See Her Run

by Peggy Townsend

  Susan Carter caught Aloa studying the picture.

  “Dashon was so thoughtful, so bright,” she said. “He worked for a big accounting firm, eighty hours a week sometimes. But he brought me coffee in bed every morning, and on Fridays he always came home with two dozen white roses. My favorite.” Her eyes brimmed and Aloa gave her a moment to compose herself.

  “He sounds wonderful,” she said.

  “He is. I mean, was.” Susan cleared her throat. “I told him that every day, but he didn’t believe me. He always thought he wasn’t good enough, that he needed to look like ‘we belonged together.’” She made air quotes. “That’s why he joined the gym. That’s why he agreed to . . .” She stopped herself. “I’m really not supposed to talk about this.”

  “It’s background,” Aloa reminded her. “No names.”

  “I know.” Susan twisted her fingers in her lap and looked out the front windows of the apartment. She was even more beautiful in profile. “I signed an agreement,” she said finally.

  “With RedHawk?” Aloa figured there had been some kind of settlement, otherwise there would have been lawsuits. A castration powder would be a personal injury lawyer’s wet dream.

  “Not with RedHawk,” Susan said. She drew herself up straighter.

  Aloa cocked her head.

  “Hank Tremblay called after Dashon died. He said he’d heard of Dashon’s death and that he’d admired Dashon for how he’d worked through his depression and was sorry to hear it had gotten the best of him. He offered me a million dollars as part of what he called payment for Dashon’s participation in what was supposed to be a marketing project. He said I could keep doing my sculptures and not have to work.” She nodded toward the dancing woman.

  “It’s beautiful,” Aloa said.

  “Thanks. I told him I didn’t want his damn money and that Dashon’s depression had nothing to do with him killing himself and he knew that. I hung up on him.”

  “Dashon suffered from depression?” Aloa asked.

  “He had it under control. He was very good about his medication.” Susan’s eyes narrowed.

  “So it was the supplement, the effects of the Pro-Power 500, that caused him to kill himself,” Aloa said quickly.

  “That’s what I’m not supposed to talk about.”

  “But if you didn’t take the money, you didn’t sign a confidentiality agreement, right?”

  “Not with him but with somebody else. A few days after that, another guy showed up.”

  “Who was this other guy?”

  The trace of a smile brushed Susan’s lips. “They said I couldn’t talk about the powder or how much money I got, but they never said I couldn’t tell you the name of the man who threatened me, who told me if I didn’t accept his offer he would let Immigration know that my mother had come here from Ethiopia without the proper papers. My mother is eighty-three and has lived in this country for fifty years, Ms. Snow. Do you know what an arrest and deportation would do to her?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Aloa said.

  “It would kill her.” Susan leaned forward. “That’s why I took his money. More than what Hank Tremblay offered me, in case you want to know.”

  Aloa nodded, forcing herself not to appear too eager. “What was the man’s name?”

  Susan Carter pressed her lips together and seemed to make a final decision. “His name was Radnor Chee, C-H-E-E, and he worked for a company called Pontifex.”

  Aloa sucked in a breath. R. Chee, she thought. Archie.

  CHAPTER 36

  Aloa tried to contain her excitement as she walked toward home. Susan Carter had just established a link between the Archie on the plane—Radnor Chee—Tremblay, and the dangerous powder.

  She was entering Chinatown with its brimming markets and cluttered tourist shops when it hit her: T.J. had said the boxes unloaded from the jet had Chinese writing on them. She typed a quick search into her phone. RedHawk’s manufacturing plant was in China. Sayat’s notes had indicated possible contamination of the powder at a foreign factory.

  Tremblay hadn’t gone to Africa just to see off his two climbers. He was using the trip as subterfuge to recoup his losses by selling a potentially damaging product in a continent where there were few consumer regulations. He wasn’t the first to do something like that. She’d read stories of destructive pesticides and banned drugs being sold overseas by companies who couldn’t peddle them in the United States. But there was nothing like this: a supplement powder that chemically castrated a majority of its users.

