CHAPTER
TEN
By four-thirty, the full authority and
resources of the United States government were behind the search
for the Donovans, and, much to her surprise, Irene still had full
tactical command. As a practical matter, all that really meant was
that she’d been named as the official scapegoat. If she truly had
lost her prey, only one career would be trashed.
Actually, two. Irene had known Paul
Boersky since their days together in Minneapolis—her first
assignment out of the academy, and his second. Together, they’d
racked up quite an impressive list of arrests over the years,
putting them both on faster tracks than their respective
classmates. Irene had passed her old partner on the career ladder
just fourteen months ago, thanks to the political realities of the
nineties. These days, when it came time for promotions, all ties
went to minority candidates—in this case, to a woman—and if you
asked her, it was about damn time.
If Paul harbored any ill will toward
his assignment to second chair, he never showed it. In fact,
Irene’s willingness to let subordinates shine on the job had served
him well. No doubt his next assignment would be as supervisory
agent in charge of a field office somewhere.
Well, no doubt until today, anyway.
Fact was, if this Donovan thing went bad, everyone associated with
it would be painted with a very ugly brush. At headquarters, they
called it high incentive to perform.
Presently, Paul, Irene, and a dozen
other cops and FBI agents were dismantling Farm Meadows Mobile Home
Park, looking for some clue as to where the Donovans might have
gone. So far, they’d found nothing; but the Phoenix P.D. was
enjoying remarkable success in collaring four fugitives wanted on
felony warrants. Irene overheard a cop liken the scampering felons
to roaches scattering in the light. Personally, she preferred her
own analogy of lifting a rock. Either way, Chief Sherwood had
dodged one hell of a bullet.
There had to be a way to track them
down. She refused to believe that the earth could simply open up
and digest three human beings. Everything people did left a trail
of some sort. Everyone, it would seem, except the
Donovans.
Paul sighed loudly and leaned against
the makeshift porch attached to the Donovans’ trailer. “I know you
don’t want to hear this,” he said sheepishly, “but it appears they
plain just got away. The closets are still full of clothes, there’s
dishes in the sink and wet clothes in the washing machine. When
they left, they left. Poof.”
She helped herself to an Astro Turfed
step. “And we missed them at the school,” she sighed.
“Two hours ago,” he confirmed. “We’re
getting a pretty good handle on how they spent their day, too. The
neighbor down the street—a Mary Barnett—says she saw Carolyn in the
bank this morning, looking, as she said, ‘very suspicious. ’
”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably
means that Mrs. Barnett doesn’t have enough to do. I’ve got a guy
at the bank just the same, talking to folks down
there.”
She nodded. “Anything
else?”
“Uh-huh. Let me show you.” He led the
way inside the Donovans’ trailer, past the kitchen and the living
room, and into the master bedroom. Not much for the trailer park
scene herself, she had to admit that the place looked better than
most. “Look here,” he said, pointing to the bed. “Three duffel
bags, packed with clothes and toiletries.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Three bags? As
in Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and Baby Bear?”
“Exactly,” he confirmed. “Three bags
packed with essentials, yet the drawers and closets are all
full.”
She scowled. “Now, you tell me how you
can look at a closet and tell me it’s full. You have some special
power, do you, that lets you look at someone’s closet and tell
what’s not there?” She
chuckled and shook her head.
He scowled. He didn’t like being the
target of her derision, and he wasn’t at all sure why she’d
suddenly decided to take up residence on his back. “Think about
it,” he urged. “Wouldn’t you think that someone throwing stuff
together at the last minute would leave a mess? You’d have shit
hanging out of drawers and stuff half-pulled off hangers. But look
at this place.” He made a wide, sweeping motion with his arm. “I
mean, it’s not House and
Garden, but the place is certainly
organized.”
She turned her eyes back to the duffel
bags. “Maybe they were going on a trip.”
“The bags were padlocked into a
closet.”
“So?”
“So I think they’ve been planning for
this. Look, this bag here even has pictures and baby memorabilia.
No one takes stuff like that on vacation. The Donovans were ready
to go at a moment’s notice, which means they’ve got a plan. They
know what they’re going to do, where they’re going to go, and how
they’re going to get there.”
“But we interrupted their plan,” she
offered. “So maybe they’re off balance.”
He shrugged. “Well, okay. Maybe. But
remember, these are just the essentials. Nothing here to make or
break a getaway.”
She considered that for a long moment.
“Which means they’ve got more essentials someplace
else.”
He nodded. “I would if I were
them.”
