The Path of Silence

by Edita A. Petrick

  “Fine. Bring in the Marshall. You have five minutes to clear out of my house.”

  “I’m talking to you as a colleague, Meg. Calm down.”

  “I’m talking to you as a citizen, Inspector. As a colleague, I would have drawn my gun. That’s the way most government officials, who are not welcome in my house, end up leaving.” I knew I sounded not just stressed-out but harsh, however I’ve spent ten years being rational and calm, hiding from emotions. Now that my protective walls had all but collapsed, I found I didn’t have the necessary coping skills to juggle my work and my personal life.

  “What would you like me to assign to Agent Gould?” Field asked, lifting his head. His expression had changed. The look on his face was hard and impersonal. It was as if he was living for me the example of what I should learn to do. He was looking at me as a colleague, not as a woman.

  As a colleague, I didn’t have an answer. As a woman, I couldn’t give it.

  “It’s not my place to make suggestions. As you pointed out, you’re in charge, you’re her boss.” Ken had finally let go of my foot and I walked out of the room.

  “Meg, dammit! Come back!” Field’s frustrated voice vibrated after me. “What is it you don’t like about checking out the corporate limo services?”

  I didn’t care so much about the corporate limo services. I didn’t like Agent Gould but that was one issue I couldn’t air here now. I wasn’t used to these kinds of reactions. I wasn’t used to caring, one way or the other, period.

  I walked back in and threw my hands up. “I’m done here. I don’t know where else to go with this investigation or why.”

  Ken’s forehead tightened. I knew he had never seen me like this and would worry. “Would you like me to escort the Inspector outside?” he asked, placing his hand on his gun.

  I ignored his attempt at humor with a grimace, when suddenly Nancy Bassiano’s voice sounded in my head, “He was very embarrassed the first time the limo came with a built-in travel companion but he got used to it.”

  I spun around, pointing at Ken, then Field. “Escort services,” I said. “Legal and otherwise. There are plenty of those in Washington and they all use limos—with tinted windows.” They kept looking at me. “You said that there is a lot of human nature hiding underneath the polished exterior or our politicians. Escort services target nothing but human nature. That would be a perfect new operation. The kind of customers you’d want to drive around would come to you. A Senator’s aide, a member of a House committee, a Chief of Staff, a security advisor—you name it.”

  Half an hour later, we were sitting down to dinner. Jazz was on her best behavior and Mrs. Tavalho was tidying up, making sure Jazz’s lunch was in the fridge and all unnecessary lights and appliances had been turned off.

  We kept the conversation light, casual, no work issues. The phone rang. It was one of my daughter’s friends, asking for permission to come over. For once, it suited me just fine. If Jazz were busy, she wouldn’t be tempted to interrupt our work group. She finished her dinner and asked if she could go on the porch, to wait for her friends.

  A few moments later, she came back inside.

  “Mom, I’m not listening in on your work stuff, you know, but your voice is loud and I heard you talking about limos.”

  We looked at each other, unsure of what to say.

  “You’re into limos, right?” She thrust her head forward, prompting me to acknowledge.

  “Right,” I said, lifting my hand to indicate that this was not a desirable topic.

  “Well, you’ve got one sitting in our driveway right now,” she said.

  “Oh dear, it can’t be my church group yet. They’re early,” Mrs. Tavalho exclaimed, walking for the door, shaking her head.

  It wasn’t the church group.

  It was an awfully bold move. One I wouldn’t have expected from him. Then again, we had established a business tie. He could always excuse it in those terms and I couldn’t object. He came in a black Benz limo, not as stretched out as the one that came five minutes later, to pick up Mrs. Tavalho.

  For some reason my stomach tightened when the second limo arrived, white with three sets of doors and tinted windows.

  “Where did your church group get the limo?” I asked Mrs. Tavalho.

  She laughed. “We shopped around, we had a budget but we found a reasonable rate. Arrowmain Limousine Service is just around the corner from our church.”

