Surrender, New York

by Caleb Carr

  And it went off without a hitch: by the time I made it to the microphones at the front door, Mitch was already obscuring Ambyr as they moved to the highway; and by this point, even Nancy Grimes and Cathy Donovan had run out of things with which to satisfy the reporters, so they gladly let me step to the fore. There, I elaborated my position as representative of the Kurtz family, and stated calmly that Mike and I would be working in full cooperation with the county and state, along with “any other interested agencies.” After that, I moved toward the county road, managing to ignore Melissa Ward, this time; in fact, the only voice I really heard was Steve’s: “That looked like it took real effort, Doc—good for you. And keep us posted, right?”

  I nodded and mumbled assent and thanks to him as Mitch McCarron took over guiding me, from the edge of the blacktop and across it, whence he rushed me around to the far side of the Empress. The door was already open, and Mitch gave me a firm pat on the back as I lowered myself in. “We’ll be in touch,” he said, closing the door and slapping its roof.

  Mike pulled out with a little squeal onto the wet road, as I glanced into my wing mirror and said, rather proudly, “Nobody’s following us, Mike.”

  At which point I felt Ambyr, in the back seat right behind me, throw her arms around my neck, whispering in my ear, “Thank you. I know that was hard.” Then I felt her lips on my neck, followed by an outburst from Lucas:

  “Hey, hey, hey!” he protested. “You two are okay, like, in theory, but that’s it. Bad enough it took you so long to get out here, but I don’t wanna have to actually look at it, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Then look out your window, snot,” Ambyr said, without moving. “And watch your mouth.”

  “Oh, no, sis,” Lucas said, obeying her first order by speaking into the window. “We’re not home, now—I get to talk any way I fucking want to.”

  “Yeah?” Mike laughed. “I wouldn’t let Clarissa hear you say that, kid.”

  “Exactly,” Ambyr piled on. “And maybe you can talk like that when you’re working—but around anybody else, you cut the cursing, okay?”

  “Oh, man,” Lucas whined. “I knew this whole thing was a bad idea…”

  {i.}

  Lucas, as always, was right, in some fundamental way, although it did not seem so at the time. The ensconcing of our two guests at Shiloh went off without a hitch, Clarissa welcoming them with a warmth I had only known her to ever show to Diana and myself; she continued to have visions of my taking over the farm one day, and Ambyr and Lucas’ presence only seemed to elaborate them, giving her a sense of calm and enjoyment of the future that she had long gone without. “What do you expect?” Mike would rightly say to me later, when we were alone in the JU-52. “You not only look like you’re becoming the gentleman farmer, now, but you’ve shown up with a ready-made family. Hell, she was even glad to see Ambyr’s damned cat…” This last fact was especially noticeable, not least because Tommy, instead of stalking little Terence—whom I suspect he could have killed—immediately made friends with him: perhaps the oddest couple that Shiloh had ever seen.

  Perhaps. As Lucas crashed in his new room that afternoon, Ambyr and I visited Marcianna, making sure that she was all right during the storm, which finally passed over just before dinnertime, allowing the sun to return to our little corner of the Taconic Valley. During the tail end of the rain, Ambyr and I caught a little sleep inside the rocky den, then hitched Marcianna up to her leash and took her for her evening constitutional down by the brook beyond the road. Our nap had restored every ounce of Ambyr’s sexual energy, at least for the time being, which I was rather afraid to respond to in front of Marcianna. My worry was that it would set off that strange chirruping that had been so troubling; but, much to my surprise, it did not.

  There remained the rather ticklish question of how our work hours were now to pass; and it was Lucas who answered it. After dinner, when we withdrew to the JU-52 and tried to consider what might have happened to Derek, Ambyr was at one point standing near me, listening to me recapitulate my theory of the kind of person who would likely have lured Derek away.

  “It makes sense,” Ambyr said gravely. “Especially when you talk about the way he looked at those pictures in the house. Derek never showed that kind of feeling or—what’s that word?—fascination with his own mother, even when she was around. He definitely missed that part of life.” She put a hand on my back. “Not that we all didn’t,” she went on, slipping her hand under my shirt.