  She could only imagine the ramifications of uncovering something like that—not only for RedHawk, but also for the American people when it was discovered a US company had deliberately sold this crippling product overseas. No wonder Ethan had been so angry when he learned what Hank was doing.

  She typed in “Radnor Chee and Pontifex” but got nothing even remotely informative.

  She hesitated only a moment before tapping a number from her recent call list.

  “How’s it hanging, girl?” asked Steve, her source in the State Department who, thankfully, still owed her enough favors for a lifetime of requests.

  “It’s hanging fine, Steve. Listen, I need you to look up something called Pontifex.”

  “You mean, besides being the high priest of ancient Rome?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Aloa swore.

  “Some people do say I walk on water,” Steve deadpanned.

  “No,” Aloa said, and stopped in her tracks. “My vic, the girl I’m writing about, told one of her friends that she had to hide the information she had from the High Priest.”

  “That’s some kinda tea.”

  “What?”

  “You know, gossip, information. Tea.”

  “Oh, sure,” Aloa said. “Anyway, could you see what you’ve got on Pontifex?”

  “Hang on, babycakes.”

  Aloa bit her tongue. She could hear Steve humming, a run of computer keys. She settled herself against a lamppost, the feel of the hunt rising inside her. A clump of tourists, looking unnerved by the sight of duck carcasses hanging in the window of a butcher shop, scuttled past as their tour guide directed them into a restaurant that locals avoided for the high cost of its subpar food. Aloa guessed a few of the unsuspecting visitors would be spending some time on the porcelain throne that night.

  “Here it is,” Steve said after a stretch of minutes. “Looks like it’s some kind of crisis management company.”

  “Fixers?”

  “Something like that.”

  Aloa knew of the people who made the wealthy’s problems go away through favors granted and then called in, through money that dropped into outstretched palms—including those of corrupt rulers and repressive governments. It was a nasty business that balanced somewhere between legal and not and relied on shady middlemen to get things done.

  “Any issues with them?” she asked.

  Another clatter of computer keys. A few muttered words.

  “Looks like something happened to this journalist in Nigeria a year or two ago,” Steve said. “Hmm.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He died in some freak car accident. Apparently, it was after he started sticking his nose into this skeezy land deal with a copper mining company. A few days later, some guy shows up at the police station with a witness who conveniently says he saw the journo getting hammered in some bar. The reporter was a teetotaler, but you know . . .” Steve’s voice trailed off. “Twenty-four hours later, the top cop rules it a drunk driving accident.”

  “Let me guess. The guy who brought in the witness was from Pontifex.”

  “Yup.”

  “Anything connecting Pontifex and the accident itself?”

  “Nothing we could prove, but I can tell you this: those homies don’t play well with others, if you know what I mean.”

  “Who else have they worked for?”

  “Umm. You got a couple of oil companies, the copper miners, a wheat dealer, some insurance company whose CEO’
s son was in Thailand and got caught with a quarter pound of cocaine.”

  “What about a company named RedHawk or somebody named Hank Tremblay?”

  “Nothing,” Steve said after a few more minutes of searching, “but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Looks like these guys are flying pretty low under the radar.”

  “Can you tell me who runs the company?” she asked Steve.

  “Hmm,” Steve said. “It looks here like it’s got some connection to the Pontecorvo brothers, you know, those hedge fund guys from New Jersey? Then there’s an ex-CIA agent named Lester Johnson, plus some guy from Florida named Radnor Chee. Goes by the name Archie. I mean, who wouldn’t? Radnor?” Steve snorted. “He supposedly runs a boat charter company, but it looks like he spends more time running around the world. Passport shows Kazakhstan, Peru, China, Sierra Leone, Chad.”

  Aloa pumped her fist silently. “Anything about that Chee guy and a castration powder?”

  “What? Holy crap. There’s a powder that make your dick fall off?”

  “Not literally fall off, Steve, but it’s bad.”

