Iron House

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jessup had a room apart from the servant’s wing. It had a small living area, a closet, a bath and its own separate entrance. He could have taken a larger room, but he valued the entrance, the privacy of his own door. Abigail knocked on it an hour after Michael was taken to the guesthouse.

“Come in.” Jessup opened the door and stepped back as Abigail pushed in. They were on the north side of the mansion, the door recessed at the bottom of three shallow steps that got little sun and smelled of damp concrete. Abigail brushed past him without a word. She had an unrestrained look in her eyes, an animation she normally suppressed. He shut the door, and she paced. She traced a line of books with her fingertip, sat on the bed, then stood.

“I’ve always liked this room,” she said. “Very masculine.” She took in the heavy furniture, the paneled walls and small stone fireplace. She picked up a hand-forged fire tool, tilted it so the hammer marks glinted. “It suits you.”

“Are you okay?”

She replaced the poker and it clanked hard against the metal stand. “He’s settled at the guesthouse?”

“Yes.”

“After all these years.” Her shoulders rose. “I can’t believe he’s here.”

“It’s concerning.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“We have different concerns.”

“Must you always be so paranoid?”

“Must you always be so naive?”

She allowed a smile, touched his arm. “Such strong shoulders to bear the weight of the world…”

“You’re damn straight.”

Abigail let her hand fall away, and the smile went with it. “Have you informed the senator?”

“I’ve spoken with his security. Senator Vane is still meeting with lawyers.”

“What do his people think?”

“They think Michael’s a nut-job with an angle. Money, probably. If not that, then another asshole with ideas on abortion rights, gun control, the death penalty. Most threats against your husband revolve around those issues. They’re not looking any deeper than that.”

“But you are?”

“My interests are more personal.”

“Do you think he’s a danger?”

“I think we should be all over this guy.”

“I need more than your instinct.”

“There’s more.” Jessup moved to a small table in the corner beneath a window. He opened a file and spread out a sheaf of photographs. “These just came off the printer.”

“From his car?”

“The search was cursory, but still…”

“Who did you use?”

“Alden.”

“Alden’s good.”

Falls spread out a handful of photographs. The car. The license plate. Shots of the interior. “There was one weapon in the vehicle.” Jessup sifted out a close-up of a handgun. “Kimber nine millimeter, a high-quality handgun. The serial numbers have been removed. Not filed off, but burned off with acid. Very thorough. Very professional. We also found this.” Another photograph slid across the table. It showed an open duffel and bands of green.

“How much?”

“Two hundred and ninety thousand dollars, give or take. The bills are brand-new. Still in the sleeves.”

“Do you still think he’s after money?”

“Three hundred thousand is not a billion.”

“Is that all you found?”

“This was in the bottom of his duffel.” Falls slipped a photograph from the file folder and handed it over. The picture was of a book.

“Hemingway? Should I worry?”

“I’m just showing you what we found. The gun. Clothing. Cash. I saved the best two for last.” He slid out another picture. It was a close-up of another snapshot, a black and white photo of two small boys on a field of mud and snow. Time had degraded the image so that their features were washed out, their eyes specks of black.

“Oh, my God.” Abigail lifted the photo.

“It’s the same picture, isn’t it?”

“The yard at Iron Mountain.” She touched the two boys. Julian had the same photograph on his desk upstairs. It came anonymously one day when Julian was fifteen. No card. Just the photograph. For years, they’d speculated about that picture. Who’d sent it, and why? She’d often found Julian asleep with it in his hands. “You know what this means?”

“It means he’s known where to find us for a very long time.”

“But why didn’t he reach out to us? To Julian?” Abigail could not take her eyes off the photograph. According to Julian, it had been taken less than a month before Michael ran away. “We could have had him back years ago.”

“Which brings us back to timing.”

Some inflection in his voice made Abigail look up. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Falls pulled a final photograph from the folder. He slipped it out facedown, then turned it up and spun it across the table. It was an enlargement of yet another photograph, this one showing a teenage Michael leaning against the hood of a car. An older man had one arm around Michael’s neck. They were laughing. “He had this photograph as well. I’d guess he was sixteen when it was taken. Maybe a bit older.”

