you,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.
“And to you,” she said. She turned and kicked the door shut, then went back to the kitchen, set down the eggs, and opened the window. “Eddie,” she called. “The eggs are ready, and the coast is clear.”
“Coming,” Eddie called back.
51
Washington, D.C., police chief Deborah Myers sat at her desk, reading the file of one Edward Craft, who had become her obsession, and who continued to elude her. The telephone rang and she absently answered it. “Chief Myers.”
“Chief,” a male voice said.
Before he could say another word, she stopped him. “I know who you are. What do you know?”
“I know that the person is back in New York.”
“Where?”
“The Bureau located him by some sort of GPS thing, on his cell phone. Write this down.”
Debby grabbed a pencil. “Go.”
He gave her an address on East Sixty-sixth Street. “The Bureau got a search warrant and went through the whole building, but the only thing they turned up was a woman he used to know, named Shelley Moss. They found her alone in her apartment, cooking breakfast. She was cooperative but denied any current knowledge of him. The agent had a good look around and found nothing to indicate that he had been there.”
“I’ll be at the Lowell,” she said, then hung up and buzzed her secretary.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Get hold of Rocco Turko, and tell him to grab his ready bag and meet me downstairs. Order my car and the King Air to Teterboro, and have a car and driver meet me there, at Jet Aviation, and to stick with me for a week.”
“Is that how long you’ll be gone?”
“Depends. Refer any important calls to my cell phone, but you call me on my second cell phone, to keep things confidential. Got it?”
“Got it, ma’am.”
Debby grabbed her ready bag and makeup kit from her office closet and ran for the elevator. Rocco Turko was standing in the building’s garage when she got there. He was a tallish, handsome, squarely built man of forty who, in his double-breasted overcoat, resembled a refrigerator. “Morning, Deb,” he said. He was one of only a few colleagues who was allowed to address her informally.
“Have you still got that NYPD badge?” Rocco had done ten or so years with the NYPD and, when he left, had “forgotten” to turn in his badge.
“Yep.”
“Good, you may need it.” They got into the car.
“Why are we going to New York?” Rocco asked.
“Eddie Craft,” she replied.
Rocco didn’t have to ask why. He knew that Craft was the only witness who could testify that she had been in the police evidence locker on the date that some things disappeared from that place.
“Is he coming back with us?” Rocco asked.
Debby gave him a look that he interpreted as a firm “No.”
She reached into her ready bag and withdrew a black .22 semiautomatic pistol, with a silencer screwed into the barrel. “It has a loaded magazine. It’s all you’ll need.”
Rocco accepted the weapon, unscrewed the silencer, and put it and the pistol into separate pockets. If he had needed a further answer from his chief, he had it.
* * *
—
In the late afternoon, Maren came back to Stone’s house and found him in his study.
“Hi, there,” he said, rising and giving her a kiss.
“Hi. How’s your jet lag?”
“Okay, but I still have a sore neck.”
She reached to massage his neck, but he flinched. “I know a chiropractor who makes house calls,” she said.
Stone sat next to her on the sofa. “Call him for me, will you?”
Maren reached for her phone. “Her,” she said. She made the call and hung up. “She’ll be here in half an hour. She says it’s okay for you to have a drink before she gets here.”
“Is that her prescription or yours?” Stone asked, standing and going to the drinks cabinet and returning with a Knob Creek for him and a Laphroaig for her.
“Both,” Maren said.
They tapped glasses and drank. Stone resisted reaching for anything else: too little time.
* * *
—
Joan came into the study. “Your manipulator is here,” she said. Stone laughed.
“Are you ready to be manipulated?”
“I am ready.”
A small, pretty woman came in, pushing a folded table on wheels and introduced herself as Pru Hawkins. They shook hands. She asked him to remove his shirt and lie facedown, and he did so.
“I can see where it hurts,” she said. “Feel it, too.” She asked him to turn over, then lifted his head and turned it slowly back and forth. “Did the bourbon