The history of Roanoke, Virginia is forever linked with the railroad industry. The Norfolk and Western line not only made Roanoke a major transportation hub, but it also produced the finest steam locomotives in the world. Jobs and commerce roared through the city like a freight train thundering through the Shenandoah Valley. Soot and cinders weren’t dirt, they were signatures of prosperity.
Until the coming of the diesels—cleaner, quieter, and made elsewhere. Over two thousand workers were laid off, and as the railroad industry abandoned the power of steam, it also abandoned Roanoke. When Norfolk and Western merged with Southern Railways to form Norfolk Southern, the headquarters of the new company was established in Norfolk, Virginia. Roanoke remained an important hub, but the clout of manufacturing and leadership had evaporated like steam from a leaky boiler.
Some remnants of the golden age survived as part of Virginia’s Transportation Museum. But other warehouses and industrial buildings fell into disrepair.
Craig Archer was a little surprised that Treasury Agent Nathaniel Brown suggested they meet behind one of the railroad ruins. The old Virginia Railway passenger station near the South Jefferson Street Bridge had been abandoned for years. A fire had done extensive damage, and although it stood beside active rail lines, a chain-link fence had been erected around it while funds were sought for preservation and renovation.
Archer pulled his Cadillac Escalade to the back corner of the depot lot close to one of the bridge abutments. Overhead, headlights cut through the gathering dusk as cars moved in a steady stream. Archer killed the engine and rolled down the windows. Usually the mountain air cooled quickly after sunset, but the June day had been a scorcher and heat radiated from the ground.
He thought about getting out and stretching his legs. Surely a breeze blew across the rail yard.
A pair of headlights rounded the corner of the dilapidated depot. The vehicle pulled close behind, wedging Archer’s Cadillac against the bridge’s footing. High beams flicked on, lighting up the interior and bouncing off the rearview mirror into Archer’s face. What a hotdog, Archer thought. Just like in the movies.
Archer opened his door.
“Stay in the car,” a voice shouted. “Put your hands on the steering wheel.”
Archer obeyed. He heard footsteps approach his window. He turned his head toward the sound. “Agent Brown?”
A man stepped alongside Archer’s SUV. The high beams lit the right side of a swarthy face. The light glinted off coal black eyes. “Craig Archer?”
The words were tainted with a foreign accent. Maybe Middle Eastern, Archer thought. “Yes. Can I see some identification?”
The man reached his right hand inside his dark jacket and held it there. “Can I see the documents?”
“Okay.” Archer turned to the manila envelope on the passenger seat where he’d stuffed his handwritten account of the meeting with Russell Mullins.
The suppressor muffled the pistol shot, reducing the sound to little more than a loud cough. The muzzle velocity of the bullet was also reduced, but still fast enough to smash through the skull behind Archer’s ear and exit through his right temple.
The seatbelt and shoulder restraint kept his body dangling over the console. Blood and brains speckled the surface of the envelope on the passenger’s seat.
The assassin walked around the front of the Cadillac and reached through the open window of the passenger’s door. He grabbed the envelope by a clean corner and held it away from his expensive suit.
The open window had provided an escape route for the bullet and made its recovery unlikely. Too bad. But the blood on the envelope would be even better.
A freight train approached on an adjacent track. By the time it passed, the assassin and Craig Archer’s handwritten report were gone.
***
Sidney Levine waited for Rusty Mullins in the parking lot of Shirlington House till nine when he resigned himself to the fact that Mullins had given him the slip and gone elsewhere.
He kicked himself for not getting Mullins’ cell number. The landline to the apartment was the only number listed and it was useless when Mullins was out of town. Detective Sullivan probably had Mullins’ cell number, but Sidney knew he’d have to give Sullivan a reason for needing it. The cagey detective would want information in exchange.
Sidney decided to leave a message on Mullins’ home voicemail. “I know about Walter Thomson. Call me.” He closed with his cell number, feeling certain the name would force Mullins to get in touch.
