The Path of Silence

by Edita A. Petrick

  “You didn’t stand outside that room listening, did you?” He eyed me with suspicion.

  “No. I have an investment fund for Jazz. That’s why I keep on top of things like this. I’ve read up on the new developments. It’s interesting,” I added, when I saw that he was willing to believe me.

  “I think that’s more or less what Weston said. Tavistock and the other banks started developing this system four years ago. Something went wrong and the project was mothballed. They started up again, six months ago. The Chairman believes that what happened in his suite is the first wave of intimidation.”

  “A man dropping dead at your feet is intimidating,” I commented, thinking that my father would have also found it insulting—blood and guts at his dinner table. Such audacity!

  “The FBI is going to First Tavistock National tomorrow. They’ll meet with its principal officers. They’ll follow up on the new system.”

  “That should be interesting,” I commented dryly.

  I reflected that I would give a month’s pay if someone would let me peep through a mousehole into the room where the meeting would be taking place. My father knew damn well who Mr. Fielding Weston was. That had come through loud and clear in our difficult meeting. And though Inspector Weston had never met his father-in-law when he was still employed as a security guard at the Smithsonian, he also knew who Mr. Crossley Morgan Tavistock was. Hell, Inspector Weston’s marriage license, if he had bothered to keep the antique form, had the name of his “beloved” spouse, Ellienne Meaghan Tavistock.

  “You don’t think they’ll share the information?” Ken interpreted my comment as skepticism as to whether the FBI would cooperate with the police in this investigation.

  “They might. I’d like to find out who was working on their financial security measures system four years ago and who’s doing it now.”

  “Do you think those people would be the targets?”

  I stared at him with dawning comprehension. “You might be right. If the large banking institutions had joined a syndicate, to develop a super tool to track illegal money routes, then whoever was working on that project might be a target. The banks don’t want to surrender their confidentiality. But if they could implement a sophisticated system that would be endorsed by government agencies and law enforcement, then the gate’s shut. That would piss off a lot of the offshore enterprise. They’d be left with huge amounts of illegal cash and no means to wash it through any international monetary system. Our banking institutions would share their new product—globally—for a price, of course.”

  “A whole team of walking ghosts,” he murmured.

  “Not all, just the key ones.”

  “Jeffries was not a key figure.”

  “Chess players need pawns and kings. In fact, they need more pawns to sacrifice than more important pieces.”

  “The FBI is going to get all the interesting work,” he mumbled.

  I laughed. “Banking conspiracies are boring. We’re going to do the exciting field work.”

  “Who else did we miss?”

  “What else—the Creeslow Armored Security Automobiles. They’re in Brooklyn Park. We have to check them out.”

  “Maybe Brick just liked driving an armored limo.”

  “Probably but there’s more to it, has to be.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s duality in everything we’ve come across. Brick had a job and a part-time job, so did Jeffries. This case may be about money laundering but it’s also about something else. There’s another component to it.”

  “The part-time component,” he chuckled.

  “I think it’s more like part two. Part one is the need, the motive—flushing money through the system—while part two is the means to ensure cooperation.”

  “The means to ensure cooperation is a bomb planted in a victim’s chest,” he said.

  “That’s the weapon, Ken. The means to assure cooperation is control—on a grand scale.”

  Chapter 17

  After Ken left, I went to the kitchen. Jazz sat at the table, doodling. I saw several sheets of paper filled with concentric circles and floral petals, heavily outlined and smeared with furious strokes. Quite a few of the sheets were scored and punctured with the pencil.

  I sat down, folded my hands and squeezed them hard. She wouldn’t look at me. She never did when I tried to have an air-clearing talk.

  “When you’re a little older,” I started. She cut me off with a snort.

  “I won’t need you when I’m older.”

  “Maybe not but for now, if you don’t want to get detention, you should do as Ken advised. Draw the family tree and put down the titles instead of the names. Everyone has ancestors but quite a lot of people don’t know their names, or even where they’re buried.”

  “Mine are buried in your head,” she mumbled.

  “Then you should be smart enough to realize that when people bury something in their heads, they don’t want to remember.”

  “Why don’t you want to remember my father?”

  “What is it that’s really bothering you, Jazz?”

  “I want to know who my father was.”

  “Why is it so important? Your friend Jenny lives with her mother and doesn’t know where her father is. So do quite a few others. I’ve talked to some of them. They’re not angry about it. I’m sure they don’t leave their mothers nasty messages on their cell phones.”

  “Jenny’s dad’s in Atlantic City. He’s shacked up with a hooker. Her mother says she doesn’t want to know where he is. Jenny just repeats what her mom says. She has his phone number. Her mom doesn’t know that. She calls her dad or his girlfriend when her mom’s out with her little brother at baseball. I don’t even have a name to put down. I wouldn’t mind calling a hooker just to speak to my dad.”

  I listened, hurting and raging at life’s injustices. I had nothing comforting to offer her.

