Oath of Office (22 page)

Cap strode up to the police chief and, hands on hips, glared down at him. It was as if Michelangelo’s
David
had decided to confront the tourists who were gawking at him. “Do I look hysterical?” he asked.

Lou, who was kneeling nearby, inspecting the soil, glanced back at his chisled friend and grinned.

“Duncan, don’t get me wrong,” Stone was saying. “I just think we should go at this in the morning with a lot more men and some dogs.”

Cap took a step back.

“What about Notso?” George insisted.

“Notso’s dead,” Cap said. “I saw him get shot.”

“I don’t give a damn what you saw. I’m not leaving my cousin out here in this stinkin’ field to get eaten by animals.”

“We don’t even know if this is the right field,” Stone said.

Lou felt the situation getting tense. He did not know George well enough to predict his actions or whether Cap would be able to control him. He imagined him facedown in the dirt with his hands cuffed behind him and Gilbert Stone’s knee in the small of his back.

At that moment, Lou’s hand brushed over another clump of dirt. This one had something hard embedded in it—something hard and sharp. So sharp that it took a few seconds for him to realize that he had been cut. He inspected the side of his palm. Blood was oozing out of a half-inch-long slice. Carefully, Lou worked his fingers around the edges of the object that had cut him. He scraped the dirt away and was left with a large shard of glass—thick, textured glass.

“What’s that?” Stone asked, inspecting the object with his flashlight.

“Broken spotlight glass, if I’m not mistaken,” Lou said. “I’d guarantee it.”

“Told you!” George chirped.

Stone fingered the glass.

“Well?” Lou asked.

Stone shrugged. “Well, I think it’s time we go pay a visit to William Chester.”

“Who’s that?” asked Lou.

“The guy who owns these fields, that’s who.”

CHAPTER 31

A twelve-foot-high vine-covered stone wall enclosed Cross Winds, the Chester estate. Stone left his two officers to continue patrolling the fields, and then drove Lou, Cap, and George to the far western part of Kings Ridge and up a broad circular drive lined with trees. A security guard posted at the gated entrance checked everyone’s ID before calling inside and granting the group passage. Mounted security cameras monitored their arrival.

Ah, the joys of big bucks,
Lou thought sardonically.

Cross Winds was a resplendent two-story neoclassical mansion featuring large, gently arched windows, and stone chimneys. The windows were dark from within, save for one on the first floor.

Even in the darkness, it was obvious the grounds were a source of pride to the owner. The grass, cut to the height of a putting green and tastefully illuminated by a series of in-ground lights, glowed the color of a polished emerald, while the hedges were pruned with a carpenter’s precision. Sprawling rock gardens and flower beds completed the remarkable landscape. Protruding past the corner of the main house was a portion of a large, dimly lit greenhouse.

The odd quartet proceeded up a short flight of stairs and onto a wide veranda that featured a dozen classic rocking chairs. Lou’s ankle challenged him with every step. Stone used a huge bronze wolf’s-head knocker to confirm their arrival, and in seconds, a cast iron lantern dangling overhead bathed them in a diffuse incandescent glow.

The massive front door opened, revealing a round-faced man in his mid-sixties—swarthy and fit in a weight lifter’s sort of way. He had narrow Eastern European eyes and thick silver hair combed in a sideways part as straight as the hedge trim outside. Despite the early hour, it seemed as if he had not been sleeping.

“William Chester,” he said, shaking each man’s hand as he directed the group into the elegant foyer inside.

His hands were thick and powerful, and Lou wondered if he might be putting something extra into each squeeze—an immediate message as to who was in charge and not to be trifled with. The gesture was understandable. On their drive over, Lou had used his smartphone to research the man. Chester’s rise to industry dominance would have sent Horatio Alger scurrying for his typewriter.

Chester, age five, along with his father, mother, and a sister, immigrated illegally to the United States from Poland as stowaways onboard a cargo ship. Having spent their life savings to secure safe passage, the family changed their name from Chudnofsky to Chester, and settled down in a single room in the heart of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. Chester would later say the run-down building where his family lived would have been condemned had it not been needed by the city to house the rats.

