place there, or she had beat cops watching it. For whatever reason, she connected this Lexus to both the Langen house and Jake's mobile home. And now she was following, waiting to see where he'd go next.

Nowhere with her. Parker made a few turns, accelerated, decelerated, put himself in positions where he could make abrupt turns across lanes of oncoming traffic, and without raising a sweat, she stayed with him. Sometimes she lost ground, but she never lost the Lexus.

He was just coming to the conclusion that the thing to do was find a railroad station. He could leave the Lexus, and take trains until he was alone, then rent a car and come back. But as he was thinking that, a graceful brown-leather covered arm-it reminded him of a ballerina's arm move, starting a lift-came out of the driver's door of the Plymouth and slapped a suction-cup red flasher on the roof.

No siren, but the flasher started its spinning crimson roll, and the bright beams of the Plymouth's headlights flared alternately left and right, and she accelerated past the intervening cars-they dodged out of the way like rabbits from a coyote-and when she'd reached his rear b.u.mper, a loud-hailer voice, so distorted you couldn't tell if it was male or female, said, "Pull over on the shoulder." "Pull over on the shoulder."

He did. The only ID he carried on him belonged to John B. Allen, and was safe. The registration in the glove compartment carried the name Claire Willis, who would be his married sister. There was no bad paper out on either name. If this cop didn't happen to find the Beretta clipped under his seat-and why should she?-there was nothing in the car to cause him trouble.

He stopped, crunching on the gravel shoulder, and ignored the gawkers as they crept by. Instead, he watched the rearview mirror.

She took her time in there. He could see her, on her radio. Checking the license plate, maybe arranging for backup, if it should turn out to be needed. But then at last she did come out, a tall, slender blonde woman in tan slacks and a short leather car coat, and moved forward toward his car.

A cop walks like a cop. Even the woman cops do it. Women walk as though they have no center of gravity, as though they're all waifs, or angels, but cops walk as though their center of gravity is in their hips, so they can be very still or very fast. To see that kind of body motion on a woman was strange, particularly on a good-looking blonde.

Parker rolled his window down and looked out at her. Very good-looking. Sure of herself because she was a cop and and because she was good-looking. And good at her work-Parker hadn't been able to lose her. because she was good-looking. And good at her work-Parker hadn't been able to lose her.

He said, "Yes, Officer?"

"May I see license and registration, please?"

"Sure. Registration in the glove compartment. Okay?"

She seemed surprised at the question. "Get it, please." He handed her the doc.u.ments, and she studied them, saying, "May I ask your occupation, Mr. Allen?"

Fortunately, he remembered what he'd told Elaine Langen that time: "Mostly," he said, "I'm a landscape architect."

She raised a brow. "Mostly?"

"Well, it's seasonal work," he said, having no idea whether it was or not, but figuring she wouldn't know either. "The rest of the year, I do other things. Or nothing. Depends how the season went."

"This is your wife's car?"

"Sister. My Navigator's in the shop."

"And have you had work up in this area, Mr. Allen?"

"It's done now," he said. "It was just consultancy, for a Mrs. Langen. I'm not doing the project. You want her address? I have it somewhere."

"Not needed. Just wait a moment," she said, and took his license and registration away to her car.

She was curious about him. She knew, from Elaine Langen's stupid move with the gun, from Jake Beckham, gunshot in a hospital-she knew something was in the air. And all of a sudden, she had the new guy in her territory, connected both to Elaine Langen and to Jake Beckham.

At this point, there was no way for the cop to get a handle on what was going down, but she was curious. She was going to poke; she was going to pry, and all because of Elaine Langen.

Two days. Two days from now this cop, and every other cop for five hundred miles, would know what was going down. Let them know. By then, it wouldn't matter. Not to Parker, anyway.

She came back. "Mr. Allen, I wonder if you'd open your trunk."

"Sure," he said, and got out and did so. He waited till she was shining her flashlight in at the trunk, empty except for a folded sheet of blue tarpaulin, and then he said, "Is it all right to ask what this is all about?"

"Just a routine traffic check."

He laughed at her. "You've been d.o.g.g.i.ng me for fifteen miles. I tried to shake you, and I couldn't."

She looked at him, no expression. "Do you consider yourself good at shaking cars pursuing you?"

