by John Case
Fund-raiser for Senator Walling. Bring Family. (‘Mom! Mom! – Kathy’s throwing up and . . . I don’t feel so good, either.’)
There was a luncheon after the ceremony. He found himself wanting to talk about his childhood with Kathy. About the Alliance. He looked around for Murray and for the beautiful woman with the little boy. What was her name? Marie. Despite what she’d said, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d met her before, that he somehow knew her. Maybe he was just drawn to her because, apart from Murray, she seemed to be the only other one at the service to take Kathy’s death as a personal loss. Eventually he found Murray, or Murray found him. But the woman and the little boy were nowhere to be seen.
When the lunch ended, he drove Aunt Lillian to Dulles. He took the toll road back, and when he arrived at his house, it was almost dark. Normally, he looked forward to the long, curving driveway, the crunch of the pebbles under his wheels, the corduroy rhythm of the car crossing the wooden bridge over the stream. It was the reason he’d built the house, in a way. Most of the time, he thought about work, about plans and meetings and tactical decisions – until he crossed the stream. And then it all fell away.
The lines of the house, rising out of the trees, thrilled him. There wasn’t another building like it in the Washington area, in part because the architect was Dutch, and in part because he was a crank. Or a genius. Or a little of both. In any case, an Anthroposophist, and therefore an enemy – on principle – of the right angle. The result was a million-dollar house that amounted to a cluster of sinuous curves, unlikely angles, and large, unexpected volumes.
Those who saw the place had one of two reactions. Some gasped with delight, while others bit their lower lips and nodded wisely, as if to say, ‘This is what too much money does to people who ought to know better.’ Lassiter liked to think that he could judge people by their reactions to the house, but the truth was, he couldn’t. Some of those whom he liked the most – Kathy, for instance – just shook their heads when they saw it, or smiled politely.
But most people came around when they stepped inside. The house was filled with light that poured through the glass ceiling of a barrel-vaulted atrium running north to south. The rooms were all oversized and flowed, one into another, in an almost seamless way. Black-and-white photos of old New York, and carefully framed drawings of the Yellow Kid, Krazy Kat, and Little Nemo, hung from the walls. There wasn’t a lot of furniture: a few big pieces, draped in slipcovers, and a grand piano that Lassiter was using to teach himself to play.
Coming home was the day’s reward, but this time the cool white walls and soaring spaces failed to lift his spirits. Instead the house seemed empty and cold, more a fortress than a refuge.
He poured himself a tumbler of Laphroaig and went into his favorite room, the study. Three of the oddly angled walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with bookcases; library ladders rolled on rails. In a corner of the room, a few feet above the floor, was an adobe-style fireplace with logs and kindling stashed underneath. Even though it was warm, he made a fire, and sat there for twenty minutes, drinking scotch and watching the flames snap at the wood.
Finally, he punched the Play button on the answering machine. There were seventeen messages. He turned up the volume on the speaker-phone and wandered outside to listen to them, standing on the deck next to the rail, watching the birch trees thrash in the wind. The air was fresher now, and he could feel the rain behind it, maybe an hour away.
There were a couple of business calls. A hostile takeover was in the works at TriCom, and a lawyer from Lehman Brothers wanted to meet with him. Another call reported ‘a cock-up’ in London. One of his investigators had been ‘overzealous’ (whatever that meant) and the BBC was interested.
Most of the rest were condolence calls from friends and acquaintances who hadn’t known Kathy and so hadn’t been at the service. There was a call from one of the television stations. Another from the Post. And then Monica’s throaty voice, telling him how sorry she was, saying that if there was anything, anything at all . . . well, her number was the same.
Lassiter thought about it – thought about calling her, thought about the way they’d broken up. Thought: What is it with me, anyway?
And the answer came back: It’s the usual thing.
