The Bubble Gum Thief

by Jeff Miller

  “Why is that, Jana?” Dagny asked. “Do you want to be an actress?”

  “I am an actress, Ms. Gray,” she responded, with some indignation. “I’ve been in several films. Frightmaker Seven, Annie’s Girl, The Devil’s Daughter. I also had a small part on The Hills for a while.”

  “Is that how you met Mr. Rowanhouse? Through the movies?” Victor asked. “Was he a producer or something?”

  Jana laughed. “Mr. Rowanhouse? Movies? He doesn’t know the first thing about movies. Hasn’t even seen any of mine, as far as I know.” She tossed her towel on a lounge chair, then grabbed the bottom of her sundress and lifted it over her head, revealing a very little white bikini and a lot of skin. She giggled and dove into the pool.

  Victor watched Jana swim back and forth as though she were a hypnotist’s timepiece. “She’s like a perfect inversion of my fiancée,” he muttered.

  “Fiancée?” Dagny asked.

  Before Victor could explain, Cecil Rowanhouse walked back into the room. He wore a pristine white suit, with matching white shoes, white belt, and white shirt. His laces, cufflinks, socks, belt buckle, and buttons were all black, as was the flower pinned to his lapel. “Dinner is ready. Please follow.”

  “Hey, Jana! Dinner!” Victor yelled.

  Jana bobbed her head up from the pool. “I don’t eat dinner,” she said, then ducked back beneath the water.

  Rowanhouse led them back through the house to an oval dining room with rounded walls, like an egg with a flat bottom. Though the oblong granite table was big enough for twelve, it was set for three. “Please, have a seat.”

  Dagny sat next to Victor and across from Rowanhouse. Two Latina women wearing aprons and hairnets carried salads to the table, laying them down carefully at each of the place settings.

  “Mr. Rowanhouse, I would like to ask you some questions—”

  “Of course, but I must insist that you eat, too. I can’t eat if my guests don’t, and I’m awfully hungry.”

  Victor hadn’t waited for the invitation—he’d already shoveled most of his salad into his mouth. Dagny speared a piece of arugula with her fork and ate it, then set her fork down on the table. “Now, Mr. Rowanhouse, I’d like to know where you got the Williamsons’ painting.”

  “Agent Gray, it’s my job to provide anonymity to those who request it. Surely you have other questions.”

  “Why does your client require anonymity?”

  Rowanhouse set his fork on his plate and placed his hands on the table, palms down. “I will speak only generally of my clients, Agent Gray. And forgive me if my tone becomes one of a lecturer. We live in a world that is sometimes fair, but often not. There are those who are dealt with less fairly than others. Occasionally, there is a way to even things out, and if this requires anonymity, I am more than happy to oblige. I’m sure you look at my house—my life—and suspect that I have made my way through illegitimate means. I am not a thief or a scoundrel. I provide services to people who need them, and I provide them only to those who deserve them. The person who brought me the painting was someone who deserved my services.”

  Dagny nibbled at her salad, concentrating on the greens and the carrots, while ignoring the goat cheese and walnuts. “Mr. Rowanhouse, you are aware that the painting in question might be linked to the crimes of a murderer.”

  “So I have surmised.”

  “Doesn’t that upend your notion of the justice of anonymity?”

  “Agent Gray, based upon what I know and what you don’t know, my conscience is clear. I have made commitments and have pledged to keep them, knowing full well what would come. And I have done so, in part, because the government you represent is not the arbiter of right and wrong. Your agency has carried out much injustice, and while I don’t question your motives, I do question the seal on your credentials. Credentials which mean little here in Bermuda.”

  “There are extradition treaties, Mr. Rowanhouse. If you were found to be conspiring with a felon—”

  “I don’t think you’d find extradition as easy as you think. I have many friends in Bermuda.”

  The servants replaced their salad plates with seared tuna and steamed vegetables. Victor grabbed his knife and began cutting into the tuna steak. Dagny started to speak, but Victor kicked her under the table. She decided to let Victor have his run at Rowanhouse. For all his flaws, the kid had a certain talent for getting people to talk.

