The Ever

by Marcia Muller

  Ted: “Thought I’d phone in my daily report. Everything’s under control here.”

  Derek: “One of those field interviews I conducted with the former RKI employees turned up something suspect. I’ve e-mailed the file to you, but I’d really like to discuss it. Right now I’m starting to check over that ancient iMac of Hy’s.”

  Gary Viner: “Hey, Shar, I’ve got the autopsy and ballistics reports on the Kessell case. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

  Nothing from Hy.

  He and I had always had a strange psychic connection; we often knew where the other was or what the other was thinking or feeling without being told. Now the connection was broken.

  I called the condominium, got the machine. Called his cellular, and he answered.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “McCone, I was hoping you’d call.”

  “I thought you were going to call me.”

  “I wanted to give you time to cool off.”

  Or you needed time to work on an explanation.

  “I’ve cooled. There are things we need to discuss. Where are you?”

  “Headquarters.”

  “Let’s make an appointment.”

  “We could have lunch—”

  “No, in your office. When?”

  Long pause. “An hour and a half?”

  “Good. I’ll see you then.”

  My God, I thought, I just made a formal appointment to meet with my own husband.

  “McCone, let me explain—”

  “No.” Hy had gotten up and started around his desk toward me, but now I waved him away and sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk. “This isn’t the time for that. We’re in the middle of an investigation. It has to take top priority.”

  He backed up, sank into his chair. He was haggard and hadn’t shaved very well; in fact, he looked worse than I felt—and even with the help of aspirin, coffee, and some breakfast I wasn’t in top form.

  I got down to business and explained that I would continue with the investigation and report to him, but any personal discussions would have to wait till it was wrapped up. “Those are my terms,” I ended. “Can you live with them?”

  “At this point I’ll live with any terms you offer me.”

  “Good.” I glanced at the drugstore watch that I’d bought on the way here to replace the one I’d broken in my treehouse rampage and stood up. “First I’m going to speak with Renshaw’s live-in girlfriend. Later on, maybe I’ll want one of the company choppers available to fly me to the training camp.”

  He nodded. “And then?”

  “I’ll report back to you.” I turned and left his office before I could weaken and move around the desk to hold him.

  “McCone,” he called after me, “take care of yourself.”

  “. . . You, too, Ripinsky.”

  I didn’t leave the building right away, but borrowed an empty office and started returning calls. Ted said everything was still under control, and turned me over to Derek. Derek said his suspicious lead on the former RKI employee had turned out to be false—which I had concluded would be the case when I’d earlier read his e-mailed report. He also told me he’d need more time with the iMac, because it was temperamental and recovering a file that had been deleted was proving difficult.

  After I assured Mick that I was all right, he told me the gist of Kessell’s service in the Special Forces: he’d been in a unit operating out of Long Hai for a year and three months when he took a round of machine gun fire that shattered his tibia. His hospital stay in the Philippines extended to six months, because he needed extensive therapy in order to walk again. Mick had tried to track down the doctors who treated him as well as other hospital personnel, but several were deceased, and he hadn’t been able to locate the others or the surgeon. Nor had he any leads as to how Kessell had gotten the funds to start his aviation service.

  “I’ll keep going till I get something,” he promised.

  “Also try to find out anything you can about K Air. And Kessell’s life in Thailand.”

  “Will do.”

  Mick was like a mole—he wouldn’t stop burrowing.

  I then spoke with Patrick, who said the reports from the other operatives were finally coming in and he was noting information on his flow charts. “But it’s insane, Shar. Nothing relates. I’ve got scribbles in the margins and arrows running every which way, and I can’t make any sense of it.”

  “Well, keep at it, and we’ll go over the charts when I get back there.”

  He sighed. “I wish human beings’ actions were more like the numbers I dealt with back when I was an accountant.”

  Gary Viner was out of his office.

  In the lobby, I stopped at the security checkpoint and asked the guard if I could speak with Kessell’s former assistant, Brent Chavez, who had sat in on my meeting with Hy and Dan in San Francisco. She buzzed him and then directed me to his office.

  Today Chavez looked tired, and I remembered that Hy had told me he’d been out sick. He rose from his chair and extended his hand, then motioned for me to sit.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Better, thank you. There’s been this flu bug going around, but at least it’s a mild one. How can I help you?”

  “I thought I’d bring you up to speed on my investigation.” I gave him a brief summary. “And now I’d like to talk about Dan Kessell. You’ve worked for him how long?”

  “I started last fall.”

  “And before that?”

  “Well, I took a couple of years off after I graduated from Stanford’s MBA program.”

  “Stanford. That’s impressive. You must’ve had a lot of job offers. Why sign on with RKI?”

  He flushed. “I hate to admit it, but I grew up on TV crime shows, read thrillers too. I thought it was going to be exciting. And it has been, to some extent, at least when we’ve got a situation or two going. Otherwise, my work is pretty routine.”

  “What kind of boss was Dan Kessell?”

  He hesitated, considering. “Polite, but distant. You do your job, I’ll do mine. We never talked about anything but the work at hand.”

