The Inquisitor: A Novel (31 page)

*   *   *

An hour north of the city, Hall was driving up the Saw Mill River Parkway past woods broken up by sheer gray walls of rock. The holiday traffic wasn’t bad going in this direction.

Mitch came back on the speakerphone. “Okay, I got the car’s owner. Martin Corley, MD. Lives in the building. Divorced. No kids.”

“Do a cross-ref—maybe he’s got a place north of the city. Check property, electric, and phone records. Where are you now?”

“Route Nine, coming up on the Bear Mountain State Parkway.”

“I’m near Ossining, so not far behind you.”

Looking across the parkway’s divider, Hall saw the American Dream creeping south, bumper to bumper. Cars with families on their way home from a day in the country—radios blaring, dogs with their heads out the window, bicycles on racks, sleepy children in backseats with sunburned cheeks and taffy melting in their pockets. What a country: fifty thousand miles of highway helping people find a little peace somewhere.

Hall put the cell on mute and turned on the radio. He wondered what peace would feel like to him after all this time, and thought he knew the answer. It would be a moment where he wasn’t thinking three moves ahead—better yet, a moment when there were no more moves at all.

He didn’t have to wait long for a report to come on the radio.

“This is WCBS with breaking news. We’ve got more on the building explosion at West One thirty-fourth Street in Manhattan. Rich Lamb is at the site. Rich?”

“David, the building was a two-story structure, believed to be a private residence. The fire department, NYPD, hazmat crews, and federal authorities are all here, but no one is saying very much. I can tell you this: it looks more like an
im
plosion than an
ex
plosion. The place seems to have collapsed in on itself, leaving everything around it untouched.”

“Could this have been a terrorist act, Rich?”

“Investigators will have to consider that possibility. This place could have been either a target or a bomb factory where something went wrong. And, of course, the cause of the explosion could have been something less sinister, like a gas leak. Commissioner Kelly is due to make a statement soon. Until then, we’ll—”

Hall turned off the radio and unmuted his cell. It was time to play the string out.

“Mitch?”

“Yeah?”

“I think Geiger’s place blew up.”

“
What?
With Ray in it?”

“It’s on the radio. A building on West One thirty-fourth.” He paused for effect. “Leveled. Nothing left.” Hall fashioned a sigh. “Jesus…” he said.

“Oh man,” said Mitch. “The poor fucker.” He let out a sigh that matched Hall’s. They were kindred spirits, each critiquing their own performance while studying the other’s.

Hall counted off an appropriate pause, then held on to his somber tone. “Anything new on Corley?”

“Just came up,” Mitch replied. “Corley owns a house in Cold Spring. Twenty-nine River Lane. Maybe fifteen minutes away.”

“Satellite it.”

“Already did. It’s outside of town, closest neighbor at least a quarter of a mile away. He’s got a dock on the river.”

“Boat?”

“On the dock. Looks like a rowboat. This is a helluva lot better than an apartment on CPW, huh?”

Hall smiled. The million monkeys were typing away, and one of them seemed to be on the verge of producing something quite extraordinary.

“Yeah,” Hall said. “It’s perfect.”

21

“Geiger…”

Geiger opened his eyes to see Harry staring at him from the driver’s seat. Otherwise the Suburban was empty.

“We’re here,” Harry said.

“Where is here?”

“Corley’s house in Cold Spring.”

Geiger opened his door, leaned out, and spat blood. “I have to get some ice.” He picked up the bag and got out of the car.

Harry met Geiger as he began walking slowly up a flagstone path. He reached out as if to help him, but Geiger shook his head.

“I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not.”

Geiger turned to face him, his eyes brimming with a hard light. “Yes, Harry, I am.”

As Geiger continued on toward the house, Harry looked around. To the west, the grounds stretched in a smooth, downward slope toward the water, untended and wild. Between the meadow and the river stood a dense line of trees; old firs and beeches, their trunks thick and knobby, spread crooked branches that cast long shadows in the fading sunlight. Ahead of Harry, the house—a two-story gray colonial—rested on the highest point of land, its eight-foot first-floor windows and wraparound porch providing a soaring view of the Hudson and the hills on its far side.

