Whistleblower

by Stefanie Pintoff

  “Wasn’t hard for me to figure out.” She thumped the massive file. “Anything else in here that you’re not telling me?”

  “I’m an open book.”

  “Until the moment I ask questions about your wife’s life insurance policy. Or why the kidnapper calls it ‘blood money.’ ”

  He gulped his coffee again. “I’m no mind reader. Who knows what Allie’s kidnapper is thinking? But I have to assume that the ransom he wants is the two million. I can think of nothing else.”

  Eve waited.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want to know if there was anything suspicious about Jill’s death.”

  “Based on something a kidnapper says? My wife was sick. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She stared coolly at him. “Unless you’re honest with me, I can’t do this.” She indicated her manila file, stuffed with paper. “Getting information is easy, but putting it together is hard. It requires trust. Find someone else, Commissioner.” She stood, headed toward the door.

  “Wait. You can’t leave!”

  “Watch me.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Just the stress of it all…” He needed to appear more vulnerable, more concerned about his child. It was what she expected.

  She turned back. Her eyes were clouded with indecision. “I prefer honesty to playing nice.”

  “Playing nice greases the wheel. You catch more flies with honey. Want another adage to explain it?” He recognized this opportunity for what it was. He needed this woman to like him and trust him. Didn’t hurt that she was also easy on the eyes.

  “No adages, just honest answers. Did you have a happy marriage?”

  He swallowed the sharp retort that was at the tip of his tongue, knowing it was important to satisfy her concerns. He’d always admired tough, take-charge, smart women like Eve—and he knew the coming hours would go easier if she was on his side. “Happy enough. Jill knew about the policy, if that’s where you’re headed. Maybe we’d grown apart at the end, but still, we were family—we looked out for one another—and watching her fight breast cancer was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

  “What about Allie?”

  “She’s a great kid. She’s had a tough couple years, and I’m not the most hands-on father,” he acknowledged. “Don’t always understand what she needs.”

  Then he waited, pretty sure his admission had changed her perspective. It was hard to dislike people when you thought you understood something about them. Sympathy created the strongest sort of human bond.

  “Think hard, Commissioner, about anyone who knows you’re good for two million these days.”

  “I will. Please stay. I need this operation lean.” The words came out rougher than he intended. He offered her a rueful smile. “Your specialty.”

  Her face softened. “Look, I know something about tragedy, though I’m no role model for dealing with it—even if I am a trained psychologist—”

  “With a decade of experience and a master’s from Yale,” he said, adding, with his most sheepish look, “Sorry I was such an ass about it earlier.”

  “Honesty over flattery,” she warned. “Anyway, I found that nothing the experts recommended—nothing I’d learned myself as a psychologist—actually helped. I didn’t want to spend time with people. Or talk about my feelings. Or take care of myself. There was only one thing that actually worked for me. That actually kept me sane.”

  “What was that?”

  “To keep working—and to feel my work somehow made the world a better place. That’s what you need to do. See if your security team has arrived—go downtown—and I’ll find your daughter.”

  He got to his feet, too. “I saw your men looking at me. I know I don’t react like your typical distraught father. But you remember what it was like last year at the Cathedral? The pressure of so many lives depending on you. The stakes when you knew the world was scrutinizing your every move.”

  “It’s impossible to forget.”

  “Of course I’m worried sick about Allie. But if I give in to that? I can’t be the leader this city needs. Or the role model my own officers deserve.”

  “The ransom drop is by the museum at midnight. We have it covered—but you said you wanted to be looped in to major developments.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “So you have a strategy—for getting two million dollars by midnight?”

  She reached for her cellphone. Offered it to him. It looked heavy and clunky, balanced in her small palm. “I have a plan—and a backup. Meanwhile, I need you to call your housekeeper. Let her know I’m coming down to ask her some questions and search Allie’s room. Plus, I need to speak with your family’s driver.”

  His conversation with Jackie lasted all of ten seconds. He left a voicemail for Sam.

  When he clicked off, he tapped the crossword. “How about riddle?”

  “No. The fourth letter can’t be d.” She shook her head. “The most important person in my life so far has been my stepfather. Zev was a lot like you: Stubborn. Used to getting his way. A dedicated professional with little sense of what it meant to be a father—and no idea how to balance his personal life with his professional obligations. But eventually he figured it out.”

  “Is there a magic formula?”

  “I remember the first moment I came to love Zev like a father.” She fumbled, clearly uncomfortable revealing personal details. “It was winter, and snow was coming down hard, blanketing the city. My mother called it a slippery mess, but I thought it was beautiful. Zev finished his dinner, put on his coat, and announced that he was taking me ice-skating. He ignored my mother’s protests—that it was dark, that the paths weren’t safe, that I might get hurt. He’d overheard me say I wished I could ice-skate, and so he was going to teach me to skate under the stars. That was the instant I knew: Zev was on my side. He always would be.”

  He watched her for a moment, silent.

  He liked her attitude. He also liked how she looked in the soft evening light. Her subtle perfume was clean, a mix of vanilla and cotton. And she was slim and toned in all the right places. When this was all over, he wanted to spend more time with Eve Rossi.

