Hell Bent Read online

  Also by William G. Tapply

  THE BRADY COYNE NOVELS

  One-Way Ticket

  Out Cold

  Nervous Water

  Shadow of Death

  A Fine Line

  Past Tense

  Scar Tissue

  Muscle Memory

  Cutter’s Run

  Close to the Bone

  The Seventh Enemy

  The Snake Eater

  Tight Lines

  The Spooted Cats

  Client Privilege

  Dead Winter

  A Void in Hearts

  The Vulgar Boatman

  Dead Meat

  The Marine Corpse

  Follow the Sharks

  The Dutch Blue Error

  Death at Charity’s Point

  THE STONEY CALHOUN NOVELS

  Bitch Creek

  Gray Ghost

  NONFICTION

  Trout Eyes

  Gone Fishin’

  Pocket Water

  Upland Days

  Bass Bug Fishing

  A Fly-Fishing Life

  The Elements of Mystery Fiction

  Sportsman’s Legacy

  Home Water

  Opening Day and Other Neuroses

  Those Hours Spent Outdoors

  OTHER FICTION

  Third Strike (with Philip R. Craig)

  Second Sight (with Philip R. Craig)

  First Light (with Philip R. Craig)

  Thicker Than Water (with Linda Barlow)

  HELL BENT

  William G. Tapply

  St. Martin’s Minotaur

  New York

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  HELL BENT. Copyright © 2008 by William G. Tapply. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tapply, William G.

  Hell bent : a Brady Coyne novel/William G. Tapply.—1st St. Martin’s Minotaur ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35830-3

  ISBN-10: 0-312-35830-X

  1. Coyne, Brady (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Lawyers—Massachusetts—Boston—Fiction. 3. Photojournalists—Crimes against—Fiction. 4. Post-traumatic stress disorder—Fiction. 5. Divorce—Fiction. 6. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title. PS3570.A568H45 2008

  813′.54—dc22

  2008023438

  First Edition: October 2008

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Vicki

  My love, my rock

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am indebted to my “tripod” for their usual indispensable and solid support on this book: Vicki Stiefel, my wife and first and best reader; Keith Kahla, an editor who actually edits and went above the call of duty with this one; and Fred Morris, my agent, who worries about all my business so I don’t have to.

  Also to my kids and stepkids—Mike, Melissa, Blake, Sarah, and Ben—for their enthusiasm and encouragement and for always saying they love my stuff.

  Also to my writing students at Clark University for not being all that impressed by having an actual published author as their professor, and for the inspiration of their enthusiasm and talent and open-mindedness.

  And to the dozens of unpublished but hardworking writers I’ve worked with over the years for reminding me how important it is to have some fun with it.

  I don’t want to be a doctor, and live by men’s diseases, nor a minister to live by their sins; nor a lawyer to live by their quarrels.

  —NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

  Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

  —MARK TWAIN

  UMASS BLAST KILLS SEVEN,

  LEVELS PHYSICS BUILDING

  ANTI-WAR GROUPTHOUGHT RESPONSIBLE

  AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS, AUGUST 24, 1971: At 3:04 A.M. Tuesday morning an explosion believed to be set off by anti-war extremists destroyed Cabot Hall, which housed the university’s physics department. Seven people died in the blast.

  The school’s fall semester was scheduled to begin in ten days, and summer sessions ended a week ago, so the campus was largely deserted. “We hate to even imagine the possible loss of life if school had been in session,” said university spokesperson Eva Shallot. “The explosion blew out windows and scattered debris over most of the campus.”

  Of the seven who died in the explosion, six were graduate students whose names have yet to be released. The seventh victim has been tentatively linked to the Soldiers Brigade, a radical anti-war organization.

  FBI investigator Martin Greeley, in a prepared statement, said: “The timing of this unspeakable action is no coincidence. The Sterling Hall explosion at the University of Wisconsin occurred one year ago almost to the minute. There is no doubt that last night’s event is also the work of radical left-wing anti-war terrorists.” Greeley indicated that arrests are imminent. “We know who’s responsible,” he said.

  Last summer’s Wisconsin explosion, which occurred at 3:42 A.M., also on August 24, was linked to a student anti-war group called the New Year’s Gang. Four people, all students, have been arrested in connection with that event. A fifth remains at large.

  UMASS BLAST TERRORISTS ARRESTED,

  VICTIMS’ NAMES RELEASED

  FBI: “CASE CLOSED”

  AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS, AUGUST 29, 1971: The final two members of the Soldiers Brigade, a radical anti-war group of Vietnam veterans believed to be responsible for the deadly explosion at the University of Massachusetts last Tuesday morning, were arrested without incident last night at a motel in White River Junction, Vermont.

  “All of our suspects are now in custody,” said FBI spokesman Martin Greeley.

  The alleged leader of the terrorist group, a decorated Vietnam veteran from Keene, New Hampshire, named John Kinkaid, was identified as one of the seven victims of the UMass blast. The other six victims were graduate students working on a laboratory project [see sidebar].

