Suspicion

AFTER

He became aware of a bright light and a throbbing in his eyeballs and an insistent beeping, a cacophony of beeps from everywhere. Voices murmuring; someone groaning in pain. Shapes floated across the scrim of his closed eyelids. His eyes felt glued shut. It hurt when he opened them. He saw a ceiling, a curtain rod, became aware of commotion, the hubbub of many voices.

He was in a hospital bed.

He swallowed and his throat hurt immensely. He groaned aloud.

“Baby?” A woman’s voice. “Danny?”

Lucy’s. He smiled. “Luce?”

“He’s awake,” she said. To him? He wasn’t sure. Why was she here? He didn’t want to ask.

“He,” Danny said, “has a headache.” It took effort to speak. He felt drugged, slow and gauzy and a thousand miles away. “And the worst sore throat in the world. He tried to smile. “You finally got me in a hospital. You know I hate hospitals.”

“I figured it was better to leave the trauma surgery to the experts. If I could have taken the bullet out myself, I would have.”

Danny squinted, thinking he’d misheard. “I didn’t get shot.”

“Yeah, you did. You’re gonna be fine, but you’re going to have a nasty scar on your shoulder.”

He struggled to sit up, felt a burst of pain. An alarm began to sound, a different sort of beeping, rapid and high.

“Where’s Abby?”

A nurse yanked open the curtain. “What’d he do now?”

“Where’s Abby?” he repeated.

“Abby’s at the Galvins’,” Lucy said.

The nurse pulled the sheet away, tugged something off his chest, ripping chest hair painfully. She adjusted whatever it was-an adhesive lead, he saw-and pressed it back down on his chest. “Please don’t try to sit up again, Mr. Goodman.”

“Can I get a glass of water? I’m really thirsty.”

“Not until your blood pressure stabilizes, and not until we see some urine. Lie back down and please stop moving.”

He shrugged and felt the pain shoot down his right side.

“Abby’s doing fine,” Lucy said. “Shaken up, obviously. She was pretty traumatized, but she seems to be doing okay.”

“I want to see her.”

“She was here for a bit while you were asleep. Now you’re going to have to talk to the FBI.”

“FBI? Wait…”

“There’s two of them, but the nurse will only allow one in here at a time. They say they just want information. They’re sitting in the waiting room. I could tell them to come back.”

“But why…”

“The explosion, sweetie, remember? Getting shot, everything at the dock?”

Danny closed his eyes, felt it coming back to him now. The gunfire, the blat of outboard motors, the immense, deafening blast.

A minute or two later, he heard the scuff of a chair on the floor nearby. “Mr. Goodman, I’m Agent Steve Nocito with the FBI, and I was wondering whether I could ask you just a few questions.”

Danny, lying down, turned his head to one side. He remembered the elaborate con perpetrated on him by the impostors Slocum and Yeager. “Can I see some ID?”

“Of course.” The agent handed him a black leather folding credential wallet. Danny glanced at the badge and ID-it felt heavy, substantial. He handed it back.

“Mr. Goodman, you were at the scene of the… explosion last night.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Why were you there?”

Why was he there? Ah, yes. How much could he say? As he thought-his brain was working far too slowly-he remained silent.

“Did you know the deceased, Thomas Galvin?” the FBI man prompted.

The words hit him in the gut. The deceased. “I did.”

“Were you a friend?”

Danny thought a long while. “Yes. I was.”

“Was he planning to flee the country?”

He thought some more. What was supposed to be known, and what wasn’t?

“Yes, I believe he was,” Danny said.

“Do you know where he intended to go?”

Danny shook his head.

“Might it have been Anguilla? He and his family used to vacation there regularly.”

“Could have been. Yes, I think so.”

“Did he have enemies?”

Danny could hear one set of beeps accelerate as his heart sped up. “Of course.”

Agent Nocito waited for more, but Danny had fallen silent. After a moment he went on: “Our preliminary investigation indicates three other deaths in the explosion. Two of them are former employees of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Were you familiar with them, by any chance?”

What was the right answer? He guessed: “No.”

“Do you know whether they were associates of Mr. Galvin?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I see. Now, your… your daughter was taken hostage for a short while last night.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you have any idea why?”

