“Hey, how’re you doin’?” Will had asked the kid while sprouting a big southern smile on his chiseled face. “How much ya weigh there, Mark?”
“One forty,” Mark answered suspiciously as he struggled to make eye contact with the boy towering over him.
“Well, I register at two twenty-five in my shorts. You sure you want my heavy ass a couple of feet over your head on that rickety old bunk bed?”
Mark had sighed deeply, wordlessly ceded his claim, and the pecking order was thus permanently established.
They fell into the random chaotic conversation of reunionites, excavating memories, laughing at embarrassments, dredging up indiscretions and foibles. The two women were their audience, their excuse for exposition and elaboration. Zeckendorf and Alex, who had remained fast friends, acted as emcees, ping-ponging the banter like a couple of stand-ups extracting laughs at a comedy club. Will wasn’t as fast with a quip but his quiet, slowly spoken recollections of their dysfunctional year had them rapt. Only Mark was quiet, politely smiling when they laughed, drinking his beer and picking at his Asian fusion food. Zeckendorf’s wife had been tasked by her husband to snap pictures, and she obliged by circling the table, posing them and flashing.
Freshman roommate groups are like an unstable chemical compound. As soon as the environment changes, the bonds break and the molecules fly apart. In sophomore year Will went to Adams House to room with other football players, Zeckendorf and Alex kept together and went to Leverett House, and Mark got a single at Currier. Will occasionally saw Zeckendorf in a government class, but they all basically disappeared into their own worlds. After graduation, Zeckendorf and Alex stayed in Boston and the two of them reached out to Will from time to time, usually triggered by reading about him in the papers or catching him on TV. None of them spent a moment thinking about Mark. He faded away, and had it not been for Zeckendorf’s sense of occasion and Mark’s inclusion of his gmail address in the reunion book, he would have remained a piece of the past to them.
Alex was loudly going on about some freshman escapade involving twins from Lesley College, a night that allegedly set him on a lifelong path of gynecology, when his date shifted the conversation to Will. Alex’s increasingly tipsy clowning was wearing on her and she kept glancing at the large sandy-haired man who was steadily drinking scotch across from her, seemingly without inebriation. “So how did you get involved with the FBI?” the model asked him before Alex could launch into another tale about himself.
“Well, I wasn’t good enough at football to go pro.”
“No, really.” She seemed genuinely interested.
“I don’t know,” Will answered softly. “I didn’t have a whole lot of direction after I graduated. My buddies here knew what they wanted: Alex and med school, Zeck and law school, Mark had grad school at MIT, right?” Mark nodded. “I spent a few years knocking around back in Florida, doing some teaching and coaching and then a position opened up in a county sheriff’s office down there.”
“Your father was in law enforcement,” Zeckendorf recalled.
“Deputy sheriff in Panama City.”
“Is he still alive?” Zeckendorf’s wife asked.
“No, he passed a long time ago.” He had a swallow of scotch. “I guess it was in my blood and the path of least resistance and all that so I went with it. After a while it made the chief uncomfortable that he had a smart-ass Harvard dude as a deputy and he had me apply to Quantico to get me the hell out of there. That was it, and in the blink of an eye I’m staring retirement in the face.”
“When do you hit your twenty?” Zeckendorf asked.
“Little over two years.”
“Then what?”
“Other than fishing, I don’t have a clue.”
Alex was busily pouring another bottle of wine. “Do you have any idea how famous this asshole is?” he asked his date.
She bit. “No, how famous are you?”
“I’m not.”
“Bullshit!” Alex exclaimed. “Our man here is like the most successful serial killer profiler in the history of the FBI!”
“No, no, that’s certainly not true,” Will strongly demurred.
“How many have you caught over the years?” Zeckendorf asked.
“I don’t know. A few, I guess.”
“A few! That’s like saying I’ve done a few pelvic exams,” Alex exclaimed. “They say you’re the man—infallible.”
“I think you’re referring to the Pope.”
“C’mon, I read somewhere you can psychoanalyze someone in under a half a minute.”
