by Thomas Kies
Eva looked back at me, smiled briefly, exposing perfect teeth. “I’m originally from Slovenia. May I take your coat?”
I stripped it off and draped it onto the back of a kitchen chair. “This is fine.”
The brick walls of the room were painted white. Blue cabinets fronted with glass doors were mounted over gray granite counters. Framed, color photographs of Mediterranean seascapes hung on the walls. Gray light from a cold, cloudless sky came through floor-to-ceiling windows in the far wall.
Eva put the glass she’d been holding up to her lips and emptied it. Then she put it on the counter, took down another glass, and proceeded to pour vodka into both. She turned and fixed me with her slightly boozy gaze. “You’ll join me, yes?”
She’d already poured the vodka. “Of course.”
Eva went to the refrigerator, took out a container of cranberry juice, and tossed a splash into each glass. Then she picked up both tumblers and handed one to me.
“Thank you.” I’m not much for adulterating vodka with anything other than tonic, but I took a healthy sip and felt the warmth slide down my throat. I thought the cranberry juice made it festive.
We sat on wooden stools at the kitchen’s center island. Without asking for permission, I pulled my phone out of my bag, hit the recording app, and placed it on the wooden counter. “Once again, I can’t tell you how very sorry I am about what happened to your husband.”
She sipped at her own drink and gazed sadly out the window, staring at the snow-covered backyard. “I worried that something like this would happen to my husband.”
“That he’d be murdered?”
Nodding. “He sends men to prison. Bad men. Eventually, they get out.”
“Do you think that’s what happened?”
She looked down at her left hand and absently felt her wedding ring with her thumb. “What else could it be? Everyone loved Niles. As far as I know, he had no enemies.”
Except for those people he sent to jail.
For a moment I was distracted by the sheer size of the diamond in her wedding ring, a glittering rock surrounded by a lustrous family of smaller diamonds. The nosy Nora in me wanted to ask how much Judge Preston paid for that. The reporter in me wanted to ask where the judge got the money.
I tore my eyes away from the sparkler. “Can you tell me about the night your husband died?”
She shot me a suspicious look. “I told the police everything.”
“Please?”
She stood up and steadied herself on the kitchen table.
How much has she had to drink?
Eva went to the counter and pulled a fresh tissue from a wooden container next to the coffeepot. She sat back down. “We were both in the den, he was reading, and I was watching Longmire on the TV. At about ten, the phone rang. I picked it up and it was a woman. She asked to speak to Niles.”
I watched as her eyes glazed over with a shimmering film of tears.
“It was a landline? Not a cell phone?”
“Yes, the phone in the den.”
I asked, “Do you know who it was?”
She bit her lip and slowly shook her head.
“When she asked to speak to your husband, is that what she called him, Niles? She didn’t ask to speak to Judge Preston?”
“She specifically asked to speak to Niles.”
“Your husband took the call?”
“Yes, it’s a cordless phone. He took the receiver and left the den to talk with whoever it was privately. I couldn’t hear his conversation.”
“What happened next?”
She dropped her eyes. “He came back into the den and said that he needed to meet with a colleague about a very important case. Then he left. That was the last I saw him. He never came back home.”
The sob escaping her lips almost sounded like a sneeze. It broke my heart. I know that kind of sadness, the sadness when someone you love dies before his time.
She held the tissue over her mouth and nose like a mask, her eyes squeezed shut, trying hard to stave off her emotions. Her head and shoulders shook uncontrollably.
It was one of those awkward moments when your instinct is to move to where she’s crying and put your arms around her in a reassuring hug. But I’d just met the woman. There was nothing to do except wait until Eva regained her composure.
I sat in silence and sipped my vodka and cranberry.
Finally, she dabbed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I decided to change the subject for a moment. “How did you and Niles meet?”
She blinked a few times, her eyes glazed with a thick film of tears. Eva cocked her head and attempted a tiny smile. “When we met, I was working as a model. Most of the time I did photo shoots in New York. But there was an assignment here in Connecticut that kept me here for a few days. On the first afternoon, we were shooting aboard a catamaran that was moored right next to Niles’s sailboat.” Her slight smile broadened a bit. “I was only wearing a little black bikini. I must have caught his eye because when we were done shooting, he asked if I would have dinner with him. The rest is history.”
I took another hit on my drink and thought for a moment. “Where did your husband keep his boat?”
She took a deep sigh. “The marina out at Groward Bay.”
Where he was killed. Wow.
“Eva, I’m sorry to ask you this, but do you have any idea who called your husband that night?”
She bobbed her head slightly, her eyes cast to the floor, smile gone. “I think my husband was having an affair.”
I took another look at Eva Preston. Even torn by sorrow, she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. I could never understand how a man cheats on his wife.
Of course, not that long ago, I had been the “other” woman in a two-year-long affair with a married man, and his wife was gorgeous.
Forbidden fruit? The thrill of the hunt?
