The Surrogate Thief

by Archer Mayor

  They rolled to a stop by an expanse of porch steps leading up to a huge front door and got out of the car, their shoes crunching on the pea-size stones of the drive.

  Joe gestured to Sam to precede him, bowing slightly.

  She smiled. “Thank you, sir. It does sort of set a mood, don’t it?”

  “It do.” He smiled back.

  The levity died as they reached the top. Across the broad width of the porch the door opened, and Walter Masius III, Tom Bander’s lawyer, stood before them in a three-piece suit with his telegenic mane of white hair. An unknown entity to Joe until Bander’s appearance in this case, Masius had become its media darling in a scant few days—eloquent, dramatic, charismatic, and eminently quotable. The press had taken him to their hearts.

  Sam couldn’t stand the man.

  “Hey, Counselor,” she greeted him. “They let you in, too?”

  Masius smiled broadly. “Indeed they did, Agent Martens.” He nodded graciously at Joe. “Agent Gunther, how are you today?”

  “Impatient. Where is he?”

  Masius stepped aside and ushered them in. “Mr. Bander’s in the library.”

  “You sound like the butler,” Sam commented.

  But Masius was beyond such taunts. He merely gestured down a ballroom-size hallway. The man could afford a thick skin, Gunther thought, his footsteps lost in the softness of thick carpeting. Boston-based, with a who’s-who list of shifty, well-heeled clients, Walter Masius hadn’t achieved his stardom by being easily riled.

  He passed ahead of them about halfway down the hall and opened a tall, carved wooden door to their left. “In here,” he said, and again stood aside to let them in.

  The room they entered was two stories high, with one wall of leaded-glass windows and the other three lined with solid rows of expensive books. A railed balcony ran above them like a suspended horseshoe. Persian rugs were scattered across the floor, fat leather furniture was gathered in clusters around old-looking lamps and low, claw-footed tables, and by the windows sat a desk, huge as a dry-docked aircraft carrier.

  The whole room was as sumptuous as a movie set and looked just as fake. Gunther had no doubt that the entire collection of books had been purchased by an interior decorator and remained untouched by the home’s owner.

  “Mr. Bander will be right in,” Masius purred. “Make yourselves comfortable.” He backed out, drawing the door closed as he went.

  “Christ,” Sam said in a whisper, looking around.

  “It’s a My Fair Lady knockoff,” Joe told her. “I’ve seen it before, only better.” He sighed in frustration. “I knew he’d pull this kind of crap—soon as I heard we had to come here to collect. Goddamned theatrics.”

  Sam watched her boss walk over to the windows and stare out at the vast lawn, its surface flecked with dead leaves, pale and battered by the first frosts of the season. She’d seen him get increasingly tense as the days had crawled by, sitting far from the command post in his upstairs office, poring over files he’d studied a dozen times already. The contrast between that and their own progress downstairs had been palpable, since they’d been successfully strengthening their case against Greenberg with ever-growing piles of evidence, including having located his three colleagues from the Tunbridge Fair. Knowing that they were all involved in a major case was intoxicating, which only made Sam’s awareness of Joe’s isolation that much more poignant. Several times she’d found excuses to drop by to find out how he was doing, and each time, although he’d pretended to be working, she’d known he’d simply been waiting for today—for the evidence, true, but even more, she sensed, for the opportunity to bring a little peace to his spirit.

  A different door, off to one side and designed to blend into the bookcases, opened to reveal the man they’d both seen only in news photos, on TV, and as a scruffy youngster in yellowed mug shots.

  Walter Masius was on his heels, still acting like a windup majordomo.

  “Mr. Bander, Agents Gunther and Martens.”

  Seeing his nemesis for the first time in person—a short, pale, unprepossessing man dressed in nondescript clothes—caught Joe unexpectedly. In a way, he’d anticipated something weightier, at least marginally dramatic—someone looking the role ascribed to him.

  This was a nobody, a delivery man lost in a mansion, glancing around as if expecting to be thrown out.

  Joe knew what Thomas Bander had done, both as T. J. Ralpher and under the guise of legitimate business. He knew that underneath the insipid exterior hid a man capable of ruthless cruelty.

