Too Close to Home

by Andrew Grant

  “I’m not sure there’d be much of an audience.” I reached across and shook Harry’s hand. “There aren’t too many of these left, I’d guess. Which is a good thing. Though Robson seems to like this one. Remember him? He lent it to me for the day.”

  “He’s not doing you much of a favor. He’s probably hoping you’ll have a crash and write it off. Let’s face it, there’s no chance of it getting stolen.”

  “Even if someone did steal it, in a moment of madness or desperation, they’d soon regret it. Probably fill it with gas, get it detailed, and bring it back.”

  “They’d do better taking it to the crusher. Is that a cassette player? I haven’t seen one of those since a rental I had in Albania.”

  “Did that one work?”

  “No.”

  “Neither does this.”

  “OK. Let me propose a deal. If I get you what you need, you never make me set foot in this car again.”

  “Done.”

  “There are only three files you have a problem with?”

  I took a thumb drive out of my pocket and passed it to him. “Right. They’re locked. Password protected. Robson thinks they’re encrypted, too. I need to know what’s in them.”

  “Shouldn’t be too big of a deal.”

  “Between you and me, I’ve copied all the other files we acquired from our suspect onto there, too. Robson thinks they’re just business records. I was hoping maybe you could check for anything hidden in them? Any unusual patterns? Things like that.”

  “Can do.”

  “And there’s one other thing. I’ve also included the contacts of another guy I’m looking at. He’s kind of a sideline. Lower priority, but could you do some digging, anyway? And if you find anything fishy, let me know?”

  “Sure. Anything else?”

  “No, I—” Then an impulse hit me out of nowhere. “Actually, yes. Let me give you one other name. Marian Sinclair. I think she’s a lawyer in Manhattan. I could really use a full background on her. Her address. Where she works. Whether she’s married. That kind of thing. But I need total discretion. I’d rather not know than make her suspicious.”

  “Roger that. Leave it with me. I’ll be in touch.”

  I slowed to avoid a taxi that jumped a red light and Harry took the chance to bail out. His door closed without a sound and he’d melted into a stream of pedestrians before I’d even shifted gear.

  * * *

  —

  It’s no surprise that a car equipped with a cassette deck didn’t have a satellite navigation system, but even if it did I wouldn’t have used it. It wasn’t necessary, because I grew up in Westchester and knew the area by heart where Klinsman’s mansion was built. And it wasn’t wanted, because I didn’t care about saving a few minutes by taking some other route. I wanted to take the Saw Mill River Parkway. That was my father’s favorite. I hadn’t cared when I was younger. I never wanted to leave the city at all, so coming down in favor of one undesired route rather than another seemed pointless. But I remembered how much he liked the gentle sweep of its curves. The occasional glimpse it offered of the river. The contrast between the different shades of green in the various species of trees that lined the road and filled the space between the halves of the highway. My father saw these things as a reward for taking the time to seek out beauty. I wasn’t ready to go that far. But I do have to admit, they’re pretty.

  I stayed on the parkway until I reached the turn for the Mount Kisco Country Club, then rolled through the tree-lined streets south of the town and headed toward Bedford. It wasn’t strictly necessary to go that way, but it’s an old habit. From the time I was old enough to drive, I had an ulterior motive. That route took me past Marian Sinclair’s house. I had no idea if she still lived there, but after our close encounter at the courthouse, my memories of her were bubbling near to the surface. I slowed down as I reached the tight bend before her house. The entry was on the left. I glanced into it, as I’d done a million times before. The driveway was long and straight. There were more weeds poking through the gravel than I remembered, but the house was just the same. It was wide and low, in the classic ranch style. There was a porch all along the front. We used to sit there in the evenings and talk about everything, and nothing. The bugs always ignored her, but they feasted on me. I didn’t mind, though. Not too much. It was worth it, to spend time with her.

