Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series)

by Robert B. Lowe

  Lee walked over to the end table by the sofa bed, opened the door and pulled out the Manhattan White Pages. “I’d say there’s an eighty percent chance that he was living in either Manhattan or Brooklyn.”

  There was nothing for a Brent Donsen in the book. Directory assistance also found no Brent or B. Donsen in Manhattan. But, when he inquired for Brooklyn, the operator said the computer did show Brent A. Donsen. However, the number was unlisted. Lee was pondering his next move when it occurred to Sarah to check back with the Hastings alumni office.

  Sarah talked to the same secretary who had helped her a day earlier. The woman consulted her records again and came back on the line with Donsen’s home address in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood.

  The address took them, via the subway and a half mile walk, to a nice-looking brownstone on a pleasant tree-lined residential street. The mailboxes at the front door showed Brent and Pamela Donsen in the bottom flat.

  Sarah knocked. A short, prim-looking young woman with a round face, turned-up nose and short chestnut hair answered the door. She was wearing a baggy, smock-like dress that looked like it was made out of muslim.

  “Yes?” she said, keeping the door half closed.

  “Hello,” said Sarah, “You must be Pamela.”

  Sarah spoke in a voice laden with sympathy.

  “We’re so sorry to bother you. I’m Sarah Armstrong. I went to law school with Brent. We’re here from out of town and we just wanted to pay our respects. This is my friend Enzo. I was so sorry to hear the news. It was such a shock.”

  “Yes. It was,” said Pamela Donsen.

  “I’m so sorry that we didn’t call ahead,” said Sarah. “We didn’t have your telephone number and I guess it isn’t listed. I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

  “No. No…it isn’t. Please come in.”

  Pamela Donsen opened the door and Sarah and Lee walked in. The door opened onto a hallway, and they could see that it ran straight back to the end of the house. There was a French door in the back that opened onto some sort of garden.

  On the way down the hallway, she took them past a room on the left that looked like a study. Lee glanced inside the room and saw cardboard boxes stacked in the middle of the room. Some of them had the lids removed and he could see files and what looked like office paraphernalia.

  “I was just going through some of the things that Brent’s office sent,” said Pamela Donsen, as she ushered them into a small living room.

  The room had gray slate tiles with a Persian rug in the middle. It had no windows, but the wall between the living room and the kitchen had been cut open and a counter installed with bar stools.

  Framed pictures were mounted on either side of the opening in the wall. Lee’s attention was drawn to one in particular. It was Pamela Donsen and what must have been Brent standing on a riverbank with a canoe paddle in Brent’s hand. He was tall and prematurely balding, with an oval face, a scraggly beard and a shit-eating grin. Pamela, though smiling, looked more reserved. She was holding her husband’s arm with both hands.

  Sarah and Lee sat on a tan, overstuffed sofa. Pamela Donsen offered them iced tea, and went into the kitchen to get it. As they watched Pamela Donsen filling glasses from an ice machine, Lee looked at Sarah and nodded toward the back of the house.

  “You know, I don’t remember Brent mentioning you,” said Pamela Donsen when she returned with the iced tea.

  “Actually, I was very close to some other friends of Brent’s,” said Sarah. “For example, Bob Weiskauf and I have stayed in closer touch. It’s hard, you know, when everyone separates to keep track of them, especially with all the hours lawyers have to put in.”

  Pamela Donsen nodded in agreement, rolling her eyes at the mention of the hours.

  “I know. I couldn’t believe how hard Brent worked. Sometimes all he did was work and sleep for the entire week. Then we might have part of Sunday to go to a park or see a movie. Then he would submerge again.”

  “So, Brent really liked his work at the Justice Department?” Sarah said.

  “He loved it. He was so happy that he didn’t go straight into private practice.”

  “You know, I don’t remember how you and Brent met,” said Sarah. “Bob probably told me. I don’t think you were together when Brent was in law school.”

  Pamela Donsen shook her head.

