Marilena smiled at Jason and said, “Jason, you had better make it bilateral. I can’t have this sophisticated legal scoundrel fleecing me in some moment of female weakness!” They both laughed out loud. I was lost.
“Bilateral?”
MANHATTAN WORRIES,
MANHATTAN BOUND
We were back in row two of the Beemer with Gus once again in the pilot’s seat, threading our way home through the Boston rush hour. I noticed that Marilena was more relaxed and had been sitting closer to me today than she had yesterday. She had also abandoned the sideways seating position that had allowed her to look directly at me when we talked. Instead, she had slid over in my direction and leaned against me when it suited her. Intimacy had replaced scrutiny.
Even though our personal relationship had moved to a new level, her attention to our case had not slipped away. “Thomas, I have called April twice without success. She hasn’t returned my calls. I’m becoming concerned.”
“She’s a young girl and she’s a student and she has a very strange job. Who knows what hours she’s keeping or how often she checks her messages?”
“I will keep trying. I will feel better when I have spoken with her.”
“You don’t think she’s in any danger, do you?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.” She looked pensive, too serious. She didn’t like being unsure of anything.
I had a different issue on my mind. I said, “Not meaning to change the subject, but I will anyway. Who’s your favorite on our reduced list of five suspects? Canfield, Sayyaf, Wilson, Treece or Standish?”
“I will let you know my favorite when we eliminate four more of them,” her answer a foretelling of the future. I know that she is one hundred percent European, but as a detective, she had an inscrutable side. A female Charlie Chan.
*
The trip home via Boston’s wide avenues and back streets was thankfully uneventful. No maniacal drivers attempted vehicular manslaughter — no crazed women lost their heads. I was happy to contain today’s surprises to small business issues and palimony agreements, whatever they were. Even though today’s curious events were lower on the excitement scale, they were more numerous and kept coming.
We went upstairs, and, on the way to my room, were intercepted by Maryanne, coming down the hall.
“We finished with your laundry and dry cleaning,” she said to Marilena. No surprise there. She continued, “I moved all of your clothes into Tom’s room. He had an extra closet that was almost empty. Let me know if you need anything else.” Big surprise there.
As my mouth was probably hanging open, Marilena had to respond for both of us, “Thank you so much, Maryanne. That was very thoughtful and makes everything more convenient. Did Gus talk to you about dinner?”
“Yes. We are both looking forward to it!” Maryanne said.
Huh?
I decided that the best course was the course of least resistance. I followed Marilena’s lead and began changing into more casual clothes. Whatever was going on, she was calling the shots.
We went down to the first floor where I discovered the dining room table set for five. Marilena disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me alone to look at the newspaper I found in the hallway.
In short order, food started to emerge through the swinging door separating the kitchen from the dining room. Marilena and Maryanne, with Gus bringing up the rear, carried platters and serving dishes to the table. The ladies were chatting between themselves like old friends. Gus looked as befuddled as I was but seemed to be taking orders without complaint.
“Thomas, I thought that you should have some time with Maryanne and Gus before we leave. I asked them to have dinner with us.”
“Good idea. Whose the fifth?” I asked, nodding at the table set for five.
Gus answered, “Katie Rice from Jason Inch’s office. You’ve met her. She keeps the papers flowing and pays the bills. Maryanne and I talk to her all the time. While you were meeting with Jason, Marilena asked me who had that job figuring it was someone from Jason’s office. I told her, and she went and found her and invited her to dinner.”
Right on time, the doorbell rang, and Gus went to let Katie in.
“Hi everyone! Hi Marilena! Hi Colonel Briggs! She was a petite young lady with long brown hair. Her face was partially hidden by an impressively large pair of glasses with dark plastic frames. From the thickness of the lenses, I could tell that without them, I would be reduced to a bug on a far wall.
“Hello, Katie. Your timing is perfect,” Marilena said, as we all returned Katie’s greetings and moved to the table.
I was steered to the head of the table by Marilena to Dad’s and then Ron’s old seat — an unwelcomed procession. Marilena sat on my right with Maryanne next to her. Katie sat next to me on my left with Gus next to her further down the table.
The food was, as always, excellent. I told myself to enjoy it while I could. There were certain to be more military commissaries and cafeterias in my future. Marilena gently directed the conversation and kept it centered on my three, full-time family helpers, making them feel comfortable as they got to know her, and in Katie’s case, got to know me a little better. At some point she even convinced Katie to stop calling me Colonel. Gus regaled us all with more stories about my growing up, and, as promised, had brought a photo album. He had marked several pages that I had assumed would contain embarrassing pictures of me as an awkward kid. I turned out to be wrong. I was in all of the shots, and they were ones of Ron and me growing up. They brought back some good memories. He even had some I had never seen of us with our parents before they died and some later ones of the two brothers growing into young men interacting with Gus while he stepped in as surrogate dad. As he described the photos, there was pride in his voice replacing the normal gruff persona.