“The man wanted to know where Galvin was.”

“The man being…” The agent took out a sheaf of photographs and flipped through them. He pulled one out and showed it to Danny. “This individual?”

Danny nodded. The bald head, the rimless glasses, the mocha skin. Looking at Dr. Mendoza’s face made his stomach go cold.

“You told him where Galvin was.”

“I didn’t really have a choice. My daughter-”

“I understand. She’d been abducted. Did the man who abducted her-this Mr., uh, Mendoza-did he say what his connection was to Galvin?”

Danny paused. “I believe he was employed by the Sinaloa cartel.”

“You don’t have any proof of that, do you?”

“No.”

“Then that’s not really something you want to speculate about. This is a sensitive area for a lot of parties.”

Danny, head turned toward the side, couldn’t quite make out the FBI agent’s facial expression. “That’s what Tom Galvin thought.”

“Did he have any proof of that?”

He looked at the FBI man, and for a moment their eyes locked. Nocito’s head moved imperceptibly, a gesture of-warning? Then he leaned in and whispered in Danny’s ear. “Be very, very careful how you answer this, do you understand?”

Danny realized he was holding his breath. Nocito sat back in his chair, a neutral expression returning to his face. He repeated his original question.

“Do you have any proof of this? Anything beyond mere speculation, about…”

And Danny understood suddenly. It was like a puzzle piece falling into place. Something he’d known all along, in his gut, without ever quite realizing he’d known.

Galvin had been a confidential source for the DEA. Mistakes had been made, things were being covered up. Powerful people didn’t want to be embarrassed.

“Mr. Goodman, do you need me to repeat-”

“No, no-there’s no proof. Not sure why I said it. My head…”

“Yes, I understand. You’re disoriented, not thinking clearly. It’s best for a lot of reasons to keep your theories to yourself. Not least Mr. Galvin’s survivors. His family.”

“My memory, it’s not so good.”

Danny watched Nocito’s stern gaze melt away, like an actor on cue. The agent now smiled benignly, stood. “That should cover it, then,” he said. “Thanks for giving me a few minutes of your time, Mr. Goodman. Feel better, okay?”

Danny had drifted off to sleep. When he woke up, the FBI man was gone and Lucy was sitting in his chair. He saw her and smiled.

She said, “You weren’t telling him the truth.”

Danny was silent. He felt the blood pressure cuff tighten on his left arm, heard its gasp and wheeze.

“About… what-?”

“Quit it, Danny. The FBI guy. You weren’t telling him the truth. I want to know why. Will you tell me?”

He told her about Jay Gould and the telegrams. How Gould knew his telegrams were being read by Western Union, and how he’d used this to his advantage. Presenting falsehoods he wanted them to believe as true. And believe it they did.

In the same way, Slocum and Yeager, the two ex-DEA employees who’d planned to extort Tom Galvin for billions of dollars, had cloned Galvin’s phone. Assuming Galvin to be unaware of this, they naturally believed everything Galvin and Danny said over the monitored line had to be true. Which was why they believed that Galvin was on his own boat preparing to sail away.

And that once they learned that Dr. Mendoza hoped to get to Galvin first, they had no choice but to kill the man.

And in this way, Danny and Galvin had set up Galvin’s enemies to neutralize each other. Which was exactly what happened.

The Medford Regional Construction & Engineering Company later reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that eight one-pound blocks of C-4 plastic explosive had been stolen from its inventory, along with a quantity of fifty-grain-per-foot detonating cord and an electric blasting cap. Medford Regional kept stores of such equipment to raze buildings.

Had agents from the Sinaloa cartel targeted their own financier before he could escape? Had the events in Boston Harbor in fact been the result of an internecine battle between two warring Mexican drug cartels?

Investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Boston Police bomb squad later determined that the C-4 had been placed in three locations on Thomas Galvin’s yacht: near the forward cabin, aft of the engine room, and on the fly bridge. Most experts agreed that Thomas Galvin had been standing on the fly bridge, piloting his yacht. Because the fly bridge had been completely destroyed, nothing of Galvin’s body remained. Just some clothing and shoes and his Patek Philippe watch.

