The Rule of Nine (12 page)

I
t's like a nightmare. I want to wake up, but I can't. I keep thinking she's going to call me any minute and tell me she's okay, but she doesn't. Dad, she can't, because she's dead.” She starts to cry all over again.

Standing in the living room, I hug her in my arms and pat her on one shoulder as she sobs.

“Who would do this? Jenny never hurt anybody. Why, Dad? Tell me. Why?” She looks up at me, searching for an answer I don't have. Her eyes are as red as road flares. She has been crying on and off for more than an hour, ever since hearing the news that her friend Jenny Beckfeld was found dead in her house early this afternoon.

“When she didn't show up for work, I figured she was sick. I tried to call her but she didn't answer.”

“What did the police tell her parents? Do you know?” I ask.

She eases out of my embrace and reaches for the Kleenex box I had tossed on the coffee table. Tears run down one cheek. My daughter does not cry easily. In fact, I can recall seeing her like this only once before. Sarah was seven when her mother died.

“They've told them nothing!” Sarah gives me a merciless look.
She turns her back to wipe her eyes, and begins to pace across the front room once more. Her shoulders are hunched up tight, one hand at her side holding a wad of Kleenex.

“Why don't you sit down and relax?”

“I don't want to sit. I want to know what happened,” she says.

“Herman went over to Jenny's to see what he could find out,” I tell her. “I called him from my cell on the way home and asked him to go by and get whatever information he could.”

She turns to face me and sniffles into the Kleenex. “And what exactly are they going to tell Herman if they won't even talk to Jenny's family?”

“Herman has his ways,” I tell her. “Relax. We'll find out when he gets here.”

According to Sarah, Jenny's older brother, a CPA with one of the big firms downtown, went to her house and they wouldn't let him in. They held him on the front lawn and refused to answer any of his questions. When he got angry, they threatened to arrest him unless he calmed down.

“So much for your police,” she says. The gulf between sorrow and anger in Sarah at this moment is narrow, and increasingly tapered toward fury. She wants answers, and if I know my daughter, at this moment she wants revenge.

“All they would tell him is that Jenny was dead and they were treating it as a homicide. Nothing more.” She turns to face me again. “So somebody killed her, right? It couldn't be suicide, right? What am I saying?” She throws her hands up and tosses the Kleenex in the air. “Jenny would never kill herself.”

“If it's homicide, it's death at the hands of another,” I tell her.

“I can't believe it. Damn it!” She stamps one foot on the carpeted floor hard enough that it rattles the glassware on the shelf behind me. “It makes me so mad. They wouldn't even tell her brother or her mom and dad how she died.”

“They're just doing their job,” I tell her. “Is anyone with her parents? Do they have family in the area?”

She nods. “And a minister from their church.”

“That's good.”

Sarah starts to tear up once more.

I walk over to her and try to comfort her.

“No.” This time she feebly pushes me away and steps back. “You know what I've been thinking? Why would someone want to kill Jenny?” She looks directly at me.

“I don't know,” I tell her.

“I think maybe you have an idea.” She looks at me with bloodshot eyes. “Tell me what's going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“When Jenny and I went out, you didn't want me to go. Why?”

“It had nothing to do with Jenny,” I tell her.

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” she says. “But you didn't want me to go out and it wasn't because you wanted me to stay home and visit. I want the truth.”

I turn my palms up and begin to launch an expression of denial. “What—”

“Don't you dare treat me like a child. I want to know what's going on and I want to know now.”

“It had nothing to do with Jenny.”

“What had nothing to do with Jenny?” She reads me like a book, and snaps it closed before I can turn the page. “So there is something?”

The same question has been plaguing me ever since Sarah's phone call to the office telling me that Jenny was dead. My own private nightmare, the thought that Herman and I may have screwed up and missed something when we followed them. It's a selfish notion, one I can't help but harbor. If it must be that Jenny is gone, I hope and pray that the cops have a clear suspect or at least an evident motive for why she was killed, something unrelated to me or my daughter. Call it guilt.

“What is it that you're not telling me?” says Sarah. “I want to know.”

“It's nothing.”

“If you don't tell me, I'll get it out of Uncle Harry. You know I will. Harry can't keep a secret. Not from me.”

