The Drowned Man

by David Whellams

  “Leave him to me,” Henry said, with a smirk. “I’ve bonded with him over our mutual interest in Civil War autographs.”

  “Henry, will Lembridge be able to give a definitive ruling on the spot on the authenticity of the Booth signature?” Peter said.

  “Hopefully. But whatever documents the woman provides — or doesn’t — we have to effect an arrest. At least we’ll have her.”

  The answer was feeble but Price Murdock, in part to lock in a sense of camaraderie, jumped in to bolster Henry’s point. “It seems to me very possible that Crerar will demand an adjournment so that further tests can be performed. Modern document analysis employs digital image processing, electrostatic detection apparatus testing, known as ESDA, and various photographic and chemical tests of materials, all of which require a cartload of equipment.”

  There were no more questions. Peter saw that the plan was a go, even though most of the officers had reservations. The fundamentals were there: Alida was selling stolen papers and a rich client was here to buy them. It should be an easy takedown.

  “That clinches it,” Murdock said. “We’ll send Lembridge in, wired.”

  Henry Pastern evidently remained nervous about Lembridge’s ability to play his role. He reiterated his firm instructions to the professor to sing the praises of the rare Booth letter and talk up the price with Crerar.

  Peter had serious doubts. Alida might have a gun, and who knew what Crerar would be carrying. And an old hotel? It would be tough to avoid attention, no matter how unobtrusive the police tried to make their presence. The typical takedown, most commonly used in bribery cases, involved FBI watchers monitoring mini-cameras from another hotel room.

  Malloway apparently shared his fears. In the hallway, he whispered to Peter, “No cameras?”

  “None,” Peter said.

  The police officers took the elevator in twos, so as to avoid attracting attention. Peter made sure he wasn’t paired with Malloway on the way down.

  To Peter, the plan seemed lax and untethered. It was easy to think that they could seal the hotel, watch the exits and nab the woman whatever moves she made. That was the root of the problem: they had no idea what Alida Nahvi would do. Alida hadn’t been particularly smart but she possessed an instinct for survival, manifested in relentless sociopathic behaviour. It bothered him that none of the police had yet seen her, but if she saw them — Murdock and his agents looked like the veteran cops they were — she would run. And the ten grand (Or was it thirty? Or fifty? Or a hundred?): what would Alida, Crerar, and Lembridge be willing to do to keep their shares?

  On the way down to the lobby, Peter made a decision to stay outside the Gorman Hotel while the sting went down. The FBI listening post on the second floor would be crowded. In addition to Pastern, Malloway, the technician, at least one special agent from the Buffalo office, and perhaps Price Murdock himself, they could also expect Buffalo police to demand a spot in the room. Peter wasn’t needed inside. If everything went down as planned, fine, but if not, Peter would try to be ready on the street.

  For the first time, he wished he did have a gun. But a second later, he retrenched; he had always imagined that his final confrontation with the elusive Miss Nahvi would happen without gunplay. Maybe it would happen in a different country. Maybe back in Montreal.

  Peter considered how to deal with his Yard colleague. It seemed perverse to keep his distance in the middle of a joint police operation but that was what he would do. Malloway had his orders from Frank Counter and Peter did not much care what they were, although he was sure that Counter had told him not to defer to Peter on anything. The easiest approach was to ignore the man and hope he would reveal himself.

  Back at the Marriott he checked the bedside telephone in his room but there were no messages. He slept for a while but suddenly woke up sweating, his mind churning. He decided against calling Bartleben: there was nothing new to report. It was well past midnight in England but he tried Maddy in Leeds. Michael answered and told him that she was awake but was having nausea attacks. For a few minutes Peter talked amiably with his son, who seemed to know all about the Buffalo trip. To Peter’s surprise, Michael ended the conversation by urging him, twice, to stay safe.

  Peter poured a glass of water and stood by the window, taking in the view of Lake Erie. He thought that Lake Ontario must be off to his right; the east-west sequence of the Great Lakes stymied him. The silence was interrupted by the phone: it was Maddy. She sounded fine and Peter didn’t ask about her morning sickness. He gave her a brief update on the situation in Buffalo but played down the risks of the Gorman game plan.

