Aphrodite

26

They didn’t get invited up to the Westwood house very often. No one did. So they were all slightly confused, but none of them could deny that they were also intrigued. Each of them, as they drove through the gate, was anticipating something, although none had the vaguest idea what that thing might be.
When they saw the other guests, their sense of anticipation rose. So did their bewilderment.
The first person to arrive was the one who had come the farthest, Wanda Chinkle. Wanda was forty-four years old, an attractive woman in a slightly hardened way. She was short—only five foot two—and she didn’t have a discernible ounce of fat on her body. Her hair was dark, cut close to her scalp, not fashionably; it looked like she’d done it just to be practical. Wanda was practical when it came to most things. She was also the special agent in charge of the Boston bureau of the FBI, had been for nearly seven years now. The Boston office had jurisdiction in Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, so anything happening in Providence directly involved her. Wanda agreed to make the drive this afternoon because she had just begun her job—working her way up from field agent—when Justin had been winding up his investigation of Louie Denbo. She’d been working closely with Justin when he’d been shot, and she still felt guilty that she had not anticipated the retaliation and had not given the family Bureau protection. She had not heard from Jonathan Westwood in all the intervening years, but when he called earlier that afternoon, said it was urgent and that he needed her, not anyone else but her, she decided she could indulge him. The news about Justin had crossed her desk first thing that morning. She suspected that the elder Westwood was looking for some strings to be pulled. She didn’t think she’d be willing to pull them, but she certainly was willing to hear him out. She owed the family that much.
She waited in the spacious downstairs den for ten minutes before the next guest arrived. Wanda didn’t know him. He sauntered into the den, obviously as curious and clueless as she was, and introduced himself. His name was Roger Mallone, and he was young, maybe thirty, with a ruddy complexion. He was solid looking, a tennis player, she’d bet, although already starting to go a little soft around the middle. He said he worked for Westwood. He was one of the bank’s chief financial advisers. When she told him what her job was, his jaw actually dropped and his face turned even redder than it had been.
It took only three more minutes before the final guest came in. They both knew Billy DiPezio, the Providence chief of police. After spending an hour with Billy, if one was asked to guess what he did for a living, a reasonable stab would be that he was a convict. As a backup choice, stand-up comic would not have been out of line. But he’d been the chief for eighteen years and, while he was constantly being attacked in the press and always in the midst of some kind of controversy, he was a damn good cop. Maybe not the most honest one in the world—he’d been known to favor the rich a time or two too many—but his morals were the bendable kind. As far as anyone knew, they had never broken completely.
Billy strode into the den, his usual whirlwind self, shook hands all around, looked for the most comfortable chair. Before he’d even gotten seated, Jonathan Westwood came in.
“You got a funny look on your face, Johnny,” Billy DiPezio said. “He’s in a funny situation,” Justin Westwood said, following behind his father. He had a gun in his hand and he waved it back and forth between Billy and Wanda. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “Please.” He stepped aside and Deena was right behind him. Justin pointed the gun at Billy now, and said, “You first.” He told Deena to pat Billy down and look for his weapon. “It’s probably in a shoulder holster, but even when you find that one, keep going. Billy’s a sneaky little devil and might have a spare.”
She gave him a thorough going-over—Billy rolled his eyes to show he wasn’t hating the procedure—but only came up with the gun in the shoulder holster.
“Okay,” Justin said. “Wanda’s gun’ll be in her purse. But she also tends to be a little devious. Check around her ankles—those pants are too baggy for her superb fashion sense.”
Deena came up with two guns after searching the FBI agent: one in her purse and one in an ankle holster.
“Where’s the kid?” Justin asked, and when Deena told him she was upstairs with Lizbeth happily watching television, he took the guns, emptied the bullets into a large Lalique bowl, and tossed them into a far corner of the room.
“How about you, Roger—you are Roger, right?”
“Ummm …yeah. Who are you?”
“Your boss’s son. You carrying?”
“A gun?” Roger Mallone said. “Jesus, no. I’ve never even shot a gun.”
“Give him a thrill,” Justin said to Deena, “and check him out anyway.”
She patted Roger down, came away empty-handed.
“This is a huge mistake, Jay,” Wanda said.
“I know it might seem like that,” Justin said. “But I’m out of options right now.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” the Providence police chief asked.
“Oh, I know what I’m doing, Billy. Have a seat, relax, and I’ll explain everything. We’re just going to have a little chat.”
“No, we’re not,” Wanda Chinkle said. “I’m not having any kind of a conversation under these circumstances. Put your gun down and return our weapons, then I’ll consider it.”
