by Harlan Coben
Until this morning.
A major monkey wrench had been tossed into the main theory: Pavel Menansi had been murdered too, in a fashion similar to Valerie Simpson. Under the main theory, the murders of Valerie Simpson and Pavel Menansi were at cross-purposes. Why kill Valerie Simpson to protect Pavel Menansi, only to go ahead and kill Pavel Menansi? It didn’t mesh. It wasn’t profitable for TruPro or the Aches.
Of course, there was the possibility that Frank Ache had decided Menansi was too big a risk, that exposure was imminent and losses might as well be cut right now. But if Frank had wanted Pavel dead, he would have had Aaron do it. Pavel had been murdered between midnight and one. Aaron was dead by midnight. Myron mulled this over a bit and decided that Aaron’s being dead made it extremely unlikely he was the killer. And moreover, if Frank had intended to kill Pavel, there would have been no reason to scare Myron off with the attack on Jessica.
On the street in front of him a pale woman with a bullhorn screamed that she had recently met Jesus face-to-face. She stuffed a pamphlet into Myron’s hand.
“Jesus sent me back with this message,” she said.
Myron nodded, glanced down at the ink smears on the pamphlet. “Too bad he didn’t give you a decent printer.”
She gave him a funny look and went back to her bullhorn. Myron stuffed the pamphlet into his pocket and continued walking. His mind returned to the problem at hand.
Frank Ache wasn’t behind Pavel’s murder, he thought. To the contrary, Frank Ache wanted Pavel saved because Pavel meant mucho dinero to TruPro. Frank Ache had even brought Aaron in to protect Pavel. He had ordered Aaron to harm Jessica and to protect Pavel. Killing TruPro’s main tennis drawing card would make no sense.
So what did that leave us?
Two possibilities. One, we were dealing with two separate killers with two separate agendas. Seeing an opportunity, Pavel’s killer had left behind a Feron’s bag to put the blame on Valerie’s killer. Or two, there was some other linkage between Valerie and Pavel, one that was not readily apparent. Myron favored this possibility, and of course it led back to Myron’s earlier obsession:
The murder of Alexander Cross.
Both Valerie Simpson and Pavel Menansi had been at the Old Oaks tennis club that night six years ago. Both had been attending the party for Alexander Cross. But so what? Let’s suppose Jessica had been right this morning. Suppose Valerie Simpson had seen something that night, maybe even the identity of the real murderer. Suppose she’d been about to reveal the truth. Suppose that was why she’d been killed. How would that tie in to Pavel Menansi? Even if he had seen the same thing, he hadn’t opened his mouth in years. Why would Pavel start now? It’s not as though he’d come forward to help poor Valerie. So what is the connection? And what about Duane Richwood? How did he fit into this equation, if at all? And Deanna Yeller? And where was Errol Swade? Was he still alive?
He headed east three blocks and then turned down Park Avenue. The majestic (if not ostentatious) Helmsley Palace or Helmsley Castle or Helmsley Whatever sat straight ahead, seemingly in the middle of the street; the MetLife building huddled over it like a protective parent. For eons the MetLife building had been something of a New York landmark known as the Pan Am building. Myron couldn’t get used to the change. Every time he turned the corner he still expected to see the Pan Am logo.
Activity was brisk in the front of Myron’s building. He headed past the modern sculpture that adorned the entrance. The sculpture was hideous. It looked very much like a giant intestinal tract. Myron had looked for a name on the sculpture once, but in a typical New York move, someone had pried off the name plaque. What someone did with an ugly sculpture’s name plaque was beyond comprehension. Maybe they sold it. Maybe there was an underground market for name plaques from works of art—for those who couldn’t afford actual stolen artworks and thus settled for the plaques.
Interesting theory.
