The Constantine Conspiracy (23 page)

“Why did Ms. Bridge send you to Destin?”

“To find refuge in case something happened to her.”

“This woman, Mabel,” Roche said, picking up a folder and flipping through it.

“Yeah.”

“She Shannon Bridge’s mom? Grandmom?”

“Don’t know, Shannon never really said.”

“That’s it?” Roche asked, obviously not believing him. “Ms. Bridge sends one of the world’s most famous men, a man hunted coast to coast, to a safe house? And you just head out, trusting whatever she told you? Who is Miss Bridge, Mr. Carson? What makes you do what she tells you?”

Rick shrugged but said nothing of the Conspiracy, the Order, or Shannon’s outlandish statements about Pops.

“You got nothing else?” Webber asked.

Rick stared at the officer, his dark hair and eyebrows, thick nose and lips. “A cop shot me,” he said. “You might want to investigate that.”

“The line of duty,” Webber said. “We’re talking to him, though, that satisfy you?”

“I’m touched.”

“Where is Miss Bridge?” Roche pressed. “We need to talk to her again.”

“I assumed you’d know.”

Roche and Webber looked at each other, then Roche advised him to put any travel plans on hold until they decided their next step. Rick quickly agreed to the suggestion and the cops headed out. A few minutes later Pops stepped into the room and took a seat by the bed. A servant showed up a second later, and Pops ordered a couple of sandwiches, then lit a cigar while Rick watched with wary eyes.

“Where’s Luisa?” Rick asked as the attendant left.

“Taking a few days off. Not feeling well lately, told me she thought she caught something, flu bug maybe.”

“I need to call her.”

“Soon as you’re up to it.”

“And Mom, how is she?”

“The same. It’s such a tragedy. Wish I could fix her, that somebody could. But medicine can’t cure everything, not when it comes to the psyche.”

“What happened to her, Pops? Really?”

“Is this the time to talk about that, Rick?”

“As good as any.”

Pops sighed. “Who can say, Son? Your mom snapped. Chemical imbalances, poor parenting by her mom and me? Problems adjusting to middle age, a son who no longer needed her? You did the research—psychotic breaks don’t yield to easy diagnosis. I hired the best doctors in the world, but they couldn’t do a thing.”

“I’ve neglected her.”

“You’ve lived your life like any young man should, no fault in that.”

Silence fell for several moments as Rick weighed his lifestyle, how it had separated him from his roots—his parents, his childhood friends, most of what had once grounded him. How easily he’d fallen into the patterns, up all night, sleep most of the day. Heavy drinking, a series of female partners, each seemingly more vacuous than the last. Gambling, traveling, living the life of the iconic playboy. All fun and games— no responsibilities, no worries. But no sense of purpose either, no reason to climb out of bed every day—a canvas painted with bright colors but no depth.

Pops broke the quiet. “You’ve had quite an adventure,” he started, puffing on the cigar. “Exhilarating, I expect. You kept the police pretty busy there for a few days, me too for that matter. Then got shot. It’s quite a story. We’ve got media all over the place, hordes of them.”

Rick shifted slightly, grimaced with pain. “Sorry it took me so long to reach you, but I didn’t know what to do, where to turn. And when I tried to call—

“Don’t give it a second thought,” Pops said. “You did your best, just glad you’re home now. I have your phone, by the way.” He moved to a desk, pulled the phone out of a drawer, and handed it to Rick. “Cops checked it out, then gave it back to me.”

Rick flipped open the phone with his good hand; saw a long list of missed calls, then another group of text messages and emails. “Lot of people looking for me.”

“You have some catching up to do.”

“Not sure I care to do it though. Peculiar, isn’t it?”

“Not really. You’ve endured a lot, need time to heal, get a grip. Perhaps you should do a press conference, answer everybody’s questions all at once, tell your story, and satisfy the curiosity of the masses.”

“You think that’s a wise move?”

“Why not? You’re a celebrity, Rick—you realize that better than me. And this is all huge news, bigger than anything
People
magazine puts on the cover this week. You’ll receive book offers, a movie, an interview with Oprah.”

“I don’t want any of that.”

“Sure you do, least you have in the past. You love the attention, feed on it. Take a few days, you’ll get your groove back.”

