The Woman Who Stopped Traffic

by Daniel Pembrey

  “Well, is there nothing else I can do to help?” she said.

  “Nope, we’re in good shape. We’re just trying to go slow with the interviews down here in San Jose, to get the cooperation going … It’s good cop all the way.”

  Probably a good thing Pulver hadn’t been handling the interview then. Then again, where was the Pulverizer? Because of the institutional rivalry, Natalie didn’t like to ask. She said: “I can drop the Glock off later today. I have to make a last trip down to Monterey, to see one of Vogel’s neighbors. I could drop it by on the way back?”

  “Good enough. Which neighbor?”

  “Her name’s Star. I met her when I was down visiting Vogel one time. She runs the trust that will inherit his estate. She’s been a mess about it all, and asked for my advice.”

  Ben was following her every word.

  Adam said: “Star Williams?”

  “Don’t know. Must be.”

  “We interviewed her. Yep, she was taking Vogel’s passing real bad. I may be down that way myself, at the County Crime Scene lab.” He paused for a moment. “But yeah, probably best if you drop the gun off in its case, in a padded envelope, at the bureau office. These in-car meetings are starting to look a little clandestine. Mark it confidential and for my attention. Don’t leave your name.”

  “No kidding! And no problem, will do.”

  She closed her phone and pressed it against her pursed lips.

  “What happened?” Ben asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I think the FBI may have taken Dwayne Wisnold in for questioning. Maybe Nancy Wu too.”

  He shook his head, like nothing could surprise him any more.

  CHAPTER 30

  Natalie approached Star Williams’ cottage gingerly. The older woman had sounded jumpy on the phone when asking for her advice. The horsebox was there and she could smell wood smoke too.

  “Star?” she called out.

  No answer.

  She walked up to the back door. It was slightly ajar, and croaked as she eased it open. The main room was a mess. Notepads, documents and legal forms filled the space. “Star?” she called out again.

  Still no answer.

  She picked up one of the documents: IRS Form 706 – Federal Estate Tax Return. Another: Notice of Petition to Administer Estate. Was that the will, sitting next to it?

  “Star, are you here?

  Suddenly the woman appeared behind her in silhouette, giving Natalie a start.

  “It was good of you to come back,” she said, hugging Natalie close – in so doing, holding something behind her back.

  Star turned, and set down the nobbly end of a carrot on the table. “Just keeping Festival warm and fed,” she smiled sadly. “That’s what it’s all about for me now. Please,” and she gestured for Natalie to sit.

  Natalie had been moved by the older woman’s plight during her last visit, right after Vogel’s death. Seeing Star all alone had recalled to Natalie the trials of probating her own father’s estate after his death. Disappearance rather. In any event, she’d found it almost impossible to refuse Star’s request for help.

  But now she was left wondering why exactly she’d come all the way down here. She’d highly likely overestimated her ability to assist Star. Jon Vogel had died an extremely wealthy man. His estate was vastly more complex than her father’s had ever been, despite her dad’s trans-national lifestyle. The Vogel estate held significant sums of cash, liquid securities, illiquid investments, prime real estate, collectibles, exotic pets even. It was doubtless implicated in a web of social causes and other formal and informal obligations that Vogel had accumulated over the decades.

  “Here,” and Star handed her another set of documents: Offer to Buy 40,000,000 Clamor.us Inc. Shares, for $25 each. “It was addressed to the trust.”

  A cool billion dollars.

  “The shares seem to have fallen so much,” Star fretted. “I’m worried there won’t be anything left by the time the Protectorate sees any of it.”

  Natalie was careful not to say anything, to keep her suspicions about Paul Towse to herself.

  “I know Jon disliked Towse intensely,” the older woman said. “Which was unusual for Jon. And yes, I have my own misgivings about anyone like that trying to turn our world into a machine for living in. Shoot, I hardly know how to use my cell phone! What use for me is there in a world like that?”

  Natalie was silent.

  “– I suddenly find it so hard, to know what Jon would have wanted. I find myself second guessing…” And she looked at Natalie searchingly.

