by Sydney Bauer
‘Tracey,’ said David, after the girl had read out the number. ‘Just one last thing. I don’t suppose Ms McCall ever mentioned someone by the name of James Golan or Jason Nagol or Jeffrey Logan?’
‘No, Mr Cavanaugh,’ she replied. ‘She never mentioned any of those names – although Jeffrey Logan is the same name as that poor guy on TV. But Ms McCall didn’t know anyone famous. At least if she did, she never mentioned it. She lived a very quiet life, Mr Cavanaugh – a good, decent, very quiet life.’
By 10pm that night, after Joe’s lengthy conversation with Michael Lopez of the LVPD, they had concluded several things.
Jeffrey Logan had stolen the photocopied newspaper article about Deirdre McCall and her dance studio accomplishments from Nora Kelly’s desk. He had most likely done this the day he brought Sara back to the office after their lunch, after Nora told him to ‘show himself out’, after which he most likely spotted the article sitting face-up in her in-tray. The article told him his mother was alive and based in Las Vegas – or, in other words, they had unwittingly paved the way for her attempted murder.
Deirdre McCall had died before. Detective Michael Lopez confirmed it. She and her husband suffered a fatal car accident in late 1983, when a transport truck hit their sedan on Highway 15 near Barstow, California. McCall – or Diane Nagol as her fingerprints confirmed her to be (a savvy Lopez took her prints when the name Deirdre McCall failed to appear on the social security register and then matched them to a set collected some forty-five years ago from a Diane Nagol who had been arrested for shop-lifting from a supermarket), had actually passed away beside her husband before being revived in the ER of Barstow Community Hospital. There were records of the couple having a son named Jason, but police attempts to contact him proved unsuccessful.
Diane Nagol’s California-based rehabilitation took close to ten years, during which she learnt to ‘function’ with what remained of her brain. After that, as Lopez put it, she had basically ‘fallen off the map’ – and David and his friends surmised that this was when Diane Nagol had decided to adopt her stage name and make the gutsy move back to Las Vegas. She was a dancer by trade, after all – and in the very least, her rediscovered talent could earn her a decent living.
Judging by McCall’s reaction to Nora’s initial call and Lopez’s findings, they believed the woman had lived incognito in the hope her son would never locate her again. What he had done to terrify her to such an extent was still an unknown, but in his heart David guessed that Logan was somehow behind that car accident – and perhaps other atrocities as well.
Of course, there were also many unknowns – the first one being how the Asian gang members came to be involved in Deirdre McCall’s shooting. David and Joe had no idea how someone like Jeffrey Logan would know a group of notorious criminals who Lopez described as ‘members of the influential Chinese street gang known as the Asian Boyz’. And while Joe knew the gang also had a presence in Massachusetts, he could not see a link between these gangsters and the wealthy, Beacon Hill-based Dr Jeff.
Worse still, any identification of Logan as the young Jason Nagol seemed close to impossible. While William Dukes gave a vague description of the dark, long-haired boy he used to shoot against as a teenager, a return call to Dukes confirmed he did not remember the boy well enough to identify him as an adult. In fact, the closest comparison Dukes could give, when asked if the young Nagol resembled anyone famous, was that he ‘looked a little like a young version of that long-haired guy who played Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, except a little taller, a little darker and with longer hair and dark brown eyes’.
A bona fide dead end if ever there was one.
David came up with the idea of talking to Katherine de Castro who, in the very least, first knew Logan almost twenty years ago. But they guessed that by that stage Logan had already ‘reinvented himself’ to be the man he was now. They also feared that, despite de Castro’s assistance in cutting the cameras on the night of the TV exposé, that she remained loyal to her business partner – and any move to unsettle their career objectives might result in her expressing her concerns to Logan. And no matter how much faith they had in what they had discovered, as Joe had put it, ‘tipping off that asshole could seriously fuck things up’.
