by Glenn Cooper
‘I’ll handle this,’ Carling told them, stepping inside the hotbox. ‘Keep a watch.’
The garage door was closed for ten minutes.
When Carling emerged, he didn’t have a dry patch on his shirt and there was a broad swath of sweat around the band of his cowboy hat. There were drops of blood on his tan boots. He closed the door behind him.
‘Son-of-a bitch didn’t talk,’ Carling said. ‘Tough little guy.’
One of the guards asked, ‘We need to dump him somewhere?’
‘Nope. Didn’t see fit to finish him but I told him he’d be dead and his family’d be dead if he called the sheriff.’
‘What now?’
‘It’s all eyes on this Donovan fellow.’
The Marias were being stoical but Mary Riordan was having a moaning fit.
‘How long are we going to be driving around inside this piece of junk? My insides are like scrambled eggs. I didn’t sleep a wink. It’s not healthy for the boys neither. Smells of old diapers.’
It had been a long night and a boring, hot morning. None of them, except for the babies, had gotten much sleep. The girls had crammed together on the mattress. Sue had hoped to recline one of the front seats but none of them would go back so she napped upright. For safety, if there was such a thing for women alone on the road at night, she had parked in a Walmart Supercenter across the border in Oklahoma. It was well lit and there were a few campers and RVs parked there. There was no point in driving through the night and no need to get an early start the next day. She needed to wait for Cal and he wasn’t going to be flying out until the morning.
‘We’ll stop soon for a bathroom break and dispose of the diapers,’ Sue said.
‘You still haven’t said where we’re going.’
‘If I said Midland would that mean anything to you?’
‘Not a bloody thing.’
‘That’s why I didn’t say.’
‘You’re getting more and more hilarious, Sue. Why are we going there?’
‘To meet someone who’s going to help us.’
‘Who?’
‘You met him. Cal Donovan.’
‘The egghead from the college?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Is he single or married?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Could’ve looked him up.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because you fancy him.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Saw the way you were looking at him, that’s why.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘So how’s he supposed to help?’
‘He knows someone who’ll take us in while he arranges something.’
‘Do you know how vague and stupid that sounds?’
Sue squeezed the steering wheel hard in lieu of screaming. ‘Mary, do you have any idea how annoying you can be sometimes?’
‘I’ve been told as much by my teachers. Teachers I hate. Why don’t we just go to a police station?’
‘And tell them what?’
‘I don’t know. How ’bout that the Perfume Pope tried to diddle us? They’ll have to take our word, won’t they?’
‘More likely I’ll get arrested for kidnapping and you’ll be returned to the ranch. Mr Anning’s a powerful man.’
They drove on. Baby JJ started crying and Maria Mollo couldn’t get him to settle down. The crying set off JD, and JD set off JR.
Mary put her fingers in her ears and Maria Aquino announced, ‘None more.’
‘None more – I mean no more what?’ Sue asked.
‘Pampers.’
Mary pulled her fingers out. ‘Can’t hear you. What did you say, Minion?’
‘Pampers.’
‘Shit,’ Sue said.
‘Very good, Sue,’ Mary said. ‘Shit is right.’
‘Why didn’t you guys say something before when we were at the Walmart?’ Sue asked.
‘I think Eeyore may have been trying to say something about that last night but it was all just Spanish jabbering.’
‘Wonderful,’ Sue said. ‘Are we having fun yet?’
‘He’s in a big-ass RV, Mr Carling,’ the private detective said.
‘Where’s he heading?’
‘I-20 westbound toward Abilene.’
‘You keep him in sight,’ Carling said, ‘and text me the RV’s particulars and plate number.’
Cal was getting the hang of driving the big machine but when he first got behind the wheel he had muttered to himself, ‘Lord, please don’t make me have to back this thing up.’ He was high off the road in a captain’s chair, listening to the AM radio because the FM band didn’t seem to work. His only choices were pop music, country, or shrill radio preachers who all sounded the same. Even a professor of religion couldn’t stomach their spiel. He opted for country and watched the long, straight highway and the brown scrubland, low, green hills and very large, very blue sky.
His mobile rang and he fished for it in the blazer draped over the passenger seat. He didn’t recognize the number.
‘Hello, Donovan here.’
‘Professor Donovan, this is Beth Gottlieb.’
He wasn’t expecting to hear from her again. She had told him what she knew about Anning and their plane crash. It was tantalizing but circumstantial. He hadn’t known what to make of it and he still had no idea what Steve Gottlieb had wanted to tell him.
‘Beth. Hi. Can I help you with something?’
‘It’s the other way around,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can help you.’
THIRTY
It was hard for Cal to get a handle on Beth Gottlieb’s state of mind. She seemed to be a cauldron of bitterness and sadness. At times, her speech was pressured, flowing too fast. Then she would downshift into a dull, slower pace. Then it dawned on him. She’d been drinking. It was mid-afternoon on the east coast but Cal could recognize the sound of alcohol.
‘What are you supposed to do when you find out your husband was having an affair?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t think she was looking for one.
