“Hello?” Dana jumped in impatiently.
“Hi, Dana,” he began. “It’s me … Matt.”
“Maaatt.” She drew out the name, letting it linger in the air for several moments after she said it. “I heard you were back in town.”
“Word travels fast.”
“The power of the Internet.”
Small talk and then a pregnant pause filled the distance between them.
“So, what can I do for you?” She was always to the point. “I assume this is not a social call.”
“I need your help, Dana.”
Again, that damn irritating pause.
“It’s about Mo.”
Matt knew that Dana liked Mo. After Matt had introduced the two of them, Mo had become one of her favorite people, and they kept in touch regularly by email. Matt also knew Dana would do whatever she could to help their mutual friend. She had already helped him professionally by introducing him to sources and contacts he had used for some of his investigations.
“What about Mo?” Dana asked.
“A few weeks ago, Mo was returning home from the Middle East. He was picked up in Jordan. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Neither the Jordanian government nor the U.S. Embassy will say what happened, but witnesses say he was picked up by government officials.”
Matt paused, and when Dana didn’t say anything, he continued. “No one has heard from Mo. No one knows where he is or what’s going on. His family is frantic.”
“I had no idea,” she replied softly with what sounded like genuine concern in her voice.
“How could this happen, Dana?” Matt asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Come on. You work for the government. What the hell’s going on?”
“Matt, calm down,” Dana said firmly. “I’m not responsible for this. I’m not the enemy. If you want my help, you need to understand that. Now, tell me what you know. And then I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay,” Matt said. He told her everything he had learned from the Al-Ahmed family. Dana asked several pointed questions, and he knew she was taking copious notes. It didn’t take much for her legal training to kick in.
“Okay. This is helpful. I’ll make a few phone calls,” Dana said and then paused. “Matt, you know I’ll do everything I can to help,” she said after a few seconds.
“I know.”
Matt looked at his watch and noticed that only ten minutes had passed since he started the call to Dana. It seemed like much longer.
“So … uh … Matt,” Dana began, interrupting the silence. “How long have you been back in town?”
“Just a couple of days.”
Another awkward pause. “How have you been?” Matt finally asked.
“I’ve been good. Busy but good. What with the war on terror and renewed focus on U.S. immigration policies, I’ve been keeping very busy. I can’t complain, though. For me, insecurity is job security.”
They both laughed weakly.
“I’m sure you’re reveling in these new challenges, Dana,” Matt finally said. “You’ve always been driven by more than just job security.”
There was another awkward pause, and Matt wasn’t sure he had it in him to keep this conversation going with more small talk. He suspected Dana felt the same way. They quickly ended the call rather than risk further engagement that might lead to topics they weren’t prepared to discuss.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWO DAYS LATER, Matt decided to go to New York City to check on his friend Stephen Cross. Afterwards, he planned to go to Baltimore to see Marie Sandberg. Matt still hadn’t had any luck reaching his old friend but he wasn’t worried. Stephen had been known to get wrapped up in a story and hibernate in his apartment until the story was done.
It was pouring rain, and his cab had barely come to a stop at Columbus and 78th when Matt leaned forward and pushed a few bills through the tiny opening in the Plexiglas separating passenger from driver. He jumped out of the backseat without waiting for change and raced up the stairs of the brownstone, even as the rain attempted to beat him back to the comfort of the car. He pressed the buzzer for Stephen’s apartment and huddled under the meager overhang of the building waiting to be buzzed in. There was no response, so he pressed again and held the button down for several seconds. Still nothing. He leaned out past the overhang and looked up into the rain, squinting in the general direction of the window for Stephen’s apartment then retreated back to the relative comfort of the stoop to give the buzzer one last try.
Matt was considering his options when the front door swung open and a man walked out with his dog on a leash. The man buried his face under the hood of his raincoat and started down the stairs without looking up. Matt caught the door as it started to close and walked into the vestibule of the building. He jogged up the four flights of stairs, still hopeful he might find Stephen buried in his laptop. An annoyed Stephen, irritated about being interrupted, would be a welcome reprieve from the interminable silence over the last several days.
Matt knocked on the door to his friend’s apartment. He tried again when he didn’t hear anything on the other side.
Matt looked up and down the hallway before he bent down in front of Stephen’s door and lifted up the doormat. Nothing but dirt. Glancing around again, Matt reached up to the top corner of the door frame. He ran his fingers across the top. Nothing but smudged fingertips.
He was still there, contemplating his next move when a woman walked out of the apartment next door to Stephen’s. Dressed in black pants and black sweater, she deftly juggled a coffee mug in one hand, her keys in the other and an umbrella wedged under one arm. She even had a large briefcase slung over one shoulder. She didn’t notice Matt standing there as she balanced her formidable load while simultaneously locking her door. She turned away from the door and finally looked up as she started to walk down the hall. Her eyes widened when she noticed Matt standing there.
“Sorry — I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said quickly. “I’m Matt Connelly. A friend of Stephen’s.” He pointed to Stephen’s door and then reflexively extended his hand before realizing that wasn’t going to work.
