Vanished

by Joseph Finder

  Garvin leaned close, lifted his glasses to his forehead, nodded.

  “Whoever did it had to remove the tape so she could talk,” I said. “But put it back on when he got what he wanted.”

  “Or didn’t,” Garvin pointed out.

  “Who found the body?” I asked.

  “She didn’t show up for work, and apparently she never missed a day without calling. When her secretary couldn’t reach her on the phone, she called a neighbor and asked them to check in on her, see if everything was okay.”

  “The secretary knew who the neighbors were?”

  “Nah. She said she searched for phone numbers by address online.”

  “The neighbor had a key?”

  “Not the one who the secretary called. That was the guy who lives across the street-the one who noticed the car. He called the neighbor who lives next door, and that woman had a key. Unlocked the front door and walked in and found her here. Didn’t take long. It’s not a big house.”

  “Mind if I take another look at the front room?” I said.

  79.

  I stood amid the bustle, looking from the open front door to the little desk with the laptop on it to the two easy chairs. “Was there a desk chair?” I asked.

  “Nothing’s been moved,” Lenehan said.

  “She didn’t work at that desk,” I said. “There’s no chair. She used the laptop at the desk in her bedroom.”

  “Your point?” Lenehan said.

  I approached the two chairs, saw the end table next to one of them, several remote controls neatly lined up. “No sign of forced entry, right?”

  “She opened the door for him,” Lenehan said.

  “She was expecting him,” I said. I pointed at a small white remote control, much smaller than the ones for the cable box and the TV. “That’s for her MacBook.”

  “Maybe she watched movies or TV shows on it,” Garvin suggested.

  “No,” I said. “Too far away. Twelve-inch screen. Plus, I don’t think she was the type to watch TV or movies. She worked all the time. The computer’s on, isn’t it?”

  “Looks like it’s off,” Lenehan said.

  “No, it’s just gone to sleep,” I said. “Okay with you if I touch the touchpad.”

  “For what?”

  “Take the computer out of sleep mode. See what’s on it.”

  “I don’t think Crime Scene’s going to want you to do that,” Lenehan said. “Prints, DNA, all that. But hold on a second.” He grabbed someone, had a quick conversation. He turned back to me after half a minute. “Okay, go ahead. They’ve got to fume it for prints under the hood anyway.”

  I ran a gloved finger across the MacBook’s touchpad, and a screensaver appeared-an image of a planet, which looked like Mars. I clicked the touchpad’s button, and the screensaver went away. A large box appeared on the screen: a photograph of me.

  It was moving as I moved, as my face moved in closer to the camera lens on the lid of the laptop. Recording my image in real time. You clicked a button, and it froze the picture.

  Beneath the big box was a row of smaller snapshots. They were all pictures of the room we were in. All showed a man and a woman sitting in the chairs.

  Marjorie Ogonowski and a man in a suit and tie with hunched shoulders and a fleshy, pockmarked face.

  Lenehan and Garvin approached. “What’s that?” Lenehan said.

  “Photo Booth,” I said. “It’s a Macintosh photo application.” I clicked on the touchpad button to enlarge the large photo still more, zoom in on the figures in the chairs.

  “She took the pictures while they were sitting there talking,” I said.

  I document everything, she’d said.

  “How?” said Garvin.

  “Using the computer’s remote control.” I pointed. “On the table next to where she was sitting.”

  “That’s our guy,” Lenehan said, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.

  “That’s our guy,” I said.

  “He let her take his picture?”

  “He didn’t notice. The computer’s sound was turned off, so he didn’t hear that simulated camera-shutter noise it usually makes.”

  “She took his picture without him knowing?” said Lenehan.

  “Right,” I said. “Which indicates she didn’t trust him. She wasn’t sure he was who he said he was.”