  A car was coming the other way around the curve. A black Mercedes SLK. It was moving fast, but braking hard. Its turn signal came on. I caught a glimpse of the driver. It was Marian. I stepped on the gas—the car barely responded—and I checked the mirror. Had she seen me? It was impossible to say. No one was behind me, so she could complete her turn right away. I imagined her speeding to the end of the driveway. Executing a swift three-point turn in the dusty fishtail. Roaring back to the road. Then she’d bury the accelerator. The supercharger would whine. And she’d catch me in seconds. Instead of talking romance, she’d demand to know why I was stalking her. Two chance encounters in three days. That wouldn’t look good.

  Ten seconds crawled past, and there was no sign of her in my mirror. Ten more, and she still hadn’t appeared. I relaxed my right foot. Maybe she wasn’t coming. There was no need to risk landing the unwieldy Cadillac in a hedge. I doubted that Robson would be happy if I wrecked his car over a woman. The best plan would be to continue to Klinsman’s neighborhood. Focus on business. And forget about Marian. Well, see what Harry could find out, first. Then forget her.

  At least until all the urgent matters were squared away.

  * * *

  —

  Klinsman’s house hadn’t existed when I lived nearby, and now it didn’t exist again. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I guessed it had been one of the properties that had crept in to fill the gaps between the older neighborhoods. They were generally nearer to the roads. Bigger. More expensive. And built in a vulgar mishmash of styles that did nothing but call attention to themselves. Any architectural failings that Klinsman’s place may have had were moot now, though. The building was totally destroyed. Len Hendrie had done a serious number on it. If that’s what he was capable of when he turned his mind to something, maybe he could make a decent fist of his defense, after all. On the other hand, all the prosecution would need to do was show the jury a photo of the devastation, and the game would be over.

  The perimeter of the site was still cordoned off with swaths of yellow police tape. In some places it was wrapped around the trunks of the trees that had survived the inferno, and in others it was hanging from posts that had been driven into the ground where the gaps were too big. Now the tape was swinging in a breeze that was strong enough to kick up traces of oil, burned plastic, and a bunch of other foul-smelling chemicals that lurked in the rubble.

  And the damage wasn’t restricted to the trees and the house. The land had taken a major beating, too. The countless gallons of water used to fight the fire had scoured the dirt, cutting channels deep into the ground and forging its way to the street. Stones were strewn all around. Layers of rock were exposed. Huge slabs of mud had dried to form tortured Dali-esque shapes. All around the imprints of the fire trucks’ giant tires were pressed into the soil, while ripped-up grass and shredded shrubs lay scattered near the remnants of the structure.

  There wasn’t much left of it. I could see two sections of wall, not much more than a single story high, bravely pointing at the sky. A stone stump that could have been the base of a chimney. A flatter area to the right that had probably been the garage floor. A concrete pad jutting out on the far side that perhaps had been part of a terrace. There was also a crop of orange-and-white posts sticking up at various points, with numbers attached to them. I guessed they were markers left by the arson investigators to show where their samples had been collected. There was no hope of salvaging anything else. Not without special equipment and access to a laboratory. Maybe the experts coul
d tell if wine bottles and oil paintings had been consumed by the flames, but there was no way I could. I’d wasted my time driving out from the city.

  I turned back to the car, impatient to get home and hoping that the stench from the scene wouldn’t linger in my clothes, when I heard footsteps behind me.

  “Can I help you?” It was a man’s voice, and it didn’t sound friendly.

  I summoned a rueful smile and turned to face whoever it was. “I wish you could. Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been sent on a fool’s errand?” I took another of Rooney’s cards from my pocket and held it out like a peace offering. “The insurance company asked me to come out here. They wanted to know whether the site needed to be secured. They were worried that if any valuable items had survived, they might be vulnerable. It’s standard practice for claims above a certain threshold. This one was way above. I guess the homeowner—a Mr. Klinsman—must be an avid collector?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” The guy was tall and slender, maybe sixty years old, with close-cropped white hair and a matching beard. He glanced at the card, then handed it back. “We’re not close.”

