While all of this was happening the forensics team came through dusting and vacuuming, photographing, crawling through, and in other ways examining the crime scene.
They left admonishing me not to touch anything before forensics came in later.
After that I lifted the front door and wedged it into the hole, went down to my office, and sat.
When the phone rang I knew it was Aura.
“Are you all right?” she asked me.
“Fine.”
“Do you need me to come down?”
“No.”
“Are you okay, Leonid?”
“Not quite right yet but I intend to be.”
—
It wasn’t until about 6:00 that I signed on to my personal computer. The first thing I looked up was the inmate list for the supermax Indiana prison where my brother was slated to spend the greater portion of the rest of his life. Most systems couldn’t get that kind of information but Bug had hacked every important database in the United States and then some. He let me use his access because I was the man, with Iran Shelfly’s help, who had turned him from a blob into an Adonis.
My father said that Nikita was no longer in prison. My computer couldn’t tell me who decided to break down my doors but at least I could see where my brother had gone.
But there I failed too.
There was no record of Nikita McGill ever being incarcerated there or anywhere else in the federal system of prisons. When I looked deeply enough I found a death certificate that was issued a year before the last time my brother and I had talked. He died in Columbus, Ohio, the obituary said.
A homeless man identified as Nikita Angus McGill died of coronary complications at Sutter Street Homeless Center leaving no family.
“Coincidence” is a word that had been removed from the detective’s lexicon. Maybe Marella was just a lucky happenstance. Maybe my father ringing the doorbell when I was on the phone with her was a mere fluke. But when a convicted criminal disappears from prison records and a dead man decorates my front hall—that had to mean something, but for the life of me I couldn’t think what that something was.
It wasn’t until after 7:00, after Mardi called on my cell phone and I went out to reception to let her in, it wasn’t until then that I remembered Hiram Stent.
16
I started by using another of Bug’s programs. The unproclaimed genius had created an entire virtual world for himself. He even had programs set with updatable key words that read the papers and websites for him in the morning, delivering edited versions of the news before he dove in for himself.
All I had to do was type in the name “Hiram Stent” and I got six hits on his death.
He was found at around midnight, not long after someone had used a bomb to break down my office door, in an alley off a side street half a block from Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. Hiram had been stabbed multiple times in the torso, neck, and face; his pockets had been torn out. His wallet had probably been taken but the canny indigent had hidden his identification (and probably a few bucks) in his shoe. The authorities suspected a mugging. There were no witnesses and the investigation was ongoing. Anyone with information was to call Crimestoppers.
While reading the articles about Hiram I decided to take his case. I had failed the sad man in life but maybe I could make up for some of that.
While dedicating myself to a dead man’s quest, a name popped into my head—Twitcher. That was what the voice I’d overheard on the phone had called my son: Twitcher.
That’s how my brain works: a question, maybe not even articulated, goes down through my mind and I stew on it until an answer comes, or not. Sometimes I simmer over a question for years and suddenly one day the answer just appears like Athena from her father’s brow.
“Mr. McGill?” Mardi said. She was carrying a cardboard box from the upscale coffee shop on the first floor. Therein were a large black coffee, two apple-fritter doughnuts, and a real apple—this last item because she felt that I should eat at least one healthy thing each day.
After laying the box on my desk she said, “I called Mr. Domini about the door. He said that he’ll come fix it by end of day. Seko Security said that a temporary security system will be installed before the end of the day and that they’ll have a permanent solution by the middle of next week.”
I had good insurance on my office and my systems. It’s not if something will go wrong, it’s when.
—
I spent the rest of the morning searching the Net, and elsewhere, for two women: Celia Landis and Lois Stent.
Hiram’s wife was easy. She was born Lois Miriam Bowman to Lawrence Frank and Melissa Marie Bowman in Tampa, Florida, in 1983. She married Hiram in 2003, had Lisa in ’04 and William in ’06. The separation came in ’11. In that same year divorce papers were served but that hadn’t gone very far. Hiram’s lawyer was a man named Tracey Tremont.
I called Melissa Marie Bowman because her husband, Larry, had died of a heart attack three years earlier.
“Hello?” she said on the first ring.
“Ms. Melissa Bowman?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“My name is McGill. I’m calling in place of Mr. Tremont, Hiram Stent’s lawyer.”
“What?”
“I have information about Mr. Stent that I believe your daughter would be interested in.”
“Information,” she said. “What kind of information?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can only share that with your daughter.”
“Lois doesn’t want to talk to Hiram.”
“I can assure you, ma’am, that I will not put them in touch.”
“I can’t give you her number.” The woman sounded hesitant. Maybe she liked Hiram or disliked the handyman.
“Let me give you my number,” I said. “If she decides to call then she can. If not there’s nothing lost.”
