He struck a kitchen match and lit his cigarette, exhaled a plume of smoke, and spit a tobacco shred from his lip. Ruth rolled her eyes, got up and opened a window.
Agnes entered and placed a tray with five cups, a pot of coffee, creamer, sugar, and spoons on the table. She left and returned with another tray with half a dozen limp Danish, left and returned a third time with a telephone, which she plugged into the wall-jack.
“Thank you, Miss…?” Dillon said, and gave her one of his snaggle-toothed smiles.
“Ewalt. Agnes Ewalt,” Agnes twittered and left.
“Okay, Kenny, what have you got?” he shot at the FBI man.
Kenny began a long and technical report, which Dillon interrupted after a minute.
“Never mind that crap,” he said. “Just tell me the big stuff. Who are these people and what do they want?”
“They call themselves the New Jihad and they want fifty million dollars,” Kenny replied.
“I know all that, man,” Dillon barked, “but who, what, where, can you give me some specifics?”
Kenny flushed. Ike could not tell if it was from anger or embarrassment.
“Well, sir, as nearly as we can make it out, they are a terrorist group, a splinter of what is left of Al Qaida, the same bunch that tried to break into the library in New York. They are holding your pictures for ransom. You are to go on local television tomorrow night and read a prepared statement denouncing yourself and your militaristic industrialist friends, apologize for a variety of so-called crimes, and agree to pay fifty million dollars in reparations to them.” Kenny recited his piece like a well-rehearsed schoolboy.
“Good Lord, son, I know all that, too. What I want to know is, are these the same ones who stole my paintings? Any crackpot whose been watching the news could have written a ransom note. Do you think these are the people?” Dillon demanded.
“Yes, sir,” Kenny said, “I do.”
“You agree, Scarlett?”
“Could be,” the colonel replied. Scarlett had a genius for not having a firm opinion on anything.
“How about you, Sheriff?”
Ike let his gaze shift out the window. The sun beat on the wisteria outside and made the light filtered through it a pale blue. He thought of moonlight and caught himself drifting into the previous night.
“Sheriff? You with us?”
“I don’t think the robbery was pulled off by the New Jihad, no. sir,” Ike replied. Kenny’s head snapped around to stare at him. He had to be careful. He wanted to maintain his jurisdictional control, and he wanted to know why Kenny, who should know better by now, wanted to sell the theory that the terrorists were also the thieves.
“Why not?” Dillon asked. His voice quieted and the bark seemed at bay.
“This was a professional job, Mr. Dillon, a very professional job. Whoever planned it had some high-powered talent, not the sort you find in terrorist groups. More like the folks who work for Mr. Kenny here. And don’t forget, the New Jihad is the same crowd that botched the New York Library job.”
“You got a problem with that, Kenny?” Dillon asked, eyebrows arched, forming parentheses on his forehead.
“Well.” Kenny hesitated, frowned and shot Ike a look. “We believe, sir, with all due respect to the sheriff here, that information from the Bureau is a little better than what can be generated out here in the boondocks.”
“Sheriff?” Dillon looked back at Ike, eyebrows up.
“I’ll stick with my analysis and,” he added, looking at Kenny, “my sources.” So Kenny knows about Harold Grafton, Ike thought, and the Bureau wants to cover its collective rear end. I would hate to be in Grafton’s shoes if they get to him before I do.
“Next question is for you, Kenny, since you are so sure of things—are they serious? Will they burn the pictures?”
“No, sir, we are pretty sure they won’t. They are a small group and an act like that would lead us straight to them.”
“Positive about that, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then explain this.” Dillon peeled the newspaper from the package he’d carried into the room. He laid the charred remains of a painting on the conference table.
“It’s a small Chardin, not a very good one, either. Its provenance is a little shaky and I never liked it, but there is no question it has been torched. You agree?”
Kenny swallowed. “I, uh, we didn’t know about that.…”
“You don’t know a lot about too many things, son. Your boss knew about it. Didn’t he tell you?”
