by Jason Dean
Jenna rolled her eyes. Sometimes she had to consciously remind herself California and New York were part of the same land mass. ‘Um, Mr Golden . . .’
‘Jeff, please.’
‘Right. Well . . . it’s not about you, actually. My call concerns Willow Reeves, or rather its previous incarnation.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Well, we’re currently putting together a case for evasion of taxes against a man who claims he was a patient at your facility during the years . . .’ she noisily crumpled some papers next to her and then said, ‘here we are: 1968 and 1969. Yet, clearly, Willow Reeves wasn’t established until several years after that.’
‘1971,’ Golden said.
‘Exactly. Can you see our problem? If we charge him with evasion during these years in addition to the others, we’ll lose all credibility if he presents the court with papers that prove he was where he claimed to be at that time. We really need to obtain all the facts and trace his movements for those two years before we start making accusations.’
‘But if he has papers that prove where he was, doesn’t he have to show them to you?’
‘Unfortunately, the full disclosure rule doesn’t apply to tax-related cases,’ Jenna said. She had no idea whether this was true or not. ‘But if you could just give me the name of the facility that leased or owned the land before you, and where I might be able to locate any relevant records that would prove or disprove the defendant’s explanation for those missing years . . .’ She was greeted with silence at the other end. ‘Are you there, Mr Golden?’
‘Yes.’
One-word answers were never a good sign. Her only comfort was that he was unlikely to tell her to go screw herself. When the taxman asked, you answered. ‘Would you have those details to hand, Mr Golden?’
‘Will this be a high-profile case, Ms Huntley?’
‘Definitely not. The tax office is rarely well served by the media and always plays down the public angle whenever possible.’
After another pause, Golden said, ‘The thing is, it wouldn’t do our image much good if this got out.’
‘I can only assure you that it won’t.’
‘Okay. Well, the current owners of Willow Reeves bought out the previous owners in 1970, revamped the place, added a few wings and reopened a year later as a non-profit enterprise under its present name.’
‘And what was the previous name?’
‘Cavendish Private Hospital.’
‘Sounds pretty innocuous to me.’
Golden sighed. ‘They specialized in treating the mentally disadvantaged.’
‘I see,’ Jenna said. ‘So it was an asylum.’
‘That’s a word we try to avoid when referring to Cavendish, Ms Huntley. It suggests a Gothic building full of axe murderers. Although before my time, this was a private home with no facilities for housing the more dangerous elements. Many patients actually came of their own volition. Mental illness takes many forms, as I’m sure you know.’
‘I didn’t mean to offend.’
Golden gave a nervous laugh. ‘Of course not. I’m just . . . Anyway, like I said, residents are probably better off not knowing what went on here before. We consider 1971 year zero. Our past isn’t exactly a secret, but we see no reason to advertise it.’
‘I understand. So are you saying I’ve hit a dead end as regards accessing old records?’
‘Well, obviously we don’t have anything here. Maybe . . . Hold on a second.’
Jenna heard the sound of fingers on a keyboard. Golden came back on and said, ‘Apparently, all the old hospital files are held in storage in a warehouse back east. Minus the patients’ actual medical files, of course; they would have all been forwarded on to the patients’ personal physicians. I can give you the address but you’ll probably need a court order to gain access to them.’
She’d brightened up on hearing the words back east. ‘An address would be great,’ she said.
He gave her a location in Brooklyn and a warehouse number. She jotted both down on her notepad. ‘You’ve been a big help, Mr Golden.’
‘No problem, Ms Huntley. Just remember me come audit time.’
Jenna hung up and looked at her notepad, wondering if she’d just wasted an hour of her life on this. It seemed pretty far-fetched to think a letter written twenty years ago would have anything to do with the bloody events just three years past. But then, you never knew until you checked. She looked at the screen and remembered the other letter. The one from the college. What the hell, she thought. When you’re on a roll . . .