“My groove?”

Pops chuckled. “I’m up on the lingo, Rick, don’t you think?”

Rick laid the phone on the bed, his humor not lightened. “Police told me to stay close,” he said.

“Don’t worry about the police, they have no evidence against you except the fact you were there when Steve died. Without a motive, they’re dead in the water. And I’ll push them to keep investigating, look for the man from Rolling Hills. But I expect the lack of evidence will make it tough to prosecute anybody even if they find him.”

Rick almost mentioned the motorcycle tracks but remembered Shannon’s warnings and kept quiet.

“Tell me about this woman,” Pops suggested, blowing smoke from his nostrils. “Ms. Bridge. How did she end up in the panic room, for heaven’s sake? And where is she?”

The servant brought in a tray and Pops pulled a glass of juice and a sandwich from it, handed them to Rick, then took a sandwich for himself.

“I met Ms. Bridge in Montana,” Rick said, nibbling at his sandwich. “Liked her, you know. Then, when all this happened, I needed somebody to talk to but didn’t know who to call, who I could trust. I didn’t want to put any of my usual crowd in jeopardy so I called her. She wanted to help, flew to Atlanta to meet me.”

“You always had a way with the ladies.” Pops put down his cigar and took a bite from his sandwich.

“I sent her to the panic room,” Rick said, deciding to take the initiative. “Dad left the code with Luisa, told her to give it to me if anything happened to him. When I ran, Luisa gave the code to Shannon, who then brought it to me. I asked her to examine the room, see what, if anything, she could find.”

“What do you think your dad wanted found?”

Rick took another bite of sandwich, his emotions churning. “Hard to say, nothing in there but a video recording.”

Pops straightened slightly and Rick noted it but couldn’t measure the level of significance he should give it.

“What was on the video? Anything related to your dad’s death, any clues to assist the police?” Pops asked.

Rick finished his sandwich, his eyes never leaving Pops. “A weird documentary,” he said. “About Constantine—a Roman emperor in the fourth century.”

“Steve wanted you to see a video from the History Channel?” No emotion sounded in Pops’ tone.

“Peculiar, huh?”

“Must be something in there that Ms. Bridge overlooked,” Pops said. “Perhaps you should examine the room yourself.”

“Maybe I will,” Rick said. “After I rest, heal a while.”

Pops finished his sandwich and picked up his cigar again, puffed its dying embers back to life. “The man at Rolling Hills,” he began. “You believe he killed Steve.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“And his motive?”

“That’s a puzzler. You know any reason for somebody to want Dad dead?”

“Your father possessed great wealth. Many people envied him, resented him.”

“His money came through you and Mom, everybody knew that. No reason for anybody to resent him. And he never made a show of it.”

“You have a better theory?”

Pops rolled his cigar in his fingers, studying the fire at the end, but Rick sensed a certain tension in his seeming nonchalance. His stomach tightened. He didn’t want to betray Shannon, put her in any danger. At the same time, though, he needed to test his grandfather, measure his reaction to the truth. Besides, if Shannon had told him the real story, his grandfather surely already knew about her, or soon would. And if Shannon was wrong, then Pops was harmless.

“Shannon Bridge does,” he finally said.

The cigar stopped moving and Pops leaned forward. “Do tell,” he said.

Rick took a sip of juice, weighed what to say, whether to take the chance. He sensed that no matter what he did, change waited just around the corner, a life-altering shift in the ground under his feet. If he said nothing, he’d never know what happened to his father. But if he revealed Shannon’s accusations, he might destroy his relationship with Pops, maybe forever.

“Shannon believes you ordered Dad’s death,” he said.

“And why would I do that?” Pops remained as cool as the underside of a pillow.

“She says Dad found out something about you, discovered that you’re the leader of a movement that seeks to eradicate Christian faith. She believes you hired the assassin to keep Dad from revealing what he’d discovered.”

Pops chuckled and puffed from his cigar again. “Young people,” he exclaimed. “Such imaginations. Where did she get such a fantastic idea?”

“Dad left the letters CONS on his computer; could stand for conspiracy. Then Shannon found the video. She says the Conspiracy started in Constantine’s reign, a group of men who vowed to overthrow what he initiated—the practice of Christian faith as the central religion of Western culture.”

