by Gregory Colt
“From the people of the United States of America. CIA arms shipment to a friend that couldn’t have gone through normal channels. Or so I’m led to believe,” he grimaced.
Well, that explained some things. I made an educated guess. “They leaned on you because no matter who’s responsible someone’s got to be punished. And since I was there, with my history…”
Bob blew out a deep breath and sagged. When he spoke most of the heat was gone in his voice.
“Got it in one. Wish those damn spooks would question you themselves. Maybe do some actual investigating on their own instead of playing games. I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Yeah. I have dealt with the agency once or twice before. Couple of years ago.”
Bob grunted an affirmative and craned his neck around to check on Chris coming back with the food.
Chris sat down and handed us each a philly cheesesteak sandwich and a Coke. I preferred Pepsi but I wasn’t about to complain when they were buying. I approved of my tax dollars at work.
“So,” I said with a mouthful of delicious cheesesteak. “This is about more pressure on the arms shipment. You guys are wasting your time. I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s wasting mine too. I’m in the middle of a case right now and can’t afford it.”
“That’s the reason we’re here. This business at the museum. I’m not above thinking you could have done it,” Bob started. I jumped to say something but he waved me down.
“But I don’t think you did. You’re not half the liar you think you are. I know good and well you’re keeping things from us, but I always had the impression you were playing it straight with me. I’m not here to harass you. I’m here to make sure you understand how serious this is Adrian. You said you’d have something for us in two or three days, and that’s all I got. Day four, I am fired and God knows what they’ll do to you. Look, you worked with those guys at the museum. I get it. I’m not saying the bastards that murdered them aren’t worth going after. But the NYPD is good at what they do and don’t need you involved. My understanding is you were ordered to stay out of it anyway,” he said.
“Out of the homicide. But items were stolen and the museum hired me to find them,” I said.
Bob waved his hands impatiently at me. “That could take weeks, months even, and you know it. It’s time neither of us has. I’m not trying to screw you around and I expect the same back. I need something more. Any actionable intel would be something. And I need it yesterday.”
“That was clear yesterday. What is it that made you drive out here and wait for me without calling?” I asked.
Bob and Chris looked at each other for a long second before Chris shrugged and Bob said, “Shit.” He sighed and continued. “It’s confidential, but they’re holding a formal hearing. On you. Which might not mean much, but it’s gotten fast tracked.”
“Let me guess, four days?” I asked.
Bob nodded.
Double crap. Even if I wanted to give up everything I’d held back, it would take a day or two. Claire could handle things on her end, and if she had her team to help, they could do more than me anyway. But Ruby didn’t. Assuming she was alive at all. I wasn’t going to entertain that thought though. I’d find her, one way or the other.
“That,” I sighed, “wasn’t the case I meant earlier.”
Chris stopped eating and stared at me. Bob just waited.
“There was someone waiting for Nick when I went into the office yesterday. A young boy looking for an investigator. Said his sister was missing and no one was taking it seriously,” I said.
“Why didn’t he call the police?” Chris asked.
“Prostitute,” Bob and I said at the same time. He smirked.
“Yeah,” I said taking another bite.
He nodded. “It happens. City doesn’t have the manpower to look into situations that probably have lots of potential explanations. Figure people living that lifestyle put themselves in that position anyhow like they’re not as human as the rest of us. Hell, cynic like me, I figure they’re just more honest about who they are.”
I nodded.
“So you think there’s something to it? Something happened to her?” Bob asked.
“Yeah.”
“Shoot, even if I had any favors to call in, I couldn’t help. Whole Bureau in the city is gearing for something big. No one’s telling us anything, though, and it doesn’t change my timetable. I need something inside of seventy-two hours or it’s my ass. Your ass too, Knight. Both our asses,” he said.
“That’s a lot of ass, Bob.”
Chris choked on his Coke and Bob rolled his eyes. “Look, we got to get back to the office. I need to dig around for boxes to start packing anyhow. You think of any way we can help the girl, give me a call.”
I sat back in thought. “You’d help me? What happened to being persona non grata with the feds?”
“You and me both, but I’ve got shit else to do,” he said disgusted.
“Actually, I could use a ride to the Bronx. Gave the girl’s boyfriend homework and need to check back with him,” I said.
“Any other time I’d have a million questions about that, but now…ah hell, much as it galls me to admit it, you might stand a better chance finding her by yourself. Finish up and get in the car, Knight. We’ll drive you.”
I thanked them again after they dropped me off at The Box.
“Funny,” Bob said, leaning over Chris to see me through the open passenger window. “How the glass in the door blew into the lobby when the elevator fell and not out into the sidewalk.”
I didn’t say a word.
“Three days,” he said before taking off.
Three days. Awesome.
* * * *
“I smell a quarter pounder,” said Jacob, sitting on Sam Ellison’s desk when I walked into the office at NYU. He looked like a kid ready for basketball camp in his athletic pants and tank top, but was, in fact, the top grad student under Ellison this past year.
“Oh, you do not,” I covered my mouth.
Jacob grinned. “With cheese.”
