Secret of the Seventh Son (18 page)

They waited for the shuffling steps of the abbot, which failed to materialize. Josephus could see the brothers and sisters shifting nervously, all of them keenly aware of Oswyn's punctuality.

After a few minutes Josephus became alarmed and whispered to Paulinus, "We must check on the abbot." All eyes followed them as they left. Whispers filled the Sanctuary, but Magdalena put a stop to them with a finger to her lips and a loud
shush.

Oswyn's chamber was cold and dark, the untended fire nearly spent. They found him curled and bent on his bed, fully dressed in his robes, his skin as cool as the room air. In his right hand he clutched the parchment upon which his name was written.

"Merciful God!" Josephus cried.

"The prophesy--" Paulinus muttered, falling to his knees.

The two men mouthed quick prayers over Oswyn's body, then rose.

"The bishop must be informed," Paulinus said.

Josephus nodded. "I will send a messenger to Dorchester in the morning."

"Until the bishop says otherwise, you must lead this abbey, my friend."

Josephus crossed himself, digging his finger into his chest as he made the sign. "Go tell Sister Magdalena and ask her to begin Vespers. I will be there shortly, but first there is something I must do."

Josephus ran through the darkness to the abbey gate, his chest heaving with exertion. He pushed it open and it squeaked on its hinges.

The boy was not there.

He ran down the path, frantically calling his name.

There was a small shape by the road.

Octavus had not gone far. He was sitting quietly in the frigid night, shivering at the edge of a field. Josephus tenderly picked him up in his arms and carried him back toward the gate.

"You can stay, boy," he said. "God wants you to stay."

W
ill started flirting at sea level and was still going strong at 34,000 feet. The flight attendant was his type, a big shapely girl with pouty lips and dirty-blonde hair. A wisp of it kept falling in front of one eye and she was constantly and absently brushing it aside. After a while he began to imagine lying beside her naked, brushing it aside himself. A little wave of guilt inexplicably washed over him when Nancy intruded into his thoughts, proper and reproachful. What was she doing mucking up his fantasies? He willfully fought back and reverted to the stewardess.

He had followed standard TSA security procedures for checking onto the US Airways flight with his service weapon. He was preboarded in coach and had settled into an aisle seat over the wing. Darla, the stewardess, immediately liked the looks of the brawny guy in a sport coat and khakis and draped herself over the cross aisle seat.

"Hey, FBI," she chirped, knowing as much because of the security procedures he'd undergone.

"Hey yourself."

"Get you something to drink before we get invaded?"

"Do I smell coffee?"

"Coming up," she said. "We've got an air marshal in 7C today, but you're way bigger than he is."

"You want to tell him I'm here?"

"He already knows."

Later, during the beverage service, she seemed to lightly brush his shoulder or his arm whenever she passed. Maybe it was his imagination, he thought as he drifted to sleep, lulled by the low rumble of the engines. Or maybe not.

He awoke with a startle, pleasantly disorientated. There were green crop fields stretching to the horizon so he knew they were somewhere over the middle of the country. Loud angry voices were coming from the rear near the lavs. He undid his seat belt, turned around and identified the problem: three young Brits spanning a row, drinking buddies in full lager-lout mode, getting prelubed for their Vegas holiday. Ruddy-faced, they were gesticulating like a three-headed monster at a willowy male flight attendant who had cut off their flow of beer. As alarmed passengers looked on, the Brit nearest the aisle--a taut bundle of muscle and tendon--rose up and stood eyeball-to-eyeball with the crew member and shouted emphatically, "You heard my mate! He wants another fuckin' drink!"

Darla quickly moved up the aisle to assist her colleague, deliberately seeking out Will's eyes as she flew by. The air marshal in 7C held his seat, standard operating procedure, watching the cockpit, on guard for a diversion. He was a young guy, blanched with nerves, sucking it up. Probably his first real incident, Will thought, leaning into the aisle, studying him.

Then, a sickening thud, skull on skull, a Glaswegian kiss. "That's what ya get, ya fuckin' bastard!" the assailant screamed. "Ya want another one?" Will missed the act but saw the aftermath.

The head butt opened the attendant's scalp and knocked him yelping to his knees. Darla involuntarily let out a short shriek at the sight of flowing blood.

The air marshal and Will rose as one, locked onto each other and started to perform like a team that had drilled repeatedly together. The marshal stood in the aisle, drew his weapon and called out, "Federal agents! Sit down and place your hands on the seat in front of you!"

Will showed his ID and slowly advanced toward the rear holding the badge above his head.

"Oh what tha fuck is this, then?" the Brit called out as he saw Will closing. "We're just trying to get our hols started, mate."

