1 Runaway Man (8 page)

“I don’t blame you one bit, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t either.”

“And
don’t
get smart with me. I don’t like anybody trying to get smart with me.” Which already made two things Detective Lieutenant Marco Battalino really didn’t like, and we were just throwing our warm-up tosses.

“Absolutely. Whatever you say.”

We were seated at a table in a windowless interview room in the charm-free Troop L Barracks up in Litchfield. I was there to provide the lieutenant and his sergeant with my detailed witness statement. I was not, as of yet, considered a suspect or person of interest. I’d been allowed to accompany them there from Candlewood Lake in my own car. The door to the interview room was open. We were drinking coffee together. Battalino was sprawled comfortably in his chair with one foot plopped on the table. It was all quite cordial—except for the way he kept pointing out that I, a New York City private investigator, was a source of annoyance to him. Not a major source of annoyance. More of a petty one along the lines of, say, jock itch.

Battalino was a squat, baleful fireplug in his early thirties. He had a twenty-inch neck, curly black hair that grew unusually low on his forehead, a furry black strip of monobrow, furry ears, furry knuckles. The man was just really furry. As I looked at his brogan-clad foot on the table I realized how happy I was that this wasn’t open-toe sandal season. He was dressed in a shiny black suit, white shirt and muted tie. On his shoulder he wore a good-sized chip.

His sergeant was a young black man named Gallagher who was taller than Battalino, better looking, a better dresser, smarter and more polite. I anticipate big things in Gallagher’s future—as long as he doesn’t try to tell Battalino how to run an investigation. Or get smart with him.

It had taken ten minutes for a Connecticut state trooper wearing a big Smokey the Bear hat to respond to my 911 call. I’d led him to Bruce’s body in the guest cottage. As soon as he laid eyes on Bruce he called for help, which came in the form of Battalino and Gallagher from the Major Crime Squad Western District and a crew of crime scene technicians in blue-and-white cube vans. Also a death investigator from the state medical examiner’s office. The crime scene investigators were still at the house on Candlewood Lake photographing and measuring the shoeprints and tire tracks in the snow. Bruce’s body was being transported to the medical examiner’s office in Farmington for an autopsy. The Weiners had been contacted at their home in Willoughby with the awful news. They’d have to drive to Farmington in the morning to officially identify the body. The mere thought of which filled me with grief. I felt complicit in Bruce’s death. I felt like shit. But I had to set my feelings aside as I sat there with Battalino and Gallagher. Focus on concrete physical evidence such as the killer’s tire tracks. The ones that I’d been trying to tell them led north out of the Warfield driveway.

Which was when Battalino decided to set me straight: “I talk and you listen, got it? I’m not interested in your cute little theories. And I expect you to shut up unless I ask you a direct question, got it?” He gulped down some coffee, glowering at me. “Let’s talk about who hired you to find the victim.”

“Was that a direct question?” I asked Gallagher.

Gallagher nodded, stone-faced.

“We were retained by the New York City law firm of Bates, Winslow and Seymour. Peter Seymour was the partner who contacted us.”

“This was when?”

“Yesterday. He told us that Bruce Weiner had recently inherited a significant amount of money from one of their clients. I don’t know how much money. Or the client’s identity. We weren’t made privy to the details.”

“You do a lot of work for this law firm?”

“It was the first time they’d ever hired us. Seymour told us they’d been trying to contact the victim for several days at his school, Canterbury College in upper Manhattan. It was their impression that he’d left campus. They hired us to find him.”

“Why you?”

“That’s what I do. Find young people.”

Battalino smirked. “Whatever you say, tough guy. Talk us through it.”

“Through what, Lieutenant?”

“Your activities in pursuit of the deceased, leading up to tonight.”

“Okay, sure.” I took a sip of my coffee, folding my hands before me on the table. “For starters, I spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Weiner last night at their house in Willoughby. They seemed to know nothing about any inheritance. Acted quite puzzled, actually. Plus they were under the impression that Bruce
was
on campus. Mr. Weiner phoned Bruce’s roommate, Chris Warfield, while I was there and Chris assured him that Bruce was studying at the library.”

“Uh-huh. And was he?”