  “He ride you hard if you made a mistake?”

  “No, he just said everybody made mistakes, and I should fix it.”

  “You seem to be an honest, straightforward individual with a clean past. How does it feel working for a corporation that’s—”

  “Not honest and straightforward? At first it was weird. I mean, some of these people’re pretty scary. Then when I realized Mr. Ripinsky is trying to change the culture here, I accepted it as a temporary problem.”

  “How is he trying to change the culture?”

  “Well, he got more involved in the hiring and firing decisions. Weeded out the really hard cases and brought in more legitimate professionals. I feel that he’s intent on reining in excess, getting things under control.”

  “What about Mr. Renshaw?”

  Chavez shook his head. “I can’t figure him out at all, and I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Back to Mr. Ripinsky—he’s primarily a hostage negotiator. How come he’s now involved in personnel decisions?”

  “You don’t talk about his work?”

  “No more than we talk about mine.”

  Chavez looked confused.

  “Need to know, Mr. Chavez,” I said, “need to know.”

  “Company policy, yeah. But it’s strange—the two of you and Mr. Kessell and Mr. Renshaw seem to be the only ones who observe it.”

  “Oh?”

  “All the employees talk to their spouses or significant others about what’s happening. I mean, how can you be in a relationship and maintain that kind of secrecy?”

  “Well, Mr. Ripinsky and I are both in positions where confidentiality is important. But this investigation takes priority over confidentiality. How would you like to be my second eyes and ears around headquarters?”

  “In what way?”

  “Find out wha
t people are saying about the situation, which outsiders they’ve been talking to.”

  “I can do that. I haven’t been here long enough to have gotten close to people, but they accept me enough to talk frankly in my presence.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Chavez. I’ll be in touch, and don’t hesitate to call me.”

  As I drove from La Jolla to the Point Loma area of San Diego where Gage lived with his girlfriend, Paulina Morales, I wondered how Hy and I had managed to separate our work and personal lives so thoroughly. Was it professionalism, or something deeper—perhaps a flaw in both our personalities?

  I began going back over all the things we’d told each other during our years together, and finally came to his explanation of how he’d honed his hostage-negotiator skills. It had begun when a passenger on a K Air charter had attempted to take over a flight he was piloting from Bangkok to New Delhi.

  “I talked him down, made him hand over his weapon,” he’d said, “even though we had to communicate in a bastardized version of Thai and English. It was like I’d been doing it my whole life. After that, I read up on the techniques, and when one of our other pilots had a hijacking attempt, I was able to resolve the situation via radio. After Dan and Gage formed RKI, they called me in for a few special situations and, except for the one when you had to come and rescue me, they always turned out right. It’s like this ability I have for languages.” Hy spoke four languages fluently—English, Spanish, Russian, and French—and could get along in Thai, Japanese, and Cantonese.

  I pulled my attention back to the present, and turned onto Sunset Cliffs Avenue at the upper tip of Point Loma, the peninsula that extends south of downtown San Diego. Aptly named—the cliffs face due west, and the evening light show is spectacular. Renshaw’s starkly modern house was one that commanded an especially good view of the Pacific; as I parked in front, I thought of all those ill-gotten gains that had purchased it.

  I’d called ahead to ask Paulina Morales if she’d heard from Gage. No, she said, she hadn’t, and she was really worried. Would I come over and talk with her? Of course I would.

  When she answered the door, I saw that she was very young and very scared. Also very beautiful. Even with her black hair straggling from a ponytail, dark shadows under her eyes, and wearing clothes that she’d obviously slept in, she was striking. Like all of Gage’s women.

  She took me to the back of the house, through the kitchen to where a breakfast room overlooked the sea. “Coffee,” she said, “do you want some?”

  “Do you?”

  “No. It’ll only make me more nervous.”

  “Then neither do I.”

  We sat opposite each other at the table. Paulina clasped her hands between her knees.

  I said, “Nothing from Gage since I called?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do. Yesterday the real estate agent came here. She showed me papers he had faxed her, authorizing her to sell the house.”

  “Where were they faxed from?”

  “I didn’t notice. I was so shocked. This woman, she went through the house like the police, told me to put away stuff, clean it up, and get ready to show it. She said she’d be back this afternoon with the sign, and hold an open house on the weekend.”

  “Did she give you a card?”

  “Yes.” She got up, went into the kitchen, and brought it back to me.

  SUZANNE RICHARDSON, SOTHEBY’S. Dealers in high-end properties.

  I said, “I’ll talk with her, see what the situation is.”

  Paulina had started to cry—quietly, the tears sliding down her face to the corners of her mouth. She licked them away. “I don’t know what to do. I gave up my apartment and my job when I moved in with Gage. He said he’d take care of me.”

  He’s taken care of you, all right.

  She spread her hands out on the table; I put mine over them, to still their trembling.

  She added, “A notice came for him today from the bank. I know I shouldn’t’ve opened it, but I did. It confirmed a transfer of all his money to some bank I’ve never heard of.”

  “May I see it?”

  Again she went to the kitchen, returned with the letter.

