A Crossword to Die For (18 page)

“Just as my father succumbed to what appeared to be a heart attack.”

Rosco walked into the office at that moment, followed by Kit, who nearly tripped him in her hopes of inspiring a game of chase. “I decided not to call. Your message sounded a little too urgent …” He walked to the desk. Belle turned the puzzle toward him. “I'm afraid we left some fingerprints on it.”

Rosco glanced at the crossword as he spoke. “I'm sure they can be separated out, Belle … On the other hand, since this came from someone in Belize, it's unlikely any prints of the constructor would be available.” He gave Sara a distracted kiss and clasped his wife's hand.

“I think it's the other way around, Rosco, dear,” was Sara's bemused response.

“What?”

“The other way around. You kiss your wife, and shake my hand.

Rosco stared in confusion.

“Never mind.” Belle smiled up at him, then returned her total concentration to the crossword. “There are a number of clues that indicate the constructor was aware of my father's interest in Central America … For instance, his name appears at 63-Across; 61-Across is
January, south of the border
, which may reference a journey my father took … But more importantly, look at the answers to 18, 33, and 52-Across.”

“Wise man's tip, part 1, 2, and 3,”
Rosco read aloud, then whistled under his breath. “Holy smoke!” He looked at Belle. “THREE MAY KEEP A SECRET IF TWO OF THEM ARE DEAD.” Finally, he added a quiet, “Debbie …”

“That was the connection Sara and I made, too … And Father … making the third person—”

“I'm going to call Al,” Rosco said. “Get this puzzle over to him … I don't know what he'll suggest in terms of Deborah Hurley, since her death occurred in New Jersey, but I'm pretty sure he'll recommend having your father's body exhumed for a full investigation into homicide … If Carlyle's suggestion was correct, and poison was used, the lab will need to provide specifics to strengthen any potential criminal case Al might decide to open. The situation involving Debbie is different—and definitely beyond his jurisdiction—but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Belle bit her lip. “I wish there were some other way of determining if Father—”

Sara interrupted. “But, Rosco, if my brother's hints and warnings are true, and it was some type of drug cartel that was responsible for killing Belle's father, wouldn't their activities be well-nigh impossible to trace? Foreign nationals drifting in and out of the country. No American police files, et cetera—”

“Unless they contracted a local to do the work,” he said. Then he also paused in thought. “Before we address the issue of exhuming the body, maybe we need to examine Dr. Graham's final days … We know he took the train from Florida, made a private stop in Princeton … Marie-Claude Araignée told me it was your father's idea to attend the talk given by the CEO of Savante—meaning that he'd clearly scheduled his entire trip north around that event—”

“And then argued publicly with the man,” Belle added in some excitement before her shoulders slumped again. “But Father was apparently only concerned about drilling practices in the regions where the Olmec culture existed—something Savante obviously wasn't involved in because of Mexico's government-run monopoly.”

“That's where you may be wrong,” said Sara. “The potentates who preside over international businesses either intentionally—or not—share a great deal of information about each other's practices, be they industrial or fiscal. Conspiracy isn't the sole purview of government agencies.”

All three considered their pronouncements. Finally, Belle posed another question. “The cocaine intercepted by the Coast Guard was hidden on a boat, wasn't it?”

“A Belizean fishing trawler, according to Hal,” was Sara's swift reply.

“And crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico travels to refineries in North America via ship, doesn't it—with the participation of U.S. companies?”

Rosco stared at his wife. “Are you honestly thinking—?”

Sara finished the sentence for him. “That Savante's tankers may be involved in drug smuggling?”

“It's conceivable, isn't it?” was Belle's quick reply. “Because if we take Senator Crane's warning to heart, then my mind jumps to the fact that Father's research on the Olmecs accidentally uncovered a linkage between oil drilled in Latin America—”

“And millions of dollars of illegally imported drugs,” Sara said.

It was Rosco who spoke next. “I think it's time I set up a visit to the Savante Group.”

