Vortex

by Catherine Coulter

  Mia took the photos from him, cursed under her breath. She’d hoped, prayed, but she still didn’t think she could identify these men if they were standing right in front of her, waving in her face. At least now she could see the taller man’s outstretched hand more clearly, a large hand with a smattering of dark hair, reaching toward a drink on a side table. The heavy silver link chain around his left wrist was clear enough. She looked more closely. Wait, was he reaching for one of the glasses, or was his hand right above it? She couldn’t tell, but why wouldn’t he reach for a drink that was closer? Would any glass do? No, Serena was close by. The glass had to be hers, had to be.

  She saw the healed tear in his left earlobe, the notch more obvious with Dirk’s enhancements. She leaned down, gave him a big hug, kissed his cheek, knew he’d pulled out all the stops, and so she said, “You’re my hero. What you’ve done is amazing, beyond what I expected.” She lifted a foil-covered pan out of her messenger bag. “Your meatloaf, my man. Defrosted, ready to pop in your oven at 350 for thirty minutes. Mashed potatoes suggested as a pleasing accompaniment.” No need to tell him it had been in her freezer for three weeks. “Really, Dirk, thank you. You’re a genius. And thank Thor.”

  He grabbed the meatloaf, breathed it in through the foil. “Smells like ambrosia, then again”—he gave her a wicked grin to break hearts, if only he knew—“I’m a god, so I deserve it.” He cocked a dark brow at her. “God or not, I’m the one who made out on this deal. And no, I’m not about to let Thor in on my payoff.” He cocked his head, studied her face a moment. “What is this all about, Mia? Why these photos? They’re old, blurry, I mean, look at the technology, maybe eight years out of date. Who are these guys and why are they so important to you?”

  Mia kissed his thin cheek again, breathed in the sandalwood soap he used. “I promise to tell you when I know. Enjoy the meatloaf. Maybe add a stick or two of broccoli, adds nice color.” She would have given him another hug, but he was clutching the meatloaf to his chest like a baby.

  She walked over to Kali Knight, their intern studying journalism at Columbia, and, for the moment, Milo’s gofer. Mia always wanted to cuddle her, she was so small and shy, her blue eyes huge behind her large black-framed glasses. She was the baby in the newsroom, the youngest on staff at only twenty, but she was already their social media guy’s right hand. Benny was all of twenty-six and nabbed Kali whenever Milo gave her a free ten minutes. She’d done an excellent job in a very short time researching Harrington’s life and the Harrington family in Boston. She was as good at online research as any of them, but she had at least five more years of technology tucked under her arm, which made her faster.

  Kali was bent over something at her desk. Mia lightly touched her shoulder. Kali looked up and smiled.

  “Thank you, Kali, the Harrington landing page was perfect. You saved me hours of research.”

  “No problem, Mia. I enjoyed it. The Harringtons, the facts about the family, the jazzy photos, it’s all amazing. And a summer place on Nantucket. They live in a different world. My dad would hate them.”

  “Maybe my dad would, too.” Mia made her way to her desk, put her messenger bag in a drawer, and sat down in her squeaky chair. She laid the two photos on the desk and studied them, traced her finger over their profiles. Truth be told, she couldn’t be sure if the blond guy gesticulating to Serena had anything at all to do with Mr. Notched Ear with his thick silver chain-link bracelet. Who are you? Gail didn’t recognize you, I don’t recognize you. You crashed the rave, didn’t you? You’re both older, too, I think, and you know each other. I’ll bet my new dolphin earrings you do. You were there together to pick out a girl and roofie her, weren’t you? You’ve done that before? Of course you have. I bet you two have a plan in place that works for you. You know the steps to follow, what to do and when to do it. Find a girl both of you like, shouldn’t take you long. I don’t think you wanted to kill Serena, why would you? But this time something went wrong, didn’t it? Is that why you set the fire in the kitchen, so you could get her out of there? You know what, you bastards? I’m going to figure out who you are, you’ll see.

  “What’d you say, Briscoe? Stop garbling your words, speak up, I didn’t hear you.”