Finally, Nora’s second piece of mail – the other anonymous piece of information that had come from the unidentified correspondent in the same envelope as the article on Deirdre McCall – made no sense to them whatsoever. The piece was simply a brochure on a famous upmarket resort in Cape Cod called the Chatham Bars Inn. And while it meant nothing to them at the moment, it was a priority for David to try to work it out.
In the meantime, considering the envelope had been discarded (despite David’s protests, Nora felt dreadful about this, as she did about her failure to make the link to the Las Vegas-based McCall earlier), Joe said he wanted to check the brochure for prints. And David felt sure he knew whose long slender prints he would find on it – that of his old friend Stephanie Tyler.
Finally – and most importantly – despite the unanswered questions and, even more frustratingly, the lack of stand-up-in-court proof, David desperately needed back in! He not only needed it, he wanted it – perhaps more than he had ever wanted anything in his whole entire career. It was a selfish yearning, the timing of which could not have been worse. But in the end he knew that finding a way to defend the Logan children and expose their father for the monster that he was would be his first testimonial as a parent – for mothers like Deirdre McCall and Stephanie Tyler deserved justice, and children like J.T. and Chelsea deserved freedom from the man who was destroying their lives.
48
The following morning
‘What is good?’ Jeffrey Logan asked himself, quoting Nietzsche as he sucked the cool morning air into his lungs. ‘Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself!’ he replied.
And Nietzsche was right.
Logan, who had been running for a good forty minutes along the now silver-surfaced Charles River, stopped to catch his breath. He closed his eyes, placed his hands on his hips, extended his chest and saw himself – literally saw himself – as that incredibly good-looking cruiser captain defying those riotous seas. Here, on his own, the cool easterly breeze cutting into his sweat, his legs pumped with blood, his breaths warm and powerful, he felt stronger than he had in his entire life – and he wasn’t even carrying a gun!
Oh, he missed them – the guns, that is. But he had controlled his need to carry one of his thousands of rifles and handguns that rested safely in a storage facility, and realised, in the process, that he was now beyond need of a physical weapon, given the highly tuned efficiency of his brain.
He had sensed it since childhood – the ‘gift’ he had been given to influence, to dominate, to command. True, when he was younger he needed a gun in his hand to do it, but he had learned that people respond just as quickly, perhaps even more so, to the subtle workings of manipulation.
Take Stephanie, for example – he had completely possessed that woman, taken her seemingly inextinguishable spirit and doused it repetitively, constantly, until she belonged 100 per cent to him. Of course, ‘therein lies the rub’, he admitted to himself as he began a series of difficult stretches, balancing his long tanned leg on a rusty balustrade before him. Once they reach a certain level of submission their subservience tended to repulse.
But thanks to his children, both of whom, unfortunately, had turned out to be miniature clones of their mother, that problem had been solved. Their pathetic little game had backfired and now they were paying the price. Carmichael would eventually accept their plea. He was sure of it. She was a whore – a smart whore but a whore nonetheless – who would always sell her wares to the man who would ‘advance’ her the most. If circumstances were different, the thought came to him, he would like to have a go at her. Perhaps at another time, if his next ‘subject’ failed to submit.
His mother had been disposed of.
Ah, see – now that is where luck enters the equation. Who would have thought that his brief encounter with local Asian Boyz leader Damien Chi would have reaped such significant rewards? The police would never make the connection, and with that pesky Cavanaugh well and truly out of the picture everything was, well, as close to perfect as it possibly could be.
He would have his hands on Stephanie’s more than substantial fortune within weeks (the prospect of buying himself one of those multi-million dollar cruisers had been in his mind constantly since the Vanity Fair shoot), his lawyers had told him as much – and then, with his children incarcerated for God knows how long, his life would be close to perfect.
And all this from a boy born to a strip club dancer and a number-crunching halfwit. Quite brilliant really. Really quite brilliant indeed.
Sara was sick. She had a migraine and had been throwing up since 4am.