“I was just worried because of everything that's happened. That's it. That's all.”

She looks at me askance. “Then you won't mind if I go out this weekend,” she says. “On a date.”

I hesitate for only a second as I think about this. “Sure. No problem.” I call her bluff.

“Sure, because you know I won't. Like I'm going to go out dancing on Jenny's grave. I want you to tell me what's going on. Tell me or you won't be able to leave this house.”

“What are you going to do, ground me?” I laugh.

“No. But if you leave, I won't be here when you get back,” she says.

I take a long, hard look at her. Sarah has me in a box and she knows it. “I was just worried that, well…that what happened out at the base might not have been entirely over.”

“What do you mean?”

I'm saved by the front doorbell, followed by a sharp rap on the door.

“That'll be Herman.” I can see him through the glass sidelight in the entryway. I head toward the door.

“Don't think for a moment that you're off the hook,” she says.

I open the door and Herman steps inside, all six foot six of him. He's wearing a nervous smile and whispers, “You guys all right?”

“Why wouldn't we be?”

When he hears her voice, Herman looks toward the front room and sees Sarah standing there.

“Hello, Herman.”

“There's my girl. How you doin'?” One look at her and he knows the answer. “Stupid question,” he says. “Sorry to hear about your friend.”

He turns back to me. “I stopped by out there like you said, and made a couple of phone calls.” He glances toward Sarah. “Maybe you and I should talk privately.”

“You can talk right here,” she says. “Dad was just about to tell me what's going on when you rang the bell.”

Herman gives me one of those uncomfortable looks reserved for an untimely entry into a family feud.

“What did you find out?” I ask.

“The house is cordoned off. Cops all over the place. Homicide dicks, one of 'em I recognized.”

“Was he helpful?” I ask.

Herman shakes his head. “Not that friendly. Brant Detrick.”

Herman and I went toe-to-toe with Detrick on a case two years ago. He is not likely to help us out. If Herman started posing questions, Detrick would assume that we already had a principal suspect lined up as a client.

“Told you he wouldn't get anything,” says Sarah.

“Had to go a different way,” says Herman.

“How's that?”

“Paramedics,” he says.

“I would have thought they'd be long gone,” I tell him.

“They woulda been, except two of 'em were held over to do shoe impressions for forensics,” says Herman.

I raise an eyebrow. “Was she alive when they got there?”

“Nuh-uh. They got a call, so they had to respond. Tramped through the crime scene before they realized she was dead.”

“You think the cops have a shoe impression from the perpetrator?” I ask.

“I don't know.”

“Go on.”

“So I talked to the paramedics,” says Herman. “Both pretty friendly. According to them, the landlord found the body. He was called by somebody who didn't identify himself. This unidentified voice told the landlord the victim didn't show up for work and they
were worried about her. So the landlord called the vic's cell phone. When he got no answer, he figured he'd check the house with a passkey.”

“So the door was locked,” I say.

“Uh-huh. If whoever did it came in that way, they either had a key or picked the lock,” says Herman.

“Or maybe she let him in?” I say.

Herman shakes his head. “Not according to the paramedics. It looked like she was in bed alone. Whoever got in caught her lying there facedown. Whether the perp made noise and she woke up they couldn't say. But the way the blankets were laid out covering the body, and the blood pattern, they were guessing she was surprised.”

“How was she killed?” I ask.

“Stabbed. Of course, they couldn't verify that as the cause of death. But according to them it looked like she bled out.”

“Sarah, you really don't need to be listening to this,” I tell her.

“I want to know.”

“Fine. Then please tell me you didn't have a key to Jenny's house.”

“No. Why?”

“I'm just checking.” Unless the police already have a primed and warmed-up suspect, they are likely to throw a wide net. They will want to talk to everybody who knew Jenny. And unless they identify another point of entry, they'll be asking about keys and who had them. “The police are probably going to want to talk to you at some point.”

“Why would they want to talk to me?”

“You were probably one of the last people to see Jenny alive.”

“But I can't tell them anything, that is unless you tell me what's going on,” she says.

“In a minute,” I tell her. “Did Jenny have a boyfriend?”

“No,” says Sarah.

“Nobody she broke up with recently?”

Sarah shakes her head. “Nuh-uh.”

