He had sat on the toilet seat and waited patiently. He took the plastic wrap off a drinking glass on the bathroom counter and sipped water, waiting for his stomach to begin to lurch. For the longest time nothing happened. Then suddenly, the spasm struck and his stomach wretched violently. He puked until he was exhausted. He staggered to his feet and stepped gingerly around the muck on the floor. It was a disgusting mess, but the effect was as desired.
He had found McConnell’s number on Shelby’s cell and called to deliver the news. McConnell hurried over and knocked on the door, looked around, cursed, then rushed back to his room across the hall for a quick strategy session with his team. Terry had been a ball of nerves, but there was no evidence that McConnell had noticed that he had taken Shelby’s place. Terry had cautiously kept his words to a minimum and lay on the bed like his insides were falling out. A kid with a mop and bucket had been dispatched to clean up the mess, then Terry locked the door and took a deep breath. So far, so good.
The sunrise was a thin ribbon of orange on the distant horizon. Terry needed to find a way to exit the hotel and get to LAX for his flight to Mexico. He wouldn’t be able to relax until he was out of the country.
CHAPTER 32
The funeral was at noon. It was pouring rain and the weather kept almost everyone away. They put a canopy tent over the casket but there was only room beneath the shelter for a few of us. Carmen was pretending to be sober but her red eyes were hidden behind her dark glasses. I stood to one side of her, and Louis Levine stood on the other. I stared at the hole beneath the casket. It was difficult to hear the priest over the sound of the rain. Carmen didn’t say a word and didn’t shed a tear. I think she was numb and simply waiting to run back to take comfort in a bottle of vodka the instant the gathering dispersed.
After the graveside service I spotted Ballard and Curry standing nearby with umbrellas between tombstones. I made the requisite somber small talk as well-wishers paraded past to offer Carmen their condolences.
“Take me home,” Carmen whispered in my ear, her breath reeking of alcohol.
I nodded and hooked my hand under her arm. The rain was relentless. A pair of laborers readied the casket then began lowering the box into the ground. I distracted Carmen so she wouldn’t notice. I helped her to the car and shut the door. The detectives were waiting for me.
“Fine day for a funeral,” Curry said, smirking.
“We need to talk to you about Veronica Wagner,” Ballard said.
“I’m busy today,” I replied, hurrying around the front of the car with my umbrella, rain pattering above me.
“It’s important we talk to you sooner rather than later,” Ballard said.
“Call my assistant, make an appointment.”
“You were the last person to see her alive,” Curry said.
“What would lead you to that conclusion?”
Curry’s face twisted into a smile. “We are good at what we do, Nick. You’d be surprised what we know.”
I felt a sudden twist in my stomach. I knew they were probably lying but it was what I didn’t know that bothered me.
“Make an appointment,” I repeated.
“Give us a call,” Curry said.
I started the car and turned on the wipers. The detectives stared at me through the tinted glass. I was haunted by unanswered questions. Haunted even more by their accusing eyes. I was confident that I had seen Veronica Wagner’s dead body on my bedroom floor, and that I had called her phone at midnight on the night she died. I was equally confident that her body had disappeared while I was out of the apartment. So many questions.
The bigger problem was that my memory of that night was slowly returning, and I was not at all happy with what I was beginning to remember.
* * *
I had questions for Ellen. Both she and Whitney had been asleep when I left for the funeral with Carmen. I hadn’t mentioned Terry’s passing to Ellen yet. I wasn’t sure how she would take it. They’d been having an affair behind my back, but I didn’t know how deep the emotions for him might run. There was no reason for Carmen to be privy to any of that information, as far as I was concerned.
“I’m hungry,” Carmen said.
I glanced at her. She was hidden behind the Gucci’s. I hadn’t heard a sound out of her since leaving the cemetery.
“I’ll order out after I get you home,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Take me somewhere. I don’t want to go home yet.”
I crunched down on the steering wheel. I had no desire to sit alone with Carmen and soak up her gloom. My focus was on Ellen and digging out some answers.
“You need rest,” I said. “Let me take you back to the Plaza.”
“Nick, I’m not interested in what you have to say right now. I want to go someplace nice.”
I looked at my watch. Traffic was as thick as cold maple syrup. It was shaping up to be a painfully slow afternoon.
It was soon evident that Carmen wasn’t interested in food. She intended to drink her lunch. She was on her third round by the time the salads arrived. Her speech was slurring. She was already a mess and just getting started. My mind was far away.
My cell phone rang. It was a blocked number. I answered only as an excuse to ignore Carmen.
“Hello?” I said.
“Mr. Cortland, this is Detective Curry.”
Suddenly, Carmen’s rambling seemed far more appealing. My stomach twisted. It had been less than forty-five minutes since I’d managed to brush them off at the cemetery and already they were hounding me.
“Detective, it’s always good to hear your voice.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Actually, I’m having lunch with Terry’s Burgess’s widow.”
Didn’t seem to faze him.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“Like I said earlier, it would be best for you to make an appointment with my assistant. I’m sure she can fit you in sometime at the start of the week.”