  “I wish I could be there at the endgame,” Maddy said, divining his nervousness.

  His appreciation of his daughter-in-law had increased steadily since their first session at the cottage. Maddy had become his partner. At the same time, he felt protective. He didn’t share his fears about the next day.

  “I’ll call tomorrow evening, your time,” he promised. “If you want something to do, maybe you could look up all the cross-border bridge and ferry boat routes around Buffalo and the Niagara area?”

  She said that she would do that and would be dropping by the cottage the following afternoon to see Joan and to pick up Jasper. He sensed her hesitation. “Are you taking a gun this time, Peter?”

  “No. There will be more firepower there than the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. My job will be to stand out of the way.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Alida had let slip to Lembridge that she was booked into room 411 but this was a bald hoax. She was out of bed by 4 a.m. — but in room 402. Jeff lay beside her; he was out cold, and had been since 1 a.m., when she had drugged him with GHB. She ignored him now as she went to the window and checked the alley behind the hotel. Satisfied, she dressed in jeans and T-shirt, and because it was almost October she put on her new wool pea jacket.

  The hallway on the fourth floor remained empty, as it bloody well better be, she thought, and she waited in the quiet for the elevator to start its clanking ride up to her floor. The woman in 411 was a fiction; Alida had never been inside the room. In his besotted state, Jeffie had inputted the misleading name, Alice Parsons.

  The computer downstairs also listed the other units on the fourth as rented to Messrs. Adams, Stanley, Jamal, Costigan, Redman, Prior, Sanderson, Mannering, Listowell, and Khouri, which is to say, nobody; the names were made up and all the rooms stood empty for the night. She had the fourth all to herself. She had even managed to get Jeff to delete Alice Parsons from the computer before the night man came on shift, so as to stymie any further inquiry.

  She took the elevator down and strode through the lobby, out the door, and along the block to the all-night coffee shop. Ten minutes later, she returned with an oversize macchiato and six donuts; they were cheaper by the half dozen. Not a soul emerged to share the streets with her, no police cruisers or street sweepers; if she had seen a hooker she might have freaked out a little but there was no one. She ignored the decrepit clerk and went back to her room.

  The drowsing night man, a dyspeptic old husk, had noticed on his arrival that the hotel had been exceptionally quiet all evening, odd since all of the north and south sides of the fourth were booked. There were only a few other guests, some of them long-term residents, sprinkled through the other seven floors, and traffic had been minimal since he came on. Business had been slow during the autumn shoulder season — too early for the Christmas trade, too late for conventions — and he didn’t fret. He didn’t care if the hotel was half empty.

  The general manager almost never showed up in the dark hours and the night clerk continued to doze. The girl brought him awake — not by any noise she made but merely by the change in atmosphere in the lobby as she passed. He glanced up and judged her to be a guest, perhaps a student. He roused himself and, out of curiosity, checked the guest list on the computer. He concluded that, after all, occupancy was a
bout average for a midweek day. It was strange, if only statistically, that every one of the guests on the fourth was a one-night booking, but he did not delve into the list any further. He thought he smelled jasmine.

  Alida locked the door of 402 and immediately called Ronald Crerar on her burner phone. The entrepreneur had boasted that he usually got up before sunrise and began his day with fifty push-ups and two cups of coffee, but when he answered all Alida heard in his voice was sleep. When she issued her instructions, he snapped awake, refusing to admit any slackness, and swore that he would be at the Gorman by ten twenty-five.

  “No,” Alida said. “At ten twenty-five, on the dot. Have your limo driver drop you off at the Pharos Hotel and walk the last two blocks.”

  It was too early for Lembridge. She decided to wait until 10 a.m. to contact him on his mobile with the correct room number. That way, she would likely catch him while in transit from his hotel. If either of her guests decided to install a backup friend in another room, he wouldn’t know the rendezvous spot until the last minute.