“Oh, shut up, Wanda,” Justin said. “Here’s the deal. I’m not threatening you in any way, shape, or form. You’re in no danger. I’m simply going to explain something to you. Tell you a little story. I didn’t think you’d listen to me unless I coerced you into it. But I’m gambling big-time that you’re going to believe me. When I’m done talking, you can tell me whether you do or not. I’ll trust you to tell me the truth. If you don’t believe me, if you still want to arrest me after you hear what I have to say, I’ll tie the three of you up, take your bullets, and Deena and I will leave. That should give us half an hour or so as a head start. If you tell me you do believe me, I’ll give you your guns back right here, bullets included. If you’re lying, you’ll be free to arrest us both. If you’re telling the truth, then I’ll explain to you what I want and I’ll ask for your help.”
“What about Johnny and Lizzie?’ Billy asked. “Are they here under duress also?”
“They are. I threatened them in order to get my father to call the three of you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jonathan said. “You did no such thing.”
“Billy,” Justin said, ignoring his father, “that’s the story. This is totally against their advice and their will. I forced him to make the calls. Is that understood?”
“It is.”
“My mother’s upstairs in a hostage situation.”
“I thought she was watching TV with a little girl,” Wanda said.
“Well,” Justin said, “there’s hostages and there’s hostages.” Turning back to the chief of police, he said, “And you know, you are the only person in the world with the nerve to call my parents Johnny and Lizzie.” After Billy shrugged cockily, Justin looked around the room. “So do you want to listen?”
“I’m scared shitless,” Roger Mallone said. “I’ll listen to anything you have to say.”
Wanda and Billy exchanged glances.
“You owe me this conversation,” Justin said to Wanda. “You know you do.”
She nodded. Looked at Billy and nodded at him. He didn’t nod back.
“I worked for you,” Justin said to the Providence police chief. “You probably know me better than anyone in this room. Do you think I’m capable of doing the things I’m accused of?”
“I’ve been a cop a long time, Jay. You know what I think.”
“That people are capable of anything.”
“That’s right.”
“I asked you a question. What about me?”
“Okay,” Billy DiPezio said, after a long silence. “I’m listening too.”
So Justin began explaining.
He went slowly, occasionally referred to notes he’d made over the past couple of hours. He started with what he’d been doing since he’d left town. How Jimmy Leggett had taken him in as a small-town cop. Even told them about Brian and Gary’s mocking nickname. He told them about the scream he heard on East End’s Main Street, and then finding Susanna Morgan’s body, and discovering Deena up on the roof. He told them about the obit in the East End Journal and the research he did on Bill Miller. His audience—silent, astonished—heard about the shots taken at them in the car, about breaking into Growth Industries and finding the phone machines, about the Ellis Institute and the Aker Institute and the string of old-age homes. He gave them the details of the conversation he’d had with Edward Marion, repeated the names he’d heard: Newberg, Kransten, and Aphrodite.
At that point in the story, Roger Mallone interrupted. “Are you talking about Douglas Kransten?” he asked.
Justin shook his head, to show that he didn’t know. “Would it matter if I was?” He saw his father and Mallone exchange a glance.
“Yes, it would,” Mallone said. “Kransten is one of the most influential people in the country. And one of the wealthiest.”
“Does it make sense that he’d be connected to medical-research companies?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Then let me finish my story and we’ll get back to that.”
As Justin picked up the thread from where he’d left off, he saw Mal-lone shaking his head in disbelief. But now he was reliving the events of the past few days. He listed the string of murders: Wallace Crabbe, Brian Meves, Ed Marion, Lewis Granger. He told them about Maura Greer’s body being found in the bay and Agent Rollins taking over that case while sabotaging the investigation into Susanna’s murder. He said that he was certain Rollins had murdered Marion—which made Wanda Chinkle’s eyes narrow and her shoulders hunch defensively. Justin described the bomb under their car and the blond madman who said “Bye-bye.” He told them about Rollins tapping Gary’s phones and the disappearance of Helen Roag, and, finally, he said that the FBI was now tying him to the death of Maura Greer, someone he’d never even heard of until all this started happening.
It took Justin an hour and a half to go through every detail.
“Are you finished?” Wanda asked him.
“No,” Justin said. “I’ve got an update. This was faxed to me a little while ago. I had someone hack into Marblehead phone-company records and Helen Roag’s personal and business e-mail accounts.”
“Jesus Christ,” Wanda Chinkle said. “Are you insane? Do you have any idea how much time you can get for that kind of stunt?”
“Yes, I do. And can we cut out the editorializing, please? Believe me, if I’m brought up on charges, this is going to be low man on the totem pole.”
“Excellent point,” Wanda said. “How good was your hacker?”
“Good enough, Wanda.”
