The Drowned Man (29 page)

On the third day, wearing a new set of casual clothes from a Rochester consignment shop, Alida hopped a bus to downtown Buffalo.

Without straying far from the terminal, she quickly found a print shop that offered internet stations and spent an hour perusing a list of every downtown hotel. She ran MapQuest routes to those that were within walking distance of the bus station. Six in total; and another eight if she broadened the radius by a mile. She needed just the right place in the city core. From her recent travels, she knew that most of the old, independent hotels located by railroad and bus stations had vanished from the American landscape. She narrowed down the list. The hotel should be no higher than ten levels, with multiple ground-floor exits, a freight elevator, and preferably a sleepy, slowed-down atmosphere.

To save time, she returned to the bus depot and looked around for the oldest employee in the place. She spied a grey-haired, dignified man in an office by the ticket window; darting around the front counter she wandered in, smiling and apologetic.

“I wonder if you can tell me, are there any of what they call ‘young women's hotels' around here?” Alida was surprised at how she had mastered American inflections.

The man smiled. “No one calls them that anymore. They don't exist. But I recommend the Gorman, three blocks over. It was originally an old railroad hostelry. Safe and clean and basic. I could take a break and guide you.” The man's gaze was wistful but Alida wasn't in the market for a grandfatherly date.

The Gorman Hotel stood eight storeys tall and sat among rows of modest office buildings, like the oldest relative at a sleepy family gathering. She reasoned that this place could be perfect, or would be if her other requirements panned out. The Gorman was known as a “traveller's hotel” and had been built in the 1920s for drummers travelling by train. It was now patronized by their modern equivalent, lonely sales reps on one-night turnarounds. Alida entered through the main doors. Business appeared to be slow. The lobby was small, no breakfast room or internet stations, and with only two rumpled armchairs to idle in. It was not the kind of lobby where anyone waited for long, and the three customers observed by Alida over the next five minutes walked directly from the clanky elevator to the street without making eye contact with her or the desk clerk. By then the clerk had noticed her, which was fine with Alida, and as he looked up from his motorcycle magazine, she was pretty sure that one of her remaining criteria had been satisfied. He was young, with excessively combed blond hair that made him resemble Alan Ladd in
Shane
but without the charisma.

Suspicion is bred in the bones of desk clerks and his half-second glance sized her up as a hooker, but that all changed with her smile, which moved his thinking along to another cliché, the girl in the big city for the first time.

She approached the desk.

“I don't know Buffalo. I just came in on the bus and I guess a place close to the station will be the best thing.”

He was shorter than she was. She remembered hearing that short cowboy stars sometimes stood on platforms to appear to be the same height as their leading ladies. She didn't know why she kept flashing on western movies. She wasn't nervous.

“Did you want a single or a double, and how many nights?” the boy said, his voice cracking on the last word.

“A large single, I suppose,” she said, in an effort to throw the initiative over to him. “I'm an aspiring actress. I have an audition in the Theatre District tomorrow.”

“So, one night, then?”

“Yes. Unless I get the part. Then I'll be back!”

“Okay. Good luck. Do you have a credit card?”

The young clerk began to check his computer screen. Absorbed in her play-acting, she almost forgot her final prerequisite. “Could I see the room first?”

“Let me get my master key,” the boy said. Without registering anything on his computer, the he picked up a plastic card — Alida wondered if they still called them skeleton keys — and gestured to the lift. She went ahead in order to give him a chance to check her out.

He pressed the button for “3” and she immediately said, “Anything on the fourth?”

He stabbed at “4” and as he stepped to the back of the lift she turned and looked him in the eye, saying, “Sorry to be a nuisance. You have a nice baritone voice, like you should almost have an English accent.”

Her flirting deeply disconcerted the boy, she saw. They chatted about the weather and the bus ride, but nothing that would identify her later. She jumped from topic to topic, until he was completely off base, and red-cheeked from her sly flattery. The elevator moved slowly; it stopped with a shudder on the third level, almost upending them before it restarted. She recorded the useful fact that the doors took a long time to close, even longer for the ascent to recommence.

