The Zero (8 page)

Had he said martini out loud?

“Yes, you did. But see, it’s a Gibson.” Markham pointed to the glass again. “You can just make out the cocktail onions. Here, you can see them better in this one.” He thumbed through his briefcase until he came up with another photo, a blown-up detail of the drink showing fuzzily but unmistakably that there were, indeed, two tiny white onions in the glass. “I don’t like onions. I prefer olives myself,” Markham said. “Without pimientos. You have to request it that way or they’ll just assume you want pimientos. I mean, honestly…what is a pimiento? A fruit? A vegetable? A legume? I mean, come on—” He was taking on the tone of a standup comic. “Does it even
occur
in nature?”

“I think it’s a pepper,” Remy said.

“I know. It was a…” said Markham, clearly disappointed that his joke had fallen flat. “Oh. Well, then…” He put the onion picture away and pointed again at the picture of the girl. “This is March Selios.”

Remy looked at the picture. Marge?

“No, March. Like the month.”

Remy bit his lip so no more words would sneak out. He looked at the picture again, taken from across the table of a restaurant, ferns everywhere.

“She worked for a firm that managed legal issues for importers of various goods through foreign contracts, international consortiums, that sort of thing. She was trained as a paralegal. That’s two legals.” Markham spit laughter, but became serious so quickly that Remy
wondered if there had been another gap. “She specialized in shipping, trade law, tariffs, oil. Spoke fluent Greek, but also passable Arabic and a bit of Farsi. Did a lot of work with Middle Eastern and Mediterranean companies: Greek, Italian, Saudi, Syrian, Lebanese. Intelligent girl, single, moderate drinker, liberal politics: for a time in the 1990s, she raised money for Palestinian relief charities, protested Israeli aggression, that sort of thing. A bit of a wild child, a drinker, no drug use that we can find. She wasn’t afraid of sex, but then, she was in her twenties. Worked for this firm, ADR, for approximately two years. The firm’s offices were sprinkled throughout the top floors, so as you might guess, the company was hit hard—a third of its employees, everyone who was at work that morning, twenty-three people, all MPD. Although—”

Remy looked at the picture again.

“—the number of Missing Presumed Dead from that firm would be twenty-two…if one were to take Ms. Selios off the official list.” Markham let this hang in the air.

“You think…she shouldn’t be…on the official list?”

“We have reason to believe…” Markham paused again. “There are indications…” He stopped again. “There is some
evidence
that…Ms. Selios may not have died that day. She may, in fact, be alive.”

Remy waited for more, but this Markham seemed to revel in dripping details one at a time. “How?” Remy finally asked.

Markham crossed his hands and put his index fingers across his lips. “Based on document re-creation and interviews, we are exploring the theory that she may have gotten advance warning and fled moments before…”

Again Markham was quiet. Remy made an effort to speak out loud. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

Markham pulled on a rubber glove, reached back in his briefcase and pulled out a zipped plastic bag with a small piece of paper inside.
He put the bag on the table, then pulled it back. “Obviously, this is classified.” Then he slid it forward again, as if it contained some magical secret.

Remy reached for the baggie. Inside was a single index card. On the card was a recipe, handwritten with a blue pen, for something called pecan encrusted sole. Remy read through the last ingredient (
1 tsp sea salt
) and the preparation (
Drip with virgin olive oil
), all the way through the directions (
Let stand for five minutes, garnish with two twisted orange slices, and serve
). He stared at the recipe, then looked back up at Markham. For several seconds, there was no noise in the room.

“A recipe,” Remy said.

“Ah! Somebody’s got some college,” Markham said. “And where do you think we found this recipe?”

“I…I don’t have any idea.”

“Do you know where Crystal Beach is?”

“I don’t think so.”

Markham looked suspicious, but he continued. “Crystal Beach is in southern Ontario, on Abino Bay, across Lake Erie, near Buffalo. Lovely place. Cold in the winter, though…cold as a sober lesbian at a frat party. As you might guess.” He waited for a laugh again, and then became serious. “We found this recipe…in the possession of a forty-six-year-old homemaker, Mrs. Linda Vendron. Mrs. Vendron claims she was at Kennedy Airport
that day,
after a visit with her sister, and was waiting for a commuter flight to Buffalo when she heard about the attacks. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“No.”

