ColdScheme

  I was dead wrong.

  I had met Fielding Weston at the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian, in the Peacock Room. The golden peacocks had watched us from every square inch of the opulent sheets of bullion imbedded into the walls. He stopped beside me. I glanced at his guard’s uniform, then at my watch, wondering whether it was closing time. He motioned with his head at the brilliant, blazing artwork and started to tell me the history of the dining room that once used to be in the London home of Frederick R. Leyland, a wealthy ship owner from Liverpool.

  “I can read,” I had said discouragingly.

  “I wasn’t testing your eyes or trying to check out your academic credentials,” he drawled.

  “Just passing time or trying to gauge my mood?”

  “I’m off in half an hour. Can I buy you lunch?”

  “Smooth,” I laughed.

  I had let him buy me lunch, in the cafeteria, appropriately named “Mr. Greenjeans”. It was a half-price admission day, favored by students. Most of the crowd in the cafeteria wore jeans. The place dripped with foliage.

  Two weeks later, I knew his patrol route through the gallery as well as his supervisor. He had met my roommate. Nellie disliked him at first sight but out of friendship let him stay overnight at our Georgetown flat.

  Seven months later, with the school year drawing to a close, I had tried to figure out a way to ask my Criminal Procedures professor if he would let me write the exam with a tin bucket beside me, so I would not have to rush out to throw up. This was still occupying my mind when, five days later, I had said, “I do,” in front of the judge and signed the marriage certificate.

  I could tell all of this to my daughter, in an abridged form. It would stem her anxieties about her roots. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say any of this without revealing something about the final ten days that had culminated this dramatic period in my life.

  Jazz was asleep, fully dressed. I turned on the little bedside lamp and sat down on her bed. I took off her sneakers and held them for comfort. She had the right to know. But what was I going to say when she asked whether she was a “planned” child or an “accident”?

  Her father had stayed ten more days, after the courthouse ceremony and disappeared, never to be heard from again.

  I wrote my exams. I didn’t bother to find out how I did. I left my unfinished degree in the backseat of a limo, one last gift for my father. I had jumped from his armored car.

  In ten years I had not been so stressed as to shout at Jazz—I, a woman who had wanted to keep her child badly enough to jump out of a moving car while two months pregnant. That limo was heading for the Baumgartner Clinic in Maryland. It was a posh, private facility that specialized in discreet abortions for the filthy rich. I was forced into it, kidnapped and under guard. It wasn’t enough to get me to Baumgartner’s. Perhaps that’s when I decided to become a cop.

  My roommate came to get me in Transgrove. Today, Nellie Clarrington was a lawyer with the Greater Washington Board of Trade. I heard rumors that five years down the road, she would be a good bet to run for Congress. She was bright—and a good friend. She drove me to Baltimore, to the First Tavistock National Bank. I withdrew all the interest I was allowed from the trust fund left by my late mother. I knew my father would move quickly to freeze it—and did—but too late to leave me penniless and at his mercy.

  Nellie had looked after all the paperwork involved in changing my name to Meaghan Stanton. Meaghan was my middle name. The Smithsonian guard had called me Meg. I picked Stanton from a phone book.

  “You’re giving up a lot, El,” Nellie had said with a painful smile. I knew she meant my law studies.

  “I’m used to it,” I said. She knew my tortured eighteen-year history. We had been roommates for four years.

  “Your father will track you down,” she warned.

  “Not to Mexico. I’ll outrun him until my child is born. Once that’s over, what can he do?”

  “Kidnap your child.”

  “What’s there to leverage me for once the child is born? He never wanted me around when I was growing up. Why would he bother now?”

  “Control.”

  I shook my head. “He never had any over me for eighteen years. I came out of the tailspin by myself. He doesn’t care where I am and what I’m doing, as long as it’s nothing that brings shame on his name—his tradition—public respectability. Once the media stopped flashing their cameras at me in clubs, parties, orgies, he stopped. The news was no longer filled with his name—the black smear had faded. I ceased to trouble him. I turned my life around. Once that happened, he didn’t care.”

