The Stranger Beside You (23 page)

This was the records room where all the autopsy reports were filed.  The walls were lined with huge metal filing cabinets.  Price had come to look at the official autopsy reports for Tom Nelson and Daphne Fleming.  He walked down one row and then another.  The autopsies were filed in alphabetical order.

He started with the
F
’s.

He squatted at one of the metal cabinets and opened a drawer.  It was stuffed with file folders.  The drawer seemed to extend out for six or seven feet.  He leaned in close to read the print on the folder tabs.  His fingers did the slow crawl from front to back.  The first drawer ended at
FI
.

Price slammed the drawer shut.  The
FI
’s continued at the top of the next cabinet.  He had to stand.  He hauled it opened and started at the front again.  Somewhere toward the middle he hit the
FL
’s.

Then he spotted a tab labeled FLEMING, DAPHNE  L.

Price removed the file.  Using the drawer as a table, he opened the file and began quickly scanning the pages of the reports.  There were autopsy photos.  Price had been on the scene when her body was pulled from the river so he remembered clearly the condition of the corpse.  The face and most of her exposed flesh had been eaten away, and the body had bloated.  He carefully examined the color of her hair.  He had demanded to see the body at the morgue but was told that it was gone, that Fleming had been quickly cremated by request of her family, so he was left with whatever was in the file.  There was a terrible glare in the photos, making it impossible to make out most of the details.  He flipped pages, moving from photo to photo.  All of them were distorted.  It appeared almost as if someone had shined a light indirectly into the lens of the camera as the autopsy was being performed.  The photos were useless.

He moved on to the dental records.  The photocopies of the documents were illegible.  Same with the DNA reports, as if the machine had been low on toner, producing only a ghost of an image, impossible to read.  Each of the reports had been signed and confirmed by the same medical examiner that had performed the autopsy.  The man’s name was Dr. Stan Cornwall. 

Price’s suspicions were growing. 

He rushed to the
N
’s and hauled open the first drawer.  He found Tom Nelson and pulled the file.  What he saw stunned him.  The quality of the results were nearly identical to those of Daphne Fleming’s.  All of the photos were either out of focus or distorted by glare, and the photocopied documents were again grainy and illegible. 

Price slammed the side of his fist against one of the metal cabinets beside him.  “Son of a…” he cursed under his breath, gritting his teeth.  He compared the medical examiner’s signature to that from Daphne Fleming’s file.  It was Dr. Cornwall, same as before. 

Price began pulling other files from other cabinets at random.  Each was of the quality you would expect, the photos clear, the reports crisp and clear, all as they should be.  He glanced around at the cabinets surrounding him.  The autopsies of Nelson and Fleming had been performed weeks apart.  It was simply too much of a coincidence.  Then Price remembered the bum down in the subway and what he had told him about what he claimed to have witnessed early that morning before Tom Nelson ran into the tunnel.  Another piece of the puzzle suddenly fell into place:  Dr. Stan Cornwall had to have been in on it.  Tom Nelson and Daphne Fleming were still alive, and he had helped them fake their deaths by falsifying the reports.

“You were hiding something, weren’t you, Dr. Cornwall?  Well, you were clever, but not clever enough,” he said, returning the file to the drawer.  “Because I’ve figured out your little trick.”

42

We pulled up in front of the Toronto Intercontinental Hotel and I was out of the taxi before it stopped moving.  The lobby was beautiful.  It was the kind of place I’d love to spend a week sometime under more pleasant circumstances.

It still broke my heart to think of my husband going into a room with another woman.  The facts and details of what was real and what wasn’t real seemed to change every minute of the day, but I still couldn’t get that photo of them embracing out of my head.  It haunted me.  I had decided I didn’t want to know all the sordid details of their relationship.  If Tom was alive, and if he was somehow able to return home to his family, and we somehow found a way to get past all this and start over, I wouldn’t be able to live knowing what the two of them had done behind closed doors.  I simply wasn’t capable of that much forgiveness.

I found 202 and glanced around nervously.  I had no idea what to expect to find on the other side of that door.  I was still following Tom’s trail of breadcrumbs.

