Green Kills (9 page)

“Indeed a very sad occurrence.” Ronnie got to his feet. “If
there’s anything else I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to ask. Now,
if you’ll excuse me, I have a few urgent matters to attend to.”

“Thanks for your cooperation. If you can think of anything else
that might help us, please contact me,” said Quincy and handed Ronnie his
business card.

“Gladly,” answered Ronnie and shook both their hands, already
calculating his next move.

Sunnyvale, October 18, 2013,
11:10 AM

“
What
’
s the
matter?
”
Ronnie tensed up as he entered the
room and found Liah sitting on the bed, her knees against her chest,
arms wrapped around them. “Did Gadi say something stupid?”

“While the reason for being here is absolutely clear to me, deep
down, when I decided to join you, I was hoping for a little intimacy.
A trip to Sausalito, good food, walking aimlessly at sunset and
having lots of sex.
This tragedy and the police investigation caught me
off guard, emotionally speaking. It’s not your fault, but…” Disappointment
trickled into her voice.

“I need to organize my thoughts before we’ll be able to go out
and have some time for ourselves.” Ronnie hugged her feet and leaned his head
on her knees, yearning for her touch. After a long minute of futile waiting, he
went over to his computer. Liah came and stood behind him and glanced at the
document he was reading. It contained Christian’s list of appointments, as he
had emailed it to Ronnie during their meeting. She noticed immediately that
only a single appointment had been scheduled for Friday. It was the meeting
with McGrady, a senior partner at Accord Ventures. The appointment with him was
supposed to run for five hours, and in a remark, Christian had added that
McGrady would be joined by the staff that conducted the due diligence on TDO —
as well as with representatives of the consulting firm the fund had hired. The
rest of the appointments, three in all, were all squeezed to fit into Monday’s
schedule.

“Why couldn’t Christian arrange his appointments so that he
would be home for the weekend?” Liah wondered, although she shouldn’t have been
surprised considering all the weekends she’d had to spend by herself over the
past year.

“Friday’s appointment was very important. Accord is the fund
that was supposed to lead and invest a considerable amount of money in the
current financial round. I think Christian wanted to give them all the time in
the world and, if need be, to continue the meetings over the weekend. Perhaps
he planned to fly back to his family for the weekend, if no more meetings were
necessary. From the conversation I had with him while we drove together to the
airport, it was clear his twin sons were the most important things in his
life.”

“He had twins?” she asked, shocked.

“Yes, they just celebrated their first birthday a month ago.
Heartbreaking,” his voice became hoarse, “but it also raises a big question
mark. What kind of man would let problems at work cause his two small children
to become fatherless?”

A silence settled in the room. Suddenly, Liah didn’t find the
idea of going out to be so appealing. She hugged Ronnie to her, liberating both
her thoughts and the tears that began to wash her face.

“I’m sorry,” Liah murmured, and Ronnie felt her sweet breath on
his cheek. “It was insensitive of me to pressure you to go out. But I really
think you need to take a break, even for just a few hours. Perhaps we’ll go out
to do some jogging? I think it could help us both to clear our heads. And
besides, I don’t understand what you’re chasing now. You’ve already made it
with your own company. You’re not lacking the money. So what’s driving you?”

“Money is not the issue. Ever since I can remember, it’s always
been important for me to do what’s right and not necessarily what other people
think is right and
bring
to closure every task I
undertake in the best possible way. If it’s important for you to name this
quality, perhaps ‘determination’ will do it.”

“You know, ‘determination’ is how a person would name his own
quality. The rest of the world will simply call it stubbornness. And you, as we
well know, are as stubborn as a mule.”

“As far as I can recall from my days in the kibbutz, a mule is
actually a very nice animal.” Ronnie laughed.

“Perhaps on the kibbutz, but have you
ever
seen
a mule in Manhattan?”

“Whatever. As I said before —”

The phone on the table vibrated to indicate a new text message.
Come to Pete’s Café at 11:45
,
Gadi instructed. Liah Googled “Pete’s Café.” After a series of energetic
typing outbursts, she pushed back from the table and said, “The coffee shop is
about three miles from the hotel. How about we run there? Gadi will probably be
able to drive us back, and if he won’t — we can always run back as well.”

“You’re as efficient as you are beautiful.” Ronnie smiled
lovingly, and they both went to change into their running clothes.

They ran silently, both absorbed in their own thoughts. Ronnie
matched the pace of his running to Liah’s while stealing concerned glances at her,
looking for signs of pain. A half hour after they’d left the hotel, they
entered Pete’s Café, covered with sweat from head to toe. The coffee
shop was crowded with small groups of young people, all trying to shout loud
enough to overcome the terrible acoustics. Gadi sat at a corner table, three
glasses in front of him. Ronnie and Liah made their way toward him. A moment
after they sat down, a young man wearing Bermuda shorts and an undershirt
approached them and asked if he could take the remaining chair. Liah smiled at
him approvingly and the guy smiled back.