When he got back to Georgetown, he logged onto his Internet account and Googled “Craig Archer Laurel Bank.”
The first reference was less than an hour old and linked to
The Roanoke Times.
He clicked it, expecting a quote from Archer on the morning bomb scare.
The newspaper headline stunned him.
“Bank President Murdered!”
A chill swept through him. Russell Mullins had met Craig Archer using a phony name. Craig Archer was now dead. And Sidney had left Mullins a message proving he knew where Mullins had been and the name he used. If Mullins was a murderer, Sidney Levine had just made the biggest mistake of his life.
Rusty Mullins felt his phone vibrate against his side. He looked at the clock on the dashboard. Nine-fifteen. Another forty-five minutes would get him to Daytona Beach. After twelve hours on the road, with only brief stops for lunch and dinner, he’d find a motel on I-95 and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow he’d drive another four hours and face the task of tracking down Fred Mack.
The phone kept vibrating. Not an email or text message. Someone wanted him, and Mullins didn’t want to be found. His daughter Kayli was the only call he’d accept, but he’d already spoken to her once that afternoon and let her, and only her, know where he was headed.
The ID showed an unfamiliar number with a 540 area code. Roanoke, if he remembered correctly. Craig Archer was the one person he knew there who had his cell number. Calling this late indicated he had important information.
“Hello.” Mullins never answered with his name, an old habit from his undercover days.
“Is this Walter Thomson?” The man’s voice was clipped and authoritative.
“Sorry. You have the wrong number.”
Before he could snap the phone shut, the man said, “Russell Mullins?”
Without hesitating, Mullins broke the connection. The voice wasn’t Archer’s. A wrong number from Roanoke was odd enough. 540 and his Arlington area code of 703 would be hard to mix up, but using a wrong name followed by his name sent alarm bells ringing. When he reached a Daytona motel, he’d do a reverse look-up for the incoming number.
His phone vibrated again. A text message. “Call me. URGENT. AC.”
Amanda Church. Mullins knew a trained agent who so carefully orchestrated their clandestine meeting at the bookstore wouldn’t text his cell for a chat. He called the incoming number.
“What?” was all he said.
“I set up a Google alert on our friend. Ten minutes ago his name appeared in an online news update from Roanoke. He was found shot to death in his car by an abandoned railroad depot. No suspects.”
“Suicide?”
“I’ve checked other wire services and that possibility’s not mentioned. No weapon was found at the scene.”
Mullins felt the ground shift under him. Archer murdered. A man who genuinely seemed in the dark regarding the dubious financial transactions that ran through his bank. Had Mullins failed to uncover key information during the interview, or was the Fred Mack file on the seat beside him worth a man’s life?
And the reporter, Sidney Levine. He’d seen Mullins enter the bank. Could he have silenced Archer?
“Hey, are you there?” Amanda shouted through the phone.
“Yeah. Just surprised. Listen, I’m pulling into my parking lot. Let me check a few sources. Call you tomorrow.”
“Right.” She hung up.
They’d used no names. Mullins hoped the lie about his location would delay any eavesdropper from tracing the cell tower relays and pinpointing him fifty miles north of Daytona Beach.
He took the next exit, pulled into an Exxon station, and paid cash to fill the Prius. He had six hundred dollars left from the eight-hundred total he withdrew from two ATMs the previous day. He’d used no credit cards. The remaining wad of twenties would have to last till he returned to Arlington.
He extracted the battery from his BlackBerry, placed it in the glove box, and tucked the disabled phone under his seat. Not only was he losing communication, but also the BlackBerry’s GPS service. He entered the Exxon mini-mart and bought a Snickers and a detailed map of South Florida.
An hour later, Mullins checked into a Holiday Inn Express at I-95 and Daytona’s Speedway Blvd.
As the young man behind the registration desk programmed the keycard, Mullins asked, “Is there a business center where I can check my email?”
