The Chessman

by Jeffrey B. Burton

  Both stuffed, they’d split a Torta di Chocolate, with Terri allowing Cady to devour the lion’s portion of the cake and ice cream. Both had a cappuccino to counterbalance the Pinot. Afterward, Cady walked Terri back to her room and waited as she dug her keycard from the bowels of her purse. Terri pulled out the card and looked at Cady.

  The two stared at each other for several seconds.

  “Sleep tight.” Cady turned to go.

  “G-Man?”

  Cady turned back.

  “Are you okay, G-Man?”

  Cady gave her a quizzical look and nodded his head.

  “I don’t mean to be presumptive, Drew. It’s been an intense week—and in a certain respect I feel as though I’ve gotten to know you quite well. You just seem so darned drawn, Drew,” Terri said, taking a step toward him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Cady paused. “I don’t need rescuing, Terri. I’m not broken. And I’m not an open wound.”

  “Maybe so, Drew.” Terri took a final step into Cady’s immediate proximity and looked up at him. “Maybe so.”

  Cady stared down into Terri’s eyes, suddenly wanting to fall deep into those marble-blues. He slid his hand beneath the small of her back and pulled her flush against himself. He leaned down into the kiss. Despite their embrace Terri somehow managed to swipe open the door with her keycard and the two tumbled backward into her room.

  Chapter 27

  Six Months Ago

  “Papa,” Lucy said, “you remember Paul Crenna?”

  Hartzell tossed the Wall Street Journal onto the side table, dropped his bifocals on top of the newspaper, and stood up from the couch.

  “Of course I do. NYU, right, Paul?” Hartzell shook the younger man’s hand in a no-nonsense grip.

  “Senior year, sir,” Crenna replied. “Time to get serious.”

  “What’s your area of study?”

  “Business with a minor in Economics.”

  “I imagine Dr. Sladek keeps you hopping. Ty Sladek’s a dear friend, Paul. A finer mensch you’ll never meet.”

  “Who’s Dr. Sladek?” Lucy asked.

  “Tyson Sladek is the provost at New York University,” her date answered.

  “Ty’s educational philosophy can be quite rigorous. To him the mind is a muscle in need of continual exercise, a strict regimen of aerobics, wind sprints, crunch-ups and power lifting for it to fully develop and remain finely tuned. The university as virtual boot camp for the intellect.”

  Lucy stifled a yawn and headed toward the kitchen. “Let me get you boys some wine…a virtual guarantee of more stimulating conversation.”

  “Janice left a batch of those crab-stuffed mushrooms you love, Lucy, if you’d like to heat those up.”

  “Yummy—although I think we both know whose favorite those crab mushrooms truly are, Papa.”

  Hartzell grinned like the Cheshire Cat, placed a palm on Crenna’s shoulder and led the business major to the wall of windows, far from the kitchen, so they could look out over the city at night.

  “Million-dollar view, sir.”

  “Call me Drake, Paul. Besides, I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  “What for?”

  “If you hadn’t gone tonight, Lucy would have dragged me along, and I can’t do any more ballet. You took one for the team.”

  Crenna laughed and hushed his voice. “I thought about my Fantasy Football picks all through Swan Lake.”

  Hartzell chuckled. The kid wasn’t half bad. Lucy had been correct about his appearance: every strand of dark hair was flawlessly in place, even the intentionally stray curl that comma-ed the center of the young man’s forehead. Although the kid looked comfortably cosmopolitan, Hartzell disagreed with his daughter’s assessment—he sensed the boy had more grit to him than the average metrosexual flotsam drifting aimlessly about the city.

  “What’s so funny?” Lucy appeared behind them holding two crystal glasses full of a dark ruby-colored wine.

  “Paul’s giving me some advice on whom to select for Fantasy Football.”

  Lucy looked as though someone had belched loudly in church.

  “What have you got for us there, Slim?”

  “Vina Alicia Cuarzo—a Petit Verdot blend from Argentina.”

  “Nicely done.” Hartzell took his glass and inhaled the aroma. “A hint of blueberry.”

  “I’m putting the mushrooms in the oven, Papa.”

