“Actually,
Bradley, these are for you.”
Cooper
looked at the massive arrangement. He was obviously confused, but also pleased.
“Who
are you?”
“A
friend of your cousin. Asked me to drop them off. Here, why don’t you smell
them before I get a nurse to put them in water?”
“My
cousin?” Cooper scrunched up his face in thought as he leaned in to take a
whiff. “Which one? Gladys?”
“Yes.
She’s quite fond of you.”
“You’d
think she’d visit once in a while. Decatur ain’t all that far.”
“I’m
sure she’ll be seeing you soon,” Garza said. “Here, let me prop those pillows
for you.”
“What’s
those little white thingamajigs?”
“Baby’s
breath,” Garza said as he put a handkerchief to his own face and pressed the
turkey baster’s bulb at the bouquet’s stem. The little spray of liquid hit
Cooper squarely in the nose.
“Jesus,”
he managed to gurgle.
“Actually,
Mr. Cooper, it’s Jesús.”
Despite
the flowers, an almond odor began to permeate the room. The old man’s eyes
rolled back. His chest heaved and his face turned purple. Garza wasn’t worried
about the color. It would soon fade to the light blue hue typical among the
recently deceased in nursing homes. Cooper fell back on his pillow with a plop,
quite dead. A bolus of some recently eaten glop dribbled out the side of his
mouth. That, too, was consistent with a sudden stroke or cardiac event. Nothing
like a little verisimilitude, Garza thought as he went to open a window. A few
drops of cyanide on the rose petals nearest the center of the bouquet glistened
in the afternoon sunlight as they quickly evaporated. The odor soon dissipated.
He looked out the window, which faced a broad expanse of lawn at the back of
the nursing home. Perhaps a dozen or so residents were sitting on benches or in
wheelchairs facing the sun. A large black man dressed in whites moved among
them, checking their blankets, occasionally stopping to pat an arm or a
shoulder. The orderly laughed at something one of the residents said. This was
a very nice facility, Garza decided.
When
he turned from the window he noticed the roommate, who was now sitting up and
staring at the arrangement.
“Want
to smell them?”
“I
don’t think so,” the man said.
Jesús
Garza laughed softly and walked out, dumping the flowers and turkey baster in
separate trash bins. They would leave no traces, and, even if they did, the
chemicals involved would be indistinguishable from many of those found in any
medical establishment’s refuse. More than likely they would be in a landfill or
incinerator before anyone questioned the death of an old geezer like Cooper.
The fruitcake would be opened and eaten in short order. Besides, Garza’s
fingerprints, which weren’t on file anywhere, were now interspersed with those
of hospice staff. So, he could have his little fun and leave tasty calling
cards.
Garza
had long ago decided that the lack of security at nursing homes was second only
to that at funeral homes. The closer to the grave the less one’s personal
safety mattered. If anything, assisted living facilities in the South were more
laid back than their counterparts elsewhere. Southern hospitality. Flowers and
fruitcake got him the run of every nursing home he visited. (Christian was
partial to Russell Stover chocolates when on similar assignments.) Yes, nursing
homes were easy. Of course, not all the clients were in nursing homes. That
called for a little more creativity. They occasionally had to deal with clients
so active and vital they were threatening to become centenarians and blow a
hole in the bottom line. Christian still bragged about the skydiving accident
he’d arranged for an 88-year-old!
But
Bradley Cooper’s sudden death, not exactly a stop-the-presses event at a
nursing home, would be written off as a massive infarction or embolism. There
would be no autopsy. Within a month, his insurance company would pay off on a
$4 million policy owned by a subsidiary of the Ballantrae Group that had
purchased the policy from Cooper in return for $450,000 in upfront cash that
allowed him to afford assisted living care. Such arrangements were perfectly
legal and not unique to Ballantrae. According to actuarial tables, even after
paying premiums in some cases for up to 12 years, a company could make a nice
return, of say, 15%, on its investment when the insured finally passed away. Of
course, if the insured died much sooner, the new beneficiary could make a real
killing. In the instance of Bradley Cooper, who succumbed after only six months
at Bartlett, Ballantrae realized almost $3.5 million in profit on its $450,000
investment, or about 777%.
Of
course, killing codgers
was
illegal. But Ballantrae had suffered some
severe reversals in the economic downturn. Garza didn’t know all the details,
but knew that the company’s mortgage department, in particular, had taken a
shellacking. Victor had been pressing Garza and Keitel to increase the body
count among insurance clients who were surviving long past their expiration
dates. They argued that it was risky and took them away from more important
assignments. Victor was adamant, arguing that the death of 20 or 30 seniors,
spread out among the 16,000 nursing homes across the nation, would go
unnoticed. It would be a rounding error. “A drop in the bucket list,” he joked.
But
not on the profit statesment. Garza estimated that their insurance activities
were easily generating $100 million in much-needed cash a year.
