Green Kills

by Avi Domoshevizki

  “Why do you say that?” Quincy hurried to ask. “Do you know of any enemies who threatened to murder him?”

  “Of course not. But the flight to the West Coast, deleting his call log, the call he received in his room in the middle of the night, his request to the desk clerk to hold any calls—”

  “How do you know about the call he received in his room?” Rogers barged into his words, sticking to the role of the hardened, crafty investigator.

  “Let’s give each other a little credit. I assume the desk clerk told you about the conversation I had with him last night. I’m trying to be open and fair with you and expect you to do the same, as much as duty allows you to. Now, with your permission, let me ask again: Are you sure the man committed suicide?”

  Quincy and Rogers exchanged a quick glance, and after Rogers nodded in agreement, Quincy offered, “The official police investigation line is that it was a suicide. Our working premise is that Mr. Lumner wanted to spare his wife from finding his body and decided to take his own life far from home. Nevertheless, we’re still examining other possibilities. I have to admit, the questions you’ve raised crossed our minds as well, and we can’t shake the feeling it all seems too organized, as if someone staged a neat and tidy suicide by the book. From our experience, that’s never the case. We’ve asked for a court order to get the call list from Verizon, his cellular provider. We’ll have the list tomorrow at the latest. I wonder why it was so important to the deceased, or whomever else it was, to erase the information about the telephone calls. Perhaps he had a lover who’d left him and he didn’t want us to find out. Who knows?”

  Ronnie was startled. The detectives didn’t say it outright, but it was clear they had not entirely ruled out the possibility of murder. “Allow me to ask, how did Christian kill himself?”

  “With sleeping pills. The chambermaid found him in the morning. The initial blood tests showed he had enough alcohol and benzodiazepines in him to take down an elephant.”

  “Sleeping pills and alcohol. The question is, where did he get such a large number of sleeping pills in the middle of the night? It’s unlikely he’d brought them from home to commit suicide here, of all places. We spent the entire previous day together, then we shared a car to the airport. At no point did he act like someone who was tired of living.”

  “We’ve been bothered by the same question. We canvassed the pharmacies in the area that were open during the night, and we found no evidence of sleeping pills being sold. The only explanation for him having so many sleeping pills is that he’d brought them with him. Which is, as we’ve already agreed, very strange,” Quincy summed up.

  “I assume you’ve already told his wife…”

  “Yes, she asked for our help with bringing the body back to Boston. Poor thing. They have one-year-old twins,” answered Quincy, and for the first time his voice was filled with human emotion.

  “Indeed a very sad occurrence.” Ronnie got to his feet. “If there’s anything else I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to ask. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few urgent matters to attend to.”

  “Thanks for your cooperation. If you can think of anything else that might help us, please contact me,” said Quincy and handed Ronnie his business card.

  “Gladly,” answered Ronnie and shook both their hands, already calculating his next move.

  Chapter 12

  Sunnyvale, October 18, 2013, 11:10 AM

  “What’s the matter?” Ronnie tensed up as he entered the room and found Liah sitting on the bed, her knees against her chest, arms wrapped around them. “Did Gadi say something stupid?”

  “While the reason for being here is absolutely clear to me, deep down, when I decided to join you, I was hoping for a little intimacy. A trip to Sausalito, good food, walking aimlessly at sunset and having lots of sex. This tragedy and the police investigation caught me off guard, emotionally speaking. It’s not your fault, but…” Disappointment trickled into her voice.

  “I need to organize my thoughts before we’ll be able to go out and have some time for ourselves.” Ronnie hugged her feet and leaned his head on her knees, yearning for her touch. After a long minute of futile waiting, he went over to his computer. Liah came and stood behind him and glanced at the document he was reading. It contained Christian’s list of appointments, as he had emailed it to Ronnie during their meeting. She noticed immediately that only a single appointment had been scheduled for Friday. It was the meeting with McGrady, a senior partner at Accord Ventures. The appointment with him was supposed to run for five hours, and in a remark, Christian had added that McGrady would be joined by the staff that conducted the due diligence on TDO — as well as with representatives of the consulting firm the fund had hired. The rest of the appointments, three in all, were all squeezed to fit into Monday’s schedule.