I knocked on the door.  No answer. 

I knocked again.  Still nothing.

I swiped the card through the reader and went inside.  The room was beautiful.  It was tastefully decorated and spacious.  There was a window with a spectacular view of the city.  I turned the corner and saw Special Agent Armstrong standing there. 

She had her arms at her sides and smiled cordially.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said.

I took a step toward her.  “What is going on?”

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through, Brynn, but this is a turning point.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head.  I was feeling exasperated.  “I don’t understand.  What are you talking about?  A turning point for what?  What am I doing here?  What are you doing here?  I’ve been strung along for three days now.  My husband was arrested and killed.  He’s accused of murder and fraud.  He cheated on me.  Now I’ve been given reason to believe that he might actually still be alive.  So give me some answers, Special Agent Armstrong, because that’s all I’m interested in!”

She nodded like she understood.  I was getting worked up, and could feel my color rising.

“Let’s sit down,” she said.  “There’s a lot to talk about.”

There was a pitcher of water and a pair of drinking glasses on a small table.  She poured me a drink.

“First, let me assure you,” she began, “that Tom is indeed alive.”

I felt my body go numb.  “Where is he?”

“I can’t go into detail.”

“That’s crap.”

“Please understand, he is still in great danger.”

“What is he involved in?  Who is Mr. Z?”

“Mr. Z is a very dangerous man that we know very little about.  In fact, the FBI knows so little about him that we don’t officially have proof that he even exists.”

I felt a knot in my stomach.  “Why was my husband trying to steal money from his company?”

“He wasn’t.”

“What are you talking about?  Of course, he was.  That’s how Tom became involved with the FBI.  Aaron McFadden told me himself.”

“Aaron McFadden only knows part of the story.  He’s not in the loop.  All he knows is that Tom was up to something suspicious and set off a tripwire in the bank’s security system.  So he does believe Tom was stealing, but I can tell you emphatically that that was the not the case.  The only thing Tom was trying to do was to get our attention, and he succeeded.”

I was more confused than ever.  “Why would he want to do that?”

“Because he had nowhere else to turn.”

My shoulders sagged.  “You’re losing me.”

“Tom wanted the FBI involved because he needed our intervention.  He knew that Mr. Z was watching his every move, so he had to make it look like we had caught him in the act of committing a major crime.”

“Whoa…back up.  Where does Mr. Z come into the picture?  How did Tom get mixed up with him in the first place?”

Alana Armstrong fell silent.  It was clear that she was measuring her words, exercising great discretion in what she revealed and how she revealed it. 

“There are certain things we know and certain things we don’t know.  For example, we have yet to uncover Mr. Z’s true identity.  We don’t know who he is or where he came from or where to find him.  He’s like a ghost.  There are no known photographs of him, and despite our best efforts, we have failed to obtain a fingerprint.  I’ve personally never seen him.  If fact, only one person within the FBI that I know of has likely ever seen him.”

“Who?  Who has seen him?”

“That’s a bit of a sticky subject.”

“What does that mean?”

“We believe that Mr. Z has a contact working for him inside the FBI.  We have yet to nail down definitive proof of that, but the evidence is very strong.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.  He has a contact inside the FBI?”

She nodded sheepishly.  “Which is why all of this has been necessary because we have no idea who might be watching or listening.  I am a part of a three-man operation.  Not even my superior, Special Agent Chapman, is aware of what’s going on.  He still believes that your husband and Daphne Fleming are dead.  Only myself, Special Agent Fleming, and one other agent are involved.”

I was flabbergasted.  “Did you just say that Daphne Fleming is alive?”

She nodded.

I looked away.

She saw the change in my eyes.  “Brynn, there was never a relationship between your husband and Special Agent Fleming.”

“I saw the photo.  I saw the kiss.”

“I took the photo.”

I turned.  “What?”

“That was part of the ruse.  We needed to distract you.”

“Distract me from what?”