  “I must have had a father, right?” Suddenly, she lifted her head. She stared at me with anguish and intensity. It was frightening to see in a child. It might have been just a stray reflection since the kitchen was brightly lit but her eyes seemed to be filled with raw power. Light shone through her eyes, just as green as her father’s. It went right through me, passing through a hole in my heart that time hadn’t healed. I blinked to control the pain and stood up.

  “Mom, don’t leave! Why do you always leave when I want to talk about Dad? I don’t care if he was bad or did something wrong. I don’t care if he went to prison. I just want to know who he was.”

  “Is Melissa’s dad out on parole again?” I murmured, with my back to her.

  “Yeah and he’ll probably take all their money again and go buy drugs and get busted. I don’t care if my dad was like that. I just want to be able to talk about him, like Jenny and Melissa. Was he into drugs?”

  I smiled, knowing that she couldn’t see me. She was clever. She had been trying to get me to admit, any way she could, that he existed. The moment I admitted it—with a simple yes, he was, or no, he wasn’t—she would attack, full force.

  “If you’re not going to do what Ken said, then it’s time to brush your teeth and get to bed,” I said.

  “He couldn’t have been so bad that you wouldn’t want to remember him,” she said in a tearful whisper. “Melissa’s dad is a junkie. He beats up her mother and her sisters when he’s out of jail and she still talks about him. I have nothing to talk about. The kids think I’m strange.”

  “You can talk about your mother,” I said dryly.

  “She’s strange too. That’s what my teacher said about you when I told her that I don’t have any names to put down on my family tree.”

  “Make sure you brush your teeth well and say your prayers.” I walked down the corridor, toward my bedroom.

  “What for? There’s no one to hear them,” she murmured. I gritted my teeth to make sure nothing else came out.

  Six months ago, I would still have said prayers with her. I would stay to
see that she fluffed up her pillows and beat up her duvet cover, before I kissed her forehead, wished her good night and left. Once her quest for the shadowy presence of father began, all such tender bedtime moments were lost. I knew it was more than just feeling left out when her friends talked about their fathers—most of them deadbeats or criminals. It was a need to know that there was an event in my life that brought about her birth. Not the physical, sexual part but the human one. She needed to know that there was a man out there, who was connected to her by a bridge that would remain a link for the rest of her lifetime. It wouldn’t matter to her if he rejected her, as long as she knew that he was there, a building block that would give her history. While all her friends had a role in life’s dark drama, she was an outsider. She had no role to play, not even a line.

  Melissa’s father was a junkie. He was out on parole for the second time in three years. She got a lot of attention from her teachers. Jenny’s dad was a gambler and a womanizer. He’d run out on his wife and two children. Jenny got a lot of sympathy. Jazz got nothing. She was ignored, because that’s what people did to those who were strange. She was not part of the social fabric, black or white, good or bad.

  I sat down on my bed, feeling hollow. Maybe I should make up a story, fabricate an illusion.

  I sighed. No one knew better than I did how dangerous it was to be brought up on illusions.

  The phone on my nightstand rang. My eyes went to the alarm clock. It was nearly eleven o’clock. I suppressed a shudder, praying it was not Ken—and another victim with an exploded chest.

  I picked it up and looked at the call display. It showed unidentified caller. It couldn’t be Ken, unless he was calling from a phone other than his own. It could be my father. Then again, he wouldn’t bother disguising his phone number.

  “Yes?” I put the phone to my ear. I heard the faint sound of breathing but no one acknowledged my greeting.

  “Who is this?” I demanded, raising my voice. The silence continued but the whisper soft breathing was still on the line.

  “Who are you?” I asked impatiently. “If you’re not going to talk, there’s no point in holding this phone to my ear.”

  “I was going to ask you the same question. Who are you?” I heard his voice. It was ghostly and familiar.

  “Detective Sergeant Meaghan Stanton,” I said and hung up.

  The phone rang again.

  I picked it up. “Yes?”

  “Don’t hang up.”

  “There is nothing to talk about.” My voice must have told him that the connection was about to be terminated.

  “If you hang up, the next sound you’ll hear will be your doorbell.”

  It was the last thing I wanted. “What do you want?”

  “An explanation, that’s all.”

  I held the phone away, frowning. Explanations were needed on my side, not his. “Of what?”

  “Who are you? What are you doing? What happened?”

  “I’m a police officer. At one time I may have wanted to know what happened ten years ago. Tonight, I’m no longer curious. It’s late. I’m going to have a busy day tomorrow. I need to rest. Good night.”

  “Don’t! Why aren’t you a Tavistock?”

  “My partner told me that you’re going to visit the bank tomorrow. Ask the Chairman, Mr. Crossley Morgan Tavistock himself.”

  “We’ve already talked. He told me you decided that our marriage would interfere with your studies and your political career, that it was a mistake and you were just momentarily confused. He explained why our relationship would be a disadvantage and what it would cost you, in terms of your future.”

  “When did you talk to my father? Where? How? What are you up to, Field? What’s this about?” I wanted to hang up. Suspicions and anger coursed through me. His sudden reappearance, in my work environment was not by chance. It had to be another one of my father’s schemes, to bring me back into the Tavistock fold. I didn’t want to be a point of it.

