Suspicion

by Joseph Finder

  He was ready with a lie. “An old friend of mine’s in town and wanted to pick my brain. He’s got some idea for a book. I think he wants publishing advice, which generally means how he can get an agent.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You don’t know him—guy named Art? Art Nava?”

  “I don’t know the name. From Columbia?”

  “Nah, I met him through Sarah. A million years ago. Anyway. You two just go ahead and have dinner without me.”

  Art Nava was a high school friend of his from Wellfleet, someone he hadn’t talked to, even thought of, since high school graduation. Why he’d chosen that name, he had no idea.

  All he knew for certain was that he wanted to protect Lucy from the dangerous swerve his life had taken, to keep her innocent and uninvolved. To take this on alone and not endanger the woman he loved so much. It felt like the right thing to do.

  But it was the first time he’d ever lied to her, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

  • • •

  At five minutes before seven that evening, Danny was sitting in his car in the parking lot of the International House of Pancakes in Brighton. The lot was mostly empty: The pancake chain’s “eat breakfast for dinner” campaign had never worked in a big way—but a steady trickle of cars came in and out. The white noise whoosh of traffic from Soldiers Field Road was rhythmic, almost lulling. Or it might have been lulling, in another setting, at another time.

  Because he didn’t know what to expect, and he hated uncertainty. He was to park in the northeast corner of the IHOP lot by seven o’clock.

  They would find him.

  He waited. A few spaces away, a red Jeep Grand Cherokee was parked. It probably belonged to an employee, maybe a manager. The other cars in the lot were clustered much closer to the restaurant.

  Whenever a car pulled in, he looked up, watched to see if it was headed toward him. By 7:05 he’d watched a total of five cars enter the lot and three leave. None of them came anywhere near. The agent he’d talked to on the phone—Yeager, the less obnoxious of the two—had been emphatic about punctuality. He’d give them another five minutes and then leave.

  His cell phone made a strange bling sound. It displayed the words ENCRYPTED CHAT RECEIVED. He unlocked the phone and read the message. Look to your right, it said. Take the side door. No key necessary.

  He looked to the right, saw no one and nothing.

  For a moment he didn’t understand. Then he saw, maybe twenty feet away, a motel. The CHARLES RIVER MOTEL, a sign said. A black side door with white trim. He hadn’t paid any attention to the building, but there it was, closer than the IHOP.

  Then another bling, and a new text message: Room 126. First room on your right.

  He got out, slammed the car door, looked around briefly. A low set of concrete steps leading into the motel, bracketed by hedges. You were supposed to insert a key card into a slot to open the door, but when he pulled the handle toward him, it came right open. Someone had jammed the door lock. The hallway was dim and smelled of diapers. He could hear babies crying, multiple babies in multiple rooms. He wondered if this was one of those hotels that the state had taken over for overflow low-income housing. The first door on the right was numbered 126. He knocked once, and it came right open.

  Slocum, the one with the Just for Men Jet Black hair and the pointed face of a fox, at the door. Danny entered, and Slocum closed the door behind him without saying a word. Yeager was sitting in the corner. The curtains were closed, and the only light came from a single desk lamp.

  “Daniel.”

  “Seven o’clock sharp, huh?” Danny said. “I guess you meant government time.”

  Yeager shook his head slowly, and said, “The precautions are for your own safety.” He held out a small, dark blue velvet bag.

  Danny took it. Something heavy but small was inside.

  “Careful,” Yeager said. “It’s just been calibrated. We don’t want it to get out of whack.”

  Danny tipped out a large metallic disc that looked like a coin. It was a bronze medal that bore the inscription COLLEGIUM BOSTONIENSE.

  “Look familiar?” Yeager said.

  Danny nodded. “I think so.”

  “It’s an exact replica of the Boston College President’s Medal he’s already got, only it’s made from resin.”

  He weighed it in his palm. It was heavy and cold, even felt solid, like a real medal. “This is a transmitter?”

