by Allen Eskens
He walked to apartment number 9 at the end of the hall, knocked on the door, and received a quick “Who is it?”
“Mr. Prodrogsta? My name is Detective Rupert. Could I ask you a couple questions?”
“You got a badge?” asked a man from the other side of the door. Alexander held his badge up to the peephole. “That says Minneapolis. You ain't no cop.”
“I'm a cop from Minneapolis. Can I talk to you? I just want to ask you about a guy—”
“You ain't a cop from here, so I ain't gotta talk to you.”
“I could really use your—”
“Fuck off.”
“Mr. Prodrogsta, I—”
“I said fuck off before I call a real cop.”
Alexander stood there for a moment, trying to come up with a way to get Prodrogsta to cooperate. He had come too far to give up that easily. But then he thought of Mrs. Tobias. He still had her. Alexander threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender that only he would see and headed for apartment 11.
The cry of the wooden stairs, creaking under the weight of his footsteps, echoed up the stairwell. At apartment number 11, he knocked and waited. A small voice called to him from the other side of the door. “Who is it?”
“Mrs. Tobias, my name is Detective Alexander Rupert. I'm trying to find a missing person. Can I talk to you?”
The door opened a crack, and a face peeked out from behind the security chain, a worn face the color of mocha, creased and wrinkled like paper that had been wadded up and then smoothed out again. She smiled a toothless smile when Alexander showed her his badge, and he half suspected that she was too blind to see the word Minneapolis stamped on it. She closed the door, rattled the chain free, and opened it again.
“I'm looking for a guy named James Putnam. He lived in apartment number twenty-four back in 2001.”
Mrs. Tobias considered the name for a while, and Alexander could see the blankness in her eyes. Her head moved subtly from left to right as she thought harder. “Oh, wait,” he said. “I have a picture.” He opened his briefcase and pulled out the photo he downloaded from the Internet and showed it to Mrs. Tobias.
“Why yes. I remember James.” She smiled a melancholy smile of nostalgia. “He was such a nice boy. He's been gone for a long time now. He used to carry my groceries up the steps for me. He was such a good boy. Would you like to come in?”
Alexander entered an apartment adorned with softness. Hand-stitched blankets and doilies seemed to cover every piece of furniture. Bible verses, written in needlepoint, hung in plastic frames on the wall, and rag rugs—those rugs made of old T-shirts tied together—covered most of her hardwood floor. In the kitchen, a metal tea kettle simmered atop a gas stove, the blue flame licking upward to heat the water inside. Mrs. Tobias walked into her living room with the assistance of a quad-base walking cane. She took a seat in a recliner and offered Alexander a seat on the sofa.
“I'm trying to find James. Do you have any idea where he went to?”
“I always liked his name—James—such a strong, biblical name. They both had good biblical names.”
“Who both?”
“James and his friend—the one who lived with him.”
“James had a roommate? Do you remember his name?”
“Now, let me see…I remember I liked his name.”
“Was it John or Mark or Matthew…Luke?”
Mrs. Tobias shot Alexander a scolding look. “Detective, if you clutter my head like that, I'll never find the name I'm looking for. Just give me a second to think.”
“I'm sorry, ma'am. You go ahead. Take all the time you need.”
Mrs. Tobias stared at the picture of James Putnam and rubbed her temples. Alexander listened to the ticking of a clock and wondered why it seemed so loud. He could feel sweat droplets beginning to form at the edges of his scalp as he silently willed Mrs. Tobias to remember. The teapot on the stove began to whistle, and Alexander stood and walked to the kitchen. Mrs. Tobias had already laid out the cup, saucer, spoon, and tea bag. Alexander poured the water, turned off the stove, and steeped the tea bag as he walked back to the living room, where Mrs. Tobias still stared at the picture.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “Would you like some tea? I keep the cups in that cupboard above the stove.”
“No thank you, ma'am.” Alexander handed the tea to Mrs. Tobias. “Are you getting any ideas yet?”