  “Why couldn’t Christian arrange his appointments so that he would be home for the weekend?” Liah wondered, although she shouldn’t have been surprised considering all the weekends she’d had to spend by herself over the past year.

  “Friday’s appointment was very important. Accord is the fund that was supposed to lead and invest a considerable amount of money in the current financial round. I think Christian wanted to give them all the time in the world and, if need be, to continue the meetings over the weekend. Perhaps he planned to fly back to his family for the weekend, if no more meetings were necessary. From the conversation I had with him while we drove together to the airport, it was clear his twin sons were the most important things in his life.”

  “He had twins?” she asked, shocked.

  “Yes, they just celebrated their first birthday a month ago. Heartbreaking,” his voice became hoarse, “but it also raises a big question mark. What kind of man would let problems at work cause his two small children to become fatherless?”

  A silence settled in the room. Suddenly, Liah didn’t find the idea of going out to be so appealing. She hugged Ronnie to her, liberating both her thoughts and the tears that began to wash her face.

  “I’m sorry,” Liah murmured, and Ronnie felt her sweet breath on his cheek. “It was insensitive of me to pressure you to go out. But I really think you need to take a break, even for just a few hours. Perhaps we’ll go out to do some jogging? I think it could help us both to clear our heads. And besides, I don’t understand what you’re chasing now. You’ve already made it with your own company. You’re not lacking the money. So what’s driving you?”

  “Money is not the issue. Ever since I can remember, it’s always been important for me to do what’s right and not necessarily what other people think is right and bring to closure every task I undertake in the best possible way. If it’s important for you to name this quality, perhaps ‘determination’ will do it.”

  “You know, ‘determination’ is how a person would name his own quality. The rest of the world will simply call it stubbornness. And you, as we well know, are as stubborn as a mule.”

  “As far as I can recall from my days in the kibbutz, a mule is actually a very nice animal.” Ronnie laughed.

  “Perhaps on the kibbutz, but have you ever seen a mule in Manhattan?”

  “Whatever. As I said before —”

  The phone on the table vibrated to indicate a new text message. Come to Pete’s Café at 11:45, Gadi instructed. Liah Googled “Pete’s Café.” After a series of energetic typing outbursts, she pushed back from the table and said, “The coffee shop is about three miles from the hotel. How about we run there? Gadi will probably be able to drive us back, and if he won’t — we can always run back as well.”

  “You’re as efficient as you are beautiful.” Ronnie smiled lovingly, and they both went to change into their running clothes.

  They ran silently, both absorbed in their own thoughts. Ronnie matched the pace of his running to Liah’s while stealing concerned glances at her, looking for signs of pain. A half hour after they’d left the hotel, they entered Pete’s Café, covered with sweat from head to
toe. The coffee shop was crowded with small groups of young people, all trying to shout loud enough to overcome the terrible acoustics. Gadi sat at a corner table, three glasses in front of him. Ronnie and Liah made their way toward him. A moment after they sat down, a young man wearing Bermuda shorts and an undershirt approached them and asked if he could take the remaining chair. Liah smiled at him approvingly and the guy smiled back.

  “Leave it here,” Gadi snarled at him. The guy raised his hands apologetically and left.

  “You couldn’t find a louder place for us to meet?” asked Liah. “Or did you choose it so the bad guys won’t be able to eavesdrop on our conversation?” she added with half a smile.

  “Truth is, I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort. But I remembered the last time you visited San Francisco, you told me you loved the iced coffee at the Pete's there. I took an educated guess that you’d run here and that it’d take you about half an hour. I ordered your favorite coffee about a minute ago. No sugar, of course,” he added and pushed the glasses at them.