He entered the lobby. Three Lock-Horne hostesses sat on stools behind a tall counter, smiling plastically. They wore enough makeup to double as cosmetic counter girls at Bloomies. Of course, they didn’t wear the official white lab coat of genuine Bloomie counter girls, so you could tell they weren’t professional makeup people. Still, all three were attractive—model wannabes who found this more enjoyable (and put them in touch with more potential bigwigs) than waiting tables. Myron walked past them, smiled, nodded. None gave him the eye. Hmm. They must know how committed he was to Jessica. Yeah, that must be it.
When the elevator opened on his floor, he walked toward Esperanza. Her white blouse was a nice contrast against her dark, flawless skin. She’d have been great on one of those Bain de Soleil commercials. The Santa Fe tan without any sun.
“Hi,” he said.
Esperanza cupped the phone against her shoulder. “It’s Jake. You want to take it?”
He nodded. She handed him the phone.
“Hey, Jake.”
“Some girl did a partial autopsy on Curtis Yeller,” Jake said. “She’ll see you.”
Myron said, “Some girl?”
“Mea culpa for not being politically sensitive,” Jake said. “Sometimes I still refer to myself as black.”
“That’s because you’re too lazy to say African American,” Myron said.
“Is it African or Afro?”
“African now,” Myron said.
“When in doubt,” Jake said, “ask a honky.”
“Honky,” Myron repeated. “Now there’s a word you don’t hear much anymore.”
“Damn shame too. Anyway, the assistant M.E. is Amanda West. She seemed anxious to talk.” Jake gave him the address.
“What about the cop?” Myron asked. “Jimmy Blaine?”
“No dice.”
“He still with force?”
“Nope. He retired.”
“You have his address?”
“Yes,” Jake said.
Silence. Esperanza kept her eyes on her computer screen.
“Could you give it to me?” Myron asked.
“Nope.”
“I won’t hassle him, Jake.”
“I said no.”
“You know I can find the address on my own.”
“Fine, but I’m not giving it to you. Jimmy is one of the good guys, Myron.”
“So am I,” Myron said.
“Maybe. But sometimes the innocent get hurt in your little crusades.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just leave him alone.”
“And why so defensive?” Myron continued. “I just want to ask him a couple of questions.”
Silence. Esperanza didn’t look up.
Myron continued, “Unless he did something he shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t matter,” Jake said.
“Even if he—”
“Even if. Good-bye, Myron.”
The phone went dead. Myron stared at it a second. “That was bizarre.”
“Uh-huh.” Esperanza still stared at her computer screen. “Messages on your desk. Lots of them.”
“Have you seen Win?”
Esperanza shook her head.
“Pavel Menansi is dead,” Myron said. “Someone murdered him last night.”
“The guy who molested Valerie Simpson?”
“Yep.”
“Gee, I’m so brokenhearted. I hope I don’t lose too much sleep.” Esperanza finally flicked a glance away from the screen. “Did you know he was on that party list you gave me?”
“Yeah. You find any other interesting names?”
She almost smiled. “One.”
“Who?”
“Think puppy dog,” Esperanza said.
Myron shook his head.
“Think Nike,” she continued. “Think Duane’s contact with Nike.”
Myron froze. “Ned Tunwell?”
“Correct answer.” Everyone in Myron’s life was a game show host. “Listed as E. Tunwell on the list. His real name is Edward. So I did a little digging. Guess who
first signed Valerie Simpson to a Nike deal.”
“Ned Tunwell.”
“And guess who had plenty of egg on his face when her career took a nosedive.”
“Ned Tunwell.”
“Wow,” she said dryly, “it’s like you’re clairvoyant.” She lowered her eyes back to her computer screen and started typing.
Myron waited. Then: “Anything else?”
“Just a very unsubstantiated rumor.”
“What?”
“The usual in a situation like this,” Esperanza said, her eyes still on the screen. “That Ned Tunwell and Valerie Simpson were more than friends.”
“Get Ned on the phone,” Myron said. “Tell him I need—”
“I already made the appointment,” she said. “He’ll be here at seven tonight.”