  Credit Suisse. Kessell’s murder had prompted Renshaw to liquidate his assets and disappear. Once again. Probably he was afraid of something in their mutual past that would come out in the investigation of Dan’s death.

  Paulina’s large dark eyes were teary and dazed. “What am I going to do?”

  “For the moment, nothing but rest and take care of yourself. After that—well, we’ll figure out something. Now, tell me everything you know about Gage.”

  She didn’t know much.

  She’d met him four months ago at an exclusive men’s clothing store downtown where she worked as a salesperson; he bought some ties and asked her to lunch at an expensive restaurant. That afternoon, she called in sick and went home with him; she never again returned to work.

  Gage gave her a generous allowance; she hadn’t had so much money of her own in all her life. He bought her a little Toyota sports car and gave her a gas company credit card on which he paid the bill. He didn’t ask for any explanations of how she spent the allowance or the amount of the gas charges.

  He never talked about his past except to say he’d had a bad childhood and, though she snooped through the entire house, she’d found nothing revealing.

  He never talked about his work, except to say it was confidential.

  She’d never heard of RKI.

  What did they talk about? I asked.

  Movies. Food. Wine. Travel to exotic places, but they hadn’t gone to any of them yet.

  “Mostly,” she said, “we stayed home and fucked. I started feeling like a prisoner here. He didn’t like any of my friends, so I couldn’t invite them over, and they all work, so I couldn’t see them in the daytime when he was gone. I started taking long drives in the car just to get out of here.”

  “Not a good life, for someone of—what’s your age?”

  “Eighteen. I turned eighteen two days before I met him.”

  And I was willing to bet Gage asked her how old she was before he mentioned lunch. No way he would ever get involved with jailbait.

  But the difference between eighteen years and seventeen years three hundred and sixty-four days is negligible. When a woman’s that young, it’s easy for a man like Gage to first control, then use, and finally dump her. And chances were she wouldn’t make a fuss afterward.

  We’ll see about that, Renshaw.

  Suzanne Richardson of Sotheby’s downtown office was the perfect picture of a high-end real estate agent: beautifully dressed in a taupe suit, with a dark brown silk blouse and low-heeled shoes to match. Conservative gold jewelry, light blonde hair in a short, pert style. Icy demeanor because I wasn’t a possible source of a commission.

  I gave her one of my cards and said I was working for Renshaw & Kessell International. Told her there was some concern because the advice of one of the partners was needed to head off a crisis, and I had discovered that Gage Renshaw had left town and listed his house with her. Did she have an address for him?

  Richardson extracted a file from one of the many on her desk, consulted it, and said, “No, I don’t. Nor a phone number. I faxed the necessary papers to him, and he returned them.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last Monday afternoon, around two.”

  “May I have the fax number? Perhaps we can get in touch with him there.”

  “Well, he said it wouldn’t be valid after seven that evening. He was in transit. I sent copies of the documents back to him shortly after six.”

  “I’d like to have the number anyway.”

  She looked conflicted, then shrugged and read it off to me.

  I asked, “How are you supposed to get in touch with him when you have an offer on the house?”

  “He said he would call in on a three-day basis. If the offer is acceptable to him, I have his power of attorney to comple
te the transaction and collect the funds.”

  “And what kind of an offer is he hoping for?”

  “Three point nine million. Cash. He was emphatic that he would not take back paper.”

  “Ms. Richardson, when he calls in next, would you let me know?”

  “Certainly. And I’ll tell him you’re anxious to hear from him.”

  “No, please don’t do that. As I said, it’s a crisis, but it may be resolved by the time he calls, and I don’t want him unduly concerned. Just see if you can get his phone number. His partner can take it from there.”

  “I called the number, and the recorded greeting said it belongs to an Office Stop in San Mateo,” I told Hy. “I looked them up; they’re one of those places that offer services like copying, faxing, and shipping.” We were once again seated across from each other at his desk at RKI headquarters.

  “San Mateo. He was there at six in the evening, when he signed and faxed the real-estate agent copies of the documents.”

  “Yes, San Mateo, near SFO. From there he could have flown anywhere. He left the hospital immediately after Dan died. That gave him time to drive north. He contacted his bank and had all his liquid assets transferred to Credit Suisse—where he’s probably had an account since he was in Thailand or maybe even D.C. Then he arranged for the sale of his house. What does that suggest to you? Is he the one behind the bombings? Did he kill Dan?”

  Hy considered, shook his head. “Gage isn’t a killer. I think he was afraid of something damaging that might come out after Dan’s death, and once again he’s reinventing his life.”

  “Yeah. You know what that thing might be?”

  He shook his head.

  “You sure, Ripinsky?”

  Irritation flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t respond to the accusatory nature of the question. “I’m sure.”

  “It might be something for which he could still be prosecuted.”

  “Might.”

  “What about the arms dealing? What agency or country would have jurisdiction over that?”

  “. . . I don’t know. Probably there’s some statute of limitations that would’ve run out by now.”

  Hy’s expression was remote; he didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. Neither did I. We were straying too close to the personal minefield between us.