Then I realized something. I had seen them, Becky and Igor, but they hadn’t seen me. They might see me when I returned to Harbor House, but they would have no idea that I knew I was being watched.
I picked up my pace.
This could be the major break we’d been waiting for.
twenty-eight
“Holy shit!” Charlie screamed as he charged toward me.
I was on all fours, crawling through the front door of Harbor House and across the foyer. My slow inching seeming ridiculous, but it was all I could manage. If Charlie hadn’t spotted me, I would have kept moving like a wind-up toy across a nursery floor. I was on auto-pilot, a mechanical mess. I just wanted to get somewhere that wasn’t where I had been.
“Becky,” I managed to say. “And Igor.”
“I know,” Charlie said. “I know. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t been drunk the other night, I would have picked up on it. I read the flyer wrong.”
Trina came running in then with a pile of blankets and a piece of torn paper. “Oh my god, CeCe, where have you been? Cheski drove all over town looking for you!”
Charlie stripped the waterlogged clothes from my body and wrapped me in the blankets while Trina ran upstairs to run the bath, but not before handing Charlie the ripped flyer.
“Look CeCe. The flyer says Singer not Springer,” he said as he shoved the Roommate Wanted ad from Volna restaurant in my face. “I thought the person looking for a roommate had a springer spaniel. I read it wrong because I was shit-faced. The person who placed the ad has a Singer, as in a sewing machine. I think Becky posted an ad for a roommate in Brighton Beach. That puts her in the same neighborhood as Igor. I checked the Dollameter because it registers the mileage for each trip. There were at least a dozen trips matching the mileage from here to Brighton Beach. Igor and Becky were meeting all this time.”
“I can beat that.” I spat a mouthful of rainwater on the floor. “Becky and Igor are drinking coffee at 132 Snake Hill Road right now.”
–––
The police conference room on the second floor of Harbor House was jam-packed with men wearing matching navy blue jackets with the block letters FBI emblazoned across the back. The number of people in the room coupled with the exploding energy made me feel like I had been dropped in a box of Mexican jumping beans. The initial disarray, however, was misleading. There was an organized efficiency controlling the room, and people were moving strategically, like chess pieces on a checkered board. Within two hours of my announcement, a SWAT team of highly trained law enforcement agents descended upon Igor and Becky’s hideout, closing the surrounding roadways on our idyllic peninsula. There was only one main road leading in and out of town, but it was apparent that the dynamic duo had either gotten a tip or had stepped out for dinner; by the time the FBI arrived, the house was stripped clean. With no one to cuff or shoot, the FBI agents had descended upon Harbor House, making themselves comfortable in whichever rooms they could fit.
I leaned over to Cheski, who was crammed next to me at the conference table, and whispered in his ear, “So did you run out for a cup of coffee this morning instead of covering my ass?”
“No, I spotted Igor leaving the house after I parked the Gremlin. I ran back to get my vehicle, but I lost him.” He said this with a tremendous amount of guilt.
I gave his arm a comforting pat and relaxed my face. “I’m kidding. Charlie already told me you spotted Igor. What do you think he was up to?”
“I think he wanted to take your father on a joy ride,” Cheski grumbled under his breath.
“What stopped him?”
“The housemaid and your mother were in the house. Your father would have had to go willingly, otherwise the commotion would have tipped someone off. That’s why he posed as a driver again.”
“Apparently it works. My father never questioned him and clearly, I jumped right into Igor’s limo on the day of the funeral. So is that our only theory?”
Cheski shrugged. Obviously the only other option was that my father knew exactly who Igor was.
“What does DeRosa think?”
“Hard to say,” Cheski answered with a hint of annoyance. “Kind of tough to phone in police work from Italy.”
“Do you have any idea why he’s there?”
“He’s got an appointment with the director of Naomi’s medical school today, and I guess he’ll shop Igor’s picture around.”
“How about the pictures I drew for him. What do you think he needs those for?”
“Beats me, but Frank has figured out some crazy shit before, so I’m gonna have to trust him here.”
“Crazy shit? Like what?” I was intrigued by the lore of the famous Detective Frank DeRosa.
Cheski turned to me. “Well, about a year ago, the Freeport police found a dead body in the back of a Mercedes. The guy that got whacked was the owner of the car. Someone killed him and stuffed him in the trunk. The car was untouched, in pristine condition, about five years old. Everyone from the mayor on down figured it for a drug deal gone bad.” Cheski started to chuckle retelling the story.
“But not Frank?”
“No sir. And see, that’s the good part. A lesser cop would have taken the opportunity to pin the crime on a street thug dealing that corner. Even if the dealer didn’t do it, you have a chance to put him away for life. But that’s not Frank’s style. He’s all about the truth.”
“So who dunnit?”
Cheski shifted in his chair and started to gesture, pointing here and there to map out the story. “Turns out, this guy, the dead one, is having an affair with the wife of a local merchant. The merchant pegs the guy because he’s seen the Mercedes in his neighborhood a few too many times. By chance, the guy has the Mercedes up for sale, posted on Craigslist. The merchant makes arrangements to see the car. He shows up at the guy’s house, slits his throat, and stuffs him in the back of his own swanky car.”
