A Killing Sky Read online

  “All right. I'll go pay a visit to Mr. Haynes. Odds are, I'll find he's just playing coy with you for some reason. Probably secretly shacking up with your sister.”

  “Cartwright wouldn't do that, Mr. Pavlicek. Not without calling. I'm telling you.”

  Maybe it was true. The twins could've possessed a bond, the extent of which only they could understand. What must it be like to know another so intimately, to be linked, in some ethereal way, from as far back as the womb? I thought of Nicole again and wondered what it would have been like if she had had a sister.

  Cassidy must have caught something in my eyes because she said, “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” I said. “I was just thinking how you remind me of my daughter.”

  “Oh. You mentioned her earlier. Does she live with you? Marcia said you were divorced.”

  “Nicky's mother had some problems, so Nicky lived with me while she finished high school. She's at the university too, now, a first-year, so I guess you and she have something in common.”

  “That's great. She know what she wants to study?”

  “Not yet—not exactly.”

  Nicole had been making a lot of noise lately about joining me in my PI business. I had better things in mind for her, however. No way was I going to let her end up chasing down reluctant witnesses over insurance claims like her old man. I was trying to nudge her toward English or history, maybe even something practical like computer science. Private investigation was an occupation I supposed few university students aspired to, so I let it drop.

  “What if Jed Haynes tries to tell you the same story he told me? What if you can't find out anything?”

  “Well,” I said, “there's always these.” I'd brought the copies of the articles she had sent me. I pulled them out of my pocket, unfolded them, and laid them on the table.

  “Do you think they have something to do with Wright disappearing?”

  “You tell me. Ever hear of these people before?” I skimmed through the article again. “George and Norma Paitley?”

  She shook her head.

  “I already made one call. This case was never solved. I can check into it further, but that'll take time. By then, if you still haven't heard from your sister, you'll need to go to the police.”

  “But what about Dad?”

  “Look, you're hiring me to try to find your sister.

  This is the way we need to do it. One step at a time. We'll worry about your father, if we even need to, when the time comes.”

  “My father is a very influential man, Mr. Pavlicek.”

  “That's okay. I've dealt with a few. What other information can you give me? Didn't you say your sister was driving a rental car?”

  “Yes. We picked one up at the airport to use for a couple of weeks. Mom and Dad are going to buy us both new ones for our birthday later this month.”

  “Happy birthday,” I said. “I need to know the make and license of the car, if you have that information, or at least the name of the rental company and the approximate time you picked up the vehicle.”

  She pulled out a piece of paper. “I thought you might want that. The paperwork's with the car. But here's the name of the company. We picked it up at Dulles.”

  “Good.” Her handwriting was flowery and elliptical. “You also said you've tried calling your sister's cell phone number several times?”

  “Yes.”

  “She always have that phone with her?”

  “Yes. We both have them.”

  “Do you know if Cartwright has her charger with her?”

  “No. The charge usually lasts a couple of days.”

  “Does she have an adapter for the car?”

  “I don't know. I can check her bags again.”

  “Okay. I'll need that phone number.”

  “All right. How do I pay you?”

  “A five-hundred-dollar retainer to start. I'll either bill you for any additional charges or refund the difference.”

  She pulled a small camel-colored purse from her jacket pocket. She took out a checkbook and an expensive-looking pen and wrote out a check, then tore it off and handed it to me.

  “Anything else you can tell me?” I folded the check into my pocket without looking at it. “If this thing ends up going to the police, you and your family will have to answer a lot of questions. You might as well try to think of everything you can right now.”

  She pressed her lips together for a few moments. “I suppose there might be something.”

  I waited.

  “You remember I told you about my sister's boyfriend Jed sending her some crazy E-mails while we were in Japan?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He signed most of them. You could tell they came from his college mail address. But some of them were signed differently, poems and stuff, and they came from a different address. They were just so crazy. Wright didn't even tell me about them until recently. I guess she assumed they were from Jed. She said she'd been getting a few of them off and on since the school year started.”

  “Which is about when she started dating Jed.”

  “Right.”

  “You said Jed's agitated and possessive. Why would your sister want to go out with someone like that?”

  “He might become famous, for one thing,” she said.

  Like we need more of that, I thought, but said nothing.

  “Plus he looks like Brad Pitt with a body like Patrick Swayze. I think Wright thought she could tame him. Turns out he's just a jerk.”

  “Did you and your sister communicate a lot via E-mail when you were overseas?”

  “Sure. We both have laptops. It was just like being at home. We'd E-mail each other sometimes three or four times a day.”

  “Did Cartwright take her laptop with her last night?”

  “No. She left it. I saw it when I went through her bag.”

  “All right. We may need to check on that later. What time did you say your father was leaving?”

  “In a couple of hours.”

  I took one of my business cards out of my wallet and gave it to her.

  “Anything else you can think of right now?”

  “No, I don't think so.”

  “If something else occurs to you, or if you hear from your sister, my cell number's on the card.”

  “Okay.”