“No. When I spoke to Chris in person about it today I was able to ascertain that Bruce was staying at the Warfield family home on Candlewood Lake.”

“How were you able to ‘ascertain’ that?”

“By gaining his confidence.”

“So that’s something you’re good at—gaining people’s confidence?”

“I’ve had some success, yes.”

“Then how come you’re not gaining
my
confidence?”

I didn’t respond. It didn’t qualify as a direct question. Just sour gas. I wondered if Battalino had a wife. I wondered if she made him undress in the dark.

Now it was Gallagher’s turn: “Any idea why the victim went to Candlewood Lake, Ben?”

“To cram for the Gauntlet. It’s a week of midterm exams they have at Canterbury.”

“He was alone up here?”

“As far as I know.”

“Did he have any personal problems? Was he into drugs?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“So why did the roommate lie to the victim’s parents about his whereabouts?”

“I assume because Bruce asked him to.”

Gallagher thought this over. “Candlewood’s a mighty lonely spot this time of year. Maybe he had a nice, warm girl with him for company.”

I let that go right on by. Offered not one word about Bruce’s sexual orientation. And for damned sure nothing about his romantic relationship with Charles Willingham. If the finest college basketball player in America was going to get dragged into this it wasn’t going to be by me.
Volunteer nothing.
That’s another thing my dad taught me. Especially if you don’t know what in the hell you’re in the middle of. And I really, really didn’t know what in the hell I was in the middle of. “My job was to locate Bruce Weiner,” I said. “His body was still warm when I found him. I called my employer with the bad news. Then I called you.”

“He died about a half hour before you phoned it in,” Gallagher acknowledged. “The death investigator has confirmed as much. And the tire tracks and shoeprints do indicate that someone besides you has been at the scene since last night’s snowfall. Any idea who that individual might be?”

“None.”

“Is it your belief that what happened to the victim was not the result of a random break-in?”

“I seriously doubt it was a random break-in. But don’t ask me what it was because I seriously don’t know.”

Battalino glared at me across the table. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t either, Lieutenant.”

“You’re not hearing me. What I don’t like is the load of shit you’re shoveling at us. There’s something more going on here. What aren’t you telling us?”

“Lieutenant, I’m being as helpful as I can. Believe me, when you speak to Peter Seymour you’ll find him considerably less cooperative.”

“Well, yeah, he’s a high-priced New York City lawyer.” Evidently, Battalino considered them to be even more of a petty annoyance than New York City private investigators. On a par with, say, the heartbreak of psoriasis. “How much did Seymour tell you when he hired you?”

“As little as possible. He refused to name his client. And he covered his tracks by paying us through a holding company.”

Battalino stuck his lower lip out at me. “Where are you going with that? Is he going to deny he hired you?”

“I’m guessing he tells you he’s never even heard of us.”

“And now the kid who
you
say he sent you to look for is dead. Plus the kid’s laptop and cell phone are gone. That just about makes you the putz of the century, am I right?”

“You could not be more wrong,” a woman stated from the doorway behind me. It was Mom, who stood there looking like a million bucks, in her long sable coat. “Peter Seymour can try to play it that way. But it won’t wash.”

“Is that so?” Battalino eyeballed her up and down freely. “And you are?…”

“Abigail Golden of Golden Legal Services. I’m this gentleman’s employer.”

“You two are related?”

“It’s a family business. My late husband, Meyer Golden, founded it.”

Battalino raised his dense growth of monobrow, impressed. “
Briefcase Bob
Meyer Golden?” To me he said, “You’re Meyer Golden’s kid?”

“I am.”

Mom strode briskly across the interview room and grabbed my duffel coat, motioning for me to stand up. “Lieutenant, we happen to enjoy excellent relations with the NYPD. If you have any doubts regarding the veracity or professionalism of my investigator then I urge you to place a personal call to Police Commissioner Dante Feldman. His direct extension number is—”

“That won’t be necessary, ma’am,” Battalino assured her, all four paws up in the air now. He wanted his furry belly rubbed. Like he had a prayer.

“And Peter Seymour
will
acknowledge that he retained our services,” she added. “It so happens that I tape recorded our meeting. I’ll be happy to make the tape available to you should it become necessary, although I doubt it will. We’re all on the same side. We all want Bruce Weiner’s killer brought to justice.”