“This won’t wait.”
“Not a good time, Detective.”
“I’m with Detective Ballard at your apartment, Mr. Cortland.”
The twist in my stomach tightened. I’m not sure why, just pure reflex, I suppose, but nothing about those two men set my mind at ease. They had a way of getting under my skin that I couldn’t totally explain. What did they want? As much as anything, they annoyed me. They were waiting for me to slip up. Admittedly, there were still enough mysteries swirling around for me to be afraid of slipping up myself. Yes, I had told Curry that I’d been out to dinner with both Veronica Wagner and Terry Burgess the last night either of them had been seen alive, but that was far from an admission of anything. It was a stupid thing to say, but there would have been plenty of witnesses at the restaurant that night, so why deny it?
“Sorry to disappoint you, Detective, but I don’t plan to be home any time soon,” I told him.
“I’d suggest you reconsider.”
“Suggestion noted. Anything else, Detective Curry.”
“This isn’t a courtesy call, Mr. Cortland. Someone called 911 to report a possible homicide,” he said.
My blood turned to ice. What the hell was he talking about? My brain locked up and my tongue felt too thick in my mouth to be able to form words to speak. When I did speak, the words seemed slow and cartoon-like.
“What does that have to do with me?” I asked, the sound of my heart beating loudly in my ears.
“The call was made from inside your apartment,” he said. Then added, “And that’s where the body was found.”
I felt chills. “What body?” I asked.
“Veronica Wagner,” he said.
* * *
Timing was everything. Terry hadn’t been able to nail down the final details of his plan until he had successfully dealt with his brother and taken care of the money. It would have been preferable to have had everything finalized days in advance, but his flight out of Los Angeles had been the on
ly real complication. He had decided to charter a private jet instead of flying commercial for a number of reasons, not the least of which was he could avoid airport security. He made the call shortly after dawn and was told the charter would be available at 3 p.m..
The plan was to kill a few hours in his room while the campaign staff busied themselves with scheduling concerns, then take the elevator down and casually go for a walk and slip quietly away to his rental car. He could have slipped away after disposing of Harrison’s body, but didn’t want to create a chaotic situation where everyone in the city would be on the lookout for the missing senator. Better to be patient and strategic. Patience was key. He had come too far to blow it now.
CHAPTER 33
This was bad. Yes, I understand how big an understatement that is, but give me a break. I was stunned at the thought of Veronica Wagner’s body turning up again. It didn’t seem possible.
I had a big decision to make. Returning to my apartment was a huge risk. I would almost certainly be arrested. Curry and Ballard would drag me downtown for questioning and I’d have to explain how Veronica Wagner’s body had ended up in my apartment. I didn’t have a reasonable explanation for that. I had simply awoken to find her there. A story like that wouldn’t fly with the cops.
I cut lunch short and put Carmen in a taxi to take her back to the Plaza. Then I sat behind the wheel of my car, staring up at the glass building across the street.
I heard a chime and glanced at my iPhone. There was email in my inbox. I opened it and did a double-take. It was from Hopper. I hadn’t heard from him since the morning I woke up to find Veronica Wagner dead on my bedroom floor. He had asked about her. Now might be a good time to talk to him. The email was brief: Black Goose, ASAP.
Message received. I started the car and squealed out into traffic, nearly getting killed in the process.
It was midday Saturday and the bar was busy. There were games on and the beer was flowing. I shouldered past unfamiliar faces to the back of the bar. No sign of Hopper. I hoped he wasn’t jerking my chain, and hoped he hadn’t gotten impatient and decided to cut out before I showed up. I stared at a baseball game up on a flatscreen. I hate baseball. I can tolerate basketball, but baseball is like watching grass grow. Football has always been my sport, even though I sucked at it. So I stared at the action, my mind very much at unrest. Then I saw the men’s room door open and Hopper appeared.
He scanned the crowd until he spotted me.
“You disappeared on me,” I said.
“Long story,” he said. Then he hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Let’s talk where it’s quiet, man.”
I nodded and followed him through a door to a supply room. There were crates and boxes stacked to the ceiling. It smelled of spilled beer and lemon disinfectant. There wasn’t much extra space, so we had to stand face to face and struggle to push the door shut. He wore a black T-shirt with a small white scorpion on the chest, black jeans, and a camel-colored pie hat to cover his bald head. His breath reeked of cigarettes. It was not a joy to stand nose to nose with the man and bathe in his breath. Up close I could see that his gray goatee was stained yellow from nicotine.
“I’ve had a hell of a week, and you’ve been AWOL,” I said.
He shrugged. “Great story,” he said. “We’ve all got problems.”
“You weren’t answering your cell.”
He shrugged again. “Busy damn week,” he said.
“Tuesday morning, last time we talked, you mentioned a woman named Veronica Wagner.”
Hopper suddenly looked uncomfortable. His eyes were busy, swinging away from me and sliding up one wall and down another, never slowing or stopping.
“Remember?” I said.
