by Harlan Coben
“No.”
Loren let that sit.
Claire Biel said, “You can’t think Myron has anything to do with this.”
Loren just stared at her, letting the silence soak in, giving her a chance to keep talking. She didn’t disappoint.
“You have to know him,” Claire went on. “He’s a good man. I’d trust him with my life.”
Loren nodded and then looked at Erik. “And you, Mr. Biel?”
His eyes were out of focus.
Claire said, “Erik?”
“I saw Myron yesterday,” he said.
Loren sat up. “Where?”
“At the middle school gym.” His voice was a dull ache. “There’s pickup basketball there on Sundays.”
“What time would this have been?”
“Seven thirty. Maybe eight.”
“In the morning?”
“Yes.”
Loren glanced back at Lance. He nodded slowly. He’d caught it too. Bolitar couldn’t have gotten home much before five, six in the morning. A few hours later, he goes off to play basketball with the missing girl’s father?
“Do you play with Mr. Bolitar every Sunday?”
“No. I mean, he used to play a bit. But he hadn’t been there in months.”
“Did you talk to him?”
Erik’s nod was slow.
“Wait a second,” Claire said. “I want to know why you’re asking us so many questions about Myron. What does he have to do with any of this?”
Loren ignored her, keeping her gaze on Erik Biel. “What did you two talk about?”
“Aimee, I guess.”
“What did he say?”
“He tried to be subtle about it.”
Erik explained that Myron Bolitar had approached him and that they started talking about exercising and waking up early and then he segues into asking about Aimee, about where she was, about how troublesome teenagers could often be. “His tone was strange.”
“How so?”
“He wanted to know how she was trouble. I remember he asked if Aimee was sullen, if she spent too much time on the Internet, things like that. I remember thinking it was a little odd.”
“How did he look?”
“Like hell.”
“Tired? Unshaven?”
“Both.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Claire Biel said. “We have a right to know why you’re asking all these questions.”
Loren looked up at her. “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you, Mrs. Biel?”
“I am.”
“So help me out here: Where in the law does it say I have to tell you anything?”
Claire opened her mouth, closed it. Unduly harsh, Loren thought, but playing good cop/bad cop — it’s not just for the perps. Witnesses too. She didn’t like it, but it was damn effective.
Loren looked back at Lance. Lance picked up his cue. He coughed into his fist. “We have some information linking Aimee with Myron Bolitar.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of information?”
“The night before last, at two A.M., Aimee called him. First at home. Then on his cell phone. We know Mr. Bolitar then picked up his car from a garage in the city.” Lance continued to explain the time line. Claire’s face drained of color. Erik’s hands tightened into fists.
When Lance finished, when they were still too dazed to ask follow-up questions, Loren leaned forward. “Is there any way that there may have been more between Myron and Aimee than family friends?”
“Absolutely not,” Claire said.
Erik closed his eyes. “Claire…”
“What?” she snapped. “You can’t possibly believe that Myron would get involved—”
“She called him right before…” He shrugged. “Why would Aimee call him? Why wouldn’t he say something about that when I saw him at the gym?”
“I don’t know, but the idea”—she stopped, snapped her fingers—“wait, Myron’s dating a friend of mine, as a matter of fact. Ali Wilder. An adult woman, thank you very much. A lovely widow with two kids of her own. The idea that Myron could possibly…”
Erik squeezed his eyes shut.
Loren said, “Mr. Biel?”
His voice was soft. “Aimee hasn’t been herself lately.”
“How so?”
Erik’s eyes were still shut. “We both dismissed it as normal teenage stuff. But the last few months, she’s been secretive.”
“That is normal, Erik,” Claire said.
“It’s gotten worse.”
Claire shook her head. “You still think of her as your little girl. That’s all it is.”
“You know it’s more than that, Claire.”
“No, Erik, I don’t.”
He closed his eyes again.
“What is it, Mr. Biel?” Loren asked.
“Two weeks ago I tried to access her computer.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to read her e-mail.”
His wife glared at him, but he didn’t see it — or maybe he didn’t care. Loren pushed ahead.
“So what happened?”
“She changed her password. I couldn’t get on.”
“Because she wanted privacy,” Claire said. “You think that’s unusual? I had a diary when I was a kid. I kept it locked with a key and still hid it. So what?”
Erik went on. “I called our Internet provider. I’m the bill payer with the master account. So they gave me the new password. Then I went online to check her e-mails.”
“And?”
He shrugged. “They were gone. All of them. She’d deleted every one of them.”
“She knew you’d snoop,” Claire said. Her tone was a blend of anger and defensiveness. “She was just guarding against it.”
Erik spun toward her. “Do you really believe that, Claire?”
“Do you really believe that she’s having an affair with Myron?”
Erik did not reply.
Claire spun back toward Loren and Lance. “Have you asked Myron about the calls?”
“Not yet.”
“So what are we waiting for?” Claire started for her purse. “Let’s go now. He’ll straighten this out.”
“He’s not in Livingston,” Loren said. “In fact, he flew down to Miami, not long after he played ball with your husband.”