  “We met at work,” she said. “I’m a paralegal at the Justice Department. We didn’t actually work on the same cases. But, you know how it is, you notice each other, chit chat a little. Finally, Brent worked up the nerve to ask me out.”

  “And the rest is history,” said Lee. “What kind of work did Brent do at Justice?”

  “He prosecuted violations of export and import laws, everything from people bringing in clothing made in Taiwan without paying duties to illegal technology transfers,” said Pamela Donsen

  “Technology transfer?” said Lee.

  “Right. You know, technology that isn’t supposed to go to particular countries because it will enable them to build nuclear weapons or better submarines. That sort of thing.”

  “And what kind of work did you do? Are you still there?” said Sarah.

  “Oh, yes. I’m working in a different department than when I met Brent. I mainly work on firearms cases now.”

  Lee set down his iced tea on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “Pamela, could you show me where the bathroom is?”

  As Pamela stood up to point Lee to the right door down the hallway, Sarah stood up, too.

  “I see you’ve got a tremendous looking garden out in the back,” said Sarah. “May I take a look?”

  As soon as he heard the back door click shut, Lee left the bathroom and walked quickly back to the study at the front of the house. He started with the opened boxes sitting on top. He went through the files quickly. Most of them related to Brent and Pamela Donsen’s personal affairs. Health plans. Insurance policies. Mutual fund prospectuses. There were also records relating to Brent Donsen’s professional life. A file of travel receipts. Another showed continuing education classes he had attended.

  Lee had worked down to a box on the floor that contained a coffee mug, a pen set, a loose-leaf desk calendar, a Rolodex file, and a small New York Knicks pennant on a stick when the back door opened. He heard Sarah’s voice.

  “…grow bougainvillea in the shade before. I thought that in California where it’s so sunny it would grow. But I never got any flowers…Oh, look. See how your wisteria is weaving through your latticework there…”

  Lee poked his head out of the study and saw Sarah and Pamela Donsen looking at the garden through the back door. He walked quietly down the hall and into the living room. He sat down on the sofa and began paging through a Newsweek sitting on the coffee table.

  • • •

  ON THE WAY back to the subway station, Lee reached into his pocket. He pulled out a single Rolodex card. Handwritten in red ink was the name AgriGenics with a telephone number after it. Below it were two names followed by telephone numbers: Arthur Sendaki, the AgriGenics founder, and someone named Benjamin Nussbaum. Sendaki’s number contained the area code for the San Jose area. The number that followed Nussbaum’s name had no area code in front of it.

  “Not exactly a smoking gun,” said Lee. “But, it shows a connection.”

  Sarah smiled weakly, then looked at the ground as she continued walking.

  “Hey. It’s progress anyway,” said Lee, defensively.

  “It’s great, Enzo. It was just so depressing to see her, packing away her husband’s things. You could tell she is already fighting the loneliness. I guess that’s how it happens. Someone is gone and you’re left with nothing but reminders, all the paraphernalia of your life together. They just have no right to do this.”

  They walked on in silence.

  Lee waited until they were on the subway heading back to Manhattan before he pulled out the other item he had taken from the Donsens’ study. It was a small stack of desk calend
ar pages, about a month’s worth. He showed them to Sarah.

  “Look. This is what caught my attention. It was turned to this page, probably the day Donsen died. At four o’clock. ‘Contact Sendaki.’ It looks like an appointment he wasn’t able to keep.”

  Lee handed the page to Sarah and flipped through the other pages that predated Donsen’s death. On the page dated a week before Donsen’s death, he found the notation “Meet Nussbaum, Room 204, 1 p.m.”

  Chapter 19

  IT WAS DARK when they returned to the hotel. Lee considered taking Sarah to the Red Lion, a favorite watering hole for journalists in Greenwich Village. But he decided against it because of the likelihood they would run into someone he knew. The 3,000 miles between New York and whoever was pursuing Sarah in San Francisco was a nice cushion, but there was no point in advertising their location.