  What Star needed, Natalie reasoned, was an experienced probate lawyer practicing in California, a firm of tax accountants perhaps, an investment expert, possibly even a media-relations advisor for the press interest in Towse’s offer. She thought about getting a recommendation from Ben but remembered his romantic interest in her. She defaulted to Ray Ott: surely he’d have some good recommendations.

  Yet, once again, she was struck by something being not quite right, like the last time here. She tried to analyze the feeling but, maddeningly, it defied categorization. She placed the tender documents back down, next to another set – Proof of Holographic Instrument. These would pertain to the will. A written will, apparently –

  “Star, this is complicated,” she said. And, as naturally as possible: “Could I see the will?”

  Star hesitated, then handed it her. She was smiling curiously again. “He wrote it one night, back in the day, on the beach. Under a beautiful moon.” The handwriting was slanted, curvilinear. Contrasting with it was a typed, stapled back sheet that named Star Mary Williams as Estate Executor. It bore Vogel’s spidery signature.

  Natalie paged gently through the ageing sheaves. In the preface, Vogel decreed that: “everything I own and will ever own shall pass into the Protectorate of the Eternal Now” – a crude pour-over provision, Natalie recognized. If legally binding – and she saw no reason why it shouldn’t be – then his net assets would automatically be distributed according to the terms of the living trust, the ‘Protectorate’. Star as trustee would soon have control over Vogel’s most valuable asset: the forty million Clamor shares.

  “Of course, back then he only had his VW van and a guitar,” Star sighed.

  From the corner of her eye, Natalie caught sight of another document: Proof of Subscribing Witness… She picked it up, perusing it briefly.

  “Thing is,” Star said, “his witnesses were a cow at the end of the Wurlitzers’ field and a young traveler staying with us from Oregon. Rufus, I believe his name was. Only, I never learned Rufus’ last name. We never saw him again.”

  “It may be that wills written in testators’ own handwriting don’t need to be signed in front of witnesses,” Natalie said, “so long as you can prove that it is indeed their handwriting.”

  As Estate Executor, why wouldn’t she know this?

  “Oh, I doubt that’ll be a problem. Such distinctive penmanship. Just a few burn marks from the beach fire,” the older lady gestured.

  Hm. Natalie leafed further into the will, finding hieroglyphic-looking symbols.

  “Covers a lot of philosophy, early mysticism and ancient pagan history,” she added.

  What’s this?

  Right before the end – the stapled back sheet – was what looked to be a handwritten addendum. The ink was darker. More recent. But it didn’t take a graphologist to tell it was Vogel’s writing: “I hereby leave one million dollars separately to Thomas Nguyen of San Francisco.”

  “What’s this?” Natalie said.

  “Something Jon felt he had to do.”

  Natalie considered what that could mean. Was it some sort of ex-gratia payment, dating to Tom joining the company – back in Clamor’s early, freewheeling days? – Some wacky agreement originating on a bar napkin? Or something that Nguyen, a gifted technologist, had done for Vogel outside of the company?

  But why in the will?

  Natalie said: “And Tom knows he inherited this mon
ey?”

  “Sure,” Star said. “I already spoke with him about it. The day Jon died.”

  There was a peculiar half-light in the cottage. Only, Natalie was pretty sure that this ink was fading as well. Not as much as the rest, still … did this addendum predate Clamor’s existence?

  In which case, what would the original relationship between these two men have been? It hit her like punch in the gut: that Nguyen was Vogel’s son.

  The one in the photo.

  Barely recognized to the end.

  The name Nguyen being Vietnamese!

  Vogel was over there, in what – ’74? Right around the time Tom Nguyen was born. Nguyen never talking about his family – but didn’t he say his father lived “nearby”? Her intuition told her strongly that it was so.

  Odd that it wasn’t more widely known – or was it?

  She was about to ask Star straight out, when she remembered again her own star-crossed relationship in her last job, and that fierce urge to keep a personal relationship personal. Probably the few who did know about it were sworn to secrecy, Star among them.

