by Harlan Coben
Heavy accent on the word hours.
“Well then, I won’t bother you anymore.”
“It’s no bother.”
“I’ll come by another time,” he said.
Madelaine (he liked that name) nodded demurely. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“Nice meeting you.” With Myron, every line was a lady-slayer.
“Nice meeting you too,” she singsonged. “Good-bye, Myron.”
The door closed slowly, teasingly. He stood there for another moment, took a few deep breaths, and hurried back to his car. Whew.
He checked his watch. Time to meet Sheriff Jake.
Jake Courter was alone in the station, which looked like something out of Mayberry RFD. Except Jake was black. There were never any blacks in Mayberry. Or Green Acres. Or any of those places. No Jews, Latinos, Asians, ethnics of any kind. Would have been a nice touch. Maybe have a Greek diner or a guy named Abdul working for Sam Drucker at the grocery store.
Myron estimated Jake to be in his mid-fifties. He was in plainclothes, his jacket off, his tie loosened. A big gut spilled forward like something that belonged to someone else. Manila files were scattered across Jake’s desk, along with the remnants of what might be a sandwich and an apple core. Jake gave a tired shrug and wiped his nose with what looked like a dishrag.
“Got a call,” he said by way of introduction. “I’m supposed to help you out.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Myron said.
Jake leaned back and put his feet on the desk. “You played ball against my son. Gerard. Michigan State.”
“Sure,” Myron said, “I remember him. Tough kid. Monster on the boards. Defensive specialist.”
Jake nodded proudly. “That’s him. Couldn’t shoot worth a lick, but you always knew he was there.”
“An enforcer,” Myron added.
“Yep. He’s a cop now. In New York. Made detective second grade already. Good cop.”
“Like his old man.”
Jake smiled. “Yeah.”
“Give him my regards,” Myron said. “Better yet, give him an elbow to the rib cage. I still owe him a few.”
Jake threw back his head and laughed. “That’s Gerard. Finesse was never his forte.” He blew his nose into the dishrag. “But I’m sure you didn’t come all this way to talk basketball.”
“No, I guess not.”
“So why don’t you tell me what this is all about, Myron?”
“The Kathy Culver case,” he said. “I’m looking into it. Very surreptitiously.”
“Surreptitiously,” Jake repeated with a raised eyebrow. “Awfully big word, Myron.”
“I’ve been listening to self-improvement tapes in the car.”
“That right?” Jake blew his nose again. Sounded like a ewe’s mating call. “So what’s your interest in this—aside from the fact that you represent Christian Steele and you used to have a thing for Kathy’s sister.”
Myron said, “You’re thorough.”
He took a bite out of the half-eaten sandwich on his desk, smiled. “Man does love to be flattered.”
“It’s like you said. Christian Steele. He’s a client. I’m trying to help him out.”
Jake studied him, waiting again. It was an old trick. Stay silent long enough, and the witness would start talking again, elaborating. Myron did not bite.
After a full minute had passed Jake said, “So let me get this straight. Christian Steele signs on with you. One day you start chatting. He says, ‘You know, Myron, the way you been licking my lily-white ass and all, I’d like you to go play Dick Fuckin’ Tracy and find my old squeeze who’s been missing for the last year and a half and the cops and feds can’t find.’ That how it went, Myron?”
“Christian doesn’t curse,” Myron said.
“Okay, fine, you want to skip the dance? Let’s skip it. You want me to give, you have to give back.”
“That’s fair enough,” Myron said. “But I can’t. Not yet, anyhow.”
“Why not?”
“It could hurt a lot of people,” Myron said. “And it’s probably nothing.”
He made a face. “What do you mean, hurt?”
“I can’t elaborate.”
“Fuck you can’t.”
“I’m telling you, Jake. I can’t say anything.”
Jake studied him again. “Let me tell you something, Bolitar. I’m no glory hound. I’m like my son was on the court. Not flashy but a workhorse. I don’t look for clippings so I can climb up the ladder. I’m fifty-three years old. My ladder don’t go no higher. Now this may seem a bit old-fashioned to you, but I believe in justice. I like to see truth prevail. I’ve lived with Kathy Culver’s disappearance for eighteen months. I know her inside and out. And I have no idea what happened that night.”
“What do you think happened?” Myron asked.
Jake picked up a pencil and tapped it on the desk. “Best guess based on the evidence?”
Myron nodded.
“She’s a runaway.”
Myron was surprised. “What makes you say that?”
A slow smile spread across Jake’s face. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“P.T. said you would help.”
Jake shrugged and took another bite from yet another sandwich scrap. “What about Kathy’s sister? I understand you two were pretty heavy.”
“We’re friends now.”
Jake gave a low whistle. “I’ve seen her on TV,” he said. “Hard to be friends with a woman who looks like that.”
“You’re a real nineties guy, Jake.”
“Yeah, well, I forgot to renew my subscription to Cosmo.”
They stared at each other for a while. Jake settled back in his chair and examined his fingernails. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” Myron said. “From the beginning.”