  Liah blew him a theatrical kiss. “You’re quite an asset. If Ronnie wasn’t in love with me, I wouldn’t blame him if he came out of the closet for you.”

  “Who told you he hadn’t done that already before he even met you?” Gadi asked with an emotionless expression.

  “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” said Liah in a surprisingly serious tone.

  Gadi gave her an inquisitive stare.

  “Are you children quite finished?” asked Ronnie.

  “O’Hara processed the information I sent him, and less than an hour ago, he sent me the results.” Gadi returned to his report. Liah and Ronnie leaned a bit toward him and looked at him expectantly. “Obviously, he wasn’t able to run a background check on all the hotel guests in such a short time, so he chose the easy way. He assumed most of the people who stayed in the hotel had some high-tech background or were working in industries related to the field, so they were all likely to have LinkedIn accounts. Sure enough, a quick checkup that cross-referenced the names, telephone numbers and email addresses they’d left at the hotel when checking in verified this assumption and provided a preliminary explanation for their presence at the hotel. He ran a more thorough background check on the five guests he wasn’t able to associate with the industry. Two couples came to visit their children, working for local start-up companies, and two others were construction contractors working on an office building in the city. The only guest who aroused suspicion was one John Brown, about whom no information could be found. The telephone number he’d left is disconnected and the house number of the street address he gave in Chicago, on South Franklin Street, doesn’t exist. In a checkup O’Hara conducted, it turned out a man answering to that name had rented a vehicle for two days and paid in cash. The credit card he left as a deposit belongs to a bank account under his name, but it’s unclear whether the account has any available funds in it. No less surprising, is that no one at the car rental company can recall what the mysterious John Brown looked like. Even our curious desk clerk seems to have come down with a case of temporary amnesia, and no wage increase could cause him to remember any identifying details,” Gadi finished and leaned back, a troubled look in his eyes.

  “Even if we assume he was involved” — Liah hesitated — “what form could his involvement take? They found a suicide note on the table, there were no signs of violence in the room, and Christian’s stomach was stuffed with sleeping pills.”

  “I have no idea,” Gadi admitted. Liah shifted her eyes to Ronnie, who answered her by raising his eyebrows in aggravation. He too tried to find a solution to the question, which hadn’t stopped bothering him since he’d spoken with the two detectives. “I suppose we can’t share our findings with the police. After all, there’s no way we can explain how the guest list fell into our hands.”

  “Right, but don’t let it bother you. I’m willing to bet they’re working on the same list right now and will soon reach the same conclusion.”

  “How can you be sure of it?” Ronnie wondered.

  “They’re in the middle of doing just that. When O’Hara’s men spoke with the couple who came to visit their son, the man was angry because he’d wasted his time detailing the reason for his stay in the hotel just a few minutes before. Even the excuse they gave him about confusion caused by a change of shifts couldn’t calm him down. On the contrary. O’Hara said he’d charge me for all the time his man had to spend listening to a long, tiresome lecture about the importance of handing over the baton in an organized way. I feel sorry for his son.” Gadi smiled.

  “I still don’t have an answer for Liah’s question nor for the question of who would have an interest in killing Lumner and why,” Ronnie mused aloud.

  “So, I have something to work on. I believe I’ll know the identity of our mysterious stranger by the end of the day.” Gadi winked at Liah and turned toward the door. “I suppose you’ll manage to run all the way back as well. Don’t run too fast, you don’t want to get the old man too tired.”

  “Wait a second, Gadi…” Ronnie wanted an explanation of his friend’s plans, but Gadi left the coffee shop without adding another word.

  “Do you have any idea where he’s going?” Liah wondered.

  “No, but I’m sure he has. Gadi is not one to make false promises. I’m always amazed by his ability to manage. Did you know he’s not only fluent in English but in Spanish as well? And that he received most of his foreign language education by watching American movies and Latin American soap operas.”

