Ice Cap: A Mystery (Jackie Swaitkowski Mysteries)

by Chris Knopf

  Shipping and handling. Supply-chain management. Import-export. Logistics. An art and science lovingly undertaken by some people, but hardly a romance. Tad and Zina had found a convenient and reasonably safe way to communicate, though precautions were taken. All of which indicated an illicit enterprise, which answered one open question. Tad was dirty. And so was his wife.

  Almost involuntarily, I reached for the phone and called Harry.

  “Are you ready to take me in?” I asked.

  “Happy to be a port in the storm.”

  “It’s not supposed to start until tonight, but I need to pick your brains.”

  “Slim pickins,” he said.

  “False modesty is unbecoming.”

  “I think that was a compliment.”

  “I’m expecting a fire.”

  I threw a pair of silk long underwear, wicking socks, and additional fleece sweaters into a big duffel bag, along with other overnight necessities, like the laptop, the nat.net transcripts, Randall’s external hard drive, and a spare magazine for the Glock tucked in with the cosmetics. What girl wouldn’t?

  The sky on the way to Harry’s was a sullen dark gray. The temperature had risen in the last twenty-four hours, but the weather commentators ruined that hopeful sign by saying it was the telltale of a southwesterly storm, usually the worst of all.

  I turned up the heat and switched the radio to classical music to compensate for all that negativity.

  Harry had parked his Volvo facing out toward the road, but I pulled straight in, to better hide the bullet holes. There’d be time to go through all that. He met me halfway to the door and took the heavy bag.

  “Should have brought a forklift,” he said, heaving the bag over his shoulder.

  “You have one? Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  As requested, there was a fire in the fireplace. I let Harry help me disgorge the duffel bag, and we settled in the living room in front of the hearth. Then I made him go through Tad and Zina’s interactions, hovering over him and interrupting every five minutes with my earnest interpretations. He ignored me, except for an occasional pat on the hip, and read on for almost an hour. Then he relented and looked over at me.

  “You’re right,” he said. “In every particular.”

  I swatted him. “Come on. Tell me the truth.”

  “It’s a classic distribution channel. Tad is the field agent, charged with acquisition. He funnels what he obtains through intermediaries who either add value to the product or act as go-betweens with some special advantage, like a relationship with port officials, allowing unscrutinized pass-through. From there the merchandise is received somewhere in Europe—if it’s Poland, probably in Gdańsk—and then distributed from there. Tad is in direct contact with one of the last links in the chain, so he’s either set this whole thing up himself, or he’s bypassed his immediate buyer and gained access to the people closer to the end of the line. Usually an unacceptable thing even in the legitimate world, if there is such a thing. Though it sounds like the former. I think he’s set something up with this character G and the two of them have worked out the multistep distribution process. Love to know more about it. Looks pretty cool.”

  “Cool? What are they trading in?” I asked.

  “No idea. Drugs, microchips, nuclear arms, French poodles, wicker furniture … it’s all the same in the language of commerce. Merchandise, product, shipping, handling, containers, customs, manifests, ports of call. Stuff that has to move and the stuff that moves it.”

  We took a break from analyzing the Tad/Zina interactions to eat lunch and check in on the storm’s progress, which seemed to be holding true to earlier predictions, gathering its strength before slamming into the southeast corner of the Middle Atlantic and then heading up our way. The Carolinas were already succumbing to record snowfalls and desperate proclamations that this kind of thing can’t happen here. Harry went off to test his generator and check on his business and I went back to poring over the transcripts.

  This was always my greatest failing. The inability to maintain concentration through constant, repetitive tasks. A liability only overcome through titanic effort, it almost scuttled my law school career.

  Luckily, the tone of the exchange between Tad and Zina began to change three-quarters of the way through the transcripts, revitalizing my powers of concentration.

  Zina: G not feeling good about marketplace in Kraków. Too much Russians.

  Tad: Do we suspend operations?

  Zina: Not option. Buyers want, want, want. Send more, more, more. More three, five’s and seven’s.

  Tad: Plenty of them, sweetheart.

  Zina: Not your sweetheart.

  Tad: Just an expression. Don’t get your panties in a twist.

  Zina: Understood. Forget dealing with American gangster.

  Over the following volume of transcript, the narrative became clear. Zina’s patron, G, was coming under increasing pressure from a competing organization and was feeling more and more desperate. Zina was getting distraught, and much more emotional in her communications, not for herself, but for G, whom I couldn’t help but identify as Godek, her father. It just seemed too personal and conflicted a relationship to be otherwise. I congratulated myself when I hit this line of communication.

  Tad: The people on the docks have quit shipment. Say things on your end too f**ked up. Need information.

  Zina: G and mama have to leave for a while. Must stop operation for now. Old fight with big rivals here in Kraków getting very nasty. Much bad blood. Not so good. Not sure when next communicate. Please check nat.net daily.

  It was almost two weeks until the next post. Tad had likely checked in as directed, but it was not what he probably expected to read.

  G: Very bad trouble here. Too much money and too little respect.

  Tad: Surprised to hear from you. Where is Zina?

  G: Gone to safer place. Not safe enough.