  “Either way, I'll call you on your cell phone after I talk with the boyfriend. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She gave me the number, along with her sister's cell phone number and Jed Haynes's number and home address. When we finished, I paid the bill and walked her out of the restaurant.

  The spring sun was still a no-show. A gunmetal-gray sky arched over the downtown mall. The chill hit us and we both zipped up.

  “Thank you,” she said, standing on the bricked-in pedestrian Main Street, steam rolling from her pretty mouth. She stuck out her hand and I took it again. The fingers were still cold.

  “Don't thank me yet.”

  I had a troublesome inkling neither one of us would be so grateful when we found out what was happening with her look-alike sister and Mr. Jed Haynes.

  4

  The cold washed over me like a purifying balm as I tried to shake the feeling, trudging back down the mall toward my office. I picked up the turnip when I made the turn down Second toward Water Street. It was all the guy could do, I noticed, to keep from breaking into a run. Not much experience, apparently, running a tail.

  He had been standing at the kiosk at the far end of the mall as we left the restaurant, pretending to talk on the phone. A pudgy little man in a long black raincoat. He kept shifting his gaze our way as Cassidy Drummond and I parted company, and for a few moments afterward he seemed uncertain about which one of us to try to follow, but then he took off after me. I'm sure he wouldn't have found my nickname for him flattering, but that was my first impression. Purplish skin with a bushy mustache and bulging eyes—a ripe, overgrown turnip packed into clothes.

 
; After rounding the corner out of his line of vision, I stopped, folded my arms, and leaned against a lamppost. It took only a few seconds for him to come panting around the corner in pursuit. At the sight of me waiting, he pulled up short.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  We exchanged hard looks. His mustache twitched. He knew he was made. He shook his head and put his index finger to his lips as if to shush me, but what he was doing with his other hand interested me more. He moved it deftly beneath his long coat and came partway out with the barrel of a very large handgun, loosely pointing it in my direction.

  Not so obvious to anyone behind him or walking past, but he made sure it was plenty obvious to me. Since I'd left my .357 hanging in its shoulder holster over the hat rack in my office, I was in no position to play Wyatt Earp. Even if I had wanted to, the barrel of his gun looked about the size of your average redwood, so I would have been decidedly outgunned. Oh, well, you know what they say—the bigger the gun, the smaller the … ah, brain.

  “Here? In broad daylight?” I said. “There must be twenty witnesses within earshot who could ID you before you'd make it out of sight.”

  Something in his eyes told me such a problem was not a big concern for him. My identifying him, on the other hand, might be. He seemed to reflect on the possibilities for a moment. Then he put his finger to his lips again, turned, and disappeared back around the corner.

  When I got around to breathing, I decided—discretion in this instance being the better part of valor—not to follow. He'd made his choice when he came after me, so he had little if any chance of picking up Cassidy Drummond again. It was cold consolation as I made my way back to the co-op.

  “Sounds wild, my man.” Jake Toronto lifted his mustang boots onto the edge of my desk, put his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair. “Even if I wanted to pull a hoax, not sure I could come up with something that good.”

  Toronto is my ex-homicide partner from New York. He is also my falconry sponsor and best friend. Now and then we even manage to still do a little work together. He lives like a monk in the mountains, flying his goshawk and surviving mostly off his investments, but he's also been known to perform “certain security functions,” as he puts it, for a select clientele, not all of whom I would want to meet in broad daylight.

  Today, however, I felt like I was grubbing next to him. He was decked out in a dark Jos. A. Bank suit, indigo shirt, rep tie. Said he'd come over to Charlottesville to take care of “some legal work and some banking.” All legal, he assured me. His slicked-back hair made him look like a compact version of Steven Seagal.

  “I just heard one of Drummond's ads on the radio coming over here,” he said. “Guy's starting early. The election's not for seven months.”

  “Guess he figures he's vulnerable. Wants to make sure he keeps the party's nomination.”

  He shrugged. “Politics,” he said.

  “I'm pretty sure the other twin's just shacked up with this swimmer. Maybe something she doesn't want her sister to know about. On the other hand, I'm not too keen on strangers sticking howitzers in my face.”

  “Don't recognize the guy you described. You said he seemed pretty familiar with the piece?”

  “With the gun, yes. Didn't seem to really know much about tailing somebody.”

  “Unless he wanted you to pick him up. Maybe send you a message.”

  I nodded. The thought had occurred to me as well.

  “We'll see… You bring Jersey with you?” Jersey was Toronto's falconry bird, a woodland accipiter a little like Toronto himself, a street fighter with near-mythic killing prowess. Bird or mammal mattered not to the northern goshawk. The element of surprise was one of its biggest weapons.

  “Nah. We hunted this morning. How's that pretty redtail of yours?”

  “Better than ever. Almost makes me think twice about letting her go.”

  “Your call. When it's time, you'll know.” He stared out the open window, then up at Fauntleroy.

  “Nicole and I are taking her out crow-hawking in an hour or so.”

  “Ambitious.”

  “Care to join us?”

  “No, thanks. Got appointments.” For Toronto to turn down a chance at hunting must have meant something important.

