Alibi (15 page)

“What?” said Mannix.

“She was a pretty girl, Joe, and there are plenty of pretty girls at Deane, but not all of them have John Nagoshi as their father.”

“Jesus, David,” said Mannix, obviously getting tired of playing “
read the hidden meaning
.” “What the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that maybe it goes beyond James Matheson and some innocent teenage sketch—that maybe her future role in her father’s company was enough to set . . .”

“She was only nineteen, David, and a long way from becoming a corporate threat.”

“Her brother is only twenty-six and he has just been named as Nagoshi’s next US president.”

Joe said nothing.

“Look,” said David at last, “I know you know what you are doing, Joe, so if you say Matheson is the guy, then I am wrong and Matheson is the guy. All I am saying is maybe you should look at little closer at Nagoshi Inc.—and specifically its Chinese operations.”

He stopped after saying this, wondering if he had gone too far. But something told him this is exactly what Tony Bishop had wanted him to do—consciously or subconsciously—when he began his conversation with him twenty-four hours ago.

“China?” said Joe, and David could have sworn he heard a trace of recognition in Joe’s voice, as if a “loose” connection was now not looking so loose after all.

“Yeah,” said David. “Check the employment records, the salaries and so forth.”

“Who told you this?”

“Call it an informed hunch.”

Mannix paused.

“I gotta go,” he said at last.

“Okay,” said David, before deciding to ask one more question. “By the way, have you told Katz of your suspicions—you know, about Matheson?”

“Not yet.”

“You about to?”

“Well . . . now I’m not so sure.”

“Okay,” said David, finding himself strangely relieved at Mannix’s reconsideration.

“Why the hell do you do this to me, David?”

“Because you do it to me.”

Five months earlier

 

The next time James saw Jessica Nagoshi, he came face to “foot” with her feet—her long, slender, narrow feet, which hung gracefully before him, arched and pointed in a ballet dancer’s pose. It was late and he had just finished his final lap. The pool was officially closed for the night but he had stayed behind having promised his coach he would exit via the back entrance.

And there she was, shoeless—her feet dangling in the water before him. He looked up to see her perched high above him on block number four, her perfect face tinted aqua through the azure lenses of his blue racing goggles.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi,” he said, now holding on to the stainless steel backstro ker’s rung underneath the white tiled block before him. “I haven’t seen you,” he said, removing his goggles at last. “At the river I mean. You said you would . . .”

“I had to go to New York,” she said. “Family business and all that. My father likes to involve us in company developments.”

James nodded. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Posting some leaflets on the Sports Center bulletin board—Solidarity Global,” she said, holding up a sample. “I saw you swimming alone in the pool so I told my friend Sawyer I would finish up—post the pool boards on my own so that he could move on to the senior girls’ dorms.”

“Lucky Sawyer,” he said.

“He won’t even notice,” she replied, before dismissing the subject and moving on. “I used to do this as a kid.”

“What, post brochures?” he said.

“No,” she said, returning his smile. “Take off my shoes and dangle my feet in the backyard pond.”

“You had a pond in your backyard?” he asked.

“Still do,” she said before looking him squarely in the eye. “Are you getting out?”

“Why, are you coming in?” he countered, speaking on impulse.

“Is it warm?” she asked.

“Warm enough.”

“All right then,” she said before standing to peel off her Deane issue T-shirt, revealing a pale blue sports bra underneath. She stripped to her underpants—a matching blue set—and released her long dark ponytail. She stood on top of the block and lifted her arms in front of her, and then without hesitation, she dived, her body curving high above his head and landing sleekly farther down the lane, piercing the water without a splash and disappearing from view.

He immediately dived down to meet her, as if needing to check that this wasn’t a dream, that this girl—this totally surprising, unpredictable, incredibly beautiful girl—was still there somewhere ahead in the blue expanse before him. And then he reached her, unsure of what to do next, just as she turned to face him, her eyes wide and unblinking, her smile innocent and inviting all at the same time. And in that moment he realized he was looking at the most striking thing he had ever seen—here, below the water, where everything else seemed to . . .

She kicked then, quickly, arching her back and heading to the surface. And so he took her lead, forcing himself upward, finally meeting her face-to-face, the water sliding off her smooth pale skin under the harsh white light of the domed fluorescent overheads.

“Jessica . . . I . . . you . . . I don’t know what to . . . ?”

“Have you ever heard of the Japanese proverb
‘Ko-in ya no
”Have you ever heard of the Japanese proverb ‘Ko-in ya no
gotoshi’
?” she asked, her voice slightly echoing, her breath light on his face as they trod water, inches apart in the middle of the deserted Deane Memorial Pool.

“I . . .” he began. “To be honest, I probably wouldn’t know if I had.”

“It means ‘time flies like an arrow,’ ” she said. “And it’s true, James. My mother died when I was a child and now I want some control over . . .” She stopped then, as if unsure as to how to go on.

“Are you afraid to stop swimming?” she asked him, changing the subject again.

“I’m not sure,” he said, surprised at his own admission.

“Me neither,” she said.

He wanted to touch her then, to pull her close and hold her tight but the sound of the overheads plunging them into darkness made them both look up before facing each other once again, their breathing now deep and pronounced in a new level of silence enhanced by the dark.

“Why me?” he asked at last.

“I don’t know. Perhaps it is your eyes.
Me wa kokoro no kagami
,” she said.

He shook his head.

“ ‘The eyes are the mirror of the soul.’ ”

He said nothing, just looked at her, willing her not to break the moment for fear there might not be another.

“I want to see you again,” he said.

