Buzz Killer

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Buzz Killer Page 35

by Tom Straw


  “Freeze it there,” said Gunnar. The image stilled with both men’s faces open to the camera.

  Macie said, “Gunnar, I’ve seen these two before.”

  The three of them piled into the Gauchito’s Kia Soul and headed down to the Manhattan Center for Public Defense. Macie and Gunnar watched as CyberG stood on her desktop, loosening the ventilation grate in the ceiling. “It was the hairy eyebrows on the one guy that I remember. About a week and a half ago I came in early, and passed these two coming out. They had a ladder, but they left footprints on my desk, and when I griped to my paralegal he said maintenance was cleaning my AC vent for summer.”

  “And leaving you this,” said the G-man. “Testing one, two, three.” He tossed a small plastic box to Gunnar. He pried it open and showed her the insides: a lipstick camera and condenser mic connected to a circuit board with a blinking light.

  “Sound, picture, transmitter,” he said, disconnecting each. It resembled the fake rat trap he had planted in the Bowery flophouse. “Congratulations, everything in this office has been on camera.”

  ♢ ♢ ♢

  CyberG gave them a lift to Macie’s apartment. She set up Gunnar to lounge with his leg elevated on her sofa then poured them each a glass of wine. “I can think of one pick-up they captured, for sure,” she said, taking a seat on the rug beside the couch. “You and I sat there in my office on the speaker phone when Soledad told us where Jackson Hall was hiding out in Harlem. No surprise, then, how Borodin knew how to tail us on his Ducati.”

  “That cam could definitely pick up your keyboard and surf your passwords too. Assume all your e-mails and files have been read.” Macie rocked her head back onto his lap and closed her eyes. He added, “It’s like you said in the van that night.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Nothing is sacred.”

  She twisted around to study him. “Is this you, coming around?”

  “Let’s just say you see the world differently when you’ve been hacked down to your skivvies.”

  She squeezed onto the cushion beside him and the two of them drifted half awake, half asleep, in contemplative silence. Needing this closeness, Macie was too fragile to do more about it than take his warmth and contact. Her phone vibrated on the coffee table, and she picked it up. The caller ID said it was Len Asher. “My boss,” she said.

  “Take it,” he said.

  “Hey, Len.” Then Macie gasped and bolted to her feet and wailed, “No!”

  C H A P T E R • 40

  * * *

  Wild experienced the ensuing two weeks in a netherworld of blackout and blur. Left to handle her father’s funeral arrangements until her mother returned from Munich, Macie felt every bit an orphan. But soon her friends and colleagues rallied in support. Bunny Liuizzi found her starch and became her chief of staff, taking on all the logistical details after gleaning Macie’s desires or guessing at her father’s wishes. Soledad staved off all but her most acute social worker clients and stayed close, providing what comfort she could and functioning as her friend’s emotional buttress. Tiger kept the office running, making minimal contact.

  Every decision flailed away a chunk of her heart: closed casket, due to severe facial disfigurement at the time of his death; yes to burial in the plot beside her brother; in lieu of flowers, donations to The Father Walt Foundation to Aid Indigent Families. Every item on the checklist segued to another personal loss like an infinite loop of Satan’s mixtape. Tears, then no tears, then spontaneous waves of tears punctuated her days and, especially the nights of broken sleep in her childhood bed in Rye. After her mom returned, the two women held each other and sat up too late, drinking too much, and trying to find sense in what he did and what each of them was to be from there.

  Jansen Wild’s funeral was delayed those weeks because of the thoroughness of the government’s toxicity report and the internal investigation at the federal lockup in Manhattan where he had been held to await arraignment. The fatal diagnosis was confirmed as poisoning through the oral ingestion of tetrodotoxin, a potent neurotoxin found commonly in pufferfish. In this case, it had been introduced into a turkey sandwich on a tray delivered to her father’s holding cell. The medical examiner’s report said his death came from the immediate and total shutdown of his respiratory system, leading to tremors, paralysis of the diaphragm, and suffocation within minutes. The source of the poison, and who was responsible for getting it to him, was still under investigation with no leads. Macie and Gunnar both knew it was unlikely any would surface.

