Airtight (16 page)

He found the room on the second try; the little green light went on and the door opened. He entered and found it to be very neat, every piece of clothing carefully folded and placed in drawers. Definitely military.

But it was also a suite, or at least connected to an adjoining room, with the door between the two open. It didn’t take much examination of the belongings to know that two men were staying here, Kagan plus one other.

Gallagher started searching carefully but quickly. On the desk in one of the rooms was a briefcase, locked, which was no problem for Gallagher, since among his talents was one for picking locks. In this case he didn’t bother; he was able to rip the briefcase lid off with sheer strength.

Inside was a thick envelope containing copies of media reports of the court case in Brayton, biographical notes on the various players, what seemed to be land maps, and some kind of geological reports. This was outside of Gallagher’s area of expertise, but he would look at them later, when he had more time.

A short while later, in the adjoining room, he reached one of the closets and saw a large suitcase standing on its side. He felt that it was quite heavy, which surprised him, since both Kagan and his partner had obviously unpacked.

The suitcase was locked, and it took Gallagher only a couple of minutes to pick it. Inside was a large, metal box, which was also locked. After another three minutes, Gallagher had that opened as well, and he recognized what he was looking at immediately.

The box was divided into twelve compartments, all the same size. Two were filled with a substance that Gallagher recognized very well, C-245, one of the most powerful plastic explosives ever developed.

The other ten were empty.

Gallagher heard a noise out in the hall, and waited a moment to see if someone was going to enter the room. He hoped it was Kagan’s partner, because he would keep him alive until he answered every question Gallagher could think to ask. But it was a chambermaid, who recoiled in surprise when she saw Gallagher.

“Can I clean the room?” she asked.

“Yes, I was just leaving,” Gallagher said. He grabbed the envelope, the suitcase with the remaining explosives, and left.

I got your back, Bryan. Big news on this end. Someone shot at us today. My partner got hit, but he’ll be OK. Gallagher was there, and killed the shooter. I’ll get him to understand that we’ve scared some people and they want to shut us down.

The truth is in Brayton, New York. There’s a case that Brennan would have ruled on if he got to the court; they made sure he didn’t. Don’t know exactly who “they” are yet, but I will.

Before you know it you’ll be back at work, enriching yourself and stealing from the little people.

And all I remember about that day at the lake was giving you mouth-to-mouth … I still have nightmares about it.

Don’t touch those pills, Brother. We’ll flush them down the toilet together.

I waited to talk to Emmit.

The doctor said he should be awake and coherent in about an hour, and I figured I could use the time to plan out my next moves.

My assumption was that Frank Kagan had been following us. Gallagher might have been following Kagan, but more likely he was following us as well. It was an embarrassment to me that we were obliviously leading a goddamn caravan around, but I’d get over it.

I had to assume that Kagan shot Emmit and had us pinned down. Gallagher must have come up behind him and killed him. I didn’t see any blood on Kagan, so it must have been done with bare hands. Gallagher’s reputation appeared justified.

I didn’t delude myself into thinking this changed the dynamic or balance of power between us. He didn’t save us because we were best buddies; he did it so I could continue my efforts to exonerate Steven. That’s why he gave me Kagan’s driver’s license; he was helping us along in the investigation.

My hope was that he would realize that we were getting somewhere, that Kagan came after us because he or, more likely, people who sent him were getting worried. My other hope was that Gallagher would move the seven-day deadline back, but I knew I couldn’t count on that.

But it wasn’t just a question of whether Gallagher thought we were getting somewhere; the fact was that we were. There could be no other explanation for it. Kagan would have been worth more to us alive, but just his identity might be enough to unlock the puzzle.

I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but there was only one person we could be scaring, and that was Richard Carlton. If I could establish a tangible connection between him and Kagan, I’d nail him to the wall with it. He could go fracking in his bathrobe on Rikers Island.

The nurse came out to tell me that Emmit was alert, and I went in. He looked pale, but better than I expected, and he greeted me with a small smile.

“That really went well, huh?” he asked.

“Smooth as silk.”

“What exactly happened?”

“You got shot; I had a couple of beers, and then drove you back here. Ruined my whole day.”

The banter out of the way, I filled in all the details about Kagan and Gallagher. He seemed to be straining to listen, as if just doing so required an enormous effort.

When I finished, he said, “So you kill his brother, he threatens to kill yours, and then he saves your life. Complicated guy.”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I called in to find out what I can about Kagan, see if it leads us back to Carlton.”

Emmit nodded. “It might just do that,” he said. “I can’t think of anyone else we’ve pissed off, at least not in the last few days.”

“That’s how I figure it.”

“You think you can get me something to drink?” he asked. “I’m thirsty as hell.”

I went out to tell the nurse the request, but when I came back Emmit was sound asleep. There was no sense waking him, and no reason for me to hang around. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but I knew I was going to do it quickly.

Complicating matters, of course, was the need to now be careful. There were people who wanted to kill me, and if Frank Kagan was any indication, they were people with experience at it. I’d never had a particularly well developed self-preservation instinct, but in this case I knew that my death would ensure Bryan’s.

I called in to the office to get updated on what they had so far uncovered about Frank Kagan. He was a hit man out of Vegas, which was not quite as interesting as something else they learned. He was known to partner with an old army buddy named Tommy Rhodes. It turned out that Rhodes was an expert in bomb making and, more important, bomb using. It was those kinds of devices that were responsible for Richard Carlton no longer having a guesthouse.

As soon as I hung up, the cell phone rang. “Lieutenant Somers. This is Ice Davenport.”

Because of the strange name, it took me a moment to make the connection. It was Nate “Ice Water” Davenport, longtime friend of Daniel Brennan and unofficial counselor and confidant to his wife.

