by Con Lehane
“For murder?”
“No. Providing material support to a terrorist organization, Section 2339B of Title 18. If you haven’t guessed, The Patriot Act.”
“Where is he?”
“The Metropolitan Correction Center in lower Manhattan.”
Ambler asked the attorney to arrange a visit. When he hung up, he told Cosgrove what Levinson had told him. “Why didn’t they charge him with murder?”
Cosgrove shook his head. “Why isn’t homicide doing the investigation?”
“I need to tell Adele about Gobi. What do you mean Higgins skipped?”
“Bailed.… Flew the coop.… In the wind. I’ve had suspects leave like that, with the clothes on their back, sometimes the TV running, the lights on, doors unlocked, a half a sandwich on a plate, a piece of bread in the toaster. They’re gone. Solid gone.”
“That’s Higgins?”
Cosgrove kept his gaze on Ambler but seemed to be thinking something through. After a minute, he said, “I shouldn’t tell you this.… You know where he used to work, Intelligence? I was thinking he might be doing something for them. He’s retired but they might use him anyway, for this. So I ask them. Do they tell me? They never heard of Paul, don’t know what I’m talking about. Assholes.”
Ambler backed up closer to the stack of file boxes under the steps. “Harry’s talking to the library’s lawyers about Higgins’s collection.”
Mike looked longingly at the file boxes. “I’ll talk to him.”
As he was leaving, Ambler asked, “Will you be able to work things out with the Intelligence Division?”
Cosgrove halted in the doorway and turned. He looked puzzled and in another way he looked hurt. “I’ll tell you, Ray. I’ve banged heads plenty of times. Seen my share of lazy or incompetent cops. Nothing like this. These guys aren’t the cops I’ve known. Cops want to catch bad guys. That’s what we do, like beagles chase rabbits. I don’t know what these guys want.”
* * *
Ambler found Adele at her desk and told her about Gobi’s arrest. “As soon as the lawyer can set it up, I’ll go see him at the detention center.”
Adele’s expression was strange, as if she were apologizing to him for something he didn’t know about. “Maybe I should go.”
“Why should you go?” It was a reaction, not a response he thought about.
She frowned. “I think he trusts me. I feel like we understand one another.”
“Oh.” He dropped his gaze. “Maybe we should both go.”
“Maybe.” She dragged out the word so it took on a different meaning. “He might be more comfortable if it were just me.”
Ambler looked into her wide-eyed appeal.
“I’ll tell you what he says.”
He couldn’t think of what to say or, really, say what he thought. It would be too embarrassing.
* * *
It was nearly three o’clock when Ambler sat down at his desk to eat the curried chicken he’d picked up from the Pakistani food cart on 43rd Street more than an hour before. The dish was cold now and kind of jellied. Before he finished eating, he had a visitor—the tall man in the overcoat he’d seen the morning Leila’s body was discovered, the man Adele saw when Gobi was interrogated and again when he was arrested.
Chapter 11
“Raymond Ambler?… Brad Campbell.” He handed Ambler a business card with a Campbell Security logo, his name, and President beneath his name. Tall and slim and somewhat rigidly erect, he carried himself with confidence that might better be described as arrogance. “I’d like to ask you some questions about the woman who was murdered in your office.”
Ambler thought through some things before he answered. He didn’t like Campbell’s arrogance. “I’d rather talk to the police.”
Campbell lifted his eyebrows ever so slightly. “Why wouldn’t you answer questions about a murder, no matter who asks them?”
“Did Leila Stone work for you?”
Campbell wasn’t surprised by the question, or if he was, he didn’t show it. “I know who you are, Mr. Ambler.” He pulled out a chair from the library table in the middle of the room, sat down, and crossed his long legs. He was supple, like a cat stretching. “I also know you’re acquainted with a man named Gobi Tabrizi.”
