Even the Wind: A Jonas Brant Thriller

by Phillip Wilson

  ``Did Allison have an iPhone?’ Brant asked.

  ``I think so, yes. Either that or a Blackberry.’’

  ``Do you know where she kept it?’’

  Chua shrugged a reply.

  ``You’ve been very helpful,’’ Brant said, barely concealing his sarcasm. ``Her parents will need to know. Someone will be in touch.’’

  Chua shook her head and looked down at her feet, doing her best to avoid his eyes.

  Brant retrieved the phone bill from Clatterback, placed it into his hip pocket then gathered the half dozen CDs into their carrying case.

  ``I’m going to call this in,’’ Brant said to Chua, taking in the room with a nod of his head. ``The computer will need to be analyzed at the station. Someone’ll be in touch.’’

  ``That was productive,’’ Brant said, dipping a chicken tender into a pot of honey mustard sauce and popping it into his mouth. ``We’re getting somewhere.’’

  ``You rattled her at the end.’’

  ``Did I?’’ Brant replied, smirking.

  They were sitting in an Irish pub a stone’s throw from Haymarket Square. The afternoon had turned into early evening. The financial district had emptied. Brant had phoned Mrs. Rodrigues to check on Ben. He’d heard Ben in the background and the sound of pots and pans crashing together.

  ``Put him on please,’’ he said to Mrs. Rodrigues.

  ``We’re cooking.’’

  ``What are you making?’’

  ``Pasta.’’

  ``That’s good. You like pasta.’’

  ``When are you coming home?’’

  ``In a bit, buddy. I’m still at work.’’

  ``Did you catch any bad people today?’’

  ``Not yet. But I’m doing my best.’’

  ``Stevie says policemen kill people. Have you killed anyone, Daddy?’’

  Brant thought the question over, unsure how to reply.

  ``Sometimes policemen have to do difficult things to protect the good people,’’ he finally said, doing his best to be truthful. ``Put Mrs. Rodrigues back on the phone please.’’

  ``He’s a good boy Mr. Jonas. Smart too.’’

  ``Thanks for picking Ben up. I’m still downtown.’’

  The pub was located in the bottom level of a renovated office building. They’d taken a booth at the back and away from the bar where the usual gaggle of office workers congregated. Brant sat with his back to the wood-paneled wall, affording him a view of the restaurant area and the bar. The place was busy when they’d arrived and was getting more crowded by the minute. He’d been in the place a few times and recognized some of the usual crowd. Broad-shouldered young men stood in packs by the bar. Four flat-screen monitors hung from brackets affixed to a dropped ceiling painted bright red and accented by strips of blue LED lighting. A basketball game played on one of the screens. Local newscasts and a baseball game filled the others.

  ``Everything ok?’’ Clatterback asked, sucking his Guinness and wiping the foam from its head with his sleeve. ``What’s with the kid? You married?’’

  Brant shook his head. ``Widowed, I guess, if that’s still an acceptable word. And the kid is my son, Ben. He’s four.’’

  ``So what happened to your old lady?’’

  ``Geez Cluster, not too subtle are you?’’

  ``You haven’t decided yet, huh?’’ Clatterback asked with a playful twinkle in his eye.

  ``What are you talking about?’’

  ``Junior. Cluster. You keep switching between the two.’’

  ``More I get to know you Clatterback, I’m starting to like Junior. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’’

  Clatterback shrugged.

  ``And if you really must know, my wife was killed in a car accident about two years back.’’

  ``She driving or was it one of those taxis that got sideswiped and the passenger gets killed. I’ve heard a lot about those lately,’’ Clatterback said without hesitation and without thinking.

  Brant smiled weakly in frustration at the line of questioning. Even years later, Maggie’s death was a sore point. He was still raw, but damned if he was going to wear his emotions in the open.

  ``Sideswiped at an intersection,’’ he said, finally. ``She was getting milk and a newspaper.’’

  ``Damn. They ever catch the shit?’’

  ``Nineteen-year-old kid from Philly. Blew two times over the limit.’’

  ``Where is he now? The kid, I mean.’’

  ``I know what you mean,’’ Brant said as he reached for another piece of chicken.