“Yes, sir.” The uniformed night man slid the card into an envelope. “Your room is 211. The business center is on this floor beyond the elevators.” He pointed down the adjacent hall. “It’s open twenty-four-seven and we have three terminals and a shared printer. You should have no trouble getting an open computer at this hour.”
Mullins thanked him, picked up his overnight bag, and headed for the business center.
He had the room to himself. He logged on as a guest and navigated to White Pages, Reverse Lookup. He typed in the Roanoke call from memory. After a few seconds search, “No number available” appeared on the screen. But there was a list of sponsors claiming to have the information for a fee. So much for the free lookup.
Maybe the number wasn’t a private residence. He tried searching for a business. Same result. No free info, but a host of links promising to provide information for fees ranging from one dollar to ten dollars. Under the circumstances, Mullins wasn’t about to use his credit card on an Internet site.
To hell with this, he thought. There was only one number he was worried about. He might as well check it directly. He typed in the information for a Google search.
The number appeared under the name Mullins had feared.
The Roanoke Police Department.
They had his cell number, they had his name, and they had a bomb threat and a murder occurring on the same day he came to town. They would find him a person of interest until he could be ruled out. And they would do their own reverse look up and confirm the number of the phone he answered belonged to a Russell Mullins.
But who was Walter Thomson and why did the caller think he was reaching him?
Mullins logged out and cleared the browser’s history.
So much for a good night’s sleep.
***
Sidney Levine cruised slowly through the parking lot of Shirlington House. Mullins hadn’t returned and it was nearly one in the morning. If he’d killed Archer and driven back to Arlington, he’d be here by now.
Sidney returned to his apartment in Georgetown where he sat in an easy chair in the dark, avoiding the temptation to turn on his computer. The speculations of his Internet followers were noisy prattle, the musings of paranoid loners who found virtual companionship by inventing conspiracies for their own entertainment.
Sidney didn’t need to invent anything. Something sinister had occurred right in front of him. He wondered why Mullins was interested in the president of a small bank, and why he would set up an appointment under a false name. Maybe he’d tried to protect the banker. Mullins was close to Luguire and his visit to Archer might have alarmed someone. If so, the plan failed. And Sidney recognized another possibility why Mullins wasn’t home. He could also be dead.
If that were true, or if Mullins didn’t surface soon, Sidney had no other recourse in his pursuit of the truth about Paul Luguire’s death than to contact the one person officially assigned to the case—Detective Robert Sullivan. But telling Sullivan about Mullins’ link to Archer might blow any game Mullins was playing. If Mullins was alive to play any game at all.
With that thought echoing in his mind, Sidney finally fell asleep.
Kayli Woodson set the bowl of dry Cheerios on the floor in front of Josh and turned on The Cartoon Channel.
“The terrible twos,” she said to herself. Truer words had never been spoken. Josh totally destroyed the banana she’d given him at the breakfast table, choosing to mash it between his fingers rather than eat it. Then he’d knocked over his cup of orange juice.
She was in no mood to battle her son. He could go hungry, eat the cereal, or pulverize it into dust. She didn’t care. The vacuum cleaner could handle the mess better than she could handle his toddler attitude.
Kayli returned to the kitchen and checked her cellphone again. No missed calls, no text message. It was nearly nine and she hadn’t heard from her father. Normally, when she first checked her phone there was “Good Morning Glory” on the screen or a short hello on voicemail for Josh.
She dialed Mullins’ number. She heard no ring and her father’s voice answered immediately. “Can’t get your call. Leave a message.” His phone wasn’t silenced, it was off.
She cleared the dishes from the table, unable to relax. She understood her father well enough to know Luguire’s death had set him off on a personal crusade. But she sensed there was more to it. Something else had gotten under his skin. The sudden trip to Florida and his vague explanation of falsified bank transactions indicated he pursued more than a simple investigation.
And he was out there on his own, without backup or Treasury Department resources.