“I guess he must have.” Kenny slouched down in his chair and looked like he wanted to disappear.
“Either way, what do I do? Kenny? Scarlett? Sheriff? Dr. Harris, you have a thought or two for us?” Ruth shook her head and looked at Ike.
“The Bureau thinks you should pay the ransom.” Kenny burst in. “We will set up surveillance at the drop, or whatever, and when they come to get it we will apprehend them.”
“Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir, we can.”
“Colonel Scarlett?”
Scarlett agreed. Dillon asked a series of logistical questions. The phone rang. Dillon snatched the receiver off the hook.
“Hello?” he rasped. “He’s right here.” He handed the phone to Ike. “It’s for you.”
“We got a make on the car, Ike.” Whaite said. “You were right. It’s Trask’s and registered in his father’s name in Saddle River. I put an APB out on it.”
“Thanks. Get the boys working on it, will you? It’s important. I want that car.”
“Sheriff?” Dillon asked as Ike replaced the phone in the cradle.
“There was a car parked near the bunker during the robbery. We think they got it and the people in it.”
“Hostages? Kidnapping?” Kenny, confidence restored, sat up and licked his lips. “That makes it ours, Sheriff.”
“Maybe. No one has been reported missing. We have not received a ransom note. We have no evidence that they are in custody anywhere or left the state, just supposition so far. For their sake,” he added, “I hope you’re right. That means they are alive. Much as I hate losing control of this investigation to you, I’d rather do that than keep it so I could work a triple homicide.”
Dillon was becoming impatient. “I do not give a diddle-dam about who does what here,” he snapped. “I want to know what I’m supposed to do next. You, Kenny, want to set a trap baited with my fifty million, that right?”
“Yes, sir,” Kenny said.
“And the state police will cooperate and back the Bureau up. Is that right, Colonel?”
“As best as we can,” Scarlett said.
Dillon swiveled around in his chair and stared out the window. The room fell silent. A beetle flew through the open window and zigzagged the length of the room. It made a sharp right turn at the wall and circled, gained altitude, bounced twice against the ceiling, and nosed over into a power dive. It landed with a soft plop in Kenny’s coffee cup.
“Kamikaze,” said Scarlett. “Must be a Japanese beetle.”
It was the first time Ike had ever heard Jack Scarlett say anything remotely funny. Scarlett took the opportunity to remove a large wad of chewing tobacco from his jaw and put it in the coffee cup with the beetle.
Kenny fidgeted like a hunting dog waiting to be turned loose. He wanted the operation, and his urgency overflowed into his speech, his posture. Dillon turned and inspected him, the way an entomologist inspects a bug, interested, curious, but all the while withholding judgment until he has time to think, classify, identify, and then stick a pin in it. He glanced at Ike and then turned back to Kenny.
“Mr. Kenny, you act like a young lad who has to go to the bathroom. Either learn to hold it, or raise your hand. I need a little more time here and
a cooler head than yours.”
Kenny’s always flushed face turned a shade redder.
“Why don’t you and the Colonel slip down to the cafeteria and get yourself a cup of coffee or something, about a half hour’s worth of something. The sheriff and I will chat a bit and then I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. Dr. Harris, I reckon you might want to stay, too, but if you have other—”
“I’ll stay. I’ve watched the sheriff work over people. I want to see how he manages you.”
“Pardon?”
“Thank you, Mr. Dillon, but on second thought, I’ll get back to my desk. Ike, try to behave yourself.”
“What was that all about, Sheriff?”
Chapter Twenty-six
Angelo was sprawled across the small couch, asleep, when Harry entered the room. Harry shook his arm and started as Angelo recoiled. The gun seemed to appear in his hand as if by magic. It was leveled at Harry’s stomach.
“Easy. It’s me, Grafton.”
Angelo relaxed, then looked anxious.