She lowered her eyes to the ground. “The business e-mail account wasn’t very helpful. Helen was careful. As near as I can tell, she was some kind of researcher for this Boston company, the Aker Institute. There’s very little in her Aker correspondence other than standard corporate communications. But her personal account—here’s where things get a little complicated. It looks like our Helen was feeding Aker’s trade secrets to somebody. Actually, to two somebodies. My guy went back several months. At the beginning the e-mails were going to someone at the FBI. You want to handle this one, Wanda?”
“Goddammit,” the Boston AIC said. “How’d you get those files?”
“I had to hire the best.” Justin rubbed his chin, realized he hadn’t shaved in several days. “You were Helen Roag’s contact.”
“Yes.”
“Why was Helen reporting to the FBI?”
“I can’t tell you that, Jay. Not right now. I need a little time to think about this.”
“But she stopped corresponding with you.”
“That’s right.”
“She stopped feeding you info altogether?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know exactly. I think she was scared.”
“Maybe, but that’s not the reason. ’Cause she didn’t stop e-mailing. She just started e-mailing someone else.”
“Someone in the FBI?” Wanda asked.
“No. There was a string of e-mails back and forth between Helen and—I’m glad you’re all sitting down—Maura Greer.”
“What?” This came from both Wanda Chinkle and Billy DiPezio. And Justin thought he caught Deena’s astonished voice in there, too.
“There’s more. When my hacker went into the phone company, the phone records had been removed from the system. My guess is it was done by the FBI—I set them up a little bit to see how they’d respond. But my guy still managed to come up with a few interesting details. Wanda, you should know that your people are lazy. Or, more likely, incompetent. The computerized phone records were removed, but they didn’t get the phone company to remove the electronic file for Helen’s bill. Apparently, that’s kept separately. She’s made an enormous number of calls over the past three months to one number in Washington, D.C.”
“Whose number?” That was Deena. She couldn’t help herself.
“Don’t know. Those records were blocked or erased. My guy couldn’t get any more information.”
“Did you call the number?” Roger asked.
“It’s a beeper. I left three messages; no one’s called back.”
“But you’ve got an idea who it is,” Wanda Chinkle said.
“I’ve got a few ideas,” Justin told her. “But I don’t have a clue what any of them mean. That’s why I need some help.”
“I’ll take my gun now,” Billy DiPezio said. “If I may.”
Justin retrieved all three guns from the corner of the room, handed one of them back to the chief. “You want your bullets?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Billy said. “I don’t want to tempt myself any.”
Justin looked at Wanda, who scowled. “You son of a bitch,” she said. “You were always a better cop than I was.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t know how much I can tell you. Or how much of what I thought was going on is even true. I have to do some checking. But I will. And I won’t try to stop you from whatever you’re doing next.”
Justin looked at his father and smiled. He thought it was perhaps the first time in their lives that his father had ever smiled back. He glanced over at Roger Mallone. “What about you?” he asked.
“Me? I don’t have a f*cking clue what’s going on,” Roger said. “But this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I am in.” He turned to face Jonathan Westwood. “I’m not going to get fired for this, am I?”
“There might even be a bonus in it for you,” Jonathan said.
“All right then,” Justin told his newly formed team. “I took the liberty of making a few lists. And I’ve already got a few things to add to them.”
He began handing out sheets of paper and explaining exactly what he wanted them to do. Billy had the resources to go to the old-age homes that had called in to Marion or Roag’s phone machines. Justin asked him to dig up the names of all the patients there who were in contact with Marion or Roag. The goal was to find something Miller and Granger and anyone else who turned up might have in common. A town, a person, a job—anything. “We need a link,” he said. “If we get that, we’ll be able to find the next link, which I think will be to Kransten.”
Mallone was asked to gather every bit of information he could on Douglas Kransten. Roger gave Justin a brief explanation of Douglas Kransten’s holdings and Justin said that he wanted the name and location of every possible company under Kransten’s enormous corporate umbrella, as well as what they did. He wanted the names of executives, products, and development projects, as well.
Justin asked Wanda to break through the secrecy at the FBI. The most important thing she had to do was find whose phone Helen Roag had been calling. Then she had to discover whatever game it was that Rollins seemed to be playing.
“You were always a tough guy, Jay,” Wanda said. “But Rollins isn’t someone you want to take on.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that,” he said. “Believe me. Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice.”
When he was done, and the three people he was now trusting to keep him alive had left, Justin went to the phone, dialed the number of the photo store in East End Harbor. They were closed, but the answering machine picked up. After the tone, Justin left his message.
“This is Clint calling for Gary Jenkins. Please tell him to buy his little brother an ice-cream soda or a new body piercing or anything he wants, for that matter. And tell him it’s on me.”