Parallel Lies (17 page)

Lowering his voice, Goheen said, “One of our investigators has met with unforeseen circumstances.” Tyler had heard murder called many things, but never unforeseen circumstances. “We’ve never had anything like this. I thought that a man in your position would want direct access to the top. And you have it. Day or night, Mr. Tyler, you call. I’ll take those calls—you have my guarantee of that. And now,” he said, scanning the crowd, “you’ll get your wish.”

“Harry Wells was pursuing a Latino,” Tyler stated bluntly. “He assaulted a homeless man trying to get information on that individual. Are you going to tell the FBI about that as well?”

Goheen maintained his composure. If he knew anything about the Latino, it didn’t show on his face. Guys like this practiced composure, however. They hired composure coaches. Tyler wouldn’t rule out that he’d known.

“The NTSB is not authorized to conduct criminal investigations, are they? So what are they doing hiring you?” Goheen stood close to Tyler now.

“I’m fact-finding,” Tyler replied. “That way, the NTSB knows which department to refer this to.”

There were just the two of them in the enormous room then; the swirl of partygoers surrounding them seemed almost like an artificial backdrop.

“Perhaps the FBI will buy that explanation. Perhaps not.” He added, “When do you plan to involve them?”

“I’d rather just catch this Latino and be done with it,” Tyler pressed. “Wouldn’t hurt to know who he is, of course. Wouldn’t hurt to keep this from becoming a full-scale FBI investigation.” He lowered his voice, “The NTSB doesn’t want that any more than your company does. It’s our job to keep the rail lines safe. This bastard is nothing but trouble for us.”

“Agreed,” Goheen said.

“It was you who mentioned involving the FBI, not me,” Tyler reminded him.

“Maybe that can be avoided for a day or two.”

“Why don’t I talk to O’Malley?” Tyler suggested. “Get things moving.”

Goheen turned and pointed across the crowd. “We have an agent who can help you with that.”

Tyler searched out the person that Goheen was attempting to indicate. It took him a few seconds. The agent was a woman. A familiar woman.

From across the room, Nell Priest met eyes with Tyler and nodded.

For a moment, he wanted to turn and run.

“You get here ahead of me, brief them on what I know and don’t know, and your people prep Goheen,” Tyler said. “How am I doing so far, Nellie?”

“Don’t call me that,” she protested. She wore a black cocktail dress that looked better on her than the haute couture gowns did on the trophy brides. “I requested this assignment. I
asked
to be here tonight,” she corrected. “I wanted to apologize for not telling you about Wells. I was on orders. For what it’s worth, it tore me up. I didn’t enjoy withholding information from you.” She stood absolutely motionless, only her chest moving behind anxious breathing.

“You used me,” he said.

“Not by choice.”

“It’s called obstruction of justice. Conspiracy.” He added, “Goheen wants to soften me up, make it all seem like it resulted from simple confusion.” He sniped sarcastically, “Sure it did!” He added, “I can direct the FBI to bring charges against you and the corporation, Nell. He knows that! He’s using me again.”

“We’re all on orders around here to cooperate. I think you’re reading this wrong.”

“So tell me about the Latino,” he said. “Right here, right now. Who is he, and why was Harry Wells after him?”

“That homeless camp was the first I’d heard about any Hispanic.”

Tyler didn’t buy it.

“Listen, Harry Wells was one of O’Malley’s personal team. He calls them the Special Response Unit—‘the Unit’ for short. He uses them to vacate the hobo camps when state or locals don’t. In the summer, most of them are rail riders; they sweep trains at random, clearing riders, making arrests for trespassing.”

“Bullies.”

“More like Marines or mercenaries. If these guys were ever busted, they would never, and I mean
never,
reveal the source of their orders. They’d take full responsibility. They’d say they were rogues, acting solo. You have to see these guys to believe them.”

“Kneecappers.” Tyler had visions of that homeless man’s cleft foot courtesy of a hatchet. “How many of them?” he asked.