  “Ah! Herman.” I reeled back to Endless Tours and the spelling-bee winner. Mrs. Tavalho gave me a strange look. I shook my head and told her to have a good time. I watched her burrow her way into what looked like a crowded bus.

  I introduced my daughter to her grandfather, omitting the crucial blood-tie detail and once again felt as if someone who wrote for the new X-Files was scripting my lines. We went inside.

  “I’ve been in touch with a few key people in the State Department,” he said, when he availed himself of my hospitality and found a place to sit in my living room that wasn’t cluttered with work. “I’ve spoken with your boss,” he nodded at Field. “He agreed that we must proceed with utmost care. The last thing we want is to alarm Blank. We don’t want him to destroy the evidence and who knows what else in the process of covering up his tracks. It probably won’t be possible to trace his ties and pipelines, though it would be logical to assume they come from Latin American countries, quite a few of them, if his connections are taken into account. Here is a list of more than three hundred accounts that have been opened at various Tavistock banks and subsidiaries in the last eighteen months. Almost all are corporate accounts and difficult to trace to the actual beneficiary. I’ve spoken with the Justice Department and Conroy Marsh in the Federal Treasury. We’re moving to freeze the assets in these accounts. This is your copy,” he said, handing a sheet of paper to Field. “Maybe a name or two on that list will ring a bell. Some might prove to be bona fide corporate assets. In that case, we’ll apologize and offer them a better rate of return for the inconvenience but I think the majority are laundering operations.”

  “It might not have been such a good idea to freeze those assets just yet,” I spoke up.

  He gave me a heavy nod, in agreement. “Perhaps not but we’re in the electronic age. Those funds can disappear, literally in seconds when transfer codes are entered. We don’t have anything in place that would refuse such transactions simply because it would have to be a laterally applied measure. Meaning, it would affect all bona fide accounts. It’s being done as we speak. I’m sure there are more than these,” he said, motioning at the list. “This is just what the banks were able to eyeball, so to speak, when I asked to run a quick check.”

  “They’ll find out quickly those assets have been frozen,” I said.

  “Of course. If Bishop Blank is a part of this, they probably already know.”

  “You might have forced their hand.”

  “Perhaps. But I gave orders to release sensitive information into unsecured channels. I’m retaliating for what happened at the penthouse.”

  “Playing a hardball with these guys is dangerous.” I pointed out what he must have already known. But what he did was understandable under the circumstances. Blank would know his reputation as someone who would not back down. What he was doing was very much in character and perhaps even expected. Still I feared we’d feel the consequences of it soon enough—maybe even in the next twenty-four hours.

  “It would be expected of me,” he said, confirming my assumption.

  “Blank would anticipate it and you don’t want to give him any reason for thinking otherwise.”

  “Blank knows that I’ve halted the project. That’s as far as he meant to push me. He would also know that once I’ve given orders to halt work on the system, I would retaliate in some other way.”

  “An old trusted friend who knows you well,” I sighed.

  “Now and then, you have to trust someone, no matter what line of business you’re in. Otherwise, you’re not going to survive.
”

  “So you don’t worry about any fallout as a result of freezing those accounts?” I tested.

  He sighed this time. “There’s more than two billion dollars frozen in those accounts. It would be too idealistic to expect that there won’t be something—a counterstrike of sorts.”

  I was about to ask him to speculate what the backlash might be when my cell phone chimed—and so did Ken’s and Field’s.

  We looked at each other before answering. It was just as well. As I listened to Olsen’s breathless voice, my concentration swam out of focus.

  Chapter 33

  “Jazz sweetie, Jenny and Melissa have to go home. I have to take you next door to Mrs. Devon’s.” I felt guilty having to throw out my daughter’s friends but I had no choice.

  “Aw, Mom,” she moaned but went to pick up her school bag since I would probably not make it home before morning.

