Читать книгу The Rapids - Carla Neggers, Carla Neggers - Страница 11

St. John’s Cathedral was cool and dark, a sharp contrast to the afternoon heat and sunlight on the streets outside. Its massive interior seemed quiet for a summer Saturday. Maggie suspected word of the brutal murder of an American had prompted at least some tourists to change their plans.

Tom…I’m so sorry.

Why didn’t you answer me when I called you?

She wanted to believe he hadn’t heard her, but, as she’d told the Dutch and American investigators, she didn’t know for sure one way or the other.

She tried not to think of his easy manner, his smile. With physical effort, she pushed back the personal regrets—the grief—she had for the death of a new friend and focused on the job she had to do.

Could Tom have been the caller who wanted to meet with her? Had he disguised his voice and played on her father’s death to lure her to Den Bosch?

Why?

But that made no sense.

She hadn’t mentioned the call to anyone. It was a long shot that the lead was legitimate, and there was no reason to believe it had anything to do with Tom’s death. The Dutch police would probably be irritated with her for withholding any information, but Maggie had no evidence it had been anything but a crank call.

She hadn’t told her boss or the FBI about the strange call, either, or, certainly, Rob Dunnemore.

If it’d been Tom, there’d be no meeting.

If it was a nut, either there’d be no meeting or he’d show up and she’d find out that he was crazy soon enough.

If it was a legitimate informant, she’d get what she could out of him and proceed from there.

She felt the uneven stone flooring under her feet. And if it’s whoever shot Tom in the back of the head?

Then, Maggie thought, she’d kick herself for not having opened her mouth.

And she’d deal with it.

Bringing Rob along for extra security wouldn’t have worked. If her caller was still at the cathedral, he’d realize she wasn’t alone—and Dunnemore would have quickly figured out she wasn’t there just to pray.

Maggie made her way along the outer aisle of the huge cathedral, aware of shadows and the silence. People were buried here. For eight hundred years, people had worshiped in this place. Its thirteenth-century tower and some of its interior were Romanesque in style, but its more ornate Gothic features from later expansion and rebuilding dominated.

Brochure in hand, Maggie pretended she was a tourist, peeking at the baptistery and the Passion altar, checking out the seven chapels that ringed the cavernous interior, staring up at the medieval figures of saints and the religious reliefs depicting the life of Christ and John the Baptist. There were enormous flying buttresses, and beautiful stained-glass windows let in just a thin filter of light.

She could feel the weight of the centuries, the inevitable flow of history, and thought about how much the world outside the cathedral’s thick walls had changed.

She pictured Tom’s body in the Binnendieze and wondered how many deaths its waters had seen. Conquerors had come and gone. Liberators, wars, floods, people. Maggie was aware of her own impermanence. Perhaps that was part of the purpose of such a place, part of why it endured.

A few people here and there were kneeling in silent prayer, as if to remind her the cathedral was a house of worship.

Most of the pews in the center nave were empty. Maggie made her way into one near the outermost aisle, with a good view of the major entrance and exit. When she sat down, she felt chilled, suddenly isolated and very tired. Tom.

A white-haired man worked his way into the pew and sat next to her.

Five aisles, dozens of pews. He picked hers.

She could smell the stale cigarette smoke that clung to him. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she saw his yellow-tipped fingernails and the blue veins bulging in the skinny hand on his thigh.

He didn’t kneel or pull out rosary beads.

Hell. It’s him, Maggie thought

“Where’s your marshal friend?” he asked.

His East Coast prep school accent didn’t fit with his down-and-out appearance. “I don’t have a lot of time,” she said, not giving him a direct answer. “I need to know who you are. Your name. Why you sought me out. Why Den Bosch. Start now.”

She spoke in a whisper, but her urgent tone—and her skepticism—didn’t seem to bother him. “My name is William Raleigh,” he said. “I was in the foreign service once.”

Oh, God. A nutcase. Some threadbare old guy who thought he was a spy or a diplomat. “For the U.S.?”

