Midas w-2

by Russell Andrews

  “Okay, then I don’t appreciate it. Check in with me when you get back.”

  “Yes, boss,” he said.

  “Don’t forget it,” she told him.

  Justin tried to pay attention. But it was almost impossible. For one thing, he was thinking about what Leona had told him, what Jimmy had said about him. For another, the woman across the desk from him would not stop talking.

  She was not unattractive, although she did her best to downplay any hint of a feminine side. She was probably in her early forties, her skin was clear and smooth, her dark brown hair drably cut, absolutely straight with no faddish layering. She wore a Nancy Reaganish red wool business suit-jacket buttoned nearly up to her neck and a matching skirt that came down to mid-calf. Shiny, trim brown boots with a thin two-inch heel rose up to meet the hem of the skirt, leaving no room for even an inch of skin to show through. Underneath her jacket was a dark blue shirt. The only thing left open in her outfit was the top button of the shirt, which allowed perhaps two inches of her neck to be exposed. She wore delicate and tasteful pearl earrings; other than that her only jewelry was a simple gold watch clasped around her right wrist on an equally simple gold band. As a package, it added up to something that was very conservatively marketed, refusing to draw attention to itself, insisting that the viewer concentrate on the substance rather than the nonexistent glitz.

  Her voice was another thing altogether.

  It was nasal and too high-pitched and did nothing but draw attention to itself. It lacked confidence and firmness and was just a shade too quiet. Mostly it was empty. It belied her substantive appearance and did little more than timidly whisper that underneath the surface there was absolutely nothing.

  Justin Westwood wondered which half of this woman was for real-the substance or the emptiness. If he had to bet, he knew which way he’d go. She was a bureaucrat. Bet empty.

  Justin was not, for the most part, prone to self-analysis. He did not usually care to examine the reasons he acted the way he did, because, with rare exception, he had little interest in acting any other way. Jimmy had definitely been right in that regard. When Justin mourned, it was because he wanted to mourn and had no interest in overcoming his grief. When he retreated from the world-which he’d done, in his own way, for quite a few years after Alicia and Lili died-it was because there was no desire to come out of hiding. When he got drunk or stoned, it was because being high felt better than not being high. And when he was sober it was because it seemed right to be anchored to reality and any ensuing pain was worth the effort. He might not like what he was doing at any particular moment but whatever he was doing it was because he liked the alternatives even less.

  He rarely questioned himself when he took a stand, and it was even less rare that he cared about pissing someone off. He probably could have handled the few relationships he’d had after Alicia a lot better than he had, but even that didn’t worry him much. If he’d wanted them to last-really wanted them to last, not just superficially-then he knew he would have handled them better.

  He did not put much stock in other people’s morals or values, only his own, because it was his morals that he trusted. Jimmy had been absolutely right about that. Justin knew that he did not even hold the law particularly sacred, even though he’d become a cop. He was much more interested in justice than the law. And justice, he understood, came from within. It was a belief, not a prescription for how to behave.

  But as Justin sat across the desk from Martha Peck, in her impersonal, glass-encased Washington, D.C., Federal Aviation Administration office overlooking 1st Street NW, he was seriously questioning himself. As she droned on, he was wondering why it was he so detested bureaucrats. He could have a calm conversation face-to-face with a serial killer but one phone call with an employee of the phone company could drive him straight over the edge. There was no problem staying calm when some drunk in a bar was furiously trying to rearrange his face, but trying to convince a bank manager to change the mailing address on a tax form was enough to bring forth visions of the apocalypse. It was that bureaucratic condescension. That awareness that you needed them, that there was no place else to go. Maybe that was it-Justin liked alternatives. He believed in alternatives. For bureaucrats, choice was nonexistent. There was one way and one way only-the system. As the nasal voice went on and on, Justin felt himself relaxing. The simple act of understanding his disdain calmed him down. And he understood that, when dealing with an implacable system, anger was self-defeating. So he sat quietly, pushing any traces of ire away, and forced himself to listen to the administrator of the FAA as she told him that it was not possible that anyone in her area could possibly have done anything wrong. Certainly not willingly.

  Justin had three people to see during the twelve hours he was planning to spend in the D.C. area. He’d thought that Martha Peck would be the easiest to deal with and probably the most productive. Based on the conversation so far, he sure as hell hoped he was wrong about that.

  “Ms. Peck,” Justin interrupted. “Let’s forget the question of wrong or right, for the moment, okay?”

  “As a police officer, I would have thought that was your most important question.”

  “What I really need to know is why you removed Hutchinson Cooke’s file from your Oklahoma City office two days before his plane crashed.”

  The woman behind the desk chewed on her lower lip for a moment, her subtle shade of red lipstick rubbed off on her front teeth. “I was told that if you came here I wasn’t to talk to you.”

  “I’m sure you were.”

  Her eyes widened just a bit. “That doesn’t surprise you?”

  “The same person-or at least someone from the same organization-came to my station and told me not to pursue this.”

  “So why are you?”

  “Because someone was murdered in my town. And whatever else is involved, my job is to find the son of a bitch who did it.”

  “You’re not afraid of the FBI?”