Abigail studied the photograph: Michael and an older man, brownstones with open windows, parked cars, a fire hydrant. “It looks like a city street.”

“New York.”

“You sound certain.”

“I am.”

“This could be anywhere, Jessup. A dozen different cities.”

“Do you recognize the man with his arm around Michael’s shoulder?”

“No.”

“Look again.”

She tilted the photograph to the light. “Okay. He’s vaguely familiar. Maybe. The picture’s almost twenty years old.”

“He’s been in the news for longer than that.” Falls dropped a newspaper on the table. It landed hard. “This is yesterday’s New York Times.” She lifted the paper, looked at the headline, the face of an old man found dead in the slaughterhouse of his own home.

“Otto Kaitlin?”

“Possibly the most powerful crime boss in recent memory.”

“I know who Otto Kaitlin is. What does he have to do with Michael?”

“It’s the same man.”

“You’re being absurd.”

“There’s a full spread on page five. What they know of his life. Some old photographs. The similarity is more obvious.”

Abigail turned to page five, compared the photos. Michael and the laughing man. The dead mobster tied to forty years of murder, racketeering and extortion. There was a mug shot of Kaitlin as a young man, another of him on the courthouse steps, cuffed and lean in an expensive suit. The similarities were there: the hair and eyes, the confident smile. Otto Kaitlin was an old-school gangster, a gentleman killer tried a half-dozen times and never convicted. He was articulate and photogenic, a killer with easy grace and a Hollywood smile. Books had been based on his career. At least two movies. Abigail felt her way to a chair and sat.

Falls opened a drawer and pulled out a handgun sealed in a plastic bag. “This came from Michael’s car.”

“You took it?”

“Seven dead in Otto Kaitlin’s house. Six of them shot with a nine millimeter. Then, an hour later, the explosion in Tribeca. Another nine dead. A dozen injured. Police are looking for a man and a woman who fled the scene in a car traced back to Kaitlin’s house. A man and a woman. The descriptions match.”

Abigail shook her head. “What descriptions? A man in his thirties. A woman with dark hair. It could be anybody. A million different people.”

“Six people were shot with a nine millimeter.”

“You think that’s the gun?”

“It could be.”

“Could be. Old photos. Listen to you. This may as well be office gossip, the mindless chatter of old ladies.”

Falls pointed to the photo of Michael and the laughing man. “We know that’s Otto Kaitlin.”

“We know nothing of the sort.”

Falls pushed the photograph into her hands. “You’re in denial. Look at it.”

“Okay. There’s a similarity, but it’s a ridiculous stretch. Michael is Julian’s brother. He was almost my son.”

“You’re being irresponsible.” Falls spread his hand on the newsprint photos of Otto Kaitlin. “These are serious people, Abigail. Mobsters. Killers.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“He shows up in a stolen car with a bag of cash and an untraceable weapon. This is not an average man.”

“And yet, I believe his reasons.”

“That he loves his brother?”

“Yes.”

“What if this danger follows him? If he is associated with Otto Kaitlin…”

“You can protect us.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Big strong man. Ex-cop. Ex-military.”

“Don’t be flip.”

“We spent over a million dollars on security last year.” Abigail dropped the photo and put both palms flat on the table. “Julian is my son, and as hard as his life has been, I’ve never seen him as broken as he is now. His brother has come back to him after twenty-three years, and I think it’s happened for a reason. I think he can help. So, do what you need to do your job. Alert the senator’s people to a possible threat, but keep your reasons vague. Be cautious. Be smart. But if you scare Michael off, I’ll never forgive you.” She straightened, voice crisp. “In the meantime, you keep your theories to yourself. I don’t want to hear anything about mobsters or mass murder or old photographs.”

Falls shook his head, disappointed. “You’re making a mistake.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You said it yourself.”

“What?”

Falls watched her carefully. “The man’s no dishwasher.”