We’re going to drive there so that we can take Tara with us without having to put her in a crate under the plane. I’m hoping to have Waggy with Steven by then; the idea of spending a long road trip with Waggy cooped up in the car is chilling.
For a long time I have been spending most of my waking hours pathetically trying to figure out a devious way to get Laurie to move back here. Now that it’s happening, I’m going to have a lot of free thinking time on my hands.
The media reported on the search warrant being executed on Thomas Sykes, and Sykes’s lawyer issued a statement saying that his client was being unduly persecuted and harassed. He said that now that the authorities were too inept to convict Steven, they were looking for a scapegoat, and poor Sykes was the guy they chose.
Steven has come over twice in the last three days to visit with Waggy and hang out. I’m just waiting for the Sykes matter to resolve itself one way or the other, and then I’ll send Waggy off to Manhattan and his new life.
If New Yorkers think they’re in the city that never sleeps now, wait till they have to live with Waggy.
Steven is over when Richard Wallace calls me. “Trace evidence from Sykes’s car shows Walter Timmerman’s blood and brain matter.”
I am about to say, Maybe Walter Timmerman accidentally cut open his brain once when he was in that car, but I think better of it, because Steven is standing there, and after all, it was his father. I’m sensitive that way.
“Glad to hear that,” I say. “Are you going to arrest him?”
“His lawyer has been notified and is going to bring him in tomorrow morning so that he can surrender himself and avoid the perp walk,” Richard says. “Money has its privileges.”
I can tell Richard is unhappy with this arrangement; he thinks Sykes should be publicly arrested just like Steven was. But obviously word came down for it to be handled that way, so there’s nothing he can do. For that reason I don’t voice my own complaint.
Steven’s heard enough of the call that I can’t keep it from him. “They got him?” he asks.
I nod. “Looks like it. He’s turning himself in tomorrow morning.”
Steven makes a fist in satisfaction. “Boy, I was hoping for that. I was afraid it wouldn’t happen, but I was really hoping.”
“This is not something you should talk about until it actually happens. It might get out to the media, but it shouldn’t come from you.”
Steven nods. “No problem.”
When Steven leaves, I tell Laurie the news about Sykes, and my hope that he will confess and fill in the blanks in my knowledge about all that has happened.
“What do you think the chances are of that?” Laurie asks.
“Zero.”
I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING and turn on the news. Thomas Sykes’s picture is on the screen, next to a talking anchorman who actually looks a little like him. I’m not surprised to see the photograph, until I realize that it is only seven AM, much earlier than I would have thought Sykes would turn himself in. Maybe he wanted to do it with as little fanfare as possible.
“Sykes’s body was found by his attorney, Lawrence Wilborn,” the anchorman says. “Our information is that Wilborn called nine-one-one immediately, but that Sykes was pronounced dead at the scene. The police are not commenting, but it is believed that the cause of death was a self-inflicted bullet to the head.”
I immediately call Richard, who does not answer either his office or cell phone. I don’t know his home number, but I’m sure he’s not at home anyway. Richard and everybody he works with is going to have a tough week coming up, as everybody points the finger at everyone else for letting Thomas Sykes sit at home and blow his brains out. Richard was opposed to the move, but I’m sure he’ll still be in the line of fire.
My next call is to Pete Stanton. Sykes’s house is not in his jurisdiction, so he is not directly involved, but he promises to call around and see what he can find out.
He calls back in fifteen minutes. “Sykes called his lawyer at four AM and told him that he’d better get over there right away. The lawyer lives only ten minutes away, but Sykes was already dead. One bullet, gun pressed to the temple. Definitely appears to be a suicide.”
I thank Pete and hang up. Sykes’s taking his own life is not particularly hard to believe. He had to know he was facing virtually certain life in prison, so this would have represented the easy way out to him.
Sykes’s death doesn’t exactly leave me bemoaning the injustice of it all. I have no doubt that he was a murderer, and his departure will not leave a void that society must fill.