She typed the words Randall Brennan and Wald College into the same search engine and hit Return. The first link on the results page was for the official Wald College site. She clicked on it and was taken to a section that extolled the virtues of the college’s extensive library. Along with its recently constructed annex.
The Brennan Wing.
So he had taken them up on their offer of immortality, after all. That was interesting, if not particularly useful. Still, Jenna experienced the same satisfaction she always felt whenever a particular problem reached its conclusion, and noted down the web address in her notebook. Then she grabbed the cordless again and dialled a number from memory.
The phone was picked up after five rings and the voice said, ‘Hello?’
‘Hello yourself. You busy?’
FORTY-THREE
‘Sit in the middle, hands in your pockets,’ Bishop said from his position at the dirty kitchen counter. He watched as Cortiss did as instructed and lowered himself onto the middle cushion of his own couch. Bishop had already checked under the cushions and found nothing hidden there.
Cortiss’s apartment was large and open-spaced, with hardwood flooring and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the New Calvary Cemetery. Bishop sat on a stool facing Cortiss, with one elbow on the breakfast bar and his left hand holding the Beretta on his lap. The kitchen counter hadn’t been cleaned in days and dirty cutlery fought for space with food-encrusted plates and takeout boxes. Bishop could see a cordless phone buried in a box half-filled with noodles. At least it told him they were unlikely to be interrupted.
‘Told you you wouldn’t believe me,’ Cortiss said.
‘You haven’t given me enough to form an opinion,’ Bishop said. ‘So you found out about the vault’s existence back when you worked for Brennan?’
Cortiss shrugged and said nothing.
Bishop motioned with the Beretta. ‘You gonna make me do this the hard way?’
‘Right. You spend all that effort locating me and now you’re gonna pop me before you get any answers? That’s gonna happen.’
‘It might. Somebody owes me three years of my life, Cortiss. And right now, that somebody’s you. You won’t give me anything, then I might as well finish you off and move on. You know I’ll do it. I found you when nobody else could; I’ll find your partner too. It’ll just take longer, that’s all. Talk and I got no reason to kill you.’
Cortiss chewed at his cheek for a moment. Then he turned to the windows and looked out at the sky. Five seconds passed. Ten. Bishop knew he was thinking things through. Working the angles. That’s how he’d survived up until now. He’d know Bishop had nothing to lose at this point. He’d also realized a few answers wouldn’t cost him anything. That talking might actually gain him something.
Cortiss finally turned back to Bishop and sighed. ‘Okay, brother. Let’s talk for a while.’
‘The vault. How’d you find out about it?’
‘The old fool let it slip after a few drinks one day. About how he’d had it built shortly after buying the place. Son of a bitch sent me packing before I got the chance to look for it, though. Bastard.’
‘Why?’
Cortiss looked as if he might not answer. Then he blew out his breath and said, ‘Natalie Brennan, that’s why. How about a smoke?’
Bishop considered for a moment, then nodded. Whatever would keep him talking. ‘One-handed. Your left.’
‘
Figured out I’m not a southpaw like you, huh?’ Cortiss smiled and used exaggerated movements to take a packet and a disposable lighter from his shirt pocket with his left hand. He extracted a cigarette, lit it and reached over to place both items on the left arm of the sofa. He blew out a plume of smoke and said. ‘You were there, brother. You know what a screw-up she was. Couldn’t get her old man to give her the time of day, so she’d latch onto whichever father figure was closest to hand and next thing you know, it’s party time. Not that she had to work too hard on me looking the way she did, parading around the house in a tight pair of shorts and a top no wider than a piece of string. Subtle, she wasn’t. But you already know that, right?’
Bishop didn’t react, but he was pretty sure Cortiss was telling the truth. That was exactly the kind of thing Natalie would do. He made a quick mental calculation and said, ‘She couldn’t have been more than a child when you were there.’
Cortiss shrugged and took a drag of the cigarette. ‘Try fifteen going on thirty. I tell you, they grow up quick these days. Some of the things she wanted to do . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Hey, I wasn’t exactly the first man on the moon, if you know what I mean.’