She smiled. “I have to go away for the summer—back to New York. But we are both intelligent beings, James, so I am sure we can think of some way to organize a get-together.”

And he felt a shiver of hope rise through his body.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she continued before shifting in the water again and diving under the nearest set of lane ropes. “And you’ll be . . . ?” she asked as she emerged again.

“Right here,” he said.

“What?” she said before diving and emerging again. “Swimming in the dark in the middle of the night?” She smiled as she reached the edge of the pool.

“Probably.” He nodded, returning the smile.

“That’s okay,” she said, using her long arms to pull herself from the water and turning around to face him one last time. “It just means I’ll know exactly where to find you.”

And so here he was. Just as she had predicted. It may not be night but he was here nevertheless, enveloped by the endless comfort of the long, warm stretches of blue. He had always been drawn to the water, and over the past month it had become an obsession—whether on his slick azure kayak carving up the deep green waters of the Charles River, or hiding behind his reflective goggles in the Deane Memorial Pool. He knew what he was doing as he closed his eyes and kicked off from the wall, using his legs to torpedo through the water and dolphin-kick a further five meters before bringing his right arm back to start on his third kilometer of freestyle. He was somehow acknowledging the memory and trying to banish it all at the very same time. He needed time to think, and normally the solitude of the long black line that stretched endlessly before him assisted in clearing his head but today, for some reason, all it did was remind him of Jessica—and her long silken hair, flowing and slick like an endless river of . . .

His lungs started to burn, he had not taken a breath for almost an entire lap, in fact he had dived
down
, toward that line, feeling an all-encompassing need to touch it. He was almost there, right at the bottom of the diver’s end when weakness betrayed him and his lungs screamed for air and his natural instinct for survival turned him around and dragged him upward toward the surface. And that was when he saw them—two blurred but recognizable forms that hung suspended like intruders beyond a rain-splattered window above.

“Hey,” he said, as he broke the surface, took a deep breath, pulled off his goggles and reached for Westinghouse’s outstretched arm. “What are you guys doing here?”

“What do you think?” said Westinghouse, handing him his towel as he climbed out of the pool. James stole a glance at H. Edgar, who stepped instinctively back, obviously not wanting his new suede Hogans to be stained by the splash.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Westinghouse went on, as James peeled the swim cap from his head and ran his hands over his short dark hair.

“Tell you what?”

“About the cops, you Epsilon.” James cringed. For some reason he hated it when Heath used H. Edgar’s cerebral vernacular.

“Oh, that,” he said smiling. “It was nothing. The cops have no leads on the Jessica Nagoshi thing, so they are going back to question a lot of the gang that were at the Lincoln that night.”

“They haven’t talked to me,” said Heath.

“Nor me,” said Simpson, the first words to come out of his mouth.

“Well, shit,” said James, managing a smile. “Maybe they went to the best-looking guy in the house first.”

“But they didn’t come to me,” said Heath again, with just the slightest trace of a grin.

“What did you tell them?” Westinghouse went on.

“The truth. That we saw her there, that she was a nice kid, that she probably had lots of admirers. That she left before us.”

“You spoke to her that night,” said Simpson. “I saw you.”

“Yeah. I told the cops I said ‘Hey,’ ” said James, signaling for them to move to the side of the pool where he had left his training gear.

“Maybe the cops thought she had the hots for you,” said Westinghouse.

“Nah,” said James, shaking his head.

“Maybe she saw you talking to Barbara and got the hint,” said H. Edgar, prompting James’ head to turn instinctively and face his friend front on.

“No,”
he said almost too quickly. “Jessica had left before then. I’m sure of it.” And then he saw the look in H. Edgar’s eye—one of realization or victory even—like he had caught him out in a lie, or confirmed something he had suspected.

“Anyway,” said James, forcing that smile again as he pulled on his track pants and drew his windbreaker over his head. “It was no big deal. In fact, I wish I could have helped them more.”

“So that’s it then,” said Westinghouse, handing James his towel so that he could stack it in his swim bag. “Fuck, H. Edgar,” he said turning to his red-haired friend. “No wonder he didn’t tell us. That story is about as exciting as the geology majors’ end of semester Hawaiian party.”

“And you would know this because . . . ?” H. Edgar smiled.

“Good point,” said Westinghouse.

As Westinghouse punched Simpson in the arm James studied his opinionated friend’s features, wondering what slant he had put on “Matheson’s little visit from the cops” to his best friend Heath. He linked eyes with Simpson for a second before Simpson’s pale face broke into a “reassuring” smile.

“We’re just glad you’re okay, man,” he said, slapping James on the shoulder. “You know what cops are like these days. Just as easy to fake a scenario than prove one.”

“I thought that was what us lawyers did.” Westinghouse smiled as James shouldered his bag and the three of them turned to leave the complex together.

“No,” said H. Edgar. “We don’t fake, Westinghouse, we
create
, and make a shitload of money in the process.”

The stage was set the minute Joe Mannix and Frank McKay entered the conference room. The first thing Joe noticed was the seating arrangements—Katz at the head of the long antique cherrywood table, John Nagoshi to his right, Peter Nagoshi next to his father (and Joe could not help but study the younger Nagoshi as he entered the room, his smooth expressionless face barely turning to acknowledge their entrance), and across the table FBI Boston Field Office Special Agent in Charge Leo King and Special Agent Ned Jacobs—the Feeb’s resident profiler. Then at the opposite end of the table, the end closest to the door, directly facing Katz, two seats had been placed side by side, squashed in between the table’s thick hand-carved legs.