But I can’t say I’m happy about it. I wanted answers. If Walter Timmerman’s blood and brains splattered over Sykes, then he must have pulled the trigger. Why not Childs? Why hire Childs to blow up the house and kill Waggy, but not shoot Timmerman?
I also want to know what role Charles Robinson played in all this, and who killed him. If Sykes shot Walter, blew up Diana, and poisoned Robinson, he’s an unusually versatile murderer.
And did Sykes know about Walter’s work and kill for it, or was this all about his money? It seems like an unusual coincidence for Sykes to have gone on this murder spree just at the time that Walter was working secretly with synthetic DNA. Walter’s had all that money a long time; why kill him now?
I verbalize all of this to Laurie, who has been watching the coverage on television. She has no answers to my questions, but adds another little twist. “I don’t think Sykes killed himself,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Mostly it’s my instinct,” she says. “But I can try to explain it. If Sykes was thinking logically, he would have thought there was a decent chance to beat the charge. Steven beat the same charge, with much more evidence against him. Sykes had a lot of money and good lawyers. And he was a person of privilege, used to getting what he wanted. I don’t think he would have given up this fast.”
“Maybe he wasn’t thinking logically,” I say.
“Then he wouldn’t have called his lawyer. What did it gain him? He wasn’t hoping the lawyer would stop him, because it sounds like he died within minutes of making the call. But calling the lawyer made it look more like a suicide. If I’m right, that’s what the real killer wanted.”
“This is fascinating,” I say. “I hope you’re getting to the part where you tell me who the real killer is.”
She smiles. “I’m afraid you’ll have to tune in next week for that. But I will give you a clue.”
“Please do.”
“Look for someone who has a connection to all the main players involved… Timmerman, Sykes, and Robinson.”
It’s amazing how I can focus on a problem forever without getting anywhere, and then somebody says something that completely clears away the fog. Laurie’s right, I need to be looking for someone with a connection to the big three. And I just may know who that is.
“Robert Jacoby,” I say.
“The guy who runs the DNA lab?”
“Yes. He knew Walter and Sykes very well, they were his country-club buddies. What if he realized what Walter was doing when he sent in his own DNA? Our expert said he could have realized it was synthetic if he knew what he was looking for. Well, maybe he did.”
“And went after it for himself,” she says.
“Right. He would know exactly what to do with it, and how to profit from it. And he could have used Robinson in the same fashion Timmerman did, to connect with the people who would pay for it.”
“So why kill Robinson?”
“Maybe he went off the reservation and tried to screw his partner. I can’t answer that yet. But what if Sykes, Robinson, and Jacoby were in it together? When Sykes was going to go down for the murders, Jacoby thought Sykes would rat him out, so he killed him as well.”
“It’s all possible, Andy. But it’s also completely made up; we just created an entire conspiracy out of our own heads.”
I smile. “But we’ve got two pretty good heads.”
“Sykes could have ki
lled himself.”
“I have to assume he didn’t. Otherwise I have nowhere to take this.”
“You don’t really have to take it anywhere, you know. You won the case.”
I think about that for a moment. The way I do my job, the way I’ve always done my job, is to think of it as a competition, a game. I won’t feel like I’ve won the game unless I’ve figured it out. Laurie already knows this about me, so I smile and say, “The game isn’t over yet.”
“And if you win the game it means a murderer gets caught,” she says.
“That’s what makes it a really great game.”
I CALL AGENT CORVALLIS and request a meeting. He doesn’t seem particularly enamored of the idea, and it takes a veiled threat that I will publicly discuss everything I know about Walter Timmerman’s work, and the FBI’s involvement in it, before he agrees. He says that he’ll be out of town tomorrow, but he’ll give me fifteen minutes the day after.
I file papers with the probate court with my decision to award Waggy to Steven. The court accepts it within forty-eight hours, and of course there is no reason not to. Diana Timmerman and Charles Robinson are no longer around to contest it, and Steven is the heir to the rest of his father’s fortune.
