by David Klass
His father’s eyes were closed and the familiar features looked stiff and lifeless. A blue hospital sheet framed his gashed and battered face. Tom sat unmoving, not making a sound or shedding a tear. He felt nothing except a keen awareness of his own total lack of emotion, which was in its own way exquisitely painful. He knew the police had been alerted to a car that had veered off the highway, through a side rail, and plunged down an embankment into a stand of trees. When they’d arrived, his father was dead. All signs pointed to a massive heart attack, and Brennan had mentioned on the ride to the hospital that Tom’s father’s last conscious act might have been steering his rental car away from other motorists and therefore adding a few more lives to the many he had saved in his long police and FBI career.
Tom found himself searching for a warm memory to savor and cling to in this moment, feeling that there should be one for him. There had been plenty of birthday parties, fishing trips, and sports lessons—particularly when he was young. And even when he was a teen and their relationship had grown increasingly fraught and even occasionally flashed into violence, his father had taught him how to tie a necktie, how to hit a fairway wood, and how to throw a right hook. But sitting on the hard wooden chair beneath a faintly humming fluorescent light, Tom drew a complete blank. All he could recall, over and over, was the end of their last talk ten hours earlier in the hotel bar, when his father had called him a little asshole and stalked away as Tom watched the news of the dam collapse.
There was a tapping at the door. “Mr. Smith. Can I come in?”
He turned the clipboard facedown again and said, “Yeah, sure.”
She opened the door. “I don’t mean to rush you, but . . .”
“No, it’s okay,” he said. “And yes, it’s my dad, Warren Smith.”
She sat down and presented him with a pen and several legal forms. Tom signed without really reading them, and he answered her questions mechanically, sometimes suggesting that she should run one or two matters by his mother in Florida. All indications pointed to a heart attack, but his mother should decide if an autopsy was necessary. His father would be buried in Boca, where he had purchased a gravesite, and Tom would make the arrangements to transport the body there. No, he didn’t need to talk to a grief counselor or pray with a clergyman of any faith. Yes, he was sure he would be okay to get home.
Brennan was pacing in the hospital’s generic waiting room when Tom emerged from the morgue. The big man was speaking excitedly into his cell phone, but he ended the call as soon as he saw Tom with a loud “Don’t let any so-called local experts near it. Pitch a big tent over it and guard it with your life. My flight leaves Dulles in four hours. Make sure there’s a car waiting at Boise.” He hung up and told Tom, “There’s been a possible break in the case.”
It took Tom a second to refocus. “You mean with Green Man?”
“A police dog picked up his scent on a rock shelf overlooking the dam and followed it for miles to an apparent campsite. There are tire tracks and the faint imprint of a tent. But I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear this now.”
“I do want to hear it,” Tom said. “Any witnesses or photos?”
“Nothing that definite yet. He camped out alone in a barren and isolated spot. But we don’t need to talk about this now. I can tell from your face it was Warren, and I’m sorry. I’ve done my share of morgue IDs. They’re always rough.”
“It was what it was,” Tom told him. “My father knew he didn’t have much time left. They really didn’t find anything but a few tire tracks?”
Brennan looked hesitant to keep talking shop, but the new information was very much on his mind. “Right now the most important thing is to preserve the site completely untouched till I get the right people out there. Well-meaning local experts will kill you in these situations. I’ve got my team on the way, and I’m heading out myself. And I guess you’re on your way to Florida?”
“My flight to Fort Lauderdale leaves in three hours.” Tom hesitated, and then he said, “Unless I can help you out in Idaho. I may be an elitist Stanford graduate, but I’d like you to know that I don’t draw the line at menial tasks. I even get coffee.”
Brennan grinned. “That’s good to know, because I appreciate a hot cup of coffee.” He hesitated for a long second and then said, “But go to Florida and bury your father.”
“We both know Warren would want me to join the hunt.”
“There’s not much doubt about that. Do you have siblings?”
“An older sister. She had more problems with my father than I did.”
“Go home, say goodbye, and be there for your mom. Are you flying out of Dulles?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I can give you a ride to the airport,” Brennan offered. “And we have time to grab a quick lunch. I loathe airplane food, and there happens to be a good local diner on the way.”
“Thanks, but I’m not feeling very hungry. And I can see how busy you are. I’ll call a car and get myself to the airport.”
“If you want to be alone with your memories, I’ll respect that,” Brennan told him. “But I worked with your dad for years. The least I can do on a day like this is buy his son lunch. Come on, Tom. Never turn down a ride on a cold day.”
Improbably, fifteen minutes later, Tom found himself at a bustling local diner, nibbling a cheeseburger while Brennan enthusiastically devoured a meatball hoagie and told him not to worry about his father’s rental car, which had been totally wrecked. “Those car agency insurance investigators are more relentless assholes than anyone I can hire for the Bureau. They can keep at you night and day in situations like this, and it’s the last thing you need. I’ve already had my people handle it internally.”
“You didn’t need to do that, but thank you.”