“Yes. Then I went out on my own. My specialty is economics.” He smiled. “As much as it’s anyone’s specialty.”

Although he sounded lucid, Maggie knew he could just be playing the part, trying to persuade her that he was the real thing. “I was never any good at economics.”

“No one is, even the experts. It’s just that the experts know it and the rest of us hope it’s not true.”

There was a hint of humor and irony in his whispered words, but Maggie wasn’t willing to bet yet whether he was legit or a mentally ill drifter determined to reel her in to his delusions. “Mr. Raleigh, I need to know what this is all about.”

He faced the front of the cathedral, not looking at her. “I’ve had an interesting life. I’m an economist. I’ve traveled all over the world, doing what I could to bring fairness and prosperity to others, first in my work as a foreign service officer, then as an economic consultant. That sounds lofty, but I don’t mean it to. I did what I could. I think that’s what we all do, don’t you?”

“No.”

He smiled. “So young to be a cynic.”

“It hasn’t been a good day.”

“No, it hasn’t. I’m sorry about your friend.”

Then he knew about Tom. Of course, Den Bosch was a small city, and news traveled quickly.

“I’ve met everyone from small-time warlords to the last five U.S. presidents,” the man next to her said. “Not the current one yet. Poe.”

Yet. Maggie wondered if Raleigh had brought up Poe’s name deliberately, if he knew the marshal with her was Rob Dunnemore. Was Rob’s connection to President Poe, ultimately, what this meeting was all about?

She shifted in the pew, studying Raleigh. He wasn’t much taller than she was, and he was thin, dressed in a blue madras shirt that must have seen him through at least one of his decades of supposed travels. She noticed that he’d let the hem out of his khaki pants, as if they’d shrunk in the dryer.

Maggie checked for drool and dried fried egg or something on his shirt, and hated herself for doing it.

His belt wasn’t pulled too tight or hanging too loose.

His fly was zipped.

He had on sports sandals, a definite surprise. No socks.

He smiled faintly at her. “Do I look dotty?”

“Let’s just say you don’t look like a retired economist. How old are you?”

“Not as old as I look.”

“What kind of economist are you, the kind for or against tax cuts?”

He gave a small laugh. “That’s a very American question.”

“I’m a very American diplomatic security agent. Come on, Mr. Raleigh. Who are you, really?”

His eyes, a pale grayish blue, focused on her a moment, emanating a warmth and affection—a familiarity—that made Maggie edge away from him.

“My father…”

She didn’t know if she’d spoken aloud.

“What about your father, Maggie?”

Her chest tightened, and she turned abruptly from him and stared up toward the pulpit. She had to stay focused, on task. She couldn’t lose control.

“Did you know him?” she asked.

“I can’t say I knew him well. We ran into each other in Prague a few weeks before his death. He told me about his DS agent daughter. He was so proud of you. He called you his Magster.” Raleigh’s tone was formal and very correct, almost without emotion, incongruent with his tattered appearance. “I believe it’s fate that our paths crossed.”

“Fate or bullshit.”

He didn’t respond.

“Thomas Kopac—”

“I had nothing to do with his death. It’s a terrible shame. I know he befriended you.”

Maggie noticed red veins in Raleigh’s eyes, bulging veins in his nose. A drinker. “That wouldn’t be hard for you to find out. It’s not as if we kept our friendship a secret.”

“No doubt.” Raleigh went very still next to Maggie, staring down at the bony hand on his thigh. “So many of the people I’ve met in my day were forgettable. Shallow, venal, selfish, arrogant—I don’t want to remember them in my retirement. Others weren’t. They were the best. They had honor and integrity. Not all of them went on to live to an old age the way I undoubtedly will, if only because I’m destined to be the one to remember what they were.” He didn’t raise his voice or ramble. “I’m often haunted by the good people I couldn’t save.”

Jesus.

“Who are you talking about? Why am I here?”

