Harry Dolan

by Bad Things Happen

  A cloud drifted across the sun. Elizabeth watched the change in the color of the grass.

  “So you and Tom each got a letter,” she said to Hifflyn. “Valerie asked him for fifty thousand dollars. I assume she asked you for considerably more.”

  “She did.”

  “What was the deal? You were supposed to send the money to a mail drop in Chicago, and she would send you the manuscripts?”

  “She wanted me to buy them one at a time,” Hifflyn said. “A hundred thousand apiece. She thought I’d be more willing to go along that way. I wouldn’t have to send all the cash at once and then hope I’d get the manuscripts.”

  “Is that the way it worked? Did you decide to give her what she wanted?”

  Hifflyn skimmed the sole of one of his shoes over the grass. He nudged the withered roses, then bent to pick one up.

  “I know you think I did,” he said. “That’s the only way your theory makes sense.”

  “My theory?”

  He held the stem of the rose in two hands. “Your theory of the crime,” he said. “The murder of Tom Kristoll. Tom and I are being blackmailed, and I decide to pay. But Tom balks at paying fifty thousand. Or he develops a conscience and decides he has to go to the police and tell them everything. But I can’t let him do that, because if the truth comes out about Sean, my reputation will be ruined. So I go to Tom’s office and knock him out and push him through the window. Is that the story?”

  “That’s part of it,” Elizabeth allowed.

  “What’s the rest?”

  “Adrian Tully.”

  “Sure,” Hifflyn said. “Adrian knows about Sean’s death, and he’s a suspect in Tom’s murder. So I get him to drive out to the middle of nowhere one night, and I shoot him in the head. I make it seem like a suicide. Sean’s death remains a secret, and you assume that Adrian shot himself out of remorse. So you can stop looking for Tom’s killer.”

  He touched a petal of the rose and it broke free and drifted in the wind. “But I’m still not done,” he said. “David Loogan and Michael Beccanti won’t let things rest. Beccanti starts to poke around in Tom’s office. So one night I follow him to Loogan’s house and stab him. And now you’ve found me out, because Sean Wrentmore got a tattoo.”

  He plucked at another petal and it crumbled between his fingers.

  “Is that about right?” he said. “Is that your theory?”

  “More or less,” she said.

  “Shall I tell you what’s wrong with it?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He drew out a petal and set it loose on the wind. “I never responded to the blackmail letter.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “I never talked to Tom about it. We never argued.” Another petal took flight. “I never paid Valerie Calnero a dime. Put yourself in my place. One day I found out Sean was dead. A few days later I received the letter. I didn’t know it was from Valerie. It was signed with a pseudonym. But whoever wrote it knew that Sean was dead. I assumed it was from Adrian Tully.”

  “When did you realize it was from Valerie?”

  “I started to wonder earlier this week,” he said, “when she suddenly left town. I wasn’t sure until you confirmed it just now. But the letter had to be from Tom or Laura or Adrian—or from someone they confided in. Adrian seemed to be the likeliest candidate. And if the letter came from him, it was a bluff. He wasn’t going to carry out his threat. If he revealed that Sean wrote my Kendel books, people would go looking for Sean. Sooner or later they’d find out he was dead. Adrian couldn’t risk that, since he was the one who killed him.”

  He plucked the remaining petals all at once and tossed them away. “But even if the letter wasn’t a bluff, it wasn’t worth paying. The deal I made with Sean wasn’t illegal. It used to be a common practice: An author would originate a character, and others would come in and continue the series under the same byline. My agent knew about Sean. So did my publisher.

  “I’m not ashamed of my arrangement with Sean,” Hifflyn said. “I didn’t pay ransoms to keep it secret. I certainly didn’t kill anyone.” He dropped the stem of the rose on the ground. “If you really thought I was a killer, why would you meet with me out here alone?”

  “We’re not alone,” said Elizabeth. “You brought your lawyer.”

  “You didn’t know he’d be here.”