  Yeager nodded once. “A GSM-based monitoring device. Sound- activated. Calls us when it detects sound in the room so we can listen in. But you get the hard job. You have to swap it for the original.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Figure it out,” Slocum said.

  Danny turned and said to Slocum, “I’ve been in the guy’s home office exactly once. Call me crazy, but if he really does cartel business in there, I have a feeling he might not want me wandering around in there by myself.”

  Slocum gave a sour smile and looked away like he was bored.

  Yeager said, “It shouldn’t take you more than a few seconds. You just need to find the right opportunity.”

  “Simple as that,” Danny said. They were an odd duo, he thought, the two DEA agents. Yeager’s manner was studious to the point of affectation, but beneath it, like traces of old paint, a palimpsest, was something rough-hewn, crude, and nasty.

  “Notify us when you’ve placed it,” Yeager said.

  “How?”

  “Secure text message. Use your Jay Gould account. We’ll reach out to you the same way.”

  “Then am I done?”

  Slocum folded his arms. “If we get what we need, sure.”

  “And what if he catches me?”

  “Don’t get caught,” said Slocum.

  “Thanks,” said Danny. “But I’m an amateur. I’ve never done anything remotely like this.”

  “It’s not difficult,” Yeager said. “We’ll give you step-by-step instructions.”

  “Wonderful,” Danny said in a flat tone. “But you still haven’t answered my question. What if I get caught?”

  “I wasn’t kidding,” Slocum said. “Try real hard not to get caught. These Sinaloa guys, they’re careful and they’re ruthless. There’s a reason Galvin’s driver doubles as his bodyguard.”

  “That guy’s his bodyguard?” Danny said. “Who’s Galvin afraid of?”

  “The competition,” said Yeager. “Other cartels. These guys don’t screw around.”

  “Just be prudent,” Slocum said, “and you have nothing to worry about.”

  19

  Rex’s tail thumped against the floor when Danny returned home. He was curled up at Lucy’s feet as she sat on the couch working. He didn’t even try to get up.

  “That didn’t take long,” Lucy said. “I hope you didn’t scare him off.”

  “Scare who off?”

  “Art Whatever. Your friend the wannabe writer.”

  It took Danny a moment. His nerves were still vibrating like a plucked string. “Oh, right. No, he just wanted to know some basic stuff, you know—how to get an agent, all that. The usual.”

  “What kind of book does he want to write?”

  Lying to her was bad enough, but now having to elaborate on the lie was even worse. “I don’t even think I could tell you. He didn’t have a very clear idea himself. Hold on, let me say hi to Abby.” He’d noticed her backpack on the floor.

  Abby was sitting on her bed, MacBook in her lap, tapping away.

  “Hey, Boogie, how was school?”

  “Hey, Daddy,” she said without looking up. “It was all right.”

  “How was precalc?”

  “It was great. I won the Nobel Prize for calculus.”

  “Yeah? Do you have to go to Oslo or Stockholm for that one? I always forget
.”

  She shook her head distractedly, done with the game.

  “Am I interrupting your homework?”

  “Yeah, but it’s fine.”

  “Writing a research paper about Facebook?” He could see enough of the screen to recognize the Facebook logo.

  “Did you want something, Daddy?”

  “How’s Jenna?”

  “Fine.”

  “You planning on going over there tomorrow?”

  She looked up. “I don’t know, why?”

  “Because I’d love to be looped in on your social plans.”

  “Ha ha ha. Is this about how I’m spending too much time over there? I mean, I was home for dinner and you weren’t, so I’m just saying.”

  “Someone’s being a little oversensitive.” He could see this starting to spin into an argument, so he tried to reel it back in. “They’re great, aren’t they? I can’t blame you for wanting to hang out with them.”

  “I don’t ‘hang out’ with them, I hang with Jenna.”

  “Chillax, baby.”

  “‘Chillax’? What are you, like a bro now?”

  “I meant it ironically. So what’s Esteban like?”

