The Front (16 page)

That goes over like the proverbial lead balloon. Sort of like calling the White House and asking for the president. After much to-do, he gets a pleasant enough woman in the investigative division, finds out the man he wants is Detective Superintendent Jeremy Killien. Problem is, he's out of the country.

“You know where he can be reached?”

“Left for the United States. That's all I know. If you call back tomorrow during office hours, perhaps one of the commissioner's administrative assistants can be of service.” She gives him a direct number.

Can't be about the Brolin case. No way some detective superintendent from Scotland Yard would be flying all the way here about that. Win sits and thinks, shakes three Advils from a bottle, has a wicked headache and that detached, slow-motion feeling he gets when he's sleep-deprived, not working out or eating enough. He starts on Dr. Hunter's files, most of what's in them the same information he and Stump looked at in the records room. Well, he's not going to ask her to help him with anything now, and he goes through notes, other paperwork, sentence by sentence, page by page, comes across a name that stops him cold.

J. Edgar Hoover.

Other names, Mafia names that are vaguely familiar, scribbles in Dr. Hunter's almost unreadable hand, sketchy references to a conversation he had on April 10 with a journalist who worked for the Associated Press. Win logs on to the Internet, initiates one search after another. The reporter won several awards for a number of series he wrote about organized crime. Win starts printing out stories. Reading them is slow going, and, as he expected, the journalist died years ago, so forget talking to him.

At almost five p.m., his phone rings.

It's Tracy from the labs.

“Nothing helpful from DNA. No matches in CODIS. But you were right,” she says.

He asked her to take samples from the syringe and vial, and to examine them with the scanning electron microscope and X-ray analysis so they could magnify the particulate in the oily residue and also determine its elemental composition. Assuming the strange brownish flecks are inorganic—like copper.

“They're metal,” she confirms.

“What the hell would have copper in it? She was injecting particles of copper into herself ?”

“Not copper,” Tracy says. “Gold.”

 

 

 

What begins to emerge is a portrait of a violent tragedy that, like almost all others Win has worked, is rooted in randomness, bad timing, a seemingly insignificant incident that ends a person's life in an astonishingly brutal way.

Although he'll never prove it, because there's no one left to say, it appears that less than forty-eight hours before Janie Brolin was murdered, she set the fatal event in motion by the simple act of stepping outside her apartment door to continue an argument with her boyfriend, Lonnie Parris. Win gets up from his desk, realizes he's been at it for almost five hours. He passes empty cubicle after empty cubicle, everyone gone. On the other side of the floor are the district attorney's offices, and the door to Lamont's suite. She's there. He can feel her intense, selfish energy. He knocks, doesn't wait for an answer, walks in, shuts the door behind him.

She's standing behind her spotless glass desk, packing her briefcase, looks up at him, an uneasy expression flitting across her face. Then she's her inscrutable self again, in a smoky blue suit and a greenish-black blouse, a subtle mismatch that is so Armani.

Win helps himself to a chair, says, “I need a few minutes.”

“I don't have them.” Shutting her briefcase, loud snaps as she fastens the clasps.

“I think you might want the information before I pass it along to Scotland Yard, to Jeremy Killien. And by the way, when you recruit other agencies into my investigation, it would be polite to let me know.”

She sits, says, “You're well aware the Yard's involved.”

“Right, now I am. Because I heard about it in the news you leaked.”

“I didn't leak it. The governor did.”

“Gee. Wonder how he found out. Maybe someone leaked it to him first.”

“We're not discussing this,” she says, as only she can. Never a comment, always a command. “Obviously, you have news about our case. Good news, I hope?”

“I don't think anything about this case could be good news. For you, it's probably not good news, and if Jeremy Killien weren't on his way to the U.S. or already here, I'd advise you to let him know he probably doesn't need to waste Scotland Yard's time on . . .”

“He's on his way here? And how might you know that?”

“One of his colleagues told me. He left for the States. Don't know when and don't know why.”

“Must be for some other reason. Not because of our case.” She doesn't sound so sure of that. “I can't imagine him coming here and not discussing it with me first.”