  Lee decided on Bitter Sweet, a small, dimly lit jazz club on Bleeker Street with a bar, a dozen tables and just enough room left over for an upright piano. They walked along the cobblestones of Bleeker, through the heart of the Village, past the Cafe Figaro with its sidewalk tables of espresso-sipping people watchers. It was a warm, spring night and they swam in a whirl of excited people on their way to dinner, plays, recitals, or just to down a few at the local pub.

  They ordered beers at Bitter Sweet and realized they were famished. While the jazz pianist and bassist began their set with something slow and dreamy, Sarah and Lee tucked into a large romaine salad topped with toasted walnuts, a mound of crumbled bleu cheese and a creamy vinaigrette dressing.

  The duo had moved on to a more upbeat tempo when Lee attacked a two-pound lobster to Sarah’s accompanying assault on a rack of baby back ribs. After licking their fingers clean for the final time, they sat back in their booth to catch their breaths while a soothing piano solo washed over the room.

  “I have a proposition,” said Sarah, smiling in the light of the candle between them.

  “Go ahead. Propose, then.”

  “First, this is my treat,” she said. “Second, for this evening, let’s just forget why we’re here and everything that has happened this past week. Let’s not even talk about it. I’m emotionally exhausted. My leg is still sore. I could use a night off.”

  “Done. Is there anything else?” said Lee.

  “Yes. You have one major responsibility.”

  “Oh?”

  Sarah swirled the amber dregs in her glass. “You must ply me with liquor.”

  Lee ordered refills.

  “Also done,” he said. “So, will it violate the spirit of the evening if you tell me the story of Mister Ex.”

  “Mister Ex? Oh, my ex. Do we start confessing our mistakes now? Are we ready for this? I may need to finish another drink first.”

  “Well, we’re fellow travelers, right?” said Lee. “Risking death together. Whoops. I wasn’t supposed to bring that up.”

  “That’s all right,” said Sarah. “So, what’s a little more intimacy after all that, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. What the hell.” Sarah looked up as the waitress returned. “Ah, here’s the next round. Just in time. Well, Mister Ex is named Bill.”

  “A good start.”

  “Right. Well, Bill and I met right after I moved to San Francisco to start law school. He was…is…an architect. He is older, about ten years older than me.”

  “Hmmm,” said Lee.

  “What’s that mean?” Sarah was smiling.

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “Well. We just hit it off. We had a lot in common. We liked the same books, going to the movies, taking in the museums.”

  “Red meat.”

  “Yeah,” said Sarah. “We had barbecue twice a week at least.”

  “Figures.”

  “And…the…uh…physical part…”

  “The sex? You mean the fornication?”

  “Yes, you bastard. The sex was very nice, too.” Sarah said. “In fact, it was great!” She flashed a brilliant smile.

  “It sounds like nirvana so far,” said Lee. “So, what happened to this perfect match.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Yes. Nothing.” Sarah took a gulp of her beer. “We just continued on and on for four years and nothing changed. I moved in. We talked about buying a place and never did. We talked about getting married and maybe having kids, but never did. It dawned on me one day that Bill was perfectly happy with his life the way it was. The room that he made for me was just that. A room. He didn’t want me to invade any more of his life.”

  Lee gulped. It occurred to him that one or two women in his past might well be describing him in pretty much the same terms Sarah was using at that very instant at some other bar in some other part of the world. Oh well. He’d started the conversation after all.

  “It sounds like the two of you had different expectations,” he offered.

  “Obviously. He wanted something static. I wanted something that wasn’t defined ahead of time, that could grow and change.” Sarah banged her glass down a little too hard. “And what about you, Mister Tell-Me-The-Story-Of-Your-Life? What are you doing on the streets at…how old are you, anyway?”

  “A few years younger than Bill. I guess I started this, didn’t I?” said Lee. “All right. Where to start? I guess my one truly serious relationship was with a woman I lived with most of the time I was in New York. We met in Florida.”

  “Does this woman have a name?” asked Sarah.

  “Karen was her name. She was an artist…a designer, actually. We met through friends and it was infatuation at first sight. Actually, most of the time it was very good between us. At least I thought so.”

  “So? What happened?”