Bordered by tall, spike-topped ground lamps, the flagstone path led to the front entrance, and as Geiger and Harry neared the steps, Ezra and Lily appeared in one of the first-floor windows. Standing side by side, they were only dimly visible, the glass’s thick film of dust making phantasms of them, as if they were in the world but not of it.

From inside Geiger’s bag came the ring of his cell phone. Halfway up the steps, he stopped, took out the phone, and answered.

“Ms. Wayland?”

“I’m here—at JFK.”

“Are you using a pay phone?”

“Yes. Let me speak to my son.”

“In a minute, but first you’re going to talk to someone who will give you directions. You need to rent a car. We’re at a house in Cold Spring, New York.”

Geiger handed the phone to Harry.

“Hi,” he said, “this is Harry.” He took Corley’s directions out of his pocket. “Here’s where you’re going. Got a pen?”

Geiger reached the top step and rested for a moment. The front door opened and the boy stood before him, gazing at him with a quizzical expression.

“That’s your mother on the phone, Ezra. Go talk to her.”

Ezra was silent for a moment. “They beat you up trying to get you to tell them where I was, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t tell them.”

“No.”

“What did they do to you?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“Okay.” Ezra gave him a last look and then went down the steps.

Geiger entered the house. Beyond the foyer, a long hall ran straight to a back door; off to the right, a stairway led to the second floor. The living room, immediately to the left, had a high unfinished-wood ceiling and was dominated by a hearth of uncut stone that took up half a wall. Lily stood before it, her fingers tracing the crooked lines of fitted rock.

“It’s a great big puzzle,” she said.

Geiger moved into the room and sat down on an overstuffed couch. He had often stared at the photograph of this house in Corley’s office and wondered what its interior looked like. He leaned over, reached past the edge of an old Persian rug, and ran a fingertip across the wide-plank floor. Old pine. The wood needed oil; linseed would be best, with a touch of tung. He sank back in the cushions. He could hear Ezra outside, walking the porch with a fresh step, talking to his mother on the phone.

“No, Mom,” the boy said. “No first name. Just Geiger.”

Harry hobbled in and handed Geiger a glass full of ice cubes, then sat down beside him with a groan. He glanced at Geiger’s pants; the fabric against his thigh glistened.

“Thank you,” said Geiger, and sucked a few cubes into his mouth.

“So who worked you over?”

“Dalton.”

Harry cocked his head.
“Dalton?”

“Yes. It was his farewell performance.”

“Meaning what?”

“I broke all his fingers.”

“Jesus…”

Harry marveled at the speed with which violence had invaded their private world. Torn flesh and shattered bone were becoming commonplace.

“Harry, we need to find out if there’s a TV and DVD player here.”

“Why?”

“Just have a look around, okay?”

“Will do.”

*   *   *

Cold Spring’s Main Street slid down a hill to its end at a railed stone promenade. For decades, the owners of many of the street’s elegant two- and three-story buildings had faithfully kept the nineteenth-century architectural pedigrees of their properties intact. The colorful brick facades and wrought-iron railings that fronted the town’s galleries, bistros, and antiques stores looked almost painterly in the twilight, and the sidewalks were thick with people, all of them heading downhill toward the water for the July Fourth festivities.

Hall and Mitch sat in the Lexus, parked at the top of the hill across from the village green.

“So what’s it gonna be, boss?” Mitch said.

Hall magnified the satellite map on his laptop’s screen and put his finger to it.

“Here’s where we are, and here’s Corley’s place. Once it starts getting dark, we go north about six blocks and then turn left here, on River Lane. After about half a mile, we pull into the woods and go on foot from there. Looks like a walk of about a quarter of a mile.”

“Then?”

“We split up, here, at the tree line.”

“And?”

Hall sat back. “We go in front and back, and then see what happens.”

“Go in with the house lights on or wait till they’re off?”

The questions were all relevant, but Hall knew Mitch was doing more than asking. He was measuring response time, poking for soft spots. Hall glanced at Mitch’s flat, impassive face. Over the years more than a few people had made him for a classic ex-jock, a plain can-do guy, but Hall knew better. Mitch was as introspective as a copperhead, but he had a knack for the quick read and an uncanny memory for crucial details about everyone he had ever dealt with. In the past, that had always made him a valuable asset. Now it made him dangerous.

