Collateral Damage

by Michael Bowen

  “Because I saw one of them take Mr. Demarest’s keys out of his pocket before he was put in the ambulance.”

  Agonizing indecision etched eloquently across her features, the woman gazed in baleful suspicion at Michaelson. If only she could figure out some way to blame all this on him, her expression seemed to say, everything would be much clearer. Finally her eyes snapped twice and her face took on a decisive cast. She scampered across the porch to Demarest’s door.

  Michaelson moved to the far end of the porch and waited. He crossed his arms, then unabashedly promoted the arm cross to a full-scale hug while he stamped his feet. Stoicism was fine to a point, but he was getting cold. In a perverse way, he supposed, this was apropos; for the thought of what he was about to do chilled his belly as much as the boreal wind did his fingers and toes.

  The woman was inside Demarest’s apartment for seven minutes—long enough to get selected things she knew were there, but not to search the place. Michaelson moved toward the sound of the opening door and gallantly held it open for her as she came out, awkwardly laden with a grocery sack pressed against her chest. He braced his free hand against the inside door.

  “I don’t want the money or the drugs,” Michaelson said quietly when he saw that he had her attention. “But I have to have the envelopes.”

  “What envelopes?” she demanded.

  “Please,” he sighed. “Your son took deliveries at a New York Avenue club from people who arrived on foot without handcarts. Hence drugs, therefore money. But the men coming here don’t care about that either. They’re interested in something else. So am I. Now, it’s getting late. I’m cold and you’re in a hurry. Let’s get it done.”

  This decision she made quickly. Carefully concealing the remaining contents of the sack from Michaelson, she extracted a pale yellow civil service routing envelope.

  “There was only one,” she said as he took it from her.

  Michaelson thanked her, but she had already turned away and moved off.

  Michaelson stepped into Demarest’s apartment, closed the door firmly, and made himself comfortable in a leather armchair near a heating register before he opened the envelope. The first thing he found was a strip of tiny negatives looped repeatedly around a long, narrow rectangle of white cardboard.

  Lord, he mused, I thought Minoxes went out with Nehru jackets. He unlooped the strip and held it up to the pale white sunlight infiltrating the room through the window behind his chair. He couldn’t begin to make out any detail, but he saw enough to satisfy him that the first sixteen shots were of one document laid at a slight angle on top of another—just like the documents in the photograph Halliburton had sent him.

  The other thing in the envelope was a carbon copy of a three-page document headed desk memo. From Lancer to File, according to the heading, Re: Assorted Debriefings. Dated July 1, 1987. Andrew Shepherd showed up at the top of page two. The memo called him Professor, but the details reported left no doubt about his identity: “In-country 12–20 June. No significant contact GOY. Main visit = Jessenice. Incredibly crowded (locals—‘some religious crap’), every decent hotel booked, had to share room at Peace & Friendship Hostel (‘total fleabag’). Aus/Czech goods readily available street markets.”

  Michaelson had no trouble sorting through the telegraphic data. “GOY” was Government of Yugoslavia, whose representatives had avoided Andrew Shepherd on this particular trip. Shepherd had come to Jessenice and stayed at a world-class hotel with all the amenities and a price tag to match. Then he had come back to the United States and told Lancer that an influx of Yugoslav religious enthusiasts had forced him to put up with squalid student accommodations.

  “Lancer” was one of the trade names used at the Central Intelligence Agency by Aldrich Ames. Michaelson happened to know that, but even if he hadn’t, he could have figured it out. Josh Logan had gotten Halliburton’s document to Michaelson the evening of February 23, 1994, and the next morning The New York Times had reported the FBI’s arrest of Aldrich Ames for espionage. That had begun the public exposure of Ames as the CIA’s now-notorious Soviet mole, who soon afterward cut a deal to save his neck and began serving life in prison for selling his country’s secrets.

  Michaelson roused himself sternly from his reverie, for company was coming and there was work to do before it arrived. Even with a flurry of activity, however, he couldn’t entirely avoid a moment’s introspection.

