The Siege

by Stephen White

  “No, sir, I’m not.”

  Poe thought the words sounded, well, determined. He had always counted on Dee’s determination melting around him. The “sir” completely threw him. He didn’t know what to do with that.

  He tasted the leading edge of the incipient panic that presaged impending loss.

  “You can’t—Jesus—Deirdre? Yeah? Really?”

  You think I traveled halfway across this country to attend an interagency counterterrorism confab in Philadelphia because I liked the programming?

  “It’s not right, Poe. It’s not right. What we’re doing. What we’ve been doing all these years. You know it’s not right, you do. We can’t keep on doing this. We can’t just . . . If things were the other way around, if it had been—”

  He held up his open palm.

  He held it out in front of him, not toward her.

  No! Not there. Not there, baby. Do not go—

  He wasn’t trying to be intimidating. His intent with the raised hand was to stop the world, not only Dee’s current participation in it.

  The panic that was exploding within him with the force of a geyser was about survival, not about sex. She had to know that.

  Poe felt the OKC fright rise into his marrow. He felt it as though acid were being injected into the soft hollow of his longest bones. He had to stem it, arrest the corrosion.

  He bargained. “How about this? Sleep with me tonight. Let me hold you. All night. All night. I—”

  “Poe, sweet man, I understand. But I have to respect—”

  Respect? Respect? “Deirdre? Listen to me, listen.” She looked at him. “All night. I need that. I need . . . that.” He got up from his stool, took two steps away. Spun. Came back. Sat down. Stood up. Two steps away. Two steps back. Sat down again. “No sex? Is that it? I can do that. Yes, yes, I can. That’s a promise. No sex, Dee. But sleep with me tonight please? All night?”

  “Poe, did you just say ‘no sex’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poe, did you just say ‘please’?”

  “I did.”

  “Holy,” she said. “Holy.”

  APRIL 18, FRIDAY MORNING

  Sam

  My first full day in Florida started out at the driving range.

  I was stumped trying to come up with a decent hockey analogy—my preferred metaphorical bias regarding most things in life—for assessing my accomplishments at the day’s scheduled activity, so I decided to use baseball as my model.

  After a couple of dozen swings with the driver—it had the biggest business end so I figured it should be the easiest to use—I had managed to hit the ball off the practice tee exactly seven times.

  I whiffed on the rest.

  Truth is I made respectable contact on all seven balls that I actually hit. Five of the seven were hard grounders that no infielder without a Gold Glove could have grabbed. One was a line drive that would have decapitated the first-base coach. The last was a fly ball that might have cleared the fence if it stayed fair.

  But it wouldn’t have stayed fair. The thing was like a slider, the way it hooked left.

  I knew enough about golf to realize that the goal of the game was not just to hit the ball, but also to hit it up the middle in the direction of second base, ideally with some elevation. Still, by my personal baseball-centric accounting, I was hitting just under .300. Not too bad for a rookie.

  My assigned starting time in the celebratory tournament was 8:25. By eight o’clock I was beginning to entertain some doubts about my ability to learn the nuances of the game in the remaining twenty-five minutes of practice time. My hands were starting to feel a little spongy in places, which wasn’t a good sign. I was no longer even confident I could go eighteen without bodily injury, which felt kind of wussy of me, especially since I wasn’t even expected to walk the course. I had my own cart.

  I certainly didn’t want to leave all my game, however limited that was, on the driving range, so I grabbed the bag I’d been given for the day—why I needed so many clubs wasn’t clear to me yet—and joined some of my fellow golfers over at the practice putting green.

  There I was more in my element. Putting actually seemed a little easier without all the moving parts and speed bumps and windmills and tunnels and things. Though it became clear that the fact that nothing was precisely flat was going to take some adjustment on my part.