She regarded him with a long look.
“You think maybe you’re giving them too much credit? Just because
they’ve vanished once doesn’t necessarily mean they’re geared up to
do it again.”
“In fact, they have done it again.” Paul seemed a little
embarrassed to be stating the obvious.
She sighed and rubbed her temples.
Frankel’s tirade hadn’t yet stopped echoing in her brain. “What
else do you have?”
He looked down. “Well, you know, it’s
still early in the investigation . . .”
“Don’t go into excuses mode on me,”
she warned.
He paged through his notebook one more
time, looking for a ray of hope, but ultimately flipped it closed.
“Honestly? Beyond the interesting trivia, we don’t have anything
useful yet. I mean, we’ve got all the physical evidence in the
world that the Brightons are really the Donovans, but so what? We
knew that before we got here. What we really want to know is where
they’ve gone, and there we don’t have a clue. Not yet, anyway.” The
words hung heavily in the air. His boss looked like she might start
to growl. “I wish I could tell you something you want to hear,” he
concluded, “but I can’t.”
She set her jaw. “Do you have any idea
how tired I am of people telling me what they can’t do?” She found herself repeating
Frankel’s words, nearly verbatim. “I can hire a sixth grader to
tell me what we can’t do. Careers, on the other hand, are built on
the ability to find answers.” She strode back toward the kitchen,
with Paul close behind. They helped themselves to seats at the
table.
Stung by her reprimand, Paul would
wait till next week before he broke the silence. After all these
years, he deserved better than this, and his expression showed
it.
“One more time,” she prodded. “Tell me
what we do
know.”
He took a deep breath and swallowed
his anger. “Okay. What we know: They’re very careful people. They
were ready to run and presumably have been for quite some time.
We’ve found all the trappings of family life. You know, books,
magazines, toiletries, toys for the kid. At first glance, their
reading tastes tend to run toward romances and thrillers, and
there’s a collection of Goosebumps books in the kid’s room my son
would kill for. The only thing of even marginal interest is some of
the magazines we’ve found. Lots of outdoors stuff—sportsmen’s rags.
To me, that’s significant, if only because outdoor survival skills
make it easier for them to disappear.”
Irene scowled as she listened. “What
about correspondence? Are there letters and such with return
addresses we can trace?”
He opened the notebook again.
Actually, he knew there were no notes relevant to the question, but
it was a convenient way to stall for time. “We really haven’t found
much of substance there, either,” he said. “Some unpaid bills and
junk mail, mostly. We’ll have a better answer in a couple of hours,
once we get everything logged and examined.” He sighed and raised
his palms. “It’s just early, Irene. I don’t know what to tell
you.”
A new shadow appeared in the doorway.
“Excuse me . . .”
The timid voice belonged to Special
Agent Mike Jamison, who stood at the front door, waiting to be
recognized. If people truly looked like their pets, then Jamison
should have owned a horse farm. God, what a face. In J. Edgar’s
day, when FBI agents were required to look the part, Jamison’s
overbite would never have made it as far as the academy. Even
today, despite an allegedly more progressive Bureau, the young
agent’s looks remained a threat to his livelihood. Timid and quiet,
Jamison was widely accepted as a loser. Within five years, Irene
figured, he’d be permanently consigned to Bureau Hell, raiding
Indian stills somewhere in North Dakota.
Paul was first to acknowledge the
newcomer. “Yeah, Mike, what’s up?” As Jamison’s immediate
supervisor, Paul always looked embarrassed in his
presence.
“Forget the Toyota Celica,” Jamison
announced, as though reciting information he’d practiced and
memorized. “We just got a call from Phoenix P.D. Seems that two of
their cops let the Donovans go a couple of hours ago, half a block
from the school.”
Irene’s jaw dropped, and she closed
her eyes. “Tell me you’re joking.”
Jamison shrugged. “I wish I was. The
cops involved never saw Jake, and no one had bothered to fax the
picture of Carolyn. Guess everybody was in a hurry.”
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “Is there
anything—a single detail, somewhere—that Sherwood and his gang
haven’t screwed up today?”
Paul suppressed a smile and stayed
focused on Jamison’s report. “What about the Celica?” he
prodded.
“Well, the folks stopped by Phoenix
P.D. were in a white van,” Jamison explained. “We’ve got a plate
number. North Carolina, registered in the name of
Durflinger.”
“And let me guess,” Irene growled, her
eyes still closed. “The Durflingers are dead, right?”
Jamison looked deflated, his thunder
stolen. “How did you know?”
