by Thomas Kies
I smiled.
Two bodies found in Graveyard Bay.
There’s no way I’d let that be my headline, but Bill was right. It would add a little color to the story.
Before I could say anything, my landline rang. Caller ID told me it was Mike Dillon. “Sorry, Bill, I’ve got to take this. I might use that Graveyard Bay thing in my story.”
He gave me a thumbs-up and left my cube.
“Hey, Mike, what’s up?”
“I thought I’d let you know that we have a positive ID on one of the victims.”
I took another look at the clock. “That didn’t take you long.”
“You were right. He was identified by his wife. It’s Judge Niles Preston.”
I knew Preston from covering the courthouse. I liked him. He was in his early sixties and had been on the bench for twenty years. Preston had the reputation for being tough but fair, and often during sentencing he’d say something that would make a decent quote for a story. I thought he enjoyed seeing his name in print. I’d do some more background checking on him but recalled that he was a gourmand, enjoying extravagant dinners and fine wines and expensive scotch. He also enjoyed art, foreign films, and exotic vacations.
The judge liked nice things, made glaringly obvious by his young trophy wife.
I couldn’t recall what happened to his first wife, but everyone was surprised when the judge started dating this one and was shocked when they got married. Eva Preston was easily thirty years younger than the judge.
And drop-dead supermodel gorgeous.
The judge was a good-looking guy, but he was no George Clooney and, let’s be honest, I’d say he was past his sell-by date.
“How about the Jane Doe?”
I heard Mike hesitate. “We don’t know who she is yet. We asked Eva Preston if she could identify her. Mrs. Preston looked at the body but said she’d never seen her before. I hated to be the one to tell the judge’s wife that her husband had been murdered alongside an unknown female.” Mike stopped talking, but I could feel that he had more to say. He continued. “Then Mrs. Preston told me that she thought her husband might have been having an affair.”
Would the judge have cheated on his gorgeous wife? Really?
I glanced up and saw Robert Vogel, briefcase in hand, walking up the hallway from the main entrance, striding between the five-foot-high dividers that separated the editorial department and advertising. He was a little over six feet tall and thin to the point of being nearly skeletal. When he walked, he leaned slightly forward as if pressing against a stiff wind. He had on a light-blue shirt, red tie, gray suit, and carried his beige trench coat over his arm. Vogel had red-rimmed brown eyes that peered through wire-frame glasses. His cheeks were drawn and covered by a brown-and-gray goatee and mustache.
He was heading for Ben’s office, where he’d been conducting his interviews. This would be his third day in a row at deciding the fate of Post employees.
I turned my attention back to Mike. “Was the Jane Doe wearing a wedding ring?”
“No.”
I tapped the top of my desk with my pen. “Do you think Preston and this woman were having an affair?”
“Off the record?”
“Sure.”
“Off the record, Niles Preston had an eye for the ladies. Maybe he pissed off the wrong husband. But more than likely, if I had to take a guess, I’d bet someone he’d sent to jail came back for revenge. Remember that guy who escaped from the Lockport Correctional Facility two weeks ago?”
I watched as Robert Vogel knocked on Ben’s door. It opened, and Ben ushered the Galley representative in, closing the door behind them. I glanced back at the clock on my computer. Then I Googled “Lockport Correctional Facility Escape.”
Up popped a mug shot of Merlin James Finn dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Scalp cleanly shaven, dark eyes under heavy brows. He had a thin-lipped expression, more a snarl than a smile, square jaw, and pronounced ears with heavy lobes. Most eye-catching, however, were a pair of tiny tattoos, one on each cheekbone. On the left side of his face were two crossed hammers superimposed over a cogwheel. The other was the head of a pit bull.
White supremacist symbols.
Mug shots are never complimentary, but this guy looked like a true badass.
