While Galileo Preys (21 page)

“Are there incriminating documents to shred?”

“There are always incriminating documents to shred. If our roles were reversed, I’ll bet I could find a thing or two in your office. Of course, no judge is ever going to offer me a warrant to search your workspace. The street doesn’t go both ways.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“What is it exactly you think Henry did?”

Yates presented himself like a dumb jock, but he was the CFO of a multimillion-dollar company. Tom knew better than to underestimate the man.

“As you implied,” said Tom, “we all have skeletons in our closets.”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“But Mr. Yates, I get to see yours for free.”

Yates glared at the warrant, lying placidly on his desk. Like a dead albatross.

“You don’t think we couldn’t dig up your dirt, Piper? How long have you been a government employee? Twenty-five years? You don’t think with the resources we got we couldn’t unearth some nastiness about you?”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Yates?”

Yates smirked. “I know better than to threaten a big,
powerful member of the FBI. I open my mouth and words just seem to come out. I can’t be held responsible for their interpretation.”

Tom resisted the urge to smack that smirk off his face.

Agent Cofer continued plowing through files on the company server.

On the other hand, Yates didn’t take his eyes off Tom. The CFO was probably envisioning the many ways he could shape Tom into bloody pulp. They eyeballed each other, lions on the Serengeti, circling, each without moving a muscle.

“You’ve been with the Bureau, what, twenty-five years?”

Tom nodded. “Mmm-hmm.”

“You know a guy named Bobby Fink?”

Tom gritted his teeth at this toad’s mention of his beloved ex-partner. “We used to work together.”

“Nice guy, Bobby Fink. From what I hear. Runs a surf shop down in Miami now, right?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

All Tom had to do was ask Agent Cofer to step outside for a minute. It wouldn’t be a clean fight, and he’d probably lose, especially with his arm in a sling, but he’d get in a few good kicks to Yates’s groin and that would satisfy his Id.

“I know where Henry Booth is.” This came from Agent Cofer, who was reading the information from Yates’s computer terminal.

Tom moved to behind the desk and peered over Cofer’s shoulder at the screen.

“He’s on assignment?”

Cofer clicked on a key, and the assignment was revealed.

“Son of a bitch,” said Tom.

Sometimes he hated it when he was right.

“I
’m so thrilled! I want to give you a big, big hug! Can I give you a big, big hug? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Go ahead,” replied Esme, and Amy Lieb wrapped her arms around her and gave a big, big hug. They were in the mini-foyer of Amy’s mini-mansion.

The Liebs’ house was all about space and light. Massive bay windows filled the walls of every room and allowed the maximum amount of sunlight to wash across the soft grass-green carpeting, creating the illusion that one was outdoors and in union with nature, when in fact one was inside and in union with fiberglass. It always felt a few degrees too warm here. Esme removed her coat and a servant, patiently waiting in the corner, whisked it away to wherever the coats got whisked.

Amy led Esme into the study, where six of Oyster Bay’s civic-minded adolescents were hard at work on the Kellerman campaign.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mrs. Stuart. She’s a great friend of mine and she’s going to be helping us out.”

They welcomed her with the usual hello’s, hi’s, etc., then got back to working the phones and labeling the postcards.

“Can I get you anything, Esme?”

“No. I’m good.”

Amy brought Esme to a table. On the table was a blue binder.

“Our big event is in three weeks and Billy had to pull out. Something about a niece’s graduation.”

“Billy…?”

“Joel.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, but I know you’re a huge music fan so how would you like to choose the band for the fundraiser?”

“Uh…”

Amy opened up the blue binder. “In here are the listings for every band that’s contributed to the Democratic Party in the past six years. I didn’t know how to arrange them so they’re arranged alphabetically. Bands that begin with the word
the
are listed under “The” but artists are listed last name first. Each page also has contact information, vitals, all that jazz. If you have any questions, I’ll be in the den. I have a three o’clock phone conference with the candidate.”

“You have a three o’clock phone conference with Bob Kellerman?”

“And his campaign manager. We’re the governor’s first stop after his vacation next week. If you’d like to say hi, come on in around 3:10. He’s so approachable.”

“Even on the phone, huh?”

“Especially on the phone! Oh, and Esme, I’m so
glad your mind got turned around about this benefit. I know how skittish you were about it. Word travels around, after all. But it wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Amy waved goodbye to her troops and sashayed off to her three o’clock with the probable future president of the United States.

This is my world, thought Esme. She sat down at the table and flipped through the binder. Personal phone numbers for John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, each member of R.E.M. (even Bill Berry). This is my world. Of course, it had been her world for the past seven years really, this planet of prestige and accessibility. She just had kept it at arm’s length. And was it so bad? Amy Lieb was using her power and status not to buy the latest Ferrari or to traipse off to the hippest Mediterranean villa but to help elevate by-all-accounts a decent man to leader of the free world. If anything, it was commendable, wasn’t it?