“Because that’s how you get a new
name,” Paul said, his voice heavy with disdain. It was the oldest
trick in the book.
“I don’t believe this,” Irene moaned.
“Well, put it out on the Net, pronto. Every state east of the
Mississippi.”
“Sherwood’s already done that,”
Jamison offered.
Irene glared. “Yeah, well, Sherwood’s
done a lot today. Let’s just back him up, okay?”
Jamison nodded but didn’t
move.
Paul’s patience evaporated all at
once. “Mike, if you’ve got more, spit it out.”
Jamison cleared his throat and took a
moment to search his memory. He seemed anxious to get it all right
this time. “Apparently, some guy at a bank outside of town saw the
news about the Donovans on TV. He just telephoned to tell Phoenix
P.D. that he saw Carolyn Donovan in the bank this
morning.”
“Ah, the bank again . . .” Irene was
growing tired of old news.
“The guy said she needed to get into a
safe-deposit box,” Jamison concluded.
“And?” Jesus Christ, it was like
pulling teeth getting this guy to talk!
Jamison shrugged. “And he opened it
for her.”
“No shit, Mike,” Boersky snapped.
“What did she get out of the box?”
Agent Jamison looked a little panicky,
like he’d forgotten to do something. “I don’t know. The guy can’t
say for sure. He said that she entered the little room empty-handed
and came out with a paper bag full of stuff. No one saw what she
put into it.”
Irene and Paul exchanged glances.
“Cash?” she wondered.
Paul nodded. “That would be my
guess.”
Irene dismissed Jamison by turning
away from him. “You said you’ve got somebody down there
already?”
“Either there or on the
way.”
Irene waited until Jamison was gone
before she talked about him. “He’s totally hopeless, isn’t
he?”
Paul nodded and sucked on a cheek.
“Yep, and he’s allowed to carry a firearm in public. Makes you
wonder sometimes, doesn’t it?” He stood. “Great at gathering
information, he just can’t get out of his own way. Should have been
a technician instead of an agent.”
Irene’s mind had already moved on to
other things. “And you, Agent Boersky,” she said, pointing. “I want
you to get on the horn with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and get me a
court order to get into that safe-deposit box.”
Paul looked at her like she was nuts.
“Why? You think she went there to put something in?”
“Actually, no,” she said with a frown,
intentionally putting him back on edge. “I think the box is empty.
Now I want you to prove it for me.” She arose from her chair and
headed for the door. “Besides, you look like you need something to
do.”
Travis sat in a folding lawn chair
between the rows of shelves in the back of the van. They drove on
in silence for a long time, Travis convinced that his parents had
reneged on their deal to clue him in on what was going on. As the
sun dipped below the mountain ridges ahead, he marveled at the
different shades of orange and red and blue streaking the sky. The
ridges looked like they were on fire; bright lights against a dark
background. With the darkness, though, came a whole new world of
fear.
He’d never seen his folks like this,
so tense. He’d probably spent a million hours over the years
watching them from this angle as they drove all over the place, but
tonight they looked different, and the transition scared him. His
dad’s jaw was set sort of funny, and the muscles in front of his
ears worked all the time. And there was the new look in his
eyes—same as the one when the cop came up to the window. And his
mom! Jeeze, she looked ready to explode.
These long silences were frightening,
too; second only to those intense, whispered conversations they’d
have between themselves, where Travis could only catch bits and
pieces. If there was anything good to say, they’d have said it by
now.
Finally, he couldn’t take it any
longer. “Hey, Dad?” His voice sounded uneasy; like he wasn’t sure
whether to ask his question.
“Yes, Travis?”
“Would you really have shot that
policeman?”
“Travis, not now,” Carolyn
snapped.
Jake raised his hand. “No,” he said.
“I think we need to discuss this.”
“But Jake . . .” There was a pleading
tone in Carolyn’s voice.
“Carolyn, he’s got to know. I wish he
didn’t, but now he has to.”
Instantly, Travis was sorry he’d
asked. Out of nowhere, he remembered a story that Jay Kowalski had
told him about the day Mr. Kowalski announced to the family that he
had cancer. It was a lot like this, but without the car and the
guns. Jay said that his mom and dad fought for a long time about
whether the kids should be told, and finally, when his father
prevailed in the argument and told them everything, Jay’s life was
never the same. His dad was dead within a year. Travis didn’t want
his dad to die.
Jake began with a deep breath, the way
he always did when he was about to Teach a Lesson. “Trav, there are
things about your mom and me that you need to know . .
.”