He opened the thick composite door to 402 with the key and stood back to let her enter. Alida knew instantly that this would be perfect. The décor was ordinary: a double bed, a desk and chair, and a full lavatory with white subway tiles and a heavy old porcelain sink. At once she noticed a bonus feature, the inter-room doorway, and her heart raced. She looked him in the eye; a lick of blond hair drooped across his forehead. She nodded her approval of the room.

“What's your name?” she said.

“Jeff. Some people try to call me ‘Jeffie' but I won't stand for it.”

This pleased Alida. He was the kind of boy who measured his manhood by his victories in imaginary arguments. His follow-up effort at seduction was a watery smile. Alida had to force her own enthusiasm.

“Are these rooms joined?” she asked. The connector door was typical, with a turn lock on her side and, she assumed, the equivalent in the adjacent room.

“All the way down the corridor. Use 'em for families or for convention parties, though it can get out of hand, business types carrying their whiskey from room to room. Some of them get so pissed. Then they find a connector locked at some point and they figure something's wrong, and they . . .”

“You want to show me the Theatre District later, Jeff?” she said, interrupting in a new, smoky voice that he could not misinterpret.

He gulped. “My shift's till nine.”

“That would be great. I don't know . . .” She almost forgot where she was. “Buffalo at all. My luggage is at the bus depot. I'll sign in, take a walk around the town, and be ready by nine. Bob's your uncle, Jeff.”

At the registration desk, Alida made a show of counting bills from her change purse to cover the seventy-three dollars for the night. It was against the rules for Jeff to take cash without a credit card backup but Alida knew that this wouldn't be his last infraction of the night. She insisted on cash and gave him a false address in Troy, New York. She could see his mind churning: What risk was there with no in-room movies or mini-bar to drive up her tab?

She wandered the downtown for an hour, happy to be a tourist. While she had already committed her heart to Rochester, she sought out the sights of downtown Buffalo on the map. She dutifully stood in front of Niagara Square and admired City Hall, and then took in the buildings up and down Ellicott Street. The two female statues on the pinnacle of the Liberty Building nearby reminded her of the Wings of Progress in Rochester. She read the plaque on the obelisk that was centred before City Hall and discovered yet another American president: William McKinley, assassinated in Buffalo in 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition by Leon Czolgosz using a .32 pistol. Presidents and assassins lurked everywhere in America.

On her way back to the Gorman Alida bought a mobile phone with a hundred minutes of time. The sales girl assured her that her number wouldn't register on anyone's caller
ID
system. In room 402, she showered and put on knickers and the glitter T-shirt she had bought in upstate New York. She went to sleep above the covers.

About 6 p.m., she got up and called Lembridge in Chesapeake Beach. It took some fast talking, mixed with threats, to prevent his hanging up but once she told him what she wanted — including sex again — they talked for an hour. It took only that long to seduce him. Minute by minute, she felt the sleaze seeping back into his voice, forming a slurry of greed, lust, and professional arrogance, leading him to say, “Miss Cameron,” — Alida still used the false name from their Chesapeake encounter — “we both want the same things, don't we?”

“Sure we do,” Alida said.

She knew what resided at Professor Lembridge's core: he was bored with his life, and this was an adventure he couldn't resist — if she pitched it properly. She promised him half the proceeds and all the sex he could handle. The professor said he had met Ronald Crerar before and when she dropped a number into the conversation, he replied that the businessman was good for it.

Precisely at 9:01, Jeff knocked on her door.

“Ready?” he called from the hallway.

She opened the door and as soon as he was fully inside, she stripped off her shirt. The window faced west and she passed the next hour on her back guessing when the last vestige of sunshine would be gone from the sky. When there was no more light, she would have two choices: to flee ever westward into the blackness, or to wait here for the sun to come full circle and find her again. The city turned cold for a moment, and she shivered. Her chosen home was just up the highway, but could she ever hope to conceal herself in Rochester, which one brochure called the City of Photographs?

