by Tim Stevens
Beth shook her head. “It all sounds pretty tenuous, Venn.” It was the first time she’d spoken since she’d been at the computer and going through Brogan’s drives.
“Plus,” Venn went on, warming to his theme, “there’s all the other stuff. Rigging the explosives to take out the generator. That takes co-ordination, and precise planning, and expertise. One guard isn’t going to be able to do all of that. And before you suggest it may have been a network of guards – that increases the money required, because they’ll all demand to be paid.”
Harmony: “So you don’t think it was an inside job.”
“Wrong.” Venn paused in his pacing. “I think it was both. Somebody on the inside, acting as a go-between, maybe triggering the explosion on the night and sabotaging the fuel supply for the reserve generator. But also someone, or a whole bunch of people, on the outside. Not only setting the whole thing up, but paying for it, too.”
“Maybe.” Harmony stood up, cracking her knuckles in frustration. “What a night.”
Venn thought for a moment, then said, “I’ve got an idea.”
He took out his phone and dialed Rockford, Illinois.
This time, Yancy took almost five minutes to answer. “Yeah, Joe.” He sounded exhausted, but kind of upbeat too. “Christ, but those New York feds are up their own asses. Talked to me like I was some rube sitting here with a cloud of hayseed drifting around my head.”
“Well, you were calling from Rockford,” Venn said. “We here in the big city sometimes forget that you’ve even got phones out there.”
“Spoken like a true class traitor,” said Yancy. “What you got for me, anyhow?”
“A question,” said Venn. “When I called you this morning, you said Drake had a few visitors at Horn Creek over the years.”
“Uh huh. Shyster lawyers looking to scam him by promising they could get his conviction overturned if he hired them. Prisoners’ rights activists. Penal reform nutcases. That kind of visitor.”
“Do you have a list available?”
“Yeah, there’ll be a log somewhere. You got somebody you’re looking at?”
“Nobody in particular,” said Venn. “But I’ve got an idea.”
“And that’s all you’re going to tell me now, right?” Yancy said.
“Afraid so.”
“You’re such a tease. Listen, I gotta go. I’ll have someone email you the list.”
“Thanks.”
The others had caught only Venn’s side of the conversation, but it was enough for them to look at him quizzically. He said, “The breakout might have been coordinated through a visitor masquerading as somebody else.”
For a moment, he thought Beth was sick. She had started to topple sideways in her chair. Venn lunged forward, but Harmony, beside her, caught her first.
Then Venn saw her red, barely open eyes, and realized she was falling asleep where she sat.
“Come on,” he said, guiding her to her feet. “You’re getting some rest now, whether you like it or not.”
She didn’t resist this time. Harmony took over and helped Beth into one of the side offices, where a camp bed was stored.
Venn sat in front of one of the computers, gazing at the screen, feeling exhaustion start to tug at him, too.
Ten minutes and a tall mug of strong coffee later, he heard a soft ping as a new email arrived in his inbox. It was from FBI headquarters in Rockford, with the visitor list he’d requested.
“Let’s check these out,” he said, forwarding the file to Fil.
There were more than the few names Yancy had suggested. Over his eight years of incarceration, Drake had been visited no less than thirty-seven times, by twenty-nine individuals.
Running a check on each name would be laborious, but it gave them something to keep busy on. Harmony rejoined them and they divided the list of names three ways, and got to work.
*
Forty minutes later, when the text on the screen was threatening to blur before Venn’s eyes, Fil said: “Got something.”
Venn rolled his chair over, glad for the distraction. Fil pointed at the monitor.
“This guy. Charles Vincenzo. He’s described as an outreach worker for USPRO. That’s the United States Prison Reform Organization.”
“Never heard of it,” said Venn.
“Neither have I. It’s a small outfit, a charity with no government funding. Looks innocuous enough - they’re not militant or anything, not involved in pickets. They simply visit prisons and interview selected inmates about the conditions they’re experiencing, then issue reports to the prison authorities.”
