She finally composes herself, taking a couple of sips and some deep breaths. “This is really embarrassing, coming unglued like that.”
“Nothing to be embarrassed about. They rattled you. It’s their specialty.” I squat down next to her. “Listen, Anne, they’re not going to do anything to you. They just wanted to make sure you didn’t hold back. Did you hold anything back?”
She doesn’t respond. A nonanswer that is, in fact, an answer.
“I didn’t tell them about…a friend of hers.”
“Jonathan Liu,” I say.
She looks at me. “Jonathan Liu they knew about.”
I recoil. “There was another friend?”
Her eyes part from mine. She inhales and exhales slowly.
“The Russian,” she says. “I didn’t tell them about the Russian.”
Chapter 39
“His name is Alex,” says Anne. “I only met him once. I ran into Diana with him and they looked—very cozy. But then a few weeks later, I saw an article about him in the Post. I recognized his photograph. His name is Alexander Kutuzov. He owns a soccer team in England and a bunch of specialty bookstores around the world, including one here on Fifth Street. I’ve actually been in it. It’s called AK Collectibles. Anyway, he’s made billions in oil in Russia and he flies all over the world, that kind of thing.”
Despite the importance of what she’s telling me on so many levels, I can’t help but feel jealousy and resentment creeping in. Diana had two paramours—Jonathan Liu and now this Alexander Kutuzov—and I didn’t know anything about it? She must have thought I was a puppy dog following her around, eager for any attention she might throw my way. I must have been a joke to her.
Reality is a bitch.
“Okay, Alex Kutuzov,” I say. “You didn’t mention him to the feds.”
Anne shakes her head. “I’m not sure why, but something about how Diana reacted when I brought up the topic. I was, like, ‘Hey, y’know, I saw the Post article, what’s up with this hotshot billionaire?’ But Diana looked mortified. She made me promise I wouldn’t mention him to anybody. Ever. So I kept my promise.” She touches my hand. “Except I’m telling you, aren’t I?”
“You are.”
“Diana said she could trust you. She said you were the only man she could trust.”
Okay, a trustworthy puppy dog. Still a puppy dog.
“I don’t know where else to turn, Ben. I don’t know what to do.”
Enough is enough. I don’t know what to think of Diana anymore, but I make a decision right then and there that I’m not going to let anything happen to Anne. There have been enough innocent casualties already.
I put my hand on top of hers. “I’m going to take care of this,” I say. “I’m going to figure out what’s going on. Let me tell you how.”
My words seem to reassure her. I wish I could say the same for me.
I’ll find out tonight.
Chapter 40
Midnight. A man without a home, with nowhere to go, hiding out in coffee shops and department stores, showering at work, living out of a bag of clothes, afraid to use his cell phone, afraid to use his credit cards, standing half a football field from a gigantic Tudor home in a sleepy residential neighborhood in the northwest quadrant, where people don’t usually have problems like being afraid for their lives.
I approach the house from the front but move slowly, cautiously, my hands stuffed in my pockets. I don’t really have any kind of an excuse for being here. It’s not like a guy like me has any reason to be strolling the streets of Forest Hills, just killing time in a sleepy neighborhood tonight.
Still, once I commit to this, I have to walk like someone who isn’t afraid of being seen. This isn’t my first time doing something like this. I’ve bullshitted my way into buildings and exclusive cocktail parties and all sorts of places looking for stories or hoping to confront people with hard questions when they don’t have their high-priced assistants there to feed them a line.
Okay, I’ve never busted into a home. This is something new. But desperate times, as they say, call for desperate measures.
Desperate Measures had a pretty cool premise. A cop needs a bone marrow donor for his son and the only person who qualifies is a convicted multiple murderer who uses the trip to the hospital to escape. The cop has to catch him but needs him alive. Gotta love a movie with Andy Garcia and Michael Keaton.
Stop, Ben. Shake out the nerves.
I walk up onto the driveway and my heartbeat cranks up a level. The closer I get to this house, the less easily I can turn back. I walk slowly along the driveway and go around to the back of the home.
My favorite Garcia movie is Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead. Great cast. I loved Keaton in Batman, a small guy to be playing that kind of a role, but he had those eyes. Pacific Heights was a pretty freaky flick, but it had that scene with the bugs, and I hate bugs.
I get to the back of the house, and it’s got to be an acre if it’s an inch. I found the listing online earlier today, and it mentioned the “spectacular grounds.” You know you’re rich when they call your backyard “grounds.” If you have “grounds,” you probably also have an aging butler with a dry English accent who goes by a name like Hughes or Jeeves.
Actually, that’s a point I hadn’t considered. There might be more than one person in this house right now.
It’s dark back here; not necessarily what I would have expected. That probably means there’s a burglar alarm.
An alarm, possibly multiple people in the house. What else lies ahead for me?
I look over the place. Two stories, fancy enclosed deck. The listing that’s still online described the ornate furnishings inside—no surprise.
Jonathan Liu paid $4.9 million for this place eleven months ago. He’s made a fortune representing Chinese industries. He’s made a career out of playing both sides. He’s had a good life.