He inhaled through his nose. “I can feel the presence of the dead here, can’t you? Eighteen months. It doesn’t seem that long ago—”

“If you’re using my father’s death to try to manipulate me, it won’t work. If you were responsible in some way for what happened to him—”

“He wouldn’t have wanted me to put you in danger.”

“I have a job to do. I intend to do it to the best of my abilities. That’s not up to you.”

“It wasn’t up to him, either.” Raleigh’s tone lost its moroseness, became firmer, more serious. “He knew you were like him. You’re capable of breaking a few dishes, Maggie.”

“I’m a professional—”

“You’re a self-starter, an independent thinker. And, yes, a professional. You won’t cross the line. But you’ll put a toe over it.” His tone had lightened, but only momentarily. “You can’t tell anyone about me, Maggie. No one. That’s very important for your own safety. You have good instincts. Trust them.”

“I didn’t know Tom Kopac was about to be killed this morning.”

“I didn’t say you were clairvoyant.”

“If you have any information, I can take you to the American embassy and we can talk there.” Unless he was already familiar to everyone there—good old Bill Raleigh, yeah, that head case.

But he was very convincing. “That won’t be necessary.”

Maggie knew she’d lost him, that he was wrapping up, but she persisted. “I need more to go on.”

His movements unhurried, he carefully, deliberately, stood. She noticed he had a walking stick with him, the retractable kind that hikers use. He turned to her. “There’s an inn in Ravenkill, New York. The Old Stone Hollow. I don’t know if it’s of any significance. Perhaps it’s just a pretty country inn.”

“An inn? What—”

“It’s good to meet you in person, Agent Spencer,” Raleigh said, easing out of the pew. “Your marshal friend is here. He’s not one to underestimate, is he? I’ll be in touch if I have anything else for you.”

Maggie whipped around in the pew, but she didn’t see Rob.

A trick. Damn.

She jumped up, but Raleigh—or whoever he was—had darted into the outer aisle, moving faster than she’d thought him capable of. He kicked over a kneeler and it landed on her ankle, slowing her down as she went after him. Every fiber of her being told him that he was someone she could trust, but her common sense—her training and experience—warned her not to let herself get sucked into his story all the way.

She wouldn’t be the first law enforcement officer to get taken in by a delusional alcoholic.

“Mr. Raleigh,” she whispered, “please wait. Rob’s not here. You have to give me more. This inn—”

Ignoring her, he picked up his pace. Maggie didn’t know what she was supposed to do if she caught up with him. Tackle him and drag him to the Den Bosch police? Shove him in her Mini and drive him to the American embassy? She wasn’t armed. She had no arrest authority in the Netherlands.

She heard someone mumbling a prayer in a nearby chapel, then the far-off moan of a door, the echo of footsteps. Her hands were clammy, her fingers stiff as if they’d been in the cold.

“Raleigh!”

She let her voice go above a whisper.

A woman spun around in a pew and glared at her.

He wasn’t stopping.

If she tried to tackle him, Maggie figured he’d whack her with his walking stick. He’d make a scene. He’d play the crazy old drunk being attacked by a religious zealot. He’d scream for help, scaring the hell out of the few stragglers in the cathedral, and run.

Trust your instincts.

He disappeared, hiding in one of the thousand nooks and crannies of the massive cathedral, stealing out an exit.

Maybe he’d just gone up in smoke.

Maybe she’d imagined him.

Ravenkill, New York.

Maggie had never heard of it or the Old Stone Hollow Inn.

“Little unsteady on your feet there, Agent Spencer?”

Dunnemore. He didn’t bother to speak in a whisper. Maggie recognized his Southern accent even before she swung around and saw him coming through a pew from another aisle.

Obviously he’d been in the cathedral long enough to have seen her trip on the kneeler.

That meant he’d also seen her chase William Raleigh.

“Just a little,” she said with an edge of sarcasm. “Have I been longer than twenty minutes?”

“I don’t know. I gave you a two-minute head start before I came after you.” He stood very close to her, not much charming about his manner right now. “The raw herring wasn’t that appealing.”

She flexed her ankle, easing out any stiffness. “I should have remembered you track people for a living.”