Ambler took a moment to get his footing. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Campbell held Ambler’s gaze, as relaxed and at ease as if he were enjoying a cocktail on a Newport veranda, which, Ambler guessed, he’d done more than once. Yet beneath the suave manner, betrayed by a sliver of cunning in his eyes, was an impenetrable hardness, a ferocity you might feel from a wild animal tamed for the moment. “What were your dealings with Ms. Stone? Why was she in your office after the library was closed?” He spit out the questions one on top of the other, holding Ambler’s gaze as he did. “Was she with Mr. Tabrizi?” The questioning was a kind of hammering intended to intimidate him. Clearly, Campbell was an experienced browbeater.
Ambler took his time replying, holding Campbell’s gaze. “You’re not the police. You don’t provide security to the library. What’s your interest? What was Leila Stone to you?”
Campbell’s lips compressed slightly, a barely perceptible tightening of his face muscles. “You may have played detective in the past, Mr. Ambler. You’re not matching wits with your friend Detective Cosgrove this time.” He seemed to relax for a moment. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’re uncooperative.”
Ambler’s eyebrows went up, somewhat theatrical maybe, but he really was surprised. “What does that mean? Are you accusing me of something?”
The timbre of Campbell’s voice changed to something harsher. “You were part of a group that broke into an FBI office in 1972 and stole some documents.”
So that’s what it was. He didn’t ask Campbell how he knew about this. He’d had access to Ambler’s FBI file before he stopped by for the visit. “That’s a bit of leap. I wasn’t charged. The stolen files, whoever stole them, showed FBI agents involved in criminal activity. They didn’t push the investigation because they didn’t want anyone digging deeper and finding more. They took their revenge in other ways.”
Campbell absorbed his answer, thought about it for a moment, and let it go. He’d brought it up, Ambler suspected, to let him know he’d made it his business to know about Ambler’s past. Campbell cleared his throat. “Your department has materials that belonged to Paul Higgins.” His gaze settled on Ambler and his desk, noting the file box Ambler had been working in.
“That collection isn’t open to the public.”
“I’m not the public.”
“It’s not open to anyone. Some of the collection is embargoed. You or the police will need a court order.” He appraised the man in front of him. “Why are you interested in Paul Higgins?”
Campbell’s expression brightened, a kind of anticipation, like a confident pitcher waiting as a heavy hitter approached the plate. “You have a cocky attitude for a man who might be considered an accessory. Why was the murdered woman in your office?”
“I don’t know.”
“Interesting.” Campbell’s expression hardened. “You were a punk college kid, you and the other war protestors. Better than slogging through rice paddies or dying facedown in the muck. Attitudes are different now. You’re naïve if you think they’re not. College kids won’t make you a hero for enabling terrorists.” He didn’t raise his voice, his expression remained placid, yet the force behind his words was unmistakable. “Sometimes you make compromises, a little less liberty for a little more safety.”
“Gobi Tabrizi’s liberty for my safety?”
His eyebrows went up. “You think he shares our values? Muslim fanatics don’t believe in the things we believe in.” He glanced slowly around him at book-lined walls that surrounded them and then settled his gaze on Ambler. “They destroy libraries, you know. Don’t believe in them. That’s what they’ve done in other countries—burned libraries right down to the desert sand.”
“Not anything I want to talk to you about.” He stood. His voice resounded like a confident prosecutor making the closing argument. “As of now, you’re an uncooperative witness. I wonder what Detective Cosgrove will think about that.” He watched Ambler and let his words sink in. “We’ll be in touch with your attorneys.”
Chapter 12
Mike Cosgrove found Adele at her desk in the warren of cubicles behind the main reference desk on the third floor of the library.
“It’s about time you got here,” she said. “How could you take so long to ask about an obvious suspect?”
He looked at the faces from the other cubicles turned toward him and gritted his teeth. “You taking over for Ray? I get you to tell me how to do my job, too?”
“Leila came to my apartment two nights before she was murdered. She was terrified because her ex-husband—who’d threatened to kill her and whom she was hiding from—found her. And no one in the police department cares? What’s wrong with you?”