CHAPTER 25

New York, New York. Rosco hadn't visited the Big Apple in over six years. Back then his attention had been focused on discerning the whereabouts of a runaway teenager—a boy who'd been missing from Newcastle for three months. Rosco had eventually traced him to the campus of Columbia University on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The kid had settled in fairly well there; he was working for a bicycle messenger service on Times Square, pulling down a decent income, and wasn't too keen on the idea of being dragged back to Newcastle, Massachusetts, to finish high school.

But Rosco had talked to him; then talked and listened some more—the result being that the former truant had returned home, where he'd quickly applied the lessons on competition and ambition he'd learned in New York. At the age of twenty-two, he was currently the manager of Global Delivery's Newcastle office—the same people who'd just delivered the crossword puzzle Belle had received from Belize.

All these memories flooded into Rosco's brain as he passed the university and continued down Broadway toward lower Manhattan. Since his 2:00 P.M. meeting with Carl Oclen, Savante's CEO, was scheduled for the company's corporate headquarters on Exchange Place, the easier and quicker route would have been for him to take the West Side Highway straight to the city's Wall Street area. But Rosco actually enjoyed riding down the length of Manhattan Island on Broadway. In his opinion, New Yorkers were always good for a show; nothing slowed them down, and nothing ever would. The drive would probably provide as much entertainment as going to a movie. Anything, and everything, could, and would, happen in New York.

The day had reached ninety degrees and Rosco had removed the canvas top to his Jeep, making it, quite possibly, the only
convertible
in the city. Open-air automobiles were not a New York thing; who knew what you might find in your lap? And overnight parking with a cloth roof? Forget about it. Or as they like to say in the city's outlying boroughs:
Fuggedaboutit
.

“Hey, fella,” Rosco remembered hearing a thick Bronx accent warn him on his last trip. “Youse knows what's gonna happen to yo' rag-top afta da sun goes down? Heh, ya don't wanna know. Betta look for a garage, pal.” The fact that Rosco left no valuables in the Jeep, and never locked it, seemed to make the New Yorker laugh harder. “Hey, ya think anyone's gonna bodda to see if da door's unlocked? Where's da fun in dat?”

Rosco continued down Broadway, through the Upper West Side, past Columbus Circle, and into the Theatre District. The Broadway show marquees hung out over the sidewalks blaring the names of the various “hot” musicals and “brilliant” stars. He began to notice a strange phenomenon whenever he was halted by a traffic light. As soon as a pedestrian would espy the Red Sox license plate on his front bumper, an immediate scowl would form on his or her face. A couple of men even felt obliged to spit into the crosswalk ahead of the Jeep's grill. Rosco gathered that it was just a gutsy response to the fact that the Red Sox were four games out in front of the Yankees in the AL East. One pedestrian, who seemed to take particular offense, actually walked up to him, looked him in the eye, and said, “It ain't over till it's over, buddy boy,” then marched off toward Radio City.

After the Theatre District came Times Square, then the huge Macy's building, the Garment District, Madison Square, Union Square, and eventually Greenwich Village—where Broadway was considered the western fringe of the famed East Village. The city was so massive, each block so crammed with buildings, and so packed with businesses and residences, that the streets continuously teemed with men and women. Everyone was moving fast; everyone was on a mission; trucks double-parked to discharge goods; dollies rolled along sidewalks; pedestrians dodged out of the way, then sprinted into traffic; car horns blared; and drivers yelled obscenities that were lobbed back at them like tennis balls by those on foot.

Rosco pushed farther south, across Houston Street and into Soho. It was at this point that a parking place appeared directly in front of a deli, and he decided it would be a good idea to get a bite to eat before meeting with Carl Oclen. He snagged the place, dropped two quarters into the meter, and scanned the street, taking in the sights.

“You're not going to leave your car like that, are you?” The words came from a young woman dressed in business clothes and carrying a stainless-steel attaché case.

Rosco glanced at her in surprise. “What? The Jeep? There's nothing in it worth taking.”

She laughed; it was a quick, no-nonsense, I'm-too-busy-to-be-talking-to-this-yokel sound. “What about the seats? You don't think they'll take the seats?” She marched to the rear of the Jeep, glanced at his tags, said, “Massachusetts! Ho-ho-ho. Figures,” and walked off.