Lucy watched Danny explain, and when he had finished, they were both silent for a long while.

Too many elements within the US government had a vested interest in keeping things quiet. Mistakes had been made. Danny had told Lucy everything, and now she understood the sort of pressure he’d been under.

“When I heard you’d been shot, I was worried out of my mind,” she said. “I’m sorry it took something like that to make me realize.”

“Realize?”

“How much I still care for you. How much you were dealing with. Some of the choices you made were, I don’t know…”

“Wrong?”

She shrugged. “Not for me to say. Sometimes life gets complicated, and the answers aren’t so easy.”

They were both quiet a moment longer. Finally, Lucy asked, “Does this mean you’re safe? That we’re safe?”

He nodded. “I think so.”

A week later, there was a memorial service for Tom Galvin at St. Brigid Parish in South Boston, where he’d been baptized and confirmed. He was eulogized as a brilliant investor and generous man who’d never forgotten his roots.

A lot of old friends of Galvin’s from Southie showed up. A much smaller group of friends from his later years sat uncomfortably on one side of the aisle. Celina Galvin wore a long black dress and a veil and looked dazed and small and lost. His daughter, Jenna, wept quietly throughout the service. Abby sat next to her and tried without much success to comfort her. His two sons looked awkward and forlorn in their dark suits.

Danny noticed a couple of men in business suits sitting near the back of the nave who looked particularly out of place. They actually didn’t appear to be mourning. They seemed to be studying the mourners. He recognized one of them as the FBI agent who’d paid him a visit in the hospital.

Danny and Lucy were married in August. The ceremony was performed by a justice of the peace in the Boston Public Garden. The only attendees were Abby Goodman and Lucy’s son, Kyle. Afterward they all repaired to Legal Sea Foods for a late lunch.

It took Danny a good six weeks before he was able to sit at a computer keyboard and type comfortably, but once he could, he experienced a great surge of productivity. He finished the book in three months, and his agent, Mindy Levitan, sold the book to another publisher. For more money than even his last publisher had paid.

Eighteen months after the explosion in Boston Harbor, Genius: The Controversial Life of Jay Gould was published to universally glowing reviews. The first one ran in The New York Times on a Tuesday, the book’s on-sale day, and it was enthusiastic enough to spur a six-week run on the New York Times bestseller list.

The book party was held at an art gallery in the South End owned by a friend of Lucy’s. Shortly after Danny had said good-bye to the last guest, he gave Abby a hug.

“Hey, Boogie. Luce and I have decided to spend Christmas in Turks and Caicos. Sort of a celebration of the book being finished and all that. How about you come with us? Maybe with Jenna, too, if she’s free.”

Abby looked at Danny with incredulity. “Seriously? Doesn’t that seem like kind of… I don’t know, a waste of money?”

“I thought you always wanted to go to the Caribbean.”

She and Jenna had each decided to put off college for a while, spending a gap year volunteering at an orphanage in Guatemala.

“Come on, Dad,” she said, and in her eyes a teasing smile sparkled. “Keep up.”

As they left the gallery, Danny got a message alert on his phone.

It said, SNAPCHAT FROM LYNYRD.

“Who is it, Dad?”

“Not sure, Boogie.” He stepped away, touched in his passcode.

On the screen before him was a photo of an ancient stone house in an emerald field next to a flock of sheep. Beautiful, timeless, like a picture postcard-except he knew it wasn’t a postcard. On the top right of his phone’s screen, a number was counting down from 10.

Danny had never been to New Zealand, but this looked a lot like the way Tom Galvin had described it. The scene was lovely and still and remote and it filled him with a deep sense of calm.

He studied the picture, staring intently at it, wondering if it contained some hidden message. It looked like a good place to live a peaceful life off the grid.

“What is it, Dad? Let me see.” She leaned in close; an instant later, the picture was gone.

“What the heck? What-”

“Oh, Dad,” Abby said. “You’re so clueless! That’s Snapchat. You take a picture and send it to your friends and then it’s gone after a couple of seconds.”

He nodded. “And it just-disappears? Forever?”

“Forever, Dad.” Abby laughed. “Anyway, that was pretty-who’s it from?”

“No one,” Danny said. “Just an old friend.”