3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  The ADS weapon was all I’d hoped for and more. I knew in the weeks to come I’d master the damn thing, but for the time being, it was kicking the crap out of me. I wondered if the suits at Homeland would be happy or miserable to learn I had survived the first session.

  When the room finally stopped spinning, I swallowed the Advil. Then I shaved, put some clothes on, and buzzed Lou Kelly.

  “You got anything on Ken Chapman yet?” I asked.

  There was a short pause. Then Lou said, “Got a whole lot of something. You want it now?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, bring it,” I said.

  I propped my office door open so Lou could enter without having to be buzzed in. Then I dragged myself to the kitchen and tossed a few ice cubes and some water into a blender. I threw in a packet of protein powder and a handful of chocolate-covered almonds, turned the dial to the highest setting, and pressed the start button. By the time Lou arrived, I was pouring the viscous goop into a tall plastic cup.

  Lou had a thick manila folder in his hand.

  “Local weather for a hundred,” he said. He placed the folder on the counter in front of me.

  “What are my choices?”

  “Thunderstorm, ice storm, cloudy, or sunny,” Lou Kelly said.

  My office apartment was above ground, but windows could get you killed, so I didn’t have any. My office walls were two feet thick and completely soundproof, so I couldn’t automatically rule out a thunderstorm. But it was early February, and I’d been outside yesterday. I drank some of my protein shake. Yesterday had been clear and sunny.

  “I’ll take cloudy,” I said.

  Lou frowned. “Why do I even bother?” He fished two fifties from his pocket and placed them beside the folder.

  “Nothing worse than a degenerate gambler,” I said.

  Lou pointed at the folder. “You might want to reserve judgment on that,” he said. He reached down and tapped the folder twice with his index finger for emphasis.

  Lou Kelly was my lieutenant, my ultimate go-to guy. We’d been together fifteen years, including our stint in Europe with the CIA. I took another swallow of my protein shake and stared at the manila folder.

  “Give me the gist,” I said.

  “Your daughter was right not to trust this guy,” Lou said.

  I nodded. I’d known the minute I answered the phone last week that something was wrong. Kimberly, generally a good judge of character, particularly when it came to her mother’s boyfriends, had felt the need to tell me about a curious incident. Kimberly had said, “Tonight Ken broke a glass in his hand. One minute he’s holding a drink, the next minute his hand’s full of blood!” She went on to explain that her mom (my ex-wife, Janet) had made a snide remark that should have elicited a withering response from her new fiancé. Instead, Chapman put his hands behind his back, stared off into space, and said nothing. When Janet whirled out of the room in anger, Chapman squeezed the glass so hard that it shattered in his hands. Kimberly had been in the loft watching the scene unfold. “There’s something wrong with this guy, Dad. He’s too …” she searched for a word. “I don’t know. Passive-aggressive? Bipolar? Something’s not right.”

  I agreed and told her I’d look into it.

  “Don’t tell Mom I said anything, okay?” Kimberly had said.

  In front of me, Lou Kelly cleared his throat. “You okay?”

  I clapped my hands together. “Wonderful!” I said. “Let’s hear what you’ve got.”

  Lou studied me a moment. Then he said, “Ken and Kathleen Chapman have been divorced for two years. Ken is forty-two, lives in Charleston, West Virginia. Kathleen is thirty-six, lives in North Bergen, works in Manhattan.”

  I waved my hand in the general direction of his chatter. “The gist,” I reminded him.

  Lou Kelly frowned. “The gist is our boy Chapman has serious anger issues.”

  “How serious?”

  “He was an accomplished wife-beater.”

  “Was?” I said.

  “There is evidence to suggest he’s reformed.”

  “What type of evidence?” I asked. “Empirical or pharmacological?”

  Lou looked at me for what seemed a very long time. “How long you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?”

  I grinned and said, “A generous vocabulary is a sure sign of intellectual superiority.”

  “Must be a lot of room in your head now that you’ve let them out,” he deadpanned.

  “Let’s continue,” I said. “I’ve got a headache.”

  “And why wouldn’t you?” he said. Then he added, “According to the letter his shrink presented to the court, Chapman appears to have overcome his aggression.”

  “A chemical imbalance,” I suggested.

  “Words to that effect,” Lou said.

  I gave Lou his money back and spent a couple minutes flipping through the police photos and domestic violence reports. The pictures of Kathleen Chapman would be considered obscenely brutal by any standard, but violence was my constant companion and I’d seen much worse. Still, I was surprised to find myself growing strangely sympathetic to her injuries. I kept going back to two of the photos. I seemed to be developing a connection to the poor creature who years ago had found the courage to stare blankly into a police camera lens.

  “What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?” I said.

  Lou shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “You already told her twice.”

  Lou nodded. He and I often used dark humor to detach ourselves from the brutality of our profession. “Looks like he told her a hundred,” he said.

  I removed the two photos from the folder and traced Kathleen’s face with my index finger. And then it hit me. I handed the pictures to Lou. “Have our geeks remove the bruises on these and run an age progression to see what she looks like today.”