Sometimes it’s hard to picture a young man as brilliant and accomplished as Jacob as being only twenty, but then he opens his mouth and proves he can’t get past thirteen.
“I am so sorry to hear about Henry and Mr. Wilkins,” said Sam, leaning around Jacob from behind his desk. Professor Samuel Ellison freelanced much like myself, but where I worked out of the museum, he held a semi-permanent position at New York University. We worked together often, including this past trip in the Yucatan, and I trusted him as much as I did anyone. He was honest, intelligent, and had an effortless tan. I liked that, even if I did burn after eight seconds in the sun.
“Yeah.” I knew the museum would come up and had worried how I would handle it, but the night at Adrian’s had calmed me. That fact needed processing all on its own later.
Sam half-smiled. “Ol’ Henry’s whole life was in that workshop. Bet if you’d have asked him that’s where he’d want to go.”
I bet he would have wanted to go right beside Grace. Whether the workshop was all he had left or not, no one would want that death. Terrified and cowering and watching your friend torn apart and being helpless to stop it. If there even was such a thing as a good death, Wilkins had it. He went down fighting. That wasn’t a heartening thought, but it was something.
I tried a grin. It didn’t work. “So, just the two of you?”
“Actually, they all said they’d come. Only one said no.”
“And who was that?” I asked.
Sam pushed the young man off the desk and Jacob slid like ice in those pants.
“Being a teacher’s assistant sucks,” he said, catching himself. “I got freaking drafted on my vacation.”
“Cry about it,” I said with a little more humor.
“File a complaint with the union,” Sam said with a laugh.
“Yeah, when I get old and crotchety I’m taking it out on a bunch of grad students too,” he said sulking.
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“That’s the spirit,” I told him. “So where is everyone then?” I asked, turning back to Sam.
“I called them right after you contacted me, but didn’t want everyone showing up until we had something more concrete. In the meantime, I made other calls on my own. Turns out we don’t have time for a meeting right now anyway,” Sam said seriously.
“We don’t?”
“Well, you don’t. I tried getting in touch with my usual colleagues and didn’t get anything. I don’t have contacts involved in the shadier parts of this business, but there is one guy. Professional in Latin American antiquities. Not in the black market per se, but something of a freelance consultant verifying providence and such for independent buyers up and down the Eastern seaboard,” Sam nodded.
“And you talked to him? He knows something?” I asked.
“No,” Sam said. “I talked to his wife. She was upset. Detective Harris paid him a visit less than an hour ago and wanted to continue their conversation downtown.”
“What?!” I asked straightening my back. “He went out of his way to make sure Adrian and I knew to keep the murder and theft separate and now he’s bringing in people from my side?”
“Claire,” Sam said. “Shouldn’t this have more to do with finding Henry’s killer? Does it really matter which one of you does it?”
“No. I mean yes of course that’s what matters. But he’s the one excluding me. He had demanded transparency and then at the first opportunity he shuts me out. If the guy talks and has valuable information that leads Harris to the items and on to the killers by dinner, then wonderful. Nothing would make me happier. But what if he doesn’t want to talk to the police? What if Harris has to cut him loose and he goes into hiding until this blows over? We’ll never get a chance to talk to him ourselves,” I said.
Sam raised his hands. “Hey, look, I agree. That’s why I told you, boss. He can hold him for twenty-four hours and then you lose him. So you need to get down there before Harris cuts him loose.”
“Hence no time for bringing in everyone else.”
“Yep.”
“Hey,” I said to both of them. “You two feel like solving a little mystery?”
“Not a big mystery?” Jacob asked.
“Nope. That’s why she’s the boss kid,” Sam said. “What do you have for us?”
“A man named Reenan Keller washed up in Newark Bay this morning after spending the last three or four days in the water. Prior to that, he was investigating something for Diamond Jack. I want to know more about him,” I said.
“You do remember I have a degree in anthropology, right?” said Sam.
“I’m not asking you to infiltrate his lair or whatever, just look at activity around the Bay for the last several days or something. Diamond Jack is involved in all this somehow. Anything at all would help,” I said.
“Claire, you sure you want to be getting involved in something like this? I mean Diamond Jack is dangerous. Real dangerous,” Sam said.
“Adrian said the same thing, but he’s not backing down and neither am I,” I said.
“Heard things about him too. I don’t want to see you get squished between all the bad guys,” Sam said.
That was an interesting way of putting it, and more than a little disconcerting.
“Much as I would love to hear what you’ve heard I need to get moving,” I said, turning for the door.
“Luck,” Jacob said.
“Jake and I will look into this,” Sam said. “Put our brains to the task. All one and a half of them.”
“It isn’t healthy to put yourself down like that,” Jacob said.
“See?” I said, turning back around in the doorway. “This meeting was a great idea.”
Chapter Seventeen
The 20th precinct on the Upper West Side was crowded. Officers ran back and forth with folders, talking on phones, or addressing other groups. I passed one group of SWAT and a hallway full of men with FBI tags.