  But therein lay the distinction between what Joe had imagined and what faced him now—previously, Bander’s evil had been shrouded with a convenient, though fictionalized, personality. Call it the spider of lore at the web’s center, calculating, seductive, lethally larger than life—a monster deserving of the damage that Joe had carried around inside him for well over half his years.

  But now, in this forgettable, unmemorable, utterly ordinary man, Joe suddenly saw the larger insult of simple amorality. Tom Bander was no dark creature. He was simply an opportunistic parasite.

  “You can cut the crap, Masius,” Gunther said shortly from across the large room, feeling the heat of pure rage wash over him. “This isn’t Masterpiece Theatre, and you’re not Alistair Cooke. Let’s get this done.” He waved at his colleague impatiently. “Sam.”

  Sam looked at him, startled, as she reached into her pocket to extract the small buccal swab kit needed for the sampling. She could count on one hand the times she’d seen Joe angry, always in response to an immediate crisis—never a real burn like this one.

  She approached the slight man with Masius. “Mr. Bander? Sorry, but I need to confirm your identity before taking the swab.”

  Masius spoke for his client. “We attest that this is Thomas Bander, for the record.”

  “Driver’s license,” Joe said, still keeping his distance.

  “I don’t believe that’s necessary,” Masius stated dismissively. “My client is a well-known member of the community.”

  Gunther’s voice remained hard. “It’s a court order, goddamn it. Show her the license.”

  Masius opened his mouth to respond, but Bander merely extracted his wallet and displayed the ID. Sam peered at the photograph and nodded, handing Masius a copy of the judge’s order.

  “You want to sit down for this?” she asked Bander.

  He smiled slightly. “Will it hurt?”

  Joe suddenly broke from his position, crossed the carpeting quickly, and seized Bander by the upper arm as everyone, Sam included, tensed for a violent outburst. Instead, Gunther roughly drew him to a chair and sat him down like a child.

  “Open your mouth,” he ordered.

  “Now, just a minute,” Masius objected.

  Joe turned on him. “You shut up.”

  Bander was looking up, from one to the other.

  Gunther refocused on him. “Was there something you didn’t understand?”

  His mouth snapped open.

  Sam moved around her boss, quickly slipped on a pair of latex gloves, and extracted the swab from its sealed envelope. The sooner they left, she hoped, the sooner she’d be able to prevent Joe from shooting someone.

  “I’m sorry, Agent Gunther,” Masius intoned, “But I’m going to have to take this up with your superiors. This is simply not acceptable behavior.”

  Joe took three fast steps toward him, forcing him to retreat until he bumped into the wall.

  “You call anybody you like, Counselor. I don’t happen to give a good goddamn. But while I’m here, doing what the law allows, I am not going to put up with your shit. Is that understood?”

  “I will not . . . ,” the other man began.

  “Is that understood?” Gunther shouted, his face two inches from the lawyer’s.

  Masius paused, swallowed, and finally murmured, “Yes.”

  Gunther returned to Bander, who was licking his lips following Sam’s careful swiping of both his inner cheeks wit
h the buccal swab, which she was now repackaging at high speed.

  “And you, T. J.,” he said, leaning forward and emphasizing Bander’s former name, “you better enjoy your last days in this place, ’cause your ass is mine. After all these years getting rich off other people’s misery, you’re in for some serious payback.”

  “Okay, boss,” Sam said very quietly. “I’m all set.”

  Gunther nodded and was heading for the door when Masius spoke up again.

  Sam didn’t hear what he said. Joe whirled around so fast and shouted, “Don’t” so loudly, his finger pointed like a sword at the man, that only that one word reverberated around them.

  Once again, Masius shut his mouth, his eyes narrow with anger.

  Sam and Joe left the room—and the house—in total silence.

  Used to weathering a lifetime of male outbursts, Sam made directly for the car, trusting time to settle Joe back down.

  But he stayed standing at the bottom of the porch’s broad steps for a moment, his head back, seemingly taking in the cold, overcast sky.

