by Lee Goodman
“Interesting,” I say. “But not too weird.”
“I haven’t gotten to weird yet. Here’s the weird: We’ve worked the car for trace, okay? And we found something usable, maybe. Some fingerprints, the only ones not from Scud or his wife or son. They were on a coffee cup that had spilled all over the floor. We’ve ID’d them. Want to guess?”
“Upton Cruthers,” I say without hesitation.
“No,” Dorsey says in a perplexed voice.
I’ve blown it. I tipped my hand and he’s suspicious. I realize it’s not sudden, he’s been suspicious all along, and now he’s toying with me, setting his trap. I see it, but I can’t help myself, and I know it has all been leading up to this. Don’t say it, my decades of training scream to me. Remain silent, remain silent, but even if Kendall Vance were here with a choke hold around my neck, I couldn’t stop the words as they flow out with effortless certainty. “The prints,” I say, though I don’t know how I know, and I have no clue how they got there. (Or yes, I do know how they got there: Upton Cruthers must have done it. Upton planted my prints at the scene of a murder that he committed.) “The prints are mine.”
The phone is silent; just the fuzz of static tells me we’re still connected. I hear the sharp intake of breath. Then an explosion of breath.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, Nick, that was beautiful. You had me for a second.” He laughs. “But seriously, you’re sucking all the air out of my punch line. Can you guess whose prints they were?”
I hold the phone away again and steady my breathing, steady my voice. “No, Dorsey, I can’t guess.”
“Then I’ll tell you. Did you ever hear of a guy named Maxy?”
CHAPTER 46
TMU is out sick, and Tina is in court. So much for those plans of surrender.
I stash the box of Kenny’s stuff in Flora’s garage, and I’m about to send Mrs. Illman’s shoes flying out the car window into the Aponak River, but I change my mind. What if I’ve been conned? Maybe she isn’t just the abused spouse of a sociopath but a sociopath in her own right.
I call Kendall Vance. “Can I meet with Agent d’Villafranca at your office?” I ask. “I’m tired. I need to turn myself in.”
“You know, Nick, you might be taking this idea of being a suspect a bit too far.”
“No, you were right about it, Kendall, I’m sure.”
“. . . because I’d suggested it merely as a possibility. I didn’t mean—”
“All I know is that Chip has been calling and calling, and I’ve been dodging and dodging, and then he was on his way over to my office. He never comes to my office. And now, in his latest message, he’s saying it’s urgent.”
“Nick, calm down.”
“And everybody knew I hated Scud. It was all I talked about. When Scud called me that time, I said I’d kill him if he ever mentioned Lizzy again. I’ve told everybody about it. I wrote it in my report of the incident—that I threatened him. And I’ve told everybody how I wanted to murder Dr. Wallis . . .”
“Murder who? You haven’t told me—”
“Never mind. Thing is, of course I’m a suspect. Think about it. I thought he’d murdered two people I cared about, Zander and Cassandra, then I have this long conversation with him on the phone, he threatens my daughter, and that’s the last known contact anybody ever has with him before he turns up dead in the river. I have motive. And I could have had opportunity: Who’s to say I didn’t arrange a meeting when we were on the phone that very night? And I’ve proved myself unstable, haven’t I? Haven’t I, Kendall? I’ve admitted to wanting to kill Doc Wallis, I’ve admitted to threatening to kill Scud . . .”
“Okay, calm down, Nick. Take a few deep breaths.”
“Oh Jesus, Kendall, I’ve really screwed myself.”
“Let me see what I can find out. Let me make some calls. Don’t do anything yet. Can you calm down? Take a moment, I’ll stay on the phone.”
I do as he says. I even pull into the breakdown lane and stop and close my eyes, taking some steadying breaths.
“Still there?” Kendall asks after a minute.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I guess I started to panic.”
“Okay, I’m going to see what I can find out. Don’t do anything before you hear back from me. Promise?”
“Okay. Promise.”