He’s not going to have a good night. This time we’re having a Q and A on my terms.
Chapter 41
I try the back door. It’s locked.
I wrap my fist into my shirt and punch a hole through the pane of glass. Then I step back. Smashing glass alone could trigger some people’s alarms.
Nothing. Nothing but the thumping of my pulse.
I reach through the broken pane and unlock the door. Now, opening a door would trigger most people’s alarms.
And there’s such a thing as a silent alarm, though I never saw the logic. So it’s a calculated risk.
The door pops open and I hold my breath. But no sound comes, no whiny shriek or bullhorn. As far as I can tell, Jonathan Liu didn’t set his alarm.
The interior is huge, as the online description of the house advertised. I tiptoe through the to-die-for kitchen, which is perfect for entertaining, with its soapstone countertops and designer cabinets, past the charming half bath, with its imported marble pedestal sink—everything imported—and make my way into the living room, with its built-in bookcases, picture windows, pitched ceiling, and fireplace, which boasts a mantel of marble that was probably also imported, though they never mentioned it in the listing.
Then I hit the staircase. I take each step carefully, transferring my weight with caution. I can spare the two or three minutes of time. I can’t spare Jonathan Liu hearing a creak on the staircase and popping awake and reaching for the pistol on his bedside table—
Stop, Ben.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. What am I doing? What am I going to do, put him in a choke hold?
I take another step. Another. Get him out of his comfort zone, that’s what I’m doing. Catch him off guard and interrogate him. Right. This could work.
I reach the top of the staircase. I could turn in either direction, but it looks like the master bedroom is down to the left.
Then I smell something. I can’t place it, but it triggers memories from long ago.
I am an eight-year-old boy. I am home from school but I don’t call out. I don’t know why
but instead of heading into the kitchen, I go immediately upstairs. I walk into the master bedroom, Mother and Father’s room, and I see Mother’s hair cascading across the bathroom floor in the small corner of the bathroom that is visible to me.
And then I see Father stepping out of the bathroom in a white undershirt, holding a garbage bag full of something.
Benjamin, he says. You’re…home early.
My feet keep moving forward, even as Father tries to block my view of the bathroom, and I see her lying prone, a pool of blood coming from her head, a handgun two, maybe three, feet away from her on the bathroom tile—
No! No! No! I say it so many times I lose count. And then Father catches me, and he holds me by the shoulders so he can see me eye-to-eye. There’s been a terrible accident, he says. He picks me up and carries me out of the room and locks me in my room. I scream and plead and slam my fists against the door and lose my breath.
As I approach Jonathan Liu’s bedroom, my pace begins to slow. My heart is hammering, sounding a gong between my ears.
The door reopens. Father lets me out and holds me tight, walking me back into the master bedroom. As I said, there’s been a terrible accident, Ben. I’m sorry you had to see this. But I guess you have to.
Not letting go of me, he allows me to peek in again. Mother’s eyes are lifeless, her lips have formed a soft O, her body is sprawled out along the tile next to the pool of blood. It’s the same scene I saw when I first walked in.
Only this time, the gun is in Mother’s hand.
Jonathan Liu has a nice love seat in the corner of his gigantic master suite. He is resting in it now, with his chin on his chest, the left side of his head blown off. In his limp right hand is a handgun.
Murder can be made to look like suicide, and suicide can be made to look like murder.
No doubt there is a note somewhere, not in his handwriting. I don’t know all the evidence that has been left behind. I don’t know what information Jonathan Liu could have given me.
All I know is that I have to get the hell out.
But instead, I walk into the room.
Chapter 42
I step slowly onto the hardwood floor of Jonathan Liu’s bedroom, my heart in my throat, my pulse echoing throughout the room, my limbs quivering. His bedroom is in tidy condition. The Oriental furniture—the two chairs by the bay window, the chest of drawers—is perfectly in place. The area rug is positioned evenly at the foot of the king-size bed. The bed itself is made up, complete with the turndown revealing maroon silk sheets. All that’s missing is the mint on the pillow.
The United States Mint was authorized by the Coinage Act, passed by Congress in 1792 and advocated by Alexander Hamilton. The Mint building was the first federal building constructed under the Constitution. Did you know it has its own police force—
Enough. Take a breath, Ben.
I walk carefully into the master bathroom, itself a model of cleanliness and order. The white hand towels are hung in perfect symmetry, like they’d been hung by the psychotic husband in Sleeping with the Enemy. The double vanity is empty save for an electric toothbrush resting in its cradle and a bottle of vitamins with a Chinese label.
I walk back over to Jonathan Liu, not focusing on him so much as on the scene surrounding him. The gun is resting in his lap. I don’t dare touch it.
Do you want a moment with Mother, Benjamin? Before the police and ambulance arrive? If so, you should go do it now.
Can I…touch her or kiss her or…
She’s your mother, Benjamin. You can do whatever you like. If you want to hug her one last time and say good-bye and tell her how much you love her, go ahead, son.
But son? Make sure you take the gun out of her hand first. Just slip it out and place it next to her. You can put it back in her hand when you’re done.