  “Are you guys neighbors?”

  “To an extent.” He offered me his hand. “I’m Peter Rourke. My family’s lived here for generations. He—Klinsman—showed up a decade or so ago. Built his huge monster Shangri-La palace. It took three years, start to finish. Damaged the road. The trees. The power lines. Caused carnage before it was done. And he didn’t get the right permits, always. There were rumors about bribes. Anyway, after all the chaos, he didn’t even want to live here full-time. He just comes and goes as he pleases. He has no interest in being part of our community, that much is clear. He screeches in and out, all hours of the day and night, one fancy car after another. And he has his giant parties. His city guests leave, drunk, and get in accidents. If you read about a DUI in the police blotter, you can guarantee it’ll be someone connected with Klinsman.”

  “According to the paperwork, Mr. Klinsman had quite a wine cellar.”

  “I guess he’d have to, the amount he and his buddies drink.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about how many bottles he had, approximately?”

  “He never talked to me about anything.”

  “Nothing? Not art, for example? I read he was a real connoisseur, and I’ve never met one of those guys who didn’t love to ramble on about what painting he had here, what sculpture he had there.”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “What about guy stuff? Like cars? You said he had a bunch of fancy ones he used to show up in.”

  Rourke shrugged. “Didn’t discuss them. He had a four-car garage. Sometimes the doors were open. I never saw more than two cars inside, though. And I never saw the same car twice.”

  “Did he ever park them, not in the garage?”

  “There were cars all over the place when he was having parties. Days at a time, more than once. No idea which ones were his and which were his drinking buddies’.”

  “Can you remember how many cars were there the night of the fire?”

  “Didn’t see any. Klinsman wasn’t here when the place burned down.”

  “Were you home that night? Did you see the fire?”

  “Oh, yes.” Rourke nodded. “Couldn’t miss it. The flames were twice as high as the house. It was like a volcano. Brighter than daylight. I couldn’t get out of my driveway the next morning because half the fire trucks were still there, blocking the street. The runoff water flooded my basement. It went in my pond and killed my fish. And do you know what? Klinsman hasn’t even bothered to come out and see the mess for himself. I’ve left him a dozen messages about my fish—koi aren’t cheap, you know—but he won’t return my calls.”

  “He sounds like a real asshole.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, after the bad luck the guy’s had.”

  “It wasn’t actually down to luck.” Rourke stepped closer to me and lowered his voice. “It was arson. A guy from the city did it. The police arrested him. The full story will come out at the trial, I guess, but think about it. You don’t come all the way up here to torch a random house. The guy had a reason. And I’m telling you, Klinsman had it coming. It’s good for the cops that the guy confessed or they’d have been here for weeks, there’d have been so many suspects. Dozens of people would have been happy to do it. It would have been like Murder on the Orient Express, only with matches instead of knives.”

  * * *

  —

  Back in the car, I watched Rourke saunter down his own driveway, then I checked my phone. There was no word from Robson or Harry. I thought I’d return to the city anyway, but on the spur of the moment I decided on a different plan. To go see Mrs. Vincent. I hadn’t been in contact in any meaningful way since she told me about my father’s death. I guess I’d been associating her with the bad news, and I knew that wasn’t fair. She was just the messenger. Now. But growing up without a mother, she’d been a huge influence on my life. Bigger than my father had been in some ways, given the amount of time he spent working. Now that he was gone she was the closest person to a relative I had left. I felt a pang of guilt that it had taken a bunch of talk about using furniture from the house to spur me into visiting her.

