Suspicion

by Joseph Finder

  “Nah, charter. Told you, they won’t let me smoke my stogies in here. Owning is a huge pain in the butt. You gotta have full-time pilots on payroll, lease a hangar, all that crap. I don’t really fly often enough to justify it.”

  Danny nodded. Lucy and Celina were talking animatedly. They seemed to have bonded right away.

  “Plus, whenever we fly to Aspen, I always insist on the most experienced pilot they have,” Galvin said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Aspen’s a scary place to fly in and out of. It’s in the middle of a mountain range, the runway’s only five thousand feet long, there’s just not much room for error. If you miscalculate, you could slam into a mountain.”

  “I see,” Danny said. Air disasters were not his favorite topic while flying.

  “When the ceiling’s less than a thousand feet, the pilot can’t see the runway. You’re flying four hundred miles an hour, and—”

  “Got it,” he said curtly.

  In a lower voice, Galvin said, “Your girlfriend’s great. Really cool.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “They look like they’re getting along.” An hour into the flight and Lucy and Celina hadn’t stopped talking. “How does she do with Abby? That’s got to be a tough gig.”

  “Well, actually. Better than me.” Danny was surprised at Galvin’s question. Most guys wouldn’t notice something like that, let alone remark on it.

  “Your wife—she passed, right?”

  “Last year. She was my ex-wife by then.”

  “Breast cancer?”

  Danny was certain he hadn’t given any details of Sarah’s death. Maybe Galvin had heard from Abby. Danny rarely talked about Sarah’s cancer or the terrible days before and after her death. He’d never have expected Galvin to ask about something so personal.

  Danny nodded.

  “Poor Abby, huh?”

  “It’s been a rough couple of years,” he said sadly.

  “Rough for you, too, I bet.”

  Danny looked at him. “Yeah.”

  There was a long pause, and then the moment seemed to have passed. Galvin looked at his laptop screen. Danny wasn’t sure whether Galvin had gone back to whatever he was working on, or had just fallen silent, not wanting to dig further.

  Then Galvin said crisply, “Could I ask you something?”

  Danny looked at him, glimpsed the grave expression, felt his stomach tighten. “Okay . . .”

  Galvin looked over at the women, who were still deep in conversation. Then back at Danny.

  “My security people found something on my BlackBerry.” His gray eyes locked into Danny’s.

  “Security people?” Danny felt his face grow hot. He wondered whether his face was flushing visibly. He hoped not.

  Abby and Jenna laughed again, and Celina got up from her seat and went to where the girls were watching a movie.

  “My clients—I told you, they’re an extremely wealthy family, right? Well, they’re really private. I mean, almost paranoid. Part of my deal with them is, I agree to regular security audits and intrusion detection systems and communications security, all that. I mean, real crazy, over-the-top stuff.”

  “Okay . . . ?” Danny shrugged, palms up, with a mystified what-does-this-have-to-do-with-me? look.

  “They found an attempt to access my BlackBerry.”

  Galvin paused. Danny wasn’t sure if Galvin was waiting for a response. So he said, “Huh.” His throat had dried up. He swallowed a few times. “Weird.”

  “So I need to ask you something.”

  Danny cleared his throat, swallowed. “Sure.”

  “I never put the thing down. Celina calls it my electronic pacifier. I always have it with me. In bed, in the crapper, everywhere. And I’m trying to remember when the last time was it wasn’t in my hands. And it comes to me.” He paused. “It was when we played squash a couple of days ago.”

  “At the Plympton Club?”

  Galvin nodded.

  “I don’t remember,” Danny said smoothly. “You sure you didn’t take it with you onto the court?”

  He shook his head slowly, deliberately. “They don’t allow you to bring cell phones into the squash courts.”

  Danny shrugged. He felt a rising tide of panic. His mouth was so dry now, he could barely swallow. His heart was pounding. He tried to look unfazed, or maybe even bored, but he knew it wasn’t working.

  “And then—I know this’ll sound nutty to you—but when I got back to my locker after the game? The phone was in the wrong pocket.”

  Danny laughed, once, a dry, brittle laugh.

  “I know, I know—like, how OCD is that, right? But it’s just a habit. I’m right-handed, so I keep my BlackBerry in my left inside pocket.” He touched the left side of his chest, right over the left breast pocket of his suit jacket. “You know, like how Buffalo Bill always kept his gun holster on his left side or whatever. So I can draw fast.”

  Galvin smiled casually but watched Danny’s eyes.

  Damn it to hell, Danny thought. Just come out with it. Stop toying with me. Accuse me; get it out there so I can bat it away with a casual denial.

  Don’t act defensive. Don’t act angry. Act, if anything, bored.

  An innocent person won’t take a wild accusation like that seriously.

  Danny broke the silence. “You think maybe one of the snotty club members is engaged in corporate espionage? Like maybe the Exeter T-shirt guy?”

  Galvin was no longer smiling. “The security people say the time when someone tried to access my BlackBerry—well, it was when you and I were playing squash.”

  “Bizarre.” Danny was starting to feel queasy.

  “So help me out here,” Galvin said. He was no longer looking directly at Danny. He was staring past Danny’s right shoulder at the window.

