Murder Suicide (24 page)

Kyle looked down at the table, shrugged.

"So now you have to love yourself," Clevenger went on.  "There’s nowhere else to go.  You’ve got to think of every talent you have, every gift you could give the world around you.  And you’ve got to take the chance of giving it.  And if you do that, you’ll be too busy to chase Oxycontin.  Because you won’t be busy hating yourself, anymore."

"Whatever," he said.

Clevenger felt the impulse to step in as Kyle’s surrogate father.  Was that because Kyle really needed him to? he wondered.  Or was it because Clevenger wished someone had done it for him?  Either way, he couldn’t resist.  "Once the investigation is over," he told Kyle, "I’d be happy to take a look at anything you draw up.  I’ve got a few friends who run architectural firms.  I’m sure they’d be willing to talk with you about the field."

"As long as you haven’t had me arrested for murder, you mean," Kyle said.

Clevenger heard a very direct question bundled inside that seemingly offhand comment, a question about how far Clevenger would go to play Kyle Snow’s father.  Would he turn him over to the police if it turned out he was guilty?  And hearing that made it clear how important it was not to pretend Kyle was his patient, let alone his child.  He was in the same danger he had been in with Lindsey Snow — of losing himself inside the emotional dynamics of the Snow family.  He looked into Kyle’s eyes.  "If I have to have you arrested for murder, my friend," he said, "you’re gonna have all the time in the world to draw.  I’ll still be happy to take a look."

*            *            *

North Anderson was waiting for Clevenger in the lobby of the jail when he walked out.

Clevenger walked over to him.

"Coady told me you were headed here," Anderson said.  "I found out something you should know."

"What?" Clevenger asked.

"I started checking into the Boards of Directors of military contractors, hoping to find somebody I knew, to help us look into Vortek.  No one familiar turned up.  That includes Lockheed, Boeing, Grumman.  Then I decided to stop in at the State Treasurer’s office, pull Snow-Coroway Engineering’s corporate filings and check out its own board."

"And?"

"No real surprises.  You got Coroway, Snow, a venture capital guy from Merrill Lynch, and a professor from Harvard — this computer genius over there by the name of Russell Frye.  The only unusual one was Byron Fitzpatrick, turns out to have been Secretary of State under Ford.  But I figure the guy probably sits on a couple hundred boards."

"Maybe," Clevenger said, "but he’s also CEO of InterState Commerce, the company Coroway was visiting in D.C. yesterday."

"Then we’ve got dots to connect.  Because my next stop was my buddy at Mass Department of Revenue.  I had him peek at Snow-Coroway’s tax returns for the past five years.  Guess who bought ten percent of the company in 2002?"

"I’m a psychiatrist, not a psychic."

"The Beacon Street Bank."

The force of that fact made Clevenger take a step back.

"They paid twenty-five million for ten percent of the company."

Clevenger remembered Collin Coroway telling him twenty-five million was the amount of R & D funding originally committed to Vortek.  Was that just a coincidence?

"So I figure Reese and Beacon Street had a clear interest in Vortek coming to market," Anderson said.

"Then he’d want Snow alive," Clevenger said.

"At least until Vortek was completed.  I think it makes sense for me to head down to D.C. myself, poke around the copyright office.  I asked a couple of patent attorneys I know:  the actual substance of any missile patent would be classified.  But Snow and Coroway would still be on record as having filed one, if they did."

"Be careful.  We’re obviously stepping on toes here."

"You got that off the pistol-whipping by the Feds, huh?"

Clevenger touched the sore place at the back of his head.  "That, and Whitney McCormick flying in to try to get me to cool my heels.  She’s back with the FBI."

Anderson smiled a very broad smile.  "How long were you gonna wait to tell me?"

"She was at Boston P.D. when I went to see Coady."

"Now that’s what I call a real development in the case.  Your case, anyhow.  It was hard enough saying good-bye to her once.  She could be back to stay, my friend."

"She’s got another agenda."

"Maybe.  But I think you’re the one who’d better be careful," Anderson said.

"Keep reminding me."

*            *            *

Clevenger called to check in with Kim Moffett at the Boston Forensics offices.