“Who presumably stick them straight in the shredder.”
“Probably,” agreed Fil. “This Vincenzo visited Drake twice in the past year. Once in March, and again at the end of August, around six weeks ago. The file your FBI guy sent helpfully itemized all materials that exchanged hands during each visit, as well as giving the stated reason for the meeting. Vincenzo handed Drake a questionnaire at the first visit, then returned to collect it at the follow up.”
Venn said, “I still don’t see how this helps us.”
“I checked out USPRO,” said Fil. “Guess who its patron is, and who funds it almost in its entirety.”
Venn stared at him. “Bruce Collins.”
“The same.”
“That’s it,” Venn said.
He stood, wanting to punch the air in triumph. Instead, he slapped Fil on the shoulder. “Great catch, Fil.”
“It may be nothing,” Fil said modestly. “Collins has his fingers in many pies.”
“No,” said Venn. “It’s our way in. Bingo.”
Chapter 35
Usually when Beth woke abruptly from a deep sleep, which she did often as a doctor, summoned by a pager or a ringing phone or a knock on the door, she felt as if she was surfacing through many fathoms of ocean water, rising from dark depths into a harsh, glaring sunlight.
This time, it was as though she were an astronaut drifting alone through space, cushioned by the dreamy vastness of the cosmos, who found herself suddenly hurtling across space and toward Earth, dragged by some high-tech beam at ground control which was able to bring her home in a matter of seconds.
In her space-dream, Beth had been in a cemetery, though not one she’d ever encountered anywhere in real life. It consisted of a field, with a single headstone before her, on which was engraved Paul Brogan’s name and dates of birth and death.
Paul himself lay on his back on the grass, neatly aligned with the headstone. He was swathed in a shroud, his hands folded over his chest. His features were composed in death.
The only other person in the field was Joe Venn. He stood in his leather coat, his feet apart and his head bowed, twenty yards away.
Beth gazed at the headstone. The years of Paul’s birth and death ended in the number four. He’d died at the age of forty.
She raised her eyes to the horizon. The stark line where the field met the sky was punctuated by three trees. One tall, the other two shorter. Forming a four.
When Beth turned to look at Venn, she saw he’d been joined by Harmony and Fil Vidal and a third person she didn’t recognize.
Four people.
She got the message.
The fourth flash drive. They’d checked out three of them, and on the third they’d found Paul’s link to Drake. But they’d gotten caught up after that, and hadn’t looked at the contents of the fourth drive.
Her return to the world of wakefulness and reality was as wrenching as always, and she was propelled upright almost as soon as her eyes opened. It was something she’d done reflexively ever since she was an intern. As soon as you wake up, sit up. If it’s a false alarm, you can always lie back down and sink again into blissful sleep. But it’s the best way to get yourself fully awake, if necessary, and stay that way.
Beth found herself in darkness. To her right, faint light delineated the outline of a closed door.
She recalled that she was in a room in Venn
’s office. Moments later, she remembered everything else that had happened that night.
Beth checked her watch, which she hadn’t gotten around to taking off her wrist before she’d crashed out. The luminous dial said it was five seventeen. That must mean 5:17 a.m.
She’d been asleep a little under four hours.
Beth swung off the camp bed. She’d kicked off her shoes but was otherwise still fully clothed. Her mouth tasted like coffee and pastrami.
Shakily, she picked her way over to the door, fumbled for the handle and opened it.
The office beyond was dimly lit, only half of the lights on. Beth saw four men and women sitting around, conversing in murmurs so low she hadn’t heard them through the door. They were uniformed cops.
One young officer noticed Beth and stood up immediately. “Ma’am. Dr Colby. You okay?”
Beth stared at him, and at the others, who’d stopped their conversations and were looking over. “Where are the others?”