  “Let them stay,” a voice said behind me. “I’m not doing anything tonight. I’ll stay here and baby-sit, all night if need be.”

  I must have stared at him as if he was an apparition because my father shook his head, laughing. “I won’t kidnap her, if that’s what you’re worried about. She’ll be all right. I’ll test my constitution with three ten year olds. Who knows, I might even live to see the morning.”

  “Coming?” Ken stuck his head in the front door, shouting.

  I opened my mouth, worked it and closed it when nothing came out.

  “Go.” He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around, then turned to Jazz. “I’m your mother’s friend, an old friend from work. She has to go, duty calls but I’m willing to stay here and look after you. It means your friends can stay until their parents come to get them. What do you think?”

  “An old friend?” Jazz asked. I saw the look on her face and didn’t like what she was thinking.

  “Very old,” he confirmed, mouth puckering in a whimsical smile.

  “That’s your limo out there?”

  “Sure is. If you promise not to break any of the gadgets inside, I’ll let you and your friends play in the back. Go, for heaven’s sake,” he waved at me. “I have five briefcases in the car and two laptops. I’ll work on your kitchen table. I won’t tie up your phone. You can call in any time to check on things.”

  “All right.” I found my voice though it creaked. “Thanks.” I managed what I hoped was a smile and rushed outside.

  We wouldn’t be able to identify the victim for days, unless someone reported him missing.

  “Pieces,” Ken murmured and flinched when he lifted the plastic sheet. Field took a longer look, then moved aside. I stepped up.

  “It’s the next phase,” Ken murmured again. I knew what he meant.

  Kingsley and Dale was a major downtown intersection. The northwest corner had been roped off but there were not enough police to disperse the crowd that had gathered behind the yellow barricades. They had to use a bullhorn to warn people to stay away. The cleanup squad was still busy, collecting remnants. I saw firemen, ready with a hose. The sidewalk looked like a butcher’s block.

  “Christopher Palk, age seventy-four.” I heard Olsen’s voice and turned. He motioned at the gurney. The paramedics had attached side supports so the remains would not scatter when they moved it.

  “How did you find out so quickly?” I asked.

  He motioned at one of the ambulances. “Alvin Murphy, his friend is in there. They’re treating him for shock. They were heading for the park and decided to use a cash machine first. Murphy forgot his PIN number and went to use the public phone further down the street. He was talking to his daughter, looking this way, when it happened.”

  “Was he able to describe it?”

  “He got a few words out before they gave him a shot. He said his friend burst apart.”

  “Exploded?”

  He moved his head uncertainly. “He couldn’t say much. He was shaking. What’s on that gurney has to be a result of an explosion but he said it wasn’t the regular kind. He only heard a slight noise, a crackle.”

  “A silent explosion?”

  “Not really. The ambulance already took away three bystanders. They were close to him when it happened. They weren’t hurt, just splattered. They said they thought a glass fixture had fallen down and broken.” He lifted his head and looked to where the news vans had parked. “That’s all we need, live coverage to spread the panic.”

  He took out a notebook, scribbled the victim’s name and address and tore out the page, handing it to me. “They already sent someone to talk to the next of kin but I think he lived alone. Murphy said that his friend was a widower, no children.”

  I took the note, thanked him and said we would share whatever additional information we gathered, then waved at Ken and Field.

  Palk lived alone, five blocks east, in an efficiency unit in a seniors’ low-rise complex.

  “I didn’t know him. We have four-hundred and thirty residents living here,” the complex manager said, opening the door. We asked him to show us Palk’s unit. He wanted to get back to his TV set and didn’t like the interruption.

  “How did he pay rent?” Ken asked, when we entered the small, neat room. There were no walls. The space was portioned off into different living areas by bookcases and furniture.

  “I don’t collect rent,” the manager mumbled. “Everything’s electronic these days. We use direct withdrawal from people’s accounts.”