Darla helped the bleeding attendant to his feet and led him forward, scooting by Will, who gave her a reassuring wink. When he was five rows from the troublemakers he halted and spoke slowly and calmly. "Take your seat immediately and place your hands on top of your head. You are under arrest. Your vacation is over." Then the staccato punctuation mark, "Mate."

His friends implored him to back off but the man would not stand down, crying now with rage and fear, cornered, his jugulars distended purple. "I will not!" he kept repeating. "I will not!"

Will pocketed his badge and unholstered his gun, double-checking the engaged safety. At this, the passengers became terrified; an obese woman with an infant started blubbering, which started a chain reaction throughout the cabin. Will tried to erase the drowsiness from his face and look as badass as possible. "This is your last opportunity to end this well. Sit down and put your hands on your head."

"Or what?" the man taunted, his nose thick with mucus. "You going to shoot me and put a hole through the bleedin' plane?"

"We use special ammo," Will said, lying through his teeth. "The round'll just rattle around inside your head and turn your brain into pudding." An expert shot who had spent his youth picking off fox squirrels in the Panhandle brush, at this range he could place a round anywhere he wanted within a few millimeters, but it would exit, all right.

The man was speechless.

"You've got five seconds," Will announced, elevating the pistol from a chest shot to a head shot. "I honestly don't care if I pull the trigger at this point. You've already given me a week of paperwork."

One of his friends cried out, "For fuck's sake, Sean, sit down!" and tugged his companion by the tail of his polo shirt. Sean hesitated for a few long seconds then let himself be pulled onto his seat, where he meekly raised his hands over his head.

"Good decision," Will told him.

Darla rushed up the aisle with a handful of plastic wrist restraints, and with the help of other passengers, the three friends were cuffed. Will lowered his weapon and slid it back under his coat then called out to the marshal, "We're clear back here." Breathing heavily, he lumbered back to his seat to the accompaniment of thunderous applause from the entire cabin. He wondered if he'd be able to get back to sleep.

The taxi pulled away from the curb. Even though it was evening, the desert heat was still stunning, and Will welcomed the frosty interior.

"Where to?" the cabbie asked.

"Who do you think's got the better room?" Will asked.

Darla pushed at his ribs playfully. "An airline room or a government one, it's probably the same." She leaned in and whispered, "But honey, I don't think we're going to notice."

They were looping around the perimeter of McCarran heading toward the Strip. Parked next to a remote hangar, Will noticed a cluster of three white 737s, unmarked except for red body stripes. "What airline is that?" he asked Darla.

"That's the Area 51 shuttle," she replied. "They're military planes."

"You're joking."

The cabbie needed to participate. "She ain't kidding. It's the worst-kept secret in Vegas. We got hundreds of government scientists who commute there every day. They got alien spaceships they're trying to make work, that's what I hear."

Will chuckled. "I'm sure whatever it is, it's a waste of taxpayer money. Believe it or not, I think I know a guy who works there."

Nelson Elder presided over a culture of fitness. He vigorously exercised every morning and expected members of his senior management team to do likewise. "No one wants to see a fat insurance guy," he'd tell them, least of all him. He had a gold-plated prejudice against the unfit that bordered on revulsion, a vestige of growing up poor in Bakersfield, California, where poverty and obesity commingled in his hardscrabble mobile home park. He didn't hire obese people, and if he insured them, he made damn sure they paid hefty risk-adjusted premiums.

His bronzed skin still tingled from his three-mile run and stinging steam shower, and as he sat in his corner office, with its fine view of chocolate-brown mountains and an aquamarine finger of Lake Mead, he felt as well physically as a sixty-one-year-old man could. His tailored suit form-fitted his tight frame and his athletic heart beat slowly. Yet mentally he was in turmoil, and his cup of herbal tea was doing little to settle him.

Bertram Myers, Desert Life's CFO, was at his door panting heavily and sweating like a racehorse. He was twenty years younger than his boss, his hair wiry and black, but he was a lesser athlete.

"Good run?" Elder asked.

"Excellent, thanks," Myers answered. "Had yours yet?"

"You bet."

"How come you're in so early?"

"F.B. fucking I. Remember?"

"Jesus, I forgot. I'm going to hop in the shower. Want me to sit in?"

"No, I'll handle it," Elder said.

"You worried? You look worried."

"I'm not worried. I think it is what it is."

Myers agreed. "Exactly, it is what it is."

