The Collectors (Camel Club 2)

Finished with that, he had one more task to perform before he would call it a night. He went down to his special closet, unlocked and disarmed it and stepped inside. He came here at least once a day to look at his collection. And tonight he had one addition to make, although he was irked it was only one, since it should have been a pair. He withdrew the object from his coat pocket. It was a cuff link of Cornelius Behan’s that an associate of Seagraves’, who worked for Fire Control, Inc., had given him. Behan had apparently dropped it while visiting the storage facility, a visit that had ultimately cost him his life. Behan had apparently figured out the cause of Jonathan DeHaven’s death, and he couldn’t be allowed to share that with anyone.

Seagraves placed the cuff link on a small shelf on the wall next to the baby’s bib. He had nothing as yet of the young woman he’d shot. He’d eventually track her identity down and obtain something of hers. He’d shot Behan first. The man had slumped over, leaving him with a clean angle to take out the girl. She was about to perform a lewd act on Behan. On her knees she stared out the window, where the first shot had come from. Seagraves had no idea if she could see him, but it didn’t really matter. He didn’t even give her a chance to scream. The bullet really did a number on her pretty face. It would no doubt be a closed casket, the same for Behan. The exit wound was always bigger than the entrance.

As he stared at the empty space next to the cuff link, Seagraves made a promise that he would find an item of hers and his collection would be 100 percent up-to-date. Just the way he liked it.

CHAPTER 46

IT TOOK STONE SOME EFFORT, but he managed to lose the men tailing him. He immediately went to an abandoned home near the graveyard that he used as a safe house. He changed clothes and headed to Good Fellow Street. He passed DeHaven’s house and then Behan’s. There were reporters camped outside Behan’s manse obviously waiting for an appearance by the unfortunate and humiliated widow. The damaged home across the street appeared to be empty.

As he watched the Behan house from the corner while pretending to consult a map, a large furniture van pulled up in front of the home and two burly men got out. A maid opened the front door as the reporters tensed. The men went inside and a few minutes later came out carrying a large wooden chest. Even though the men were obviously very strong, they struggled with the weight. Stone could sense the thoughts of the reporters: Mrs. Behan was hidden in the chest to escape the media. What a scoop that would be!

The cell phones came out, and a number of the journalists leaped into their cars and followed the van as it pulled down the road. Two cars covering the rear of the house zoomed in from the block behind the Behans’. However, a few reporters remained behind, obviously sensing a trick. They pretended to move off down the street but took up positions just out of sight of the Behans’. A minute later the front door opened again and a woman in a maid’s uniform appeared, wearing a big floppy hat. She climbed into a car parked in the front courtyard of the house and drove out.

Again Stone could sense the reporters’ collective thoughts. The furniture van was a decoy, and the missus was disguised as the maid. The remaining journalists ran for their vehicles and followed the maid’s car. Two more journalists came from the next street over, no doubt alerted to this development by their colleagues.

Stone promptly walked around the corner and down to the next block that abutted the rear of the Behans’ property. There was an alleyway here, and he waited behind a nearby hedge. His wait was a short one. Marilyn Behan appeared a few minutes later, wearing slacks, a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low. When she got to the end of the alley, she cautiously peered around.

Stone stepped out from the cover of the hedge. “Mrs. Behan?”

She jumped and looked around at him.

“Who are you? A damn reporter?” she snapped.

“No, I’m a friend of Caleb Shaw’s. He works at the Library of Congress. We met at Jonathan DeHaven’s funeral.”

She seemed to be searching her memory. From her demeanor she seemed a little stoned, he thought. There was no smell of liquor on her breath, though. So was it drugs?

“Oh, yes, I remember now. I made my little quip about CB understanding instant death.” She suddenly coughed and reached in her handbag for a tissue.

“I wanted to offer my condolences,” Stone said, hoping that the woman wouldn’t remember that Reuben, her husband’s alleged killer, had also been in their group.

“Thank you.” She glanced back down the alley. “I guess this seems a little odd and all.”

“I saw the reporters, Mrs. Behan. It must be a nightmarish situation for you. But you did fool them. That’s not easy to do.”

“When you’re married to a very wealthy man who stirs up controversy, you learn how to duck the media.”

“Could I talk to you for a few minutes? Maybe over a cup of coffee.”

She seemed flustered. “I don’t know. This is a very difficult time for me.” Her face screwed up. “I just lost my husband, damn it!”

Stone remained unperturbed. “This concerns your husband’s death. I wanted to ask you about something he said at the funeral.”

She froze and then asked suspiciously, “What do you know about his death?”

“Not nearly as much as I’d like to. But I think it might have some connection to Jonathan DeHaven’s death. It seems very mysterious, after all, that two next-door neighbors should die under such . . . unusual circumstances.”

She suddenly looked very calculating. “You don’t think DeHaven died of a heart attack either, do you?”

Either? “Mrs. DeHaven, can you spare a few minutes? Please, it’s important.”

They had coffee at a nearby deli. Sitting at a back table, Stone said bluntly, “Your husband mentioned something to you about DeHaven’s death, didn’t he?”

She sipped her coffee, pulled her hat down lower and said quietly, “CB didn’t believe he’d had a heart attack, I can tell you that.”

“Why not? What did he know?”

“I’m not sure. He never really said anything directly to me about it.”

“Then how do you know he had doubts?”

Marilyn Behan hesitated. “I’m not sure why I should tell you anything.”

“Let me be honest with you in the hopes that you’ll return the favor.” He told her about Reuben and why he was in the house, though he tactfully didn’t mention the telescope. “He didn’t kill your husband, Mrs. Behan

. He was only there because I told him to watch the house. There are a lot of strange things going on, on Good Fellow Street.”

“Like what?”

“Like the person in the house across the street.”

She said nervously, “I didn’t know anything about that. And CB never mentioned it. I know that he felt that people were spying on him though. Like the FBI, trying to dig up some dirt on him. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, but he’s made a lot of enemies.”

“You said he didn’t say anything directly to you about Jonathan’s death, but at the funeral he seemed to want assurance that it was indeed a heart attack that killed him. He mentioned that autopsies are sometimes wrong.”

She put down her coffee and rubbed nervously at the red lipstick on the rim of the cup. “I overheard CB on the phone one day. I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything,” she added quickly. “I was looking for a book, and he was in the library on a call. The door was partially open.”

“I’m sure it was unintentional on your part,” Stone said.

“Well, he was telling someone that he’d found out DeHaven had just had a heart workup at Johns Hopkins and that he was in fine shape. And then he said he’d pulled some strings with the D.C. police and learned that DeHaven’s autopsy results were not making people happy at all. They just didn’t add up. He sounded worried and said he wanted to check more into it.”

“And did he?”

“Well, I don’t usually ask him where he’s going, and he accorded me the same courtesy. I mean, the circumstances of his death evidently showed that he strayed at times. I was flying to New York and was in a bit of a hurry, but for some reason, I don’t know, maybe it was his concerned look, I asked him where he was going, if anything was wrong. I didn’t even know he owned the damn company, to tell the truth.”

“Company? What company?”

“Fire Control, Inc., I think it was. Something like that anyway.”

“He went to Fire Control?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Just that he wanted to check something out. Oh, he did mention the library, or at least the place where Jonathan worked. Something about his company having the contract to protect it against fire and such. And that he’d learned that some cylinders had been recently removed from there. He also said there seemed to be an inventory screwup.”

“Do you know if he found anything?”

“No. As I said, I went to New York. He didn’t call me. But when I called him, he didn’t mention it, and I had forgotten about it by then.”