  “So do you think Regina Berry really felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body, or do you think she just really wanted out of that men’s prison?” Victor asked their host.

  Rowanhouse leaned forward and studied Victor carefully. “Regina Berry, you ask?”

  “Yes,” Victor replied, with his mouth full of tuna. “Are you surprised we know of her?”

  “Agent Walton, if I didn’t want you to know about Regina Berry, then I would have made sure you didn’t know.”

  “So what do you think? About Regina Berry?”

  “Have you ever talked to anyone who has spent any significant time in a federal prison, Agent Walton? How about you, Agent Gray?” he asked. “Do you know what it’s like to be locked up by a nation of laws and placed in an environment without them?” Rowanhouse raised his voice. “Prisons are black holes—no light can escape them. Beatings. Rapes. And nobody cares. ‘They deserve it’—that’s the popular sentiment, right? Even if that were true, what about the innocent men sent there? We don’t care—because once they’re in the great big empty of a silent black, we don’t see it. So I guess I’m inclined to think that Regina Berry just wanted out, no matter what it required. And I don’t blame her one bit.”

  “But Regina Berry was guilty,” Victor said.

  “In the eyes of man, yes. In the eyes of a jury, yes. But in the eyes of God? You can’t judge with God’s eyes, Agent Walton. I’m not against prison. The dangerous should be segregated from society. But as for retribution? Only God should have the power to send people to hell.”

  “But what is your client doing, if it isn’t retribution?” Victor leaned forward and stared at Mr. Rowanhouse, waiting for his answer.

  “Perhaps, Agent Walton, he’s making a statement.”

  “By committing horrible crimes?”

  “If you want the FBI’s attention, you commit crimes, Agent Walton.”

  “And what is his statement?”

  “That is for you to discover,” Rowanhouse replied, pushing his plate away. “Maria,” he called. “We are finished with our dinner.” He looked over to Dagny’s plate. She had taken only a few bites.

  “I’m just not very hungry,” Dagny said. Rowanhouse had just admitted that his client, the man who sold the painting to the Williamsons, was in fact the man committing the crimes. Why would he admit this?

  Rowanhouse stood. “I have arranged for you to leave tomorrow morning. A car—”

  “We’ll leave tonight, Mr. Rowanhouse.”

  “You’ve missed the last flight for the day, Agent Gray. Even if there were another flight, I doubt you’d want to take it in this weather. I have guest quarters that should prove quite satisfactory. Maria will show you to your rooms. A car will pick you up tomorrow at ten. Use the kitchen as if it were your own. I have a small theater where you can watch movies if it interests you. Jana usually watches something in there, but I’m sure she’d be glad for the company.”

  “Cool,” Jana said, bopping into the room.

  “We could watch one of your movies,” Victor suggested.

  “Sure. Or we could watch something good,” Jana replied.

  The last thing Dagny wanted to do was spend the night in the home of a man who had befriended Mike’s killer, but she felt more tired than angry and didn’t have the energy to leave. Maria led Dagny and Victor to their rooms. Dagny’s opened onto a balcony that overlooked the ocean. It was dark outside, but the skies had cleared and a full moon illuminated the night. She opened the sliding glass door and stepped outside. The ocean smelled fresh and clean and pure.

 
; Nothing else did.

  Her head ached, and she felt dizzy. When she rolled off the side of the bed, it was only dumb luck that landed her on her feet. Too much travel, she thought, grabbing her running shorts from her bag.

  The house was still and quiet as Dagny tiptoed through the hallway to the back door. It wasn’t yet six in the morning, but outside, it was already warm. The sky was still dark but for a brilliant red-orange hue along the horizon. She climbed down the steps to the beach, then jogged along the ocean. It was hard to run in the loose sand, so she moved closer to the water, where the waves had beaten a hard surface and the foam tickled her feet. She turned on her iPod and followed the jagged shore. A mile later, she passed a young couple on the beach. The girl was leaning against her man, watching the sun rise. He had his arms wrapped tightly around her; every few seconds, they kissed. Dagny turned away from the couple and looked out at the bright-blue glow of the ocean. As blue as Mike’s eyes. She began to run faster.