  Tad: What about the operation?

  G: You will find new customer when I am gone.

  Tad: Where are you going?

  G: Will not survive this.

  Tad: Repeat that please.

  G: Will not survive this. Mama refuse to go, but must send Katarzina away.

  Tad: Where to?

  G: To America. Have a new deal to talk about.

  Tad: Lay it on me.

  G: Sorry?

  Tad: Tell me about the deal.

  I stopped reading and ran for some cantaloupe and chilled water. Not that I didn’t want to read what came next; I wanted it too much. I needed to slow my fervor, put a governor on my nervous system.

  Food and drink in hand, I went back to the stack of papers and read on.

  G: I want to send Katarzina to you Tadzik. I will pay.

  In the steady back-and-forth of the text there was no place to show a pause, but I was sure G had to wait a bit before Tad responded.

  Tad: Explain.

  G: Bad blood is with me. Will fight it out here in Poland. Won’t spill on Brighton Beach. Too much risk things get out of control. Nobody wants that. You come here and take Katarzina back with you. Only way to keep her safe.

  Tad: That’s a tall order, chief. What do I do with her over here?

  G: Katarzina tell me you like money. You keep her safe forever, money will be yours. Pretty soon, I have no use for it anymore.

  Tad: Send a deposit through Brighton Beach. Pass along what you’re talking about in round numbers. Then I’ll decide.

  G: Soon, Tadzik. Have much more money than time.

  And that was the last line. There was nothing in the bland, simple text to properly honor the force of those words typed in halfway around the world, yet as intimate as it could be, staring up at me off the page, grim and resolute.

  21

  I leapt up out of the sofa and paced around Harry’s living room like a caricature out of a hammy old movie. There was just too much adrenaline in my system and no place to put it. Son of a bitch, I said to myself. Of course.


  I went into Harry’s office with the last few pages of transcript in my hand and made him read to the end.

  “Holy cow,” he said.

  “I’ve got to go see Franco.” Harry looked out the window. “It hasn’t started yet,” I said.

  “Let me drive you,” he said. He must have seen me stiffen a little. He spun around in his chair and looked at me full on. “Here’s the thing. It made me happy that you wanted to weather the storm here with me. So this is where my expectations are. Now, if you go, that happy stuff will be replaced by anxious stuff. I won’t get in your way, I just want to keep that happy stuff going until we’re back here safe and sound.”

  He didn’t have to add, For chrissakes, Jackie, I don’t ask for much. Could you just toss me a bone once in a while?

  “Nothing would make me happier than having you drive me to the county jail,” I said.

  I liked his car, which was the same exact model as mine, yet without all that junk, it felt a lot bigger on the inside. And it was interesting to see what the upholstery actually looked like.

  On the way up to Riverhead we played verbal tennis. I served him a question about the Buczek case, and he knocked back a possible answer. And vice versa. This was both helpful and fun, which made me especially grateful I had the sense to bring him along.

  “When are you going to bring in Joe Sullivan?” he asked. “He doesn’t like it when you get too far ahead of him.”

  I’d tried not to think about that, knowing Harry was right.

  “I’ve got nothing that would even begin to shake the ADA’s case against Franco. So Joe would have zero incentive to chase around all this with me, so theoretically, I have no good reason to pull him in.”

  “He’d still want you to.”

  “It’s no fun for you to be right all the time. Especially when I’m trying to rationalize.”

  “Just saying.”

  We kept the radio tuned to stations with reliably steady weather reports. To our relief, the storm had slowed down some, and was spending some extra time clobbering Washington, D.C., which had effectively halted congressional proceedings and thoroughly gummed up the executive branch. I took that as a sign from God.

  “Good, nobody can screw up the country for at least a few days,” I said.

  “Is that a political statement?”

  “Theological.”

  Since the county jail’s principal purpose was to hold defendants over for trial, it was a fairly spare yet congenial place in comparison to the big prisons upstate. The guards were county police who’d earned a chance to live out the last days of their careers walking shackled people in and out of their cells and hanging around unadorned office space. So you didn’t have to confront that edgy intensity so often found in street cops.

  “Hi there, Jackie. Who’s the muscle?” the check-in guard said, looking up at Harry.

  “He has muscles, but it’s the brain that counts,” I said.

  “Investigator?” the guard asked, handing me the justification for bringing Harry into a client conference. I nodded, and they buzzed us through the door, then through the next door, which was a sliding wall of bars, and then we were escorted to the conference room where Franco was waiting.

  Predictably, there was a moment of alarm when he saw Harry come through the door.

  “Jesus.”

  “Franco, meet Harry Goodlander. He’s a friend who helps me on cases.”

  Franco watched his hand disappear into Harry’s massive mitt.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Harry.

  “Sure, me too.”

  We sat across from Franco and I sat a file on the table. Inside were the nat.net transcripts; still images of Yogi, Boo Boo, Ike, Connie, and Ivor Fleming; and a printout of Zina’s Facebook page.

  I let a little silence build, taking the time to study Franco, his once olive-toned face now the color of rancid tallow, with deep lines down both cheeks and across his forehead. He’d shaved off his goatee and had his hair trimmed close to the skull, which only put on more years. It was remarkable to me how quickly people could decline in prisons and jails, but I’d seen it often.