“Did she have any male admirers who weren't welcome?”

“Not that I know of. She never said anything to me.”

“Go on. Anything else?” I look back at Herman.

“Yeah,” he says. “The landlord panicked when he saw the blood, called 911, and asked for an ambulance. He didn't wanna go inside, and he couldn't tell if she was dead. According to the paramedics, it's not a pretty scene. Reason for the shoe impressions, there was a lotta blood. They stepped in it. Whether anybody else did or not they didn't seem to know, or if they did they weren't saying.”

“When you say a lot of blood, did it sound like a rage killing?”

“No,” says Herman. “That's the problem. It's more like whoever did it knew what they were doing. They couldn't be absolutely certain, but according to the paramedics it looked like there were only two stab wounds.” Herman stops and looks at Sarah. “You really don't want to be listening to this stuff,” he tells her.

“She was my friend. I want to hear it all. Every bit of it. I want to know who did it and why.”

Herman looks to me for a reprieve.

I shrug my shoulders. “She's an adult, as she keeps reminding me.”

“You're the one's gotta stay up with her when she gets nightmares. Both wounds were well placed. Seems they caught all the vital organ systems. To get that much blood it's either that or a main artery. They didn't get a real good look at the two wounds. They weren't doin' a postmortem,” he says. “As soon as they confirmed she was dead, they backed out of the room and tried not to disturb anything any more than they had to. But one of 'em said the wounds looked small and narrow. It was not a wide-bladed weapon, but deep, like maybe whoever did it might have used a long-bladed shiv or a stiletto.”

Herman can tell this has my attention.

“Anything else?” I ask.

“Like what?”

“Like maybe fingerprints?”

“You mean…”

“Yeah.” My darkest dream, the one I will curl up with tonight, is that forensics will find an itinerant thumbprint at the scene, one they cannot exclude or identify.

“It's too early.” Herman turns his nose up. “They wouldn't have had time to pull all the latents yet and check 'em against the victim and anybody else who had regular access to the house.”

“So there's no way to know,” I say.

Herman shakes his head. “We'll have to wait and see,” he says.

“Wait for what?” says Sarah.

“To see if they can identify a perpetrator from the fingerprints,” I tell her.

“I see.”

Herman looks at me, round eyed, as if perhaps I should tell her.

“Oh, I am,” I whisper to him. “Got no choice now.”

“You gonna tell her all of it?” he whispers back.

“All of it, including what you and I did,” I tell him.

“What are you two talking about?” says Sarah.

“I was asking Herman if he wanted to join us for a cup of coffee in the kitchen.”

“I'd like to, but I gotta go,” he says.

“Nonsense.” I have one hand on his shoulder, steering him toward the kitchen. “Come on, Sarah, there are some things we need to talk about.”

S
nyder slept fitfully on the red-eye flight from L.A. back to Chicago. By the time he arrived at O'Hare, it was five in the morning and he was exhausted. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a full night's sleep. It was before his son was murdered, of that he was sure. Even with all the medications given to him by his doctor, a cornucopia of antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, Snyder was unable to dodge the pain.

He looked down at the notepad lying on his lap—“aka Dean Belden.” The man's photograph walking next to Jimmie was now branded on Snyder's fevered brain. He hoped that Cole was right. If so, it was something he could feed to the FBI and perhaps harvest some information in return.

One thing bothered him. Snyder was convinced there was something Madriani wasn't telling him. Whether it had to do with Jimmie's murder he couldn't be sure. The tip-off was in the needling current of inquiry directed by Cole at Madriani during lunch, her observations about the business card in Jimmie's wallet and the thumbprint, her uptake on Liquida and the danger this posed to Madriani, and the obvious fact that the lawyer was already well
aware of this but wasn't saying anything. What else did he know that he wasn't telling them?

It provoked questions regarding some of the background research Snyder had done on Madriani. The night before he left for San Diego he ran a couple of online news site searches and Googled Madriani's name. Most of what came back was the usual stuff you might expect concerning a criminal defense lawyer, news on cases Madriani had tried.