I scanned the story. Merlin Finn had somehow managed to punch through a concrete wall, climb up through a narrow air vent using ripped bedsheets as rope, and then impossibly cut through four layers of metal grating to reach the roof. He climbed down the outside of the building, chopped through the perimeter fence, and disappeared into the night.
According to the news story posted by the New Haven Register online, he was six foot eight, weighed two-eighty pounds, and worked out every day in the prison gym. He was still at large and considered extremely dangerous.
He certainly could be the guy wearing the leather mask in the video.
I whistled. “You think it’s Merlin Finn?”
I heard Mike take a breath. “Don’t know. Judge Preston was the one who sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences. Clearly, Finn had motive.”
“And opportunity?”
Mike didn’t answer for a moment. “We don’t know where he is.”
“No chance the killer was Bogdan Tolbonov?”
I could almost hear Mike smiling over the phone. “What a surprise. Now why do you think it was Tolbonov?”
“Because the leather mask guy in the video is Bogdan Tolbonov-huge.”
“So is Merlin Finn.”
It was my turn to hesitate, realizing how weak my theory was.
“Look, Genie, you’re fixated on the Tolbonov brothers. Let it go. State and federal investigators are all over those guys. They can’t breathe, let alone commit any more crimes. Leave it to the FBI.”
Mike was right, of course. Ever since I’d gotten a taste of how evil the two men—Valentin and Bogdan Tolbonov—were and how extensive their web of criminal activities was, I wanted to see them behind bars.
Or dead.
He was also correct when he advised me to let it go. They were dangerous men. “You’re right, Mike. I’ll leave it to the experts. Hey, thanks for the heads-up on the ID. How about I repay you with a drink sometime?”
I heard his nervous silence. One of the reasons Mike had kicked me to the curb had been my excessive drinking. The quiet was awkward.
Poor Mike. I must have spooked him.
I broke the silence. “Or coffee. We can do coffee.”
Finally, he answered. “Yeah, sure, I’d like that, when the time’s right.”
Hanging up, I finished reading about Merlin Finn. He’d headed up a crew of biker-skinhead supremacists who trafficked in drugs, guns, and prostitutes. They’d had a strong influence in western Massachusetts, Connecticut, Long Island, and Westchester County, New York. The gang seemed to go dormant after Finn was arrested for the murders of two rival gang members, then convicted and sentenced to the Lockport Correctional Facility.
Glancing back at the clock and seeing I still had a few minutes, I punched up Niles Preston’s name. Sixty-two years old at the time of death, he’d come straight out of law school in his twenties and founded his own law practice in Stamford. When he was thirty-two, he formed a partnership with another attorney by the name of Terrance Fuller. At the age of forty, Preston was named a state supreme court judge by the governor.
While still in his early thirties, he married Claudia Hardesty of Greenwich, Connecticut. They never had children. Claudia was killed in a tragic auto accident on I-95 just north of Westport a little over two years ago. Six months after the accident, Preston married Eva Novak, who was twenty-nine at the time.
I called the office of State Supreme Court Justice Donald Whitaker to get a quote. I got his administrative assistant, who was shocked to hear about Judge Preston’s untimely death and
promised to pass along my request. Less than five minutes later I received an email from the Honorable Donald Whitaker. It said simply, “Judge Niles Preston was a judge’s judge. A man who made his district a better place, and as a result, he made the world a better place.”
Finished, I sent the story to Ben, still behind the closed door of his office. When Ben had a chance to edit the piece, he’d have it uploaded onto our website. I’d continue to add to it as I got more facts, right up until we hit our press deadline. I was confident that it would be a six-column headline on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper.
A murdered judge is big news.
Chapter Three
“You’ve worked at Time magazine, the Boston Globe, and the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester.” Robert Vogel glanced up from my résumé and offered up a cold grin, all teeth, no warmth. “That’s a Gannett newspaper, isn’t it?”
I nodded and did my best to smile back. There was a chill in the room, but it didn’t come from the icy wind beating against the office window. I cupped my latte in both hands, wishing I’d taken a minute to heat it up in the lunchroom microwave.
