I shake my head. “There’s a question you have to answer, Stephen, before we can go any further. The other night after we talked, when you called me back with Englewood’s number, were you telling the truth about remembering him after the fact?”
He shifts in his chair. “Look. .”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes and no,” he says. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because Englewood tried to have me killed.”
They both freeze.
“What? ”
“After I left him, some guys in a black Hummer ran me off the road on Allen Parkway. They came down the embankment with guns drawn, and I had to hide in the bushes or they would’ve shot me. The only person who could have tipped them off is Englewood, and you’re the one who sent me to him.”
“You think I set you up?”
“I don’t think anything. I’m just asking the question.”
Cavallo sips her drink through a long straw, her eyes darting back and forth like she’s watching a show.
Wilcox gives her an incredulous look. “Are you hearing this?”
“There were shots fired on Allen Parkway,” Cavallo says. “Patrol responded, but nobody was on the scene. They did find some skid marks. That was you?”
“Off the record, yes.”
“Well, I had nothing to do with it,” Wilcox says, “and I’m shocked you would even have to ask. All the time we worked together and you still don’t have a clue about what makes me tick.”
“I could say the same thing. But you said ‘yes and no.’ So explain the ‘no’ part.”
He curls in on himself, crossing his legs, tightening his arms over his chest, like the diagram labeled CLOSED in the body-language handbook. But he does talk. After our conversation, he says, it occurred to him to phone a colleague who’d worked the Nesbitt shooting, not to pump the man for information on my behalf but to report the contact. “I figured they’d want to know if questions were being asked.” Less than five minutes after that call ended, Wilcox got a call from Englewood, asking that his number be passed along. “Explaining all of that back and forth would have been too complicated.”
“So you lied to me instead.”
“I didn’t lie,” he says, his cheeks flushed. “I paraphrased.”
“Can one of you tell me who this Englewood guy is?” Cavallo asks.
We exchange a look and Wilcox shrugs. “You go ahead,” he says.
I summarize what I know about Tom Englewood, repeating his metaphor about the governmental High Road and the corporate Low Road, and that leads into an explanation about Andrew Nesbitt and his contested shooting.
“Why this matters to you,” I tell her, “is that when we found our headless John Doe on the basketball court, Lorenz noticed that the body was arranged with the finger deliberately pointing. He thought maybe if we followed the dotted line, we’d find the head. But just before he was killed, he worked out the real significance of that pointing finger.”
“Which was?”
In answer I produce a page from my own Key Map, identical to the one taken from Brandon Ford’s office, indicating the crime scene, then tracing the direction of the line until it intersects with Allen Parkway. “This,” I say, tapping the map, “is where Nesbitt was shot.”
She takes the map, studies it, then does her own impression of closed body language. “That’s a pretty big thing to omit from your report.”
“I didn’t,” I say. “Bascombe knows.”
“Well, he didn’t say anything to me.”
I tell her about our visit to Bea Kuykendahl’s basement office at the FBI, then produce the file on Brandon Ford, opening it up to the photograph.
“There’s something else. You told me they haven’t identified the guy I shot. The fact is, I got a look at the other one without his mask. The same man was there the night I was run off the road. He seemed to be the group’s leader.”
“And you have a description?” Wilcox asks.
“I have more than that. I have a photo.” I tap the picture on the table in front of me. “It was Brandon Ford.”
“But. .” His voice trails off. “What?”
Cavallo doesn’t say a word. She just glares at the photograph.
“So what you’re saying. .” Wilcox struggles with his thoughts, not wanting to speak them out loud. “Didn’t the DNA come back with a. .?”
“The lieutenant knows all this?” Cavallo says. “Wanda’s gonna crucify him.”
“You can’t say anything to Wanda.”
“March, I can’t not say anything.”
“This has to stay here. It can’t go beyond this table. I wanted you both here because I feel like I can trust you, and you both have a stake in this.”
“Not me,” Wilcox says. “It’s none of my business.”
“According to Englewood, it is. He told me something interesting as we were saying goodbye. He figured I wouldn’t live to share the information. He said we had a mutual friend, Reg Keller, and that he was an investor in Keller’s operation. Now the three of us brought Keller down, but it was you, Stephen, who uncovered all the financial shenanigans related to his shell company. So yes, you do have a stake, because in all that work you seem to have missed something. I think we all did.”
“What do you expect from us?” Cavallo asks.
“Very quietly, without raising any suspicion, we have to reopen that case. We need to know what the connection between Keller and Englewood was. And we need to see if anyone knows where Reg Keller is now.”
Wilcox shrugs. “Argentina, I thought. That’s the rumor.”
“That’s old information,” Cavallo says. “And it was never more than speculation. The guy who swindled Keller out of his money-Chad something-”
“Chad Macneil,” I say.
“Right. When he turned up dead in Buenos Aires, people thought it was Big Reg settling the score. I don’t think there was anything more to it than talk.”
“We need to find out. Can you check into that?”