Eventually, Bernard Chester found employment in the garment district. However, the family’s good fortune proved short-lived. Carlo Gambino, of the Gambino crime family, assumed control over the district, and Bernard became a leader among those opposed to him. William had just turned eleven when his father, along with several others, was gunned down.

Penniless, Chester supported his family by sweeping floors in a plant wholesaler. Within a year, he had shown an unusual aptitude for stimulating plant health and growth, and was hired away by the Barlow Seed Company—first as a salesman, then as an assistant manager to Donald Barlow, who subsequently became his mentor. By the time William was thirty, he was managing the Barlow Company, which was by then among the twenty top-grossing operations of its kind.

When Barlow died suddenly and without family, his company passed to Chester. The subsequent growth of Chester Seed and Fertilizer, soon to be Chester Enterprises, put the company among the top ten in the industry worldwide.

Barlow died suddenly.

The phrase, from the Wikipedia article on William Chester, resonated in Lou’s mind. Over the final mile to the Chester mansion, he searched Donald Barlow on Google, then Yahoo, and finally Bing.

The third try was the charm.

A small article in a thirty-three-year-old issue of the
Miami Herald
reported the accidental death of seed giant Donald Barlow, who was washed overboard during a surprise squall while sailing aboard his fifty-two-foot yacht,
Green Thumb
.

The only other one on board at the time was Barlow Company executive William Chester, who immediately radioed the Coast Guard and followed their instructions. Despite Chester’s efforts, and an extensive sea and air search, Barlow’s body was not recovered. Police say that a cause of death hearing, routine in such deaths at sea, will be held in the near future.

William Chester, impeccably dressed in deck shoes, chinos, and a turquoise knit shirt, led the quartet to a conference room just off his study, offered them soft drinks and water, and motioned them to take any seats they wished around what looked to Lou like a mahogany table that might have cost the total of all the furniture he had ever owned.

“Well, gentlemen,” Chester said in a calm, authoritative voice, “I confess that I am rather shocked at the story as Chief Stone has related it to me. Suppose each of you give me your version. And please, take your time.”

“How far back would you like us to go?” Lou asked.

“Why, back to the beginning, of course, Dr. Welcome. Why don’t we begin with you, and then Mr. Duncan, and finally, Mr. Kozak here?”

Lou noted how smoothly Chester demonstrated that he knew their names after just a single introduction. Another well-mastered display of control.

Lou began with the retelling of Joey Alderson’s injury and the subsequent drive home with him from Eisenhower Memorial.

“I don’t know when these two thugs started following me,” he said. “It could have been several days before that. But this past afternoon, George and his cousin Anthony Brite noticed them checking out my building, and we followed them back out here.”

“Anthony Brite is the man whom you say was gunned down?” Chester asked.

“That’s right, man!” George exclaimed. “He was my cousin, and those dudes of yours burned him! Bastards!”

For several moments, there was absolute silence.

Then Chester nodded minutely at George. His expression was placid, but his narrow eyes were ice, and fixed on George like an infrared sight. “Young man,” he said finally, “you are a guest in my house. And as long as I treat you with civility and respect, you will honor me with the same courtesy. Is that clear?… I said,
is that clear
?”

Lou felt the man’s power. He also sensed strongly that the word
boy
had barely gone unsaid.

George seemed unable to respond. “Got it,” he finally managed, eyes to the floor, his usual bravado gone.

“Chief Stone,” Chester said, “my orchids are a source of calm and balance for me. I think I would prefer to continue this discussion in my greenhouse, or if you prefer, sometime tomorrow—perhaps out where these gentlemen say they were attacked. I can ask my field manager to meet us there, and perhaps one or two of my attorneys as well.”

Stone silently polled the others. “It’s your house, Bill,” he said. “Let’s take this meeting outside.”

The group stood and parted like the Red Sea as Chester strode past them, through a set of French doors, then down a long corridor to a rear door that opened on one end of a magnificent, fragrant greenhouse, perhaps the size of a hockey rink. With the touch of a button, the subdued lighting brightened, and soft classical music—Beethoven, Lou guessed—flowed through speakers that seemed to be everywhere.

