Reading us the riot act seemed to mean that he wasn’t going to hassle us any more about disturbing the scene of an investigation—which he would have had every right to do. That was good.
I glanced at Garth and was alarmed to see that he was leaning against the mantel in almost exactly the same pose he had assumed while I’d questioned Craig Valley. He seemed very relaxed, almost bored, as he stared out the window behind the desk. In my brother, such exaggerated calmness was a warning sign. That was bad.
“You’ve certainly made yourself clear, Lieutenant,” I said brightly. “We were way out of line. My brother has already apologized for the two of us; I apologize again.”
McCloskey grunted. “What the hell did you say you were looking for?”
“Dirt,” I replied even more brightly.
Lieutenant Malachy McCloskey studied me, a thoroughly puzzled expression on his face. “What?”
“We’re looking for the dump site of a load of one hundred tons of dirt, Lieutenant,” I replied. Now that I seemed to have his undivided attention, I let my smile fade. “Valley knew where the dirt had been dumped, and that’s what Garth and I were questioning him about when he killed himself.”
“You’re telling me that a man killed himself rather than tell you where to find a load of dirt?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
McCloskey glanced at Garth, but my brother continued to stare casually out the window; when the policeman looked back at me, he seemed even more puzzled. I couldn’t blame him.
“Why would he do that, Frederickson?”
“I don’t know, but I have a strong feeling that the police should take steps to find out. Garth and I really don’t care. It isn’t the dirt itself that interests us, and Valley knew that.”
“Just what does interest you?”
“Why don’t you sit down, Lieutenant, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
He did, and I did.
5.
Credit Detective Lieutenant Malachy McCloskey: the gray-haired, scar-faced man might be decidedly sour, insecure, resentful, and even downright bone-headed, but his heart was still alive and in the right place. When I had finished explaining what we were up to and why we were in such a hurry, how Craig Valley had almost certainly been connected to the sample of Amazon rain forest soil found in a letter sent to Santa Claus by a sexually abused child, the man’s craggy, pitted face was ashen, his black eyes misty with tears. He had children of his own—seven of them, as well as two grandchildren who were probably around the same age as Vicky Brown.
“Jesus Christ,” McCloskey said in a husky voice. “Forget what I said before, about you two messing up the scene and all that; if I’d been in your place, and it had taken the cops forty minutes to get here, I’d probably have torn the whole house apart.”
“There’s nothing here,” I said. “We went through all the paper we could find, but if he wanted to keep the dirt—or anything else—a secret, I doubt he’d have written anything down. Besides, he was just an errand boy.”
McCloskey shook his head angrily. “That fucking Kenecky …”
Garth turned to us, shrugged. “What difference does it make whether it’s Kenecky or somebody else raping the girl? Whoever it is should have his prick stretched and permanently stapled to his asshole.”
“I think it does make a difference,” I said, glancing back and forth between Garth and McCloskey, who still looked haunted. “If Kenecky’s the abuser, it could mean that Valley’s religious and racial nuttiness were more than curious personal traits he shared only with the good reverend; the apocalyptic theology and neo-Nazi shticks could be common threads in the whole operation Kenecky and Valley were a part of. For all we know, Henry Blaisdel himself could be a religious fruitcake, and these biospheres he wants to build could have, at least in his mind, religious overtones. If Kenecky is our man, it means for sure that the powers that be are willing to harbor a fugitive—and those powers are probably scuzzball neo-Nazis with a religious bent, which makes them dangerous. Now maybe we can get the F.B.I. involved. At the very least, Lieutenant, the NYPD might now be persuaded to put a little more than just their good wishes into this case.”
McCloskey’s black eyes, dry now and once more glinting with more than a hint of paranoia, darted over my face. “Is that supposed to be some kind of criticism, Frederickson?”
