Murder Suicide (16 page)

"I send a letter every month, tell them what I’m up to," he said.  "I tell them I forgive them.  Twenty-one letters so far.  Almost two years."

"Have they ever written back?"

"Not yet.  But the letters don’t get returned.  They’re getting through."

"I guess that’s something."

"It is to me."  He pulled over in front of the Reagan Building, a massive granite complex of three million square feet on eleven acres.  "Thirteen-hundred Penn."  He turned around.  "Call it twenty bucks.  Thanks for listening to my bullshit."

Clevenger handed him a hundred.  "Maybe you can help me with something," he said.

"You know I’m gonna try."

"A man named Collin Coroway took a Capitol limo from the Hyatt over here.  Any way to find out whether he’s still in the building?"

"You some kind of detective?" the driver asked, checking Clevenger out more closely.  "You listened real good — like you knew where I was going before I got there."

"I’m a psychiatrist," Clevenger said.

"Good one."  His broad smile said he wasn’t buying that for a second.  "None of my business.  Forget I asked."  He picked up his cell phone, dialed.  A woman answered.  "Katie, Al here," he said.  "Collin Coroway, the Hyatt to Thirteen-hundred Penn.  Any return?"  He listened.  "Take your time.  I’ll hold."

Half a minute passed before Katie was back on the line.  She rattled off a phone number.

The driver grabbed a pen, jotted it down.  "I owe you," he told her.  He clicked off, then dialed a number.  When someone answered, he hung up.  He turned back to Clevenger.  "He’s still here.  And our contact number for any problems with his return trip goes through to a secretary for something called InterState Commerce."

"That all went pretty smoothly."

"My gift to you," he said, with a wink.  "One gumshoe to another."

"You’re a private detective?"

"Licensed in Cali.  Gotta make a living though, right?"

"Right."

"Take care, my friend."  He handed Clevenger his business card.

Clevenger read the name — Al French.  "You take care, too, Al."

He got out of the car, walked into the Reagan Building and found InterState Commerce on the directory in the lobby.  Tenth floor.  The penthouse.  He took the elevator up.

InterState was one of just two suites on the floor.  Each of them had to run fifteen, twenty thousand square feet.  Clevenger walked to the InterState entrance, a set of massive, frosted glass doors with a five-foot letter
I
etched on one door and a matching
S
on the other.  He rang the buzzer.

"May I help you?" a woman asked.

"I’m here for Collin Coroway."

The door clicked.  Clevenger pulled it open, walked inside.

The reception area was ultramodern, with stainless steel walls and giant flat-screen monitors hanging on massive concrete columns.  CNN Headline News was playing on one.  The other showed a map of the world, with a hundred or so cobalt blue spheres, each imprinted with
IS
, glowing like a storm of Ping-Pong balls over all six continents.  Between the monitors, a beautiful black woman wearing a headset sat behind a cobalt blue glass desk, faking a smile.

Clevenger walked up to her.  I’m Frank Clevenger," he said.

"I don’t believe Mr. Coroway called for a car yet."

Mistaken for a brain surgery patient by one receptionist, for a driver by another.  "I’m not from the car service.  Could you let him know I’m here to see him?"

"Will he know you?"

"I’m working with the police on the death of his partner, John Snow."

No reaction.  "He’s expecting you, then?"

"He’ll want to see me."

An even more synthetic smile.  "Wait here, please."  She disappeared behind a corrugated, translucent blue plastic wall that set the lobby off from the rest of the suite.

Clevenger spotted a stack of brochures for InterState on her desk.  He picked one up.  The cover was a collage of photos — a fighter jet, an oil tanker, a nuclear power plant, a camouflaged soldier talking into a walkie talkie.  He opened to the first page, read the company’s mission statement:

InterState is dedicated to forging responsible partnerships between corporations and government agencies, across a broad range of industries, including construction, transportation, pharmaceuticals, and public utilities.

And military hardware, Clevenger thought to himself.  He flipped through page after page of testimonials from CEOs of major corporations superimposed on inspirational photos of waves, sunsets, lightning.  Beside each photo was a case study of InterState’s role in marrying a particular need of the government to a particular product.  Getty oil refueling the U.S. Navy.  Merck’s antibiotics healing the good and vanquished people of Iraq.  Viacom satellites transmitting the Voice of America.

