Extreme Prey: A Novel Part 15

After a moment of thought, Lucas said, "I could almost buy that, except that he was murdered the night I visited him."

"So what?"

"The coincidence . . ."

"It wasn't a coincidence, dummy. Look, I put that a little wrong. They didn't come for his help and kill him right then, on the spot. They came for his help some other time, and he turned them away. After you visited, he called them. Either to warn them or to try to talk them out of doing anything-to tell them that the cops were hot on their trail. Then they came over and killed him. It's exactly the way you told me you thought it happened, but instead of being somebody in the core party, it was somebody out on the edge."

"Huh. That's a possibility, I guess."

"You want more Kool-Aid?" she asked.

"One more would be good," he said.

- THEY SAT AND CHATTED for a couple more minutes, as Lucas finished the second gla.s.s, and then he said, "You know, Grace, I do like you. I hope that you're not involved in this thing, in any little way. Because if it's real, it doesn't matter whether they shoot Mrs. Bowden or not, they're all going to prison. Or worse, if they kill Mrs. Bowden or anyone else. The feds still have the needle, and they use it."

"I would tell you if I knew anything," Lawrence insisted. "Look, Lucas. I don't particularly care for Mike Bowden's politics, it's the same old bulls.h.i.t we've been fed for fifty years now. But Republican politics are even worse, from my point of view, and Bowden does have one strong thing going for her-she's a woman. I want a woman to be elected president. I really do. It almost makes up for the bulls.h.i.t she's shoveling us."

"Okay."

"It seems to me that if there really is a plot, it's probably one person, holding it really tight. Us radicals . . . we leak like crazy. We can't organize a picnic without somebody leaking to somebody who didn't get invited. The plotter-if there is one-is holding it pretty tight. You know it's not me, because the plotter killed Joe Likely, and like I told you the first time you were here, I was at parents' night at the school. I a.s.sume you checked that . . ."

"No, actually, I believed you."

"Hmm. I'd appreciate it if you'd check, because it makes me nervous not to be cleared," she said.

"Okay. Maybe I will-but I do believe you. I've still got to think about Anson, though," Lucas said.

She nodded. "Of course you do. Because, you know, you're a cop."

"Not really. Not anymore," Lucas said.

"Yeah, you are. Still."

- LUCAS GOT UP TO GO, told her that he'd had a Diet c.o.ke on the way out. "With this Kool-Aid . . . if I could use your bathroom for a second."

She pointed him to it. He went in, closed the door, flipped the toilet lid up, and spotted a hairbrush on the back of the sink. He peed, flushed, and under the cover of the noise by the toilet, pulled a couple of pieces of toilet paper off the roll, pinched some hair in toilet paper, being careful not to touch it, folded it over several times, and put it in his pocket.

He felt a little guilty about it, because he liked her, but he did it anyway.

- WHEN LUCAS HAD PULLED away from her house, Lawrence showered, changed clothes, and walked to the school, looking for out-of-place vehicles. She didn't see any, but then, she thought, she probably wouldn't. If they were tracking her, they'd be good at it.

After her spell of volunteer work, she walked back to her house, got into her car, and drove to Iowa City. The road in from Hills was long and almost empty and she didn't see anyone trailing her. After poking around for a while in town, she found an actual pay phone at a 76 gas station.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Is this Marlys Purdy?" Lawrence asked.

"Yes, who is this?"

"A friend of yours. Let's not use names. We spoke at a meeting in June, about our gardens and rhubarb pies. You know who I am?"

"Yes. What happened?"

"Nothing, yet. That man from the Henderson campaign, Lucas Davenport, is going to find you. Maybe today or maybe tomorrow, but soon," she said. "All he knows is that you have a son with distinctive gray eyes and that you have curly white hair. I would suggest that you get your hair colored and straightened. Right away. If you have a gray-eyed son, get him out of sight."

"Okay," Marlys said.

"When he does find you, you have to be very careful. He is smart, good-looking, and very charming. And, I suspect, treacherous. So . . ."

Silence. Then Marlys said, "Thank you. Take care of yourself. With all these cops around."

"The cops aren't interested in me. They're only interested in you," Lawrence said.

"Iowa cops will always be interested in the Lennett Valley thing," Marlys said.

