Coercion (3 page)

Alex smiled so hard he cracked his pen light between his teeth. 
So the money’s back in the US.
..  He folded the bank statement twice and slipped it into his coveralls.  Six weeks of virtual dead ends, of endless interviews in faltering Portuguese, and—

Click
.

The sound was as sweet and subtle as a divorce attorney.  Alex closed his eyes for a moment of Zen before spinning his chair around to look into the barrel of a Smith & Wesson.  Then he looked up into the eyes of the murderer who wielded it.  Alex wasn’t sure which was
uglier, but he definitely knew which one he wanted to hear from first.

Until two seconds ago, this had been the first case that Alex had really enjoyed since placing
International Private Investigations
in the San Diego phone book five months earlier.  The preceding string of inter-spousal espionage and missing-person cases had paid his modest rent, but none had engaged his hungry heart.  Fortunately,
The Case of the Brazilian Boomerang
came along and reminded Alex of the dream he had left the CIA to pursue.  Fortunately?

Brazilian Boomerang seemed to be a typical take-the-money-and-run case at first.  Ethan Harper had embezzled 2.8 million dollars from his partners, Alex’s clients, and run off to Sao Paulo with his Brazilian girlfriend.  Typical case or not, Alex was pleased to be back in the international arena, and to have something more than a divorce settlement at stake.  It only got better from there.

For starters, Ethan-the-embezzler and his breathtaking Brazilian belle Rosa appeared to be a clever couple.  Rosa, Alex discovered, had been insightful enough to pre-arrange a new identity for Ethan in Brazil—or so it seemed at first.  She had even taught Ethan to sign a corresponding new signature that bore no resemblance to his own.  Accordingly, between stepping off the plane in Sao Paulo and passing through customs at Guarulhos International, Ethan Harper became Carlos Ramos, the Brazilian equivalent of
Bill Smith
.  That was when the chase became a hunt and Alex became inspired.

After piecing back together what truly happened during Ethan’s first forty-eight hours in Brazil, Alex understood that his first impression was incorrect.  Only half of the couple was truly clever, that half being Rosa.

Rosa used Ethan to steal and launder his partnership’s funds. Then she disposed of him like a condom whose dirty job was done.  She had not flushed him down the toilet, but close enough.  Rosa and her bona fide Brazilian husband, the real Carlos Ramos, had used Ethan to establish a false trail that could be easily tracked to Sao Paulo, but then followed no further than Carlos’s mistress’s flowerbed. 

The murdering Ramoses firewalls didn’t stop with planting poor Ethan.  They spent sixty thousand dollars of the scam’s proceeds on a couple of new identities, complete with US passports, and then they left Brazil behind.  It was a very clever scheme they had conjured up; Alex almost admired them.

When the
nouveau riche
eventually resurfaced, it was in San Francisco.  That was a pleasant twist.  Alex’s brother Frank lived in the Bay Area, and a visit was long overdue.  The twins only had each other, and still they were letting their blossoming careers interfere.   Alex made a silent vow and returned his thoughts to more pressing matters.

The Ramos’s overnight move from a tenement in Sao Paulo to a high-rise in San Francisco was the equivalent of getting greedy—the trademark mistake of the rapidly rich.  Nonetheless, had that been their only error Alex might never have caught up to Rosa and Carlos.  Fortunately for Alex, however, people are never as flawless in person as on paper.

Four months earlier, when the scam first began, the intoxicating allure of Ethan’s cash had stifled the jealous pangs that would otherwise have besieged Carlos—a man who had sent his beautiful wife to share another’s bed.  A month after that, however, that buzz had worn off, and Carlos moved across the street to stay with Maria for the remainder of phase one.

If Rosa had made a crucially shrewd move in choosing Ethan as her mark, then Carlos had made a critically foolish one in selecting Maria as his mistress.  Already hot from the cold shoulder Carlos gave her upon Rosa’s return, Maria’s simmering Latin blood began to boil
when she later found Ethan Harper planted in her flowerbed.  By the time she walked into Alex’s temporary office in response to his missing-person advertisement, she was positively steaming.  Alex learned the Portuguese word for vendetta that day,
vingança
, and had mimicked it to himself in raspy bass as though it were a classic line from
The Godfather
. 
Vingança.

That had been three weeks ago.  After tracking the
Ramoses
from Sao Paulo to Mexico City to LA, Alex followed the couple’s serpentine trail further north until it eventually stopped at a new high-rise in San Francisco.  That was yesterday evening.  The find meant that Alex would be paid and his clients would have their revenge, but revenge wasn’t their primary concern.  They wanted their money back.

Had Alex called in the authorities immediately, the money would likely have vanished.  So he decided to locate it first, quickly and quietly.  Alex earned a gold star for quick; it took him less than a day.  But as his new predicament confirmed, he had flunked quiet.