Somewhere during the main course, we got around to talking about how the household responsibilities were divided up and how they had kept Ron informed of issues that needed his input. Fortunately, there were not many of those. However, this now had to shift to me and was going to be more of a challenge.
“Most of the time, I am easy to find by either cell or email,” I said. “Also, I plan to come here more often. But sometimes, the military sends me places where I can’t be reached for days or even weeks. That could be a problem.”
Gus jumped in with a suggestion that I would have made if I had had the opportunity to discuss it with Marilena beforehand and in private. Apparently, he didn’t feel constrained in any way and didn’t need to check with her prior to asking, “Well, when the Marines have you off beyond civilization somewhere, can we call Marilena? I’ll bet you can’t hide from her! B’YOOTIFUL!”
She smiled. Her liaison duties had just expanded.
*
The next morning we found ourselves back on the Acela Express, this time headed to New York. The evening before had ended well with everyone pleased about the fact that operationally nothing had changed. People don’t like change. A different Briggs was in charge, but like his predecessor, he had the common sense to empower those who looked after him. The only real piece of business to take place was that Katie reminded me that she had check signing authority for up to $5,000. Jason could add his signature and take it up to $50,000. I had wondered how my American Express bill got paid? Beyond that, they had to find me and get an original scribble. She wanted to know if I was OK with the way it was set up, or did I want to change anything? I instructed her to keep it the way it was and said that we would quickly get as comfortable working together as she and Ron had been. She also left me with a copy of the previous month’s ledger of money in and out as she had always done for Ron. She promised to email it to me each month along with the family financial statements that someone else in the firm created and for me to call if I had questions. Marilena remembered to thank everyone for everything each one did to keep me out of trouble.
The morning routine was significantly changed in that for the first time, we shared a bath
room. This was more unsettling to me than sharing a bed for purposes of sleep. My procedure for getting ready is executed with military precision, and I move quickly. It takes me twenty-one minutes to shower, shave, and do everything necessary to take on the world. This changes, however, when you have to work around a female attempting the same. We didn’t set any records; we occasionally collided. She laughed at my attempts to stay out of her way. The house has countless bathrooms, but before I could suggest that one of us take advantage of that, she informed me that sharing a bathroom was an important part of growing together. I had plans to expand her definition of sharing as both of us using the same bathroom, just not at the same time. Girl preparations can be scary.
*
“Thomas?”
“Yes.”
We were on the train. She was sitting in the window seat next to me and reading some papers that she had printed before we left the house. Like the last trip, we were in a mostly empty passenger car. She did not look up when she said, “I want you to know that I am aware of how difficult the changes that you are going through have been for you. And, that I think you are doing extremely well for a regimented male not having the benefit of a woman’s sensitivity and perspective.”
“Thanks — I think. Somehow I’ll get used to being the responsible member of the Briggs household even though I only have one ‘X’ chromosome to guide me.”
The smile disappeared and she turned serious. “It’s more than that — you will learn your new administrative tasks without difficulty,” she replied, this time looking at me. “You are, however, dealing with several personal and highly emotional issues all at the same time. Besides losing the most important person in the world to you, you are taking on new responsibilities while undertaking a murder investigation. That’s a lot, especially for someone like you.”
“How’s that?” I asked, still a little confused about how she was segregating my new responsibilities.
“Thomas, I’m not being insulting. In your professional life, you are highly trained in several challenging areas. You are a surgeon who lives in a dangerous and exciting world full of the military’s best people routinely doing things that would terrify the average man. You know this, and it makes you confident about everything around you. You give orders, you take charge, you expect a positive outcome, you don’t expect failure — you will not allow it. Discovering that you, a Marine Corps officer no less, who takes direct and decisive action about everything has had some lesser person take away his brother and then discover that you were unprepared to investigate a murder had to be unsettling, upsetting, and frustrating. Add to that, the two of us working together while resolving our personal issues, and you have been on a wild ride, Darling. The responsibilities that I referred to earlier are not the family business issues. You will learn how to interact with the lawyers and the bankers without problems. You will even go to board meetings and make the other children nervous. The bigger issues for you will be those dealing with your employees and their lives, because who you really are is someone who takes charge, forcing a favorable situation for those that you are responsible for. I want you to know that what is happening to us is not an additional responsibility for you alone to bear. We have a responsibility to each other, and I plan to give more than I take. For me, discovering your personal financial situation added some difficulty. I want you irrespective of your financial resources. I would have been perfectly pleased sharing my life with a lieutenant colonel. That is why I asked Jason for this.”
She signed the agreement that, unknown to me, Jason had immediately prepared. She folded it carefully and put it into an envelope previously addressed to Jason’s office. He had even pre-metered the envelope with postage. Had he been here, he would have made seventeen copies and mailed them all to different, secure locations.
MISSING MONTHS
Ricardo met us outside of Penn Station at 2 PM. We had been gone only two days, but so much had happened that it seemed like longer.