  “Whoa, no!” Lucas declared yet again. “Unh-unh. If I can’t swear in the house, then at least you guys can’t get up to that kind of bullshit when we’re working. Please, I mean, I just fucking ate.”

  I turned and murmured in Ambyr’s ear, “He’s probably right. Best to stay focused.”

  “I guess,” she replied, withdrawing her hand. “But you let him talk to you like that?”

  “What?” Lucas defended. “You should hear how they talk to me!”

  Mike chuckled a bit. “He’s right about that, Ambyr…”

  “Hmm, this is going to take some adjusting to,” she decided, pursing her lips and lifting one eyebrow. “Okay, so—anything more we can get from the note?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” Mike replied, as he finished running off an enlargement of a photograph he’d taken of Derek’s parting message. “Except the overall tone—the happy sound to his voice. That is a little confusing…”

  “Uh—maybe because it’s bullshit,” Lucas said, leaping to his feet to examine the note as Mike pinned it up next to a picture of Derek that he’d gotten off Ambyr’s cell phone. “I still say somebody had a gun to his head, or something pretty close.”

  “I don’t think so, Lucas,” Mike answered. “There wasn’t any sign of a struggle: no trace evidence that Curtis Kolmback could see, which isn’t definitive, granted, but on top of that, Derek packed his stuff up very carefully and deliberately, and neither of you heard a sound. Does that sound like he was taken away against his will? He may have been conned by whoever was waiting for him, but I don’t think there was any force involved. Not at that stage of the operation, anyway.”

  “No,” Ambyr said quietly, sitting atop one of the desks. “No, it sounds like there wasn’t. Which doesn’t make me feel any better…”

  “You can’t look at it that way,” I said to her gently. “Remember, his decision is not a judgment of how either you or Lucas was behaving toward him. The main thing to keep in mind about these people is that they’re very good at appealing to exactly the thing that each kid was looking for. The one thing both of you can think about is just what that weak spot was, for Derek. We know that he missed a maternal presence in his life—his mother, according to everything you’ve said, rejected him in favor of her other children because of his…difference. And, Ambyr, you simply could not have filled that gap. So the question is, what, or who, could have? As the years wore by, what kind of fantasy did Derek contrive that spelled the dream situation for him? It’s not so easy as wanting another mother—we saw that in the way he admired Diana’s image. There was a real longing there, too, meaning a romantic longing.”

  “Yeah,” Mike said, nodding. “Wasn’t that the first thing he said when he saw the picture? Not that she looked like a nice lady, but that she was beautiful?”

  “Indeed,” I answered. “He was a little—and maybe more than a little—in love with the image. So what does that tell us? I don’t expect any answers tonight…” Which was a good thing, because Lucas was already looking a little heavy-lidded, the effects of a long day and dinner with Clarissa kicking in. “But as you think about it, try to imagine: who could have dangled what in front of Derek, to make him take a leap like that? Okay?”

  Ambyr just nodded rather blankly, saying, “Yeah. Okay.” Lucas had now begun to nod off, and Mike had to approach him and shout:

  “Okay, Consulting Detective?”

  “Hmm?” the kid answered, snapping to it. “Absolutely. Heard every word. I’ll think about it.
But now…” He began to stumble toward the hatch. “I’m thinking about goin’ to fuckin’ bed…”

  He managed to get himself to the floor of the hangar without incident, and I guided Ambyr down the steel steps, then toward the farmhouse, walking behind her trudging brother.

  “I’m so…fucking…tired!” Lucas protested to the sky.

  “We’re outside, now, Lucas,” Ambyr said. “And other people can hear you.”

  Lucas just threw a hand in the air in acquiescence. “Right, right,” he called. “Me talk pretty right now. And you two feel free to get back to your disgusting behavior…”

  Ambyr locked one arm around my neck and put her free hand atop my left as it worked my cane. “Are you coming up?” she asked, moving her lips along my cheek, then kissing me.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Not yet, anyway. Mike and I still have work to do and then I’ve got to make sure that the crazy girl is okay for the night.”

