The Wrong Man: A Novel of Suspense (23 page)

She knew, of course, that instant results were way too much to hope for—she might be stuck hibernating at Baby’s for days more, and it would be a long time before she stopped looking over her shoulder—but she was now at least setting events in motion that would begin to free her from the cordoned-off disaster area her life had turned into. And if she were lucky, any damage her business sustained could be managed.

Unbidden, Kelman muscled his way into her head. Though most of her two-hour conversation with the lawyer had focused
on Kelman and the events that had unfolded because of him, she’d stayed fairly detached, as if she were discussing a character she’d only read about in a book. But now she couldn’t help but think about him. Her decision to go to the authorities was going to impact him big time. They would want to know where he was staying and she’d have no choice but to tell them.

What if he
wasn’t
involved in the insider trading activity or any other crime? What if the only thing he was guilty of was being a player and using her as a fount of information? Well, there was nothing she could do about it at this point. His lies about his romantic entanglements had made it impossible to trust him and she needed to look out for herself.

And if he
were
innocent, she would have complicated matters for him, but he should have enough evidence to defend himself with.

Later, over coffee in the kitchen, she filled Baby in on the meeting with Naylor. She seemed even more relieved than Kit.

“I got a peek at him, by the way. Now
that’s
what I call a Nordic god.”

Kit snorted. “Are you thinking that should be more my type than lying, scheming, redheaded men?”

“Just planting the seed.”

“Enough about me. How was
your
day?”

“Overall, things seem to be holding steady on the business front. Though I got a weird vibe from the Beekman Place woman I was shopping with this morning. She had a sourpuss look on her face all morning”

“You think she heard the news?”

“Possibly, though she could just have been having a bad hair day, knowing
her
. As for our hotel man, still not a peep from him. Who knows? He may be trapped in a tanning bed and unable to lift the lid off. Maybe it’s our duty to contact every Sun Tan City boutique and ask them to check.”

Kit tried to smile. She then took the moment to relate the contents of the email from Barry.

“Ouch,” Baby said. “Can you use all day tomorrow to just knock out a step-by-step plan for him?”

“Yes, but I’m stuck. I still don’t have a concept yet.”

“Maybe you’re overthinking it, trying to shoot for something totally original or cutting edge when it’s not really necessary. Go back to who he is and what he’s looking for. From what you said, he sounds like a man of fairly simple needs.”

“Right, good point. He’s a tax lawyer, and one of his buzz words for his fantasy place is masculine. Quote: ‘No teensy towels in the bathroom or candles in a bed of rocks on the coffee table.’ He wants it to be sophisticated enough to impress these new women he’s dating, but he also wants to feel relaxed there.”

She thought suddenly of Nat Naylor’s suit. “Maybe I should just go with a kind of lawyerlike vibe. Give his place a menswear feeling. I could do the sofa in a soft flannel pinstripe. Of course, it might be hard to tell where Barry ends and the sofa begins.”

Baby chuckled. “But I bet he’d love it. And the flannel keeps it easy and relaxed. Ralph Lauren makes a nice fabric for that, by the way. Navy Walker Pinstripe.”

“Or I could put plain gray flannel on the sofa and do the pillows in tie fabrics—like houndstooth or herringbone. That kind of thing has been done before, but as you say, he doesn’t need me to reinvent the wheel.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay,” Kit said grinning, “tell me if this is too over the top, but Farrow and Ball has a red paint they call Blazer, based on a Cambridge University jacket. I could do the entranceway in that color.”

“Love it!”

Kit started to rise, anxious to start fleshing out the concept,
but Baby reached out and touched her arm, indicating she should stay.

“There’s one other thing I need to mention. While your lawyer was here, I heard from Bianca, our PR guru, and she had some disconcerting news to share.”

“Is somebody doing a big story?”

“Possibly. Interest has spiked since the police announced that they’re considering Avery’s death a homicide, and Bianca thinks reporters will start digging. It could end up being covered in a place like
New York
magazine, and then we’ll be front and center.”

Kit shook her head in dismay.

“But the really troubling news is a tidbit she learned from the police. Bianca managed to cozy up to one of them—trust me, the woman’s got major-league tits and she knows how to use them—and the guy dropped hints that Avery wasn’t just pushed. The person who shoved her down the stairs finished the job, as they say.”

“
How?
” Kit asked.

“He implied that her neck had been snapped.”

Kit fought the sickening image, but it took hold in her mind anyway, two hands twisting hard around Avery’s neck. Her client had died because of her, and the person who’d done it was still out there. Please, she thought, desperately, let Monday make a difference.

