Дэвид Балдаччи - The Collectors

The cell phones came out, and a number of the journalists leaped into their cars and followed the van as it pulled down the road. Two cars covering the rear of the house zoomed in from the block behind the Behans’. However, a few reporters remained behind, obviously sensing a trick. They pretended to move off down the street but took up positions just out of sight of the Behans’. A minute later the front door opened again and a woman in a maid’s uniform appeared, wearing a big floppy hat. She climbed into a car parked in the front courtyard of the house and drove out.

Again Stone could sense the reporters’ collective thoughts. The furniture van was a decoy, and the missus was disguised as the maid. The remaining journalists ran for their vehicles and followed the maid’s car. Two more journalists came from the next street over, no doubt alerted to this development by their colleagues.

Stone promptly walked around the corner and down to the next block that abutted the rear of the Behans’ property. There was an alleyway here, and he waited behind a nearby hedge. His wait was a short one. Marilyn Behan appeared a few minutes later, wearing slacks, a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low. When she got to the end of the alley, she cautiously peered around.

Stone stepped out from the cover of the hedge. “Mrs. Behan?”

She jumped and looked around at him.

“Who are you? A damn reporter?” she snapped.

“No, I’m a friend of Caleb Shaw’s. He works at the Library of Congress. We met at Jonathan DeHaven’s funeral.”

She seemed to be searching her memory. From her demeanor she seemed a little stoned, he thought. There was no smell of liquor on her breath, though. So was it drugs?

“Oh, yes, I remember now. I made my little quip about CB understanding instant death.” She suddenly coughed and reached in her handbag for a tissue.

“I wanted to offer my condolences,” Stone said, hoping that the woman wouldn’t remember that Reuben, her husband’s alleged killer, had also been in their group.

“Thank you.” She glanced back down the alley. “I guess this seems a little odd and all.”

“I saw the reporters, Mrs. Behan. It must be a nightmarish situation for you. But you did fool them. That’s not easy to do.”

“When you’re married to a very wealthy man who stirs up controversy, you learn how to duck the media.”

“Could I talk to you for a few minutes? Maybe over a cup of coffee.”

She seemed flustered. “I don’t know. This is a very difficult time for me.” Her face screwed up. “I just lost my husband, damn it!”

Stone remained unperturbed. “This concerns your husband’s death. I wanted to ask you about something he said at the funeral.”

She froze and then asked suspiciously, “What do you know about his death?”

“Not nearly as much as I’d like to. But I think it might have some connection to Jonathan DeHaven’s death. It seems very mysterious, after all, that two next-door neighbors should die under such... unusual circumstances.”

She suddenly looked very calculating. “You don’t think DeHaven died of a heart attack either, do you?”

Either? “Mrs. DeHaven, can you spare a few minutes? Please, it’s important.”

They had coffee at a nearby deli. Sitting at a back table, Stone said bluntly, “Your husband mentioned something to you about DeHaven’s death, didn’t he?”

She sipped her coffee, pulled her hat down lower and said quietly, “CB didn’t believe he’d had a heart attack, I can tell you that.”

“Why not? What did he know?”

“I’m not sure. He never really said anything directly to me about it.”

“Then how do you know he had doubts?”

Marilyn Behan hesitated. “I’m not sure why I should tell you anything.”

“Let me be honest with you in the hopes that you’ll return the favor.” He told her about Reuben and why he was in the house, though he tactfully didn’t mention the telescope. “He didn’t kill your husband, Mrs. Behan. He was only there because I told him to watch the house. There are a lot of strange things going on, on Good Fellow Street.”

“Like what?”

“Like the person in the house across the street.”

She said nervously, “I didn’t know anything about that. And CB never mentioned it. I know that he felt that people were spying on him though. Like the FBI, trying to dig up some dirt on him. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, but he’s made a lot of enemies.”

“You said he didn’t say anything directly to you about Jonathan’s death, but at the funeral he seemed to want assurance that it was indeed a heart attack that killed him. He mentioned that autopsies are sometimes wrong.”

She put down her coffee and rubbed nervously at the red lipstick on the rim of the cup. “I overheard CB on the phone one day. I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything,” she added quickly. “I was looking for a book, and he was in the library on a call. The door was partially open.”

“I’m sure it was unintentional on your part,” Stone said.

“Well, he was telling someone that he’d found out DeHaven had just had a heart workup at Johns Hopkins and that he was in fine shape. And then he said he’d pulled some strings with the D.C. police and learned that DeHaven’s autopsy results were not making people happy at all. They just didn’t add up. He sounded worried and said he wanted to check more into it.”

“And did he?”

“Well, I don’t usually ask him where he’s going, and he accorded me the same courtesy. I mean, the circumstances of his death evidently showed that he strayed at times. I was flying to New York and was in a bit of a hurry, but for some reason, I don’t know, maybe it was his concerned look, I asked him where he was going, if anything was wrong. I didn’t even know he owned the damn company, to tell the truth.”

“Company? What company?”

“Fire Control, Inc., I think it was. Something like that anyway.”

“He went to Fire Control?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Just that he wanted to check something out. Oh, he did mention the library, or at least the place where Jonathan worked. Something about his company having the contract to protect it against fire and such. And that he’d learned that some cylinders had been recently removed from there. He also said there seemed to be an inventory screwup.”

“Do you know if he found anything?”

“No. As I said, I went to New York. He didn’t call me. But when I called him, he didn’t mention it, and I had forgotten about it by then.”

“Did he sound disturbed when you talked to him?”

“No more than usual.” She paused. “Oh, he did say he was going to check the pipes in our house. I thought he was joking.”

“The pipes? What was he referring to?”

“I don’t know. I assumed our gas line pipes. I guess they can leak, and there could be an explosion.”

Stone initially thought, Like what happened to Speaker of the House Bob Bradley. But then something else occurred to him.

“Mrs. Behan, do you have a sprinkler system in your house?”

“Oh, no. We have a large collection of artwork, so water was out of the question. But CB was concerned about fire. I mean, look what happened across the street. He had another system put in, one that put out fire without using water. I’m not sure how it works.”

“That’s all right, I think I know.”

“So you believe whoever killed Jonathan also murdered CB?”

Stone nodded. “I do. And if I were you, I’d go and stay at another of your homes, as far away from here as possible.”

Her eyes widened. “You think I’m in danger?”