“I'm sorry,” she said. “It's not coming to me.”
Alexander suppressed a groan. He opened his briefcase in anticipation of putting Putnam's photo back when an idea struck him. He pulled out the imposter's driver's license photo and laid it in front of Mrs. Tobias. When she saw it, her eyes lit up.
“That's him. That's James's roommate. Jericho. That's his name. See, I told you it was from the Bible. Jericho…um…wait, it's coming to me…Pope. His name was Jericho Pope.”
Alexander leaned back on the couch, stunned for the moment at the breakthrough that Mrs. Tobias just handed to him. He now had a name to call the imposter: Jericho Pope. “Do you remember…when was the last time you saw either of these two men?”
Mrs. Tobias's mood grew somber. “It would have been around the time of the accident I suppose.”
“Accident?”
“The accident when that poor boy drowned at sea. It was in the paper.”
“James drowned at sea? Are you sure?”
Mrs. Tobias looked at Alexander, a sad, confused expression washing over her face. “Oh, no, dear,” she said. “James didn't die at sea. Jericho did.”
Back at the hotel, Alexander connected his laptop to the hotel's Wi-Fi and began an Internet search for Jericho Pope. The first link brought him to the online version of the New York Times from August 27, 2001, and the headline PATRIO INTERNATIONAL CEO RICHARD ASHTON MISSING AT SEA. The article told the story of Richard Ashton, one of the cofounders of Patrio International, a defense contracting firm headquartered in New York City. Alexander had heard of Patrio—especially its prominent role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—but he didn't recall the news report of the death of one of its cofounders.
According to the Times, Ashton and Patrio's other cofounder, Wayne Garland, leased a yacht called the Domuscuta from a port in Midtown Manhattan, sailing it down the Hudson, through the Narrows, and into Lower New York Bay, anchoring a few miles off the coast of Coney Island. Then in the early-morning hours of August 25, 2001, the yacht's dinghy exploded while on its way to shore. Ashton and the yacht's first mate were on the dinghy when it exploded. The Coast Guard responded to the call for help and began a search for both men. After forty-eight hours, the Coast Guard called off the recovery effort.
Alexander clicked to a second page. There, smiling like a new groom, was the imposter, the man Mrs. Tobias knew as Jericho Pope. Next to the photo, a blurb read: Also reported missing is the Domuscuta's first mate, Jericho Pope.
“Hello, Jericho Pope,” Alexander whispered. “Richard Ashton died at sea, but not you. You…you, what…swam? Made it to shore and disappeared? Why?”
Alexander scrolled back to where the Times mentioned the yacht being moored at a marina in Midtown Manhattan. He called around until he found the Tenth Precinct, the police department with jurisdiction over the Domuscuta's port. Another call, and he made contact with a detective named Louise Rider. Once he convinced her that he was, in fact, a police detective from Minnesota, she agreed to pull the Ashton/Pope file and meet with him the next day.
He hung up the phone and heaved in a deep breath of air, filling his nostrils with the unmistakable scent of the hunt. His chest absorbed an energy that hadn't been in the room before. He was once again doing what cops were supposed to do. He dug Pope's computer hard drive out of his suitcase. Now that he knew the man's name, he might be able to learn something about him from the computer.
If Pope kept deep secrets on his computer, he would have wanted to protect them. Yet Pope's computer held few files that were password-protected, and Alexander opened most of th
ose with the passwords that Ianna gave him. It wasn't until he found the accounting program that Alexander came to a password-protected file he couldn't immediately open. He typed in various combinations of the names Jericho and Pope, adding numbers, capitalizing different letters, and nothing. After half an hour, he sat back and scratched his head. He went back to the newspaper article for inspiration. There he saw the name of the yacht—the Domuscuta. He typed it into the password box, and the file opened up.