But there was one item, more recent, that caught his attention. Madriani's name popped up in connection with the attack on the Coronado naval base. This was one of those seminal events that the entire world knew about because of the blanket coverage on the cable news networks. It never rang any bells with the name Madriani until Snyder read the news articles online. At first he figured Madriani must have defended someone in connection with the case until he realized that the lawyer had been taken into custody in the shootout. When he saw this, and knowing that Madriani's business card was found in his son's wallet, the adrenaline began to spike in Snyder's body. He was sure he had something. He wasted two hours reading news articles until in the end it all turned out to be smoke. Or was it? According to the FBI, Madriani and one of his employees happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and were caught up in the law enforcement net after the shootout.

The second he got home, Snyder dropped his luggage inside the front door and headed for the study. The large, stately home in the North Shore area of Chicago was dark and empty. Snyder had lived alone ever since the divorce from his wife five years earlier.

He turned on the floor lamp, plopped himself down in front of his desktop, and hit the browser button.

Snyder had already hired a private investigator. Now he would feed him all of the information he had gathered on his trip to San Diego. He fired off an e-mail to the investigator, giving him the name Liquida and the term “the Mexicutioner” along with the ru
mor that he worked for the Mexican drug cartel in Tijuana. He laid it all out, including the thumbprint on the business card, and then typed in the name Thorn and his alias, Dean Belden. He told the investigator to gather any information he could find under the name Belden regarding a federal grand jury investigation and a floatplane crash on Lake Union in Seattle and gave him the approximate time frame for the events. Snyder told the investigator that he needed whatever information he could find, and that he needed it immediately. He told him he was willing to pay a premium by way of fees for thorough and prompt service and that he would be waiting for a reply ASAP. He hit the Send button.

Then Snyder pulled out his wallet and located Joselyn Cole's business card. The meeting in San Diego had come to an abrupt end when Madriani had to leave his office, something about a family emergency. Cole and Snyder exchanged business cards and agreed to keep in touch. Snyder told her he would lay heavy hands on the FBI turning over the information on Thorn, and promised to keep her informed as to what he learned.

He entered her name and all of the contact information from her business card into the contact list on his computer. Then he synchronized it to his BlackBerry so that he could call her or shoot e-mails to her from the road.

He navigated to one of his tailored news sites on the Web and hit the button for advanced searches. He went to the line that read “Find results with the exact phrase” and typed in the name Joselyn Cole in the box next to it. Snyder scanned down the page to make sure he would capture everything back for a period of one year. Then he hit the Search button. He knew he wouldn't find anything on Thorn or Belden or the grand jury stuff in Seattle. Those events went back too far, beyond the time of Internet news sites. And not many newspapers made their news morgues available online, even for a fee.

The search under Cole's name produced a few news articles, one reporting on a press conference held by Cole's organization,
Gideon Quest, dealing with the issue of land mines in Africa and Asia. Cole and her organization seemed to have a particular brief for arms merchants and the manufacturers who produced their wares.

One of the stories caught his eye. It involved testimony before a Senate committee dealing with nuclear weapons and their proliferation in Third World countries. Toward the bottom of the article Snyder saw the name Gideon van Rye, for whom the organization Gideon Quest had been named. He remembered Cole mentioning the name over lunch in San Diego.

According to the article, van Rye was a Dutch physicist who died of radiation poisoning following an accident at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The article described the accident as somewhat mysterious and never fully explained. Mysterious was right. It didn't make sense, not to Snyder, not if Cole was telling the truth. According to her, Thorn, alias Dean Belden, was responsible for van Rye's death. If so, how could it be an accident?

He printed out the story and then turned his attention to the Web. He Googled Cole's name and found several more news articles, all of them dealing with various weapons systems, testimony before Congress on Defense Department appropriations, research, and development. Joselyn Cole seemed dedicated to her work. She couldn't be making much money doing what she did. She was a woman with a cause. This struck Snyder as positive, someone he could probably trust if he needed information, or if he had to share some. If he had to pick a face to bond with around the table in San Diego, he felt safest with Cole.

He ran a search for the names Thorn and Belden just to be safe, and as expected came up with nothing useful. He searched using the name Liquida as well as the Mexicutioner. “Liquida” was the Spanish word for water. He found sites where the word was used in connection with products, but nothing else. Without a first name
it was impossible. For “the Mexicutioner” Snyder found multiple pages with links to a Mexican prizefighter. That was it.

