A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(94)

“No hurry,” said Mr. Malconi. “Victor isn’t going anywhere, and it will take a while to make arrangements. It’ll have to be a small, quiet thing. And somebody will have to think up a story for the priest.”

“I understand.”

Mr. Malconi’s tinted window rolled up, and his face was gone. Salamone turned and walked to the door, then disappeared inside the building. The dark gray Cadillac pulled back, turned, and went out the gate, then accelerated down the road.

The woman in the dark blue Volkswagen Passat put her cell phone away, got out of her car, and went into the building. There was a stack of printed price lists for bay rentals on a table just inside, and a stack of blank contract forms beside it. She took one of each and went back out to her car carrying them, making sure that anyone watching her would know what she was doing.

A moment later, her blue car backed up, turned, and pulled out of the lot. The driver watched to be sure she wasn’t being followed, but only after a few minutes did she feel satisfied that she wasn’t. Coming into the storage facility had been a risk, but while she’d been sitting a few hundred yards away she’d gotten curious about the convoy of three vehicles that had arrived. Now she was glad she had taken the chance. The cell phone pictures were clear and sharp. As she drove, she wondered what was in that big box she’d seen them putting into space J-19.





23



In his dream Isaac Lloyd was running. He felt his rhythmic breathing and strong heartbeat, the pleasant pressure of his feet padding along on the deep, spongy layer of leaves and dirt on a forest path. A faint breeze cooled his face as he ran, and the canopy of the tall trees along the path let a dapple of sunlight through.

There was someone ahead on the path that he couldn’t quite see, but he knew he would catch up before long. Now and then the path ahead would straighten and he would catch a glimpse of a branch just swinging back to its normal position after someone had passed.

There was a sudden flutter of birds ascending to avoid whoever had disturbed them, and then a female voice. It said, “Ike. Hey, Ike.” He ran harder. As he did, he broke through the fragile barrier of sleep and moved his real leg in the realm of consciousness and felt the sharp pain.

Ike opened his eyes. He was at home, in his own bed. Remembering and feeling it was an immense pleasure. But then he saw movement near the far wall and realized the woman’s voice had been real.

“Hi, Ike,” she said, and stepped to the foot of his bed. She was wearing the mask, scrubs, and cap that hid her hair so well he didn’t even know the color of it.

“How did you get here? They’re not supposed to give anybody a state police officer’s home address.”

“Don’t be angry. I won’t be coming again. I just needed to—”

“How did you get my address?” he said.

“When I visited you in the hospital I saw it in your file on the admission papers. I went to the hospital a while ago and learned you had been sent home, so I parked near here and waited until I saw your wife drive away. I figured that in my scrubs, anyone who saw me would figure I was a nurse checking on you, so I will. How are you feeling?”

His voice was irritable. “Have you ever been shot?”

“I’m sorry to say I have,” she said. “In the leg, just like you.”

“When?”

“No you don’t,” she said. “You’ll try to use that to find my name.”

“Is anything you’ve said to me true?”

“All of it.”

“Are you even real?”

“If I weren’t, I’d probably say I was. That’s how dreams work. But I’m here on business.”

“What business?”

“I want you to look at some pictures I took and tell me if you know these men.” She reached into the pocket of her scrubs, held out her cell phone where he could see it, and tapped the first picture to make it fill the screen. “That’s the storage facility where Nick Bauermeister worked.”

“I recognize it,” said Lloyd.

She brought up the picture of the old man in the side window of the gray Cadillac, and the other man beside him. She had taken it with the phone clapped to her ear, but it was very sharp. She tapped the screen to bring up a picture of both men.

Lloyd said, “Okay. Whatever you’re doing, stop it. Right now, today. I appreciate your taking out that shotgun and giving me backup the other night. But this case is not what it looked like at first. It just got a lot more complicated.”

“Who are they?”

“They’re men you really don’t want to meet.”

“You know their names. Tell me.”

“The man standing beside the car is Bobby Salamone. I don’t keep up with these people most of the time, because they’re not involved in my usual cases. But I know who he is. He’s a member of the Mafia, kind of an underboss. He’s been in prison for extortion and aggravated assault and probably other things I don’t remember. He’s been suspected of arranging at least a couple of murders over the years, but the evidence wasn’t strong enough.”

“And the old man in the car?”

“He’s your prize photo. Lorenzo Malconi. He looks like a sickly old man, doesn’t he? I hope he is, because he can’t die soon enough for me. He’s Salamone’s boss, the head of the Mafia in this part of the state.”