  Lucy returned to the kitchen and Hartzell steered the college senior back to the living room.

  “That was a close one.” Hartzell motioned for his guest to take a seat on the couch with his wine glass. “Lucy said that you wanted to talk to me, Paul.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hartzell sat on the edge of the couch, away from the young man. “You seem like a great kid, Paul, if I may speak openly. I must confess to a bit of a start when Lucy mentioned that you wanted to speak with me in private. It’s very classy—quaint—but I must admit I think the two of you should date a while longer, get to know each other better. I’m sure your parents would agree there’s no reason to rush things.”

  Paul Crenna stared at Hartzell for several seconds as a grin stretched across his face.

  “I believe there’s been a misunderstanding, sir. Lucy is aces in my book. Someday you and I may have that talk, but today—I was interested in discussing a business opportunity.”

  “You didn’t come here to ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage?”

  Crenna shook his head.

  “Oh, dear me.” Hartzell leaned back and took a long sip of the Cuarzo. “I owe you an apology—though I think Lucy was having a bit of sport at my expense. Forgive me, Paul. When your only daughter informs you that her gentleman friend would like to have a private chat with you, the old mind starts to wander.”

  “No need to apologize. It was silly of me to approach you in this manner.” Crenna scratched his cheek. “When my sister got married last fall, my father went to buy a new tux. My mother suggested he be fitted for a straitjacket at the same time.”

  Hartzell laughed. “Clearly I can relate to your father. Lucy’s the only one I’ve got, Paul. I’ll never be ready to stop being the most important man in her life.”

  “To be honest, sir, I’m never sure where I stand with Lucy.”

  “Nonsense. I only get to meet the cream of the crop.” Hartzell finished his wine and set the glass on a walnut coaster. “Now, after making a complete ass of myself, what can I do for you?”

  “My father met you at a charity event in Chicago some years back.”

  “Was that the restoration project for the Art Institute or the Breast Cancer Awareness at the Belden Stratford?”

  “You shared a table at the Stratford. My aunt Nora is a cancer survivor. She likes to give back and lets my parents know whenever an occasion presents itself.”

  “Your aunt Nora is a saint, Paul. If I remember correctly, we raised a lot of money that evening.” Hartzell peeked at Crenna. “Your father has the same dark hair, maybe a little gray on the temples, wears wire frames?”

  “That’s him.”

  “I do remember your father.” Indeed, Lucy had described Crenna Senior to Hartzell from some family albums she had riffled through at Paul’s apartment. “It was an enormous crowd that night and your father joked about us being packed in like so many sardines.”

  “Dad’s a card, all right.”

  “Give your father my best, Paul, next time you talk to him.”

  “I will, sir. In fact, that’s what I wanted to discuss with you. My father’s investment group has been looking into market opportunities.”

  “Please have him let me know if he finds some good deals. It’s been strange days, son, the likes of which I’ve never seen—and I’m as old as dirt. The monetary policy of this administration, if anything, has prolonged the suffering. Legislators on both sides of the aisle should be tried for economic treason. Everyone needs to calm down, be patient, and ride out the storm while confidence returns to t
he financial sector.”

  “That’s exactly what Father’s investment group is interested in, Mr. Hartzell. Safe places to ride out the storm.”

  “Give me a second, Paul. And you’ve got to start calling me Drake—I insist.”

  Hartzell grabbed his glasses and disappeared down the hallway for a minute and then came back holding a business card, which he handed to Crenna.

  “Have your father give Ben Vetter a call. The number on the back will put him straight through. There are no miracles, Paul, but Ben will set your father’s investment group up with a steady ROI and great positioning for when the Bull comes charging back, as it inevitably will. I cannot offer a higher recommendation than Ben Vetter.”

  “Thank you, Drake.” Crenna looked a bit letdown, but placed the card in his wallet. “My hope was to connect you directly with my father’s group.”