  “You should have told him you were married.”

  “That would have seen me in that limo even faster, along with the new son-in-law.”

  “Where do you think Field has gone?”

  “According to the personnel at the Smithsonian, to a better paying job, far away.”

  “Doesn’t sound right.”

  I didn’t want to believe either but I knew that if I held hope, it would hurt that much more, when I proved to be wrong. I had asked the human resources clerk at the gallery whether Mr. Weston had made any changes to his marital status in his records in the last ten days, prior to his departure. Her startled headshake was a poignant answer.

  Nellie had told me that I could always count on her. I knew she had meant it but I would never compromise her in any way. I became Meaghan Stanton.

  Three months before my twenty third-birthday, with a nine-month-old dependent, I stood in Harris’ office, asking him for a chance to start a new life with the Baltimore Police Department, as a cadet. A shadow fell across his face when he examined my academic credentials, a cloud of regret but he didn’t include the law degree and the rest of the university documents in my file. He let me in as Meaghan Stanton. I never, not even once, looked back—or looked over my shoulder—until my ten-year-old drove me to throw out a People Finders’ field agent out of my house at gunpoint.

  * * * * *

  I wasn’t aware that all through my painful review, I had stroked my daughter’s head. She didn’t feel it. She didn’t even stir. She had to be tired, having cried herself to sleep. I knew that I had been walking a minefield for ten years. How much longer could I keep up such an insane act?

  I liked my job. I was good at it, especially the research.

  I had tried relationships, like women try shoes on—for size. None felt comfortable. A couple were wearable but I eventually returned them. My heart just wasn’t in it. Now and then, Ken had tried to find out the whereabouts of my heart. I had discouraged him with stern reminders to mind his own business—and pursue Brenda faster.

  I thought I should take another shower, to wash off the sticky memories but two showers in two hours seemed overly clean, not to speak of drying. I went back to my little office.

  What we had discovered, going through Patricia’s reports, was that Brick had a part-time job while in college. He was from the Midwest. His parents were deceased but he had an aunt and uncle living in Tulsa. His undergraduate degree came from the University of Oklahoma. He graduated in ’91 and went to work for the Hunt Trust and Savings in Oklahoma City, doing economic forecasts. While at Oklahoma, he supplemented his scholarships and bursaries with part-time work—as a gun carrying, licensed security guard. He chauffeured celebrities and dignitaries for a company that specialized in providing armored car services. He liked this part-time job so much that he continued doing it on weekends, when already employed at the Hunt Trust. In ’93, he went to work for CEDA, a two-year contract in Lima, Peru. He had brushed up on Spanish and Portuguese. According to his CEDA job satisfaction report, he had developed a smart program for tracking tax haven criteria and policing how these were used by the Peruvian business enterprise. He had worked for Banco Nacionale in Lima and was well liked by the management. They gave him a glowing recommendation and wanted him to stay. His programming skills apparently weeded out quite a lot of harmful features of their tax regime.<
br />
  Brick had returned home in ’95, to a firm job offer with the State Department, the Bureau of Economics and Business Affairs. That’s where he had met Patricia Vanier. He worked developing programs in the Investment Finance Department. She was a program coordinator in Trade Policy. In ’97 he left the Bureau and came to work for the IMF at their Baltimore offices. It was a three-year contract job but nearly double his Bureau salary. Patricia quit her job and accompanied him to Baltimore. They became engaged and she went to work for the State Energy Commission. Perhaps because he planned to get married, Brick had returned to his hobby—working part-time on weekends as a security guard and a chauffeur, for the Creeslow Armored Security Automobile service. I had remarked to Ken that if Brick loved this part-time job so much, he ought to have picked it up in Washington. Ken pointed out, that in Washington it would have been a full-time job.