When I first met Vogel earlier in the month, I’d made the mistake of calling him Bob. He was quick to tell me, in a condescending voice, that his name was Robert.
He sniffed and glanced back down at the life story of my career. “You’ve written for the New York Daily News, the Hill, Huffington Post, and for a very short period, Fox News. You’ve worked the crime beat for some very impressive news outlets.” He fixed me in his sight again. “So, Geneva Chase, what god-awful crime did you commit to end up here in this shithole?”
My stomach twisted. “What, the Sheffield Post?”
He nodded and studied me with his unblinking eyes. “Yeah, the Sheffield Post.” It came out more of a sneer than an answer.
I avoided his offending stare and focused instead just above his gray-and-brown mustache, where a cluster of nose hairs peeked out from the entrance of each of his oversized nostrils.
“Well, this is my hometown.”
Really? That’s the best you can do?
Robert flashed me another sour grin. “I think we both know the real reason, don’t we?”
I did, of course. I’d drunk myself out of every other good job I’ve ever had.
I didn’t answer him, but I didn’t lower my eyes either. I wasn’t going to let him see how anxiety was creating an ice ball of fear inside of me.
We sat in Ben Sumner’s office, but once I’d been summoned, Ben had left to go home. Almost daily he abandoned his office to the soulless Robert Vogel.
While Ben had been putting on his coat, he leaned over and murmured into my ear, “Good job on the murders out at the marina. Don’t let this asshole intimidate you, okay?”
Easy for you to say, Ben. You’re bailing with a huge paycheck.
Robert sat at Ben’s desk, the big window behind him overlooking the employee parking lot and the tree line beyond, bordering the Merritt Parkway. With Christmas a week away, the oak and maple trees were denuded, leafless, their black limbs scratching against the steel-gray snow clouds.
Entering Ben’s office, I noticed that the photographs of him sailing in various locales around the world had been removed and packed away in cardboard boxes that sat on the carpet against the wall. The books from his shelves were also missing.
It was as if the life had been sucked out of the room.
Robert picked up a clear plastic cup of iced coffee, took a sip, and placed it back onto the desk. “We have a number of Galley Media employees who have worked with you at other properties. You have a colorful reputation.”
Oh, I know how to party.
He glanced back down at the file in front of him. “Ben assures me that the past is the past. That whatever problems that might have plagued you are in the rearview mirror.”
I nodded but remained silent.
He continued. “You’ve done some very good work here at the Post. I’m trying to match the right people with the right job. I think we both know that your strength lies with being on the street, as a beat reporter, not in-house correcting typos.”
I felt my stomach clench.
“When I tell you what I want to do, know that I’m coming at it from a good place.”
Such bullshit.
I managed to squeak out a reply. “Okay.”
He pulled at his goatee and studied me. “I need you back on the crime beat full time. I’m going to bring in Lorraine Moretti to edit. She’s helped transition a half dozen other editorial departments at properties we’ve acquired. You’ll like her. She knows how to build a team.”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t want to sound mercenary, but what does that do to my salary?”
He nodded as if he understood my trepidation. “Well, as you can well understand, we can’t pay a reporter the same salary as an editor.” He leaned back in Ben’s chair. “However, in the spirit of Christmas, we’ll keep your pay grade the same until the first of January.”
I tried hard to keep my voice steady and not let my instantaneous hatred spill out. “When is Lorraine Moretti’s first day?”
He smiled at me again. “Tomorrow morning. So with all due respect, if you can find another desk in the newsroom to move to, that would be great.”
“Of course.” It came out more of a sarcastic growl than I had intended.
Kiss my ass.
He added, “And it goes without saying that if you can maintain the high standard of professionalism you’ve shown us over the last month, it would be greatly appreciated.”
Kiss my ass twice.