  “Mmm, I’ll be asleep by then, you know.”

  “Yeah.” I stopped before we reached the porch, and Ambyr languorously slipped around in front of me, eyes closed and smiling. “Ambyr, try not to be insulted, but—this case: Mike and I are used to working all hours, when we’re on something like this.”

  “Understandable,” she decided. “But will you do me one favor? Will you at least come in and kiss me before you go to sleep, whenever it is, to let me know you’re okay?”

  “I can do that.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Now—you’ve got to help me get used to the house and the stairs just a couple of times. I’ll get it pretty fast, but I need that much.”

  I guided her up to her room—which was the master and best bedroom in the house, the place where Colonel Jones and Jenna Malloy had slept, and where Clarissa and Diana had lived for so many years, but which had become unbearable for my great-aunt after Diana’s death—and saw her to her bed, making sure she knew just where the bathroom was and how to get to it. If she woke up disoriented and startled, I said, she only had to knock on the wall to her left and Lucas would hear her, as that was where his room was. I lingered a moment on that old iron bed frame, surrounded by wallpaper patterned after some of the wildflowers that could be found in the fields of Death’s Head Hollow, and watched Ambyr drift off to sleep, her hand tight and then less tight in mine. Moonlight suddenly swept in from the west and played across her face and body; and it was painfully apparent to me that I had never been so lucky in my life, or seen a woman of any age so beautiful. She hadn’t suddenly changed, or become more physically striking; but that face, even as she slept so deeply, bespoke every horror she had ever been through, as well as the relief that she was now enjoying. And my own worst experiences, along with my own sense that there might now be hope, caused our two souls to cry out in harmony, even if one of us was deep in slumber. And that was a form of human interaction, indeed of beauty, that I had never before experienced…

  When I returned to the hangar, I found Mike waiting. He eyed me critically as I approached, although he was also smiling, half out of skepticism and half out of happiness. “You tell her the truth yet?” he asked, handing me a cigarette and a glass of Talisker. I lit the one and sipped the other, shaking my head as we began the climb up into the JU-52.

  “You heard them,” I said quietly. “Lucas is in denial and she’s guilt-ridden. And they’re putting their faith in us, in case you didn’t know.”

  “I did not,” Mike said, nodding uncertainly. “But that’s an incredibly frightening thought…”

  “Tell me about it,” I answered. “And you expect me to pile on by telling them that we actually think that Derek is a member of the throwaway organization? No, thank you.”

  Mike continued to nod and smoke, then downed the whole of his drink. “Well,” he decided at length, “nothing like beginning a relationship in an air of duplicity.”

  “No,” I mused quietly. “There isn’t. And speaking of duplicity, did you talk to Gracie today?”

  “That is entirely different,” he answered. “If Gracie and I were to get involved, L.T., believe me, it would have to be very serious. Her family, unlike mine, is pretty traditional, so—” He glanced over to find me staring back at him in slight disbelief. “Ah,” he realized at length. “Right. Point taken: different kind of serious, that’s all.” He paused for a moment before adding: “She’s everything you’ve been looking for, isn’t she, L.T.? All those others, all those ‘appropriate’ women—and this is the one.” I could only nod in reply, because the truth of his words scared me so much. “And if it doesn’t work out?” he continued.

  “Oh,” I replied, smiling. “I think we both know the answer to that…”

  For the next several hours, Mike and I fixed our minds on two central issues: first, after turning the White Monster around, we weighed the question of Derek’s disappearance from the point of view of his willing participation in the throwaway scheme. Mike noted that I spoke especially bitterly about the city and those who were taking the kids in, that night, to which I said that I thought the reasons behind such bitterness should have been obvious, especially to him: the run-in with Melissa Ward from MSNBC had brought all my old issues about being effectively exiled from the city of my birth to the surface, as had the thought that a brainless operator like her was allowed to not only remain there, but to become celebrated as an ace crime reporter. Mike told me that he of course realized all that; but he also reminded me that our impending trip to New York could not be an exercise in vengeance, that it was still entirely possible that we would find that the evil in the case resided somewhere other than down south; that, indeed, some of the kids might actually have found happy homes in the city and its suburbs. I continued to realize that my reasoning might be as flawed as he was suggesting (although he was only suggesting it), but I also insisted that the trip offered the best shot of settling the issue; and so we pushed on:

