“Bruce, my name’s Benji Golden!” I called out. “Sara asked me to stop by!”
He didn’t answer me. I heard no response. Just the ball game on the TV.
I glanced around, wondering if he’d gone up to the main house for firewood or whatever. I called out his name again. Again I heard nothing. I pushed the cottage door farther open—or tried to. It wouldn’t budge. I pushed harder. Stuck my head through the open doorway to find out why.
I found out why.
Bruce lay on the floor just inside the doorway in the fetal position with his eyes wide open. He’d been shot three times—twice in the chest, once in the forehead. The entry wounds were just like the ones I’d found once in a fifteen-year-old runaway from Raleigh named Jennie Faries. The weapon that made those wounds had been her pimp’s Glock 9-mm semi-automatic handgun.
He was still warm. Still bleeding out onto the hooked rug. It had just happened. Within the past ten minutes someone had pulled in, shot Bruce Weiner dead and taken off. Quickly, I looked around the cottage. It had only one room with a loft bed. A tiny bath. French doors out to a deck, bolted from the inside. There was no sign that anyone had forced open the front door. Bruce had invited his killer in. It didn’t appear to be a robbery gone bad. The flat-screen TV had been left behind. So had the Rolex on Bruce’s left wrist. Yet his laptop was missing. No way he’d be cramming for the Gauntlet without it. And I didn’t see his cell phone anywhere either.
I went back outside with a sick feeling in my stomach and headed up the path to the circular drive, stepping carefully now so as not to disturb any crime scene evidence. I fetched my flashlight from the glove compartment of the Brougham and flicked it on. Followed my tire tracks back to the road, searching for any other tire tracks that might be there in the fresh snow. Bingo. Someone else had pulled in over by the main house, parked and gotten out. I could see footprints in the snow. One set. A lone gunman. His shoe prints led from the car down to the guest house and then back again. The prints weren’t any bigger than my own. Possibly even a bit smaller. The guy was no behemoth, whoever he was. I followed his tire tracks back toward the road. He’d made a sharp left when he pulled out of the driveway, meaning he’d headed north from there toward absolutely nowhere. There was only one possible reason for him to head north—so he wouldn’t bump into me.
He’d known I was heading there. I was the one who’d led him to Bruce. I’d been his bird dog. That explained the tickle.
But how had he shadowed me?
I returned to the Caddy, climbed in ass backwards and shined the flashlight on the wiring underneath the dashboard, studying it inch by inch until I found it—a flat square plastic disc held in place with adhesive putty. I yanked the damned thing out of there. It was a voice-activated three-watt UHF transmitter. A bugging device capable of sending a radio signal roughly a mile for every watt of power. Which meant he could have been three miles behind me on the Cross Bronx and still heard every word I’d said to Sara on the phone. It was sophisticated equipment. Ran about a thousand bucks. Plus you’d need a receiver, too, and those didn’t come cheap. He must have planted it in the Brougham while it was tucked away in the garage. But that still didn’t explain how he’d known which way I was heading when I left the city. Because I didn’t have a tail. I got out and knelt under the car with the flashlight until I located it. A web-based GPS tracker was attached to the rear axle with magnets. The bastard had been following me by laptop. This was no goon. This was a pro who knew his trade.
I stood there in the snow, boiling with rage. We’d been set up, used, chumped, punked—whatever you want to call it. Golden Legal Services had been hired to locate Bruce Weiner so he could be taken out by a hit man. Why? Was his love affair with Charles Willingham so toxic that this harmless college kid had to be gunned down? Who? Was Peter Seymour behind this? Had the patrician law firm of Bates, Winslow and Seymour given the scruples-free Leetes Group the green light to murder Bruce? As I stood there, my hand clenched around the bugging devices, I asked myself what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped for that cup of coffee in Brewster. What if I’d gotten here ten minutes sooner? What if I’d been inside of that cottage with Bruce when the killer showed up? And, God, what if I’d let Sara come with me?