“How did Frank figure it out?”
“I have no idea, but the mayor almost blew a gasket because he had already done a press conference accusing the drug scum of the job.”
“That sounds like Frank.” I smiled. “So when does our fearless leader return?”
“We called him about an hour ago. He needs one more day.”
I planned on continuing to grill Cheski, but he received an urgent text from Lamendola.
“Hey, hey. We got a name.” Cheski rose and sought out the only FBI guy in a suit and tie. “Jonathan’s interview went so well they’re taking him out to dinner with the lead investor of Relativity.com, a guy named Peter Dacks. Jonathan says this Dacks has a faint accent. He thinks he may be Eastern European. How fast can we get a line on this guy?”
“Jonathan needs to leave there immediately,” I said.
The room fell silent while a roomful of strangers all came to the same conclusion. I voiced their thoughts in few succinct sentences.
“Igor and Becky were watching us. They might know it’s a phony interview, and that Jonathan is a setup. If this Dacks guy really is crooked, then Jonathan is in danger.”
As I spoke, Cheski punched the pad of his phone and waited for a reply. “They’re not at a restaurant,” he relayed. “The dinner is scheduled for a yacht owned by Peter Dacks. It’s docked off a pier in Stamford.”
The well-dressed FBI man held his hand up to quiet the room and in a very grave voice said, “If the boat leaves the dock, we may have a hostage situation on our hands.”
With swift efficiency, I was removed and deposited downstairs. I broke the news to Trina, who alternated between dry heaves and bouts of bawling. After several minutes, Charlie and I took her out to the greenhouse, where he forced her to smoke a stash of herbal plants he had dried and pounded into a moist clump.
“Charlie, I’m thinking this may be a bad idea. You realize the Federal Bureau of Investigation is within spitting dist
ance.”
“Yeah, and what have they done for us so far?” Charlie inhaled the pungent smoke. “They were too late to catch Igor and Becky, and they should have connected the dots back to Jonathan faster than they did.”
I ignored the familiar smell and watched as Trina’s eyes mellowed and her tense shoulders released. The air inside the greenhouse was warm and moist, creating a sauna-like experience. We formed a powwow circle on the cool stone floor of the greenhouse and began to toss around facts that just days before seemed utterly random.
Trina tilted her head up to glass roof of the greenhouse and let the smoke drain from her lips. Rain still pounded on the panels with relentless power. “Who the fuck gets on a boat in the middle of a downpour? This is not a business dinner.”
Charlie and I nodded in agreement.
“Trina, did you offer Becky the eggs at breakfast?” I asked my head tilting lazily in her direction.
Trina thought back to the morning of the poisoning. “You know, I did, but she said she’d already eaten.” Trina took another deep drag on the cigarette and let the smoke roll out before she spoke again. “Bitch.”
Charlie turned to me. “What was the name of the publishing company Becky worked for initially? I remember the company approached Teddy first about publishing his papers. He was really psyched about it. It’s not like he was shopping the stuff around.”
“It was something like University Presses.” I tried to recall the name. Strangely enough, Charlie’s herbal smoke sticks had a mind-opening effect. “Wait, I’ve got it. It was called University Medical Press. I remember the acronym UMP stamped on the cover of something in Teddy’s office.”
Charlie took out his phone and Googled the name. “Dead end,” he said showing us the page for the URL, which simply read Page Under Construction.
“A front.” I watched droplets of water feed a gutter leading to a water basin. “How could Teddy miss that?”
“He had no reason to question it,” Charlie answered. “Let’s face it, Becky was hot. She shows up, offers him a little cash to publish his papers. She always comes to his office, so there’s no effort on his part.”
“Why? Why was Becky here?”
“Someone wanted to keep an eye on Teddy,” Charlie said as he lit another stick and passed it to Trina.
“I think there’s more to it. Becky did more than watch. She ingratiated herself into the group. She had to have an agenda.”
We all sat for a few minutes wondering what her role had been in Teddy’s death. Trina was the first to offer an explanation.
“Befriending us gave her information on Teddy twenty-four/seven. Even if she wasn’t with Teddy, she could still find out about him through his closest friends.”
“It also gave her a reason to be on the labs’ campus. It gave her access,” Charlie added. “If you hang around long enough, the security guards start to recognize you and after a while you just stop signing in.”
“That’s an excellent point,” I agreed. “Becky probably could come and go without raising suspicion. I bet she made sure to be seen there regularly with Teddy inside and outside.”
“I have a question,” Trina said. “She was with us almost a year. That’s a long time. Why would she be watching Teddy for so long?”
“And you know what I think is weird?” Charlie said. “Becky showed up almost to the day Naomi left. Think about it. Naomi shows up on the campus and starts dating Teddy. Then, she takes a new job at the National Institute of Health and Becky appears.”
I picked up on Charlie’s train of thought. “Is it possible Naomi and Becky have the same boss? Maybe they were tag teaming each other.” I rose to crack the window. “Oh shit, Cheski is on his way over.”
