The Chessman (6 page)

Ten minutes later Cady got the call. Adrien Zalentine had indeed been found, alone, onboard his craft, a bullet through the center of his forehead, and a glass bishop shoved deep into the entry wound. The identical twins that came into the world together went out on the same day and in the same precise manner.

Twins in life, as well as in death.

Cady knew little about sailing, but the yachtsmen at Bachelors Point Marina had done enough oohing and aahing about the Sydney 36CR that Cady knew the craft was about as slick as could be. What remained of Adrien Zalentine was nothing for the weak of stomach, which came with the territory of having a baseball-sized chunk missing from the back of your head. His body lay diagonally across the stern, feet upright beneath the steering wheel. Adrien’s blood had settled, his face a ghastly sight, and two days in the scorching sun had been anything but kind.

Chesapeake Bay was shallow for the most part, and the spot where the Zalentine twin had anchored was about twenty-five feet deep. Cady had it explained to him that Adrien had, evidently, diesel dropped the kedge from the bow, laid out the rode and reversed the engine until the kedge dug into the bottom. Zalentine did it windward so the boat wouldn’t swing in the breeze. The boat wasn’t close to shore so he hadn’t needed to anchor, could have just slowly drifted, but perhaps he fancied a swim or just wanted to enjoy this particular patch of blue. The past several days had been relatively calm, sunny, with a pleasant breeze for relaxed sailing. Cady thought about the shooter. Had the two known each other? Or had the UNSUB followed Zalentine out to this
patch of blue
, rafted up alongside the 36CR, all full of smiles and misdirection long enough to pull the gun and blow Adrien Zalentine’s brains out into the bay, and insert a certain chess piece into the killing wound?

Cady left Adrien for the forensics crew and stepped below deck. It seemed as if he’d passed into an optical illusion, as it appeared far more spacious than what he’d seen at the surface as he watched the Coast Guard tow the sailboat back to their LeCompte Bay station. With over six feet of headroom, Cady could stand straight up and look about the cabin. He saw a large refrigerator below what one Coast Guard officer had called the nav station. Opposite the galley was a sink, as well as a propane stove and oven. Double quarter berths appeared on each side of the companionway steps. Port and aft of the V-berth was the head and shower.

Cady walked over to the 12-volt refrigerator and used a handkerchief to open the door. Several things of interest. A variety of imported cheeses, with names like Fourme d’Ambert and Camembert, and a box of Mini Toasts and Water Crackers stared neatly back at him. There was a half bottle of black wine labeled Chateau Margaux that probably cost more than a ride on the space shuttle. The cork had been pressed back in place. Cady wondered if opened wine should be stored in a refrigerator. But behind the wine and cheese and boxes of crackers was something that really caught Cady’s eye: a sandwich bag of what appeared to be marijuana, later determined by the lab to be Ice Hash. And when the forensics crew combed through the cabin and itemized their findings, a couple of water pipes had been found in one of the Sydney’s side drawers.

Evidently, Adrien Zalentine’s Tuesday morning excursions involved more than a deep love of the nautical life. Other items on the list of cabin belongings included a mountain-sized box of Oreo cookies, a twelve-pack of bottled water, a plastic container of instant Kool-Aid mix, and a half-eaten bag of Fritos. It looked like Adrien had the munchies issue fully addressed. But something had occurred then, before Adrien got out his water bong, something that put Zalentine’s Ice Hash days permanently behind him.

Also found in various compartments were a twelve-pack of Trojan Magnum Twisters, several bottles of suntan lotion, a large tube of half empty K-Y Jelly, three-strand twisted marine rope, extra swimsuits—including a couple of female suits the size of dental floss—and almost two hundred pounds in barbell weights, the kind with a donut hole in the middle. Cady pictured the twins entertaining some female companions, slipping into the cabin to change into a bathing suit, and doing ten quick arm curls to pump up their biceps before returning to deck.

Adrien’s condo confirmed that both of the Zalentine twins were tidy, exceedingly so in Cady’s opinion, as dirty laundry in hampers was folded neatly, no dirty dishes sat in their black granite sinks or remained in their brushed nickel dishwashers, and, despite the lack of a hired cleaning service, there was nary a dust bunny to be found.