“That we do, ma’am,” Battalino acknowledged.

“You weren’t planning to detain my investigator overnight, were you?”

“No, ma’am, we were just about—”

“Do you have all of the information you need for the time being?”

“Yes, I believe that we’re—”

“In that case we’ll say good night now. It’s late and we have a long drive home. Come on, Benji, let’s blow this pop stand.”

And with that we were out of there.

Like I said, Mom knows how to handle men.

*   *   *

THE TEMPERATURE HAD FALLEN
into the teens there in the hills of Litchfield. An arctic wind was howling.

“How did you get out here?” I asked her, shivering as we started across the parking lot toward the Brougham.

“Wally rented me that green Toyota over there.” Wally managed the garage where we kept the Caddy. He did a profitable side business renting out gently used cars. “I asked him if anybody’s been hanging around our car lately. He said an exterminator was putting down rat poison a couple of days ago. Told Wally the building hired him. I’ve got Doug the techie coming in first thing tomorrow morning to sweep our office and apartments for bugs. Rita’s installing new firewalls in case they’ve hacked into our computers—which we have to assume they have. And I got us some prepaid cell phones.” She dug into her purse and handed me one. “Lose yours.”

I tossed my phone in a nearby trash can. It touched bottom with a loud clank. In Connecticut they actually empty their public trash cans from time to time. Imagine that.

“Now tell me what you
didn’t
tell those stateys,” Mom commanded me.

“Like what?”

“Like who would want to kill that kid.”

“My money’s on the Canterbury board of trustees. I’m guessing the college’s finances are even worse than they’ve owned up to. They desperately need to ride Charles Willingham all of the way to the Final Four and they can’t have a gay sex scandal messing things up. Word must have leaked out somehow about Charles and Bruce. Seymour was approached by someone on the board to take care of it, quietly and discreetly. He hired us to find Bruce. And the Leetes people have been shadowing us every step of the way.”

“It explains a lot,” Mom conceded, hands burrowed in her coat pockets. “Except for why Seymour walked in our door peddling that inheritance yarn.”

“A cover story. He made it up.”

“That’s not how men like Peter Seymour operate. They shade the truth. They blur it, bend it, stand it on its ear. But they don’t introduce anything that constitutes an outright lie.”

“So do you think this
is
about an inheritance?”

“Maybe so. Maybe Seymour’s client wanted Bruce found and eliminated because he, or she, stood to gain from it.”

“If that’s the case then we’ll have one hell of a time getting to the truth. In fact,” I added glumly, “I doubt we’ll ever know for sure what just happened.”

“You sound down, Bunny. Are you okay?”

“I’m not even close to okay.”

“I’m not either. That bastard made fools out of us. But we’ll get even with him. Nobody scams the Goldens and gets away with it.” She dug her keys out of her purse and unlocked the Toyota. “You lead the way home. I’ll follow you.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“And
don’t
call me boss.”

I got onto Interstate 84 and steered us back through the darkness toward the city, with the heater cranked up high and Mom glued onto my tail. She is one of the world’s worst tailgaters. Stayed no more than six feet off of my rear bumper the entire way home. I listened to WINS news radio as I drove. They had nothing on the shooting death at Candlewood Lake of Canterbury College senior Bruce Weiner. They did report that Coach John Seckla’s Canterbury Athenians had edged out the Syracuse Orangemen 76-75 at a sold-out Madison Square Garden on a buzzer beater by Charles “In Charge” Willingham, who finished the game with 44 points, eight assists, six rebounds and four steals.

The traffic began to pick up as we drew closer to the city. The city is always awake. Cars and trucks are out on the roads no matter the hour—which was just past 3:00
A.M.
when we pulled into Wally’s twenty-four-hour garage. I removed my Chief’s Special from the glove compartment, pocketed it and walked Mom home in brooding silence.

A cluster of cabs was double-parked outside of Scotty’s all-night diner. Through the wraparound corner window I could see the cabbies hunched wearily over their coffee. Hector, Scotty’s night man, was manning the big coffee urns. Most of the booths by the window were empty. But seated at one of them, gazing mournfully out at the street, was someone I recognized.