  “Kinkaid was the brains,” said Greeley at a press conference. “He was a fugitive, wanted for the explosion a year ago in Wisconsin. In both cases, Kinkaid procured and set up the explosives, which he was familiar with from his military experience. It appears that he was rigging them inside the University of Massachusetts building when an electronic malfunction of some kind detonated them prematurely. We believe Kinkaid’s intention was for the explosion to occur at 3:42 A.M., the same time as the Wisconsin event that he masterminded. It would have been his personal signature on the event.”

  When asked to compare the UMass explosion with the one at the University of Wisconsin a year ago, Greeley said: “We believe the date of the explosions—August 24, one year apart—was intentional. However, the Wisconsin explosion was caused by a crude homemade bomb—a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer soaked in fuel oil and loaded into a Ford van. The perpetrators of that crime, aside from Kinkaid, were student radicals. This Massachusetts event was the work of a misguided group of Vietnam veterans, including Kinkaid, all of whom appear to be suffering from depression and shell shock and disorientation from their military service. In addition to the timing and their apparent aim of bringing attention to the war, the one commonality between the two explosions was the target.”

  Both university buildings housed military research projects funded by government contracts.

  No information has been made available about preparations for trials of the alleged terrorists.

  ONE

  It was a few minutes before
five in the afternoon on the second Thursday in October. I had just hung up the phone with my last client of the day, a pediatrician named Paul Berman who was getting divorced and wanted to hang on to as much of his money and dignity as the law would allow. He had plenty of money, but he was running short of dignity. Divorce does that to people.

  It does it to their lawyers, too.

  I had swiveled my desk chair around so I could look out my office window. We were on the downside of the autumnal equinox. The low-angled late-afternoon October sun was washing the tops of the Trinity Church and the Copley Plaza Hotel with warm orange light, and dusk was beginning to seep into the floor of the city. It was the last gasp of Indian summer in Boston. Already the scarlet leaves were losing their grip on the maples that grew along the walkways that intersected the plaza. A bittersweet time of year in New England. Evie had been gone for nearly four months, and I had no plans to go trout fishing again until next spring. Global warming notwithstanding—and I did not doubt Mr. Gore—winter was definitely around the corner.

  There came a soft one-knuckle tap on my office door. Without turning around, I said, “Come on in, Julie. I’m off the phone.”

  I heard the door open and close behind me.

  “You notice how early it’s getting dark these days?” I swiveled around. “You can—” I stopped. Blinked. Shook my head. Smiled.

  It wasn’t Julie, my faithful secretary, standing on the other side of my desk with an armload of manila folders.

  It was Alexandria Shaw.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “Not quite,” Alex said. “Close, though.”

  I got up, went around my desk, and opened my arms.

  She smiled, stepped forward, and gave me a hug.

  “The least Julie could’ve done was warn me,” I said. “What’s it been?”

  “Seven years,” she said. “It’s been a little over seven years.”

  “Seven years since you dumped me.” I stepped back from her. “You look great.” I frowned. “Something’s different.”

  She cocked her head and smiled. I remembered that lopsided, cynical smile. Alex was a great cynic. “Everything’s different after seven years, Brady.”

  “Yeah, but there’s something. What is it?”

  “My hair’s a little longer. Some of them have turned gray. A few new wrinkles. I got contacts. Gained a couple pounds.” She patted her hip, then waved her hand in the air, dismissing the entire subject of her appearance. “I’m actually here on business. I need a good lawyer.”

  “It’s the glasses,” I said. “You used to wear glasses. They kept slipping down to the tip of your nose. You’re not wearing your glasses.”

  “That’s why I got contact lenses. Because my glasses kept slipping down my nose.”

  “I used to think it was sexy,” I said. “The way you’d keep poking at them with your forefinger, pushing them back.”

  She shrugged. “That was a long time ago.”

  “You need a lawyer, huh?”

  “Maybe I could buy you a drink?”

  I glanced at my watch, then shook my head. “I’ve got to get home, feed my dog. He’s expecting me.”

  “Your dog.”

  “I’ve got a dog now. His name is Henry. Henry David Thoreau. He’s a Brittany. He knows when it’s suppertime, and he sulks if I’m late. It’s a big responsibility.”

  “I should’ve made an appointment,” Alex said. “Julie didn’t say anything about a dog needing to be fed.”

  “I bet she said a lot about other things.”

  She shrugged. “We got caught up.”

  “She always liked you.”

  “It took her a while, if you remember,” Alex said. “Julie was very protective of you. Still is. Wanted to be sure my intentions were honorable today before she let me see you. I had to convince her I didn’t come here to seduce you.”

  “She told you about Evie?”

  Alex nodded. “I’m sorry to hear …”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Oh, well.”

  “How’re you doing?”

  “I’m getting used to it.” I smiled at her. “You don’t need an appointment. I’m a little off balance here. I meant it about Henry, but the drink is a good idea. Why don’t you come home with me. I’ve got a nearly full jug of Rebel Yell. You always liked Rebel Yell.”

