Richard Patterson - Fall from Grace

Headlights pierced the darkness, coming toward him. Swiftly, he slipped behind the cover of a privacy hedge, kneeling on the lawn of a darkened house. Peering through its branches, he saw that the lights belonged to a patrol car from the Edgartown police. This much he had expected; what he could not know was whether the cop at the wheel would continue on his rounds.

Standing, Adam looked in both directions, then continued past more white frame houses in a circuitous route toward Main Street. Then he veered again, quietly but quickly crossing a yard before concealing himself behind a tree next to the courthouse.

Its parking lot was empty, the rear entrance lit by a single spotlight. Putting on his father’s old ski mask and gloves, he took Lew’s device from his pocket. It was no larger than a car fob, with a simple switch that would disarm the security system. Unless the device was defective-in which case arrest was the least of Adam’s worries.

He paused, envisioning the challenge ahead. A sheriff’s deputy would monitor the surveillance screen in the room near the main entrance, watching images sent by cameras in the hallway and just above the rear door. Assuming that the shriek alarm did not go off when he opened the door, any one of the cameras could reveal his presence inside the courthouse, bringing a swarm of cops and deputies. His choice was to back out or trust in Lew’s skill.

For a moment, recalling the young man he had been, Adam was paralyzed by disbelief. But since then he had learned to ignore boundaries and to mold events to his purposes. Stepping from behind the tree, he felt the coldness come over him, his heartbeat lowering, his breathing becoming deep and even. His footsteps as he crossed the parking lot were silent.

Nerveless, he pushed the button.

The first test would be the door.

Adam inhaled. The door had unlocked; so far, Lew’s bypass had worked.

Slowly, Adam edged inside. Dim light illuminated the hallway. A camera aimed down at him from the ceiling, meant to reveal his presence at once. But if the device functioned properly, the monitor would show the empty space that had existed a moment before Adam filled it. No one inside seemed to stir.

With painful slowness, Adam crept down the hallway toward the stairs to the second floor. As he reached them, he glanced into the security room and saw the broad back of a sheriff’s deputy gazing at a TV monitor, watching the door through which Adam had entered. The intruder was safely inside.

Catlike, he started up the stairs. He willed himself not to look back at the deputy who, simply by turning, would catch him. Reaching the top, he turned a corner, out of sight once more.

The second floor was quiet and still. If he got in and out without being seen, Lew had promised, no one would ever know he had been there. But Adam had more complex plans. Reaching the door of George Hanley’s office, also wired to the system, he turned the knob.

Once again, Lew’s device had disarmed the lock. Slipping inside, Adam softly closed the door.

Through the window Main Street appeared dark and silent. Using his penlight, Adam scanned the surface of Hanley’s desk.

Nothing of interest. Kneeling, he slid open the top drawer of a battered metal cabinet, then another, reading the captions on manila folders. Only in the bottom drawer did he find the file labeled

BENJAMIN BLAINE.

Taking it out, he sat at Hanley’s desk.

The sensation was strange. But for the next few minutes, Adam guessed, he was safe. The danger would come when he tried to leave.

Methodically, he spread the contents of the file in front of him. Hanley’s handwritten notes, suggesting areas of inquiry. The crime scene report. Typed notes of the initial interviews with his mother, brother, and uncle-as well as Carla Pacelli, Jenny Leigh, Nathan Wright, and Adam himself. And, near the bottom of the file, the pathologist’s report.

For the next half hour, he systematically photographed each page, blocking out all thought of detection. He had no time to read. But once he escaped, and studied them, he would know almost as much as George Hanley and Sean Mallory-and, unlike them, would know that. Especially advantaged would be Teddy’s lawyer in Boston, who would receive them in the mail from an anonymous benefactor, and who, himself innocent of the theft, would have no ethical duty to return them.

Finishing, Adam reassembled the file and placed it in a different drawer. This last was for Bobby Towle-Hanley would know that someone had rifled his office, but not who, creating a universe of suspects who might have sold out to the Enquirer. A gift of conscience from an old friend.

Opening the door, Adam left it ajar.

At the top of the stairs, he stopped abruptly. The deputy was padding down the hallway, perhaps sensing that something was wrong. If he glanced up, Adam was caught.

Utterly still, Adam watched him. The man disappeared, the only sound the quiet echo of his footsteps.

Adam stayed where he was.

Moments crawled by while the deputy inspected the first floor. At last, Adam heard more footsteps, and prayed that the deputy would not come upstairs. Back toward Adam, the man plodded to his station and sat before a monitor Adam knew to be disabled.

With agonizing care, Adam walked down the stairs. With each step the distance between him and the deputy lessened. As Adam reached the bottom of the steps, it narrowed to ten feet.

Head propped on his arm, the deputy gazed at the frozen screen.

Turning down the hallway, Adam passed beneath more cameras, still unseen. A few last steps, swifter now, took him to the entrance.

Slowly opening the door, Adam reentered the night.

As he stepped onto the asphalt, headlights sliced the darkness. In an instant Adam grasped that the patrol car was arriving. As its lights caught Adam, the driver hit the brakes.

Whirling, Adam sprinted down Main Street, footsteps pounding cement. In one corner of his mind he gauged the time it would take the patrolman to swing back into the alley toward the street, picking him up again.

Suddenly, he swerved, cutting back through the lawn of the Old Whaling Church and then a stand of trees bordering a neighbor’s backyard. Behind him he heard brakes squealing, a door opening, the footsteps of the cop scurrying from his car.

Adam had little more time to run; in minutes more police would converge, on foot or in patrol cars. Nor could he drive away. His last hope was to hide.

Bent at the waist, he crossed another yard, heading for his truck.

It was parked in a line of cars along the crowded lane. As headlights entered the lane, Adam reached his truck, sliding to his stomach at the rear. Clawing asphalt, he pulled himself beneath it, invisible to anyone who did not think to look.

He heard the patrol car pass, then his pursuer, still on foot, reaching the lane near Adam’s truck. Listening to the man’s labored breathing, Adam imagined him looking about, mystified by the absence of sound, the sudden disappearance of his quarry.

Move on, Adam implored him.

Another car passed without stopping, and then the man’s footsteps sounded again, fading as he moved away.

Adam removed his mask and gloves. Damp face pressed against the asphalt, he glanced at his watch.

Three twenty. Two hours until dawn. Head resting on curled arms, Adam waited.

First light came as a silver space between the tires of his truck. Sliding out, Adam looked around him, and saw nothing but the still of early morning.

He climbed into his truck, started the motor, and drove out of town at a slow but steady pace. Glancing in the mirror, he saw that no one followed. As had been his plan, he headed back toward Dogfish Bar.

The beach was empty, the only sign of human existence the footprints left by fishermen. Satisfied, he changed into his fishing gear and drove to a restaurant overlooking the Gay Head cliffs. He ordered breakfast amid the tourists and tradesmen, a nocturnal angler as determined as his father, refueling after hours of solitary fishing. He made a point of joking with the waitress.