Even the Wind: A Jonas Brant Thriller (9 page)

 
``No website. No news. There’s a listing for a company by that name in Watertown, just as Chua said.’’

 
Brant took the handset and flipped through the search screens to satisfy his own curiosity. His efforts produced the same results.

 
``What about those phone bills,’’ Clatterback asked, nodding in Brant’s direction.

 
Brant retrieved the phone bill from his back pocket and the two officers made a quick scan of the calls the murdered girl had made and received in the days before her death. For a girl who kept a set of rosary beads in a drawer and a bookmarked Bible by her bed, Allison Carswell had shown a decidedly sociable side. The list of numbers she’d dialed was long, though none of the calls had lasted more than a few minutes. Brant wrote each of the numbers that appeared more than once onto a napkin. One stood out, a Boston number that Carswell had dialed more than a dozen times in one day at the end of the previous month.
 

 
He punched the number into the screen of his own phone and pressed ``Call.’’ The other phone rang once before the call was quickly rerouted to an automated answering machine. He hung up without leaving a message.

 
``A couple of things to follow up,’’ Brant said, handing the napkin and notebook to Clatterback.

 
A second cheer rose from the bar. Another run had been scored. More high fives. A few fist bumps. The fiddler had picked up the pace and was beginning to work the crowd. The darts machine flashed red as a young woman shouted bullseye, her face all smiles as she turned in victory to the group of women who’d accompanied her to the games floor. Brant leaned in toward Clatterback over the table top, his head swimming slightly as the booze began to bite.
 

 
``You work the phone list. I’ll check out Genepro.’’ Brant’s words came out a slur. He hadn’t expected to drink so much. The pub’s noise and the smells had overwhelmed him more than he’d realized.

 
``I’ll call you a cab. Your car’ll be alright at the station for the night.’’ Clatterback said, rising to leave. Brant attempted half-heartedly to wave him away but gave up without protest.

 
He called Mrs. Rodrigues from the back of the cab to tell her he was on his way home. She rang off without asking why he’d needed a cab or why he’d spoken with a mouth full of marbles.

 
Outside, a light rain had begun to fall. Asphalt glistened in the taxi’s headlights. The steady drum of the rain and the thrust and pull of the cab’s wipers played in iambic pantameter, lulling him to sleep. On the radio, Bruce Springsteen’s ``My Hometown.’’ Brant smiled as he followed along to the lyrics and as he recalled his own father, a big old Buick and the hometown of his youth now lost to memory.
 

He woke with a hangover and a sliver of pain where the bullet had entered his head. His mouth felt full of cotton candy.

Thankfully, Ben had known something was wrong and did his best to get ready for school without the usual morning ritual of tantrums and fighting.

The woman at Little Acorn was less forgiving.
   

``Late night?’’ Carolyn Growski had asked when he’d dropped Ben at the door.

The big woman peered over small, miserly bifocals. She seemed to be enjoying herself as she pursed her lips and awaited a response.

Screw you, Brant thought as he silently commiserated with his son. Damned if he was going to be judged.

The squad room was stifling. He wore a short-sleeved polo shirt, chinos, a leather belt, checked knitted socks and brown Rockport loafers. The Beretta sat in its leather shoulder holster, snug in the pit of his arm.

 
``It’s like the Bahamas in here,’’ he said to no one in particular. ``If the heat won’t kill you, the humidity will.’’

 
``Doesn’t seem to bother them.’’
 

 
Katy Malloy, a junior detective with two solved murder cases already under her belt, rolled her eyes and pointed to the glass enclosure at the end of the squad room where Jolly was meeting with Julian March, one of the more senior detectives. The two had been going at it for nearly half an hour. Jolly stood at one point, paced the small room then hit the side of the door with enough force to rattle the inch-thick glass. Jolly, voice raised, gesticulated wildly towards Brant and the other detectives. Chastened, March slumped into his seat, eyes cast downward to his hands.

