The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

15

SPECIAL AGENTS LING AND SOUTHERN LOOKED LIKE CIRCUS clowns through the parabolic lens of the peephole, but when I opened the door, they were all business.

Southern stepped up. “Where is he?”

“In his office.”

He brushed past me and headed down the hallway. Ling wiped his feet on the mat. “Thank you,” he said. I tried to look as if I knew what for. He smiled. “For having Harvey call.”

“Oh, absolutely. I insisted.”

He let me lead the way to the office, where I was surprised to find Harvey on his feet. He was leaning on his cane but mostly upright. After he confirmed that he was who he was, Ling flashed his ID and introduced himself and Southern. “We’d like to talk to you alone.”

“Excuse me, Special Agent Ling,” I said, “but I already feel involved in this because of our interview yesterday. I would like to stay.”

“I’m sure you would, but have you checked with your partner?”

Harvey wobbled a little as he blinked at me from behind those thick lenses. My jaw tightened, my stiff neck throbbed, and I knew there was still the chance that he would choose today to throw himself under the bus for Rachel. I knew that’s what his instincts told him to do.

“Miss Shanahan is my partner,” he said finally. “Whatever you need, I am sure we can both help you.” He gestured to the small seating area. “Do come in and sit down.”

Ling dropped onto the couch-right on top of my casework-and made himself comfortable. I almost expected him to prop his feet up on the coffee table. Southern, something less than comfortable but not exactly jittery, found a place against the bookshelves and stood there, holding a manila file flat against his chest. Harvey worked his way over and lowered himself into the wingback. I stayed close to the door. Normally, I would have wanted to watch Ling’s face, but for this discussion, I needed to keep an eye on my partner.

“We were looking for you yesterday,” Ling said to Harvey. “You weren’t home.”

“Yes, I understand. I am sorry I missed you.”

“Where were you?”

Harvey glanced at me. He had never been good with lies, either the commission or the omission kind. He blinked too much or shifted around in his seat. He pushed at the bridge of his glasses or pitched his voice too high. That he exhibited none of these nervous tics as he sat under the watchful gaze of the FBI was alarming. I was afraid he was about to tell them the truth.

“I was…shopping.”

Southern rolled his eyes, I exhaled, and Ling reached over and picked at a small water stain on the linen covering the arm of the couch. He was precise about it. “Really? What did you get?”

“I have been thinking of investing in a new chair.” Harvey nodded in the direction of his old wheelchair across the room. “That one has seen better days. But they are very expensive. I made no purchases.”

“You left your music on,” Ling said, “and we almost shot your partner. She was very concerned about you.”

“Yes.” Harvey chuckled. “She made me apologize profusely.”

Ling turned enough to show me his profile. “Then there was nothing to worry about after all?”

“He forgot to turn on his phone. I should have known.”

Harvey shifted in the wingback. His legs were probably bothering him. “How can I help you gentlemen?”

“You called us. You said you had some things to discuss.”

“I did?”

“Yes,” Southern groused, “you did.”

“Oh, my.” Harvey reached up and straightened his lenses. “This is most embarrassing.” He turned his head and scratched behind his ear. “I have recently adjusted my medication, and I have been doing some odd things, such as leaving the house without telling Alex. That was quite unusual. I am certain she told you.”

Ling seemed quite concerned, though I was reasonably certain he wasn’t buying any of it.

“Please accept my apologies,” Harvey said. “I know you gentlemen are busy, but I cannot, for the life of me, think of why I might have called you.” He looked at me with eyebrows raised, as if I could help.

“We’ll have to talk to your doctor. I’m sorry, too,” I said to Ling. “I was out this morning, or I would have prevented this.”

“Really?” Ling shifted around. “Where were you?”

“Um…having breakfast. With a client. He’s an early bird.”

Harvey scooted himself to the edge of the cushion and started to pull himself up with his cane. “You have my assurances, Special Agents, that this will not happen again.”

“That’s okay.” Ling was as serene as ever. “We were coming anyway. We had some questions for you.”

Harvey looked up at me as he eased back into his chair. Southern stepped up and handed his file to Ling. Ling flipped through it. When he found the item he wanted, he passed it over to Harvey. I went and stood behind Harvey’s chair so I could see it, too. It was the same passport photo of Roger he had shown me.

“This man is Roger Fratello,” Harvey said.

“Then you know him?”