  Down in 206–208, a logistical problem bedevilled the FBI: the placement of the monitoring station itself. With no intelligence on the location of the exchange, Price Murdock and Henry Pastern had settled on a double suite on the second floor. Murdock had his technician bring his gear through the back freight entrance. Alida was in 411 and they would take up a position two levels below, the stairs and elevator providing quick access to the fourth. The team was in place by 8:30, except for Malloway and Jangler, the Buffalo cop. The listening post immediately felt crowded and airless, despite the double room. The detectives began to whisper nervously to one another. In their blindness, they tossed about ideas. Without a voice trigger from 411, they didn’t know if the technician had set the microphones correctly. Someone suggested sending up a policewoman dressed as housekeeping staff, but it was pointed out that they hadn’t notified the manager or front desk of the sting, and a strange face could spook both the morning manager and the cleaners, as well as Alida Nahvi.

  Reconnaissance over the past two days had established that the night clerk handed off to the morning shift at seven forty-five. The morning guy was a sallow blond kid, judged by Murdock’s men to be “dopey and unobservant.” They agreed not to do anything to alarm him.

  On his way into the Gorman, Detective Dave Jangler remained nervous. Murdock had asked him to join the special agents in the surveillance post but he hated the idea of waiting in an enclosed space where the FBI ran the show. He felt alienated and he didn’t like it. Their technical guy had been unable to install surveillance cameras in room 411; the best he had managed was to place a sound mike in the hallway. Local police should be in charge, Dave Jangler felt. The Bureau was cramping his style.

  Jangler’s experience coming into the hotel accentuated his unease with the sting’s loosey-goosey organization. He figured that he was the last of the team to arrive. It was exactly seven forty-five, the time for the changing of the guard, and he was disconcerted to see the older clerk still behind the desk. Jangler expected the old fellow might challenge him — a stranger, no briefcase — and so, coffee in hand, smiling, he preemptively approached the desk.

  “Just my imagination, or are you working a long shift?”

  “Should be gone by now. Kid on the day shift, his mother called in, said he was hung over. Asked me to stay on until noon. Said he’d kick back four hours’ worth. Fine with me, if I don’t fall asleep.”

  Jangler was about to move to the elevator when he thought to ask, “Say, you see a young woman, maybe Pakistani or Indian here recently? I saw her here yesterday.”

  “Yeah. A looker. But we can’t give out room numbers. You understand why.”

  Jangler took a fifty out of his wallet, and as he handed it over said, “I won’t knock on her door, just want to slip a note under it.”

  The clerk split the hairs nicely; they didn’t allow hookers to work out of the hotel but a mild hustle should be harmless. He called up the relevant screen. “Gotta be 402.”

  “Room 402? Why ‘gotta be’?” said Jangler.

  “I personally checked in all the current guests on the second, third, and fifth. None of them’s your girl. Every tenant on the seventh and eighth is a long-term renter. Sixth floor is under construction. The fourth floor is fully booked and the only female name I have on that floor is 402. Judy Jones. Must be her.”

  “What about 411?” Jangler said.

  “Nope. Room is closed up for fumigation. Bed bugs. Shouldn’t disclose that to a customer, either . . .”

  No Alice Parsons in 411, thought Jangler. Not unless she has six legs.

  It was Alida’s first piece of serious bad luck and Jangler seized on it. He thought over his next move. There was still time to consult the team now gathered in 206–208 but their leader, Murdock, wasn’t in that room; he had resolved that he should be the one to nursemaid Lembridge to the Gorman. Instead, Special Agent Pastern had taken charge inside the hotel. This was a potential screw-up, Jangler feared; Pastern was a novice. Murdock had ruled that Pastern was a document expert and stationed him in the monitoring room in case they needed a quick call on the validity of the Booth letter. But wasn’t that what the Maryland professor was there for?

  Dave Jangler was put off by the FBI’s high-handed displacement of the Buffalo Police in this takedown. He knew his turf and he knew the Gorman and the neighbourhood around it. If the woman happened to be in 402 right now, he could personally end this in minutes. And so Jangler, without authorization from the team or its FBI commander, turned towards the elevator. It was 7:59.

