Deception (12 page)

Outside the terminal, she approached a skycap. “I

wonder if you could help me,” she said pleasantly. “I’m trying to locate this man.”

Opening her purse, she took out a five-by-seven photograph of her father and showed it to him. “He landed here on the morning of October 3. I’m fairly sure he would have needed a cab.”

The man didn’t even look at the photograph. “Sorry, miss. I didn’t start working until Thanksgiving Day.” He nodded toward a lanky, white-haired African-American. “But Tyrone over there should be able to help you.” He chuckled. “He’s been here since the airplane was invented.”

Tyrone was a busy man and Jill had to wait for nearly fifteen minutes until the rush for cabs and hotel shuttles quieted down before she could talk to him. As he gallantly tipped his hat to her, she repeated her story, showing him her father’s picture and discreetly sliding a fifty-dollar bill into his hand.

Surprised, he looked at the money, but didn’t put it away.

“I remember him,” he said as he studied the picture. “He was a good tipper, just like you. But not much of a talker, so I can’t tell you where he went. He asked me to get him a cab, tipped me and that was it.”

“Do you remember the name of the cab company?”

““Fraid not. It gets pretty busy here at that time of the morning, and there must be more than a dozen cab companies in this town. You could try D.C. Taxi service, though. They’re the biggest.”

“I will.” Jill handed him her card. “In the meantime, keep the photograph. if you find out whose cab my father took and where he went, there’s another fifty in it for you. And the same for the cabdriver who supplies the information.”

“Mighty generous of you, miss. I’ll certainly do my best.” He tucked the card and the photograph in his pocket and touched his hat again before turning to greet another group of travelers.

Re-entering the terminal, Jill went to the nearest public phone, opened the phone book that lay on a narrow shelf and flipped through it, stopping at the taxi section. Tyrone had not exaggerated. The listings for the Washington, Virginia and Maryland area occupied four pages. Ignoring the quick pang of guilt, she neatly ripped out each one of them, shoved them into her purse and went out to call a cab.

At first, the dispatcher at D.C. Taxi Service, a woman by the name of Delilah, was reluctant to talk to her. Cab companies, she stated, especially in this town, didn’t like to get embroiled in intrigue. Aware that she wouldn’t get anywhere with lies, Jill opted to tell her as much of the truth as she possibly could, explaining that her father had died and she was trying to locate a relative Simon had visited during his Washington trip on October 3.

Producing another photo of her father’s, and another fifty-dollar bill, she asked Delilah if she would please circulate the picture among her drivers. As she talked, Jill slid the fifty across the woman’s desk. This time, the bill was snapped up by chubby, bejeweled fingers and quickly disappeared.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Delilah said as a call to dispatch a cab to the Mayflower Hotel came through.

Jill repeated the process with two other cab companies. She would have squeezed in a third, but was out of time and had to get back to the airport.

Her plane was already boarding when she reached her gate.

There was only one private investigator in New York City Dan trusted implicitly and that was Al Metzer, the same man he would have recommended to Jill, had he been sure she would have hired him.

A former marine surveillance expert in Vietnam, Al had opened his downtown agency in the late seventies and made a name for himself by handling a variety of cases ranging from arson to missing persons and a little bit of everything in between. The firm now employed fifteen operatives and was one of the most reliable and trusted detective agencies on the East Coast.

The two men had met during Dan’s first year as a homicide detective and, in spite of their occasional opposing views regarding some of the cases they were working on, Dan had a great deal of respect for the older man.

Average in every way, Al was the perfect PI.” as much at ease in a suit and tie as he was in a pair of chinos and a baseball hat. He could change appearance in the blink of an eye and be forgotten just as quickly, which suited him just fine.

He had made only one transformation in recent years-a discreet brown toupee to cover his balding head, which he claimed made him too memorable.

His office was, as always, a mess. Photos of army buddies shared wall space with various Manhattan landscapes, a small glass cabinet was crammed with bowling trophies and his desk bulged with case files. More files were stacked on the floor against one wall.

“What you need,” Dan commented as he looked around him, “is a bigger office-something the size of Shea Stadium maybe?”