Given
all of Ballantrae’s schemes, their workload was getting onerous. He and
Christian might have to join a union. The teamsters would probably be a good
fit. Or maybe ask for a piece of the action from the River Styx unit, as Garza
dubbed the operation.
He
headed out of Statesboro. A company jet had dropped him in Macon but he planned
to drive the six hours to Miami, stopping off for a restful night in St.
Augustine, one of his favorite cities. He knew a restaurant that served the
best frog legs and shrimp in Florida. His cell phone buzzed. He saw the name.
“What
are you doing for the next few days?”
Alana
Loeb rarely wasted words.
“Nothing
important,” he sighed. So much for the frog legs.
“I
want you to go to New York. I need some background on a private investigator
there.”
Because
of his intelligence background in the Castro government Garza was given all
Ballantrae’s sensitive research assignments. Victor and Alana considered him
the brains and Christian the muscle. That rankled the German and even bothered
Garza, who, despite his frequent teasing, knew how innately smart his partner was
and didn’t like him denigrated that way.
“What
is his name?”
“Jake
Scarne.”
“Why
the rush?”
“He’s
heading to Miami any day now. And he may be a problem.”
Garza
listened for a moment, asked a few questions and then hung up. Alana, as cool a
fish as he’d ever encountered, sounded worried. She was putting too many
fingers in Ballantrae’s dikes. And she was plugging only the leaks she knew
about. Victor hadn’t told her about his insurance scheme. Alana didn’t draw
many lines, but euthanizing old people for profit was probably one of them.
So
Sheldon Shields was suspicious of the “accident.” Garza wondered why. But if
the old man was willing to buck his brother – Alana said Randolph called
Ballantrae to warn him about the private investigator – it meant serious
trouble. It wasn’t that he and Christian didn’t have experience dealing with
private investigators. Some of Ballantrae’s business practices attracted them
like flies. But they’d always been able to buy or scare off the ones that
somehow got through Victor’s lawyers. They certainly never even came close to
killing one. Let’s hope the lawyers can deal with this Scarne character,
because with Sheldon’s money behind him it was unlikely he could be bought.
Garza
called his secretary on his iPhone. He told her to book him a commercial flight
out of Jacksonville, two hours away, with a return to Miami. He also told her
to do an Internet search on Scarne, as a “potential client.” She had access to
the sophisticated legal and law enforcement databases Ballantrae’s in-house
lawyers used.
“Email
the results to me,” he instructed her.
He’d
start making calls to his contacts in New York while driving to Jacksonville.
And once in New York he’d do some legwork on the ground, and also break in to
Scarne’s apartment. By the time he got back to Miami he’d know everything about
Scarne, including his shoe size.
His
secretary called him back. He was booked on an 8:20 P.M. nonstop to Newark. He
had time to kill. Just as well. He’d have to find a UPS store to ship the damn
fruitcake to his home. He’d expense it. It was their fault after all. He had
another thought and called his secretary again.
“I
don’t want to stay at one of our regular places. Get me a room at the Waldorf.”
He then gave her the name of his three favorite Manhattan restaurants.
“Reservations at 8 P.M. for the next three nights, in any order. You’re a doll.
I have some fruitcake for you.”
Garza’s
stomach rumbled. Could his system stand two Cracker Barrel meals in one day?
Every cloud had a silver lining. It was still light out. Garza smiled. He
decided he could make a quick stop at the pasture and treat the mare and foal
to some nut-free fruitcake.
It
was now on the way.
CHAPTER
13 – A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
“There
is a wonderful story about Charles De Gaulle. After World War II he visited
Stalingrad at the invitation of the Soviets. Viewing the devastation, he was
heard to mutter, ‘What a magnificent people. What a magnificent people!’ His
hosts, making the natural assumption, proudly began to recount the valor of the
Russians who had prevailed. ‘Non. Non. Not the Russians,’ De Gaulle said. ‘The
Germans, that they could come so far.’
There
was an appreciative twitter and Emma Shields looked up from her notes on the
podium and smiled at the 40 or so students sitting in the front rows of the New
School auditorium. At least a few of them knew their history.
“Sometime
it takes an enemy to see an opponent clearly. In De Gaulle’s case, he saw past
the atrocities of war to praise the underlying character of a misguided and
misled nation. Would that the peoples of today’s world – friend and foe alike –
pay Americans the same compliment for our accomplishments, not in war or
conquest, but in furthering the advancement of mankind in so many realms. It
has long been apparent that the character of the American people is a
distillation of all the races, creeds, languages, hopes, angers and histories
of the world.