  The second issue we had to cover was less a problem than a plan. Once Monday arrived, we would have to call the offices of Roger Augustine, the man whose name appeared on the certificates of authentication that Donnie Butler had carried in his bag along with the enormously expensive Hall of Fame jerseys that it had, apparently, never occurred to him to sell, although he must have known their value. Mike had already researched Augustine enough to know that he’d been a Bahamian by birth, one who’d distinguished himself by stellar years at the University of Pennsylvania’s famous (many would say infamous) Wharton School of Business, and then by having become a U.S. citizen and rising young star at that rat’s nest of financial machinations, Goldman Sachs. Indeed, Goldman had eventually sent Augustine back down to the islands, to oversee Caribbean operations for the company; and one could only imagine how very lucrative that posting must have been.

  For us, however, Augustine possessed more interesting personal details: first, a pronounced and highly publicized interest in basketball, and second, a wife, Ethel, a senior VP at Goldman, whom he’d married when they were both in their early forties. Yet the couple had apparently never had any children. Mike’s preliminary research had not been able to explain this crucial detail: Augustine was a thorough extrovert, whose office, as we discovered in an article in BusinessWeek, was covered with pictures of him posing with celebrities and basketball players (along with, tellingly, children’s charity groups) at Knicks games in Madison Square Garden and at the NBA finals in various parts of the country. But the article stayed carefully away from the issue of family, which seemed to indicate, regarding a married man who worked with kids, not a choice but a problem. The couple had enough money to try every form of artificial insemination and surrogacy available. Apparently they had not; nor did any of these details explain their failure to adopt.

  Further frustration awaited on Monday morning. Cleverly disguised calls to both Augustine’s office and, once we had unearthed the number, to his home told us that the man was returning from a vacation with Ethel in the South Sea islands, though no assistant c
ould say just where: they were sailing—or, fairer to say, their crew was powering them—from place to place on their eighty-foot Ocean Alexander yacht, which displayed about as much taste as did the Augustines’ New York City base, a wraparound penthouse in one of the tallest buildings in Trump Place, overlooking the Hudson. Yet these basic facts—the location of the Augustines’ penthouse, combined with their jobs and ideas about vacationing—did tell us a few things about the couple. And as we continued to research them that morning, while Ambyr and Lucas got a second long night’s sleep, we began to fill in still more details that would prove helpful; indeed, by the time the Kurtz siblings appeared at the plane to once again sit in on our classes, adjusting to their lives at Shiloh quickly, it more than once seemed, as Mike and I wedged our Augustine probe in around our other duties, that we might be on the verge of some kind of breakthrough; but each time, the answers simply raised more questions. Did Ethel Augustine even know, for example, that her husband had taken Donnie Butler on as some kind of “ward,” a word that has covered almost as many sins as has the label “foster child”? Was Augustine living a dual life, or was Ethel in on playing the kind of perverse games with an adolescent to which so many are drawn, as part of the search to forestall age by stealing years from young people? Or, finally, was the whole thing innocent, as Mike continued to say, and had the Augustines simply taken Donnie in out of kindness and their own need for a child, which Fate had for some reason refused them?

  To understand any of this, we would have to first understand the nature of that refusal; and, with the application of fairly relentless pressure, even that problem soon cracked. I told Mike what I could, in terms of profiling: that it was extremely unlikely that so extroverted and successful a man as Augustine would have risked his entire career and reputation by keeping a boy lover secreted somewhere in the city on a semi-permanent basis. More probably such a character would work out whatever inner tensions might have been driving him to such liaisons by becoming a serial employer of young prostitutes, or even a serial killer, one who used murder to tie up all loose ends after each sexual encounter. Such a character would hardly have needed or wanted to use some throwaway-child organization in so far-flung a place as Burgoyne County: moneyed as New York had become, there were still plenty of emotionally and financially endangered and credulous boys in the city itself from whom to choose.