Or more accurately, it was becoming the usual thing. He’d find a woman he really liked, they’d stay together for a year or so – and then it would stall. There’d be an ultimatum, an ‘extension,’ another extension, and then . . . Monica would give way to Claire – or whomever. In fact, it was Claire, although at the moment she happened to be in Singapore for a conference. She’d called two nights earlier, and he told her about Kathy’s death. But Claire had never met Kathy, and when she said something about coming back for the funeral, he’d politely refused an offer that was meant to be refused.
He sipped the last of the whiskey in his glass. The truth was, he enjoyed the company of women, one at a time. Monogamy, or at least serial monogamy, came naturally to him, and so, also, should marriage. But marriage was something he was determined to get right the first time, and he was romantic enough to think that when the time was right, he’d know it. There wouldn’t be any doubt. It would seem the most important thing in the world – whereas with Monica marriage seemed like . . . well, like an option.
The last message was from Riordan, and he listened to it without paying attention. When it was done, he realized that he hadn’t heard a word. Rewinding the tape, he pressed Play for the second time.
Riordan was one of those men who was uncomfortable talking to machines. He spoke too fast and much too loud. ‘Sorry if I was too rough on you,’ he said, in a voice that didn’t sound sorry at all. ‘Stop by tomorrow, okay? I wanta ask you a coupla questions.’
10
RIORDAN’S OFFICE WAS off Route 29, on the third floor of one of those ugly boxes that municipal governments built in the 1950s. The exterior walls were a parade of alternating panels, blue plastic and glass, separated by aluminum strips that had long ago begun to pit. It was at once a modern building, in the sense that it was relatively new, and a dated one, in that it looked far shabbier than the more graceful, nineteenth-century buildings nearby.
It was no better inside. The acoustic tiles on the ceiling were sagging and stained. The linoleum floor was embedded with decades of grime entombed in thousands of layers of floor wax. The stairwells reminded Lassiter of junior high school, and as he mounted their steps, a whiff of sour milk came to him, though he couldn’t be sure if it was real or imaginary.
The second floor was reserved for narcotics investigations, and a sign near the stairwell gave a warning:
UNDERCOVER UNITS
ABSOLUTELY NO SUSPECTS
ON THIS FLOOR
Lassiter found the homicide unit on the third floor. There were a couple of self-contained offices, some empty rooms that he assumed were used for interrogation, and a warren of pressed-board cubicles with head-high partitions. It was messy and chaotic and, like a newsroom, everyone seemed to be sitting in front of a computer, typing, or (like Riordan) hunched over a telephone, talking.
Riordan was in his mid-fifties, and had that kind of Irish skin that doesn’t so much age as weather. His face and hands were permanently red, but the skin on his body would be milk-white. When he saw Lassiter, his pale blue eyes widened in silent greeting. He looked tired. He bounced his eyebrows, held one finger up and gestured to a chair.
The room was stifling, the heating system geared to the calendar and not the thermometer. All of the detectives were stripped to their shirtsleeves, and Lassiter saw that without exception every one of them was wearing a gun. Shoulder rigs, mainly, and the odd holster in the small of the back. Cops, of course, were used to the constant presence of weaponry, but it was something Lassiter always noticed in a police station: everybody was armed.
It was one of the things that made ex-cops almost unemployable, at least as far as Lassiter Associates was concerned. It wasn’t just that the
y couldn’t write. They were conspicuous, even in conversation, driving ‘vehicles’ instead of cars – and they never went anywhere: they ‘responded to’ places. Beyond that, they had a stance, a way of holding themselves that had everything to do with wearing a badge and carrying a gun. Virtually all cops spent some time in uniform and so, like actors and politicians, they expected people to react to them. It didn’t matter much if the reaction was negative – so long as it was there. In Lassiter’s experience, the syndrome persisted long after they’d left the police force.
Riordan hung up and swiveled toward him. He clapped his big red hands together. ‘The car,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d like to know that we found a rental car on your sister’s block and we’ve traced it.’
Lassiter inclined his head but said nothing. He could tell just from the way the detective was talking, so matter-of-factly, that although Riordan had been pissed off about his ill-advised trip to the burn ward, he didn’t carry a grudge. That was over.
