WIN

by Coben, Harlan

  Ian Cornwell slumps into a chair across the table. “It was a traumatic experience.”

  I wait.

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Professor Cornwell?”

  “Yes.”

  “My family lost two priceless masterpieces on your watch.”

  “You’re blaming me?”

  “I will if you refuse to cooperate.”

  “I’m not refusing anything, Mr. Lockwood.”

  “Terrific.”

  “But I also won’t be bullied.”

  I give him a moment or two so as to save face. He will capitulate. They always do.

  A few seconds later, he offers up a contrite “I don’t know anything that will help. I told the police everything a hundred times over.”

  I continue undaunted: “You estimated that one of the two men was five nineish with a medium build. The other was slightly over six feet tall and heavier set. Both were white men, and you believe that they were wearing fake mustaches.”

  “It was dark,” he adds.

  “Your point being?”

  His eyes go left. “None of this was exact. The height, the weight. I mean, they could be accurate. But it all happened so fast.”

  “And you were young,” I add, “and scared.”

  Ian Cornwell grabs hold of these arguments as a drowning man does a life preserver. “Yes, exactly.”

  “You were just an intern hoping to make a few extra dollars.”

  “It was part of my financial aid requirement, yes.”

  “Your training was minimal.”

  “Not to pass the buck,” Cornwell says, “but the school should have provided your family with better security.”

  True enough, though many things about the case and the investigation bothered me. The painting had only been scheduled to be on loan for a short time, and the dates were fixed only a few weeks in advance. We had indeed added security cameras, but this was before the days of storing digital video in the cloud, and so the recordings were kept on a hard drive on the second floor behind the president’s office.

  “How did the thieves know where to find the hard drive?” I ask.

  His eyes close. “Please don’t.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You don’t think the FBI asked me all these questions a thousand times back then? They interrogated me for hours. Denied me legal counsel even.”

  “They thought you were in on it.”

  “I don’t know. But they sure acted like it. So I’ll tell you what I told them—I don’t know. I was duct-taped and cuffed in the basement. I had no idea what they’d done. I spent eight hours down there—until someone came looking to replace me in the morning.”

  I know this, of course. Ian Cornwell had been cleared for a lot of reasons, the biggest being that he was only a twenty-two-year-old research intern with no record. He simply didn’t have the brains or experience to pull off this heist. Still, the FBI kept surveillance on him. I, too, had Kabir go through his bank records to see whether a late windfall came into his life. I found none. He seems clean. And yet.

  “I want you to take a look at these photographs.”

  I slide the four photographs across the table toward him. The first two are blown up from the famous photograph of the Jane Street Six. One is of Ry Strauss. The other is Arlo Sugarman. The next two are the same photographs but using a new age-progression software program, so both Strauss and Sugarman look some twenty years older—in their early forties—as they would have at the time of the art heist.

  Ian Cornwell looks at the images. Then he looks up at me. “Are you kidding?”

  “What?”

  “That’s Ry Strauss and Arlo Sugarman,” he says. “You think they—”

  “Do you?”

  Ian Cornwell looks back down and seems to be studying the photographs with renewed vigor. I watch him closely. I need to gauge a reaction, and despite what you may read, no man is an open book. Still, I see something going on behind the eyes—or at least I imagine that I do.

  “Hold on a second,” he says.

  He reaches into a cabinet near the bookshelf and pulls out a black Sharpie pen. He gestures toward the photographs. “Do you mind?”

  “Be my guest.”

  He carefully draws mustaches on the male faces. When he’s satisfied, he straightens up and then tilts his head, as though he is an artist studying his handiwork. I don’t look at the photographs. I keep my focus on his face.

  I don’t like what I see.

  “I couldn’t swear one way or the other,” he pronounces after he’s taken some more time, “but it is certainly possible.”

  I say nothing.

  “Is there anything else, Mr. Lockwood?”

  “Just the statute of limitations,” I say.

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s up.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “So if you had something to do with the robbery, you couldn’t be prosecuted. If you, for example, gave the thieves some inside information—if you were an accessory of some sort—it’s been over twenty years. The statute of limitations for this type of offense in Pennsylvania is only five years. In short, you’re in the clear, Professor Cornwell.”

  He frowns. “Clear for what?”

  “For the Lincoln assassination,” I say.

  “What?”

  I shake my head. “Now do you see my issue with you?”

  “What are you talking—?”

  “You just said ‘clear for what?’ when it is so obvious that I am referring to the art heist.” I mimic him and repeat: “‘Clear for what?’ It’s overkill, Ian. It’s suspicious behavior. Come to think of it, everything about your testimony is suspicious.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “For example, the two robbers disguised as police officers.”

  “What about them?”

  “That’s precisely what happened in Boston during the Gardner Museum heist. Two men, same heights you describe, same build, same fake mustaches, same claim of needing to investigate a disturbance.”

  “You find that odd?” he counters.

  “I do, yes.”

  “But the FBI believed that it was the same MO.”

  “MO?”