  “Enigma,” he said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “The six-letter word for conundrum. To complete your puzzle.”

  Her eyes seemed to rake through him. “Yes, that’s it. Enigma will work perfectly.”

  After she left, he went to the side table and picked up the manila folder Eve had left behind. Easily a couple hundred pages of material.

  What the hell did she find out about me?

  He leafed through its contents. Once, twice—just to be sure. After all, there were at least a couple hundred pages here.

  Every single one was blank.

  —

  Haddox watched Donovan get into his car, flanked by his security detail. Then he sat on the steps in front of headquarters. Waited for Eve.

  “I didn’t ask for company,” she said when she came out the door.

  “Just looking out for you.”

  “I look out for myself.” She started to move past him. He stopped her with his hand.

  “There’s a lass I know. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever met. Tough as nails, but she’s got a soft streak for the bad boys.”

  “Lucky for you she does.”

  “Are we ever going to talk about us?”

  “Haddox, we don’t belong together. You get counseling from bartenders, you change your phone number more frequently than most people change their socks, you break every privacy law on the books, and worst of all?” Eve grimaced. “You never make plans.”

  He gave her a crooked smile. “Got to keep life interesting, luv.”

  Chapter 32

  American Museum of Natural History

  Donovan entered the museum through the West Seventy-seventh Street entrance, where Tactical was setting up a staging area. He returned a flurry of salutes—and instantly felt his adrenaline
kick in.

  It was a relief to be back here.

  This was where he belonged. Where he was meant to be.

  They were checking their equipment: Communications. Cameras. GPS. Explosives containment lockers. And especially their weapons.

  He approached the Tactical Management Team, which consisted of five men and three women, all hand-picked, all wearing black jeans and matching weatherproof jackets. They were different ages, different ethnicities, different physical builds. What they had in common was their ability to hit a target with complete precision from a thousand yards away—and their absolute loyalty to Commissioner Logan Donovan.

  Donovan ignored the roaring in his ears. He modulated his voice, making an effort to speak in the tone they expected. No one was going to suspect anything was wrong with him.

  The lead man stepped forward. “This is a full ID and background report on everyone who was standing in that crowd this afternoon. We’ve reviewed it—and we’ll be on alert, should any of the same faces return to the scene.”

  The commissioner gave a thoughtful nod as he leafed through the file. “Good work.”

  “And these are blueprints: They outline every nook and cranny of what runs below us, including the subway, the plumbing, electric, and sewer lines.”

  “What about threats against NYPD officers?”

  “We’ve received sixteen additional threats. However, we’ve also been unable to link the man in custody with the anonymous calls.”

  “The key thing between now and noon tomorrow?” Donovan reminded his elite team. “Be alert. Keep an eye on your position. We’ve got plenty of high-tech tools to detect any danger to ourselves or the public tomorrow—but not a single tool is more effective than the eyes and ears of trained officers like you.”

  “Sure thing, Boss.” The team leader saluted.

  “Roger that,” a senior man agreed. “What else?”

  Donovan stood straighter. “We’re New York’s Finest, and we’ll never be intimidated by enemies who want to hurt us. People are going to come out in droves to celebrate what’s great about this city and this country. They’re relying on us to protect them. Let’s do our job for these next fourteen or so hours—and do it right. Then let’s go home and celebrate Thanksgiving with the people we love.”

  It was a hell of a pep talk. He wasn’t sure whether he’d spoken the words for his team—or for himself. Maybe it didn’t even matter.

  Chapter 33

  West 80th Street Between Columbus and Amsterdam

  Another short burst of rain showers. Water gurgled down gutter spouts, slicked sidewalks that were already dangerously slippery, and flooded the clogged storm sewers on West Eightieth between Columbus and Amsterdam.

  An hour and thirty-four minutes until the ransom deadline.

  An hour and thirty-four minutes to uncover Donovan’s secrets, Haddox decided.

  He lit a cigarette and drew in deeply, staring at the activity a block away as he inhaled. He saw a circus of police cars, equipment vans, and unmarked government sedans.

  The vehicles created a secure perimeter around the museum blocks—which were dominated in part by the crime-scene investigation and in part by the renewed parade preparations. With all evidence secured, and the mayor determined to have the parade go on, the staging area had been reopened for parade business. Soon the floats would arrive, lining up along Central Park West.

  Meanwhile, the balloon inflations had resumed. In the distance, Haddox could see Papa Smurf rising high. Even Spider-Man had his wounds patched up; now he was up in the air, all set to fly, constrained only by a massive net pinned down by sandbags.

  Somewhere over there, Logan Donovan was back at work in the chaos.

  Here, just west of Columbus Avenue, however, it was as if Haddox was in another world. Chaos to the east of Columbus; quiet to the west.

  There was only the rain. A stray passerby. And the security detail in charge of guarding the commissioner’s home—which consisted of two ragtag rookies, slouching by the curb, wet and bedraggled in their rain slickers.

