Midas w-2

by Russell Andrews

  Sure enough, his ritualized process was successful again. Sitting at Jimmy’s old desk, Justin wound up typing in several new entries. By Ray Lockhardt’s name, he added that he’d been shot with a.38. He also added a notation: “Killed between 7 and 8 P.M., same night as La Cucina bombing.” When he put in the information about Bradford Collins, he realized that people murdered other people for three basic reasons: passion, money, and protection. With Collins, it was fairly safe to rule out the first category-a jilted lover might shoot someone, but blow up a roomful of strangers? — but the last two could be valid. So he added: “Money?” and then: “What did he know? What could he tell? Who could he hurt?” For Cooke, he typed in: “Where was he going? Where had he come from?” And then: “Passenger?” and “Cargo?” and, thinking back to Chuck Billings’s notes, “Connection to Semtex?”

  He ran the cursor back over to Bradford Collins’s name, let it linger there for a moment, waiting for the thought he knew was going to emerge. It did and he threw his hands up, wondering why he hadn’t thought of this before. He quickly went online, went to the New York Times Web site, because he knew they’d kept a running track of the bombing victims, and ran down the list of all those known to be killed at Harper’s. There were a few names he recognized, Jimmy Leggett’s among them. When he came to Jimmy’s listing he almost did a double take. Jimmy’s death already seemed disconnected from what he was investigating, and for a moment Justin was actually surprised to see it there, but then he realized that he was only making this list because Marjorie had asked him to find out what had happened to her husband. He shivered involuntarily, yet again surprised at the brain’s ability to make wounds that seem so raw recede into the background, then he kept scrolling through the names. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find, but whatever it was wasn’t there. He saw the name of a local contractor he knew, a big guy with a bad temper who once, while installing storm windows in Justin’s East End house, had taken a swing at Justin after listening to a complaint about some of the workmanship. Justin hadn’t taken kindly to the contractor’s attempt to remove his head from his neck. While the guy was off balance after Justin ducked his punch, Justin grabbed a lamp and used it in one swift and compact motion to break the contractor’s nose. There was a lot of blood and a lot of swearing, neither of which had particularly bothered Justin. Nor did it bother him to find out the guy was now dead. Justin was not big on grudges. But on the other hand, he found no real reason to grieve over assholes.

  Going through the rest of the names, Justin saw an array of businessmen and — women who had died that day, none of whom seemed overtly connected to Bradford Collins in any relevant way. There was a writer whom Justin had heard of but had never read, a literary agent who’d been visiting from London, the comptroller for the City of New York, whom the Times praised lavishly, a yoga teacher, a gourmet caterer, busboys, waiters, hostesses. A lot of innocent people who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there was no one who jumped out at Justin as useful to his investigation. So he went offline, switched back to the word processing program and his list, and under “Need to Know” he wrote, “Who was Brad Collins having lunch with?” And that sparked one more thing, so he scrolled down to Martin Heffernan’s name and wrote the same thing: “Who was he meeting at La Cucina?”

  He’d had it. He could tell his brain was turning off, so he clicked on the print option, heard the quiet whirr of the printer preparing to do its work, and he sat at what was now his desk, his hands cupped together, his head resting on the edges of his fingers. As the two-page document printed, Justin breathed deeply, letting his mind go blank, allowing his instincts to tell him where to start, what to do first. When he decided, he nodded a firm, crisp nod, pleased with the decision, and as he reached over to pick up his notes he was surprised to find that Reggie Bokkenheuser was standing in front of his desk, looking at him with the faintest curl of a smile on her lips.

  “Trying to see into the future?” she said.

  “The past,” he told her. “With cops it’s always the past.”

  She nodded, as if he’d just revealed something valuable. There was a moment of silence that hung thickly in the air, then she said, “Is there anything I can help you with?” When he didn’t answer right away, she sat down in the chair across the desk from him. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, or what exactly you’re trying to figure out, but I know there’s a lot of shit going down. Maybe you shouldn’t be trying to do it all by yourself.” He still didn’t respond, so she said, “If not me, then some of those guys.” She waved her hand in the direction of the cops in the main station room.

  “I have two of them working on something.”

  She waited but he didn’t say anything further, so she stood back up and said, “I’ll go back to my parking tickets.”

  Reggie turned around, took a step toward the door, but Justin said her name out loud and she stopped.

  “Ray Lockhardt,” he said.

  “What about him?”

  “I want you to handle the investigation.” Her eyes widened a bit. He thought she looked pleased. He’d definitely managed to surprise her.

  “Um. .,” she said, “what are you going to be doing while I’m looking into only the second murder in this town in twenty-six years.” Now it was his turn to look surprised, and she said, “I do my homework.”

  “Time to graduate from homework,” Justin told her. “It’s the real world now.”

  “I’m ready for it,” she said.

  “I know you are.”

  “But you still didn’t answer my question. What are you going to be doing?”