  He eyed me suspiciously but said nothing.

  “Then compare her to this lady.” I opened my cell phone and clicked through the photos until I found the one I wanted. I handed Lou my phone. “What do you think?” I said.

  He held my cell phone in his right hand and the photos of the younger Kathleen in his left. His eyes went back and forth from the phone to the photos. Then he said, “They could be twins.”

  “I agree,” I said. I took the phone back and started entering some commands on the keys.

  “So who is she?” he asked. “The one in the picture you’re e-mailing me.”

  I shrugged. “Just someone I know. A friend.”

  “The geeks might question this project,” he said.

  “Just tell them we’re trying to fit a specific girl into a terror cell.”

  He studied the photos of Kathleen some more. “A body double?”

  “Right,” I said. “And, Lou?”

  He looked up. “Yeah?”

  “Tell the geeks I need it yesterday!”

  He sighed. “What else is new?”

  Lou turned to leave.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What if Kathleen was not Ken Chapman’s first victim?”

  “You think he slept around during his marriage?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he dated someone after his divorce, before he met Janet. Can you find out for me?”

  “I’m on it,” Lou said.

  When he left, I turned my attention back to the files. As I read the details in the police reports, the same thought kept running through my head: If I do nothing, a couple of years from now this could be Janet, or even Kimberly.

  I could not believe Janet was planning to marry this bozo.

  I remembered something Kimberly said a month ago when she told me about her mom’s engagement. She said she didn’t believe her mom was in love with Chapman.

  “Why would she marry a guy she doesn’t love?” I’d asked.

  “I think Mom would rather be unhappy than lonely.”

  2

  The state capitol build
ing in Charleston, West Virginia, is composed of buff Indiana limestone. Its dome rises 293 feet high and is gilded in 23.5-karat gold leaf. I was standing directly below it, in the capitol rotunda, staring at the statue of Senator Robert C. Byrd when I heard her high heels clopping across the marble floor.

  Alison David.

  “Call me Ally,” she said, extending her hand.

  I shook her hand and introduced myself.

  “So,” she said, “what do you think of our capitol building?”

  Ally David had on a navy jacket with three-quarter sleeves and a matching pencil skirt. Her satin tank top featured a scoop neckline that offered the promise of superb cleavage. It took some effort not to drool while admiring the way she put her clothes together.

  “Impressive,” I said. “But I’m confused about the statue.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I know you can’t toss a cat in West Virginia without hitting a building that has his name on it,” I said. “But I thought you had to be dead at least fifty years before you got a statue.”

  She smiled and gave me a wink. “We West Virginians have a pact with Senator Byrd. He sends us the pork, and we let him name the pigs.”

  Alison David was the type of career woman who, without saying or doing anything out of the ordinary, gave the impression she was a creature of heightened sexuality. I wondered if this was a natural phenomenon or something she had purposely cultivated.

  “Is it just me,” I said, “or does it appear your illustrious senator’s hand is pointing directly at my pocket?”

  She forced a half smile, but I could tell I was losing her. Small talk isn’t my strong suit. “So,” I said, “where are you taking us for lunch?”

  “Someplace close,” she said.

  I waited for her to elaborate, but she chose not to. Unable to think of anything witty to say, I settled for, “Sounds perfect,” which caused her to arch an eyebrow and give me a strange look.

  We walked a block together and entered Gyoza, a small Japanese restaurant that proved trendier than its anonymous exterior might suggest. Inside, tasteful Japanese prints hung on bright red walls. The lighting was muted but was bright enough to read the menus. In the center of the restaurant, a bronze-laminate sushi bar separated the sushi chefs from the diners, and glass-fronted coolers atop the bar displayed tidy arrangements of colorful seafood. There were a couple of empty two-top tables with white linen tablecloths. Ally picked one, and we sat down.

  “Gyoza?” I said.

  Ally lowered her eyes and smiled at me, and the way she did it made me wonder if gyoza meant something dirty.

  “Gyoza,” she said, “is a popular dumpling in Japanese cuisine. It’s finger food, like pot stickers, but with different fillings. Most people order meat or seafood, but I like the vegetarian.”

  A waitress appeared, and Ally did in fact order the vegetarian gyoza. I asked if the spider roll was authentic.

  Our waitress looked confused and said, “This one very hot. Very, very hot! Yes, is spider roll."

  “Spider,” I said.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “Spider. Is very hot.”

  I feigned shock. “Do you mean to tell me there’s an actual spider inside?”

  Ally David’s eyes skirted the room. She gave the waitress a tight smile, and the two of them exchanged a female look, as if my comment confirmed some sort of conclusion they’d already drawn about me. Ally said, “Perhaps I should translate.”

  “Please do,” I said.

  “The spider roll is composed of tempura soft-shell crab,” she said.

  “Composed,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  I may have detected a hint of annoyance in her voice.

  Ally wasn’t finished with me. “Spider is the name of the roll,” she said, “and nothing more.” Then, as if she couldn’t stop herself, she added, “Why would you even think such a thing?”

  I shrugged. “Eel is eel, right? And tuna is tuna, yes?”