“I was asleep. You going to tell the Patrone?”
“Hell no, why would I do that? You are babysitting. They’re handcuffed, what could happen?”
“He would be very angry with me, Grafton. Please, you will not tell.”
“I won’t tell, Angelo, if, of course, you don’t tell him when you catch me asleep either?” Harry attempted a smile. He got a blank stare in return.
“We understand each other, and also something else—you don’t worry about afterward. I take care of that, right?”
And with that cryptic remark hanging over him, Angelo let himself out the door. Harry scratched his head. Afterward? What afterward?
He looked at the two kids. The boy slept curled in the fetal position. The girl was awake and staring at him.
“Hi,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. Thanks again for the clothes. They fit pretty well. I’m not that big on top or that small on the bottom, but they’ll do fine. A little loose here, a little tight there.”
They sat in silence. After a minute or two, Harry spoke.
“Where are you from, Jennifer?”
“Are you sure you want to know, Harry? Are you sure you want to get that close to someone you may have to shoot later?”
“No one’s going to shoot anyone, Jennifer, I promise. In two or three days, this will all be over and done with.”
“I can identify you. I know your name, what you look like, everything—the others, too. You can’t let me go.”
“It will work out, you’ll see. You will just have to forget for a while and then it will be over. See, the other one, Donati, is untouchable, you know. He will have an ironclad alibi for the whole time. They all will. And so while you’re trying to convince the police you’re right, Donati will stalk you, or your family. He can do that. And he will tell you he can, and so you will forget. Jennifer, you will forget me, him, Angelo, Red, all of us. You must.”
“Is that how it works, Harry? Is he—are you so sure of him that you can risk letting me go? Really?”
“That’s how it works, really.” Harry wished he believed it himself and hoped she would. She looked dubious.
“I don’t know.”
“Jennifer, listen to me. The boss of this operation is a contractor with the Mafia. He can do what he says he can do. Look, if it were otherwise, wouldn’t he have killed you both before now?”
“Yes, I guess so. You believe it’s going to be all right?”
“No doubt about it.”
She relaxed.
“Where am I from? All over. My folks are divorced. Daddy lives in Philadelphia with his trophy wife. He makes lots of money by investing other people’s and collecting fees. Summers in Rehoboth Beach, side trips to New York, Europe, that sort of thing.
“Momma tried working for a living, but found she could get more money by marrying it. She’s on her fourth now. Counting Daddy’s settlement and her inheritance from the late number three, she’s worth about six million dollars.”
“Poor little rich girl.”
“Don’t patronize me, Harry. You asked. That is what they are. What I am is something else.”
“I’m sorry. What are you?”
“I’m…me. I am my own person. When I graduate, I have a job in Chicago with the Art Institute and I got it all by myself. My parents do not even know about it yet. I am going to Chicago and have a career. I want to write, be a curator, and someday maybe collect fine art. Like the paintings you guys stole.”
Her determined look and confidence, the strength of her voice, convinced Harry that if she got the chance, if he could get her out of this mess somehow, she would do all those things, and more, much more.
“I believe you, Jennifer. You’re the kind that can make things happen.”
“And what about you, Harry? You can’t make things happen? You’re one of life’s losers, reduced to crime to meet your needs? I don’t believe it.”
“Well, you may be the only one who doesn’t.”
“Harry, if what you said is true—they will let me go, if I shut up—I won’t hurt you, you need to know that.”
Harry nodded. He supposed it was true enough. Hoped so.
“So tell me. How’d you get caught up in this, Harry?”
He thought a moment and decided it did not make much difference one way or another if she knew. But he wanted her to know for his own reasons. He wanted this girl’s friendship, goodwill, whatever. He wanted one person in the world to think well of him. He had had precious little of that in the past.
“I am here because I had no other choice. It is true what I told you about Donati’s long arm. He can get me through my children. I had a choice. The good way, the way I chose, he offered me enough money to be able to get my kids back, lawyers, that sort of thing. The bad way, he hurts them.