  “There are a lot of pieces to this thing. I think you’re better off not knowing what all of them are. At least for now. But you’ll be working on one piece. Gary and Tom are working on another one.”

  “And you’ll be working on another one.”

  “Yup.”

  “And putting all the pieces together so they make a nice, coherent whole?”

  “See?” he said, nodding. “You’re already putting your crack investigative skills to work.”

  He told her to sit back down, then he spent a few minutes going over the details of Ray Lockhardt’s murder and pointing Reggie in several right directions. He told her to begin by looking for anyone with a registered.38 on the east end of Long Island. If that didn’t lead anywhere, find out if any registered.38s had been reported stolen. Said she should track Ray’s movements for the day he died, and to check with airport employees and pilots to find out if anyone saw anything suspicious. Told her the results from fingerprinting Ray’s office should be back momentarily and gave her the name of the officer on the Southampton force she should contact to get them. That would be enough to keep her busy for a while. Then he told her to report in at the end of every day or anytime something interesting occurred, day or night. He saw her eyes flicker when he said the word “night,” and he almost said something, something like, “Come on, sex is one thing, a murder investigation’s something else, cut the crap,” but the flicker wasn’t really that blatant and it seemed better to leave the whole thing alone. Besides, he’d felt the change in his voice when he said the same phrase. It wasn’t much of a change, he doubted she’d even heard it. But he had.

  When Reggie left the office, he hesitated for just a moment, then picked up the phone and dialed.

  He gave his name to the secretary who answered the phone, and she immediately put him through to her boss. When the man came on the line, Justin took a deep breath and said, “Dad?” Then he explained to his father what he needed and what he wanted and when his father said, “Okay,” Justin said, “See you Saturday.” Before he could even hang up the phone, Gary and Thomas burst into his office. They looked like little schoolkids who couldn’t wait to show the teacher they had the right answer to a tough question.

  “We found him,” Gary said.

  “Hutchinson Cooke,” Thomas added.

  “Yeah.” This was Gary.
Justin wondered if they’d actually rehearsed who would get to tell him what information. “We have his home address and the name of his commanding officer at Andrews Air Force Base.”

  Thomas stepped in now. “That’s where he was based.”

  “Where’s the house?” Justin asked.

  “In Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s right outside of D.C.”

  “And it’s up for sale,” Gary said. He couldn’t resist a slight boast. “I spoke to the Realtor.”

  “Who’s selling it?” Justin wanted to know.

  “Cooke’s wife.” That was Thomas. “They were married for sixteen years. Her name’s Theresa. They have two kids.”

  Gary shot his fellow cop a sharp look. Justin wondered if it was Gary who was supposed to spill the news about the kids. “The oldest one’s Reysa. She’s twelve. And the younger one’s Hannah. Nine.”

  “Here,” Thomas said, handing over a piece of paper. “That’s got all the info on it.”

  “Thank you,” Justin said. “Good work.”

  “There’s one other thing that’s weird,” Gary said. Justin could see that there’d been an internal struggle about whether or not to reveal this last chunk of info. “This guy Cooke was pulling down two paychecks. We finally found him using IRS records, that’s how come we know about it.”

  Justin couldn’t help himself. “He was getting paid by a company called Midas, right?”

  Both of the faces of the young cops fell nearly to the floor. Justin felt guilty. But, hell, they deserved it. They’d been just a little too eager to show off. Still, he could have been a little less show-offy himself.

  “Did you get any information on Midas? I didn’t come up with a thing,” Justin said.

  His ignorance on that score didn’t seem to make them feel any better. Gary looked down at his shoes and said, “No. We didn’t find nothing either. It’s weird. It’s kind of like the company doesn’t exist.”

  “Well, keep working on it, would you? It might be nothing, it might be important. But see what you can find out, okay?”

  They nodded, turned to go back to the main room.

  “And I mean it, guys. That was good work. Thank you.”

  They shrugged but were still pleased by the compliment. As soon as they were gone, Justin hunched forward and looked at his calendar for the next day, saw that other than a meeting with Leona Krill, he had a blank slate. He decided he could cancel Leona. He was sure she’d understand. So he made two quick calls. One to the travel agent at the end of Main Street, right on the pier. She booked him the round-trip flight he requested. The second call was to Leona. He got her secretary, told the woman to reschedule the next day’s meeting. When she asked for a time to reschedule, he said he’d get back to her, and hung up. He’d barely gotten his hand away from the receiver when his intercom buzzed. When he answered it, Dennis said, “Mayor Krill’s on the one-three-six-four line.” Justin nodded to himself, tapped down on the right button and said, “Leona, what can I do for you?”

  “You cannot cancel your meeting with me just because you don’t feel like meeting. Not when we’ve got a murder investigation in this town. That’s what you can do for me.”

  “I canceled it because of the investigation,” he said. “I have to go out of town. On business.”

  “What time are you leaving?”