  They sipped the rest of their coffee then headed out of the coffee shop and began their run back to the hotel.

  The guy wearing the Bermuda shorts left his seat, and while going toward the table where the three had just sat, pressed the dial button on his cell phone. He went to the chair Ronnie had sat in, detached a miniature listening device from it and briefly reported to the person he’d called, “They spoke in a language I couldn’t understand. I’m sending you the audio file.”

  Chapter 13

  Sunnyvale, October 18, 2013, 12:45 PM

  The young man emerged from the coffee shop and walked with his head down, busy with the iPhone in his hand. He’s sending the audio file of the recording to his operator, Gadi guessed, and once his operator is finished translating what we’ve said, he’ll realize I’m onto him and then, once he comes crawling out of his hole to look for me, I’ll be ready and beat the shit out of him… Gadi continued to follow the man with his eyes as he turned toward the parking lot and saw him take his car keys from his pocket and press one of the remote control buttons. A shrill beeping came from the center of the lot. The young man smiled contentedly to himself and headed toward the car.

  Gadi hurried to his own vehicle, started the engine and began to follow the man’s car. After seven minutes of driving down the seemingly endless El Camino Real, the two vehicles glided into the downtown Domain Hotel’s parking lot. The young man left his car in the parking lot, got out still busy with the phone in his hand, and turned toward the lobby.

  “My God, you’re such a rookie,” Gadi murmured with a sigh, “let’s hope your boss proves to be a bit more challenging.” He continued through the parking lot toward the rear parking area on the other side of the building. There, he exited his vehicle, brushed his pants, scanned the area, and when he didn’t detect anything suspicious, walked toward the hotel entrance. When he passed next to the young man’s vehicle, he bent for a split second and attached a tracking device to the inside of the right wheel fender. Then he turned and walked back toward his car. On the way, he took out his cell phone, activated the tracking application, and made sure the device he’d attached to the young man’s vehicle was actually working. Once he was back behind the wheel, he dialed O’Hara.

  “O’Hara Investigations.”

  “O’Hara, please.”

  “Who may I say is calling?”

  “Gadi.”

  “Gadi who?”

  “Just g
et me O’Hara immediately or start looking for another job.”

  The line went silent. Gadi punched the steering wheel in frustration. A moment before he hung up, a baritone voice was heard, “Gadi, you son of a bitch, if you talk to my secretary like that one more time, I’ll never work with you again. Is that clear?”

  “Clear. Crystal clear. Now talk to me. What’s going on?” Gadi snapped impatiently.

  “Our guy left Sunnyvale and took a flight to Boston, still using the same identity. He was supposed to land at Logan about an hour ago, but I couldn’t find any evidence indicating he’d rented a vehicle under his name. Perhaps he changed identities after he landed, or maybe purchasing a ticket to Boston was only a diversion, and he flew to a different city under another name. What would you like me to do?”

  “Try to look for him in Waltham hotels. It’s a shot in the dark, but what do we have to lose? Update me if it’s my lucky day. I’m flying to Waltham now, and if the bastard tries to get into the TDO offices, I’ll catch him. One of his men is here in the Domain Hotel. I’ve attached a tracking device to his car. I’m sending you the transmitter identification code. Have one of your people follow him. OK?”

  “Gadi, who’s paying for all this?”

  “As far as you’re concerned, I am. Bye,” he said, disconnected the call, and dialed Ronnie.

  “Yes, Gadi.”

  “Did Lumner tell you about any weird things happening in his office? Perhaps he felt someone was following him?”

  “Yes. He also wanted us to go out of the building to conduct a private conversation. Why?”

  “We may have gotten lucky. We’ll talk later,” answered Gadi and hung up, leaving Ronnie frustrated by the fact he did not detail or explain his conclusions.

  Liah, who had just come out of the shower, noticed Ronnie’s contemplative expression and asked, “What’s the matter?”