“You’re that woman, aren’t you?”

This from one of the teeny-boppers, a pert redhead with braces.

“That woman?”

“You know, from the news.”

“Rachel…” Her friend, a bottle-blonde, punched her in the shoulder. “I want to apologize for Rachel. She got dropped on her head when she was a baby. Repeatedly. From great heights.”

“Shut up, Cassie. I’m just asking.”

“And I’m just asking you to mind your own business,” replied Cassie.

“It’s okay,” said Esme.

They both turned to her.

“Yeah, I’m the woman from the news.”

The room fell silent. Obviously the others had been listening, and waiting.

“So you, like, met him?”

Most of the girls, and a few of the guys, sat effortlessly cross-legged on the floor. Esme remembered when she was that flexible. Now she could barely tie her sneakers without her back spitting hellfire. But she was getting better.

“What was he like?” Cassie asked.

“Well…” Esme saw she had an audience. They were young. She wondered if she should water down her account, or perhaps avoid it entirely. She didn’t need late-night phone calls from angry mothers.

“Were you scared?”

“Yes,” Esme answered, without hesitation. “I was terrified.”

“My uncle’s an EMT in the city,” chimed one of the boys. “I overheard him talking to my parents. Last week, in the middle of the night shift, they got a call. Someone found the body of a homeless person just lying in the street. What my uncle said was, nobody wanted to take the call. Nobody wanted to go out to the scene and pick up this poor guy who probably died from alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose. They left the body out there in the street until the morning.”

“Why?”

“Galileo,” replied Rachel. “They thought it might be like what happened in Atlanta.”

“I bet that kind of thing is happening a lot now. Cops and firefighters and teachers all scared to do, you know, go to work and do their jobs. No one’s talking about it, but remember what school was like the day after Santa Fe? I don’t think anyone got detention for a week. No one wanted to stay after school.”

“I heard Mrs. Phillips moved rehearsal of
My Fair Lady
from the auditorium to one of the music classrooms.”

“That was so they could work on the songs, genius.”

“Maybe.”

“Everyone’s just overreacting,” Cassie said, then looked at Esme. “Right?”

Esme didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, she didn’t have to reply. Rachel replied for her:

“I’ll bet when Galileo was a kid, he used to torture animals,” the redhead suggested. “I’ll bet he used to strangle rabbits and gerbils and people would wonder where their pets were and I’ll bet he enjoyed it.”

“Do you think his parents knew?”

“How could they not?”

“Then all this is just as much their fault as his.”

“So, what, Rachel, it’s your parents’ fault you’re such a spaz?”

Now it was Rachel who punched Cassie in the shoulder. Hard.

Then silence. Had the conversation run its course?

Leave it to Rachel.

“So, Mrs. Stuart, are you still scared?”

Esme cocked her head. “Still?”

“That he’ll come after you and, you know…finish the job?”

This time no one chastised Rachel with a punch to the shoulder. Everyone was too stunned to move.

“Um…” replied Esme, which showed just how coherent her thoughts were at that moment. Had she thought about Galileo coming after her? Of course she had. Every day she had. She refused to live in fear, but she also had remained indoors 24/7 and on the sofa, far from any window, until very recently. But now all that had changed. Now she was back in the world, where Galileo could end you from a mile away.

“If he wanted her dead, he would have done it in Texas,” the boy whose uncle was an EMT softly spoke.

“Well, why didn’t he?”

Esme wanted to punch Rachel, just not in the shoulder.

“Rachel,” added Cassie, “why don’t you get us another pitcher of water?”

“But the pitcher’s not empty.”

“Why put off the inevitable?”

Rachel grimaced, rose to her feet, and carried the pitcher out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” said Cassie.

“It’s okay,” lied Esme. “Why don’t we get back to work?”

The circus was in town. It always showed the first weekend of April, with the crowning of the chokecherries. Donald Chappell had attended it when he was a boy, marveling at the caged lions in the big top. The lions
had been his favorite part. He had only read about lions before, in the Narnia books, and here they were, alive and beautiful, just as he had imagined. When he had a son of his own, he passed down his love of the April circus, and his collection of Narnia books. Now Donald was here with his boy’s boy, his grandson, little Joey, Joey who couldn’t stand still, Joey who had never heard of C. S. Lewis and didn’t much care when Donald tried to explain who Aslan was. Joey was more interested in his cotton candy than in the show.

When Donald was a boy, the circus seemed to come out of nowhere, like magic, and that felt right. Then one day, shortly after the Unity for a Better Tomorrow began to become successful, the managers of the circus paid Donald and his wife a call. As prominent local business owners, would they be interested in helping to subsidize the circus? It could be tax deductible, they boasted. It could provide great PR, they exclaimed.

That night, in bed, Donald almost cried.

