Where the dead lay

TWELVE

Southeastside Man Killed in Apparent Robbery Attempt,” read the Star’s headline. Behr was at the Caro Group, in a waiting room that smelled of fine woodwork, leather sofas, and freshly brewed dark-roast coffee. The place smelled like money. He had a cup of the strong, perfect stuff on the table at his knee as he read the account of Aurelio’s death. The details were few in the short, vague piece, perhaps because police had nothing, or because that’s all they wanted to release. After reading it twice, Behr tossed the paper on the coffee table with disgust and waited.

“Mr. Behr, they’re ready for you,” Ms. Swanton said. She wore heavy makeup, matronly business attire, and had her hair set in an old-fashioned helmet. She was as solid as a Sherman tank, and about as inviting. He sank into the carpet up to his ankles as he followed her down a hallway lined with certificates of civic recognition the company had received from the city. It sure didn’t feel like a Saturday in the office, as there were plenty of busy people around. He passed a room, door partially open, that had bakers’ racks full of the black, hard-sided cases that protected and transported high-end surveillance equipment. Infrared cameras, hardline wiretaps, relays, cell phone wiretaps, cell phone scramblers, night vision, voice stress analyzers-all the tools of the trade that he couldn’t afford. Some of them even worked some of the time.

They neared a corner office that could only belong to the firm’s old bull, and when Ms. Swanton swung open the door, his impression was confirmed. Rising from a large mahogany desk that cost more than Behr’s car was a silver-haired man in an expensive charcoal gray suit. A second man, tall and slim, with curly rust-colored hair, stood as well. Slim wore an equally expensive navy chalk-stripe suit and held an alligator-skin binder under his arm.

“Mr. Behr, meet Mr. Potempa,” Ms. Swanton intoned. “Can I get you gentlemen anything?”

“We’re fine,” Karl Potempa said in a smooth baritone. Ms. Swanton nodded and left and no one spoke until the door closed behind her. In the meantime Behr looked around the office at framed handshake photos of Potempa and other men, including the governor, at various banquets and flesh-presses. Potempa’s old FBI badge was in a display case on the desk, which was also full of commemorative clocks and ashtrays from golf outings and law enforcement conferences.

“I’m Curt Lundquist,” the unintroduced man in the navy suit began. “House counsel for Caro.”

Behr shook his hand and realized he was being hired. It was common practice in private investigation, especially at the higher end, with clients who had money to burn on lawyers as well as investigators. When the lawyer did the hiring, anything the investigator found fell under attorney-client privilege and couldn’t be subpoenaed.

“Have a seat,” Potempa hit him with the dulcet baritone again, “and thanks for coming.” Behr lowered himself into a slick, oxblood leather chair. “Do you know anything about our firm?”

“Security. Investigation. I know you charge plenty,” Behr said, evoking no smiles across the desk.

“Crisis and emergency management, executive protection, homeland security solutions, risk analysis, all that,” Potempa went on.

“Color me impressed,” Behr said. “What can I do for you?”

“We have two employees, investigators, named Ken Bigby and Derek Schmidt,” Lundquist said. “They’re from our Philly office, put up over at the Valu-Stay Suites while they’re in town.”

“It’s part of a new program we’ve got going where we move guys around for six months at a time, so they develop a national overview,” Potempa informed him.

“How’s that working?” Behr wondered.

“Fine,” Potempa answered, but it didn’t sound like the truth. Behr waited for him to continue, already assuming he’d hear of some scam the two employees were involved in that they wanted to investigate with external personnel. Bill padding or misappropriation of company resources or some other kind of fraud was usually the order of the day.

“Anyway,” Potempa went on, “Ken Bigby and Derek Schmidt… we can’t locate them.”

Lundquist said, “They’re missing.”

“Missing?”

Potempa and Lundquist nodded. Behr waited for them to go on, but they didn’t.

“Missing like they stopped showing up for work and went to a competitor with their files?” Behr asked, readjusting his assumptions. Potempa and Lundquist shrugged and shook their heads.

“So you want me to jump in on a case they were working?” Behr asked.

This time neither man moved or responded for a moment. “It’s not the case we need you to pursue at this time,” the lawyer said. A moment of silence spread in the room before Behr began to understand what they were looking for.

“You want me to track down your people?” he asked, truly surprised.

“That’s right,” Potempa said.

“Why don’t you all do it?” Behr asked, pointing a thumb toward the outer offices. He had just walked past a bullpen full of shirt and tie investigators who looked rough and ready, not to mention a handful of doors that had the title “Case Manager” stenciled on them. The place was practically an FBI field office.