The precinct is only a few blocks from the museum. Sometimes I would bring John lunch at work. But, I’d been gone months and it felt weird walking in. He had kept coming around the museum after we were over and I’d be lying if that wasn’t a major motivation in taking that assignment to South America. Now I was going to him. I knew why, but I didn’t have to like it. I wondered if this was what it had been like for Adrian at the ME’s office earlier.
If he could handle it so could I. I walked to the front desk and caught a break when I recognized Rodriguez working. We had always gotten on well and she remembered me as soon as I walked in. After a brief, but awkward, conversation convincing her I was in no way here to take him back did she let me sign in and get a visitor pass. Anyone else probably would have called Harris to see if he wanted to see me. Rodriquez thought it would be great fun for me to pop in on him. Love that girl.
I made my way through the crowd and found John’s desk, sat down, and called his cell from his own phone.
“Harris,” he answered.
“You seriously haven’t replaced this old chair?” I asked leaning back and letting him hear it squeak.
“Claire? What are you talking about? You’re not—are you at my desk?” he sputtered.
“We need to talk.”
“I’m in the middle of an interrogation. Whatever it is can wait.”
No, it really couldn’t. “Hey,” I said. “You remember last New Year’s. It was so much fun. I loved getting to meet your first partner. You know the one. Your friend from New Orleans. I was talking to Rodriquez on my way in here. You know I bet she would love to hear the story about you guys at Mardi Gras.”
He hung up on me.
Less than a minute later Detective John Harris, in his fashionably faded jeans and old blazer, waved me out of the seat to follow him into an unoccupied office.
He shut the door and rounded on me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You said to share any information. So here I am,” I said.
“What could you possibly have that couldn’t wait? Or, I don’t know, just used the phone,” he snapped.
I lowered my chin and arched an eyebrow at him.
John’s dark eyes darted back and forth looking at me for a long moment.
“Who was it?” he asked, slouching with a sigh.
“Sam Ellison.”
“You can’t have him.”
“Can’t?”
“That’s right. Can’t. If he knows something then he’s connected to the crime. And this soon afterwards makes him one of the top suspects in a homicide investigation,” he said.
“Has he said anything?” I asked in a lighter tone.
John blew out a deep breath. “No. He knows we don’t have anything and can’t keep him.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“No. Absolutely—”
“John,” I said, raising my hands cutting him off. “Do you think George would care which one of us got the information? This isn’t a competition and I don’t need you protecting me. We both have a job to do and this man might be able to help,” I said.
“All right,” he said. “All right. But I’m going to be in there with you.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I thought for sure he would make the process as needlessly difficult as possible, but he wasn’t. This wasn’t just another case and I could tell he was struggling with it.
“You can research any info he gives to your heart’s content, but anything pointing to a solid lead back to the thief, the killers, is mine.”
“Deal.”
John opened the door. “Let’s go.”
I thought he would take me back to the interrogation room, but instead took us through the crowd to the other side of the office and halfway down a hall into one of the conference rooms.
“Hey, what happened to that girl said she was going to get coffee?” said a short, scrawny guy in a t-shirt and jeans, sitting at the opposite head of the conference table with his feet propped up on it.
He wore a pin
striped vest and matching fedora, cutting an image any dwarven mobster would be proud of.
“I don’t see no coffee,” he complained again.
“Shut up, Benji,” said John, closing the door behind us.
“Hey, that’s Mr. King to you. Don’t be disrespectful. Who’s the dame?” asked Benji, pointing at me.
“This is Ms. Spurling and she would like to talk to you. Ms. Spurling, this is Benjamin King,” John said, making introductions before sitting down.
“Dr. Spurling,” I corrected, walking around to Mr. King and extending my hand. “Dr. Claire Spurling, from the Museum of Natural History.”
“Oh wow, yeah. Heard about that. Heard it was real nasty too. Old guy and the security guards right?” he reached out to clasp my hand.
What began as a handshake turned into me violently knocking the little guy’s hat off.
“Hey!” Benji yelped. “What was that for? What’d I say? I’m making friendly conversation here, what the heck?”
“Heck?” asked John.
“Yeah, heck. I don’t swear no more. Swore off swearing you could say. Old lady says she’s pregnant and ain’t raisin’ a tiny hellspawn like everyone else these days with no discipline. Says if he turns out a foul-mouthed brat because of me, she’s kicking me out. I tell you what, I may not be squeaky clean or nothing, but my boy ain’t growing up without a father. That shit ain’t happening,” he said, winding himself up.
“Ahhh, damn it! I did it again!” he hammered at the table. “I was doing real good and now you gone and provoked me!” he snapped.
I liked Benji. If he was a Latin American scholar, I didn’t see it, but he seemed, I don’t know, genuine. I liked genuine people. Even when they were rude.
“I apologize, Mr. King. I—”
He cut me off. “Nah, I wasn’t thinking. You’re from the museum so you probably worked together or something and I’m being all insensitive.”
“Yes. We worked together. I…I found them. I was the first person there yesterday morning and called the police.” I fought down the first few images that came to mind from that morning.
“Ahh geez that’s terrible. No, that’s awful. Hey, this one time my best friend and I were playing out by his dad’s shed and we decide to break in and mess around with some of the stuff, being boys you know, and when we get in there—”