  “Who would make that stuff? I mean, come on.” Steve’s outrage was bubbling and would soon reach a full boil. “Guys need their dicks. I mean, how could a guy be a guy without one? You’d be a freak, a piston that don’t fire. That’s some sick stuff, man.”

  Aloa interrupted his diatribe. “Listen, is there anything you can send me about Pontifex, about that Chee guy?”

  Steve fell silent. Sending classified information was not something even he could take lightly.

  “Just whatever won’t get you in trouble,” Aloa assured him quickly. She didn’t want him arrested any more than he did.

  “I suppose it will be all right. I mean, you could probably find some of this yourself,” Steve said finally, “although it would require an IQ of 180 and mad skills.”

  “I appreciate this a lot,” Aloa said, and meant it.

  “I still can’t believe somebody is jacking guys’ dicks,” he was muttering as Aloa hung up the phone.

  Two minutes later, an email with two attachments arrived from an account she didn’t recognize. The first was a report about a fire that had burned down a cutlery factory after its owners had sued Pontifex for trademark infringement. A worker had died, the company had gone out of business, and no one had ever been arrested for the arson. The report included a picture of the disputed image: a sword-crossed Chi-Rho.

  The second attachment was a grainy 2001 photo of Radnor Chee having dinner with a guy identified as a former Russian general. She leaned close to the image and felt a startle of recognition. The man identified as Radnor Chee in the picture was none other than Baldy, the rude realtor.

  CHAPTER 37

  Aloa slipped into her favorite Chinatown hole-in-the-wall café, found an empty table, and ordered a bowl of spicy noodles and a Diet Coke. Thoughts swirled in her head. Suddenly, she was starving.

  That Pontifex’s logo, a Chi-Rho, appeared on the photo of Ethan’s body tied the organization to Ethan’s death. And if Tremblay had the photo, then either the company was proving a task accomplished or, as the medical examiner had hinted, it was making a threat. But why would Pontifex threaten Tremblay if he and Chee were working together to dump RedHawk’s devastating supplement in Africa? Tremblay hadn’t seemed particularly nervous or worried when he’d met Chee at the apartment building a few days ago.

  She tugged out her notebook as a fortyish waiter, the brother of the glowering owner/chef in the kitchen, slammed a can of Diet Coke and a glass of ice in front of her. The café was not known for service, but a delicious six-dollar bowl of noodles was worth the indignities that had to be endured.

  She decanted the soda and began to sketch a scenario.

  The lines ran from Tremblay to Chee to Pontifex to Dashon Carter. Then there was Hayley and Ethan and the Pro-Power supplement powder plus the trip to Africa and Tremblay again. And hadn’t she also mentioned Calvin to Tremblay before the mechanic was killed?

  When she’d finished the web of clues, two things stood out: Tremblay was in the middle of it all, and Ethan’s “terrorist” killers may not have been religious extremists but opportunists hired by Pontifex, especially when you considered their consumption of the expedition’s whiskey. Like Steve said, it was hard to stay clean when you ran a dirty business.

  Aloa drank her soda as the waiter crashed a bowl of steaming noodles in front of her. She didn’t bother to say thanks. This wasn’t the kind of place were niceties were needed.

  The noodles were perfect, the broth spicy and rich. As she ate, Aloa studied the patterns: Ethan, Hayley, and Calvin dead. A dangerous powder. A fixer providing proof of service. Tremblay saying he had to deliver something to Hayley.

  Blackmail. The idea hit her like the crash of a wave on the shore. What if Hayley had been unable to finish the book, had been turned down by Edie Brightwood, and decided to threaten Tremblay with exposure? It would guarantee her money, which she apparently needed, and also allow her to hold a sword over Tremblay’s head so that the supplement wouldn’t get into anyone else’s hands. And if there was a reason to kill, blackmail was it.

  She closed her eyes, seeing the pieces fall into place. But in order to prove motive, she needed more than Sayat’s notes. She needed either the flash drive or the papers, which were now in the hands of Jordan Connor, who didn’t like or trust reporters. Still, Aloa had to try.

