The Architect (9 page)

“So someone in each of their families could have had motive. But we’ve got
seven
dissected bodies. If you’re pitching two copycat killers, it sounds like a huge stretch.”

A thought crystallized in Clevenger’s mind. “Maybe that’s the point.”

“Huh?”

“It is a stretch. But what if I’ve got the motives right, but the killer comes from outside either family? Their motives become his.” He paused to put his thoughts together. “These guys were in the way. Problems. Their families were stifled by them.”

“So our perp did them a favor and cleaned house? Why? What does he get out of it?”

“It’s what he’s talking about in his note to the president—some sick version of ‘family values.””

“You just lost me.”

“He said, ‘One country at a time or one family at a time, our work serves one God.” Maybe he thinks he’s liberating them.”

“By killing.”

“It’s in style right now,” Clevenger said. “Especially in the White House.”

“Spoken like a true Bostonian.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

There was a flurry of activity among the reporters and onlookers at the perimeter line set up by the police. The crowd parted and Scout Van Myer and his wife Carolyn walked through, escorted by four uniformed officers and John Jameson, Chicago’s chief of police.

Jameson, a bear of a man, six-foot-four, stopped the couple about fifteen yards away from their daughter’s body. He seemed to be prepping them for what they were about to see.

Clevenger saw Carolyn Van Myer, late forties, anorexia-thin, with short brown hair, bury her face against her husband’s chest. He brushed his hand against McCormick’s.

She reached out, squeezed his hand, then walked over to the Van Myers.

He followed her.

Jameson introduced the Van Myers to them. “They
know the... condition we found Chase in,” he said. “They would still like to see her.”

“You understand there’s no need to make a positive identification on the scene,” McCormick told them. “You could see her...”

“At the morgue?” Carolyn Van Myer asked.

Scout Van Myer, handsome and regal, in a starched white dress shirt and khakis, stayed silent.

“I want to see her now,” Carolyn Van Myer said.

“Of course,” McCormick said. She looked down.

McCormick, Clevenger, and Jameson followed a few feet behind the Van Myers as they walked to the makeshift tent surrounding Chase’s body, then moved to where one of the tarps had been tied back to let Clevenger and McCormick see in.

Carolyn Van Myer gasped. She didn’t so much sit, as collapse into the seat next to Chase. Then she reached out and held Chase’s lifeless hand, leaned, and kissed the top of her head. “It’s okay, Baby Doll,” she said, in a clear, strong voice, without a hint of sorrow. “You can rest now.” Her voice grew quiet. “We can all rest.”

Clevenger and McCormick exchanged glances.

Scout Van Myer made the sign of the cross, then knelt in front of his wife and daughter. “She’s finally found her peace, Carrie,” he said. “She’s in God’s hands.”

NINETEEN

“
I want to interview
one or both of them while I’m here,” Clevenger told McCormick, watching the Van Myers walk away with Chief Jameson. “They’re holding together too well.”

“They sounded like they were saying good-bye to some great-aunt after a five-year battle with cancer,” McCormick said. “I’ll make a call and set it up for you. They should be at the station a couple of hours, but it’s probably better to catch up with them later at home. They’ll be more open.”

“That gives us a little time,” Clevenger said. “Want to get coffee, go over things?”

“Sure. Where?”

“Room service at the Palmer House is the best espresso in town.”

McCormick smiled. “You never give up “

“Not on a great idea.”

“I’m not sure we’re such a great idea.”

Not sure
was progress. “Why don’t you make that call on our way to the Four Seasons?”

She shook her head. “No chance.”

She sounded angry. He tried to regroup. “I know I shouldn’t be pressuring—”

“Make it the Ritz, and you got a deal,” she said.

They took a cab to the hotel. Clevenger chose a suite on the twenty-second floor. But they couldn’t wait until they were inside it. As soon as the elevator doors closed, they were in each other’s arms, kissing and biting each other’s lips, neck, ears, reaching for parts of one another that had been out of reach for months.

“I love you,” Clevenger whispered in her ear.

“I love you,” she said.

“I can put us first.”

She gently pushed him away. “Don’t promise something you—”

He kissed her deeply, then held his finger to his lips.