For a minute my mind flashed on an image of Frank Mancini. Dark hair, chocolate-brown eyes, dangerously handsome. Married.
I’d be willing to bet he and his wife were someplace in the Caribbean for the holiday.
I turned my attention back to Eva. “What makes you think your husband was having an affair?”
She stared at the black-and-white tiles at her feet, clearly embarrassed. “All the clichés. He was spending more and more time away from the house, sometimes late into the evening. I’d catch the occasional scent of perfume on him. I’d leave a room and when I’d come back in, I’d find him texting someone. When I’d ask who he was talking to, he’d tell me it was someone from work.”
There wasn’t any good way to ask my next question. “Were things good between you and your husband?”
Her nostrils flared and her jaw jutted out. “I’m a very good wife. I do all the cooking. I’m a very good cook. We have a lady who cleans for us once a week, but I keep the house tidy. I take good care of myself so that he would be proud of me. I work out at the gym and dress nice for him.”
I nodded sympathetically.
“He wasn’t always a good husband, though,” Eva added. “He hadn’t touched me in nearly six months.”
That’s not good.
I cleared my throat. “Was he physically capable of having sex?”
She smiled nervously. “He took pills…you know…to get hard.”
“Did he ever talk about his cases? Say anything about the people he sent to jail?”
She nodded and played with the wadded ball of moist tissue in her hand. “Yes, drug dealers, thieves, wife beaters, child molesters, pimps. Bad people.”
I thought for a moment, recalling the entry in the notebook. “Did he ever mention the name Jim Caviness?”
She shook her head.
“Did he ever mention the names of Valentin and Bogdan Tolbonov?”
Her brow
s furrowed as she thought. “No. I don’t recognize those names. They sound Russian.”
“Did he mention that one of the men he’d sentenced to prison had recently escaped from Lockport Correctional Facility?”
“Yes.”
“What did your husband say?”
“That security at the courthouse would be increased and that the police told him they’d be doing extra patrols around our neighborhood. And they said that if he saw anything unusual at all, to call them immediately.”
I glanced out the window into the backyard. A black cat was moving slowly across the snow, stalking something. “Did your husband seem concerned?”
Eva caught my line of sight. She stood up and went to the back door. Opening it, she shouted, “Scat, go home, you little shit.”
I watched as the cat froze in place, its eyes buggy, then it vanished.
Eva closed the door and turned to me. “That cat is always hunting the birds that come to my feeder.”
When she sat back down, I repeated, “Was your husband concerned?”
“He said that he wasn’t. But Niles carried a handgun with him almost everywhere he went. And we have a shotgun hidden under our bed upstairs.”
Handgun didn’t do him any good out on that pier.
“Did your husband ever specifically say the name Merlin Finn?”
She nodded. “He said that Mr. Finn was a very bad man, capable of horrible things. He was big and mean. But Niles said that if he ever showed up, he’d get a bullet to the head. That would take care of things.”
That only works if you get the drop on the bad guy before he gets the drop on you.
Chapter Eight
I left Eva Preston at the front door of her house and hustled quickly to the driveway to escape the biting gusts of wind. I slid into my Sebring and started the engine, silently swearing that the next car I owned would have heated seats.
I rubbed my hands together and waited until the engine warmed up enough that tepid air started blowing from the dash vent. A heatless sun had just poked through a moving curtain of dark gray clouds. I glanced up at the sky, wishing for spring.
That’s when I noticed the glint, a brief nanosecond of bright reflection high above the Prestons’ house.
A drone?
I reached into my bag and punched up Mike’s number.
“Genie?”
“Do you have Eva Preston’s home under surveillance?”
“Not me. But the FBI is crawling all over each other looking for Merlin Finn.”
“When did this happen?” I couldn’t see it anymore.
Had I seen it at all?
I glanced around me, expecting to see an unmarked van filled with listening devices and video equipment parked at the side of the road. But there weren’t any vehicles parked at all.
Mike answered. “We had a few of them poking around right after Merlin Finn broke out of prison. It escalated geometrically when Judge Preston’s body was discovered. What makes you think that Eva Preston is being surveilled?”
I scanned the sky again. All I saw was that the sun had once again been obliterated by snow clouds. “I thought I saw a drone.”
“In spite of what you might see on television, the FBI knows their stuff. If they’re watching you, chances are you aren’t going to know about it.”
“But it’s possible they’re watching Eva Preston, just in case Merlin Finn shows up.”
“I’ll tell you something I know and that’s the Wilton cops are keeping a close eye on that neighborhood for that same reason. So watch yourself.”
Meaning what? Don’t be drinking and driving?
At that exact moment, I saw a black-and-white police utility vehicle pull into the cul-de-sac where I was parked. It was a Ford SUV with a massive black front bumper guard. “Got one headed toward me now.”
“You’re in Eva Preston’s neighborhood?”
“I thought I mentioned that.”
“Skipped that part.”
The cruiser’s red and whites came on.
