by John Case
‘And . . .?’
‘I don’t know . . . I guess he blew me off. Said he always kept his keys in his pockets, so maybe she’s the same. But did he ask her? That I don’t know.’ The detective rattled the ice in his glass and signaled the waiter for another drink.
Lassiter frowned. ‘Will you look into it?’
Riordan made a note on the outside of the manila envelope that Lassiter had given to him. Juliette: keys.
‘Where did she live, anyway?’ Lassiter wanted to know. ‘Near the hospital, or –’
‘No.’ Riordan shook his head. ‘Maryland plates. She was way the fuck out there. Hagerstown . . .’ A pause. ‘Emmitsburg.’
Their eyes met.
‘North of Frederick,’ Lassiter said.
‘As a matter of fact, I remember she said she was looking for an apartment closer to the hospital because the commute was a bitch. Not that she’d done it much.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because she was new. She’d just started working. Coupla weeks before.’
‘Wait a second. You mean she joined the staff after Grimaldi was admitted?’
Riordan rubbed his eyes. ‘Yeah. She transferred from . . . I don’t know where. Someplace. Anyway, it’s bad luck. Second week on the job – somebody grabs her. She’s still in therapy.’
‘She never came back to work!?’
Riordan shook his head and yawned. ‘Too spooked.’
‘Jimmy . . .’
Riordan put his hand up. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘She’s only there two weeks, she’s carryin’ the keys to her car –’
‘And she just happens to live in a town where Umbra Domini has a retreat.’
Riordan sighed and nodded. ‘You’re right. I’ll check it out. Okay? Just don’t get your hopes up.’ He drained his drink. ‘So – you coming back to the States for Christmas, or what?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Lassiter shrugged. ‘I don’t want to bring tears to your eyes, Detective, but – what’s the point? There’s no one left. I don’t have anyone. The whole family’s dead, except me.’
‘So where to?’
‘I’m not sure. Probably back to Rome.’
‘Rome! Whatta you talking about, Rome? You just told me your partner got blown away. You got a death wish?’
‘He was suffocated – and no, I don’t have a death wish. No one’s looking for me in Rome. I’m safer there than anywhere else. If anyone wants to come after me – they’ll look in the States. That’s where I’d look.’
Riordan started to say something, but before he could open his mouth the P.A. system blasted out the announcement of his flight. It was a small airport, and by the time the announcement had been translated into German, Lassiter had paid the bill and was standing with the detective in a line at the security gate. ‘This thing with your friend,’ Riordan said. ‘The guy in Rome?’
‘Bepi.’
‘Yeah . . .’ Riordan paused to hand his ticket and passport to the security guard. ‘The bodies are piling up,’ he said. The security guard glanced at his documents, stamped his passport, and returned them with a bored smile. A few feet ahead a bald man was removing everything from his pockets, while a blonde waited to pat him down.
‘Your sister and nephew,’ Riordan said, ‘that’s two. Dwayne is three. Bepi. If that’s because of you, that’s four. And I’m not even counting the lady in Prague and her kid – but that’s six.’ His frown deepened and he cocked his head like a dog listening to a distant sound.
He opened his mouth to say something, but the security guard motioned for him to move on. The bald man was done and Riordan had become a bottleneck, travelers stacking up behind him. Riordan dropped his briefcase on the conveyor belt, threw up his hands and stepped forward. To the annoyance of those behind him, he paused in the frame of the metal detector and turned around.
‘Stay in touch, okay? The guy behind this – Grimaldi – whoever it is – he’s a real triple-sixer, y’know?’
23
CHRISTMAS CAME AND went, and nothing happened.
In Italy this was a more tranquil family holiday than in the States. The enormous commercial burden overhanging the season was absent, and without the obligatory frenzy of gift-buying and partying, without the forced immersion in holiday cheer, the mood in Rome was quiet, even peaceful. One day slid seamlessly into the next, and before long it was New Year’s Eve.
For Lassiter, it was a strange and disconnected time. He rented a suite in an obscure, residential hotel, just north of the Villa Borghese gardens. He went to the Dental Hospital on the Viale Regina Elena, where an expatriate Brit removed what remained of the tooth that he’d lost in Naples. Two days later he had an X ray taken at the Salvator Mundi International Hospital, where he learned that he’d been shaken, but not stirred: the ribs were bruised but unbroken.