Inside, Alexander found Jericho Pope's accounting software with check registers, profit-and-loss statements, bank-account information, stock-trading spreadsheets, and tax folders. He scrolled down the list of files and felt his eyes already beginning to dry out. He had to give Pope credit for his meticulous record keeping—page after page of numbers and notes on every cent he earned. Pope traded stock from his penthouse apartment, tracking the details of every purchase and sale on his computer. He had many trades where the purchase price of the stock surpassed Alexander's yearly salary, and he'd lost money on a lot of them. Yet, in the years since he had become James Putnam, Jericho Pope had amassed millions.
Alexander continued his dig into Pope's finances, finding no bones out of place until he arrived at the bank records for last December.
Deep in the bowels of the accounting program, Alexander found fifty identical deposits, each in the amount of $10,000—a total of half of a million dollars—with no hint at where the money came from. No stock sale. No dividend designation. Just half a million dollars plopped into the account. The same day of the deposit, he found a withdrawal of $50,000 in cash. Again, no explanation as to the reason for such a large chunk of pocket money.
He moved through the books, month after month, looking for any other anomalies, and found another in December of the previous year—an exact same transaction—$500,000 in, $50,000 taken out. He looked over the length of the accounting program, and on December 1st of every year he found the same transaction.
“What the hell are you up to?” Alexander asked the computer screen. “You're not selling stock here.”
Then something Ianna Markova said came back to Alexander; the imposter took a trip every December, like clockwork. Ianna said she didn't know where he went—at least that's what she told Alexander. “Every December,” Alexander mumbled to himself. “You take fifty thousand dollars and disappear. Why?” Alexander scratched at the thin stubble on his cheek. He needed to interview Ianna again, grill her about Pope and his December excursions. She probably didn't know anything, but he would visit her anyway.
He thought about Ianna as his cursor traced a path to the search box. He typed in “jpg” and brought up a dozen folders full of pictures, with one folder listed as “boudoir.” He tapped his finger lightly on his mouse, contemplating the next step. He clicked on that folder, and it opened to show the file names of fifteen pictures. He moved the cursor to a file entitled “sauna,” holding his finger over the mouse, again hesitating. He thought back to that meeting he had with Ianna at her apartment. He remembered the tease in her eye when she said, “It's okay if you take a little peek.”
He laid his finger on the mouse, gave it a quick tap, and a picture of Ianna jumped onto the screen.
The picture, taken in black and white, showed Ianna Markova completely nude, stretched out on her back on the ledge of a sauna. Tiny droplets of water ran in glistening rivulets down her body. Her wet hair had been combed back, exposing her creamy, soft neck and shoulders. She faced the photographer in an expression of relaxed bliss. Her green eyes, a smoky gray in the black-and-white photo, peered wistfully from behind weighted eyelids. The corners of her lips tipped up only slightly in a knowing smile.
Alexander stared at this picture for a long time. The beauty of the lines and the grace of Ianna's form captivated him. But it was her eyes that drew him in. The way she looked at the camera—the way she looked at him—it was as though she knew something about him, something he had kept secret from the rest of the world. He closed the file and moved away from the computer, walking to the window to find a view that might clear his head.
The city glowed with lights as far as the eye could see. He glanced at the clock-radio beside his bed and saw that it read 10:30 p.m. He'd been in that room for over nine hours, reading computer files, and he'd barely dipped a toe into that water. He decided to call it a day. If it was 10:30 in New York, it would be 9:30 back in Minnesota. Desi would be getting ready for bed about now.
He dialed their home number, a landline that they kept so that they could keep their cell numbers private. The phone rang…and rang again…and rang three more times before it clicked over to an answering machine. He hung up without leaving a message. The air in the room seemed to turn stagnant as troublesome images forced their way in. The thought of Desi not being home nearly made him nauseous. He pulled up her cell-phone number but then hesitated before hitting send. He paused long enough to feel the weight of what he might learn if he pushed that button. The good and bad churned in his head, muddying his thoughts. He closed his eyes and tapped send to call her. She answered on the third ring.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” She sounded winded.
“I called the home phone and no one answered.”
“I went for a walk.”