‘You think you know someone and then, all of a sudden, you don’t. If he were alive, I’d wring his neck. I would, you know. I didn’t know it but I think I’m the type of woman who would have taken a knife to all his suits and shirts and poured paint all over his fucking shoes. Do you have any idea how many pair of shoes that man had?’
‘How did you find out?’
‘I had to have his safe drilled open. I never knew the combination. I found letters. Not many. They were fucking love letters sent to his office. She marked them personal and confidential because his assistant would’ve opened them otherwise, I guess. She didn’t sign them. Just the letter B. There was no return address. They had a New Haven postmark. They were full of sex stuff. Sex stuff! I love your body. I love to feel you inside me. I vomited. I literally vomited.’
Cal wanted to vomit too. ‘I’m sorry, Beth. I’m wondering what this has to do with me.’
‘I’m getting to that but I ask you, what am I supposed to do with this now? Steven is dead. Murdered, and the police don’t know why or by whom. I can’t yell at him. I’d feel like a crazy person if I went to the cemetery and shouted at his grave. I mean, what am I supposed to do?’
‘Maybe you should speak to someone. A therapist maybe?’
She turned angry again. ‘I wasn’t asking for your advice. It was rhetorical. I thought you were a Harvard professor. You can’t spot rhetoric?’
‘Sorry.’
‘So, his email folder and calendar – everything work-related – was there on his office computer. As long as I don’t log out I don’t need the passwords. Understand? I had a good long browse last night with a bottle of wine for emotional support. You’re not a drinker, are you?’
‘As a matter of fact, I am.’
‘Then you understand. I was looking for who this B was, the times th
ey met up to do the dirty, anything. He was careful. Very careful. Probably because his assistant had access. But I did find one calendar entry from a year and a half ago. And this is why I thought about you.’
He was traveling in the fast lane and had failed to notice a car on his bumper trying to get him to move over. It flashed him and he slid into the right lane. He would have preferred using two hands to steer the sluggish beast but he wasn’t going to hang up now.
‘I see. What was it?’
‘It was for a teleconference. He didn’t put the numbers down or the subject. It just said “Telecon, Monday, three p.m., Anning and BH at YSE.” You were interested in Anning, weren’t you?’
‘I was, yes. And you think BH might be your B?’
‘Not my B, his B.’
‘That’s what I meant.’
‘Yes, his B! If he wasn’t trying to hide her from the world he would’ve put her fucking name down.’
‘OK. Does YSE mean anything to you?’
‘Steven never gave me credit for my mind. I was a Romance Languages major in college. I graduated with a 3.7 GPA. That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Very good.’
‘So, this mind of mine put two and two together. New Haven postmark on the sex letters. Yale is in New Haven. The Y in YSE is for Yale.’
‘What do you think YSE stands for?’
‘Yale School of Engineering, of course. Steve went there for grad school. Didn’t you know?’
‘Maybe. I forget. So, who is BH?’
He heard a doorbell.
‘I haven’t gotten that far. Say, I’ve got to go. A friend is taking me for a pedicure. I helped you, didn’t I?’
‘Quite possibly. Thank you. I mean it.’
‘Maybe you could come and thank me personally. I thought you were a very attractive man.’
Cal got off the call fast.
Anning. BH. YSE.
Maybe it meant something, maybe it didn’t.
He was making good time and he was hungry so he decided to pull off the highway at the next exit and find some fast food. And make a call without having to take a hand off the wheel.
‘He exited the highway, Mr Carling.’
‘Where?’
‘Merkel,’ the private detective said. ‘Just west of Abilene a bit.’
‘OK. Any sign of Gibney and the girls?’
‘Not yet. Hang on, he’s pulled into a McDonald’s. We’re just going to follow along and park on the other side of it.’
Carling was in his security office in the basement of the mansion house. He tapped a pen on his desk blotter.
‘He’s gotten out of the RV,’ the detective said.
‘And?’
‘We’ve got eyes on him. It looks like he’s ordered food.’
‘OK, what else? Are they there?’
‘Hang on. My partner’s going in.’
‘Don’t get made.’
‘He won’t.’
There was more pen tapping, faster.
‘My partner’s back, Mr Carling. He’s eating a burger. Alone. The other parties aren’t there.’
‘Well, thank you so much for the burger-and-fries blow by blow,’ Carling said, ending the call in disgust.
Sue was northwest of Cal on I-27 midway between Amarillo and Lubbock, heading south toward Midland. She’d lost track of all the bathroom breaks the girls had required and now Maria Mollo was begging for another one. Besides, the van was smelling of ripe diapers again. She usually only pulled off the highway at exits marked with multiple roadside services but the sign for the one coming up only had a gas station sign. Maria was almost howling so she took it.
The small road passed through a nothing of a town, just a few small houses – not even a general store. At first, she thought the gas station was closed. The pumps were empty, the garage doors were closed. She didn’t even recognize the brand of gas they sold. It was as if they’d gone back in time. Then she saw a light on through the door marked, office.
‘I’ll fill the tank,’ Sue told Mary. ‘You know the drill. Only one girl at a time. This is Maria’s turn. You’re too recognizable together.’