"I went out and rented three computers," she said.  "Company check.  Hope you don’t mind."

"Would it matter if I did?"

"I figure they’re going to keep ours for a while."

"Good thinking."

"Can I ask you something?"

"I’m all ears."

"Are they gonna look through our personal files and e-mails and everything?"

"If they have a search warrant," Clevenger said.  "Maybe even if they don’t.  Why?"

"No reason."

"C’mon."

"It’s just that I have my
Match.com
ad on there with the responses."

"So?"

"It’s private.  It’s embarrassing."

"They’ll be discreet.  But maybe it’s better to take care of that kind of thing on your own time in the future," Clevenger said.  "You did ask for a raise last week because you’re so busy."

"I don’t get many responses to my ad.  It takes like two seconds to check."

"I’m sure you’re deluged with offers.  And I’m kidding about the time."

"I can never tell with you.  Your voice doesn’t change."

"Psychiatric training.  Any messages for me?"

"Just Billy."

"He left me a message at the office?" Clevenger asked.

"He said he tried your cell, couldn’t get through."

"What’s the message?"

"He left school to scrub with Dr. Heller."

"What?"

"I don’t think he wanted to tell you in person — I mean, in person over the phone.  That’s why he called here."

"He say anything else?"

"Just that it’s this really big case, so he knew you wouldn’t mind.  He said it could take all day, half the night."

"Oh, really?"

"I told him it sounded sketchy," Moffett said.  "No permission slip from Dad, you know?"

"Did Heller call to ask if it was alright?"

"Nope.  Maybe he tried your cell."

"I’ll check.  What else?"

"John Haggerty has a case for you.  An insanity plea.  He wants to send over the file."

"Tell him to send it.  But it’s going to be a while before I can start work."

"I’ll let him know."

After Clevenger hung up he checked voice mail on his cell phone.  There was one message from Mike Coady, but none from Heller.  He was obviously going to have to set limits when Billy could visit Mass General.

He dialed Coady, got put through to him.  "What’s up?" he asked.

"I picked up George Reese a little early."

Clevenger looked at his watch.  1:20
P.M.
   "Why?"

"He headed over to Logan.  I had someone follow him to the International Terminal.  He was booked for Madrid."

"A little vacation to get over losing Grace?"

"The ticket was one way."

"Maybe he doesn’t like being pinned down to a return flight."

"Well, he’s pinned down good and tight now.  At least for the moment.  He’s got Jack LeGrand in his cell with him."

LeGrand was New England’s reigning king of criminal law, a defense attorney who fought every case like a gladiator, and won a hell of a lot more than he lost.  Clevenger had worked with him on a couple of cases a few years back.  "Tell Jack I say ‘hello.’"

"I’d like to get you in here sooner, rather than later.  I don’t know how long I can hold Reese without charging him.  And I’m not ready to do that."

"I’ll be there in less than an hour," Clevenger said.

"See you then."

Clevenger took the Back Bay exit off Storrow Drive, headed to Mass General.  He wanted to make sure Billy was at least telling the truth about why he was skipping school.

He parked in the garage, headed up to the O.R.   The receptionist, a rotund woman with ruddy cheeks, about sixty, told him Heller was scrubbed in and confirmed that a young man had scrubbed in with him.

"I’m his father," Clevenger said.  "Do you know what the case is?"

"An aneurysm in the basilar artery," she said.  "They’ve been in there three hours.  They’ve got at least five more to go."

The basilar artery ran along the base of the brain.  It was part of the Circle of Willis, the major network of vessels feeding the cortex.  Clipping an aneurysm there was extremely risky.

"The patient is a nine-year-old girl," the receptionist said.

Clevenger’s heart fell.  "Nine years old."  The tragedy of a little girl going through eight or ten more hours of neurosurgery brought home how completely impartial and utterly unfair diseases were.  He worried about how Billy would react if she didn’t come through it well.

"She’s in great hands," the receptionist said.  "Dr. Heller will do anything and everything for a patient.  It’s always personal for him.  He takes it home with him, you know?"

"I’ve heard that about him," Clevenger said.  It was hard to focus on Heller’s surgical skills when his social skills seemed to be in grave doubt.  He hadn’t had the decency to let Clevenger know he was hosting Billy at Mass General again.