  Mia jumped, craned her head around to see her boss, everyone’s boss, Milo Burns, standing beside her desk, arms crossed over his chest. As usual, Milo looked like he’d slept in his trademark khakis and golf shirt—Augusta green today—always short-sleeved, even in this early spring that had dumped truckloads of arctic air on the East Coast, no end in sight. He told everyone he was born bald as an egg, a lie of course; everyone knew he religiously shaved his head. Mia both respected him and liked him because he thrived on off-the-wall ideas, some of them his own, some of them amazingly clever, but he never stinted on praise when one of the staff came up with a winner. And he was a natural debater, could take the other side of any question and have you nodding in agreement before you caught yourself. He lived in the Village with his new wife, a bright young tax attorney from Hong Kong, named Kiki, about Mia’s age. Milo called her Lotus Blossom. She was small, delicate, and firmly in control of her husband. Seeing her holding Milo’s big paw for the first time had made Mia shake her head at what life dished up. Milo loved Chinese food, a good thing since Kiki was a gourmet cook of all things Chinese, her steamed pork buns to die for. He’d brought his own birthday cake to the press room, claimed it was chocolate filled with chunks of crispy fortune cookies, with Hunan icing. No one wanted much to try it when he offered, a smirk on his face.

  He picked up the photos, frowned. “What are these photos? Quality’s crap, we can’t use them, whoever they are. Who are they?”

  Mia gently removed the photos from her boss’s hand.

  “It’s something I’m checking into in my spare time, no worries, Milo. They’re not work related.”

  He gave her the stink eye. “You still have spare time with the deadline I gave you? It’s for your blog, isn’t it? Lucky for you it’s so popular and brings readership to the Guardian. I expect your first five-thousand-word background piece to run in this Sunday’s edition. No flu, no colds, just work.”

  Milo picked up one of the photos again, studied it more closely. He cocked his head. “Hmm. You know, this one guy looks familiar, even though it’s only his profile. Who is he?”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him what she suspected, but no, it was way too soon. “That’s what I don’t know, Milo. If I find out who he is, and what he is, I’ll tell you.”

  He stared at her a moment, ran his hand over his bald head. “So you’re after him about something. Whatever. Come into my office, Briscoe, the yahoos are too noisy out here. I want to hear more about your plans for Harrington. Tell me what you’re planning to do in Boston, who you’re going to see. You’re leaving tomorrow, right?”

  Mia followed her boss into his large glass-windowed office and settled back into what everyone on staff called the electric chair. “To spare you some time, Milo, my plan is to interview everyone from Kali’s landing page I can get to in Boston, and Harrington’s campaign staff here in New York, of course. I hope to talk with the man himself today. And I’d like to make time when up in Boston to head over to Harvard, talk to his professors. I’m thinking about calling his coach at Bennington Prep in Connecticut. Alex Harrington was really into lacrosse, helped win a championship for Bennington Prep. Coaches often remember more about their kids than anyone else.” Like bad habits, suspected bad behavior, drugs, who knew?

  Milo said, “Never played lacrosse, a snooty private school game, my dad always said, not nearly as tough as football.” Milo called up one of Kali’s photos, angled his laptop so both of them could see it. “There he is, good-looking kid. What, about seventeen, eighteen? You can tell he’s going to grow up to be a chick magnet.”

  She pointed. “The kid next to him is his BFF we talked about, name’s Kent Harper.”

  “Yeah, as I told you, he runs his family’s New York br
anch in New York, Harper Strategic Services, huge in insurance. I’m thinking he’s a string to pull too. Maybe you can worm a secret or two out of him.” He studied his photo again. “Kent definitely has the look of the wingman, like Robin to Batman.”

  Mia studied the photo again, slowly nodded. “Thank you, Milo, you just might be right.”

  Milo frowned at her, sat back in his big tufted black chair. “So if you don’t have any more to say, get out of here and find out everything Harrington’s done since he was sucking his thumb and finger-painting the walls of his nursery. I don’t pay you to sit there grinning at me.”

  14

  Sherlock

  Driving to Brickson, New York

  Tuesday afternoon

  Sherlock called Dillon while waiting for Special Agent Kelly Giusti of the New York Field Office to pick her up from the Thirty-Fourth Street helicopter pad in her new white Fiat she called Baby. “I’m here at the helipad. Kelly’s not here yet, probably caught in traffic so I have a few minutes. How’s Sean? What’s happening on the Southern Front?”