“Lights on,” Hall said. “No reason to walk into walls.”

“Okay.”

“There’s Harry, the kid, the sister—and Geiger.”

“A lot of people,” said Mitch.

Hall turned the laptop off. “That’s why we make the big bucks, right?”

*   *   *

Harry discovered the machines in the first-floor guest bedroom, across the hall from the living room. They sat under a sheet atop a dresser—a twenty-three-inch Samsung monitor and a JVC disc player.

“Found ’em,” he called out, pulling the sheets off the other furniture in the room. “In here.”

Geiger limped in, put the gym bag on the four-poster bed, and sat down in the wicker rocking chair beside it. He ignored the steady thudding in his carved-up leg.

“Lock the door, Harry.”

Harry did so and then pushed the power buttons on the two machines. He turned to Geiger. “Feel free to tell me what’s going on anytime you like. Just jump right in.”

“In my bag. The envelope.”

Harry reached in and pulled out the package. “This?”

“Yes. Matheson gave it to me.”

“And how the fuck did—”

“I met him this afternoon,” Geiger interrupted, “after finishing with Dalton. Questions later, Harry. Let’s just do this.”

“Okay, all right.”

From the envelope, Harry took out five jewel cases, all carrying shiny black minidiscs.

“These are what this has all been about?” He took the minidisc out of the case marked “1” and held it up. “Doesn’t look like a de Kooning, does it? CD or DVD?”

“Let’s find out.”

Harry slid the disk into the JVC’s slot, hit “play,” and took a seat on the edge of the bed.

The blackness on the screen shifted and a razor-thin silver line appeared at the bottom. The lower right corner displayed the running time and a date: “2/16/2004.”

Harry pointed. “The silver line at the bottom? That’s a digital lock. The disk can’t be copied without decoding.”

A man’s voice spoke with a thick Middle Eastern accent in a barely audible whisper. “Video twenty-seven. February sixteen, two thousand four.”

The monitor bloomed with an image of a brightly lit, windowless room, shot from a camera placed in a high corner.

“Well, it’s not a greatest hits album,” said Harry. He pointed at the screen again. “See how the edges of the feed are irregular? Hidden camera—it’s wedged in somewhere behind the walls.”

A metallic clattering came from offscreen, an uneven but rhythmic rotation of sound. Geiger leaned forward.

Two men with buzz cuts, wearing standard-issue khakis, came into view wheeling a rickety gurney to the center of the room. Lying on it, strapped to the rails at the ankles and wrists, dressed only in soiled boxers, was a tightly muscled bearded man in his thirties, swathed in a coat of sweat. His face was stamped with a rash of purple welts and blood-encrusted cuts, as were his chest and upper arms. The harsh lighting played up the dark hues of the inflicted damage.

“Jesus,” said Harry, “what is this?”

A man in a short-sleeved white shirt and khaki shorts walked into the frame and stepped up to the gurney. He stroked his manicured goatee for a few moments, then tapped the fettered man on the shoulder and spoke in flat, slightly nasal English. He was obviously American; to Harry, the accent sounded midwestern, farm belt.

“Morning, Nari,” the goateed American said. “It’s a new day, my friend.”

“Allahu akbar,”
croaked the man on the gurney.

“Yeah, I know,” said the American. “God is great, and America is the great Satan.”

“Wait a minute,” Harry said. “Nari? As in Nari
Kaneesh
? Oh man…”

Geiger rose from the chair and grasped one of the bedposts.

“Nari,” the American said. “Do you want to talk to us today?”

“This is unjust. I—I have done nothing…”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“I have told you. Each time they came to the hotel room, they knocked on the door and told me to put the blindfold on before they came in. Then—”

“I know. They drove you somewhere, you spoke with two men, and they drove you back to the hotel and told you not to remove the blindfold until they had gone.”

“Yes, this is so. I never saw any of them.”

“I know, Nari, I know. It’s just that—we’re still not sure you’re telling the truth.”

“I was acting for
good,
to make a
peace
…”