‘Hertz. Right out of Dulles. No question that it’s John Doe’s car. The trunk stinks. Kerosene, probably. And no one’s said squat about the boot we put on it.’ Riordan paused.
‘And?’
The detective shrugged. ‘Well, the guy used a credit card. Juan Gutierrez. The card is registered to an address in Brookville, Florida. I had the locals take a look. Place is a rooming house, mail gets dumped on a table. There was a guy, called himself Juan, had a room there – two, three months ago. Wasn’t home much. Wasn’t hardly there.’
Riordan’s phone rang and he picked it up. Lassiter listened for a bit, long enough to tell that the conversation had nothing to do with him, and then he looked at the walls of Riordan’s cubicle. They were decorated, if that was the word, with children’s drawings. The William Tyler Elementary School. Crudely drawn figures with realistically detailed guns. The bullets came out, evenly spaced, in straight lines – like perforations. Heavy strokes of red crayon marked the sites of the wounds, and in some cases blood flowed in careful, individual drops. Somehow the crayon blood seemed more brutal and visceral than the luxuriant gore of filmed special effects.
Riordan hung up. ‘Where was I?’
‘Juan Gutierrez.’
‘Oh yeah. From what we got, the place in Brookville was just a mail drop. But we’re not done yet. We found a card key in the ashtray of the rental vehicle. Anyway, it takes some footwork. But we run it down and – bibbity-bobbity-boo – it’s a Comfort Inn, off 395. Juan Gutierrez – number 214. So we get a warrant. And, in the room, there’s an overnight bag, a map of Fairfax County, and a wallet.’
‘A wallet.’
‘The wallet holds almost two thousand dollars in cash, a driver’s license, a library card, a social security card, and a couple of Visa cards – and all of it’s in the name of Juan Gutierrez, Brookville, Florida. So we run some checks, and it comes back that, uh . . . Mr. Gutierrez probably isn’t Mr. Gutierrez.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s no history on the guy. Everything starts two, three months ago, like he was born at the age of forty-three. He has a library card, issued in August. But he’s never taken out a book. He got a driver’s license – early September – but he never had a driver’s license before. Not so far as we can tell. He never bought a car. He never had a ticket. And his Visa cards are both ‘secured’ – you know, the kind bankrupts and bad credit risks get.’
‘Where you give the bank the money up front.’
‘Right. And he’s got a two-thousand-dollar line of credit on each one. He had them since –’
‘September.’
‘You got it. And he used them. There’s only been time for one full billing cycle, but on both of ’em he brought the balance back up, pronto. In the return mail, paid by money order, very prompt.’
‘So he’s a ghost.’ It was a word they used in the investigative business for someone living under a false identity.
‘He’s a ghost plus.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He didn’t rip off this ID, and he didn’t just buy it. It looks like he built it up from scratch. And the social security number – it’s a real number and it belongs to a real Juan Gutierrez who lives in Tampa. That Juan Gutierrez doesn’t drive, he’s about the same age as John Doe. If you ran the number, you’d assume they were the same guy.’
‘So you’re saying John Doe went to a lot of trouble.’
‘Fuckin’ A Right. This is damn good ID. Cop stops him, no problem. He wants to rent a car – step right up! He wants to fly somewhere, but he doesn’t want to pay cash – because cash is conspicuous? – he’s got his Visa cards. He can go to the moon, no one’s gonna notice. Now, I’m not saying it’s bulletproof, because it ain’t. But if this guy isn’t in custody, if he isn’t a suspect in a felony – make that a major felony – he’s solid. It’s good enough that it makes you wonder.’
‘Wonder what?’
Riordan gave him a look. ‘If he’s a pro. Which brings me to the reason I asked you to come by.’ Riordan leaned back in his chair. ‘I think it’s time we talked some more about your sister.’
Lassiter grimaced. ‘Why? There’s nothing to know.’
‘I beg to differ.’