“I don’t need that long to figure you out, buddy, but seriously, you shouldn’t believe everything you read.”
Alex nudged his date. “Take my word for it—watch out for this guy. He’s a phenom.”
Will was anxious to change the subject. His career had taken a few nonsuperlative turns, and he didn’t feel much like dwelling on past glories. “I guess we’ve all done pretty well considering our shaky start, Zeck’s a big-time corporate lawyer, Alex is a professor of medicine…God help us, but let’s talk about Mark here. What have you been up to all these years?”
Before Mark could wet his lips for a reply, Alex pounced, slipping into his ancient role as torturer of the geek. “Yeah, let’s hear it. Shackleton is probably some kind of dot-com billionaire with his own 737 and a basketball team. Did you go on to invent the cell phone or something like that? I mean you were always writing stuff in that notebook of yours, always with the closed bedroom door. What were you doing in there, sport, besides going through back issues of Playboy and boxes of Kleenex?”
Will and Zeckendorf couldn’t suppress a yuk because back then the kid always did seem to buy a whole lot of Kleenex. But straightaway Will felt a pang of guilt when Mark impaled him with a barbed et tu, Brute? kind of look.
“I’m in computer security,” Mark half whispered into his plate. “Unfortunately, I’m not a billionaire.” He looked up and added hopefully, “I also do some writing on the side.”
“You work at a company?” Will asked politely, trying to redeem himself.
“I worked for a few of them but now I’m like you, I guess. I work for the government.”
“Really. Where?”
“Nevada.”
“You live in Vegas, right?” Zeckendorf said.
Mark nodded, clearly disappointed no one had keyed onto his comment about writing.
“Which branch?” Will asked, and when his reply was a mute stare, he added, “Of the government?”
Mark’s angular Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. “It’s a lab. It’s kind of classified.”
“Shack’s got a secret!” Alex shouted gleefully. “Give him another drink! Loosen his lips!”
Zeckendorf looked fascinated. “Come on, Mark, can’t you tell us something about it?”
“Sorry.”
Alex leaned in. “I bet a certain someone from the FBI could find out what you’re up to.”
“I don’t think so,” Mark replied with a dram of smugness.
Zeckendorf wouldn’t let it go and thought out loud, “Nevada, Nevada—the only secret government lab I’ve ever heard of in Nevada is out in the desert…at what’s called…Area 51?” He waited for a denial but got a good long poker face instead. “Tell me you don’t work at Area 51!”
Mark hesitated then said slyly, “I can’t tell you that.”
“Wow,” the model said, impressed. “Isn’t that where they study UFOs and things like that?”
Mark smiled like the Mona Lisa, enigmatically.
“If he told you, he’d have to kill you,” Will said.
Mark vigorously shook his head, his eyes lowered and turning humorless. There was a reedy dryness in his throat that Will found disquieting. “No. If I told you, other people would kill you.”
MAY 22, 2009
STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK
Consuela Lopez was worn-out and in pain. She was at the stern of the Staten Island ferry, sitting at her u
sual home-bound spot near the exit so she could disembark quickly. If she missed the 10:45 P.M. number 51 bus, she had a long wait at the bus station at St. George Terminal for the next one. The nine-thousand-horsepower diesel engines sent vibrations through her slight body, making her sleepy, but she was too suspicious of her fellow passengers to close her eyes lest her pocketbook disappear.
She propped her swollen left ankle on the plastic bench but rested her heel on a newspaper. Putting her shoe directly on the bench would be rude and disrespectful. She had sprained her ankle when she tripped on her own vacuum cleaner cord. She was an office cleaner in lower Manhattan and this was the end of a long day and a long week. It was a blessing that the accident happened on a Friday so she’d have the weekend to recover. She couldn’t afford to miss a day of work and prayed that she would be fine by Monday. If she was still in pain on Saturday night, she would go to early mass on Sunday and beg the Virgin Mary to help her heal quickly. She also wanted to show Father Rochas the odd postcard she had received and allay her fears about it.