  She heard him pause, knew something was going on, waited. He said, “Sean is fine. Actually, I have something interesting involving a CIA operative and the CIA brass. And yes, I won the first round. The operative, Olivia’s her name, is up to her neck in trouble. I’ll know more when we speak tonight. Is it as frigid in New York as here?”

  “More so, I’ll bet, given the cold air whooshing down the long canyons between the tall buildings. I’m bundled to my eyebrows, don’t worry.”

  “I can’t imagine Brickson, New York, is a hotbed of crime, but New York certainly is. You be careful, all right? And call me when you figure out what happened or if you need any help on my end.”

  She grinned into her cell. “Of course I’ll be careful and I’ll keep you posted. Here’s Kelly. Brickson’s roughly an hour east, depending on traffic, so she can give me all the details. Miss me. Talk to you later. Make sure Sean brushes his teeth.”

  Savich laughed and disconnected.

  “Hey, Sherlock! Bless you for coming.”

  After Sherlock stowed her go-bag in Baby’s back seat and quickly climbed in, Kelly fired her up, turned the heat on high. “You ready? Baby loves to let it rip, but since this is business, I’ll keep her law-abiding. There won’t be much traffic, since it’s freezing and only crazy people are out today. And cops. And we don’t need that embarrassment. Listen to that wind, it’s howling louder than a chorus of witches.”

  Once they were out of the worst of Manhattan traffic, of which there wasn’t much, Kelly turned, gave Sherlock a smile. “Thank you again for coming. My SAC, Mr. Zachery—well, of course you know him. He sends his thanks, said to tell Savich hello for him. He, ah, wanted me to tell you you weren’t to feel pressured to find answers to solve this mess.”

  Sherlock groaned. “Thanks loads.”

  Kelly turned, grinned at her. “All right, that was a whopper. We’re all praying you’ll see something everyone missed.” She gave Sherlock a fat smile, then grew serious. “We’re driving directly to the crime scene in Brickson. You know the basics, but let me give you all the details so you’ll know what to expect. As you know, we weren’t involved in this triple murder until four weeks ago. It happened at the house of a Dr. Douglas Madison. He, his wife, Ellen, and a neighbor, a Mr. Stanley La Shea, were shot to death. The local police thought it was a home invasion or a robbery gone bad at first—their jewelry, rings, and wallets were missing, but it didn’t quite add up. They found out Dr. Madison had recently broken off an affair with a local real estate agent, Angela Storin. The same Ms. Storin had reported her Walther PPK stolen two weeks before the murders, and it turns out the bullets were the same caliber as the crime scene bullets, which doesn’t prove anything, but still. We’ve checked the few traffic cams, surveyed the neighbors, but nothing.

  “The Madison house is large, like most of the houses in that neighborhood, the lots big and filled with mature trees. Easy to sneak around, and like I said, we interviewed everyone in a three-block radius of the house. We checked Storin’s cell phone location records, but we haven’t been able to put her near the crime scene.

  “Storin claims she was at home by herself, but I’m as sure as I can be she murdered all of them—Dr. Madison, his wife, and the neighbor. Storin’s been married twice, and both her previous husbands are both dead, probably murdered.

  “Her first husband, Martin Orloff, divorced her six years ago and remarried, died in a hang glider accident while on vacation in Rio with his new wife. It was obvious someone had cut partly through the flight controls, but no one was ever arrested. Angela Storin’s passport records show she was in Brazil at the time, but again, not enough. That case is still open too.

  “Her second husband, Philip Storin, was shot to death in his car three years ago, about a year after he divorced her and moved to Alabama. From Ms. Storin’s credit card records, they were able to show she was in Alabama at that time, too. She’d attended a real estate conference in Huntsville and that was the reason she was even in Alabama. Unfortunately, she had an excellent alibi, a seminar with a dozen other real estate agents. I know in my gut she did it, but I can’t figure out how, no one can. The case is still open.