  “Okay.”

  “You went to the locker room when I was on the court.”

  “I did?”

  “You went to get some water. Some bottles of water.”

  “I vaguely remember.”

  I pretended to take his locker key “accidentally.” He barely seemed to notice at the time.

  “Remember that kid, the Hispanic kid, José? In the locker room?”

  “The one you were speaking Spanish to?”

  “Yep. Him. You didn’t see him near my locker, did you?”

  Danny blinked a few times. He couldn’t decide whether to continue acting bored or look like he was trying hard to remember something so minor, so obscure, that no one could possibly be expected to recall.

  He opted for the eye squint, the furrowed brow. The trying-as-hard-as-I-can-to-remember look.

  Trying not to show the relief that washed over him.

  And now what? Accuse the locker room attendant of loitering near Galvin’s locker, of breaking into Galvin’s locker? That innocent kid? So he’d end up like Esteban, the chauffeur, sliced and diced in a Dumpster somewhere? Anyway, what would a locker room attendant want with Tom Galvin’s BlackBerry? That made no sense.

  Or did it? What if José made a regular habit of ransacking members’ lockers, stealing pocket change here and there, and for some reason—not beyond belief, not at all—he picked up Galvin’s BlackBerry to make a call, or just to look at it? Out of good old-fashioned curiosity?

  That was a plausible explanation. But Danny knew that if he pushed that lie, and the cartel believed that some kid from the Plympton Club locker room had tried to get into Tom Galvin’s BlackBerry . . .

  Would the kid really end up carved into a dozen pieces?

  Galvin fidgeted. He drew a long breath.

  Then something occurred to Danny. “The locker room attendants have access to all the locker keys, I bet.”

  “Huh.” Galvin looked dubious.

  “Then again . . . I
don’t know, he seemed like a real nice kid.”

  “You never know. You think you know someone . . .”

  “Well, who else would have access to your locker?”

  “I don’t know what to believe. You wanna know the truth, I don’t care. But my clients—man, do they ever care.”

  He looked like he was about to go on when Celina appeared behind him. “Tom, do you know the girls were watching Knocked Up? I told Jenna that’s not for kids. I told her, no more movies or TV for her for the rest of the day.”

  Galvin shrugged. “Ah, Celina, she’s got a guest this weekend. Let’s give her a break.”

  “No,” Celina said severely. “She has to learn, she breaks the rules, there are consequences.”

  • • •

  A few hours later they landed at Aspen/Pitkin Airport, where they were picked up by a driver, a different one, in a black Chevy Suburban.

  This one was armored, too.

  40

  If he hadn’t known it was a private house, Danny would have assumed they were pulling up in front of a deluxe ski resort. It was an immense, rambling contemporary structure with a Japanese feel to it, built of stone and logs, a short drive north of town in a part of Aspen called Red Mountain. The curves and peaks of the roof were dusted with drifts of snow like powdered sugar.

  The floors inside were blond wood, the walls rough-hewn stone and glass. Mostly glass. There were cathedral ceilings, a huge stone fireplace, and floor-to-ceiling picture windows that looked out onto the steeply canted mountainside: an astonishing view.

  The driver—a sour-looking, barrel-chested man of around forty—carried everyone’s bags inside. He wore a necklace of colorful wooden beads and seemed to speak no English and talked only with Celina, in Spanish.

  “Let me show you two to your room,” Celina said, taking Lucy by the elbow. “Jenna, Abby can sleep in your room, okay? But don’t let me catch you watching videos! Read books! You remember what is books?”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “I’m taking her to the Bowl.”

  “The Bowl! Abby, querida, are you a very strong skier?”

  “Sure,” Abby said.

  “No,” Danny broke in. “She’s not.”

  “Dad!”

  “You haven’t skied in three years,” Danny said.

  “It’s not like you forget,” Abby said. “It’s like riding a bike.”

  “You two go to Buttermilk.” Celina waggled a finger.

  “That’s for babies!” Jenna protested.

  “Don’t argue with me,” Celina said. “Anyway, don’t they have that superpipe?”

  “True,” Jenna said. “Can we take the Vespas?”

  “No,” Celina said sternly. “Alejandro can take you. No more talk.” She pointed toward a hall off the main sitting area. “Go.”

  “And I’ve got work to do,” Galvin said to Danny. “You guys settle in, you can rest, take it easy, whatever.”

  “No,” said Celina, “I want to take Lucy cross-country skiing out behind the house. Danny, is okay if I borrow your beautiful girlfriend later this afternoon? After you have a little rest?”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Lucy said. “Where can I rent skis?”

  “No problems. We have skis for everyone in the mudroom in the back,” Celina said. “Everything you need.”

  Danny’s iPhone sounded a text message alert. He saw it was from AnonText007 and slipped it quickly back into his pocket.

  When they got to their room and Celina had left, Lucy sank down on the king-size bed, covered in a moss-green-and-gold-striped comforter, and let out a long, throaty sigh.

  “You have a good talk with Celina?”

  “I like her a lot,” Lucy said. “She must be lonely out there in the burbs, just doing the mom thing.”