“Lieutenant Venn, you mean?” said the cop. “He and Detective Jones have gone out. Detective Vidal is catching some sleep through there.” He nodded at one of the closed office doors. “Lieutenant Venn requested some officers to stay with you. That’s us.”
Beth blinked, her initial disorientation retreating. “Did Lieutenant Venn say where they were going?”
“No, ma’am. But he said to give you this, if you woke up.” The cop fetched an envelope from one of the desks and handed it to Beth.
Inside was a note with Venn’s handwriting, the neat, casual scrawl she’d come to recognize over the last couple of years.
Beth. Harmony and I are checking out a lead, somebody who may link Drake and the Bonnesante Clinic. Will be in touch later. Meantime, stay put at the office. The officers will get you anything you need. Call me if necessary. Venn.
She went over to the workstation she’d been using earlier. The flash drives were still there beside the computer. Beth seated herself before the monitor and inserted the fourth drive.
This one contained an assortment of files, mostly spreadsheets but also documents. Beth opened them one by one, skimming each one quickly to get a sense of any themes.
And the common thread emerged very quickly.
An officer came over and placed a cup of coffee beside Beth. She nodded her thanks, but kept her gaze on the monitor.
All of the files on the drive were related to activity at the Bonnesante Clinic.
Some of the spreadsheets detailed arrival dates and times of various vehicles, including descriptions of the vehicles and the companies they represented. A couple of haulage firms whose names Beth recognized came up. So did a few other organizations she hadn’t heard of.
Other spreadsheets listed the initials of patients together with what Beth assumed were their assigned clinic numbers. Included were their diagnoses and the grade of severity of their illnesses, together with their dates of arrival at the clinic and their duration of stay.
In each case, the stay at the clinic ended in the patient’s death.
Bizarrely, a final column gave details of each patient’s disposal: the funeral arrangements, and whether burial or cremation had been chosen. Some of the data in this column was incomplete.
Beth opened the files again, one by one, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, aware of a quickening in her pulse, a tightening in her breathing.
She opened the first of the Word documents. The contents took the form of notes, quick phrases and sentences dashed off as if somebody - Paul - had been jotting down his thoughts as they came to him.
Mean delay three days = CRYER.
Mean delay two days or less = GREENBECK. (Why??? Check out distance covered - may be indicative.)
Need to check reasons for cremation vs. burial - family preference or other reason???
Like the notes most people wrote for themselves, they didn’t make a lot of sense to somebody else reading them.
Beth opened the computer’s internet browser and looked up Cryer and Greenbeck, which were both listed as companies on the spreadsheet which detailed vehicle arrivals to the clinic. She couldn’t find any reference to either firm: no website, no mention at all.
Beth debated for a moment. Then she said to one of the officers sitting nearby, “Could I ask a favor? Could you wake Detective Vidal up?”
“Sure.” The cop got up and knocked on the office door, then leaned inside.
Fil emerged a minute later, running a hand through his hair, blinking in the light. “Hey. Dr Colby. What’s up?”
“Sorry to wake you. And it’s Beth.” She shifted over in her chair so that he could sidle in next to her, and she told him what she was looking at.
His eyes flicked over the data keenly as he opened the files in turn, just as Beth had done.
“I just can’t tie it all together,” she said. “Probably partly because I’m still half-asleep. I thought two heads might be better than one.”
Fil peered at the spreadsheet with the vehicle arrival logs. “The license plate numbers are listed. This information looks like it was taken from the entry point to the clinic, the kind of thing a security guard would have to make a note of.” He opened a new window. “Let me run some of these plates through the DMV.”
While he worked, Beth got up and stretched, walked around a little. It occurred to her that her working day was starting in just a couple of hours. She’d have to call in sick, something she detested doing.
*
It took forty minutes and two more cups of coffee each before Fil said, “Whoah. Whoah. Come and have a look at this,” and Beth scooted over.
She looked at what he’d pulled together on the monitor.
It took her a moment to process it.
