The Murder Channel (15 page)

From the time I slid into Logan Airport, I felt as if I were riding a roller coaster operated by a drunk. I wanted to allow my mind to float on a sea of possibilities but I had no time. I was playing a game of catch-up and I hated it.

Albie Wilson could not have anticipated the change in security arrangements at the courthouse. He also had no way of knowing that Felix Zrbny was not in the courtroom. I believed that Wilson was there to liberate Zrbny.

Why would they want him out?

Bolton said that BTT arrived at the Riverway first, followed by Vigil. Neither outfit could have monitored the radio traffic. When I asked Wendy Pouldice about J-Cubed, she shot a look at her hired help. Perhaps I had stumbled into an unholy alliance between BTT and Vigil.

“Where’s Neville?” I asked.

“When you dropped him at the office, he went back to reading case files. Something in one of the reports hammered Neville hard. He nearly flew out of there. I’m afraid he’ll climb into a bottle, do some serious damage to himself. He’s already had a stroke. I’ve got a couple of people looking for him.”

“What did he see in the file?”

Bolton shook his head. “I figure it had something to do with Shannon’s murder.”

“I’m going back to the Towers,” I said. “I think there’s a connection between BTT and Vigil. I also think that Pouldice has talked to Zrbny since this morning.”

“Why would she tell you anything now?”

“Maybe if I neuter her battery-operated Neanderthal, she’ll be more receptive to my naturally charming self.”

“I’m told that Braverman often quotes lengthy passages from
Bawdy Boston.”

I opened the car door. “Like I said. He’s a fucking Neanderthal.”

“How do you propose to neuter a guy that size?”

“Swiss Army knife,” I said, slamming the door and weaving my way through the haphazardly parked vehicles, the mob scene, and the drifting snow.

I had no idea what I would do. I knew only that I had to do something.

THE SECURITY OFFICER WAS NOT AT HIS
post. Probably making rounds, I thought. I grabbed the desk phone to call Pouldice’s apartment. The line was dead.

“What a fucking outfit,” I muttered.

The elevator allowed me to enter, but refused to accept the third floor as a destination. The offices were closed. I punched 20, and a virtual voice instructed me to enter my identification number.

“I’m not trying to make a fucking withdrawal,” I growled.

I hit 2, which the machinery accepted. I felt the thrust upward, listened to the muted whirring, and waited until the computer-controlled box settled into a landing at what it considered the second floor. The doors opened and I stepped into the corridor.

The studio’s red On Air light was illuminated. The building had security personnel, so it must have a security office, I reasoned.

I walked back to the elevator and reviewed the directory. The lobby was one choice, but no one had been there, so I went with number two, the parking garage.

This time the doors opened on a glass-enclosed space containing a desk, a bank of security monitors, and no guard. “Where are the cops when you need them?” I muttered.

I fished in my pockets until I found my reading
glasses, then examined a telephone two feet wide, with more buttons than a Hammond organ. It would not be long until an engineering degree was required to call next door.

A typed list to the right of the handset included “Ms. Pouldice—9#20.” I was making progress.

I grabbed the phone, punched the requisite keys, and looked up as I listened to the ring. One of the monitors was a silent feed from BTT. The camera focused on a guy with a bad hairpiece who, I assumed, was thinking he looked dignified and sounded knowledgeable. I have always considered tabloid TV more insidious than the printed crap that greets me at the supermarket checkout. Someone with an oiled voice—Stone Phillips, say—will always be more influential and incite more fantasies than a printed headline next to the Tic-Tacs and Bic lighters.

The phone continued to ring. When no one answered after a dozen rings, I hung up.

The man identified at the bottom of the screen as Bob Britton continued to flap his soundless mouth. I watched, expecting his toupee to topple onto the desk. Instead, the screen divided. The woman on the right was Dr. Fawn Hyphenated, Providence, R. I., author of, expert on.

“Aren’t we all,” I said.

I turned, thinking that I would walk back to the Riverway, but when I saw the monitor’s reflection in the glass, I looked at the screen. I seldom watch
TV, but I know that talking heads do not jog around the set.

On the left, Britton was on his feet attempting to struggle with a much larger man. On the right, Dr. Fawn continued to pontificate.

I ran for the elevator.

I SHOVED OPEN THE STUDIO DOOR AND
waited until my eyes adjusted to the light. Pain stung my neck and upper spine. I felt as if colonies of insects crept and buzzed inside my head.

A gray-haired, bearded man crouched beside the woman I had thrown into the hall. I removed the handgun from my pocket and walked slowly forward, studying the man’s profile. When I was ten feet away, he looked up. I raised the gun, and aimed at his face.

His eyes were empty. Like mine, I thought. Dead eyes.