“We don’t want to lose any more man-hours to it,” Potempa said evenly, the baritone hitching just slightly.

“Just to find they lit out for Vegas or St. Louis or someplace?” Behr suggested.

“That’s probably not it,” Potempa said, shifting in his seat. “Though we certainly hope it’s that basic…”

Behr had been wondering how they had come to choose him in a town with four pages worth of private investigators listed online and in the phone book. Now he was able to put it together- it was a janitor job. He didn’t bother filtering his thoughts. “So while your regular guys are out billing three hundred an hour on real cases, you’ll put me on this at seventy-five.”

“Something like that. I hope you don’t find it insulting. It’s a question of economics,” Potempa said. “And your reputation is investigative-strong and localized.”

“According to whom?”

“That person would prefer not to be named.”

Behr chewed over whom they’d checked with and what his reputation might be “weak” in before speaking again. “If it’s just a question of economics, pay me one-fifty an hour. You’ll still be making out that way.”

“A hundred,” Lundquist said.

“Fine,” Behr said, immediately wondering if he’d gone too cheap. Either way, this would be a score for him. A hundred an hour to run down an ATM trail or credit card pattern that would lead, despite what the bosses thought, to a lost weekend at a riverboat casino or Glitter Gulch hotel with some strippers or bar girls or hookers. And this time he wouldn’t be giving back any retainer. Unlike with Shipman, there was no personal connection here. Even though it wouldn’t take long, this time around he’d be “Frank the Milkman” all the way. It could finance him through his Aurelio investigation and beyond. “So, I’ll just need to look at their files and computers then.”

“Sorry, company materials aren’t available for view by outside individuals,” Lundquist said.

“Okay…,” Behr said. “Well, that ups the degree of difficulty.”

“We’re also going to need you to sign this,” Lundquist said, taking a piece of paper out of his binder and sliding it toward Behr, who picked it up and looked it over.

“A confidentiality agreement?” Behr said.

“We’d prefer word of us hiring outside didn’t get around,” Potempa explained.

“Right,” Behr said. “Of course. Can I speak to some of their coworkers then?”

“We can’t… would prefer not to… involve… other company personnel,” Potempa said, the baritone tightening up now. “That’s one of the reasons we’re hiring-”

“Then can you fill me in on what they were working?” Behr said, quickly becoming tired of the game. There was a long, silent pause in response. “If you don’t give me anything, where am I supposed to start?”

Potempa shifted uncomfortably again, tapped his fingers against a crystal paperweight of a size better suited to bludgeoning intruders than holding down documents, then exchanged a nod with Lundquist, who spoke. “They were checking the status of… properties… for a client.”

“A client?” Behr asked flatly, already knowing they weren’t going to tell him who that client was.

“Yes. A client.”

“I don’t suppose you can tell me-”

“No,” Lundquist answered.

“Can you at least tell me what type of property and where the hell they are?” Behr asked as patiently as he could. The meter’s already running, and includes this meeting, he thought.

The two men exchanged another look, and Potempa nodded before Lundquist went to his alligator binder once more for a sheet of non-letterhead paper, which he fed across the desk. “Derelict houses,” Potempa said. Behr looked over a list of a dozen addresses. Franklin Street, Thirty-third, Arrington, a few other streets Behr recognized. Mostly near Brightwood, on the northeast side, and some other shit areas. The parts of town where a real estate speculator of any stature-certainly the kind of businessman who would hire a Caro Group-would not be buying or selling.

Lundquist filled the silence. “So the gag agreement we mentioned-”

“Curt…,” Potempa intoned, giving the lawyer a “take it easy” gesture with his hand.

“Sorry, Karl,” Lundquist whispered.

Behr picked up the page and looked at it, and then the men. He had more questions but realized they were looking to him for answers, not the other way around.

It was the part of the meeting where he was supposed to say, “I’ll get on it then,” and sign the nondisclosure and start getting paid. But Behr found himself unable to do or say anything like that. The problem, he quickly realized, in taking big dollars from a top shop was that it came with a caveat: you had to deliver. Failing to do so because he had both hands tied behind his back from the start was no way to build that reputation Potempa had mentioned earlier. And then there was the fact that his friend had recently been scraped off his own gym floor, and something needed to be done about it.

Christ, Behr thought a moment before he spoke, I’m physically unable to make money. It’s just not in my DNA.

“I’m gonna take a pass on this one, gentlemen,” he said, then slid their paperwork back across the desk and headed for the door.