  The day of the funeral Mass, the nave filled only to one-third capacity. All the dignitaries who had been so much a part of his life distanced themselves in his death. Jansen Wild had died in federal custody with the kind of rumored activities that meant that no governor, mayor, judge, Wall Street CEO, or even town selectman could brook an association. However most of Macie’s colleagues, coworkers, friends, and childhood pals from the neighborhood, along with her mother’s circle, did come. Most startling and moving to Wild was the unexpected procession of more than fifty priests and nuns, turning out in honor of the father of her beloved late brother. They streamed up the center aisle then formed a semicircle, three-deep, rimming the back wall of the chancel. Macie came forward at the appointed time to read her eulogy, stumbling and thrashing through it, unable to take her eyes off the oblong box before her. She tried to talk convincingly about doing him justice when justice was what he had raised her to live for.

  At home after the burial the mourners ate catered food and shared memories and well-wishes that comforted her, at first, then (God help her), bored the piss out of her. Orem Diner showed his respects but kept a distance, only exchanging nods with her the way the keepers of secrets acknowledge nothing. She wondered if he was one misstep from a turkey sandwich himself.

  Macie broke free of the reception and crossed the sunny acre of lawn to Gunnar Cody. His cane lay in the grass, and he sat in the chair swing hanging from the branch of her family’s old elm. She settled into the seat beside him. “Nice eulogy.”

  “Poorly delivered,” she said.

  “I liked the message.”

  “On the subject of justice? Monheit just told me the feds busted Gregory Eichenthal for insurance fraud. He was hiding that Chagall he claimed got stolen.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Apparently they used an RFD receiver to find it in his attic in Amelia Island.”

  “It’s RFID,” he said, correcting her. When she fixed her lawyer’s gaze on him he added, “OK, remember that alphanumeric code CSU found in Stamitz’s medicine cabinet? It was in an Advil bottle?” She thought back to that night in the surveillance van and nodded. “Since Stamitz was an informant, I thought, for laughs, I’d try using the code as a password on one of the FBI servers. I got in. It’s apparently a secure e-mail drop where informants, well . . . inform.”

  “You dimed the pharma CEO? Why?”

  “Because he was mean to you.” Wild searched him, looking for irony. But the earnest face Gunnar gave back told her he meant it. The simplicity of that warmed her. With his good foot, he gave a push. The limb groaned, and they rocked together in the swing. “Think it will hold?” he asked.

  She put a hand on his thigh and said, “Depends on what you have in mind.” He arched a brow in surprise. It was the first time in fourteen days she had joked about anything.

  Whether he took hers or she his, they held hands in the shade on the steamy day in Rye. As they gently swayed, Macie Wild thought about the life she had begun, and lived, on that property. The cookouts, the volleyball, even reading To Kill a Mockingbird on that very swing until it got too dark to see the print. It was in that house that her father had declared they should embrace their Kennedy gene. From the murder of her brother to the burial of her father she had learned some hard truths about accepting that marker. It not only meant public service, it carried the same DNA for tragedy. She decided when you compare yourself to a Kennedy, you’d better own a bla
ck suit.

  The screen door slammed and guests started drifting outside. “Let’s get lost,” she said. “Can you walk? I mean that far?” Macie chinned in the direction of the woods.

  She led him to a secret trail, and they took it slowly, although he seemed to need the cane much less than before. Surrounded by shady forest, and alone, but for the blue jays, Macie guided Gunnar by the hand off the path into a small clearing that formed a cove surrounded by thick brush overlooking a brook. She twirled in front of him and raised her face to his, and they kissed. He let the cane drop and freed both hands to hold her, then to feel her as she was feeling him. Macie thrust her pelvis against him. He pressed right back but then drew away from her.

  “What? Trust me, we’re alone.”

  “I know that, I just . . . Look, I have wanted you like crazy. Ever since our first. But take a breath. Look at what went on here today. Not to mention over the past few weeks. This has been a rough time for you emotionally, and your judgment might be clouded. What I’m saying is that I want this, I do, but— Mace, you’re vulnerable now. I don’t want to take advantage of that just for some impulsive sex.”