He thought of having Billy pages out of the O.R. and taking him home right then and there, just to teach him he couldn’t make an independent decision to blow off high school and play doctor.  But he didn’t want to embarrass him in front of Heller.  "Could you tell him I came by to make sure he was alright?" Clevenger asked.

"You’re welcome to wait, if you’d like.  He’s bound to want a break soon."

"I wouldn’t bet on that," Clevenger said.

Chapter 15

Clevenger made it back to Boston Police headquarters just before 2:00
P.M.
   Coady wanted to meet with him in his office before they took their shot at George Reese.

"Jeremiah Wolfe called," Coady said.  "The
DNA
is back on the baby Grace Baxter was carrying."  He took a seat behind his desk.  "It was John Snow’s.  A little boy."

Hearing that fact brought Clevenger back to the idea that Grace Baxter might have been angry enough at Snow for leaving her to want every trace of him gone — including the tainted blood flowing through her body.  "All right," he said.  "I understand.  Anything else?"

Coady shook his head.  "You want to question Reese yourself, or watch me do it from behind the one-way mirror?  Your call."

"I think we’ll get more out of him if we rattle him," Clevenger said.  "Either he’s really got a head of steam for me, or he’ll want to make it look that way.  Maybe he’ll have trouble keeping his story straight."

"Maybe you ought to think about that private detail I offered you to watch your back.  Between the Feds and Reese..."

"We’ll talk about it."

"When?" Coady asked.

"Later."

"This isn’t a joke, Frank."

"You see me laughing?"

Coady shook his head.  "Kyle Snow went home.  His mother posted bail.  A hundred grand.  Like breaking sticks for these people."

"What do you make of him?"

"He hated his old man, that’s for sure."

"I hated mine.  I didn’t shoot him."

"Why not?"

"Good question," Clevenger said.  He had fantasized more than once about strangling him with the belt he used to mete out beatings.  "He didn’t have a gun."

Coady barely smiled.  "Sometimes opportunity is the mother of invention," he said.  "Truth is, you treat a kid the way Snow treated his son, you don’t want to keep a firearm in the house."

"I’m not ready to take Kyle off any list," Clevenger said.

"How about Lindsey?"

"She had access to the gun, just like her brother.  She knew about the affair, like he did.  And her whole world was changing because Snow was changing."

"So she stays," Coady said.  "And the wife?"

"Ditto.  Snow was like the keystone in the arch of this family.  He pulls himself free, the family crumbles.  And they all knew it — at least unconsciously."

"Like I said, generating a list of suspects in a case like this is easy.  The hard part is whittling it down."

"True," Clevenger said.  "But I’m glad we’ve got Reese here, all the same.  He’s the only one on the list who was covered in blood when I met him."

*            *            *

Clevenger opened the door to the interview room and walked inside.

Reese, in a pinstriped suit, white cuff shirt and shiny burgundy tie, stood up at the long wooden table where he had been sitting with Attorney Jack LeGrand.  "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked Clevenger.

"I work with the police, remember?" Clevenger said.  "I have a few questions for you."

"
You
have questions for
me
?"

"Sit down," Clevenger said.

Reese stayed on his feet.

LeGrand put his hand on Reese’s arm, gently pulled him into his seat.  He was about fifty years old, with wavy, rust-colored hair, full lips, longish eyebrows and deep brown, almost black eyes.  He looked like a pensive wolf decked out in a two-thousand-dollar Armani suit.  "Good to see you, Frank," he said, in a throaty voice that could instantaneously turn thunderous in a courtroom.

Clevenger nodded to him, walked to the table.  He pulled out a chair, sat down.  "You’ve been read your rights?" he asked Reese.

"They should be reading you yours," Reese deadpanned.

"He’s not under arrest," LeGrand said.  "He’s here voluntarily."'

"Let’s get right to it, then," Clevenger said.  He looked at Reese.  "When did you find out your wife was having an affair with John Snow?"

Reese looked back at him, unfazed.

"He’s not going to answer that question," LeGrand said.  "I’m sure you understand."