“Okay. Can I tell her what this is about?”
“Sorry.”
—
While waiting for Lois to call back, or not, I started looking for Celia Landis. There was too much information there. There were dozens of women with that name across the nation. It was impossible for me to find out if any of these women were the right age, related to Hiram, or the subject of a search by a law firm in San Francisco called Briscoe/Thyme.
I called information in SF asking for the number for the lawyers but was told that there was no such law firm with those names under any possible spelling.
I decided to call all of the women within fifty miles of the city with that name. That tree wasn’t likely to bear fruit but I had to do it—for my client.
Before I could make the first call, Mardi interrupted.
“A Terry Colter on three, sir.”
“Who?”
“He said his name like he thought you should know it.”
—
“Leonid McGill,” I said into the line.
“Who are you?” an angry male voice asked.
“Can I do something for you?”
“Why are you calling my wife?”
“That depends, who’s your wife?”
“Don’t get smart with me,” the angry man replied.
“I can’t help my IQ, brother. Maybe you should put somebody smarter on the phone.”
“Maybe I should come up there and kick your ass.”
“I’ll be here from nine to five most days. You’re welcome to come up and try.” I was serious as a hangover.
My caller understood this and took a minute to reorganize his approach.
“I’m Lois Bowman’s husband,” the man calling himself Terry Colter said.
“For how long?”
“What business is that of yours?”
“Well,” I reasoned, “if it was before yesterday your wife is going to prison for bigamy.”
Another few moments and a woman’s voice said, “Hello? Who is this?”
“Leonid McGill.”
“And you represent Hiram’s lawyer
?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I’m calling you with information that his lawyer would have given you if he knew what I knew and he knew how to call you.”
“What are you saying?”
“Hiram Stent was murdered last night.”
Lois Stent gasped. There was a knock against her receiver and another sound that was very human and probably sincere.
“What?” she cried after making other wordless laments.
“He was stabbed in the face, neck, and torso,” I said. “You can get the full details on the Internet editions of any New York paper.”
“Who are you?”
“Hiram came to me yesterday wanting to find a woman named Celia Landis. He said that if he found her he’d make enough money to fly down Florida way and reclaim his wife and children.”
“He said that?”
“Almost word for word.”
“And so, so you’re calling to blame me for his death?”
“Through sickness and health,” I said, “poverty and wealth.”
“I…”
“He was living in a rooming house, Mrs. Stent. He was trying to leverage a million dollars out of a case over a missing woman named Celia Landis. Have you ever heard of her?”
“No.” She was crying.
“Had he told you anything about what he was doing?”
“We haven’t talked for a long time.”
“You should call the Brooklyn police and ask about him,” I said. “Somebody needs to come up here and put him in the ground.”
“I didn’t know,” she said miserably.
“No,” I agreed. “You didn’t.”
I wasn’t being fair. I had no insight into what went on between husband and wife. She had a right to live any life she wanted. But Hiram Stent was my client. I had let him down. He died on my watch and I wanted somebody, anybody, to pay.
“What else did he say?” Lois asked.
“He came in here with holes in his shoes,” I said, wishing I could stop. “He asked me to find this mystery woman and I kicked him out because he was poor and he smelled like the earth turned on a fresh grave. He said he kept a PO box so that Lisa and William could send him a letter if they needed to.”
The sob that came from Lois Stent’s throat a thousand miles away stopped my tirade.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said. “I’ll make a deal with you. You come up to bury him and I’ll bury the people that did this.”
A red light started blinking on my phone. That meant someone else had called.
“I never meant for him to die,” she moaned.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “It’s whoever it is stabbed him.”
With a blunt index finger I pressed the button to break the connection. I had no help for her. Maybe Terry Colter could soothe her guilt.
I didn’t even put down the receiver, just hit the intercom button and said, “Who was it?”
“Is it,” Mardi corrected, “he’s still on the line. A guy named Josh Farth. He says he wants to hire you.”
I wanted to do a search on Bernard Shonefeld but something made me stop my blundering and say, “Put him on.”
“Hello,” a strong male voice said.
“Mr. Farth? This is Leonid McGill. How can I help you?”
“I hear that you do missing persons cases,” he said.
“Hear from whom?”
“Around.”
“Around where?”
“I have a friend in the NYPD that says you do a good job because you dig deep.”
“What’s this friend’s name?” I asked.
“Well”—Josh hesitated—“he’s more like an acquaintance. His name is Peter Morton. He’s a sergeant in Queens.”
I jotted down the name and asked, “Who’s missing?”
“A young woman.”
“When can you come in, Mr. Farth?”
“I could be there in less than an hour.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
17
“Mardi?” I said over the intercom.
“Yes sir?”
“Find a number for Sergeant Peter Morton of the NYPD in Queens, then call him for me.”