“It is not, Lieutenant; the police have been more than helpful—without them, the dirt we found wouldn’t have told us anything, and that’s the only clue we had to begin with. But now there’s more than just a letter to Santa Claus from a sexually abused child; there’s a corpse, and a possible tie-in to a federal fugitive. It should warrant a case file.”
“I’ll talk about it to my superiors, Frederickson,” McCloskey said. Suddenly he seemed nervous.
“Are you going to talk to the people at Nuvironment?” I asked.
“About what?”
“About the dirt; we find the dirt and we find the girl. All Garth and I care about is determining the whereabouts of Vicky Brown and notifying the proper authorities if it turns out that she’s being sexually abused—which she is.”
“You expect me to walk into the offices of one of Henry Blaisdel’s corporations and accuse the people there of complicity in the sexual abuse of a child?”
Garth grunted loudly, pushed off the marble mantelpiece, and walked to the opposite end of the room, where he leaned against the archway leading into the outer vestibule. McCloskey’s bright eyes, once more hostile and resentful—and, perhaps, slightly fearful—followed him.
“All you have to do is ask some questions, Lieutenant; with what’s happened here, and with the background information we’ve given you, you have the right. You find out where they dumped the dirt, and Garth and I will take care of the social work.”
I watched McCloskey think about it; the more he thought about it, the further I could see him slipping away. I realized that he was a man not only worried about his past, but also about his present and—most important—his future. There was a small war being waged inside him, and I could see the casualty figures moving across his face.
“All you’ve really got is a letter from a kid,” he said at last in a low voice as he lowered his gaze and stared at the carpet. “And what’s in there could be the product of the girl’s imagination.”
“Want to read the letter, McCloskey?” Garth asked in a mild tone. I hadn’t been sure he’d been listening.
“It doesn’t make any difference. It’s still just a letter, and there’s no proof whatsoever that Nuvironment is involved in anything illegal. I think the captain would want me to have more than a suicide, a kid’s letter to Santa Claus, and your word for the way things are before I go and risk stepping on Henry Blaisdel’s toes. He pulls a hell of a lot of weight in this country, and particularly in this city, in case you didn’t know.”
I said, “Why don’t you call your captain now, Lieutenant? Tell him what’s happened here, and what we’ve told you. See if he’ll okay your going to talk to the people at Nuvironment. Since Garth is the one who tracked down Valley’s last telephone call, we’ll tag along just to serve as material witnesses, as it were. Get them to tell you where they dumped the dirt, and we’re gone.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job, Frederickson.”
“I understand that. But no decent people would refuse to cooperate in an investigation that could involve the physical and emotional well-being of a child. But some people just don’t like to talk to private detectives—and these people definitely won’t talk to Garth and me if we’re right about them having something to hide. Your presence in your official capacity could, let us say, help them to focus their attention on the seriousness of the matter. If we hurry, we can still get over there for a chat before they close the office for the day.”
“It could get tricky, Frederickson,” McCloskey said in a very low voice. “It’s not something I’m going to rush into.”
“For Chri
st’s sake, Lieutenant—!”
“Now you listen to me, Frederickson!” the other man snapped as he abruptly raised his head and glared at me, pointing a thick index finger at my chest. “That big, stony-faced, self-righteous brother of yours standing across the room dumped on me pretty good a few years back. I was wrong, sure; inexperienced. Maybe I got what I deserved, maybe I didn’t, but the fact of the matter is that I’ve had to walk a pretty tight line ever since then. I’m still walking a tight line, and I’m going to be doing it right up until midnight of December thirty-first; that’s less than a week and a half away, and that’s when I retire. Now you guys got real lucky, and now you’ve got it all; you’re rich, and you’re famous. Now, I’m not saying I could have done as well as you or the mighty Garth Frederickson over there, since he teamed up with you—but it didn’t help that I had and have a stain on my record that Garth Frederickson put there. For sure, I’m telling you that I’m not about to jeopardize my pension, or a cushy job as head of security that I may have lined up, rushing into muddy waters that the famous Fredericksons have been stirring up. The difference is that you can afford to offend powerful people, or make mistakes; I can’t. I’m going to go by the book, on this and every other matter that comes up in the next few days. If you don’t like it, that’s tough shit. Are you reading me, Frederickson?”