39
Dr. Amanda West now worked as chief pathologist at St. Joseph Medical Center in Doylestown, not too far from Philadelphia. Myron pulled into the hospital parking lot. On the radio was the classic Doobie Brothers song “China Grove.” Myron sang along with the chorus, which basically consisted of saying “Oh, Oh, China Grove” repeatedly. Myron sang it louder now, wondering—not for the first time—what a “China Grove” actually was.
As he took a parking ticket from the attendant the car phone rang.
“Jessica is hidden,” Win said.
“Thanks.”
“See you at the match tomorrow.”
Click. Abrupt, even for Win.
Inside Myron asked the receptionist where the morgue was. The receptionist looked at him like he was nuts and said, “The basement, of course.”
“Oh, right. Like on Quincy.”
He took the elevator down a level. No one was around. He found a door marked MORGUE, and again using his powers of deductive reasoning, quickly realized that this was probably the morgue. Myron the Medium. He braced himself and knocked.
A friendly female voice chimed, “Come in.”
The room was tiny and smelled like Janitor-in-a-Drum. The decor theme was metal. Two desks facing each other, both metal, took up half the room. Metal bookshelves. Metal chairs. Lots of stainless steel trays and bins all over the place. No blood in them. No organs. All shiny and clean. Myron had indeed seen plenty of violence, but the sight of blood still made him queasy once the danger passed. He didn’t like violence, no matter what he’d told Jessica before. He was good at it, no denying that, but he did not like it. Yes, violence was the closest modern man came to his true primitive self, the closest he came to the intended state of nature, to the Lockean ideal, if you will. And yes, violence was the ultimate test of man, a test of both physical strength and animalistic cunning. But it was still sickening. Man had—in theory anyway—evolved for a reason. In the final analysis, violence was indeed a rush. But so was skydiving without a parachute.
“Can I help you?” the friendly voiced woman asked.
“I’m looking for Dr. West,” he said.
“You found her.” She stood and extended her hand. “You must be Myron Bolitar.”
Amanda West smiled a bright, clear smile, which illuminated even this room. She was blond and perky with a cute little upturned nose—the complete opposite of what he’d expected. Not to be stereotyping, but she seemed a tad too sunny, too upbeat, for someone handling rotting corpses all day. He tried to picture her cheerful face splitting open a dead body with a Y-incision. The picture wouldn’t hold.
“You wanted to know about Curtis Yeller?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Been waiting six years for someone to ask,” she said. “Come on in. There’s more room in the back.”
She opened a door behind her. “You squeamish?”
“Uh, no.” Mr. Tough-guy.
Amanda West smiled again. “There’s nothing to see really. Just that some people get freaked out by all the drawers.”
He entered the room. The drawers. There was a wall of huge drawers. Floor to ceiling. Five drawers up. Eight across. That equals forty drawers. Mr. Multiplication Tables. Forty dead bodies could fit in here. Forty dead rotting corpses that used to have lives and families, that used to love and be loved, that once cared and struggled and dreamed. Freaked out? By a bunch of drawers? Surely you jest.
“Jake said you remembered Curtis Yeller,” he said.
“Sure. It was my biggest case.”
“Pardon me if I sound out of line,” Myron said, “but you look awfully young to have been an M.E. six years ago.”
“You’re not out of line,” she said, still smiling sweetly. Myron smiled back with equal sweetness. “I had just finished my residency and worked there two nights a week. The chief M.E. was with the corpse of Alexander Cross. Both bodies came in nearly the same time. So I did the prelim on Curtis Yeller. I didn’t get the chance to do anything resembling a full autopsy—not that I needed one to know how he was killed.”
“How was he killed?”
“Bullet wound. He was shot twice. Once in the lower left rib cage”—she leaned to the side and pointed at her own—“and once in the face.”
“Did you know which was one fatal?”
“The shot to the ribs didn’t do much damage,” she said. Amanda West was, Myron decided, cute. She tilted her head a lot when she talked. Jess did that too. “But the bullet in Yeller’s head ripped off his face like it was Silly Putty. There was no nose. Both cheekbones were barely splinters. It was a mess. The shot was at very close range. I didn’t get a chance to run all the tests, but I’d say the gun was either pressed against his face or no more than a foot away.”