“America
is – and has always been– different. Americans have confounded statesmen for
hundreds of years. Bismarck, with unconcealed envy, said that Providence
watched over ‘fools, drunks and the United States of America.’ How else could
the Iron Chancellor, or anyone else, regard a country that grew in might and
prosperity despite cataclysms that included a Civil War that would have torn
any other country asunder? To understand America – and the character of its
people – one must not look at the country through the pragmatic political
prisms used by the Bismarcks of the world. America was, and is, more than
merely lucky. It has forged a political and cultural society that has molded
citizens who – despite inevitable disagreements – have one thing in common:
Love of country. Not the jingoistic patriotism so many people assume they have,
but a deep love and respect that comes from an understanding that they are
stewards of something special.
“Americans
are not necessarily braver or smarter than other people. But you can make an
argument that, given their country’s power and influence, they are often more
responsible. Yes, responsible. They make mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes.
But in a time when a world left to its own devices produced some of the most
savage regimes and madmen in history, Americans usually came down on the side
of the oppressed and the vanquished. And they have righted many wrongs. Not
always, but surely enough times to register on the global conscience.
Historically, Americans have been generous with aid and comfort during natural
disasters. Over the last century, American science has saved, conservatively, a
billion lives that would have been lost to disease or starvation. It is
certainly one of the great ironies of history that many people alive today in
the Third World want to destroy the very country that saved them. Is every
American innovation – particularly in matters of culture – a step forward? Of
course not. But Americans walked on the moon, and can usually be trusted to
broaden the human experience more often than not.
“It
is undeniably true that Americans, whether native or immigrant, have been
blessed with a fertile continent protected by oceans that allowed the
development of stable political system rooted in democracy. But they have used
their legacy wisely. They have not wasted the world’s time.”
Emma
Shields closed her notebook.
“And
I hope I haven’t wasted yours. Are there any questions?”
A
hand shot up.
“How
can you be so naïve? The rest of the world hates our guts. We attack anybody we
want. Our bankers bleed us while their CEOs make millions. We’re the richest
country in history and we don’t have universal health care or free college
education. I don’t buy this crap.”
The
kid who delivered this diatribe was thin, scrawny and long-haired. He didn’t
stand up. In fact, he was slouched in his seat with one foot perched on the
back of the seat in front of him. He was wearing the uniform of the day for
college: jeans, ratty shirt and some sort of cowboy vest. Scarne wanted to
punch him, even if he had made a couple of good points.
Emma
Shields gripped the podium with both hands and looked directly at the boy,
scowling in mock seriousness.
“Jeremy,
it’s considered bad form to embarrass your teacher with facts.”
Even
Jeremy, who sat up straighter, joined in the laughter.
“Oh,
you know what I mean,” he said.
“Sure
I do. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t agree with some of the things you
said. But you’re smart enough to know that your view of the United States is
colored by your age, your friends, your current position in life. I’m not happy
about a lot of what is going on either, and I get pretty discouraged. But I
wasn’t talking about the United States or its policies and politicians today. I
was talking about the country we want, the country at its best. The ideal. The
United States as it may be remembered. You might do well to recall what
Napoleon said: ‘History is a fable agreed upon.’ It may be too early to judge.”
A
few of the students started to stand, slinging their backpacks. Emma Shields
gathered some papers and walked down the stairs at the side of the stage and
started up the aisle, chatting with kids as she went. Jeremy said something to
her and she swatted him playfully on the back of the head. Scarne stood as she
passed him.
“Ms.
Shields. I hope you don’t mind, but I had some time to kill and crashed your
class. Caught the tail end.”
“I
saw you come in. Did you get anything out of it? And how about Emma and Jake
from now on?”
“Sure.
I liked the De Gaulle story. I’d heard it before. I hope it’s true. Sounds like
something he’d say. He wasn’t noted for his diplomacy.”
“I
see you know your history. Churchill said that of all the crosses he had to
bear in the war, the heaviest was the Cross of Lorraine.”
“But
they sure can cook. Which reminds me, I’m hungry.”
***
They
had just been seated when Emma Shields said, “Do you know why this is called
the Rose Café?”
“Is
this a riddle?”
“Of
sorts. I figured it out my second time here. You’re a detective. Let’s see if
you can do better.”
Scarne
looked around. At the wallpaper, which was a pale yellow. At the flowers on the
tables and in the windows. They weren’t roses. At the lights and fixtures. The
tableware and tablecloths. The linen. The wait staff uniforms.
“I
presume it’s not owned by someone named Rose.”
“No,
you’re not getting off that easily. All I will say is that the clues are in
this room.”
“Can
I have until the end of the meal?”
“Sure.”
They
turned to a hovering waiter. Emma Shields ordered the café’s signature
“Five-Napkin” burger, rare, with fries. She saw Scarne’s look.
“I’m
starving,” she said.
“You’d
better be. I’m not sure I could finish one of those.” Looking up to the waiter
he said, “I’ll have the lamb chops. Rare. Mint jelly. Enough grilled asparagus
to share. And a bottle of the Chateau Mouton Bordeaux.”