"I guess not." He shrugged. "I never tried it before, and it didn't work this time. But the thing is, Officer-"

"Detective," she said. "Detective Second Grade Gwen Reversa."

"How do you do, Detective. The thing is, it's pretty obvious you're just after me me, and since I don't know anything I'm in trouble for, I'm wondering how come."

Instead of answering, she said, "Thank you," with a nod, meaning he could close the trunk; so he did, as she moved very slowly around the car, studying every inch of it. She was, he knew, looking for a violation, a broken light or something like that, so she could cite him and then possibly bring him in for further questioning. But there would be nothing to hook on to. He kept the Lexus clean.

Nevertheless, he realized, this car was through. When the detective finished her inspection, he would leave the Lexus, wiped down and key in ignition, in some store's parking lot where he could walk to a car rental agency. And when he got back to the motel, he'd phone Claire to report the Lexus stolen, get a rental of her own, and think about what car she'd want next.

It was with obvious reluctance that Detective Reversa gave him back his license and registration. "Thank you, sir," she said.

He nodded. He wouldn't ask her again, because he knew she wouldn't answer. He said, "Is that it?"

"Unless you have something you want to say?"

"Only, I'm glad I wasn't on my way to an important appointment."

Her smile was cold. "So am I, Mr. Allen."

She didn't follow him when he drove away from there, but she didn't have to. She'd picked up whatever information she was going to pick up, and she knew it. And Parker had picked up a couple of things, too.

For instance, she hadn't tried any names on him. "How do you know Mrs. Langen?" "What's your relationship with Wendy Beckham?" "Do you happen to know Jake Beckham?" "What else are you doing in this part of the world, Mr. Allen?"

She hadn't asked those questions. She should have, but she hadn't, and he knew that meant she knew he'd lied to her.

She was going to be a problem.

6.

At dinner in the same family restaurant, Parker told the other two about Wendy Beckham's doubts about Dr. Madchen. Dalesia said, "I thought he was a jerk that first day in his office. Comes out with a folder, has to have a very important conference with the receptionist, at the same time he's giving us the steady double-o."

"I don't mind if he's curious," Parker said. "I mind if he's drawing attention. This woman cop on the case, this Reversa, she's sharp, and she knows something's happening, and she's keeping an eye on everything that ripples anywhere around Jake."

"So," McWhitney said, "you mean we should stop this guy from rippling."

"He's seen Nick and me," Parker said.

With a snort, Dalesia said, "And he'll sure remember us."

"A little later tonight," Parker said, "we'll go visit him and see if he can learn to control himself."

"Good," McWhitney said. "Save me for if it has to turn mean."

Dr. Madchen's home address was in the local phone book, and when Parker and Dalesia got there at nine-thirty that night, the neighborhood was a surprise. "He didn't get this from pushing pills," Dalesia said.

It was true. This had to be one of the richest neighborhoods anywhere around here. Large old houses set well back from the road commanded acres of rolling lawns and many specimen trees and well tended hedges. The few cars visible down the long driveways were recent and expensive.

This was a hard place to move around in without being noticed. There was nowhere nearby to leave the car, and it wasn't a neighborhood where people did a lot of walking, particularly at night.

They were in Dalesia's Audi. Parker's new rented Dodge Stratus would stay mostly out of sight. The second time they approached the doctor's address, Parker said, "Let me out, circle back for me. I'll see what's the situation."

There was very little traffic along these curving roads, none of them major streets from anywhere to anywhere, just ribbons laid out on a field of emerald green. The tall streetlights were soft, and so were the private lights defining driveways and entrances. At the moment, there wasn't another moving vehicle in sight. Parker left the Audi and walked in along Dr. Madchen's blacktop drive in a faint, pervasive amber glow that made everything visible but nothing easy to focus on.

The Madchen house was brick, probably a century old, three stories high. Elaborate white woodwork surrounded all the doors and windows, and a large, empty wooden porch crossed the front, looking as though no one had used it since the invention of air-conditioning.

Not trusting the old wood floor of the porch to be silent, Parker moved around the house to the right, where he saw lights in windows. Moving slowly but steadily, keeping a few feet back from the windows, he pa.s.sed along the right side of the house.