Brennan’s cell phone rang, and he pressed it to his ear. “Earl, thank God you’re there! Yeah, seal it all off by my order.” Brennan listened for a second, and his voice got louder. “I don’t care what the state police chief says or what jurisdiction they’re claiming. Use my name, tell them we’re a federal taskforce, and if anyone sets foot on that site, they’ll be knowingly and willfully impeding a federal investigation, and the president of the United States will personally lock their asses up. I’ll call you from the airport.” He lowered the phone and shook his head. “Local experts.”
“You really think you’re going to find something at that campsite?” Tom asked.
“With the people and equipment I’m bringing out, I like our chances.”
“He’s too smart and too careful to leave a clue behind for you.”
“Goddamn it, you’re as pessimistic as your father.”
“Not quite,” Tom said. “But I try.”
Brennan took a last bite of the hoagie and pushed his plate to one side. “Tom, we should be heading to Dulles in a minute. Listen, I wish I had something warm and fuzzy to tell you about your dad and what it was like to work with him off and on for almost three decades.”
“I wasn’t expecting that, sir.” Tom hesitated and then continued softly: “I knew Warren about as long as you worked with him, and I’m not coming up with much that’s warm and fuzzy today, either.”
Brennan nodded his understanding. “Your father was what he was. Old-school. Hardworking. Sharp instincts. Tough as hell to really get to know. If he’d been easier to get along with, he would have risen higher professionally. But Warren didn’t have the best people skills. I guess we both know that sometimes he could be a real son of a bitch.”
“That he could, sir,” Tom agreed. “But I do have one question for you. I’m afraid it might come out sounding a little ungrateful or even rude.”
“You’re allowed one rude question today,” Brennan told him.
Tom hesitated and then asked, “Why are you doing all this?”
“All what?”
“You and my father weren’t
comrades-in-arms or golf buddies or even friends. To be honest, I get the feeling you didn’t really like him much. I’m not faulting you—I had my own issues with him. But why are you chauffeuring me around and buying me lunch on a day when you clearly have much more important things to do?”
The question annoyed Brennan. “Why not just say thanks for the cheeseburger?”
“Thanks for the cheeseburger. But I want to understand.”
Brennan got up from the table and stomped away. Tom thought the big man might head out to his car and not come back, but he returned in thirty seconds with a fistful of mints and popped several into his mouth at once. “Okay, here’s the truth,” he said. “I never talk about this, but that hard-nosed son of a bitch saved my life.”
“Warren did?” Tom asked. “When?”
“We were on a stakeout, thirty years ago. Middle of the night. I fell asleep. It happens to everyone, but it never happened to me before or since. One of the guys we were after walked up from behind and spotted me. He had a gun out, and he would have shot me. Warren had my back and got the guy first.” Brennan slammed a fist down on the table so hard that the saltshaker jumped. “What the hell was I supposed to do after that? He never told anyone I’d fallen asleep and endangered our whole operation, so it stayed between the two of us. And I was never close enough to him to find a way to thank him or repay him.”
“Maybe you didn’t need to thank him,” Tom ventured. “It sounds like he was just doing his job. . . .”
Brennan scowled, clearly torn up about something. “Ten years ago, just when Warren was getting ready to retire, a job came up that would have been a big promotion for him—the perfect cap to his career. He had more ability than the other candidates, and it was my call. I gave it to someone else. It involved managing people, and I just didn’t think Warren could run a big team. But I felt bad about that. He saved my life, and then I fucked him.”
“We have something in common, then,” Tom said quietly. “He gave me life, too, and I only disappointed him and never found a way to thank or repay him.”
Brennan waved to the waitress for the check. Then he fixed Tom with a steady gaze. “Here’s one thing I can tell you about your dad and then we’d better go catch our flights. You were right—Warren did call me early this morning to talk about you. We only chatted two or three minutes, but it was the most personal conversation I ever had with him.”
The waitress brought the check, and Brennan fished thirty dollars out of his wallet and dropped the cash on the table. “He was proud enough of you to tell me your scholastic achievements. He asked me to give you a chance to help break this case. That was the last thing he said to me before he hung up, and it was also the only favor that he ever asked me for. What was the last thing he said to you?”
“He called me a little asshole.”
Brennan nodded slightly, looked sad, and he was silent for two or three seconds. “Go home and bury him with as much love as you can muster,” he commanded Tom in a very low voice. “And then you have a tough career decision to make. I don’t directly supervise the data analysts, so I can’t help you there. But your father had the best nose for a case I ever saw, and I can always use a smart field agent. If you want to come work for me, I can give you some autonomy, the chance to think outside the box, and the clout to follow up on at least some of your hunches. And I won’t make you get me coffee too often.”
Tom looked back at him and thought it over quickly. “Warren told you about my scholastic achievements, but did he tell you about the Golden Gloves?”
“No,” Brennan said, carefully sizing up Tom in a new way. “I know he was a fighter. You boxed?”
“Did he tell you about the Olympic shooting team?”
Brennan raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Not really,” Tom told him. “He tried to teach me to box, but I refused to learn. I like my brains unscrambled. I barely know which side is the trigger and the muzzle. I was a big disappointment to Warren as a son, and I will be to you as a field agent. I am what I am, sir—a proud, smart nerd who’s really good at crunching numbers.”