He ate by himself in out-of-the-way trattorias, reading one orange Penguin paperback after another. He slept late and went for long runs in the morning. He might have gone to the police about Bepi, but a brief conversation with Woody put an end to that idea. What could he tell the police? He had nothing but suspicions, and passing those on to the Italian authorities didn’t seem like a good idea. At least Woody thought not. Yes, SISMI had been cleaned up. But how well? Grimaldi undoubtedly still had friends there. And who knew how SISMI and Umbra Domini might be twisted up together? Best to keep a low profile and look into it later, when the dust cleared.
And so he waited out the Christmas season with his head down. He called the States every other day, using a pay phone at the train station. There was no news. Even the AmEx talks were on hold until after the New Year. ‘No one’s really working,’ Judy said. ‘Everything’s backed up.’ Lassiter told her that he understood. And he did.
He also checked his answering machines. There were half a dozen invitations, twice as many keep-in-touch calls, and holiday greetings from the not so near and the not so dear. Monica left a breezy, affectionate message, Claire a stiff and hostile one. He considered calling each of them, but he had nothing to say.
Some nights, he sat in an old chair upholstered in brocade, thinking about his house in McLean. There had been a big snowfall in D.C., as he’d learned from the Herald Trib. A white Christmas. He thought of the driveway and the little bridge, the stream and the trees, dusted with white. And inside the house: the pale, snowlit night, glowing in the atrium windows.
Sometimes, he thought about Kathy, and Brandon. He was beginning to have trouble remembering what they looked like. Thinking about Brandon depressed him. He was . . . he had been . . . a sunny little kid. He would have gotten a kick out of all the snow. In a year or so Brandon would have begun to play soccer, and Lassiter had been looking forward to teaching him the game. Playing catch. And why not? Brandon needed a father, even a surrogate one, and who better than Joe Lassiter, a charter member of the Alliance?
And then Grimaldi. And, after Grimaldi, thermite. Thermite.
Lassiter pushed the image out of his mind and turned to safer stuff. The mail would be piling up by now, filling the basket that the housekeeper used when he was away. A mountain of magazines, catalogues, Hallmark cards from law firms in Washington, New York, London, and L.A. None of them would mention Christmas; all of them would send ‘Season’s Greetings.’ Lying in bed with his eyes on the ceiling, it occurred to Lassiter, for the first time, that he didn’t particularly want to go home.
Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe never.
Nor did he want to ‘see the sights.’ He’d tried it for a day or two, visiting the Vatican Library and the Sistine Chapel. Both were impressive, but he was becoming disinterested in everything but Grimaldi. He did the crosswords in the Herald Tribune; he drank too much red wine at dinner.
And then it was New Year’s Eve, an occasion traditionally set aside for reviewing the past and making resolutions for the future. He waited until eight, then dined alone at a trattoria a block
from the hotel, a meal of calamari with marinara sauce, salad with fennel, ravioli stuffed with pine nuts and spinach, and a slice of grilled lamb with mint. He had an espresso with a curl of lemon peel in it, and after that a square of tiramisu and a glass of Vin Santo, on the house.
He drank the wine, which was very good, and left a large tip. Then he walked back toward his hotel, where a few doors down, he found an ancient, underground bar with brick arches and a large television set. The bar was full of workingmen. Their wives were absent – although there were a few women in evidence, flashily dressed types, with mascara and bright red fingernails. Not prostitutes, but party girls. They laughed a lot, but it seemed forced and somehow made him lonely.
Soccer players filled the television screen. Fiorentina and Lazio. A tape. Obviously, Lazio had won, because the assembled anticipated every moment of Lazio glory and every incident of Florentine perfidy, nudging one another whenever something was about to happen, and swearing at the incompetent referee.