“Probably should have. Who was the old man?”

“William the Conqueror.”

He held his suit jacket over his shoulder with one finger, his shirtsleeves rolled up. He hadn’t had a particularly good day, either. Maggie felt herself softening as he looked her up and down. “You hurt?” he asked.

She shook her head, wondering if he might be exaggerating his accent just to throw her off balance. “How did you find me?”

“You said you were off to pray. This is the biggest church in the whole damn country. I figured it was a good place to start.”

“You shouldn’t swear in here.”

“You’re right. We can go outside, and I’ll swear out there.” His eyes—they were a dark gray in the dim light of the cathedral—fixed on her. “And you can tell me about the old guy in the madras shirt.”

They found a table in the shade at an uncrowded café near the market square. “Get two of whatever you’re ordering,” Maggie said. “I’m not picky. I don’t even know if I can eat.”

Rob ordered two bowls of the soup of the day, which seemed to involve chicken, and coffee for himself, a Heineken for Maggie. He’d do the driving back to The Hague.

Their waiter brought the drinks first. Maggie touched a finger to the foam of her beer. She’d had a miserable day, and she looked more shaken than she’d want to admit, worse now that she’d finished with the investigators and the questions—and now that whatever her mission at the cathedral had been was over.

“The old guy looked like he planned to take you out with that walking stick,” Rob said.

“For all I know, he thought it was tipped with ricin.”

“Is that a joke?”

She sighed. “An attempt at a joke.”

Rob lifted his small coffee cup. “I’d say cheers, but it wouldn’t sound right today.”

“I suppose not.” She picked up her beer, hesitating, as if pushing back an intrusive thought, before taking a sip. “It’s been a long week. Nothing about it’s been normal.”

Including having him thrust upon her, Rob thought, drinking some of his coffee. It was very strong, but he figured a jolt of caffeine wouldn’t hurt. He was hot from chasing after Maggie, negotiating the narrow, unfamiliar city streets in the late August heat. “Your rendezvous with the old guy at St. John’s. That’s why we’re in Den Bosch today?”

Maggie stared at the disappearing foam on her beer. “I shouldn’t drink—”

“Go ahead. I’m sticking to coffee. I’ll drive.” He smiled, trying to take some of the edge off her mood and maybe his own. “It’s okay. I can handle a Mini.”

She raised her eyes from her drink. “I know what it must have looked like back there. Just forget about it, okay?”

“Not okay. The old guy’s an informant?”

“A wanna-be, I think.”

“Any relation to Kopac?”

“I don’t know that much about him.”

Rob sat back in his chair. “That’s an evasive answer.”

“Maybe it’s a polite way to tell you—” She stopped herself. “Never mind. It’s been a lousy day for you, too.”

But she obviously wanted to tell him what happened in St. John’s was none of his damned business. “Better to evade than to lie outright. Okay. I get that. You don’t know anything about me except that I’m a marshal, I was shot four months ago and my family knows the president.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t trust me, either.”

“It’s not a question of trust.”

Then what else was it? But he didn’t ask. “This guy’s contacted you before?”

“First time.”

“What’d he do, call, e-mail, send a carrier pigeon? Come on. Throw me a bone. Let me think you’re starting to trust me a little.”

She didn’t smile. “He called.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“So, after I got here.”

Their soup arrived in heavy bowls. Cream of chicken and fresh vegetables. It was steaming and substantial, which, despite the heat, Rob welcomed.

Maggie shifted around in her chair. “I wouldn’t make too much of this. The timing’s bad, I know, but I’m not all that sure he’s playing with a full deck.” She picked up her beer with such force, some of it splashed out onto her hand. “It’s quiet, don’t you think? Especially for such a beautiful afternoon. People must be worried after this morning. I guess I don’t blame them.”

“They’ll decide it’s an American thing and go on with their lives. In Central Park in the spring, people decided it was a marshals thing. It helped them get past the idea of a sniper on the loose. Someone wasn’t picking off people at random.”

