by Keith Yocum
“Of course, Marty.”
***
There were already too many people in the room, but with Miles Hoogerwerf, the AFP’s associate director in attendance from Canberra, everyone was on their best behavior. There were also two senior officers of the Western Australian Police Department, the WA State Manager of the Australian Crime Commission, and an official from the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. Judy was one of three women in the room; the other two were administrators. There were fourteen men, and the smell of cologne and aftershave almost forced Judy to gag.
Miller had spent the previous twenty minutes in an exhaustive PowerPoint presentation that included close-up photographs of the letter Judy’s father had found on his windshield, as well as the results of a handwriting analysis, fingerprint analysis, and residue analysis.
Miller was now showing an organizational chart of the heroin importation crime groups in Australia.
“At the source we know the majority of heroin entering the country is coming from Chinese gangs. While some heroin comes from the Middle East, we believe the vast majority originates from the well-known Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia where Burma, Thailand, and Laos meet.”
Judy tried to remain attentive, especially in such an important meeting with the high-and-mighty from back east, but this presentation was shameless grandstanding by Miller.
She hazarded a glance at Daniel across the large U-shaped table and caught his eye; he widened his eyes in a flash of mock enthrallment and instantly returned his rapt attention to their boss.
Judy looked down at her doodling pad and twisted her face into stern concentration. She made a figure eight and repeated it several times as if she were taking copious notes.
Miller explained how the Chinese gangs were only interested in exporting, but did not prefer to get involved in distribution. It was a classic wholesale business for them, leaving the internal distribution and retail network to domestic organized criminal groups, including Vietnamese street gangs, Pacific Islander groups, motorcycle gangs, and numerous homegrown groups.
“One of the byproducts of this kind of business is the accumulation of enormous amounts of cash,” Miller said, vigorously circling a large dollar sign on the screen with his laser pointer.
“Laundering money is difficult for any criminal endeavor of this scale, and some time ago we stumbled upon a Malaysian businessman named Mr. Chenglei Wu who was observed meeting with someone under surveillance. We discovered that they met regularly at different restaurants in the Perth area and noticed a trend: Mr. Wu would return to Singapore within days of his meeting. Putting two plus two together, we suspected our Mr. Wu was moving currency overseas.
“On December third, we did an intervention at Perth International Airport—an impeccably well-organized plan, I must add—and Mr. Wu was found to have eleven thousand dollars on his body and another twenty-five thousand hidden in his suitcases. When he was apprehended, he spoke to Agent White and told her that she had made a ‘big mistake.’” Miller’s laser pointer now vigorously circled the words ‘big mistake’ beside two photographs: a mug shot of a scowling Mr. Wu and another showing the carefully stacked pile of one hundred dollar notes.
To avoid the gazes of the people in the room who were now examining her, Judy concentrated on the slide and watched the little red laser dot as it circled the words spasmodically.
“And then, in a completely bizarre twist, on December nineteenth, Agent White’s father was visiting a pharmacy, and when he returned, he found the threatening note which, as you could imagine, caused quite a stir in Agent White’s family, as well as the regional office of the AFP.”
Judy could feel the penetrating gaze of numerous sets of eyes.
“So, Miller,” Hoogerwerf asked, “what the blazes is going on in sleepy little Perth all of a sudden?”
***
Dennis marveled at how barren this part of the country was during winter. There were only two colors he could perceive: white and gray. Gray, leafless deciduous tree trunks dominated the countryside; the roadways were light gray with a thin coating of dried salt. Frozen and wilted foliage spread out along the road as far as the eye could see, and everywhere there was snow: gray, dirty snow next to the highway; sparkling, radiant white snow on the sides of hills and in the forest nearby.
Dennis felt buoyant, almost giddy, as he drove across the state of New Hampshire. The feeling of the hunt excited him, and he reveled in it as the bleak landscape whizzed by. He’d found his first crack—albeit a tiny one—in the Garder case, and against all prudence, he could not stop himself.
Was the raw thrill of the chase overwhelming his caution? Or was there a darker, self-destructive streak emerging? Regardless, he was now obsessed with the case. Rightly or wrongly, Dennis was impelled to dig out the truth. Its resolution was going to tell him something important about himself—not the Agency or even Garder for that matter—but about Dennis Cunningham.
Or that’s how he justified the subterfuge as he stalked across the Granite State. He had been careful to pay for the flight and car rental out of his own pocket. It was a Saturday, and he was on his own time, but no doubt he was absolutely and comprehensively breaking Marty’s dictum.
***
Dennis was shocked at how young Garder’s father was. When he answered the door, he thought for a moment it was the agent’s older brother.
“Good morning. I’m Dennis Cunningham. I called a few days ago from the Agency.”
“Yes, please come in,” the father said, shaking his hand and smiling. “Thank you for coming.”
Dennis was led into the small living room that had an earthy coziness about it. He noticed the old pine plank flooring was wide and covered with a large, worn, red oriental rug. Mrs. Garder came into the room, her hands clenched together in front of her in a nervous gesture. She let go long enough to shake his hand.
