The Betrayer

by Daniel Judson

  The cell phone was also equipped with something the PIs called a “hot mic,” which meant that everything that was said by Johnny — or anyone within ten or fifteen feet of Johnny — would be picked up. Even if the phone were shut off, the mic still worked. Only disconnecting the battery would disable it completely.

  Everything the hot mic caught would be transmitted, but the range of the transmitter inside the phone was only good for a few hundred feet, so the PIs were tailing Johnny — a task made easy by the GPS — so they could, with the more powerful equipment in their vehicle, relay the signal to the receiver in McVicker’s home twenty miles away.

  McVicker had listened to everything said by both Johnny and Charlie Atkins. And nothing of what he heard had pleased him. He had recorded the conversation with a digital recorder that the PIs had connected to the receiver. This way he could listen to it again, which he did now, taking careful notes on a single sheet of paper set on the hard wood of his desk.

  When he was done, he leaned back in his leather chair, read over what he had written, then thought for a moment.

  There was, as he saw it, only one thing to do.

  He disconnected the digital recorder from the receiver, connected it to his laptop, and proceeded to upload the WAV file. As he waited for the transfer to be completed, he removed the disposable cell phone he carried with him always and punched in the number that only he knew.

  The number that wasn’t written down anywhere.

  A man answered. He and McVicker talked infrequently — a necessary precaution — but for McVicker it was always good to hear his voice.

  “What’s going on?” the man said.

  “I think we have a problem. I’m going to e-mail you a recording. Listen to it, then call me back.”

  “Trouble?”

  McVicker was attaching the WAV file to an e-mail. “Most definitely.”

  “Which one?”

  “All three.”

  The man was silent for a moment, then said, simply, “Shit.”

  “We may need to bring them in.”

  “He’s making his move,” the man concluded.

  “I think so. Listen to the recording, then tell me what you think. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, you know that.”

  The audio file had finished uploading, and McVicker sent the e-mail.

  Barely two seconds later the man said, “I’ve got it. I’ll call you back after I’ve listened.”

  The call ended. McVicker closed the cell phone and waited.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cat recognized Elizabeth Hall from the photo she had found on Jeremy’s account page.

  And as they sat together at a table in the small coffee shop across from the Chappaqua train station, Cat smelled the same perfume that had been lingering this morning in the apartment on West Tenth.

  Chloé, just what Cat’s mother used to wear.

  They were alone at first, except for a teenage male behind the counter who had served them their coffee. He was too busy now with his pre-closing cleanup to pay them any attention.

  But shortly after they sat down, another woman entered and took the table nearest the door. By the way this woman — dressed in expensive jeans and a black army field jacket — kept looking out the front window, Cat concluded that she was waiting for someone.

  Mid to late twenties, tops, Cat happened to notice. Short blonde hair. Slavic face — broad and angular, with prominent cheekbones and a high forehead. Tall and athletic — actually big, well over six feet and maybe one hundred sixty. Sturdy, like a field hockey player, maybe, but poised like a model. Beautiful, in an edgy and exotic way.

  Everything that Cat, so plain, so thin from obsessive running, was not.

  Cat wondered about the army field jacket, though — was it really cool enough tonight for that? And then she noticed that the woman was wearing leather gloves, too. Maybe it was a fashion statement — the jacket was new, crisp, and the gloves looked to be made of light leather, maybe even calfskin. And this was Chappaqua, after all, the home of wealthy men and women. And their daughters.

  So probably a fashion statement, in which case temperature would have nothing to do with why she was dressed the way she was tonight.

  Cat shifted her focus to the woman seated across from her.

  The table was small, so by leaning forward slightly she and Elizabeth Hall could talk freely enough and still be assured that their conversation would remain private.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Cat said.

  “Of course.”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind answering some questions.”

  “I figured you’d have a few.”

  “I know that my brother called you last night. Could you tell me what he wanted?”

  “He wanted me to contact you if I didn’t hear from him within two hours. He gave me your phone number.”

  “Did you hear from him?”

  “No.”

  “But you didn’t call me.”

  “I’m assuming you know my situation. You can guess why, right?”

  “You didn’t want to get involved.”

  Elizabeth nodded, sipped her coffee. Cat saw that her hands were trembling.

  “I’m here as his sister,” Cat assured her. “Nothing more, nothing official.”

  “It’s still a big risk for me. To get out of the house tonight I told my husband I had an emergency meeting with a very unhappy client.” She paused, put her coffee cup down. “I hate that I’ve become a liar.”

  “How long have you and Jeremy been together?”

  “I’ve known him for almost three months. But that’s the thing, we’ve never actually been together. We were only just friends.”

  “But you sent a naked photo of yourself to his cell phone. Is that what friends do? If so, I owe some friends of mine an apology.”

  Panic crossed Elizabeth’s face. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “How did you find it?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I mean you’re FBI, right? Did you find it…?” She trailed off, unable to find the words. Then, finally, “Who else knows about it?”