Al dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand. “That would only encourage me to accumulate more junk.” He removed his briefcase from a chair so Dan could sit down. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. You came to spend the holidays with the family?”

“I wish it were that simple.”

“Ah.” Al handed him a cup of coffee Dan knew would curl his toes. He was not disappointed.

“I have a job for you, if you’re interested.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Does the name Pete Mulligan mean anything to you?”

Al took a noisy slurp. “Junior or senior?”

“Junior.”

“I know he took over his father’s company a couple of years ago.”

“what else can you tell me about him?”

“He’s not as reliable as the old man was, or as ethical. There’s also a nasty rumor that he may have ties with the Mob.”

“I want to know everything you can find out about the man, Al, including where he was on the night of December 1.”

Al noted the information on a yellow pad. “I’ll put an operative on it right away. What happened on the night of December 1?”

“That’s when Simon Bennett died. You knew him, didn’t you?”

Al nodded. “Sure, he was your ex-father-in-law. His car went off the road somewhere in the Catskill Mountains.”

“It’s possible his death wasn’t an accident, after all.”

Al’s interest perked up considerably. “And you think Mulligan did it?”

“Let’s just say it’s a possibility.” Dan told him what he knew about the relationship between the two men.

Al took a few more notes. “All right, let’s see what we can find out about Junior.”

Dan jotted down his mother’s phone number on a business card and gave it to Al. “You can reach me there. Or on my cell phone.” From his breast pocket, Dan pulled out a check. “Here’s a thousand-dollar retainer. Anything above that, bill me at my mother’s address.”

Al waved his hand. “I don’t need a retainer from you, Dan. We’ve been friends too long and you’ve done me too many favors in the past-”

Dan had expected this reaction and was prepared for it. “Take the retainer, Al, or we don’t do business.”

With a small sigh, Al took the check and put it in a drawer. “All right. I know better than to argue with a hardhead like you.”

“You’re a wise man.” Standing up, Dan threw his paper cup into the trash. “I’ve got to run. Let me know as soon as you hear something.”

At the door, he turned around. “By the way, I never got a chance to tell you before, but I like the new do.”

Crumpling a piece of paper, Al threw it at him. Laughing, Dan caught the makeshift ball in midair, threw it back at the detective and closed the door.

Eleven

After leaving Al’s office, Dan drove straight to the small hamlet of Livingston Manor in Sullivan County where he had made arrangements to meet Constable Wally Becker.

A stone’s throw from Manhattan, this rugged wilderness on the southeastern corner of New York State had become a refuge for weary New Yorkers and boasted some of the most famous trout streams in the United States. It was here, knee-deep in the Beaverkill River, that Simon had taught Dan the art of fly-fishing and made him forget, at least temporarily, that he had just lost his father.

Pushing the memories aside, Dan followed Wally’s directions to Johnston Road until he reached the bend where Simon’s Jeep had gone off the road. After getting out of the car, he walked to the edge of the cliff, where a shiny ten-foot section of the guardrail had already been replaced. Rock and charred brush where the car had burned lined the valley floor, a stark reminder of the inferno that had taken place there.

Stepping over the railing, Dan walked down a narrow path, covering the two-hundred-feet distance in a little over five minutes. Hands in his pockets, he walked around the crash site, searching for evidence he knew wouldn’t be there. Wally was much too thorough to have left anything of significance behind.

Satisfied he wouldn’t find anything, Dan made the climb back. Twenty minutes later, he was being shown into Wally’s town-hall office.

“Here you are,” Wally said as he came around his desk to greet him. “I was beginning to wonder if one of our mountain bears had come out of hibernation and gobbled you up.”

Laughing, Dan took the offered hand and shook it. “The only mountain bear I have to watch for is right here, in a fancy uniform.” He clasped Wally’s thick arm. “You’re looking good, my friend.”

“It’s all that fresh mountain air.” Wally pushed his chest out and tapped it a few times as if to prove the fullness of his lungs. “There’s no better antidote for old age. You ought to try it some time.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I reach old age.”

“Don’t be so cocky, boy, you’ll get there soon enough.”

After a few seconds of silence, Wally smoothed down his thick mustache, a habit he had when he was about to discuss something unpleasant. “You stopped at the crash site?”