She went to bed early that night and woke just before six. It was pouring out, the rain thrashing against the windows from the wind. Despite how inclement the weather was, she hated the idea of being cooped up inside all weekend.

Midday Saturday Naylor called.

“I talked to a couple of colleagues and everyone agrees that the best course is to go straight to the FBI,” he reported. “I’ll call my contact there first thing Monday.”

By Sunday she had two more calls from Kelman, one with a voice message and one without. She dreaded the thought of listening to them, but Naylor had told her to do it and she was running out of time.

She started with the very first one Kelman had left on Thursday night, after admitting to his involvement with Sasha. It was a second plea for her to give him five minutes, a promise that his explanation would put everything in perspective. Yeah, right, she thought.

The next message, she could see, was far longer. She tapped the play arrow.

“Kit, even if you refuse to call me back, I need you to understand what really happened,” he said. He claimed that he’d had a very brief fling with Sasha not long after his break-up with the Australian. They’d spent no more than three nights together, but she had become fixated on him and had begun implying to people that they were seriously dating. He thought there might be something wrong with her.

“Remember,” he added, “when I told you that I had become disenchanted at Ithaka, that it no longer seemed like the right fit for me. She was a major factor in that.”

Oh, that’s clever, Kit thought. He’s using the Alex (“I-won’t-be-ignored, Dan”) Forrest defense, from that movie,
Fatal Attraction
.

His voice sounded much different in the voicemail message he’d left today: flat and emotionless, almost cold.

“This is my last call, Kit. You won’t hear from me again. But I’ve done what I promised I would. I thought you should know.”

Did that mean he’d gone to the authorities finally? It sounded like that. But how could she be sure?

Nat Naylor texted her at nine the next morning, saying he would be speaking to his contact shortly and would circle back after that. While the phone was still in her hands, it rang again, a number she didn’t recognize.

“Ms. Finn,” the male caller said when she identified herself. “This is Special Agent Frank Taft from the FBI. How are you doing today?”

“Um, I’m fine,” she said, confused. There was no way Nat could have made the call already.

“We’ve been informed that you have information you want to share with us. I’d like to arrange for you to come in today and talk to us about it.”

“You spoke to my attorney?”

A pause.

“No, I did not. You can bring an attorney if you like, but it’s not necessary.”

“But who told you about me? We were planning to call today ourselves.”

“I’m not at liberty to say at this moment.”

But she knew without a doubt. It had been Kelman.

So he’d done what he’d promised. He’d gone to the U.S. Attorney’s office—and they had clearly instructed him to speak to the FBI as well. She explained to the agent that things were already in motion for her to make a statement, hopefully that day, and she would have her attorney call him momentarily. She phoned Naylor back and shared the latest development. In the end, the meeting was set for three o’clock.

When it was time to go, Kit resorted to the diving-into-a-cab method she had relied on twice before, instructing the driver to leave her at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. As the city whizzed by, she tried not to fixate on the interview ahead, knowing that, per Nat, it was best not to sound rehearsed. But she couldn’t keep her mind off Kelman. On the phone, Nat had warned her that they couldn’t rely on the fact that Kelman had told the FBI the same exact story he’d shared with her; there might be landmines she couldn’t anticipate. But due to the fact that he’d gone on Friday, as promised, she sensed that he hadn’t hung her out to dry in any way.

Crowds of people crisscrossed the plaza, and she looked behind her several times as she dashed across it. It was gusty out again today and the wind whipped strands of hair around her face.

Due to security measures, it took her at least ten minutes to
make it from the lobby to the designated meeting room on the fifteenth floor. Naylor was already there in the company of two agents. The room was sparsely furnished—nothing more than a table with chairs beneath a portrait of the FBI director. Naylor introduced her to the two agents, who both rose from their seats. One was Taft, the man she’d spoken to on the phone, and the other was Michael Woo, Nat’s contact. Each looked to be in his mid- to late forties.

“As you’re aware, we’d already placed a call to the Bureau when Agent Taft reached out to my client,” Nat said after Kit had taken a seat. “Garrett Kelman had asked her to give him a chance to get everything on the table before she contributed what she knew, but she didn’t want to wait any longer. Now it appears you have had contact with Mr. Kelman.”

“Nat, as you know, we’re not at liberty to talk about other witnesses,” Woo said.

“Michael, my client’s life may be in danger. You don’t have to tell us what Mr. Kelman said in his statement—Ms. Finn is here simply to relate her side of events—but we’d like to know, for her safety, that Mr. Kelman actually made good on his promise to speak to you.”