  She felt a wave of empathy towards Nguyen. No wonder he’d been so preoccupied that last time she tried to visit him at his office. How Natalie knew what it all meant. ‘Régime de l’absence: Présomption de décès après une période d’absence de dix ans’ announced the document she’d received about her own dad, shortly before things really started to fall apart in her last job. Presumption of death after 10 years’ absence.

  No closure.

  Zero closure.

  Just a gnawing, rodent-like need to know, remaining.

  She was indeed in some God-awful hall of mirrors, feeling a familiar urge to leave – to get away from this place, Star’s cottage; “I’ll find you the name and number of a good attorney,” she said, hurriedly giving Star a goodbye hug.

  The older woman watched Natalie drive back up towards Pine Glade Way.

  She remained in Natalie’s rear view mirror, then turned slowly back towards her door.

  CHAPTER 31

  The dam burst, the memories flooding in, the questions and doubts swirling as if in some roiling dark whirlpool. That Spring Break of 1996, spent like a skiptracer from detective stories of old – tracing the man who’d skipped out on his obligations, his debts falling due.

  Paris: where she met his old colleagues at Le Monde, and even a representative of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire – France’s equivalent of the FBI. She heard again how Henri Chevalier had spent the late ‘80s as a correspondent for the former soviet satellite states, reporting on what was revealed there as the iron curtain parted. He’d been one of the first to investigate the dark side of economic liberalization. In a seminal, award-winning article, he’d exposed how Amid New Political and Economic Freedoms, Sexual Slavery Returns to Young Women of the East…

  She heard too how he’d come to focus on Hungary, spending more and more time there, to the cost of his marriage. And so that Spring Break of ’96 got extended, to the cost of Natalie’s own commitments back in Seattle. Like father like daughter. The apple never falling far from the tree. Pick your metaphor. His old friend Sartre was the great existentialist, the great believer in responsibility for our actions, yet somehow Sartre concluded that: ‘Long before we are born, even before we are conceived, our parents have decided who we will be.’

  Budapest then, that May of ‘96: the grand bridges spanning the Danube, the atmospheric streets of stone apartment buildings predating the communist era: Paris’s sister-city to the east. What had happened to him out there?

  Had he turned over a wrong rock, been bitten by a snake?

  All she could confirm was that he was last seen alive outside the landmark Hotel Gellért, getting into a dark-colored Mercedes, parked a hundred or so yards away. Whether of his free will or coerced, the doorman couldn’t say.

  Questions on questions.

  Rejoining Pine Glade Way, her phone moved back into range, lighting up with a voicemail and a text.

  The voicemail was from Cindy, simply: “Natalie please call me back as soon as you get this.” She sounded pissed, or stressed, or both.

  The text was from Star: ‘Something else to tell you please come back’. Natalie’s heart sank. She hesitated, slowed down and called Cindy back on ‘hands free’.

  Cindy answered sharply: “Where are you?”

  “Near Monterey. I’ve left Star’s but she just texted me. I’ve got to go back again. If it’s about the Glock, I told Adam that I’d –”

  “Never mind the Glock. We got the wrong guy. We’re going to make another arrest, right now.”

  Natalie almost crashed turning the car around: “Who?”

  “Natalie, did you know anything about Bill Pulver following a material witness down into Mexico?”

  “I didn’t – I mean, we looked at some CCTV footage together, and thought it may have shown a witness. But no, I had no idea that Pulver had gone to Mexico!”

  “Dammit Natalie! If we’re going to work together, we have to be able to trust each other with important information like this!”

  Feeling the sting of her rebuke, she tried again to explain her involvement with Pulver’s investigation. Cindy interrupted her:

  “Pulver skrrrr tracked the wit down to Ajijic skrrr.” It sounded like she was sneezing with the deteriorating phone reception: Ahee-sic. “Skrrrr a town on Lake Chapala, near Guadalajara. Dragged the kid into a local police station and conducted the skrrrrr skr-self. Using a folio of photos, of possible suspects, skrrrrrrrr direct hit skrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”

  “Cindy, I’m losing you. My phone’s moving out of range.”

  She pulled over halfway down Star’s driveway. She got out of the vehicle to see if it helped with the reception, but the call dropped. Damn. Maybe it would come back in again nearer the water.

