Hostage Zero

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jersey City was nowhere near as terrible a place as Gail had thought it would be. Nestled up next to the Hudson River, with some of the best views possible of the Statue of Liberty, the rows of well-kept town houses and the forests of neat single-family bungalows reminded her of the working-class neighborhoods of Chicago that housed her youth.

Her GPS had taken her directly to Wilkinson Avenue-in fact right to the front door of the house she was looking for.

Gail climbed out of the rented Celica, closed the door, and scanned the neighborhood for trouble, just in case. Some habits were too ingrained ever to be broken. Outside the protection of her vehicle, the neighborhood looked less inviting. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to make this visit during the day. Tucking her purse under her arm, she walked over the curb and toward the rotting steps that led to Alice Navarro’s house.

She’d paid calls like this a thousand times over her career as a cop and an FBI agent, but it had only been since working with Security Solutions that she’d been paying them solo. A badge bought the luxury of backup. In the private sector, the best you could count on was your weapon and the skill to use it. In her case, she carried two: a Glock in her purse, and a backup. 38 snub nose strapped to her ankle. In New Jersey, the mere presence of either one could get her put away.

Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six. Cliches become cliches for a reason.

The Navarro house was every bit of seventy years old, its facade built of brick, including the pillars that supported the porch roof. The screen door was locked. She rapped with her middle knuckle on one of the glass panes that flanked the door.

Fifteen seconds passed before a shadowy hand parted the sheer curtain and the worried face of an old man appeared. “Who are you?” He shouted much louder than was necessary to be heard through the door.

“My name is Gail Bonneville,” she replied. She tried to gauge her own tone to be loud enough to be heard, but not so loud as to involve the neighbors. “I’m here to speak with Alice Navarro.”

“Why? What do you want?”

Both reasonable questions, she thought. “Can you open the door please, sir?” she asked. “It’s an important matter.”

“I don’t open the door after dark,” the man said.

“I understand, sir. But again, it’s very-”

“That’s the second time you called me sir. Are you a cop?”

Gail had to smile. “No sir, not anymore. But I used to be. I’m a private investigator now.”

“What do you want?”

A set of curtains pulled away from the front window next door. “It’s about Alice’s brother, Bruce,” she said.

Two locks turned, and the door flew open, quickly enough to make her gun hand twitch. He fixed her with a furious glare. “Step inside.” He swung his body like a gate-like an extension of the door-and ushered Gail into the foyer.

The decor was old and boring. Dark wood flooring had worn yellow in the front hall. Dark wood molding outlined the staircase, and the large flowered pattern of the wallpaper reminded her of the eighties.

The living room sat to the left of the foyer, bathed blue in the light of the muted television. Cast in that flickering light, the woman Gail presumed to be Alice Navarro looked terribly pale.

“Do you have some kind of a badge or something I can see?” asked the man who had let her in as he pushed the door closed and locked it. He looked younger in real life than he had through the window. She pegged him to be around fifty-five. He wore the wife-beater sleeveless T-shirt that seemed to be the universal working-class lounging uniform, but his muscular arms made it look good on him.

Gail pulled a silver business-card case out of her pocket and opened it. The lid bore the official seal of the Samson, Indiana, Sheriff’s Department-her only parting gift from her previous employer. She saw her host’s eyes catch the emblem as she slid a card out of the slot and handed it over.

She offered her right hand as a greeting. “Gail Bonneville,” she said.

He scowled to read the card as he shook her hand. “Ken Harper. Says here you’re a ‘lead investigator.’ What the hell is that?”

He’d pronounced it as “led”-like the metal. She corrected him. “It basically means that I have a senior position within our firm.”

The woman from the living room materialized in the archway to the foyer. She, too, looked much younger in the full light, though during the day Gail was pretty sure she’d do something with the disheveled mop of brown hair on her head. She looked as if she’d been sleeping. “Did you say you have news about Bruce?” the woman asked.

“Are you Ms. Navarro?” Gail asked, proffering another business card.

“Mrs. Harper now,” she said. “Call me Alice. Keep the card. One will do. No sense killing more trees than we have to.”

Gail slid the case and its contents back into her pocket. “Can we please sit for a moment?”

“You’re lucky you’re inside,” Ken said. “Don’t push your luck. If you’ve got news about Bruce, just say it.”

Gail winced as she tried to figure out how best to put it. “I didn’t say that I have news, sir. I couldn’t because I don’t. I’m here to see if you can help me find him.”

Ken’s ears flushed. He reached for the doorknob. “That’s it,” he said, sliding the locks away. “Get out.”

“But I-”

“Now.”

He was clearly angry, but nowhere near to the point of violence. If Gail judged the expression correctly, he was embarrassed. She shot a pleading look to Alice. “It’s to save a life,” she said quickly. “A child’s life.”

They hesitated. Neither was sold yet, but she had a window, if she worked quickly. “I represent Resurrection House,” she said. “That’s a school down in Virginia, where-”

“The kidnapping,” Alice said. “I heard about that on the news. An orphanage, right?”