Will had a short cab ride to the Desert Life headquarters in Henderson, a bedroom town south of Vegas near Lake Mead. To him, Elder looked like something out of central casting, a prototypical silver-fox CEO, easy with his wealth and station. The executive leaned back in his chair and attempted to lower Will's expectations. "As I said on the phone, Special Agent Piper, I'm not sure if I can help you. This may be a long trip for a short meeting."

"Don't worry about that, sir," Will replied. "I had to come out here anyway."

"I saw in the news that you'd made an arrest in New York."

"I'm not at liberty to comment about an ongoing investigation," Will said, "but I think you can assume if I thought the case was wrapped up, I probably wouldn't have come out here. I wonder if you could tell me about your relationship with David Swisher?"

According to Elder, there wasn't all that much to tell. They had met six years earlier during one of Elder's frequent visits to New York to meet with investors. At the time, HSBC was one of multiple banks courting Desert Life as a client, and Swisher, a senior managing director at the bank, was a rainmaker. Elder had gone to HS
BC
's headquarters, where Swisher led a pitch team.

Swisher followed-up aggressively by telephone and e-mail over the next year and his perseverance paid off. When Desert Life decided to place a bond offering in 2003 to fund an acquisition, Elder chose HS
BC
to lead the underwriting syndicate.

Will asked if Swisher had personally traveled to Las Vegas as part of that process.

Elder was certain he had not. He had a firm recollection that the company visits were handled by more junior bankers. Apart from the closing dinner in New York, the two men didn't see each other again.

Had they communicated over the years?

Elder recalled an occasional phone call here and there.

And when was the last?

A good year ago. Nothing recent. They were on each other's corporate holiday card lists but this was hardly an active relationship. When he read about Swisher's murder, Elder said, he had of course been shocked.

Will's line of questioning was interrupted by his Beethoven ring tone. He apologized and switched off the phone, but not before recognizing the caller ID number.

Why the hell was Laura calling?

He picked up his train of thought and fired off a list of follow-up questions. Had Swisher ever talked about a Las Vegas connection? Friends? Business contacts? Had he ever mentioned gambling or personal debts? Had he ever shared any aspect of his personal life? Did Elder know if he had any enemies?

The answer to all these was no. Elder wanted Will to understand that his relationship with Swisher was superficial, transient and transactional. He wished he could be more helpful but plainly he could not.

Will felt his disappointment rise like bile. The interview was going nowhere, another Doomsday dead end. Yet there was something niggling about Elder's demeanor, a small discordant something. Was there a note of tension in his throat, a touch of glibness? Will didn't know where his next question came from--maybe it sprung from a well of intuition. "Tell me, Mr. Elder, how's your business doing?"

Elder hesitated for more than an imperceptible moment, a long enough pause for Will to conclude that he'd struck a nerve. "Well, business is very good. Why do you ask?"

"No reason, just curious. Let me ask you: most insurance companies are in places like Hartford, New York, major cities. Why Las Vegas, why Henderson?"

"Our roots are here," Elder replied. "I built this company brick by brick. Right out of college, I started as an agent in a little brokerage in Henderson, about a mile from this office. We had six employees. I bought the place from the owner when he retired and renamed it Desert Life. We now have over eight thousand employees, coast-to-coast."

"That's very impressive. You must be very proud."

"Thank you, I am."

"And the insurance business, you say, is good."

That tiny hesitation again. "Well, everybody needs insurance. There's a lot of competition out there and the regulatory environment can be a challenge sometimes, but we've got a strong business."

As he listened, Will noticed a leather pen holder on the desk, chock-full of black and red Pentel pens.

He couldn't help himself. "Could I borrow one of your pens?" he asked, pointing. "A black one."

"Sure," Elder replied, puzzled.

It was an ultrafine point. Well, well.

He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a sheet of paper in a clear plastic cover, a Xerox copy of the front and back of Swisher's postcard. "Could you take a look at this?"

Elder took the sheet and retrieved his reading glasses. "Chilling," he said.

"See the postmark?"

"May eighteenth."

"Were you in Las Vegas on the eighteenth?"

Elder was palpably irritated by the question. "I have no idea, but I'd be happy to have my assistant check for you."

"Great. How many times have you been to New York in the past six weeks?"

Elder frowned and replied testily, "Zero."

"I see," Will said. He pointed to the photocopy. "Could I get that back, please?"

Elder returned the sheet, and Will thought, Hey, buddy, for what it's worth, I've got your fingerprints.

After Will departed, Bertram Myers wandered in and sat down in the still warm chair. "How'd it go?" he asked his boss.

"As advertised. He was focused on David Swisher's murder. He wanted to know where I was the day his postcard was mailed from Las Vegas."

"You're joking!"

"No I am not."

"I had no idea you were a serial killer, Nelson."