She grabbed his wrist, slid his finger into her mouth.

The doors opened. They walked, pushed, danced one another to their suite.

When they made love, it was new again, yet familiar. The combination was intoxicating. McCormick knew to resist. Clevenger knew not to overpower her too quickly. They had been right for each other for a long time. And if an undercurrent of sadness seeped into their passion, it was only because they shared the unspoken knowledge that their timing never had been.

Later, they lay together in soft, polished cotton robes, fifteen floors above the reality that they were the best defense against a killer who was ramping up his carnage, that Clevenger was still Billy Bishop’s best chance to get out of jail and stay alive, that McCormick
still needed things from him that he might or might not ever be able to give her.

“It would be nice to be able to stop time outside this room, and just stay here a couple days,” Mc-Cormick said.

Clevenger ran his hand over her cheek. “A couple of years.”

She pulled away, squinted at his hand, then touched it. “You’re shaking.”

He hadn’t had anything to drink for about ten hours. “I didn’t eat a thing today,” he said.

She looked at him. “You’re in withdrawal?”

“I’m fine.”

“Jesus Christ.” She got up, started to get dressed.

“Look, I haven’t let it get out of control. A couple of drinks a day, for a month, on and off. I’m done with it, as of right now.”

“Give me a break,” she said, buttoning her blouse.

He sat up. “How about giving me one? I came out here when you called. I made it to California and the Hamptons, no problem. It hasn’t gotten the best of me.”

She pulled on her shoes. “You had the balls to tell me you could put us first?”

He stood up, walked over to her. “I meant it.”

She looked away.

“When I’m done here, let’s fly back to D.C. together. We can talk about it over a late dinner. A couple of steaks and a couple of Diet Cokes.”

No response.

“I’m not touching it, from here on out. Period.”

She looked at him.

“C’mon,” he said. “Book us a flight.”

A few precious seconds passed. “Alright. If that’s what you want. But one more drink, and I don’t take your calls. I don’t get dinner with you. I don’t hire you. It’s called a ‘last chance,” in case you never heard of it. You sure you want to take it right now?”

“I’m good with now.”

“I mean it, Frank. If you need six months to get your act in gear, take them.”

He stared into her eyes. “Now is good,” he said.

“I’ll book the flight,” she deadpanned. “There’s a five-forty-five. That should give us enough time to get things done here.”

He pulled on his jeans as she gathered her things.

She started to head out, stopped, and turned around. “One other thing, on a completely different note: What you said before, about the killer having some sick take on ‘family values”?”

“Yeah?”

“And about killing ‘being in style” in D.C.?”

He nodded.

“Let’s keep that sort of thing between us. It’s political dynamite. Someone could use it against the administration. We’re out to stop a killer, not hurt the president.”

“Spoken like a true politician.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

TWENTY

Clevenger stood a full
minute in front of the Van Myers” Astor Street mansion, taken aback by its beauty. The building was majestic: an ivy-covered, brick double bowfront behind a tall, wrought-iron fence with square granite piers every twenty feet. But the real magic started at the entry way, framed by a towering bronze sculpture of two nearly bare trees whose branches formed an arch over bronze gates fitted with security cameras. Behind the gates, a limestone walk inlaid with bronze leaves, as if they had blown off the trees, stretched toward a cut granite staircase leading to front doors of bronze and beveled glass, etched with more leaves. The effect was to turn a classic, early-twentieth-century building into a mystical work of art.

Clevenger was about to press the intercom button at the gate when his cell phone rang. North Anderson. He answered it. “What’s up?”

“I may have something.”

“Talk to me.”

“Jeff Groupmann’s skyscraper is looking like onestop
shopping. Besides Sidney Stimson, the aunt of the twelve-year-old victim from Montana, another investor was Ron Hadley. He lost five million dollars he invested through a limited partnership with Bruce Grimes.”

“The
Bruce Grimes?” Clevenger asked.

“Energy secretary under President Buckley during his first term.”

“Hadley served in Congress. That must be the connection to Grimes.”