“It sounds to me like you’ve already retired, Lieutenant,” I said, knowing I would probably regret the words, and not caring.
“Fuck you and your smart-assed insults, Frederickson! I’m not personally responsible for that kid; if I felt I was personally responsible in every case like the thing you’re working on, I’d have gone crazy years ago. I said I’d talk to my superiors, and I will!”
I was trying to come up with an even better insult when Garth, uncharacteristically, ended up acting as mediator. “McCloskey,” he said, speaking to the vestibule, “are Mongo and I free to go?”
“I need a statement signed by the two of you.”
“Sure,” I said. “Uh, do we have to come with you to the station right now? There’s something else Garth and I would like to do this afternoon, and we’re a bit pressed for time.”
McCloskey wouldn’t look at me. “I guess tomorrow morning is all right,” he mumbled. “First thing.”
“First thing.”
It seemed we were excused. Garth and I went out onto the street, hurried to the corner to hail a cab.
“I could have used a little assistance back there, brother,” I said. “Having a police detective along with us could make things a whole lot easier where we’re going.”
Garth shook his head. “I knew you were wasting your time. McCloskey’s as dead as Valley, and there’s no sense in trying to get help from a corpse.”
The Blaisdel Building on Fifth Avenue was an imposing edifice indeed, a great tower of pink marble, steel, and smoked glass with an archway entrance three stories high at its apogee. The first few floors were filled with chic boutiques where you’d pay at least two hundred dollars more for any item than you would anyplace else. According to reports in various publications, the top three floors comprised Henry Blaisdel’s penthouse—“a fantastic adventure in interior design incorporating all that is best in the world,” as Architectural Digest had put it. But the writer had confessed that her description was speculative, since she hadn’t been allowed up there; nobody—excepting, I assumed, family members, servants, and top executives—was allowed up in the penthouse. Blaisdel himself hadn’t been seen in public for more than a decade; what he needed was brought to him, and when his presence was required somewhere else he went by helicopter, parked by a very special permit atop his building, to his private jet to … wherever. By contrast, Howard Hughes had been a party animal.
We entered the cavernous lobby, looked around until we found a directory on the wall to our right. Nuvironment was listed simply as a single word with the indication that its offices occupied all of the ninth floor, just above the tree-filled atrium and shops. The shopping floors had their own elevator system, and when we went to the bank of elevators serving the rest of the building we found no buttons for the penthouse or the ninth floor. Nuvironment was obviously not a company that encouraged drop-in business. Or drop-in anything, for that matter.
“You want to look for some stairs?” Garth asked tersely.
“No,” I said, glancing at my watch. No New York City cabdriver had been willing to pick up an odd couple like Garth and me with our bloodstained clothes, and we’d ended up having to jog back to our brownstone to change. It was now 4:45. I had no idea what time Nuvironment closed up shop, but I wanted to get there before it did. While it was true that tomorrow was another day, it was also true that every hour that went by was another hour of potential pain and degradation for Vicky Brown, who could be somewhere close by, perhaps only a short cab ride away. “It looks like we’re going to have to make an appointment after all.”
“They’re not going to agree to talk to us now, Mongo—if they agree to talk to us at all. A phone call will just put them on their guard.”
“What choice do we have? Stairs aren’t going to get us in there; if they don’t have an elevator stop, the door on the fire stairs will most certainly be locked from the inside. Obviously, they have their own private way of getting in and out.” I searched in my pockets until I found a quarter, started walking toward a bank of pay phones near the entrance, stopped when I realized that I was suddenly alone. I turned, saw that my brother was walking rapidly in the opposite direction, toward an archway that led to the boutiques on the first floor. “Garth?!”
“I’ll see you later, Mongo!” he called over his shoulder.