  “What a pathetic thing to die for,” he muttered as he searched for a fresh envelope.

  Chapter Eleven

  You’re sure about the color?” the detective asked Marjorie twenty minutes into his interview with her.

  “Yes,” Marjorie said. “The smoke definitely changed color when the blast from the fire extinguisher hit it.”

  The detective was certainly the most junior of the three plainclothes officers who had shown up at Calvert Manor a little over half an hour after the ambulance had sped off. He flicked longish and unruly straw-colored hair with a quick head shake as he tapped at a notebook computer on his lap. Marjorie had no trouble imagining what Inspector Morse would have thought about the laptop. Or about people scattered in knots around the first floor, chatting desultorily while they waited for the cops to get around to them.

  Another detective, who could shake his head all day long without flicking any hair, sauntered over and glanced down at his younger colleague’s screen.

  “Whaddaya got?” he asked.

  “In the den. Didn’t see anyone go upstairs. Didn’t notice anyone get off the call. Smoke changed color.”

  “What about this?” He handed the seated man a Baggie.

  “Do you know of any reason why this would have been lying outside in the snow?” the guy with the laptop asked.

  “No,” Marjorie said.

  “Did you notice anyone running away from the back of the house after the smoke alarm went off?”

  “No,” Marjorie said, “but I had other things on my mind.”

  “I understand. Did you notice anyone with the original group inside who didn’t turn up outside?”

  “No. I mean everyone that I knew inside turned up outside, but I’m afraid I didn’t pay that much attention to the musicians.” Marjorie examined the Baggie. She didn’t know what drug residue looked like, but if there was anything at all on the soggy plastic bag, she couldn’t see it.

  “Another witness said that you were here a few days ago with someone who was looking at the house,” the older detective said.

  “That’s true,” Marjorie said. “Patrice Helmsing. And before that with Richard Michaelson. And once on my own before today.”

  “That’s a very precise recollection,” the younger detective said. Smiling. Encouraging. Challenging.

  “I can’t hide my own Easter eggs yet,” Marjorie said.

  “Okay,” the younger cop said. The right collar tip on his aqua Izod curled upward and he tried unsuccessfully to flatten it. “I’ll try to have a preliminary statement written up for you in twenty minutes or so. We’d appreciate it if you could wait to review it and sign it before you leave.”

  Marjorie left the two detectives at the far end of the living room and strode toward the dining room, less in search of lobster paste on crustless bread than to stretch her legs. And to think.

  She didn’t know why it was important that the smoke had changed color, but that should be easy enough to find out. Criminalistics and Scientific Crime Investigation by Cunliffe and Piazza was buried somewhere in deep stock at Cavalier Books, and if that didn’t have the answer, Carrie could find a tome somewhere in Georgetown University’s libraries that would.

  From the look of it, the Baggie had been found outside in the snow, which might be interesting or might just mean that a band member had dumped evidence of contraband pharmaceuticals once it was clear the cops were coming.

  What was most interesting, though,
was that three detectives and a scene-of-crime team had hustled out to Calvert Manor less than an hour after a patrolman learned that Preston Demarest had died in a room with a smoky fireplace. Marjorie wasn’t sure how this type of thing played out in country houses in Sussex or elsewhere in the land of English detectives. In suburban Maryland, however, the implication was clear: This wasn’t an arson investigation; it was a murder investigation.

  She ate a minislice of smoked ham on an egg roll for form’s sake. Then she ate another one because she was hungry after the first. She was actually eyeing tiny triangles of spinach quiche when she realized that she was unconsciously avoiding a painful visit to Catherine in the den. The upstairs had still been off-limits when everyone went back into the house, and Cindy had led Catherine into the den to rest while the sedatives worked.