“Stay in the chair.  Hands on the back of your head, fingers interlocked.  Do it slowly,” Carlos said, inching his way forward from the doorway in shooter’s stance.

Alex knew Carlos did not have a record, but he had obviously watched his share of cop shows. 
So much the better
.

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Alex Ferris.  I’m with the FBI.”

Carlos’s eyes darted left and right.  “Where’s your partner?”

“Down in the car.”  They were on the eighteenth floor of the Marquis Towers, San Francisco’s newest luxury condominium complex.  “Dave’s supposed to be watching out for your return.  Guess he’s not doing a very good job.”

As he spoke, Alex sized the man up.  They were about the same
height, a whisker shy of six feet, and at thirty-four Carlos was just two years older than Alex.  The similarities stopped there.  Carlos sported the telltale signs of a downward-spiraling beer lover: the last notch on the belt, the puffy face, the once-muscular frame now upholstered with fat.  Alex could take Carlos, no problem there.  It was Smith & Wesson that worried him.

Carlos’s eyes continued darting as he analyzed this news, but Smith & Wesson didn’t waiver.  “You’re dressed like a custodian, rather than a Fibbi.  You got that look though.  You got ID?”

“Sure.  It’s in my back pocket—”

“Don’t move.  Keep your right hand where it is. 
Left hand only, thumb and forefinger.  First the piece, then the wallet.”  Carlos crouched lower as he spoke.

Alex did has he was told, laying down his Glock and his wallet,
then he put his hand back behind his head.  He didn’t interlock his fingers this time.

“Kick ‘em forward.”

Again, Alex did as he was told.

Keeping the gun in his right hand, Carlos tossed the Glock behind him.  Then he took the wallet in his left and flipped it open.  “Alex Ferris, International Private Investigations.”  He looked back at Alex.  “There’s no partner downstairs.”

“That’s a cover.  Look behind it.  The change compartment is where I hide my badge.  People don’t like to cooperate with us Feds, but a gumshoe…”  Alex shrugged and then leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs out before him at the ankles.  He hoped this projected a confidence he did not feel.

Carlos tried to pop the wallet’s snap with just his left thumb but it was a tough one.  His eyes narrowed, and he took a step to the side.  He carefully set Smith & Wesson on an end table, aligning himself so he could keep his eyes on Alex, the wallet, and the gun.  Then he popped the snap with his right hand.  Big mistake.

As the tear-gas capsule exploded in Carlos’s face, Alex kicked out at the end table’s crossbar, sending it flying with Smith and Wesson along for the ride.  Then Alex jumped to his feet.

If you’ve never experienced the joy of tear gas first hand, words won’t help you appreciate the agony a snout-full will bring.  Suffice it to say that it’s not stupidity motivating the people who run from tear-gassed houses into storms of bullets or the arms of the law.  Still, the dosage in the wallet was small, and Carlos was no lightweight.  He charged Alex like a blinded bull, determined to impale his tormenter against the windowed wall on horns of rage.

Alex dropped onto his back and caught the charging Latino’s pelvis with the soles of his feet, absorbing the brute’s energy with spring-like legs.  As Carlos tumbled forward, Alex rolled and catapulted him back into the air.

When Carlos hit the window, he was upside down and bottom first; when Carlos hit the pavement—it didn’t matter.

Alex was still on his back and breathing heavy when his cell phone began to vibrate.  It took a couple shakes for him to realize what was going on.

“Hello.”

By the time he hung up the phone, Alex had forgotten about the mess that lay bleeding eighteen floors below.

When you place a Glock 19 to your head and pull the trigger, the bullet leaves the barrel at 1200 feet per second.  At this velocity, it takes less than 1/1000th of a second for the bullet to blast away your right temple, drill through your brain’s right and left frontal lobes, destroy your primary motor cortex, and explode out the left hemisphere of your skull.  As violent as this may sound, i
n the grand scheme of things it’s not a bad way to go—when the time has come.

“I apologize for inflicting the third degree at a time like this, Mr. Ferris, but as a detective yourself, I’m sure you can appreciate my quandary.  Your story doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense,
Detective Vogel, is your wasting time on me while my brother’s murderer is getting away.”

“Tell me again, exactly what the caller said.”

Alex was approaching emotional overload.  He knew that was precisely what his interrogator wanted, and ironically he respected the detective for taking him there, but it really was a waste of precious time.  He had nothing to hide—well, almost nothing.

“Did you hear me, Mr. Ferris?”

“He said ‘Alex Ferris?’  I said ‘Yes.’  He said ‘This is the Palo Alto Police Department calling.  There’s been an incident involving your brother.  We need you to come to his house right away.’  I said, ‘Is he all right?’  The caller replied ‘I can’t go into specifics on the phone.’  I said ‘I’ll be there in forty minutes.’  He hung up without another word.