  She nodded toward Shan, who had walked to the cemetery fence. “My partner’s here too. He’s been keeping an eye on you.” She smoothed a strand of hair that the wind had pushed across her forehead. “But the reason I asked you to come here is simple,” she said. “I was hoping you’d confess.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  She looked thoughtfully at the gray stone that marked Tom Kristoll’s grave. “The story you’ve told isn’t bad,” she said to Hifflyn. “You never paid off Valerie Calnero. You might be able to stick with that and get away with it. It will be difficult to prove either way, unless we get a chance to talk to Valerie. You’re a resourceful man—I think you’re capable of paying off a blackmailer without leaving a paper trail.”

  She turned away from the stone and stepped closer to Hifflyn. “But you’re not invulnerable,” she said. “I think you regret what happened between you and Tom.”

  His brow furrowed. “Nothing happened between me and Tom.”

  “With the others—Tully, Beccanti—you did what the logic of the situation required,” she said softly. “You weren’t attached to them. But Tom was your friend. Never mind what happened twenty years ago—he stole Laura away from you. That was in the past. Or maybe not. Maybe that made it easier.

  “I’m sure you didn’t go to his office intending to kill him. You thought he’d be reasonable. Both of you would pay and Sean’s death would remain a secret. Then suddenly Tom tells you he wants to go to the police. I’m sure you tried to talk him out of it. But at some point it became clear he was serious. And then things happened fast. You hit him—it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Maybe you hit him harder than you meant to. Then he was on the floor. And there was the window. You did it without thinking, and you regretted it as soon as it was done. I think you’ve been obsessing about it ever since. You’ve been trying to figure out just how it went wrong, and whether there was something you could have said to him to change his mind.”

  “It sounds like I’ve been tormented,” said Hifflyn dryly.

  “And now you’ve got your lawyer. You’ll try to ride it out. You think there’s no possible advantage in confessing. Maybe you think it’s all or nothing: If you admit to killing Tom, you’ll be charged with killing the others—Tully and Beccanti. But that’s not true. No one’s going to make a case against you for killing Tully, not with the evidence as muddled as it is. Tully looks like a suicide. You could argue he killed himself because Laura Kristoll rejected him, or his mother didn’t love him, or the world never gave him a chance.”

  She softened her voice further. A tone for sharing confidences. “As for Beccanti, he got stabbed in David Loogan’s house, and Loogan disappeared the same night. Any public defender could get reasonable doubt out of that. Rex Chatterjee could do it with the sun in his eyes. So put Beccanti out of your mind, and Tully too. Focus on Tom. You were friends, you had an argument, it spun out of control. A situation like this, it’s what plea bargains were made for. There are people in the prosecutor’s office who’d be glad to work out a deal, just to have some resolution. They’d be willing to make allowances. You wouldn’t have to say what you and Tom argued about. You could leave Sean Wrentmore out of it. The books he wrote, the blackmail—none of that would have to come out.”

  Hifflyn frowned. “I told you, I don’t care if that comes out.”

  “Of course,” she said. “You’re not ashamed of your arrangement with Sean Wrentmore. It used to be a common practice. But these days you never know how readers are going to react, do you? They might decide they want their money back. If you really didn’t care, you’d put out a press
release, get out ahead of the story. But I think you’re still hoping to keep your secret. Maybe you still can.”

  He locked his eyes on hers. “If I confess to a crime I didn’t commit.”

  “No,” she said. “I would never advise an innocent man to confess.”

  “But you don’t believe I’m innocent.”

  She put on her best neutral expression and said nothing at all.

  They regarded each other, and if it was a contest of wills, she was the victor. He turned away first. He paced to the foot of Tom Kristoll’s grave, rubbing the hair at the nape of his neck.

  “Suppose I could offer you an alternative theory of the crime, and a new suspect?”

  This was something she hadn’t anticipated. “Who would that be?”

