SURVIVORS: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 2) (6 page)

“No. No, we’re not. I just, I need you in my corner. So does Argon. Got to go, Healy.”

The Sheriff hung up.

Brendan slid his phone back into his pocket. He turned around just as the woman was finishing her cigarette. There was no ashtray by the entrance. A sign on the wall forbade smoking on or near the premises.

The woman stamped out the ember, then wadded up the filter and pitched it behind the trees.

“Nasty out,” she said.

The rain was coming down a little harder. The lamps in the parking lot had just come on. Their light created jeweled halos as the drops fell from the darkening sky.

“It is.”

Brendan held the door for the woman. Whatever was going on, Brendan now felt assured that it affected Taber somehow. There was something he didn’t want coming to anyone’s attention. The woman offered a polite smile and stepped inside. Brendan followed.

* * *

He told the receptionist at the front desk that he was a friend of the police officer who had been brought in two days ago.

She flipped through her thick log-book.

“Argon?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She looked up, and her round brown face affected sympathy. “I’m sorry, sir. He passed away.”

“Thank you. I know. I was wondering if I could speak to the doctor who treated him.”

Now her expression wrinkled into a frown. “Oh, I don’t know . . .” She studied the book in front of her.

“That’s Dr. Shah. He’s not on tonight.”

“Maybe you could page him for me?”

Her face lit up into a beautiful smile and she laughed. “And should I tell him the Grand Poobah is calling?”

Brendan smiled back. He put his hands up on the counter.

“My father used to work here. Dr. Gerard Healy. I spent some time here when I was a boy.”

“That’s very nice. That doesn’t change the fact that I can’t just call Dr. Shah because you have a nice face.”

Brendan blushed, and he had to stop himself from touching his skin where the scar ran from his temple to his cheek. His hand had drifted halfway to his face. He set it back on the counter.

“This counter wasn’t here, you know? This whole nurse’s station was down the hall there. See that visitor’s area? That waiting room? That’s where this used to be. It made for a longer, straight hallway. I would bring my cars. You know, those little matchbox cars. And I would race them down the hallway.”

The phone rang on her desk. “Excuse me.”

She took the call and after a few moments rolled away on her chair to look in a knee-high filing cabinet.

Brendan watched the nurses coming and going. He wondered where Argon had been. Which room he’d been in when he’d breathed his last breath.

He blinked out of the daydream and pushed himself away from the counter.

The receptionist got off the phone. She turned and rolled back over to the main counter area. She looked up at Brendan with her large brown eyes. “You still here?”

He smiled. “Yes ma’am.”

“Look, if you are a designated representative for Mr. . . .” she glanced at the book. “For Mr. Argon, then you can submit a form to obtain his medical records. The fee is ten dollars.”

“And if I’m not? How do I become a designated representative?” Brendan already knew the answer, but it was a way of getting some more basic information.

“The patient has to sign a confidentiality waiver with your name on it. Then you would have to confirm your identity. But this all happens down at the medical records office. You’re going to want to turn to your left. See those elevators there? You . . .”

“This man died within two hours. He was critical when he arrived. From a car wreck. He was a police officer. I worked with him for five years, was friends with him for longer than that. Please, I just want to know if the medical report is consistent with the information I have.”

The woman’s expressive face had taken on a curious countenance. She looked as if a light had snapped on inside her brain. “That’s who you’re talking about,” she said.

“Yes.” Brendan’s eyes widened and he nodded his head. “You know who I’m talking about?”

“They came.”

“Who came?”

“You know. Men like you.” She was eyeing his suit now, for some reason. “They already came and got the copies of the medical reports.”

“Who? They were designated representatives?”

She shrugged. “That would involve the medical records office. Which is two floors above. You can take those elevators over . . .”

“But how do you know? If it’s the medical records office they needed. Did they stop here first, asking questions like I did?”

Again, that look, as if she was in on something obvious which he was not. Brendan felt like too much of that had been going around lately. He didn’t like it.

“Hon, I remember, because this is my shift. Tonight, last night, and the night before that. When your friend came in. The other men, they came in not five minutes after he did. They came in, went wherever they went. I can’t keep track of everybody coming and going, unless they walk right past me, and they did, and I remember them.”

Brendan shook his head. He felt an ache coming on, from the scar on the left side of his face. “I’m sorry, I’m confused. I’m asking you – how do you know these men took his medical records?”

Now she looked slightly offended. She tucked her chin down towards her breastbone and looked up at him from beneath long lashes. “I know federal agents when I see them,” she said. “This isn’t my first rodeo, you know? And they went to the elevator, which goes up to the floor where the medical records office is, which is where I’ve been telling you to go.”