Still, the stay-put option appealed to her, even if she knew there was a good chance that the next sunrise or the one after that would bring the Sword to town.

Peter landed at Buffalo International Airport on a late September afternoon expecting to be met by Special Agent Henry Pastern but there was no one at the gate, and so he continued outside into the cool air. The
FBI
maintained fifty-six regional offices and it was unlikely that Peter would be acquainted with any of the agents who were gathering in Buffalo for the takedown, other than Henry. Yet, leaning against a police-issue sedan in the pick-up lane outside the building was an old friend.

“So, Chief Inspector, they're importing the Coldstream Guards to help me do my job,” said Price Murdock. The
FBI
detective stood six-foot-four and had bulked up since Peter had last seen him at Quantico in 1999.

“They gave you one of the fifty-six, Price. Congratulations.” Murdock, who had sent a card when Peter retired, was now approaching retirement himself.

As they headed downtown, Peter filled Price in on most of what he knew about the Booth letters and Alida Nahvi. Price explained that Henry Pastern, who was coordinating the operation, had scheduled a meeting of all participants later that afternoon in anticipation of the sting to go down the next morning.

Price waited while Peter checked into the Marriott and then the
FBI
man took him on a tour of the area around the Gorman. The hotel appeared to have only two avenues of escape: the main entrance and a small safety door at the rear. Peter was puzzled by Alida's choice of an old hotel like this, since a larger building like the Marriott would appear to offer more places to hide should flight prove necessary. Even odder was the acceptance of this shabby meeting place by the buyer, Ronald Crerar, who according to Henry liked to travel in style. He noticed that two blocks over stood a fashionable boutique hotel, the Pharos, which likely offered more amenities.

“Who do we have at the strategy session this afternoon?” Peter asked as Price drove the downtown zone.

“Your colleague Dunning Malloway is coming in today. He'll be there. Some of my people. Henry Pastern is running the operation. We'll be joined by Dave Jangler from Buffalo Police. Jurisdictional protocol has to be respected. Jangler's worry is that the operation might spill into the streets of Buffalo. But he's a good man, a veteran, and Henry figures we need local manpower to supplement our crew. My team, all special agents, can monitor the ground-level exits. The guy putting in the microphones is my guy, too.”

“Do we know the room number where the exchange is to take place?”

“Not yet. I know, I know, Peter. Not much use having a techie when we don't know the room. But the girl scheduled the exchange for tomorrow at 10:30 a.m., somewhere in the hotel. We were able to access Ronald Crerar's schedule and he's pencilled in for that time. He lives in Rochester and will be driving down in the morning. Now get this. We know the girl's room number — 411. Registered under the name Alice Parsons. Lembridge says the girl told him she was in that room. We approached the hotel manager on the pretext of searching for a felony fugitive and there was your girl, paid in full and in advance, room 411.”

“Can we wire
that
room?” Peter said.

“We're trying. Problem is, there isn't much concealment for a camera but at least we can place a microphone in the ceiling fixture or the door jamb. My guy says he'll try.”

“Then we'll have the same problem with the meeting room.”

“Agreed. A double problem, since we won't know till the last second where it will be.”

“Let's play it by ear, then,” Peter said, trying to sound like one of the team.

Murdock looked uncomfortable. “Peter, excuse my asking but I'm not sure why we're graced with the presence of
two
Scotland Yard detectives. What's the story on Malloway?”

Peter went on at some length explaining Malloway's brief in the Carpenter investigation, and his own limited, loose status. He grasped that Murdock was making a point, although not making a big issue of it: neither British detective had any real authority and they would have to defer to the leadership of the
FBI
and the Buffalo Police throughout the takedown operation.

“Do you want a weapon, Peter?”

Peter did not hesitate. Transporting a registered police weapon of his own on the flight would have been a pain, he knew, even with personal and official weapon permits to show. He had by now reconciled himself to remaining unarmed during the sting. Besides, Price wasn't really offering: it was a nod to Peter's reputation in the Bureau. “No, I can't see needing one.”