  “What do you do?” I asked, not hiding what had flashed through my mind.

  “I fix things,” he said with a dark frown.

  I motioned around. “Did you ever fix anything in this unit?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. We have four-hundred and—”

  “I know.” I interrupted him. “Then you have maintenance records?”

  His memory improved. “Nah, the guy who lived here was a fixer.”

  “You remember him then.”

  He shrugged. “A month ago a light burned out in the corridor. I came to fix it. It wasn’t just the bulb. There had to be a short in the system. He was coming in, saw me and said he could take a look.”

  “Did he?” I asked pleasantly.

  He grimaced. “Yeah. He rewired the whole floor in a couple of hours.”

  “So he was handy. Did you pay him?”

  “I’ve got to go. The office is empty. Make sure the door’s closed when you leave,” he said, hurrying out.

  Palk was a neat man and another victim without family. Other than a few pictures of his late wife, dated on the back, we didn’t find anything to suggest that he had relatives. He was an avid reader, mostly sports and history. He was seventy-four and retired but we didn’t know where he’d worked. If he knew how to do electrical wiring, he’d be in the trades.

  “Olsen will get that from Murphy,” Ken said.

  Field kept looking around. He picked up articles, examined them and put them down.

  Other than two shelves filled with books, Palk did not have many personal possessions. The fridge was half-empty, the cupboard sparsely stocked. He had two sets of plates and utensils, a few cooking pots and a toaster oven. He had a pullout couch, a chair and a TV. The unit was less than five hundred square feet. True economy.

  Field opened up a closet. He stared into it for a long time.

  “What are you looking for?” I came and stood beside him. The closet was tiny. Other than a coat, two jackets, a parka and two pair of shapeless shoes, there wasn’t much inside.

  “Tools,” he said.

  “Right,” I intoned softly. “He should have tools.”

  On our way out, we stopped by the manager’s office. He cracked the door open. Field asked him to step outside. He started to refuse, reconsidered and came out.

  “Did Mr. Palk have a car?” Field asked.

  “I don’t know. We have four—”

  “Did he use your tools when he fixed the lighting or did he use his own?” Field interrupted.

  “He had all the shit in a box. I didn’t have
the tools with me. That’s why I couldn’t fix it right away.”

  “What kind of tool box was it?”

  “I don’t know…red, I think. I had to help him get it. It was damn heavy.”

  “We didn’t find any tool box in his unit,” Field said, taking out a notepad.

  “I didn’t take it,” the manager bristled. “He probably took it back.”

  “Back where?” Field asked quickly.

  “The plaza where he did that shit on the side.”

  “What plaza?”

  “I don’t know. We have—”

  Field cut him off. “We’re investigating Mr. Palk’s murder. It’s important that you remember. Of course, you said you have maintenance records.”

  “A plaza in Brooklyn somewhere that closed down.”

  “The name?” Ken took out a pen and offered it to Field.

  “Greek, Helen something.”

  “Hellenic Plaza?” Ken threw me a guarded look.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “That plaza closed down two months ago,” Ken said. “How could Mr. Palk have brought home a tool box from his job a month ago, if…”

  “It could have been a couple of months ago. I don’t remember.”

  “That’s understandable,” Ken nodded. “We must take a look at your maintenance records.”

  An hour later, the manager was still looking through the mess in his files. Someone knocked on the door. He grunted and went to open it.

  “Ah, Mrs. Libby,” he said, raising his voice. “Do you remember when the lights went out on your floor?”

  “That was way back in January, when it was still dark. We needed those lights on even during the day. The window at the end is still boarded. You said you would get someone to fix it. That was in February.” He shut the door and came back.

  “Four months ago,” he said, looking relieved. “My tenant remembered. I guess time flies.”

  “Yes it does,” I told him, heading outside. “Especially when you watch TV instead of doing your job.”

  Palk was retired and probably picked up short-term contracts to keep busy.