In the adrenaline rush, I’d lost count of how many rounds I had left. I estimated three or four.
Suddenly a couple of bullets punched through the drywall and tile. He was on the other side of the wall.
I aimed at the hole that had just been made, and I heard a scream. I’d got him.
A few more shots came through the tile, and then the shooter came hobbling out of the front dining room, grabbing his leg in agony, firing at me. I ducked behind the metallic hulk of an old stove hood and fired my last couple of shots at him without aiming.
The silence, after the deafening shots, was thick. It vibrated. My ears rang.
I was now as certain as I could be that the three of them were down. I ran out of the rear door and into the underbrush, and no gunfire followed me.
Meanwhile, another car had been caught on the spike strip, its horn sounding. I could see it back there. And I kept on running north.
* * *
• • •
I got to Anguilla’s airport on foot, after walking and running for about a mile and a half, looking pretty banged up but in fact feeling okay. Mostly enduring that jittery post-adrenaline letdown. Feeling grateful that nothing had gone against me on the roadside. My three attackers, at least one of whom was probably dead, were not nice guys. I didn’t feel bad about what I’d had to do to them. I dumped the SIG Sauer in a drainage ditch outside the airport, and then I bought a ticket on the next flight to St. Maarten.
On the plane I found myself thinking about the last time, before the Conrad Kimball dinner, that I saw Maggie Benson.
We’d met for lunch at a Turkish restaurant she liked a lot on the East Side of Manhattan. I hadn’t seen her for a few years, but out of the blue she’d reached out to me, asking to meet. She was even more beautiful than when we were going out. She’d let her hair grow, and she’d put on a little weight, which looked good on her. She seemed happy.
She had a lot of questions about what I did for a living, and it became clear that she was thinking seriously of becoming a private investigator herself. I remembered her saying, “It’s safe, right?”
“Safe how?”
“I mean your personal safety. Like, I don’t need a weapon, do I?”
“Better if you have one,” I said.
“Oh, really?”
“I’ve used mine a couple of times,” I said. “But I think that’s the exception. It’s mostly safe. Boring, sometimes, but safe. Hey, listen. About what happened—”
“Water. Bridge.”
“Seriously, I didn’t get it at first. I think I do now, and . . .”
She gave me a long look. There was a lot of sadness in her eyes. “Licensing,” she said. “How does that work, state by state?”
She hadn’t wanted to talk about it, what I’d done with General Moore, but I knew it was still there between us.
I thought back to happier times. When she’d slapped a pile of folders down on my desk. And the words kept echoing in my mind:
I just handed you the baton.
Your only job is to run like hell and bring it home.
And I knew I wasn’t going to let Maggie down. I wasn’t going to let her death be for nothing.
I had to make it right.
77
I arrived in Boston in the late evening. By the morning, I was running on empty. I got to my office and made some coffee and found a profoundly discouraged Dorothy Duval.
She had tried every password cracker program she knew of. Nothing worked. Dr. Scavolini’s encrypted folder remained encrypted. It was a huge folder too—one hundred gigabytes.
Dorothy is very good at what she does. I had no doubt she had done everything she could think of. But without proof of the Tallinn file, I would lose. Conrad Kimball would escape justice. The recording in Anguilla wouldn’t be enough.
This happens. The bad guys win sometimes. You move on.
Then my phone rang, and it was Detective Goldman from Bedford. “Did you have a chance to talk to Cameron?” he said.
“No, not yet.”
“Well, I did. I talked to him about that alleged ‘booty call’ he made in the middle of the night. I told you, he didn’t make any booty call. The kid went to score some fentanyl from a dealer in Newburgh, New York. So it couldn’t have been him.”
Stunned, I said, “You got that out of him?”
“Not easily, but yes.”
“What about the cameras at Fritz Heston’s house? Have you had a chance to check them out?”
“I did. They confirm that his car didn’t leave his house until he got the call from Conrad, in the morning.”
I nodded to myself. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll call you when I know more.”
Half an hour later Gabe sauntered into the office. He dropped the key to my Toyota on my desk. Then he came around behind me to peek at what was on my computer monitor. “Why are you Googling Neil deGrasse Tyson?” he said. “Is he a client? Cool.”
“No. Trying to figure out a password.”
“His?”
“No. A fan of his. But I might be barking up the wrong tree. I have no idea. It’s worth trying.”
“How long is the password?”
“No idea. We don’t know.”
“Letters and numbers?”
“Could be. Or catchphrases.”
“Huh,” he said. He was mimicking me but probably wasn’t aware of it. “Could be anything.”
“Pretty much.”
“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
“Okay,” I said. Apparently he knew the Tyson quote too.
“I mean, that’s a quote. Something he says. Neil deGrasse Tyson. It’s a meme.”
I squinted at him, tilted my head. “A meme.”
“A meme, you know? A meme. You know what a meme is?”
“Sure.” My understanding was that a meme was basically a saying, maybe a catchphrase, a caption on a photograph passed around the internet. Usually clever and funny, but not always.