Gail hemmed. “Well, no, actually, but it’s okay to think of it that way. One of the kidnapped boys has ties to your brother.”

The final lock turned. “No more of this,” Ken said.

“No,” Alice interrupted. “No, I want to hear what she has to say.”

“Alice, no,” Ken argued. “There’s no good that can come of this.”

“There’s good if a child’s life can be saved,” Gail snapped. “With all respect, Mr. Harper-”

“Call him Ken,” Alice said. “We like first names around here.”

“With all respect, Ken, I’ve come a long way, and the stakes here are very high. Would a few minutes really kill you?”

Ken seemed startled by the outburst, maybe even slightly amused. “Funny you mention killing,” he grumbled.

Gail’s warning radar pinged. “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t mean anything,” Alice said. She pushed herself away from the wall of the archway and gestured toward the dark living room. “Come on in. Have a seat. The place is a bit of a mess, but we weren’t expecting visitors.” She reached under the shade of a floor lamp and turned a switch, launching a pale yellow glow.

“Bit of a mess” didn’t touch it. Apparently Ken and Alice were collectors. Every horizontal surface was covered with trinkets and knickknacks. Little people and little houses and little glass fish and little porcelain horses. Little everything. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. If you wanted a place to rest a drink, you were just plain out of luck. Then there was the floor. Stacks of glossy magazines lay positioned throughout the small room, all of them carefully and tightly bound by bright white twine. The one closest to the chair where Alice had been sitting actually had a drink glass sitting on top of it, proving in a glance that you weren’t plain out of luck after all. For all the clutter, though, there seemed to be some underlying order to it.

Gail knew without asking that the other chair, separated from Alice’s by a table dedicated to porcelain cats, was Ken’s so she didn’t bother to veer in that direction. She assumed that she was their first guest in a very long time. There was no place for her to sit.

“Guests get the chair,” Ken said, pointing with an open hand to blue La-Z-Boy. The tone was one of resignation.

“No, I couldn’t,” Gail said.

“Sure you could,” Alice said, settling back into her spot. She produced a remote from the seat cushion and put it on the table.

“But what about Ken?”

“Ken’s perfectly comfortable on the New Yorker,” Ken said, dragging the three-foot bound stack a little closer to the chairs. When he saw that Gail was still standing, he pointed with his chin. “Seriously, sit. Say what you got to say and let us get on with our lives.”

“Ken!”

He rolled his eyes at his wife’s scolding tone.

Alice said, “How can we help you, Ms…”

“Gail. First names are fine with me, too.”

Alice smiled. Perhaps that had been a test.

“Do the names Frank Schuler or Jeremy Schuler mean anything to you?”

“Are they the boys who were kidnapped? The ones in danger?”

“One of them is. Jeremy. Frank is his father. He’s in prison now for killing his wife, Marilyn, who worked for your brother.”

“Who once worked with a person who dated a girl who cleaned Kevin Bacon’s windshield,” Ken scoffed. “This has no relevance to us at all.”

He was starting to piss Gail off. Every time she got close to starting a useful conversation, he was stepping in to derail it. “Ken, if you could just-”

He shot up his hand for silence. “Don’t even think about lecturing me,” he said. “If you’ve done your research, then you know all the shit that man has put us through over the years. We’ve had mobsters threaten us, and we’ve had FBI agents threaten us about not telling them about the mobsters. Look, we know he took a lot of money, and we know that he’s probably living the high life somewhere, but that’s neither our business nor our problem. So whatever platitudes you’re about to drool out of your mouth, let me tell you loud and clear that I don’t give a shit.”

Gail stared as she stalled for time. She’d just learned new information, and she didn’t know how to play it. She decided to try full disclosure. “What money?” she said.

Ken scowled, shot a look at Alice, and then came back to Gail. “Bullshit,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said bullshit. You’re going to tell me you don’t know about the money?”

Gail shrugged. “I guess I am, because I don’t.”

Another glance to Alice, and this time, Gail followed him. “I don’t know anything about money, Alice. All I know is that Marilyn Schuler worked with your brother.”

Alice wasn’t buying. “Why does that matter? I’m sure she worked with a lot of people. She probably had good friends and brothers and sisters. Why come to us? Why is my brother more important than the others?”

“Because your brother was an attorney for crooks and murderers,” Gail said. Her inner police officer had bloomed, and she was tired of walking carefully. “Given the brazenness of the kidnapping, it wasn’t that big of a stretch to think that the mob connection might be relevant.”

“I had nothing to do with that nonsense,” Alice said, appropriately defensive. “Neither one of us did.”

“I’m not suggesting you did,” Gail assured. “But I’m hoping that you can help me find your brother.”

“You and everybody else with a cause or an empty wallet,” Ken grumped.