I smashed both devices under my heel, went out to the road and flung them deep into the woods. Then I pulled my cell out of my coat pocket. For all I knew they were bugging my calls. But I needed to use it. Besides, the damage was done.
“Did you make it up there okay?” Mom asked me when I got through to her on the office line.
“I made it.”
“Did you find Bruce?”
“I found Bruce.”
“You sound strange, Bunny. What’s the matter?”
I told her. How I’d found Bruce dead. How I’d led his killer right to him.
“Why, that no-good WASP shithead!” she erupted when she was done listening. “I am going to get him on the other line right now. Hang on, Bunny. I’ll put him on speaker.”
The lawyer’s number rang twice before I heard his burgundy baritone intone: “This is Peter Seymour.”
And heard mom say: “It’s Abby Golden. We found the Weiner boy up at Candlewood Lake.”
“You people move fast, Mrs. Golden. I’m impressed. I was just sitting down to dinner. Could we continue this after I’ve?—”
“He’s dead. Somebody shot him.”
Seymour fell silent. “Dear God.…”
“But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“Whatever do you mean by that, Mrs. Golden?”
“I demand to know who your client is.”
“That’s privileged information. You know that.”
“Here’s what I know,” she shot back. “You won’t get away with this. We won’t take the fall for you. My mother didn’t raise no patsies. And Benji’s mother sure as hell didn’t.”
“Madam, I assure you that I have—”
“Don’t ‘madam’ me, you momser. You played us. Benji found the bugs in our car.”
“Has he spoken to the Connecticut State Police yet?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I’d appreciate it if he kept our firm’s name out of this—as a professional courtesy.”
“Not a chance. We’re telling them chapter and verse.”
“I wouldn’t advise that, Mrs. Golden.”
“Guess what? I don’t take advice from lying snakes. I didn’t like you from the second you walked in this office. I just liked that nice, fat check from your so-called Aurora Group. I should have smelled it for what it was—blood money.”
“Does that mean you’re returning it?”
“Hell, no. We earned every penny of it. And the twenty-five thou bonus you promised us. I’m expecting a certified check for the full amount on my desk by ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If it’s not here, I’m suing your ass. And don’t ever call us again, hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Mrs. Golden. Are we done now?”
“We’re done. What are you having for dinner?”
“Steak au poivre.”
“I hope you choke on it.” She hung up on him. “Bunny, are you still there?”
“Still here,” I said, standing there in the frigid snow.
“Have you phoned it in?”
“Not yet.”
“Make the call. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
CHAPTER THREE
“LET’S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT RIGHT AWAY, tough guy. I don’t like anybody trying to tell me how to run my investigation.”
“I don’t blame you one bit, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t either.”
“And don’t get smart with me. I don’t like anybody trying to get smart with me.” Which already made two things Detective Lieutenant Marco Battalino really didn’t like, and we were just throwing our warm-up tosses.
“Absolutely. Whatever you say.”
We were seated at a table in a windowless interview room in th
e charm-free Troop L Barracks up in Litchfield. I was there to provide the lieutenant and his sergeant with my detailed witness statement. I was not, as of yet, considered a suspect or person of interest. I’d been allowed to accompany them there from Candlewood Lake in my own car. The door to the interview room was open. We were drinking coffee together. Battalino was sprawled comfortably in his chair with one foot plopped on the table. It was all quite cordial—except for the way he kept pointing out that I, a New York City private investigator, was a source of annoyance to him. Not a major source of annoyance. More of a petty one along the lines of, say, jock itch.
Battalino was a squat, baleful fireplug in his early thirties. He had a twenty-inch neck, curly black hair that grew unusually low on his forehead, a furry black strip of monobrow, furry ears, furry knuckles. The man was just really furry. As I looked at his brogan-clad foot on the table I realized how happy I was that this wasn’t open-toe sandal season. He was dressed in a shiny black suit, white shirt and muted tie. On his shoulder he wore a good-sized chip.