He felt awful leaving her, but she assured him she would be okay and would call Doctor Taylor as soon as it was 9am. In the meantime, he had called his sister Lisa – a nurse in Massachusetts General’s busy ER department – and asked her to stop by on her way to work. Lisa was a five-foot-three firefly – her windswept dark hair and bright green eyes providing the typical Irish aesthetics to her ‘think before you speak’ enthusiasm. The minute he had called her, at little after seven, she abused him for neglecting her again, before launching into a diatribe about some loser intern she was dating and finally shutting up long enough for David to get a word in.
‘You know I don’t mind coming over, DC, but why aren’t you staying home to look after Sara?’ asked Lisa, straight to the point as usual. ‘Are you due in court?’
‘No, I, ah . . . I got something going on, Lis,’ he had answered, feeling guiltier by the minute.
‘Something big enough to leave your pregnant partner barfing on your bathroom floor?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t be leaving her if it wasn’t,’ he barked then – but part of him knew she was right.
Truth be told, he really didn’t have anywhere to go and no one specific to talk to. He was legally forbidden to approach the two people he needed to access the most, and his only other link to Logan’s true nature was now lying in a coma halfway across the country, trying to survive without a decent chunk of her brain.
Logan had done that. David was sure of it. He had killed his father and twice tried to do the same to his mother. He had annihilated his wife and framed his children and manipulated Sara and condescended to David and caused a massive rift in David’s friendship with Tony Bishop and, to top it all off, reduced his beloved secretary Nora to a state where she believed her lack of action had resulted in Deirdre McCall’s shooting.
Logan did not play fair. He broke all the rules and covered his tracks like a professional.
Well, perhaps it is time, David thought to himself as he left his building, that I play him at his own game – legally or not.
Ten seconds later, the opportunity presented itself.
‘Mr Cavanaugh,’ said the voice. At first David dismissed it, as he could not see where it was coming from.
‘Mr Cavanaugh.’ This time louder, and David turned to his right to see a man in a nondescript black SUV poking his head out of the passenger side window.
‘Do I know you?’ asked David, his heart skipping a beat. He wondered if you ever lost that slight tingle of fear when a stranger pulled up beside you. Mothers were very good at planting that seed early, and it never left you, no matter what.
‘Ah, no,’ said the man – David took him in quickly – pale skin, balding head, expensive suit, conservative tie. ‘My name is Harry Harrison, and I am an attorney at Williams, Coolidge and Harrison. Specifically, I have a request from . . .’
But David’s blood was boiling.
‘Mr Harrison,’ he began, advancing towards the window to stick his head squarely in Harry Harrison’s face. ‘If this is Tony Bishop’s spineless way of trying to make amends you can tell him to go fuck himself.’
‘No. No, sir,’ said Harrison.
‘I’m not interested, Mr Harrison,’ said David, banging the roof of the car before turning his back on the sickly faced lawyer behind him.
‘Please, Mr Cavanaugh.’ Harrison was out of the car now, and pulling David by his arm.
‘Jesus,’ said David, shrugging himself free. ‘Believe it or not, Mr Harrison, I am really kind of busy right now and not in the mood for this communication by proxy bullshit. If Tony doesn’t have the balls to come talk to me in person, then . . .’
‘Look,’ said the slightly built lawyer, his hand back on David’s bicep and squeezing surprisingly hard. ‘Truth be told, Mr Cavanaugh, this is not how I usually spend my Tuesday mornings either. In fact, if my uncle found out that I was involved he would . . .’
The flushed-faced Harrison had David’s attention now, enough for him to turn to meet Harrison eye to eye. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.
‘You need to come with me,’ said Harrison, gesturing towards his car.
‘What? Why?’
‘Mr Bishop needs to see you, and you need to come with me now,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘The timing is everything and we are already running behind schedule.’
‘Now hold on a minute,’ said David. ‘I am not going anywhere until I understand what is going on.’
‘Tony said you would argue,’ said Harrison. ‘And so he told me that when you did, I should tell you: “amicus primoris”.’
Amicus primoris – the memories came rushing back. It was Latin – something Stephanie used to say back in college every Friday night before exams. Her argument was that a good night out would release the anxiety before a long weekend of cramming. And more often than not she was right.