Lawrence was stunned: "Lennett Valley? Why would I be worried about Lennett Valley?"

"Anson told me you would be," Marlys said. "He was pretty . . . definite about it."

"Anson! That man is such a fantasist. And a gossip! I . . ." She trailed away, struggling with the thought. She had no idea that Anson suspected anything about Lennett Valley.

"Take care of yourself," Marlys said.

- WHEN SHE'D BROKEN OFF the call with Marlys, Lawrence walked back to her car, thinking about Anson Palmer and the question that Davenport had asked about him: about whether Palmer might crack under pressure.

He would. He was a radical, a rabid anti-Semite, and at the same time, a man who wouldn't go to jail if there was any way to avoid it. Any way at all. Davenport was clearly a man hard enough and smart enough to crack a twit like Palmer.

After the bomb went off, her group had learned that they had a problem. They'd been more than a hundred miles away, eating breakfast in their favorite diner, where they'd be recognized and remembered for at least a few days, when the bomb exploded. They hadn't intended to kill anyone, and so had hidden the bomb, with its timing device, in the empty barn, while the auction itself would be going on out in the dairy parking lot.

They'd been scared to death when they found out what had happened, and had followed the stories in the papers, which had gone on for weeks. It was from news reports that they'd learned that the motel where they'd stayed had been searched by the police and apparently some evidence had been found.

They'd been careful about fingerprints, but who knew what might have been found? They had no way to ask, so the four of them had spent their lives being careful, avoiding anything where a fingerprint might be sought or required. Her former boyfriend told her years later that he'd never again smoked dope, in case he should be caught and printed.

Lawrence thought about all of that as she sat in her car, then did an illegal U-turn and headed for Palmer's house.

FIFTEEN.

Marlys punched End on her cell phone and walked out to the barn, where Cole was running a grinder, sparks flying from the iron piece he was working; the place stank of burning metal. The grinder was loud and he didn't hear her coming and he jumped when she touched his arm.

He shut the grinder down and said through his face mask, "Jesus, you scared the s.h.i.t out of me. Don't do that."

"We gotta talk. Let's go back in the house."

- WHEN SHE TOLD HIM about the call from Lawrence, Cole said, "We're so close. How did this happen?"

"Don't know. Grace said Davenport was poking at a bunch of different radical groups, but when Joe was killed, that convinced him he was on the right track."

"Told you at the time-"

"Well, we don't know what Joe would have done. I think he would have turned on us, so we had no choice," Marlys said. "Anyway, Grace thinks Davenport is going to find us soon. I'm going into town to get my hair colored. The way Grace was talking, he's interviewing a lot of people, so he might not even get here today. He might not find us at all."

"I could keep working for another hour, then, and if some strange car pulls into the yard, go out the back."

Marlys considered for a moment, then asked, "How much more do you have to do?"

"In an hour, I'll be fitting it together. Or I'll be close to that. Then I got to paint it."

"That can wait a bit, though, the paint. Okay. All they know about you is that you've got gray eyes. Distinctive gray eyes, which you do. I don't want them to see you, but it'd be nice if they got a look at Jesse, with his blue eyes."

"Where is he?" Cole asked.

"Half-day farmers' market in Des Moines," Marlys said. "He should be back by two o'clock."

"Jesse could let something out," Cole said. "I hate to say it about my own brother, but we can't trust him."

"I know that," Marlys said. "I worry about it. You do what you can with your grinding and be ready to run for it. I'm going to call Jean Mint and get my hair done."

"Sure you can get in?"

"If I can't, it'd be the only time in the last decade that somebody got turned away," Marlys said. "I gotta go. You keep a sharp eye out."

- MARLYS DROVE INTO TOWN, found Jean Mint sitting under a hair dryer, smoking a cigarette. She wasn't drying her hair; the chair was just her most comfortable, and she sat around a lot, doing nothing. She was surprised when Marlys told her what she wanted-"You've got a beau, don't you? Don't lie to me, Marlys, I'll hear about it sooner or later . . ."

Marlys was back at the house in three hours with straight light brown hair and matching eyebrows, all of it well-threaded with strands of white. Cole was still in the barn, but saw her car turn into the yard and, when she got out, yelled at her: "Come in here."