Myron almost took a step back. “Are you saying a cop shot him in the face at point-blank range?”
Water dripped into a stainless steel sink, echoing in the room. “I’m just giving you the facts,” Amanda West said steadily. “You draw your own conclusions.”
“Who else knows about this?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. It was a zoo in there that night. I usually worked alone, but there must have been half a dozen other guys with me on this one. None of them worked for the coroner’s office.”
“Who were they?”
“Cops and government guys,” she replied.
“Government guys?”
She nodded. “That’s what I was told. They worked for Senator Cross. Secret service or something like that. They confiscated everything—tissue samples, the slugs I extracted, everything. They told me it was a matter of national security. The whole night was crazy. Yeller’s mother even managed to get in the room once. She started screaming at me.”
“What was she screaming about?”
“She was very insistent that there should be no autopsy. She wanted her son back immediately. She got her wish too. For once the police acquiesced. They weren’t interested in having anyone look too closely at this, so it worked out for all concerned.” She smiled again. “Funny thing, don’t you think?”
“The mother not wanting an autopsy?”
“Yes.”
Myron shrugged. “I’ve heard of parents not wanting autopsies before.”
“Right, because they want the body preserved for a decent burial. But this kid wasn’t buried. He was cremated.” She offered up another smile, this one more saccharine.
“I see,” Myron said. “So any evidence of police wrongdoing would have been burned up with Curtis Yeller.”
“Right,” she said.
“So you think—what—someone got to her?”
Amanda West put her hands up in surrender. “Hey, I said it was a funny thing. Not ha-ha funny, just strange funny. The rest is up to you. I’m just an M.E.”
Myron nodded again. “You find anything else?”
“Yes,” she said. “And this too I found funny. Very funny.”
“Ha-ha funny or strange funny?”
“You decide,” she said. She smoothed her lab coat. “I’m no ballistics expert, but I know a little something about bullet slugs. I pulled two slugs from Yeller. One from the rib cage, one from the
head.”
“Yeah so?”
“The two slugs were of different calibers.” Amanda West put up her index finger. All traces of a smile were gone now. Her face was clear and determined. “Understand what I’m telling you, Mr. Bolitar. I’m not just saying two different guns here. I’m talking about different caliber. And here’s the funny part: all the officers on the Philadelphia force use the same caliber weapon.”
Myron felt a chill. “So one of the two bullets came from someone other than a cop.”
“And,” she continued, “all those secret service men were carrying guns.”
Silence.
“So,” she said, “ha-ha funny or strange funny?”
Myron looked at her. “You don’t hear me laughing.”
40
Myron decided to ignore Jake’s advice. Especially after listening to Amanda West.
Finding Officer Jimmy Blaine’s current address had not been easy. The man had retired two years ago. Still Esperanza found out he lived alone on some small lake in the Poconos. Myron drove through the wilderness for two hours until he pulled into what he hoped was the right driveway. He checked his watch. He still had plenty of time to see Jimmy Blaine and get back to the office in time for his meeting with Ned Tunwell.
The house was rustic and quaint, about what you’d expect to find nestled away in the Poconos. Gravel driveway. Dozens of small wooden animals guarded a front porch. The air was heavy and still. Everything—the weather vane, the American flag, the rocking chair, all the leaves and blades of grass—stood frighteningly motionless, as if inanimate objects had the ability to hold their breaths. As Myron climbed up the porch stairs, he noticed a modern-looking wheelchair ramp that also led to the front door. The ramp looked out of place here, like a doughnut in a health food store. There was no doorbell, so he knocked.
No one answered. Curious. Myron had called ten minutes ago, had heard a man answer, and hung up. Could be out back. Myron circled around the house. As he hit the backyard, the lake stared him in the face. It was a spectacular picture. The sun shone off the still—again, frighteningly motionless—water and made Myron squint. Placid. Tranquil. Myron felt the muscles in his shoulders start to unbunch.
