The Dead Man

by Joel Goldman

  The story stretched onto page two where there were sidebars written by Rachel and boxed in a panel alongside the main story. The first was about Leonard Nagel's criminal record, the second about the lawsuit against Corliss and the University of Wisconsin over Kimberly Stevens's death, and the third announced that Milo Harper had taken a leave of absence from the institute for personal reasons and that Sherry Fritzshall had replaced him as president. Sherry was quoted as saying that these changes had been planned for some time and were unrelated to the deaths of the dream project participants.

  The last sidebar was about me, reprising my history with the FBI, the drug ring, Wendy, and my movement disorder. Firestone quoted Jason Bolt saying that the institute had waited too long to hire a director of security and then compounded that mistake by hiring someone whose disability should have disqualified him from the job, describing my hiring as part of the institute's continuing pattern of fatally flawed judgments.

  I wasn't surprised by the newspaper coverage. The murders of Anne Kendall and Walter Enoch were sensational enough on their own. The prospect that they were victims of a serial killer was a reportorial windfall. Toss in a billionaire who walked away from the crown jewel of his empire without explanation, a registered sex offender killed while fleeing the police, and an ex-professor and an ex-FBI agent who left their last jobs under a cloud, all of whom worked for the billionaire, and Rachel Firestone must have felt like she'd died and gone to heaven twice over.

  She had excellent sources, including, I assumed, Jason Bolt and Eric Abelson. Someone in the police department must have briefed her as well, no doubt off the record and only after Rachel promised anonymity.

  The Bureau spokesman, Manny Fernandez, wasn't speaking off the record. He was sending me a message, reminding me that my forty-eight hours were almost up. Kent had promised me that if I didn't turn over the drug money, the Bureau would do things Dolan's way, which was shorthand for getting ugly.

  It wouldn't matter whether they could make a case against me. They would ruin me with more than the innuendo hinted at in the newspaper. There would be a news conference. A sober-faced Fernandez would rehash the case, disclose Wendy's letter with the irresistible but unsupported conclusion of its contents, labeling me as a person of interest in the investigation of the missing money and encouraging me to come forward and tell what I knew.

  They would bang the drum as often and as long as it took to convince the world that I had betrayed the public trust and gotten away with a crime. My denials and explanations would be footnotes to the story, my reputation the first casualty, my chance to spend the rest of my life doing more than wandering the aisles at the Bass Pro Shop the next. And, if they were lucky enough to find Wendy's letter and leverage it into an indictment, they would force me to spend my disability payments on attorney's fees before sending me to prison.

  I couldn't sit back and wait for any of that to unfold, depending on luck and justice, both of which were blind, to get it right. Anthony Corliss was the lynchpin, the only name on my list of suspects whether the list was short or long. He didn't ooze menace like Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs or any other cinematic thrill killer but evil isn't always obvious. More often it's hidden behind a banal façade, stunning us when it's finally revealed.

  No one else fit the profile as well as Corliss. No one else was as connected to the victims, knew their vulnerabilities, and shared their tormented history. And no one else had as many questions to answer.

  Lucy didn't pick up when I called and neither did Simon. I was starting to shake from sitting around and doing nothing. I had to get out of the house, clear my head, and find a way to get to Corliss without falling apart.

  I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, hiking boots and a barn jacket, wrapped a scarf around my neck, and tugged a wool cap around my ears and left the house, paying the teenage snow shoveling crew on my way out. They pocketed the money and cut over to the next block south looking for more business.

  A city snowplow had made one halfhearted pass down my block, leaving a slick hardpack on the pavement bordered by a foot high wall of snow shoved against the curb, blocking driveways and imprisoning cars that had been left on the street. I headed east toward The Roasterie Café, a coffee shop a few blocks away on Brookside Boulevard.

  I was near the end of the next block when a black SUV turned onto the street from behind me, the driver at first matching my slow pace. Glancing over my shoulder, I couldn't tell whether the driver was looking for an address or just being careful or was following me and not caring that I knew, relying on the fact that I was too far from home to turn back. The windows were tinted, the sun adding an impenetrable glare, making the driver invisible. The car didn't belong to any of my neighbors and it wasn't a typical Bureau surveillance vehicle.

  I scanned the street. No red-faced, over weight, out of shape, middle-aged men were shoveling their driveways, auditioning for heart attacks. No kids in mittens and ski caps were launching sleds off the slopes of their yards or rolling a snowman to its feet. No moms in boots and bathrobes were wading through the snow, clutching their nightgowns to their throats while fishing for the morning paper.

  I was out in the open on icy, snowy terrain, alone, exposed, and unarmed when the driver accelerated, wheels spinning and whining against the snowpack, the chassis shimmying, tires gaining purchase, the car closing the distance before I could react, skidding to a stop, the front end sliding past me and kissing the snowbank. The driver lowered the tinted window. It had been months, but I hadn't forgotten Rachel Firestone's volcanic red hair, emerald green eyes, and disarming smile.

  "You could have phoned. Would have been a lot safer," I said, pointing at her right fender, buried in the snow.

