Chapter 14

Frances Ingalls was in her late thirties, Hudson guessed, and carried herself like an athlete. She had the soft bounce to her stride of one of the big cats that roam the African plains, her calf muscles well-packed sausages under her suit skirt, firm and rippling with each step. Curly brown hair was close-cropped around a round face. She was an FBI agent, and sat with Hudson, Wally and John Krestinski in the Carver living room. Wally wouldn’t hear of them staying at a motel.

“Frances has been working on the Sturgis case,” John began, “along with the Boston Police. He is indeed into drugs; he’s not one of the top players; they’re trying to find out who is.”

Ingalls took up the story. “One reason we’re interested is we’re not the only ones looking for Preston Sturgis. Some others who play pretty rough have been asking questions. The part about his car being bombed isn’t common knowledge. His daughter had it not him. She wasn’t in the car when it went off, so she’s OK, at least physically. But she saw it happen and is scared. She knows what her father’s been doing and wanted to get away from him. We agreed to help, and she is now in a secure place.”

She looked at Krestinski. He gave a slight nod.

“The ones looking for Sturgis are members of the mob he worked for. A Russian mob.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Hudson asked quietly, “So the ones at my house were only after Sturgis?”

“What do you mean `only’?” barked Wally. He turned to Krestinski. “If they suspected Preston would come to me, what were they doing at his place?”

A knock at the back door. “That’s Cilla.” Hudson went through the kitchen to the door. Frances Ingalls took the break to refill her coffee cup.

Cilla stomped snow off her boots. “Found your note to come over here. What’s going on?”

“Hello, love. John Krestinski is here with another agent from his Boston office. We’re in the living room.” Hudson smiled into gray eyes as he bent to kiss her. There was a crash behind him. He turned quickly.

“Jesus Christ!” Frances was frozen, with coffee running down her skirt, the cup in pieces on the floor.

“Frances, what’s wrong?”

The FBI woman was reaching for words. “This… this is Mrs. Rogers?”

“Sure is,” said Cilla with a puzzled smile. “You the FBI agent?”

“Yes. Yes I am.” Frances offered a hand, then dropped to her knees to pick up pieces of broken china. “I’m so sorry.” Wally and John Krestinski came from the living room. “It’s just that….” She stood up and looked intently at Cilla. “God! You’re a dead ringer for her.”

“For who?”

“Alexandra. Alexandra Sturgis, Preston Sturgis’ daughter. We’re supposed to have her safely tucked away. And you… you could be her twin.”

Cilla looked at her husband. Then back to Frances, “Who’s this Sturgis?”

“A crook,” growled Wally.

The FBI man was studying the Rogers. “I saw that. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard of Alexandra.”

“A man named Andre Adams, who was staying with us,” said Hudson. “He said the same thing about Cilla having a double.”

“Andre Adams is Alexandra’s fiancé,” exclaimed Frances. She lowered her voice. “He’s here?”

“Not any more. He moved back to Bob Gold’s house.”

“Adams doesn’t know what happened. We wouldn’t let Alexandra tell anyone we were hiding her. Tough on him; he’s probably pretty worried.”

“No, he thinks she dumped him. But he was talking about someone named Loni.”

“Same person,” said Krestinski. “Let’s go sit down.” In the living room he continued. “A few months ago she came into our Boston office, saying someone was trying to kill her father, Preston Sturgis. I wasn’t personally involved and didn’t get up to speed until this morning. She had seen his car blown up and was frightened. We had a file on him that linked him with a drug group. Nothing definite and nothing he could have been charged with in any case. But we knew enough to take her story seriously.” He leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees. “We suggested she indeed might be in danger and to stay away from him. She was living with a man in North Andover, this fellow Adams. On our advice she moved out to a safe place.”

“If you want to know what she looks like, stand in front of a mirror, Cilla,” said Frances.

“Sturgis was a client of mine,” said Wally, “who turned up on my doorstep two weeks ago asking me to hide him. I did until this morning. He’s skipped.”

“Which is why those men were in my house, looking for Sturgis and thinking I was Loni?” Cilla was skeptical. “Doesn’t make sense. So there’s a resemblance; a lot of people look like each other. Why would anyone think he was my father? There’s no…” She stopped.

“There’s more to it than appears,” said Krestinski. “There’s reason to believe that this isn’t just a squabble over drugs. In fact I have some other agents on the way up here.”

Hudson raised his eyebrows. “The little I know about the FBI tells me you don’t have so many agents you can just call up a gang of them. Are they to find Sturgis, protect people here or for some other reason?”

“A little of all that, if you don’t mind. As far as you here, it’s more preventive than anything else. I don’t really think you’re in any danger.”

“But finding Sturgis would help,” said Hudson.

“Of course.”

“Read us that note we found, Wally.”

The old man read aloud, “`Might as well live in a cave as here with my angst. Try to turn things around. Going back to Mass. Thanks for your help. Preston.’”

“Analyze it,” said Hudson. “The key word is angst; it’s not one in common usage.”

“Probably not in any usage by Sturgis,” Wally said wryly.

“He says `turn things around.’ If we turn angst around we could get Stang.”

“Damn! He mentioned a Phil Stang,” said Wally. “Why didn’t I see that?”

“Who has a vacation home at Stillings Grant!” Cilla finished. “It’s only a few minutes from here.”

The Stang house was a small ranch set well back from the road. They left the car a few hundred feet away and walked up to where they could see the house, but so a stand of hemlock hid them from view.

“It’s probably empty,” said Cilla. “Phil doesn’t ski any more, so he almost never uses it in winter.”

“Somebody’s used it,” said Hudson.

Krestinski squinted. “What do you see that I don’t? Don’t a lot of people keep their driveways plowed even if they aren’t there?”

“Icicles.”

The FBI man raised his eyebrows. “That an unheated house might not have? Okay. Stay here.” Without waiting for acknowledgement, he strode along the road and into the driveway. The others could see him peeking through a garage window, then turning to nod at them before going up to the house’s back door.

“The car must be there,” said Hudson.

Knocking brought no response. Krestinski tried the doorknob; it was open. He went in, shutting the door behind him. The group waited. A minute went by. Then two. The door opened, and the agent came out and walked over to them.

“He’s here.”

“He’s dead?”

Krestinski’s focus was on Ingalls. “Frances, I want you to wait outside the door and make sure no one goes in that house until the lab people arrive. There’ll be a crew here in an hour.” He turned to the others. “Yes, he’s dead. Now, let’s us go back to your house, Hudson.”

As Ingalls walked to the Stang house, the rest climbed into Hudson’s car. Starting the engine he said over his shoulder to Krestinski who was in the rear seat, “There’s something else in that house besides a dead Sturgis, isn’t there?”

“Maybe.”

It had started to snow.