* * *

Back in the parking lot, Brendan hurried through the rain. He was empty-handed.

The medical records office kept confidential patient files for up to six years. He’d filled out all the forms for someone who wanted records but was not a designated representative, though he’d indicated his status as a private investigator.

In Wyoming.

It seemed unlikely he’d be given access.

Russell was in the car, smoking. Brendan slid in, dripping wet. The BMW was still running and very warm. Russell looked him up and down. He wore a thoughtful expression.

“You know there’s a thing now called the Truman Show Disorder? People feel like they’re in a reality show all of the time. I feel like that. Ever since I stopped by Argon’s place and met you, I feel like there are cameras, and this is all a set-up. Something Argon put everyone up to, just to mess with me.”

Russell then grew somber, and took a drag. He shot Brendan a look. “You get what you came for?”

“Argon’s medical records. Maybe. Even if they release them to me it’s going to take ten days or more.”

Brendan glanced at the clock on the dash. It was five twenty. He’d been in there quite a while. “I’m sorry I took so long.” He lit up a cigarette and dragged deeply on it, hating how much he enjoyed it.

“Don’t sweat it.” Russell dropped the shifter into drive. He steered them out of the parking lot and back onto Route 100, headed north.

Brendan sat back. He was suddenly filled with a sense of despair. The sun was gone for the day, and they drove through the dark and rain. Taber had been nervous and vague. Men described to him as federal agents had absconded with Argon’s medical records from the night he’d died. Russell Gide, purportedly Argon’s friend, was emotional and still not to be completely trusted. The news reports were scarce on Argon’s death.

He thought about the doodles on Argon’s coffee table.

“Russell,” he said, as they neared Hawthorne.

“Mmm?”

“Does the name Philip Largo mean anything to you?”

“Sure. Largo? You never heard of him?”

“Maybe.”

“New York State Assemblyman. They said he was going all the way to Governor. Scandal with a prostitute brought his career to a halt, and he’s since left the legislature.”

Brendan didn’t say anything at first. He was wondering why Argon would have that name written down.

“You and Argon talk about him?” Brendan asked.

Russell glanced over. The streetlights drifted across his features. “I mean, just casually, you know; it was in the papers for a little while.” He stuck his lips out and shrugged his shoulders, in a
fugheddaboudit
kind of gesture.

Brendan decided to let it keep. They were coming up to Holy Rosary. He had half a mind to ask Russell just to take him back home, but they were here now. This had been the whole point. First, though, he asked Russell if they could make one more stop. “A Radio Shack, Best Buy, anything close,” Brendan said.

“There’s a Walgreens on the way.”

“Perfect.”

CHAPTER EIGHT / Sunday, 5:38 pm

Jennifer Aiken worked her way through the security entrance at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She had been through the process nearly a dozen times, and it never became any less dehumanizing. She tried to remind herself that it was nothing compared to what the inmates went through. When she was emptying her pockets and being wanded from head to toe, she was still a free woman.

It didn’t always feel that way. The job was demanding. At the end of the day, it was worth it – it was the most important job she would ever have, and she knew it. But she was still a regular person, too. Originally from Yonkers, she had taken her bachelor’s in Criminal Justice at John Jay College and then went on to obtain her master’s in Criminology at SUNY Albany, a school ranked number two in the country for Criminal Sciences. She liked to remind herself of these facts, not because it made her superior, but because it grounded her.

She’d thrived in college, and considered herself a lifelong student. Too many graduates got rattled the day after they flung their cap into the air, this overblown anxiety about the “real world,” but she viewed the milestone as a transition into a bigger classroom: the field. And she had her new thesis in mind; someday, she would reveal the common denominator of crime.

She knew such a grand ambition sounded naïve, so she kept it to herself. But she was sure of her mission. She understood her motivations. Two of her goals dovetailed nicely in her career. When the previous Attorney General had admitted that some banks were just too big to prosecute, she’d felt a deep calling. Crime was almost always about money, certainly at the Federal level, but locally as well. Her other goal was to work with the human trafficking task force. She’d wanted that ever since she had dated a man named John Rascher, who’d gone on to become Special Litigation Counsel for the HTPU. Jennifer knew she’d been lucky to realize her dream to become an agent for the Department of Justice, but she also knew it was meant to be. She felt the rightness of her occupation, the rightness of her place in the world was like armor plating – the kind the metal detectors didn’t register.