They sat together on the small, maroon-colored sofa; Dennis sat in an armchair, the kind that has a handle allowing the chair to recline. He found himself rocking gently in the chair as the room fell silent.
“So,” Mr. Garder said, “what can you tell us about our son?”
“He disappeared while on assignment, and we think we know what happened to him.”
“Finally,” Mr. Garder said.
Dennis watched Mrs. Garder, who sat perfectly still with the fingers of her right hand splayed on her chin. She watched Dennis wide-eyed, but absolutely motionless, as if she were made of porcelain.
“We think he went snorkeling in the waters off the coast of Western Australia and was killed by a shark.”
“Good grief,” Garder senior said. “A shark?”
“Yes, a shark.”
“Did anyone see it happen?” he asked.
“He was by himself, so no one witnessed the attack,” Dennis said.
“Well, then how do you know he died? Was there a body?”
“No, there was no body, but we found some personal belongings and his abandoned car. We spoke to some shark experts, and they believe that’s what happened.”
“A shark?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dennis repeated. “A shark.”
“How come no one has told us about this before?” Mr. Garder asked. “We’ve tried to get information from the headquarters in Washington, but no one would tell us anything besides the fact that he was missing.”
“Well, we wanted to make sure,” Dennis said. “We know it must be hard on you.”
“Yes,” he said. “He was our only child. Our congressman warned us that the news was probably going to be bad.”
Mrs. Garder stared long and hard at Dennis, but said nothing, and if he hadn’t seen her walk in ten minutes earlier, he would have bet she was a paraffin copy of a human.
“I have to tell you, Mr. and Mrs. Garder, that I’m giving you this information outside of normal channels,” he said. “I’m not really authorized to provide this data, but I was familiar with your son and knew how much tro
uble you went to in order to get the Agency to respond to you. I just felt really bad. So as a favor to me, would you mind not mentioning it to anyone who might contact you from the Agency with the same information?”
“You knew Geoff?” he asked.
“Yes, a little: a really solid young man. He had a lot on the ball. We’re going to miss him, that’s for sure.”
“That’s very kind of you to say that,” Mr. Garder said, “very kind indeed. We’ve been preparing ourselves for this moment, and it almost seems anticlimactic.”
Dennis quickly looked around the room and noticed a slew of framed photos, many showing young Garder at various stages of his young life. One large eight-by-ten color image was obviously a high school photo showing him smiling broadly in a soccer uniform, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He was a handsome kid.
Dennis kept up the conversation for another fifteen minutes, studying Mrs. Garder whenever he could sneak a glance. Behind the couple a large bay window looked out onto a gray-white forest. An occasional evergreen gave the landscape its only splash of color.
***
At one point the car swerved sharply and hit a patch of gravel that peppered the side and undercarriage of the rental like a blast of buckshot. Dennis cursed as he righted the car and took his eyes off the cell phone.
He had been trying to call out for a while, but the cell service was poor. He was using his personal cell phone, which was not as strong as the Agency-issue encrypted phone, so he tossed it onto the passenger seat, and it bounced to a rest.
Driving through Nashua, he dialed again, and it connected.
“Hello,” the woman’s voice said.
“Judy, it’s Dennis. From the States.”
“Hello, Yank,” she said. “While it’s still early, it’s a lot more civilized time of day to call.”
“Oops. What time is it there?”
“Half-past six in the morning.”
“Ugh. I’m sorry it’s so early, but I just had to call you. I found out what really happened to our little friend at the consulate.”
“Good heavens, you really are tenacious, Dennis,” she said. “Tell me what happened to him.”
“He faked his own death, or someone did, but he’s alive.”
“No! That’s impossible,” she said. “Dennis, you must be mistaken.”
“No. A couple of things were bugging me from the beginning, especially the pressure from his family for more information on his status. I noticed his parents were almost insane about getting information on their only child, which is understandable. They were so desperate they tried to get their powerful congressman involved.”
“So?”
“Well, a little over a month ago, the family stopped calling and writing to the Agency. They just stopped, just like that. Zilch.”
“So?” Judy said. “They probably stopped because they knew they couldn’t get him back alive.”
“No, they stopped contacting the Agency even though they hadn’t been told that he was dead.”
“That’s odd,” she said slowly. “No one told them about the shark attack?”
“No, the family had only been told he had disappeared in a foreign country. That’s all. That would be standard at the Agency until they had a body or more definitive proof.”
“I’m not following you, Dennis.”
“Without being told by the Agency that their son is even dead, the family suddenly stops calling. I think they stopped calling because they know he’s still alive.”
“But Dennis, how would they know that?”
“Because he contacted them.”
“He did?”
“I had an old friend of mine at the Bureau pull phone records of the Garder family in New Hampshire, and sure as hell, they received a long-distance phone call from a pay phone in Belgium four weeks ago. The call lasted twelve minutes. One day later they received another long-distance call from a pay phone outside Paris. That one lasted seven minutes.”