  Then she paused among the silver trees. Something was very wrong.

  Cindy Bayley flashed up on her phone. She was even more broken, yet louder:

  “NATskrrr skrrrrrr skrrrrrr skrrrr skrrrr skr skrrrr skrrrrrr skrrrr STAR skrrrrr skrr skrrrr DON’T skr skrr skrrrr skrrrrrrrr NOT skrrr TEXT! Skrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… ”

  Before she could get back in the car she heard the crack of a bullet breaking the sound barrier, the whack as it went into wood, followed by a bang.

  The rifle report rumbled round the empty glade. A goose honked and beat its wings over the water. Her senses were supernaturally alive. The downy hair was up on the nape of her neck. The distant water heaved, sighed indifferently. Wind chimes sounded balefully. She was down on the ground beside the car. As far down as she could get.

  Think.

  Judging by the fresh, axe-like cut in the tree – and the direction of the report sound – the shooter was someplace the other side of her car.

  The shooter! Dear God, what was this?

  She caught her breath sharp and shallow. Ok, ok. Breathe deep. Breathe! Nice and easy. That’s Ok. It’s OK, it’s OK –

  Think!

  Back to those days spent with her mom’s hunting side-of-the family, down in South Carolina –

  How far away was the marksman? From the delay in the report, a few hundred yards. Had he – surely a he? – pulled off Pine Glade Way…

  Then why hadn’t she seen a car? Other direction maybe –

  The Glock…

  The Glock was in its carrying case, in the glove compartment. Very, very slowly she felt her way into the cabin of the car. It rocked, ever so slightly – then an almighty BANG! resounded through it; he or she’d hit the passenger side door.

  Jesus Christ.

  The sound of the report came earlier and louder than the first time. The shooter was on the move, getting closer.

  Probably reloading right now.

  Click: glove box open. Snap: case open. Gun: Glock in hand.

  She hauled the cold metal slide back between thumb and bent forefinger, pulling the first round up into the chamber, then she crou
ched back down beside the driver’s doorsill. The Glock suddenly seemed so tiny, so puny compared to whatever this person was aiming at her. Even from this range, she could feel the intent to extinguish her life, like a palm pressing down on the crown of her head.

  Think.

  Oh Lord of Mercy and Love –

  Think!

  The phone had jumped right out her hand with that first shot. It was now lying someplace in the bushes nearby. Not a good time to go looking. No service anyway.

  The car?

  Problem being it offered no protection. If the shooter was up near Pine Glade Way, he or she held elevation gain on her. To drive, she’d need to see out, and to see out… She glanced at the inside passenger door: that last bullet had spread out as it nosed through the inner door skin like some ghastly great pimple in the black vinyl – right below the window. Two inches higher, and it would have been goodnight.

  What did offer protection? Tree trunks were too narrow.

  Star!

  Why hadn’t Star heard the shots?

  There was only silence.

  The ground was cold, the seat of her jeans damp. She was trembling, she now realized. Out the corner of her eye, she noticed an edge of movement. A rabbit? Or had she? – noticed anything? The silvery trees stared back at her. Would this person be camouflaged? The trees and brackish background were staring back at her, starting to play tricks on her.

  It was late afternoon. Don’t be out on the path after sundown, the elves in MultiQuest had warned.

  She heard a crackling of underbrush, not near, but not so far either – and too loud for a rabbit, or an elf, or anything other than a human being.

  She had a sense of someone being almost clinically prepared for this encounter. Did the shooter have night vision? She imagined the glade as seen in green phosphor, like that ‘embed’ footage from Iraq on the nightly news: the intensified thermal image of her body, already appearing like a ghost –

  Was she destined to haunt this glade once dead?

  Despite all her attempts to suppress it, she could almost see the person in her mind’s eye. Had she pieced together the puzzle of the last few days? Did she subconsciously already know? Tumblers clunked obscurely into place. And yet she felt like she didn’t know anything anymore, or anyone. Where was Phariance? She felt a hallucinatory level of fear. That this person could and absolutely would wait it out. Wait for her inevitable mistake. One mistake. That was all they needed.