Even the Wind: A Jonas Brant Thriller

by Phillip Wilson

  Brant stood to leave. He was fuming. He refused Sutton’s handshake.

  ``Let’s not make this personal, Jonas. I hate that there’s tension between us.’’

  Brant continued to glower as he prepared his exit. ``We’re not done.’’

  ``No, that’s exactly what we are, Jonas. We’re done.’’

  He seethed, even on his return to the squad room. Sutton had rattled him. Brant had been stupid confronting him like that. He could have been smarter and taken a different, more nuanced approach. Better yet, he could have stayed out of it altogether. Why did he always feel the need to fix things?

  Brant kicked the back of a chair, releasing some of the tension with the force of his foot against the back of the armrest. The chair spun and careened across the aisle before crashing into a desk on the far side of the room. One or two of the officers in the squad room lifted their heads in the direction of the commotion.

  ``Bad mood?’’ Clatterback asked.

  ``Don’t say anything. Just don’t.’’

  He’d found Clatterback and Malloy huddling in a corner, comparing notes while gossiping about the latest office politics. Rumor had it Julian March was in line for Jolly’s job should the big man step out of line or be pushed.

  ``Let’s get a conference room,’’ he said.

  They found a vacant room a floor below.

  ``Your sister called,’’ Malloy said when he’d closed the door. ``She sounded pretty upset. She tried you on the cell but you weren’t answering. Where were you this morning anyway?’’

  ``I had an appointment downtown.’’

  ``You missed Jolly’s speech,’’ Clatterback said as he leaned back in an Aeron chair.

  ``How was it?’’

  ``About as inspirational as you’d expect.’’

  ``That bad, huh?’’

  ``You have no idea.’’

  Brant drew the blinds, casting the room into semi darkness.

  ``Let’s go over what we’ve got. Let’s stick to the knowns first. We can speculate after that.’’

  ``James Cicca,’’ Malloy said.

  ``Care to elaborate?’’

  ``You asked for a name. Cicca interviewed Luceno. Well, he was one of the two officers. The other guy was named Davis. But James Cicca’s your man. I know him. He’s discreet. He’ll talk, but I don’t know what you’re hoping to get out of it. By the way, that’s it for Luceno, okay? I’ve done all I’m going to do. I’d actually like to have a career.’’

  ``Fair enough. James Cicca. I’ll take it from here. Thanks. I know that put you in a difficult situation and I appreciate it. What about you, Junior? What have you been up to?’’

  Clatterback smiled. ``I thought you’d never ask. I’ve been going through hospital records. Carswell gave her kid up for adoption. It was all hush hush. That’s probably why no one really knew anything about the kid.’’

  ``But you found something?’’

  ``Yes, I did. I found the father’s name. He’s called Franz Eichel. German guy, I guess.’’

  Clatterback placed a folder on the table. Brant began thumbing through a collection of photographs. Each showed the same man. Franz Eichel was tall and athletic. Some would call him swarthy. He had broad shoulders and the face of an outdoorsman. In one photograph, he sported a beard. Another showed him standing at the edge of a beach, stripped to the waist and displaying an enviable six pack.

  ``How did you find him?’’

  ``Adoption agency,’’ Clatterback said. ``The hospital gave me the name. All I had to do was tell them the mother had been murdered. They were pretty quick to come up with the father’s name. I got the sense they were happy to get rid of me.’’

  ``Where’d the baby end up?’’ Malloy asked.

  Clatterback shrugged. ``Family out in California. I didn’t dig too far but I can go back and find them if we think that’s relevant.’’

  ``It might be,’’ Brant said. ``Let’s hold that thought for a second. What about the phone records, the CDs in her apartment and the gun?’’

  ``We can trace the phone records pretty easily now that we know what we’re looking for. I can do a specific search for Eichel. We can also trace her movements in a bit more detail, see when she met up with him and where they spent time together. The CDs are a bust. They were erased.’’

  ``You can’t recover the data?’’

  ``We can try but it’ll take time.’’

  ``Do it. What about the gun?’’