  “He didn’t leave prints anywhere,” Lenehan said. “He was probably wearing gloves. No wonder she was suspicious.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t arrive at her door wearing gloves,” I said. “He was just careful about what he touched, and he made sure to wipe down afterward. He’s a pro. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to e-mail myself his picture.”

  “What for?” Lenehan said.

  “We’ve got a workstation at my office with FaceExaminer on it.”

  The Maryland homicide cop didn’t know what I was talking about, but that wasn’t surprising; they weren’t likely to have access to technology like that. “It does face recognition by running a mug shot against a database of known images. Same technology the Las Vegas casinos use to catch card counters.”

  “What does that mean, ‘known images’? Where’s this database from?”

  “We’ll have to get cooperation from the government,” I said. “So we can tap into their facial databases of all security ID photos. State, Defense, Homeland Security, the intelligence community.” I turned to Garvin. “It’ll go a lot quicker if you make the call.”

  “To who?”

  “I have a theory,” I said. “I think our guy used to be a government employee.”

  80.

  Dorothy answered her cell phone abruptly: “Heller, if you keep calling me, I’m not going to be ready in time.”

  “I need you to go back in to the office and do something,” I said.

  “I don’t think you heard me when I told you I got fired.”

  “You’ve got to go back in there and pack up your stuff, right?”

  “You don’t get it, do you? Stoddard had me escorted out. I had to pack up my cubicle right then and there. I’m out of there for good.”

  “Actually, I just had a talk with Stoddard.”

  “He fire you, too?”

  “I quit before he could. But our talk was about you.”

  “What’d he want to know?”

  “Nothing. The talk was my idea. I told him to get you another job.”

  “And he laughed in your face.”

  “He tried, sure. But he’ll do it.”

  “Yeah, right. A job hanging off the back of a garbage truck, maybe.”

  “I think he’s going to fall all over himself to help you.”

  The silence on the line was so long that I thought the call had been dropped. Then Dorothy said, “What the hell did you do, Nick?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Another long silence. Then, very softly, something I hardly ever heard her say: “Thanks.”

  “No problem. So what about it? But would you be willing to go back to the office? To run a photo through FaceExaminer?” I explained quickly about the photo of Marjorie Ogonowski’s murderer, which she’d captured on her laptop computer.

  “No,” she said. “But who says I have to?”

  “Care to explain?”

  “I’ve got a backdoor into all the Stoddard databases. Hardly ever use them. Didn’t want to. But I sure will, if you want.”

  “Can you do it now?”

  “Not this morning. I’ve got to head over to Ryder right now and get the truck.”

  “Change of plans,” I said. “I’ll send you a picture on your cell phone, and you run it through, and I’ll get the truck. Then I’ll pick you up, and we’ll head over to Paladin together.”

  “You think we have time?”

  “We have to,” I said.

  A LITTLE over two hours later, I pulled the rented Ryder truck up to the curb on K Street, where Dorothy was waiting for me.

  “You were right,�
� she said as she got in. “I got a match on the photo. The guy works for Paladin Worldwide.”

  “As I suspected.”

  “And get this. You know he was one of the interrogators at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib?”

  “Sounds like a one-man party,” I said, and I handed her my cell phone. “Do me a favor and hit the speed-dial entry for Arthur Garvin.”

  “That’s the detective in the Washington police?”

  “Right. He’s going to want to interview Carl Koblenz. So Garvin can help his buddies in Anne Arundel County Homicide clear a case. But tell him to wait until we’re finished.”

  81.

  Leland was in a finance committee meeting on the sixth floor, where he’d be for at least another hour, maybe even two. Noreen was taking a long lunch: a doctor’s appointment.

  Lauren entered Leland’s office and closed the door behind her.

  Took a deep breath.

  She found his battered old briefcase and located his BlackBerry in one of the front pockets. Slipped it out of its leather case, which she’d ordered for him, and pressed the power button. Why was the ON button red, she’d always wondered, and not green? Red was supposed to mean off, not on. When the screen lit up, she moved the track wheel until it highlighted his personal e-mail account, then she pressed down on the button.