  She threw the car into reverse and yanked it free, then shifted into drive, aiming true east, standing on the brake, and making the SUV shudder and me shake.

  "How's that?"

  "Better, but you still could have phoned."

  "You turned me down for an interview the last time and I wasn't sure you'd take my call after the story in today's paper."

  "I'd have said hello."

  "But that's it."

  "Hello and good-bye," I said and started walking.

  She followed, her car gliding alongside me. "It's news. You're news."

  "Your luck, not mine."

  "Why do you make this so hard?"

  I stopped and faced her. She had alabaster skin, her cheeks tinged rose by the cold.

  "I'm not interested in selling papers."

  "Your luck, not mine. Where are you going? I'll bet to The Roasterie."

  "You're a smart reporter."

  "I'll give you a ride. It's cold."

  I started walking again. "No thanks, I've seen how you drive in winter and I want to live to see the spring."

  "C'mon, Jack. I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

  "That's all I'm worth? A two dollar cup of coffee?"

  "That's a lot on my budget."

  "I'll pass," I said.

  "Okay, buy your own coffee. Just tell me one thing?"

  "What's that?"

  "Why does the FBI want your head on a pike outside the village gates?"

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  I declined Rachel's offer of a ride, using the rest of my walk to think about the bait she'd thrown at my feet.

  News stories, like murder cases, are organic, living creatures that grow arms and legs and reproduce. Random chance, chaos, the rule of unintended consequences, and the probability that we are all within six degrees of separation of one another combine to spawn new stories and new cases, the pregnant sometimes the last to know they're with child.

  Rachel began with the murders and stumbled onto a parallel track about me, following the road map the FBI had laid out for her. She wanted information about both stories and so did I, but trading for it was tricky, particularly when one party wants to go public and the other wants to stay private, when a good deal may be measured more by w
hat you didn't give up than by what you got.

  I crossed Brookside Boulevard. and walked a block south to the café. Rachel's SUV was parked on the street, tilted to port, the starboard wheels resting on a snow berm built by the city's plows. The aroma of fresh ground coffee picked me up before I hit the door.

  The Roasterie is Kansas City's homegrown coffee company. The owner started roasting coffee beans in the basement of his house in Brookside. When he outgrew the basement he moved to the city's west side, later opening the café in his old neighborhood. It's as good a place for a cup of coffee as there is, embracing Brookside's laid-back ambience with overstuffed chairs, soft light, and easy music.

  Rachel was waiting at a table in a corner near the door, two steaming mugs in front of her. I took the seat across from her, my back to the wall.

  "Coffee tastes better in a mug than in a paper cup," she said. "And these mugs feel great in your hand. Your cup is unleaded."

  "Good guess."

  "It wasn't a guess. I researched your movement disorder when I wrote the stories last year. Caffeine is not your friend."

  I took two dollars from my wallet and laid them on the table, raised the cup, and took a sip. "Thanks."

  She'd engineered this meeting so I let her take the lead, not wanting to appear too anxious to make a deal, preferring to let her set the floor in our negotiations by going first.

  "You read my story?"

  "All of it."

  "At least admit that we used a decent picture of you," she said.

  "I didn't know you had more than one to choose from."

  "We have others," she said, setting her cup on the table. "From Wendy's funeral."

  "Thanks for not using one of those."

  "You're welcome. What did you think?"

  "You covered a lot of territory."

  "Did I get it right?"

  "Too late to worry about that now."

  "It's never too late. There's always tomorrow's paper. This story has legs, a lot of them."

  "You're good at what you do. You'll get it all by the time it's over."

  "I could use your help," she said, leaning back in her chair, twisting the diamond ring on her left hand.

  "Getting married?"

  She smiled, her eyes flickering with doubt. "Next month, in California. It's what my girlfriend wants."

  "That's not exactly an enthusiastic endorsement of the institution of marriage."

  She dipped her chin, nodded, and gave her ring another twirl. "Let's just say I have an easier time committing to my work."

  "Trust me, it may be harder to commit to the people you love but the fringe benefits are a lot better than the ones you get on the job."

  "Voice of experience?"

  "Yeah, all of it hard."

  "Like what happened to your daughter?"

  "Like what happened to her."

  She sighed, hunching over the table. "I know you're right but this is such a screwy business, I don't know whether I can't let go of it or whether it can't let go of me. I start out writing a story about the murder of Anne Kendall and the next thing I know there's a serial killer on the loose and my FBI source is whispering in my ear about you and your daughter and this crazy mailman who stole everyone's mail. How does that happen?"

  "They're using you."

  "No shit, Sherlock. They can use me till they use me up as long as there's a story worth writing."

  "So, you'd do the same thing to me, use me till you use me up?"

  She grinned, cocked her head to one side, resting her chin on clasped hands. "Only in a good way."

  "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

  She planted her hands on the table. "Look, everything I wrote about you last year was straight and true. I didn't use your daughter to make you look guilty or your movement disorder to make you look pathetic. Now you're in the middle of a serial killer story and the one with the mailman. No way I can leave that alone. Neither can the cable networks. I got calls last night from Fox and MSNBC asking me to appear on their morning news shows today."