Woo took a second and then nodded.

“I don’t see any harm in that. Yes, he was here. Now Ms. Finn, we’d love to hear what you have to share.”

She started at the beginning, with Islamorada, and worked her way from there to Avery’s death and the meetings she’d had with Kelman. Taft took notes, and while the two agents weren’t what she’d call friendly, they were polite enough.

It wasn’t until she finished that they asked most of their questions. They wanted her to go over every aspect of Avery’s visit and what she knew, if anything, about Avery’s personal life. It made sense—they were trying to determine if the murder might be unrelated to the insider trading.

“You don’t have a picture of Ms. Howe, do you?” Taft asked.

“Well, I can find one,” Kit said, taking out her phone and pulling one up quickly online. “Her hair in this shot is much fuller than mine, but it was straighter the night she came by. She was also around my height and build. And as I said, she was wearing my coat.”

Neither man registered any reaction to the photo, but Kit knew they must be recognizing how in the dim light of a stairwell, Avery would have born a resemblance to her.

Next they went back over each of her encounters with Kelman. She figured they were trying to compare what she said with what he’d disclosed, note what matched and didn’t. Any discrepancies would be telling. She’d told them on the first go-round that she’d been to bed with Kelman, and during the question period they asked if that had been the extent of her sexual relationship with him.

“Yes,” she said. She was taking the kiss in front of the shoji screen to her grave.

What threw her was how much interest they appeared to have in the mix-up with the pen. Taft asked her to describe more fully how she’d knocked everything to the ground and why she hadn’t realized her mistake. She read skepticism in his eyes. Part of him, she knew, was wondering if, just maybe, she
had
been looking for the flash drive after all.

“I shouldn’t have picked up the pen,” she said, keeping her voice even. “But I guess I’m more sentimental than I realized and I was struck by the fact that his was the same as mine. And then when I heard the key in the door, I was too flustered to pay enough attention.”

When they finished, both agents thanked her for her cooperation and stressed that they would be in contact with the homicide detectives. They also made clear that her discretion
was of utmost importance. She was to discuss the case with no one, not even Mr. Kelman.

“Understood,” she said. She couldn’t imagine Kelman ever reaching out to her again anyway.

“We also need to discuss your personal safety,” Woo said. “That’s a priority.”

“I was just about to raise that,” Nat told him.

“We advise you to be extremely cautious,” Woo said. “Consider staying with a friend for the time being, avoid going places alone. And we’d like to schedule a weekly call with you, just to make sure you’re feeling secure.”

For some reason his comment almost made her laugh. His tips were about as comforting as knowing that when your plane crashed in the middle of the Atlantic, the seat cushion could be used as a flotation device.

“That’s it?” she said.

“I’m afraid there’s not a lot more we can advise.”

“But will it at least be safer for me now? I assume Ithaka will learn that the evidence has been turned over to you, and that I am not a threat to them.”

Taft shook his head. “Unfortunately it’s not going to work like that. The Bureau will need to conduct an investigation and that takes time, often months. If there’s been criminal activity, people at Ithaka know they are in danger of being exposed, and we want to give them as little chance as possible to batten down the hatches. It’s important no one learn that you’ve come forward. If there’s a trial, you may be called to testify.”

“So I’m still in danger?” she said, feeling her heart begin to drum.

“Possibly,” Taft said. “Like Agent Woo said, you need to be cautious. If there appears to be a serious threat to you as the case moves along, we can also discuss relocation.”

“
Relocation?
” she exclaimed. “You mean one of those witness protection programs?”

“It wouldn’t have to be forever.”

“But I couldn’t leave my work, my life here.” She could feel herself growing agitated, angry even, and she willed herself to calm down. The two men sitting across from her weren’t to blame for anything.

“Why don’t we table any discussion of relocation for now,” Nat interjected. “I’ll review everything with Ms. Finn later.”

The first chance they had to speak privately was when they reached the plaza outside the building and set off on foot across it.

“You handled yourself really well in there,” Nat said.

“Even when I looked ready to bitch slap someone at the very end?”

“The idea of leaving everything behind can’t be fun to consider.”

“Are you saying I
should
consider it?”

“Two people are dead. You can’t lose sight of that. You’ll want to stay as careful as possible until this is all resolved.”

“I wasn’t naïve enough to think that the second I left here the FBI would go charging over to Ithaka and arrest people. But I never thought it was going to take
months
for anything to happen.”

“Let’s hope that for your sake they move more quickly than that.”

They’d reached the street and Nat shot up his hand for a cab.

