Even the Wind: A Jonas Brant Thriller (12 page)

 
``You like it too much.’’

 
``What do you mean? Like what?’’

 
Marcellus wiped her hands as she finished the last piece of pizza. She balled the napkin she’d been holding and tossed it into the empty pizza box.

 
``I’ll throw that out later. So what do I like too much, Jonas?’’

 
``The money. The house. The cars. The vacations.’’

 
Marcellus lived in Newton. She and her husband owned a five-bedroom Colonial on more than seven acres of land.
 
The place was spectacular. Coastal Living had featured the house in one of their fall issues featuring distinctive homes of New England. She’d strutted for weeks after that one.

``I’m not quite as shallow as you think I am, Jonas. I have some integrity left.’’

 
``I’m sure you do.’’

 
Marcellus appraised her brother, unsure how to take the sarcastic response.
 

 
``We can’t all be Mr. Perfect, little brother.’’

 
``What’s that supposed to mean?’’

 
Marcellus shrugged. ``Whatever you want it to mean.’’

 
She drained the last of her wine, placed the glass in the kitchen sink and rinsed. Carefully, she dried the glass with a tea towel and returned it to the rack below the kitchen cabinets. Halogen lights set into the ceiling shone a spotlight onto the glasses. The effect was subtle, but mesmerizing.
 

 
``So what are you doing here?’’ Brant asked.

 
``I need a place to stay. I can’t go home and I don’t have anywhere else to go.’’

 
``Really, Marcellus? You’re really going to do this?’’

 
Marcellus looked intently at her brother, a pleading look in her eyes.

 
``Just for a few days. I could look after Benji while you’re saving the world. I’d like spending more time with him.’’

 
``What about yours? Don’t they need you?’’

 
Marcellus had two boys of her own. They were older than Ben. Ten and 14. The oldest was a terror. He’d been kicked out of the private academy he’d been attending. He’d trolled one of his fellow students through a social media app Brant had never heard of. After telling the other kid to go kill himself, he’d been reported to the local cops. They’d settled the matter quietly, with Marcellus’s son dropping out to enroll in the local public school.

 
``They’ll be fine,’’ she finally said in reply. ``It’ll do them some good to do things for themselves.’’

 
``Just for a few days. And I’m not getting involved.’’

 
``What? With me and David?’’

 
Brant nodded.

 
``Oh, God. No. I wouldn’t want you to.’’

 
``I’ll get you some clean sheets. You can use the extra bedroom.’’

 
Good to his word, Brant made up the bed with a spare set of white cotton sheets they kept in reserve for guests. Not that they had many. Brant searched his memory to recall the last time anyone had stayed in the house. Besides Mrs. Rodrigues, the list was short.
 

 
``What’s bothering you, Jonas?’’ Marcellus asked after Brant had laid out some towels.

 
``Nothing.’’

 
``I know you, brother. You seemed edgy with Ben tonight. I noticed that last time we were all together, too.’’

 
``That was Thanksgiving, Marcellus. That was a long time ago.’’

 
``Wound still bothering you?’’

 
Brant rubbed his shoulder.
 

 
``I’m okay,’’ he said. ``Bothers me sometimes, but I can deal with it.’’

 
``When are you going to see a doctor? I mean about that bullet in your head?’’

 
``When I get a chance.’’

 
``Yeah?’’ Marcellus shot her brother an icy look.
 

 
``Really, I will.’’

 
``When’s the last time you saw him?’’ she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

 
``Who?’’

 
``You know who I mean.’’ She folded her arm, offering a measure of protection.
 

 
``Dad?’’

 
Marcellus nodded yes. Of course she’d meant their father.

 
``Been a couple of months.’’

 
``You’re never going to forgive him, are you?’’

 
Brant pursed his lips. ``Do we have to have the same conversation?’’

 
``Why won’t you let it go?’’

 
``You’re avoiding my question.’’

 
``I don’t know how to answer,’’ Brant said with feeling.

 
The truth was, he’d asked himself the same question many times. Could he forgive their father for being a drunk, for being abusive, for falling short of the rigid standards the old man had set for himself and for others?

 
Life hadn’t been easy in the Brant household, not for Jonas, his sister, or his father for that matter. Jonas’s mother had died early. A particularly nasty bout of typhoid fever. They’d been on assignment in Indonesia and had taken a few days of holiday in the bush. His mother’s appetite had suddenly disappeared. She’d had headaches, aches and pains, diarrhea. Her body temperature soared. She’d have survived had they been at the embassy compound in Jakarta. Instead, they’d been isolated, no access to doctors and no way to communicate with the outside. The illness was too far advanced by the time they’d returned to the city, her symptoms too severe. She died within three weeks. Brant had been 10.

 
His father was never the same, nor was their relationship. After the funeral, postings followed in France and Japan, where Brant had learned to pick up some of the language. Life seemed to be returning to normal, but Jerry Brant was struggling. Drunken episodes accelerated. Jonas became the target, the old man often pulling him from bed in the early hours of the morning, forcing the boy to finish meaningless chores.
 

 
After that, Brant and his sister had been shipped back to the U.S., where they’d been separated, each heading off to a series of different boarding schools. Jerry Brant remained abroad, the family essentially split apart. The distance between Brant and his father only grew worse with the passing of time.
 

 
``We should go out there,’’ Marcellus said.

 
``Next month.’’

 
``I mean day after tomorrow. It’s Saturday.’’

 
Brant grimaced, defeated. He had no quick response, no easy way to avoid being dragged by his sister to their father’s nursing home.