Jake folded his arms across his chest. He took a deep breath and let it loose slowly. “Campus security got a call from Kathy Culver’s roommate, Nancy Serat. Kathy and Nancy lived in the Psi Omega sorority house. Nice house. All pretty white girls with blond hair and white teeth. Kind that all look alike and sound alike. You get the picture.”
Myron nodded. He noticed that Jake was not reading or even consulting a file. This was coming from memory.
“Nancy Serat told the rent-a-cop that Kathy Culver hadn’t returned to her room for three days.”
“Why did Nancy wait so long to call?” Myron asked.
“Seems Kathy wasn’t spending too many nights in the sorority house anyhow. She slept in your client’s room most of the time. You know, the one who doesn’t like to curse.” Brief smile. “Anyhow, your boy and Nancy got to talking one day, both figuring Kathy had been spending all her time with the other. That’s when they realized she was missing and called campus security.
“Campus security told us about it, but no one got very excited at first. A co-ed missing for a few days is hardly an earth-shattering event. But then one of the rent-a-cops found the panties on top of a waste bin, and well, you know what happened then. The story spread like a grease stain on Elvis’s pillow.”
“I read there was blood on the panties,” Myron said.
“A media exaggeration. There was a bloodstain, dry, probably from a menstrual cycle. We typed it. B negative. Same type as Kathy Culver’s. But there was also semen. Enough antibodies for a DNA and blood test.”
“Did you have any suspects?”
“Only one,” Jake said. “Your boy, Christian Steele.”
“Why him?”
“Usual reasons. He was the boyfriend. She was on her way to see him when she vanished. Nothing very specific or damaging. But the DNA test on the semen cleared him.” He opened a small refrigerator behind him. “Want a Coke?”
“No, thanks.”
Jake grabbed a can and snapped it open. “Here’s what you probably read in the papers,” he continued. “Kathy is at a sorority cocktail party. She has a drink or two, nothing serious, leaves at ten P.M
. to meet Christian, and disappears. End of story. But now let me fill it in a little.”
Myron leaned forward. Jake took a swig of Coke and wiped his mouth with a forearm the size of an oak trunk.
“According to several of her sorority sisters,” he said, “Kathy was distracted. Not herself. We also know she got a phone call a few minutes before she left the house. She told Nancy Serat the call was from Christian and she was going to meet him. Christian denies making the call. These were all intracampus calls, so there is no way for us to tell. But the roommate says Kathy sounded strained on the phone, not like she was talking to her true love, Mr. Clean-Mouth.
“Kathy hung up the phone and went back downstairs with Nancy. Then she posed for the now-famous last photograph before leaving for good.”
He opened his desk drawer and handed Myron the photograph. Myron had, of course, seen it countless times before. Every media outlet in the country had run the photograph with morbid fascination. A picture of twelve sorority sisters. Kathy stood second from the left. She wore a blue sweater and skirt. Pearls adorned her neck. Very preppy. According to Kathy’s sorority sisters, Kathy left the house alone immediately after the picture was taken. She never returned.
“Okay,” Jake said, “so she leaves the cocktail party. Only one person saw her for sure after that.”
“Who?” Myron asked.
“Team trainer. Guy named Tony Gardola. He saw her, strangely enough, entering the team’s locker room around quarter after ten. The locker room was supposed to be empty at that hour. Only reason Tony was there was that he forgot something. He asked her what she was doing there, and she said she was meeting Christian. Tony figured what the hell, kids today. Might be having a kinky locker-room encounter. Tony decided it was in his best interest not to ask too many questions.
“That’s our last firm report on her whereabouts. We have a possible sighting of her on the western edge of campus at around eleven P.M. Someone saw a blond woman wearing a blue sweater and skirt. It was too dark to make a positive ID. The witness said he wouldn’t have even noticed, except she seemed in a rush. Not running but doing one of those quick-walks.”
“Where on the western edge of campus?” Myron asked.
Jake opened a file and took out a map, still studying Myron’s face as though it held a clue. He spread the map out and pointed. “Here,” he said. “In front of Miliken Hall.”
“What’s Miliken Hall?” Myron asked.
“Math building. Locked tight by nine o’clock. But the witness said she was moving west.”
Myron’s eyes traced a path to the west. There were four other buildings labeled FACULTY HOUSING. Myron remembered the spot.
It was where Dean Gordon lived.
“What is it?” Jake asked.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit, Bolitar. You see something.”
“It’s nothing.”
Jake’s eyebrows furrowed. “Fine. You want to play it that way? Then get the fuck out. I still got my ace in the hole, and I ain’t showing it.”
Myron had planned for this. Jake Courter would have to be given something. That was fine, as long as Myron could turn it to his advantage.
“It seems to me,” Myron said slowly, “that Kathy was walking in the general direction of the dean’s house.”
“So?”
Myron said nothing.
“She worked for him,” Jake said.
Myron nodded.
“What’s the connection?”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s completely innocent,” Myron said. “But you might want to ask him about it. You being so thorough and all.”
“Are you saying—”
“I’m not saying anything. I am merely making an observation.”
Again Jake studied him. Myron looked back coolly. A visit from Jake Courter would probably not crack Dean Gordon, but it should soften him a bit. “Now about that ace in the hole …?”
