Bodily Harm: A Novel

by Dugoni, Robert

“He meaning Horgan?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you did talk to him.”

  “That was the extent of our conversation.”

  “What did you take that to mean?”

  “No idea. I guess I initially thought he was crazy.”

  “So why then go to his apartment?”

  Sloane took a moment. “Because he said it with such conviction and it was such a random comment for someone to make that I thought it best to give him a chance to explain himself.”

  “But he wasn’t there.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “Did you speak to anyone else while you were there?”

  “The building manager.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He said he hadn’t seen Mr. Horgan in a week.”

  “How long did you and the manager talk?”

  “Not long. A few minutes. Listen, detective, what is it you want to know?” Sloane knew the connection but did his best to play it out. “Where did you get the photographs and what relationship does that man have to Kyle Horgan?”

  “The photographs were taken from a hidden video camera at Mr. Horgan’s apartment building. It seems the owner was having trouble with burglaries, people stealing tenant mail. He installed the camera about a year ago. You were also on the tape.”

  Spinelli did not tell Sloane they thought the man was responsible for the building manager’s death but Sloane already knew that.

  “I don’t understand. What was he doing at the building?”

  “We don’t know. We thought you might.”

  Sloane shook his head.

  “You don’t know anything more about him, what business he might have had at that building?”

  Sloane shook his head. “What did Mr. Horgan say?”

  “We don’t know. We haven’t found him yet.”

  “He’s missing?”

  “Appears that way.”

  “Do you know anything more about this man, his name, anything?”

  Sloane knew the detectives could run a person’s name, fingerprints, DNA, or picture through a crime lab to determine whether there was any match with records stored in the system. He also knew from his conversation with Tom Molia that the man who killed Tina was not in that system, further confirming the man was a professional killer, not a random criminal.

  “Not yet,” Spinnelli said. “But we’ll keep you posted.”

  Spinelli handed Sloane a business card. “If you think of anything else . . .”

  Sloane took the card and waited until the two detectives had excused themselves and exited the room. Then he sat up and disconnected the IV drip from his arm.

  “What are you doing?” Jenkins asked.

  “Getting out of here.”

  “The doctor won’t release you. He said another few days.”

  Sloane pulled out the photograph from beneath the covers, the one he had slipped there when the detective turned to get him a glass of water. Part of his sense of helplessness had been not knowing who the man was, or having any way to find out. Now they had a chance, and that was all the motivation he needed to get better.

  He handed Jenkins the photograph. “Find him for me, Charlie, whatever it takes.”

  “Why not let the police know? Tell them what you know; maybe they can find him.”

  Sloane pulled the clear tape off his arm. “He’s not in their system or they wouldn’t have been here asking me questions. If I tell them I think there’s a connection between this man and Horgan and Fitzgerald, they’ll question Fitzgerald, and that will only make him more guarded before I can get to him. I want Fitzgerald to think he got away with this. I want him to make a mistake.” Sloane pointed to the photograph. “Just like he made a mistake. And I’m going to make him pay for it, just like I said.”

  Jenkins nodded.

  “But first I’m going to get my son back.”

  MONTGOMERY STREET

  FINANCIAL DISTRICT

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  THE DOCTORS HAD strongly recommended against Sloane leaving the hospital, but he could not be deterred, just as Jenkins could not be deterred from accompanying Sloane to San Francisco. Sloane had wanted to surprise the Larsens, but Jenkins had convinced him to call ahead.

  “Jake’s been through enough,” he said. “The last thing he needs to see is a confrontation between you and his grandparents.”

  Sloane compromised by calling Frank Carter, Jake’s biological father. The two men had always had a cordial relationship, though Carter seemed uncomfortable around Sloane, which could have been due to any number of reasons, not the least of which was that Carter had never fulfilled his financial or emotional obligations as Jake’s father. Sloane sensed Carter to be even more sheepish than normal during their conversation, but he said he would try to arrange a meeting with the Larsens. It took more than an hour before Carter called back. When he did, he provided Sloane with a Montgomery Street address that turned out to be not far from the Transamerica Pyramid building in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district.