  I felt more presentable than I had during the previous evening’s sunset cruise. I was wearing my best khakis and a knit polo shirt that read “Boulder Bolder Security” over my left man boob. I considered it serendipity that my “Samuel Purdy” name tag covered the advertisement as though it had been designed for just that task. My sneakers were reasonably new, with unbroken laces that were more white than gray.

  I was styling.

  The bad news was that I’d been out of the shower for less than an hour and I was already so slick from sweat and sunscreen that I felt like the equatorial gods were marinating me to be the entrée at some luncheon cookout.

  Ann Summers Calderón reached around me with both arms and placed her hands on my clammy wrists as I prepared to knock down a twenty-foot putt. The twenty-foot putt was what was left after my initial forty-foot putt. I had not heard Ann approach. She moved as silently as my son did when he was scooping my loose change off the table by the door.

  “Fine form,” she said. “I may take some lessons from you.”

  “You should see me on the driving range.”

  “Sadly for you, I already did. Got a second for me?” she whispered.

  I lowered my voice to library standards. “Get me out of this and I got all morning for you.”

  She took me by the hand. I flipped my putter toward the golf bag, thinking, And there are people who say there is no God.

  A breakfast buffet was arranged in a handsome room in the clubhouse that had been reserved for the Calderón family celebration. I grabbed a bagel and some juice—orange mixed with the nectar of some other fruit that turned the beverage the hues of a smoggy sunset over the Front Range—and joined Ann at a table on a veranda that enjoyed a fine view of a water hazard. I’d already surmised that is what golfers call ponds. This being Florida, I was keeping one eye peeled for alligators and giant pythons. Ann was dressed as though the winner of the day’s tournament would be the player judged to have the outfit containing the most colors of sherbet.

  On her, the look worked. I didn’t think I could get away with it.

  “You are a most lovely hostess,” I said. I was committed to being on my best behavior.

  “Jane didn’t call this morning,” she said.

  I allowed her eyes to find mine, and to settle. My cop voice, a voice I have fine-tuned over the years, has a couple of dominant notes. One note I can play for authority, one note I can play for calm. I plucked the calm chord. I said, “You know your daughter, Ann. I don’t. This conversation will go better if I don’t have to guess what things mean.”

  “Got you. I’m anxious. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You didn’t ask for any of this.”

  Ann sighed a restrained sigh. “We’re close, Jane and I. She calls me about everything. ‘I wish I could tell you about last night, Mom, but I can’t.’ ‘There’s this guy in my Modern China lecture that is soooo cute, Mom.’ ‘I’m at IKEA and I don’t know which of these two lamps to get, Mom.’ ‘I kissed a girl last night, Mom.’ ‘I’m on the way to the airport, Mom.’ Like that.

  “She should have left for Hartford—for the airport—almost three hours ago. She should have called me from the shuttle. She always does. Her flight is scheduled to take off right about now.”

  I kissed a girl last night, Mom. It took some discipline—not my strong suit in matters of prurience in recent years—to let that one go by without a follow-up query.

  I said, “And when you called her?”

  “Her phone is not in service. Went straight to voice mail. I tried text. Nothing. No reply.” She laced her fingers together in front o
f her and squeezed her hands into a ball. She released the pressure. “If she’s busy, she texts me back, ‘n-n.’ Not now. Do you text your son, Sam?”

  “I’m getting there. For me, it’s like he’s learned a foreign language and the only way I can keep an eye on him is to learn it too.”

  Ann smiled a smile that was thirty degrees more sincere than her hostess’s smile. She wrinkled her nose, too. “One parent to another? It’s worth the effort. And the older they get, the more it approximates English.” She pursed her lips before she said, “But Jane didn’t text me back.” She allowed a sigh to evolve into something more. I recognized the exercise from any number of women I knew in Boulder. It was a cleansing breath. She asked, “Is this the other shoe, Sam? From the note? Is this . . . when I become desperate to reach him?”