  “Hell, Ms. Peck, I’m even afraid of you. But I’m not going to stop asking questions. And I don’t get frightened off my cases, no matter who’s doing the blustering.”

  Now she used her tongue to wipe the lipstick off of her teeth. She hadn’t looked in the mirror so Justin wasn’t sure how she knew it was there. Maybe it was just a nervous habit. “What makes you think Hutchinson Cooke’s file was removed?” Martha Peck asked.

  “Because it’s missing. It was electronically removed. Everything about Cooke and the plane he was flying is gone.”

  “Files do go missing all the time. I sincerely doubt there was any intent to mislead or obstruct any kind of investigation.”

  “Fine. If you didn’t do it, just tell me who else has the authority to remove a file. I’m happy to talk to him or her.” When Martha Peck didn’t answer, just began nibbling around the edges of a very red fingernail, Justin said, “Ms. Peck, I’m sure you can make my job extremely difficult. You and your bosses can hire lawyers and block subpoenas and all sorts of things you government people are really good at. But here’s the thing: I need to know who took the file and why it was taken. If you want me to guess, I’d say someone from the FBI came to you or someone else here and you or whoever it was buckled in the face of a badge and a few words about national security. If that’s the case, I don’t blame you. I probably would have done the same and I’m not looking to nail you, not at all. But I need to know who owned the plane that Hutchinson Cooke was flying the day he crashed. And, on top of that, I’d like to know who in your office had direct contact with Martin Heffernan. I’ll get that info somehow. Believe me. I will. I’m one of those annoying cops who sinks his teeth in and won’t let go. You’d be a lot better off telling me the truth and getting me out of your hair.”

  “That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes any sense to me.”

  “Good. Then you’ll give me what I need?”

  “I mean the annoying part.” She straightened up the few pieces of paper on her desktop,
which was already tidy and clean. “Do you truly think that someone in the FAA is involved in a crime?”

  “Most likely murder.”

  “I just don’t believe it.”

  “At the very least, whoever took that file is guilty of covering up a murder. It’s still good for serious jail time. Unless I get some cooperation.”

  “Martin Heffernan certainly didn’t take it. He was a mid-level management person. The equivalent of an insurance salesman. He was harmless.”

  Justin sensed that she was weakening. She clearly hadn’t liked being bullied by the FBI any more than he had. He’d been hoping to fly under the radar for a while longer, but what the hell, he knew that was a pipe dream, so he shook his head and bit the bullet. “He stole the dead man’s identification,” he told her. “And wiped the plane clean of fingerprints, trying to make sure I wouldn’t find out Cooke’s identity.”

  “Oh my God. Are you absolutely certain of that?”

  “Everybody starts out harmless, Ms. Peck. But it’s amazing, somehow prisons still manage to fill right up.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “I don’t think for a moment it starts and stops with Heffernan. Mid-level management guys don’t make the kinds of decisions he made. Someone was making them for him. That’s the person I want to find.”

  “I wish I still smoked,” she said. “This is a very disturbing conversation. Although it wouldn’t do me any good, would it? This is one of those damn smokeless buildings.” She sighed. “Do you have the tail number of the plane?”

  He gave it to her, made sure she wrote it down correctly.

  “If something was taken,” she said, “someone might have had a perfectly good reason for taking it.”

  “Will you give me the information?” he asked. “I promise to let you know the minute I find any perfectly good reasons.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “Right,” he said, and started to stand. “Should I leave my card or should I just go fuck myself?”

  She stared at him silently. And then, miracle of miracles, she smiled. Her lips-not as red as the nails but still a tad too red-parted. A little of the red had managed to scrape onto her teeth but it was a welcome sight because it was indeed a smile. She was human. He smiled back at her.

  “You’d think I’d have dealt with a lot more policemen in my job. But I haven’t. Not directly. I’m mostly involved with policy so I spend my day with committees and politicians.”

  “So you spend more time with the criminal element.”

  She smiled again. And this time she licked the lipstick smudge off her teeth. “Do you really think Heffernan and this missing file are connected to your murder?”

  “I know it,” he said.

  “Then leave me your card,” she told him. “But if you want to go fuck yourself, too, that’ll be fine with me.”

  Justin always thought that he was someone who’d had more opportunities than most to sample the various experiences that life had to offer. He had seen rich and he’d seen poor. He’d experienced the ultimate in pristine lifestyles and he’d been in the midst of unimaginable violence and depravity. He’d been in love, he’d lost love, he’d been loveless. He’d been both wildly undisciplined and fanatically ordered. There was little, he felt, that could surprise him. Or make him feel uncomfortable and out of place. But one thing he had no experience with whatsoever was military life. He’d never come close to combat, he’d known few soldiers, he’d never, in fact, been on any kind of military installation until he was ushered in to the office of Colonel Eugene T. Zanesworth. From the moment he’d driven past the armed guards who manned the gates to Andrews Air Force Base, he realized that this was a separate world. A world about which he knew nothing. And was likely to learn nothing.