  Scrolled down until she found the e-mail from the Cayman Islands. Its subject line read, “Private.”

  She clicked on the track wheel to open the message, then clicked again to reply.

  And then she composed a message.

  When she was finished, she hit SEND, then she stood still for a moment, breathing in and out, trying to remember whether Leland had left the thing on or off. If she left it on when he’d had it turned off, he’d know.

  She heard a throat being cleared, and she looked up.

  Noreen’s arms were folded on her bosom. “What are you doing?”

  Lauren’s heart began jackhammering. “I’m doing my job,” she said. “What business is it of yours?”

  Noreen took a few steps into the office. “You’re using his BlackBerry,” she said quietly. “Does he know what you’re doing?”

  Lauren realized she was holding Leland’s BlackBerry up in the air as if it were an exhibit in a courtroom, and she was the prosecutor. She set it down on the desk. “I’m his administrative assistant,” she said. “I know you wish it was you, but it’s not. Now, don’t you have anything better to do?”

  But Noreen wasn’t budging. “I think you’re reading his e-mails,” she said.

  Lauren widened her eyes dramatically. “You caught me,” she said. “I confess. I’ve been reading his e-mails.” Then her voice became harsh and louder. “I read all his e-mail, Noreen. I also answer all of it. That’s my job. How about you-don’t you have a job to do?”

  Noreen shook her head, a smug look on her face. “I mean his private e-mail. You don’t have access to his private e-mail accounts except when you use his BlackBerry.”

  “Are you done?”

  “No,” Noreen said. “A couple of days ago Leland asked me if I’d moved his BlackBerry. He said he remembered putting it in the left-hand front pocket of his briefcase, but it was in the right-hand pocket, and he was sure someone had moved it. So I said maybe you did. And you know what he said?”

  Noreen paused, and Lauren said nothing. Her heart was thudding so loudly she wondered whether Noreen could hear it.

  “He said, ‘Lauren doesn’t use my BlackBerry.’ He said, ‘I keep it password-protected.’ He said, ‘No one uses it but me.’ ”

  “Why don’t you just turn around and get back to your desk,” Lauren said. Her mouth had gone dry.

  “You see, he doesn’t know what you’re doing. And I wonder what he’s going to say when I tell him.”

  Lauren came around from behind Leland’s desk and walked up to Noreen until she was right in her face. She could see the lines on her upper lip, the cracks in her lipstick. “Would you say the Katharine Gibbs School trained you well, Noreen?”

  Noreen backed up a step. Her mouth came open just a fraction of an inch, then closed again. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “When you first got hired here, umpteen years ago, you lied on your application, and you lied in your interview. You told them you’d graduated from Katharine Gibbs. But you never went there, did you? You didn’t even graduate from high school.”

  “Where are you getting this?” Her perfume, Lauren noticed, smelled a lot like Deep Woods Off bug spray.

  “And when your boss found out the truth and asked HR about it, you begged and pleaded with him not to fire you, and he felt bad for you, and he decided he was willing to overlook your lie because you’d been so loyal to him, am I right? And he agreed to keep it quiet. Just a note in your personnel file confirming that the matter had been resolved. No one would ever know about it.”

  “How-where are you-?”

  Lauren had never seen Noreen at a loss like this, and she had to say she was enjoying it. “I see everything, Noreen,” she said. “I see all kinds of files. So let’s be clear, you and me. Next time you feel like threatening me, ask yourself whether it’s worth your job.”

  Noreen turned and hurried out of Leland’s office.

  82.

  The burnished-mahogany door to the Paladin office suite opened, and the receptionist stood there, looking at us with a puzzled expression.

  For an instant I thought she might have remembered me from the day before. But I was barely visible, standing behind the hydraulic pallet truck on which a huge cardboard box rested.