Gail took a deep breath. Settled herself. “Look, I’m sorry if I came on too strong, but a little boy’s life hangs in the balance here.” She dug into her pocket and found the picture she’d planted there in anticipation of a moment like this. Jeremy Schuler’s smile carried an all-American wholesomeness that would melt anyone’s heart. “I think your brother has important information that will help us identify the people who kidnapped this child.”

“It’s not our responsibility to protect the world,” Ken said.

“He’s only thirteen,” Gail said. She turned in her chair to face Alice, betting that a maternal instinct burned inside every woman. “If you have any clue where your brother might be…” There was no need to complete the sentence.

“Don’t say a word, Alice,” Ken warned. “This could very well be a trick. How many times have they tried this in how many ways? If anyone so much as thinks that we know anything about Bruce-and I’m not saying we do-we’ll never be left alone. If the feds don’t put us in jail, those mob assholes will put us in graves.”

Gail raised a hand this time. “Why would they do that?” she asked. “What am I missing here? Is this about the money you were talking about?”

“Do you really not know?” Alice asked.

“Alice, don’t,” Ken said.

“I really don’t,” Gail said. “Things are happening so quickly now that I haven’t had a chance to do the kind of research I need to. Eight hours ago, I was visiting Frank Schuler on death row in Virginia. He mentioned the connection with your brother, and a colleague was able to get me your address. I found a plane, and here I am. Please share with me what you know.”

Ken leaned in closer. “Alice, you don’t have to say anything. I still say this could be a trap.”

Gail snapped, “Of course it could be a trap. I could have been an assassin with orders to kill you all. I could have been here with a surprise inheritance. There are any number of things that I could be, Ken. But the fact of the matter is I’m a former police officer and a former FBI agent, and right now I’m doing my best to save a little boy’s life. You can believe whatever you want of that, but why don’t you try-just try-to believe the truth and help me do my job?”

“You’re not the first, you know,” Alice said, her tone soft. She waved for Gail to put the picture of Jeremy away. “Everybody assumes we know where Bruce is, or if we don’t, that we know where the money is, but it’s been long enough that they’re convinced that we’re not lying.”

Gail heaved an exasperated sigh. “What money? What was it for?”

“It was mob money,” Alice explained. “Bruce was the middleman. That’s what he did. There was a payment supposed to be made, but it never arrived. It was a lot of money-a couple hundred thousand dollars. He says he never got it, but he had to run because the mob would assume that he had, and they’d come after him.”

Ken chimed in, “So instead, the asshole just runs away anyway, confirming in their minds that he did exactly what they thought he did. The feds think it, too.”

“What was the money for?” Gail asked.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Alice said. “I’m ashamed that he would have anything to do with such things.”

“But you know where he is,” Gail guessed.

“I don’t.”

“Then how do you know that he didn’t, in fact, take the money? How do you know he was the middleman?”

Alice gaped.

Gail closed the noose: “You said, ‘He says he never got it.’ That means you’ve talked to him since he disappeared.”

Ken growled, “Damn it, Alice, I told you that we never should have answered the door.”

Alice looked stunned. Her mouth worked as if to speak, but she produced no words.

Gail moved to seal the deal. She leaned forward and put her hand on Alice’s knee. The other woman jumped, but Gail kept her hand in place. “I swear to you that I am exactly who I say I am, and whatever you tell me will remain in the strictest confidence.”

Gail thought she saw cracks in the wall. “Sooner or later, you have to trust someone. Everybody does. Given the stakes-a child’s life-don’t you think that this might be a good time to start?” As she invoked Jeremy Schuler yet again, her thoughts went back to the anguish in his father’s face as he envisioned a scenario that was far worse than the reality, and she again fought a pang of conscience. Manipulating the truth to gain a greater truth was a part of her job to which she would never fully adjust.

Ken stood. “It’s time for you to leave.”

Gail kept her eyes on Alice. “You know what’s the right thing to do. Just let yourself do it.”

“Don’t make me throw you out,” Ken said.

That got her attention. Gail eyed the man with gentle amusement. “Ken, with all respect, if you lay a hand on me, I’ll put your head right through one of these plaster-lathe walls. Please sit down.” One thing about being a woman on the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team: you learned how not to get pushed around by people who were bigger than you. The only hyperbole in the threat was the part about sending his head through the wall. Chances are it would have gotten stuck somewhere in the middle.

Ken looked like he’d been smacked. He looked to Alice for backup, and when it didn’t arrive, he turned to huff out of the room.

“Please stay with us,” Gail said. Her tone made it clear that the word please only softened a stark command. “You’re upset. I don’t want to worry about you going to get a weapon and sneaking up on me.”

He hesitated.

“I’m almost done,” she promised. She gestured back to his pile of magazines.

He hesitated, and then he sat.

Gail turned to the woman on her right. “What do you say, Alice? Are you willing to share what you know?”

Alice’s face was a mask of conflict, that mantle of troubling self-doubt that precedes every confession in every interview room in every police station in the world.

When she finally started talking, it turned out that she knew a lot.