  “Just me and a friend. He’s family, I trust him. And again, I’m here as Jeremy’s sister, nothing more.”

  This seemed to assuage Elizabeth, though only slightly. She took another sip of her coffee. Her hand was trembling even more.

  “We talked a lot,” she said. “I was lonely, he was lonely. He was very good at giving me attention. He needed so much, and that was…seductive.”

  “But you two never slept together.”

  She shook her head. “We did talk about it. A lot, especially toward the end there. Too much. I probably wanted to from the start, from the first time he and I talked, but I knew if I gave in, there wouldn’t be any turning back.”

  “You ended it.”

  “I told him we couldn’t talk anymore. At least not for a while.”

  “When was that?”

  “A week ago.”

  Cat recalled the discrepancy between Jeremy’s previous bill and his current usage.

  “How’d he take it?”

  “He wasn’t angry, but he wasn’t happy.” She shrugged. “I was all he had, which was part of the problem for me.”

  Cat thought about that, understood what she meant. “But he called you last night and asked you to get in touch with me if you didn’t hear back from him. Why?”

  “He said he was on his way to meet someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone who was also interested in getting to the truth about what happened to your father.”

  “Did he give you a name?”

  “Yes. Morris.”

  Cat kept her face blank and her tone even. “You’re positive about that?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Detective Morris,” Cat said.

  “Yes.”

  “And why were they meeting?”

  “Morris was going to help Jeremy clea
r your father’s name.”

  Cat needed a moment to process that. Eventually, a single question emerged.

  “And how was Morris going to do that, exactly?”

  “Jeremy had remembered some things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told him to tell you,” Elizabeth said. “I told him you could help. But he didn’t think anyone would listen to him, considering his history.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cat said. “I’m not following you.”

  “Jeremy had uncovered repressed memories.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of the night your father was killed.”

  Cat could no longer hide her surprise. “What kind of memories?” She heard a hint of urgency in her voice.

  “Memories of who was at the apartment he was being held in. Things that were said. Those kinds of memories.”

  Cat looked at Elizabeth. “How exactly were these memories uncovered?”

  Elizabeth said, “Jeremy was struggling with his addiction when we met. He’d quit, but only recently. He was determined to stay clean, but the temptation was clearly still there. Some people just transfer their addiction to something else, cigarettes or chocolate or whatever. I could tell that he was transferring his to me. I had gone through the same thing when I quit drinking. All I did was eat chocolate, but I was only trading one addiction for another. So I looked into other ways to quit, and quit for good, and ended up going to a hypnotherapist. It worked for me, so I thought it might work for Jeremy. I paid for him to go — the cost of the sessions, as well as his train ticket and hotel.”

  “The therapist was out of town?”

  “He’s up in Boston.”

  “Could you give me his name and address?”

  “His name is Robert Sumner. I don’t know his exact address, but I can get it for you.”

  Cat removed a pen from her leather jacket and grabbed a napkin. As she wrote the name down, Elizabeth continued.

  “Jeremy clearly had some others issues, too. My father suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and Jeremy displayed a lot of the same symptoms.” She shrugged. “I’m sure that was part of the attraction, right? I couldn’t fix my father, but maybe I could fix this kid. This kid who was so attracted to me. Anyway, I thought maybe Robert could help Jeremy with that, too. Apparently, he was regressing Jeremy backward, looking for the source of his PTSD, and that’s when the memories started coming.”

  “You were in the room during the sessions?”

  “No.”

  “So Jeremy told you what went on.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “We talked about it for days afterward.”

  “Over the phone?”

  “Yeah. And we met once. In a café in Brooklyn. Far from his place, even farther from mine.” She shrugged. “That way there was less of a chance that we’d end up in bed.”

  “I know it’ll probably feel like a betrayal of confidence,” Cat said, “but would you tell me what he told you?”

  “I could, but I think you’d rather hear the whole thing for yourself, no?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The sessions were recorded. Robert transferred all the sessions from his digital recorder to a CD and gave it to Jeremy.”

  “How many sessions did they have?”

  “Four.”

  “And they all fit on one CD?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was in the apartment this morning, but I didn’t see any CDs. You don’t by any chance know where that disc might be right now?”

  “I know exactly where it is.”

  “Where?”

  “Jeremy rented a post office box at one of those office supply places in the city. He had burned the disc onto his computer, but he wanted a backup plan, so a few days ago he mailed the disc to himself. It should be there by now.”

  “Do you know the name of the store, and the box number?”

  “Yes.” Elizabeth paused. “I also have a copy of the key.”

  “On you?”

  “No. It’s all back home, hidden.”

  “Would you be willing to give them to me?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “It’s what he wanted me to do. And to be honest, I’d like to be rid of it.”

  “Then why didn’t you bring it with you now?”

  “I needed to be certain.”

  “Of what?”

  “That you were alone. Jeremy was very specific about that. ‘Give it to Cat, and only Cat.’”