  Collecting three sandwiches on a napkin, Marjorie quietly entered the darkened room. Catherine lay on the couch where Marjorie had sat during the conference call. Her shoes were on the floor. A pale blue comforter covered her from foot to chin. Beneath a damp, folded facecloth on her forehead, her wide open eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. On the telephone table at the head of the couch, a dove-gray teacup on a matching saucer sat next to a teapot under an embroidered cozy.

  Catherine didn’t react at all to Marjorie’s entrance. Marjorie went over to the couch and crouched beside the younger woman.

  “You look like you’re being very well taken care of.”

  “Cindy,” Catherine said, as if the two syllables required enormous effort.

  “Would you like to eat anything?”

  Catherine answered with a minute shake of her head.

  “It’s a shame to let this tea go to waste,” Marjorie said. Putting the sandwiches down, she picked up the saucer. “It’s still nice and hot. Cindy must have freshened it up just a couple of minutes ago. Why don’t you try some?”

  Marjorie moved the cup close enough to Catherine for the fragrance of orange pekoe to waft toward her nose. The barest flicker of animation flashed in her eyes. She propped herself laboriously up on one elbow and sipped as Marjorie lifted the cup to her lips. The sip turned into several enthusiastic swallows before Catherine lay back contentedly.

  “That was heaven,” she whispered in something much closer to a normal voice. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a sandwich?”

  “No, thank you,” Catherine said. “I’m afraid I’m about to drift off to sleep again.”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

  Marjorie put the cup and saucer back on the telephone table, replaced the compress on Catherine’s forehead, and tucked the comforter back around her shoulders. By the time Marjorie had gotten to her feet, Catherine’s eyes were closed and her breathing had turned rhythmic and peaceful.

  She knows, Marjorie thought. She knows Demarest is dead.

  Catherine might have figured this out in the front yard, the same way Marjorie had. But Catherine hadn’t looked like she was in any condition for even that modest level of cogitation at the time.

  The other possibility was that Cindy had found a way to break the news to her. And if so, it seemed to Marjorie that that was one of the sanest and kindest things Cindy could have done—exactly the way Marjorie would want to be treated when (not if, she acknowledged to herself, given their age difference) the time came for her to get bad news about Michaelson.

  On reflection, in fact, it struck Marjorie that the only significant word in her conversation with Catherine had been “Cindy.” Not just Cindy taking care of Catherine in her immediate distress, but Cindy doing all those un-Cindy-like things that would mean something to Catherine: thinking to take her sister’s shoes off, digging the comforter out of some forgotten drawer or closet, making the compress, brewing the tea, using a cozy to keep the pot warm, serving the tea in an elegant cup and saucer instead of a utilitarian mug, freshening the tea in the cup as it cooled. Things that were striking not because they were large but precisely because they were small. Small things done well. The kinds of things you wouldn’t think your way to in the stress of a crisis. Things that had to emerge from habits of mind and heart deliberately bred and carefully ripened over years of lives shared. Marjorie was still mulling over this unfamiliar image of Cindy as she withdrew from the den and headed for the nearest downstairs bathroom. She didn’t have the slightest notion of eavesdropping. It was just that when she found the door closed she thought it best to find out if someone else was inside. She raised her hand for a discreet knock when she heard C-Sharp’s voice.

  “All right, all right. She’s strung out to hell and back. I just thought a little happy dust later on might help, that’s all.”

  “Don’t think, it’s not your strong suit.” Cindy’s voice.

  “You don’t have to get pissy about it.”

  “Don’t whine until I’m through chewing your ass out,” Cindy said. “Just listen. Get this straight. You do not ever offer drugs to Catherine. Not crack, not ’ludes, not Ecstasy, not pot, not Jack Daniels, not Miller Lite. You do not make jokes about it. You do not talk about it. You do not think about it.”

  “Okay, okay, I—”

  “Shut up. You do not even begin to think about it. If you find yourself thinking about it, you get a hammer and hit yourself in the balls until you stop thinking about it. You got that?”

  “Yes—OOF! Jesus, Cindy!”

  “Good. Because if you don’t, I will.”