"He’ll see you now," the receptionist said, stepping out from behind the plastic wall.

Clevenger followed her down a long, wide corridor with glass-front offices along one side and dozens of framed photographs of world leaders lining the other.  In each photo, a politician or military officer was shaking hands with a tall man with a shaven head, always wearing the same black suit.  He looked about seventy, but remarkably fit.  And he looked familiar.  "Your CEO?" Clevenger asked, pointing at the man as they passed one of the photos.

"Yes, that’s Mr. Fitzpatrick," she said.

That helped Clevenger place him.  Byron Fitzpatrick had been secretary of state during the last term of Gerald Ford’s presidency.  He’d obviously brokered his connections in a big way.

Clevenger’s cell phone rang.  He looked at the display.  North Anderson.  He answered it.  "I’m about to go into a meeting with Collin Coroway," he said quietly.

"Drove himself to the airport," Anderson said.  "No blood stains on the car, so far as I can tell, but the grill is smashed in."

"The conference room is right around the corner," the receptionist said, clearly put off by Clevenger taking a call.

"I’ve got ten seconds," Clevenger told Anderson.

"Coady checked for accident reports.  Coroway blew through a red light and hit a Boston Globe delivery truck yesterday.  Guess when and where."

"Three seconds."

"Storrow Drive, fifty yards from Mass General.  4:47
A.M.
"

"Puts him at the scene."

"Here we are," the receptionist said, stopping in front of another set of frosted glass doors.

"Watch your back," Anderson said.

"Will do," Clevenger said.  He hung up.

She pushed open one of the doors, held it for Clevenger.  "Mr. Coroway, Frank Clevenger."

Coroway stood up from his seat at the far end of a long, black conference table.  He was an elegant-looking man, about fifty-five, around six feet tall, with neatly styled silver hair, broad shoulders and a slim waist.  He wore a charcoal gray, pinstriped suit, white shirt with French cuffs, club tie.  "Please come in," he said.

Clevenger walked in.

"Thank you, Angela," Coroway said, his voice as smooth as the silk of his tie.

The receptionist left.

Coroway walked up to Clevenger, extended his hand.  "Collin Coroway."

Clevenger shook his hand, noticing the confidence in his grip and the fact that he wore a large, gold academic ring with a sapphire center, the sides engraved
Annapolis, 70
.  The Naval Academy.  "Frank Clevenger.

"Your reputation precedes you.  I’m glad you’re here.  The team looks a hell of a lot stronger with you on it."

Coroway was acting as though he’d summoned Clevenger to D.C.   He didn’t seem even a little shaken.  "What team is that?" Clevenger asked him.

Coroway pursed his lips, nodded to himself.  "I know John’s death is being investigated by Detective Coady.  Senator Blaine’s office was kind enough to look into that for me.  No doubt he’s a very competent man.  But he does have quite a few open cases."

"This one’s a priority," Clevenger said.

"Let’s hope that’s true."  He motioned toward the conference table, surrounded by black leather swivel chairs.  "Please."  He walked back to his seat.

Clevenger took a seat halfway between Coroway and the door.  "Thank you for seeing me on no notice," he said.

"Not at all.  I let John Zack in the Senator’s office know where to find me.  I was surprised I hadn’t heard from someone sooner.  That’s one of the reasons I have my doubts about Detective Coady.  I should be pretty high on any list of suspects."  He leaned forward, exposing gold cuff links shaped like fighter jets.  "I don’t mean to be glib, or overly critical.  But John was more than a business partner to me.  He was like a brother."

"Tell me about him."

"The most creative, intelligent, decent man I have ever known or expect to know.  He was my best friend."

So why wasn’t Coroway visibly shaken by his death?  Why hadn’t he returned to Boston?  "Was he a very complicated person?" Clevenger asked.

"Quite the opposite.  He was simple.  He loved to invent.  He loved being able to imagine something and see it come to fruition."

"But not everything he imagined," Clevenger said.

Coroway settled back in his seat.  "You visited with John’s wife."

"I did."

"She told you about Vortek."