Alexander didn't know what to say next. He listened for the sound of cars or dogs barking or the sound of the breeze ruffling the microphone on her cell phone—the sounds that should surround someone on a walk. Nothing.
When he told her about the breakthrough he had on the case, she didn't respond by asking what he had learned. Instead, she asked if the breakthrough meant that he would be traveling home on an earlier flight. Alexander sighed, told her that it didn't mean that. He told her about his upcoming meeting with Detective Louise Rider. They talked for another ten minutes, dancing around the distance that separated them, their words as dry and hollow as desert bones. In the end, they wished each other a good night and ended the call.
The building that housed the Tenth Precinct was much smaller than Alexander had expected—this was, after all, Manhattan. It had been wedged into a tight slot between two other buildings as though it were just another book on the shelf. A handful of window air-conditioners punched out from the smooth stone façade, giving the building the feel of an old office that should be filled with insurance agents and accountants. Alexander stepped through the front door and announced himself to the duty sergeant, and in a minute or two he was shaking hands with Detective Louise Rider, a bouncy woman with a garden of freckles on her face and long, paprika hair that fell in tight curls. She stood about five foot five, but her purposeful movements and unflinching eye contact made her appear taller. She wore a white button-down shirt tucked into khakis, and she topped the ensemble off with a Yankees baseball cap.
“Minnesota, huh?” she said. “Never been there. You're the one with all the lakes, right?”
“And a few cities too,” he said.
She smiled. “Home of the Minnesota Twins…my condolences.”
Alexander tipped his head toward her Yankee's cap and said, “Well, I could never figure out how cheering for the Yankees was any different than going to Vegas and cheering for the house.”
“Don't hate the player; hate the game,” she said, walking into an interview room with a file under her arm. As they sat down at a table, another cop stuck his head in the door and said, “Hey, Billie, we got the DNA back on the Fulton case. No hit. Sorry.”
“Thanks, Don.” The man closed the door to the interview room, and Detective Rider started thumbing through the file.
“‘Billie’?” Alexander said.
“Yep.”
“I thought your name was Louise.”
“It is,” she said.
Alexander raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation.
She saw the look, smiled, and said, “When I was still on patrol, I was in this little grocery store, off duty, wearing my civvies, and this
tweeker comes in with a baseball bat and tries to rob the place. He takes a swing at this little female clerk, just grazes her, but the bat flies out of his hands. Then the idiot starts climbing over the counter to go after her. I wasn't thinking straight and I jumped on his back.”
“You had no weapon?”
“Not even a stick. It went against training, I know, but I jumped on the fucker's back. Well, he starts bucking and twisting like his ass was on fire, slamming me into shelves and walls, breaking all kinds of things, including two of my ribs. Luckily, there was a squad in the area, and help got there fast. The whole thing was caught on surveillance video. When I came back from medical leave, they'd taped up pictures all over the precinct with me riding that dude's back and the name ‘Bronco Billie’ written on them. I act like I don't give a shit about the name, but truth is, I love it.”
“Okay, Billie,” Alexander said with a smile. “What do you got on my guy, Jericho Pope?”
“He's been dead quite a while now,” she said. “A little dusty, don't you think?”
“Would be, except that he died again last month,” Alexander said. “His Porsche lost a fight with a Lexus in Minneapolis.” Alexander opened his briefcase and pulled out a picture of Jericho Pope and laid it on the table. Billie pulled a photo out of her file—a picture taken of Pope for his job with the yacht company—and laid it beside Alexander's.
“Looks like we have a match,” she said.
“What can you tell me about the original investigation?”
“I wasn't at the Tenth back then, but I took a look at the file. You've heard of Patrio International, haven't you?”
“Who hasn't?” Alexander said. “An ex-marine buddy of mine, with two tours in Afghanistan, told me that Patrio moved around in the shadows, convincing some of the reluctant chieftains to join our side. They used…well, let's call them ‘unauthorized tactics’ to achieve results. He said that if the CIA were spooks, then Patrio should be banshees.”
“Banshees?”
“Banshees only come out when someone is about to die.”