‘Yeah, tons of paparazzi around here,’ Mary said, moving into the passenger seat and having a look through the grimy window of the van.
Sue got out, picked a grade and began fueling. She looked around for a restroom sign and didn’t see one so she knocked on the office door. When no one answered she opened it and said hello.
The garage door lifted and a lanky man in overalls came out into the forecourt. He looked her up and down and asked her what she needed. She saw that a second mechanic was underneath a car up on a lift.
‘Just looking for a bathroom for my daughter.’
‘Through the office, first door on the right. It’s good you’re buying gas.’
‘Why’s that?’ she asked.
‘Because we don’t let people use the facilities unless they’re paying customers. Cash or credit?’
‘Cash.’
‘That’s good, ’cause our credit-card thingy’s busted. Something about a modem or some such shit. I don’t know.’
Sue didn’t like the look of anything about this place but the van was filling and Maria needed emptying. She opened the back and let her out, walking her into the office and checking out the bathroom. It was halfway between clean and filthy but there was toilet paper and Maria was eager. She waited outside the door until she was done.
When they got back outside, both mechanics were standing by the van, trying to get Mary Riordan to roll down the passenger window.
Sue’s mouth got dry. She quickly opened the rear door and pushed Maria in. The pump had stopped. She removed the nozzle and cradled it.
‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked.
‘Could be free,’ the second mechanic said. ‘This is my place. I can make that happen.’
‘How much?’ Sue asked again, this time with an edge.
‘Tell you what?’ the owner said, wiping his hands against his jeans. ‘I will even check the oil of your shitbox because I expect you know it’s burning oil and I’ll clean your windshield which is splattered with half the bugs in the county. Why don’t you and these girls come inside with us? We got beer in the cooler. It’s just about happy hour anyways.’
Sue reached into her pocket and took out a twenty-dollar bill, folded it a few times, and tossed it on to the asphalt.
‘We’re going,’ she said, backing along the van.
The other mechanic walked toward her showing a mouthful of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘We think you girls ought to stay a while.’
Sue was trying to keep calm enough to figure out something to do when she saw the owner slowly retreating toward the office and the other guy stopping in his tracks. The van had manual-crank side windows. She heard the passenger-side squeaking open.
Mary Riordan pointed Pedro’s revolver out the window.
‘I will fucking pull the trigger, you shit-for-brains pair of fuckers,’ she said in the strongest Irish accent Sue had ever heard.
Sue ran around to the driver’s side, started the ignition and burned what little rubber the worn tires still had speeding away toward the interstate.
‘Put the gun back, Mary,’ she said in a shaky voice.
The girl returned it to the glove box. The Marias were wide-eyed and confused in the rear. They hadn’t seen what had happened and hadn’t understood the English. But they’d seen the gun and Sue wasn’t sure whether they were scared or impressed.
No one spoke again until they were back on the highway when Sue said, ‘You wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, right?’
‘What do you think?’
Sue didn’t answer.
‘How come you didn’t chew me out for swearing?’ Mary said.
Sue shook her head. ‘Because I think it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard you say, Mary Riordan.’
Cal finished his McDonald’s. He remained in the booth frustrated with his slow I
nternet connection, then gave up and called Joe Murphy.
‘Yeah, I’m in Texas, on my way to meet them,’ he said. ‘I’ve only got one bar. Can you do a search for me? Steven Gottlieb’s wife drunk-called me about something she found in her husband’s calendar. It’s a meeting he had a year ago with Anning and someone with the initials BH from, she thinks, the Yale School of Engineering. Can you go on their website and have a look?’
‘Not a problem,’ Murphy said. ‘Got my computer right here. OK, any idea what department?’
‘No clue. How many do they have?’
‘Several. I’ll just have a look-see. There’s a couple hundred faculty, it appears. BH, eh?’
‘BH. A woman, I think.’
‘All right. Here’s a woman. Belinda Hartman. How’s that sound?’
‘Promising. What’s her department?’
‘Biomedical Engineering.’
‘Do me a favor, Joe? Dig into her background. See what you can find out about her professionally and personally.’
‘I’ll ring you back when I’m done. Be careful out there.’
It was five o’clock in the afternoon and Randall Anning was itching for a drink. He’d been holed up all day in his library getting inconsequential updates from Clay Carling, and he’d been getting angrier and more agitated as the day dragged on. He finally broke down and poured himself a small bourbon just to take the edge off and dialed down to the security office.
‘Where is he now?’
‘The last update had him approaching Midland,’ Carling said.
‘No sign of the girls?’
‘None, Mr Anning. You know I’ll tell you as soon as there’s contact.’
‘Make sure you do.’
Anning hung up and poured another measure. Knocking it back, he reclined in his big leather chair and swiveled it around to run his eyes over the wall of photos behind his desk.
He settled on a modest one. It was small, the color wasn’t vivid, and it was shot from a distance, making it almost impossible to make out who was in the shot. That made it very different from the other photos in the gallery, most of them beautiful portraits of Anning with celebrities and politicians, including the last six Presidents.
It was a picture shot from a helicopter of two men waving their arms on a snow-covered mountain peak beside the wreckage of an airplane.