Brennan studied Tom for a few seconds more, shrugged, and stood up. “The decision’s up to you, but I don’t have any problem with smart nerds, and my offer stands. The people close to me are good, but they tend to be a little too polite and respectful. Something tells me that won’t be your problem. If you do come to work for me, your real job will be to be a pain in the ass, think outside the box, and keep asking me annoying questions that everyone else either hasn’t thought of or is too afraid to ask me. I think you’ll be good at that. In fact, you’ll probably be such a big pain in the ass that I’ll regret this. Now, go home to Boca and take care of your family business.”
EIGHT
There was no traffic on the main street of the small town in which Green Man lived, and every shop had long ago shut up for the night. He drove through the one stoplight, past the bank and the grocery, and turned onto a country road. The houses grew farther apart, and soon he was driving through a thick forest. Branches of old sugar maples reached out to one another above the winding roadway. He spotted his mailbox, clicked the remote, and the iron gate swung slowly open. Motion-sensing lights blinked on as he headed up the long driveway toward the house that emerged from the trees, silhouetted against the starry sky.
He had purchased the property for its proximity to town but at the same time for its privacy—his twelve acres were surrounded by protected state forest. Green Man had designed the house himself and had it built by a firm based in Detroit so the details weren’t known locally. The house was large but not ostentatious by town standards—there was certainly nothing about the facade of the four-story white, center-hall colonial to make it seem remarkable.
The kids brought school friends home to romp around in the grassy backyard or splash around in the pool in summer, and Sharon often entertained on the back patio in nice weather. Savvy guests sometimes remarked on how energy efficient it was and that it was a “smart house”—all the appliances were computer controlled and “talked to one another.” But no guests were ever allowed in the upper two floors, and the kids had been brought up to stay out of the windowless shack known to the family as the “hunting shed” and located deep in the trees.
Kim and Gus had gone to sleep several hours earlier, but Sharon was waiting up and heard him pull into the garage. By the time he’d climbed out of the van, she had hurried out through the connecting door and was running toward him. They embraced for several minutes without saying a word, and he could feel her trembling. He held her in his arms and gently stroked her hair, and she nestled her cheek against his as their bodies pressed together. “I love you,” she finally whispered, and he felt the tears on her cheek. “I missed you so much, Mitch. Welcome home.”
“I missed you, too, sweetheart,” he replied softly, his gruff voice quivering. He was just as emotional as she was, even if he masked it through the long force of habit of controlling every aspect of his behavior. He loved her deeply, and he had almost from the first moment he’d seen her in an art museum in Chicago. Every time he drove away on a mission, he thought it might be the last time he saw her and the kids, and that possibility was almost more than he could bear.
They walked into the house hand in hand, and Finn, their aging golden Lab, began leaping and bounding around with a gleeful excitement that made him look almost like an exuberant puppy again. “Someone else is glad you’re home,” Sharon said with a smile.
Green Man knelt next to the faithful dog and scratched his ears, and the old Lab nearly swooned.
Sharon led him toward the kitchen, which smelled faintly of roast chicken and wild rice. “Something tells me you didn’t stop for dinner.”
“Figured I might get lucky with leftovers.”
She sat with him while he ate, sipping red wine and watching him so closely that it felt almost like a
first date. And it could have been a first date, because while they had much bigger things on their minds, they just made small talk—she filled him in about Kim’s drawing class and Gus’s travel soccer team and how the refrigerator’s ice maker was too cold and kept freezing over and clogging up. Green Man didn’t discuss his mission to Idaho or ask her about the latest FBI manhunt news that she had gleaned from the multiple sources she checked regularly—they never talked about anything serious below the third floor, even late at night when the kids were fast asleep.
Finn sat under the table, sometimes touching Green Man’s feet, and every once in a while he found a way to covertly slide the dog a small piece of roast chicken. Sharon didn’t like him feeding Finn at the table, but either he covered it skillfully or Sharon was willing to overlook his weaknesses on this night of homecoming.
They had the computer lock up the house, and Green Man checked with his usual meticulousness that the security and motion sensors had all switched on around the property. They climbed to the second floor together, and he opened Kim’s door. The girl lay with her two big stuffed animals, Winnie the Pooh and Minnie Mouse, standing guard. Green Man bent and kissed his daughter lightly on the cheek, and the six-year-old stirred and smiled slightly. Straightening up, he saw a new drawing she had done that week that was now taped to the wall. While it was childlike, he was able to easily recognize the likeness as one of her best friends. Green Man had drawn and painted all his life, and he loved seeing that his daughter had inherited his keen eye.
Gus’s room was five paces from Kim’s, and Green Man stepped inside and saw his son sleeping diagonally with his feet dangling off one side of the bed and his head all the way on the other corner. The boy’s face was tilted toward his nearby dresser, as if keeping watch on the dozen or so soccer trophies there. Sharon gently straightened Gus out on the bed and tucked his quilt over him.