“So it’s a meme. Something like that. It’s something he said once. Google it.”
I did, without understanding fully what he was talking about, along with Tyson’s name. A bunch of cartoons of Tyson came up, and some YouTube windows. I read aloud, “‘The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.’” It looked to be a more popular phrase than I’d thought.
“That’s it. You got it.”
I IM’d Dorothy and asked her to come in. She arrived a few seconds later. “Yes? Oh, hello, Gabe,” she said frostily.
“Hello,” he replied neutrally.
“Gabe here has a passphrase to suggest. For the encrypted folder.”
“Okay.”
Gabe said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
She looked at him. “That’s a passphrase?”
He explained.
Dorothy shrugged, then said, “Can I use your chair?”
I got up and let her sit at my keyboard. Gabe looked over her shoulder. She tapped for a while and then repeated the sentence. She typed it in. Looked back at Gabe with satisfaction on her face. “With spaces,” she said. “Nothing. Doesn’t work.”
“Now try it without any spaces,” Gabe said. “All one word.”
Dorothy nodded. She tapped away at the keyboard. “Nope.”
“Shit,” Gabe said.
Then Dorothy said, “Watch out, guys, we’re dealing with a badass over here.”
“Who, Gabe?” I said, ready to defend him.
“Try it!” said Gabe.
“Try what?” I said.
“‘Watch out, we got a badass over here.’ It’s another Tyson meme,” said Gabe.
Dorothy tapped some more
. “Nope. Let me try it without the comma. No spaces.”
She hit a couple of keys. Blinked a few times, inhaled sharply.
“Lord, that did it!” she said. “That did it. That worked. Oh, my Jesus God.”
“It worked?” I said, stupidly.
“Watchoutwegotabadassoverhere,” she said, beaming. “All one word, no comma.”
“Well done, guys,” I said. Dorothy shrugged, and then Gabe did too.
“It’s not just one document,” she said. “It’s a separate drive full of documents. There’s a folder labeled OXYDONE ESTONIAN STUDY, 1999.”
“That’s it,” I said, my heart thudding.
“And a lot of correspondence about it, looks like,” Dorothy said. She tapped at the keyboard some more. “Here’s one from Conrad Kimball. Wait, a bunch from Conrad Kimball. To and from him.” She chuckled, nearly giggled. “It’s all here, Nick.”
Gabe looked at me, and I winked at him, unseen by Dorothy, to let him know I knew the score. That he deserved some credit too, not just Dorothy.
She said, “You want to Dropbox it or something to the client?”
“Can you put it on a thumb drive?” I said. “And I need to see Devlin as soon as possible. I’m going to Katonah tomorrow. And you, Gabe. When I’m done, you and I have to talk.”
78
I was tense about returning to Kimball Hall. Too many things had to go right. And there were too many variables. For one thing I really had no idea what Conrad Kimball was planning, and that made a difference. Nor what Sukie was going to do.
Early in the morning I picked up a couple of large black coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts and set out for Katonah in my old Toyota.
My cell phone rang, an unknown number.
“Heller!” a man’s voice barked.
In just two syllables I recognized the man’s Israeli accent.
“Shlomo,” I said. “Been a while.”
Shlomo Avishai was a colonel in the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, the Aman. We’d once worked together, coordinating an operation in Barcelona.
“Heller, I don’t know if you heard the gossip, but I went private, just like you. You might know of the firm I work for now.”
“Black Parallel, by any chance?”
He chuckled.
“You doing a job?”
“For professional reasons I can’t tell you the name of my client. But I should tell you that you have a reputation in certain quarters,” Shlomo said.
“Good or bad?”
“Heller, if your reputation was lousy we wouldn’t waste our time following you. You are known to be a formidable investigator. And our client wanted to know everything and anything you might find on Kimball. They figured if anyone would dig up the dirt, it would be you.”
“Anguilla—” I began.
“I’d love to tell you those incompetents in Anguilla have been punished,” he said, “but you seem to have taken on that task yourself.”
South of Hartford I hit traffic on 84 but shortly thereafter took the exit for the Saw Mill River Parkway. In a few minutes I arrived at the Inn at Katonah, where I’d met Sukie before.
I was half an hour early, which was good.
It was time I needed.
* * *
• • •
A black town car pulled into the inn’s parking lot, right on time at nine o’clock.
I slung the small backpack over my right shoulder and climbed into the back of the limo. Sukie was there. She gave me a kiss.
“Do you have it?” she said.
I’d called her the night before and told her I’d bring it with me. I’d also told her it was too big a file to email.
“Here it is,” I said, handing her a small metal flash drive bar, a tiny thing, a mere twist of metal. “It’s dynamite. A very compact weapon of mass destruction.” Then I pulled out my phone and showed her the folders of documents.
“Which one is the study itself?”
I dabbed at the phone’s face and scrolled, and then I showed her.
She stared for a long time. Finally she shook her head and smiled. “I knew you’d find it.”
I shrugged modestly.
“I don’t want any copies going anywhere,” she said. “We’re clear on that, right?”