  She spent the next five minutes finishing her meal and coming up with a plan. She looked through her notes and found the number she’d recovered from the police report just as the waiter appeared at her table.

  “How about if you pay right now?” he said, grabbing her empty bowl and nodding his head to a short line of customers waiting to get in.

  Aloa got the hint, threw a few bills on the table, and went outside. The street hummed with conversations, a noisy stew of Chinese dialects, English, and a scattering of other languages she couldn’t identify. She fished out her cell, remembered the Brain Farm’s warning about her phone being tapped, thought of Pontifex and the trail of bodies, and stepped back inside.

  The owner’s son, a dark-haired boy of about twelve, sat on a stool by the door playing a game on his phone.

  “Could I use your cell for a few minutes?” Aloa asked. The boy hesitated. “I’ll give you ten bucks,” she said.

  The kid stared at her. “Twenty,” he said.

  Aloa sighed and fished a bill out of her pack. Apparently, the customer-service apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

  She took the phone, told the boy she’d be just outside, and punched in the number.

  “Hi, Jordan. It’s Aloa Snow,” she said when Jordan answered.

  “I’m busy,” came the quick retort.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “I can’t. I’m on a run.” The slap of feet and the cadence of breath proved Jordan was telling the truth.

  “How about later?” Aloa pushed.

  “I’m busy the rest of the day.”

  “I want to talk about the papers you got from Sayat.”

  “What?” From the rhythm of the footfalls, it seemed as if Jordan had slowed and then come to a halt.

  “I’m saying those papers you have may be dangerous. There may be powerful people who want them. People who don’t mind killing.”

  “You’re freaking me out.” Jordan’s breath was still coming hard.

  “In fact, I think they may be the reason Hayley is no longer with us,” Aloa continued. Keep the connection to Ethan’s death quiet for now.

  A long pause followed on Jordan’s end of the line. “Are you saying it wasn’t suicide?”

  In every relationship between journalist and source, there came a turning point at which the source either walked away or opened themselves up fully. It was always a question of timing and phrasing.

  “I’m saying that there are things that suggest she did not take her own life, yes.”

  “What kind of things?�
�� Jordan asked.

  Aloa sidestepped the question. “Let me see the papers and we can talk. If I can get everything out into the open, you’ll be safe. Nobody will hurt you then.”

  Aloa felt a tug on her sleeve as the kid gestured to have his phone returned. Aloa shooed him back inside.

  “What do you mean, ‘nobody will hurt me’?” Jordan asked, more insistent now.

  “Let’s talk. In person. This is really important, Jordan.”

  The line was quiet. “All right,” she said, finally.

  “Can we meet today? Say, in two hours?”

  “Make it an hour. At my apartment.” Jordan gave Aloa an address in the Haight, the same one in the police report.

  Aloa looked at her watch. It was five o’clock. “I’ll be there.”

  “Does anybody else know about this?” Jordan asked.

  “I’m the only one.”

  “I don’t want my name involved in whatever you’re doing,” she said.

  “We’ll talk,” Aloa said, not wanting to commit. “See you soon,” she said, and broke the connection before Jordan could change her mind.

  CHAPTER 38

  He leaned against the window of the tourist shop, pretending to check his email and watching the reporter across the street. There was no activity on her phone, which made no sense. Who in the hell was she talking to?

  He’d listened in on her earlier phone conversation with some friend of hers: the identification of Pontifex, his own name. Plus the visit to the widow Carter’s house. A flush of anger spread through him. It was time for Snow to be melted.

  A smile cracked his lips. Goddamn, he was funny.

  A delivery truck rumbled by and he thought an accident might be the answer. Maybe a tripping foot followed by a quick head-slam into the pavement to make it appear as if she’d simply been the victim of an unlucky fall. Or maybe a nice stab in the belly. He fingered the knife he’d taken from the mechanic. He’d like the feel of that.