She switches on an art glass lamp, the window behind her dark. Lights in surrounding buildings are blurred by fog. It's going to rain, and Lamont hates rain. Hates it so much he once suggested she might have a seasonal affective disorder. One Christmas he even bought her a light box that's supposed to mimic the sun and lift your mood. Didn't work. Annoyed the hell out of her. Bad weather is bad timing for bad news.

“Janie Brolin most likely suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, probably had since she was a child,” Win begins. “Maybe because her father was a doctor, it seems she resorted to a rather innovative treatment of sodium aurothiomalate. You familiar?”

“No.” Impatiently, as if she's got someplace to go and is uptight about it.

“Gold salts. Used to threat chronic arthritis. Hard to say what dosage. Could have been ten to fifty milligrams weekly. Could have been less at longer intervals, administered by injection. Possible side effects include blood disorders, dermatitis, a proclivity to bruise easily—which might explain the excessive bruising all over her body. Plus corneal chrysiasis . . .”

Lamont shrugs, one of her “you've lost me” looks. Her way of treating him as if she's bored and he's stupid. She's getting more tense by the moment, intermittently glancing up at the Venetian glass clock on the wall across from her desk.

“Gold deposits in the corneas, which don't cause visual disturbances—in other words, don't impair your vision. But upon examination with a light, you see these minute brownish metallic flecks. What she had on autopsy,” Win says.

“So what?”

“So everything adds up to her not being blind but having photosensitivity, another possible side effect from gold therapy. And people with sensitivity to light tend to wear dark glasses.”

“And so what?”

“And so she wasn't blind.”

“And so what?”

“And you just don't want to hear it, do you?”

“Hear your tangled thoughts? I don't have time to work my way through them.”

“I believe Janie Brolin was a Mob hit. As was her boyfriend, Lonnie Parris. Her apartment was in the heart of Watertown's Mafiaville. She was fully aware of what was going on around her because she wasn't blind, meaning she sure as hell would have seen who was at her door the morning of April fourth, meaning it probably was someone she trusted enough to let in. Not necessarily her boyfriend, Lonnie Parris, who no more murdered her than the Boston friggin' Strangler did. I think by the time Lonnie showed up to drive her to Perkins, she was already dead. He walked in and found her.”

Lamont says, “I'm waiting for whatever you're basing all of your assumptions on. In fact, I'm waiting for any of this to make sense.”

“Two days earlier. April second,” Win says. “A Mob underboss who happened to live across the street from Janie used contacts at the Registry of Motor Vehicles to get a license plate run so he could get the address of a certain juror who was a holdout in a not-guilty verdict. One of the underboss's boys was on trial for murder. In addition to being unhelpful, this juror also made an unfortunate comment, insulted this same underboss. Look it up. Plenty was written about it in the press.”

Lamont. That stare of hers. As unwavering as a cat's.

“The inappropriate remark implied this Mob underboss and J. Edgar Hoover had a ménage à trois with another high-ranking FBI official. By the way, not that such things hadn't been said before. But in this instance, the underboss in question—Janie's neighbor—had a couple of his guys show up at the juror's residence, abducted him, brought him back to the underboss's house. Not about persuading him to change his mind as much as it was about revenge. He ends up dead. His body goes in the car trunk, never to be seen again. That much is known from other cases later on, subsequent testimony from informants, et cetera.”

“And has to do with what?”

“Has to do with the fact that on that particular night, April second, according to notes I've come across, various reports, and so on, Janie and her boyfriend were heard arguing in her apartment. This argument led outside, culminating in his storming off in his car.”

“Maybe I'm just obtuse,” Lamont says.

“She was home the night the juror was murdered across the damn street and loaded in a car trunk, Monique. And she wasn't blind. And anybody who knew her would have been aware of that. We'll probably never know exactly what happened, but it's more than possible that on the morning of April fourth, one of the Mob guys showed up at her place. Probably a neighbor, someone she was acquainted with. She opens her door, and that's it. Murdered, staged to look like a sexual homicide and a burglary. Without knowing he's part of the scenario, Lonnie shows up, walks in, makes this horrible discovery, calls the police. Boom. Mob guys show up, grab him, and off he goes.”