Christ, Bishop thought. No wonder the girl was so screwed up. ‘So she told her father about the two of you?’
‘Nah. She wasn’t malicious, just dumb. That silly bitch never bothered cleaning up after us and when Brennan spotted the evidence on her bed sheets one day, that was it for me. For some reason, he didn’t want the cops involved so he just let me walk.’ He took another drag and said, ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if he was the one broke her cherry and just didn’t want family secrets leaking out. The guy was no saint, let me tell you.’
Bishop recalled Jenna using the exact same phrase this morning. He’d always known Randall Brennan was amoral, but accusing the man of incest and child abuse seemed extreme without anything to back it up.
‘So he fired you.’
‘Right. About a year before you showed up on the scene.’
‘But you still had a hard-on for the vault.’
‘Oh, yeah. Worse than ever. Enough to want to take myself off any future list of suspects by arranging my car accident.’ He smiled. ‘It served a few purposes, actually, but that was the main one. The guy in the driver’s seat was someone who’d outlived his usefulness, too, so it was win–win all round. You wanna throw me an ashtray?’ He pointed his chin at the counter Bishop was leaning on. ‘There’s one on there somewhere.’
‘Use the floor,’ he said. ‘What then?’
Cortiss tapped some ash at his feet. ‘Well, I needed somebody with access to the house and the freedom to search it thoroughly, didn’t I? I’d already come up with a vague plan where I’d place Brennan’s family under threat, forcing him to hire bodyguards, and buy one off, and then when I recognized one of your team on the news one day I knew I was on the right track.’
‘Rebecca Newmarket,’ Bishop said.
Cortiss laughed. ‘Yeah. You got it.’
The only time Bishop and his team had ever been exposed to TV was during the six months they spent guarding the rabidly right-wing media personality Rebecca Newmarket. Willing to spew forth offensive opinions and racial hatred at the drop of a pay cheque, she’d received so many death threats that nobody but RoyseCorp would take her on any more. She was also the only person to ever cause Bishop to seriously question his choice of career. He’d managed to thwart two potentially fatal attacks just in those six months alone. Frankly, he was amazed she was still breathing.
Cortiss said, ‘I saw you all arrive at some awards ceremony and I knew I’d found someone I could work with. Last time we’d encountered each other we were both using different names, but he struck me as somebody who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Turned out I was right. We got reacquainted, I filled him in, told him what I knew and he was like a kid at Christmas. Couldn’t wait to get started on all the planning. He picked you out as the fall guy straight from the off, by the way. He doesn’t like you much.’
Bishop said, ‘His name?’
Cortiss shook his head. ‘Uh, uh, brother. That ain’t how we’re gonna play. Right now, I figure the only thing I got to trade is my ex-partner’s identity and current whereabouts. I don’t mind answering any other question you got, but I’ll be holding back on the big guns until we come to some kind of an arrangement that guarantees I walk.’
‘I could force it out of you, Cortiss.’ Bishop lifted a trouser leg to reveal his knife.
‘You could, but once you started I’d make sure you went all the way. That wouldn’t get either of us anywhere, would it? But I can be reasonable.’
Bishop saw a determination in the man’s eyes. Cortiss would take it to the edge if necessary. He decided to be patient and agree on the reasonable route. It was usually best in the long run, anyway. He said, ‘It was you two stalking the family, sending photos of the kids to Brennan and leaving threatening messages.’
‘Yeah,’ Cortiss said and blew a smoke ring towards the ceiling. ‘Needed to make it look like it was coming from somebody wronged by Brennan in the past. And that they were gonna take it out on the whole family sometime soon.’
Bishop shook his head. ‘It doesn’t add up. How could you predict Brennan would approach RoyseCorp for protection? And if he did, how could you be sure my team would be assigned?’