Rosco watched her leave. Out of either stubbornness or pride, he opted not to heed her warning; instead, he stepped into the deli and ordered a pastrami sandwich from the takeout window. Then caution got the better of him, and he brought the sandwich back outside, sat on his front fender, and enjoyed his lunch—al fresco.

After he finished with his sandwich and pickle, he walked to the corner and tossed his paper wrapper into a trash can. When he returned, a man was sitting in the passenger's side of the Jeep, pawing through the glove compartment.

“Something I can help you with?” was all Rosco could think to say.

“This your car?”

“Yep.”

“Jeep, huh?”

“Sure is.”

The man stepped back onto the sidewalk, gave Rosco the once-over, and said, “Just lookin' for some change, man. Got any you can spare?”

Nonplussed at the reply, Rosco forked over a dollar, then climbed into the Jeep and continued down Broadway toward the Wall Street area. Street parking was nonexistent so he pulled into an underground garage that advertised a rate of six dollars.

“How long ya gonna be?” the attendant drawled.

“About an hour. Six bucks, right?”

The attendant merely grunted. “Nah, man, six is for the first twenty minutes. An hour'll be closer to twenty, twenty-five. Longer's more … Leave the keys.”

Rosco opened his mouth in protest, then thought better of it. “Leave the keys … Right.”

The Savante offices were on the thirty-third floor of a gray granite building on the corner of Broadway and Exchange Place. Rosco entered through a revolving door and moved over to a bank of elevators marked FLOORS 30–40. He stepped into a car as the door slid open and pressed 33. The car shot upward, and he walked out into an expansive waiting area only seconds later.

Savante appeared to take up the entire thirty-third floor. A chrome and teak reception desk sat in the center of a waiting area furnished with minimalist pieces crafted from similar materials. Rosco approached the receptionist and said, “I have a two o'clock appointment with Mr. Oclen. I'm Chuck Balboa … With the Back Bay Film Project?”

“One minute, please.” The receptionist tapped an intercom button. “Candie, Mr. Oclen's two o'clock is here. The gentleman with the Boston film company … and accent.”

The voice on the other end came back with, “Ask him to have a seat. We'll be with him in a moment.”

The receptionist pointed to a couch on the assumption Rosco had overheard Candie. When he sat, his exposed ankles were given a sour and unapproving glance.

He shrugged, said, “Hey, I spend too much time on ‘the Coast'—what can I say?” then picked up a copy of
Crude
, a trade publication dedicated to the oil business. The magazine was five months old, leading Rosco to wonder why it hadn't been replaced with a newer issue. But upon closer examination, he realized the man on the cover was no other than Carl Oclen himself. He was standing on the bow of a supertanker in a pose that surreally appeared to mimic the movie
Titanic
. Behind Oclen stretched a long and lusciously verdant coastline that Rosco guessed to be in the Gulf of Mexico while inside the magazine was a lengthy article entitled “The Midas Touch: Swimming in Liquid Gold,” profiling the Savante Group and Oclen.

According to the article, Savante's CEO had been born in rural Texas, dropped out of high school, and had worked as a wildcatter in the Iranian, Saudi, and Southern California oil fields. He'd moved up industry ranks and was one of the premier explorers and developers of the offshore drilling in California's Santa Barbara area before cutting out on his own to create the Savante Group, Inc. Over the years the company had branched out, and now had controlling interests in supermarkets, banana imports, Florida citrus groves, a fast-food chain, a popular breakfast cereal, and infant and toddler foods, formula, and “hygienic supplies.” Oclen, himself, also owned a minor league baseball team in Texas.

“Mr. Oclen will see you now,” a young woman said as she approached. She looked more like a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader than a secretary, and her heavy Texas accent only seemed to cement that image.

“You must be Candie,” Rosco said as they walked down the hallway, wondering what had happened to the snooty assistant who'd arranged today's meeting.

“Why, yes. I am.”
Am
came out like
aay-em
.

“You're not the person I spoke with when I made the appointment.”