  “Now who’s the buzz killer?” she said. Then Wild cupped both hands on his ass and drew him back to her.

  T H E ♢ E N D

  Acknowledgments

  My first acknowledgment is to you for the honor of reading this novel. There’s not much I love more than taking your hand and leading you into the misty alleyways of a made-up adventure. But we both know the imaginary stuff craters if it’s not built on what’s real. And for that I’d like to recognize some experts who provided valuable expertise.

  Two retired detectives from the NYPD’s Technical Assistance Response Unit, Sam Panchal and Dave Fitzpatrick, gave up hours to listen to my questions. Both generously shared logistics and color from their TARU days. I thank them for their heroic service and for contributing to my knowledge of their important work.

  Most of what I knew about public defenders came from TV, and that got put right by respected leaders in the field. I am in the debt of Michael Coleman, then Executive Director of New York County Defender Services as well as Lisa Schreibersdorf, Executive Director of Brooklyn Defender Services. Jerome E. McElroy, Executive Director of the New York City Criminal Justice Agency gave me a master class in how the arraignment and bail systems work.

  Thanks to the New York Public Library’s Carolyn Broomhead, Ph.D., and Melanie Locay, MLIS, for my research fellowship and a base in Gotham with access to the unparalleled collection at the NYPL’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

  In my research I studied countless nonfiction sources but none impressed me more than Putin’s Kleptocracy – Who Owns Russia by Karen Dawisha. Allow me to plug another author and recommend it wholeheartedly.

  Thanks go to my book agent, Sloan Harris of ICM Partners, as well as Heather Karpas for their encouragement and belief. Nancy Josephson at WME remains a beacon in my career. Roger Arar of Loeb & Loeb keeps me on the legal rails and is nothing like the types you met herein.

  Making a book is nothing you do alone, and I had the best support from cover designer Steve Cooley, copyeditor Barbara Anderson, Jaye Manus who beautifully designed the interior, and publicists Jason Hargett and Nick Courage. Huge thanks to the legendary Jill Krementz whose camera didn’t break after all when she generously took my author photo.

  So many people I revere in the creative community lent support, advice, and encouragement. Gotta start with Lawrence Block whose insights on everything from writing to publishing tips were pure gold. For over two decades Clyde Phillips has been a collaborator, a writing partner, and a friend. I thank him for his generous assistance with this book and the model of professionalism and humanity he brings to everything. As always, my pal Ken Levine reminded me that a murder was a good place to start a murder mystery, advice that still seems to hold. Alton Brown consented to make another cameo in my pages, where he is always a welcome presence. A big tip of the brim to Jack Rapke and Jackie Levine at Robert Zemeckis’s ImageMovers who read my early chapters and whose response gave me rocket fuel. Fellow members of the Mystery Writers of America I’d like to thank for help are Charles Ardai and Chris Knopf. Same to John and Miranda Dunne Parry for their perspective and their cherished friendship. In publishing, I give a smart nod to Will Balliett for that big start and all the nudges with every book since. Same for Gretchen Young, editor extraordinaire, who became my friend, advisor, and chief encourager.

  From Castle, warmest thanks go to Andrew W. Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller. Both humble me with their faith and inspiration. Not to mention the fact that our collaboration changed my life.

  In my family, I had better acknowledge my mom, who kept saying, “Finish it!” Also Kelly, Andrew, and Chris, who are old enough now to give unsparing feedback on everything from concept to cover. And did they ever.

  Saving the best for the coda, the greatest appreciation is for my bride, Jennifer Allen, who inspires me to dream—and then dreams with me. May it always be thus.

  Tom Straw

  Connecticut, September 2017

  ***

  About the Author

  * * *

  TOM STRAW published his first mystery novel, The Trigger Episode, in 2007. Writing as Richard Castle, he subsequently authored seven more crime novels, originating the Nikki Heat series, all of which became New York Times Bestsellers. He is also an Emmy- and Writer’s Guild of America-nominated TV writer and producer as well as a former board member of the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter. He lives in Connecticut, where his home is his castle.

  Author photo © Jill Krementz

 

 

 


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