Previous girlfriends were questioned. From what Cady could tell, neither of the Zalentine twins practiced long-term relationships. Anything more than three weeks appeared a major commitment. Evidently, Vance Zalentine was correct. His boys could be quite captivating—of course, being absurdly well off didn’t hurt—but neither twin played nice in the sandbox. Stories trickled in of how Adrien or Alain would wine and dine a new girl, a virtual shock-and-awe of charm, until one brother got his date between the sheets, and then he’d trade his conquest off for the sexual pleasure of the other brother. That is, Adrien would begin posing as Alain—and vice versa—until both twins had gotten to know each of their girlfriends in the biblical sense. Then, after nonchalantly informing the unsuspecting female of their sexual betrayal, the twins would sit side by side on the leather couch in order to soak in the woman’s reaction and heartbreak, both brothers’ blue eyes wide as saucers as though witnessing the Aurora Borealis for the first time.

One recent ex summed it up quite succinctly: “They had voids where their hearts should be—a couple of turds in search of a punchbowl.”

Alibis of these girlfriends withstood double scrutiny.

Special Agent Dan Kurtz, the bureau’s Yoda of firearm examiners, felt fairly certain that the flattened bullet—determined to be a .45 ACP cartridge, which had passed through the center of Alain Zalentine’s forehead and out the back of his skull, then smashed through the wall tile and lodged into the sheetrock behind—most likely came from a Sig Sauer P220. Hell, Cady thought, some FBI agents still carried their Sigs for old times’ sake. Enough juice to make a noticeable entry wound and a god-awful exit. The P220 was likely the same gun the UNSUB used to kill Adrien Zalentine on the sailboat.

Kurtz, genius that he was, even passed a digital image of the bullet through the IBIS database—the Integrated Ballistics Identification System—to see if he could link the Sig Sauer P220 that fired the bullet that killed Alain Zalentine to other crimes used by the same gun. Unfortunately, no matches came back. Cady figured the odds of his ever finding the actual Sig Sauer for Kurtz to positively match striations was right up there with his collaring sasquatch or stumbling across the Holy Grail. The shooter would have been a fool not to toss the Sig Sauer into Chesapeake Bay on the return trip from his tête-à-tête with Adrien Zalentine.

Cady closed the Zalentine file. He looked at his uneaten Reuben and then at the digital clock by the hotel room’s double bed. Almost two o’clock in the morning. Cady was exhausted, mentally and physically, but he wondered how well he’d sleep with thoughts of the Zalentine twins dancing in his head. Cady walked into the bathroom, splashed water on his face, and asked himself repeatedly why he’d agreed to cold-case this for Jund.

Then he returned to the Zalentine files.

Cambridge PD traced the Ice Hash back to some small-time yuppie dealer named Courtenay LaMotte, a man who expanded his client list by fluttering about the upper-crust watering holes in Cambridge and neighboring communities. Turned out Courtenay LaMotte’s real name was Jim Webber. Webber was able to minimize his overhead on account of living out of his mother’s basement. He was twenty-six but looked all of fourteen, a tall twig of a boy who hadn’t yet begun to shave.

A black Cambridge detective named Allan Sears picked Webber up, brought him back to the station, tossed him in an empty interrogation room for three hours—no chairs, no table, no potty breaks—then came back in, Mirandized him, and informed Webber he was going down hard for the two Zalentine killings. Webber, sobbing like a baby, walked Sears through every dime bag he’d ever sold since junior high. The Zalentines were his best customers, always paid upfront in cash, even tipped him and placed future orders. He had absolutely no motive to kill Alain or Adrien. Unfortunately, burger and gas station receipts corroborated Webber’s alibi that he’d been in Virginia, buying ecstasy tablets from his source, when Alain and Adrien had been murdered.

Detective Sears came to Adrien’s condo to let Agent Cady know the results of the Ice Hash connection, walked in, saw Cady standing in the kitchen, looked at the island, then turned and left. A minute later Sears came back in and said, “Have you checked his hidey-hole?”

“What do you mean?” Cady asked.

“In Alain’s kitchen space, the island is
Better Homes & Gardens
. Open cupboards below the tabletop to stack the fancy pots and pans they never used. But Adrien has his island space walled off, looks okay with the wooden doors on one side, but that’s how it looks in, say, my house. Certainly not
Better Homes & Gardens
.”