* * *
I spent the rest of the day alternately moving my things from the editor’s cubicle to Zach Meyer’s old desk and editing stories that were still coming through the pipeline.
All while sympathetic eyes in the newsroom were surreptitiously watching me.
The last thing I want is pity.
Zach Meyer had been our city reporter specializing in local and state politics. He’d written for the Post for over twenty years. Once the sale to Galley had been officially announced, he opted to retire. Zach bitched that he didn’t need the bullshit anymore, especially the corporate kind. Checking the drawers of the old gray metal desk, I found that he’d left pencils, paper clips, and a ton of unopened cellophane packages of plastic spoons, forks, and paper napkins—the kind you get when you buy fast-food takeout. He’d never used them.
What did he do, eat everything with his fingers?
When I had a moment, I sat back down in the editor’s cube and took a thumb drive out of my oversized bag. Plugging it into the computer, I opened a file called “Tucker’s Veterinarian Records.”
Tucker is my Yorkshire terrier. When I named this file, I chose the most innocuous title I could think of, something so banal that if I lost the thumb drive or someone stole it, nobody would care to open. Or so I hoped.
Who wants to read about my dog’s stool sample?
Actually, it was a page-by-page photo-recording of a criminal’s notebook.
Last October, a woman killed her sadistic, abusive husband by waiting until he was drunk and passed out, pouring gasoline on him, and lighting a match. The husband, Jim Caviness, had been a low-level enforcer for Wolfline Contracting, a front company that engaged in a dangerous web of illegal activities, including gambling, drugs, guns, extortion, blackmail, prostitution, and sex trafficking. Betsy Caviness lost everything—her house, what little money she had, and her freedom. She was currently serving time at the Hampton Correctional Facility.
More secure than Lockport?
The only thing she owned was her husband’s notebook. A reward for all the drugs and alcohol he’d consumed was a Swiss cheese memory filled with holes and gaps. To keep track of what he was supposed to do next, he kept a neat notebook, filled with cryptic initi
als, dates, places, and tasks.
Valentin Tolbonov, the alleged mastermind behind Wolfline, and his brother, Bogdan, had tried mightily to get that notebook from Betsy. She created a stand-off with the two murderous brothers by sending it to an anonymous third party with instructions that if something bad happened to her, the notebook would be turned over to the police.
Everyone assumed that she had sent it to her attorney.
Nope, I have it hidden in my house, in the freezer in a plastic bag under a pile of ice cubes in the plastic icemaker bin.
Betsy Caviness had sent the notebook to me with the message, “You’ll know what to do with it.”
Truth is, I didn’t. I couldn’t take it to the cops. Even with Betsy Caviness in prison, she’d be dead within twenty-four hours. I couldn’t use it in a news story—same result.
Most of the entries were in weird shorthand, an unfathomable code so that only Jim Caviness knew what the hell he was writing. I could decipher very little of it.
On the computer terminal in the editor’s cube, I scrolled through the copied pages. Cryptic notes with dates and times and an occasional address.
There had been that one that I was able to crack:
Oct 10, 1.am., pu $ TM’s Cad, 113 Edison Ave, Shef, drop @ Ivan’s
That was on page thirty-two. It was also on three, four, five, six, and a dozen other pages, but all with different dates. But it seemed to be the same task—pick up money from someone with the initials T.M. at 113 Edison Avenue, Sheffield, at one o’clock in the morning, and drop it off at Ivan’s, wherever that was. It was a task that Jim Caviness had performed often.
Late in November, I staked out 113 Edison Avenue. It was in a part of Sheffield that had been missed in the gentrification process of the rest of the city. Many of the old Victorian homes on that block had been chopped up into cheap apartments while others were dark and empty, their windows covered with boards and graffiti. Yards were strewn with leaves, weeds, fast-food wrappers, and plastic bags. It was rumored that a development company was buying up property in the neighborhood, but nobody seemed sure who it was or what for.