 
``They aren’t planning the Christmas party.’’

 
Malloy turned back to the binders on her desk. She’d been asked earlier by Brant to start contacting hospitals throughout the state with the hope they’d be able to find where Allison Carswell had given birth. With luck, Brant figured, they’d be able to locate the doctor. Maybe they’d even be able to interview the hospital staff who’d presided over the baby’s birth. There was also a chance she’d gone out of state, or that she’d forgone a hospital completely in favor of a mid-wife or something even further ``off-grid.’’
 

 
Malloy had already been in contact with Carswell’s parents to tell them about the investigation and in the hope they’d be able to narrow the scope of the hospital investigation. The mother had answered the phone, but seemed evasive and tentative. The shock of their daughter’s death had yet to fully sink in, the woman had said, explaining that they’d lost contact a few years earlier and had little knowledge or awareness of her life in Boston.

 
The mother had agreed to call back when she had something more to contribute, leaving the team with little to go on but the hospital search and Carswell’s place of work.

 
``Do you want to help?’’ Malloy asked when Brant had placed a pile of Boston-area hospital records on her desk.

``Afraid I have other things to do,’’ Brant said. ``Have you seen Junior?’’

 
``Who?’’ Malloy furrowed her brows.

 
``Clatterback.’’

 
``He hasn’t come in yet.’’

 
Around them, telephones rang, keyboards clattered and an endless parade of detectives, uniforms and dark suits hovered, sauntered and meandered.
 

 
``This is interesting,’’ Brant said to Malloy as Deputy Superintendent Manny Pinkus strode into the squad room with an immaculately dressed woman one step behind. Brant recognized her in an instant as Jill Larson, director of public information.
 

 
Pinkus and Larson stopped, took their bearings then made directly for Jolly’s office. All eyes turned to the deputy superintendent, who gazed straight ahead with a steely, fixed stare.
 

 
``Big time brass,’’ Malloy said, puffing her cheeks and grinning. ``Wouldn’t want to be in Jolly’s office at the moment.’’
 

 
As if on cue, Julian March rose from his chair and made for the door. March offered a quick nod as he stood aside, clearing the way for Pinkus and Larson. Jolly greeted them each with a handshake and a smile.

 
``What was that all about?’’ Brant asked March when he’d cleared the room.
 

 
``Hell if I know.’’ The senior detective scowled. ``And even if I did, Brant, I wouldn’t be telling you.’’

 
March grabbed a folder from atop one of the desks and made for the exit. Brant’s cellphone rang. Unknown Number flashed in bold letters on the device’s screen.

 
``Brant.’’

 
``Timmy said you were looking for something on Genepro Molecular.’’

 
Timmy? Brant’s mind was a blank as he struggled to recognize the voice. A woman, for sure. A smoker by the sound of it. Confident. Assured. And she knew he was on the Carswell case. Then it hit him. He’d been looking for something more on Genepro Molecular and had called a journalist at the Boston Globe earlier in the day.
 

 
``You’re Tim Mathers’s friend?’’

 
``Colleague. I wouldn’t call us friends,’’ came the answer.

 
``So who am I speaking to?’’ Brant asked into his handset.

 
``Not over the phone. There’s a cafe around the corner from your station.’’

 
``The Starbucks?’’

 
A wicked, derisive laugh. He pictured her face contorting into a look of disgust.
 

 
``Leon’s. Best coffee in the neighborhood. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.’’

 
``I…,’’ Brant was about to say he’d need at least ten minutes when she hung up, leaving him speaking into empty airspace. ``Damn.’’

 
``Problem?’’ Malloy asked.
 

 
Brant looked at his watch. ``Got a lead I need to follow. Cover me in case Jolly needs us. And see if you can find out where Junior is.’’