 
``We’ll get breakfast so we won’t have to eat in that awful dining room at the home.’’

 
Brant began to protest, but thought better of it.
 

 
The next day, he was in the squad room early, downing a coffee as the day crew arrived. Marcellus had promised to take Ben to daycare, leaving him free to hit the gym and grab breakfast before the start of his shift.

He looked up from his computer as Clatterback and Malloy took their seats opposite his.
 

 
``Let’s start with what we’ve got,’’ he said as the two junior officers took notebooks from their desk drawers. ``I’ll begin.’’

 
He’d requisitioned a white board from supplies. Jolly had agreed they could have one of the spare conference rooms, if not for the duration of the investigation then at least until they could get the ball rolling. Some cops preferred to create a link chart on a computer. Not Brant. Even if it took up more space in the squad room, he preferred the old-fashioned approach.

 
``The players so far,’’ Brant said, affixing photocopies of Allison Carswell and Susan Chua to the board.
 

 
Next, he wrote the names Genepro Molecular Inc. and Meredith Financial Services in black ink, circled and connected them to the two women. More names and circles filled the board as he wrote down the evidence collected so far, including the Bible quote they’d found underlined by Carswell, the handgun they’d found by her bedside, the telephone bills, and the computer CDs. More bubbles were reserved for other players, including Carswell’s unknown boyfriend and the fact that she’d had a baby. Hospital records warranted a separate bubble.

 
``What’d the gun tell us?’’ Clatterback asked.

 
``Not much. We pulled one set of prints and they belonged to Carswell,’’ Brant said. ``It’s stored in evidence. We need to run it through the registry, find out where she got it.’’

 
``You think she was scared and that’s why she had the gun?’’ Malloy asked.

 
``Could be. What are we missing?’’ Brant asked when he’d finished a few more lines on the whiteboard.

 
``The shoes,’’ Clatterback said without hesitation.

 
``What about them?’’ Malloy asked.

 
``How’d she pay for them? That deserves a bubble, don’t you think?’’

 
``Good point, Junior,’’ Brant said, scribbling the name of the shoe store and the type of shoes Carswell had worn onto the white board. Clatterback smiled broadly, obviously pleased with himself.

 
``This is just like
Law and Order
,’’ Clatterback said with enthusiasm. Malloy rolled her eyes.

 
``Hold that thought, Junior,’’ Brant said, gently admonishing the younger detective. ``What else?’’

 
``What do we know about Genepro?’’ Malloy asked as she rapped the board with her knuckles.

 
``We know the founder,’’ Brant said. He retrieved the business card given by Sheila Ritchie and wrote the name Markus Schroder on the board beside the company’s title. ``We know they were working on targeted cancer therapies. We also know they were short on money.’’

 
Brant wrote a dollar sign in a bubble next to the one he’d drawn for Genepro. He filled the space between the two with an oversized question mark.

 
``What about Carswell’s background?’’

 
``Right.’’

 
Brant scribbled annotations, adding Carswell’s parents, her Catholic background and the timeline of her involvement with Genepro to the board.

 
``Where was she before Genepro?’’ Malloy asked.

 
``That’s a good question. Where? We don’t know that yet.’’

 
Brant drew a line at the bottom of the whiteboard in black ink and stood back, admiring his handiwork.

 
``That’s the timeline. We’ll fill it in as we get more information. Any other links in the chart, we’ll add those as we get them. This’ll do for now.’’

 
The squad room began to fill with more arrivals as the day shift gathered speed. Julian March appeared from nowhere, surveyed the squad room as if taking notes and made an immediate beeline for the conference room.

 
``What does he want?’’ Clatterback asked as he watched March approach.

 
``Probably has the conference room booked,’’ Malloy said.

 
``He can have it as long as he doesn’t mess with my whiteboard,’’ Brant said, stone faced and serious. Julian March was the last of his worries at the moment.
 

 
March tapped on the edge of doorframe for effect. ``Jolly wants to see you. Pronto.’’

 
``What have I done?’’ Brant asked.

 
``Wrong question. What haven’t you done is more like it.’’

 
The basement seemed as good a place as any for the division gym. It was a windowless, lifeless place with fluorescent lighting, exposed ductwork and concrete walls. The equipment was equally as spare. A lat machine, dumbbells, a fixed weight bar, a squat stand and two lifecycles. The air was stale and tinged with body odor. A modern-day torture chamber.
 

 
``Twenty years on the department,’’ Jolly said, wheezing as sweat dripped from his forehead onto the floor. ``You’d think politics would be my only impediment to the big house. But fitness? Life isn’t fair.’’

 
``In my experience, that is true,’’ Brant said, almost shouting to be heard over the buzz of a fan.

 
``Grab a towel. Lift some weights. You look like you could use some exercise.’’

 
``I’m fine, sir. I like to get outside for my cardio.’’

 
``Suit yourself.’’

 
Jolly dipped his head as he pumped. He was sitting in the saddle of a lifecycle, churning furiously as he attacked each pedal stroke with the fervor of a religious convert. He was dressed in sweats and a loose-fitting t-shirt ripped at the collar. A sweatband held back what was left of his hair. A towel draped his neck.

 
``You didn’t come here to see me punish myself. What do you want?’’

 
``I thought you wanted me?’’

 
Jolly raised an eyebrow. ``Did I? So I did.’’

 
``Is it about the Carswell case?’’

 
Jolly stopped pedaling and patted his face with the towel. ``See that folder over there?’’

 
Brant followed the captain’s line of sight to the far wall and a small bookshelf stuffed with magazines and newspapers. A single manila file folder sat on the middle shelf.