  Dorothy took the lead. She stepped up to the receptionist, holding her metal clipboard. She was wearing gray twill pants and a light blue shirt with a patch above her left breast pocket that said HVAC OF RESTON. My uniform was identical, except that I was wearing a dark blue trucker cap that also said HVAC OF RESTON on the front. The uniforms, the pallet truck, and the huge empty Trane carton had all been borrowed from the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning company owned by Dorothy’s second cousin.

  “Can I help you?” the pretty blond receptionist said.

  “You’ve got a defective fan-coil unit in one of your offices,” Dorothy said. “Building management wants it replaced pronto.”

  “Fan-coil…?”

  “Mind if we move this unit in and get to work? I’m going to need an authorized signature.” She held out the clipboard and pointed to a blank signature box.

  I began pushing the dolly through the double doors.

  “But where is this supposed to go?”

  “Your boss’s office? What’s his name, Koblenz or something? Anyway, management wants this done now, while Mr. Koblenz is out of the office, so we don’t disrupt him any more than we have to.”

  “I don’t understand,” the receptionist said. “Who did you say authorized this?”

  “Lady, we don’t got time for this,” Dorothy said. “The blower on the fan-coil unit is bad, and it has to be replaced immediately or it’s a fire hazard, are you understanding me? And from what I hear, this building already had some kinda problem with fire last night, so if you want to be the one who refuses to let us fix this unit…”

  “No, no,” the receptionist said. “Come on in.”

  I kept my head down behind the Trane carton and hoped no one recognized me. Koblenz wasn’t there, I knew. He was, at that moment, on his way over to an emergency meeting with Leland Gifford, at Gifford’s home in Great Falls, Virginia.

  Though Leland Gifford’s wife would no doubt be surprised when Carl Koblenz rang their doorbell. Leland was at his company’s headquarters, at an afternoon meeting of his executive team.

  Dorothy-using the name Noreen Purvis-had scheduled the urgent meeting with Koblenz’s admin, Eleanor Appleby, who was accompanying her boss, as usual.

  Dorothy guided me through the corridor to Koblenz’s office.

  When we got inside, I began pounding on the cooling unit with a hammer, making a gr
eat racket, and Dorothy considerately shut the office door. I’m sure the others in the Paladin office appreciated it. They’d gladly stay out of our way.

  Then I immediately set to work, taking the empty carton off the hand truck, lowering the hydraulic bed, and sliding its steel lift plate underneath the front of the safe. While I pumped the hydraulic handle, raising the bed, and the safe, a few feet, Dorothy neatly broke down the empty Trane carton and slipped it over the safe. It was quite a bit larger than the safe, but no one would notice.

  Then we moved the hand truck out of the Paladin office suite and onto the freight elevator to the basement before anyone happened to notice what was missing from Carl Koblenz’s office.

  A little less than two hours later, the rented Ryder truck pulled in to the Ordnance Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Aberdeen, Maryland, the U.S. Army’s oldest testing and evaluation facility for weapons and explosives. A couple of eager soldiers, students at the Ordnance Center & Schools, hopped onto the back of the truck and helped unload the safe.

  They were all very much looking forward to learning how to use controlled explosives to open a high-security safe without damaging its contents. It was a rare educational opportunity.

  A professional “safe engineer,” as they’re called, would surely have refused to do the job. He’d have made me fill out all sorts of forms and maybe even asked the local police to witness the opening of the safe. The situation-a large high-security safe brought to him on the back of a rented truck-would have rung every warning bell. But my old friend, Staff Sergeant Patrick Keegan, one of the instructors, was grateful to me for offering up my old safe so they could practice on it.

  We all stood back a few hundred feet while Keegan finished wiring the blasting cap to the small morsel of C-4 explosive that he’d molded to a corner of the safe’s rear panel.

  He joined the rest of us and pressed the detonator, setting off a loud explosion with the sharp concussive sound of a rifle shot. The back of the safe flew into the air and landed maybe twenty feet away from us.