The Unity for a Better Tomorrow did end up subsidizing the circus, and by the time Joey was born, the Unity was the circus’s primary sponsor. The cotton candy Joey enjoyed so much was “on the house.” So were today’s tickets. So would be any tickets, if Joey wanted to return, and Donald would have been more than happy to bring him.

“I’m bored,” the boy said.

The audience cheered as a lithe brunette, fifty feet in the air, walked across a line of wire while reading a book. Maybe she was reading
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Donald could barely see the girl, much
less her book cover. He needed new glasses. Again. Damn cataracts. He rubbed his hazel eyes and tried to make out the brunette as she made her return stroll, pausing briefly in her journey to turn the page in her book.

Joey yawned. Loudly.

After the grand finale, after the bows and the standing ovation, after Joey begged for another cotton candy, Donald led him with the crowd out of the tent. The circus had a carnival fairway set up between the tent and the parking lot. Children tugged their parents toward shooting galleries, where giant teddy bears hung from poles and longed for ownership. Lines had already formed at the Ferris wheel and the Tilt-a-Whirl. To the left, middle schoolers took turns dunking their heads in a barrel of black water, bobbing for hidden prizes. To the right, high schoolers poured into the Haunted Hall of Mirrors, eager to shriek in terror. The moon looked over them all with a watchful eye, wide and unblinking, on springtime Nebraska.

“I want a white bear!”

Joey pointed and pointed at a row of plush polar bears hanging in a nearby booth. Donald acquiesced, and they approached the barker behind the counter.

“One gets you five, two gets you fifteen,” the barker announced.

Donald handed him a dollar bill, and the barker traded it for a BB-rifle.

“I want to shoot! I want to shoot!”

“Of course you do,” mumbled Donald, and he
handed the gun to his child’s child. The target was a pyramid of seven milk bottles stacked ten feet away. Joey tried to aim the rifle, but it weighed almost as much as he did. Donald supported the underside of the barrel with a finger.

“Okay, now take a deep breath,” he said.

Joey took a deep breath.

“Close one eye.”

Joey closed one eye.

“And pull the trigger.”

Joey pulled the trigger. POP! The top milk bottle tumbled to the netting below.

“I got one, I got one!”

“Four more shots, Joey.”

Joey took a deep breath and closed one eye. Donald’s attention drifted off to his left. Someone was standing close by. Did they have an audience?

“Hello, Mr. Chappell.”

POP! Another milk bottle toppled.

“Tom Piper, isn’t it? What a pleasant surprise.”

Donald let go of the gun to shake Tom’s hand, and the rifle barrel smacked against the booth countertop.

“Grandpa!”

“Oh. Sorry, Joey,” Donald said. He returned his hand to its place.

Joey took a deep breath and closed one eye.

“The trick is to aim for the bottom row,” said Tom. “You knock out the foundation, and the whole house comes tumbling down.”

Donald felt Joey lower the rifle a few inches, and compensated with his steadying hand. POP! One of the
bottom milk bottles spun out of place, and the remaining four joined it in the netting.

“We have a winner!” cried the barker.

While he handed Joey a polar bear, the two grownups exchanged sentences with a few glances.

“Joey,” said Donald, “we’re going to go to the car now so this nice man and I can discuss business. Is that okay?”

“Can I have another cotton candy?”

Donald bought his grandson another cotton candy. They strolled out to the parking lot and Joey plopped in the backseat of the black Buick. The bear occupied his lap. Donald closed the door. The boy wouldn’t be able to hear them from inside the car, and even if he could, he wouldn’t understand, and even if he could, he had his cotton candy and he had his polar bear.

“So, Tom, how can I help you? I assume you’re not here for the circus.”

“No, sir.”

“That’s a shame. Everyone loves a circus. Or should.” A light breeze mussed Donald’s cowlick, which was as white as his grandson’s polar bear, and he absently corrected the errant hair. “What can I do for you?”

“Henry Booth.”

“Henry Booth? Who’s that?”

Tom nodded. “I’ll tell you. Because it’s an interesting story, and everyone loves an interesting story. Or should. Henry Booth’s a God-fearing man. Grew up in rural Maryland. Got a job with the CIA, a good job, too, but eventually the work got to him, and he left for the private sector. He went to work for a security company out of Baltimore called Bellum Velum.”

Donald stared into space. “Bellum Velum is an interesting name.”

“Oh?”

“It’s Latin. It means ‘War for Sale.’”

Donald’s hazel gaze caught Tom’s. He’d taken the agent off-guard. Good.

“Please continue your tale. I’m most interested to hear how it all turns out.”

Above, the nighttime clouds were picking up speed. It would rain soon. The circus would have to shutter its doors.

“Henry Booth did a lot of heavy lifting for this security company. They sent him all over the world, doing this and that. Bosnia. Afghanistan. He didn’t want to be back in these places, though, so he begged for reassignment. And he got it. Turns out someone had recently hired Bellum Velum to do some small intelligence work. Bellum Velum specializes in all sorts of activities.”