It was nearly eleven when Lassiter called the young waiter over and let him know that he wanted to treat the bar to a round of champagne. After the waiter had distributed glasses and, with the help of two of the customers, poured a round of Moët Chandon for everyone, they raised their glasses to him, a loud disorganized cheer, with some singing. He popped for another round of champagne a few minutes later and was thinking of ordering a third when the waiter looked him in the eye and shook his head. Taking Lassiter’s pen, he wrote:
Moët & Chandon: 14,400 lire
Asti Spumante: 6,000 lire
Then he mimicked expertly that the bar’s inhabitants were drunk, the Moët wasted upon them. Lassiter acceded and the Asti Spumante was poured around – with no discernible change in the festive mood. Finally, midnight arrived, and with it an explosion of abrazos from the men, and a bit more from one or two of the ladies. When he finally got up to leave – only somewhat less drunk than his companions – the bar got to its collective feet. And there was a round of applause, a series of barwide toasts, which Lassiter did not understand, and a final explosion of ‘Buona fortuna.’ And then he left, having tipped the waiter almost two hundred dollars.
The telephone woke him at eight A.M., precisely, bleating into his ear. Rolling over, Lassiter felt a moment of panic as he recalled a woman kissing him on the way out of the bar. He hoped to Christ he hadn’t brought her back to the hotel, because . . . well, because he didn’t speak Italian.
Jesus, he thought, I’m not even hung over. I’m still drunk.
‘Hal-lo-allo!’ Roy Dunwold’s cheery voice burst through the receiver. ‘Didn’t wake you, did I?’
‘’Course not. I was just . . . worshiping.’
Dunwold laughed. ‘Out on the town, were we? Want me to ring back? I don’t mind.’
Lassiter sat up, and the world shifted dizzily. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, I’m fine.’
‘Well, you don’t bloody sound it, but – never mind. Reason I’m ringing – finally got something for you. Couple of somethings.’
‘Ummmm.’
‘First: Brazil.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You with me?’
‘Yeah – yeah, I’m with you.’
‘On the Rio business. Danny – that’s my mate – he’s the one who got it.’ Roy spoke in short bursts. He was obviously scanning something for the highlights. ‘Two A.M. fire, September seventeenth . . . chichi condo in Leblon.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Very swank. Beach neighborhood. Deh deh deh – here we go: child died in the fire . . . just turned four years old . . . Mommy killed. Danish nanny, too. Deh deh deh deh dah . . . fire spread to other apartments . . . no one else seriously injured. Estimated damage to complex . . . sixty gazillion cruzeiros . . . here we go! “Fire of suspicious origin.”’
Lassiter shook his head. Hard. ‘That is something,’ he said.
‘Little bit more.’ Lassiter could hear Roy turning pages. ‘Yeah – officials say it was arson. More on the family. Let’s see – wealthy couple. Deh deh deh . . . Name is Peña. Missus was a psychiatrist, and misterrrrr isssss . . . a director! Rio Tino Zinc, Sheraton Hotels – it goes on and on.’
‘The child was . . . what? Boy, girl –’
‘Boy. Only child.’
‘Huh,’ Lassiter said.
‘I’m not done yet! Got another one, don’t I?’
‘Another what?’
‘What d’ya think? Another bloody crime that fits your pattern. Another lad –’
‘When?’ Lassiter asked. ‘Where?’
‘Just October. Matilda Henderson and son Martin. Right here. Right here in London-town.’
*
The flight to London was virtually empty. New Year’s Day. Heathrow was similarly desolate. Even so, he almost missed Roy as he came through the nothing-to-declare line at Customs.
Roy had a talent – useful in an investigator – for unobtrusiveness. He was a nondescript sort who described himself as ‘average-everything, and formerly young.’ Even so, that didn’t explain it. There was something about him that made him almost transparent. Lassiter had remarked upon it once, and Roy nodded in a way that suggested it wasn’t the first time the subject had come up. ‘It’s not what you’d call “a God-given talent,”’ he said. ‘It’s how I survived my teenage years.’
Suddenly then, as Lassiter’s eyes searched the empty terminal, Roy materialized at his elbow, wearing a heavy tweed coat and a lumpy scarf that looked as if it had been hand-knit by a beginner.
‘Felicitations of the season,’ Roy said into his ear, taking his bag and steering him outside.
Roy always parked illegally, but never seemed to get tickets, and his car was right outside, behind a bus. The air was cold and damp and smelled of diesel fuel. Every few seconds a plane shuddered in the air overhead.