‘Easy. With Brennan’s money, who else was he gonna call but the top private security firm in the country? Especially as he helped Royse start the company up in the first place. You know about that?’ When Bishop nodded, he said, ‘There you go. He and Royse went way back, and that’s how we also knew your team would get picked for the job. Don’t forget you were the close protection division’s golden boy, commanding the only team with a hundred per cent success rate up to that point. Once his old comrade came calling, Royse was bound to assign his most reliable man to the case. Guy like that looks after his own. That’s why we timed the threats while you were all on leave and available. And since you always picked the same crew, my partner knew he’d be along for the ride as well.’ He stretched both arms out wide and smiled. ‘And thus it all came to pass, brother.’
‘So when did your partner find the vault?’
‘About three months later, in early September. Never told me how he did it, though.’
Bishop didn’t respond. He thought back to the slashes on Natalie’s body. They’d been deep and frantic cuts from someone who’d had a personal interest in the victim. But when Cortiss had talked about Natalie there’d been no emotion there. Which just left one possibility. Except Bishop hadn’t noticed any signs that his men were messing around with the teenager. Even Chaney hadn’t stooped that low before.
Bishop said, ‘Natalie told your friend where it was.’
Cortiss frowned. ‘You think?’
‘Sure, pillow talk. He’d been screwing her for a while by then, in that room above the garage. He even risked taking her to my apartment since he knew I rarely stayed there. Setting up the frame.’
Cortiss sucked on the end of his smoke and slowly breathed out. ‘Yeah, you could be onto something there. There was definitely some kind of love/hate thing going on. Apparently, she reminded him of an old lover he’d never really gotten over.’
‘I’ll bet. And he was the one who came up with the idea of an armed assault in the first place, wasn’t he?’
‘Right. It was the only way we’d get away without suspicion falling on him. And we had to make sure the Brennans ended up part of the collateral damage.’
‘And you were happy with that.’
‘Hey, brother, whatever gets the job done. Wasn’t the first time I’d had to cover my tracks like that.’
Bishop studied Cortiss and suddenly felt the urge to knock his teeth out. He looked so sure of himself, sitting there with his legs stretched out like he was discussing football averages.
Cortiss continued. ‘So we knew you guys were due to be relieved on October 15, and decide
d to use that to get us past the front gate. If the real team were supposed to turn up at seven, we’d turn up at six. Once we had the authentic IDs and codes we were good to go.’
So the inside man arranged the IDs, Bishop thought. Interesting. And Tennison with his love of technology. How easy would it be to make fake documents to get past Neary at the gate? If you were as good as Tennison, probably pretty easy. And then there were the hidden surveillance cameras, too.
‘And the three extra guys in your assault party?’ Bishop asked.
Cortiss’s face broke into a smile. ‘You liked them, huh?’ He sniggered. ‘They still haven’t identified those boys. Never will, either. Romanian ex-army with barely a word of English between them. Poor guys weren’t destined to survive that night. If you guys hadn’t taken care of them, I would have.’
Bishop kneaded his forehead with his fingers. ‘Why’d you waste Neary?’
‘That was just one of the boys bringing down the odds once we got in. After that, they each took their assigned man on the perimeter while I made my own entrance and put you to sleep for the allotted time.’ Cortiss took a last drag of the cigarette and crushed it under his shoe. ‘So there you go. I made it to the top and found Oates shot, and Brennan and Natalie both still dripping from my partner’s attentions. I still had your knife so I thought, since you’d be taking the fall, I might as well make it conclusive. Wiped my blood off and smothered it in the Brennans’, then dropped it next to the old man. I grabbed the cash and then met you on the stairs soon after.’
Bishop narrowed his eyes, curious about what had stopped his three hollow-points. ‘Kevlar?’
Cortiss nodded. ‘Covered in blood bags, too. We knew you’d go for the textbook grouping of three in the chest. I’m happy to say you didn’t disappoint.’
Bishop had figured as much. But at least now he had the answer as to why the raid took place at all. The whole thing had been nothing more than a diversion to cover up the actual murders that had already taken place while Bishop was on duty two floors below.