Stop, Ben. This isn’t…helping. Father isn’t here, and it’s long in the past.
To Jonathan Liu’s left, blood and brain matter have splattered against the wall above a dark pool that’s formed on the floor below. The bullet has lodged into the wall at a point just slightly below the point where Jonathan Liu’s head would be if his head were upright.
Statistically, less than 10 percent of suicides with an entry wound in the temple show a bullet path directed downward.
I look at Jonathan’s face. His eyes are hooded and vacant. His mouth is slightly parted. His skin has already begun to take on a waxy pallor.
When John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head, he yelled, “Sic semper tyrannis.” What did they say to you, Jonathan Liu, before they shot you in the temple?
C’mon, Ben. Operation Delano.
I look under the bed. I enter the walk-in closet and open drawers, using my shirt to avoid fingerprints. I look behind his clothes, his shoes, the sweaters on top—
Nothing. Nothing in the closet, nothing in the—
Wait.
On a small desk tucked in the corner on the east side of the bedroom, there is a laptop computer that displays a screen saver—a cube bouncing around as if weightless, in orbit. I approach it slowly. This could be it. If Jonathan Liu has any information about Operation Delano, it would probably be on his computer.
I tap the mouse with my middle finger and the screen saver disappears, revealing the following text:
I cannot live with myself after what happened to Diana. She deserved better, and this is my just penance.
I read the note a couple of times. It reveals very little. It doesn’t say whether he killed Diana or whether she killed herself, but he somehow feels responsible. Whoever wrote this wanted to keep all options open.
But there’s no way Liu wrote this himself. Whoever wrote this wanted to convey regret. Jonathan Liu, the one time I spoke with him, was not regretful. He was flat-out scared.
I hear the squeal of a car’s tires outside. Not close, I don’t think, but no sense in waiting around to find out. I back away from the computer and do a final once-over of the room. There’s no sign of a struggle, and there’s a suicide note for good measure—one that doesn’t have to match Jonathan Liu’s handwriting, because it was typed.
Someone wants Jonathan Liu’s death to look like a suicide.
Or a staged suicide.
Which explains how it was so easy for me to break in.
And which means I’m in more trouble than I realized.
I start out of the room, then stop. I run back, detach Jonathan Liu’s laptop computer from the mouse and power cord, and take it with me.
Chapter 43
I run through yards and sidewalks, not breaking my pace, not wondering if anyone can see me or whether my actions seem suspicious, just racing back toward my Triumph with Jonathan Liu’s laptop tucked under my arm.
Q: Were you able to determine a manner of death for Mrs. Casper, the decedent?
A: No. The deceased sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The evidence points to either homicide or suicide, but does not rule out either possibility.
Q: But can’t you examine the scene of the death and the body and determine how she died?
A: Usually. The crime scene, autopsy, toxicology, and ballistics reports usually are enough to tell the story of how someone died. But sometimes forensic pathology can be manipulated to mislead and misinform. Evidence can be warped to hide the truth.
Q: Murder can be made to look like suicide, and suicide can be made to look like murder.
A: Precisely.
I reach my bike, parked a half mile down on Albemarle Street. I zip the laptop into the satchel on the back of the Triumph and kick the bike to life. My chest is burning and sweat is dripping into my eyes, but at least now I have wheels. The sky is making noises about rain, which on a list of things I need in my life right now is just about dead last.
Q: Who discovered the body?
A: The juvenile, Benjamin, did. At least according to his father, Professor Casper. His father retained counsel for him and never allowed us to interview Benjamin. r />
Q: Can you describe the scene he found?
A: Her body was lying flat on the floor, with the gun resting in her left hand. There was significant blood spatter on the walls, shower curtain, floor—well, virtually everywhere. It was a fairly small bathroom, and as I’d said before, he hugged and held his mother postmortem. In doing so, the body was moved somewhat, and some of the blood spatter was disturbed.
I ride the Triumph down Connecticut, past the UDC’s Van Ness campus, my mind racing through the scenarios and wondering how I can figure this all out. C’mon, now, Ben, focus—drive slowly, observe traffic rules, and FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON—
Wait. There’s a cop across the way, idling at the light, westbound on Tilden. Take it slow, but not too slow, don’t look over too much, just cruise through the intersection—
Q: Did your bloodstain pattern analysis indicate where the decedent had been standing at the time the weapon was fired?
A: Yes. You see, a blood droplet in free fall will take the shape of a sphere. When it strikes a surface and a well-formed stain is produced, it’s easy to determine the angle at which the droplet struck the surface. If there are enough bloodstains, it’s possible to determine the location of the victim and the relative position of the weapon.
Q: And Doctor, in doing that analysis, the area of origin—in this case the exit wound—was nearly six inches lower than you would have expected based on Mrs. Casper’s height and the location of the exit wound, true?
A: That’s true.
Q: Which might lead you to conclude Mrs. Casper was crouching, leaning over, flinching—something like that?
A: It might.
Q: So it would be consistent with a murder scenario. It would be consistent with the juvenile overtaking his mother by force, placing a gun against her head, and pulling the trigger?
A: It could be.