  Inside the building lobby, Sloane confirmed the address to be an attorney’s office, the suite occupied by the Law Offices of Harper, Peters, and Cominos. Sloane stepped from the elevator into a modest reception area with dated furnishings and uninspiring prints hanging on the walls. He didn’t have to give his name to the receptionist; he could see Bill and Terri Larsen sitting at a conference table in a glass-walled room just behind the desk. Frank Carter had positioned himself at the opposite end of the table, and Sloane wondered if that was symbolic. At the head of the table sat a man in a button-down shirt, bow tie, and suit jacket who Sloane guessed to be either Harper, Peters, or Cominos.

  Leaning on his cane and already beginning to feel exhausted, Sloane limped into the conference room, bringing the conversation to an abrupt halt.

  He addressed his in-laws. “Bill, Terri.” Neither responded. “Frank.”

  Frank Carter nodded. “Hi, David.”

  The suit approached, hand outstretched. “Mr. Sloane, I’m Jeff Harper. Thank you for coming. Can I get you a cup of coffee or glass of water?”

  Sloane declined.

  Harper had a high-pitched voice and a ring of gray hair on an otherwise bald head. Sloane estimated him to be in his midsixties, about the same age as the Larsens, and probably either their personal attorney or a family friend. The man’s breath had an acidic odor Sloane associated with nerves. He’d smelled it before on attorneys during trials. Harper likely spent the majority of his time behind a desk and not litigating in the courtroom.

  “Why don’t we all take a seat,” Harper said, though only he and Sloane stood.

  Sloane sat opposite the Larsens. Harper returned to the head of the table.

  “We have some things to talk about,” Harper said.

  Maybe it was the throbbing pain in his leg and shoulder, but Sloane had already tired of the charade. “I don’t know you, Mr. Harper. We don’t have anything to talk about.” He looked across the table. “You can’t talk to me directly, Bill? Terri?”

  The Larsens could barely raise their eyes from the mahogany tabletop. When they did, their focus found Harper.

  “My clients would prefer that all communication go through me.”

  Sloane sat back. “Fine.”

  “As you know, the deceased set up a trust and placed funds in that trust for the well-being of Jake.”

  When Sloane and Tina married, she had a modest savings account and the equity from the sale of her flat in the Sunset District of San Francisco, real estate she had purchased with the financial help of her parents. When she sold it, Sloane encouraged her to place the funds in a trust for Jake, to be distributed in installments at various points in his life.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “And you are the executor.”

  “I am.”

  Harper handed Sloane a document, which he quickly identified as a personal note. “Tina obtained the money
for the down payment for her San Francisco flat from her parents. This is a note requiring that she repay those funds.”

  Sloane couldn’t hide the smirk. “You want the money back,” he said.

  The Larsens did not answer.

  “Legally—” Harper began.

  “I’m aware of the legal significance of the note, Mr. Harper. I’ll write your clients a check within twenty-four hours.”

  “There was accrued interest,” Harper said.

  “I’ll pay it all: interest, penalties, whatever you want. Send me an accounting.”

  Harper glanced at the Larsens, as if uncertain what to say but pleased by the result. He paused and cleared his throat before moving onto the next subject. “The deceased also had a last will and testament in which she expressed her desire that should anything happen to her, you would receive custody of and care for Jake.”

  Sloane did not like Harper’s tone, which included an unspoken “but . . .” Something was wrong. “That’s correct. We were in the process of completing adoption papers when . . . when this happened.”

  Bill and Terri Larsen raised their eyes and looked at him.

  “But the fact is, Mr. Sloane, you did not legally adopt Jake, correct?”

  “Are you cross-examining me, Mr. Harper?”

  “I’m simply—”

  “I just told you, Tina and I . . . and Jake, for that matter, agreed that I would adopt him.” Sloane looked to the end of the table. “Frank, we talked to you about this. You agreed.”

