22. Farrow
Chapter twenty-two
Farrow
Dane checked in at five a.m. from the Edgartown command post. He had only three hours of sleep, but his voice was clear and short, his usual cadence at the start of an op day.
I’d been at the kitchen table since four. The coffee in my mug was still hot because Vega had refilled it twice without asking. She sat across from me in an army-green sweater, hair pulled back, and both hands wrapped around her own mug.
A floorboard shifted in the corner room upstairs. Kohler was awake. He’d been sleeping in stretches of two or three hours for a week, and his weight moving across the boards above the kitchen had become as familiar to me as the ticks of the radiator.
Vega lifted her mug. “He’s going to be fine.”
Eamon was in my ear.
“Farrow, federal got three names from Maria overnight.”
I set my mug down. “She talked.”
“Two were already in Tuesday’s sweep. The third is Marc Voss, an independent contractor, husband of Anneliese Voss. Federal has him flagged but not located as of five a.m.”
“Where was he last seen?”
“Lowell yesterday morning when he bought gas at six-forty. No phone signal since seven. Federal has him flagged at every ferry checkpoint in New England.”
“He’s going to the Vineyard,” I said.
“Reasonable assumption. They’ve swept the cedar wall, corridor, and vestibule three times. The device is in evidence on Albany Street. Nothing on that property right now can hurt anyone.”
“Except a man with a sidearm and a wife in custody.”
“Yes.”
“Eleanor’s decision on the wedding stands?” Vega asked.
“It stands,” I said.
Eamon was gone.
Upstairs, Kohler’s footsteps moved from the bedroom to the bathroom and stopped. Water ran in the pipes.
I tapped the comm. “Dane, Eamon told me about Marc Voss.”
“He told me at four-fifteen.”
I closed my hand around the mug. “Stay sharp.”
“Always.”
“Kohler’s coming down,” Vega said.
I heard the footsteps. He was wearing the same charcoal sweater he’d worn into the field office a week ago. Samuel had washed it twice.
“Good morning, Dietrich,” I said.
“Good morning.”
Vega stood. “I’ll be in the hall.”
She took her mug. Kohler poured himself coffee and sat in the chair she’d left warm.
He looked at me. “Blaise, may I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“What were Henry’s last words?”
I set my mug down.
The clean answer was I don’t know, and it was true.
Henry had folded the Times, dropped a napkin beside Cabot’s water glass, walked to the front door, and ended up at the Park Plaza with two rounds in him.
What he’d said in the eighth-floor hallway before the man came out of room eight-twenty was not in any report I’d been allowed to read.
“I don’t know, Dietrich. Federal has the transcript. I haven’t seen it.”
“Will they tell me?”
“Eventually. The case has to close first.”
He nodded. “Then I will tell you what I think they were.”
“Okay.”
He looked up. His eyes were the pale grey I’d noticed in the field office.
“He thanked someone.”
I waited.
“It was what he always did when someone did something for him. There would have been the barista or someone at a gas station. He could be in the middle of a phone call he was about to end badly, and he would stop to thank a server for refilling his water glass. He did it the morning his mother died, and he did it the morning we moved into the apartment in Stamford, when the man who’d brought up the last box had already been paid. ”
He took a breath.
“He thanked someone before he died. I don’t know who. I don’t need to know who. I only need to remember that he did.”
Kohler left.
I heard the front door open and close. Vega said, “Coffee’s hot.”
“It always is.” That was Eamon’s voice.
He stepped into the kitchen with his portfolio under one arm and road salt at the cuffs of his trousers.
“Federal called twenty minutes ago. Voss bought coffee at a Dunkin’ in Bourne at six-fifty. He used cash and was wearing a brown work jacket and a dark cap. He drove a black Ford F-150 with Massachusetts plates, headed south on Twenty-Eight.”
“Is federal moving on him?” I asked.
“They have two agents at Woods Hole and two on the Vineyard side, plainclothes.”
“And if he doesn’t come through Woods Hole?”
“Then federal has six hours and forty-eight thousand square miles to find a single pickup before the ceremony.”
“Dane’s been told?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And he said?”
“Copy.”
“Eamon,” I said. “If anything goes wrong this afternoon, I need to be able to get to him.”
“Vehicle to Hyannis, ninety minutes. Charter helicopter to the Vineyard, twenty. The drive to the hospital on the island is about ten. You can be there in under two hours.”
“You worked it before I asked.”
“Because I knew you would want it.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Eamon said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No, but I’m telling you anyway because it’s the answer you’d give me if it were my husband in that hall.”
I heard Dane over the comm.
“Farrow.”
“Here, Dane.”
“Did Eamon brief you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m at the venue. Federal’s at the ferry.”
A beat of silence.
“I’m carrying you with me,” Dane said.
The line went quiet. Five minutes later, Eamon left.