Consuela was a plain-looking woman who spoke little English, but she was young and had a nice figure, and so was always on guard against advances. A few rows away, facing her, an Hispanic youth in a gray sweatshirt kept smiling at her, and although she was initially uncomfortable, something about his white teeth and animated eyes induced her to give him a polite smile in return. That was all it took. He introduced himself and spent the last ten minutes of the journey seated beside her, sympathizing with her injury.
When the ferry docked she limped off, resisting his offer of support. He attentively followed a few paces behind even though she was moving at a turtle’s pace. He offered her a ride home but she declined—it was out of the question. But since the ferry was a few minutes late and her egress was so slow, she missed her bus and reconsidered. He seemed like a nice guy. He was funny and respectful. She accepted, and when he left to get his car from the parking garage, she crossed herself for insurance.
As they neared the turnoff to her house on Fingerboard Road, his mood hardened and she became worried. The worry turned to fear as he sped past her street and ignored her protestations. He kept driving mutely on Bay Street until he made a hard left, heading for the Arthur Von Briesen Park.
At the end of the dark road she was crying and he was shouting and waving a folding knife. He forced her out of the car and pulled her by the arm, threatening to hurt her if she called out. He no longer cared about her sore ankle. He pulled her at running speed through the bushes toward the water. She winced in pain but was too frightened to make a noise.
The dark massive superstructure of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was ahead of them, like some sort of malevolent presence. There wasn’t a soul in sight. In a wooded clearing, he threw her onto the ground and harshly pulled her pocketbook from her grasp. She started sobbing and he told her to shut up. He rifled through her belongings and pocketed the few dollars she had. Then he found the plain white postcard addressed to her with a hand-drawn picture of a coffin and the date, May 22, 2009. He looked at it and smiled sadistically.
“Usted me piensa le envió esto?” he asked. Do you think I sent you this?
“No sé,” she sobbed, shaking her head.
“Bien, le estoy enviando esto,” he said, laughing and un-buckling his belt. Well, I’m sending you this.
JUNE 10, 2009
NEW YORK CITY
Will assumed she’d still be gone, and his suspicions were confirmed the second he opened the door and dropped his roller bag and briefcase.
The apartment remained in its pre-Jennifer state. The scented candles. Gone. The place mats on the dining room table. Gone. The frilly throw pillows. Gone. Her clothes, shoes, cosmetics, toothbrush. Gone. He finished his whirlwind tour of the one bedroom layout and opened the refrigerator door. Even those stupid bottles of vitamin water. Gone.
He had completed a two-day out-of-town course in sensitivity training mandated at his last performance review. If she had unexpectedly returned, he would have tried out some new techniques on her, but Jennifer was still—gone.
He loosened his tie, kicked off his shoes, and opened the small liquor cabinet under the TV set. Her envelope was tucked under his bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, the same place he had found it the day she did a runner on him. On it, she had written Fuck You in her distinctive feminine scrawl. He poured a large one, propped his feet on the coffee table, and for old times’ sake reread the letter that revealed things about himself he already knew. A clatter distracted him midway through, a framed picture toppled by his big toe. Zeckendorf had sent it: the freshman roommates at their reunion the previous summer. Another year—gone.
An hour later, hazy with booze, he was flooded with one of Jennifer’s sentiments: you are flawed beyond repair.
Flawed beyond repair, he thought. An interesting concept. Unfixable. Unredeemable. No chance for rehabilitation or meaningful improvement.
He switched on the Mets game and fell asleep on the sofa.
Flawed or not, he was at his desk by 8:00 A.M. the next morning, digging through his Outlook in-box. He banged out a few replies then sent an e-mail to his supervisor, Sue Sanchez, thanking her for having the managerial prowess and foresight to recommend him for the seminar he had just attended. His sensitivity had increased about forty-seven percent, he reckoned, and he expected she would see immediate and measurable results. He signed it, Sensitively, Will, and clicked Send.
In thirty seconds his phone rang. Sanchez’s line.
“Welcome home, Will,” she said, oozing treacle.