“I was out of work with no prospects. I owed a lot of money. Things were closing in on me and I took this path because it promised release, one way or the other. If the plan works, I’ll have enough money to buy my way out of my troubles. If it fails, I’m dead. I haven’t the courage to kill myself so I’ll let someone else do it for me.”
“Are you always so hard on yourself? I don’t believe for a minute you mean that. I think in the back of your mind, you are already working out how you are going to get out.”
Harry grinned at that. She had it right, but getting her out, too, had so far stymied him.
“You said you have children. Where’s their mother?”
“She died two weeks ago.” It seems like two years, two decades, he thought. “It took a long time for her to do it, but she died.”
“And you loved her very much?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. It wasn’t much of a marriage in the end—too many disappointments. She was impossible to please. I didn’t have the kind of job she could feel proud of, not in business like her friends’ husbands, like her father. And even though I made good money—people like me are expensive—there was never enough. The house, well, too small, or mildewed, or in the wrong neighborhood, or…something. She wanted Jaguars, not Chevrolets; country clubs, and I couldn’t please her. I tried, but it just never worked. And she began to resent her lot in life; to feel cheated, I guess. She quit college to marry me—her great sacrifice—her hopes for a career in the United Nations or the Foreign Service went out the window when the babies came. The role of housewife and mother didn’t suit her. Anyway, the anger and resentment built, and ate away at the marriage.”
“Why didn’t you just get divorced, be done with it?”
“We, I, come from a group that doesn’t believe in that. We believe marriage, good or bad, easy or hard, rewarding or awful, is forever. It’s like an Army chow line—you eat what they put
on your tray or you go hungry. It never occurred to me to change lines.”
“So you endured it and began to hate her back?”
“Hate her? Maybe I did. But in my own way, I was devoted to her. I tried to reason with her, help her see what her anger did to me, but I failed—a catch twenty-two. When you are reduced to believing you are a failure, when your self-esteem goes, it’s not possible to convince someone of anything. You are beaten before you start. And so the hatred becomes two-sided. You’re right. I did grow to resent her as she resented me.”
“So what did you do? I know that sounds silly, but you were employed, making money. Others must have seen your worth. Wasn’t that enough?”
“No. That helps you do your job and I guess counterbalances some of the crushing weight of what is going on at home, but no, not enough. I didn’t do anything. My circle of friends got smaller each year as she edited out the ones she didn’t like, who failed to meet her standards. I didn’t know anyone well enough to confide in. Even if I did, I wouldn’t, because by then she’d pretty well convinced me that the problems were mine. I thought about having an affair or leaving—all kinds of things.”
“But you didn’t…have an affair, I mean.”
“No. There were offers, you know, I could have. But that would have made things worse. I was not very good at lying and if she found out.…Well, there is no joy going into an affair when you know the outcome. Some days I wished she would die, you know. I prayed for that sometimes, that she’d die, without pain, of course, heart attack, plane crash, and then I’d feel guilty as hell, and wish I were dead. I thought about suicide, how I would do it—what I would write in the note. Planning or wishing for your own death is a guilt-free preoccupation. And then she developed breast cancer, a late diagnosis, and she began to die for real.”
“And you felt guilty, felt like you were responsible, like you’d wished it on her?”
“Something like that. My drinking went over the top. I lost my job. Then her parents snatched my girls one morning when I was so hung over I couldn’t get up to stop them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a look of contempt like the one on her father’s face when they broke into the apartment, took Karen and Julie, and all I could do was throw up. On my knees in the can, throwing up my guts, too weak, too helpless to stop them from taking my children. I guess that was the bottom. That was a month ago. My wife died two weeks later, and Donati offered me a chance to put my life together. Money to pay medical bills, lawyers, rent—serious money.”
1 - Artscape: Ike Schwartz Mystery 1 Page 19
