The Chessman

by Jeffrey B. Burton

  “Elaine Kellervick, thirty-eight-year-old Caucasian, was found stabbed to death in the entryway of her townhouse.” Agent Evans nodded toward the door. “A neighbor the victim goes jogging with every morning stopped by. When no one answered the door, she peeked in the sidelights, saw the body, and called 911 from her cell.”

  “Kellervick live alone?”

  “Her husband, Stephen Kellervick, was at an engineering conference in Colorado. Mr. Kellervick’s a managing director at Chem-Tel. He’s also on a plane back as we speak. They tell me he sounded real shook up and he’s been in Denver all week, so it’s not an O.J. Although the autopsy will be more definitive, it doesn’t appear to be a sex crime. The victim was fully clothed. The ME’s initial best guess places her death between three and six p.m. yesterday.”

  “So we’re here because…”

  “A glass pawn was inserted into the victim’s stab wound.”

  Cady nodded, anticipating this response. “The Chessman killed Barrett Sanfield with a switchblade—a stiletto to be exact. I’m betting the autopsy will indicate that to be the case here as well. Where did Mrs. Kellervick work?”

  “She was an investment strategist at Koye & Plagans Financials. Been there over two years.”

  “An investment strategist and the designated Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. A pawn and a queen. He’s got an interesting wingspan.” Cady looked toward the front door. “Is Liz here?”

  “She’s inside,” Evans replied. “Would you like a look?”

  Cady nodded again. Both agents walked up the driveway and entered the townhouse.

  Cady spotted Agent Preston huddled with an agent he didn’t recognize in the living room. He sidestepped Agent Evans, who had knelt down with the criminologists around the lifeless body of Elaine Kellervick, and headed toward the Special Agent in Charge. As though in sync, Preston looked up and caught his eye.

  “It couldn’t have been Braun,” Preston said and turned toward a tall blonde she’d been speaking to. “Have you met Special Agent Beth Schommer from the Washington Field Office?”

  Cady shook his head and then Schommer’s hand.

  “Agent Schommer recently transferred in from Illinois.”

  “Go Bears.”

  “They’re not going anywhere with that quarterback,” Schommer said, then got to the subject at hand. “Eric Braun was processed out of the United States Marine Corps two years ago. He was piloting an AH-1W SuperCobra in Iraq—the Al Anbar province near Fallujah—when the Chessman killed Congressman Farris, Sanfield, and the psycho twins. Braun now lives in Hawaii. He makes a mint giving helicopter tours in Maui, flies tourists over waterfalls, that sort of stuff.”

  Cady nodded, but wasn’t ready to give up. “If Braun has over a decade in the Corps, he’ll have connections.”

  “We’re culling through his known associates, mostly jarheads and other servicemen he was chummy with, but you know how that goes. It will take some time to rule any of them in or out.” Agent Schommer glanced at Preston and then back at Cady. “Hard to believe Braun was pulling strings behind the scenes while flying missions in Al Anbar.”

  “We’ve had Braun under surveillance since we tracked him to Maui, after your call yesterday,” Preston added. “No way was he your night visitor. Now that you’ve placed the Chessman in D.C. the morning after this,” she motioned with one arm toward Agent Evans, still hunched over the body in the entryway, and continued, “I guess we now know that we’re dealing with the real McCoy.”

  “Boston to D.C.?”

  “We heard from an administrative assistant where Kellervick worked that she had cancelled a late afternoon meeting and left work at two o’clock yesterday. The admin said Kellervick appeared happy. So if he followed her home—or was waiting for her here—this could have been done by 3:30. Plenty of time to make it to D.C., even if the UNSUB drove. Remember, he took out the Zalentine twins on the same day.”

  “I called him ‘Braun.’ It was dark in the room, but that got a tic of his head. I read it as a tell. If he’s not Eric Braun, I think he knows Braun. Any of the other names pan out?”

  “No one else on the Kelch list served in the military,” said Schommer. “To be honest, the remaining names are pretty farfetched. There’s an accountant in Philly, Marly’s summer camp boyfriend is a priest in Erie, and one of her old thespian friends owns a catering company in Allentown and still acts in community theater.”