Cosgrove nodded. “I’m here now. Please calm down. You knew Miss Stone well? Good friends?”
Adele’s response was subdued. “I thought we were. I thought I knew her. Is it true she was in the library on some undercover assignment?”
“Who told you that?”
“Raymond. Is it true?”
The question irritated Cosgrove. “How would he know?”
“I’m asking you.”
Cosgrove took a deep breath and tried to smile. “The way this works, ma’am, is I ask questions. You, if you would, provide answers. I’m trying to find out who killed Miss Stone, asking you to help. Did you know this ex-husband? Do you know his name?”
Her face went blank. “No. She didn’t say his name. You’re the detective. Can’t you find out?”
Cosgrove swallowed a couple of times and nodded even more times. “That’s what I’m trying to do. How about what he looks like? Anything about him?”
“No. I never saw him. She didn’t describe him.”
He tried to sound patient. “Can you tell me anything about him?”
“She was afraid of him.”
“I got that.”
He was frustrated, not mad at Adele. He liked her. She was a scrapper. And if the Stone woman’s ex-husband was in the picture, he was a suspect, a no-brainer, and he would have been on it long before this if it were up to him. The Intelligence Division didn’t investigate homicide. So they might not be up on some things. But you didn’t have to know much to make an estranged husband a suspect in an ex-wife’s murder. They discounted the ex-husband because the Stone murder took place in the library, and why would he kill her in the library. Okay. But you still talk to him.
His assignment today, from Intelligence by way of his chief, wasn’t to ask Adele about Leila Stone’s ex-husband. That was a ruse to disarm Adele. They wanted him to find out what she knew about Leila Stone, to find out if she knew anything they didn’t want her to know. The Stone woman might have slipped and told Adele something she shouldn’t have, or Adele might have discovered by accident something she wasn’t supposed to know. Ray suspected Leila was an informant, a plant, before she was killed. Adele didn’t. He was the one they should worry about.
Now, she had a wary look in her eyes. “I thought you’d want to know what she said about being scared. I’m trying to remember if there was anything else.”
He nodded. “I do want to know about that, Adele. I need to ask about some other things, too.” He paused and regrouped. “Suppose you tell me what happened the night Miss Stone came to your apartment. From the beginning. Everything you remember.”
Adele told him what Leila had told her during the late-night visit, that Leila had run into her ex-husband accidentally and that he’d found her apartment. “She wouldn’t let me call the police. She said she knew someone who could stop him, who could protect her from him.”
“Did she tell you who this person was?”
“No.”
“How well did you know Miss Stone?”
“The more I think about it, the more I realize I didn’t know much about her, only what she wanted to tell me. She showed up to work at the library. She asked a lot of questions.” Adele paused for a moment. “She was from Texas, a town south of Dallas. Harry told me the name of the town and I found it on Google. I’m going to her funeral. Perhaps I’ll find out more about her—and her ex-husband—then.”
Cosgrove went over with Adele everything she remembered about Leila Stone, who her other friends were, what her interests were, anyone she talked about, any place she talked about. He didn’t learn much. He suspected he could find out more about Leila Stone from the Intelligence Division or from Brad Campbell.
Adele’s expression was quizzical. “Didn’t you get her employment records from the library?”
“Not yet.” An embarrassing admission for a detective. If he were listening to himself describe his investigation, he’d think he was incompetent. Intelligence grabbed the employment records. They treated him like an errand boy.
One of their CIs gets whacked, maybe by someone she was monitoring. They don’t want a light shining on their operation, so they need a quick resolution. A full-scale murder investigation brings on the press, so they keep homicide on the sidelines. The last thing they want is someone watching them when they’re watching everyone else.
* * *
As he drove downtown, Cosgrove was half aware of the midday clogged streets. Usually the traffic drove him nuts; he tried to fight it. Today he wasn’t in a rush. Poking along, bumper to bumper, gave him time to think.