“Good, because I shouldn't be offering you one.” Murdock laughed. “Just so you know, your colleague Inspector Malloway has requested a gun, small arms.”

“Are you supplying one?”

“Not unless you insist, my friend.”

Peter could only offer a sardonic laugh.

The planning session began at four thirty in a boardroom in the
FBI
's local office. In attendance were Peter, Dunning Malloway, Henry Pastern, Price Murdock, two of Murdock's young special agents, and the technician. Peter was surprised that local police weren't represented after all. Dunning and Peter exchanged nods across the room.

The dynamics of the meeting were likely to be bizarre, Peter thought, as he took a seat at the big table. Murdock's people would fret over Malloway's need to be there at all, Scotland Yard's participation further muddled by the shaky premise of Peter's own attendance. He expected Dunning to put his well-shod foot in something. There was also a danger that Henry, who was chairing the meeting, might overstress the value of the Booth letters while underplaying the lethality of Alida Nahvi. But Peter was curious about Henry's cultivation of Professor Andrew Lembridge, who had alerted the Bureau to Alida's location.

As the discussion evolved, Henry showed a maturity and determination that surprised both Peter and, he noted, the other veterans in the room.

“Lembridge was the key,” Henry said.

“What kind of professor is he?” Price Murdock prompted.

“American history. Also an expert on Civil War documents. Adviser to the National Archives. Authenticator to the stars.”

“You don't seem to like him much,” Price said.

“What's to like?” Henry said. “I've spent a long day with him. When I first contacted him by phone, he said he could provide authentication of the Booth correspondence, if it emerged. He didn't tell me at the time that he'd already
seen
the letters. Before we could meet, Nahvi called him about the Crerar deal. Lembridge lost his nerve. He walked into the Hoover Building and talked to another special agent. But here's the thing: he lied twice. Claimed he checked online and saw her wanted poster — his words, not mine. Said the mug shot, by the way, based on her British passport, didn't do her justice. Wondered if she should be elevated to the Ten Most Wanted List. Complete bullshit. The agent called me in and it took us half the day to straighten out his story.”

“Where and when did Lembridge first run into her?” Murdock asked.

“He lives on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Teaches at George Washington University in D.C. She came to see him out of the blue, he says, at his home a few weeks ago. The same night the hooker was killed.”

“Did she bring the letters to him that night?” Peter said.

“Yes. Copies. Two of the three, including the one with Booth's signature on it. He looked them over, thought they might be authentic. He says he offered to buy them. She wanted to sell, but at the last second she bailed and took the letters back.”

Peter understood that Lembridge was still telling lies. Nicola Hilfgott had paid at least ten thousand Canadian dollars for the three letters, and Peter guessed the letters were worth much more on the underground market. Alida wasn't stupid. She'd been in a hurry that night but Lembridge wouldn't have had enough money lying around to buy them from her. She had a different plan and something went wrong at Lembridge's house.

One of the agents asked the logical follow-up question: “The night she met Lembridge was the same night she offed the prostitute. What really happened between him and Nahvi? And why didn't he contact the Bureau before now?”

“It finally came out,” Henry said, sighing. “They had sex that night. She took snapshots on her cell phone. Then she threatened to send the pics to his wife. He says he was shocked when she called him again a few days ago. At first he agreed to her plan to sell the letters to a rich Civil War collector in upstate New York — his words — but he decided to do his civic duty when he saw her on the
FBI
website. Who knows what to believe.”

“And you believe this will go down tomorrow, Henry?” Peter said. He wanted to compliment Henry for his solid work.

Henry, citing Andrew Lembridge's signed statements, briefed on Alida's arrangement to sell the Booth letters to Crerar. Missing from his explanation, however, was the number of the hotel room where Lembridge, Crerar, and the woman would be assembling. She hadn't informed Lembridge of that yet. Peter could sense the
FBI
team's frustration.

Price Murdock orchestrated the next part of the briefing. His technical expert, hitherto silent, explained that he had ruled out installation of video in any of the rooms but he had succeeded in hiding a sound feed in the interior door frame of 411, and another in the outer frame.