  “Their driver? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to him. He’s a good driver, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  He was about to ask whether Esteban carried a gun, but then thought better of it.

  “I’m sure he is. He doesn’t have to take you home all the time. I can pick you up, some days.”

  “I thought you don’t like driving out to Weston, and losing your parking space.”

  “I’m happy to pick you up. We need to spend more time together, you and me.”

  She shrugged, went back to her tapping. “Whatever.”

  “Anyway, I’ll be doing some research at Wellesley College, so it’s convenient.”

  She nodded.

  Somehow he had to get himself back inside the Galvins’ house. He couldn’t exactly invite himself over. There was no plausible reason for him to see the inside of Tom Galvin’s home office again any time soon.

  Unless he could think of an excuse. A reason to come over again that didn’t sound contrived or bogus.

  The right opportunity. He hoped it would come soon.

  20

  The next day, Abby texted him from school: ok if I study with Jenna after school?

  Instead of the usual, mild annoyance, he felt a strange sort of relief. Home for supper? he texted back.

  Her answer came almost immediately: Sure!

  He texted back: I’ll pick you up.

  Her answer came half a minute later: Thanks! But that’s ok, Esteban can drive me home.

  He thought for a moment, then texted: I’ll be out there anyway, remember?

  Adults tended to text, Danny had noticed, like they were sending a telegram: short and terse. Kids, who had no idea what a telegram was, texted as if they were writing e-mail, conversational and slangy. Then again, Abby and her friends considered e-mail as archaic as writing on foolscap with a quill.

  Her text came back: ok?

  Meaning: Okay, if you insist, though I don’t really get it. She’d forgotten that he’d told her he was doing research at Wellesley College. Or maybe she didn’t hear it the first time. It was like the old Peanuts animated cartoons, whenever a teacher or parent talked to Charlie Brown or his friends. You never heard actual words. You heard the mwa mwa mwa mwa of a trombone. Half the time, that was how Danny suspected his voice sounded to Abby.

  He texted back, Pick you up @ 6.

  Thanks! came her reply.

  Then, at around five thirty, when he was about to leave for Weston, his iPhone made the tritone fanfare announcing the arrival of a new text. He glanced at the screen. It was from Abby: OK if I stay for dinner?

  Danny thought for a long moment. He could always say no, pick her up at six as planned. If he said yes, it wouldn’t be plausible that he’d still be in the area later on. She’d want to have the Galvins’ driver, Esteban, take her back to Boston.

  The phone nagged a tritone reminder.

  He decided not to reply. He’d learned how the mind of a sixteen-year-old worked. She’d assume the answer was yes unless she was told otherwise.

  • • •

  At just before six, he was standing in front of the Galvins’ castle door. He rang the bell. As he waited, another tritone text bleated. He didn’t look at it. He knew it had to be from Abby. Only Lucy or Abby ever texted him.

  The door opened after a minute or so. Celina Galvin was wearing skinny jeans and a purple V-neck sweater. At her feet, the bat-faced hairless dogs scurried and scampered and yapped.

  “Oh, Daniel, I’m so sorry! Abby didn’t tell you she’s having dinner with us?”

  “Is that right?” A delicious smell wafted from the interior.

  He knew exactly what she was going to say next. At some houses, you’d never hear the words. But Celina was Mexican, and Mexican hospitality is legendary.

  “Can you stay for dinner?” she said. “Please?”

  • • •

  It was just four of them: Celina, Jenna, Abby, and Danny. Brendan was back at his dorm room at BC, and Ryan had returned to his apartment in Allston, where he lived with a girlfriend he still hadn’t brought around to meet the parents and probably never would. (“For me it’s fine,” Celina said. “He knows she’s not the right one, so why do I have to waste my time being nice to her?”)

  They all sat at one end of the long farm table. The family cook, a stout gray-haired woman named Consuelo, ladled sopa de frijoles, black bean soup, into colorful ceramic bowls.

