House on Fire

78

I was tense about returning to Kimball Hall. Too many things had to go right. And there were too many variables. For one thing I really had no idea what Conrad Kimball was planning, and that made a difference. Nor what Sukie was going to do.

Early in the morning I picked up a couple of large black coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts and set out for Katonah in my old Toyota.

My cell phone rang, an unknown number.

“Heller!” a man’s voice barked.

In just two syllables I recognized the man’s Israeli accent.

“Shlomo,” I said. “Been a while.”

Shlomo Avishai was a colonel in the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, the Aman. We’d once worked together, coordinating an operation in Barcelona.

“Heller, I don’t know if you heard the gossip, but I went private, just like you. You might know of the firm I work for now.”

“Black Parallel, by any chance?”

He chuckled.

“You doing a job?”

“For professional reasons I can’t tell you the name of my client. But I should tell you that you have a reputation in certain quarters,” Shlomo said.

“Good or bad?”

“Heller, if your reputation was lousy we wouldn’t waste our time following you. You are known to be a formidable investigator. And our client wanted to know everything and anything you might find on Kimball. They figured if anyone would dig up the dirt, it would be you.”

“Anguilla—” I began.

“I’d love to tell you those incompetents in Anguilla have been punished,” he said, “but you seem to have taken on that task yourself.”

South of Hartford I hit traffic on 84 but shortly thereafter took the exit for the Saw Mill River Parkway. In a few minutes I arrived at the Inn at Katonah, where I’d met Sukie before.

I was half an hour early, which was good.

It was time I needed.

A black town car pulled into the inn’s parking lot, right on time at nine o’clock.

I slung the small backpack over my right shoulder and climbed into the back of the limo. Sukie was there. She gave me a kiss.

“Do you have it?” she said.

I’d called her the night before and told her I’d bring it with me. I’d also told her it was too big a file to email.

“Here it is,” I said, handing her a small metal flash drive bar, a tiny thing, a mere twist of metal. “It’s dynamite. A very compact weapon of mass destruction.” Then I pulled out my phone and showed her the folders of documents.

“Which one is the study itself?”

I dabbed at the phone’s face and scrolled, and then I showed her.

She stared for a long time. Finally she shook her head and smiled. “I knew you’d find it.”

I shrugged modestly.

“I don’t want any copies going anywhere,” she said. “We’re clear on that, right?”

“Clear,” I said. “Where’s the meeting? The library?”

“No. The map room, on the second floor, because he likes the big round boardroom table when things are serious. Whenever a meeting’s called for the map room, you know it’s dire.”

I had seen pictures of the room in an Architectural Digest spread on Kimball Hall. A graceful, round room whose curved bookshelves were lined with leather-bound volumes. A big round mahogany table that seated twelve. The floor made from reclaimed Ponderosa pine. Several antique standing globes, and framed maps on the curved walls.

“Will you be able to get me in?”

“Probably. You count as a significant other by now.”

“I thought it was family only.”

“Well, Conrad likes you.”

I just smiled. I knew better.

A few minutes later, the big old house jutted into view, castle-like. Kimball Hall was no longer the beautiful, elegant mansion, the stately home with a million rooms. Now it seemed gray and cold, looming ominously like a haunted house. A house of death. I kept flashing on that morning, the police lights in the sky, the cops in their Windbreakers. Maggie’s body, with the broken neck, the head twisted.

The white sneakers.

Just ahead of us was another town car, which stopped on the circular drive right at the front door to discharge its passenger, Hayden Kimball, in a black leather jacket.

We got out a minute later. “Here we go,” Sukie muttered to me as we entered.

A butler at the front door offered to take my backpack, but I kept it slung on my left shoulder. He greeted Sukie — “Miss Kimball” — and escorted us into yet another room, a dining room, one I hadn’t seen before. Like all the others at Kimball Hall, it was formal and stuffy, with unmemorable seascapes on the wall in ornate gold frames. A sideboard was heaped with breakfast pastries and a silver coffee urn.

Conrad was seated at the head of the dining table, wearing a navy suit and tie, while Natalya, elegant in a white suit, greeted arrivals like the hostess at a dinner party.

Paul was already there, without his beautiful Moroccan girlfriend. He was standing next to Hayden, chatting uncomfortably. Servants were bustling around serving coffee.

When Paul saw me he stiffened and said loudly, “Hey, what’s he doing here?”

“As you know, he’s my significant other,” Sukie said.

“It’s family only, isn’t that right?” Paul said to his father. “Otherwise, I would have brought Layla.”

“I don’t mind if he’s here,” Hayden said.

Megan entered the room, in a navy suit like her father. She’d overheard the exchange. She said, “Well, I do. Only family. I’m sorry, Nick.”

I said nothing.

“It’s up to Dad,” Sukie said.

“Ah, our meeting this morning is for family only,” Conrad said, looking at me. “Family plus Fritz and the stenographer. And Natalya. Spouses and our, what is your term, significant others can wait in the library. I’m sorry about that, Nicholas.” He cleared his throat. “Anyone know the whereabouts of my ne’er-do-well son?” He did not sound amused. Cameron was the only one I hadn’t yet talked with. Maybe today there’d be an opportunity.

“He knows about the meeting,” said Paul. “If he doesn’t show, he can’t vote; it’s simple.”

Natalya caught my eye and smiled and gave a small, almost undetectable nod. I doubted anyone noticed.

I smiled back.

Suddenly I heard a great crash from somewhere inside the house nearby, and Cameron entered the dining room. He was weaving from side to side, apparently drunk. He was wearing jeans and some kind of bowling shirt, lime green and soiled. On his feet was a pair of Abloh Off-White high-tops.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” his father spat. “What the hell is wrong with you? Get some coffee into you and sober up. However you do it.”

Cameron glanced around the room and saw me. “I remember you,” he said quickly. “Nick something. The gold digger. Oh, did I say that?” He put a hand over his mouth. “Mouths of babes, right?” He was talking unusually fast. He had to have been on some sort of upper, something speedy. It was in his rapid speech, his shallow breathing. His movements were jagged and strange.

“Hello, Cameron,” I said.

“You know how I can tell you’re a fortune hunter? It’s the way you look. You’re like a catalog model. Not Armani or anything. More like — Lands’ End. I can picture you in a gray ribbed Henley. And if I clicked on a button, it would turn heather.” He laughed nastily.

From the head of the table Conrad said, “Jesus Christ, drunk again, at ten in the morning. I need your vote.”

“He’s on speed, Dad,” said Paul.

“Well, you’re not getting my vote,” Cameron said. “Not feeling it, sorry.”

“You and I need to have a little private chat, now,” Conrad said, rising stiffly from the table. “Let’s go.”

Conrad led Cameron out of the dining room and into the room next door. After a minute or two I excused myself, ostensibly to use the bathroom, and went out into the hall outside the room where the two were arguing. Loitering outside the open door, I listened.

“—an alcoholic like your mother,” Conrad was saying. He didn’t seem to understand that his son was on meth at the moment, not booze.

Cameron’s voice boomed, “You drove her to drink. Way you went around screwing everything in a dress. Blatantly cheating on her. Lied to her face.”

“Aren’t you the moral authority,” his father said. “You, who killed a young girl!”

“You know damned well that was right after Mom’s funeral. I was out of my mind.”

“That could have ruined your life. You should be grateful I knew who to pay off.”

“And you hold it over my head? What kind of sick person does that?”

“Don’t make me do it,” Conrad said.

“Fuck you, Dad,” Cameron said. A few seconds later he burst out into the hall and stormed out of the house.