by T. E. Woods
Meredith nodded. “I do. And we’ve used your investments well. You’ve been instrumental to our progress in so many ways.”
“There are rumblings, Meredith.” Wells turned in his chair to face her. “I’ve been a businessman long enough to know that major collapses generally start with the same low and persistent murmurs I heard this evening.”
Meredith furrowed her brow. “Rumblings? Murmurs? Of what sort and from whom?”
“The trustees. The donors.” Wells stood. “The university is in the headlines daily after the murders of Bastian and that researcher. That’s not the kind of publicity that bodes success.”
Meredith shook her head. “This is a large university in a major city, Brad. It’s an unfortunate artifact of society, but crime does exist. I’m sure the police will find the culprits soon and this will all be behind us.”
“And now Cameron’s dead.” Wells turned and walked three steps toward the door. “I heard this evening your interim neuroscience chair had a fiance who recently suicided. That’s a lot of bodies, Meredith. I don’t care how big a school or city. These kinds of stories distract focus.”
“What am I supposed to do about that?” Meredith instantly regretted the shrill in her voice. “I’m not Batman. I have a university to run.”
Wells turned and faced her. “I’m beginning to doubt your ability. I learned tonight Bastian did as well. The poor bastard was trying to have you ousted, or so I’m told. Now Snelling tells me research dollars are down. Some might say catastrophically. The mounting murders, faculty lack of confidence, and now this financial crisis; Meredith I don’t see how I can continue my support.”
Meredith glared at Snelling. She’d asked him to keep the financials quiet until she developed a plan to address the shortfall. True to form, he’d been unable to keep from sharing every little secret he knows.
“Carl.” Her voice was cold. “Leave us alone.”
Snelling’s head did a quick bob and he hurried out of the office. Wells and Meredith stared at each other for several long moments. Meredith finally took a deep breath and forced a smile.
“I think we can find a mutually satisfactory solution to all this.” She motioned to the fireplace. “Let’s make ourselves comfortable and talk.”
Chapter Forty-Four
“Damn it all to hell.” Mort had everything riding on the dogs. “They were chomping at the bit. They got nothing?”
Jim DeVilla thanked the canine patrol for their work and closed the door to Cameron’s shop. “Bruiser and I were with them every bark of the way, Mort. Noses to the ground right down to the water. Dogs can’t track what they can’t smell.”
Mort kicked his leg into empty air. “Call a dive team. Wells did Cameron, I know it. We find her body we’ll get something off it.”
“You gonna drag Puget Sound?” Jim held his friend’s stare. “Wells was at work when this went down. No fewer than thirty people can verify it.”
“Convenient, don’t you think?” Mort rubbed the back of his aching neck. “Don’t forget who he’s got on his rolodex. He sits back with thirty alibis while his goons do the wet work. But he’s good for this, Jimmy. Probably Bastian, too.”
“Guys like Wells have supermodels’ and movie stars’ numbers, too. You think he’s gonna stay lonely long?” Jimmy pulled a roll of mints from his jacket and popped a couple in his mouth before offering some to Mort and Bruiser. Mort took one. The dog took two. “Why would he risk offing Bastian and the caterer when he’s got Oscar nominees ready to be his date at the next White House dinner?”
Mort crushed his mint with grinding jaws. “Bastian humiliated him in front of the whole world. I don’t see Bradley Wells walking away from that.” He took a long look around Cameron’s shop. “Or maybe he thought with Bastian out of the way Cameron would come running back. When she didn’t, he got pissed. Look at all this blood, Jimmy. This is a crime of passion.”
“So now what?”