“That’s what these past three days have been about.  The clues we planted don’t add up to anything.  There is no great riddle to be solved.  We needed to buy some time for Tom and Daphne to slip away, and we couldn’t afford to have you in the way making waves, trying to solve the mystery of why he was arrested and how he died.  We needed to have you emotionally disconnected from him, and the only way to do that was to make you hate him.  To accomplish that, we created a fictitious love affair between the two of them.”

I felt raw inside.  This was a lot to absorb.  It was too much.

“What about the kiss?”

“Sure, it was a kiss.  One little smooch for the camera.”

Then it clicked.  “You sent the emails to Chapman and Aaron McFadden, didn’t you?  You are TandD141717.”

She nodded.  “Yes.”

“What about the bodies?” I said.  “If Tom and Daphne are alive, who was it they pulled from the river and from under the train?”

“Don’t concern yourself with that right now.  No one was harmed.  That was just some smoke and mirrors.  We had to convince Mr. Z and his inside man that Tom and Daphne were dead.  And so far so good, but the clock is ticking and we don’t know how long our illusion will continue to hold up.”

“Where are Tom and Daphne right now?”

“They are safe.  That’s all you need to know.”

I could see that she was firm on withholding their location, so I changed the subject.  “You didn’t answer one of my previous questions,” I said.  “How did my husband become involved with Mr. Z?”

“Tom became involved because he was forced to pledge himself as collateral against a defaulted loan.”

“A loan?  A loan from Mr. Z?”

Armstrong nodded.  “That’s right, and we are talking about millions of dollars.”

“I don’t understand.  Who had borrowed the money from Mr. Z?”

“Marcus Jones.”

43

The address was purchased from a website that charged $14.95 and required only a valid credit card number to complete the transaction.  Daphne picked up the printout at the library’s circulation desk.  The physical address was located an hour away in rural Maryland.  That was a problem. 

“We can’t rent a car,” Tom said.  “They might notice the credit card transaction and figure out where we are and what we are doing.”

“I have an idea.”

The cab ride took them back across the Potomac. 

“Where are we going?” he asked her.

“There’s a woman I went to Quantico with, and her younger sister lives in D.C.  Her name is Chelsea.  She’s a nurse.  She works nights and sleeps most of the day.  I think I can talk her into letting us borrow her car for a few hours.”

Chelsea lived in a duplex in Silver Spring.  The taxi waited while they rang the bell.  Daphne hit it four times.  They saw her peek out through the drapes.  She was wearing running shorts and a gray Army T-shirt when she opened the door.  She squinted against the sharp outside light. 

Daphne had to refresh her memory.

Chelsea seemed taken aback by the request.

“You want to borrow my car?”

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but this is an emergency.  Your sister will vouch for me.”

“I haven’t talked to my sister in nine months.”

“I’m begging you.  We’ll be back in three hours.”

The car was a white two-door Honda Civic parked in the driveway.  It had rolled off the factory line a decade ago.  There was nothing new about it.

Chelsea shrugged.  “I’ve got to get some sleep.”  She handed the key out the door.  “Just bring it back with a full tank.” 

Tom paid for the taxi and Daphne beat him to the wheel of the Honda.

“I’m driving,” she said.

Tom frowned and wedged his tall frame into the passenger seat.  The fan belt squealed like a wounded rodent when she turned the key.  Both of them winced.

“That should make for a pleasant trip,” she said.

Tom unfolded the map.  “Do you know the way?”

She nodded and wrestled the stick into gear, punched the gas, and headed north.

“What does your gut tell you about this address?” Tom asked. 

She shrugged.  “I’m not optimistic.”

There was a road atlas under the seat.  Tom flipped to the Maryland spread and compared it to the crude directions on the printout from the library.  After forty-five minutes on the highway, he began paying closer attention to the signs on the side of the road. 

“Take the next exit,” he said.

The Civic rolled to a stop at a quiet intersection.  There wasn’t much around.  A two-lane road ran east and west.

“Which way?” she asked.

“Take a left.”

She turned through the intersection and they passed open fields and farmland as they left the city limits.  Giant round hay bales were visible in the distance.