Then I recognized him. He was the old man who had tried to protect Sable. I felt no fear in him. I had no desire to kill him, but I did not know why. He said nothing. He continued to look at me, but he remained silent.

I walked to the elevator, punched the button and waited.

The old man returned his attention to the woman.

WHEN I LOOKED INTO FELIX ZRBNY’S EYES, I
knew I had nothing to fear from him. I did not know why.

He had hurled the young TV producer like a rag doll, breaking her arm and collarbone. He held a nine-millimeter handgun aimed at my face.

I am not a fan of death, especially my own. Whether I am to be in or out of the coffin, I do not like the notion of funerals. Zrbny’s eyes held no life, but neither did they hold my death. He moved past me to the elevator, punched the Down button, and, after an endless span of time, stepped into the metal box and disappeared.

I opened the door to the studio, grabbed a wall phone immediately to my right, and dialed 911. When I made clear who and where I was, the nature of the emergency, and where Bolton was, the dispatcher told me to stay on the line. I told her I could not do that, left the phone off the hook, and moved into the set.

A camera technician lay unconscious against the wall. His breathing was good, his pulse strong.

Dr. Fawn’s mouth continued to flap on a silent monitor. Behind the news desk, Britton, his head twisted at an impossible angle to his body, had become BTT’s latest news flash. Felix Zrbny had broken his neck.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, BOLTON AND I
stood in the hall outside the studio watching medical technicians prepare the young woman for transport. “We found a dead security guard in the parking garage,” he said. “Looks like Zrbny started there.”

“Everyone’s dispensable when it comes to the evening news,” I said. “Even the news anchor.”

“You think Vigil wanted Zrbny free?” Ray Bolton asked. “What for?”

“Story value,” I said. “BTT is international hot shit right now.”

“Tell me how it works.”

“I’m not sure of any of this, Ray. Let’s say Pouldice got to know Zrbny when his sister disappeared. When he was ready to pillage Ravenwood two years later, Zrbny called Pouldice.”

I gave Bolton the copy of Escher’s “Relativity” with Pouldice’s old publicity photo. “I found that in Zrbny’s bedroom. In the print the figures move
around on different planes, oblivious to one another. They don’t see. They don’t touch. Pouldice sees everything. When I talked with her earlier, she tried to tell me that Zrbny had changed. Why would she bother?”

“She has an investment in him,” Bolton said.

“I can’t prove any of it.”

“Lucas, you said that Zrbny was probably going to walk from that hearing. I agree. Why couldn’t he wait a couple of days for Devaine to unlock the door for him?”

“Maybe he didn’t know what was going down.”

“Then how were they going to get him out of there?”

“Driver number two. Fremont confirmed that there was a second car. He says Albie Wilson wanted insurance.”

Bolton considered my theory. “It could be that simple. Why would Zrbny camp on the Riverway? What was he doing here? Why kill Britton?”

“They fucked with him. Don’t ask me how. Where was his lawyer this morning? Who the fuck is his lawyer?”

Bolton sighed. “Hensley Carroll out of Jamaica Plain.”

“What’s his claim to fame?”

“He’s defended members of Vigil. Carroll isn’t connected to the group. He’s been around the system for years.”

“Has he done any work for BTT?”

“I don’t know. I’d say that’s out of his league.”

“Where was he this morning? What was his excuse?”

“He didn’t call the court. Lucas, don’t mess with Carroll. He’s Zrbny’s attorney.”

Bolton’s last remark was a caution. Hensley Carroll lived life behind a shield of confidentiality and privilege.

“Maybe you can’t talk to him,” I said. “Anyone find Waycross?”

“They’re still looking. Lucas …”

This time Bolton’s tone was more than cautionary.

“I’ll be nice,” I said.

I FOUND THE LAWYER’S JAMAICA PLAIN
address. His office was downstairs, his home upstairs. He was still awake.

“I’ve been sitting here watching this shit on the tube,” Hensley Carroll said. “Yeah, I saw you on there too. Listen, Boston’s got its problems but mostly it’s a quiet town. I don’t remember anything like this. You want coffee?”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll make a fresh pot. Since my wife passed, rest her soul, I have trouble sleeping.”

The short, bald, heavyset Carroll busied himself in the kitchen. I watched BTT report the latest
carnage from outside their headquarters. They could not get in; Bolton had sealed the building as a crime scene.

“It’s fuckin’ wild when you think about it,” Carroll said as he returned and settled his bulk into his recliner. “Back in the sixties when the strangler was on the loose, you had to wait for the last evening paper to find out if anybody got whacked. Now they’ve got this shit on TV while it’s happening. Amazing. Well, shit. We put guys on the moon, I guess. Coffee’ll be about ten minutes. Sit down, Doc. Friends call me Hink.”