  “What do you think he meant by that?”

  “That he only trusted you.” Elizabeth shrugged. “There were some things about certain memories that Jeremy didn’t understand. That’s why he contacted Morris. He needed help connecting the dots.”

  “Why Morris?” Cat said. “Did he say?”

  “No. I called it off a few days before he was supposed to meet with Morris. Morris was going to put him together with someone else.”

  Cat thought of the man in the second photo. Dickey McVicker’s man.

  “Did he say who?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know anything about what happened after you called it off.”

  “Only what he told me when he called last night. That he was going to meet with Morris, and if I didn’t hear from him in two hours that I should call you.”

  “And give me the box number and key?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  Cat looked at her watch. It was half past nine. Whatever store Jeremy had used would likely be closed now. It would certainly be closed by the time she got back into the city. The earliest she could get access to the box would be when it opened tomorrow morning.

  A long time away.

  “You’ll have to wait here while I get it, though,” Elizabeth said. “You understand why, right?”

  “How will you explain it to your husband? Running in and running out again, I mean.”

  “I’ll tell him I came back to get some invoices. I told him the client I was meeting was local.”

  “That was good thinking.”

  “Yes, I’ve become a terrific liar,” Elizabeth said remorsefully. “Anyway, he’s probably into his third scotch by now.”

  “How far away is your house?”

  “Five minutes from here. Not even.”

  “So, what, fifteen minutes, tops?” Cat asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Cat grabbed another napkin, wrote her number on it, and handed it to Elizabeth. “Here’s the number to my cell, in case there’s any trouble.” Elizabeth took the napkin with her left hand, pocketed it without even looking at it. Cat waited a moment, then said, “I wish you had called me last night. Like he’d asked you to.”

  Elizabeth didn’t respond at first. Finally, she nodded once, tensely, and said softly, “It was just too much of a risk.”

  “We take risks for the people we care about.”

  “In a perfect world, yeah. But my world is far from perfect. And anyway, Jeremy assured me that he knew what he was doing. For the first time in his life, he knew what he was doing. And what he had to do.”

  “Which was?”

  “Build a case. ‘Like my father would,’ he said.” Elizabeth paused. “‘Like Cat would.’ I wanted to believe that he could do it. I needed to believe it. Besides that, I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be. It just wasn’t in the cards. I had to let go of him. You can understand that, right?”

  Cat nodded, though reluctantly. Johnny had done that years ago, had dismissed his brother and let him go. And eventually, Cat had, too.

  Everyone gave up on Jeremy, sooner or later.

  “When I met him, he was this troubled boy,” Elizabeth said. “Just so…tragic, you know? So hurt and angry. Smart and handsome, but self-destructive. The proverbial candle burning at both ends. And why wouldn’t he be? He lost his mother, lost his father, then lost his brother and sister. He was as alone as they come. But then, after his memory was restored, he just…” She trailed off, looking for the right word or phrase
.

  “He just what?” Cat urged.

  Elizabeth Hall shrugged. “He just transformed before my eyes,” she said.

  “Into?”

  Elizabeth looked at her directly. “A man. A man with a purpose. That only made me want him more, I think. And that only made it more obvious that I had to end things.”

  Cat said nothing. Elizabeth looked to her suddenly like a woman who didn’t dare ask the question that was on her mind. After a moment, Cat prodded her.

  “What?”

  Elizabeth glanced away, then looked back at Cat. “Do you think Jeremy is still alive?”

  “Yes,” Cat answered. It was the only one she was willing to consider.

  “But isn’t this what happened to your father? Didn’t he disappear one night, and it wasn’t until days later that you all found out he’d been killed?”

  Cat didn’t like thinking about those first long hours, hours that eventually grew into days. Nothing for her — for any of the three Coyle children, each in their own way — to do but wait.

  And fear for the worst.

  Such a helpless feeling.

  “I’m hoping this is different,” Cat said.

  Elizabeth nodded. “Me, too.”

  After a moment Elizabeth Hall stood, told Cat she’d be right back, then exited the coffee shop.

  It was only after Elizabeth had left that Cat noticed that the young woman who had been seated near the door was gone.

  Cat hadn’t even seen her go.

  Whomever the woman had been waiting for must have shown up.

  Cat also realized she hadn’t noticed that the teenage male had moved out from behind the counter and was beginning to stack the chairs on the surrounding tables, preparing to sweep out before closing up.

  As Cat worked on finishing her coffee, she looked at the name she had written down on the napkin.

  Robert Sumner.

  She thought of calling Fiermonte and sharing with him all that she had learned up to this point. But she decided to wait till she actually had everything — the name of office supply shop in the city, the box number, and the key.

  Elizabeth Hall had been gone maybe a minute, so Cat looked at her watch and started a countdown in her head.

  Fourteen minutes.

  She took a few more sips.

  Thirteen.

  Two more sips, and then her cup was empty.