  There might have been more, but Marjorie figured she had the gist. She decided to go in search of other facilities.

  Chapter Twelve

  Colonel Mustard in the bedroom with the fireplace. What a precious little cliché this is turning into. Michaelson had the satisfaction of seeing Avery Phillips give the front room of Demarest’s flat a deer-in-the-headlights look as Michaelson offered this comment from the corner armchair. Phillips had just come in and the disposable surgical gloves on his hands suggested that he had been expecting solitude.

  “Aren’t you glad to see me, A.P.?” Michaelson asked. “You look as jumpy as a gambler holding aces and eights with his back to the door. And where are Willie and Project, by the way?”

  “Keeping their eyes open nearby in case the police get ambitious enough to take a look at this place before tomorrow morning. There’s another jurisdiction involved, so I don’t really expect that kind of company tonight, but you can’t be too careful.”

  “Quite right,” Michaelson said with a diffident smile.

  “And as long as we’re asking by-the-way questions: What are you doing here, by the way?”

  “Searching for the same thing you are. The difference is that I found it.”

  “Where is it?” Phillips asked.

  “In the custody of the United States Postal Service, addressed to me at the Brookings Institution. And don’t think about intercepting it, because you can’t. Not that it would be worth the trouble.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Phillips said with a knife-flick smile as he started opening drawers in a small desk near the door.

  “Search the place if you want to,” Michaelson said, rising. “I’ve waited a good forty minutes for you because I thought we should talk as soon as possible. But if you’d rather waste your time verifying what I’ve just told you, we can talk tomorrow.”

  “Talk about what?” Phillips asked as he stopped rifling the drawer.

  “Two things. First: the substance of the document you would have found if I hadn’t beaten you to it—which I will tell you. Second and more important: what you’re actually up to in this little adventure—which you will tell me.”

  “Deal,” Phillips said. “You first.”

  Michaelson summarized the Lancer memo in four clipped sentences.

  “What a bombshell,” Phillips exclaimed a bit theatrically when Michae
lson had finished. “You can’t imagine how cross I am about getting here too late to cop a prize like that.”

  “Oh please,” Michaelson said. He smiled in spite of himself.

  “Don’t scoff,” Phillips said, raising an admonitory index finger. “There’s something you don’t know, although with the hints from that memo you’d find it out soon enough. Sometime in the mid-eighties a very holy woman died in a mountain village not far from Jessenice. Near the Austrian border. Catholic area. Imbued with piety and all that. The customary reports of miracles and visions and so forth followed. The village became a pilgrimage site.”

  “Hence the memo’s reference to ‘religious crap,’” Michaelson said. “If Jessenice were jammed to the gills during the off-season, which for an alpine area would be late spring and summer, that would imply huge numbers of pilgrims and therefore an upsurge in religious interest and practice.”

  “And a head-grabbing increase in papal influence. All of which would be very bad news for commies, who you may remember tried to bump His Holiness off not many years before all this happened. Balkan Reds being the cringing little shits they are, a lot of them might have been inclined to cut their losses after getting information like this.”

  “Very elegant,” Michaelson said.

  “Well, you do see it, don’t you?” Phillips demanded impatiently. “Andrew Shepherd, who I’ll bet never stayed anywhere that didn’t have every amenity from CNN International in English on down, told Lancer a fairy tale about some youth hostel. This false information had enormous potential political significance. He did that because someone told him to. Fill in the blanks.”

  “Lancer was Aldrich Ames. Your turn.”

  “Stop being difficult. You know this as well as I do.”

  “Humor me,” Michaelson said.

  “Someone at the CIA,” Phillips said with elaborate patience after pursing his lips in exasperation for a moment, “used this innocuous American businessman to give phony data to Aldrich Ames, and therefore to his Soviet paymasters, several years before Ames was formally exposed as a commie spy. Ergo, Langley knew for years that Ames was spying for the Reds and let him keep on spying so that we could peddle grade A bullshit to the Kremlin.”