Without
preamble Emma said, “Josh and I were very close. We grew up together. I adored
him. He was kind of shy and I was pretty outgoing so we complemented each
other. Sometimes cousins of a certain age get along better than siblings. We
didn’t have to see each other every day and fight over toys or for attention. What
a sister would have found annoying about him was cute to me. And I’m sure it
worked that way for him as well. We told each other our deepest, darkest
secrets and presented a united front to the world.”
Her
eyes glistened.
“Josh
was my best chum. I spoke to him a couple of days before he died. We were
planning my visit. I was bereft...especially coming so soon after my husband
passed away.”
“I
didn't know about your husband. I'm sorry.”
“Mike
died a year and a half ago. Cancer. Josh had helped me through that and, well,
that made our bond even stronger.”
Scarne
decided that money wasn’t buying the Shields clan much luck.
“How
often did the two of you speak?”
“Once
or twice a week. Josh was my rock. He did everything he could to keep my
spirits up.” Emma Shields started to laugh, then caught herself. “Sorry. I was
just remembering. Josh had a ribald sense of humor. I told him some of his
emails were going to get us arrested. Over the phone he did his best to keep my
spirits up. He said he spent so much time cultivating straight guys for me to
sleep with it was crimping his love life.”
“What
about his love life? Any problems?
“Well,
over the years, he had his heartbreaks, like everyone.”
“Emma,
could Josh have taken his own life? Rejection can be cumulative.”
She
bit her lip in thought, then shook her head.
“Josh
wasn't depressed. I can never recall him being seriously down. I was on
medication after Mike died and he was concerned that I would become dependent.
He hated medicines. I don’t think he’d ever been in therapy. He was fine on the
phone. It was obvious he was still worried about me and couldn’t wait for us to
get together. Josh didn’t kill himself.”
The
waiter arrived with their wine and Scarne went through the tasting ritual. They
clinked glasses and drank appreciatively.
“Your
uncle thinks Josh's death was connected to a story he was writing about Victor
Ballantrae.”
“I
know.”
“Have
you met Ballantrae?”
“Once.
On the yacht. We threw a party for him. He's a phony. And a boor. Now, the
Dragon Lady, she's the real deal.”
“Dragon
Lady?”
“Alana
Loeb. His chief of staff. One of the most beautiful, accomplished women I've
ever met. Ballantrae is a forceful figure, but she could shut him up with a
look. She was the center of attention for every man there. And every woman on
the yacht wanted to pitch her overboard.”
Emma’s
eyes took on a look that any man immediately recognized. The Green Monster.
“Every
woman?”
“It
was my first big social function since Mike died. I was dressed to kill. You'd
think I'd have a home field advantage on my own fucking yacht. But Alana stole
my thunder.” She paused and smiled. “The bitch.”
Scarne
took a sip of wine and tilted the glass in her direction.
“You
were probably just a little out of practice. When you’re on your game you could
launch a thousand ships.”
“Thank
you,” she said, coloring slightly.
“Is
there anything else you can think of that might help me? Your father believes
Josh was tilting at windmills. As usual.”
“No.
But I can’t believe Josh would make something up, or even exaggerate. If
Ballantrae is a legitimate investor an infusion of cash would have been in
Josh’s best interests, too. And he prided himself on getting things right. When
he wrote for us he knew that as a Shields his work would be scrutinized for errors
or prejudice. His stories annoyed the hell out of Dad, but no one ever said
they were inaccurate, including Dad.” Emma Shields hesitated. “My father was
wrong about Josh. I was angry when he left and I blamed him. That was unfair.
Josh was his own man. He even made me apologize to Dad. That was so like him,
worrying about us.”
She
looked away. When she turned back to Scarne, her eyes were wet.
“I’m
sorry,” she said.
“You
needn’t be, Emma. You’ve lost a husband and a best friend in short order. And
now you’re caught between your father and your uncle. This is just a job for
me. For you, it’s more than that. I’ll try to remember that.”
Emma
Shields smiled and nodded. Their food arrived. She took a long pull of wine.
Scarne suspected the conversation had been more draining than she anticipated.
But she tucked into her burger with gusto. She looked at him.
“What
are you thinking about?”
“
Jurassic
Park.
”
She
laughed so loudly that other diners looked over.
“I
told you I was hungry.”
Scarne
started to pour more wine but she waved him off.
“I
have a class at 2. The students already think I’m full of it.”
“I
doubt that. Those kids seemed to really like you. But why do you do it?”
“Teach?
Well, for one thing I love it. My husband was a professor of history at Columbia.
I wasn’t sure that I was going to stay in the family business so I got my
Masters and am working on my doctorate. I have two stepbrothers who were
assumed to have an inside track at the company.”
“Were
assumed?”