Jake hesitated. “Kathy Culver inherited money from her grandmother,” he said.
“Twenty-five grand,” Myron added. “All three kids got the same. They’re sitting in a trust account.”
“Not exactly,” Jake said. He stood, hitched his pants up. “You want to know why I said the evidence pointed to Kathy being a runaway?”
Myron nodded.
“The day Kathy Culver vanished, she visited the bank,” Jake continued. “She cleared out her inheritance. Every penny.”
Chapter 20
Myron started back toward New York. He flipped on the radio. Wham’s classic hit “Careless Whisper” was playing. George Michael was bemoaning the fact that he would never dance again because “guilty feet have got no rhythm.” Deep, Myron thought. Very deep.
He picked up the car phone and dialed Esperanza.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“You coming back to the office?”
“I’m on my way there now.”
“I wouldn’t make any stops,” she said.
“Why?”
“You have a surprise client waiting for you.”
“Who?”
“Chaz Landreaux.”
“He’s supposed to be hiding in Washington.”
“Well, he’s here. And he looks like shit.”
“Tell him to sit tight. I’m on my way.”
“It’s like this,” Chaz began. “I want to cancel our contract.”
He paced the office like an expectant father, and he did indeed look like shit. The cocky grin was nowhere to be seen. The swagger was more like a hunch. He kept licking his lips, darting his eyes, bunching and unbunching his fingers.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Myron tried.
“Ain’t no beginning,” Chaz snapped. “I want out. You gonna fight me on it?”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I changed my mind, is all. I want to go with Roy O’Connor at TruPro now. They’re big-time. You’re a nice guy, Myron, but you don’t have their connections.”
“Uh-huh.”
Silence. More pacing.
“Can I have the contract or what?”
“How did they get to you, Chaz?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. How many times do I have to say it? I don’t want you, okay?” Chaz was on the edge and teetering. “I want TruPro.”
“It’s not that easy,” Myron said.
“You gonna fight me on this?” he asked again.
“They won’t stop with this, Chaz. You’re in over your head. You have to let me help you.”
He stopped. “Help me? You wanna help me? Then give me back my contract. And don’t pretend you give a shit about me. You just want your piece.”
“Do you really believe that?” Myron asked.
He shook his head. “You don’t get it, man. I don’t want you. I want to go with TruPro.”
“I get it. And like I said before, it’s not that easy. These guys got you by the balls. You think you can make them let go by doing what they say. But you can’t. Not for good anyway. Whenever they want something, they’ll just reach back into your pants and give another squeeze. They won’t stop, Chaz. Not until they’ve squeezed you for everything they can.”
“Man, you don’t know shit. I don’t have to explain nothing to you.” He approached the desk, but his eyes looked away. “I want that goddamn contract. I want it now.”
Myron picked up his phone. “Esperanza, bring me Chaz’s contract. The original.” He hung up. “It’ll just be a moment.”
Chaz said nothing.
“You don’t know what you’re mixed up in,” Myron continued.
“Fuck off, man. I know exactly what I’m mixed up in.”
“Let me help, Chaz.”
He snorted. “What can you do?”
“I can stop them.”
“Oh yeah, I can tell. You done a great job so far.”
“What happened?”
But he just shook his head.
Esperanza came in
and handed Myron the contract. Myron in turn handed it to Chaz. He grabbed it and hurried to the door.
“Sorry, Myron. But this is business.”
“You can’t beat them, Chaz. Not on your own. They’ll suck you dry.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t think you can.”
“Just stay the fuck out. It ain’t your business no more.”
He took off without a backward glance. When he was gone, Win opened the door between the conference room and Myron’s office. “Interesting conversation,” Win said.
Myron nodded, thinking.
“We’ve lost a client,” Win said. “Too bad.”
“It’s not that simple, Win.”
“That’s where you’re mistaken,” Win replied steadily. “It’s just that simple. He dumped you for another agency. As he so eloquently put it, ‘It ain’t your business no more.’ ”
“Chaz is being pressured.”
“And you offered to help him. He refused.”
“He’s a scared kid.”
“He’s an adult who makes his own decisions. One of which was to tell you to fuck off.”
Myron looked up. “You know what they’ll do to him.”
“It’s a world of free will, Myron. Landreaux chose to take the money in college. And he chose to go back to them now.”
“Will you follow him?”
“Pardon?”
“Follow Chaz. See where he takes those contracts.”
“You complicate the simple, Myron. Just let it be.”
“I can’t. You know I can’t.”
Win nodded. “I guess I do.” He thought a moment. “I’ll do it for the sake of our business,” he said. “For the added revenue. If we get Landreaux back in our stable, it will be very profitable. You may enjoy playing superhero, but as far as I’m concerned, this is no moral crusade. I am doing this for the money. That is the only reason. The money.”
Myron nodded. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“Fine. As long as we are clear on that point. And I want you to take this.”
Win handed him a Smith & Wesson .38 and a shoulder holster. Myron put it on. Carrying a gun was incredibly uncomfortable, yet the weight felt good, like a reminder of some kind of protective bubble. Sometimes the sensation made you feel heady, invincible even.