“When the airport closed, this Mrs. Vendron wasn’t able to get a flight to Buffalo, so she returned to her sister’s house. Finally, two days later, she took a bus to Buffalo. A very crowded bus, as she says now.” Markham leaned forward. “This Mrs. Vendron claims she found the recipe wedged in the seat of the bus. She says she picked it up because…
she thought it would taste good
. She thought her husband would like it. He
likes pecans
.”

“But you…don’t believe her?”

Markham looked stung. “Yes, we believe her. Of course, just to be sure, we polygraphed her.” He shook his head. “But why would anyone lie about liking pecans? Who doesn’t like pecans? Especially in a good fish recipe, a tender filet? No, the pecans give it some substance, some crunch. Some weight. They’re soaked in honey. I think you could substitute corn syrup. But it specifically calls for honey. A hint of cayenne. Sea salt. You bake it for twenty minutes on low heat. Some chives. No, it’s a good little fish for a summer meal. Tasty. Light. We had the lab make it, just to be sure it was, you know…good.” Markham leaned back. “We’ll probably make it again; I’ll let you know.”

He leaned forward again, his index finger at his mouth. “But the question is not what does this fish taste like, or even what wine should you serve with the fish—I suppose you could get away with a Gewurtzemeiner or even a buttery Chardonnay. The question, Brian, is this: Who left this recipe on that bus?”

“Her?” Remy picked up the photo.

“March Selios,” Markham said, gesturing with his palms as if he’d performed a magic trick. “It’s a Greek surname. Second-generation immigrant. Older sister lives here in the city, works in real estate. Younger brother lives back at home in Kansas City with the parents. Dad runs a Greek restaurant there.”

Remy looked at the recipe again. “And what makes you think this recipe belonged to…” He looked at the girl again. “…to March?”

“We don’t have the luxury of
thinking
, Brian.” He reached in his briefcase for another photo. This one showed the same girl, March, sitting at her cubicle, smiling, holding some red Mylar balloons with
Happy 26th Birthday
written on them in silver. Markham reached in the briefcase, returned with another detail blowup, and handed Remy a
jeweler’s loupe. “Here,” Markham said, and pushed the picture over to Remy. “Look closely. Over her shoulder.”

It was hard to make out at first, but then…yes, there was no doubt. On the wall of March Selios’s cubicle was the very same handwritten recipe for pecan encrusted sole that sat on the table between Remy and Markham.

“Jesus, that’s amazing,” Remy said.

“Thank you.”

“I mean, how did you know to look for…” Remy was having trouble following all of this. “How did this…I mean…it’s just one piece of paper. All this for…”

Markham got serious again. “What are you saying, Brian?”

“Nothing…I’m not saying anything. I’m just amazed. I just don’t see how you knew to connect…and you did all this work for…a recipe?” Remy looked through the jeweler’s loupe again. “You don’t even know that it had anything to do with that day…I mean…maybe she took it off her wall months earlier.”

Markham pointed to the birthday picture again. “Her twenty-sixth birthday was six days before the attack. That’s when this photo was taken, her twenty-sixth birthday—six days before she supposedly died.”

“Maybe someone else picked up the recipe after…I mean, the paper went
everywhere
, didn’t it?”

Markham nodded as if he’d been expecting such an answer. “There is no dust on this recipe, Brian. None. We had it tested in the lab. Right after we made the fish. This sheet of paper had to be in a briefcase or in a purse. It was not blown out of the building. It was taken out beforehand.”

Remy looked at the office picture again. She was even prettier in this one, shy and wide-eyed, and it occurred to Remy that she was in love with whoever took the picture.

“Yeah, that’s what we think, too,” Markham said.

Jesus. Was he still saying aloud what he was thinking? Remy looked up to see if he was speaking this thought too, but Markham didn’t seem to notice if he was. He put the two pictures side by side: March smiling in a restaurant, March smiling at her desk.

“These pictures were taken with the same camera. Whoever took them is the key. A lover. Possibly illicit. We find the person who took these pictures, we’re halfway there,” Markham said. “I believe that if we find this camera, there’s a good chance we’ll find March Selios alive. And there’s a good chance we’ll find her with someone you might find interesting.”