She gives me a frosty look. “I think my days of carrying water for you are pretty much done, Roland. This was the last straw. Jerry was my friend.”
“Mine, too. I mean that.”
Neither one of them looks very convinced. I knew it would be hard, and I knew there would be some resentment to overcome. Somehow, though, I’d imagined that my revelations were strong enough in themselves to win both Cavallo and Wilcox over. Now I begin to wonder.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” Cavallo says. “I’m going to have to think it over. Frankly, I can’t imagine a scenario in which I’d feel comfortable withholding information from Wanda. You told your boss everything, so why shouldn’t I tell mine?”
“Do you think she’ll listen?”
“That’s not the point.”
“If I were you,” Wilcox tells her, “I wouldn’t say a word. The one part of this story I can attest to is this: there’s an enormous amount of outside pressure on the Internal Affairs investigation. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I’d say there have to be some powerful interests involved. If it’s true that Ford, your homicide victim, is alive and kicking, and the database still came back with a match. . well, I don’t know what to think about that. But I’m not gonna breathe a word about it, if you know what I mean.”
“Because you don’t believe it?” she asks.
“Because I don’t know what to believe.”
“Listen,” I say. “I’m not asking either one of you to walk out on the limb with me. Only I can’t do this alone, not from the outside. What it comes down to is this: do you trust me?”
Silence.
“I’m serious. Do you trust me?”
Cavallo frowns. “It’s not that I don’t-”
“Then help me. Simple as that. Theresa, you can find out if there’s anything concrete linking Keller to the murder in Argentina. Stephen, you can search for the connection between Keller’s finances and Tom Engl
ewood.”
“And what about you?” Wilcox asks.
“Me? I’m on leave.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I do have a lead to follow up,” I say, thinking of the safe house. “There’s a guy who used to work for Nesbitt who’s turned me on to something. According to him, there was a package Nesbitt wanted me to have, only it was stolen. But look at this.” I reach into my briefcase for the file on myself. “It’s identical to the one on Ford, so they come from the same source.”
Cavallo picks up the folder and flips through its pages thoughtfully. The thoroughness of the dossier seems to make an impression. When she’s done, she sets it on the table.
“All right,” she says. “It stays between the three of us for now, but only because if I took it to Wanda, she’d think I was crazy. Maybe I am. But to answer your question, I do trust you.”
I turn to Wilcox.
“You don’t want my answer. But I’ll take a look and see if I missed anything with Keller’s finances. I have an idea now what I’m looking for.”
“I appreciate what you’re doing,” I say, extending my hand.
After a pause, he shakes it.
Once he’s gone, I launch into my apology to Cavallo. She doesn’t cut me off or tell me there’s no need. She sits through the whole speech, warming slowly to the theme, nodding in agreement when I tell her how wrong I was to withhold information from her.
“With the static between us,” I say, “all the stuff with Wanda taking over, I just didn’t know how much you’d want me to share.”
“Next time, just be honest with me. Don’t make me feel like I have to prove myself all over again before you’ll respect me.”
“I do respect you,” I say. “A lot.”
“Then act like it.”
I extend my hand to her. “Deal.”
– -
Afterward, limping back to the garage where I left my car, Cavallo’s frustration settles over me like fog on damp grass. When it comes to ticking off the many flaws in my personality, she’s never held back. I withhold information, obviously. I suppress painful truths to the point of denial. I don’t talk about my feelings. I take an instrumental view of people, which apparently means I use them to achieve my own ends. These are all terrible faults in her mind, even though to me they sound like virtues, things I not only value about myself but wish I could see more of in others.
When she lectures me, I tend to write it off as her thing. Some people can’t help psychoanalyzing others, projecting their own concerns onto the world around them. Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever reflected on the criticism. Maybe I should. Maybe these really are blind spots, forcing me to repeat the same patterns, to fight the same battles over and over again.
Before I can talk myself into an epiphany, I reach the safety of the car. To my chagrin, as I settle behind the wheel, I realize I am breathing hard from the walk.
What is happening to me? I’m falling apart, that’s what.
But that’s another epiphany I’m not interested in having yet. I reach for the radio dial to drown out my inner monologue. Then I pick up the phone and dial.
“What do you want?”
Her voice is cold.
“Hello, Bea. It’s good to talk to you, too.”
“Listen,” she says, lowering her voice almost to a whisper, like she’s afraid of being overheard. “What happened the other day. . it didn’t happen. Understand? And whatever I might have said, I didn’t say it.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t have any luck testing those things you took from Hilda’s place.”
Silence.
“Well, guess what? I have an idea how we might be able to get a line on her. Only it will require a little ingenuity. Since you seem to have a flair for coloring outside the lines-”
“I can’t talk right now,” she says.
“But you’ll call me back?”
After a long pause, she relents with a sigh. “Give me an hour.”