Amicus primoris – ‘friends first’.
‘All right,’ said David, as he moved towards the car. ‘Just tell me where in the hell we are going.’
‘Mannix,’ said Joe, as he picked up his direct line. He had only been at work twenty minutes and already he was flat out – the report of a murder/suicide in Dorchester had thrown the entire department into action. And so when the caller did not respond, it was no surprise that Joe did not have the time or patience to humour them.
‘Jesus,’ he said, before removing the receiver from his ear only to hear a distinctly female voice finally emanating from the other end of the line.
‘Lieutenant Mannix,’ said the woman, a tone of nervousness in her voice. ‘I am sorry. I . . .’
‘Who is this?’ asked Joe.
‘It’s Katherine de Castro. I am friends with, I mean, I work for – with,’ she corrected herself. ‘I work with Jeffrey Logan.’
Joe lifted his hand at Frank McKay, who was just outside his door and using his thumb to indicate he was also about to hit the road with a fellow homicide detective named Rico.
‘Ms de Castro,’ said Joe, gesturing for Frank to come in. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I just . . .’ she began. ‘I just had a question for you, Lieutenant, and it is going to sound very silly. I mean, something came to me last night. It is ridiculous really.’
The woman was on ‘the tightrope’. Joe could feel it. He had heard that tone before – the one where a family member or friend hadn’t quite made the decision to come clean on something they knew about a loved one. It was the tone people adopted when they were overcome by guilt or shame or fear – when they were 100 feet above the ground, knowing a fall was inevitable, but still not sure which way was the right way to jump.
‘I wanted to know what issue of Vanity Fair Stephanie Tyler was reading before she died?’
And jumped she had, Joe sensed. The question meant nothing to him now, but his gut told him that it would – eventually.
‘To be honest, Ms de Castro, I am not sure,’ answered Joe, careful not to make light of her query. ‘Is there a problem – with the issue, I mean?’
‘No!’ she said, almost too quickly. ‘Oh God, it really doesn’t matter,
I’m sorry to have bothered you.’
‘It’s no bother,’ said Joe, trying to keep her on the line, grabbing a pad and pencil and writing a quick note for Frank that said: ‘Tyler, Vanity Fair. What issue?’ ‘I can find out. It is really no trouble. I have it here somewhere.’ He was fudging while Frank bounded from the room to call the guys in evidence. ‘Did the issue belong to you?’
‘No. I mean, it might have, yes. You see I collect Vanity Fair and I was missing a few issues.’
Now she was lying – Joe knew it. ‘You want it back?’
‘God, no. I am so sorry, Lieutenant. I must sound so petty. It was a random thought . . . I . . .’
She was on the verge of jumping the wrong way, Joe sensed, his heart now beating in double time. She went all the way out onto that cliff and now she was jumping the Goddamned wrong fucking way.
‘Hold on,’ he said, frantically waving his arms for Frank to hurry up. And then Frank hung up the phone and bounded into his office, before shoving the hastily scribbled note under his boss’s nose.
‘It was the October ’93 edition,’ said Joe at last. ‘A tenth anniversary issue, with Julia Roberts on the cover.’
And then there was silence.
‘Funny, that is what I thought it was,’ de Castro said, a tone of dull realisation in her voice. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant, and I promise I won’t be bothering you again.’
Plymouth, Massachusetts, is about forty miles south of Boston on what is known as the state’s South Shore. It is most famous for being the landing site of the Mayflower – and, David recalled, for the somewhat less than spectacular rock which was said to be the first piece of American ground William Bradford and his fellow Pilgrims stepped onto in 1620. The rock was an anti-climax – and David prayed that his unexpected ‘abduction’ south would not prove similarly disappointing.
The weather had turned. After weeks of sun the city had been swallowed by a mass of clouds and accompanying sea fog. It was cool but humid, the air thick with a damp that hung heavily on David’s skin, a red-faced Harrison sweating copiously beside him – his left leg shaking nervously, his grey eyes shot with tiny flecks of red.