“Why don’t I drop you back at the apartment and then I can head to the office from there?”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Kit said. She glanced around, surveying the people hurrying across the plaza. She would have liked to say yes, but not at five hundred dollars an hour.

Nat smiled. “No charge for escort service,” he said, guessing the reason for her response. “I’ll use the ride to review notes for another case.”

“Well, then that’s an offer I can’t say no to,” she said, smiling.

As soon as they were in the cab and headed north, Nat opened his briefcase and Kit fell silent. Her mind kept replaying that one awful word over and over:
relocation
. It would mean going to a whole new place, away from her friends, her business, her partnership with Baby. She wouldn’t be able to stay in touch with anyone, maybe not even her parents. And how would she support herself? By trying to start another business from scratch?

In a split second, she realized for sure that she’d never do it. Once before, at seventeen, she’d been run out of the life she’d known—her lovely bedroom, her home, the college she’d dreamed of going to. There was no way she’d allow that to happen again. Yes, there was danger, but she would have to chance it.

“You doing okay?”

She was so lost in thought, it took a moment to register that Nat was speaking to her.

“Yes, thanks,” she said. “And thanks for all your help today. It was such a relief to have you there.”

“One point I just want to reiterate. It’s critical that you not discuss the case with Kelman.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not likely anyway.”

“At least it seems he didn’t throw you under the bus. And that what he told you was probably true.”

He was right. For days she had clung to the idea that Kelman could be caught up in a dangerous and illegal scheme and that he might have killed Matt Healy when parts of the scheme soured. And yet it now seemed that he was what he’d claimed to be for so long: simply a whistle-blower.

And what about Sasha? she wondered. Had he been telling the truth about her in his voicemail message? It was unlikely she would ever know. She wasn’t really sure how that made her feel, but she sensed something begin to gnaw away at her. It bore a resemblance to disappointment.

Once they reached Baby’s building, Nat walked her into the lobby and suggested they touch base by phone the next day. As he strode back to the cab, she watched the flaps of his navy suit lift. His might be taking a bite out of her savings, but at least he’d sparked an idea for Barry Kaplan’s apartment.

“Tell me everything,” Baby urged as soon as Kit had walked in the door.

“Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

She explained that going forward, she wouldn’t be able to divulge information about the case. But she relayed basic details of the meeting and also the fact that the notion of relocation had been raised.

“What are they talking about for God’s sake?” Baby said. “Sending you off to some place like Fort Wayne or Fargo with a wig and a new name?”

“It doesn’t matter because I’m not leaving New York. Ithaka may have upended my life, but I’m not going to let them out-and-out destroy it. I’ll just have to do my best to stay out of harm’s way.”

“I don’t want you in Fargo, Kit, but are you sure this is the wisest course?”

“I don’t know if it’s the wisest, but it’s the only choice I can live with. And now that I’ve gone to the authorities, I’m going to put all my attention into shoring up my end of the business.”

“I’ll help you as much as I can.”

“But I do have to find a place to live for a while. I can’t just bunk down here indefinitely.”

“Why not? To be perfectly honest, I’ve liked having the company. And once May comes, I’ll be in the country most weekends and probably working Fridays from there like I did last summer.”

Kit felt her eyes well in gratitude.

“Are you absolutely sure, Baby?”

“Yes. Besides, it will save me from doing something stupid, like getting a cockapoo.”

“Is that a
bird
?”

“No, a cocker spaniel–poodle hybrid. I was considering it because it doesn’t shed.”

“Ha. Okay. Why don’t we say that for the time being at least I’ll stay and then we’ll play it by ear. There’s one more hitch, though. I’m going to have to recruit a freelancer to do a fair amount of legwork for me since I’m staying undercover.”

“I have feelers out for someone to fill in for Dara. In the meantime, why don’t I do the final shopping for your Greenwich Village clients. I’ve seen the photos of what you’ve done so far, and I’ll pick out the last few accessories they need. I could even bring the items down there myself and see how they work.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’d love that. I suspect they’ve told most of their friends that you’re actually the one doing the decorating anyway.”

“Any other fires to put out?”

“Well, there’s Barry, the not-so-happy bachelor, but I have the concept now at least, and I’m going to finish making the presentation boards today. I’m waiting to hear if he can meet with me midweek. It’ll mean going out, but I’ll be careful. So far no one seems wise to the fact that I’m staying with you.”

“Here’s a thought. Why don’t you have him come here? I’ll do one of my famous salmon balls rolled in slivered almonds and I’ll serve him a martini that will knock him on his ass.”