  “Method of Operation.”

  “Yes, I’m aware what the term means, thank you.”

  “Well, that’s why there are similarities, Mr. Lockwood. The theory is that the robberies were done by the same team.”

  “Or,” I say, “that someone, perhaps you, wanted us to believe that. And a ‘disturbance’? Really? Late at night in that closed building across the green? You were working there. Did you hear a disturbance?”

  “Well, no.”

  “No,” I repeat. “Did you report one? Also: no. Yet you just unlocked the door to these two men with fake mustaches. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  “I thought they were police officers.”

  “Did they have a police car?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “And that’s another thing. There was working CCTV on the campus entrance and exits. Yet no one saw two men dressed as police officers that night.”

  This is a lie—the campus didn’t have that kind of surveillance back then—but it’s a lie that draws blood.

  “I’ve had enough,” Ian Cornwell snaps, rising to his feet. “I don’t care who you are—”

  “Shh.”

  “Excuse me? Did you just…?”

  I stare him down. If you want to change someone’s behavior, remember this and this only: Human beings always do what is in their self-interest. Always. That’s the sole motivator. People only do the “right thing” when it suits those interests. Yes, that is cynical, but it is also true. If you want to change minds, the secret is not being thoughtful or respectful or conciliatory or presenting cogent indisputable facts to show that said mind is wrong. And for those truly in the naïve camp, the secret is not trying to appeal to our bett
er angels or “humanity.” None of that works. The only way to change someone’s opinion is to make them believe that siding with you is in their best interest. Period. The end.

  I know what you’re thinking: I’m too lovely a creature to be this cynical. But stay with me on this.

  “Here is my proposal,” I say to Professor Cornwell. “You tell me the truth about what happened that night—”

  “I have told—”

  “Shh.” I put my index finger to my lips. “Listen and save yourself. You tell me the truth. The full truth. Just me. In return, I promise that it never leaves this room. I will tell no one. Not a soul. There will be no repercussions. I don’t care whether the Picasso is hanging above your toilet or if you burned it for kindling. I don’t care if you were the mastermind or a pawn. Do you see what I’m offering you, Professor? The beauty of it? The chance at freedom? You simply tell me the truth—and suddenly the burden is gone. Not only that, but you have an ally for life. A grateful, powerful ally. An ally who can get you promoted or fund whatever academic—and I mean that word in two ways—dream project you have set your heart upon.”

  Carrot done. Now it’s stick time. I lower my voice, so he has to strain to hear. Strain he does.

  “But if you choose not to accept my generous offer, I begin to dig into your life. Really dig. You probably feel confident. After all, the FBI turned up nothing twenty-four years ago. You feel secure in your lie. But that security is now an illusion. The Vermeer is back. There is at least one dead body connected to it. The FBI will revisit the theft now with vigor, yes, but more important to your world, I will do what law enforcement cannot. I will build upon what they do, and using my resources, I will raise that intensity—aimed in your direction—to the tenth power. Do you understand?”

  He says nothing.

  Time to toss the lifeline.

  “This is your chance, Professor Cornwell—your chance to end the turmoil and deceptions that have haunted you for over twenty years. This is your chance to unburden yourself. This is your chance, Professor, and if you don’t take it, I pity you and all those Cornwells who have come before and after you.”

  I don’t bow as I finish, though I feel perhaps that I should.

  As I wait for his reply, as I gaze out the window and onto the green where my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all roamed as young men, a curious thought enters my brain, distracting me, pulling me out of this moment.

  I’m thinking about Uncle Aldrich bucking family tradition by not coming here.

  Why am I thinking about that? I don’t know. But it’s niggling at me.

  I hear a chime and turn toward the sound. There is a grandfather clock in the far corner signaling the quarter hour. The door to the office bursts open, and students flow in with backpacks and expected post-lunch cacophony. Ian Cornwell says to me, “You’re wrong about me. There is nothing.”

  He shakes off the stunned look and gives the entering students a beatific smile. I can see that he is at home here. I can see that he is happy and that he is a beloved teacher. I can see that he is good at his job.

  But mostly, I can see that he is lying to me.

  CHAPTER 17

  My father is asleep when I get back to Lockwood.

  I debate waking him—I need to ask him about his visiting his brother the night before Aldrich’s murder—but Nigel Duncan warns me that he is medicated and will be unresponsive. So be it. Perhaps it is best if I learn more before I confront my father. I am also now on a tight schedule. The branch manager at the Bank of Manhattan has agreed to see me in ninety minutes.

  Nigel walks me to the helicopter. “What are you trying to find?” he asks me.

  “Should I dramatically pause, spin toward you, and then exclaim, ‘The truth, dammit’?”

  Nigel shakes his head. “You’re a funny guy, Win.”

  The helicopter gets me back to Chelsea in time. As Magda drives me toward the Upper West Side branch of the bank, I pick up the tail. It’s a black Lincoln Town Car. The same car had been following me this morning. Amateurs. I’m almost insulted that they aren’t trying harder.