  Brick’s bio sheet, enclosed in his “cold case” file, didn’t contain this information. He had never included this experience on his professional resumes and indeed, why would he? He was applying for jobs as an economist, not a security guard, or a chauffeur, for an armored limo service. Patti had provided this information to the officers who filled out the four missing persons reports.

  In the morning, we would go to visit Creeslow. According to the Yellow Pages, it was located on Drummond Ave, in Brooklyn Park. We would ignore the Mongrove facility, nearby but hopefully not visible. I checked Washington for armored car services, even though it wasn’t in the same category as Guilford exotics.

  There were four car dealerships that carried sleek imports but there were eleven armored car outfits, offering comfortable and secure travel. I reflected that in Washington, exotics took a backseat to armor. A senator or a foreign dignitary might cruise through Georgetown in a burnished orange beast from hell but if he wanted to live long enough to see the next oil change, he would be smart to travel well armored—often.

  I lost track of time. The Washington armored car services had ambitious and informative websites. I found these far more captivating than the exotic car dealerships. By the time I finished educating myself on the intricacies of body armoring, I wanted to own my own vehicle armoring company. One feature in particular had caught my interest—under-hood and upper hood protection. I made a mental note to mention this to Ken—when his Malibu returned. For a mere couple of hundred grand, I too could enjoy multi-layered glass with polycarbonate inner layer, fully armored pillars, sides, rear floor and roof, in addition to explosion resistant fuel tank, stainless steel radiator protection and a score of features that would thwart any mercenary faction. What surprised me was that cars like these, didn’t just come in a limo style but preppy RVs and kick-ass jeeps. Washington, obviously, danced to its own beat—or a bullet tattoo.

  My kitchen phone rang. I looked at the tiny computer clock. It was just after one o’clock in the morning. As I walked to the kitchen, instinct told me that whatever the news, it wouldn’t be good. I was right.

  Chapter Four

  “Penthouse, the Prince Excelsior, on Block Street, on the water,” Ken read his notes, as I weaved through the water’s edge residential area and headed south.

  He continued, “A waiter, or a bellhop, I didn’t get that clearly. The hotel security had called 9-1-1. The emergency dispatcher had relayed even while the guy was still reporting.”

  “Homicide?” I asked, without turning my head. I had to concentrate on driving. It was late spring, an ideal time of the year for the roadwork crews to start ripping apart all the access roads and major arteries, to make sure that the Baltimore commuters lived through another summer full of closed exits and detours.

  “It sounded like that.”

  I had to ask Mrs. Devon, my neighbor, to look after Jazz. I didn’t like that. She was the type who would ask for many favors afterward.

  “If it’s homicide, here and how, why were we invited?”

  “The Prince has a doctor on the premises. He was beside the security guy when he called 9-1-1. The doctor gave instructions to the dispatcher and the paramedics.”

  “What kind?”

  “His chest exploded. Bring a tarp.”

  I saw the pothole in the road but took my eyes off it momentarily, to stare at him. The Acura crunched as it landed in the respectable gouge and moaned when it climbed out of it. When Ken got his car back, I would have to take mine in for alignment.

  “Pay attention,” he admonished. “Clint and Jasper are coming, so is Joe and his forensic army. But if another foot soldier with a bomb in his chest was taken out of commission, it’s our case.”

  “I don’t want to work this alone. Clint and Jasper are welcome.”

  “We’ll probably need the help,” he agreed.

  “If it is another case like Brick, what do you think it’s about? Why are they suddenly executing their rank-and-file?”

  “Dissidents, maybe.”

  “Brick may have been a dissident, testing the device’s limits but a hotel waiter? There’s no connection…unless it was a part-time job. Was it?”

  “I don’t think so. His name was Peter Jeffries, age thirty. He was single and lived at 34 Lofton Terrace. That’s north of Clifton Park. It sounded like he was a regular employee, a night shift.”

