The Rule of Nine

NINETEEN

Snyder slept fitfully on the red-eye flight from L.A. back to Chicago. By the time he arrived at O’Hare, it was five in the morning and he was exhausted. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a full night’s sleep. It was before his son was murdered, of that he was sure. Even with all the medications given to him by his doctor, a cornucopia of antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, Snyder was unable to dodge the pain.

He looked down at the notepad lying on his lap-“aka Dean Belden.” The man’s photograph walking next to Jimmie was now branded on Snyder’s fevered brain. He hoped that Cole was right. If so, it was something he could feed to the FBI and perhaps harvest some information in return.

One thing bothered him. Snyder was convinced there was something Madriani wasn’t telling him. Whether it had to do with Jimmie’s murder he couldn’t be sure. The tip-off was in the needling current of inquiry directed by Cole at Madriani during lunch, her observations about the business card in Jimmie’s wallet and the thumbprint, her uptake on Liquida and the danger this posed to Madriani, and the obvious fact that the lawyer was already well aware of this but wasn’t saying anything. What else did he know that he wasn’t telling them?

It provoked questions regarding some of the background research Snyder had done on Madriani. The night before he left for San Diego he ran a couple of online news site searches and Googled Madriani’s name. Most of what came back was the usual stuff you might expect concerning a criminal defense lawyer, news on cases Madriani had tried.

But there was one item, more recent, that caught his attention. Madriani’s name popped up in connection with the attack on the Coronado naval base. This was one of those seminal events that the entire world knew about because of the blanket coverage on the cable news networks. It never rang any bells with the name Madriani until Snyder read the news articles online. At first he figured Madriani must have defended someone in connection with the case until he realized that the lawyer had been taken into custody in the shootout. When he saw this, and knowing that Madriani’s business card was found in his son’s wallet, the adrenaline began to spike in Snyder’s body. He was sure he had something. He wasted two hours reading news articles until in the end it all turned out to be smoke. Or was it? According to the FBI, Madriani and one of his employees happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and were caught up in the law enforcement net after the shootout.

The second he got home, Snyder dropped his luggage inside the front door and headed for the study. The large, stately home in the North Shore area of Chicago was dark and empty. Snyder had lived alone ever since the divorce from his wife five years earlier.

He turned on the floor lamp, plopped himself down in front of his desktop, and hit the browser button.

Snyder had already hired a private investigator. Now he would feed him all of the information he had gathered on his trip to San Diego. He fired off an e-mail to the investigator, giving him the name Liquida and the term “the Mexicutioner” along with the rumor that he worked for the Mexican drug cartel in Tijuana. He laid it all out, including the thumbprint on the business card, and then typed in the name Thorn and his alias, Dean Belden. He told the investigator to gather any information he could find under the name Belden regarding a federal grand jury investigation and a floatplane crash on Lake Union in Seattle and gave him the approximate time frame for the events. Snyder told the investigator that he needed whatever information he could find, and that he needed it immediately. He told him he was willing to pay a premium by way of fees for thorough and prompt service and that he would be waiting for a reply ASAP. He hit the Send button.

Then Snyder pulled out his wallet and located Joselyn Cole’s business card. The meeting in San Diego had come to an abrupt end when Madriani had to leave his office, something about a family emergency. Cole and Snyder exchanged business cards and agreed to keep in touch. Snyder told her he would lay heavy hands on the FBI turning over the information on Thorn, and promised to keep her informed as to what he learned.

He entered her name and all of the contact information from her business card into the contact list on his computer. Then he synchronized it to his BlackBerry so that he could call her or shoot e-mails to her from the road.

He navigated to one of his tailored news sites on the Web and hit the button for advanced searches. He went to the line that read “Find results with the exact phrase” and typed in the name Joselyn Cole in the box next to it. Snyder scanned down the page to make sure he would capture everything back for a period of one year. Then he hit the Search button. He knew he wouldn’t find anything on Thorn or Belden or the grand jury stuff in Seattle. Those events went back too far, beyond the time of Internet news sites. And not many newspapers made their news morgues available online, even for a fee.

The search under Cole’s name produced a few news articles, one reporting on a press conference held by Cole’s organization, Gideon Quest, dealing with the issue of land mines in Africa and Asia. Cole and her organization seemed to have a particular brief for arms merchants and the manufacturers who produced their wares.

One of the stories caught his eye. It involved testimony before a Senate committee dealing with nuclear weapons and their proliferation in Third World countries. Toward the bottom of the article Snyder saw the name Gideon van Rye, for whom the organization Gideon Quest had been named. He remembered Cole mentioning the name over lunch in San Diego.

According to the article, van Rye was a Dutch physicist who died of radiation poisoning following an accident at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The article described the accident as somewhat mysterious and never fully explained. Mysterious was right. It didn’t make sense, not to Snyder, not if Cole was telling the truth. According to her, Thorn, alias Dean Belden, was responsible for van Rye’s death. If so, how could it be an accident?