She finally passed through the security gate and collected her things from the grey tub which had been run through the scanner. She smiled at the corrections officer who was standing at the far end of the gate, waiting to take her further into the prison. The officer, a hard-looking woman with brick red hair, did not smile back.

She was allowed to get a coffee from the commissary before entering the visiting room. She didn’t really feel like a coffee but found that having a cup on hand relaxed her. It also seemed to relax the person she was talking to in situations like these. It was something comfortably prosaic.

A guard led her to one of the booths. She’d requested that it should be at the far end of the visiting area. She knew she could have asked for a lot more – could have had a private room – she didn’t need to look through two inches of bullet-proof glass, or talk on a phone while they sat five feet away. This was by choice. In her experience, bringing a subject into a special, secluded area, put them off. They were apt to become paranoid. They thought the stakes were too high (they usually were) and they started crowing about their lawyers right away. Or, they thought it was time to start bargaining and spent most of the session asking to be moved to a private cell, or to be granted other special privileges, like more time in the yard, or extra trips to the commissary. The more normal the visit, the better.

Bedford Hills was a max facility – the only maximum security prison for women in the state. Amy Fisher had been through Bedford. She notoriously gunned down Joey Buttafuoco, the man she’d begun an affair with as a sixteen year-old student. Fisher was out and starring in porn movies, while husband-killers Pamela Smart and Barbara Kogan were still in house. As was Marybeth Tinning, who’d killed several of her children. Perhaps the most infamous of them all was Stacey Castor, dubbed The Black Widow by the media. Castor was found guilty of poisoning her husband with antifreeze. She was also convicted of the attempted murder of her daughter and spent most of her time in De-Seg.

Most of the women in Bedford had kids. Roughly seventy percent of women currently serving time in a U.S. facility had school-age children. And some of them, like Marybeth Tinning, were doing time for ending their children’s lives. The legal disposition of those cases varied enormously, but it was estimated that five percent of female inmates had committed filicide.

Olivia Jane, however, neither had children nor had murdered any children.

Still, Olivia Jane introduced young women into a life of prostitution. And many of those girls were forced to, or chose to, abort pregnancies. Of course, none of that had ever been proven. Jane was doing twenty years for the murder of the escort, Rebecca Heilshorn, not for shepherding young women into the sex trade. She had served two already, and had been a model prisoner, and would have the chance for parole in another four years.

Jennifer didn’t think that Olivia Jane should get out of prison. Moreover, she didn’t think that making introductions for the girls to enter the escort business was the extent of Jane’s machinations. A woman entering the commercial sex trade willingly was one thing, but it became sexual trafficking when coercion was present. Some, after being forced to abort a pregnancy, wanted out, and couldn’t get out. Others had their children in secret, but were found out. Jennifer believed Rebecca Heilshorn had given birth to children, and she’d been struggling to get free.

An enforcer named Reginald Forrester had prevented her from leaving. The question was, why?

One explanation was that someone powerful, someone with money, wanted her to stay. Powerful clients fetishized certain girls and paid top dollar for their continued “service.” But Jennifer had always thought that the truth ran deeper, that other agendas were possible.

Maybe Rebecca had seen something. Maybe she’d known something that had gotten her killed.

Maybe it had something to do with money.

Rebecca’s father, Alexander Heilshorn, had also been drawn into the sordid mess. Heilshorn appeared to be a concerned father who, perhaps overzealously, had tried to assist in the investigation. Heilshorn had wealth and influence – he was a respected doctor who had patented medical technologies and amassed a small fortune. He was also a contributor to several political campaigns.

Plus he had connections to bankers, brokers, hedge fund managers, and government officeholders galore.

Jennifer set her coffee down on the small ledge in front of her. Olivia Jane was smart – the woman had a master’s degree in psychology. She’d also lived a double life for many years, and right under the nose of the Oneida County Sheriff’s Department, the Utica Police Department, and half a dozen others, for whom she’d worked as a grief counselor. Mostly pro bono. Jennifer had researched Ms. Jane thoroughly. She was an outstanding advocate for her clients. She honored patient confidentiality even post-mortem. And in the end, that had been her way to keep her alternate life completely hidden from view. A significant percentage of the young women Jane had treated, for anything from depression to bulimia, had wound up as prostitutes. And Jane had been the one lighting their way.

Why?

It was a question that had persisted in Jennifer Aiken’s mind for the last two years.

A number of investigators and specialists had been to see Olivia Jane. None of them had been able to get anything out of her.

Jennifer wore a spanking-new Akris Punto ensemble. She’d carefully shaved her legs that morning in the shower. She decided that they looked nice and long and slim in the skirt. The low-cut white shirt was barely visible in between the sides of the notched collar. She didn’t have much cleavage to show off, but her neck and collarbone were freshly moisturized, the skin warm-toned.