Kayli wanted to share her concern with someone, even though her father had stressed keeping his movements a secret. She logged onto her Internet account and sent an email to her husband somewhere in the Indian Ocean. She didn’t want to wait till the evening. “Call when you can. Need to talk.”
She kept the phone close by as first she dressed and then changed Josh out of his pajamas. They were going to the park with Sandy and Luke. If Allen called, she could slip away while Sandy watched the two boys.
Sandy would understand.
***
Mullins drove slowly past the house near the end of Palm Crescent Drive. The roof line matched what he’d observed on the Google Earth satellite photo, but the sign in the yard at 4908 didn’t say For Sale or promote some political candidate’s primary campaign. It read Foreclosure and gave the phone number of Goldlight Bank. Mullins wondered if there was a connection between Goldlight Bank and Laurel Bank.
The yard appeared well maintained but not overly landscaped. The pale yellow stucco exterior so common in Florida neighborhoods showed little wear. Mullins circled around the cul-de-sac and then pulled the Prius into the empty driveway. He parked in front of the double-wide garage door. The solid sheet of white metal closed off any view of vehicles inside.
He stepped out into the tropical heat and breathed cautiously. The humidity nearly choked him. He looked up and down the street. Everyone must either have been inside a protective cocoon of air conditioning or gone to work or to the nearby Sawgrass Mills Mall. He walked to the front door on a sun-bleached sidewalk bordered by white crushed stone. Drawn blinds covered the window for the living room or great room or whatever the hell real estate marketers now called the large front room of a home.
Mullins peered through the slats and made out the shapes of furniture in the shadowed interior. The house wasn’t empty.
He rang the bell. A minute later he rang it again.
“No one’s home.” A woman stood in the yard on the other side of the driveway. She held a burning cigarette in one hand and a cane in the other. “You a bill collector?” Her voice had the tender tone of gravel sliding across a sheet of tin.
Mullins wasn’t sure whether the old watchdog was a friend or foe to her neighbors. “Oh, no. I’m with an organization that tries to help people out of financial predicaments.”
The woman took a drag on her cigarette and shook her head. “I’m afraid you’re a little late for the Khoury family. I think they’ve skipped town.”
Mullins pulled a folded photocopy of Fred Mack’s driver’s license from his pocket. He walked toward the woman. “Let me make sure I was sent to the right place. Is this Mr. Khoury?” He held the picture in front of her, keeping his thumb over the name Fred Mack.
“Yes, that’s Fares. His wife is Zaina and they have a little girl named Jamila.”
“The house still has furniture.”
“I know. First week they were gone I went over every day and rang the bell. Since my Mort died, I spend most of my time playing red and black and staring out the front window. I never saw them leave.”
“Red and black?”
“Solitaire. Mort and I played gin rummy at the table.” She sighed. “Sometimes I look up from those cards and expect to see him sitting across from me. Keeps me from cheating.”
Mullins stuck the photo back in his pocket. “How long have they been gone?”
“Three weeks. Maybe a little longer. They didn’t even say goodbye.”
“What was Mr. Khoury’s job?”
She took another puff and a long chunk of ash dropped to the ground. She eyed him suspiciously. “You don’t know?”
“That’s why I’m here. To fill in the details and see if he’s eligible for government aid.”
“Fares worked as a landscape designer. He didn’t have his own company or anything like that. I don’t think he was a licensed landscape architect or whatever they call the top guy. He got laid off when the economy crashed and nobody was building new neighborhoods. That happened at the same time their mortgage payment ballooned.”
“He told you this? You must have been pretty close.”
“Zaina would invite me over for coffee, especially after I lost Mort. One afternoon she just started sobbing. Like to break my heart.”
“They were losing the house?”
“She said they tried to work out something with the bank. Renegotiate. But nobody would help. That’s the way it is, I guess. You’re in the red or you’re in the black. Money trumps everything.”
“And they all left together?”