  Ally David looked at her watch. “I don’t mean to be brusque, but I’ve got a one o’clock and it’s already twelve fifteen. You wanted to talk to me about Ken Chapman?” she said.

  “I did.”

  I was not insensitive to the fact that our waitress continued to wait patiently for my order. “I’ll have …” I briefly looked through the menu again.

  “Anytime today would be nice,” Ally said.

  “I think I’ll try … the spider roll,” I said.

  “For the love of God,” Ally said.

  “Very, very hot,” our waitress warned. “Not recommend,” she said.

  “But it’s on the menu,” I said. “So people must order it.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said. She pointed to a large man sitting alone at the sushi bar. “He already order. I bring to him very soon.”

  I smiled. “Then I’m sure it will be fine,” I said.

  She nodded and sprinted away to place the order.

  “Are you always this …”Ally searched for a word, gave up, and tried again. “Could you possibly be this obtuse?”

  I shrugged and looked at her but she lowered her eyes and pretended to be intrigued by the place setting. I spoke to fill the silence. “Did you and Chapman date before his divorce became final?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No. Ken was legally separated when we met.”

  There were delicate white china cups in front of us, and black lacquer soup bowls. I picked up my cup and tilted it so I could see if it said “Made in China” on the bottom. It didn’t.

  “How long did you guys date?” I asked.

  Ally looked up from the place setting to stare at me. “Can you tell me again what my dating Ken has to do with national security?”

  “Like I said on the phone, we’re just building a profile,” I said. “Mr. Chapman is currently engaged to a woman whose former husband was a CIA operative.”

  Ally made her eyes big and lowered her voice to an exaggerated whisper. “Is that against the law?” she asked. She rolled her big eyes at me the way my daughter Kimberly does. Only instead of being exasperated, Ally was mocking me.

  “Against the law? Not in and of itself,” I said, sounding pathetic even to me.

  “And yet,” she said, “simply by dating me and becoming engaged to another woman, Ken has managed to become a threat to national security! Perhaps I ought to call Senator Byrd’s office to sound the alert.”

  This wasn’t going the way I’d envisioned. She was trying for smug and achieving it. She was also smarter than me, and I hate when that happens. There was but one thing to do: seize the initiative. I played the trump card God provided: I stared directly into her cleavage.

  “During the time you dated Ken Chapman,” I said to her boobs, “did he ever beat you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure!”

  “But you’re aware of his history, yes?”

  She sighed. “I’m up here, perv.”

  I reluctantly lifted my focus to her face, and Ally said, “Ken told me about Kathleen’s claims of abuse shortly after we started dating.”

  “And?”

  “And he explained what happened.”

  I waited.

  “I suppose you want to hear his version,” she said.

  “It’s why I traveled all the way to Charleston,” I said.

  “Not the spider roll?”

  I smiled and shook my head.

  “Not the capitol rotunda?”

  “As hard as it must be to fathom, no.”

  Our waitress approached carrying a heavy tray, which she perched on a portable stand. She poured scented green tea into our cups and steaming miso soup into our soup bowls. Ally picked up a white ceramic spoon and stirred her soup. I took a sip of my tea and was instantly overcome by the horrific taste. I looked around for something in which to spit the rancid liquid but finally gave up and swallowed it. I made a face to demonstrate how I fel
t about the tea. Ally rolled her eyes again, reaffirming something I already knew about my charm: though highly infectious to females, it sometimes requires an incubation period.

  My cell phone rang. I glanced at the number and put it back in my pocket where it continued to ring.

  “You’re an annoying person,” Ally said. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

  I reminded her that she was supposed to be telling me her version of the Ken Chapman saga. She rolled her eyes. She sighed. She frowned. But she finally spoke.

  “Ken had been married about a year,” Ally said, “when he learned Kathleen was mentally unstable. They had an argument, a shouting match, and he spent the night in a hotel. The next day, when he came home to apologize, he found her bloody and bruised.”

  “He claimed not to remember beating her up?”

  “She beat herself up.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It was her way of punishing herself for making him angry.”

  I took some photos out of my suit pocket and spread them on the table. “This look like something a woman might do to herself?” I asked.

  Ally’s eyes avoided the photos. “I’m not an expert,” she admitted. “But it seems plausible, and it wasn’t an isolated case. Time and again during the marriage, Ken came home from work to find his wife had beaten herself for various reasons. When he tried to force her into therapy, she went to the police and told them Ken had assaulted her. This became a pattern. By turning him in to the police, or threatening to, she was able to control and manipulate the relationship.”

  I sat there in disbelief. My jaw dropped, and I think my mouth may have been open during her entire response.

  Ally pursed her lips and tasted her soup in the sexiest manner possible, as though she were French kissing it. It was amazing what she could do with her mouth while nibbling at the liquid on her spoon. You put two women side by side, let them both taste some soup. The other woman can be twice as hot as Ally. Out of a hundred guys, Ally wins ninety times. Guaranteed.

  “Are you dating anyone now?” I asked.

  “Are you asking on behalf of national security?”