F Wilson - Deep as the Marrow

“Oh, Poppy,” he said, his voice high and strange. “I miss him. Oh, God, you got no idea how much I miss your dad.” And then they were both crying—loud, wracking wails and sobs.

And for the first time in days. Poppy felt safe.

She was home.

19

“I don’t get it,” Vanduyne said, packing back and forth in the Pineconer Motel parking lot. “Why are we waiting for tomorrow? We should be doing something.”

Bob Decker saw Canney make a little “be my guest” gesture. Bob sighed.

Maybe it had been a mistake bringing Vanduyne along, but he did feel he owed the guy something. And besides, this was the best way of keeping the doc under control. “We are doing something. Doc,” Bob said. “We’ve got men checking out Sooy’s Boot right now, getting the lay of the land.”

“They should be doing more than that. And why aren’t we there instead of way the hell out here in Tuckerton or whatever this place is called?”

“First of all,” Bob said, “do you have any idea how many Mulliners there are in these parts? Take a look at the phone book later—and those are just the ones with phones. We have to get census records to find the others, and even then we won’t have all of them. Second, they don’t have a motel in Sooy’s Boot, or anywhere near it. And third…” Bob gestured at the pine woods that surrounded the motel, seeming to grow thicker by the minute as the light faded. “Look around you. Doc. This may be New Jersey, and you may be just thirty or forty miles from Philadelphia and the northeast corridor, but you are on the edge of very deep woods. Thousands of square miles of scrub pine. No streetlights out there. No street signs. Most of the roads are unpaved, and the ones that are don’t even have lines down the middle. People get lost out there in broad daylight. What do you think we’re going to accomplish in the dark? Poppy Mulliner could be hiding anywhere.”

“So we just give up?”

“You know damn well we’re not giving up. We—” He capped his anger; the guy was half crazy worrying about his kid. “While we’re questioning all the Mulliners we can find, a pair of helicopters from Lakehurst Naval Air Station will be flying a grid pattern over the area looking for that red panel truck.” Bob wished he could set up a full-scale search—bring in state cops, the county sheriff, the National Guard—but he still had a mandate to keep a low profile. “But we need light. When that sun comes up, you’ll see plenty of action. We’re going to run a finetooth comb through these woods tomorrow. We’ll find her.”

“If she’s here,” Vanduyne said.

“Oh, she’s here,” Canney said. “We would have caught her if she tried running north or south. She knows these woods, and she knows she can hide here. But not for long.”

“So get some sleep,” Bob told Vanduyne. “We’re up and moving at the crack of dawn.”

Vanduyne hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, then shrugged and headed for his room.

“Finally,” Canney said. “And I thought my little Martha was tough to get to bed.”

“Let’s get back in the car,” Bob said. “I heard from Jim Lewis.”

Canney’s expression brightened. “He got to the remailer?”

Bob nodded but didn’t speak until they were safely cocooned in the car.

“I don’t know how he did it and I didn’t ask, but I suspect he had somebody sneak in and copy the database from the remailer’s server. Whatever, they found a ‘Snake’ account with an IDT return address. IDT was very cooperative. Turns out ‘Snake’ is the handle of an ‘Eric Garter’ who pays for his Internet services with his Visa card. The Visa bills go to a mail drop. The house address in the Visa computer is a fake. ‘Eric Garter’ doesn’t exist.”

“ ‘Garter?’” Canney said. “As in ‘Snake?’ Shit.” He rubbed his face. “My news isn’t so good either. I had a long talk with Trevor. He says the only one who trailed Vanduyne to Atlantic City was his ex.”

“He’s got to be wrong.”

“That’s what I said, but he told me there were times when he and Vanduyne and the ex were the only cars on the road. No way anybody else followed. He was pretty adamant about that. And Trevor’s damn good.”

A worm wriggled through Bob’s gut. “You know what you’re saying.”

“Yeah. Someone’s rotten.”

“But only three of us knew.”

“All right. Let’s look at that. Let me ask you a question: Is the Secret Service going to be hurt by decriminalization?”

“Hell, no. We’ll probably have to beef up to provide extra security.”

“Right. And as far as the Bureau is concerned, drugs are mostly a sideline. So our appropriations won’t be much affected.”

“Stop,” Bob said. “I know where you’re going and—?”

“Who in federal law enforcement gets hurt the most, Bob?”

“You’re talking about Dan Keane—”

“All right, I’ll answer my own questions: DEA gets gutted by decriminalization.”

Bob felt his anger rising. This was groundless, unfair.

“I’ve known Dan for a dozen years. Nobody hates the drug trade more. Nobody has fought harder against the traffickers.”

“Right. And maybe he hates them so much that he doesn’t want to stop fighting them.” The simple logic of the conclusion struck Bob dumb for a moment. But logic wasn’t always the truth. He’d spoken to Dan not thirty minutes ago. It was unthinkable…

“It just can’t be. I won’t buy it.”

“All right,” Canney said. “You know the guy. I’ll go with your judgment.”

“There’s another explanation,” Bob said. “We just haven’t thought of it yet.” Another explanation… had to be… But what? Who?

20

“I’ve looked all over town and can’t find her,” Snake told Salinas.

He’d used the phone in his motel’s parking lot for the call. Not the best section of A.C., but his appearance attracted less attention here.

“That is because she is not in town,” Salinas said. “She has fled into the big woods in the center of the state.” Snake winced as another stab of pain shot through his head and eye. The pills had eased the agony since this afternoon, but these stabs were still frequent enough and severe enough to keep him on edge.

Poppy pain… all because of that bitch. What the hell was the matter with her? The damn kid belonged to someone else, yet she’d attacked him like a mother lion protecting one of her own cubs… hadn’t even sounded human, screeching like that.

Crazy bitch.

“ ‘Big’ woods? This is Jersey. There’s nothing big here.”

“The others who are looking for her disagree. They are launching a wide search for her tomorrow. And they expect to find her and the package. Tomorrow.” Salinas left the words hanging, and the emphasis was not lost on Snake.

Tomorrow…

Snake closed his good eye and tried to organize his thoughts. If they found Poppy, they’d find the tape.

Maybe she hadn’t had the tape with her this afternoon, but after the big scene he’d made about it, he was willing to bet the rest of his life that she’d gone back and got it and listened to it, and knew what a bargaining chip she had.

The tape would land him in a federal prison and force Salinas to close up shop and leave the country. Salinas would be gone, but he wouldn’t forget. No matter what the prison, no matter what the security, Salinas would see to it that somebody got to him.

And even if Poppy had lost the tape, she could still finger him as the guy who set up the kidnapping. And then, as the only guy who could link Salinas to the plot, how long would he last?

Either way, betting the rest of his life didn’t seem a particularly heavy risk. So tomorrow it was do or die—literally.