“I say a lot of things, man.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Don’t worry about me, pal. What I know or don’t know about anything is my business.”
“I was supposed to bring her to meet you Tuesday morning. That’s what you told me, and you were royally pissed when we didn’t show. Tell me what that was about, Hopper. Why were we meeting you?”
His eyes were still very active. He took a toothpick from a back pocket and jabbed it between his lips, working it side to side with his tongue.
“Don’t stand there and treat me like a stooge,” he said.
I looked at him puzzled. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb, Nick. You knew exactly what you had stepped into.”
“You said six in the morning at Grand Central. That was the plan, right?”
“You’re making me nervous.” He was growing visibly agitated. He sucked the toothpick in and out and spun it on his tongue. Then his eyes darkened. “Are you wearing a wire, Nicky Boy? You trying to jam me up on this?”
I leaned away from him, studying his body language. He indeed looked very nervous, and frankly, that scared the daylight out of me. Hopper wasn’t a cat who spooked easily. His face was shaded from the florescent bulb overhead by the pie hat. It was becoming clear that there was another level to all of this. My memory, as far as I could tell, had more or less fully returned, but clearly there were still a few holes. Or he was lying to me.
That seemed like an important distinction.
I remembered the email. “Why did you want to meet?” I said.
“Was worried about you,” he said.
I didn’t buy it for a second. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “Been a crazy week, and I know I’ve been hard to get hold of. So I thought I’d buy you a beer and make peace.”
His eyes settled on my face and I didn’t trust what I saw. He offered a smile but it seemed false.
“So, I’m here,” I said.
The smile broadened. “Indeed,” he said.
I let the silence linger for an uncomfortable beat.
“You’re a good guy, Nick,” he said. “I’ve always said so. Always liked you a lot.” Then he put out a hand to shake.
My eyes drifted to the offered hand. I hesitated, unsure and puzzled by the randomness of the gesture. His stained-yellow teeth glowed in the glare from the light. My primal instincts were twitching, though I’d known Hopper a long time and had never had reason to not trust him. I put my hand in his and he pulled me into a hug.
Then in a sudden, violent movement, he spun me around and pinned my arm behind my back, smashing my face into a tall stack of Budweiser. He was stronger than I had imagined. I resisted and he put more pressure on my arm until I thought it might break. With his free hand he brought out a handgun from the waistband of his pants and put the barrel against my head. I noted the silencer on the end of the barrel. I’ll admit this was one of the more surprising moments of my life.
“Nick, you really stepped in over your head, hombre,” he growled into my ear. “It breaks my heart to have to do this.” His smoker’s breathe was thick in my face.
“What the hell, Hop!” I said.
“I didn’t want to kill you, Nick, but now there’s no other choice.”
He pulled the gun away to reach over and lock the door. My arm felt like it might snap like a twig. The pressure on it was killing me.
“Please don’t do whatever you’re thinking,” I pleaded.
“Shut up.”
“This is stupid, Hop. We go back a long way.”
Suddenly, the gun was back at my head.
“End of conversation,” Hopper said.
“Wait, wait, wait…”
I could feel his anxiety vibrating up through the gun metal to my skull. In another few seconds my brains would spritz the beer and the floor. I couldn’t imagine what had him so tightly wound and so definitive in his actions.
Someone tried the door and the knob rattled. Hopper turned his head. I felt a small release in pressure on my arm. I seized the moment and jerked my head away from the barrel of the gun, then twisted my body clockwise and pushed my free arm up, clutching the wrist of the hand holding the gun. He grunted as he pulled the trigger. Three shots whispered past
my head and punched holes in the beer cases inches away. Beer spouted from the holes. There was a knock at the door as we wrestled for control of the firearm in the confined space.
I wasn’t going to let that little bastard put a bullet in my head. I held his arm up and away as he struggled to push the business end of the barrel back toward my face.
“You’ve lost your mind!” I said.
He shoved me backward and we fell together, pushing over stacked cases and crashing down amongst broken glass and spilled beer. The gun fired again and I heard Hopper grunt with pain. He had shot himself in the left shoulder. Blood was showing through his shirt but he was still fighting to push the gun at me.
I freed an arm and caught him in the face with a well-placed elbow. The blow stunned him for a second but not long enough to get my hands on his gun. He twisted away through the smashed beer cases and created enough space to turn the gun on me, but I ducked and the shot missed.
He fired again and I heard the bullet punch through the side of an ancient filing cabinet against the wall across the room. The floor was already slippery with beer. I ran forward, driving my shoulder into his midsection. The impact was jarring. We both went to the floor again and the gun came out of his hand, tumbling out of reach. Hopper grunted, clutching a hand at his wounded shoulder. He kicked at me as I tried to pin him down.
“Get off me!” he said as he clawed at the floor, looking for his gun.
“Hop, you need a doctor!” I said.
“Get off me!” he said again, then landed a knee to my groin. Sparks of pain seared up and down my body. I buckled and dropped to my knees.
Dead and Gone (A Thriller) Page 19