  “Daddy, I’m sorry, I definitely texted you!” Abby said.

  “Oh, when I was in the archives I put my phone on Do Not Disturb mode. Must have missed it. It’s no big deal. Anyway, I get to have another great dinner at the Galvins’.”

  “Abby,” Celina said, “you know Esteban will take you home. Your father shouldn’t have to come all the way out here to pick you up.”

  “Not a problem,” he said. “I was in the area anyway.” Before she could ask why, he said, “Is Tom still at work?”

  “He has a client dinner in town. Oh, what kind of hostess am I? You are a big wine drinker, yes? Consuelo? ¿Podría obtener una buena botella de vino tinto para el caballero?”

  “I’m fine. I don’t have wine every night.”

  A few minutes later, he asked to use their bathroom.

  He hadn’t seen one off the kitchen, but there were a lot of rooms and a lot of doors and it was always possible a bathroom adjoined the kitchen. But he didn’t think so. “It’s just out there down the hall, on the right.” Celina waved at the corridor along which Galvin had taken him to his home office. “Oh, let me show you. People get lost sometimes. It’s very confusing, this crazy house.”

  “Not at all,” he said firmly. He got up and pulled out his iPhone. “If I get lost, I’ll call for directions.”

  • • •

  The half bath was only twenty or thirty feet down the hall. Its door wasn’t visible from the end of the farm table, where everyone had been sitting. He passed it, went a little farther down the hall and then took a right. Another fifty feet or so and he’d reached Tom Galvin’s study.

  The door was open.

  The lights were off. The waning sun cast an amber light. Dust motes hung in the air.

  The medal sat in its case near the edge of Galvin’s desk, the side that faced visitors. Danny wondered how many people came to visit him here. And who. Was it here that he did his cartel business?

  If he did any.

  He entered the room, braced for the spotlights overhead to go on, activated by motion. But it didn’t. The room remained shadowed. He didn’t want to risk putting the lights on.

  He took out
his iPhone, set the flash function on the camera to ON, and snapped a few quick pictures of Galvin’s desk and the area around it. With each shutter sound, a pale light danced and blinked.

  Galvin’s medal was smaller than he remembered. He hoped the decoy in his pocket, the one he was supposed to swap it for, was the right size.

  His heartbeat sounded thunderously loud.

  He reached out a hand and grasped the edge of the medal with trembling fingers. It was cold, and thicker than he’d expected.

  It wouldn’t come out of its case.

  The blood rushed in his ears, so loud now that he could hear nothing else. Just the whoosh of blood and the rapid, accelerating tattoo of his heart. His fingers closed around the medal and grabbed it and tried to turn it, tried to pry it loose, but it was seated firmly. Too firmly. Was it somehow cemented down, not meant to be removed?

  He felt a cold, unpleasant prickling at the back of his neck.

  It came loose. Finally, it came out. The medal was thick and heavy and cold. He slipped it into the right breast pocket of his suit jacket.

  From his left pocket he took the replacement, warm from his body heat, and noticeably lighter than the original.

  The tremor in his fingers had become even more obvious.

  Please, God, he thought, let it be the right size.

  He placed it over the round inset in the red velvet and saw that it was a fraction of an inch too big.

  It didn’t fit in the case.

  His heart raced wildly. He felt nauseated.

  Now what? Give up? Put the original back in the case and tell the DEA agents they’d screwed up the measurements?

  When would he ever have a chance like this again?

  With both thumbs he pressed down hard on the fake medal, tried to seat it into the round inset, which refused to yield. He pushed harder—was he wrecking the delicate electronics of the listening device?—until it went down all the way, right into the inset, mashing it slightly.

  But it was seated snugly. The red velvet around it puckered downward slightly, like the lines around an old man’s mouth.

  The medal was slightly turned. The D in the Roman numerals at the medal’s outer edge, MDCCCLXIII, should have been centered on the midline, but it was off slightly so that the third C was at the centerpoint.