“CONS could stand for Constantine too, as well as a whole lot of other words. But let’s assume she’s correct for a moment. How would Ms. Bridge know of this so-called conspiracy?”

Rick sipped juice, considered how much to say, then offered enough to explain the situation without giving away everything. “She’s a Christian—they see conspiracies everywhere, right? She must have read something on the internet somewhere.”

Pops chuckled. “What proof did she offer to support her delusion?”

“Add it up: the assassin knew the codes to disable the alarms at Solitude. He gained entry to Rolling Hills, also tipped off the cops about Shannon’s presence in the panic room. How do you explain all that? Looks like an inside job to me.”

“And you believe I’m the insider? That I’m monstrous enough to murder my own son-in-law? Where have you seen that kind of savagery in me? Tell me when and where I’ve ever acted in any way to make you believe such a terrible thing about me and I will repent here and now!”

Rick leaned back, stunned by the passion in Pops’ voice, but also moved by it. “No, Pops,” he said. “You’ve never shown me anything like that. That’s why I told you what Shannon said. You deserve to hear the accusation, to have the opportunity to defend yourself against it.”

Pops exhaled, brushed a hand through his hair. “Your dad and I, we never saw eye to eye on much of anything, I confess that. Perhaps I acted unfairly toward him, didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. But he . . . I don’t know . . . lacked a certain quality that I had hoped your mother would find in a husband. He showed little drive to achieve anything, seemed content to . . . I hate to say it this way, but he wasted most of his life.”

“He spent most of his time with Mom and me.”

“Great, fine, but I put him in charge of two different companies. He cared nothing for them, basically punched in a time card, eight to five, no more, no less, not my idea of a man of ambition.”

“He preferred other pursuits, hunting, fishing, a little golf now and again. Plus his travel—always enjoyed seeing things, experiencing different places. Liked to take long walks with Mom, sketched some, landscapes mostly.”

“Exactly, a real slacker if you ask me. So I made it tough on him. But to suggest that I wanted him dead, for whatever reason your Ms. Bridge might imagine . . . well, that causes me great grief.”

Rick dropped his head, sorry he had raised the issue. But still, somebody had murdered his father. “What’s your theory, Pops?”

“Assuming no suicide?”

“You know he didn’t commit suicide.”

Pops shrugged but didn’t argue the point. “I wonder why Ms. Bridge pointed the finger at me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s an old tactic. To throw off suspicion from yourself, you point to someone else. Perhaps Ms. Bridge knows more about Steve’s death than she cares for you to discover.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The knife, Rick.”

Rick tensed. “How do you know about the knife?”

“Come on, Rick. Money buys knowledge, right? I’m aware of everything the police have on this. The knife had ruby crosses on the handle?”

“So?” Rick relaxed a bit.

“Well, Ms. Bridge is a Christian. Those people love their crosses—here, there, everywhere. Doesn’t a cross in a knife handle point to a Christian doing the killing—a calling card, so to speak? Some weird message that we can’t understand?”

Rick considered the idea and found some logic in it. “But how would she know the security codes?” he asked.

“She lives close to Solitude. The people who built the place also put in the alarm systems. They live in Helena. Those who monitor the systems also live there. Perhaps she cultivated those folks, learned the codes, and gained entry that way. A woman of her charms—and she does possess charm, doesn’t she?—that kind of woman bends men to her will, all kinds of men.”

“That’s possible, I guess. But why?”

“Maybe your dad threatened her, the beliefs she held, somebody she cared about. I read last month of a priest in Vermont who murdered a boy he had molested to keep him quiet about the abuse. Who knows how your dad offended her—it’s just a theory, but if Steve did discover some kind of conspiracy, it might involve her as easily as me. She, or her friends, murdered him to shut him up about it.”

“And she befriended me to see what I knew, if I found anything that pointed back to her. The panic room, she wanted to go there, see what Dad left behind, any clues to her involvement.”

“Makes as much sense as suggesting I did it. I mean, really, Rick, how much do you truly know about Ms. Bridge?”

Rick cleared his throat, not sure what to say.

“I’d like to see the video,” Pops said, changing the subject. “You have a copy, I suppose.”

“No.”

“You have no copy?”