"She told me you and John disagreed on whether to market it or bury it."

"And now I have carte blanche — with John’s death.  I can just put Vortek into production, call Merrill Lynch and announce a public offering of Snow-Coroway stock."

"That’s her understanding."

Coroway was silent several seconds.  "Would you like to know why I’m here in D.C.?" he finally asked.

Part of Clevenger wanted to say it seemed like as good a place as any to wait for powder burns to disappear from his hands, but he held back.  "Sure," he said, and left it at that.

"InterState funded a significant portion of the research and development cost on Vortek.  I just returned about half of the twenty-five million they invested in us."

"Why?" Clevenger asked.

"Because we can’t deliver.  I don’t believe what John imagined can ever be achieved.  Vortek was an overblown fantasy."

"He never finalized a design?"

"We tested two prototypes.  Both failed miserably."

"His wife told me his work was complete.  He just wouldn’t let go of the underlying intellectual property."

Coroway smiled, nodded to himself.  "Saint John, defender of the downtrodden enemy of all weapons of mass destruction."  He sat back in his seat.  "Does Theresa really have three cruisers in front of the house?"

"I’m sure you already know."

"She really believes there was nothing he couldn’t conquer with that big brain of his.  I half-believed it, too.  Until the last six months."

"Because he couldn’t deliver Vortek."

"Because he couldn’t come close.  Not with twenty-five million in funding.  Believe me, there isn’t any public offering in the wings."

"Why would Theresa lie?"

"I think she sincerely believes what John was telling her.  He had conquered radar, created a ghost of a missile, capable of flying right through the enemy’s defenses.  He was just too kind-hearted to let his invention see the light of day."  He paused.  "The truth is John would have been the first in line to sell the United States government the patents on Vortek — if he had ever managed to come up with them.  That pacifist bullshit he fed his wife was his way of saving face."

"He had given up on it?" Clevenger asked him.

"No.  That would have meant he wasn’t all-powerful.  It would have meant his mind couldn’t change the laws of physics."  He paused.  "Instead, he blamed his brain."

"Meaning?"

"Every time he felt he was close to a breakthrough on Vortek, he’d have another seizure.  I think that’s why he started this odyssey to the O.R. with Jet Heller.  He believed the surgery would unlock brain power he couldn’t access because of his epilepsy."

"What do you think?"

"Honestly?  I think it would have been easier to get rid of Grace Baxter.  He was distracted by her."

"John told you about her."

"We didn’t keep secrets from one another."

It sounded like Snow hadn’t kept Grace Baxter a secret at all.  Heller knew.  Coroway knew.  Her portrait was hanging in his house.  "I’m investigating her death, as well," Clevenger said.

"I know that."

No surprise.  Coroway seemed to know everything about the investigation.  "Any thoughts?"

"I think she couldn’t live without him."

"You think she took her own life."

"Unless there’s hard and fast evidence to the contrary.  She had threatened to."

"When was that?"

"The first time John told her it was over, about a month ago.  She said she’d cut her throat."

Clevenger’s heart sank.

"And that was only the latest and greatest way she threw him off balance," Coroway said.

She said she’d cut her throat
.  The words echoed in Clevenger’s mind.  He stared at Coroway, but saw Grace Baxter in her bathroom, carpet knife in hand.

"You all right, Doctor?"

Clevenger forced himself to focus.  "How else did she ‘throw him off balance?’"

"She was in his head.  That’s the only way I can put it.  He was obsessed with her, like a goddamn fifteen-year-old."  He settled himself down.  "It was a completely new thing for John.  You have to understand, Theresa and he lived together.  They had children together.  But they were never
together, together
.  John loved his brain.  So did she.  It was a ménage à trois.  Once he fell in love with another person, everything came unglued.  He suddenly felt like a man, instead of a machine."

Which also could have threatened the bottom line at Snow-Coroway.  The company relied on Snow’s brain for its profits.  "Were you happy for him?" Clevenger asked.

"For a while, sure.  It was tremendous to watch.  Everything changed.  His mood improved.  His energy was at an all time high.  He bought himself decent clothes, for God’s sake.  He was fascinated by things he had shown absolutely no interest in before.  Art.  Music.  Even his son.  He came alive."