“Leave it here,” Gadi snarled at him. The guy raised his hands
apologetically and left.

“You couldn’t find a louder place for us to meet?” asked Liah.
“Or did you choose it so the bad guys won’t be able to eavesdrop on our
conversation?” she added with half a smile.

“Truth is
,
I wasn’t thinking anything
of the sort. But I remembered the last time you visited San Francisco, you told
me you loved the iced coffee at the Pete's there. I took an educated guess that
you’d run here and that it’d take you about half an hour. I ordered your
favorite coffee about a minute ago. No sugar, of course,” he added and pushed
the glasses at them.

Liah blew him a theatrical kiss. “You’re quite an asset. If
Ronnie wasn’t in love with me, I wouldn’t blame him if he came out of the
closet for you.”

“Who told you he hadn’t done that already before he even met
you?” Gadi asked with an emotionless expression.

“What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” said Liah in a surprisingly
serious tone.

Gadi gave her an inquisitive stare.

“Are you children quite finished?” asked Ronnie.

“O’Hara processed the information I sent him, and less than an
hour ago, he sent me the results.” Gadi returned to his report. Liah and Ronnie
leaned a bit toward him and looked at him expectantly. “Obviously, he wasn’t
able to run a background check on all the hotel guests in such a short time, so
he chose the easy way. He assumed most of the people who stayed in the hotel
had some high-tech background or were working in industries related to the
field, so they were all likely to have LinkedIn accounts. Sure enough, a quick
checkup that cross-referenced the names, telephone numbers and email addresses
they’d left at the hotel when checking in verified this assumption and provided
a preliminary explanation for their presence at the hotel. He ran a more
thorough background check on the five guests he wasn’t able to associate with
the industry. Two couples came to visit their children, working for local start-up
companies, and two others were construction contractors working on an office
building in the city. The only guest who aroused suspicion was one John Brown,
about whom no information could be found. The telephone number he’d left is
disconnected and the house number of the street address he gave in Chicago, on
South Franklin Street, doesn’t exist. In a checkup O’Hara conducted, it turned
out a man answering to that name had rented a vehicle for two days and paid in
cash. The credit card he left as a deposit belongs to a bank account under his
name, but it’s unclear whether the account has any available funds in it. No
less surprising, is that no one at the car rental company can recall what the
mysterious John Brown looked like. Even our curious desk clerk seems to have
come down with a case of temporary amnesia, and no wage increase could cause
him to remember any identifying details,” Gadi finished and leaned back, a
troubled look in his eyes.

“Even if we assume he was involved” — Liah hesitated — “what
form could his involvement take? They found a suicide note on the table, there
were no signs of violence in the room, and Christian’s stomach was stuffed with
sleeping pills.”

“I have no idea,” Gadi admitted. Liah shifted her eyes to
Ronnie, who answered her by raising his eyebrows in aggravation. He too tried
to find a solution to the question, which hadn’t stopped bothering him since
he’d spoken with the two detectives. “I suppose we can’t share our findings
with the police. After all, there’s no way we can explain how the guest list
fell into our hands.”

“Right, but don’t let it bother you. I’m willing to bet they’re
working on the same list right now and will soon reach the same conclusion.”

“How can you be sure of it?” Ronnie wondered.

“They’re in the middle of doing just that. When O’Hara’s men
spoke with the couple who came to visit their son, the man was angry because
he’d wasted his time detailing the reason for his stay in the hotel just a few
minutes before. Even the excuse they gave him about confusion caused by a
change of shifts couldn’t calm him down.
On the contrary.
O’Hara said he’d charge me for all the time his man had to spend listening to a
long, tiresome lecture about the importance of handing over the baton in an
organized way. I feel sorry for his son.” Gadi smiled.

“I still don’t have an answer for Liah’s question nor for the
question of who would have an interest in killing Lumner and why,” Ronnie mused
aloud.

“So, I have something to work on. I believe I’ll know the
identity of our mysterious stranger by the end of the day.” Gadi winked at Liah
and turned toward the door. “I suppose you’ll manage to run all the way back as
well. Don’t run too fast, you don’t want to get the old man too tired.”

“Wait a second, Gadi…” Ronnie wanted an explanation of his
friend’s plans, but Gadi left the coffee shop without adding another word.

“Do you have any idea where he’s going?” Liah wondered.

“No, but I’m sure he has. Gadi is not one to make false
promises. I’m always amazed by his ability to manage. Did you know he’s not
only fluent in English but in Spanish as well? And that he received most of his
foreign language education by watching American movies and Latin American soap
operas.”

They sipped the rest of their coffee then headed out of the
coffee shop and began their run back to the hotel.