  “He wore a smart disguise. Good costume for the cameras.”

  Agent Schommer didn’t need to check her notes. “Her actor friend, Kurt Holt, is maybe five foot four inches tall and quite heavy. Kevin Costner he’s not. Holt is also gay, which doesn’t fit the profile, but we’ll take another look.”

  “Beth is nearly done nailing down alibis,” Preston said. “Frankly, Drew, it doesn’t look promising. Ditto for Marly’s male friends at Princeton.”

  “So much for my instincts, Liz,” Cady said. “So much for that.”

  —

  “Don’t be a goddamn fool!”

  Cady stood in front of the assistant director’s desk, arms crossed. “If he wanted me dead, I’d be wearing a toe tag.”

  “But now that we know definitively that the Chessman is still alive—hell, now that you two are practically dating—we can use that to draw him out into the open.”

  “Using me as bait is a waste of everyone’s time. It’s not me he’s after. And he’d be the goddamn fool if he tried another hotel room visit.” Though not invited, Cady sat down in the guest chair in front of Jund’s desk—the perks of being a consultant. “And we both know he’s not a goddamn fool.”

  “Then at least I’m going to partner you up,” Jund responded. “Do you know Agent Dave Merrill?”

  “That’s unnecessary where I’m going, sir.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “You wanted me to find him in the past so we could catch him in the present, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m heading to northern Minnesota.”

  Chapter 19

  Six Months Ago

  “Will I ever see Mom again?” Lucy asked softly.

  “We need to avoid England, but something can be finessed down the road.” Hartzell looked at his daughter. “We can never return to the colonies, Slim.”

  He added red onions, sliced grape tomatoes, skim milk, and Provolone cheese to the frying pan as he scrambled the egg whites. Although it was nearly three in the morning and Hartzell had never been much of a chef, both of them were starving—larceny must make one hungry—plus it gave him something to do as they plotted potential futures. Neither one was ready for sleep after a night of difficult revelations.

  “There are two options on the table. Option A is that we flee to a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.” Hartzell divvied up the scrambled eggs onto two china plates and then took the balled melon that Janice, their chirpy housemaid, had left for them from out of the refrigerator. “But I’m not so sure we’d find enlightenment in North Korea or Rwanda. And no matter who we bribed, we would forever be looking over our shoulder.”

  “Please tell me Option B is the good news.”

  “A clean slate.” Hartzell smeared orange marmalade on the wheat toast. He’d been steering the conversation in this direction for the past half hour.

  “A clean slate?”

  “If we vanish without a trace, that is, assume new identities, say, somewhere in France or Spain, Italy or the West Indies, or even the Cayman Islands…well, it’s a big world out there, Slim, with all sorts of nooks and crannies in which to fade away.”

  “How far down this road have you traveled, Papa?”

  “There may be a villa and vineyard in Tuscany, all on the up and up, as the Yanks like to say, that’s owned by a certain chap who’s almost never there.”

  “Italy is nice.”

  “And there may be a string of five-star rental properties in Venice, Paris, and Mad
rid also owned by this same old fogy—all strictly obeying the tax laws of each home country, in both letter and spirit.”

  “And the new identities?”

  “That needs to be handled in such a manner that there is no tie back to Drake or Lucy Hartzell,” he explained, not admitting that he’d set her up months ago as part of Option B. He’d lifted a couple pictures of Lucy from her high school modeling portfolio—photographs that held only a passing resemblance to how Lucy currently appeared—and sent them on to a documentation perfectionist he’d come into contact with a dozen years back through a Chinese dissident he met at some long-forgotten fundraiser for Tibet. The documentation perfectionist, a Filipino forger-savant, knew Hartzell only through wire transfers and a bogus P.O. box.

  “But if your face is plastered all over the news?”

  “Best to be long gone before they start searching for us, Slim. Plus, Andy has short hair and a moustache, both dyed hideously black. I think the poor guy’s sporting a midlife.”

  “Who’s Andy?”

  “Andrew Pierson, the Tuscany gentleman who owns the vineyard and rental properties.”