  "You're hitting the big time."

  "Right. You're about to be diced, dissected, profiled, and psychoanalyzed by people who think news is a carnival sideshow. So talk to me. Make sure I get it right. Make sure your side of the story gets out there."

  "You're all feeding the same beast. They'll gnaw on this story for a day or two until they find fresh meat somewhere else."

  "Maybe, but you and I are joined at the hip on this one. I'll be there when the arrests are made and when the jury comes back. I'll write the follow-up stories about the victims and their families and I'll do the where-is-Jack-Davis-now piece in five years. I'm not going away."

  "What do you know about the murders that you left out of today's paper?"

  "If I tell you, are you going to play fair or take advantage of me?"

  "I doubt that I would get very far trying to do that."

  "For an ex-cop, you give good flatter. Talk to me and I'll talk to you."

  "On or off the record?"

  "On."

  "No good."

  "Okay, off the record. You'll be a source close to the investigation."

  "Sorry. Here's my deal. You talk to me now and I'll give you an exclusive when it's all in and all done. Take it or leave it."

  "That's not much of a deal. From what I hear, you could be dead or in jail by then. A dead man gives a lousy interview and a defendant can't get past his own lawyer to talk to the press."

  She'd given more in that answer than I'd given. "Who wants me dead and who wants me in jail?"

  "Ahhh," she said. "I've got your attention, at last. Okay, consider this my good faith offer. Quincy Carter and I go way back. He likes you but thinks you're in way over your head because of your movement disorder. He's afraid you didn't learn your lesson when you got zapped trying to break into Anthony Corliss's house and that you're going to keep going after Corliss even though he warned you to stay out of it, so he's cutting you out of the loop. I wouldn't count on him returning your calls. He doesn't want your blood on his hands."

  I nodded, glad to know that Carter saw Corliss the way I did. "That's the dead part. What about the jail part?"

  "My sources at the FBI aren't as good but I'm getting a pretty strong vibe that they think you're hooked into the money your daughter stole from the drug ring. I put it to their spokesman, Manny Fernandez, straight up and he denied it with a wink and a nod, which for those Bureau guys is like Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah's couch telling the world he's in love."

  "Carter knows more about the murders than I do and I don't know what happened to the money so what could I possibly tell you?"

  "A lot. Like what's going on at the Harper Institute? Why did Milo Harper step down? How did two whack jobs like Leonard Nagel and Anthony Corliss get hired there? For that matter, how did you get hired?"

  "I can't help you with any of that. I agreed to do a job, not sell newspapers."

  I drained my cup and stood.

  "Where are you going? What are you going to do?" she asked.

  "I've still got a job. I'm going to the institute."

  "If you're hoping that Corliss decided to come to work today and is sitting behind his desk, waiting for you so he can confess, you're going to be disappointed. He isn't there."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I checked. He's not at home either. And I talked to Carter. He says Corliss is in the wind."

  "Thanks."

  "One other thing," she said, grabbing my wrist. "Carter can't find Maggie Brennan, Janet Casey, or Gary Kaufman. They're all gone, so talk to me."

  I held on to the edge of the table, steadying myself as a burst of tremors rattled through me. "When it's over."

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  I didn't give Rachel a chance to offer me a ride, knowing I'd shake all the way home. If I kept moving, I hoped I could stay a step ahead of the tremors and find a way to keep the promise I'd made to Maggie Brennan tha
t I would protect her.

  I didn't think Corliss had decided to go on vacation, taking her and their research assistants along for the ride, and there was no other explanation for their simultaneous disappearances that didn't include a body count. The question was how Maggie, Janet, and Gary fit into Corliss's pattern.

  Until now, I believed that he'd chosen his victims because of their shared history of abuse, maybe killing them as a way of killing himself, using their dreams as a template for murder. Maggie could fit that pattern if she was the same Maggie Brennan as in Tom Goodell's cold murder case.

  I didn't know enough about Janet and Gary's background to place them in this matrix. They could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, they and Maggie somehow figuring out that Corliss was the killer, perhaps confronting him and forcing him to take them out to protect himself. Or Corliss may have decided to include them in a last binge, making himself the final victim in a murder-suicide.

  If Carter knew that Maggie Brennan was missing, that meant someone had been to wherever she lived. She had told me that she lived in the country, which translated to living outside the KCPD's jurisdiction. Carter would have asked the county sheriff's office to check on her while he did the same for Janet Casey and Gary Kaufman who I assumed lived in the city. Cops and deputy sheriffs would have knocked and, when no one answered, checked for signs of forced entry, then gone in themselves looking for dead bodies.

  If Rachel Firestone knew that none of the missing had reported for work, Carter must have also sent a separate team to the institute to search their offices, the garage and the sub-basement. Nancy Klemp would have stalled the cops until she reached Sherry Fritzshall who would have handled it herself without calling me, glad for the chance to assert her new authority.