  “You sure? I mean …”

  “What exactly did Julie tell you?”

  “She said you bought a townhouse on Beacon Hill and were living with a hospital administrator named Evie Banyon. Julie said Evie is smart and quite beautiful, and she implied that you love her. But Evie’s gone now, and you don’t know when—or even if—she’ll be back.” Alex smiled. “Julie said you’ve been very lonely and sad lately.”

  “I should fire that woman,” I said. “She talks too much.”

  “She certainly does,” said Alex. “But she cares about you.”

  “So what else did Julie say?” I said.

  “She said she likes Evie,” Alex said, “but she’s quite angry at her for deserting you.”

  “Evie’s out in California taking care of her father,” I said. “On his houseboat in Sausalito. He’s dying of pancreatic cancer. She’s doing what she needs to do. I support what she’s doing. She didn’t desert me.”

  “But she’s gone.”

  “Yes,” I said. “She’s gone.”

  Alex looked at me for a minute, then nodded. “This was a mistake. I’ll go make an appointment with Julie.” She turned for the door.

  “I meant it about the drink,” I said. “I want to hear about your problem. You’ll like Henry. He’ll like you, too, if you give him something to eat. You still enjoy Rebel Yell on the rocks, don’t you?”

  She turned back to face me. “I didn’t come here to seduce you. Honest.”

  “I didn’t think you did.”

  Alex smiled. “Julie does, I think.”

  “That’s Julie. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “And for the record, I didn’t dump you.”

  “Well,” I said, “in the final analysis, you did. But I suppose it was more complicated than that.” I shrugged. “It’s easier for me to think of it that way, that’s all. Anyway, it was seven years ago. I’ve forgiven you.”

  She jerked back and glared at me. “You’ve forgiven me? Are you delusional?”

  I held up both hands, palms out. “I’m kidding. Jesus.”

  “It was you who kissed that woman, Brady Coyne.”

  “Do you want to pick at old scabs,” I said, “or do you want to come meet my dog and have a smooth glass of sippin’ whiskey and tell me why you need a lawyer?”

  She looked at me for a minute, then nodded. “The drink and the dog. We can save the scab picking for another time.” She smiled. “You always did know how to piss me off.”

  “And vice versa,” I said. “It was one of the great strengths of our relationship.”

  Alex had left her car at the Alewife T station and taken the train into the city, and I had walked to work. It was a warm and pleasant autumn afternoon-almost-evening, so we decided to walk from my office in Copley Square to my townhouse on Mt. Vernon Street on Beacon Hill. There was between us the awkwardness of intimate old friends who hadn’t even spoken for seven years. We had once loved each other. Now we were strangers, getting to know each other all over again.

  So we exchanged some facts of our lives as we poked along Newbury Street. Alex still lived in her little house on the dirt road in Garrison, Maine. I used to drive up from Boston to spend weekends with her. A couple of years after she and I parted ways, she married a Portland land developer named Morgridge, and a couple of years after that they divorced amicably. “No harm, no foul,” Alex said.

  She’d finished the book she’d been working on when we were together. It was a collection of case studies about domestic abuse that got her a few television talk-show appearances and made it briefly onto the bottom end of some best-
seller lists, and then she published a novel inspired by one of the cases that had not made it into the nonfiction book. The novel didn’t sell very well but got good reviews, and her publisher was encouraging her to write another one. Now she was in the throes of trying to get a handle on her story.

  I told her about buying the townhouse from the family of a client who’d been murdered, how a dog had come with the house, how Evie and Henry and I had been cohabiting there for the past few years, and how Evie had bought herself a one-way ticket to California the previous June.

  Alex didn’t offer to tell me why she’d come down to Boston from Garrison, Maine, or why she needed a lawyer, or why she thought I should be that lawyer, and I didn’t ask.

  We sat beside each other in my wooden Adirondack chairs in the little walled-in patio garden behind my house. I’d put my jug of Rebel Yell and a platter holding a wedge of extra-sharp Vermont cheddar and a double handful of Wheat Thins on the picnic table, and we drank the sippin’ whiskey on the rocks from square thick-glass tumblers. Alex had slipped Henry a hunk of cheese, making her his friend for life, so he lay at her feet gazing hopefully—which was easily confused with lovingly—up at her. With dogs, it’s all about food.

  “This is nice,” she said. She was slouching back looking up at the darkening autumn sky. “Quite a change from that dump you used to have on Lewis Wharf.”

  “That wasn’t a dump,” I said. “I was just a dumpy housekeeper.”

  She didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and neither did I. We sipped our drinks.

  Then she said, “It’s my brother, not me. Why I wanted to talk to you. Why I need a lawyer. It’s for him. Do you remember Gus?”

  “I never met him,” I said. “You used to talk about him. Your big brother. Augustine. Alexandria and Augustine. Your parents had fun with names. He’s a photographer, isn’t he?”

  “A photojournalist, to be precise,” she said. “He didn’t create art, and he didn’t do weddings or proms or K-mart portraits. He told stories.”