“Why?”

“He probably saw the same thing Janie saw on April second. He was a liability. Or a scapegoat. Make it look as if he killed her and fled, and then accidentally gets hit by a car. Problem is, he wasn't hit. He was run over. How did that happen? He pass out while crossing the street in the early-morning hours after Janie was killed?”

“Drunk?”

“Tox was negative for drugs and alcohol. Good plan. Her death is explained. His death is explained. The end.”

“The end? That's it?”

“That's it. Your Boston Strangler theory? As much as it breaks my heart? Forget it. Better call the governor. Better call the Yard. Better call a press conference. Since your international case has already been in the news from here to the moon. And England's got nothing to do with this except it lost a nice young woman to some Mafia dirtbags who happened to be her neighbors while she was enjoying a year in the States. She would have been better off blind.”

“And that never came out at the time of the investigation? That she wasn't really blind?” Lamont asks.

“People make assumptions. Maybe nobody asked or cared or thought it was relevant. And then there's the cover-up factor. The police obviously cooperating with the Mob, since it appears that's what this is about.”

“If she wasn't blind, why the hell would she work with them?” Lamont asks.

“The blind, I assume you mean.”

“Why? If she wasn't?”

“She had a disease that caused her suffering every day. Changed her life. Limited it in some ways. Made her try harder, more courageous, too. Miracles and the Midas Touch. And nothing really worked. Why wouldn't she care about the pain and suffering of others?”

“Wasn't worth it. That's for damn sure,” Lamont says. “Still a big story. It's all about how you spin it. Let's don't be coy. Better it doesn't come from a press release or press conference, which nobody really trusts, the public doesn't. Especially these days.” She smiles as her next brainstorm hits. “A college reporter.”

“You're not serious.”

“Perfect. Absolutely serious,” she says, getting up, grabbing her briefcase. “Not from me but from you. I want you to get with Cal Tradd.”

“You're going to place a story like this in the friggin'
Crimson
? A student newspaper?”

“He investigated it, worked with you, with us, and what a great story. Becomes a story about a story. Just the sort of thing people love with this ‘everybody's a journalist, everybody's the star in his own movie' craze. Reality TV, YouTube. Average Joe saves the day. Yes, indeed. And, of course, the general media will pick it up, will go all over the place, and everybody's happy.”

Win walks out after her, slides his iPhone off his belt, remembers the piece of paper in his wallet. Gets it out, unfolds it, is entering Cal's cell phone number when he notices something as the elevator doors close, taking Lamont down to the lower level of the courthouse, to her car. He holds up the piece of white notepaper, tilts it this way and that, can barely see indented letters, the faintest shadow behind the telephone numbers Cal wrote in a very neat hand.

A
T,
and
AG,
and what looks like a
W
followed by an exclamation point. He runs back into his office, grabs a sheet of printing paper, a pencil, remembering his conversation with Stump inside the mobile crime lab, their examination of the note used in the most recent bank robbery. A note exactly like three others in three earlier bank robberies. Neatly written in pencil on a four- by six-inch sheet of white paper, and he uses a ruler, draws a rectangle four by six inches—same size as the piece of paper Cal gave him. Win works it out, lining up the indented letters with what he remembers about the bank robbery note Stump showed him.

EMPTY CASH DRAWER IN BAG. NOW! I HAVE A GUN.

The image on the surveillance tape. The robber was about Cal's height but looked heavier. No problem. Wear several layers of clothes under your baggy warm-up suit. Darker skin. Dark hair. A million ways to do that. Including mascara—oldest trick in the book, and washes off in minutes. A quick search of the National Criminal Information Center, NCIC. Cal Tradd. His date of birth and absence of a criminal record, explaining why there are no prints or DNA on file—not that he's ever left either, it would seem, except, perhaps, a coppery print on a disposable camera package that luminol reacted to as if the print were left in blood.