The technician in the Dickies met Jake at the edge of the gravel drive. True to his kind, he was all business. “Special Agent Cole?” he said, extending a hand.

Jake nodded, shook.

“Miles Rafferty.” With the exception of the firearm pressing against the fabric of his coveralls, Rafferty looked like a guy contracted to paint the garage/studio. “I was told that the evidence you are looking for in the vehicle is twenty-eight years old.”

Jake nodded. “Thirty-three, actually.”

Rafferty’s face didn’t change. “The wind’s a little strong here so what I’d like to do is bag the car before we pull it onto the bed.”

“The tires are flat and I’m not sure—”

Rafferty waved it away. “I have a set of wheel dollies that’ll take care of that. Can I see the vehicle?”

Jake asked him to wait outside while he went through the studio; he didn’t want anyone getting a look at the crazy shit his father had painted all over the room. He went into the garage and lifted the old door about three feet and Rafferty crawled under.

Rafferty walked around the car, examining it with professional scrutiny. He scoured the vehicle with a flashlight, occasionally leaning in close to examine something that caught his eye, getting down on the floor, balanced on his gloved palms and the tips of his booted toes, to peer at the undercarriage. It took him five minutes to go around the car. When he was done he stood up, went back outside under the half-closed door, and came back in with a sealed bag the size of a large pillow.

He pulled two static-free plastic jumpsuits out of the bag and handed one to Jake. “Pull this on over your clothes—it won’t pick up any dirt or contaminate the car. Use the hood, it’s not too hot in here so we won’t sweat too much.”

Rafferty pulled on his own, standing on one foot at a time, balancing as the other went through a leg hole that seemed designed for someone a lot shorter and heavier. Jake stepped into his and when he closed his eyes it smelled like he was putting on a new shower curtain.

Rafferty pulled the rest of the contents out of the bag, a folded sheet of polyethylene. They stretched it over the Mercedes and Rafferty taped the corners. When the car was encased in the plastic, he ran a second piece beneath it, protecting the undercarriage.

Jake knew that the plastic would protect it from contamination and losing evidence on the way into the truck.

Jake’s phone rang.

Without being asked, Rafferty said, “I can take care of myself.” And with that he opened the garage door.

“Jake Cole.”

“Jake, it’s Hauser. Two things, I wasn’t able to reach the Farmers, but I spoke to their daughter—she lives in Portland—said her folks rented the house to ‘some nice people’ they met through an online real-estate rental service. There was no computer in the house and the Farmers live in Boston. I’ve asked for a warrant to access their email accounts but that will take until the morning to clear since we’ve only got the daughter’s word on this and it doesn’t look like the Farmers are in any way involved in the murder. I have, however, been able to get to their banking records.

“They’re renting the place out for four grand a month. Not very much money for a place like that. Funds were in the form of postal money orders. They were bought with cash. I’ve put a trace on them and when they come back we can check with the actual branch that sold them; unfortunately no one keeps track of postal money orders. You’re not allowed to purchase them with a credit card and if you’re paying cash, no one really asks questions unless you buy ten grand. It will take three days and it’s probably a dead end.” Hauser sounded frustrated. “So each step takes us further and further away.”

“Nice people implies more than a mother and child, doesn’t it?” Jake went back into the studio, closing and locking the door behind him. In here, in the womblike dark, there was a soft silence.

“One of the neighbors—she wasn’t home the night of the murders—walked by the Farmer house on Tuesday afternoon and thinks she saw a woman and child walking on the beach. She couldn’t give any sort of a description other than she looked thin and the child had a lot of energy. They were too far for her to get any solid details. Saw them twice. But no husband. No boyfriend.”

“Could be the man works a lot. Could be she has a girlfriend,” Jake offered. “If she saw the child on the beach with a woman more than once—and she couldn’t identify the woman—maybe there were two women.”

There was a pause as Hauser digested this little bit of possibility. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

“How long have they been renting the place?”

“Two weeks back. Looks like an end-of-season rental. Daughter said her folks were happy that they had found someone who wanted the place for the fall. It was short notice.”

“Why come here in the fall on short notice?” Jake paced the studio, painting the pixels of data into the 3-D model he had assembled in his mind the night before when he had walked onto the set. “When did the first money order get deposited?”

“August thirtieth.”

“September first lease. They’ve been here more than two weeks. Someone has seen them. Guaranteed.”

Hauser let out a sigh. “Problem is, most of the neighbors have packed up and left.”

Jake remembered the advancing storm. “How long until it’s too late to leave?”

“The wind will get bad tonight. Rain, too. Serious rain by the morning. By supper things will be intense. I’d say leaving at two p.m. tomorrow is cutting it short. Just in case something goes wrong—and something always goes wrong.” There was a pause. “You thinking about your wife and child?”

“I’m thinking about all of us.”

“When are you getting on the road?”

Jake thought about lying but it wasn’t something he felt good at. “I’m staying.”

“Jake, the Southampton hospital is a solid building that is going to resist the storm surge and winds. It was designed to withstand a hurricane. Hell, any municipal building erected after the big one of ’38 was designed to withstand a missile attack.” There was a pause. “I will personally look in on your old man. You don’t need to worry about him.”

What could he say to that? I really don’t give a flying fuck? Because when it comes down to it, it’s everything else that has me on edge. It’s the woman and her child up the beach. It’s the studio with the bloody men in the flat-black sky. It’s these canvases that my old man spent years painting—these lousy dead meanderings of a diseased subconscious. It’s my mother’s car, sitting out there for the past quarter-century like some pop art shrine, my father perched in his Star Trek chair, guzzling back scotch and doing what—? Weeping? Laughing? Screaming his fucking lungs out? Too many loose threads for me to walk away from. All he said was, “It’s not just my old man. It’s everything else. The case. All of it. What was the second thing you wanted to tell me?”

“The ME’s people just finished going over the house. If you want to take another walk through, now’s the time. We can go up there together before things get too bogged down with this storm. And after the storm there may not be a crime scene to visit.”

Jake pulled his eyes away from the ocean, then swiveled back to the house and headed inside. “When can you pick me up?”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

31

Hauser’s new Charger sounded like a German Panzer from half a mile off, the supercharged Hemi growling as it tore up 27. It made a statement but Jake saw the car in the same light as he viewed a lot of American industry—yet another rehash in a once innovative field that had been reduced to copying its glory days. He had to step back when the sheriff swerved off the road onto the gravel shoulder. The taste of electricity in Jake’s mouth was replaced with dust and exhaust. He climbed in.