The grooming was purposeful. Jennifer always looked professional, but to look like a bimbo in some CSI show was a conscious move.

She wanted Olivia Jane to find her attractive. She also wanted Jane to underestimate her.

Of course, Olivia Jane wouldn’t be that easy to misdirect, but, it was a start. In this game, everything counted.

Feeling ready, Jennifer looked up.

The sight of the woman on the other side of the glass startled her, and Jennifer tried to conceal her reaction.

It was too late. Jennifer saw Olivia Jane’s mouth curl up into a diminutive smile.

* * *

“Who are you?” Olivia Jane asked.

Jane looked to be in good shape. Many of the women in Bedford Hills – most, probably – didn’t look as well kempt. Jane looked like a woman luxuriating at a resort, not shackled in a max facility.

Jennifer planned to exploit that confidence the first chance she got.

“My name is Jennifer Aiken. I work for the Department of Justice. Specifically, the Bureau of Justice Assistance.”

“What are your credentials?”

Jennifer relayed where she had gone to school. “I did my thesis in penology. Studying prisons just like this one. Shortly after graduating, I went to work on several Office of Justice programs. The biggest one was the Human Trafficking Rescue Project. That grew under the advisory support of the HTPU, and I’m now one of that unit’s chief prosecutors. To my thinking, human trafficking, that type of servitude, is not much different from prison.”

Jennifer wanted to put that right out in front. There was nothing to be gained from beating around the bush with Olivia Jane. Others had tried and failed miserably.

Olivia’s expression invited Jennifer to continue.

“Our main arm right now is the Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force Initiative.”

“Ambitious.”

Jennifer pursed her lips and affected a sort of aw-shucks humility. “Well, yeah, I’ve had a hand in writing the Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force Strategy and Operations Guide.”

“You’re a criminologist at heart, really.”

Jennifer raised her eyebrows but didn’t want to give Jane the impression that this was insightful. “The HTPU works with the FBI, state, local law enforcement, and sometimes the U.S. Marshals.”

“And you’re looking for some Grand Unifying Theory.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Why?” Jane’s features were smooth, unbroken, emoting very little. She was an attractive woman. There was something undeniably hard about her, but Jennifer could see how a turn of the head, a look from her large, pleasant eyes could have someone on the couch opening up and gushing about their every childhood fear. Olivia was used to asking questions, too. She shared little, and elicited much during a conversation.

Jennifer tilted her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Why this line of work? Why bother?”

“Oh,” Jennifer said, rumpling her brow and looking down, as if searching for the answer. She had been prepared for Jane to cross-examine her. “It fascinates me. It’s
significant, when you think that human trafficking is one of the most profitable strands of transnational organized crime. And one of the fastest growing. In fact, where it’s growing the fastest is right here in the United States.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right. Thousands of people are enslaved within U.S. borders every year. We’re actually approaching an estimated ten thousand.”

“You sound pleased.”

Jennifer paused. Olivia was dressed in an off-white prison jumpsuit. Her wrists were shackled to her feet, and she held the phone casually to her ear, as if she were chatting with a girlfriend about soup recipes or sex with the pool boy.

Jennifer felt the first pangs of doubt. So far this was going the way she wanted it to, right down the line, but she suddenly felt that Jane was allowing it all to unfold this way.

The moment passed. Jennifer affected a kind of embarrassed, mild shock. “No, of course I’m not pleased about the statistics. I’m only pleased that I’m working to solve the problem. It’s a critical time for our nation, and I’m exactly where I should be, serving as I should.”

She had practiced that line in the shower.

Olivia Jane smiled. “And how can I help you?”

Jennifer reached into the bag beside her and took out a pad and pen. She placed these on the shelf in front of her. She felt Jane watching her and she felt goose bumps on her skin. She uncrossed her legs and sat forward a little, hoping to hide any sign that she was rattled. She rallied her confidence, thinking,
It’s not how you can help me – it’s how I can help
you.

“You said, in an interview, that, and I’m quoting, ‘Titan is so entwined with the government that you’ll never get it free.’ Can you expound on that for me?”

Olivia Jane tossed her head back and let out a short laugh. It was a pleasant, country-club laugh that increased Jennifer’s unease.

“Brendan Healy,” Jane said.

Jennifer met Olivia Jane’s gaze through the thick glass. She held the phone close to her ear and spoke into it quietly.

“Yes. Why don’t you tell me about him? Let’s start there. Tell me about him, and what possessed you to say those words to him.”