  “That’s an endearing compliment, Paul. Very gracious of you. Lucy will wholeheartedly disagree about my awkwardness at tooting my own horn, but,” Hartzell sat down and leaned forward, “certainly not through any god-given talent or genius, I find myself occupying a certain upper niche in the world of high finance. A certain niche that deals with an amount of funding required to initiate investments that is, quite frankly, highway robbery. It’s shamefully elitist, Paul. The funding threshold is an amount of currency that I’m uncomfortable talking about in a pleasant social situation such as this. Let me assure you and your father that the investment firm I’m recommending is most trustworthy. You have my word.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause you any discomfort, sir. My father and I have tremendous respect for your reputation and standing in the financial community. That’s why I feel that connecting the two of you would turn into a win-win relationship. My father’s group consists of several entities that pool their interests.” The Business major with an Economics minor sipped from his glass of wine. “By all means, sir, tell me what this threshold amount is, and if it’s out of our league, I’ll toast you—I’ll even hand-deliver my résumé—and then I’ll bring this business card of Vetter’s back to my father for consideration.”

  Hartzell cocked his head sideways and offered Paul Crenna an absurdly high number.

  “You had me going there for a second, sir,” Crenna said. “But I don’t see that as being a showstopper.”

  Hartzell stared at the mark for several seconds.

  “How about some more Petit Verdot, Paul?”

  Chapter 28

  “They never found his body,” Cady told the conference room, focusing mainly on Assistant Director Jund. “Jake Westlow is the Chessman.”

  “Start at the beginning, Agent Cady, and walk us through your theory.” A sullen Jund leaned back in his chair at the head of the table.

  Cady knew what was coming. Jund was going to play devil’s advocate and punch as many holes in Cady’s theory as possible to see if it held up to the light of day before committing to additional steps. He respected the assistant director’s strategy, knew his theory needed to be run through the wringer, but also knew this meeting had the potential to be a major pain in the ass.

  “Jake Westlow had known Marly Kelch since he was a seven-year-old. Dorsey Kelch believes that Westlow deeply loved her daughter.”

  “We’ve been told repeatedly that everyone loved the Kelch girl. She was like…what’s her name in that Ben Stiller movie? The one where he gets the gob stuck on his ear.”

  “Something About Mary,” Agent Evans volunteered.

  “That’s the one. Evidently, Marly Kelch had that same girl-next-door thing going on that every guy falls in love with and the kind of face that ‘launched a thousand ships.’ But that in and of itself means nothing. When I grew up I fell in love with every pretty girl who smiled at me. I still do. Perhaps I’m the killer.”

  “Jake was a gifted child,” Cady said, pressing on, “a brilliant mind, and he ultimately skipped three grades ahead to graduate in Marly’s class.”

  “So what? My sister got moved ahead one grade and I’ve never heard the end of it. Perhaps she’s the killer.”

  “Marly Kelch was a girl of endless energy. She worked nearly full time in high school, she was a phenomenal athlete—a tennis star, Homecoming Queen, played a mean clarinet, was lead in most of the plays, and, if not for Westlow, Marly would have been the class valedictorian. In fact, she gave the graduation speech as Westlow was too modest and opted out. But there was another endeavor, a smaller endeavor that the duo had cooked up at Reading Central Catholic High School, something that didn’t snare many headlines. Turns out Marly had taught Boy Westlow how to play chess back when she first babysat for him. The two started the Reading Chess Club.”

  “The plot thickens, but most players learn at a young age. My nephew plays chess and he’s eight. Perhaps he’s the killer.”

  Cady knew the assistant director’s sarcasm masked the incredible stress he’d been under the past ten days. The AD wanted the case presented to him from the very beginning, and Cady was going to give it to him—building block after building block.

  “The Westlows were dirt poor. In Jake Westlow’s single-parent household, Mom ran a consignment and sewing shop in order to make ends meet. There was no money, nothing for college tuition. Even though he was able to CLEP through most of freshman year, young Westlow wound up with a double major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—both Chemical and Mechanical Engineering. Now ask yourself, how could he afford this?”

  “Scholarship.”

  Cady nodded his head. “The kid skated through MIT on a Navy ROTC scholarship.”

  “So he was a naval officer after MIT?”

  “He was in the CEC, a Navy Civil Engineer Corps Officer. He was a lieutenant commander at the time of his death. Westlow ran civil engineering projects in Iraq back when it was a hot zone—bases, airfields, harbor facilities, that type of thing.”