“Clear,” I said. “Where’s the meeting? The library?”
“No. The map room, on the second floor, because he likes the big round boardroom table when things are serious. Whenever a meeting’s called for the map room, you know it’s dire.”
I had seen pictures of the room in an Architectural Digest spread on Kimball Hall. A graceful, round room whose curved bookshelves were lined with leather-bound volumes. A big round mahogany table that seated twelve. The floor made from reclaimed Ponderosa pine. Several antique standing globes, and framed maps on the curved walls.
“Will you be able to get me in?”
“Probably. You count as a significant other by now.”
“I thought it was family only.”
“Well, Conrad likes you.”
I just smiled. I knew better.
A few minutes later, the big old house jutted into view, castle-like. Kimball Hall was no longer the beautiful, elegant mansion, the stately home with a million rooms. Now it seemed gray and cold, looming ominously like a haunted house. A house of death. I kept flashing on that morning, the police lights in the sky, the cops in their Windbreakers. Maggie’s body, with the broken neck, the head twisted.
The white sneakers.
Just ahead of us was another town car, which stopped on the circular drive right at the front door to discharge its passenger, Hayden Kimball, in a black leather jacket.
We got out a minute later. “Here we go,” Sukie muttered to me as we entered.
A butler at the front door offered to take my backpack, but I kept it slung on my left shoulder. He greeted Sukie—“Miss Kimball”—and escorted us into yet another room, a dining room, one I hadn’t seen before. Like all the others at Kimball Hall, it was formal and stuffy, with unmemorable seascapes on the wall in ornate gold frames. A sideboard was heaped with breakfast pastries and a silver coffee urn.
Conrad was seated at the head of the dining table, wearing a navy suit and tie, while Natalya, elegant in a white suit, greeted arrivals like the hostess at a dinner party.
Paul was already there, without his beautiful Moroccan girlfriend. He was standing next to Hayden, chatting uncomfortably. Servants were bustling around serving coffee.
When Paul saw me he stiffened and said loudly, “Hey, what’s he doing here?”
“As you know, he’s my significant other,” Sukie said.
“It’s family only, isn’t that right?” Paul said to his father. “Otherwise, I would have brought Layla.”
“I don’t mind if he’s here,” Hayden said.
Megan entered the room, in a navy suit like her father. She’d overheard the exchange. She said, “Well, I do. Only family. I’m sorry, Nick.”
I said nothing.
“It’s up to Dad,” Sukie said.
“Ah, our meeting this morning is for family only,” Conrad said, looking at me. “Family plus Fritz and the stenographer. And Natalya. Spouses and our, what is your term, significant others can wait in the library. I’m sorry about that, Nicholas.” He cleared his throat. “Anyone know the whereabouts of my ne’er-do-well son?” He did not sound amused. Cameron was the only one I hadn’t yet talked with. Maybe today there’d be an opportunity.
“He knows about the meeting,” said Paul. “If he doesn’t show, he can’t vote; it’s simple.”
Natalya caught my eye and smiled and gave a small, almost undetectable nod. I doubted anyone noticed.
I smiled back.
Suddenly I heard a great crash from somewhere inside the house nearby, and
Cameron entered the dining room. He was weaving from side to side, apparently drunk. He was wearing jeans and some kind of bowling shirt, lime green and soiled. On his feet was a pair of Abloh Off-White high-tops.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” his father spat. “What the hell is wrong with you? Get some coffee into you and sober up. However you do it.”
Cameron glanced around the room and saw me. “I remember you,” he said quickly. “Nick something. The gold digger. Oh, did I say that?” He put a hand over his mouth. “Mouths of babes, right?” He was talking unusually fast. He had to have been on some sort of upper, something speedy. It was in his rapid speech, his shallow breathing. His movements were jagged and strange.
“Hello, Cameron,” I said.
“You know how I can tell you’re a fortune hunter? It’s the way you look. You’re like a catalog model. Not Armani or anything. More like—Lands’ End. I can picture you in a gray ribbed Henley. And if I clicked on a button, it would turn heather.” He laughed nastily.
From the head of the table Conrad said, “Jesus Christ, drunk again, at ten in the morning. I need your vote.”
“He’s on speed, Dad,” said Paul.
“Well, you’re not getting my vote,” Cameron said. “Not feeling it, sorry.”
“You and I need to have a little private chat, now,” Conrad said, rising stiffly from the table. “Let’s go.”
* * *
• • •
Conrad led Cameron out of the dining room and into the room next door. After a minute or two I excused myself, ostensibly to use the bathroom, and went out into the hall outside the room where the two were arguing. Loitering outside the open door, I listened.
“—an alcoholic like your mother,” Conrad was saying. He didn’t seem to understand that his son was on meth at the moment, not booze.
Cameron’s voice boomed, “You drove her to drink. Way you went around screwing everything in a dress. Blatantly cheating on her. Lied to her face.”
“Aren’t you the moral authority,” his father said. “You, who killed a young girl!”
“You know damned well that was right after Mom’s funeral. I was out of my mind.”
House on Fire--A Novel Page 30