The Chessman (27 page)

“Compromised,” Cady replied. “Bullshit.”

“Did I catch you at a bad time, Agent Cady? I sense hostility.”

Cady gave up scanning the hordes of travelers. The Chessman could be three restrooms away, in the airport parking lot, or ten miles down the road. He turned to information gathering mode.

“If Gottlieb’s not on you, then why do you care? Why come out of the woodwork?”

“I’m being framed to steer you in the wrong direction.”

“We’d have seen through the copycat, Westlow. You know that. So I’m curious, why tip your cards? Now we know for fact you’re in the weeds.”

“The night at the hotel—you were well on the way to that conclusion.”

“I could have pressed a case, but there would always be lingering doubt and no small amount of disbelief. But you’ve removed all uncertainty. That’s not only a poor chess move, it’s a blunder. And you don’t blunder, so again—why do you care?”

Silence ensued.

“For Christ’s sake, Westlow, Marly’s been in the grave for thirteen years,” Cady said, hoping to pinch a nerve. “That’s a mighty long stretch to keep at this.”

More silence ensued. Cady slowed his pace, his focus now on the phone and not the endless parade of air travelers.

“You still there, Westlow?”

“Love doesn’t carry an expiration date, Agent Cady…as though it were a carton of milk.”

Cady stepped out of the flowing traffic to chew that one over. He wasn’t sure what to think and next went after the red flag Westlow had raised.

“Why do you say the FBI is compromised?”

“Have you got a pen?”

“Yes.”

“You need to take down an address.”

Cady scribbled on the palm of his hand. He began to ask Westlow about the address, but received a dial tone in response.

Cady walked back to his boarding gate. Terri stood waiting for him. Passengers had begun boarding the airliner.

The two stared at each other for several seconds.

“I know,” Terri said finally. “Go get him, Galahad.”

Cady smiled dryly, without amusement. “Good one.”

Chapter 34

One Week Ago

“M
y God—you killed them.”

“I have no clue what you’re rattling on about, Drake.”

“Why Elaine Kellervick?” Hartzell’s face had emptied of all color. Legs like rubber bands, he slumped into the dining room chair on the opposite end of the table from the Coordinator. “I had her stalled out. I’m sure you
listened in
on our phone call.”

“Are we talking about the tragic victims of that serial killer again…the one they call the Chessman?”

Hartzell was exhausted, running on fumes since the news broke last week of C. Kenneth Gottlieb’s assassination in his Georgetown domicile. They couldn’t have, Hartzell thought, not even with all his whining about the soon-to-be SEC Chairman to this gangster sitting across the table from him. It was too insane to contemplate and would only buy them—what?—a month at best before the president installed a new pit bull. Then, as the story unfolded in the press, it appeared to have been done by a copycat of that killer who had terrorized the Eastern Seaboard some years earlier. Then came hints that the original Chessman had never died, had merely passed into remission, and that the authorities had been cuckolded with smoke and mirrors.

Hartzell had a discomforting chat with the Coordinator when he next checked in; a full day after the Gottlieb story exploded onto the headlines and became the primary sustenance of all the cable channels twenty-four-seven. After some awkward verbal fencing as Hartzell hemmed and hawed and tried to feel him out on the matter, the man from Chicago squinted at Hartzell in bewilderment.

“What are you driving at, Drake? You think I had Gottlieb killed?” The Coordinator slapped the table and began laughing hysterically. “That’s rich. You’re the one who’s been bitching about the son of a bitch for weeks, not me. Maybe I should be asking where you were the other night.”

After another round of cackling, the Coordinator informed Hartzell that, in his humble opinion, Gottlieb’s death was a coincidence, an odd twist of fate, and that the Chessman in all likelihood deeply missed sponging up all of the bullshit media attention after his self-imposed sabbatical, and that he almost surely yearned to mark his reemergence with a tsunami-sized splash, and by killing Gottlieb who, as the soon-to-be SEC Chairman, had garnered a significant amount of air time on the alphabet channels in the past month, the Chessman would accomplish exactly that.