He printed out the story and then turned his attention to the Web. He Googled Cole’s name and found several more news articles, all of them dealing with various weapons systems, testimony before Congress on Defense Department appropriations, research, and development. Joselyn Cole seemed dedicated to her work. She couldn’t be making much money doing what she did. She was a woman with a cause. This struck Snyder as positive, someone he could probably trust if he needed information, or if he had to share some. If he had to pick a face to bond with around the table in San Diego, he felt safest with Cole.

He ran a search for the names Thorn and Belden just to be safe, and as expected came up with nothing useful. He searched using the name Liquida as well as the Mexicutioner. “Liquida” was the Spanish word for water. He found sites where the word was used in connection with products, but nothing else. Without a first name it was impossible. For “the Mexicutioner” Snyder found multiple pages with links to a Mexican prizefighter. That was it.

By now the sun was up and streaming through the window in Snyder’s study. He checked his watch. Seven minutes after eight, 9:07 in Washington. He pulled out his cell phone, entered the name Joseph Wallace, and pressed the little roller ball. His contact list offered him two options: the FBI agent’s office phone or the cell number that Wallace had penned on the back of his card. Snyder opted for the cell line.

It rang twice before he answered. “Agent Wallace here.”

“Mr. Wallace, this is Bart Snyder, Jimmie Snyder’s father.”

There was dead air at the other end for a second as Wallace tried to place the name.

“Killed in his apartment, drug overdose,” said Snyder. Jimmie’s murder was already slipping through the cracks.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember.”

“You left those photographs with me, do you recall?”

“Sure.”

“I think I may have something for you.” Snyder could hear a lot of noise in the background, sounds of traffic. He had obviously caught him at a bad time. “Are you on your way to your office?”

“No,” said Wallace. “Another case.”

“I see. Do you have a pen and paper?”

“Gimme a second.”

Snyder could hear the rustle of the phone as the agent juggled the cell while looking for something to write on and a pen to do it with.

“Okay. What have you got?”

“A name for the man in the photographs. Last name Thorn.” Snyder spelled it for him so there would be no mistake.

“Any first name?”

“No, but there’s an alias, Dean Belden.” He spelled it again.

“Any address?”

“No. But you should have something on him,” said Snyder.

“How’s that?”

Snyder told him about the grand jury proceedings in Seattle and the crash of the floatplane, the fact that Belden or Thorn or whatever his real name was had appeared on the FBI’s most-wanted list ten years ago and that they should have photographs of him, and possibly fingerprints. “Check your files,” said Snyder.

“Where did you get this?” asked Wallace.

“I’m not at liberty to tell you that right now,” said Snyder.

“Was it one of your son’s friends?”

“Can’t tell you. Not right now. But I’ll tell you what. You tell me what you find and I’ll tell you more,” said Snyder.

“Wait a second,” said Wallace. “If you’re withholding information, I can have you arrested.”

“Do you think I care? My son’s been murdered. I want to know who did it.”

“We’re working the case, Mr. Snyder. Your cooperation would be appreciated.”

“That’s what I’m doing, cooperating,” said Snyder.

“We need to follow up on the information,” said Wallace. “We have to know if your source is reliable.”

“She’s reliable.” Snyder shook his head. He realized he’d given away her gender. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this when he was so tired.

“Then I assume this woman you talked to must have met or had some involvement with the man in the photographs?” Wallace was fishing for more.

“Let’s just say they met some years ago,” said Snyder. “That reminds me, she told me to tell you that the photographs you gave me may not bear a striking resemblance to the old file photos that you have of Mr. Thorn. You may have to look closely. But she was absolutely certain it was him.”

“She must have known him well,” said Wallace. “Listen, I’m pretty busy right now. Can I call you back?”

“When you have some information,” said Snyder. “I want to know what you have on this man. You tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Are you trying to bargain with me?”

“In a word, yes,” said Snyder.

“You have to understand, I cannot open our files to you. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong,” said Wallace. “Confidential law enforcement information in our files is strictly controlled. I can’t reveal it to anyone.”

“I’m not just anyone, I’m the father of the victim.”

“Even so,” said Wallace. “There’s a limit to what we can tell you. You need to tell me what you know and let us handle it. And be patient. It may take a while.”

“What do you mean?” said Snyder.

“I mean we have other cases. And we’re stretched thin right now.”

“You said you were working on my son’s case.”

“We are. Along with a few dozen other open files. Listen, I can’t talk right now,” said Wallace. “Can I call you back? May not be till later in the week. Can I reach you at this number?”

Snyder knew when he was getting the runaround. “Call me after you’ve looked at your files on this man Thorn.”

“Call you back,” said Wallace, and the line went dead.

He had a sinking feeling. Snyder now knew he was on his own. The police and the FBI might continue to pursue the case, but not with the urgency that it required. To them it was just one more open file. He could sit on his hands and do what others did and “leave it to the authorities”-one more cold case, or worse, they would close it with the finding that Jimmie had died of an accidental drug overdose. Snyder wasn’t going to let that happen.