  Agent Preston had Westlow’s service record in front of her. “It fits the profile, sir. Military service would provide Westlow great know-how.”

  “His motive is vengeance over the murder of the person he considered his soul mate,” Jund thought aloud. “As for means, he’s got the skill set and brain cells necessary to plan and carry out these multiple homicides. But the opportunity is out of whack. Why the ten-year gap after the Kelch girl’s death?”

  “He didn’t know.”

  “What?”

  Cady offered a handful of photocopied sheets to Agent Schommer, who took one and passed them on. The page contained the timeline he’d scribbled down before the morning meeting. Cady waited until everyone in the room had a sheet in front of them.

  “Westlow is devastated by Marly’s death. He doesn’t understand how a tremendous athlete like Marly can drown, even if she’s had a couple glasses of wine. Let’s say he’s always been dubious. He makes it a point to stop in and visit Dorsey Kelch whenever he’s in town, or, in this case, when he’s on hardship leave over the impending death of his mother. He visits Mrs. Kelch. They page through the Newsweek issue that has both father and son Farris on the cover and Mrs. Kelch lets slip that Marly knew Patrick Farris at Princeton. This gets Westlow to thinking, to delving into his feeling that something wasn’t quite right about Marly’s death.”

  “What’s this next mark, ‘Funeral,’ on your timeline mean?” asked Jund.

  “That’s the date of Lorraine Westlow’s funeral. She died ten days after Jake Westlow’s visit with Dorsey Kelch. However, please note that two nights after Westlow’s visit with Kelch is when Bret Ingram dies in a fire at his lake resort. It’s my belief that Westlow had a heart-to-heart with Ingram, used the threat of force or death to get Ingram’s story about what really happened at Snow Goose Lake. Ingram confesses all he knows to Westlow, how the Zalentine twins woke him from his drunken stupor to have him mislead the police, how the purchase of Sundown Point and other things were handled by power attorney Barrett Sanfield. It may even have been a great relief to get this guilt off his chest, but i
n effect Bret Ingram signed his own death warrant. No way Westlow lets the man live after hearing of his complicity in the cover-up of Marly’s death, so he improvises and the town drunkard dies in an apparent fire.”

  “What’s this next date, marked ‘Dorsey Kelch’?”

  “That’s a few days after his mother’s funeral, now fourteen days after their initial meeting and the thumbing through of the Newsweek magazine that set everything in motion, when Jake Westlow stops by to bid a final farewell to Mrs. Kelch. Dorsey said he was still shaken up over his mother’s death, but I posit that Westlow had made plans, knew the road ahead of him was turbulent, and stopped by because he knew he would never see Marly’s mother again.”

  “And this next date, marked ‘Westlow Suicide,’ is a month later.”

  “Agent Preston has been digging into that,” Cady responded. “Liz, can you walk us through Jake Westlow’s alleged suicide?”

  “At that time Lieutenant Commander Westlow was stationed out of the Naval Base in San Diego. Westlow had been UA from his 32nd Street Naval Station for four days—Unauthorized Absence or AWOL. This was highly unusual for someone at Westlow’s level of command.” Agent Preston shuffled the packet of papers in front of her, photocopies of which had been passed about at the meeting’s start. “He then surfaced in San Francisco to rent a twenty-four-foot sailboat from the marina manager at Emeryville Marina, located in San Francisco Bay—a pretty idyllic place, fairly upscale. Westlow tossed twelve hundred plus a security deposit down on his American Express card for five days with the J/24 Presto, a boat commonly used for training or day-sailing in the bay. We will return to Westlow’s intriguing utilization of credit cards in a minute,” Preston looked about the table and continued, “but suffice it to say that the J/24 sailboat was far below the Lieutenant Commander’s level of expertise. So in the early evening of August thirtieth, Jake Westlow was last seen motoring the small yacht out of Emeryville Marina—‘a stunning figure in his service dress whites,’ according to one witness. The Coast Guard received an SOS from the J/24 at exactly 10:30 p.m. Westlow radioed in an SOS on channel sixteen.”