  She hesitated by the car door, wondering whether to get in and wait, or stay where she was. When Willy acted out, it was so routine and she was so used to it, she rarely gave it a second’s thought. It was one of the tricks of their unusual relationship that she had this knack, and thus the ability to keep them going as a couple.

  But she was off balance here and unsure of how to behave. She finally decided to do nothing and merely stood stock-still, her hand resting on the car’s fender.

  As if suddenly losing air from within, Joe dropped his head, slumped his shoulders, and let out a long sigh. He then walked over to the car and brought his fist down on its hood with a crash, leaving a rock-size divot. All without uttering a word.

  Sam glanced at the dent along with him for a slow count of five.

  “Feel better?” she risked asking.

  Almost reluctantly, he brought his eyes up to meet hers. “My hand hurts.”

  “Bad?”

  He flexed his fingers. “No.”

  She tilted her head inquiringly to one side. “You want to get out of here before they hassle us for trespassing?”

  He looked at the huge building with a contemptuous frown. “Right.”

  She waited until they’d regained the Upper Dummerston Road, off Hillwinds, before commenting, “This case must be taking its toll.”

  He laughed, to her relief, and admitted, “You noticed that, huh? Good investigator.”

  “You pick up on the little things,” she said. “It’s like an art.”

  He didn’t answer for quite a while, his eyes on the road ahead, before adding, “Or a migraine.”

  “You’re not happy about nailing this guy?” she asked.

  He mulled that over. “Not really. I mean, I recognize the value of it, but it’s too late. It won’t repair the damage.”

  He glanced at her, allowing her a glimpse of unmitigated sadness and loss.

  “It’s been too long,” he added. “And it’s cut too deep.”

  Chapter 23

  I finally met Tom Bander,” Joe told Gail.

  They were sitting opposite each other at the tiny counter that separated Joe’s kitchen from the living room, the remains of a meal between them. Acquiescing to the rigors of the campaign and her own lack of time, Gail had let Joe cook dinner. He’d catered to her strict vegetarian habits by making an iceberg salad and glow-in-the-dark macaroni and cheese out of a box, and, much as she hated to admit it, it had been one of the best meals she’d enjoyed in months.

  “I went to his house a few days ago,” Joe continued, getting up to put the water on for some coffee. “First time I’d ever set eyes on him.”

  Gail thought she knew what was going on, or hoped she did.

  “How was he?”

  “Small, quiet. Not a guy to fill a room by just entering it. Not like his lawyer. With all that power and money, the ability to order people killed, he was a nobody.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “To get a DNA sample,” he said lightly, lining up the mugs and rooting through the fridge for milk.

  She turned that over in her mind, trying to imagine the scene. “Must’ve been tough, finally meeting him after all this time.”

  Joe returned to his seat and took her hand in his. “I lost it. I pushed him into a chair, yelled at the lawyer, dented the hood of my car afterward with my fist. I may have put Sammie into therapy.”

  Gail rubbed his knuckles with her fingertips, in fact happy to hear he’d blown up. “She sleeps with Willy, for God’s sake. She’s got the hide of a rhino.”

  He smiled weakly. “Still, I remember seeing my father explode like that when his tractor broke down once, when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to talk to him for weeks afterward.”

  Gail raised her eyebrows. “And Sam’s been running away every time she sees you?”

  He granted her point. “No. I think I knew at the time it wasn’t the tractor he was mad at—maybe that’s what scared me. I didn’t know what the real reasons were. I just suspected they were there.”

  “You ever find out?”

  “Good Lord, no. My old man was like a sealed chest on those kinds of things. You didn’t share your feelings with your kids—or anyone else, for that matter. Jesus, that would’ve really put me into shock.”

  “But you know what set you off at Bander’s,” she suggested.

  He took his hand back and propped his chin up with it. “Maybe. I’m not so sure. I was there getting the evidence I’m hoping will put him in jail. Should’ve been a time to rejoice. Instead, I just felt incredibly pissed off at everything he’s caused.”

  Gail pushed for more. “What has he caused, exactly? You’ve dealt with murderers before. Some of them have put you through the wringer a lot worse than this guy, it seems.”