  “Ann? Honestly? There’s a ninety-nine percent chance the note is nothing, and the fact that Jane didn’t call this morning is nothing. But the note is . . . bizarre enough that some concern is warranted. So I’m with you. I’m still not convinced that I’m your best potential asset, but I’m with you. A hundred percent.”

  “Thank you, Sam.”

  “If that note means something serious? I mean, as goofy as it looks—”

  Ann interrupted. “ ‘ Goofy’?”

  “Minnesota word. Think strange.”

  She nodded.

  “Then I’m not the best person for this. You need to know that. I’m a small town cop on suspension visiting a state where I have no resources.”

  She stared at me in a way that pinned me to my chair. “I’m not connected to people in . . . law enforcement. It’s not my world. So I have no one else I can turn to right now, Sam. This morning, this minute, do I wish that you were some hotshot FBI cowboy who jousted with monsters every day of his life? Of course. But my heart says you are a man with good instincts—that assessment was originally Carmen’s‚ by the way—and as I sit here I am deeply grateful for any help you will give me. My heart also says to trust you. That instinct has served me well in life. I am not going to stop listening to it now.”

  I’d heard enough. I stood up. “Let’s start being discreet then. I’m going back inside. I’m going to find an empty room back there somewhere.” I gestured toward the far end of the clubhouse. “You should wait a few minutes, talk to some people, be charming, and then come find me. I’ll leave the door open an inch or two.”

  Ann did what she was told. Five minutes passed before she closed the door behind her and settled across from me at a fancy conference table.

  She set a cup of coffee in front of me. “Café Cubano,” she said.

  I took a sip and already knew I wanted another. Along with whatever kind of morning treat the Cubans baked to go with it. “Does Jane have roommates?” I asked.

  “One. Penelope’s family is in New York this weekend. She left campus yesterday to join her parents in the city. I spoke with Jane after that. I doubt Penny will be of any help on this.”

  “Simplest explanation that fits the facts?” I paused to allow Ann to catch up with me. “Your daughter lost her phone.”

  Ann shook her head. “You don’t know Jane. First, she doesn’t lose things. She’s not that kid. If her phone died, or was stolen, she’d borrow one from one of the other students on the shuttle. Jane’s gregarious. Not life-of-the-party gregarious. But she’s the type of person who will introduce herself to you and will learn your social history particulars within minutes of making your acquaintance. She’s the girl you’re glad you were seated next to at a dinner party. The one you’re delighted ended up next to you on that interminable flight to London or L.A. Jane would have no trouble borrowing a phone, especially on an airport shuttle full of other students.”

  “Kind of like her mother in demeanor?”

  “If that’s a compliment, then yes, kind of like her mother.”

  “It was a compliment.”

  She mouthed, Thank you.

  “Jane overslept,” I said.

  Ann’s eyes moistened over. “I wish,” she said. “My daughter is a bit OCD. Again, like her mother.”

  “Tell me something. Pretend you never got the note. Knowing what you know about Jane not calling this morning, how are you feeling right now?”

  “Honestly? I’d be starting to panic a little—that’s how out of character this is for Jane—but I’d keep it to myself. I wouldn’t have pulled you off the golf course.”

  I said, “One of my concerns is that the more I help you, the more you will convince yourself this is real.”

  “You mentioned a child? Is that right, Sam?”

  “Yes. Simon.”

  “You and Simon are on the curb. He has to get to the other side of the street. Let’s say that there’s a one percent chance that he’ll get hit by a car if he crosses. With me so far?”

  “I’m with you.”

  “Do you let him go? Knowing that there’s one chance in a hundred he won’t make it across that street?”

  She was acknowledging the odds were long that her daughter was truly in trouble. She was also assigning a value to the jeopardy she felt, even with the long odds.

  I said, “I get it.”

  She said, “This may be the longest of long shots, but I can’t take the risk of ignoring it. The consequences are . . . not imaginable.”