Cady squatted down. “You’re right. Both condos mirror each other, except for this. Why would the designer go pedestrian in one condo and high class in the other?”

“More likely Adrien did some remodeling,” Sears said. “When I worked in Baltimore, we had this child pornographer dead to rights, a real sick piece of work. He wasn’t downloading, he was distributing. We warranted his house, found his cameras and picture rooms, but no pictures, not even digitals in the various cameras. So we sledge-hammered the island and hit the mother lode. Eight cameras full of the most disturbing shit you can imagine, and about twenty pounds of hard copies. He’s doing life in Hagerstown—that is, if the other inmates let him.”

Cady began knocking on the wooden panel of the island. “So we should bust this open?”

“Well,” Sears said, stooping over and joining Cady, “we found out after the sledgehammer that there was a trick latch.”

Sears got under the countertop, ran his hands across the wood, felt a seam, and then checked up and down the side panel. An idea occurred to him and he backed up six inches. He began running his fingers underneath the countertop.

“Yup,” Detective Sears said. He pressed some latch under the lip and a section of siding popped open an inch. “Tree house cool.”

Cady looked at Sears. “I’m getting you a job application.”

Sears had a baritone laugh. “No thanks. I came here from Baltimore to lower my blood pressure.”

Cady swung back the partition. A Gardall wall safe with some kind of push button electronic lock faced him and Sears. “I’ll be damned.”

“What do you think is in there?” Sears asked.

“Remember, these are Zalentines, so my guess would be upper-end diamond jewelry—rings, watches—the type that costs more than we make in a year. Maybe some rec drugs. Maybe a wad of cash.”

“Your team come across any combo numbers?”

“No,” Cady said. “We’ll call the parents; see if they know anything about it. Otherwise we’ll get a driller.”

Cady’s guess at the wall safe’s contents proved incorrect. And the next morning—when the Gardall was drilled open—everything changed.

Chapter 6

“S
hakespeare got it almost right: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’ But he left out the most important part—how we should first hang ‘em upside down from trees and pour boiling olive oil down their assholes.”

Stouder nodded quick agreement to the Goliath-sized rummy sitting next to him at the bar and wished the bartender, who at first glance appeared to be the only other person in the Brass Rail at 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, hadn’t immediately deserted him after pouring Stouder a glass of the House wine. Well, calling it the House wine might be a bit of hyperbole, as Stouder’s glass of Merlot tasted like something a skunk might utilize to defend itself. Of course the taste might have something to do with the predicament Stouder found himself in.

It hadn’t helped when Stouder turned about on the bar stool to unexpectedly discover this barfly on the seat to his left, invading Stouder’s personal proximity, the drunkard’s face all but ten inches from his. The stranger looked like Mr. Clean, white t-shirt, all bald with white eyebrows, but sans the earring. And what kept Stouder nodding like a bobble-head was not the man’s bread-loaf-sized biceps or the way his knuckles looked like tree roots, the kind you’d spend half a day chopping at in your garden, or the Canadian Club Mr. Clean kept pouring into a shot glass and from there straight down his gullet, one shot glass after another—but rather the manner in which Mr. Clean vocalized his passionate disdain for the legal profession.

“At least when a plumber gouges you, you get a working shitter out of the deal. But these fucking lawyers have no sense of
proportional
value. No sense whatsoever. You pay ‘em to review that boilerplate bullshit whenever you buy a house, right? You know that small print they pretend to read at their desk in front of you?”

Stouder nodded again, repeatedly.

“Then the fuckers turn around and bill as though they’d just litigated the Scopes-Monkey trial. Un-fucking-real.”

Stouder had gotten another correspondence from Richaard Gere the previous night. It had merely stated
The Brass Rail, 29th and Lex, 10:00 a.m. Tuesday
. Stouder had been up all night wondering if he should bring the authorities into the situation, especially since he
was
part of
the authorities
. These hooligans could find themselves on the receiving side of some serious time for attempting to blackmail a New York State Deputy Attorney General. But there was, after all, the matter regarding his
little secret
for him to consider. What did these people know and what could they show? He’d rescheduled his morning with a hasty excuse about illness and a fabricated doctor’s appointment and scampered out before he’d have to deepen the fib.