A delighted Steven picks Waggy up, and I see he’s already stopped at a pet store to get dog food, dishes, beds, and toys. I should mention that he’ll also need about a ton of doggy Ritalin, but I’ll let him find that out for himself.
As Steven and his new best friend prepare to leave, Tara looks on fairly impassively. Life for her is going to get more peaceful, but also more boring. I’m not sure how she feels about that, and it’s hard to tell based on her interaction with Waggy. They just sniff each other a little bit, and then Tara decides to lie down.
“Wags,” I say, “it’s been great having you. Feel free to visit anytime. My home is your home.”
I go to give him a hug, but he will have none of it, wriggling free and jumping into the backseat of the car. Waggy has never been much of a sentimentalist.
Steven has thanked me about four hundred times since the trial, but feels compelled to do so even more effusively this time. He adds a hug, not knowing I’m not a fan of guy hugs. Waggy and I have that in common.
“What are your plans for him?” I ask. “Are you going to show him?”
“No. Waggy and I talked about it,” he says. “We’ve decided he’s not going to be a champion. He’s just going to have fun and be a dog.”
I’m glad to hear that, although I’m pretty sure Waggy would find a way to have fun no matter what he did.
I remind Steven to be careful with Waggy, since we can’t be one hundred percent positive that whoever went after him won’t try it again. Hopefully it was Sykes. He promises to be alert, and they’re off to New York. Within a couple of weeks, Waggy will be making disparaging New Jersey jokes like all other New Yorkers.
Once Steven leaves, I head for the city myself, where I’m meeting with Corvallis at the FBI’s Midtown office. I park the car on West 49th Street in one of the ubiquitous rip-off parking lots. If Corvallis really gives me just fifteen minutes, then I’ll be paying about four bucks a minute.
Corvallis starts off the meeting by telling me why he shouldn’t be meeting with me. “You’ve made my life more difficult,” he says. “If not for you, Robinson might still be alive, and we could still be watching him. But hell, you’re just doing your job, and you’re not a bad guy, so…”
I put my hands to my eyes. “Stop it,” I say, “I promised I wouldn’t get emotional.”
He laughs. “All right, what the hell do you want?”
“I’ve got a theory I wanted to run by you. I don’t think Thomas Sykes killed himself.”
“Based on what?” he asks.
I tell him my reasons, or at least Laurie’s reasons, and then add, “And I think Robert Jacoby has been behind this from the beginning.”
“Who the hell is Robert Jacoby?” he asks.
I’m not thrilled with the question. Corvallis really does seem puzzled as to Jacoby’s identity, and given how close he has been to this case, that doesn’t bode well for the accuracy of my theory. “He’s the head of a DNA lab.”
Corvallis nods as if he now remembers where he heard the name, and I continue. “He knew Timmerman, Robinson, and Sykes, and Timmerman sent him his own DNA to see if Jacoby would pick up on the fact that it was synthetic. I think he did pick up on it and saw an opportunity.”
“I can’t help you with that,” he says. “I know very little about the guy. But I can help you with something else.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Sykes definitely committed suicide. No question about it.”
“How do you know that?”
He frowns. “You may not realize this, but we do have an idea what we’re doing. And we even have forensics experts. The gunpowder residue on Sykes’s hands shows he pulled the trigger. If somebody else was holding his hand while he did, it would have distorted the pattern. So unless he complied when someone simply instructed him to shoot himself in the head, then it’s a suicide.”
It certainly wouldn’t stun me if Corvallis were lying about this, but I don’t know why he would. “So it’s the considered opinion of the FBI that Sykes blew up the house and killed Diana Timmerman?”
“Could be,” he says.
“Are you actively trying to find out who did it if he didn’t? Or is murder not a significant enough crime for you guys to deal with?”
“In this case it is a local crime unless we get information to the contrary. So it’s up to the local authorities. Our involvement in this matter is over.”