Maggie took a drink of her beer, then set down the glass and blew out a sigh. “Tom’s family must know by now what happened to him. It’s an awful experience to go through, having someone come to your house and tell you—well, you know what I mean.”

“I called my sister from Central Park so she wouldn’t have to find out that way or, worse, see me on television.”

“Did you know you were in bad shape?”

“I don’t remember what I knew.”

She looked away. “You didn’t need what happened today.”

“Maggie, I didn’t come to the Netherlands to run away from anything. I can do my job.”

“You’re not back on the street,” she said.

“That’s not my decision to make. Look—”

She faced him again, her creamy skin less pale. “You should be. You didn’t hesitate today. The shooter, Tom. You did fine.”

He acknowledged her words with a nod. “I still want to know about this Scarlet Pimpernel character of yours.”

This time, she smiled. “You marshals. Hound dogs on a scent.”

Rob tried the soup, relished the normalcy of it. “Maybe I can help.”

“That’s nice of you to offer, but there’s nothing for you to do.”

Clever. It wasn’t as if he could order her to come clean. He could badger her for answers, but he’d already seen her help pull a dead man out of a river, deal with the Dutch police and a nervous embassy and chase a white-haired old man. She’d hold her own against anything he threw at her and tell him exactly what she wanted him to know and not one word more.

This wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he’d told Mike Rivera he wanted to go to the Netherlands.

“You saw the man with me at St. John’s. My wanna-be informant. Did he look mentally stable to you?”

Rob shrugged. “Down on his luck, maybe. Lost his retirement, got a little daft. Could just be on a tight budget.”

“I suppose.” She picked up her spoon, held it in midair and sighed. “I shouldn’t have wasted my time. I just ended up putting you on high alert, got you into tracking mode.”

“Kopac’s murder did that.”

Her eyes shone, but she covered her emotion by dipping her spoon into her soup.

“This guy,” Rob said. “Does he have a name? Besides William the Conqueror.”

“That was snotty of me. I apologize.” She left it at that. “How long were you in the cathedral?”

“Obviously not long enough.”

“Did you see anyone else, anyone who could have been with my guy?”

Rob remembered the scene when he’d walked into the cathedral, his eyes adjusting to the dim light, his sensibilities to the atmosphere. It was quiet, removed from the murder investigation outside its doors. When he spotted Maggie in a pew, at first he thought, guiltily, that she had, indeed, come there to pray.

Then he’d noticed the white-haired man sitting too close to her. In the next second, she was chasing after him.

“I should have followed your guy,” Rob said. “But I didn’t see anyone who might have been with him. Think he tipped you off about Janssen?”

“No. I’m sure he didn’t. That message came by a free e-mail account. I doubt—” She topped herself. “I shouldn’t make assumptions. He just didn’t strike me as someone who would know the whereabouts of an international fugitive.”

“But he chose to meet you in Den Bosch, where Janssen was picked up.”

“Probably for dramatic effect. He could have read about the arrest in the paper and decided to give me a call. You must know how it is with sources. I’m sympathetic to mental illness—I mean it. But it’s not always that easy to sort out the cranks from the legitimate sources.” She sighed. “I didn’t expect that part of this work, did you?”

Rob didn’t answer right away. He’d dealt with his share of delusional would-be informants, from poor, illiterate drug addicts to highly educated society matrons. Getting sucked into one of their wild fantasies and acting on it was the nightmare of every law enforcement officer he knew. “Maggie—”

“I’ve told you what I can.”

He could feel her tension and reached across the table, skimming his fingertips across the top of her hand. Her skin was cooler than it should have been on such a warm day. She didn’t pull away, but touching her was an instinctive gesture on his part and took them both by surprise.

She took a breath, looking down at her soup. “It’s been a weird day. Surreal, almost.”

“I’m not the prosecution or your boss.” Rob tried to sound reassuring, not patronizing or irritated by her unwillingness to talk. Still, he could feel his own tension and fatigue clawing at him, and the caffeine had his mind going in a dozen different directions. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”