  “Hmmm. What happened?” mulled Lee. “Well, how much do you know about my time in New York? I mean professionally as far as being a reporter here?”

  “I heard you had some trouble,” Sarah admitted. “That’s all I know.”

  “‘Trouble’ is a nice way to put it,” said Lee. “It was very close to professional suicide. And very self inflicted. I made a huge mistake, got a story wrong and it blew up in my face. It was like watching your house burn down slowly, over 30 days.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Sarah.

  “Yeah. That makes two of us,” said Lee. “Three, actually, if you count Karen. I was basically out of commission for six months. Self pity. Self hate. Almost self immolation. It was miserable being me and I can’t imagine what it was like living with me.

  “Karen moved on,” Lee continued. “We occupied the same apartment but, as I said, I really wasn’t there in any recognizable human form. She found someone else.

  “Losing her was a real kick to the gut,” said Lee. “It was like watching your most valuable possession slip through your fingers and when you close your hand, it’s too late. That actually brought me back, though. It was like emotional shock treatment.”

  “And you and she couldn’t get back together?” asked Sarah.

  Lee shook his head. “It was too late. She had moved on.”

  Lee drained the dregs of the pint in front of him and set the glass down.

  “So, you’re looking at damaged goods,” he said. “A failure at relationships and disgraced as a journalist. You’re stuck with the ‘B’ team.”

  “Hmmm. I think I fancy the ‘B’ team,” said Sarah.

  “Oh. That’s nice,” said Lee. “When you say ‘fancy’ do you mean…ah…maybe…that…umm…”

  “Yes,” said Sarah.

  “No, what I mean is, aside from being in this mess together would you…ah…”

  “Yes.”

  “So. Does that mean that you…”

  “Yes.”

  “Sooo…ah…maybe I should get the check?”

  “Yes,” said Sarah. “I would.”

  The streets were still busy on the short walk back to the hotel. They turned down a quiet lane for the last block. Lee took her hand in his and felt her gentle sque
eze back. He could feel the effect of her touch down to his toes. He was vibrating like a tuning fork.

  When the door to the elevator slid shut, Lee put his hand on Sarah’s neck and pulled her toward him. Her mouth was cool and her lips pushed back against his. He felt her tongue. Then, Sarah suddenly broke it off. She pushed him away but continued holding his arms. She looked him directly in the eyes.

  “Look,” she said. “I find you very attractive. And I don’t require prospects of marriage or even a long-term commitment to become involved with someone I like. But, I have one rule. I never make out in elevators. I got nauseated going up a skyscraper once.” Sarah smiled apologetically.

  “Great,” said Lee, falling back against the side of the elevator. “I’m stuck with the one woman in Manhattan who pukes in elevators and the slowest fucking Otis in America. I’m cursed. This just proves it.”

  When the doors finally opened, Sarah backed out of the elevator, holding Lee’s hands in her own. After the outer doors slid shut, she shoved him hard against them and pulled his head down to hers.

  They embraced, their lips, tongues and teeth colliding, pulling apart and then coming together again as Sarah pressed herself against Lee. She pushed her leg against him so she could feel his erection and she pressed herself hard against his thigh. He pulled her hips even tighter against him. After a couple of minutes, Lee pushed himself away from the closed elevator doors and Sarah shoved him back.

  “What’s the matter?” she whispered as she flicked a tongue into Lee’s ear. “Afraid of heights?”

  “Yeah,” said Lee, as he licked her neck. “I figure we’ve only got 17 seconds until the elevator gets back here and I fall flat on my ass.”

  He pushed Sarah away, put a comfortable distance between them and the elevator shaft, and took Sarah’s hand as they walked to their room. For a horrified moment, he thought he had lost the room key before finding it in a shirt pocket.

  Once inside, Lee dropped to his knees and pulled Sarah down to hers. While they kissed, he unbuttoned her blouse and then ran his fingers inside and under her bra. When the back of his fingertips touched Sarah’s nipples, she gasped and pulled back a little. Then, she smiled through her kiss and whispered, “Cold hands.”