She shook her head. “Fares was gone first. Zaina said he was preparing an appeal that took him out of town. One last chance. Then a couple days later, she and the little girl were gone. I guess it didn’t work. But they never said goodbye. Hell, I would have taken them in.” She dropped the cigarette and snubbed it out with a fuzzy slipper. “An old Jewish widow taking in a Arab family. Well, they’re people too. They have to have a place to live.”
“Was Mr. Khoury angry about what had happened?”
“He never talked to me about it. But I would be, wouldn’t you? Get into a house with a low interest loan and promises of roll-over financing only to have the rug pulled out from under you.” She lifted the cane and swatted some invisible enemy. “I’d be mad as hell.”
“Any idea where they’ve gone?”
“No. Just up and left.”
“And they were Arabs?”
“Lebanese. Not the crazies. I thought they might be Christian since I know a lot of Lebanon is Christian, but they were Muslim. And they were nice. Fares would pick up Mort’s heart medicine when he went for his insulin.”
Mullins’ ears perked up. “Was Mr. Khoury diabetic?”
“Yeah. The bad kind. He had to take the shots. And he always carried orange juice or a candy bar with him.” She looked at the Foreclosure sign. “I wonder how he’s paying for his medicine. It’s a shame, I tell you. Greedy bastards on Wall Street making millions while the family next door is destroyed.”
Mullins nodded sympathetically. “I know. Makes you want to take things into your own hands.”
“It does. Enough people lose their homes and this country will be in the middle of a revolution. Look at that Occupy Wall Street.”
Mullins stuck out his hand. “I’m Harry Lockaby. Sorry to start talking without introducing myself.”
The woman wrapped her nicotine-stained fingers lightly around his palm. “Judy Bernstein. If you talk to them, tell them I asked about them. And I’m watching the house.”
“I will, Mrs. Bernstein. Can you tell me the name of the pharmacy where Mr. Khoury picked up your husband’s medicine?”
Her eyes brightened. “That’s smart. Fares may still come in for his insulin.”
“Good thinking. I bet you’re a hell of a card player.”
The old woman beamed. “Got time for a hand of gin rummy? Penny a point.”
“Maybe some other time when I’ve got more money. I have a feeling you’ll clean me out.”
“You do that. There’s always an open chair at the table,” she said wistfully. Then she added, “The CVS near Sawgrass Mills.”
Mullins followed Judy Bernstein’s directions to the pharmacy a few miles away. He stood in the pick-up line and waited his turn. Fortunately, the store marked a respectable distance between the customer being served and the next patron to insure some degree of medical privacy. A pharmacist wearing the name tag Harvey motioned him forward.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m getting the prescription for Fares Khoury.”
Harvey looked surprised. “Mr. Khoury’s back? No one phoned in an order.”
“His insulin, right?”
“Yes. But we transferred the account to Staunton, Virginia.”
Mullins scratched his head. “Gosh, I don’t know what to say. I spoke to Fares last week and he expected to be home from his assignment tonight. I was going to drop it by the house.”
“I’ll check. Maybe we missed a fax.” He entered data on a keyboard.
Mullins racked his brain for any knowledge about Staunton. “Was it the pharmacy near Mary Baldwin College?”
“I don’t know Staunton that well, but this was the one on West Beverly.” Harvey turned from the screen. “I don’t have any record of a request.”
“Well, I guess I misunderstood. I’ll see if I can reach Fares and get it straightened out.”
“That would be best,” Harvey agreed. “Either Mr. Khoury or his doctor will need to authorize any change.”
Mullins stood by his Prius in the parking lot. The sun beat down like a fiery torch. Eleven o’clock. He’d been in Sunrise less than an hour and faced another day in the car. Staunton was even farther than Roanoke. Well, he’d drive as far as he could, grab a few hours sleep at a motel, and be at the CVS on West Beverly when it opened.
Fares Khoury or Fred Mack or whatever name he now used had left a trail of insulin that Mullins wasn’t about to lose.