She walked back to the barn and he said, "Oh, my G.o.d."

"What do you think?" she asked.

"You don't look like you, but . . . I can remember when you looked like that," he said. "You looked like that when I was in high school. What, twelve or thirteen years ago?"

"About that," she said, touching her hair. "I might keep it this way. n.o.body showed up?"

"Not yet. Jesse ought to be home anytime now," Cole said. "You figure out what we're going to do about him?"

"Not yet, but I'll think of something," she said. "How are you doing here?"

"Everything fits perfect," Cole said. "I could do some more grinding. I've got to be careful, I don't want to ruin it, but the thinner it is, the better."

"All right, but stop for today and take off. Go over to the golf course or something in case this Davenport guy shows up today."

- ANSON PALMER'S STREET was a working persons' street, not many people around midday. Lawrence had pushed her hair up under a baseball cap, walked up the driveway, around Palmer's car to the back door. She knocked on it, and waited.

Palmer came to the window in the door, peered out at her, and opened it up. "Grace?"

"What in the heck are you telling Marlys about Lennett Valley?" she hissed, looking around, wanting to shout but afraid she'd be heard.

Palmer stuck his head out for a quick look around, then pushed the door open and said, "You'd better come in."

When she was inside, he closed the door behind her, threw the bolt, and led the way through the kitchen to his home office.

"What did Marlys tell you?" he asked, as he sat down in an office chair, leaving her standing.

"That you told her I was involved in the Lennett Valley bombing," Lawrence said.

"Well, weren't you?"

"Of course not," she said. "I wasn't even near there."

"Time bomb," he said. He smiled, an unattractive, knowing rictus. "I know you were there with it."

"Like how you know all about Jews?" she screeched. "Make up whatever s.h.i.t your tiny brain can come up with and pretend it's real?"

He was instantly angry, and stuttered, "That-that-that . . ." and then pulled himself back together. Then, "I'll tell you how I know, Grace. Harry told me. The whole thing."

"Harry would never-"

"This was fifteen years ago when he was drinking. I picked him up lying on the sidewalk outside McCoy's and took him home and told him he had to quit or he was going to die. He said he couldn't. We got in a long argument, and at the end he told me he was drinking because of Lennett Valley, but it didn't work-he couldn't forget it, and he couldn't stand remembering it. Told me how you got the dynamite from that farm over in Wisconsin where they'd been blowing up stumps. Over by Siren, right?"

Grace stepped away, both hands going to her forehead. He actually knew. He even knew where the dynamite came from. The people they'd stolen it from knew them-one of them was an old friend of Betsy's, from college at Stout, and they'd stayed at the farm for a few days the summer before the bombing.

They'd spotted the explosive, and later, knew where to get it when they came up for the plan for the bomb. Thirty years later, the farm people were still out there, they'd remember the theft of the dynamite, and they'd remember Betsy and her friends . . .

Palmer was going on, but she couldn't make out what he was saying, because her thoughts were screaming at her, and then she managed to ask, "Who else knows about this?"

Palmer threw up his hands. "How would I know? n.o.body, I suppose. I mean other than you and Betsy and Harry and Russ and me. I didn't give Marlys any details, I sort of hinted at it. That you could be made to keep your mouth shut, even if you couldn't be entirely trusted. Because if you talked about Marlys, Marlys could threaten to talk about Lennett Valley."

"Ah, s.h.i.t, Anson, you're an idiot!" Grace cried.

"I'm not an idiot-"

"What did you tell Davenport?"

"Nothing. I stonewalled him. I didn't even let him in the house," he said, his voice shrill with pride. "You know, I doubt Harry ever told anyone, either. Because not long after I picked him up, he crashed his car on 218 and he was in the hospital for two months and when he got out, he was dried out. I don't think he's had a drink since."

"Oh, boy . . ."

Palmer shook his finger at her. "I'll tell you something else, my little chickadee. That G.o.dd.a.m.ned Davenport-did I tell you I suspect he's a Jew?-if Marlys pulls this off and they come back at me, you better figure out a way you can help me out. You G.o.dd.a.m.ned well better. You can tell them that we talked about it, and couldn't figure out who it could be-"

"You're threatening me?"