  ``Reported stolen a year ago,’’ Malloy said. ``I did a search through the FRB database. You’re gonna love this. The gun you found in Carswell’s apartment was purchased and registered by a Pyotr Dimitri.’’

  ``Dimitri? As in Volodin’s Dimitri?’’

  Malloy nodded. ``One and the same. I checked with the IRS. Pyotr Dimitri’s last tax return lists Sergei Volodin as his employer. Quite a coincidence.’’

  ``Not likely,’’ Brant said. He stood and began pacing the room. The conference room’s windows looked onto Tremont Street. Beyond that was a parking lot and several modern office buildings.

  ``How’d it end up in Carswell’s room?’’ Clatterback asked.

  ``Good question. I need to think about that.’’

  ``Your hunch on Volodin seems to be correct,’’ Malloy said after a moment. ``The evidence points more and more in his direction.’’

  ``It does, doesn’t it?’’ Brant said.

  ``Who’s Sergei Volodin?’’ Clatterback asked. ``I’m missing something.’’

  ``Sorry, we should have told you, Junior. Sergei Volodin was the owner of the building where Genepro is…was…located. He’s also what you would call a modern day gangster. Has his fingers into pretty much everything. Much of it quite sophisticated. Some of it pretty basic.’’

  ``Why have I never heard of him?’’ Clatterback asked.

  ``He’s very smart. He’s very good at getting his foot soldiers to do the dirty work while he stays in the background. I’ve come up against him a few times but we’ve never been able to get enough to stick. Maybe this time is different.’’

  ``What do we really have? Most of it’s circumstantial. There’s nothing that puts Volodin anywhere near Carswell’s murder, is there?’’ Malloy furrowed her brow.

  ``Let’s go over what we have,’’ Brant said, pointing to the whiteboard they’d earlier set up and the timeline of the investigation sprawled along the bottom in ink. ``Allison Carswell meets this Franz Eichel. They start seeing each other, spend time. She gets pregnant and has the baby. What kind of timeframe are we talking about? Junior? How long does it take to hook up and settle down?’’

  Clatterback shrugged as he fiddled with the controls of his Aeron. Brant had taken the cap off a black marker and had written Franz Eichel’s name into a bubble near the center of the whiteboard. Lines were drawn between Eichel and Carswell, connecting them. ``How am I supposed to know? It’s not like I’m married or anything. You’re the expert around here on that subject.’’

  Brant’s face reddened. Clatterback had hit a sore point.

  ``What about you, Katy? What kind of timeline should we be considering here?’’

  ``In today’s hookup culture? It’d be nice if we had a bit more on Eichel. We could trace their paths, see when they first met. Does he have Facebook? Maybe he’s on Linkedin or Twitter or Tumblr?’’

  ``Tumblr?’’ Brant asked. He was new to social media. Much of it left him perplexed. He couldn’t see the point but was reluctant to admit as much in front of the two younger officers.

  ``It’s kind of a blog-making service. You post photos, stories, snippets, songs you like. That kind of thing.’’

  ``What about it, Junior? Does Eichel have any kind of social media presence?’’

  ``I thought you’d never ask.’’

  Clatterback produced a laptop computer, which he placed on the conference room table. It was an older black Lenovo Thinkpad with a red nub in the middle of the keyboard that served as the pointer. After o
pening a browser window, he tapped in a web address and pulled up a Twitter feed.

  ``He was pretty active on Twitter until two weeks ago. He’s been quiet since then. Nothing on Facebook, Linkedin or Tumblr. Tumblr’s so yesterday by the way.’’

  Malloy rolled her eyes at the rebuke and the challenge to her Internet savvy.

  ``What do we know about him?’’ Brant asked, ignoring Clatterback’s jibe.

  Clatterback scrolled through several screens, navigating Eichel’s Twitter feed through the previous months. Eichel’s posts were mostly photographs. Like the earlier pictures Clatterback had found, they showed an athletic man engaged in all manner of sport.

  ``Looks like he’s some kind of outdoors guy. The description at the top of his Twitter page doesn’t give us much to go on, but he says he’s passionate about being out on the water and enjoys pushing himself to the limits. Whatever that means.’’