  He turned around to face her. “Sandy Vogel,” he said. “Don’t laugh. Hear me out. Suppose Tom’s murder had nothing to do with Sean. Suppose Sandy killed Tom, and Adrian, and Beccanti too. Suppose she had a motive for killing Beccanti—they had an affair, and he threw her over for a younger woman. She killed the others to disguise the fact that Beccanti was her real target.”

  Elizabeth looked past Hifflyn at a far-off willow, at the branches swaying with the wind.

  “Did you come up with that just now?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “It sounds like something Tom might have printed in Gray Streets.”

  “I think he did, more than once,” said Hifflyn. “It’s a variant of a standard scenario: covering up a murder by making it look like part of a random series.”

  “You don’t really think it’s plausible.”

  “It’s as plausible as the idea that I killed Tom because he wanted to tell the police about Sean. You’ve got as much hard evidence against Sandy Vogel as you have against me. None.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “You’ll have to do better than that, Mr. Hifflyn. You’re not going to help yourself by making up stories about Sandy Vogel.”

  “I didn’t make it up,” he said, lifting the sleeve of his jacket to look at his watch. “Listen, where does this leave us? Am I under arrest?”

  “No.”

  “In that case I need to go, much as I’d like to stay and convince you I didn’t kill Tom Kristoll.” He got out his keys. “My wife is back from her trip to Europe. She flew into New York last night, and she arrives in Detroit today. I need to pick her up.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I mention it in case you’ve decided I have to be followed. I don’t want to alarm you when I drive to the airport.”

  His tone was light, detached. His composure had returned to him—if it had ever really left.

  Elizabeth mimicked his detachment. “You’re not planning to flee the country then?”

  “I don’t think I’ll need to. And I’ve left my passport at home anyway.”

  He turned to walk back toward his car. She walked with him.

  “My wife is flying on Northwest,” he said casually. “Flight 1479, in case you’d care to check my story. I’d just as soon you didn’t follow me. But you’ll do as you like. I think your time might be better spent on other things.” He tossed his keys in the air and caught them. “You might look into that story about Sandy Vogel, for instance. I didn’t make it up. I heard it from David Loogan.”

  Chapter 35

  THE THREE CARS MADE A SLOW TRAIN ROLLING ALONG THE CEMETERY road: Rex Chatterjee in the lead, then Hifflyn, then Elizabeth and Shan. At the end of the road Chatterjee turned left, heading toward downtown. Hifflyn turned right.

  Shan followed him, tapping out a leisurely rhythm on the steering wheel. In the passenger seat, Elizabeth went over what Hifflyn had told her about Loogan’s visit to the Kristoll house earlier in the day.

  They got on the interstate with Hifflyn and drove east. Shan listened skeptically to the details of Loogan’s peculiar story about Sandy Vogel.

  “She and Beccanti were supposed to have had an affair?” Shan said.

  “According to Loogan,” said Elizabeth.

  “And he said he had proof—letters and e-mails from her office computer.”

  “Right.”

  “But Loogan didn’t show any letters,” Shan said. “If there really were letters, you’d think he would print out copies. To prove he was telling the truth.”

  “I don’t think there are any letters, Carter.”

  “No. So what’s Loogan up to?”

  “He’s trying to draw out Tom Kristoll’s killer,” Elizabeth said. “He goes to see Hifflyn and the others, thinking one of them could be the killer. He tells them a far-fetched story about Sandy Vogel. He doesn’t expect them to believe it.

  “But telling the story achieves a couple of purposes. In the first place, it reminds everyone that Loogan is still around. Michael Beccanti was stabbed for getting too curious about Tom Kristoll’s death, but Loogan’s still kicking. And the details of the story aren’t accidental. Loogan tells them he’s been on Sandy Vogel’s computer. That’s his way of reminding them he still has access to the Gray Streets office, he has a key. And Hifflyn remembered two other things Loogan said: He’s been staying someplace no one’s thought to look, and he intends to leave town tomorrow.”

  “He was putting the killer on notice,” Shan said.

  “Right. He was saying: If you want me, come get me at Gray Streets. And if you’re going to do it, do it tonight.”