“He is a seminotorious fugitive from our area. Of course I know of him.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“How would I?” Harvey passed the picture back to Ling.

“We were thinking that, wherever he is, you might have helped him get there.”

“That is nonsense. Would either of you like some tea? I brewed a fresh pot.”

“No, thanks. How about the name Stephen Gerald Hoffmeyer?”

Harvey furrowed his brow. “Nothing comes to mind, but I am a sick man. With the medication and the illness, as I told you, my mind is not what it once was.”

“Maybe we can give your memory a nudge.” Ling passed over another item he pulled from his file. “We found this in a safety deposit box in Brussels.” It was a photograph of a single piece of scrap paper. A list of codes was written on it. “We think they might be numbered bank accounts.” Ling looked at Harvey. “Check out what’s written across the top.”

Harvey and I both leaned in. I was the one who almost started wheezing when I saw that it said “Baltimore.” Harvey was calm.

“Are you sure that does not refer to a city in Maryland?”

Southern’s expression soured even more, but Ling’s brightened. He seemed to be enjoying the challenge presented by the elegant stone wall that was Harvey Baltimore. I might have enjoyed it myself had I not been trying so hard to keep up. It was a side of Harvey I hardly ever got to see.

“Good point by you,” Ling said. “We can’t really tie the list to you because the only usable prints are Roger Fratello’s. We don’t have the same problem with the cash.”

He offered up the next exhibit, a photo of the individual stacks of banded U.S. currency he had spoken of. The stacks were arranged in rows-three across and two down-and wrapped in plastic. “We found that bundle in the same box in Brussels. That shrink wrap is great for prints. Yours were all over it. Can you explain that?”

“I already-”

Ling held up his hand to shut me up. He was polite about it. “If you don’t mind.”

“I am an accountant,” Harvey said. “I handle money, typically other people’s money. I am not responsible for where it goes or what it is used for after it leaves my hands.”

Good answer. We hadn’t even coordinated.

“Do you do business with drug cartels? Because that’s where we usually see bills bundled that way.”

“I certainly do not.”

Ling nestled back against the couch, as relaxed as if he were sitting in his underwear at home watching The Untouchables on DVD, or whatever his tastes ran to. Maybe Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “By the way, you both understand that you can go to prison for lying to us, right?”

“Title 18,” Harvey said. “United States Code, Section 1001, makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation in any matter-”

“That’s the one. Let’s talk about motive. That’s really the only part I don’t get, although, personally, I think it all comes back to Rachel.”

“Rachel is not part of this.” Harvey’s answer came out in a high-pitched voice, too fast to be the truth.

Ling noticed, too, and then he came out with his ace in the hole. He started pulling pictures out of his file and passing them over to Harvey, watching Harvey’s face the whole time. They were black-and-white surveillance photos, the kind divorce lawyers get from private investigators who do that sort of work. The only source I could think of was Susan Fratello. Maybe she had finally gotten fed up with Roger’s serial philandering.

The first showed Rachel kissing Roger in the front seat of a car. Ling put down a second and a third. Harvey’s right leg twitched enough to send the pages on his lap sliding to the floor. I reached down and trapped them against his shin, and I saw it in his face. He wouldn’t last much longer.

I collected all the exhibits and handed them back to Ling. “We get the idea.”

“Maybe she came to you and asked for help in getting Roger out of harm’s way.”

“That is not the case.” Harvey’s forehead was starting to glisten. His breathing was shallower. “Rachel is not part of this.”

“Did I miss something,” I asked, “or did you gentlemen articulate at some point exactly what it is that you want?”

Southern stared at Harvey. “He knows what we want.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“We want your partner here to tell us where to find Fratello so we can drag his ass home and nail him for the murder of Special Agent Walter Herald.”

“Excuse me? Murder?”

Ling was reassembling his file. “We believe Roger was involved in the murder of an undercover officer named Walter Herald. Walt was Special Agent Southern’s partner.”

Gauging the look on Southern’s face, had I tried to express condolences, he would have pulled out his service weapon and shot me. “Roger Fratello killed your partner?”

“Walt was undercover at Betelco for nine months. He approached Roger about flipping on his scumbag partners. After he agreed to do it, the cocksucker turned around and told them about Walt, and they killed him. We never did find Walt’s head or his hands.”

No wonder he was so pissed off. “So, the Russians killed him?”