“It was their son!” Judy said. “Good lord, Dennis, you are amazing. I’ll bet they’ll celebrate this latest Cunningham triumph in true fashion. You’ll get a medal or something like that.”
“Well, that’s not going to be so easy.”
“Oh, come now, Dennis, how could they be anything but ecstatic about this outcome?”
“Judy, I just have one more favor to ask. It’s a small one, really.”
“Uh-oh,” she said carefully. “What would that be?”
Up till this point she had enjoyed Dennis’s interest in sharing details of the investigation. It felt good knowing this veteran CIA investigator cared enough to keep in contact with her, and of course she felt like he enjoyed talking to her. But she had a nagging fear she was being manipulated.
“You know that little spot of oil that your group identified in the back of Garder’s car? The spot that I thought was latent blood?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Is there any chance you could do one final test on the sample, if you folks still have it? I need to know what kind of transmission fluid it was.”
“Dennis, that case is closed.”
“OK,” he said. “Just thought I’d ask.”
Judy was silent and felt an awkwardness creep into the phone call.
“Well, it was great catching up with you,” Dennis said quickly. “Just thought you’d be interested in our young consulate employee. Is everything going OK with you?”
Judy thought she could hear the background sounds from an automobile in transit and wondered where he was calling from.
“Judy,” he repeated, “how are you doing?”
She said nothing and unconsciously bit the inside of her lip, sitting up in her bed.
“Judy?” Dennis asked again. “Did I lose you?”
“I’ll do it,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“I said I’d do it,” she said quickly. “I’ll get the test done.”
“Listen, it was stupid,” he said quickly. “Really. Just forget it.”
“I said I’d do it,” she said, this time with a level of intensity that surprised her; it was spoken with equal parts anger and supplication. “I’m just hoping, Dennis, that you didn’t call me for that reason alone. It makes me feel used.”
“Shit,” Dennis said. “That’s not how I wanted the conversation to go.”
“It’s OK, Dennis.”
“So just forget I called and—”
“I said I’d do it, Dennis. I’ve got to get going. Good-bye.”
Dennis drove through the New Hampshire countryside while the late-afternoon orange sun threw long, ugly shadows across the roadway.
Pissing off Judy was the last thing he intended, and he wondered if there was a better way he could have enlisted her help. Was he just using her? he wondered. Well, yes and no.
He reached over, turned up the radio, and brooded. Perhaps he could have been more delicate with Judy. He did care about her; that was not in doubt. But it had always been easier to give in to his obsessions at work than it was to pay attention to the niceties of interpersonal relationships. Even with people he cared deeply about, like Martha. Well, she had taught him a thing or two about that.
Driving to the airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, he began to feel very tired.
Chapter 19
“I appreciate you taking my call,” Dennis said.
“It’s a little unusual to have someone from a government agency call the university here looking for a poetry expert,” the man said. “The department secretary said you were looking for someone who knew something about the war poets.”
“Yes, I googled the subject, and your name came up, so I called George Washington’s English Department. I didn’t realize you were an expert on the war poets.”
“Forgive me for asking, but what is your name again?” the man said. “And what government branch do you work for?”
“Name’s Dennis Cunningham. I work for a US Government agency that I’m n
ot at liberty to disclose.”
“Yes, that’s what our secretary said. It sounds very mysterious: cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
“Well, it’s hardly like that, but if you could just answer a few questions, you might be able to help us.” When Dennis was leveraging information from a civilian, he used the pronouns like “we” and “us,” rather than “I,” to infer there was a large team of agents waiting for a vital piece of information.
“I’ll try,” the man said, “but I’m just not sure what I could possibly tell you about the war poets that would be useful.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“OK, I’m willing to try. What do you want to know?”
“I only want to know about one of them,” Dennis said. “Wilfred Owen.”
“Wilfred Owen. All right. What do you want to know?”
“What kind of fellow would like the poetry of Wilfred Owen?”
The man laughed. “I’m an English professor, not a psychotherapist! I don’t even know how to answer that question!”
“OK,” Dennis said. “What kind of poet was Owen? What was special about him? Or was there anything special about him?”
“Ah, well, that’s a different question, and I can help with this one. Some would consider him the best of the war poets. I certainly would.”
“You mean he won a lot of awards? Stuff like that?”
“Heavens, no, Mr. Cunningham. There were not many awards given at the time. Most of the poets wrote for small literary magazines or newspapers. I’m reflecting what the critics would say about Owen today. I mean, it’s not a universal opinion, but it’s widely held that he was among the best, if not the best poet of that generation.”
“But what kind of person reads poetry these days?” Dennis asked. “Especially poetry written ninety-odd years ago? To me it seems a little odd.”
“A lot of young are exposed to poetry in college, and they just like it,” the man said. “But you are correct. It’s not very popular these days, certainly compared to pop music, rap, films, or even novels. And to be honest, in college, if it’s not Shakespeare, Yeats, and a little e. e. cummings, then it’s not even on the curriculum.”