“Yes, all of that is possible. We’ll see.”
“Do you mean ‘we’ as in you and me?”
“No.”
“Let me call the cops again. I’ll tell them I know about what Dick McCallum told them. I can tell them he’s lying. Won’t they have to question him more thoroughly?”
“No, Becca, it’s too late. I’m really sorry about this.”
“What do you mean, it’s too late? I know I can get ahold of Detective Morales.”
“We’ll have to go another route to find out why Dick McCallum did what he did, and who probably paid him a whole lot of money to do it.”
She became very still. She shook her head. He said very gently, “I’m sorry, Becca, but someone ran Dick McCallum down in front of his apartment building in Albany. He’s dead.”
There wasn’t a single thought in her mind, just numbing horror.
“They think you could be involved. Everyone’s gone nuts. Actually, they were nuts the moment the governor was shot. No one could believe the distance on that shot. Now they’re very serious about finding you and finding out what you know, if you’re involved in any way. I planted information for them to find and got them off on a wrong track, so you’re safe for a while.”
He sat back in his chair and cradled his head against his arms. He gave her a big fat smile. “They’re not going to find you anytime soon, trust me on that.”
11
She could only stare at him. “All right, you’re the greatest. Now, tell mehowyoufooledthem.”
“Thank you. Actually, I had nearly everything in place before Dick McCallum was killed. To be very precise, I did it right after the governor was shot. I had to shut the spigot off before they had the chance to really turn it on.
“They immediately mounted quite a manhunt. FBI offices all over the country are on the lookout for you. They were just beginning to track you from New York, just like I did, but then—a wonderful thing happened. They became convinced that you’d climbed on a Greyhound bus and had gone all the way down to North Carolina, probably disguised in a black wig, maybe even brown contacts. All they had to work on was your driver’s license and that was pretty scary. They searched your mom’s apartment, but you’d cleaned it out really well. They’re still looking for a storage facility for more information about you, photos and stuff like that. I assume you rented a storage locker. Where?”
“In the Bronx. Under an assumed name. To be honest, I didn’t have time to go through my mother’s stuff. I just piled everything into boxes and hauled the stuff to the Bronx. Now, Adam, where would they come up with the idea that I’d be in North Carolina?”
He smiled sweetly at her. “Fiddling. I enjoy it and I’m good at it.”
“By ‘fiddling’ you mean you scammed them?”
“Right. Sometimes con men use it when they get something over on their marks. Ah, sometimes law enforcement uses it, too.”
She shook her head at him. “I don’t want to know which you are. You’re kidding about this, right? You yourself didn’t feed them that information, did you?”
“No. I got one of their best snitches to feed it to them. That way they wouldn’t have any doubts at all. I even planted some evidence in your apartment in Albany to show that you knew all about North Carolina, that you’d even vacationed on the Outer Banks, your favorite town, Duck. Agents were swarming all over Duck within four hours of the FBI getting the information.”
“I have been to Duck. I’ve stayed at the Sanderling Inn.”
“I know, that’s why I selected it.”
“But I don’t think I kept any souvenirs or books or anything like that.”
“Oh yeah, sure you had souvenirs. There were a couple of T-shirts, some shells with ‘Duck’ etched on them, a couple of Duck pens, and a cute little candy dish showing ducks marching. Now the Feebs will scour the Outer Banks all the way down to Ocracoke. Did you hear about the Cape Hatteras lighthouse being moved?”
“Yes. Do you want more coffee?”
“Please. Oh, yes, Becca, give me the name of the storage locker and the assumed name. I’ll get all your stuff out of there and to a safe place.”
She snapped her fingers at him. “You can get things accomplished just like that?”
“I can but try.” He tried to look modest, maybe even humble, but he couldn’t pull it off. “What’s the name you used and what’s the storage locker name?”