  ``It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,’’ Clatterback said as he read the look on Brant’s face.

  ``It’s fine,’’ Brant responded. ``Kid got 20 years. He’s in Norfolk.

  Clatterback puffed out his cheeks. The eye twinkle had dimmed slightly, replaced by something else. A touch of sympathy perhaps, Brant thought as he weighed the reaction of his new partner to the intimacies he’d just been told.

  ``That’s medium security isn’t it?’’

  ``Yes, it is.’’

  Brant lifted his Guinness and they toasted each other.

  ``So what about you, Junior? What’s your story? I mean now that we’re sharing our most heart-felt secrets.’’

  ``Not much to tell,’’ Clatterback said. ``I’m just trying to make my way in the world.’’

  Brant shot an appraising look. ``Ah, try again. There’s something about you I can’t quite place. You got friends in high places or something, right?’’

  Clatterback shrugged. ``Don’t think so. Not unless I have an uncle or an aunt that I don’t know about who’s some kind of billionaire. Besides, a name like Clatterback. Not exactly common, is it?’’

  Brant had to concede the point. In truth, he’d done a quick Goggle search the previous night, but had come up largely empty. Just the usual academy training, mention in a community newspaper a year ago and nothing else.

  ``Suit yourself,’’ Brant said. ``I’m agnostic. Just watch your step and don’t get yourself killed. More importantly, don’t get me killed.’’

  Clatterback nodded a greeting to a waitress, a woman in her twenties who’d glanced in their direction. He’d ordered a plate of cod and chips but was still waiting for his meal. The waitress caught the meaning and mouthed a response. Yes, it was coming and would be there in a moment, she’d seemed to say.

  ``What?’’

  ``Just thinking.’’

  ``That can be dangerous,’’ Brant replied, finishing the last of the chicken and wiping his fingers on the paper napkin sitting at the side of the basket.

  ``So I’m told. No, I was actually thinking about this pub. Look at them at the bar, all the punters. That’s what they were called back in the day, right? I’ll bet all of them now are computer jockeys working on some trading floor or Internet startup. This is playtime for them. Not like it used to be. And this place. An affront to Irish pubs everywhere.’’

  ``What would you know about any of that, Junior,’’ Brant asked, warming to the term. ``You’re a frickin’ millennial. You’re one of them.’’

  Clatterback shook his head.

  ``I’m older than I look, but you know what I’m talking about. And I despise that word.’’

  ``What word?’’

  ``The M word. It’s usually laced with the assumption that we’re all lazy, entitled and pampered. Maybe we are, maybe we’re not, but for God’s sake, give us a chance to mess up just like your generation. Know what I mean?’’

  Brant nodded in response, but said nothing.

  Clatterback smiled over the rim of his Guinness as his order arrived. ``Guess I’m just showing my age. Old at 24. Kinda sad.’’

  ``You are but I know what you mean. And these finance guys…I just don’t get it. I mean I understand what they do on a basic level, but ask me to explain it in any detail and I’m lost.’’

  A fiddler had started up at the front of the bar. There were shouts of encouragement and a smattering of half-hearted
claps trying to match the beat. On one of the flat screens, the one with the Sox playing, a run had been scored and the bar momentarily erupted in cheers and high fives. Brant drained his Guinness.

  ``You might want to go easy,’’ Clatterback said with a wry grin.

  ``Thanks, dad.’’

  ``Just some advice.’’

  ``So what did you think of Chua?’’ Brant asked, his thoughts turning back to the day’s work.

  ``Maybe she knows more about this boyfriend than she’s letting on.’’

  ``I thought the same,’’ Brant said. ``She had a pretty good recollection of the car he drove. I’m surprised she wouldn’t have pressed Carswell for more details.’’

  ``Maybe she already knows who the boyfriend is.’’

  ``What about the place where Carswell worked?’’ Brant retrieved the dead woman’s business card and fingered the edge as he read the name aloud. ``Genepro Molecular. Ever heard of it?’’

  Clatterback shrugged a no.

  ``I’ll check it out. Build up a dossier. I want to know everything we can find out about this company.’’