“Colonel Briggs! Beautiful Signora! My heart was glad when I learned that you return so quickly! Colonel Briggs, your Mr. Gus is a good man I think, but I think he a little crazy. He call me and we meet first time on the phone. He said he would come to New York soon and show me around. Show me? But I live here, I tell him. He say that don’t matter. He show me around! I don’t understand? He say I am beautiful. He say it twice and very loud. Why would he say that? Is he, you know, funny?”
“Ricardo, you are in over your head. Just go with the flow.”
“With the flow? What is the flow?”
For once someone besides me was in the dark.
When we arrived at the condo, Antonio and his assistant Consiglieri’s descended on us in a mob action of Italian-flourish and Italian-speak, none of which was for my benefit. I let Antonio precede me into the apartment. He had made enough noise that if anyone was inside who shouldn’t be, the person would have had plenty of time to hide. After he left, I checked each room. We were alone. While I was looking in closets and checking under beds, Marilena had been on the phone talking insistently with someone.
“Thomas, I am now very concerned about April. I feel that something bad has happened. I am afraid that we made a mistake by not taking her with us to Boston,” she said.
“It was difficult enough explaining you. If I had shown up with each of you hanging onto an arm, Gus and company would have truly had a field day.”
Marilena ignored my reply. Our calendar girl’s radio silence was really bothering her. “We need to find her. I was just on the telephone with the local FBI office. I was trying to see whom they could speak to with the local police on our behalf to find April. Apparently, your relations with Captain O’Dale are superior to what we enjoy between the bureau and the NYPD. Can you call him and ask him to help us find April?”
From her attitude, I could tell that there was more to this story, but it would have to wait until I made the call. I pulled out my cell and dialed the 17th Precinct from the list of previously called numbers faithfully stored by the phone. O’Dale’s admin immediately remembered me and said that her instructions, if I called, were to find him. His schedule for the rest of the day didn’t include any mandatory meetings, and she suggested that I either call back or come by in person. I opted for the face-to-face and asked her to warn him.
Marilena had listened to my half of the call and nodded approvingly. Without saying anything else about the subject, she turned and walked into the guest room that we had shared, this annoying subject closed. She needed something to do and started to unpack, hanging her clothes and mine in the closets. She looked back at me and said, “We might as well get settled in. I think we will be here for several days.”
“It’s kinda funny,” I said without hiding a growing smile as I walked in behind her.
“What is funny?” she said in a tone that revealed her frustration with her counterpart at the New York FBI office here had not fully departed and the fact that I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity.
“Oh, that my casually developed relationship with O’Dale might get us someplace where the official FBI-NYPD conduit can’t.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t push back at my juvenile behavior and acquiesced instead. She compressed her lips, dropped her shoulders, and said, “If you must know, I was speaking with a special agent that I know — a woman. She is insufferable and causes many male agents to think less of the rest of the female agents. It gets worse. Her liaison with the local police is unfortunately another woman who, unlike me, doesn’t have to put up with her.”
“Ah, not a sterling example of the FBI sisterhood? Have you ever met her in person?”
“Yes, unfortunately. Several times.”
“Can you see any evidence of residual ancestral poultry in her features? Have you ever noticed if she is uncomfortable eating eggs?”
“What? Whatever are you talking about?”
This day was getting better and better.
*
&nb
sp; It was good to see Jim O’Dale again. He hit it off with Marilena right away. I didn’t think that it was because he was in love with the FBI. For her, however, he would overlook who employed her. He even mentioned that he was glad to see that I had enlisted the right talent. She gave him the big smile, and he melted a little more — so much for tough, New York precinct commanders.
We brought him up to speed on what had transpired since he and I met. He nodded approvingly at the right places and was appropriately, though only mildly, shocked at the more violent episodes. He smiled at the references to my meeting with Michaelson and about how we met April June, even guessing her middle name. We discussed the reduced lists of suspects with him.
“This one guy, this Wilson. President Montgomery’s husband, right? Do you really think that he could be a suspect?” O’Dale asked.
“It would be nice, maybe even easy, to eliminate him,” I answered.
“I would like to know why he was there and his wife was not?” Marilena asked. “Does he work for the society? He was marked as an employee.”
“Those are a couple of good questions,” O’Dale said.
“There is a more pressing question,” Marilena replied.
“Yeah, what’s that?” he asked her back.
“We have lost contact with April. She hasn’t returned my calls. I am concerned.”
He paused for a moment while he looked at her, one pro assessing another. I’ve gotten the same looks from other docs after speculating about a diagnosis. He knew that she was going on her gut and nothing more, but it was still important. A seasoned cop understanding that another seasoned cop just had a feeling was not something you dismissed. “Do you want me to put out the word?” he asked carefully.
“That would be very helpful,” she said, appreciating his understanding.
He nodded and then, offering some common sense advice of his own, said, “Of course, the best way to find her is to go to her job. Given what she does for a living, I would recommend that you send Tom instead of having me send a uniform. Our guys have a way of putting a chill on a room like that, and people become not as forthcoming real fast.”
Death of a Cure Page 23