Thomas Perry - Vanishing Act

"Turn around," she said.

They slowly, carefully tried to free their feet from one side of the casket, turn about to step across it, and face in the other direction, but neither was able to do it with his hands in the air. Each had to lean across the casket and hold the opposite wall to do it. Then they raised their hands again and tried to stare past the beam of the flashlight to see her.

"It’s not what it looks like," said one of them. She recognized his thick arms and broad shoulders. He was the one who had climbed in Harry’s window, and he looked down so she could see the camera at his feet. "It’s just a camera, see?"

The other, a taller, thin man with a permanent look of distaste holding the muscles around his lips rigid, said, "She don’t think we killed him, for Chrissake." To Jane he said, "I know this looks strange. Weird, even."

"Save it," she said gruffly. "First I want to see you slowly take your guns out and toss them up over the pile of dirt, one at a time. And give a lot of thought to how you look while you’re doing it. If I get startled, you’re dead. First you, the tall one."

The tall man hesitated for a second, and she added, "We know you’re armed. Just having a gun on you means I can shoot now and never have to answer any questions." Looking at them, she decided that they had certainly been arrested more times than she had, and they were beginning to sense that this wasn’t normal. She pumped the shotgun. There was already a shell in the chamber, and she ejected it onto the ground, but the sound had its desired effect. The tall man bent over, took a gun out of an ankle holster, and threw it over the mound of dirt to the grass. The second man took a gun out of the waistband of his pants at the small of his back and did the same.

"Now turn and put your hands on the side of the pit."

This seemed to comfort the two men, who executed the movement with an assurance that could only have come from practice. They had their legs apart and their arms out from their bodies, and leaned across the casket to look down at the poker-faced Harry.

"Now, tell me your names."

The tall one said, "Samuel Michko."

The wide one said, "Ronald Silla."

She said, "All right, Sam and Ron. Tell me what you’re doing here."

Sam and Ron strained to look under their outstretched arms at each other. "She’s not a cop," said Sam. He turned toward the light. "You’re not a cop."

"No," she said. "Bad luck for you. I’m the woman you’ve been chasing all over the continent."

"Uh," said Ron, as though he had been kicked. Sam was silent.

"Why did you dig up Harry?" she asked.

"To take his picture," said Ron, pointing at the camera again with his foot.

"What do you want his picture for?"

"You don’t know how Mr. Cappadocia’s mind works," said Sam. "He’s from the old school. You tell him there’s a duck, you better be able to show him some feathers."

Jane’s mind silently exclaimed: Cappadocia? They work for Jerry Cappadocia’s father? They should have wanted to talk to Harry, not kill him. She needed to think. She said, "It’s a lot of work."

Sam turned a little to squint up at the light. "Jerry was important. Usually, somebody important gets popped, and sooner or later there’s no big mystery. Somebody else ends up with whatever he had. But Jerry Cappadocia dies, and that’s it. Nothing happens. So Harry gets to be important"

"You mean Mr. Cappadocia wouldn’t believe Harry was dead?"

"He figured it was just possible that Harry got cornered and went to the cops to make a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"The only kind that’s worth anything. They’d stage his death, and he’d tell them whatever he saw that night. You think they wouldn’t do that?"

"I’ve heard of it."

"Harry was the perfect candidate. He’s been gone for five, six years, and nobody has stopped looking. And all the cops wanted him for was questioning. He didn’t do anything except see Jerry die."

"Why didn’t you take pictures right away?"

"What do you mean, right away?" asked Ron. "How the hell were we supposed to do that?"

"When you killed him."

"Killed him?" snapped Sam. "What are you talking about killed him? Martin killed him. Mr. C. read it in the papers and sent us out to make sure."

She sensed that if she didn’t say exactly the right thing now, she was going to reveal her real ignorance and they would know she couldn’t catch them in a lie. They had said Martin. She had to find out who Martin was.

"That’s all we’re doing," said Ron eagerly. "We’re not bothering anybody. It’s over. We’re just taking pictures."

"Tell me what you know about Martin."

"Nothing a lot of other people don’t know," snapped Sam. "When Mr. C. heard Martin was out, he called everybody in and told us to make sure he didn’t drop out of sight. So some guys watched him. That’s all."

"That isn’t all, is it?" She tried to make it sound ominous.

"It was the money," said Ron.

"Martin don’t need lessons from you," said Sam. He looked up at Jane again. "Obviously."

Jake suddenly appeared at Jane’s elbow. She was startled and shone the flashlight on him, then remembered and turned it back to the pit. Both men had moved fast, but they had only gotten to the piles of dirt at the edge of the pit. They slowly slid back, taking little showers of loose dirt with them, and assumed the position again.

"Don’t make me kill you," she said.

"No argument there," said Ron.

"Where was I?" said Sam, resigned. "Next thing we hear, he’s got a lot of money. This does not look good in a man like Martin after eight years."

Without knowing when it had happened, Jane realized who they were talking about. Eight years. Of course. An ex-policeman who suddenly had a lot of cash and was ready to run. They thought he knew where Harry was, and he was going to hide in the same place. But why did they call him Martin? Had he used a false name to get to Buffalo? She had to be sure. "Eight years? As a cop?"

"Cop? What cop? Martin did eight of a five-to-ten for a concealed weapon. Harry did, like, two of a three-to-five for fraud or something, years ago. Martin being what he was, which was what got him the hard time for a small bust, they—"

"What he was? What was he?" Her head was pounding now, building up a pressure behind her eyes.

"Jesus," said Ron. "She doesn’t know."

"Know what?" said Sam, annoyed.

"Anything. Anything about him."

Sam squinted up into the beam of the flashlight. "He’s right, isn’t he?"

She tried to think of an answer, but all she kept running into was the truth. "Yes," she said.

Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head in frustration. "Martin is a guy you hire when you want somebody to be dead. He was kind of on the edge of being famous at one time, which was probably why the cops felt it was worth searching him one night. They found a gun—"

"They probably planted it on him," said Ron.

Sam said icily, "You want to tell this?"

"No," said Ron. "I was just saying he wasn’t dumb enough to let them find a ..." He shrugged and let it trail off.

"Anyway," said Sam. "He got ten years, because they couldn’t prove he had done anybody with it, but they knew damned well that was what paid the rent. So he did eight of the ten, which is a world record for recent times unless you kill somebody while you’re in the joint—"

"Which he did," said Ron. "That’s what I heard. They just couldn’t prove it was him." He looked up at Jane. "So many suspects, you know? In a maximum security prison it seems like half the population is there for dusting somebody."

"Shut up, will you?" hissed Sam.

"Why, you in a hurry to finish the story so she can drop the hammer on you?"