Mort took a seat at a bistro table and pushed out a chair for his friend. Bruiser clicked over to join them. “Now we connect the dots. Bastian to Buchner to Cameron. See if we’ve got enough to make a move on Wells.” He counted the steps on his fingers. “Buchner’s holding a voice synthesizer that proves a hired gun, code name Fixer, did Bastian. From what Robbie’s been able to uncover this Fixer doesn’t come cheap. Wells has the kind of dough that could bring her in. We can prove the money orders used to place the ads all came from Seattle. Buchner makes a second connection to the Fixer with that thank-you note. Hired guns don’t like to be remembered. The Fixer makes sure old Wally doesn’t get another chance to slip up. ”
“That connects Fixer to Bastian and Buchner,” Jimmy said. “We got nothing connecting the caterer. Besides,” Jim pulled his notebook from his jacket and flipped to a certain page. “Your number one pick for The Fixer, this Savannah Samuels? She was on a slab in an Olympia morgue when the caterer gets hit. And none of this connects Wells.”
“Work with me, Jimmy. Suppose Wells hires this Fixer to hit Bastian. Uses Buchner as his go-between.”
“You got anything connecting Buchner to Wells?”
“How about a starving grad student gets a call from the university’s biggest benefactor?” Mort asked. “Wells shows Buchner the tape of Bastian slaughtering Ortoo. We know Buchner’s an animal rights activist. Maybe he hooked him that way. Or how about Childress’ talk about research assistants living and breathing for their next endowment? Maybe Wells promises him a big fat check to underwrite his work on that voice-producing thing. All he has to do is go to the warehouse and hire The Fixer."
“You think Bucher’s got it in him to hire a hit?” Jim rubbed the spot between Bruiser’s ears.
“People do lots of things for money, Jimmy. If Wally became convinced there was no other way to stop Bastian’s research, he might justify it.” Mort leaned forward. “Let’s say The Fixer takes the job. Kills Bastian.” His voice endowed his developing theory with credibility. “Wells thinks he’s done. Bastian’s out of the way and he’s clear to win Cameron back. But Wally goes all sentimental and thanks The Fixer for a job well done. The Fixer goes rogue and takes Wally out. Wells learns about it in the morning papers. He couldn’t care less. In fact, maybe he feels like sending The Fixer a thank-you of his own for tying up a loose end.”
Jimmy nodded and gave a sly grin. “Or maybe it’s not The Fixer who took Buchner out. That would explain the different M.O.’s.”
Mort like that his friend was warming to his ideas. “That bloodbath at Buchner’s apartment isn’t like any of the hits we’ve tied to The Fixer, that’s for sure. It’s much more in tune with Wells’ pals from back in the day. But that wouldn’t explain why Savannah was so upset she went running to her psychologist crying about being responsible for Buchner’s death.”
“That shrink’s turning into your inside source, isn’t she?” Jimmy asked. “When do I get to meet this secret weapon of criminal investigation?”
Mort flashed on Jimmy’s infatuation with Micki and worried that his friend might think Lydia was more his type. He shook his head. “Let’s focus on the work at hand, shall we?”
Jimmy caressed the canine head resting in his lap. “So Bastian and Buchner are both out of the way and Wells goes a-courtin’. That what you’re thinking?”
Mort leaned back and nodded. “He didn’t count on Cameron being so deep in mourning. She rejects him. Maybe even a few times. I call on Cameron that morning, tell her Bastian didn’t die of a heart attack. Wells just happens to stop by later in the day. He’s heard the sad news from when he stopped by Bastian’s house.”
“I always thought the timing of that drop-in with the university president was a little too perfect.” Jim drummed his free hand on the table. “He finds the caterer crying in her cupcakes. Tries to soothe her and she turns on him. She can think of only one person who might want Bastian dead. She accuses him and threatens to call the cops.”
“Wells loses it and Cameron ends
up dead.” Mort loved the moment everything dropped into place. “He realizes what he’s done, calls a few of his old cronies to come get the body, cleans himself up, and heads back to his office where he calls an emergency meeting with thirty of his closest advisors.”
The two partners sat in silence and let the plan marinate. Mort ran every contingency through his mind.
“Okay, loose ends,” he said. “Name ‘em and tie ‘em.”
Jim scribbled in his notebook. “Voice synthesizer left at Buchner’s.”
“Easy,” Mort said. “The thing had been scrubbed clean. Memory banks and outer casing. There’d be no reason for anyone to take it. In fact, taking the center of Buchner’s research might raise red flags.”