“So you’re not worried that someone might have gotten their hands on Walter Timmerman’s work?”
He smiles. “I think it’s fair to say that we’ve prepared for that.”
I nod my understanding. “You got to Timmerman’s lab in the house first, didn’t you? After he was murdered?”
Corvallis doesn’t respond, so I continue. “When I met Diana Timmerman at the house that day, she complained that the police had already searched the house three times. Yet the discovery reports show only one search. That’s because your people were in there the other two times, without telling the locals about it.”
“You’re quite a fascinating storyteller,” he says. “I’m just sorry the fifteen minutes are up.”
“I’m taking a ten-minute extension. I’d bet that not only did your scientists get up to speed on Timmerman’s work, but once you did you changed it to throw off anybody who got into that lab after you.”
“You’re on a roll,” he says.
“You were sorry when the house blew up,” I say. “Not because Diana Timmerman died, but because you were watching it to see who went in there. And you weren’t worried, because you had gotten to the lab first.
“And because you were all over that house, that’s how you know it isn’t Jacoby. If it was you would have picked him up already. You know who was there every minute, which is why it could have been Sykes. But I don’t buy it. Sykes lost the inside track at four hundred million when Diana Timmerman died. Just because he had access and could have planted the bomb doesn’t mean…”
“Is the story finally over?” he asks.
“Holy shit… ,” I say. “I need to use your phone.”
He doesn’t give me permission and I don’t wait for it. I grab the phone and dial Steven Timmerman’s number. It rings five times before the machine picks up. I can’t take the chance to leave a message.
I hang up and grab a notepad and paper from Corvallis’s desk. I talk as I write down Steven’s address. “I believe Martha Wyndham is behind this; she has been from the beginning. Please get some agents to this address; it’s Steven Timmerman’s apartment. If I’m right, she’s going to try to kill Steven and his dog. Please.”
I start to move toward the door as he stands up. “What about you?” he says.
“I’ll meet you there.”
I TELL THE CABDRIVER that I’ll give him a hundred dollars if he can get me to Steven’s apartment in less than ten minutes. Based on his driving after that, my promise is a highly motivating one.
I didn’t wait to go with Corvallis, because by the time he got downstairs and had a car brought around, it would have taken much too long. Certainly there is no way he is going to beat this cab.
I could be wrong again, but I should have known it was Martha Wyndham all along. She may well be working for someone else, but she’s been in the middle of everything from the beginning. And if I’m right, she won’t wait long to go after Steven.
It certainly answers the question of how the person who detonated the bomb knew that Diana Timmerman would be in the house. Martha was there, just starting to drive away, and she could have dialed the number from her car. And Martha had suggested I let Waggy live in that house while I decided who to award him to. It would have saved Jimmy Childs the trouble of trying to kill Waggy.
She was also there the day before the poison was thrown in our yard. We hadn’t been walking Waggy, in an effort to hide his location. But Martha saw him, and I believe that set the attempted poisoning in motion.
And Martha was one of very few people with access to Walter’s lab, and the knowledge of what he was doing. When she blew up the lab she must have felt she and her people had learned all there was to learn, of course having no idea that the FBI had been there first.
As often happens when I get myself in these situations, I don’t have a concrete plan for what I’ll do when I get to Steven’s house.
I call his number on my cell phone, and I’m surprised when he answers. “Hello,” he says. He doesn’t sound tense or upset, which is a relief.
“Steven, it’s me, Andy.”
“Andy, how are you? Checking up on Waggy?”
“Steven, have you heard from Martha Wyndham?”
“She’s right here. She came to visit and take Waggy for a walk.”
If there was a worse thing I could have heard him say, I’m hard-pressed to think of it now. I never should have made this call. “Steven, listen to me very carefully, and don’t say anything. Martha has been behind this all along, and you are in danger. Now pretend that I asked you over for dinner this weekend, and you’d like to come.”
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