  Shan’s fingers ceased their tapping on the wheel. “But it’s not going to work, is it? It would be foolish for the killer to show up there tonight. That’s just what Loogan wants.”

  “He’s counting on the killer to be overconfident. It doesn’t matter.” Elizabeth flipped open her cell phone and started to dial a number. “The killer may not show up. But I think Loogan will.”

  Two hours later, Elizabeth stood alone on the porch of Loogan’s rented house. Black stillness behind the windows. Both doors locked. His street was quiet.

  Twelve blocks away, Harvey Mitchum sat in a café across from the Gray Streets building. He had a clear view of the lobby doors. Kim Reyes was watching the service entrance in the back. Ron Wintergreen had gone up to Tom Kristoll’s office on the sixth floor. None of them had seen any sign of Loogan yet.

  Elizabeth and Shan had followed Casimir Hifflyn all the way to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. They had seen his wife, a slim woman with exotic, Mediterranean features, waiting with her bags in front of one of the terminals. They had watched him greet her, lifting her off her feet and spinning her around. Elizabeth thought about following the pair home. She considered sending a patrol car to watch Hifflyn’s house. But she wasn’t sure what good it would do. As Rex Chatterjee would have reminded her, Hifflyn had the right to go wherever he wanted.

  She returned with Shan to City Hall, where arrangements for the Gray Streets surveillance were under way. She told Owen McCaleb she would like to join in, and he said she would have her chance.

  “Harvey, Kim, and Ron will handle it for now,” he told her, “but I don’t intend to make them stay there all night. If Loogan doesn’t put in an appearance by one A.M., there’ll be a second shift. You’re on it.” He glanced at Shan. “You too. I suggest you go home and rest up.”

  But Elizabeth had gone to Loogan’s house instead. It had been an impulse. And now, standing on his porch in the mild night air, she began to doubt that he would show up at Gray Streets. She realized that part of her didn’t want him to. Didn’t want him to be caught in the trap she had helped set.

  She walked down his steps and got into her car and started the engine. She circled his block and aimed the car toward home, but when she got there she kept on driving. The house looked fine. Lights on in the kitchen. She dialed her own number and talked to Sarah. All was well. She told her daughter she would be home in a little while. She had errands.

  South and east, she cut across Ann Arbor to Carpenter Road. She passed the restaurant with the half-moon sign and found the turn that would take her to Sean Wrentmore’s condominium
. Ash trees flanked the entrance, their bark peeling. She coasted along, cleared a speed bump. A couple, well dressed, climbed into an SUV: sharp young professionals off to revel with other sharp young professionals on a Saturday night.

  Elizabeth rolled slowly through a long curve of parking lot and when she drew near to Wrentmore’s condo she saw a familiar car.

  David Loogan watched a figure approaching in his rearview mirror. He turned his head in time to see the passenger door opening.

  A soft voice said, “If you knew what you were doing, you would have disconnected the dome light. Now we’re bound to attract all kinds of attention.”

  “Hurry up then,” he said, “and shut the door.”

  The dome light went out. Laura Kristoll leaned toward him, her breath sweet in the semi-dark. She closed her eyes and he kissed her. He got his arms around her inside her open coat, ran his hands over her body, down her legs.

  “David,” she said, sounding injured. “You’re a romantic bastard, aren’t you? I don’t have a gun.”

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” he said, drawing back from her. “How did you find me?”

  “You wanted to be found. That line about staying somewhere no one’s thought to look yet. That was a clue. It had to be somewhere they should have thought to look, and there are only so many places that could be.”

  She gazed through the windshield pointedly. There, up a short slope, beyond some pine trees, they could see the sliding glass door at the back of Sean Wrentmore’s condo.

  “It’s been empty for the past month,” she said. “A perfect hiding place. Is it really where you’ve been staying?”

  “No.”

  “But you wanted them to think so,” she said. “Nate and Cass and Bridget. You wanted to lure one of them out here, and now you’re watching to see if anyone takes the bait. You don’t really think one of them killed Tom, do you?”