  Before he could enter the elevator, he bumped into the Scotland Yard fop, Malloway, whom he had encountered the afternoon before in a last-minute caucus with Price Murdock. Jangler saw the participation of Scotland Yard in this sting as one more unnecessary component. The Englishman, like the other participants, was faking a businessman’s persona and carried a paper cup full of hot coffee, which he managed to spill over his shirt cuff.

  “Shite!” he cried.

  Startled by the English accent, the elderly desk clerk looked up.

  Jangler vamped. “Hello, Walter. Catching an early start?” He pushed Malloway ahead of him into the elevator. “After you.”

  The two detectives remained silent on the way up, but whereas Malloway prepared to exit on the second, where the observation post was located, Jangler stabbed the button for the fourth. He smiled and kept mum as Malloway, visibly puzzled, got off the elevator.

  The hallway on the fourth level was quiet when Jangler emerged. The elevator was in the centre of the corridor and the detective glanced down to the right; 402 must be at the end. He noted that the door to the stairway beyond was windowless. There were twelve rooms in total on this level and every doorknob displayed a “Do Not Disturb” placard. Padding along the hall, he eased his gun from its holster and stopped by the door of 402. Gone were the days of the keyhole; a programmed plastic card activated the lock. The door provided a peephole for the occupant’s use, however, and Jangler kept out of view to one side. He considered enlisting a chambermaid to rap on the door with some excuse but it was too early for the cleaning staff to have arrived. He hoped to take the girl alive. He had to act now or else fall back on what he thought of as the “convoluted FBI plan.”

  Jangler reached out and tapped smartly on the door. “Manager.”

  He hadn’t thought it through. Why would the hotel manager knock on a guest’s door with a “Do Not Disturb” sign (adorned with a glyph of a finger and “Shhh!” clearly displayed)? It took him only a second to realize that he was inviting a bullet through the door.

  He waited five minutes in the hush of the shabby corridor. He heard nothing from the room, though he thought he smelled coffee. Giving up, he walked away from 402 and descended the stairwell to the second level.

  Inside 206–208, the FBI technician reported that his mi
crophone had picked up Jangler’s footsteps and the rap on the hotel room door. The techie was proud of his work but Jangler at once deflated his ego. “I was at the other end of the hall from 411.”

  “Super-sensitive mike,” the techie said defensively.

  “What about cameras?” Jangler said. “Is there one in that hallway?”

  “No,” said the technician. “I wasn’t able to place one.”

  Jangler exploded and pounded his fist on a table. The technician retreated.

  Henry Pastern, who until now had believed that he was doing a good job, stood up. “What the hell were you doing on the fourth?”

  “Why the hell don’t you know that the only perps in 411 are bedbugs?” Jangler said. “The woman is in 402, not the room at the other end of the hall.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Alida had heard Jangler’s knock but she was in room 404 at the time. Fifteen minutes after entering 402 in the predawn with her cup of coffee, a seizure had overtaken her. Her twitch had begun halfway into her call to the front desk to say that Jeff would not be in on time. She used her mobile to call the general number for the Gorman Hotel and reach the ancient clerk. Even in her distress, she managed to simulate the flattened inflection of an American Midwesterner. As soon as she hung up, she fell to the floor and began to shake. The dizziness hit her in disabling waves.

  Her plan had always been to abandon 402, in part because Jeffie had registered it under Judy Jones that first day, and who knew what some snoop would deduce from a female name. Now she barely succeeded in crawling across the carpet through the passage that connected 402 to 404. But then she remembered that Jeff occupied the double bed behind her, and she crawled back. She struggled from the floor to the mattress, battling nausea. to reach her knees and meeting the slack face of the naked desk clerk; his breath was foul and his skin was clammy with sweat. She placed two pillows on the floor at the end of the bed and with a supreme effort dragged Jeff by the feet off the end, his face thumping into the pillows. Between spasms, she drew his leaden body through the connecting doorway. She got partway across the room and dumped him. In all, it took fifteen minutes and she had to halt every foot or two. Jeff’s face was raw with rug burn when she finally left him by the bed in 404.