• • •
Jones saw Coburn emerge from the precinct. Watched him stand in the sunlight of the new day and glance down the street in both directions. His first impulse was to call Smith. But he hesitated, focusing instead on determining Coburn’s next move. He peeled the wrapper from a pack of gum and folded a stick of spearmint into his mouth. He strolled past parked cars, keeping pace with Coburn.
Coburn seemed to be in no hurry to get anywhere.
• • •
Coburn felt lost. It was only because he had nowhere to be and nothing requiring his attention. And really, he had no reason to remain in the city. He had told Detective O’Shannon all he knew about Brian Ripley, and that information was now more or less twenty years old. There was nothing to add.
He needed food. He had skipped breakfast, and the coffee could only carry him so far. So he fueled up with a breakfast burrito and a bottled water. He stood in the shade of an awning and ate. The sustenance hit the spot. He suddenly felt like a new man, not in such a hurry to blow out of the city. He decided to hang around, at least a few more hours, maybe even into late afternoon. Hopefully he’d hear from O’Shannon by then. In the meantime he intended to have a look around on his own.
11
They had been at Caspian’s apartment all night and there was still no sign of him. None of them had slept. They were running on adrenaline. For all those months Caspian had been faceless and nameless. Now they had an ID and an address. But his face was still a mystery. Heather had provided no physical description and there was not a single photograph of anyone or anything throughout the entire apartment. Nor was there any shred of personal information. The place was as sterile as a bio lab.
Smith’s people had dusted for fingerprints but found nothing. How was that possible? Did this guy live in a HAZMAT suit? Was he a freak or simply freakishly cautious? One thing was clear - this person did not want to be identified.
Caspian was a ghost, but sooner or later he would have to return home, and when he did they would grab him. Brown was out front, surveilling the main entrance to the building. He maintained a clear view of the door and two streets. He had eyes like a hawk. Miller had the parking structure. Every car and empty parking space was accounted for.
Smith was alone in the apartment. He had sacrificed Jones, at least for the moment, to have a set of eyes on John Coburn. Coburn’s unexpected reappearance in his life at such a radically inopportune moment was the ultimate example of bad timing.
The apartment was sleek and modern. Smith had gone over every square inch. His efforts had turned up nothing, but he was far from finished. He’d been trained to find a needle in a haystack.
Smith walked to a window overlooking the city. The day was bright. The sky was clear. Sunlight reflected off the glass of surrounding buildings. He blinked against the glare and watched traffic crawl through streets in the distance. Mr. Armstrong had invested millions of dollars in the pursuit of the enigmatic Caspian. The hunt had led them to this square block of New York City, to this building, and finally to this space where he now stood. Caspian had breathed this same air, and stood at this same window, and stared out at this same view.
Smith closed the blinds. He stood in the center of the living area, holding an iron pry bar in one hand. The iron was cool in his grip. He tapped the bar against the side of his leg in rhythm with a silent beat.
Caspian was hiding something.
His eyes drifted to the floor. He pondered how much space was down there between the floor of Caspian’s apartment and the ceiling of the residence below. Certainly enough of a cavity to stow something of value. There would be equal space in the ceiling. He rose onto the toes of his boots and fully extended his arm over his head, touching the curved end of the pry bar to the textured surface of the ceiling. He listened to the dull thump. Took two steps forward, repeated the action, and again listened to the acoustic feedback.
He considered the walls. It would take days to tear the place apart. They didn’t have that kind of time. Smith would have to be more selective. He balanced the pry bar across his shoulder and tried to think like Caspian. This guy was smart and precise, and he certainly wasn’t careless. If he had something to hide, it would be well hidden.
His imagination began churning.
Who was Caspian? Where did he go when he wasn’t living in this apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan? He could be anybody: old, young, strong, frail, dashing, sophisticated, handicapped, psychopathic. Anything was possible.
A momentary sting of regret hit Smith. If Heather were alive, he could have squeezed her for more. It had been a lopsided transaction. He could see that now. Millions in cash in exchange for a name and an address. He shouldn’t have panicked. It was a blunder. A big one. No question about it. It was uncharacteristic of him. But the girl, Heather, had heard his real name, and that brought to the surface an old, primal fear - the fear that he would be discovered. The fear that, after all these years, they would come after him, find him, and eliminate him just as they had done to all the others.
12
Five days ago, standing in Heathrow, he’d had no plan and no destination, but there surely had to be something going on in the world, and he’d wanted a piece of the action. Coburn had been studying the flight schedules, debating where on the world map to go next. He had completed six weeks in Johannesburg and was looking for a change of scenery, with nowhere in particular in mind. When his marriage ended, he had given up his last permanent address. His life now was spent moving from place to place. He’d seen the far corners of the globe and much of everything in between.
