Gone(67)

He remembered Dominic Whitehall. Whitehall had been a supervisory agent in the FBI crime lab. After he’d tried to blow the whistle on procedural errors and misconduct, he’d wound up alone, unemployed, living in the middle of nowhere. The Connie Leifson lookalike in the quarry had said it: There are things worse than death. Like a lifetime of disgrace. And so maybe that was it — Rondeau had already exiled himself, but it wasn’t enough. He was causing a stir with the Kemp family disappearance, and now they were going to paint him as crazy.

McDonough kept on the back roads; by now, Rondeau calculated, they could have made the freeway and been on their way back north to Stock County, but they hadn’t taken that route. They were going through a small town. The hail had subsided into a steady drizzle. Lacy yellow leaves twirled to the ground. Only the oaks held out, their bronze foliage rustling defiantly in the wind.

“Here,” said Agent Willette. “Let me show you something.”

She leaned down and rummaged through a bag at her feet. She produced an electronic gadget, a black box the size of a pack of cigarettes. She got two small speakers out of the bag and plugged them into the box. “This is nice,” she said of the equipment. “I like these.”

McDonough gave the gear a glance. “Oh yeah. Interceptors. Can’t live without them.”

They were enjoying this. Rondeau checked out the window again. They passed a gas station, a weathered barn converted into a mechanic’s shop with a New York State Inspection sign hanging over the large doors. He wondered if anyone knew where he was.

Willette held up the device. “We’ve got three days of your phone calls on here, Detective. I understand you’ve lost your phone? Good thing you have us. We’re like a message service. This one is my favorite.” She pressed a button.

Rondeau heard the outgoing message from his cellular phone. “This is Detective Rondeau. Please tell me who you are and what you need, and I’ll get back to you right away.”

A beep emitted from the device, and then a caller’s voice. An older man, someone Rondeau didn’t recognize. The caller began tentatively: “Hello, ah, yes, Detective Rondeau. My name is Doctor Aaron Lang. I’m a colleague of Connie Leifson’s.”

Just hearing her name sent a spike through his chest. He tried to stay settled, but was afraid to hear what was coming next.

“First of all,” said the tinny voice of Lang, “let me convey that I’m just in shock over Ms. Leifson’s tragic accident. But I . . . I just wanted to reach out to you, right away. Please don’t think of this as a solicitation . . . Connie and I regularly referred patients to one another. In the event something happens and a therapist is not able to attend to patients, there is a referral list.”

Rondeau felt the anger really corkscrewing up through him now, despite his resolve to stay calm. Beneath the anger, though, something was cracking open. Rondeau felt hot around his neck and ears. And itchy. So itchy all over his chest.

“So,” the kindly voice continued. “I want to offer my services to you. Connie, she . . . she spoke of you. In all professional discretion, of course. Not in any detail. Just in how she thought you were a good man. Unique. She . . . she strongly urged me, Detective, to get in touch with you if she was ever unable to continue providing you with services.”

Rondeau stared at the device. He pulled his gaze away. Willette was stone-faced, watching him.

“Where’s my brother-in-law?” Rondeau asked. But his words lacked conviction, or power. You don’t even know his last name.

“As it appears Ms. Leifson will not be able to return to her practice for some time,” Lang said on the message, “I hope you get in touch with me.”

Willette continued to glare at Rondeau. The heat seemed to drain from him. Despite the blasting vents in the SUV, he was cold. Empty. The bugs on his skin writhing, driving him crazy.

As Aaron Lang left his phone number, a grim smile spread across Agent Willette’s homely face. She clicked off the player when the message ended.

“You don’t have a brother-in-law,” she said. “He’s a figment of your imagination.” She pointed at her head with her free hand. “You, Detective Rondeau, are what we call in the Bureau ‘pants-shitting crazy.’”

Rondeau let out a long breath. His lips pursed, he then continued to breathe deeply, in and out, through his nose. He thought maybe he was hyperventilating as he started to see stars in the air, dancing around Willette’s head.

“So you paid someone,” he panted. “To call me and deliver that message.”

She frowned. “Nice try.”

“Why don’t you play the call you placed, telling me to shut down the investigation?”

“Oh? The one we traced to New York City? The one that led us to several of Spillane’s conspirators? I got to tell you, Detective, I mean, I really got to hand it to you. So does the Kemp family, really. Don’t you think, Agent McDonough?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “For sure.”

“They are alive right now because of you. Once we got the call, we opened the book on your checkered past — all that fun you had in the District, blaming the Bureau for whatever you could come up with in your delusional brain. We’re tapped into you now.”

“Tapped, yeah. You stuck me with hydrochloride,” Rondeau said. He felt far away. “You dosed me with 25-I . . .”