CHAPTER 19
There’s a chain coffee shop across the street from the apartment building where women in sports gear meet for soy lattes while telecommuters in shorts and hands-free earpieces compete for the tables next to the wall plugs, and the remixes piping down from the ceiling are always available for purchase at the register. When Bea arrives, she gives the place a good scowl, as if I’ve compromised her with this choice of venue. Once I’ve explained about the safe house, the attitude evaporates.
“How did you find out about this?”
“I have my ways,” I say, reluctant at this point to apprise her of Jeff’s existence. “So let me explain the plan.”
The whole point of a safe house is to have a place where you can stash people and still keep tabs on them. You can find them, but no one else can. So there will be some kind of link, some means of communication between the safe house and Hilda. The landlord will have a contact number, someone to call in case the rent is late or there’s a mishap in the building, like a flood or a fire.
“I’m not suggesting we set the place on fire. But suppose we get the manager or concierge or whatever to say the apartment on the floor above was flooded, and there’s water damage she needs to inspect?”
“If she’s blown town, what makes you think she’d show up at all?”
“Maybe she won’t. Let’s give it a try, though, and see what happens.”
“And you’re comfortable doing this without a warrant, without any kind of backup?”
I smile. “You’re the one who said the time for warrants was over.”
We cross the street on foot, dodging a dog walker with three canines on the leash. Entering the lobby, we’re enveloped by cool air. The manager’s office is tucked into a compact but stylishly appointed suite of rooms just off the elevator on the first floor, immediately behind the tenant mailboxes. Bea dazzles the manager, a slender and serious-looking woman in her fifties, with a flash of her FBI credentials, and within five minutes we’re all three peering down at a computer screen with all the rental information on file for the seventh-floor safe house. The name on the lease is Hillary Mendez.
“Oh yes,” the manager says, “I remember her. She lives down on Galveston Island and wanted a pied-à-terre here in the city.”
“You have a number where you can reach her?”
She points to the screen. “And her home address, too.”
I copy the information down, even though the address is likely to be a sham. As I write, Bea starts explaining how we’re concerned that something might have happened to the apartment’s occupant and so we need to take a look inside. Without asking any questions, the manager opens a key box on the wall.
We take the elevator up and head down a thickly carpeted corridor, pausing at the apartment door. Before trying the key, the manager knocks three times and calls out. There’s no response, so she opens it up.
The apartment is quite small, just a studio with a kitchenette and bath, sparsely furnished, with a breathtaking view thanks to the fact that the back wall is entirely glass. Bea motions the manager to stay put while we have a look around. There are two rolling suitcases on the floor next to the bed, their panels unzipped, and toiletries scattered on the bathroom sink along with a blow dryer and an unplugged curling iron.
“Somebody’s staying here,” Bea whispers.
Now comes the tricky part. I turn to the manager and start to improvise some kind of halfway convincing story. Bea cuts me off.
“We’re going to stay here and wait for her to come back,” she explains. “And we need you to keep this entirely confidential. It’s a matter of homeland security. Thanks for your cooperation.”
The woman teeters on the threshold, looking simultaneously dazed and excited. Then she springs forward and presents Bea with the key.
“If you need anything-” she begins.
“We’ll let you know.”
When she’s gone, we close the door. Bea goes straight for the luggage, looking for anything packed
away underneath the clothes. She finds nothing in the first case. From the second, she produces a zip-around pouch full of passports, currency, credit cards, and driving licenses, all bearing Hilda Ford’s face but with different names including Hillary Mendez. She puts everything back in place, then shakes the bag over her head in triumph. I motion for her to keep looking. In one of the internal pockets, wrapped in a silk slip, she finds a stack of file folders identical to the dossiers on Brandon Ford and myself.
“Look at this.”
We spread them out on the bed, open to the photos. There are five in total, all of them men in their mid-twenties to late-thirties. I pat my jacket pocket, removing the now-familiar photo. Brandon Ford flanked by two buddies, with Hilda in the background. I lay it on the bed among the folders.
“This one here,” I say, tapping the man on Brandon’s right. “That’s him.” I show her the folder with his photograph. “And the one on his left, that’s him over there.” I slide another folder alongside.
“They’re all using false identities.”
I lift one of the folders, holding the image close up for inspection.
“You recognize that one, too?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I hand her the folder. “That’s the one I killed.”
A brooding silence descends as we wait. I sit at the window, listening to the rumble of traffic on the street below, the sun warm on my hands, my face, my closed eyelids. I can hear Bea perched on the edge of the bed, quietly browsing through the dossiers, trying to make sense of what this means. I haven’t told her about my run-in with Ford on Allen Parkway, about the voices of the men who came after me, no doubt the same ones whose files she holds on her lap. If they were Englewood’s team, as I assumed, why does Hilda have their dossiers? Obviously she created their new identities, just as she created Jeff’s. That’s her specialty, he said.
“I should have known about this,” Bea says. “I should have dug deeper to begin with. I just accepted everything they told me. I made it easy for them.”
“It won’t be easy for them anymore.”
“No,” she says. “Not if I can help it.”
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