Lassiter headed for the right-hand door, and Roy steered him around to the other side. It was a navy-blue Jaguar that Roy had been driving as long as Lassiter had known him. As they drove, Roy told him about the Hendersons.
The woman, Matilda, had been a wealthy woman, thanks to ‘inheritance and a very successful divorce. She was half famous, y’know, in “highbrow” circles. Wrote novels. Arty sort. Never sold much. Won a few prizes.’
‘Never heard of her,’ Lassiter said.
‘Right. Well, she was just coming into her own, wasn’t she? I read the lady’s obituaries, couple of interviews. Said she had the boy at forty-one. According to the Guardian, ’avin’ the child “opened the floodgates of fertility in her literary life, as well.”’
‘What about the husband?’ Lassiter asked.
‘No husband. Had the kid on her own, didn’t she? Went to one of those places, she did.’
‘Which places?’
‘You know! Where they knock ’em up. Professional, like.’
Wait a second, Lassiter thought.
But Roy was off. ‘It’s unnatural, is what it is. Instead of havin’ a bit of fun, as what God intended, this is – well, it’s cold, i’nit? Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong, mind you, buutttt! Some of these women will go to a sperm bank and look at snapshots! Pictures of the blokes what “donated”! And then they read about the ones they fancy. Height, weight, IQ, color of eyes, education – they pick out the Da like he’s bloody wallpaper!’
It reminded him of Riordan – when Lassiter had said that Brandon had no father. No father? You tell me how that one worked and you can go!
Roy was rattling on, but Lassiter was thinking of Kathy, and an idea was beginning to germinate. She, too, had conceived at a fertility clinic. Maybe that was the connection among the various cases. Maybe Grimaldi was a sperm donor. Maybe he’d snapped, and now he was tracking down his own offspring.
‘What would old Darwin say?’ Roy continued ranting. ‘I’ll tell you what he’d say. He’d call it un-natural selection, and that would be that.’
Lassiter sat back against the seat, half listening to Roy talk as the Jaguar
hurtled through the night. He’d discarded the idea of Grimaldi as a lunatic, vengeful sperm donor. That didn’t explain Bepi. Umbra Domini. Somebody digging Brandon up and incinerating him.
It was funny the way his mood had flattened out since that morning. Roy’s news about the London case was exciting, and ever since the call, he’d been so impatient that he’d taken the first flight out of Rome. And the fertility clinics – there was something there, but he couldn’t say what it was. They were a part of it. He was sure of that. And religion – religion was a part of it as well. He could sense that the hard knot of the case was beginning to loosen, but his excitement had faded into an edgy fatigue. Suddenly, he felt deeply tired. His ribs throbbed and all he wanted to do was take a shower and go to sleep.
The Jaguar turned into St. James Place and stopped in front of Duke’s. ‘Here we are. Sorry if I rattled on. Next I’ll be on a bloody box in Hyde Park.’
‘You made some good points,’ Lassiter said. ‘No problem.’
A doorman in a top hat and tails came over to the car.
‘Hang on,’ Roy said, swiveling around to retrieve a large envelope from the backseat. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘that’s the lot of it. Paperwork on the Henderson case, and the one in Brazil. Second: I’ve set up some interviews for you. Tomorrow.’
‘Who?’
‘Matilda Henderson’s sister and her best friend – the boy’s godmother.’ Roy shifted gears. ‘’Round ten?’
As Lassiter nodded and stepped out, there was a sudden flash of lightning, a crack of thunder, and the skies opened. The doorman gave him an annoyed look, as if this was somehow his fault.
24
MATILDA HENDERSON’S SISTER was courteous, but that was as far as it went. Honor was perhaps fifty years old, her gray hair shorn in a crew cut. Heavy earrings and stylish but ugly eyeglasses. She wore baggy trousers with tight bands at the ankle – they reminded Lassiter of the pants worn by the cartoon figures in Aladdin, which he’d seen with Brandon. Her flat in Chelsea was decorated entirely in black, white, and gray. She didn’t offer them anything to drink, but gestured to uncomfortable matching chairs that seemed to be made out of chicken wire.