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“You said I should call you if I wanted to talk some more about my friend.”

“I remember.”

“Well, I’m ready to do that.”

“Ice Water” Davenport lived on 88th Street and Riverside Drive in Manhattan.

To my amazement, I found a parking spot. The sign said that parking was OK except on Monday and Thursday mornings, which is when street cleaning allegedly takes place. I have my doubts about that, since I’ve been there on Monday and Thursday afternoons and suffice it to say that the streets do not look spotless.

He greeted me with a fairly tense, “Thank you for coming,” and offered me something to drink. I took coffee; it had not been a great week for sleep.

We sat in the living room. The apartment was huge; I hadn’t seen other doors when I got off the elevator, so it was possible that it occupied the entire floor of the building. The furniture was extremely modern, mostly glass and stainless steel, and the place was spotless. The doorways were higher than usual, in deference to the inhabitant.

“I’d like to establish some ground rules,” he said, which is one of my least favorite ways to begin a conversation. “I will provide you with some information, which may or may not prove relevant to your investigation. You in turn will keep Denise Brennan out of this, and will do nothing to damage Daniel Brennan’s impeccable reputation.”

“I’ll do my best,” I lied. The stakes being what they were, the last things I’d be concerned about were reputations or public personas. If I had to publicly brand Daniel Brennan as a Taliban-loving pedophile to save Bryan, I would not hesitate.

It seemed to satisfy him. “I’m speaking to you on behalf of Denise Brennan,” he said, continuing one of the longest preambles to an interview in recent memory. He spoke carefully and precisely, as if each word had been vetted and cleared before takeoff.

“Why isn’t she speaking for herself?”

“Believe me, I tried. Her allowing me to speak represents a major concession. But almost all of what I will tell you represents her feelings and relates events as she experienced them.”

I didn’t understand why “Ice” needed someone to “allow” him to speak, but I figured I’d find out soon enough, so I waited.

“In the weeks prior to his death, Judge Brennan had seemed under stress. I noticed it, but I didn’t spend much time with him. Denise saw it much more clearly, and was quite worried about it.”

“What was the cause?”

“She initially believed it to be financial. Despite an amazing career, Judge Brennan was not a wealthy man. He was injured before he could attain a large salary in basketball, and judges certainly earn far less than what would be commensurate with their importance to society. And I include Appeals Court judges in that.”

“With his name and reputation, I assume he could have earned far more practicing law?”

He nodded. “Without question. But he wanted to contribute to the greater good. So he was happy in his work, but concerned that he would not leave Denise financially stable upon his passing. His father died a very young man.”

I needed to move this along. “What does this have to do with his murder?”

“Perhaps nothing. And perhaps his increased stress was simply a result of the Appeals Court nomination process, testifying before Congress, and the like. But now there is this.”

He got up and walked over to his desk, opening the drawer and taking out a small folder. He opened the folder and took out a piece of paper, handing it to me.

I looked at it, but he told me what it was as I did. “It is a bank account in Judge Brennan’s name, opened six weeks ago in the Central Bank of Belize. There is one deposit, made two weeks later, in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars.”

“And Denise has no idea where the money came from?”

“She does not. And she tells me that there were no secrets between them, that they discussed finances and everything else as equal partners.”

I held up the paper. “How does she reconcile that with this?”

He shook his head. “She cannot. Which is why we are having this conversation. If it is somehow related to his death, then the likelihood is that the real killer has not been apprehended.”

“Where do you think he got the money?”

“I simply cannot imagine. My hope is that you will come up with a benign explanation.”

“You’d be amazed how few benign explanations I run into in the course of a day.”

I left there thinking that Judge Daniel Brennan may not have been the total paragon of virtue that his wife and friend believed him to be. I was also thinking that there was a damn good chance that the two hundred grand, however he got it, played a role in his death.

Given his job and position, my initial instinct would have been to think of the money as a bribe. But his taking the money would likely have signified his agreement in the matter, so why would he have been killed? Had he reneged, and was going to rule the other way?

I certainly did not know the answer to that, but there was one thing I did know.

Steven Gallagher did not give Daniel Brennan two hundred thousand dollars.

I never thought I’d say this, but I was happy to see Chris Gallagher.

He was sitting in his car in front of my house, probably in deference to the fact that it was raining outside. Apparently the great man was not impervious to water.

In any event, I needed to talk to him, to find out what, if anything, he knew. And, just as important, to impress him with how much I had learned.

I got out of my car and we made eye contact, which was enough to get him to follow me into the house. He was carrying a suitcase; I hoped he wasn’t planning to move in. The first thing he did was walk into the kitchen and take a beer out of the refrigerator.

“Have I said or done something to make you think we’re buddies?” I asked.

“Not that I recall. I also don’t recall you thanking me for saving your life.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Following you, as was Kagan. You’re not that hard to keep track of; does your car have a rearview mirror?”

“That explains why you were there. Why are you here?”

“It’s time for an exchange of information. We seem to be getting somewhere, and the deadline is approaching.”

“It can be extended,” I say.

“No, it cannot. Everything we discover makes your killing Steven even more unforgivable. Now tell me what you’ve learned.”

I brought him up to date on everything I knew and suspected about Richard Carlton and the situation in Brayton, as well as my belief that it was my nosing around there that got Kagan after us.

He nodded. “The answer is definitely in Brayton.”

“You’re taking my word for it?” I asked, surprised at his certainty.

“No chance,” he said. “I paid a visit to Kagan’s hotel room, which was just outside Brayton. I found some explosives, but more important were the explosives I didn’t find. The box was mostly empty.”