  For one thing, everyone he passed stood ramrod straight. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat on anyone within the entire compound. Even sitting in his rented Grand Am, Justin did his best to sit upright and suck in his gut. It depressed him just a little to realize that there probably wasn’t one person-man or woman-on the entire base that he could take in a fair fight. He cheered up slightly when he realized it didn’t really matter, since he would never fight fair.

  The resolute politeness with which everyone dealt with him also made him uncomfortable. It began just outside the main gate at the Visitor Control Center. The soldier at the reception desk in Building 1840 called him “sir” four times as he phoned to verify Justin’s appointment, took his driver’s license and registration card for his rented Grand Am, and issued him a restricted area badge and vehicle sticker. At the gate, he was called “sir” six times as his car was searched and he was patted down. After he parked on the base in his assigned spot, the person who escorted him to the colonel’s office addressed him as “sir” twice. The woman at Zanesworth’s desk-Justin wasn’t sure if a sergeant also was called a secretary-called him “sir” three times. Everyone’s voice was at the same modulated, calm level and delivered in the same brisk manner. Justin realized that he would never have made it as a soldier. Military life was all about restraint and learning to survive by taking and accepting orders. The idea was that at some point-when we were at war-everyone would know what to do and, more importantly, do it, even though the restraints were no longer in place. A well-trained soldier was supposed to equal a soldier who functioned well. Justin thought it was a little bit like taking an electric dog collar off a dog. As long as the collar was there, the dog would stop before leaving the grounds. Take the collar off, he might stop once or twice, still expecting the electric shock, but at some point, he’d realize the fence no longer existed-and he’d be chasing a squirrel with no thought to the dangers that might lie in waiting ahead of him.

  At the same time, there was something uniquely moving about being on this military base, Justin thought. Actually, there were many things that were moving. The youth he was surrounded by. The fact that everyone he saw might be called to battle. The fact that everywhere he looked was someone who was willing to go to battle for something he or she believed in.

  Of course, everyone believed in his own side of a war. That’s why wars were fought. To prove that your country was right or your God was right.

  Justin decided he was lucky he had very few beliefs. His wars were private and personal. In the long run, a lot less dangerous than the wars facing these kids. And in the short run. . well, maybe not as inspiring, but in some ways, more satisfying. He didn’t have to take orders. He didn’t have to operate under restraints. He didn’t have to fight fair.

  Of course, there was one serious drawback to his position. He was beginning to think that he might not have the opportunity to fight at all. Not after two entire minutes in Colonel Zanesworth’s presence.

  “I’m not sure I understand why you’re here,” the colonel said when Justin was ushered into his office.

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure either,” Justin said. He didn’t know if he was supposed to call the older man “Colonel” or not. Justin didn’t put much stock in titles. He didn’t call doctors “Doctor.” And he never understood why sportscasters on TV called guys like Bob Knight “Coach,” as if it were some anointed attachment to their names. But in this instance he figured it couldn’t hurt. People were people-they liked to be shown respect. He wasn’t there to make a point, he was there to get information. “To be honest, Colonel, I’m conducting a bit of a fishing expedition.”

  “What are you fishing for?”

  “Information about someone who was stationed here for several years. Hutchinson Cooke.”

  “I understood that much. That’s why I pulled his file. I’m curious as to why you’re fishing for it.”

  “It’s relevant to a murder investigation.”

  “Hutch Cooke’s murder?”

  “That’s right.”

  “According to the reports I’ve seen, Captain Cooke wasn’t murdered. They call it an accidental death.”

  “I’d love to get a look at any paperwork you’ve se
en, Colonel, but I’m not sure any of that’s accurate. As far as I know, I’m the only person investigating and I haven’t written any reports yet.”

  “Anytime a serviceman is”-Zanesworth hesitated, not sure where to go with his phrasing-“involved in anything of this nature, we immediately check things out.” The colonel tried a brief flicker of a smile. “The military is all about reports, as I’m sure you know. They’re standard and, in this instance, inconsequential.”

  “I don’t really know, Colonel. But even so, at the very least I’d like to talk to the person who prepared them.”

  Zanesworth coughed into his hand. He looked unhappy. “If what you’re saying is true about Captain Cooke, of course we’ll do everything we can to help. But I will be your contact here. I’m afraid it will be too disruptive to just. . how shall I put it. . let you loose on the base.”

  “If anyone else has begun any kind of investigation, it would really be better if-”

  “What information are you looking for?”

  Justin knew he’d been effectively cut off. It was Zanesworth or nothing. At least for the moment. “Okay. Let’s begin with this: I’d like to know what Cooke was doing the past eighteen months.”

  “You’re going to have to be a lot more specific than that, son. Doing where? And in what capacity?”

  “According to the reports I’ve seen, Captain Cooke was away from the base for that period of time. In fact, he didn’t seem to be filling any official Air Force function.”

  “Now you’ve got incorrect information. I was his commanding officer for that period. And I probably didn’t write those reports you read.”

  “So he was stationed here for the past year and a half?”

  “Here and nowhere else.”

  “Did you know he was drawing a salary from a private company during that same period? Something called Midas Ltd. You ever hear of them?”

  “No. No, I didn’t know he was getting paid by them, and no, I’ve never heard of them. But there’s certainly nothing illegal or even suspicious, even if it’s true.”