Before he’d gotten far, a text message interrupted his reverie; it was from the Chief of Detectives Office and told him to call Brad Campbell—the last thing he needed. Not fucking likely he’d find out anything useful from Campbell, but there you go.
He made the call. “Mr. Campbell? Mike Cosgrove here.” He sounded deferential, and it pissed him off. Like calling on royalty. “I got a text to call you.”
“My office is at 55 Water Street. I’d like you to stop over this afternoon. Pull up in front. There’s valet parking. Tell them you’re there to see me.”
Cosgrove bristled. “I’m not sure I can make it his afternoon, sir. I’d have to—”
“I cleared it with your chief. Within the hour, say?”
Cosgrove grumbled and put his phone down on the seat beside him. A half hour later, he navigated through the narrow canyon-like streets of lower Manhattan to pull up in front of a massive office building. Not the tallest building in the city, he understood 55 Water to be the largest office building in terms of space, spread out over four blocks, or what were blocks before the building went up back in the seventies. Bradley Campbell Security was on the thirty-ninth floor. The elevator to reach that part of the building was down a long marble hallway from the lobby he entered, so he walked down a long hallway with a security guard, whose uniform logo read Campbell Security.
“You know the boss?” Cosgrove asked as they walked.
“Sam? I know Sam.” The guard was Latino, Dominican probably, with a strong accent.
“The big boss, Campbell.”
The guard looked at him blankly.
It wasn’t so long ago when you walked into a building, on Wall Street or anywhere else, and you ran into an elevator starter if you ran into anyone at all, and then the elevator operator. So they replaced the elevator operators with self-run elevators. That worked until every building needed security; now there was a guard at every door.
He wasn’t much of a political thinker. What might be a political thing for him, no one talked about. It was private police forces, like Campbell Security. It was okay when you had night watchmen, old guys retired from the cops making a few extra bucks in retirement,
stumbling half-asleep around a warehouse or an empty office building at night. Now, companies like Campbell’s, with thousands of mercenaries and stashes of armaments that would be the envy of small to mid-sized countries, had their noses into everything in the city, in the country, in the world. Something was wrong with that. Private armies made him uneasy.
Campbell came out of his office when the receptionist announced Cosgrove. He wore a pinstriped suit, a white shirt, a red tie tight against his throat; tanned, athletic, not one of his brown hairs out of place, he looked like a GQ model. What kept him from being a pretty boy were the lines and creases in a rugged face and the hard expression in his eyes, friendly maybe, lively at any rate, no uncertainty, not a lot of sympathy, the eyes of a veteran cop. He’d watched a few people die.
“Thanks for coming over.” He put his hand lightly on Cosgrove’s shoulder, steering him toward his office. “I don’t want you think I’m stepping on your investigation. Can I get you a coffee?” He gestured to the receptionist.
So the former chief was respectful of another cop’s terrain, one tough cop to another. Bullshit. How long since the murder, a week? Now, for the first time he talks to the homicide guy who caught the case?
“We got lucky right away.” Campbell sat down in a leather armchair in front of his desk and waved Cosgrove toward an equally formidable leather couch. “He was on a watch list.”
“Oh?” Cosgrove was distracted by the receptionist, a pretty, dark-haired girl, wearing a business outfit that included a fairly short black skirt and high heel shoes. She smiled beatifically as she placed his cup of coffee on the glass table in front of him. “Just black,” he said before she could ask about cream and sugar. She met his gaze with her pretty dark eyes. “Thanks,” Cosgrove said. For some reason he winked, as if she and he had a secret from her boss.
Campbell seemed not to notice the arrival, presence, or departure of the young woman. “A Palestinian. His father was a leader in Al Fattah, a founder of the PLO. This guy’s probably a member—”
“Probably?”
A flash of irritation darkened Campbell’s eyes. “They don’t keep membership lists. Member or not, he’s got the bloodline. We’re not sure what he was doing here—if there’s a sleeper cell. We don’t know what Leila found on him. He got to her before she gave anything to us.”