  “I’m in. Here’s what I need,” I said. “I want the—”

  Ann reached into the satchel she was carrying. Maybe it was just a purse, but it was big enough to schlep an entire goalie’s kit back and forth to the rink. She handed me an orange file folder containing a few sheets of paper pinched together with a pink paper clip. She did like her colors. “The airport shuttle service information, including today’s schedule. The one she should have been on is circled. Jane’s flight information from Hartford to Miami. Reservation number. Frequent flyer info. Contact numbers for the airline. Her phone numbers and email addresses. A copy of last month’s cell phone bill. Her last few days of emails and texts to me. Her class schedule. Everything I could think of.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I can make inquiries to the shuttle company and the airlines, but I shouldn’t be using my phone to contact her cell. If this is . . . real, the sudden appearance of a new phone number on her phone might tip them off that you have—”

  “Failed to follow their instructions. Thank you for that. I will get you a phone. A family phone. Wait right here.”

  Ann returned in about three minutes and handed me an iPhone. “It’s Andrew’s,” she said. “Using it won’t raise any suspicion. He calls his sister all the time.”

  “What did you tell Andrew?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything. I took it from his golf bag. When he realizes it’s missing, I’ll figure something out. He has other things on his mind. Everyone he might want to talk to is at the party.”

  “I will need to do the computer work from your home.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t know the level of sophistication we’re dealing with. At this stage, it would be reckless to underestimate . . . him.” Ann’s eyes narrowed a little at my choice of pronouns. I added, “Or her. Ann, you may catch me being non-inclusive with my pronouns, but you will not find me being non-inclusive regarding the gender of my suspects. I am equal opportunity in terms of suspicion.”

  “Thank you, Sam.”

  “To complete my point—if I make an inquiry that this guy is able to track electronically . . . I want him to track it back to your ISP, and to your specific computer. With me?”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m going to go make some apologies to the rest of my golf party, tell them I’m not feeling well. I will take a cab back to the hotel. Please have someone meet me there who can take me to your house.”

  “Done. Keep an eye out for a white Suburban with tinted windows. The driver’s name is Julio. He will have my computer set up for you. I can’t be there. I have responsibilities here. Were I to forsake them it would draw attention, and
I can’t afford to . . .”

  “I understand. Will I need your password, Ann?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Andrewjane, all lower case. And Sam?”

  “Yes?”

  “The name tag? It should go.”

  APRIL 18, FRIDAY MORNING

  NEW HAVEN

  “Got a second?”

  “Maybe five.” The shift supervisor looks up from his desk at the Yale University Police headquarters on Ashmun Street. He nods at the uniformed officer standing in front of him. “Kevin, what’s up?”

  “Just got a call from the master at Trumbull. Some concern about a junior missing a meeting this morning. Turns out his parents are looking for him, there’s been a death in the family. His friends don’t know where he is. Didn’t sleep in the college last night.”

  “That’s it?”

  “You said last week that you want to know when we hear from any of the masters.”

  “You’re right. I said that. Is the Trumbull master worried about this?”

  “No, I think it was more a heads-up kind of thing, in case the student’s parents contact us directly. The master and the dean seem to have the situation under control. They’ve sent a few of his friends into Sterling and Bass to see if he’s studying out of cell range. Tough situation—the death was sudden, a sibling. Sister, I think. Traffic accident, auto-pedestrian? Something. Little town in Western Mass. Family is distraught. But . . . last night was Thursday. So, you know what that means. We intervened in more than a little craziness on campus. If he was involved in any of that? He could be asleep in one of the tombs or on some stranger’s floor right now. Kid will show.”

  The supervisor raises his eyebrows at the reference to Thursday evenings on campus in April. “Was the student tapped? You know that for sure?”

  “No, no. I don’t know one way or another, but I got the impression from the master that he’s that kind of kid. You know. Prominent family, high profile on campus. It’s a possibility, something to consider.”

  “You’re right, it is.”