Dan nodded. “There wasn’t much to see.”

“I told you.” Wally walked back to his desk and opened a drawer. “I have some photographs that were taken the night of the accident and the morning after when we hauled up the car. I didn’t show them to the family but you’re welcome to take a look at them.”

Wally handed Dan a stack of eight-by-ten glossies. “I warn you, though. It’s pretty gruesome stuff.”

Dan looked at the photographs, twelve in all, and understood why Wally hadn’t showed them to Simon’s family. The Jeep’s windows were blown out from the explosion, the leather seats in shreds, the metal frame black and twisted. The driver’s door, torn from its hinges, lay on the ground several feet from the Jeep. Simon’s body, such as it was, sat in the front seat, a charred mass Dan wouldn’t have recognized as human.

It was a while until Dan could talk again. “who reported the accident?”

“Old Newt Brentworth. A stray cat got into his hardware store, tripping the burglar alarm, and Newt had to drive to town to check it out. He was on his way back home when he saw the flames. The state police got there first and then they called me. Even with the heavy rain, the car was still burning when the fire department arrived.”

“why such a big fire? The gas tanks in those Jeeps are rather small, aren’t they?”

“That’s right, but Simon had an auxiliary tank installed a year or so ago. I told him that was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen. A week earlier he had run out of gas in the middle of nowhere and had to walk five miles before he found a gas station. He swore that would never happen again.”

Dan put the last photograph down. “where’s the Jeep now?”

“At Marcus’s junkyard on Route 28. Amanda told him to sell it for scrap. I’ve checked it out pretty thoroughly, but if you want to take a look at it, I’ll be glad to take you there.”

“I’d appreciate that.” Then, because he wanted to make sure he wasn’t stepping on any toes or hurting

Wally’s feelings, he added, “You don’t mind my butting in, do you?”

“Hell, no. And you’re not butting in. As I told you earlier, I closed the case. To tell you the truth, I’m glad you’re here. Your ex-wife is one stubborn young woman and I was beginning to worry about her.” He put the photographs back in the drawer. “So if there’s anything I can do to make your job easier, just holler, okay?”

“Thanks, Wally.”

Wally watched Dan for a while. “Are you doing this just to make Jill happy? Or do you honestly believe Simon was murdered?”

“It’s too early to tell yet, but I must admit there are enough discrepancies in this case to pique my curiosity.” Dan pushed his chair back and stood up. “So if it’s all right with you, I’d like to take a look at the summer house.”

“Sure. As a matter of fact, Amanda called to say you’d probably want to do that.” He rummaged through another drawer. “I have Joshua’s keys here somewhere.”

“who’s Joshua?”

“Oh, that’s right, you’ve never met him. He’s the caretaker at the Bennetts’ house. He does a little bit of everything, picks up the mail, keeps an eye on the house when it’s empty, shovels the driveway, that sort of thing.”

“Does he live on the property?”

Wally nodded. “In a small log cabin a couple of hundred feet from the main house.”

“Is he there now?”

“Nope. He’s spending a few days with an old aunt.

He should be back at the end of the week. I already questioned him, though. He was home that night but didn’t see or hear anything.”

“I’d still like to talk to him.”

“I’ll let you know when he gets back. Ah, here they are.” He held up a set of keys. “why don’t we go to the junkyard first? Marcus goes to lunch promptly at noon and, depending on how many Buds he’s had with his burger, he won’t reopen until he sobers up.” He chuckled. “That could be three days from now.”

From a nail on the wall, Wally unhooked a heavily lined jacket the same dark blue shade as his pants and slipped it on. “Let’s go.”

As Dan had expected, the burned hulk of Simon’s Jeep held no evidence of tampering. After thanking Marcus, who, judging from the way he kept looking at his watch, was getting thirsty, Dan and Wally got back in the Land Rover and headed toward the Bennetts’ house, which stood at the top of Johnston Road.

The three-story structure was a contemporary masterpiece. Built on a sloped, heavily wooded two-hundred-acre lot and made entirely of cedar and glass, it afforded a spectacular view from each of the four exposures.