***
The first three hours were the worst. I had too much time and not enough information. My body’s adrenaline had nowhere to go.
Wiley came down in one of Samuel’s Northeastern hoodies, glasses pushed up on his forehead. He poured coffee, opened a laptop at the table, and started working.
Samuel came down ten minutes later. He pulled out a pot.
“Samuel.”
“Wiley hasn’t eaten since seven last night. You haven’t eaten since whenever you ate yesterday, which I’m guessing was not breakfast. I’m making oatmeal.”
He set the pot on the stove, measured the water, salted it, and set the burner on medium. He pulled the steel-cut oats from the cabinet and sliced an apple into a bowl beside him while he waited for the water.
He stirred the oats in, dropped the heat, and set the timer.
Wiley typed. Vega entered from the hall. She went to work on fresh coffee.
Samuel ladled oatmeal into three mugs, bringing butter, honey, and sliced apple to the island. He put a mug in my hand.
“Stand if you have to. Eat.”
It was good, better than I expected. The apple had softened just enough.
Eamon spoke in the comm again. “Voss missed the ferry. Federal watched it board and watched it leave. The F-one-fifty wasn’t in the queue.”
“Other routes?” I asked.
“Hyannis only runs to Nantucket. Falmouth’s the other option, and federal has Falmouth.”
“Is a private boat an option?”
“Possible. Could be in a borrowed car or with a friend. We’ve briefed Dane and Cabot.”
At noon, Eamon was back in my ear. “Federal’s on the Vineyard. Two at the ferry terminal, two at the venue, and two on the road between. Dane has eyes on the corridor and the vestibule. Cabot’s in Eleanor’s morning room reading the printed program.”
“Voss?”
“Federal can’t locate him.”
At three-forty-eight, two minutes before the wedding, I paced in the front parlor. Wiley was in the room working on his laptop, and Samuel was writing in a notebook.
I heard Dane in my ear. “Farrow, they’re seating.” His voice was clear. I heard the rustle of program paper and the low buzz of people nearby.
“Cabot?” I asked.
“Two rows back on the aisle. I’m at the back wall. I have sightlines to the vestibule, corridor, and the terrace doors.”
“Eleanor?”
“Front row. Coral dress with pearls. She’s smiling at the groom’s mother.”
I heard the strains of Pachelbel’s Canon.
“Bride’s at the back. They’re standing,” Dane said. Minutes later, he added, “Vows.” The background sound disappeared.
I heard them speak.
“Farrow.”
“Yeah?”
“They just said the part where you swear it.”
“I heard them,” I said.
“I know you did.”
Federal interrupted the comm channel.
“All units. Subject Voss disembarked the fifteen-thirty Falmouth boat. Subject is on the island. He’s in a black F-one-fifty. Fifteen minutes from the venue if driving direct.”
“Dane,” I said.
“I heard.”
“Get Cabot out. Now.”
“The reception’s started. We’re moving to the side hall.”
“Now, Dane.”
“We’re moving.”
I paced and then tapped the comm. “Dane. Status.”
“Moving through the corridor. Cabot’s behind me. Two federal in front, two behind. We’re going to the side hall. One door in from the catering vestibule and one service exit. Federal has both.”
“Why the side hall and not the morning room?”
“Morning room has five windows on the ocean side. The side hall has none.”
The comm crackled. Federal was back.
“All units. Movement at the beach trailhead. Subject sighted wearing a brown work jacket and a dark cap. He’s moving north about sixty seconds from the Harcourt property line.”
I heard Dane shout. “Marquez. Catering vestibule. Cabot, against the inside wall. Down on three. One. Two. Three.”
A sidearm fired, flat and dry. A beat and a second shot, sharper, closer to the mic. Then a third sounded, further away.
I heard a body hitting the floor.
“Dane.”
Nothing.
“Dane.”
“Here.”
His voice was tight and clipped.
“Cabot’s clean. Voss is down. Federal has him. He was carrying a device in two cases. Federal has them.”
“Dane.”
“I’m hit.”
I knew it from the tightness in his voice. “Where?”
“Thigh. Through and through. Femoral’s fine. I can stand.”
Cabot sounded on the comm, his voice pitched higher than I’d ever heard it: “Farrow.”
“Stanley.”
“He’s losing color. The federal medic is here.”
My breathing stopped. I was three hours away from him.
He was bleeding on the floor of a house I’d never seen.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Pereira’s two minutes out,” Vega said.
I sat down.
Eamon called my phone. “Pereira is nearly there. Wheels up Hyannis six-fifteen. Vineyard helipad six-thirty-eight. Cabot will meet you. The drive is eight minutes from the pad. I’ve got the house with Vega.”
“Tell Dane I’m coming.”
Wiley picked up my coat and held it open. I shrugged into it.