We hang up. I pull back on the highway. He’s a good guy, Kendall, and I feel lucky to have him. Just a few weeks ago I thought he was a Neanderthal, but now I get the feeling his concern for me goes beyond his professional obligation. I want to spend more time around him. He makes me feel safe. So I call him right back to say that if I’m not in prison, why don’t he and Kaylee drive up to join Lizzy and me for an afternoon at the lake Saturday. Kendall says they might like that.
As soon as I end the call with Kendall, Chip calls. I deliberate whether to answer. I just promised Kendall I wouldn’t do anything. But when I see Chip’s name on caller ID, that little island of calm is blown. I start trembling. There is a rest area a few miles ahead. I’ll pull over there and breathe some breaths of the cool fall air. I’ll smell that sweet humus-y scent of how life is supposed to be. Free is how it’s supposed to be; follow rules, do your best, think good thoughts, and shouldn’t that be enough to steer you clear of all the Dr. Wallises and Scud Illmans and this bad dream of getting set up for a murder rap by the diabolical likes of Upton Cruthers?
Ah, but I remember the new evidence. Maxy’s prints found in Scud’s car. Maybe it wasn’t Upton.
In the rearview, I see a trooper barreling up behind, lights flashing. I pull over to let him pass. He pulls in behind me. I flash my blues and reds to let him know I’m someone. He responds with a burp of his siren and stays on my bumper. Damned if I’ll pull over before the rest area, but as a show of compliance, I put my blinker on. Then I continue three more miles to the rest area with Johnny Law burping the siren every few seconds.
At the rest area, I get out of the Volvo (cops hate it when you do that) and walk over onto the grass. My legs are trembling. My voice sounds like it’s coming through a long hollow cylinder. “Doesn’t it smell good?” I say to the cop, who has already maneuvered himself in front of me. “Autumn leaves. Don’t you love them, Officer? Think of all the things you’d miss in jail. Ever thought of that?”
“Assistant U.S. Attorney Davis?”
“The very same.”
“Do you know we’ve got an APB on you?”
“Are you arresting me?”
“No, sir. I’m escorting you.”
“Escorting where?”
“FBI.”
“Why?”
“I wouldn’t know the answer to that, sir.”
“Can I refuse?”
“No, sir.”
“It sounds like an arrest to me.”
“No cuffs or anything. Protective custody. There’s a wrecker on its way to take your car.”
“Really sounds like an arrest.”
The officer opens the front passenger door of his car. “You can ride in front with me.”
“Okay,” I say. “That isn’t very arrest-like, is it?”
• • •
“Oh, thank God,” Chip says when I appear in the doorway of his office. He gets up from his desk and hugs me.
“What’s the deal, Chip? Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you sooner.”
Isler is in the office with Chip. “We’ve got an intercept,” he says. “It sounds serious, Nick. We think you’re a target.”
“Whose target?”
“Nobody’s sure. It was just by chance, see. We’re interested in this guy for some unrelated bullshit. We’ve been following him around, so this morning an agent followed him into a coffee shop and sets up at the next table, and the guy gets on his cell and starts blabbing, and our guy records the whole thing. And damned if your name doesn’t come up. We’re taking it seriously, Nick.”
Chip isn’t looking so good. The flesh under his eyes has gone back to a mustard color. It must be harder on him t
han I thought, investigating me.
“We only caught half the conversation. And we’re just into street level, so we only get the trickle-down, you know? We don’t have principals. . . .”
“Of course you do, Chip, you’re the most ethical guy I know.”
It’s gallows humor, but it fails. Upton would have gotten it; Tina, too; Lizzy for sure. But my friend Chip, new-age guy with analytical smarts, bovine wit, and rudimentary human insight, just says, “Thanks, Nick,” and he hands me the printout to read:
. . . cocksucker knows too much . . . we gotta assume Scud spilled everything, miserable pussy . . . wants to nip this one . . . keep the rest of the cats in the fucking bag . . . Uptown ain’t running it, and he never played ball anyway . . . they pulled him off . . . Davis is the one, Nick Davis . . . no leverage . . . can’t take the chance . . . yeah, but if it goes south . . . you and me, asshole . . . he does good work . . . saved your ass ten years . . . okay, but then he goes all Boy Scout . . . can’t listen to that shit . . . too hot for local . . . transponded him is all I had to do . . . keep the rest of the cats in the fucking bag . . . it’s all set up, the talent does the rest . . . (laughter) . . . blow his lawyer ass away . . . all the better. Your secrets will be safe, too, right? . . . (laughter) . . .