The entourage followed Chester into densely humid air that was rich with the aromas of flowers and ripe fruit. Lou picked up the scent of chocolate, raspberry, and citrus the most strongly. The flowering plants, he realized, might all be orchids.

Chester paused, perhaps to appreciate his visitors’ collective awe. He then lifted a specialized gauge and began testing a nearby flower bed, which seemed to consist of an earthy mix of moss and bark.

“It is a common misconception that orchids are difficult to grow,” Chester said while sprinkling water here and there. “But the truth is, you just have to be aware of their needs. I think of orchids not as plants, but as a civilization—a culture whose customs I have come to know intimately. Do you enjoy gardening, Dr. Welcome?”

“Mr. Chester, forgive my impatience, but we have a very serious situation here,” Lou said. “Men have been killed in a field that you own, our friend among them.”

Chester stopped taking measurements, settled himself with a breath, and gave Lou a curious stare. “Dr. Welcome, I did not become a person of influence, possession, and power by not knowing precisely what was going on around me. As I told Chief Stone when he called, I have received no reports of any disturbances in any of my fields.”

Lou began to bristle. “I don’t care what reports you received or did not receive, Mr. Chester,” he said. “Our injuries can tell you what happened out there. Our stories coincide. We were ambushed and attacked with fists, with guns, and with a combine harvester. The area where it took place has been mown clear, and the bodies, including Anthony Brite’s, have been removed.”

Stone positioned himself between Lou and Chester, perhaps sensing the simmering exchange might boil over. “Bill,” Stone said, clearly wishing he were anyplace but there, “Dr. Welcome believes he has evidence that the spotlights they claim to have shot out were replaced.”

“I can’t believe it,” Chester snapped. “If such a thing transpired, I can assure you, none of my employees was involved.”

“Funny that these nonemployees knew how to drive your combine harvester,” Cap said.

Chester’s eyes flashed.

Lou almost cracked a smile, imagining what the man was thinking, being spoken to in such a way by someone he probably considered so far beneath his status.

Chester brushed the comment aside with a wave of his hand. “Believe me,” he said, “operating farming machinery is not nearly as difficult as growing these orchids, especially when the keys are left in the ignition slot, as is often the case here. I’ve warned my people against such practices, but alas, they don’t always listen.”

“Show him the glass,” Cap said to Lou.

Lou handed the jagged piece of broken glass to Chester, who inspected the heavy shard like a gemologist.

“And what do we think this is?” Chester asked.

“Floodlight glass,” Lou said. “As you know, the lights are on poles twenty feet above the ground. I found this at the base of one of the poles. Who besides one of your employees would and could repair the floodlight that George shot out?”

George broke in, “And why would your field be threshed after we left it? I’ll tell you why—” He pointed his finger at Chester. “—a cover-up, that’s why.”

Stone gripped George by the wrist and forcefully lowered his arm. “Son,” he said, “you’d best watch how you speak to Mr. Chester—especially in his home. He’s agreed to help us, and your accusations aren’t helping anybody. Got it?”

George nodded glumly.

“It’s all right, Gilbert,” Chester said. “Obviously these men have experienced some sort of trauma, and quite possibly on my land.”

“Any idea who might have been involved?” Stone asked.

“No, but I can assure you it was no one in my employ. I’ll be happy to make my employee records available to you.”

“I appreciate that.”

Chester turned his attention back to Lou. “Is it possible that in all the confusion you’ve described, Dr. Welcome, you merely thought a floodlight that had shattered some time ago had been shot out? Floodlights do break from time to time, kids and rocks and thermal changes, you know. Perhaps the piece you’ve found is an old one.”

“That’s not possible,” Lou said coolly. “I know what I saw. A man died next to me. I saw him get shot.”

“Then are you sure you were in the right spot? The fields can become quite disorienting, especially at night.”

“We strongly believe that was the spot,” Lou said.

“My, my,” Chester said. “This is certainly quite distressing. Gilbert, I’ll phone Stewart right away.”

“Who is Stewart?” Lou asked, his patience walking the edge.

“He manages all my fields,” Chester said. “I’m not denying some version of what you have said actually occurred, but I will strongly contest that any of my people were involved. I assure you, Gilbert, you’ll have my full cooperation.”