By now the sun was up and streaming through the window in Snyder's study. He checked his watch. Seven minutes after eight, 9:07 in Washington. He pulled out his cell phone, entered the name Joseph Wallace, and pressed the little roller ball. His contact list offered him two options: the FBI agent's office phone or the cell number that Wallace had penned on the back of his card. Snyder opted for the cell line.

It rang twice before he answered. “Agent Wallace here.”

“Mr. Wallace, this is Bart Snyder, Jimmie Snyder's father.”

There was dead air at the other end for a second as Wallace tried to place the name.

“Killed in his apartment, drug overdose,” said Snyder. Jimmie's murder was already slipping through the cracks.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember.”

“You left those photographs with me, do you recall?”

“Sure.”

“I think I may have something for you.” Snyder could hear a lot of noise in the background, sounds of traffic. He had obviously caught him at a bad time. “Are you on your way to your office?”

“No,” said Wallace. “Another case.”

“I see. Do you have a pen and paper?”

“Gimme a second.”

Snyder could hear the rustle of the phone as the agent juggled the cell while looking for something to write on and a pen to do it with.

“Okay. What have you got?”

“A name for the man in the photographs. Last name Thorn.” Snyder spelled it for him so there would be no mistake.

“Any first name?”

“No, but there's an alias, Dean Belden.” He spelled it again.

“Any address?”

“No. But you should have something on him,” said Snyder.

“How's that?”

Snyder told him about the grand jury proceedings in Seattle and the crash of the floatplane, the fact that Belden or Thorn or whatever his real name was had appeared on the FBI's most-wanted list ten years ago and that they should have photographs of him, and possibly fingerprints. “Check your files,” said Snyder.

“Where did you get this?” asked Wallace.

“I'm not at liberty to tell you that right now,” said Snyder.

“Was it one of your son's friends?”

“Can't tell you. Not right now. But I'll tell you what. You tell me what you find and I'll tell you more,” said Snyder.

“Wait a second,” said Wallace. “If you're withholding information, I can have you arrested.”

“Do you think I care? My son's been murdered. I want to know who did it.”

“We're working the case, Mr. Snyder. Your cooperation would be appreciated.”

“That's what I'm doing, cooperating,” said Snyder.

“We need to follow up on the information,” said Wallace. “We have to know if your source is reliable.”

“She's reliable.” Snyder shook his head. He realized he'd given away her gender. He knew he shouldn't be doing this when he was so tired.

“Then I assume this woman you talked to must have met or had some involvement with the man in the photographs?” Wallace was fishing for more.

“Let's just say they met some years ago,” said Snyder. “That reminds me, she told me to tell you that the photographs you gave me may not bear a striking resemblance to the old file photos that you have of Mr. Thorn. You may have to look closely. But she was absolutely certain it was him.”

“She must have known him well,” said Wallace. “Listen, I'm pretty busy right now. Can I call you back?”

“When you have some information,” said Snyder. “I want to know what you have on this man. You tell me what you know and I'll tell you what I know.”

“Are you trying to bargain with me?”

“In a word, yes,” said Snyder.

“You have to understand, I cannot open our files to you. If that's what you're thinking, you're wrong,” said Wallace. “Confidential law enforcement information in our files is strictly controlled. I can't reveal it to anyone.”

“I'm not just anyone, I'm the father of the victim.”

“Even so,” said Wallace. “There's a limit to what we can tell you. You need to tell me what you know and let us handle it. And be patient. It may take a while.”

“What do you mean?” said Snyder.

“I mean we have other cases. And we're stretched thin right now.”

“You said you were working on my son's case.”

“We are. Along with a few dozen other open files. Listen, I can't talk right now,” said Wallace. “Can I call you back? May not be till later in the week. Can I reach you at this number?”

Snyder knew when he was getting the runaround. “Call me after you've looked at your files on this man Thorn.”

“Call you back,” said Wallace, and the line went dead.

He had a sinking feeling. Snyder now knew he was on his own. The police and the FBI might continue to pursue the case, but not with the urgency that it required. To them it was just one more open file. He could sit on his hands and do what others did and “leave it to the authorities”—one more cold case, or worse, they would close it with the finding that Jimmie had died of an accidental drug overdose. Snyder wasn't going to let that happen.