  Neither was making much attempt to disguise the unspoken truth of their situation—which was that they’d drawn the most boring assignment possible. Safeguarding a high-profile target’s home might be important work, but standing around waiting for something unthinkable to happen is more tedious than exciting. And worst of all: They were in it for the long haul, with no replacements in sight. Round-the-clock surveillance was a drain on manpower. Between the parade and the riot, these guys were all the department could spare.

  Walking beside him, Eve said little, too preoccupied to make conversation.

  Haddox didn’t push his luck. Call it Karma or Kismet or Fate, he’d always believed in the importance of being in the right place at the right time. He was Irish, after all. That meant he’d been taught from birth to trust in fate or humanity or God—and he’d learned quick that when he was stuck in a tight spot, only luck ever saw him through.

  Good fortune played favorites, like it had done with Frank Tanaki—a man who walked away from seven major plane, train, bus, and car disasters before going on to win the lottery. Luck could turn on a person, too, like it had done when Ginny Hoff lost four houses to four different hurricanes. Bob, Andrew, Ike, and Hugo. Like the scorn of jilted lovers.

  They stopped in front of the commissioner’s home.

  “Charming,” Haddox remarked. “Guess nobody told the commissioner that a wall full of English ivy will make his stone crumble and crack.” The nineteenth-century brownstone where the Donovans lived was straight out of an urban fairy tale, with wrought-iron gates and thick, twisted ivy framing the front door, stretching all the way to the roof.

  “Since when do you care about practicalities? On the grand scale of things, a little ivy pales in comparison to those death sticks you keep inhaling.”

  Haddox crushed his cigarette underfoot. “You know, my grandda loved his smokes all his life. Lived to be a hundred and one.”

  Eve headed up the stairs leading to the front door. “And since when do you know anything about taking care of a home? You’ve always refused to maintain one—’cause then you’d have to stick around in one place, and people might find you. Specifically, the wrong people might find you.” She ticked off examples one by one. “The heavies you stiffed. The friends you offended. The women you didn’t call.”

  “You’d be surprised. I worked a construction job once. Taught me everything I ever wanted to avoid about home ownership.”

  “So that’s why you’re allergic to settling down in one place.” Eve rang the bell.

  —

  Haddox knew that the woman who answered had to be the Donovans’ housekeeper. Except she wasn’t anything like he had expected.

  Growing up, his family had occasional help from Mrs. Ryan—a fortysomething-year-old woman with meaty hands that reeked of bleach. She wore size-extra-large T-shirts to cover an indeterminate bulge from her stomach. Haddox had spent the better part of a year trying to figure out whether she was pregnant or not. He’d been twelve and more curious than he had a right to be about these things.

  This housekeeper was a stunner. Her short blond hair was off her face with a white headband, and she was wearing an oversized light-blue T-shirt that said YOGA IS TWISTED over purple spandex shorts that showed off toned legs.

  They stepped into the dim entrance hall. There was a coat rack with umbrellas propped beneath it. Just beyond, they saw that the brownstone had polished wooden floors, tasteful furnishings, and high ceilings framed by elaborate plaster medallions.

  The first thing Haddox noticed was how the place was scrupulously clean. Vidocq headquarters had smelled of the preparation for Thanksgiving dinner; here Windex and Pledge were what scented the air. No question, Haddox knew where he’d rather be.

  Eve said, “You must be Jackie Meade? Commissioner Donovan will have told you to expect us.”

  Jackie nodded. Then she glanced at Haddox and a smile lit up her face. �
��I was headed to barre class, but I guess I can skip.”

  “We’ll need a quiet place to talk,” Eve told her. “And is Sam here?”

  “He’s the Donovans’ driver, you know. Almost never spends free time in the house. But here’s the cell number where you can reach him.” She passed a scrap of paper to Eve.

  “Maybe you could point me toward Allie’s room,” Haddox suggested.

  “Allie’s room is upstairs. I’ll show you.” Jackie fiddled with the purple sweatband she wore around her wrist.

  Eve shot him a look that said Not again.

  With a shrug, he tried to convey What can I do? Problem was, he liked women—and most of the time, they liked him, too.

  —

  Walking upstairs, surveying the décor, he decided that this was definitely a woman’s home: There were too many items he couldn’t imagine Logan Donovan choosing for himself. Fresh flowers in glass vases. Furniture upholstered in light pastels. Knit throws with delicate lace patterns.

  The question was: Which woman’s influence? That of the commissioner’s dead wife? The housekeeper with the legs that didn’t quit? Or some other lass that had staked a claim on Logan Donovan?

  Jackie slowed just a bit as they passed a wall of photos.

  Haddox saw three formal photographs of the commissioner, posing with three different presidents—Obama, Clinton, and Bush 43. It also looked like he’d earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism in the Persian Gulf War. Haddox scanned the framed commendation letter; it made clear that Donovan had rescued a downed pilot in the early days of Operation Desert Storm.

  Who the hell is this guy?

  “Allie’s room is over here.” Jackie led him straight down the hallway. Then stopped just outside the doorway, lingered awkwardly.

  He entered the room. Turned back to her. “You like the Donovans?” he asked. “They’re nice people?”

  “Of course. They’re terrific. A lovely family.”

  “You’ve worked with them long?”

  “Three years, two months, and eleven days.”