Claire was about to ask something else, but she stopped. For the first time, Loren could see the doubt crawl into her face. Loren decided to use that. She rose.
“We’ll be in touch,” Loren said.
CHAPTER 15
Myron sat on the plane and thought about his old love, Jessica. Shouldn’t he be happy for her?
She had always been fiery to the point of a pain the ass. His mother and Esperanza hadn’t liked her. His father, like a great TV anchor, played it neutral. Win yawned. In Win’s eyes, women were either doable or they weren’t. Jessica was most definitely doable, but after that… so what?
The women thought that Myron was blinded by Jessica’s beauty. She could write like a dream. She was two steps beyond passionate. But they were different. Myron wanted to live like his parents. Jessica sneered at that idyllic nonsense. It was a constant tension that both kept them apart and drew them to each other.
Now Jessica was marrying some Wall Street dude named Stone. Big Stone, Myron thought. Rolling Stone. The Stoner. Smokin’ Stone. The Stone Man.
Myron hated him.
What had become of Jessica?
Seven years, Myron. It changes a person.
But that much?
The plane landed. He checked his phone while the plane taxied toward the terminal. There was a text message from Win:
YOUR PLANE JUST LANDED. PLEASE FILL IN YOUR OWN WITTICISM ABOUT MY WORKING FOR THE AIRLINES. I’M WAITING BY THE LOWER LEVEL CURB.
The plane slowed as it approached the gate. The pilot asked everybody to stay in their seats with their belts fastened. Almost everybody ignored that request. You could hear the belts clack open. Why? What did people gain fr
om that extra second? Was it that we just liked to defy rules?
He debated calling Aimee’s cell phone again. That might be overkill. How many calls could he make, after all? The promise had also been pretty clear. He would drive her anywhere. He would not ask questions. He would not tell her parents. It should hardly surprise him that after such a venture, Aimee would not want to talk to him for a few days.
He got off the plane and was starting toward the exit when he heard someone call out, “Myron Bolitar?”
He turned. There were two of them, a man and a woman. The woman had been the one who called his name. She was small, not much over five feet. Myron was six-four. He towered over her. She did not seem intimidated. The man with her sported a military cut. He also looked vaguely familiar.
The man had a badge out. The woman did not.
“I’m Essex County investigator Loren Muse,” she said. “This is Livingston police detective Lance Banner.”
“Banner,” Myron said automatically. “You Buster’s brother?”
Lance Banner almost smiled. “Yeah.”
“Good guy, Buster. I played hoops with him.”
“I remember.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Good, thanks.”
Myron did not know what was going on, but he’d had experience with law enforcement. Out of habit more than anything else, he reached for his cell phone and pressed the button. It was his speed dial. It would reach Win. Win would hit the mute button and listen in. This was an old trick of theirs, one Myron hadn’t employed in years, and yet there he was, with police officers, falling into the old routines.
From his past run-ins with the law, Myron had learned a few basic truisms that could be summed up thusly: Just because you haven’t done anything wrong doesn’t mean you’re not in trouble. Best to play it with that knowledge.
“We’d like you to come with us,” Loren Muse said.
“May I ask what this is about?”
“We won’t take much of your time.”
“I got Knicks tickets.”
“We’ll try not to interfere with your plans.”
“Courtside.” He looked at Lance Banner. “Celebrity row.”
“Are you refusing to come with us?”
“Are you arresting me?”
“No.”
“Then before I agree to go with you, I’d like you to tell me what it’s about.”
Loren Muse did not hesitate this time. “It’s about Aimee Biel.”
Whack. He should have seen it coming, but he didn’t. Myron staggered back a step. “Is she all right?”
“Why don’t you come with us?”
“I asked you—”
“I heard you, Mr. Bolitar.” She turned away from him now and started heading down toward the exit. “Why don’t you come with us so we can discuss this further?”
Lance Banner drove. Loren Muse rode shotgun. Myron sat in the backseat.
“Is she okay?” Myron asked.
They would not reply. He was being played, Myron knew that, but he didn’t much care. He wanted to know about Aimee. The rest was irrelevant.
“Talk to me, for crying out loud.”
Nothing.
“I saw her Saturday night. You know that already, right?”
They did not respond. He knew why. The ride was mercifully short. That explained their silence. They wanted his admissions on record. It was probably taking all of their willpower not to say anything, but soon they would have him in an interrogation room and put it all on tape.
They drove into the garage and led him to an elevator. They got off on the eighth floor. They were in Newark, the county courthouse. Myron had been here before. They brought him into an interrogation room. There was no mirror and thus no one-way glass. That meant a camera was doing the surveillance.
“Am I under arrest?” he asked.
Loren Muse tilted her head. “What makes you say that?”
“Don’t play these games with me, Muse.”
“Please have a seat.”
“Have you done any checking on me yet? Call Jake Courter, the sheriff in Reston. He’ll vouch for me. There are others.”
“We’ll get to that in a moment.”
“What happened to Aimee Biel?”
“You mind if we film this?” Loren Muse asked.
“No.”