  “How are you doing?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Who cares.”

  I didn’t bother to say, I do.

  I’d also brought my cell-phone photos of the little shack near the road. I took them out of the file and placed them in front of Franco. He just looked down until they were all spread out, then looked up at me, his face a mask of sorrow.

  “Where’d these come from?” he asked.

  “I took them myself,” I said. “If the cops searched for fingerprints, whose would they find?”

  He looked down again.

  “They know about this place?” he asked.

  “No. Whose prints would they find?”

  “Mine and Zina’s. I told you we were in bed together.”

  “But you didn’t tell me where.”

  “What difference does it make?” he asked.

  “It makes a difference because you didn’t tell me. How come?”

  With nearly reverential care, he put the photos back into a neat pile and slid them across the table.

  “It’s personal,” he said.

  “There’s a good answer coming from a man fighting for his life.”

  “I’m not fighting.”

  “Obviously.”

  “It was our place. Like a little haven. I didn’t want to have everybody tromping around in there, getting fingerprint dust all over and turning things inside out. Which I guess is going to happen anyway now. Don’t know why it should matter. Everything else is down the toilet.”

  I hated to see it, but his eyes were filling with tears.

  “You never told me how you got started with Zina,” I said gently. “How did it happen?”

  He looked away and rubbed his face with his shirtsleeve.

  “Tad was away a lot. He’d drive off in the box van and be gone all day, sometimes overnight. Zina always seemed to know his schedule, never seemed nervous about him showing up all of a sudden. She’d ask me to fix something inside the house. Hang around while I work, ask me if I want something to eat, so we’d sit at the table and talk about stuff. It’s all innocent, since you got Saline and Freddy coming in and out all the time. Until one day when Tad’s away and Saline needs to go Up Island for a doctor’s appointment. So this time, she just asks me to come visit her at the main house. Then things get started like you see in dirty movies. She answers the door in this sexy outfit, kind of a peekaboo thing on top, you get the idea.”

  He looked over at Harry, as if his presence increased the intrusion into his personal life.

  “I get the idea,” I said, drawing his attention back to me.

  A flicker of defiance crossed Franco’s face.

  “I’m a man,” he said. “I’d been in prison for a few years, then alone on this big property, trying to keep my nose clean, staying out of bars and other places where you meet women. Not knowing what I’d say if I did meet anybody. ‘Hi, I’m Franco, ex-con. What was I in for? Oh, just killing my lover’s husband. But I also like evenings by the fire and long walks on the beach.’ And now here’s this total knockout right out of a teenager’s wet dream, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t blame you, Franco,” I said. “I really don’t.” He wiped his face again and sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry to put you through all this, but I have to.” He nodded, and I continued. “Did she ever talk about the intimate aspects of her marriage to Tad? I know they had incompatible personalities, but what about the bedroom? Did that ever come up?”

  He shook his head slowly, as if saying no and trying to remember at the same time.

  “I really don’t think we talked about it,” he said. “I just assumed it wasn’t so great, otherwise what was she doing with me?”

  I put the photos back into the file and fought with myself over what to bring out next. I chose Ike and Connie. Franco looked d
own at the images.

  “Ever see these guys at the property?” I asked.

  He studied them for a while, then shook his head. “I don’t remember them.”

  I laid out the pictures of Ivor Fleming, then Yogi and Boo Boo. He shook his head again.

  “Them either. Tough-looking bastards.”

  “You sure?” I said.

  “I’m sure. Don’t get the point.”

  “Did you ever go with Tad when he left in his box van?”

  “No. Freddy usually did. The idea was for me to stick around the place and keep an eye on things. There’s your irony.”

  “But you and Zina went to the little place up the hill. Not the main house.”

  “With Saline around? Are you kidding? No love lost between those two. Wouldn’t trust Saline as far as I could throw her, which wouldn’t be very far. Big gal. But she hardly ever left either of the houses, so the little place made sense.”

  Sometimes I can lose track of facts in a case, especially when they slip in and out of factual status. So it didn’t surprise me that one obvious fact suddenly occurred to me.

  “That night, you were in bed with Zina, but Tad was on the property.”

  He grinned, though not at anything funny.

  “‘Holy crap’ I think were the words at the time,” he said. “He was supposed to be gone till after the snow ended. Who would have thought he’d come home that afternoon? Not Zina.”

  “That’s why he was looking for her. He got home and she wasn’t there. You’re sure Saline didn’t know about the little place?”

  “Positive. She would’ve ratted out Zina in a New York minute. As it was, when Tad headed for the woodshed, it gave Zina time to scoot back down the hill to the big house. I waited for her to get there and call me with an all-clear. That’s when I left to look for Tad. I didn’t want to be caught up there any more than Zina.”

  “What if I told you Saline has always known about you and Zina,” I said.

  He stared at me, processing the idea. “I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “She knew all along, even before you two were in the sack. Do you really think you could hide anything from an intelligent woman virtually living in the same house, watching the new wife’s every move?”