“And then you called your brother’s number.”

“And got the answering machine.”

“And you’re certain you didn’t recognize the caller’s voice?”

“Yes.”

“And the voice didn’t sound distorted, muted…?”

“No.  Look, Detective, regardless of how many times you ask, my story is not going to change.  To be honest, I don’t understand why you’re asking.  It’s obvious that Frank was not killed randomly.  He was specifically targeted. It was personal.  It was so personal, so spiteful, that even a bullet through the head wasn’t cruel enough.  So the killer called me, the only living relative, so I could have the joy of finding my brother’s bled-out corpse on the floor of his study.”

“The call caught my attention, too.  Wicked is the first word that comes to mind, perhaps punishing.  Under other circumstances, I might wonder if you weren’t the primary target.”

“Other circumstances?”

“Thirty eight minutes elapsed between the time you received the phone call and the time you called 911.  Your presence across town at the time of the call has been
, ahem, corroborated.”  Vogel nodded to emphasize the irony.  “First and probably last time I’ll get an alibi like yours.  In any case, those thirty-eight minutes are more than accounted for, especially given the economy rental you’re driving.  What interests me are the three-hundred seconds between your 911 call and the arrival of the first squad car.  I find it hard to believe that someone with your background and training wouldn’t use that time to investigate … or cover up ...”

“If it had been anyone else,
Detective, I probably would have poked around.  But it wasn’t anyone else.  It was my twin.  And I’m only human—a fact which you might want to consider as we enter our third hour of ‘discussion.’  While waiting for the police to arrive I sat in the armchair across from my brother’s body, and wept.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.”

“Tell me, did you join the CIA to catch the terrorists who murdered your
parents?”

Alex could
neither believe where this was going nor how quickly.  Vogel was good, the bastard.  “You’re remarkably well informed, Detective.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It was sixteen years ago.”

“But you did catch them?”

“That information is classified.”

Again, Vogel ignored his comment.  “And then you left t
he CIA to start your own agency.”

Alex nodded but Vogel didn’t notice.  A
second detective had entered the room.  He handed Vogel a piece of paper.  Given Vogel’s reaction, Alex got the impression that his last round of questions had been a fishing expedition, a stall tactic while waiting for that message to arrive.

Vogel pulled a pair of silver half-framed reading glasses from his shirt pocket, donned them, read the note, and looked up.  “The call to your cell phone was made from a Quickie-Mart pay phone two miles from here, two miles in the opposite direction from which you came.  Phone records corroborate the record you
showed us on your cell phone.  You didn’t make the call … and your brother didn’t make the call.”

“What is it with you and the killer’s call?  No, never mind.  Are you convinced now that I did not kill Frank?  Am I free to go looking for the real killer?”

“Oh, I’ve known all along that you didn’t kill your brother, Mr. Ferris.”  Vogel removed his glasses.  “In fact, I know who killed him.  I just couldn’t explain the call.  It doesn’t fit.  My job is investigating things that don’t fit.  If I do that right, sometimes I get to prevent crimes, rather than just clean up afterwards.  Again, I apologize for the inconvenience.  You have my sincere condolences.  We’ll be leaving now.”

Alex could hardly believe his ears.  “You know who killed Frank?”

Vogel nodded.  “Your brother committed suicide, Mr. Ferris.”

“That’s not possible.”  Alex heard the words come out before he knew he’d spoken them.  It was like learning that your foot kicked out during a reflex test because you see it move.  Nonetheless, he knew it was true.

“I’m afraid it’s not a question, Mr. Ferris.  It’s a forensic fact.”

“
You didn’t know Frank.  He—”

“But I do know forensics, Alex.  You’re a pro.  You know how it works.  Facts are facts.  People are people.  The laws of physics are immutable.  People are not.”

“What’s the evidence?”

“I can’t involve a civilian, especially a relative, in an investigation.  Even an ex-CIA officer.”

“But you just told me in so many words that the investigation is closed.  You’ve ruled it a suicide.”

Vog
el began to answer but paused.  Alex jumped into the crack of indecision, and pried.  “I took the time to answer your questions, Detective.”

Vogel took a deep breath and stared at the floor before looking up to lock Alex’s gaze.  “The victim had both stippling and
starring on his right temple.  Do you know what that means?”

Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing his mind to shift gears.  When he reopened them, they were clear as blue ice crystals.  “It means t
he gun was up against his temple at the time it was fired.  Was there bruising?”