“The Fixer suicides.” Jim looked up from his writing. “What kind of cold-hearted killer does that?”
Mort shook his head. “Robbie and I don’t believe for one minute that The Fixer was cold-hearted. In fact, she’s busted people looking for a run-of-the-mill hit. This woman kills out of a drive for justice for the little guy.”
Jim fixed a stern gaze on his friend. “I wouldn’t mind having the balls to do what she’s done.”
Mort was quiet for several seconds. His mind drifted to Meghan Hane, dead behind a dumpster; Angelo Satanell’s jeering face taunting him. He recalled the indescribable grief of Meghan’s father as Mort walked him through booking. He inhaled deeply and shook the images away.
“This is about The Fixer, not us. I think her suicide was more about falling in love. She was going to leave the life and run off with Childress, remember? Nothing like the reflection in the eyes of someone you love to make you see yourself clearly.” He rubbed a hand across his stubbled jaw. “What I saw in Edie’s eyes after Allie was gone, man, it damned near killed me. I think Savannah didn’t like what she saw and couldn’t find her way out. Top it off with finding out she’d infected Childress with HIV. I think that pushed her over the edge.”
Jimmy responded with a slow nod. “That’s why I stick with my fantasy of the unattainable Micki. Sometimes real love just sucks, doesn’t it?”
Mort skipped the obvious reply and got to the biggest loose end. “No body for Cameron Williams.”
Jim tilted his head toward the room. “All this blood? Dogs leading straight to the Sound? Wells’ connection to guys who know some guys? Plus this chain of circumstances? I think we got no problem.”
Bruiser stretched out at his master’s feet. The silent rumination of the facts lingered several minutes.
“We ready?” Mort asked.
Jimmy flipped his notebook closed. “I’ll head over to the prosecuting attorney now. You coming?”
Mort checked his watch. “You mind taking this alone, Partner? I have some calls to make.”
Mort poured the foamy milk into the espresso, sat down at his kitchen table, and punched number two on his speed dial. Claire answered on the second ring.
“How are my girls?” he asked.
“Bien, Beau Pere.” Claire’s voice danced in his ear. “They are with their father down for ice cream. They will be so sorry to have missed you.”
“’Their father’, huh?” God, he missed the sassy play between husbands and wives. “When are they due back?”
“You have news?” she asked. “Robert has spoken of little else but this case you’re sharing. This is why I demand he takes his little girls for ice cream.”
Mort loved the way she called Robbie Ro-bear. “And why didn’t he take you?”
Claire laughed. “I have to watch my figure. Et voila, I can speak with my father-in-law at my leisure, no? So tell me, who is this new woman in your life? Robert tells me she has been helping on this case, oui?”
“She tries,” he said. “Let me take that back. She helps plenty. I don’t think I would have made some key connections if Lydia hadn’t been looking out for a patient of hers.”
“Ooh, La Docteur Lydia.” Mort heard the tease in Claire’s voice and knew he’d have to explain away any romantic notion his daughter-in-law might hope for. “Is she lovely? Does she have a last name?”
Mort chuckled. “I think she could be beautiful if she tried, but she’s more of a home-spun type. Just right for a psychologist, I guess. And it’s Corriger, Lydia Corriger.”
“Ah ha!” Claire trilled. “Another Grant man with exquisite taste. Elle est Francais, n’est ce pas?”
Mort used what little French he’d been able to pick up since Claire entered their lives. “No, I don’t think so. What makes you think she’s French?”
“Her name,” she said. “But it is perfect for a psychologist, no?”
“I’m not following.” Mort wondered if he’d ever understand women.
“Corriger, n’est ce pas? It is French. It means “To Fix”.
Chapter Forty-Five
Lydia kicked off her wet shoes and brought the morning paper into the dining room. Exhaustion, the kind that sleep could never relieve, pulled on every muscle. She stood beside the table and stared out the window thinking of the time Mort drank coffee and admired the same view.
Low grey clouds loomed over Dana Passage; the water the color of wet concrete. Two massive cedar trees at the edge of the cliff swayed in the same direction as white-capped waves. Roiling mist obscured the mountains in the distance.