  After completing one loop around the island, she was too weak to try a second. She collapsed to the beach behind the Rowanhouse estate, and sat there, staring out at the endless ocean, trying to make sense of the little they knew. Adams’s fingerprints, the baseball, the stolen Matisse, Reginald Berry, the gum in Bethel, the dog in Chula Vista, the murders of Mike and Candice, and Rowanhouse. Pieces that seemed to belong to different puzzles. It was enough to make her head hurt.

  “Water?”

  His voice startled her. “Thank you,” she said, taking the glass of ice water from Rowanhouse.

  He was wearing long white flannel pants, cuffed to his knees, and a striped, unbuttoned shirt. He pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and sat down in the sand next to Dagny.

  “Twenty years ago, my wife was shopping in Manhattan, carrying her bags, going from one store to the next.” He spoke slowly and softly as he looked out toward the horizon. “A drunk driver—in the middle of the day—drove up onto the sidewalk and killed her. Not instantly. She suffered. Spent a week in the hospital. I never felt more helpless in my life, sleeping on the chair in that room as she slowly died, knowing there was nothing I could do about it.” He sighed. “I moved here because New York felt like an ugly place, and I needed something beautiful.”

  “What happened to the driver?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “It didn’t matter to me, Agent Gray. Whatever happened to him wasn’t going to bring Susan back.” He said it innocently—without hidden meaning or duplicity, without subtle reference to Dagny’s own situation, and without bias for his client. She knew, from this, that he didn’t know about her relationship with Mike.

  “You know who Michael Brodsky is, right?”

  “I read that he was killed as part of this crime you are investigating. I was very sorry to read that. He was a very talented artist. I’ve sold some of his work.”

  “You know that he and I were lovers, don’t you?” Lovers? “Dating” sounded trivial, but “lovers” sounded scandalous. There wasn’t a good word for what they were.

  He seemed genuinely surprised. “I did not know that, Agent Gray. I am very sorry for your loss.” Rowanhouse grabbed a fistful of sand and let it fall between his fingers. “I did not know that,” he muttered again.

  “Then maybe you don’t know your client as well as you think you do.” She stood up, brushed the sand from her legs, and walked back to the house to collect her things.

  “What movie did you watch?”

  Victor set down the SkyMall magazine he’d been perusing and looked up, surprised by her interest. “Deathplane.”

  “That a Jana film?”

  “Third billing,” he smiled.

  “Who’s this fiancée you mentioned? And why haven’t I heard of her before?”

  “Her name is Jennifer, and she’s a nurse out in Herndon. You haven’t heard of her because, well, I guess we haven’t really talked about anything other than the case.”

  He was right. Dagny didn’t know anything about Victor’s personal life. “When did you meet her?”

  “Two years ago. I went in for an appendectomy.”

  “And it started up just like that?”

  “Yep.” He picked up the SkyMall.

  He wasn’t getting off that easy. “How’d you woo her? Use that silly fake Southern accent?”

  “Nope,” he replied.

  “What then?”

  “Just old-fashioned charm.”

  “So you have a date for the wedding?”

  “August fifteenth. If she doesn’t leave me.”

  “Why would she leave you?”

  “She liked it better when I was just an accountant.”

  “I imagine she’s pretty upset that you’re gone, working this case?”

  “Yeah.”

  It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d disrupt Victor’s life by bringing him into the investigation. “I’m sorry I pulled you into this. I should have asked if it was something you could afford to do.”

  “No, Dag, it’s great,” he said, and he sounded sincere. “I mean, I didn’t ever think I’d be doing something like this, but I’m enjoying it. Is that wrong? To enjoy it?”

  “You have to enjoy it, or you won’t last long.” Dagny wondered whether she enjoyed the work. She couldn’t remember how she felt before Mike was killed.

  “It doesn’t make Jennifer feel any better when I tell her I’m having fun doing this. It actually seems to make things worse.”

  “Well, if things fall apart with Jennifer, you’ve always got Jana.”