  “When the local Brickson police discovered all this, they called the FBI in New York City to investigate her as a possible Serial. I’ve worked the case solid for a week now, turning over every rock I can find. I hate to admit it, Sherlock, but I’ve hit a wall; I can’t see my way through to nailing Angela Storin. And I know she’s guilty. I’ve interviewed her, of course, not that she said much; her lawyer did the talking. She simply repeated she was innocent, but she barely kept the smirk behind her eyes. But I saw that smirk, that gleam of ‘I’m smarter than you,’ and she knew I knew, but—” Kelly shrugged. “She did it on purpose, all the while acting like this brave little soldier being tortured by the gestapo. I’ve studied people like her, Sherlock, as have you. Other than the placid façade she never dropped, I still saw the arrogance. And I could see there’s something off about her, something missing, you could say. The lead police detective I spoke to believed that, too, said when he spoke to her she was ‘scary calm,’ utterly emotionless, and expressed surprise he even called her, much less actually came to see her, to question her. Her? And that’s why he was pleased to turn it over to us.

  “She has flummoxed everyone, Sherlock; even the lead detective in Brickson admitted it. He told me he was relieved to hand over the case to the FBI and that I was made the lead.”

  Sherlock said, “So she admitted the affair. Did she admit Dr. Madison had broken it off?”

  “She didn’t deny it, she couldn’t, but added that that sort of affair always fizzles out, no harm no foul, both parties unhurt. But according to Madison’s sister, he said he’d slept with her for about six weeks, but got his act together, realized he loved his wife, and told Storin it was over. When asked about this, Storin said his sister hates her, and we can’t believe anything she says about her or their affair.

  “You’ve seen her photo. Storin’s a plain, frumpy forty-year-old woman who wears low baize pumps, suits in dull colors with no particular style, no makeup, hair that hangs limp. The thing is, behind that plain and proper person she presents to the world, she’s what I said—she’s arrogant, thinks she’s smarter than me, than everyone.

  “She’s recognized as the best upper-end real estate agent in the area. The locals no longer wonder why she presents herself as a dowd, they just shake their heads, call it her shtick.”

  Kelly banged her fist on the steering wheel and apologized to the Fiat. “It really threw me when I first met this prim, plain woman who badly needed a makeover. And all I could think was, how did you land two husbands and a lover? You must be great in bed.” Kelly spurted out a laugh.

  Sherlock repeated slowly, “You sensed something was off with her, Kelly, sensed there was a lot more going on with her than she showed to the world. That’s a powerful fee
ling, and it can be the best clue we’ve got. What interests me is you told me Storin has traveled from New York to Washington dozens of times in the past three years. Planes, trains, automobiles. But you said you didn’t know where she goes, or why.”

  Kelly said, “We do know she took Dr. Madison with her five or six times when they were together, so everyone’s thinking it has to be some kind of convenient hideaway where they wouldn’t be recognized. Of course we examined Dr. Madison’s records, Storin’s as well, but we don’t know where they stayed. Washington, Maryland, Virginia? We don’t know. We’re stuck, Sherlock. We have only a bone-deep knowledge she’s guilty of multiple murders. We have no witnesses, no gun, nothing I can grab on to, nothing to shake it out of her, and believe me, I’ve tried. Her lawyer, Abel Clooney, is a powerhouse, articulate, and he protects Storin, treats her like she’s Mother Teresa. Makes you want to kick his capped teeth off. You’ll meet him.”

  Sherlock laughed. “He’s expensive, I gather?”

  “Costs the moon. She’s the top in her field, lots of substantial commissions from the properties she sells, so she can afford him. I can’t dispute it, she does have a very healthy bank account.”

  Kelly fell silent as she passed a slower SUV.

  Sherlock watched Kelly tap her gloved fingers on Baby’s steering wheel. She said, “I wonder why she murdered the wife and the neighbor? Why didn’t she kill only Dr. Madison?”

  “Differing ideas about that,” Kelly said. “My opinion is Storin hated the wife, decided she was the only stumbling block to true love and had to be removed. Or she believed Dr. Madison betrayed her—that fits with her murdering her two ex-husbands—and the wife was bonus points. Or she wanted to murder them both. You’ll look, tell me what you think. But it’s obvious Mrs. Madison was shot first.