  ``You mean like what it makes, the financials? That kind of stuff?’’

  ``Whatever we can find out,’’ Brant said.

  ``Why don’t we find out now?’’

  Clatterback had taken his mobile phone out of his pocket and keyed the name into the search window. He repeated the search with variations of spelling when nothing had resulted from his first attempts.

  ``No website. No news. There’s a listing for a company by that name in Watertown, just as Chua said.’’

  Brant took the handset and flipped through the search screens to satisfy his own curiosity. His efforts produced the same results.

  ``What about those phone bills,’’ Clatterback asked, nodding in Brant’s direction.

  Brant retrieved the phone bill from his back pocket and the two officers made a quick scan of the calls the murdered girl had made and received in the days before her death. For a girl who kept a set of rosary beads in a drawer and a bookmarked Bible by her bed, Allison Carswell had shown a decidedly sociable side. The list of numbers she’d dialed was long, though none of the calls had lasted more than a few minutes. Brant wrote each of the numbers that appeared more than once onto a napkin. One stood out, a Boston number that Carswell had dialed more than a dozen times in one day at the end of the previous month.

  He punched the number into the screen of his own phone and pressed ``Call.’’ The other phone rang once before the call was quickly rerouted to an automated answering machine. He hung up without leaving a message.

  ``A couple of things to follow up,’’ Brant said, handing the napkin and notebook to Clatterback.

  A second cheer rose from the bar. Another run had been scored. More high fives. A few fist bumps. The fiddler had picked up the pace and was beginning to work the crowd. The darts machine flashed red as a young woman shouted bullseye, her face all smiles as she turned in victory to the group of women who’d accompanied her to the games floor. Brant leaned in toward Clatterback over the table top, his head swimming slightly as the booze began to bite.

  ``You work the phone list. I’ll check out Genepro.’’ Brant’s words came out a slur. He hadn’t expected to drink so much. The pub’s noise and the smells had overwhelmed him more than he’d realized.

  ``I’ll call you a cab. Your car’ll be alright at the station for the night.’’ Clatterback said, rising to leave. Brant attempted half-heartedly to wave him away but gave up without protest.

  He called Mrs. Rodrigues from the back of the cab to tell her he was on his way home. She rang off without asking why he’d needed a cab or why he’d spoken with a mouth full of marbles.

  Outside, a light rain had begun to fall. Asphalt glistened in the taxi’s headlights. The steady drum of the rain and the thrust and pull of the cab’s wipers played in iambic pantameter, lulling him to sleep. On the radio, Bruce Springsteen’s ``My Hometown.’’ Brant smiled as he followed along to the lyrics and as he recalled his own father, a big old Buick and the hometown of his youth now lost to memory.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  He woke with a hangover and a sliver of pain where the bullet had entered his head. His mouth felt full of cotton candy.

  Thankfully, Ben had known something was wrong and did his best to get ready for school without the usual morning ritual of tantrums and fighting.

  The woman at Little Acorn was less forgiving.

  ``Late night?’’ Carolyn Growski had asked when he’d dropped Ben at the door.

  The big woman peered over small, miserly bifocals. She seemed to be enjoying herself as she pursed her lips and awaited a response.

  Screw you, Brant thought as he silently commiserated with his son. Damned if he was going to be judged.

  The squad room was stifling. He wore a short-sleeved polo shirt, chinos, a leather belt, checked knitted socks and brown Rockport loafers. The Beretta sat in its leather shoulder holster, snug in the pit of his arm.

  ``It’s like the Bahamas in here,’’ he said to no one in particular. ``If the heat won’t kill you, the humidity will.’’

  ``Doesn’t seem to bother them.’’

  Katy Malloy, a junior detective with two solved murder cases already under her belt, rolled her eyes and pointed to the glass enclosure at the end of the squad room where Jolly was meeting with Julian March, one of the more senior detectives. The two had been going at it for nearly half an hour. Jolly stood at one point, paced the small room then hit the side of the door with enough force to rattle the inch-thick glass. Jolly, voice raised, gesticulated wildly towards Brant and the other detectives. Chastened, March slumped into his seat, eyes cast downward to his hands.