John Coburn was a Harvard-trained medical doctor. Thirty-eight years old. Six foot, one inch, and about one-ninety, depending upon the time of day. He’d come from a family of wildly successful surgeons, but early on he had shunned their lifestyle and followed his own path.
Coburn had been pre-med at USC and then served six years in the Air Force as a fighter pilot before being shot down off the coast of China. A surgical team stopped the bleeding and managed to reconstruct his body and stitch him back together. He spent five months in traction and then a full eighteen months learning to walk again. Now the only remnants of the ordeal were scars on his back and chest, and a slight limp when the weather turned cold.
During his long and arduous recovery he made the decision to return to medicine. He had the brains and the breeding, but he wanted to take on the practice of medicine in his own way. His time in the military had given him a love for traveling the world. So, after his years in medical school at Harvard and his residency, he decided to simply go wherever he felt he could be of use. Coburn had volunteered with many relief organizations around the globe, but had never maintained formal affiliation with any of them. He valued his freedom and autonomy far too much to hitch himself to any bureaucracy.
On that rainy afternoon in London, staring up at the board displaying every conceivable destination, Coburn still hadn’t made up his mind when his brother reached him by phone.
Now he was in New York City.
Coburn adjusted the tape over his nose. He could feel the clotted blood deep inside his nasal passages.
Washington Square Park had returned to normal. The police tape was gone. Coburn waited for the light to change at a crosswalk. He stared across the park. He wasn’t interested in solving a crime. His only interest was Ripley. Nothing about their brief encounter made sense to him.
If he were proven wrong and it turned out that the man in the bar last night was not his old college friend after all, then Coburn would have no reason to pursue the mystery any further. In fact, that was the best-case scenario. He hoped he was mistaken and that Ripley was someplace a few time zones away, making an honest living and raising a healthy, happy family.
He walked past a storefront and saw CNN on the flat screen in the window. He needed to know what was happening in the world. He’d been back in the States only a few days, and already he had the itch to get out of the
country. He couldn’t sit still for long. Africa and Eastern Europe were sure bets. There seemed to be unlimited conflict and violence for the sake of violence. Coburn had crisscrossed both landmasses many times. He considered Asia. There was footage rolling on CNN of some crises or other in Malaysia or Thailand or Haiti, or wherever, showing half-naked children running through the streets, buildings toppled and on fire, and corpses crushed by falling debris. He longed to be thousands of miles away, amid the chaos and smells and sounds of a Third World country.
Coburn was suddenly very ready to leave New York.
13
Smith was prepared to tear the place apart, but he didn’t have to because he got very lucky. Sometimes luck is what you need. Sometimes luck is more important than anything else.
There was still no sign of the man called Caspian. He had eyes watching every exit in the building. Smith closed the window blinds. There was a ten-pound sledgehammer on the kitchen counter. The sledge had a fiberglass handle and he pulled it to the edge of the counter. The blunt iron head scraped across the marble surface.
Outside light glowed red through the slats of the window blinds. The sounds of the city were muted. He lifted the sledge and balanced it across his shoulder, then he moved through the apartment following his long shadow from room to room. He rounded a corner and passed a bathroom in the narrow hallway. He paused long enough to switch on the overhead light and poke his head in. The restroom was a continuation of Caspian’s minimalist theme. There was nothing but cold gray surfaces. There was a tiny office with a desk made of smoked glass supported by steel legs. The desktop was bare except for a chrome lamp. All of it had been dusted for fingerprints, and all of it was clean. Smith looked for evidence of paper or pens or anything else office related. Caspian had done an astoundingly good job of eliminating any evidence of himself from his home.
Smith stared down at his reflection in the desktop. Then he glanced up at the wall on the opposite side. He eased around one end of the desk. He touched the flat of his hand to the wall. He lightly rapped the knuckle of his middle finger against it. It sounded like he was between wall studs. He unshouldered the sledge and took the handle in both hands. Then he hesitated. He shook his head and moved on.
He was sick of wasting time. He was ready to do some damage. He made one more pass through the apartment. He went through the bedroom to the office, and then he paused at the hall bath to switch off the light. When he backed out of the bathroom, the head of the sledge bumped the wall behind him.
Smith heard a click. He turned.
A panel in the wall had released. He saw the seam of a door built into the wall. Smith opened it and stepped inside and found a wall switch. There was a single, canned light fixture that glowed white. It was a storage room. Ten feet deep with metal file drawers built into one wall.
Bingo!
Smith rested the sledge on the floor, balancing the fiberglass handle against a wall inside the hidden space. He had just saved himself a tremendous amount of time and effort. If Caspian had anything to hide, they’d find it here. It was time to get to work.
Smith had gotten incredibly lucky, and he knew it.
14
Coburn stood in the exact spot where John Lennon was murdered. He had taken a cab uptown. He stood outside the Dakota apartment building and stared at the pavement between his feet. This was the spot where some punk had pulled a gun for no good reason and ended the life of a genius. That’s all it took to change history really, just show up and pull the trigger.
His cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but it had a 212 area code.
“Hello?”
“Coburn, this is Detective O’Shannon.”
“I thought maybe I’d heard the last of you.”
“Where are you right now, Mr. Coburn?”
“On my way out of the city.”
There was a beat of silence. Then O’Shannon spoke again.
“Actually, if you could spare a few minutes, I’d like to meet up.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“How about an early lunch? Let me buy you a burger and a beer.”
“What did you find, Detective?”
“I’d rather do this in person.”
“I’d rather be on my way.”
“I think you’ll want to hear this.”
“Did you find Ripley?”
“I’ll meet you twenty minutes, Mr. Coburn.”
O’Shannon mentioned the name of a sports bar a few blocks away.
Coburn hesitated.
“It will be worth your time,” O’Shannon assured him.
“What did you find?”
“You’ll find out in twenty minutes.”
15
Detective O’Shannon had a table in a corner with his face stuck in a menu. He spotted Coburn and waved him over. “Have a seat. The burgers here are great. Greasy as hell. They’ll kill you eventually, of course, but what a way to go.”
Coburn sat opposite him.
“What did you find out about Brian Ripley?”
“Let’s order first,” O’Shannon said. Broad sweat stains were visible around his shirt collar and under his arms.
“Ever heard of a salad?” Coburn asked. “I’ve seen pictures on the Internet,” O’Shannon mumbled as he slapped the menu down on the table. His hands were huge. A waitress delivered a tall iced tea to which he added six packets of Sweet and Low and then stirred it with a spoon. He set the spoon down on a coaster and took a long drink.
“I’ll take a bottle of water,” Coburn told the waitress.
“I could live off that stuff,” O’Shannon said, setting the glass down.
Coburn cracked the seal on his bottled water and took a small sip.
“Tell me what you found.”
“How many years you say it’s been since you last saw Ripley?”
“Close to twenty.”
“Right. That’s right.” O’Shannon fished his notepad from a pocket and gave it a quick glance. “Seventeen years, isn’t that what you said?”
“About seventeen years, yes.”
“Did you find him?” Coburn asked. “Is that what this is about?”
“Have you ever owned a gun, Coburn?”
“Sure. I grew up near the mountains and I used to hunt.”
“Have you owned handguns?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“Interesting how?”
“Did you hunt with handguns?”
“No.”
“But you are familiar with how to use one?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“There’s that word again.”
“We won’t have the ballistics results for a day or two.”
“For the bullets pulled from the girl’s body?”
“That’s correct.”
“Do you think those results will help speed up your investigation?”
O’Shannon added another packet of sugar substitute to his tea. “Do you still own a gun, Coburn?”
Coburn noted the slight shift in the detective’s tone. “No.”
“What does this have to do with Brian Ripley?” Coburn asked.
O’Shannon swirled his ice. “Where are you from?”
“Seattle, originally. Not really anywhere now.”
“That’s an interesting answer.”
Coburn took another drink of water. “Maybe I got tired of collecting Eddie Bauer catalogues, so now the USPS can’t find me.”
“Must get lonely.”
“Not really.”
“How do you make a living?”
“I thought this was about Brian Ripley.”
“Of course it is.”
“OK, so let’s talk about Brian Ripley.”
“It’s a simple question. I find you to be an interesting guy.”
“I’m a doctor.”
Clearly it was not the answer O’Shannon had anticipated.
“Well, I’m officia
lly impressed.”
“My family wasn’t. I was the underachiever.”
“How is that possible?”
“I come from a family of surgeons.” Coburn shrugged.
The waitress reappeared with O’Shannon’s burger platter. O’Shannon took a massive bite and grease trailed down his chin.
“Do you live in New York?” he asked Coburn.
Coburn watched the bar door open and close before he answered. A man with white hair drifted up to the bar and briefly glanced in their direction.
Coburn shook his head. “I’m visiting.”
“In town on business?”
“No. It was a random and spontaneous decision.”
The detective raised his glass and rattled the ice for the benefit of their waitress.
“Are you good with numbers?” O’Shannon asked.
“How do you mean?”
“I can’t help wonder what the odds are that you pick New York at random and happen to bump into one of your oldest and dearest friends, and then the girl he’s with turns up dead in the park. Those have to be crazy odds. You agree?”
“That’s why it’s called coincidence.”
“Yeah, guess so.”
Coburn continued to watch the man eat.
“I ran Brian Ripley’s name through our databases and I narrowed the search criteria based on the information you gave me.”
“Good. Did you find him?”
O’Shannon nodded. “He was in the database.”
“Did he have a criminal record?”
“No.”
“OK, what did you find?”
O’Shannon drained the last of the tea and set his glass aside. He touched a napkin to his lips and then dropped it onto his plate.
“Brian Ripley is dead,” the detective said.
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