“Great to be back, Susan,” he said, his southern accent flattened by all the years spent away from the Florida panhandle.
“Why don’t you come and see me, okay?”
“When would be good for you, Susan?” he asked earnestly.
“Now!” She hung up.
She was sitting behind his old desk in his old office, which had a nice view of the Statue of Liberty thanks to Mohammed Atta, but that didn’t irritate him as much as the puckered expression on her taut olive face. Sanchez was an obsessive exerciser who read service manuals and management self-help books while she worked out. She always appealed to him physically, but that sour mug and nasal officious tone with its Latina twang doused his interest.
Hastily, she said, “Sit. We need to have a chat, Will.”
“Susan, if you’re planning on chewing me out, I’m prepared to handle it professionally. Rule number six—or was it number four?: ‘when you feel you are being provoked, do not act precipitously. Stop and consider the consequences of your actions, then choose your words carefully, respectful of the reactions of the person or persons who have challenged you.’ Pretty good, huh? I got a certificate.” He smiled and folded his hands across his nascent paunch.
“I’m so not in the mood for your BS today,” she said wearily. “I’ve got a problem and I need you to help me solve it.” Management-speak for: you’re about to get shafted.
“For you? Anything. As long as it doesn’t involve nudity or mess up my last fourteen months.”
She sighed, then paused, giving Will the impression she was taking rule number four or six to heart. He was aware that she considered him her number one problem child. Everyone in the office knew the score:
Will Piper. Forty-eight, nine years Sanchez’s senior. Formerly her boss, before getting busted from his management grade back to Special Agent. Formerly breath-catchingly handsome, a six-plus-footer with I-beam shoulders, electric-blue eyes, and boyishly rumpled sandy hair, before alcohol and inactivity gave his flesh the consistency and pallor of rising bread dough. Formerly a hotshot, before becoming a glib pain-in-the-ass clock-watcher.
She just spat it out. “John Mueller had a stroke two days ago. The doctors say he’s going to recover but he’ll be on medical leave. His absence, particularly now, is a problem for the office. Benjamin, Ronald, and I have discussed this.”
Will marveled at the news. “Mueller? He’s younge
r than you are! Fricking marathon runner. How the hell did he have a stroke?”
“He had a hole in his heart no one picked up before,” she said. “A small blood clot from his leg floated through and went up to his brain. That’s what I was told. Pretty scary how that could happen.”
Will loathed Mueller. Smug, wiry shithead. Everything by the book. Totally insufferable, the SOB still made snarky comments to his face about his blow-up—insulated, the bastard supposed, by his leper status. Hope he walks and talks like a retard for the rest of his life, was the first notion that came to mind. “Christ, that’s too bad,” he said instead.
“We need you to take the Doomsday case.”
It took almost supernatural strength to prevent himself from telling her to screw herself.
It should have been his case from the start. In fact it was nothing short of outrageous that it hadn’t been offered to him the day it hit the office. Here he was, one of the most accomplished serial killing experts in the Bureau’s recent history, passed over for a marquee case right in his jurisdiction. It was a measure of how damaged his career was, he supposed. At the time, the snub stung like hell, but he’d gotten over it quickly enough and come to believe he had dodged a bullet.
He was on the homestretch. Retirement was like a glistening watery mirage in the desert, just out of reach. He was done with ambition and striving, he was done with office politics, he was done with murders and death. He was tired and lonely and stuck in a city he disliked. He wanted to go home. With a pension.
He chewed on the bad piece of news. Doomsday had rapidly become the office’s highest profile case, the kind that demanded an intensity he hadn’t brought to the table in years. Long days and blown weekends weren’t the issue. Thanks to Jennifer, he had all the time in the world. The problem was in the mirror, because—as he would tell anyone who asked—he simply no longer gave a damn. You needed raging ambition to solve a serial killing case, and that flame had long ago sputtered and died. Luck was important too, but in his experience, you succeeded by busting your hump and creating the environment for luck to do its capricious thing.
Secret of the Seventh Sons Page 2
