Thomas Perry - Shadow Woman

Linda looked down the list of debts. There was no mortgage on the house, and none listed as having been paid off. That interested her. Either Jane had paid cash, which would have raised eyebrows, or she had inherited the house.

Linda returned to Probar’s menu and asked for probate court filings for the state of New York. She started the computer in Santa Ana on its search for the name and waited. This would take some time.

Linda stared at the glowing screen while she thought about Jane. Linda was beginning to feel her now. She was—how had Seaver said it?—fit. That was it. She did exercises and pushed herself the way Linda did. It wasn’t just because she wanted to get the attention that came when your abs were tight and your ass round and firm, but because she might have to run or fight. She had fought a man that night in Las Vegas, Seaver had said—not hit some old night watchman over the head when he wasn’t looking, but faced off with a grown man who was trying to hurt her. That meant she was fast and dirty, because there was no other way it could happen. A man could be dumb as a buffalo and lead with his face, and there was still no way a woman, at most two-thirds his weight, could stand there and take turns throwing punches with him. She was probably a lot like Linda.

The computer screen flashed awake again with the probate documents Linda had requested. The former owner of the house was Alice Whitefield. Before that it had been Henry Whitefield and Alice Whitefield. Linda perused Alice Whitefield’s bequest. She had died twelve years ago and left everything to her daughter Jane, age twenty-one. Everything had not been much—the house, contents valued at under thirty thousand; a ten-year-old Plymouth; a bank account with nine thousand in it.

Linda left the court files. There was one last piece of information that she needed to conjure tonight. She selected the records of the County Clerk of Erie County. Linda typed in Jane Whitefield’s name and address, copied her date of birth from her driver’s license. When the Probar computer found the document Linda was startled. She read it twice to make sure. Jane Whitefield had been married on June 21, to Carey Robert McKinnon, 5092 Dodge Road, Amherst, New York.

Linda felt a sense of fulfillment, of completeness. She was beginning to know Jane Whitefield now. Probably this Carey McKinnon had started her out when she was young, the way Earl had started Linda. It had probably been about the time when her mother had died and she found herself alone with an old house and a cheap car and barely enough money for a good vacation. He had told her she was going to learn a lot and see a lot, and make a lot of money. And here she was, ten or twelve years later, out alone, risking her life to make people like Pete Hatcher vanish.

Linda went back to the menu and began to work magic on Carey McKinnon. It took her an hour to find out more about him than she knew about Jane. She glanced at her watch frequently now, because the time was almost certainly coming. She had given Lenny her telephone number as soon as she had moved in, so Earl would have it by now. The telephone rang at midnight.

“Hello, Linda.”

“Hi,” she said. She wanted to sound unperturbed and self-sufficient. “How’s it going?”

“Not so hot,” said Earl. “I found his car in Billings, between a couple of hotels. I plugged the gas line so it would turn over but not start, but he hasn’t come back for it, and I haven’t had any luck at the hotels. Where are you?”

“I’m in a little place south of Buffalo called the Meadowgreen Suites. You get a kitchen and a refrigerator, but you don’t have to make the bed.”

“What have you got?”

“Her name is Jane Whitefield. She has a house in a little town north of Buffalo along the Niagara River called Deganawida. That’s where the answering machine is.”

“Is she home, or do I have to watch my back for her too?”

“I don’t know yet. My guess is that she’s already out there with him.”

“When will you know?”

“Tomorrow morning. It’s a little more complicated than I thought. She got married in June.”

“Know anything about her husband?”

“What I know doesn’t make too much sense to me yet. His name is Carey McKinnon, and he’s a doctor.”

There was a short pause while Earl ruminated. “It could be she dreamed that up as an identity for one of her favorite clients and then got him to marry her—you know, he says he’s a doctor that’s retired, and he doesn’t have to explain why he’s got a lot of money and plays golf all day.”

“I thought of that,” said Linda. “But his credit check says he’s actually getting payments from a hospital, and from some surgical group. He’s in the A.M.A. directory. They don’t let you flash a fake ID and go operate on somebody.”

“A double beard, then?” asked Earl. “Maybe he’s queer and gets to hide it—nobody wants a surgeon who might have AIDS—and she gets to be that much harder to find. Does he have a separate house?”

“Yeah. But I don’t know if one of them is empty. If they don’t live together, she wouldn’t be much of a beard in a town that size. I just got this stuff an hour ago, and I’m thirty miles from there, but I’ll be out early to see if she’s at his house or hers, or neither. You know, it occurred to me that he could be some kind of fanatic.”

“What kind of fanatic?”

“We know she took Pete Hatcher out. We don’t know why, or if he’s typical, or one of a kind. There are these groups that take battered women and children out the same way, like the Underground Railroad. The first person to see somebody like that is a doctor. That kind of group might hire a pro like her to do the hard part, and that’s how they met. Maybe Pete Hatcher was just the money for their honeymoon.”

“Get on them,” he said.

“What does it sound like I’m doing, Earl?”

“I mean really get on them,” he said. “Hatcher has me out here in Billings, Montana, watching a parked car. I don’t think he accomplished that alone. If she’s home, I’d like to know it. If she’s not, I’d at least like a picture of her so she can’t walk up to me on the street and blow my head off. If her husband’s gone, I’d like to know that I’ve got him to expect too, and what he looks like.”

“I’ll know if they’re here in a few hours.”

“If he specializes in plastic surgery and he could be busy making Pete Hatcher look like Miss Arkansas, I’d like to know that. I’m dead in the water out here. Whatever you can get me, whatever it takes to get it.”

“Whatever?” She let her voice go soft and low. She savored the pause on his end of the line. There was the electrical charge, growing and growing, and the resistance was making the air hotter. There was nothing in the world like hunting, knowing that any click in the dark could be the slide of the pistol locking the first round into the chamber.

He was feeling it too. “I mean do whatever you have to, and then do some more. If you think they’re going to pay us a couple hundred thousand and write it off after three months, you’re dreaming. One of these days you’re going to call home and it won’t be Lenny that answers. It’ll be Seaver.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ll do my best, I promise.”

“If she’s there, kill her. I’ll call tomorrow night.” He hung up.

Linda put the telephone receiver on the hook, lay on the bed, and stared at the ceiling. She toyed with the fear, tested it for titillation. It made her heart beat fast, and a little electric shock clapped her back behind her lungs, then moved down the sides to her haunches like a shiver. Playing for death was better than anything.

But tonight there was something extra, something that made it better and more delicious. It was Jane. She was the attraction. There was an urge to take a risk to beat her. Linda was going to be the one who was smarter, faster, dirtier. She was going to be the one.