Beth stared at Fil, at his eyes which, despite the fatigue in his face, were bright as diamonds.
She said: “Oh my God.”
And scrabbled for a phone.
Chapter 36
Charles Vincenzo was a short, blocky man who ordinarily probably displayed a brash manner but, at five in the morning, just came across as surly and bewildered.
He sat opposite Venn and Harmony on the sofa, wrapped in a bathrobe, a cigarette burning between his finger and thumb. At the top of the stairs, Venn had glimpsed a woman when they’d arrived. She’d been dressed in a man’s unbelted robe, hastily slung over a skimpy teddy, and looked around half Vincenzo’s age.
“So your questions are basically bullshit.” Vincenzo sucked on his cigarette and stared at the two detectives through the fan of smoke he exhaled. He’d probably copied that from some gangster movie, Venn thought.
They’d taken Harmony’s car, a third-hand Crown Victoria she’d bought from the NYPD, and had arrived at Vincenzo’s Hoboken house twenty minutes earlier. Venn hadn’t tried for a warrant, reasoning that even if he could find a judge at that hour of the night, he had no probable cause to search the man’s home. Instead, he’d relied on the power of fear to persuade the guy to let them in. The fear of the early-hours knock on the door, the kind of thing that evoked overtones of Stalinist Russia.
Vincenzo had answered the door more promptly than Venn expected, though judging by the state of wakefulness of the woman at the top of the stairs, the man probably hadn’t been asleep. After demanding to see some ID, which Venn and Harmony provided, he listened carefully to Venn’s spiel - we’re investigating the escape of Eugene Drake from the facility in Illinois, we know he’s here in New York, and we believe you could help us find him - and then let them in without protest.
They explained what they’d learned, and why they were there.
“Yeah, I visited Drake,” Vincenzo admitted. “It’s a matter of record. I work for a prison reform charity, as you know.”
“The charity is owned by Bruce Collins,” said Venn. “Know him?”
Vincenzo shrugged. “Why would I? Sure, I’ve heard of him. And I know he’s our patron. He’s a well-respected guy. A great philanthropist.”
He struggled
over the multiple syllables of the last word, slurring a little, and Venn realized he’d been drinking.
“You’re a liberal kind of fellow, then, Mr Vincenzo?” Harmony chimed in. “A humanitarian?”
Vincenzo stared at her as if he hadn’t expected her to do any talking. “You could say that.”
“So righteous that you’d condemn the trafficking of women?”
Vincenzo cocked an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
Harmony said, “That girl upstairs. From an agency, is she? She looks Slavic. And around nineteen years old. Where’d you find her, Mr V? On some Romanian website?”
Vincenzo stood. For a moment he swayed against the sofa, before steadying himself.
“I don’t got to listen to this.” He reached for a phone handset on the coffee table in front of him. “I’m calling my attorney.”
Venn smiled, raised both his hands. “All right. All right. No need to get sore.” He rose, too. “For the record, then, Mr Vincenzo. You’re saying you categorically do not know how Eugene Drake escaped, or where he is now?”
Vincenzo gripped his upper lip with his lower teeth. He shook his head.
“No. I mean, yes, I do not know any of that shit.”
“Okay.” Venn gave a friendly nod, and dropped a business card on the coffee table. “Here’s my number, in case you think of anything that may help us. Thank you for your cooperation, and sorry for the intrusion at this hour.”
“New York’s finest,” Vincenzo muttered, glaring at each of them in turn.
*
Neither of them spoke until they’d climbed into the Crown Vic, parked a block away with the front door in view.
Harmony gazed up at the house. “Son of a bitch is dumping a load in his pants right now. I hope he doesn’t decide to take it out on the hooker.”
“No,” said Venn. “First thing he’ll want to do is make a phone call or two. Either, he’ll use his cell. Or, more likely, he’ll be paranoid, and assume we’ve got it tapped. In which case he’ll use a public phone booth.”