  ``Let me see that.’’

  Brant took control of the laptop.

  Eichel’s feed made no mention of Allison Carswell, or the fact that he was in a relationship of any kind. Most of the photos and posts were vague. Several were inspirational quotes lifted from other places. Some showed photographs Eichel had taken around Boston. Others displayed landscapes of stunning beauty. One was of a setting sun over a placid lake bordered by a rocky outcrop.

  ``Well, if we assume he took those photos, we know he was in Boston. Look here. This one was taken at Fenway Park. You can see the scoreboard in the background.’’

  Clatterback clicked onto the feed’s photograph, bringing up a separate screen he was able to enlarge with the click of the mouse.

  ``Can you see who was playing?’’ Brant asked as he eyed the picture. Eichel was in the foreground wearing a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. He held a red plastic tumbler in one hand. In his other he made a V for victory with his fingers. His smile was broad and enthusiastic.

  ``He’s a Red Sox fan by the look of it,’’ Malloy said. ``Looks like they were playing the Orioles. And it looks like they were winning. Eichel seems pretty happy about it.’’

  ``We should find out when that game was played. That way we’ll at least be able to place him in Boston at a specific time.’’

  ``That’s doable,’’ Clatterback said. ``At least we can get a pretty close approximation.’’

  ``And how do you figure that?’’ Malloy asked. ``The Red Sox play the Orioles dozens of times during the season. You’d be guessing.’’

  ``Not necessarily,’’ Clatterback said, reorienting the screen and blowing up the section of the scoreboard to display the score. ``This is the bottom of the sixth. Won’t be too hard to trace the score back if I download this season’s stats to an Excel spreadsheet.’’

  ``What if it wasn’t this season?’’ Malloy asked. ``Carswell had the kid awhile ago. That means they had to have gotten together at least a year ago if we think she had the baby before she joined Genepro. Remember, the guy at Genepro said he wasn’t aware she’d had a kid. And the roommate was clueless, too.’’

  ``The other boyfriend said she’d had the baby in March. They broke up in June. They were going out for about six months but it seems to have been an off and off thing.’’

  ``Other boyfriend?’’ Malloy asked.

  ``I spoke to him out by Pleasure Bay,’’ Brant said. ``That’s where I was this morning. It didn’t yield much but it gives me a much better idea of the timeline. I’m going to guess, but if Eichel is the father, then she was seeing him before she hooked up with the sailing guy. That means she stopped seeing Eichel before November. She wasn’t working at Genepro at the time. In fact, we know she wasn’t working at Genepro until after she had the baby.’’

  ``Where was she before that?’’ Malloy asked.

  ``Tufts,’’ Brant said without missing a beat. ``The old boyfriend says she was a researcher at the school of medicine. Something about biomedical research. Junior, see if you can find any research Carswell got published. Maybe an academic paper or an article somewhere.’’

  Clatterback closed Eichel’s Twitter feed and pulled up a second tab on the browser. A few taps of the keyboard and he was on Google, navigating through a screen of hyperlinks. He appeared to grow more irritated the longer he navigated.

  ``Only one mention on Google scholar,’’ he said finally.

  ``Goggle scholar?’’ Brant sighed. He really had to get up to speed on the Internet. Its value to investigations had become central almost overnight and he’d failed to keep current. A potentially fatal gap in his skill set.

  ``Jesus, sir. You really are clueless. Sorry to be blunt.’’

  ``Just…tell us what you found.’’

  ``Google scholar’s essentially a filter to search academic papers. You can also use it to check out who’s citing your work, or to keep up on developments in a specific area of research. I searched for Carswell and Tufts. She’s the co-author of one paper, but that’s it so far. Here’s the link.’’

  ``This should be interesting,’’ Brant said as he took control of the screen and clicked into the link highlighted in blue at the top of the search window.

  ``Electroporation: theory and methods, perspectives for drug delivery, gene therapy and research,’’ Brant said, reading the title aloud.