  CHAPTER 29

  March 29—Washington, DC

  When the director said that Dagny could work the case, he’d forbidden her to investigate the Whitman murder.

  He hadn’t said anything about the Brodsky murder, though.

  Still, as Dagny walked the sidewalks of Foggy Bottom, she knew full well that she wasn’t supposed to be doing what she was going to do, and it wasn’t just because of the Director. After Bermuda, the Professor had ordered Dagny and Victor to rest for the next couple of days. “Neither of you looks well,” he explained. “I would swear that your cumulative weight has stayed the same, it’s just shifted.” He was resigned to the fact that they needed another murder if they were going to get anywhere. The earlier crimes were too stale. A fresh murder would bring new evidence.

  Although the Professor had called a break, none of them had actually stopped working. The Professor was still gathering information on released inmates from Coleman who had served time with Regina Berry. Victor was ferreting out more details about Rowanhouse and Flust, and their financial dealings. And Dagny had spent the previous day reading Candice Whitman’s essays, trying to understand why someone would want to kill her, and why Mike had loved her. It wasn’t hard to see both.

  In her early work, Candice was thoughtful and eloquent, ruminating lyrically on esoteric topics like the romance of the common law. Over time, her tone shifted from sublime to sarcastic, from soft to hard. Early essays advocated tougher sentences for white-collar criminals; later diatribes embraced the rough justice of prison rape. Though Candice had begun as an advocate for the judicial system, she had slowly morphed into an advocate only for the victims of crime, and then finally, an advocate only for herself.

  Gloria Benton’s office was on the first floor of a burgundy brick row house. Dagny rang the bell and waited. When there was no reply, she rang it again. She’d turned to leave when the door finally opened.

  “I’m with a client,” Benton said, narrowing her brow. Her kinky blonde hair was disheveled and her bright-red glasses were askew.

  “Are you almost finished?” Dagny asked, flashing her credentials to replace the question mark with a period.

  “Whitman?” she asked. Her expression changed from anger to sadness.

  Dagny nodded.

  “Hold on a second.” Benton disappeared. She returned a couple minutes later with her client, a large man dressed in a muumuu. She dispatched him with a half hug and an air-k
iss.

  “Okay,” she said to Dagny. “Come on in.”

  Dagny followed her to a small, dark office and took a seat next to a standing ashtray, where a cigarette butt burned its final ember. Benton sat behind a cluttered desk. There were no books on the shelves behind Benton, just framed pictures of the publicist with various men and women—presumably her clients. Aside from a picture of Benton with Candice Whitman, Dagny didn’t recognize anyone.

  “Winston doesn’t like the sun,” Benton explained, rising from her chair to open the blinds. When she sat back down, the sunlight was shining directly into her eyes. Benton squinted but made no move to adjust the blinds again. “I’ve already talked to you guys for what seemed like days. What else can I tell you?”

  “We don’t always do a very good job at the Bureau of sharing information. Forgive me if you’ve answered some of these questions already.”

  Benton sighed. “It’s okay. I don’t have another appointment for a couple of hours.”

  “How long had you been Ms. Whitman’s publicist?”

  “Fourteen years, I think. Thereabouts.”

  “How did she come to you?”

  “You know, I don’t even remember. Maybe through someone at the Post. I couldn’t really say.”

  “What was she like? Was she always...”

  Benton lowered her head and peered over her glasses at Dagny, “Are you asking if she’d really become a bitch, or if she just played one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everyone changes when they become famous. And very few become nicer. But I always liked her. If she were a man, they’d have called her ‘confident’ and ‘strong.’”

  “Her latest book—”

  “The Ides of March.”

  Dagny nodded. “Did you plan her book tour?”

  “I did.”

  “Including the launch in Georgetown?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was it announced?”

  “Last fall, I think.” Benton opened a drawer and sifted through some papers, retrieving a black appointment book. “People think it’s a mess in here, but I know where everything is.” She flipped through the pages. “No, when we announced in September, it was going to be at Long Beach. And then”—she flipped through a couple more pages—“Okay, yes. We moved it to DC in December.”