His sergeant was a young black man named Gallagher who was taller than Battalino, better looking, a better dresser, smarter and more polite. I anticipate big things in Gallagher’s future—as long as he doesn’t try to tell Battalino how to run an investigation. Or get smart with him.
It had taken ten minutes for a Connecticut state trooper wearing a big Smokey the Bear hat to respond to my 911 call. I’d led him to Bruce’s body in the guest cottage. As soon as he laid eyes on Bruce he called for help, which came in the form of Battalino and Gallagher from the Major Crime Squad Western District and a crew of crime scene technicians in blue-and-white cube vans. Also a death investigator from the state medical examiner’s office. The crime scene investigators were still at the house on Candlewood Lake photographing and measuring the shoeprints and tire tracks in the snow. Bruce’s body was being transported to the medical examiner’s office in Farmington for an autopsy. The Weiners had been contacted at their home in Willoughby with the awful news. They’d have to drive to Farmington in the morning to officially identify the body. The mere thought of which filled me with grief. I felt complicit in Bruce’s death. I felt like shit. But I had to set my feelings aside as I sat there with Battalino and Gallagher. Focus on concrete physical evidence such as the killer’s tire tracks. The ones that I’d been trying to tell them led north out of the Warfield driveway.
Which was when Battalino decided to set me straight: “I talk and you listen, got it? I’m not interested in your cute little theories. And I expect you to shut up unless I ask you a direct question, got it?” He gulped down some coffee, glowering at me. “Let’s talk about who hired you to find the victim.”
“Was that a direct question?” I asked Gallagher.
Gallagher nodded, stone-faced.
“We were retained by the New York City law firm of Bates, Winslow and Seymour. Peter Seymour was the partner who contacted us.”
“This was when?”
“Yesterday. He told us that Bruce Weiner had recently inherited a significant amount of money from one of their clients. I don’t know how much money. Or the client’s identity. We weren’t made privy to the details.”
“You do a lot of work for this law firm?”
“It was the first time they’d ever hired us. Seymour told us they’d been trying to contact the victim for several days at his school, Canterbury College in upper Manhattan. It was their impression that he’d left campus. They hired us to find him.”
“Why you?”
“That’s what I do. Find young people.”
Battalino smirked. “Whatever you say, tough guy. Talk us through it.”
“Through what, Lieutenant?”
“Your activities in pursuit of the deceased, leading up to tonight.”
“Okay, sure.” I took a sip of my coffee, folding my hands before me on the table. “For starters, I spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Weiner last night at their house in Willoughby. They seemed to know nothing about any inheritance. Acted quite puzzled, actually. Plus they were under the impression that Bruce was on campus. Mr. Weiner phoned Bruce’s roommate, Chris Warfield, while I was there and Chris assured him that Bruce was studying at the library.”
“Uh-huh. And was he?”
“No. When I spoke to Chris in person about it today I was able to ascertain that Bruce was staying at the Warfield family home on Candlewood Lake.”
“How were you able to ‘ascertain’ that?”
“By gaining his confidence.”
“So that’s something you’re good at—gaining people’s confidence?”
“I’ve had some success, yes.”
“Then how come you’re not gaining my confidence?”
I didn’t respond. It didn’t qualify as a direct question. Just sour gas. I wondered if Battalino had a wife. I wondered if she made him undress in the dark.
Now it was Gallagher’s turn: “Any idea why the victim went to Candlewood Lake, Ben?”
“To cram for the Gauntlet. It’s a week of midterm exams they have at Canterbury.”
“He was alone up here?”
“As far as I know.”
“Did he have any personal problems? Was he into drugs?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“So why did the roommate lie to the victim’s parents about his whereabouts?”
“I assume because Bruce asked him to.”
Gallagher thought this over. “Candlewood’s a mighty lonely spot this time of year. Maybe he had a nice, warm girl with him for company.”
