Montaro Caine A Novel

38





OVER THE WEEKEND, WHILE KRITZMAN FRITZBRAUNER WAS apparently dining with Julius Hargrove in Chappaqua, along with Colette, Roland Gabler, and the others, Montaro shut off his cell phone and didn’t turn it back on. He didn’t return Gabler’s message and he didn’t respond to the proposal that Larry Buchanan had left with him. He made no contact with the Mozelles, Anna Hilburn, or any members of his investigative team. He left his laptop at his office and went back to Westport, where he didn’t answer the home phone except when his grandfather called. He instructed Priscilla and Cecilia to do the same.

He dined out with his family one night and hauled out the barbecue on another, grilling fresh scallops en brochette—Priscilla’s favorite. Priscilla now seemed to be in excellent spirits. She had been reinstated at Mt. Herman Academy—the Stockbridge police chief had informed Gordon Whitcombe that he would not be pursuing any charges against her—and she would be returning to boarding school at the end of the summer for her senior year. Montaro hoped that she had not tried to make any contact with Nick Corcell, but he knew better than to ask.

During the late nights and the early mornings, Montaro and Cecilia made love with uncharacteristic frequency and fervor, and Cecilia noted that her husband seemed calmer than he had in months, more so even than he had seemed in Carmel, and certainly more than before the whole fiasco with Fitzer and the Utah mining disaster.

“Then everything must be all right and there’s nothing to worry about,” Cecilia said hopefully late Saturday night as she rested in the arms of her husband.

“There never was,” Montaro said, knowing full well that the one thing his wife always sought was reassurance. He was happy to provide her with it, even though he didn’t seek it for himself. He simply knew that neither Gabler nor any of the others would attempt to contact him until their Chappaqua weekend was over, and that even Richard Davis would not make any move until that time. For the weekend, he could wait, be patient, and enjoy his life, knowing that events would unfold at their proper pace in the due course of time.

But when the weekend was over, everything changed as he had understood it would. The moment he arrived back at his office at Fitzer, his email inbox was flooded with messages, and before he even sat down at his desk, the phone began ringing. Montaro assumed that the person calling would be Gabler to ask about his coin or Julius Hargrove demanding a response to the proposal and asking if Montaro would join them, but he was surprised to learn that Kritzman Fritzbrauner was on the phone.

“Montaro, the mountain has finally come to Muhammad,” Fritzbrauner said in his usual lofty tone. “What do you say to that?”

“I am nearly speechless, Mr. Mountain, and welcome is what say I,” responded Caine, who felt a good deal more fondness for Fritzbrauner than for any of the others plotting against him. Though every bit a competitor, Fritzbrauner was an exceedingly cultured and well-mannered one. “I hope you’re here for a while. I owe you a dinner, as I recall,” said Montaro.

“I am on my way to Argentina for a few days, with my daughter, to visit her mother. But our plan has called for us to pass through New York, so I think that a dinner might be in order on our return. All’s well with you?”

“Depends on the day, Kritzman; but so far so good.”

“Glad to hear it. I am looking forward to picking up our last conversation, which was so suddenly interrupted.”

“So ‘rudely’ interrupted would be more to the point,” Caine said by way of an apology. “I hope that you have forgiven me for hanging up on you. I humbly ask that you chalk it up to a holdover from my socially impoverished youth. Now, about that dinner.”

Caine made tentative plans to meet with Fritzbrauner but knew that he would have to postpone them the moment after Lawrence Aikens dropped by the Fitzer offices out of breath and unable to conceal his enthusiasm. By the look on his face, Caine understood that his chief investigator had important news to relate.

“You got something?” Caine asked.

“Think so.” Aikens laid an unsealed envelope on Caine’s desk before taking a seat across from him.

“What’s in it?” Caine asked, gingerly fingering the envelope.

“A letter.”

The letter was addressed to Frederick Carson, Whitney’s uncle, but the return address was what caught Montaro’s eye. It was a postal box in Alcala de Henarés, Spain. The name above the box number was Whitney C. Walker.

Montaro paused before taking the letter out of the envelope.

“Tampering with the mail is a felony,” Caine told Aikens, who blanched, then smiled slightly.

“You’re gonna turn Curly in?” asked Aikens. “I thought you told me I should be nicer to him.”

Caine smiled slightly, then opened the envelope and took out a letter that Whitney had written to her uncle Fred. The letter, neatly handwritten in black ink, chastised her uncle for failing to respond to her previous letters. Whitney inquired after the health of various friends and family members, and she detailed the weariness she was feeling now that she was in the third trimester of her pregnancy. The letter contained little information of interest to Montaro until the last line: “And please, once again, don’t tell anyone where we are. The work we’re doing here is supposed to be top secret. Love to all, Whitney.”

Caine looked up at Aikens.

“Where the hell is she, man?” Caine barked.

“Alcala de Henarés, Spain,” Aikens said.

“Yeah, I can read envelopes, too,” said Caine. “Where is that?”

“A small town outside Madrid,” said Aikens. “I’m running checks on everything: whether there is or isn’t a telephone or computer connection; who other than Whitney and Franklyn might be living there; also the name of the nearest hospital and whether she’s been seeing any doctors there. And, of course, we’re trying to pinpoint how often Cordiss and Victor fly in from San Remo and how long they stay.”

“Well, you can forget about the computer and telephone,” Caine said. “If Victor and Cordiss are doing their jobs right in keeping Whitney and Franklyn isolated, there won’t be anything like that. They’ve probably been intercepting Whitney’s mail, too; I’ll bet that’s why she thinks Uncle Frederick hasn’t written her back. You’ll have to find a way to get her to a telephone outside the house. If Cordiss Krinkle is with her, tell your contact people to be careful. She’s very smart, as you well know, and we don’t want her to move Whitney anywhere. It is absolutely essential that not even a hint of suspicion surfaces. All right, you better get on it.”

“You got it,” Lawrence Aikens said.