  “Small change of plans,” I tell Magda.

  “Oh?”

  “Kindly swing by the office on Park Avenue before we head up to the bank.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  I am indeed. My next step isn’t complicated. The crosstown traffic is mercifully light. When we arrive at the Lock-Horne Building, Magda moves the car to my usual drop-off point. She puts the car in park.

  “Don’t get out,” I say.

  I use the camera function on my iPhone to watch behind me. The black Lincoln Town Car is three cars back, double-parked. Such amateurs. I wait. This won’t take long. I see Kabir sneaking up behind the Lincoln. He stops behind it and bends down as though to tie his shoe. He’s not. He’s placing a magnetic GPS under the bumper.

  Like I said, this isn’t complicated.

  Kabir rises, nods to let me know the tracker is secure on the Lincoln’s bumper, and heads back the other way.

  “Okay,” I tell Magda. “We can proceed.”

  I call Kabir as we head uptown. He will keep an eye on the car. “I’ll also run the license plate,” he tells me. I thank him and hang up. As we approach the bank, I add up the pros and cons of losing the tail—it wouldn’t be difficult—and decide that I would rather not tip them off. Let them see me go into the branch of a bank on the Upper West Side.

  So what?

  Five minutes later, I am in a glass-enclosed office that looks out over the main floor. The bank itself is a lovely old building on Broadway and Seventy-Fourth Street. Way back when, this very structure was, well, a bank, from the days when banks were cathedral-like and awe-inspiring, as opposed to today’s storefronts that have all the warmth of a motel-chain lobby. This branch still has the marble columns, the chandeliers, the oak wood teller stations, the giant round safe door. It is one of the few of said buildings that haven’t been converted into a party space or upscale dining facility.

  The bank manager’s name, which is on her desk plate, is Jill Garrity. Her hair is pulled back into a bun so tight I worry her scalp might bleed. She wears horned-rim glasses. The collar of her white blouse is stiff enough to take out an eye.

  “It’s wonderful to meet you, Mr. Lockwood.”

  We do a lot of business with the bank. She hopes that my visit means more. I don’t disabuse her of this notion, but time is a-wasting. I tell her I need a favor. She leans in, anxious to please. I ask her about the bank robbery.

  “There isn’t much to tell,” she says.

  “Was it a stickup? Was it armed?”

  “Oh no no. It was after hours. They broke in at two in the morning.”

  This surprises me. “How?”

  She starts fiddling with the ring on her hand. “I don’t mean to be rude—”

  “Then don’t be.”

  She startles up at my interruption. I hold her gaze.

  “Tell me about the robbery.”

  It takes a second or two, but we both know where this will go. “One of our guards was in on it. His record was clean—we did a thorough background check—but his sister’s husband was somehow involved with the mob. I really don’t know the details.”

  “How much money did they take?”

  “Very little,” Jill Garrity says a little too defensively. “As you are probably aware, most branches don’t keep that much cash on hand. If your worry, Mr. Lockwood, involves stolen cash, none of our clients were affected in terms of their financial portfolios.”

  I had figured this. What I couldn’t figure out was why Ry Strauss would have been upset by the robbery. It could have been his paranoia, his imagination, but it feels as though it had to be something more.

  And why does Ms. Garrity still look as though she’s hiding something?

  “Financial portfolios,” I repeat.

  “Pardon?”

  “You said your clients weren’t affected in terms of financ
ial portfolios.”

  She twists the ring some more.

  “So how were they affected?”

  She leans back. “I assume the robbers came for cash. I mean, that makes the most sense. But when they saw that wasn’t going to happen, they went for the next best thing.”

  “That being?”

  “This is an old building. So downstairs, in the basement? We still have safe deposit boxes.”

  I can almost hear something in my brain go click. “They broke into them?”

  “Yes.”

  “All, many, or a select few?”

  “Almost all.”

  So not specifically targeted. “Have you notified your clients?”

  “It’s…complicated. We are doing our best. Do you know much about safe deposit boxes?”

  “I know that I would never use one,” I say.

  She pulls back at first, but then she settles into a nod. “We don’t have them in newer branches. Truthfully, they are a headache. Expensive to build and maintain, small profit margin, they take up too much space…and there are often problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “People store their valuables—jewelry, paperwork, birth certificates, contracts, passports, deeds, coin or stamp collections. But sometimes, well, they forget. They’ll come in, they’ll open their box, and suddenly they’ll start yelling that a valuable diamond necklace is missing. Usually they just forgot they took it out. Sometimes it’s outright fraud.”

  “Claim something was stolen that they never put in the box in the first place.”

  “Exactly. And sometimes, rarely, we mess up and it’s our fault. Very rarely.”

  “How would you mess up?”

  “If a client stops paying for their box, we have to evict them. We give many warnings, of course, but if they don’t pay, we drill open the box and send the contents to our main branch downtown. One time, we drilled the wrong box. The man came in, opened his box, and all his belongings were gone.”

  It is starting to make sense. “And when you have a real break-in like this?”