I let that go right on by. Offered not one word about Bruce’s sexual orientation. And for damned sure nothing about his romantic relationship with Charles Willingham. If the finest college basketball player in America was going to get dragged into this it wasn’t going to be by me. Volunteer nothing. That’s another thing my dad taught me. Especially if you don’t know what in the hell you’re in the middle of. And I really, really didn’t know what in the hell I was in the middle of. “My job was to locate Bruce Weiner,” I said. “His body was still warm when I found him. I called my employer with the bad news. Then I called you.”
“He died about a half hour before you phoned it in,” Gallagher acknowledged. “The death investigator has confirmed as much. And the tire tracks and shoeprints do indicate that someone besides you has been at the scene since last night’s snowfall. Any idea who that individual might be?”
“None.”
“Is it your belief that what happened to the victim was not the result of a random break-in?”
“I seriously doubt it was a random break-in. But don’t ask me what it was because I seriously don’t know.”
Battalino glared at me across the table. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either, Lieutenant.”
“You’re not hearing me. What I don’t like is the load of shit you’re shoveling at us. There’s something more going on here. What aren’t you telling us?”
“Lieutenant, I’m being as helpful as I can. Believe me, when you speak to Peter Seymour you’ll find him considerably less cooperative.”
“Well, yeah, he’s a high-priced New York City lawyer.” Evidently, Battalino considered them to be even more of a petty annoyance than New York City private investigators. On a par with, say, the heartbreak of psoriasis. “How much did Seymour tell you when he hired you?”
“As little as possible. He refused to name his client. And he covered his tracks by paying us through a holding company.”
Battalino stuck his lower lip out at me. “Where are you going with that? Is he going to deny he hired you?”
“I’m guessing he tells you he’s never even heard of us.”
“And now the kid who you say he sent you to look for is dead. Plus the kid’s laptop and cell phone are gone. That just about makes you the putz of the century, am I right?”
“You could not be more wrong,” a woman stated from the doorway behind me. It was Mom, who stood there looking l
ike a million bucks, in her long sable coat. “Peter Seymour can try to play it that way. But it won’t wash.”
“Is that so?” Battalino eyeballed her up and down freely. “And you are?…”
“Abigail Golden of Golden Legal Services. I’m this gentleman’s employer.”
“You two are related?”
“It’s a family business. My late husband, Meyer Golden, founded it.”
Battalino raised his dense growth of monobrow, impressed. “Briefcase Bob Meyer Golden?” To me he said, “You’re Meyer Golden’s kid?”
“I am.”
Mom strode briskly across the interview room and grabbed my duffel coat, motioning for me to stand up. “Lieutenant, we happen to enjoy excellent relations with the NYPD. If you have any doubts regarding the veracity or professionalism of my investigator then I urge you to place a personal call to Police Commissioner Dante Feldman. His direct extension number is—”
“That won’t be necessary, ma’am,” Battalino assured her, all four paws up in the air now. He wanted his furry belly rubbed. Like he had a prayer.
“And Peter Seymour will acknowledge that he retained our services,” she added. “It so happens that I tape recorded our meeting. I’ll be happy to make the tape available to you should it become necessary, although I doubt it will. We’re all on the same side. We all want Bruce Weiner’s killer brought to justice.”
“That we do, ma’am,” Battalino acknowledged.
“You weren’t planning to detain my investigator overnight, were you?”
“No, ma’am, we were just about—”
“Do you have all of the information you need for the time being?”
“Yes, I believe that we’re—”
“In that case we’ll say good night now. It’s late and we have a long drive home. Come on, Benji, let’s blow this pop stand.”
And with that we were out of there.
Like I said, Mom knows how to handle men.
* * *
THE TEMPERATURE HAD FALLEN into the teens there in the hills of Litchfield. An arctic wind was howling.
“How did you get out here?” I asked her, shivering as we started across the parking lot toward the Brougham.
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