I sighed. “Okay, I’m busted. Cop wants to talk.”
“Good luck. If you need me, call.”
The cop tapped on my window with his knuckles, and I slid it down, feeling the cold air rush in. “Hello, Officer.”
I could see by the tag on his chest that this was Officer Lyle. “Do you live in this neighborhood?”
“No, sir. I’m a reporter for the Sheffield Post and I was here to get a statement from Mrs. Preston.”
He leaned down, his face close enough to my own that I could smell cilantro on his breath. “A reporter. Look, this is a nice quiet neighborhood, and Mrs. Preston has been through a lot, what with her husband being murdered and all. Do you have any further business here?”
I shook my head.
He nodded and sneered. “Then I don’t suppose I’ll see you back here again.”
I was going to make a smart-ass remark about how there was still a First Amendment, but then I recalled that my commuter coffee cup was filled with vodka. “Just leaving. Have a good day, Officer Lyle.”
I slid my window up and pulled out of the driveway.
When I reached the bottom of the hill, I checked to see if I had any emails or messages. The only call in my voice mailbox was the one I’d gotten yesterday from Nathaniel Rubin about a possible job opportunity.
Braking for a stop sign, I punched in the number he’d given me.
He answered on the second ring. His voice was low, his words crisp. “Is this Geneva Chase?”
I smiled as I drove. “It is. Are you Nathaniel Rubin?”
“I am. Let me start by saying, I’m a fan of your work. Very impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“I read your story online this morning about the judge and an unknown woman being found underwater, chained to the prongs of a forklift. Graveyard Bay…is that a real place?”
I smiled. “It’s really Groward Bay. The locals called it Graveyard Bay during the Revolutionary War.”
“I see. Cops find out who killed them yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Have you?” His question took me by surprise.
I chuckled and repeated my answer. “Not yet.”
I could almost hear the man smiling over the phone. “You will. Are you familiar with Lodestar Analytics?”
“Only what I found on your website.”
“What you didn’t find on our website was a list of our clients. We’re very discreet.”
I stopped at the intersection to Route 7, watching for a break in the long line of traffic. “Discreet.”
Nathaniel continued. “We have clients from all over the world, many of whom I’m sure you would recognize.”
As I pulled onto the road, I recalled what the website had said. “Lodestar Analytics conducts open-source investigations and provides research and strategic advice for businesses, law firms, and investors as well as for political inquiries, such as opposition research.”
They dig up dirt on people.
Funny how this job had sounded much better last night after I’d had a couple of hits of Absolut. “You said something about a job opportunity?”
“Yes, we’re going through a growth spurt and could use someone in our company with your set of skills.”
I glanced up into my rearview mirror to see a black Dodge Charger following much too closely.
A tail?
I asked, “My set of skills?”
“You’re an excellent investigative journalist who has an outstanding body of work.”
I smiled and momentarily forgot the dangerous driver behind me. Nathaniel’s words reflected what Robert Vogel and Lorraine Moretti had told me, only without the bullshit about drinking myself out of almost every good job I’ve ever had. “You want me to be an investiga
tive journalist for your company?”
“I want you to be an investigator for us. Written reports will be part of your job. I know you can write.”
The black Charger braked and turned, pulling into the parking lot of Jordan’s Pizza. “I don’t want to sound crass, Mr. Rubin.”
“Please, nobody calls me Mr. Rubin except my mother, and that’s only when she’s pissed off at me. Call me Nathaniel.”
Nearly as formal as Mr. Rubin.
“Nathaniel, I don’t want to sound crass but…”
“The salary is eighty thousand a year to start, with bonuses and a full set of benefits.”
Suddenly, my heart started to race.
That was nearly twice what I would be making as a reporter.
“Where would I be working?”
“You’d be working remotely. On occasion you’d need to travel for us if the assignment required it. About once a month I’d like it if you come by headquarters to catch me up on whatever assignment you’ve been given.”
“Where’s headquarters?”
“Manhattan.”
“I’m interested. What do we do next?”
I thought I could hear him rub his hands together. “I’d love it if you can come to my office to chat face-to-face and see where we work. It’ll be very informal.”
“Should I bring a résumé?”
“This is the twenty-first century, Genie. I already have all the intel on you I need.”
What the hell does that mean? Does he know about the drinking?
“Just curious, how did my name come up?”
“Well, I know your newspaper was just gobbled up by Galley Media. They work their employees hard and are reluctant to pay them what they’re worth. I think you’ll get tired of them in short order. Plus, you came highly recommended by one of my other employees.”
I flipped on my turn signal to pull into the Post parking lot. “Do you mind if I ask who that is?”
“John Stillwater.”
John Stillwater?
I thought he worked for Shana Neese. I’d met John and Shana in October when they’d posted Betsy Caviness’s million-dollar bail. They were both associated with the Friends of Lydia, a shadow organization dedicated to helping women and girls suffering from domestic abuse and violence, including forced prostitution and sex trafficking.