Southern shot right back. “Anyone who was involved in the conspiracy to kill or cover up the murder of a federal officer is in deep shit.” He was talking to me and staring at Harvey. “Anyone in that position would be well advised to cut a deal and spill his guts rather than go down for felony murder.”

I put myself between Harvey and Southern. “Are you planning on taking him in?” Neither man made a move, which meant the answer was no.

“Here’s the thing,” Ling said. “One of the chief beneficiaries of Walt’s murder was Rachel. After his body turned up, no one wanted to testify. We couldn’t bring any indictments.”

Harvey looked at him. “Rachel wasn’t the only beneficiary.”

“That’s true.” Ling didn’t argue with him. “But you’re in with some bad people on this one. You don’t want to take the heat for them, and you don’t want to be screwing with the Russian mafiya.”

“We’ll certainly take that under advisement,” I said. “Can I show you to the door?”

“We’ll find it.” Ling was his affable self as he stood to button his jacket. But Southern had one last shot to take. “An inmate in a wheelchair has a hard time taking care of himself in prison.” He stared down hard at Harvey. “All kinds of bad things happen to gimps in the can.”

I walked Ling and Southern to the door anyway, and watched them to their car. After they had pulled away, gone down the street, and turned the corner, I went back to the office. Harvey had moved back to his wheelchair. His chin was resting on the collar of flesh that had formed around his neck in the past year or so. It made him look overly jowly. That the stakes had taken a gigantic leap in the past hour had not been lost on him. He was clearly shaken.

“All right, Harvey. I need to know the truth. Did you have anything to do with the murder of that agent?”

He was horrified that I would ask such a thing, but my new policy was to be thorough. I was tired of being surprised.

“Yes or no?”

“No.”

“What about Rachel? She and Roger had a thing. Susan Fratello also thinks she was in bed with the Russians.”

“In bed with the Russians?”

“Not in bed with them.” At least I didn’t think so. “She told me Rachel brought the Russians into Betelco as investors. Does that sound right to you?”

He looked up at me. I could see he didn’t want to think it could be true. I could also see that he wasn’t sure.

“We have to ask her,” I said. “You have to tell me where she is so I can find her and bring her back here.”

“I do not know where she is.”

“Harvey, you don’t want her out there alone, running from Drazen and possibly the FBI.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I do not. I wish I could send you to her, but I made her promise not to tell me where she was going. She is supposed to call when she gets settled somewhere.”

“All right.” I went over to the couch where Ling had been lounging and pulled my casework out from under the cushion. I found my backpack and stuffed everything into it.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to see Felix. I have him working on something to find Rachel. The three of us need to sit down and pool ideas and resources. That’s the only way I see this working-all three of us together.” I reached under the couch and coaxed out my laptop. My backpack had just enough room left for it. Even so, it took me four tries to get the flap zipped up. I was ready to go, but I had one item still open. Harvey had rolled his chair to within arm’s reach of the teapot. I helped him pour a cup.

“You have to tell me,” I said, “because you promised. What is it about this woman that would make you act this way? As your friend, I would like to know. As a woman, I would really like to know.”

“I am not sure I can explain it to you.”

“You need to try, Harvey, before I go and find her.”

He set the saucer on his thigh. It had a design on it that looked like pink rosebuds, and it occurred to me that Rachel had probably picked it out. He balanced the saucer on the cup and looked at me.

“I asked her to dance and she said yes.”

“That’s it?”

He sat back, and his gaze drifted to that tarnished tin ceiling. He seemed to be looking for his words up there.

“There is a point in one’s life where it becomes impossible not to look back and say, my life has not worked out. It is neither here nor there. One cannot change what he is, but realizing what he is inevitably colors expectations, what he might expect his life to become. I learned to be satisfied with very little. One day, I met Rachel. I asked her to dance with me. I expected her to say no, but she said yes. When I asked her to dinner, she said yes. When I asked her to marry me, she said yes.”

“You used to dance?”

“I loved to dance. I loved dancing with my wife.”

That’s what the music was all about. Now it made sense. It had been something he had shared with Rachel. It had been packed away in boxes, which was where he’d wanted it to stay. That’s why he’d told me to pack everything away and leave it alone.

“She said yes for a reason, Harvey. She said yes because you gave her something, too.”

“Whatever I gave her, it could never approach the happiness she gave me. I love her because I asked her to dance and she said yes.”