“Through regular channels?”
“Fast.”
“Okay,” she said. “Mr. Domini was here. He looked at the door and the wall. I told him about your door, too. He said he’d be back with a crew this afternoon.”
—
After getting off the phone with my brave assistant I stood up and walked most of the length of my deserted hallway. I made it all the way up to the hole gauged through the wall and stuck my head through to peek out at Mardi. She was just putting the phone down.
“It’s so strange to see you come through the wall like that,” she said.
I didn’t respond, just pulled back in and walked almost to my door. I did an about-face and went all the way to my utility closet. I had a bottle of Cuban rum in there but I didn’t reach for it.
“Peter Morton on line seven,” a disembodied voice called out over the office PA system.
I picked up a phone at a vacant cubicle and said, “Sergeant?”
“Are you really Leonid McGill?”
“Yes I am.”
“Wow.”
“Glad to see you know who I am.”
“Know who you are? I’ve had papers calling for your arrest on my desk half a dozen times.”
“I hope that’s not the case right now.”
“Not from this morning anyway.”
I liked the banter. Had I my druthers we’d have gone on like that for a minute or two and then I’d have downed a glass of rum, gone to Gordo’s, and watched the boxers whale on each other.
“What can I do for you, Leonid?” Sergeant Morton asked.
I didn’t like the familiarity. It meant that he was treating me like a suspect or a snitch.
“Josh Farth,” I said.
“He’s an um…friend of mine from Boston…he, uh, called me a couple of days ago asking for a PI who didn’t mind looking under slimy rocks. Like I said—you’re famous.”
Morton wasn’t a very good liar. Josh Farth, I was pretty sure, had called his cop friend to cover his story, whatever that was.
“You don’t know me, Sergeant. Why throw him my name?”
“He asked a question and your name was the answer.”
“What’s his business?”
“Security and research for some big company.”
“Which one?”
“I forget.”
“You forget.”
“Yeah. One day I’ll get so old that I won’t even be able to recognize my own shoes unless I’m wearing them.”
The buzzer to the front door still worked. It sounded and I said, “I have to go, Sergeant. Thanks for the referral.”
“Anytime.”
I was wondering if the NYPD had a file on me that included the layout and the general security systems of my office. They’d be sure to have my address.
—
I went through the wall into the reception area and gave Mardi a questioning look.
“It’s a man in a suit,” she said, looking up from the monitor in her desk drawer. “I’ve never seen him before.”
Grabbing the front door by the handle and bracing it up high with the palm of my left hand, I dragged the portal open and leaned it against the wall.
“Mr. Farth?”
“Mr. McGill?” He wore a light-colored pearl-gray suit with a dark green dress shirt—no tie.
“That wasn’t even ten minutes.”
“Less than an hour.”
I couldn’t argue with his math so I said, “Come on in.”
He walked through looking at the loose door and the tarp that mostly covered the dark stain on the floor. His face was that odd combination of unsightly and yet well manicured. The nose was too big but he’d had a facial, the hair was too thin but his barber was a hairdresser too. His knuckles were like mismatched stones though the nail
s and cuticles had been trimmed and varnished.
He turned his gaze on me with eyes that were the color green you expected a frog to leap from.
“Redecorating?” he asked.
“Something like that.”
—
“So what can I do for you, Mr. Farth?” I asked when we were ensconced in my almost unmolested office.
“I wanted to hire you but you look busy enough already.”
“Just a break-in. The cops have already made their report. What do you need?”
“Was that blood on the floor?”
“No. There was a gallon jug of molasses on my receptionist’s desk. The burglars must have knocked it over.”
Farth paused for maybe ten seconds or so. He was trying to look as if maybe there was too much happening in my office and he should take his business elsewhere. If he did that I’d forget him.
“I’m looking for a young woman,” he said at second eleven.
“Aren’t we all?”
“Her name is Coco Lombardi,” he said, ignoring my lame joke. He reached into his jacket pocket, taking out a three-by-five glossy. “She’s dropped out of sight and her family is quite worried.”
I took the picture and studied it. Sitting on a barstool she was lovely the way strippers are lovely, all decked out in glitter and little else. Her eyelashes were over two inches long and her makeup was thick enough it might have stopped a bullet. Maybe someone with no experience would have been fooled, but I could see that the twenty-something burlesque dancer and the teenager in the photo Hiram had showed me were either closely related or one and the same.
“Girls like this go missing every other day,” I said. “They usually turn up—one way or the other.”
“It’s the other that her family is trying to avoid.”
“Boston family?”
Feigning surprise, the well-put-together and ugly man said, “I didn’t know I had an accent.”
“Peter Morton,” I said.
“You’re thorough.”
And Sometimes I Wonder About You : A Leonid Mcgill Mystery (9780385539197) Page 8
