Dead Silence

37

On the last day of January, a Saturday, I flew to Pittsburgh and attended Detective Shelly Palmer’s funeral, accompanied by Sir James Montbard.

Montbard had spent recent days in the Caribbean, judging from his tan, presumably stationed somewhere near Cuba waiting to nail whoever showed up to collect the ransom.

“By coincidence,” he told me, “I have business in the Northeast. Happy to tag along.”

It was no coincidence. Montbard was still working on some kind of assignment related to the kidnapping-that was my guess. I wasn’t certain who was behind the kidnapping, and Hooker might have useful information. As the Brit had said, socializing is a key part of our craft. That’s why I suggested we travel together.

Shelly Palmer was buried east of Pittsburgh in Allegheny Cemetery, a park of rolling hills and trees overlooking the Allegheny River. A hundred friends, uniformed cops and family members were there, along with several dozen film crews.

During the service, I noticed a man who was too broad-shouldered for the suit he wore. Instead of joining the others around the woman’s grave, he watched alone from the perimeter.

I nudged Hooker Montbard, then drifted close enough to confirm that the man wore a wedding ring. For an instant, he and I locked eyes. He stared until I looked away, unsettled by the absurd notion that the man might perceive the truth of my guilt, a truth his former lover had carried to her grave.

I decided to speak to him anyway. I believed that Shelly might want the man to know how it was the night she died. That he had been strong in her thoughts. But the man froze me with a warning look, then ambled away.

Cops.

The next day, Sunday, February first, Roxanne Sofvia behaved similarly at Nelson Myles’s funeral, or so she told me on the phone. Stood off by herself, faithful to the code of the unfaithful, maintaining a fictional distance from the man she had hoped to marry, still playing her role as mistress even though their affair had irrevocably ended.

I chose not to attend the funeral. I could have.

The night before, Hooker and I had flown from Pittsburgh International to JFK. He went to the Explorers Club, while I took a bus to the Hamptons. I hadn’t returned to a New York winter to socialize, but that’s not why I didn’t attend the funeral.

Loyalty can be demonstrated in a garden variety of ways. I admired Nelson Myles for the courage he’d summoned during his last hour, but I felt a more compelling loyalty to a family which had suffered fifteen years of his silence.

Ironic, as Virgil Sylvester had observed, that his daughter’s body was found at Shelter Point Stables on the same day the man who had buried her was being lowered into his grave.

It was ironic beyond the fisherman’s knowledge, I now believed.

Had Nelson Myles decided the worth of Annie Sylvester’s life was equal to his own, he, too, might have benefited, not only from the kindness he would have provided but because the girl’s remains would have finally received forensic attention.

It was one of the reasons I had returned to the Hamptons. While confessing to the girl’s murder, Myles had unknowingly caused me to doubt that either of us knew the truth.

The details of the girl’s death were gruesome to contemplate, but details solve murder cases. Myles had told me he was certain he had used a seven iron. I had double-checked the golf bag in Norvin Tomlinson’s room and was equally certain that it was the nine iron that a worried Mrs. Tomlinson had replaced.

Around seven p.m., after speaking to Virgil Sylvester and talking with Agent Sudderram several times, I checked into a hotel not far from the Tomlinson estate.

I showered and dressed for dinner, then telephoned NYPD veteran Marvin Esterline. I had his cell number. He was off duty but sounded pleased to hear from me.

I told Esterline that the body of Annie Sylvester had been found and then explained about the golf-club discrepancy. I couldn’t tell him how I knew, but I gave names and addresses. He agreed to keep me posted on the results of the autopsy.

“If you played golf, you’d know that those two clubs are angled very differently,” Esterline assured me. “Depending on the wounds, it might be as obvious as the difference between a. 38 slug and a. 45. The medical examiner will know.”

Next, I telephoned Harrington. He didn’t share my interest in the murder case, but he sounded interested in the possible killer after I’d briefed him.

“A smart guy, Ivy League background, who was recruited by one of our intelligence branches. A guy who’s spent most of his life outside the country, but also an insider who has something to hide-that works for me,” Harrington responded, but there was something oddly dismissive about his tone.

I said, “Are you agreeing just to be agreeable?”

“You were describing the sort of person capable of planning something this big,” he replied. “I’m agreeing because I think you’re right. I think our guy recruited fringe-group types, already motivated, because he needed feet on the ground and didn’t want those feet to be his own. Smart, in other words. He let Rene Navarro plan and handle the really dirty parts-who better? I think the buried-alive deal was pure Farfel.

“For Farfel and his other foot soldiers, the payoff was a chance to erase the past and also get rich. As in very rich-close to five hundred million in gems and gold and collectibles, if our people had made the drop.”

I asked Harrington, “What was his payoff? The man we’re still looking for what? Money?”

Harrington hesitated long enough that I knew he was holding something back. He told me, “I’ll call you on a different network,” and he did seconds later.

“Okay, Doc, here it is,” Harrington continued. “We’re talking about a former black-ops agent. Worked overseas somewhere, using his real-world job as a cover. Exactly as you described. His payoff was a chance to destroy evidence that he was a traitor.”

I said, “You’ve stopped being hypothetical. What am I missing here?”

“You haven’t missed a thing. The man who organized the kidnapping was a traitor. Back in the sixties, he was studying leaves or rocks or something in South America and went south in more ways than one. He tipped off Castro before the Bay of Pigs invasion. That was his payoff: a chance to destroy the proof.”

I was thinking, Leaves and rocks?, as Harrington told me, “A payoff the guy didn’t expect was a visit from a mutual friend of ours. I just got confirmation. I couldn’t cut you in, Doc-you know how things work.”

I was confused and becoming frustrated. “Look, I’m in the area. Long Island. Tell me where you are and we’ll talk.”

“No need,” Harrington replied. “Besides, you have a dinner date, don’t you? With the mutual friend mentioned. Maybe he’ll give you the details.”

I felt a weird cerebral jolt. I was meeting Hooker Montbard at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor in an hour. I hadn’t seen Hooker since he’d left JFK for the Explorers Club the previous night… or, at least, told me he was going to his club.

“Doc?” Harrington said. “You there?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to relax, take a few days off. In terms of the business we discussed, you did another competent job.”

Competent: wild praise from Harrington. And it was true that Navarro was dead.

I said slowly, “You’re not asking me to drop my interest in finding out who-”

“We already know. You need to let it go, because what you’re pushing for is a waste of energy. I need you back, rested up, in good shape.”

“Don’t patronize me,” I said. “I won’t drop it. We are talking about Tinman?”

I didn’t have to explain the code name to Harrington.

“You’ve got the right person. If he murdered that girl, I suspect it was to cover up for his idiot son-even the worst of us occasionally do noble things. But the police will never charge him because the guy we’re talking about has taken a long, long trip. Dr. Hank Tomlinson has…”

Harrington allowed his silence to provide the word: disappeared.