“Do you mind signing a waiver?”
It was a Fifth Amendment waiver. Myron knew better than to sign it — he was a lawyer, for Chrissake — but he pushed past that. His heart hammered in his chest. Something had happened to Aimee Biel. They must think he either knew something or was involved. The faster this moved along and they eliminated him, the better for Aimee.
“Okay,” Myron said. “Now what happened to Aimee?”
Loren Muse spread her hands. “Who said anything happened to her?”
“You did, Muse. When you braced me at the airport. You said, ‘It’s about Aimee Biel.’ And because, while I don’t like to brag, I have amazing powers of deductions, I deduced that two police officers didn’t stop me and say it was about Aimee Biel because she sometimes pops her gum in class. No, I deduced that something must have happened to her. Please don’t shun me because I have this gift.”
“You finished?”
He was. He got nervous, he started talking.
Loren Muse took out a pen. There was already a notebook on her desk. Lance Banner stood and remained silent. “When was the last time you saw Aimee Biel?”
He knew better than to ask what happened again. Muse was going to play it her way.
“Saturday night.”
“What time?”
“I guess between two and three a.m.”
“So this would have been Sunday morning rather than Saturday night?”
Myron bit back the sarcastic rejoinder. “Yes.”
“I see. Where did you last see her?”
“In Ridgewood, New Jersey.”
She wrote that down on a legal pad. “Address?”
“I don’t know.”
Her pen stopped. “You don’t know?”
“That’s right. It was late. She gave me directions. I just followed them.”
“I see.” She sat back and dropped the pen. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
The door behind them flew open. All heads spun to the door. Hester Crimstein stomped in as though the very room had whispered an insult and she wanted to call it out. For a moment no one moved or said anything.
Hester waited a beat, spread her arms, put her right foot forward, and shouted, “Ta-da!”
Loren Muse raised an eyebrow. “Hester Crimstein?”
“We know each other, sweetie?”
“I recognize you from TV.”
“I’ll be happy to sign autographs later. Right now I want the camera off and I want you two”—Hester pointed at Lance Banner and Loren Muse—“out of here, so I can chat with my client.”
Loren stood. They were eye-to-eye, both about the same height. Hester had the frizzy hair. Loren tried to stare her down. Myron almost laughed. Some would call famed criminal attorney Hester Crimstein as mean as a snake, but most would consider that slanderous to the snake.
“Wait,” Hester said to Loren. “Wait for it….”
“Excuse me?”
“Any second now, I’m going to pee in my pants. From fear, I mean. Just wait….”
Myron said, “Hester…”
“Shh, you.” Hester shot him a glare and made a tsk-tsk noise. “Signing a waiver and talking without your lawyer. What kind of dope are you?”
“You’re not my lawyer.”
“Shh again, you.”
“I’m representing myself.”
“You know the expression ‘A man who represents himself has a fool for a client’? Change ‘fool’ to ‘total brain-dead numbskull.’ ”
Myron wondered how Hester had gotten there so quickly, but the answer was obvious. Win. As soon as Myron had hit his cell phone, as soon a
s Win heard the voices of the cops, he would have found Hester and gotten her there.
Hester Crimstein was one of the country’s top defense attorneys. She had her own cable show called Crimstein on Crime. They’d become friends when Hester had helped Esperanza with a murder rap a few years back.
“Hold up.” Hester looked back at Loren and Lance. “Why are you two still here?”
Lance Banner took a big step forward. “He just said you’re not his lawyer.”
“Your name again, handsome?”
“Livingston police detective Lance Banner.”
“Lance,” she said. “Like in what I use to get rid of a boil? Okay, Lance, here’s some advice: The step forward was a nice move, very commanding, but you need to stick out your chest more. Make your voice a little deeper and add a scowl. Like this: ‘Yo, chickie, he just said you’re not his lawyer.’ Try it.”
Myron knew that Hester wouldn’t simply go away. He also knew that he probably didn’t want her to. He wanted to cooperate, of course, get this over with, but he also wanted to know what the hell had happened to Aimee.
“She’s my lawyer,” Myron said. “Please give us a minute.”
Hester gave them a satisfied smirk that you know they both wanted to slap off her face. They turned for the doors. Hester gave them a five-finger toodle-oo wave. When they were both out the door, she closed it and looked up at the camera. “Turn it off now.”
“It probably is,” Myron said.
“Yeah, sure. Cops never play games with that.”
She took out her cell phone.
“Who are you calling?” he asked.
“Do you know why they have you in here?”
“It has something to do with a girl named Aimee Biel,” Myron said.
“That much I know already. But you don’t know what happened to her?”
“No.”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. I got my local investigator working on it. She’s the best, knows everybody in this office.” Hester put the phone to her ear. “Yeah, Hester here. What’s up? Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” Hester listened without taking notes. A minute later, she said, “Thanks, Cingle. Keep digging and see what they got.”
Hester hung up. Myron shrugged a well? at her.
“This girl — her last name is Biel.”
“Aimee Biel,” Myron said. “What about her?”
“She’s missing.”