Peter interrupted. “Was there any trace of the woman in room 411?”

The techie looked startled. “Not that I noticed.”

Lembridge had arranged with Alida to authenticate the letters on the spot. The agents would wire him for audio before he took his taxi to the Gorman. Since no one knew where the money-for-letters exchange would occur, this was the best way to monitor the meeting room.

The men moved to a roundtable critique of the plan. This was a practical stage in the finalizing of every
FBI
tactical operation, a democratic and motivating process that allowed all participants to identify problems or offer solutions. Murdock's team members were eager to get it right. It became clear that the danger of exposure from too many agents wandering the halls of the Gorman was inhibiting their set-up. Each time one of them entered or exited any of the rooms the task force had rented, they risked bumping into the woman or Crerar. Resolved: only the techie, dressed as a businessman, would be allowed to move freely through the lobby and the upper corridors.

Dunning Malloway spoke for the first time. “What about municipal police? They aren't here. What will their role be?”

Murdock fielded the query. “A reasonable question. Dave Jangler couldn't attend, but his people will monitor the outside of the hotel beyond the exits. They know the streets in the area. But they are under orders not to stop Nahvi or Crerar until and unless I give the signal to Dave.”

Alida, they expected, would install herself in 411 but it was unlikely that the transfer would occur in her room. Henry surmised that she had stashed the letters somewhere else; otherwise, he stated, they might have seized her right away. The police team wouldn't learn the room number of the meet before Alida conveyed it to Lembridge on the spot by cell phone; the same applied to Crerar. Additional concerns were raised about the weaselly professor. Would he sweat? Would he lose it upon seeing the girl who had threatened his marriage?

“Leave him to me,” Henry said, with a smirk. “I've bonded with him over our mutual interest in Civil War autographs.”

“Henry, will Lembridge be able to give a definitive ruling on the spot on the authenticity of the Booth signature?” Peter said.

“Hopefully. But whatever documents the woman provides — or doesn't — we have to effect an arrest. At least we'll have
her
.”

The answer was feeble but Price Murdock, in part to lock in a sense of camaraderie, jumped in to bolster Henry's point. “It seems to me very possible that Crerar will demand an adjournment so that further tests can be performed. Modern document analysis employs digital image processing, electrostatic detection apparatus testing, known as
ESDA
, and various photographic and chemical tests of materials, all of which require a cartload of equipment.”

There were no more questions. Peter saw that the plan was a go, even though most of the officers had reservations. The fundamentals were there: Alida was selling stolen papers and a rich client was here to buy them. It should be an easy takedown.

“That clinches it,” Murdock said. “We'll send Lembridge in, wired.”

Henry Pastern evidently remained nervous about Lembridge's ability to play his role. He reiterated his firm instructions to the professor to sing the praises of the rare Booth letter and talk up the price with Crerar.

Peter had serious doubts. Alida might have a gun, and who knew what Crerar would be carrying. And an old hotel? It would be tough to avoid attention, no matter how unobtrusive the police tried to make their presence. The typical takedown, most commonly used in bribery cases, involved
FBI
watchers monitoring mini-cameras from another hotel room.

Malloway apparently shared his fears. In the hallway, he whispered to Peter, “No cameras?”

“None,” Peter said.

The police officers took the elevator in twos, so as to avoid attracting attention. Peter made sure he wasn't paired with Malloway on the way down.

To Peter, the plan seemed lax and untethered. It was easy to think that they could seal the hotel, watch the exits and nab the woman whatever moves she made. That was the root of the problem: they had no idea what Alida Nahvi would do. Alida hadn't been particularly smart but she possessed an instinct for survival, manifested in relentless sociopathic behaviour. It bothered him that none of the police had yet seen her, but if she saw them — Murdock and his agents looked like the veteran cops they were — she would run. And the ten grand (Or was it thirty? Or fifty? Or a hundred?): what would Alida, Crerar, and Lembridge be willing to do to keep their shares?