The guy wearing the Bermuda shorts left his seat, and while
going toward the table where the three had just sat, pressed the dial button on
his cell phone. He went to the chair Ronnie had sat in, detached a miniature
listening device from it and briefly reported to the person he’d called, “They
spoke in a language I couldn’t understand. I’m sending you the audio file.”

Sunnyvale, October 18, 2013, 12:45 PM

The young man emerged from the coffee shop and walked with his
head down, busy with the iPhone in his hand.
He’s sending the audio file of
the recording to his operator
, Gadi guessed,
and once his operator is
finished translating what we’ve said, he’ll realize I’m onto him and then, once
he comes crawling out of his hole to look for me, I’ll be ready and beat the
shit out of him
… Gadi continued to follow the man with his eyes as he
turned toward the parking lot and saw him take his car keys from his pocket and
press one of the remote control buttons. A shrill beeping came from the center
of the lot. The young man smiled contentedly to himself and headed toward the
car.

Gadi hurried to his own vehicle, started the engine and began to
follow the man’s car. After seven minutes of driving down the seemingly endless
El Camino Real, the two vehicles glided into the downtown Domain Hotel’s
parking lot. The young man left his car in the parking lot, got out still busy
with the phone in his hand, and turned toward the lobby.

“My God, you’re such a
rookie,
” Gadi
murmured with a sigh, “let’s hope your boss proves to be a bit more
challenging.” He continued through the parking lot toward the rear parking area
on the other side of the building. There, he exited his vehicle, brushed his pants,
scanned the area, and when he didn’t detect anything suspicious, walked toward
the hotel entrance. When he passed next to the young man’s vehicle, he bent for
a split second and attached a tracking device to the inside of the right wheel
fender. Then he turned and walked back toward his car. On the way, he took out
his cell phone, activated the tracking application, and made sure the device
he’d attached to the young man’s vehicle was actually working. Once he was back
behind the wheel, he dialed O’Hara.

“O’Hara Investigations.”

“O’Hara, please.”

“Who may I say is calling?”

“Gadi.”

“Gadi who?”

“Just get me O’Hara immediately or start looking for another
job.”

The line went silent. Gadi punched the steering wheel in
frustration. A moment before he hung up, a baritone voice was heard, “Gadi, you
son of a bitch, if you talk to my secretary like that one more time, I’ll never
work with you again. Is that clear?”

“Clear.
Crystal clear.
Now talk to me.
What’s going on?” Gadi snapped impatiently.

“Our guy left Sunnyvale and took a flight to Boston, still using
the same identity. He was supposed to land at Logan about an hour ago, but I
couldn’t find any evidence indicating he’d rented a vehicle under his name.
Perhaps he changed identities after he landed, or maybe purchasing a ticket to
Boston was only a diversion, and he flew to a different city under another
name. What would you like me to do?”

“Try to look for him in Waltham hotels. It’s a shot in the dark,
but what do we have to lose? Update me if it’s my lucky day. I’m flying to
Waltham now, and if the bastard tries to get into the TDO offices, I’ll catch
him. One of his men is here in the Domain Hotel. I’ve attached a tracking
device to his car. I’m sending you the transmitter identification code. Have
one of your people follow him. OK?”

“Gadi, who’s paying for all this?”

“As far as you’re concerned, I am. Bye,” he said, disconnected
the call, and dialed Ronnie. 

“Yes, Gadi.”

“Did Lumner tell you about any weird things happening in his
office? Perhaps he felt someone was following him?”

“Yes. He also wanted us to go out of the building to conduct a
private conversation. Why?”

“We may have gotten lucky. We’ll talk later,” answered Gadi and hung
up, leaving Ronnie frustrated by the fact he did not detail or explain his
conclusions.

Liah, who had just come out of the shower,
noticed Ronnie’s contemplative expression and asked, “What’s the matter?”

Ronnie updated her with the details of the conversation.

“I can’t shake the feeling he knows more than he’s telling us.
The way he left the coffee shop so quickly.
His promise to
discover the identity of the mystery man from the hotel, and now this.
I
don’t know whether I should be happy or sorry for bringing him into this
situation,” Ronnie said, sighing.

“I’m bothered by something else,” Liah began hesitantly. “Gadi
has never kept any secrets from you. If he’s doing that now, it means he thinks
we’ll be safer that way. Perhaps we should just drop it. It’s really not our
job to catch a killer, even if he did murder the CEO of the company you’re the
chairman of. Perhaps it would be safer to convince Gadi to come with us to the
police, give the two detectives we met this morning all the information you
both have and go back to New York?” Liah gave Ronnie a pleading look.

“I never thought anyone would be able to construct a sentence
containing the words ‘perhaps it would be safer’ and ‘go back to New York’ and
make it sound reasonable. But you may be right. I’ll talk to Gadi soon and then
we’ll decide.”

He dropped to one of the sofas so preoccupied that he wasn’t
even aroused by the sight of Liah’s body, revealed through an opening in her
bathrobe.