  ``They aren’t planning the Christmas party.’’

  Malloy turned back to the binders on her desk. She’d been asked earlier by Brant to start contacting hospitals throughout the state with the hope they’d be able to find where Allison Carswell had given birth. With luck, Brant figured, they’d be able to locate the doctor. Maybe they’d even be able to interview the hospital staff who’d presided over the baby’s birth. There was also a chance she’d gone out of state, or that she’d forgone a hospital completely in favor of a mid-wife or something even further ``off-grid.’’

  Malloy had already been in contact with Carswell’s parents to tell them about the investigation and in the hope they’d be able to narrow the scope of the hospital investigation. The mother had answered the phone, but seemed evasive and tentative. The shock of their daughter’s death had yet to fully sink in, the woman had said, explaining that they’d lost contact a few years earlier and had little knowledge or awareness of her life in Boston.

  The mother had agreed to call back when she had something more to contribute, leaving the team with little to go on but the hospital search and Carswell’s place of work.

  ``Do you want to help?’’ Malloy asked when Brant had placed a pile of Boston-area hospital records on her desk.

  ``Afraid I have other things to do,’’ Brant said. ``Have you seen Junior?’’

  ``Who?’’ Malloy furrowed her brows.

  ``Clatterback.’’

  ``He hasn’t come in yet.’’

  Around them, telephones rang, keyboards clattered and an endless parade of detectives, uniforms and dark suits hovered, sauntered and meandered.

  ``This is interesting,’’ Brant said to Malloy as Deputy Superintendent Manny Pinkus strode into the squad room with an immaculately dressed woman one step behind. Brant recognized her in an instant as Jill Larson, director of public information.

  Pinkus and Larson stopped, took their bearings then made directly for Jolly’s office. All eyes turned to the deputy superintendent, who gazed straight ahead with a steely, fixed stare.

  ``Big time brass,’’ Malloy said, puffing her cheeks and grinning. ``Wouldn’t want to be in Jolly’s office at the moment.’’

  As if on cue, Julian March rose from his chair and made
for the door. March offered a quick nod as he stood aside, clearing the way for Pinkus and Larson. Jolly greeted them each with a handshake and a smile.

  ``What was that all about?’’ Brant asked March when he’d cleared the room.

  ``Hell if I know.’’ The senior detective scowled. ``And even if I did, Brant, I wouldn’t be telling you.’’

  March grabbed a folder from atop one of the desks and made for the exit. Brant’s cellphone rang. Unknown Number flashed in bold letters on the device’s screen.

  ``Brant.’’

  ``Timmy said you were looking for something on Genepro Molecular.’’

  Timmy? Brant’s mind was a blank as he struggled to recognize the voice. A woman, for sure. A smoker by the sound of it. Confident. Assured. And she knew he was on the Carswell case. Then it hit him. He’d been looking for something more on Genepro Molecular and had called a journalist at the Boston Globe earlier in the day.

  ``You’re Tim Mathers’s friend?’’

  ``Colleague. I wouldn’t call us friends,’’ came the answer.

  ``So who am I speaking to?’’ Brant asked into his handset.

  ``Not over the phone. There’s a cafe around the corner from your station.’’

  ``The Starbucks?’’

  A wicked, derisive laugh. He pictured her face contorting into a look of disgust.

  ``Leon’s. Best coffee in the neighborhood. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.’’

  ``I…,’’ Brant was about to say he’d need at least ten minutes when she hung up, leaving him speaking into empty airspace. ``Damn.’’

  ``Problem?’’ Malloy asked.

  Brant looked at his watch. ``Got a lead I need to follow. Cover me in case Jolly needs us. And see if you can find out where Junior is.’’

  Leon’s buzzed. Office workers formed a line behind a chrome countertop. Others stood to the side of the cash register awaiting their orders, casually flipping through a collection of newspapers and magazines lying on a table running the length of a window. The tables appeared to be occupied mostly by students tapping at laptops, tablets and smartphones. The barista, cashier and servers were all related, or at least it appeared that way based on the coloring of their skin, caps of black hair and the oval, Mediterranean appearance of their faces.