  Now it was Frank Carter’s turn to divert his eyes.

  “What is this about?” Sloane said. “What’s going on here?”

  Harper cleared his throat but his voice quivered. “Legally, you do not have custody of Jake.”

  Sloane leaned forward, palms pressed on the wood. “Legally? Are you kidding me? As compared to whom, a man who abandoned his son when he was three?”

  Harper leaned back, creating distance. “The parents were divorced. The mother obtained custody of the child and moved to Seattle. The father did not abandon the boy; he was given visitation rights.”

  “Which he never exercised,” Sloane interjected, “even during all the years they lived here in San Francisco. Frank, what the hell is this?”

  “To the contrary, he provided the child with birthday gifts—”

  Sloane banged a fist on the table. Harper flinched. So did Bill and Terri Larsen.

  “The boy’s name is Jake. The ‘parent’ or ‘deceased’ was my wife. Her name was Tina. So do not refer to them again as if they were some hypothetical in a law school class, Mr. Harper. And do not insult me by trying to tell me how involved Frank was in Jake’s life. I know exactly how involved he was; I lived with Jake for the past two years, and before that I worked with his mother for ten. So don’t try to paint a picture of a doting father. I know better.” Sloane turned. “So do you, Frank.”

  “There is no need for hostility, Mr. Sloane.”

  “Maybe not for you, but I’ve put up with just about all I’m going to put up with.” Sloane directed his comment to the Larsens.

  “Mr. Sloane, I asked you to direct—”

  “I don’t care what you asked me to do.” He looked at Bill Larsen. “I tolerated your keeping Jake from me because I was in no condition to see him or to take care of him. I tolerated your cremating Tina and burying her without me. But I am not going to tolerate having a lawyer patronize me with legal jargon and a warped perception of reality.”

  “Wait a minute, Mr. Sloane. If—”

  “We are discussing the well-being of a thirteen-year-old boy who just lost his mother. The last thing he needs is to have his life further disrupted by removing him from his home and placing him in a strange house, in a strange city, away from his friends and school and everything left in his life that provides him stability.”

  “We are all here in the best interests of the child . . . of Jake,” Harper said.

  “If we all had Jake’s best interests at heart we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Jake belongs with me; everyone in this room knows that.”

  “Legally, custody remains with Mr. Carter, his biological father.”

  “Did anyone talk to Jake about this? Did anyone ask him what he wanted?”

  The silence was telling.

  “He wants to live with me, doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t think a thirteen-year-old boy can judge what is best for him,” Harper said.

  “How would you know? How many times have you talked to Jake? How many minutes, total, have you spent with him?” Harper did not respond. “I made him a promise. I made Tina a promise that if anything ever happened to her, I would take care of Jake.”

  “Well, you got your wish didn’t you?” Terri Larsen spat the words at him, nostrils flared and eyes rimmed red by anger. “You couldn’t even protect her. You couldn’t protect my daughter, my baby. All of your celebrity and television appearances . . . all it did was bring the crazies into my daughter’s life. You couldn’t protect her. How are you going to protect Jake? Who’s going to watch him while you’re flying all over the country to mug for TV? Who’s going to protect him when another one of the crazies comes to kill you? When the crazy who killed her comes back? You’re responsible for her death.” She sobbed. “You killed her. You killed my baby.”

  Bill Larsen put an arm around his wife’s shoulder.

  “I told him we were a family,” Sloane said, almost slipping and telling them about Tina’s pregnancy but recognizing it would only be cruel.

  Terri Larsen flung her husband’s arm off her shoulder. “Family? What would you know about family?”

  “Jake loves me.”

  “Jake thinks you’re the reason his mother is dead.”

  Bill Larsen pulled back his wife, and this time she allowed him, swiveling her chair to the side, away from Sloane.