The eagle was back. Lydia allowed herself the indulgence of claiming it as her own. She watched it surf the wind of the incoming storm, banking and coasting before it found the spot to float suspended over the passage. Immobile. Perfect.
She turned, surveyed her home, and recalled how she selected each piece of furniture, art work, and rug. Remembering the care she took in building her sanctuary. Impregnable. Perfect.
Private Number’s invasion stripped away that delusion.
She pulled out a chair, sat in Mort’s spot, tugged the paper out of its soggy plastic wrapper, and tried to find solace in mundane routine. The headline announced the pending departure of troops from nearby Fort Lewis. A photograph of a soldier in dessert fatigues hugging her five-year-old daughter while her husband stood beside her and wept into the shoulder of their year-old son accompanied it. She read the story, turned the page, and felt the breath rush out of her.
A picture of Walter Buchner smiled from the bottom of the paper beneath a sidebar caption that read “Recent Murder Victim Part of Study”. Lydia’s eyes darted to the main article.
University Chairman Honored
She quickly read that Robert Passow, head of the Audiology Department had been recognized at an international symposium for development of breakthrough technology in voice synthesizing. Her heart raced as she read the description of a device that could take varieties of input and produce recognizable, conversational speech. Any accent. Any age. Either gender. Passow spoke of the hope the device offered. In accepting his award, he thanked the people who contributed to the project’s development, listing several researchers and engineers.
“And a special thanks goes out to Meredith Thornton, our university’s president,” the article quoted. “She’s known now as a leader of academic institutions, but before she climbed the administrative hill, Dr. Thornton was a pioneer in voice synthesis. Her ground-breaking work formed the foundation of this achievement and we owe her an eternal debt of gratitude.”
Lydia knew that name. A memory of Cameron Williams describing Bastian’s history of dating powerful women. How he’d broken things off with the university president to be with her. Lydia’s eyes swept to the sidebar. She read about Wally’s participation in the development and testing of the breakthrough synthesizer. A quotation from Robert Passow alluded to Wally’s genius and the loss his murder had created. Lydia read the next paragraph twice.
“His death is a tragedy,” said University President Meredith Thornton. “To our school, our community, but more importantly to science. I learned of Mr. Buchner’s potential during his undergraduate years. I recruited him myself to join our graduate research staff and I count his death
as a personal loss.”
Lydia set the paper aside and returned to the view outside her window. Rain sheets pelted the churning waves. The eagle was gone. The Fixer had her target.
Chapter Forty-Six
Mort threw down the morning paper, swore out loud, and shoved his screaming thoughts into a holding cell in his brain. Then he picked up his ringing cell phone.
“Guess who’s dead?” Jim DeVilla asked. “I’m getting a little tired of this body count.”
Mort’s hand tightened around the phone as Jimmy told him.
“Gunshot?” Mort’s stomach threatened to return his huevos rancheros to the plate sitting in front of him.
“Yeah.”
Mort swallowed hard and pushed himself away from the table. “The casings are going to match up with the ones we found at Buchner’s.”
“Looks like it to the naked eye.” Jim barked an order to some investigator on his end. “What makes you so sure?”
Mort brought his friend up to speed on what he’d read in the morning paper.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jimmy let out a low whistle. “Okay, Buddy. I’m on it. We’re having quite the party down here. You coming?”
Mort stood in front of his refrigerator and took in the gallery of family photographs magneted to the door. His eye lingered on one of his favorites. Edie and Allie on Christmas morning. His bed-headed wife laughing as their seven-year-old daughter tried to get new ice skates on over footed pajamas. He put a finger to each of their faces and cursed the cold of the enamel door. One more touch would be enough for him.
Just one more chance to make things right.
“Give me twenty minutes,” he said. “I’ll bring coffee.”
Mort walked the familiar five minutes from Bradley Wells’ front door to his library past a half-dozen uniformed police. He handed Jimmy a Styrofoam cup before turning to the body behind the big desk.