“Hi, I’m Jill, Stephen’s neighbor — obviously.” She nodded her head back in the direction of the apartment before acknowledging Matt with a smile and tip of her coffee mug.
“Sorry to bother you. I can see you’re on your way out.”
“Yeah. On my way to work.”
“Just real quickly before you go. Any idea if Stephen’s around?”
She paused as she considered the question. “I haven’t seen Stephen for a couple of weeks. I think he’s out of town.”
“On assignment somewhere?”
She put down her briefcase. “Well, at first I didn’t think so because he usually lets me know before he goes out of town for work. I water his plants,” she explained. “But I haven’t seen him for a few weeks, so I guess he could be.”
“Damn. I’m sorry to hear that,” Matt continued. “I’m in town from Miami and I had hoped to catch him while I was here.”
“You came all this way just to see Stephen?”
“Sort of. I’m on my way to visit a friend in Maryland so I thought I’d stop by. I’m catching a train at one o’clock.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” she said as she reached down for her briefcase.
“Hey, listen,” Matt began quickly, “you wouldn’t happen to have a spare key to Stephen’s apartment, would you?” She looked at him and didn’t respond. “You mentioned you water his plants.”
“Well, yeah, I do. We both travel a lot and gave each other copies, seeing as we don’t have a super for the building and all.”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but do you think maybe I could borrow it? I could hang out at Stephen’s place until I have to leave to catch my train.”
“I don’t know,” she replied slowly.
“I wouldn’t be there for very long,” Matt interrupted. “Just until I have to leave t
o catch my train.”
“Ummm. I guess so,” Jill said hesitantly.
“I’m sure Stephen wouldn’t mind,”
“Okay. Let me get you the key.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate this,” Matt said as she walked back toward her apartment.
“Here you go,” she said a moment later as she handed him the key. “Just make sure you leave it under my mat when you leave.”
“Great. Thanks. I really appreciate this.”
“Well, I have to run.” Jill said as she leaned down and picked up her briefcase. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Yeah, same here,” Matt said and then watched appreciatively as she deftly maneuvered down the stairs.
Matt turned to Stephen’s door, inserted the key and unlocked the deadbolt. He couldn’t help but knock and call Stephen’s name before slowly opening the door. He stepped hesitantly into the apartment and then stopped short.
“What the …”
The place was trashed. Not work-at-home, bachelor-living trashed but torn-apart trashed, likely by burglars looking for anything of value.
From the front door of Stephen’s apartment, Matt walked into a combination living/dining room, across from which were large windows looking out on to 78th Street. To the right, Matt could see a short hallway that led to the only bathroom and then a small bedroom. To the left was an even smaller kitchen.
In the corner of the living room sat a small desk from which Matt knew Stephen did most of his writing. The drawers of the desk had been pulled out and upended, leaving papers all over the surface of the desk and floor beneath it. On the opposite side of the room, Matt looked over at the large entertainment center in the center of the wall. The DVD player and stereo were gone. The large flat-screen television was still there but it was unplugged and pulled away from the wall. Perhaps the burglars had realized, after the fact, that they would look pretty silly walking down Central Park West carrying a flat-screen television. Or worse, they would get an honorable mention in the local paper’s “Stupid Criminals” column.
Concerned that Stephen might have been there when the burglary happened and might still be there, Matt walked down the hallway toward the bedroom. He peeked briefly into the bathroom and saw that the contents of the medicine cabinet and the cabinet beneath the sink were strewn about the floor. The shower curtain had been ripped off the rod and lay half in and half out of the bathtub. But there was no sign of Stephen.
He continued on to the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. Matt pushed the door the rest of the way open. The bed was in the center of the wall opposite the door. There was a nightstand on one side of the bed and a dresser on the other. Standing in the doorway, Matt could see that the books that had previously rested on the nightstand had been thrown on the floor. The dresser drawers had been emptied on the bed and then they too upended onto the floor. The contents of the closet were strewn about the room. Fortunately, there was no sign of Stephen.
Matt suddenly felt a breeze behind him. He turned back toward the hallway, just as a powerful blow caught him on the side of the face. His head whipped sideways, followed by his shoulders and then the rest of his body, sending him careening against the wall. He bounced off the wall, instinctively lunging back toward his attacker. Matt plowed forward and head-butted the taller man in the chest. He wrapped his arms around the man’s waist and, as his rubber soled shoes gained traction on the wood floor, pushed the man backward until they slammed against the wall in the hallway.
They both crashed to the floor. Matt was on top, but since he had never let go, his arms were pinned underneath his attacker. Matt scrambled to break free, to get up and get the hell out of there. Suddenly, a pain exploded in the back of Matt’s head. His arms and legs ceased responding to any commands he gave them. His head became heavy, and the room went black.
When Matt finally came to, he was still lying on the floor of Stephen’s living room. His right cheek felt slightly numb against the wood floor. Drool and blood had formed a puddle around his mouth. Without raising his head, he slowly reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his cell phone. He thumbed the phone awake and drew it close to his face. It took a few seconds for the screen to come into focus and for him to make out the time. He saw that just over an hour had passed since the cab had pulled in front of Stephen’s apartment.