  “Well, she doesn’t have to work, that’s for sure.”

  “She wants to have lunch when we get back to Boston.”

  “You gonna do it?”

  “Sure. She wants to talk about the homeless center.”

  “You gonna hit her up for a donation?”

  “The idea’s crossed my mind.”

  “Maybe not such a great idea.”

  She gave Danny a curious look. “Why not?”

  “It’s already sort of awkward, all the money he’s lent me.”

  “Yeah, the homeless aren’t as worthy a cause as a five-thousand-dollar trip to Italy.”

  “Lucy. No fair. You know damned well what that was about.”

  “I’m sorry. Cheap shot. But I didn’t twist her arm or anything like that. She kept asking about what I did, wanted to know more about it, and she said she wanted to get more involved.”

  “Just what we need—get more involved with the Galvins.”

  “He says, standing in the Galvins’ Aspen house,” she teased.

  Danny exhaled. She was, of course, absolutely right. “It’s . . . complicated. It would just put us even deeper in their debt.”

  “Can we change the subject?” She tugged at his belt. “Come lie with me and be my love.”

  He smiled and turned to the enormous window, the stunning view of Aspen Mountain. There were no drapes or blinds.

  “You think anyone can see in?” she said.

  “Not without a telescope,” Danny said, “and if they’re that determined to watch us make love, they deserve a free show.”

  She laughed, and he felt the first tug of arousal.

  • • •

  Lying naked in bed, Lucy said, “I don’t think she’s terribly happy in her marriage.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Just from the way she talked about Tom. There’s something not quite right.”

  “How long have they been married?”

  “It’s not just the normal stuff, the stresses and strains of a long marriage. Something else. I barely know her, and she was unburdening herself. She comes from some plutocratic Mexican family.”

  “Plutocratic, as in rich?”

  She nodded. “I always assumed their money came from her husband’s investment business.”

  “She actually told you her family is superrich?”

  “No, of course not, not like that. I inferred it. But her father was the governor of one of the Mexican states—Veracruz, I think? She went to some convent school in Paris and traveled a lot as a kid, had servants, lot of horseback riding, all that.”

  “She told you all this?”

  Lucy nodded. “Oh, and do you have any idea how Galvin makes his money?”

  “Just that he invests money for some very rich family.”

  “Three guesses who that family is.”

  Danny smiled. “Holy crap. He’s working for his in-laws, huh?”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Lucy, it’s Celina. You are ready for some skiing?”

  “Be right out,” she said.

  • • •

  Dinner was at a place called Munchies Grill, which was a wealthy ski resort’s idea of a burger place. Rustic wooden picnic tables inside and curls of wood shavings and sawdust on the floor and cutesy neon signs. Its hamburgers were made from grass-fed beef from a small local supplier, rib meat, ground with bone marrow, stuffed with pork shoulder, and served either on house-made pretzel bread or house-made English muffin. Instead of mashed potatoes, they offered “smashed” Yukon gold potatoes. Not plain old French fries but truffle curly fries with roasted garlic aioli.

  Their burgers took forever. After two Diet Cokes, Danny excused himself to use the restroom, at the back of the restaurant.

  As he stood at the urinal, he heard the door bolt slide into place. Then, immediately behind him, a familiar baritone, a voice with a metallic rasp.

  “You didn’t really think you could just walk away, did you?”

  41


  Danny finished his business and zipped up and turned to face the DEA agent, Philip Slocum.

  His heart pounded, but his voice was steady. “You didn’t follow us here,” he said. “I was watching since we left Galvin’s house. There was no one behind us the whole way.” He turned slowly. It was only him and Slocum in the restroom. The door was bolted.

  “So you’re a countersurveillance expert now?”

  “You put a tracker on the Suburban.”

  “What difference does it make, as long as we’re together?” Slocum gave a leering smile.

  “Sorry you’ve wasted a trip. Maybe you can get in some skiing while you’re here.”

  The side part in Slocum’s jet-black hair was a broad line of pale white scalp. His eyes were dark and hard.

  “How about we go out there and say hi to Tom Galvin?” said Slocum. “Let him know we’re old friends, you and I. That we’ve been working together for several weeks now. I could hand him my business card.”

  “I doubt you want to screw up your investigation.”

  “Yeah, hate to have him think the DEA is looking at him closely.” Slocum smirked. “I’m sure that would never occur to him.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Pictures. Photos of whoever Galvin’s meeting with.”

  Someone was trying the door. The knob twisted. Then, from outside, a muffled voice: “Sorry.”

  “And for that you need me? Won’t the DEA spring for a good telephoto lens?”

  “We don’t know when and where he’s meeting. Whereas you’re spending the weekend with him.”

  “He’s not on a leash. You expect me to stalk him? Follow him everywhere he goes?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, unless you want me to use my iPhone to take pictures, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “I’ll have a camera for you tomorrow morning.”

  “What, you’re going to drop it off at Galvin’s house?”

  “No. You’re going to meet me in town early tomorrow morning. Seven A.M. Place called Sweet Tooth on South Galena. It’s a coffee shop. You’re an early riser, and you need your coffee.”

  “I don’t have a car.”