“Who is this?” I ask.
“He goes by Spawner. Real name is Milton Roe, or Milt, another nobody, but he—”
“From my perspective, Chip, he’s trying to kill me, which makes him a very definite somebody.”
Chip settles into his desk chair like a sack of grain, except grain doesn’t emit a long soul-weary sigh. “Dorsey’s people gave him to me. He’s got a rap sheet of petty shit, brought in for questioning a hundred times, but no big convictions. We never connected him to the Randall/Phippin matter. He seems to be connected to Percy Mashburn.”
“Mashburn? I thought Mashburn was small potatoes.”
“We all did. We were wrong. Mashburn franchises these little meth labs, but he’s somehow involved in the overall flow of goods.”
“Shit, Chip, you never told us.”
“Just now figuring it out.”
“My God, you know we just gave Mashburn a walk on meth charges for cooperating?”
“Oops.”
“What do you know about him?”
“Almost nothing. He’s got money. He lives in a big house in the hills with big south-facing windows.”
“So in this conversation,” I say, holding up the transcript, “who is Spawner talking to?”
“We don’t know.”
“What’s it all mean?”
“It sounds like they think Scud spilled his guts to you, so someone wants to kill you to nip any prosecution. But since you’re a federal agent, it’s a hot job, so they’ve got someone from out of town.”
“What’s it mean, ‘transpond him’?”
“Weird shit,” Isler says. “There have been some suspicious deaths around the country. Car plunged off a bridge someplace out west—”
“San Jose,” Chip says.
“No, someplace else. Terrible accident; whole family killed. Witnesses say the car was sideswiped by an SUV. Turns out the guy was a hot property.”
“A naughty businessman who’d agreed to cooperate,” Chip says.
“And a house fire,” Isler says. “Everyone killed. The strange thing is, the guy somebody might have wanted whacked, another hot property, was just an overnight guest. It was his sister’s place. He’d stopped in for the night on his way someplace else.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And a few others. Guys with troubles,” Isler says.
“Big guys,” Chip says.
“Big in terms of the trouble they’ve gotten themselves into. Risk takers, and one day they just kill themselves. Nobody thinks too much about it because, you know, they were under so much stress, until one of these deaths doesn’t sit right. So this city cop in . . . Where was it, Chip, Texas?”
“Right. Texas.”
“He smells a rat, so he has the guy’s car taken apart piece by piece.”
“Piece by piece.”
“And they find this transponder. It’s an electronic gizmo, sends out a blip. You enter it into your GPS, and you can see where the guy is, twenty-four/seven. Or where his car is, anyhow. Easy to make it look like an accident or a suicide when you can follow a guy’s every move,” Isler says.
“Take your time; wait your chance.”
“So after this Texas cop figures it out, cops all over the country start looking at the cars of guys who were big and died in accidents or fires or suicides, and damned if these transponders didn’t show up in a handful of cases.”
“Thing is,” Chip says, “every one they’ve found has been in a different part of the car. One was tossed under the backseat, one was welded inside the frame. And everything between.”
“Suggesting,” Isler says, “whoever is doing the hits has some local schmuck plant the thing ahead of time.”
Chip and Isler stop. Their narrative is spent, leaving me blinking in the newly constructed reality that someone not only wants me dead but is taking pains to get me there. Maybe if I’d been in a war, like Upton and Kendall and, yes, even Scud and Seth, the idea wouldn’t be so hard to swallow. Or if I’d been a real cop, like Chip and Dorsey, who’ve probably been in standoffs with bullets zinging. But I haven’t.
“When did you get this?” I ask, holding up the transcript.