“They also graduated together,” Anderson said. “Yale, class of sixty-three. And there’s more. Stimson kept her maiden name. Her father was chairman of the board of Brown Brothers Harriman investment banking. He was a Yale grad, too. And he served as university president for seven years.”

“How about Groupmann?”

“Class of seventy-one.”

Clevenger looked down Astor Street, lined with brownstone and brick mansions. “Three victims connected to one university.”

“At least three,” Anderson said. “I’m going down to New Haven to do a little research at the alumni office.”

“Tm about to interview the Van Myers. I’ll find out if there’s a Yale connection here.”

“How bad was the scene at Millennium Park?”

“He left their twenty-two-year-old daughter taped into a front-row seat at the Pritzker Pavilion. Another anatomy lesson. Her eyes.”

“Jesus.”

“Let me know what you find out at Yale.”

“Done.”

They hung up. Clevenger turned off his cell phone, pressed the intercom button.

“May I help you?” a man’s voice answered.

“Frank Clevenger. I’m here for Mr. and Mrs. Van Myer.”

The gate buzzed.

Clevenger walked to the front door.

A minute later a striking man of about fifty-five, wearing a deep-blue suit and gold tie, opened the door. He had remarkably kind, light-brown eyes, thinning silver hair, and perfectly tanned skin. “Please, come in,” he said.

Clevenger stepped into a foyer that was actually an atrium framed by a grand, four-story staircase that hugged the walls. Cantilevered catwalks provided access to each floor. He could see straight up to the roof of the house, a glass dome, etched with more falling leaves.

The man extended his hand. “Harold Burns,” he said, with a wide smile that showcased bright white teeth. “I’m the Van Myers” attorney. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Frank Clevenger,” he said, shaking Burns’s hand. He noticed a teenage boy and a young woman in her late teens or early twenties walk onto the second-floor catwalk, carrying two large boxes.

“Right this way, Doctor,” Burns said. “We’re set up for you in Scout’s office.”

Clevenger walked with him down a wide, barrel-vaulted hallway with deep red walls and maple wainscoting. Framed black-and-white photographs showed the Van Myers with a host of celebrities and politicians,
including former Chicago mayor Harold Washington, Chicago Cubs coach Dusty Baker, country singer Garth Brooks, former astronaut and Ohio senator John Glenn, and former Illinois senator Paul Simon. Set off from the rest were three photos of the Van Myers at a black-tie event with President Buckley and the first lady.

“I didn’t know Mr. Van Myer was a friend of the president,” Clevenger said.

“They could be better friends,” Burns said, with a smile. “Scout ran Illinois for President Buckley in the last election. You might remember, he lost by nine points.”

Scout and Carolyn Van Meyer were seated on a couch at one side of the office when Burns and Clevenger walked in. They stood up.

“I believe you’ve already been introduced,” Burns said.

“We have,” Clevenger said. He shook hands with the Van Myers.

Burns took one of two tapestried armchairs in front of the couch and motioned for Clevenger to take the other.

Clevenger sat down. He glanced around the room, which had to be six or seven hundred square feet. The wall over his shoulder, behind Scout Van Myer’s desk, held a window seat looking out on a manicured lawn and gardens. A large telescope was permanently mounted in front of it, pointing skyward. Each of the other three walls had an alcove built into it, with floor-to-ceiling recessed shelves filled with books. One alcove held a half-finished canvas atop an easel. In
another were two wing chairs on either side of an elaborate silver chess set. The third held a small puppet theater, with velvet drapes and marionettes suspended over a high-gloss black wooden stage.

“Interesting space,” Clevenger said.

“My interests,” Scout Van Myer said. “It was designed to keep me in touch with some of the things I love to do.”

“Painting, obviously. You’re also a puppeteer?”

“It’s a lot easier than controlling people,” Van Myer said with a grin. “Chess I loved as a boy, then forgot all about it when my mother passed away. I picked it up again about a year ago. Same with astronomy.”

Van Myer’s little joke about controlling people, along with his ability to talk about his pastimes when his daughter had just been killed, were in the same league as the peculiar grief reactions of the Group-manns and Hadleys.

“I hope you don’t mind Mr. Burns sitting in,” Van Myer said.