First a living room, brightly lit but empty. Then a dining room, where a uniformed Asian maid finished loading a round silver tray with dinner things and carried it away through a dark wood swinging door. Then a smaller room with darker furniture and walls, and a blue-lit woman not quite facing the window Parker peered through.

He stopped. The woman was fiftyish, heavyset, with too-black hair. She was seated deep in a soft broadcloth armchair, and wore a lumpy satin robe or muumuu with Hawaiian island scenes repeated on it. She was barefoot, her feet on a ha.s.sock. She gazed forward, discontented, brooding. The television set she glowered at, its sound rising dimly and disjointedly through the window, was out of Parker's sight, below and just to his right of the window.

He watched her for a minute. The Asian maid entered and asked something respectful, folding her hands at her waist like a character in a movie. Without looking away from the screen, the woman said something sour. The maid nodded, crossed to pick up the squat empty gla.s.s from beside her mistress, and carried it out of the room. The woman abruptly called something after her, still without looking away from the television set. Parker thought he made out the word "ice."

The maid didn't immediately return. Parker retraced his steps back to the road. Three minutes later, when Dalesia arrived, Parker went around to the driver's side. When Dalesia lowered his window, Parker bent to say, "He isn't home. Just a wife and a maid. Keep circling, I'll wait for him, see what we do."

"Fine." Dalesia nodded generally at the neighborhood. "You know," he said, "along about the second week, I bet this gets boring."

An hour and a half later, a car came slowly down the road, its right blinker switched on. There was no other car anywhere in sight. This had to be the doctor.

Parker waited, leaning against the plump specimen tree shaped like a lollipop, with maroon leaves, that stood off to the left of the driveway, midway between road and house. The oncoming car's lights flashed over him as the car turned in, but he doubted he'd been seen. The doctor's night vision would be limited to what he expected to see along this well-known route.

As the car moved slowly toward the house, Parker stepped away from the tree and crossed the lawn to intercept it. The doctor, alone in the car, holding the steering wheel with both hands, was miles deep in his own thoughts and wasn't aware of anything else until Parker tapped his side window. Then he jolted away, slamming on the brakes, barely stopping himself from thudding his forehead against the windshield.

Parker patted the air downward: calm down. Then he lifted a finger: wait.

Dr. Madchen stared at him in terror as Parker walked around the front of his Alero and got into the pa.s.senger seat. "Back out of here," he said.

"What are you-why is the-what are you-"

Parker tapped a knuckle on the doctor's kneecap; not hard, just enough to draw his attention. "Back out of here," he said.

"You're not supposed to-we're not supposed to know-"

Parker said, "Well, this would be easier," and brought the Beretta out of his pocket, not pointing it anywhere in particular.

"No! I don't want to die!"

"Then you'll back out of here." Finally the doctor got the idea. Shaking, clumsy, he managed to shift the Alero into reverse and jump on the accelerator.

"Easy."

"Yes. Yes."

"Back around to the right and stop."

The sight of the pistol had calmed the doctor wonderfully. He backed out of the driveway and around to the right, stopping along the low curb. There were no sidewalks here.

"Put it in neutral."

The doctor did that, too, then turned a very earnest face toward Parker. "I don't want to die," he explained, as though there might have been some question.

"That's good," Parker said. Bending down a bit, he saw, in the right side mirror, headlights approach. Putting the Beretta away, he opened his window and waved his arm. Dalesia drove by, and Parker said, "We'll follow him."

The doctor put the Alero in gear. "I don't see-I don't see why-"

"We'll talk when we're all together."

Dalesia drove them away from that expensive neighborhood, into the nearby commercial neighborhood that's always to be found in an area like that. It included an all-night supermarket, a glaring bubble of fluorescent light in the darkness. Dalesia turned in at the parking lot there, and the doctor followed. Dalesia parked some distance from the store, and Parker said, "Stop to his left."

"All right."

"Shut off the engine."

"I haven't done anything wrong."

Dalesia got out of the Audi and slid into the back seat of the Alero. "You've been a naughty boy," he told the doctor.

The doctor twisted halfway around in the seat, face distorted. "No, I haven't! I did everything Jake asked me to do, I'm willing to do whatever. whatever."

"You're hanging around the hospital," Parker told him. "You don't have a job there."

"He's my patient, I want to be sure."