  “All right,” I said.

  “Hey, you say Marsh used to be a volunteer for the congressman?”

  “Yup. Seems pretty emotional about it, too.”

  “Think he hit on her?”

  “She wouldn't say so, but that would be his M.O.”

  “Kind of makes things a bit personal, don't it?”

  “Doing my best to reserve judgment.”

  “Folks start waving iron in the air, gets your attention.”

  “That it does.”

  “You gonna need some help on this Drummond thing?” he asked.

  “Thought you'd never ask. Can you check out a cell phone number for me, find out any numbers that may've been called since midnight last night?”

  “Not that easily. Who's the carrier?”

  I gave him the name of the company and Cartwright Drummond's cell phone number.

  “It may take a while, but I think I can come up with what you want. You wanna know how much her last bill was too?”

  I smiled. “Just the calls. Depending on what I hear from the swimmer, the way this thing's headed, I may have need of some of your other… uh, talents as well. I'll let you know.”

  “I got the time. I got the talent,” he said. “I'll be around.”

  After he left, I made a few more calls up to D.C. about the newspaper articles Cassidy Drummond had given me. Left a couple of messages. Talked to a couple of clerks and basically came up empty.

  Old news is hard to find.

  5

  Not many people put a lot of stock in this anymore, but falcons used to be considered arbiters from God. When I say falcons, I mean hawks and eagles too, all species of birds of prey. Longwings, such as the peregrine or the prized gyrfalcon, often drop in a stoop from a thousand feet or more like a bolt commissioned by a sudden killing sky to choose among their slower-flying quarry. From antiquity birds of prey have been revered, even worshiped. To this day eagles are considered sacred by many Native Americans, and in many parts of the world falcons retain a mystique often associated with royalty.

  Here in old Virginny, however, I wasn't feeling particularly royal at the moment.

  Nicole drove the bouncing pickup down the farm road while I worked at holding Armistead low enough on my fist to keep her from seeing over the dash. Smoky clouds hung like a solid ceiling overhead. The temperature hovered in the forties. We hadn't spotted any crows yet, but that didn't mean they weren't somewhere about. Armistead was impatient, footing my glove.

  “Pretty bird. Sit still now.” Nicole tried to soothe the redtail with her voice.

  We were closing in on the end of Armistead's last season with us, and I wasn't sure who would miss the hawk more, my daughter or me. My apprentice bird was now a mature adult, a skilled hunter, ready to be released back to the wild to find a mate.

  She would probably never find it necessary to try to take crows for food when on her own. They would be impossible game for your average redtail, and easier fare was almost always plentiful. But introducing her to new game at this point, I figured, would at least broaden her experience. Besides, I thought she just might be up to the challenge. The vineyard owner had approached me about ridding his acreage of the blackguards. Whether we caught anything or not, the very presence of such a raptor in the area would help keep the crows at bay.

  “Hey.” Nicole held tight to the wheel as the truck bounced over another rut in the road. “You know, Congressman Drummond's house is just a mile or so over those hills.” She was looking at the highest point in the vineyard, a pair of swells covered, like the rest of the landscape surrounding us, with rows of arbors.

  “Is that a fact?”

  I had made the mistake of mentioning my new client to her befor
e leaving the house with Armistead. Technically, Nicole was on my payroll, since she did some part-time work, mostly computer-related, and she was always interested in my cases. Nearing the end of her first year at the university, she was also talking about the possibility of moving to a house with a couple of male classmates to save money in the fall. I liked the saving money part. Not so sure I was wild about her sharing quarters with the male classmates.

  La Casa del Pavlicek had seen some upheaval when my daughter had arrived on the scene a couple of years before. My on-the-job crash course in young-adult parenting had involved everything from late-night curfews to learning what a Def Leppard was, and though I wasn't exactly up for a remedial effort, since she was so determined to save money, I'd offered her the option of moving back in with me for a while. After all, I hadn't had to scrape the remains of lavender shaving cream off my shower wall in months. And my elderly landlords were getting bored by all the peace and quiet after a year of wall-shaking stereo.

  One thing was certain. Nicole Mae Pavlicek, a.k.a. Nicky, a.k.a. my wanna-be partner in Eagle Eye Investigations, had a mind so quick it was all I could do to keep up with her at times.

  “Aren't you curious about what your newest client might be up to?”

  “You've got it wrong, Nicky. Normally, we spy for the client, not on the client.”

  “I've never met them, but I've heard Cassidy and her sister are nice, not stuck up or anything.” She had already offered to cross-reference a bunch of search engines on the Web and print out a file of background material on Congressman Drummond and the twins, including photos. “You know this case could make you famous,” she said.

  “Or infamous.” I was beginning to regret even mentioning Cassidy Drummond to her in the first place.

  “You're always so negative, Dad.”

  “Not negative. We're talking public figures here. No telling all that's going on. It's best you stay as far away as possible. You're still a student. You've got other priorities. Trust me, I'm being realistic.” At least I'd stopped short of giving her any details, especially about my encounter with the turnip and his over-sized gun.