“Seven or eight. Ten, at most.” She added, “I can’t confirm any of this, Tyler, except that the Unit exists, and we all know what they’re used for, whether it’s written down anywhere or not.”

“The Latino,” Tyler repeated, still doubting her.

“The guy could have robbed Harry the day before, out on the line somewhere. He could have lied to him. Who knows? Harry Wells could have been pissed about something that had nothing to do with his assignment. Keith O’Malley said nothing about any Hispanic to me. Nothing. I think we read this wrong.”

“And me?” Tyler asked rhetorically. “I think the forensics will reveal black hair in that boxcar. Harry Wells had brown hair.”

“So he caught up to the guy. So it got ugly. It’s an ugly assignment—chasing freeloaders on the freight lines.”

“And that’s all this was?” Tyler questioned. “A confrontation that turned ugly?”

“I don’t have any information or evidence otherwise,” she said. “Do you?”

“I need to talk to O’Malley,” he pressed.

“I can work on that. Where are you staying?” she asked.

“The Empire. But I mean now, tonight. I’ll be down in the hotel bar. Tell your boss that if he sees me tonight, I’ll make a lot less noise. I think our guy came to New York for a reason. We have to consider your company a possible target here—that Harry Wells knew that and was pursuing the man for that reason. Time could be running out: it’s a big city and he’s got the jump on us.”

“You’re making more out of this than it deserves.”

“The guy who killed Harry Wells was no hobo—no rider—and you know it. He stole those clothes. He had an escape route that included a bag left in a storage locker. He took a jet to JFK. Does that fit the profile of a
rider?
Don’t discredit Harry Wells, and don’t underestimate this other guy. He’s had half of Illinois law enforcement on the run for two days. He’s good.”

“O’Malley will meet you in the bar.” She looked scared.

As hard as he tried, he found it hard not to like her.

A commotion from behind them forced them both to turn. There were few people, aside from celebrities, who could create a buzz by simply entering a room, but Gretchen Goheen proved the exception. The crowd passed news of her coming as if royalty had arrived. Tyler caught only a glimpse of her—translucent skin, like bone china; a self-possessed presence. She commanded the room as she walked directly to her father, where she was welcomed with open arms and a kiss on the lips.

“Have you met her?” Tyler asked in a whisper.

He turned when she failed to answer. Nell Priest was gone.

A short, stocky man with a severe brow and tight stride entered the hotel bar and studied the room’s inhabitants like a general reviewing his troops. Tyler identified Keith O’Malley by the man’s grim expression—so in keeping with a former Marine, a former Boston cop, a father of five, a baseball fan, and a beer drinker. Rucker had provided Tyler a quick profile in a five-minute phone call from the lobby. Tyler had also caught Rucker up on his conversation with Goheen, Rucker satisfied for the time being that Goheen had provided access.

Tyler had been waiting in the hotel bar for over an hour and had just been contemplating leaving as the man arrived. Following on O’Malley’s heels, Nell Priest wore a game face that revealed nothing of her thoughts.

“Tyler?” O’Malley inquired. They shook hands. The man had the muscled hands of a day laborer.

“Keith O’Malley, Northern Union Security,” he introduced himself.

“Loren Rucker sends his regards,” Tyler said.

“Is that right? He tell you he can’t swing a bat for shit?”

He signaled the bartender, who relayed it to a waitress. O’Malley was one of those guys that bartenders, waitresses, and doormen kept their eyes on. He had a demanding demeanor that warned of an explosive nature simmering beneath the surface. The waitress was tired but cordial. O’Malley ordered a Heineken. Tyler did the same. Priest ordered a vodka gimlet, up. O’Malley said, “Loren and I were in the Corps together. He probably left that part out.” He smiled. A few of the teeth were his, though not many. “Rucker was a little too much brain, not enough brawn for the Corps. Know what I mean?” He glanced in the direction of the bartender to make sure his needs were being tended to. “You know Ms. Priest.”

