Chapter 21

Wil and I were out running one morning when his phone rang. He spoke with someone for a few minutes, and when he hung up, he said, “Your buddy O’Bannon got out of the hospital.”

“Huh?”

“You told me he had an accident. Well, I guess he’s well enough to travel. He checked out this morning.”

“That’s impossible.” Wil cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Wil, I shot him. Right through the chest. He was less than ten feet away. Really. He died. Fell in the lake and floated away. I know what a dead man looks like.”

Wil got back on his phone. Fifteen minutes later, he said, “According to local authorities in Killarney, one Gavin O’Bannon was found floating in the lake, Lough Leane. He’d been shot in the chest, and the bullet exited his back. They took him to the local hospital, and although he was close to bleeding out, he survived. The bullet missed his heart, lungs, and spine. In other words, it didn’t hit anything vital.” He shook his head. “That’s incredible. He must be the luckiest man alive.”

“So where is he now?”

“Some men picked him up at the hospital and headed north on the road to Limerick.”

I normally tried not to curse, too much, but I had paid attention to the creative way my father sometimes used language. I tried some of it out. It really didn’t make me feel better, but it did relieve some tension. Wil looked shocked.

Back at the townhouse, I took a shower, then turned the bathroom over to Wil. With a towel wrapped around my hair, I rummaged in the freezer for a quiche to microwave, and turned on the screen to check the weather.

The major story on every news site was a variation of, “Art Scandal in Vancouver.” In spite of the large corporations controlling most of the media, some stories are just too juicy to keep quiet. This one had all the ingredients—theft, forgery, murder, and the involvement of some of Vancouver’s foremost families and art patrons.

Some enterprising reporter had tied Boyle’s and Abramowitz’s murders together. I watched Sheila Robertson with her lawyer making a statement about how she was an innocent victim of art fraud. Marian Clark’s lawyer gave a “no comment” to a report that she had purchased stolen masterpieces for her personal collection. Five employees of the Vancouver Art Gallery were under arrest, as was a member of the Chamber’s security force, and an employee of Feitler’s Gallery, where I had delivered the recovered art to Chung. I was impressed both with the reporter who put it all together and with Inspector Fenton.

“Wil,” I shouted. “Come see. Major art scandal in Vancouver. We’re all over the news.”

He came out of the bedroom dripping water and toweling his head.

“What are you yelling about? What about Vancouver?”

I pointed at the screen.

“Holy crap.” He stood there, staring with his mouth open and making a puddle on the floor.

“I told you there was a leak,” I said. “That day we got boxed by the trucks, and the day Reagan escaped. Two different leaks.”

Just then, a picture of a woman came on the screen, and the announcer said, “Police are looking for this woman, believed to be the kingpin of the operation.” It was Kieran Murphy.

I erupted in laughter. “Kingpin? Kieran? What idiots. Not a word anywhere about Reagan.”

“I need to call Vancouver,” Wil said and trotted into the bedroom. I followed and watched him grab his phone.

“What time is it there?” he asked.

“Like one or two o’clock in the freaking morning. No one is going to be awake. Here, give me that thing.” I snatched the phone out of his hands. “Geez, you really need to get better equipment. I guarantee the people in your financial audit unit have better phones.”

He glared at me, but I ignored it.

“Come with me,” I said, and led him into the other bedroom where I had all my equipment set up. Taking a patch cord, I plugged it from a little gray box hooked to my network into his phone. “I assume you plan to call your people at the Chamber, and maybe Inspector Fenton?”

Wil nodded.

“Just plug this in before you call. This little box will encrypt your conversation so that no one can listen in. You know, like the media. The people that are broadcasting your quiet little investigation to the world.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Go dry off. Do you want some microwave quiche?”

Wil did talk to the local Chamber guys. In Ireland, the Chamber had taken over all major police functions. The Garda, the Irish national police, had been so corrupt that the Chamber abolished them along with the rest of the government in 2087.