“No.  There was no sign
that the barrel was pressed forcefully against his temple.”  Vogel broke eye contact, ostensibly it was to look down at his notes, but he didn’t don his reading glasses.  “The trajectory of the bullet was consistent with a self-inflicted wound.  Lividity and blood spatter both indicate that the body was not touched after death, aside from your pulse check.  I paid special attention to the hand that held the weapon.  It would have been nearly impossible to plant.”

“Still, someone who reads detective novels or watches late-night television could have known what you’d be looking for, known how to hold the gun, figured out
an ‘impossible’ way to put it in my brother’s hand without disturbing the evidence.”

“Knowing how to do it is one thing, Alex.  Being permitted to do it is another.  The victim was a young athletic man, and there were no signs of struggle.”

“Perhaps an acquaintance with a quick draw…”

“Not so quick that the victim wouldn’t have jerked his head, and we know from
the evidence I’ve just explained that he did not jerk.”

“What if the victim was drunk?” 

Vogel gave an appreciative nod.  “That was the first thing I asked to have checked.  That,” he paused momentarily and then nodded to himself before continuing, “and the details of your brother’s corporate life insurance policy.  His blood alcohol content was zero-point-zero, and the policy doesn’t pay in the event of suicide.”  He looked Alex squarely in the eye during the last point.

Alex did not even know Frank had a life insurance policy, so Vogel got nothing. 
“Still, your checking acknowledges the possibility that it was murder.”

“Those checks were for the lawyers.  I know suicides, Alex.  Been dealing with them
for twenty-four years.  After that long, you don’t just know how they look; you know how they feel—the real ones, and the faked ones.”

“Suppose the killer were someone like you, someone who knew just what to do.”  Alex canted his head.  “How would you do it,
Detective?”

“There’s no way I would attempt it with a gun.  The victim would fight, and the forensics would show it.”

“What if he were sleeping soundly at his desk, completely exhausted?”

“Then it might be possible—if the victim was a very sound sleeper—except in this case we know he was standing.”

“I still can’t believe it.  There must be some explanation.  You didn’t know Frank.”

“There was a note, Alex.”

“A note!  Why didn’t you say so?  Where is it?  I want to see it.”

Vogel pulled a sixteen-page report from the file folder on the
end table.  “I used your brother’s machine to make you a copy.”

“This isn’t a—this is a progress report for the UE-2000, Frank’s project.”

“Dated today.  And it is a suicide note, Alex.  The format isn’t stereotypical, but it’s more common than you think.  Overachievers like the victim tend to attach their self worth to their success.  When one bottoms out—as that report clearly indicates—the other sometimes follows.”

“So how do you explain
the call I got?”

“I can’t Alex.  And that does bug
me.  That’s why I’ve spent this last couple hours going round and round with you.  Given the suicide ruling, I’d narrowed the likely sources of the call down to you and your brother.  But now that I’ve eliminated you two, I’ve got nothing.  The call is a loose end, but I’ve tied up all the other strands as neatly as a bridesmaid’s bouquet.  I have no choice but to consider it a red herring and move on.”

Alex began to speak but Vogel stopped him with raised palms.
  “I’ll be the first to admit that, at the personal level, it’s not a satisfying course of action.  But as a professional, it is the only practical one.  I hope you’ll agree that I gave it a good shot.”

“No pun intended, I’m sure.”

Vogel grimaced at his faux pas and then motioned to his colleague to clear out.

Two minutes later Alex was alone i
n his brother’s house.  His house now…  As the stillness began to sink into his bones, he found himself afraid to let his emotions loose.  He was already too drained to turn that spigot on.  So he fired up the coffee pot and forced his mind to keep crunching the mundane. 

How had Vogel known to hone in on those five minutes after he called 911, on his only lie?  It had nothing to do with the phone call, but Vogel’s intuition was uncanny nonetheless. 
He was right; Alex had not just sat there weeping in the chair.  His instinct had kicked in, and he’d run up to Frank’s bedroom…

Alex stood and withdrew Frank’s slim leather diary from the
cargo pocket of his coveralls.  He didn’t know if anything relevant would be there, but he knew he didn’t want to share any more of Frank with the police, not yet anyway.  The death of a sibling was an intimate affair.

Alex half expected a clap of thunder as he opened the diary and began flipping pages toward the end.  Frank was a scientist, a methodical creature of habit, and it showed.  The pages of
The Puzzler
all looked the same.  His brilliant brother’s habit had started when he was twelve, and continued for twenty years: concise questions written hopefully at night, brief answers jotted merrily in the morning, the subconscious products of an unfettered analytical mind: 
Why does it crack?  Temperature gradient.  How to regenerate?  Xenon gas
…

As Alex flipped closer to today’s date, the pattern changed.  For the last two months, the bed
time question remained the same and the morning epiphany was always absent, absent until this morning.  This morning there was a single word beside last night’s “Who?”  The word was “Elaine.”