Charlie threw a plastic baggie across the room and shoved his lighter into a potted plant just as the policeman opened the greenhouse door.
“Officer Cheski,” Charlie stammered.
“Smells like my kids’ room,” Cheski said, pulling a wooden stool up to our circle. He sat down, and I realized he was more interested in the investigation than causing us problems.
“Come join us,” I said. “We were playing cop and might need some help.”
“Let me hear what you’ve got,” he said.
“Keep going,” I instructed Charlie. “You were on a roll.”
“Okay. How about this? Someone, let’s say it’s whoever Naomi and Becky work for, wants the labs to study something that they will ultimately benefit from.”
Cheski raised a finger. “So you think Naomi and Becky are connected?”
“Are they?” Charlie asked.
“We think so,” Cheski answered.
“I knew it,” Charlie said. “So whoever they work for places Naomi on the campus to whisper in Teddy’s ear. Scientists work together all the time, so it doesn’t seem out of place.”
“Did Naomi seem out of place to you guys?” Cheski asked.
I fielded that question. “She fit in the labs and at least in the beginning she seemed to be girlfriend material. After a few months, you could sense the tension. She must have been pushing him.”
“Pushing him how?” Cheski asked, testing our ability to work through the case.
“To forward research that Naomi’s boss would profit from,” Charlie added speculatively, “until Teddy backed out.”
“So they murdered him? That’s a little extreme.” Cheski’s insight revealed the leaps we were making.
“What do you and DeRosa think?” I asked Cheski.
“Murder needs a motive with teeth. Teddy had to be a realistic threat to be expendable.”
Cheski’s phrasing bothered me. “Teddy was too smart to be expendable.”
“You’re right, CeCe,” he conceded. “Teddy was the opposite of expendable. In fact, DeRosa thinks Teddy was about to reveal that the labs were being manipulated to do something highly questionable. He didn’t back out. He stepped up and threatened to publicize what he thought may have been criminal activity motivated by profit.”
“When you say profit, how much are we talking about?” Trina asked. “How much money needs to be at stake to murder someone?” She was transferring her fear to Jonathan’s situation.
“These mega medical companies live and die by their patents and their products,” Cheski replied. “As soon as one patent expires, they need to have another in the pipeline. The research takes millions of dollars, so yes, pushing expensive research on the labs would make sense. If the pipeline dries up, these medical groups are screwed because they’ve already made the upfront investment.”
“I’m thinking of something very ugly.” It was hard to say, even to my friends. “If Teddy thought the labs were being scammed, the first person he would have approached was my father.”
“So he knows something,” Charlie said.
“I’m starting to realize that,” I said, remembering now that DeRosa was hesitant to pass information on to me for fear it would get back to my father. “But let’s get back to the connection between Becky and Naomi before we bring my dad into it. Let’s say that Teddy realized Naomi was a phony. He gives her a chance to come clean. Maybe he sees something good in her, but he can’t get her to crack. That seems to have been the tone of the card she sent him. Anyway, he calls her and tells her that he’s about to reveal the truth. With her reputation and high-end lifestyle on the line, she kills herself.”
Cheski nodded in agreement and then added, “We also think it’s possible she killed herself before someone else could. Based on the cash in the YWS account, someone was paying her a lot of money. Her failure made her a liability.”
“Seriously?” Charlie said. “That’s twisted.”
“It’s not pretty,” Cheski agreed. “But before she died, Naomi probably accessed Teddy’s medical history, which was stored at the labs, hence the macadamia nuts.”
&nbs
p; “Most probably delivered in a cookie or cake,” Trina finished.
“That leaves Igor. Why would he hang around?” I asked. Then I answered my own question. “Because there was still one person who knew the truth: my father. For sure, Teddy would have told my father that the labs were being manipulated into something unethical. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that my father knew exactly what Teddy had figured out.”
“I’m going to fill in a blank,” Cheski said. “Relativity.com.”
“Charlie, give me your cell phone,” I said while I dug up the phone numbers I had transcribed from my parents’ house phone. The paper was a bit worse for the soggy bike journey, but the numbers were still legible. I dialed each of the numbers, getting a hit on the third. “Yesterday morning at nine a.m. sharp, my father called Relativity.com’s corporate offices.”
Cheski took my phone and listened to the end of the Relativity.com message. “You got this number off your parents’ phone history?”
“I did.”
He jotted the number down and headed for the door. “This is good, CeCe. It’s going to be hard for your father to deny knowing anything about this company now.”
“I’m scared.” Trina was riddled with alarm.
“Me too,” Charlie confided as he Googled Relativity.com. He spent a few minutes reading before summarizing his findings. “According to their site, Peter Dacks, CEO, has ‘a unique blend of industry experience in the medical field’.”
“Which means he’s not a doctor and he’s not a scientist,” I said. “So, basically he has no medical credentials. That’s why he needs Sound View! He has no medical background.”
“Correct,” Charlie replied. “There is, however, a touched-up picture of a guy in his mid-fifties trying to look forty.”
Drawing Conclusions Page 18