Tyler felt troubled over why Rucker would have left out this personal connection to O’Malley and Northern Union Security. It could not have been an oversight. He shifted in his chair, now uneasy.

Nell Priest glanced at him, smiled, and returned her attention to her boss.

“So,” O’Malley said, “gloves off, Tyler. What’s eating you? I’m told you don’t like the way I run my shop. Maybe that matters to me, maybe it doesn’t. We work within the letter of the law. All my people are licensed law enforcement in forty-nine states. Fucking Louisiana still thinks they’re French.” He smiled again but was growing impatient for that beer. “We cooperate with the feds anytime they ask. You’re asking. However, the way I hear it, at no time did you
ask
Ms. Priest anything about the murder victim’s relationship to this company. The way I hear it, you were basically
telling
her the way it was. You were leading her. And I have yet to instruct my people to start volunteering information to the feds. Know what I mean? You used to be police. You know what I’m talking about.”

Tyler still felt himself to be a policeman, no matter that he was off the payroll, off the roll call. It was something
inside him that couldn’t be controlled with a switch. He bristled, fighting off the urge to set the record straight on the Chester Washington assault. The thing followed him around like a shadow. Instead, he said, “Harry Wells put an axe through a homeless man’s foot looking for information. Is that part of your policy?”

“If Harry did anything close to that, I can promise you it was provoked. You’ve been out there. You’ve seen these guys. Harry…” Nostalgia clouded his eyes. “He’d worked here, off and on, for the last ten years. The guy knew the rails, I’ll tell you what. Chances are, this incident to which you refer, it wasn’t Harry at all but another squatter. The lies these guys tell Most of ‘em can’t remember an hour ago, much less a couple days. But, regardless, what’s your point?”

“My point?”

“Yeah, your point. Harry’s dead. It’s a tremendous loss to us. We lost a soldier. You can understand that! A brother. What, you want to reprimand me for something a dead man, one of my guys, may or may not have done? What colors are you wearing, Tyler? What if that had been one of your guys?”

Tyler glanced over at Nell Priest, but her full attention remained on O’Malley. The drinks arrived. Everyone seemed relieved. O’Malley did a third of the beer bottle on his first pull.

Tyler said, “You send undercover agents out in the dead of winter to ride Midwestern lines looking for riders? Why does that strike me as a little strange?”

O’Malley lit a cigar that was a little big for his face. “Are you listening to me, Tyler?” O’Malley asked. “You got your ears turned on?” He had lowered his voice, either out of deference to the smoke or for privacy.

“I’m listening,” Tyler replied.

O’Malley sat back and regarded Tyler over the length of his cigar, a plume of gray smoke rising toward the ceiling.
“You don’t look like you’re listening. You look like a man whose mind is already made up. So what’s the point of this?”

“I’m listening.”

“Because I don’t care one way or the other. And you couldn’t get any of this out of me with anything short of a nutcracker. So either there’s a sense of cooperation here or not. Personally, I don’t care. I’m not the one who asked for the meeting.”

“Maybe you train your people to beg, Mr. O’Malley, but it’s not my style. You want me to get a court order, you want me to air this out in the media—something I already
could
have done but did not—you just go on playing General Patton, or George C. Scott, or whoever the hell it is you think you are. I’m here trying to help you guys, something I explained to Mr. Goheen earlier. I followed a possible suspect here to New York. Ms. Priest and I have already discussed that this particular individual’s behavior would hardly classify him as a hobo, a rider, a freeloader—whatever. He’s smart as hell. He has killed one of your men. He created an escape route for himself, and he took it. That route led here to New York, which is, coincidentally, the site of your corporate headquarters. Do I think this was a random act of violence? No. Do I think the Latino that Wells was pursuing in the camp was some homeless guy who lifted his wallet?” He directed this to Nell Priest, then returned his attention to O’Malley. “No, I don’t. You don’t want to work with any of this, fine. You want to attribute it all to coincidence, also fine. Then I make my report to Loren Rucker and he passes it up the line and someone involves the Bureau. At that point, the chips fall where they may.”