Remy felt slow, as if he were thinking in mud. “Who?”

Markham reached in his briefcase and emerged with another picture, of March sitting outside at a little table on a rooftop with a handsome young Middle Eastern man, his hair and beard both at stubble length, his deep-set eyes seeming to peer through the camera.

“This was taken on the roof of March’s apartment building. March cooked the meal and a neighbor served them and took this picture. The man is Bishir Madain,” Markham said. “Saudi ex-pat. In the United States for twelve years. Worked for an importing consortium. Romantically linked with Ms. Selios until about eighteen months ago. Mr. Madain hasn’t been seen since the morning of the attacks. We have recovered documentation—telexes, e-mails, rustic catalog order forms—that could indicate that Mr. Madain is part of a sleeper cell here. We believe he may even have had advance knowledge of the attacks that morning, and that he may have decided to alert his old girlfriend.”

“But I still don’t see how—”

Markham slid a two-page interview report across the table. On top was stamped the word
Classified
and the initials
D.D.
“That morning, at 7:12
A.M
., soon after arriving, Ms. Selios called in a repair order for the laser printer on her floor. At 7:48, the technician arrived, as you’ll see by his interview. The technician had always found Ms. Selios to be—”
Markham looked at his notes. “—
smoking hot
. That morning, he flirted with Ms. Selios, who was, he claims, not entirely unaware of his intentions or unimpressed by his
mac-daddy game
. Dude was
workin’ it,
when March suddenly received a telephone call. She appeared agitated by the call. The technician was removing a jammed sheet of paper from the laser printer when he looked up and saw March Selios walking toward the elevators, crying. The technician himself left a few minutes later, arriving on the main floor, and was, as far as we know, the last person to get off that floor before…” Markham mouthed the word
boom
, and shrugged, as if that explained it.

Remy was surprised to hear himself asking questions. “Did anyone see her leaving the building? Or afterward? Is there any other evidence that she’s alive?”

Markham looked pleased. “These questions are why we brought you in.”

Remy looked down at the interview transcript. “I don’t know. I mean—couldn’t that call have been anything?” he said. “An argument with a boyfriend? Maybe she wasn’t going to the elevator. Maybe she went to the bathroom. What have you got here—a horny repairman and a recipe. And that’s supposed to prove she got advance warning?”

Markham pointed at the close-up of March Selios’s cubicle. “Imagine the walls of a young woman’s cubicle. Covered in pictures and recipes, Cathy cartoons, and Buddhist koans. Now, let’s say she has a fight with her boyfriend, as you say, and she runs off to the bathroom. Would she really stop to strip the walls of her cubicle on her way out? Would she grab recipes and pictures? Why would it occur to her that she was not coming back?”

Markham held out his palms again, then began collecting his papers. He glanced up at Remy. “Any questions before you get started?”

Remy didn’t know where to start. “This all seems so…
sketchy
. Maybe it’s just me, but…” He rubbed his eyes, trying for the millionth
time to clear the streaks. “I’m having a lot of trouble…
connecting
things.”

Markham stared at him for a long moment and then nodded and looked like he might cry. “I know. It’s hard. I forget sometimes that you guys went through hell that day. I can’t know what that was like. None of us can. This is tough. And it never gets easier. But that’s precisely why we wanted you.” Markham reached back into his briefcase for the index card in the baggie. “Read the last line of this ‘recipe.’”

Remy read it:
Garnish with two twisted orange slices
.

Now Markham handed him another detail blowup, this one from the photo of March and Bishir Madain at dinner on her roof. On the platter between them he could clearly see what looked like a piece of fish garnished with two twisted orange slices. Then Markham cocked his eyebrows, as if he’d made another ironclad case, and took the picture back. “Look, this is going to be tough. I’m not going to kid you. But we’ve got to find March Selios. And if it turns out she is, in fact…
dead
…well, then everything is copacetic. Not for her, obviously…” He laughed uncomfortably. “But for the record. That’s our federally mandated charge, after all—to have a pure record. All the columns adding up. But if, in fact, she’s alive—well, then, we’ve got a problem. In fact, we’ve got a big problem.” And he closed the briefcase.