Leon’s buzzed. Office workers formed a line behind a chrome countertop. Others stood to the side of the cash register awaiting their orders, casually flipping through a collection of newspapers and magazines lying on a table running the length of a window. The tables appeared to be occupied mostly by students tapping at laptops, tablets and smartphones. The barista, cashier and servers were all related, or at least it appeared that way based on the coloring of their skin, caps of black hair and the oval, Mediterranean appearance of their faces.

 
The cafe was retro modern — if such a description existed. Chrome, steel and aluminum mixed easily with lava lamps, teardrop globes and plastic ceiling fixtures of white plastic. The walls were faux wood panelling. Color-changing LED strip lights painted a riot of reds, purples and blues along the length of the serving bar. A glass case illuminated from within offered an assortment of pastries, each laid out individually on silver platters. Ambient lighting was provided by three chrome bubble lights affixed to a silver ceiling. The whoosh and hiss of a Rancilio espresso machine interrupted the hushed murmurs of office gossip and louder critiques of this year’s Sox lineup. On the sound system, Nina Simone served as the soundtrack for the day. A bus passed by on the street outside, shaking the windows as it threw up a plume of gritty exhaust.

 
Brant smiled in spite of himself, recalling in the recesses of his memory when getting a coffee meant a trip to 7-Eleven and a weak, tepid cup of brown liquid served in a paper cup for less than a dollar. When had getting a coffee become such a production? When had the coffee culture taken hold and who had been astute enough to convince Americans to pay three dollars for a beverage they could get at home or elsewhere for a fraction of the price? Then again, small indulgences. In times of austerity, it was good to hold onto small luxuries accessible to those on the economic borderline. Like cops.

``I’ve got a table in the back.’’

He turned to face a small woman wearing skinny jeans, a white top and a light green blazer with sleeves extending just below her elbows.

``Sheila Ritchie,’’ the woman said as a statement, not as an introduction. ``You must be Lieutenant Brant. I can tell a cop a mile away.’’

 
Brant offered his hand in greeting, which was taken without much enthusiasm. Ritchie shouldered a waiter aside as she began to make for a table in the corner that she’d staked out with an oversized canvas bag and laptop computer secured into place with a locking cable.

 
Brant guessed Sheila Ritchie to be about forty. She had brown hair cut short in the style of a severe bob. She wore little makeup. Her skin was blemish-free. Wrinkles had begun to form crows feet under sharp, intelligent eyes.
 

 
He liked her.

 
``Have a seat,’’ she said as she moved her bag to the floor. ``I’ve got a coffee coming. You want something, you better order now. The office drones’ll be breaking for lunch soon. This place gets busy.’’

 
He ordered a regular coffee and a scone. The waitress brought the drinks in short order.
 

 
``So, you want to know about Genepro Molecular?’’

 
``That was the general idea.’’

 
Ritchie took a sip of coffee. ``You got anything for me in return?’’

 
``My undying gratitude?’’

 
Ritchie grimaced. ``Going to have to do better.’’

 
``We can arrange something.’’

 
``What’d you have in mind?’’

 
Brant grinned. He knew how to play a reporter, how the quid pro quo of the journalist/source relationship worked. Then again, he’d been burned once or twice and wasn’t likely to give much in the way of useful information to this woman — at least not until she could prove her use.

 
``Let’s see how it goes,’’ Brant said.

 
``See, that’s not really the answer I was looking for, but I guess it’ll have to do for now. You understand I’m a business reporter, right? Wall Street’s more my thing.’’

 
``Mathers mentioned it.’’

 
Ritchie, pausing to collect her thoughts, took a second sip of coffee. Nina had been replaced by Miles Davis.

 
``This Genepro Molecular. Why the interest?’’

 
``It’s part of a case.’’

 
``What case?’’
 

 
Brant took a bite of his scone as he considered how much to reveal.
 
``An ongoing investigation.’’

 
Ritchie frowned. ``Not very convincing.’’

 
``You wouldn’t want me to give up the cherry quite that fast, would you?’’