  ``That’s certainly a mouthful. Wonder what it means.’’

  ``If I’m reading this right, the abstract says electroporation is some kind of way to overcome the barrier of the cell membrane.’’ Brant made quote marks around the words he read directly from the screen.

  ``Whatever that means,’’ Malloy said.

  ``There’s more,’’ Brant said as he scrolled further down the screen. ``Sounds like some kind of electrical field is applied to a cell’s membrane to break it down so `the permeabilized state can be used to load cells with a variety of different molecules.’’’

  ``Whoa,’’ Clatterback said. ``I didn’t do too badly in biology at school but I’m getting lost.’’

  ``I’m with you,’’ Brant said. ``I’m not exactly sure what this all means but if I remember my high school biology correctly…and I think I do…this electroporation stuff is a way to get things into a cell.’’

  ``You think?’’ Clatterback asked, barely concealing his sarcasm. ``I mean that’s pretty basic, right?’’

  ``Basic enough,’’ Brant admitted. ``But why?’’

  ``Where do we go from here?’’ Malloy asked.

  ``I think another visit to Genepro is in order.’’

  ``Want company?’’ Clatterback asked. He was chomping at the bit, playing the part of the overenthusiastic puppy.

  ``I’ll take this one alone,’’ Brant said, reigning him in. ``Better you spend your time placing Eichel in Boston.’’

  ``Errr, about that,’’ Malloy said. ``I think I can already do that.’’

  ``How so?’’

  ``Look at Eichel’s Twitter page again.’’

  Malloy had reopened Franz Eichel’s Twitter feed and clicked back into a second photograph of the Red Sox game. She placed the cursor to the far left corner of the screen and clicked.

  ``We were so focused on the scoreboard. This one shows the Jumbotron.’’

  Brant and Clatterback looked at each other, the stupidity of their earlier actions dawning on them. The enlarged photograph clearly displayed the date and time at the top of the Jumbotron’s screen. Below, the two flags of the opposing teams seemed to flutter in an imagined breeze.

  ``May 22,’’ Brant said, writing the date onto the timeline on the whiteboard before standing back and admiring his handiwork. ``At least we know when he was in Boston. The timeline’s filling out nicely.’’

  ``Maybe he’s still here,’’ Malloy said.

  Clatterback shook his head. ``Nothing in the city directories. I haven’t found a cellphone number yet. The last Twitter entry says `Going north.’’’

  ``When was that?’’ Brant asked.

  Clatterback scrolled to the top of the screen and Eichel’s fin
al entry. ``May 24.’’

  ``Two days after the Sox game. Which also means that he was probably seeing Carswell at the same time as the other boyfriend. Is it possible they wouldn’t know about each other?’’

  Brant turned to Malloy. ``Don’t look at me. How am I supposed to know?’’

  ``I figured you’d be a better shot than Junior here. He doesn’t strike me as particularly adept in the romance department.’’

  ``Hey!’’

  ``Sorry, it’s just an observation.’’

  ``It’s entirely possible they were clueless of each other. But I don’t know how she’d have the time. That’s a lot of work. Having a kid. Holding down a job. Juggling a career. The woman seems to have been pretty active.’’

  ``Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too,’’ Brant said. ``There also the issue of the apartment she shared with Chua. How does a university researcher afford something like that? What’s the monthly rent, do you think?’’

  ``At least a couple thousand a month,’’ Clatterback said. ``Maybe more in that neighborhood. Those fittings in that apartment weren’t cheap. I’m guessing at least $4,000 a month. Probably higher.’’

  ``And a medical researcher makes what? Maybe $50,000?’’

  ``If she was a postdoctoral fellow. Lower probably if she wasn’t post doc.’’

  ``Don’t forget she was sharing,’’ Malloy said.

  ``Yeah, maybe,’’ Brant replied. ``But even then, it’s still almost $25,000 in rent a year. That would be half her salary. So where’s the money coming from and what’s she living on?’’

  ``And then there’s the shoes,’’ Clatterback said.

  ``Shoes?’’

  ``The Jimmy Choos. They weren’t cheap.’’