  “Well then, Andrew—when must we leave?”

  “I’m afraid I must insist by the end of this month at the very latest. Drake and Lucy Hartzell will take a flight to Heathrow, pick up some accounting spreadsheets and a couple of keys from a safe deposit box at Barclays, and then father and daughter Pierson will Eurostar it to Paris, and from there to Tuscany.”

  “Too bad it has to be so soon.”

  “A damn shame, really, that we can’t put it off for a few more months. It’s just that I won’t be able to keep the balls in the air that much longer.”

  “Why is that, Papa?”

  “Like every other sucker, Drake Hartzell was taken aback at the suddenness of the crashing markets, stunned at the hemorrhaging stock prices as well as at the politicians’ desire to repeat past mistakes. In other words, dear old dad got caught with his pants down. But over the decades Drake Hartzell has acquired several genuine endeavors, numerous real estate properties of substantial worth, a Bentley dealership and other tasty morsels here and there. Once Hartzell morphs away, the window will slam shut as the government steps in to seize all of Hartzell’s remaining assets. Damn shame to forfeit the St. Leonards’ estate—I’ve always loved that place—and the hut in Morocco, too. A damn shame.” Hartzell looked at his daughter. “But we wouldn’t want to get greedy now, Slim, would we?”

  Lucy took a sip of her Earl Grey and then placed the cup down on its saucer. “What exactly do you need, Papa, to keep the balls in the air long enough to liquidate Hartzell’s remaining assets?”

  “You don’t happen to have fifty million in loose change lying about your dresser, do you, Slim?”

  Lucy smiled and shook her head.

  “What I’d need would be a horde of new investors.”

  “What about Paul Crenna?”

  Hartzell looked blank for a second. He knew Lucy’s gentlemen callers more by the nicknames she’d assigned them. “Is that Metro or Hermes?”

  “Paul Crenna is Metro, Papa, every hair on his head perfectly in place. Ridiculously GQ. He spends more time in front of the mirror than I do.”

  “Best to let Paul keep his lunch money.”

  “I’m serious, Papa.” Lucy sounded frustrated at the slight. “You need time to work your pixie dust and I’d like to visit Mom a last time before we depart.”

  “Fifty million is a rather big fish, Slim. This is not anything you want to do to a friend.”

  “Paul’s hardly a friend. He’s a braggart and a bore.”

  Hartzell was surprised at the direction the conversation had turned. “In that case, tell me more about young Master Crenna.”

  “I met Paul at one of Caitlin’s parties last fall. He’s a friend of hers from NYU. He comes from money—a different convertible every time he picks me up. And you should be flattered, Papa—your reputation precedes you, even in Chicago. Paul mentioned that his father had heard of you, maybe even met you at one of your charity to-dos.”

  Hartzell thought of the events he’d held in the Windy City over the years. A zoo of faces, infinite handshakes. “Crenna doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Whenever we go out Paul prattles on and on about how he’d love to connect you with his father’s investment group.”

  “What’s Metro doing at NYU?”

  “A business degree. I think he’s being groomed to manage the family empire.”

  “What does Master Crenna’s father do?”

  “His dad leases buildings in cities throughout the Midwest. Something tedious to do with warehouse maintenance and some shipping interests on Lake Michigan.”

  Hartzell crunched numbers in his head. If this could buy him more time, diverting new investment funds to stave off earlier investors, Hartzell could cash out most of his remaining chips and he and Lucy would have a near bottomless pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

  “How soon can you set up a meeting?”

  Chapter 20

  Grand Rapids Police Chief Leigh Irwin listlessly stirred his house salad as though it were soup, eyeing Cady’s cheeseburger and onion rings platter. “It’s not fair. My wife and I eat the exact same food, yet her cholesterol test comes back with a thumbs up and coupons to Pizza Hut. My results come back with an urgent demand that I take a course in nutrition or buy a burial plot.”