  “That’s not true,” Sloane said, feeling a cramp in his chest. “You’re just saying that because you’re in pain and you want to hurt me. You want to hurt me? Fine, go ahead, hurt me. Say anything you want to me, but don’t hurt Jake; don’t do something that is going to hurt him more than he’s already been hurt. Maybe I don’t know family the way you do. But I know what it’s like to lose a mother. I lost everything; they took everything from me. They put me in a home with people I didn’t know; people who didn’t love me or care about me. All they cared about was the monthly check. I don’t want that for Jake.”

  “Jake is not going to a home where no one loves him,” Harper said. “He’s going to live with his father.”

  Sloane would have laughed if he had thought Harper was joking, but the expression on the man’s face indicated that he was serious. Sloane looked to Frank Carter. “You can’t honestly think that it is in Jake’s best interests to live with you.”

  Frank did not answer.

  “Frank?”

  “Jake’s my son, David. I know I haven’t been the best father, but I want a chance.”

  Maybe it was his comment about his foster parents and the monthly check, but suddenly Sloane put the pieces together, why the Larsens would seek to execute on the personal note when the money had already been placed in a trust for Jake.

  “My God,” he said. “They’re paying you. They’re paying you to take Jake.” Nobody answered, their silence damning. “What kind of people are you?”

  “There’s no need for insults,” Harper said.

  “This is an insult,” Sloane said. “It’s an insult to me and it’s an insult to Jake. And I’m not going to allow it. I won’t let you buy your grandson. I’ll seek custody. And I will win.”

  “You have no legal—” Harper said.

  Sloane lifted himself from his chair, palms flat on the table. “I don’t give a good goddamn what kind of legal basis you think I have. I will get Jake. And I guarantee this—it won’t be you who stops me. Check it out, Mr. Harper. I usually win, and I’ve never been more motivated to win in my life.”

  No one answered.


  “Where is he? I want to talk to my son.”

  “If you attempt to contact Jake my clients are prepared to take legal action—”

  Sloane snapped, seeing only black. He stumbled forward on his bad leg and grabbed Harper by the lapels, lifting him from his seat. “Where is Jake?” Someone bear-hugged him from behind.

  “David, don’t.”

  Sloane swung an elbow, striking Frank Carter in the ribs and causing him to fall backward, toppling one of the conference room chairs on his way to the floor. Bill and Terri Larsen had retreated from the table to a corner near the windows, Bill using his body to shield his cowering wife.

  Sloane pointed a finger at them, breathing heavily, feeling spent. “I would have been willing to work with you. Even after the way you’ve treated me, I would have done it, for Tina and for Jake. Not now. Not ever.”

  the art institute georgetown, washington, d.c.

  ANNE LEROY LOOKED up from her easel, initially thinking the hissing came from the old radiator at the front of the room before realizing the insanity of a radiator being on this time of year.

  “Psssst.”

  Peggy Seeley stood in the hall outside the classroom door. When LeRoy made eye contact, Seeley gave her a stern expression and motioned her to the door, as if she held an urgent secret.

  LeRoy sneaked a glance at the instructor standing at the front of the room, hoping she hadn’t heard or seen Seeley, but the woman’s frown indicated otherwise. She was clearly perturbed by the intrusion. The instructor emphasized the need to maintain a serene atmosphere to foster artistic creativity, playing soft classical music “to entice the inner artist.” LeRoy wasn’t convinced the music was to inspire the students as much as it was to drown out the drone of the fans used to disperse the nauseating paint odor.

  Stuck between a disapproving frown and a stern expression, LeRoy reluctantly rested her paintbrush on her easel and wiped her hands on a rag. Though she stepped softly to the door, some of the students exhaled and rolled their eyes, as if she had blown a bugle. LeRoy had taken the class thinking it might be fun while she sought employment, but that was quickly dispelled by the instructor’s serious demeanor and the other students’ self-indulgent attitudes. From what LeRoy had been able to discern over the past weeks, none were going to be the next Picasso or Rembrandt, but God forbid she be the one to tell them.