Yet Hartzell continued to lie awake at night, turning that notion over in his mind, dissecting it, holding it up to the light and looking at it from every possible angle. It did make a certain degree of sense; however, Hartzell knew that the Coordinator would want to give him something to hang his hat on in order for him to continue his
work
with their accountants. Hartzell also knew that his bellyaching about Gottlieb and the woman was meant to hurry Fiorella’s extortion along, to force a timeframe, to create a light at the end of the tunnel before he’d been bled dry. On the surface, anyway. But below the surface, Hartzell had voiced those issues to the Coordinator so they would believe that these were the concerns that were first and foremost in Hartzell’s mind. They would believe these to be the issues on which he spun his tires, so they would be looking off in one direction and never notice how he had placed the pea under a different shell.

The Coordinator was a skilled liar and an even better manipulator. No way the man was going to confess to having ordered a hit on a sitting SEC Commissioner in order to buy them more time to squeeze Hartzell. But killing Gottlieb and pinning it on the Chessman was so absurdly over the top as to be sheer madness. Of course, the flip side of madness is genius, and Hartzell knew Fiorella had some end goal in mind. Plus, Fiorella had a certain employee stealthy enough to make the unthinkable happen without so much as a single bark from a neighborhood dog. Hartzell kept thinking that there was something he was missing, something out of focus.

And so it went for Hartzell through sleepless night after sleepless night.

But now, the news of the Elaine Kellervick killing left no room for doubt.

“You’re barking mad.” Hartzell stared at the table and whispered, “You’re all barking mad.”

“Let me give you a little friendly advice in return for everything that you’ve done for us. One must be most careful in both words and deeds, Drake. From everything I’ve heard about the Chessman, he’s one sharp thumbtack. Imagine if he lifted a little something from each of the crime scenes, some trinket or small piece of property that could easily be traced back to the victim. It could be most damning if these trinkets appeared at inopportune times in inopportune places. Yes, Drake,” the Coordinator enunciated slowly in a hushed tone and penetrating stare that spoke volumes about the delicate balancing act necessary for survival, “one must be most careful in both words and deeds.”

Chapter 35

A
ssistant Director Jund got a no-knock on the Richmond address that the Chessman had provided Cady. The apartment was rented to one Dennis Swann, but the picture from the Virginia DMV was certainly Jake Westlow—Cady could tell, even with the mid-length black hair and round John Lennon glasses. It was sure as hell Westlow.

The address proved to be a cheap and lonely efficiency, one of one that sat above a cut-rate furniture shop in a depressed and dusty business district on the city’s ever-deteriorating north side. Cady understood immediately why Westlow chose to rent this place. First, the side entrance was inconspicuous; no one would assume an apartment was there to begin with. Second, although the businesses in this part of town appeared to be doing everything they could to eke out a meager living, everything shut down at five and the place was a ghost town by seven at night. Third, Westlow’s main window and corner bathroom window covered both intersections. Fourth, Cady discovered that Westlow had jerry-rigged both windows to pop out at a moment’s notice and there were no pesky screens to fiddle with were one in a hurry. Five, although invisible from the street, Cady could tell that Westlow had chipped out minor crevices in the brickwork above both windows. The pattern of the crevices would allow an athlete to rock climb to the rooftop of the furniture building in seconds. And once up on the second-story roof, he’d be a block away moments later.

All in all a nice hidey-hole, nondescript, secluded, with an excellent view of any potential outside activities…and an escape hatch.

The door to Westlow’s most recent abode was new, must have been replaced, as it certainly didn’t blend with the rest of the surroundings. With a galvanized steel frame over two inches thick, the twelve-gauge steel door included a six-point locking system plus latch with security bolts on the hinge side of the door. The security door had been a bitch for his team to breach, even with the hydraulic spreader-cutter—a bit overkill for your garden-variety crack head seeking plasma TVs and cheap jewelry to pawn off in order to afford the next fix. The security door had in all likelihood cost more than anything Westlow had stuffed away inside the dank and shabby efficiency.

In Westlow’s world as Dennis Swann, Cady thought to himself, every second counted.

The apartment had been emptied of most furniture. A twin mattress with no coverings lay in front of the window. A card table and folding chair sat flush against the bathroom wall, above the room’s only electrical outlet. Cady figured it served as both desk and dining table.