  Cady had taken a bumpy puddle-jumper out of Minneapolis, grabbed an Avis—a red Saturn Astra—on Airport Road, and hustled it to the Grand Rapids Police Department on Pokegama Avenue. He had phoned Chief Irwin from Minneapolis that morning and bribed the head of the police department with lunch if he would be so kind as to dig up the police report on Bret Ingram as well as the autopsy findings. Irwin drove Cady in a squad car to the Forest Lake Restaurant and Tavern on Fourth Street—a rustic-looking lumberjack joint with bear skins on the wall.

  “Want some onion rings?” Cady offered.

  “Want some? I’d like to inhale all your onion rings and your cheeseburger, as well as gnaw on that gentleman’s fried chicken,” the chief said, nodding at another table. “But I best stick with the damned Bugs Bunny buffet.”

  “You try statins?”

  “I’m sure that’s next. It’s hereditary—the Irwin bloodline is mostly Crisco oil. But I’m giving diet and exercise a first chance.”

  Leigh Irwin had round features, face, jowls, chest, and stomach—a defensive lineman gone to pot, the police chief looked like he could easily shed forty pounds. Rotund or not, though, Chief Irwin was an imposing figure.

  “So are you here for the same reason that agent out of St. Paul was here a few years back?”

  “Potentially,” Cady said. “It’s a preliminary investigation. Some friends of Bret Ingram’s—his school-day associates, actually—were murdered several years back and we’re still trying to figure out if there was any connection between Ingram’s death and those other killings.”

  “Your guy in St. Paul—hey, I stuck him with the tab for a rib-eye right at this very table back when life was worth living—mentioned the killings in D.C. But there were no records of those murderers, the Zalentines or that Dane Schaeffer fellow, ever having traveled to Minnesota.”

  “I know.”

  “Bret Ingram may have owned that fancy resort out on Bass Lake,” the police chief said, “but he himself was in the running for town drunk. Ingram had two DUIs before he figured out that it might make more sense if his wife or the local cab service chauffeured his intoxicated ass back home to the lake. When Terri finally saw the light and split, no one was there to watch out for him so Ingram pickled himself nightly and ultimately turned himself into Christmas roast while messing with gasoline.”

  “Terri’s his wife, right? Terri Ingram?”

  “Yup.” Chief Irwin looked like he’d just bit into a lemon. “Wear a nut cup if you plan on talking to her.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Terri
Ingram is easy on the eyes, but she’s a firecracker. She’s got her teeth lockjawed on this notion that some imaginary Itasca County Mafioso or some such bullshit had her husband killed.”

  “That so?”

  “I’ll be honest, if I happen to see Terri Ingram on the street first, I’ll make a fast turn around the corner because I’m sick of her harangues. Even your guy in St. Paul agreed with the evidence. At first I thought Bret Ingram had a meth lab going in that old barn of his when it went boom on him—that’s the kind of shit we see day in and day out up here.”

  “What was he doing in the barn at that time of night?”

  “Filling up about a dozen portable boat motor fuel tanks with gas. He rented outboards to some of the cabin folk who don’t bring their own boats. Gouged them on the gas as well. Ingram had the barn completely closed off, probably didn’t want any cabin renters to see how shitfaced he was. Terri really ran Sundown Point and I know she lived in fear of Bret interacting with the guests after, say, five at night, as that could negatively impact repeat business, if you know what I mean.”

  Cady nodded.

  “Anyway, it was a hot night and the fire investigators felt that maybe with all the gas vapors, this old fan he’d been running could have kicked off a spark, but more likely he lit a cigarette…and that, my friend, was that. Half the barn burned down by the time the firemen arrived at the scene. Poor Ingram made it out of the barn and doused himself in the lake, but the poor bastard suffered major burns—over eighty percent of his body—mostly third-degree. They got him to Grand Itasca Hospital, but he only lasted an hour, which was for the best if you know anything about burns of this severity. It’s all in there,” Irwin said, pointing at the file on the table.

  Cady lathered a remaining onion ring in ketchup and thought about Bret Ingram’s history of alcohol abuse. “Pathologist do a BAC that night?”

  “Tests indicated Ingram’s blood alcohol content at an even .2. Nothing earth-shattering for him, just another night.”