  “Early,” he told her. “A nine A.M. plane, so I have to leave here around seven.”

  “I’ll meet you at six-thirty,” she said. “I’ll even make it easy on you. We can meet at your place.” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Six-thirty tomorrow morning at your place, okay, Jay?”

  “How do you like your coffee?” he said.

  “Skim milk, no sugar.”

  As he put the phone down, Justin sat back in his chair. He looked through his large plate glass window into the front room of the station house. Thomas had left to patrol the town. Gary was working on his computer. Reggie was putting on her coat and was on her way out. She glanced into his office on her way to the front door, saw that he was watching her. He was expecting a smile but it didn’t come. Their eyes met, but no smile. Then she was gone.

  Still leaning back, Justin wondered if he really knew what the hell he was doing. He decided, as usual, that he didn’t, but he was damn sure going to go ahead and do it anyway.

  18

  The doorbell rang at exactly 6:30 A.M. Justin knew that Leona would be prompt; he’d planned on opening the door with a flourish seconds before she was due to arrive. But his timing was off. He chalked it up to a combination of the early hour, the icy chill that permeated his house, and the half a bottle of scotch he had consumed the night before. He hadn’t been able to sleep. He chalked that up to the phone conversation he’d had with Marjorie Leggett, in which he’d told her not to worry, that he’d tell her everything she wanted to know real soon; to the fact that he spent much of the night trying to force himself not to call Reggie Bokkenheuser, whose house he could see from one of his living room windows; and to the scotch. At some point he’d had the choice of sleeping or drinking. Sleep wasn’t nearly as delicious as the single malt.

  “You look like hell,” Leona said as she stepped inside.

  “It’s not my best time of day.”

  “What is your best time of day, Jay?”

  “Good point.” He shrugged. “I guess I don’t really have one.”

  Leona Krill stood by his couch but didn’t sit. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Are you going to want every detail of what I’m doing? ’Cause I don’t really work too well that way.”

  “The town’s paying for this trip, I assume. Don’t you think that gives me the right to ask?”

  “I’ll submit my expenses. If you don’t want to pay them, I’ll pay myself.”

  “You’re an arrogant bastard sometimes, aren’t you?”

  “I’m an arrogant bastard most of the time, Leona. It just comes out more when I have to get up before dawn. Plus I’ve got a few things on my mind.”

  She shook her head. “Did you make coffee?”

  “And bought skim milk.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen, came back a moment later with a mug. Steam curled out of the top.

  Leona thanked him, took a sip of the coffee, and said, “I don’t know anything about murder investigations, Jay.”

  “No reason you should.”

  “But I’m the mayor. And whatever happens, I’m going to be responsible.”

  “Feel free to shift the blame to me. If that’s why you’re here, I give you my permission.”

  “I’m here because I want to make sure that you know how to handle a murder investigation. Because if you don’t, I can get help.”

  He held back the laugh that wanted to come out. But he couldn’t hold it back entirely. “Leona, I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who’s gonna be much help on this one.”

  “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s a lot more going on than you should know about. I wasn’t really kidding about taking the blame. If I’m right, this is gonna get messy and dangerous. If I’m wrong, at least you can say you didn’t know anything about it.”

  “And you don’t think maybe you could use some support? Some help?”

  “Probably. But I’m not asking for any.”

  “You know, I was meeting with Jimmy once and I asked him about you.”

  “Was this before you decided to switch teams?”

  “I was asking about you professionally, not personally. You want to know what he said?” When Justin shrugged, she took another sip of coffee and said, “Jimmy was a fairly solid guy. Nice, he cared about things, not exactly a philosopher. But what he said struck me as smart, not the kind of thing I ever would have thought of. He told me he thought you were the most trustworthy person he’d ever met. I said that was quite a compliment, and he said he didn’t really mean it that way. S
o I asked him what he meant and he said that most people were honest because they thought they’d get caught if they weren’t. If someone found a suitcase full of cash, and no one was around, he’d usually keep it. But if someone else was there, if someone was watching and could tell on him, he’d do the right thing and turn it in. Because he’d be afraid of what might happen to him if he didn’t. But Jimmy said that you didn’t care if anyone was watching. You’d do what you thought was right no matter the situation. If you thought it was right to keep it, you would. If you thought it was right to give it back, that’s what you’d do.” She took one more long sip of coffee. “He said the reason was you didn’t care about getting caught. He said you didn’t care at all about what happened to you. That’s why he said he trusted you. Because you’d tell him what you were going to do with that suitcase, and he knew you’d be telling the truth. Because you didn’t care. Interesting, don’t you think?”

  “Well, like you said, Jimmy was a pretty good guy. He wasn’t a genius, though.”

  Leona started to put the mug down, looked for a coaster, couldn’t find one, so she got up and took it to the kitchen sink. From there she went straight to the front door, stopping only to say, “Thank you for hiring Regina. I appreciate it.”

  “I hired her because she’s good, not because you asked me to.”