The only other two items that the federal agents discovered in the nearly vacant apartment were in the kitchen. An empty bottle of mustard sat by itself on the top rack of the refrigerator. In the ice box, however, the agents hit pay dirt.

A severed hand in a freezer bag.

“The prints off your frostbitten hand belong to a Marco Palma,” Jund said in a voice above a whisper to Agents Cady and Preston, sitting in guest chairs across his desk. The door was closed. “After perusing young Palma’s altogether riveting rap sheet, I made a call to an old friend in OCTF.”

OCTF was the New York State Organized Crime Task Force.

“Turns out that Marco ‘Polo’ Palma is, or suffice it to say was, a sgarrista, that is, a suspected foot soldier for the capo de tutti capi—Fedele Moretti—the boss of all bosses in New York City. I think we’ve all heard of him.”

“My God,” Agent Preston said. “The Chessman is now killing members of the New York underground?”

“It appears that way. Although I do wonder where the rest of Palma wound up.”

“We’ll probably never know,” Cady said. “But Westlow left the hand to tell us something.”

“Tell us what?”

“Remember his warning about the FBI being compromised?”

“That’s more of his smoke and mirrors, Agent Cady. Westlow wants us to chase our tails and give him time to make his next move.”

“Maybe so. But he gave up Dennis Swann, turned in his own false identity because he wanted us to find
that hand
, identify it…and realize what we may be up against.”

“That the Moretti family used a copycat to kill Gottlieb?” Preston asked. “What possible motive could they have?”

The three exchanged looks of confusion.

“Congrats, you two,” the AD said. “I wish the signpost up ahead read
The Twilight Zone
; unfortunately, we’ve just crossed over into the city limits of clusterfuck. Turns out I will be greeting shoppers at The Home Depot after all.”

“If the FBI has been instrumental in bringing down organized crime via infiltration,” Cady said, “why wouldn’t that concept work in reverse?”

Agent Preston agreed. “All it would take is one person with mid-level security clearance to find and feed data on a multitude of investigations.”

“We’ve been pretty tight-lipped on this case from the get-go, more out of media concerns. And we’ve got to consider that it’s more of Westlow’s misdirection.” Jund shrugged. “However, outside of the tech running the print, only the three of us know the identity of the victim in Westlow’s apartment, and it’s going to goddamn well stay that way until we can untangle this knot. Nothing leaves this room unless I say so. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the special agents agreed.

Jund shrugged again. “I’ll talk further with OCTF, gingerly pick their brains; see if they’ve heard any chatter or know what Moretti’s been up to lately. If there are dots to be connected, they’ll know about them.”

“What about the phone, Agent Cady?”

“I’m keeping Terri’s cell on me at all times in case Westlow calls again, but the trace back was a dead end. He used a throwaway.”

“Westlow’s been Dennis Swann for almost three years. That’s an interesting development. Put everyone on Swann. There might be something there, something he left behind, that we can use to nail his ass.”

Chapter 36

“V
ince and David are on a red-eye to Chicago next Wednesday and they insist on taking us out to celebrate that evening. They’ve already made a dinner reservation for the lot of us at Seppi’s.”

“Pity to ruin Seppi’s by dining with those swine,” said Lucy.

“Best to sit back and eat to your heart’s content on account of it being your last meal. Vince and Dave will hop a cab to the airport. I did them one last favor and upgraded their tickets to first class. Nice chaps, actually, and quite taken with me, but a tad despondent of late. I doubt they’re in the know—after all, they’re only the accountants—but they follow the news and I suspect they see what’s coming.”

“What’s coming, Papa?”

“I imagine that you and I and St. Nick and the Coordinator will take a limo ride, chartered of course, for the night’s celebration, only I expect the chauffer will turn out to be the quiet charmer with the straight edge we met that first night. And I imagine we’ll be shuttled off to a safe house, somewhere out of the city, a place with a PC, an Internet connection, no nosy neighbors, and thick walls. And I imagine that I’ll have to make a mammoth down payment out of our remaining nest egg in order for them to kill you quickly…then they’ll find out how many pennies I have left while your personal caveman starts prying off a finger or two.”