  “He came to see me in Potomac Hospital. He delivered your message. Later on, he came to reinforce it, when I was in Meade Naval rehab.”

  “When?”

  “Ten years ago, when you left.”

  The cordless phone slid out of my hand. I heard his voice in the receiver. He was shouting. With great effort, I picked it up again.

  “Meg, are you there? Meg! Dammit, don’t hang up! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I just wanted to know… All these years, why? I deserve to know that. I would have understood. I don’t blame you. I don’t hold it against you… Meaghan, are you there?”

  “What is it you don’t blame me for?” I asked carefully. Hell, these last couple of weeks, every day was more complex than the one before.

  “Not wanting our child, not wanting to be married—wanting to finish your studies, working on your career.”

  “Ah, those pesky details!” I have always believed that in my darkest hours, someone from beyond draped me in humor. It was my coping tool. “What else did my father say?”

  He was silent for a long time. I wondered whether this was where we would leave the issue, another deadly cliffhanger.

  “Just that you would always be a Tavistock and what that meant, along with your final message,” he replied slowly, carefully.

  “How did I send my message?”

  “What?”

  “On paper, recorded, through a process server, chiseled into a stone tablet, rolled in a bottle—written in sacrificial blood on a scroll?”

  I didn’t hear him breathe. He had to be holding the phone away, wondering about my mental state.

  “Did you send a message, Meg?”

  “You listened to it—and believed it. The messenger must have impressed you very much. You took his word for gospel.”

  “You signed the annulment papers. You asked me to release you from our mistake.”

  “Ah! I must have come to my senses.”

  “Then why aren’t you a Tavistock?”

  “Like I said, I must have come to my senses.”

  “Stanton is not your married name.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I asked your partner.”

  “You phoned Kenny?” I was shocked.

  “He gave me his business card in the meeting. He put down his home phone number. His wife answered the phone. She gave me your number.”

  I started to laugh. Brenda’s campaign was no longer subtle.

  “Meg, why aren’t you a Tavistock? Why aren’t you representing their international interests, building your political career?”

  “Is that what you thought my career goals were?”

  “You were going to Paris as a member of a financial team of experts, to work on the new regulatory standards for banking practices.”

  “My budget only allows for stateside vacations.”

  “When did you decide to become a police officer?”

  “You’re an FBI agent. Surely you have access to this information at the touch of a button.”

  “I’m asking you!” he shouted.

  I laughed choppily, still shocked by his call. “You’re asking the wrong source,” I said. “Tomorrow, you’ll have the pleasure of visiting the Tavistock banking stronghold. I’m sure you’ll still recognize the principal officer. Ask him those questions. I’m going to sleep. Good night.” I hung up. I knew that he wouldn’t call back. My laughter had trumped his shouting and frustration. It told him that he had pushed me as far as I would go tonight.

  Chapter 18

  In the morning, we drove to Brooklyn Park. I caught a glimpse of Mongrove as I cruised by, looking for the Hellenic Plaza.

  “I wonder when it closed down?” Ken murmured, when I turned into a long strip of abandoned stores and businesses. The place looked as if it were on the city engineers’ demolition list. Another subsidized housing development would spring up. I could not imagine anything else that would be put up in this bleak, barren neighborhood, characterized by aluminum-sided storage units and gas sta
tions.

  “Park over there.” He pointed at an empty space. It was identical to all the other empty spaces in the pothole filled lot.

  My state of mind was just like the plaza, ruined by unprofitable history. I looked at him. “Do you really like that spot? What about two spaces over? That’s free too.”

  “All right,” he said with caution. I saw that he wasn’t sure whether I was going to laugh or yell next.

  I fitted the car in between two huge cracks in the asphalt. “How’s this?” I asked, staring ahead.

  “Are you all right?”

  “It’s a good parking job, don’t you think so?”

  “I know you don’t like to be bothered with work issues at home. Brenda shouldn’t have given out your number.”

  “I couldn’t figure out how Inspector Weston obtained my number but once he told me that your wife gave it to him, it clarified a lot.”

  We observed a minute of silence, burying our loved ones, gathering courage to get out of the car and stroll through this free enterprise graveyard.

  “He must have assumed that she was my wife,” he murmured when we stood outside. I listened to the gulls’ shrill cries. They fought over worms in the rain puddles.

  “He’s a presumptuous man. I think Creeslow used to be located at the far end, that way,” I waved down the row of yawning openings. The store windows were no longer fitted with glass.

  Other than the gulls’ chatter and our boots clicking hard on the dilapidated concrete sidewalk as we moved down the strip, there was no other sound.

  “This is a spooky place,” Ken commented, when he peered through one jagged window frame where slivers of glass poked out.

  “Most graveyards are.”

  “I wonder what made it go bust?”

  “Demographics. The neighborhood changed. The customers stopped coming to shop. The businesses closed down.”

  “Why would they put up a plaza nearby a psychiatric facility?”

  “It’s not a prison, Ken, just a mental hospital.”

  “I wouldn’t live close to a place like that, no matter how cheap the rent.”