“This morning.”
“So all this week, when you’ve been trying to reach me?”
“Other matters,” Chip says, moving his eyes uncomfortably toward Isler.
Oh yes, I forgot. Being a murder target temporarily drove from my mind that I am also a murder suspect. Everything is relative.
“Now what?” I ask.
“We’re moving your car to a remote location out of town. Hopefully, this guy will find it a promising place to make his move. Then we’ll take him.”
“Right now,” Isler says, “we’d rather you not go home or back to your office. If you need anything, we’ll send a guy in as a furnace repairman to get it.”
“What about this Spawner guy?”
“We’re looking for him, and when we find him again, we’ll bring him in for questioning. He ought to be a useful source. To put it, you know, understatedly.”
There is a knock on Chip’s door, and a scrawny red-haired man stands there holding a big file box. “Hi, Mr. Davis, I have personal items from your car. How you doing?”
“Fine, um . . .”
“Sparky.”
“Of course. Sparky. Sorry, I’ve got things on my mind.”
He puts down the box and leaves. Sparky the AV nerd. I suspected him as our snitch for a while.
Isler leaves. Chip looks sorrowful. I should be a good friend (especially since he seems to have saved my life) and make this easier for him. But I can’t. I don’t want to be arrested. I don’t want to be a suspect. I don’t want to go to prison. In my briefcase, I have a handwritten summary of all my evidence against Upton. I planned to deliver it to TMU, but with Chip about to bring the hammer down on me, I’ll give it to him. Maybe it will change his mind.
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Chip says. He looks miserable.
“I apologize. I’ve been evasive.”
“You figured out why?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry,” he says. “If there was anyone else . . .”
“But there is,” I say. I take the summary from my briefcase.
“Not really, Nick. You’re thinking of my men’s group, right? All nice guys. But.”
I stare at him.
“I know you held my hand all through the divorce,” he says. “Now this. Can’t really blame you.”
I’m wondering if he’s lost his mind. He was staring at his own fidgeting hands, but now he looks at me, and he sees that I don’t have any idea in hell what he’s talking about. “Sylvia,” he blurts.
I stare.
>
“The woman I’m seeing. Was seeing. She broke it off.” His voice cracks. “I’d even bought the ring.”
“Chip, Chip,” I say in my most soothing voice, “you should have called.”
But he did call—a dozen times, at least. Poor Chip. He never used to be this way. Or rather, he hid it deep inside his imposing six-two, 240 pounds of badass, gun-carrying, frown-wearing, Miranda-reading, family-neglecting, conservative-voting, football-watching federal-agent persona. We’ve been friends for a decade. I remember a briefing on Medicare fraud. Half a dozen agents and four attorneys in the Bureau’s conference room. When business was finished, everyone started talking about the most recent high school shooting in some distant state, where an apparently normal kid from a good home brought in a gun and opened fire. And this big bland agent I’d never met said, “Poor parents.” And we all started talking about the victims’ parents. And this agent says, “Yes, them, too. I meant the shooter’s parents.”
This guy was clearly outside the norm.
Several days after that, I saw him testifying in trial. When he was done, I caught up with him on his way out of the building. “Agent d’Villafranca,” I said. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee.” We hit it off, became friends. But now, poor guy, he sometimes seems lost. Did his divorce make him weird or the other way around?
“And I’m not even a suspect, am I?” I say quietly, thinking aloud.
But Chip hears me and scrunches his brow, and his composure surges back. “Nick,” he says in an angry voice, but he’s not angry, he’s just overcompensating for that moment of emotion, “what in the hell are you talking about? A suspect in what?”
CHAPTER 47
Across darkness, I hear the rhythm of Lizzy’s breathing. So many times I’ve lain here listening to her. When she was young, she’d sleep snuggled beside me. Now she’s across the room, but I still tend to wake up in the night whenever we’re at the cabin to hear her breathe—to experience the pleasure of lying here like this, inhaling the darkness and cautiously swapping workaday cares for this peacefulness. I assess things, and they usually balance out to the positive.