  Ten minutes later I heard the familiar crunch of gravel under my tires as I pulled up in the parking area at the end of the path that led to my father’s—Mrs. Vincent’s—front door. Last time I’d been there I was surprised by how old the house looked. The cedar siding had been more silvery than I’d remembered, and the sharp angles of the walls and the roof had looked dated. It didn’t seem that way now. Maybe the sun was warmer, softening the color and smoothing the lines. Maybe the anticipation of how my father would receive me after so long away and so few words between us had hardened my perception. But whatever the reason, I climbed out of the car, took a breath of the warm air, which was heavy with a welcoming blend of flowering shrubs and aging, sun-bleached wood—pure nectar after the residual fumes at Klinsman’s fire scene—and followed the uneven cracked bricks up to the front of the house. I pulled the thick iron handle that rang the bell and listened to the deep clang echo around inside the house. I stepped back and waited for Mrs. Vincent’s thin face to appear as she hauled open the heavy door. A ladybug was bustling over a frond of flowers that was overflowing from one of a pair of terra-cotta urns, the petals even brighter than the insect’s scarlet body. It reached the end of the blooms, its wings unfolded, and away it flew. I rang the bell again. There was still no answer.

  I moved to my left and looked in through the living room window. The white fabric couches were immaculate. The books were perfectly lined up on the shelves within the tall built-ins my father had designed with profiles that resembled his favorite buildings in the city. There was no sign of Mrs. Vincent, so I continued around the side of the house, stepped up onto the deck, and tried the dining room window. The room was narrow with a long oak table running along the center and four high-back gray suede chairs on each side. They were set up in perfect alignment, like soldiers on parade. My father wouldn’t have liked that image. Looking at them from that angle made me realize I’d only ever seen three of them in use, despite their having been there all my life. I wondered if my mother had liked throwing dinner parties. That was something else I’d never know about her.

  The deck wrapped around to the back of the house, so I followed it as far as the kitchen window. Inside, the countertops looked pristine. There was a bowl upside down on the draining rack, along with a spoon, a cup, and a saucer. The dishwasher’s door was open a crack, and I smiled when I remembered how Mrs. Vincent had never quite trusted those machines. She’d been convinced they’d fill with mold if they were left closed, even for a day.

  Mrs. Vincent was nowhere to be seen. I was sorry about that, so I thought about going inside and waiting for her. I could have done. It
was legally my house. I had a key. But I decided against the idea. It seemed intrusive. And potentially pointless. I had no idea how long it would be before Mrs. Vincent came back, and without her the house was just the place where my mother had died. The thought of the room where her life had drained away was suddenly oppressive and unwelcoming. Perhaps if I was really honest, my love of the city wasn’t the only reason I’d chosen to live in the brownstone.

  I made my way back to Robson’s car, but before I left I strolled the rest of the way down the drive until I reached the garage. My father had always been obsessed with reliability. He tolerated nothing that could possibly delay his departure or obstruct his route to the road. He even parked facing out of the garage, which left an exhaust stain on the rear wall. That was the only place he ever allowed anything to make a mess. So when I looked in through the side window I expected to see something sensible, like a newer Cadillac. I hoped to see one, or maybe even two more fun cars, like the classics I’d always pestered him to buy. But I was surprised by what I did see. Nothing. All four stalls were empty.

  That made sense, though, when I thought about it. Mrs. Vincent had to go out from time to time. Of course, she’d use my father’s car. She used all the other facilities and amenities he’d provided. It was still unexpected, though. A vehicle was a personal thing to a man of my father’s generation. I’d never pictured anyone else driving it.

  Secretaries don’t always tell the truth. Friends don’t always know the facts. Husbands and wives don’t always care. But if you have access to a guy’s personal calendar you can be reasonably sure when he’s going to be around. Which is a useful thing when you want to start your week with a covert visit to his workplace.

  Jimmy Klinsman’s company—Klinsman Asset Management—was based, predictably enough, in the financial district. Its offices were on the sixteenth floor at 120 Wall Street. The building was made of pale stone. It was studded with symmetrical windows and rose straight up for fifteen or so floors before tapering in, ziggurat style, to a flat rectangular peak. It was classically elegant as far as it went, but to me it looked stunted. It was like someone had taken a prototype of the Empire State Building, removed its top quarter—minus the spire—and planted it near the river to see if it would grow.