He rose slowly, ignoring the screaming from his brain and rubbed the back of his head. There was no blood, but he knew he would have a good size lump the following morning. He staggered slowly into the living room and sat down on the edge of the coffee table, taking another close look around. A laptop bag sat open on the desk in the corner of the living room, but the laptop that would usually be found sitting in the center of the desk was gone. Clearly, Matt had interrupted a burglary in progress. But it was good that there was no sign of Stephen. Apparently, he hadn’t been here when the burglary went down. Matt had been the one unlucky enough to walk in on it. Which still left the question Where the hell was Stephen?
Matt looked around the room carefully, picking up pieces of paper from the floor, going into the desk drawers, searching everywhere for some clue, something that Stephen might have been working on that would show where he’d gone or what he was doing. He found nothing.
He looked down at his watch and squinted as the watch face came in to focus. He needed to leave soon if he wanted to catch that train to Maryland to see Marie Sandberg. Matt walked around the living room, surveying it one last time. He was debating whether to call the police and report a breaking and entering or, possibly, a missing person. But who had done the breaking and entering? Matt who coaxed a key out of a gullible neighbor to break into Stephen’s apartment or some cranked-out crack head looking for anything of value that could be used to score their next high? Surely the latter but from the police’s perspective, Matt was as guilty of trespassing as the burglars were of breaking and entering. Either way, it wouldn’t matter. Stephen’s place was still trashed, his valuables — to the extent he had any — were gone. Matt shrugged his shoulders in frustration.
He turned to Stephen’s desk and grabbed a pen from the open drawer. He picked up a sheet of paper from the floor and wrote a quick note to his old friend. “Stephen, sorry about the mess. Obviously, not my doing. Just happened by at the wrong time. Call me! Matt.” He threw the pen on to the desk and ran out the door to catch his train.
CHAPTER NINE
MATT WALKED UP the front path toward the white two-story house. A 50-foot oak tree extended its long limbs over the expansive front lawn. A toddler-sized double swing hung securely from one of the immense branches and swayed in the late afternoon breeze. Underneath the other side of the tree were two weather-worn Adirondack chairs that were currently catching leaves. The flowerbeds lining the walkway leading up to the front door were overgrown with brown stems and wayward weeds. The hunter green shutters framing the windows on the first and second floors could use a coat of paint. The flower boxes suspended below the windows on the first floor were empty.
A woman Matt assumed was Marie’s sister answered the door.
“Hi,” Matt said. “I’m Matt Connelly.”
“What do you want?” Her greeting sent a chill through the air.
She couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred pounds and stood only slightly more than five feet tall. Despite her size, she was a formidable looking woman with short silver hair, piercing eyes and a stern mouth.
“I’m a friend of the family. Marie asked me to come.”
The woman didn’t respond. She simply stood there seeming to consider turning Matt away.
“Tina?” Matt finally heard Marie call from somewhere inside the house. “I thought I heard …”
Matt saw Marie turn the corner and stand behind her sister. She looked directly at Matt and he saw the recognition register in her eyes.
“Matt,” Marie said smiling weakly. “It’s so good to see you. Please come in.”
When she saw the sentinel at
the door was blocking his way, Marie reached awkwardly past her sister and took Matt’s arm. The other woman glared at Matt as he squeezed past her and through the front door.
Marie led the way through the foyer and into the living room. As they walked, Matt looked over at Marie. She had aged considerably since he had last seen her. At forty, she was still attractive but her lips were drawn and serious. The lines around her mouth and eyes were new. Strange how they called them laugh lines, Matt thought. Marie looked like she hadn’t laughed in quite some time.
They settled into the living room and Matt expressed his condolences, all the while silently cursing himself for doing a piss poor job. They made small talk. Marie looked away frequently, sometimes toward the room next door and other times down at her lap. She alternated between twisting her fingers into knots and picking imaginary objects from her slacks. She asked him questions about his travels and time in the Middle East but didn’t appear to hear the responses. Watching Marie was pure torture for Matt, but he let her go on, letting her create the aura of normalcy she seemed to need.
Ultimately, though, Matt grew weary of talking about himself and impatient with the meaningless small talk. He reached forward and clasped Marie’s hands in his own, attempting to calm them. “Tell me what happened, Marie.”
She hesitated before nodding. And then she began speaking slowly and softly.
“Bob went up to my family’s summer home in the mountains. He was working on a project and wanted some time on his own to finish it. Since the boys were born, he’d done that a few times. He loved the boys and being with them,” she explained. “But as you can imagine, it was impossible to get any work done here. I didn’t think much of it when he told me he was going.”
She paused and looked down at her lap again before continuing. “Bob had been gone only a couple of days when the police called.”
The memory was apparently still new, the wound raw. Matt watched helplessly as the thin veneer of composure she struggled so hard to maintain began to crack. She started to cry softly. Matt applied a slight and hopefully reassuring pressure to her hands and shoulder. He waited patiently for her to continue.
Operation Mockingbird Page 6