‘You “beg to differ.” Look – there’s nothing in Kathy’s life that’s going to tell you why someone with the work habits of a professional hit man would cut her throat, burn down the house, kill her kid –’
‘Actually,’ Riordan said, ‘he didn’t cut her throat. He cut Brandon’s throat. Your sister was stabbed in the chest.’
Lassiter started to say something but gave up.
Riordan cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice had a wounded tone and there was a funny look in his eyes. Lassiter suddenly got a glimpse of what Riordan had looked like as a kid. A kid who’d been unfairly reprimanded. ‘Look at it my way, Joe. Here I am – I’m pushing this thing for you, I’m busting my ass –’
‘Pushing it for me? It’s a double homicide!’
‘For your information, we’ve got fifty-seven unsolved homicides on the books. I’m throwing resources at one of them that’s all but solved, you understand me? For your information, I talked to Dr. Whozee this morning, and John Doe is not doing so well. His lungs are fucked up. I’m not saying he isn’t gonna make it, but the way some people around here see it, I’m blowing time and money on a case that could solve itself any time now.’
‘You mean if he dies, the case is solved?!’
‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. Once the forensic evidence is conclusive, it’s solved. If his prints match the prints on the knife – if the DNA tests come back positive – if we can prove that Suspect A committed crime X –’ His hands flew up and out to the sides. ‘– we call that case solved. And if Suspect A is also dead, that’s about as solved as anything ever gets.’
Lassiter looked at him. ‘But we wouldn’t know why.’
Riordan opened and closed his hands a couple of times, making fists and then splaying his fingers. ‘Why, why – what if there is no why? What if a cockroach told him to do it? What if he was stoned and it seemed like a good idea?’
‘Except it doesn’t look like that, does it?’
‘No,’ Riordan said, ‘it does not. Not with that ID.’ He paused, and then went on: ‘But here’s the point: while John Doe is still hanging on, and I’m in a position to look into this thing, I don’t expect you to flip every time I ask you a few questions about your sister.’
‘You’re right. And I’m sorry.’
Riordan looked mollified. He squeezed off a little smile. ‘So – tell me about her.’
Lassiter shrugged. He felt suddenly tired. ‘She listened to “Prairie Home Companion”.’
Riordan scribbled away. ‘What’s that?’
Lassiter sighed. ‘It’s a radio show from Minnesota.’ Riordan gave him a look. ‘What I mean by that is – what can I tell you? My sister led an ordinary life. She was a producer at NPR. She worked
hard. Her life revolved completely around her work and the kid. Her social life consisted of going to potluck dinners for the nursery school and a Unitarian church group for single parents. Mostly, she kept to herself. She had no enemies.’
‘Excuse me – you would know?’
He thought about it. He didn’t believe Kathy kept much of anything secret from him, but it was impossible to be sure. ‘We were pretty close. When our parents died, Kathy was twenty, I was fifteen.’
‘Oh yeah. The congressman. I remember that. Plane crash.’
‘Helicopter.’
‘A tragedy,’ Riordan said in an automatic voice. ‘So is that where your sister got her money? I wondered how she could afford that fancy house.’
‘My father managed to run through most of my mother’s dough, but we both inherited a couple of hundred grand. Kathy was pretty frugal. Smart investor. When she had Brandon, she sold the town house and moved to the burbs.’
‘Who’d she leave her money to? I mean, if you don’t mind.’ Riordan rolled his hands through the air. ‘We didn’t get to that yet.’
Lassiter was Kathy’s executor, as Riordan either knew or guessed. He shook his head. ‘I could show you the will, but there’s nothing there. She left everything to Brandon. If he predeceased her, or they died together, it would all go to charity.’
Riordan was scribbling notes. ‘Which charity?’
‘Valley Drive Preschool. Sweet Briar – that was her college. Greenpeace.’
‘Nothing to you?’
‘Just – some personal stuff. Family photos. Like that. Nothing that survived the fire.’
Riordan looked disappointed. ‘What about guys? She got any guys in her life?’
‘Not for a couple of years.’
‘What about the kid? Was she gettin’ child support?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s no father.’
Riordan blinked. ‘So . . . what? He’s dead?’