A couple of hours later, one of Wil’s Chamber contacts called him back.

“Murphy left the estate in Celbridge. She took a car and is driving toward Dublin,” Wil said after he hung up.

“Is she alone?”

“Yeah. Our spotter said she put two suitcases and a backpack in the car, then left alone.”

“She’s running,” I said. “Is Reagan at the estate?”

“We haven’t seen him leave,” Wil said. “Our information is that he’s a night owl. Sleeps until almost noon.”

“So, he may not know she’s gone. Obviously, she doesn’t feel as though he’ll protect her,” I said. We were walking along the south bank of the River Liffey. Stopping and looking north, I could see the steeple of Christchurch Cathedral jutting out of the water, and the ghosts of thousand-year-old buildings beneath the surface. So much of the history of the city had drowned. But not the airport, though it was much closer to being beachfront property than when it was built.

“You might stop her from getting on a plane,” I said. “And if she drives past the airport, then she might go to her parents, who live about halfway between here and Belfast. And if she doesn’t go to her parents’ house, then she might be heading to the airport in Belfast.”

 “It might be more than a concern that Reagan wouldn’t protect her,” Wil said as we turned up the hill into downtown and headed for Chamber headquarters. “She would probably be the most important witness against him. Men like Reagan aren’t fond of witnesses.”

At Chamber headquarters, we found Miles Callaghan—the Deputy Director of Criminal Investigations that Wil had been working with.

“We definitely have a runner,” Miles said when we entered his office. “She’s made it off the island.”

“I thought you were watching for her at the airport,” I blurted out.

Miles gave me a disapproving frown. “We were. She took a ferry.”

I let that sink in. The only ferries I had any experience with were the ones that traversed Lake Ontario and the one in Vancouver.

“Why didn’t security stop her there?” Wil asked.

Miles shook his head. “In North America, do you have security checkpoints to cross the street? There isn’t any security. You drive into the ferry port, get in queue for your destination, pay the fee, and drive on board. Your girl probably knew the schedules, because within fifteen minutes of arriving at the port, five ferries launched.”

He had a large map of Ireland on one wall. I walked over to it.

“Can we set a watch on the destination port?” I asked.

“Which one?” Miles countered. “If she took the shortest route to England, then she’s almost there by now.”

“Well, what are the possible destinations?” Wil asked.

“Isle of Man, Holyhead in England, Pembroke in Wales, Roscoff or Cherbourg in France. At the Isle of Man, she could get off, or continue on to Glasgow, or go to Belfast. From Pembroke, she could take a ferry back to Cork, or another to Cherbourg. From Cherbourg, she could go to Bristol or back to Ireland, and from Roscoff, she could take a ferry to Spain.”

“We’ve lost her,” Wil said.

“Unless we get uncommonly lucky,” Miles agreed. “We’ll have people watch the ports, but all it would take is for her to leave the car, wear a wig, and walk off the ferry. We’d probably never see her again.”

“Yeah, if she was just trying to dodge us and the media, she might not take extensive precautions,” I said. “But if she’s running from Reagan, she’s probably terrified. She could walk off the ferry with a backpack and two suitcases. That probably wouldn’t be that unusual.”

Miles nodded. “You’re right, Miss Nelson. Most people who ride the ferries aren’t bringing a car.”

“So,” I said, “since we can’t watch everywhere, Wil, you take Roscoff, and I’ll take Cherbourg. We fly there and wait for the ferry. We’re the only ones who know her on sight, so we might have a chance of spotting her, no matter how she’s disguised.”

He gave me one of those patient smiles of his. “And why are you guessing France?”

“Because Murphy speaks French. She spent a year in France between university and graduate study, and another year doing an internship before she landed the job in Vancouver. You speak French, and I kinda do.”

“Your Quebecois is good enough to get around in France,” Wil said. “People might laugh at your accent, but they’ll understand you. Most people speak English, and all the Chamber people do.”

“Great.” I turned to Miles. “When can you give us a ride to France?”