“Hey! Don’t you want to hear what these people have to say, even if it’s only over the phone?!”
Garth hesitated, then abruptly stopped, turned around, and walked back to me. His face was pale, and his mouth was set in a grim line. “You talk to them,” he said curtly. “You’re a better talker than I am. I’m telling you right now that they aren’t going to help you.”
“How do you know?”
Garth put a finger to the side of his nose. “This tells me. There’s evil here; I can smell it.”
“You’ve got a nose for evil? For Christ’s sake, Garth, that’s all I need to hear—more wacko talk. Maybe we’ll luck out. Maybe they’ll be as anxious as we are to investigate a matter of child abuse—especially since it’s their company’s good name that could conceivably be damaged.”
“That’s precisely why they’re not going to cooperate with you, Mongo; that, and because they have other things to hide. If they do talk to you over the phone, or even if they let you go up, they’re just going to jerk you around. You’re wasting your time.”
“Garth, will you tell me what other choice we have?!”
“You go ahead and waste your time, Mongo. I’ll see you back at the house.”
Feeling slightly resentful, I shook my head as I watched Garth walk away. I pushed my way through a stream of people heading for the exit, made my way to the pay phones, went into a booth designed for wheelchair users. There was no phone directory, but Information had a number for Nuvironment. I dialed it.
A woman with a pleasant voice answered—the same one I’d heard Garth speaking with over Valley’s cordless telephone. “Nuvironment. Happy holidays. How may I help you?”
“You people are kind of hard to get to.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“My name is Dr. Robert Frederickson, and I’m in a big hurry to talk to somebody with authority up there. Can you tell me what elevator to take to get up to you?”
“We’re not open to the public, Dr. Frederickson. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not the public. I have urgent business to discuss with your boss, and it has to be right now.”
“Oh?”
“How do I get up there, lady?”
“But sir,” the woman said in a voice that had become decidedly less cordial, “if you have a scheduled appoin
tment, then surely you were told—”
“I don’t have an appointment. I want one.”
“With whom, Dr. Frederickson?”
“Henry Blaisdel.”
There was a prolonged silence, then a decidedly frosty: “Is this some kind of joke, sir? I really don’t have time—”
“This is decidedly not a joke, ma’am,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. I was rapidly losing confidence in my ability to get past this keeper of the gate, and I could feel anger building. “It’s a matter of great importance; Mr. Blaisdel will agree, I assure you. I need to see him now. I’ll only take a few minutes of his time, but it will be the best few minutes he’s ever spent. Don’t tell me he’s not in, because he almost never goes out.”
“Sir, if this is not a joke, then you’re seriously misinformed.”
“Misinformed about what?”
“Mr. Blaisdel never sees anyone.”
“He’ll see me when he finds out what business I have with him.”
“And what business might that be, sir?”
“I want to see Mr. Blaisdel about a very serious public relations problem he could have,” I said carefully. I hadn’t wanted to get into a heavy conversation over the phone, especially not with a receptionist, but it seemed clear I had no choice if I wanted to get into Nuvironment to see someone, anyone. “This problem involves one of Mr. Blaisdel’s favorite holdings—your company, and the biospheres you’re attempting to design and build. This is serious, lady, so I hope you’re listening very carefully. Somebody up there—I’m sure without Mr. Blaisdel’s knowledge, and certainly without his authorization—illegally imported a hundred tons of some very special soil. I also have very good reason to believe that Nuvironment’s reputation is being endangered by its involvement with loony members of the religious far right. In short, there are a lot of things going on down here at street level that the man who lives on the top three floors should know about and take steps to stop if he doesn’t want to see your company’s name roughed up in the newspapers. I’m not a blackmailer, and my only interest in all this is getting certain information from you people that will help me find a young girl who’s being badly sexually abused. I want to talk to Mr. Blaisdel now, because I want the girl safe tonight. Now, have you got all that, lady, or do you want me to repeat it?”
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