  “What was he doing in the penthouse?”

  “Delivering someone’s food order.”

  “At one o’clock in the morning?”

  “It’s a penthouse in the Prince. The place must cost more than you and I make in a month, just for one night.”

  He was right. The Prince Excelsior was the cream of Baltimore hospitality residence. Their penthouse was always reserved, never for salaried people. The kind of guests who stayed at the Prince’s penthouse had names that appeared in all the national and international news publications. They were the movers and shakers of the world, business, political, or entertainment.

  “Who is staying in there tonight?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. The security didn’t say.”

  “Who found the victim?”

  “My impression is that it was the security.”

  “Security guards don’t normally accompany a waiter who’s delivering food to a guest’s room. Whoever would be allowed to the penthouse, would have been cleared.”

  “We’ll find out when we get there.” He motioned to make a left turn, to avoid the forest of flashing lights, police, fire department and ambulance.

  When we entered the grand lobby, awash in crystal sparkle and bathed in reflection from polished brass and mirrored opulence, we saw every homicide cop in there. The hotel staff was plentiful but surprisingly, there were no guests.

  Jasper saw us and came over. He motioned at the cathedral expanse lined with plants. I caught a glimmer of water. There had to be a fountain deeper in this grand station.

  “Up on the thirty-sixth floor,” he said. “Take the service elevators. The manager wouldn’t let us use the guest elevators in the middle of the night. Smeddin’s up there too and the paramedics.”

  The hotel staff was assembled off to a side, outside of their work registration area. I motioned at them. “Did you take down any information yet?”

  He grimaced. “The staff, yes. The rest is padlocked. They don’t divulge information on guests. We might have to bring down someone from the attorney’s office, to read the riot act. Clint will look after that. We don’t know who’s in the penthouse. The manager won’t give it out.”

  “It could be a politician,” Ken speculated.

  “Is the victim in the penthouse?” I asked.

  Jasper nodded. “The security had called 9-1-1 but whoever is in the penthouse had called the security—and the doctor. Go get him. We’ll be right behind you.”

  We took the service elevator. It had a mirrored ceiling and woven artwork panels.

  “What do they move in here?” Ken murmured, looking around. The art had brass plaques, detailing the artist’s accomplishments.

  “The staff must have a
degree from the Mailer Art Institute,” I snickered.

  “They’re missing courses in PR relations and diplomacy,” he snickered back.

  “A hotel that hopes to draw a high-end clientele must protect its guests’ privacy.”

  “There’s been a murder.”

  “They’ll want to keep it quiet.”

  We exited into a corridor. It was decorated in blues and greens. Once we rounded a corner, we faced another lobby. It was decorated in brass, glass and muted colors of the sea and shore. The artwork had coral strips. It provided a touch of whimsy. The crystal fixtures threw sparkles, just like in the main lobby. It reinforced the impression of grandeur, money and tradition.

  The Prince was a modern hotel but it liked symbols of affluence, the pedigreed furnishings and time-honored opulence that the average citizen associated with the privileged.

  We saw a door at the far end of this elegant lobby. The mob outside was motley of police uniforms and civilian suits. Even from a distance, I could see they didn’t come from racks.

  Ken flipped his badge at one of the executives who had noticed us and approached. He was in his late forties. His face had been massaged wrinkle-free. All the imperfections that make people human, had been removed. I wondered whether he shaved or waxed his face. It looked polished. He oozed displeasure.

  “The police are already inside,” he declared and raised a hand, like a traffic cop, to halt us.

  “Here are more police,” I flipped out my badge.

  A look of distaste flashed on his face. It creased his temples. He didn’t want more police presence. It might skew the ratio of expensive suits and street work clothes.

  “There are already enough police officers inside,” he said and blocked our way. His voice was polite but impatient. I saw that he wanted to clap his hands and have everyone who didn’t belong here by virtue of money or status, disappear.