  He looked at her, surprise on his face. “Partly, I think that’s what got to me—no bluster, no acting out, no nothing. But now I think the bigger part was remembering Katie Clark, sitting in her chair, about as alone and defenseless as you can get. Why kill her? Or Shea or Hannah Shriver, for that matter. It was all so gratuitous. So totally self-serving.”

  “But not unique,” she pushed.

  To his credit, he didn’t reject this outright. He took it in, turned it around, and finally said, “Maybe, for me, this once it was.”

  “Because of how it started?”

  He nodded. “Maria Oberfeldt. We got to calling her the bat from hell, the way she went after us, day after day, week after week. At first it was a pain—we were doing what we could. We didn’t have the resources to do much beyond catch people who were still standing over their victims. When we got the evidence implicating Pete Shea, I thought we’d gotten lucky. But then we never found him. As time went on, I kept dreaming about how I’d be able to put her mind at ease someday, so that she could just sit by her husband’s side and pay attention to his dying.”

  “Like you were doing with Ellen?” Gail asked.

  He stopped halfway to the stove, where the kettle was beginning to whistle. His face averted, he ran his hand through his hair before turning off the flame. He stood, staring at the steam pumping out of the spout like a miniature chimney fire. A man lost in a dream.

  In the silence, Gail heard a truck rumble by the front of the house.

  Finally, he picked up the kettle and poured hot water into both mugs. Instant coffee, naturally.

  “I didn’t do much for Ellen,” he said at last, addressing the mugs. “I wasn’t able to do much for anyone, as it turned out.”

  He spooned in the coffee, added milk and sugar to his, and brought them over to the counter.

  “Did I ever tell you what happened to Maria Oberfeldt?” he asked.

  “You’ve never told me much about any of this.”

  “She left town right after her husband died, which he did when she was at the police station, bugging us yet again. She returned to the hos
pital, was told that he’d passed, and she left, almost the next day.”

  He sat down and cradled the mug between his hands. “Two weeks later, she committed suicide. Seventy-four. They’d been married fifty-five years.”

  He let out a sigh, and she noticed that his eyes were glistening. “We’d both been widowed, almost on the same day. When I heard she’d died so soon after, it felt like being hit all over again.”

  He paused and took a deep breath. “That day, I told myself I’d never get that close to anyone ever again.”

  “You’re talking about Ellen.”

  “Yeah.”

  He pressed his fingertips against his eyes. “The T. J. Ralphers of the world—or whatever they’re called—have no clue how far out the ripples go. Maybe it was his total lack of character that made me blow up. Damned if I know.”

  Gail waited for him to take his time. She thought of how little she’d understood of all this—not just recently, while she’d been distracted by her political ambitions, but during their whole time together, stretching back years. She’d heard some of it, certainly the broad outline, but without the attention it clearly deserved. Now she felt oddly unbalanced, torn between yielding to her own sentimentality, and the knowledge that what he’d revealed was a statement of fact. He would never get as close to anyone as he’d been to Ellen ever again—and despite the love that he and Gail had nurtured and nursed through the years, that included her.

  She had fussed around identifying her own reasons for not committing conventionally to this union, through marriage or at least cohabitation. She’d looked at her upbringing, her own parents’ struggles, the rape that had changed her life. But she’d rarely paused to look at him. To some degree, Joe Gunther had just been that lucky catch, the guy who would put up with her eccentricities.

  Now, feeling a bit naive, she saw him in more depth—and while she was grateful for his devotion to her, this conversation had left her shaken.

  She reached out, took his hand, and kissed it.

  Kathy Bartlett’s plan not to arrest Tom Bander prematurely was working well. While Walter Masius kept holding press conferences to decry the abuses being heaped on his client—little unconfirmed snippets of which, Joe was pretty certain, Bartlett was making sure got leaked—Bander himself had all but made a prison out of his sumptuous home. In the meantime, Greenberg was still talking, his three colleagues from the Tunbridge Fair had been rounded up and were adding their songs to his, and the Massachusetts State Police were updating their case daily with new and damning evidence linking Greenberg to the death of Pete Shea.