Damnable







CHAPTER 12

HATCHER WATCHED WRIGHT PULL AWAY FROM THE CURB, her car merging between two taxis. He stood there and waited until she was out of sight before he started to walk in the opposite direction. He took a left at the first corner, continued down the block a ways and crossed the street in the middle. On the far side, he walked back in the direction he’d come and stopped once he reached the corner. He scanned the area. No one seemed to have followed him. The sidewalk was almost empty, with no one headed his way. No cars had left their spaces. No shadows occupying driver’s seats.
The sun was setting behind the horizon of rooftops. The shaded streets erupted with color as the western sky beyond glowed a yellow orange. Hatcher continued walking until he reached an avenue, the crosswalks busy with foot traffic. He rounded the corner, merging into the flow of people, and dug into his pocket. The cell phone that Fred had slid into his pants back at Garrett’s office felt warm and solid in his hand. The small, square LCD on the front of it was blank and colorless. He flipped the phone open, once again surprised at how ridiculously small these things were getting.
The larger screen on the inside was dark and empty. It took him a moment to figure out how to turn it on, trying several buttons. A colorful design expanded and swirled into a logo before being replaced by a background picture of a well-lighted cityscape. Unlike the one on the wall in Deborah’s apartment, this photo was slick and professional.
Now what? Hatcher pressed a few buttons, found a way to toggle through a menu. No contacts were listed. No voice mails. No photos. No text messages. He scrolled through another screen, found the call logs. Accessed an icon that said outgoing. Nothing. Tried incoming.
One phone number came up.
Hatcher started to commit it to memory, then thought to press the send button. The screen changed and the word connecting appeared, a looping set of ellipses beneath it.
He placed the phone to his ear and listened as the digital buzz indicated it was ringing on the other end.
“Hello?” The person who answered tried to disguise his voice, but still sounded to Hatcher a lot like Fred.
“You have an interesting way of making new acquaintances,” Hatcher said.
“Who is this?”
“I think you know.”
A scrape came through the tiny speaker, followed by a rustling noise. The sound of someone switching ears. “Are you by yourself?”
“Other than scores of people walking by on the street.”
“Are you being followed?”
Hatcher scanned the nearby storefronts, used his peripheral vision to see if anyone stuck out. “No. But you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you really think the NYPD would just let you go so easily without asking more questions? And without getting better answers?”
Fred hesitated. “I was careful. I’m always careful.”
“It doesn’t matter. Where’s Susan.”
“She’s here with me. She’s terrified.”
“I’m assuming you gave me this phone because there are things you want to tell me.”
“Yes.” A pause. “Where would you like to meet?”
“I’m going to come to you.”
A longer pause. “You said I was followed. Will that be a problem?”
“You were, no doubt about it. But that’s okay. Just tell me where you are. And stay put.” Hatcher turned his attention again to the buildings across the street, reading every sign. Thinking there had to be someplace nearby he could find a pay phone. “I have an idea.”
Hatcher listened to Fred supply him with the address and the nearest cross streets. He glanced over at the street signs and related his location, asked how far that was, then told him he’d be there in twenty minutes and flipped the phone shut.
A block away, Hatcher found a phone at a Laundromat. He used the change machine to get some quarters and dialed the Thirteenth Precinct. The desk sergeant connected him to the detective squad. He waited on hold for over a minute before Detective Wright picked up.
“I hope this isn’t you calling already just to say hi. Needy guys are very annoying.”
“Hasn’t it been two days yet? I’ve had so many women lately I’ve lost track.”
“Are you trying to get me fired? What do you want, Hatcher?”
That raspy voice. So damn sexy. He could still smell her on him, feel traces of her, like a rub-on lotion. Barely an hour ago, she was moaning and clawing his back and panting dirty encouragements into his ear. It was almost enough to make him feel guilty for what he was about to do.
Almost.
“Are you surveilling that old guy and the woman who were down at my brother’s office?”
“No.” He could hear her breathe into the phone. “I guess I’m supposed to ask why you want to know.”
“Nah. It’s not important. You’re obviously not interested in them.”
The line went silent for a moment. Hatcher thought he heard her huff. “Okay, fine. Why are you asking?”
“Because I thought you’d like to know I just saw them walk into a building not far from Deborah’s apartment.”
“That’s . . . Are you sure?”
Hatcher smiled. He stared out the window at a couple holding hands across the street. “Yes. Positive.”
“How positive?”
“Positive enough. Tell me something—if you’re not keeping an eye on them, why are you so reluctant to believe me? And if you are, surely they couldn’t have slipped your surveillance.”
“You are a very annoying man, you know that, Hatcher?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Tell me the address. And you’re really certain about this?”
“What kind of a relationship would this be if we started off lying to one another?”
He heard her grumble something unintelligible and ignored it. He repeated the address several times, then hung up and left the Laundromat. Outside, he stepped into the street and hailed a cab. The driver told him it would take about twenty minutes to get to the address Fred had given him.
It was obvious she was lying. That meant she had no right to expect the truth from him. Or did it? The question suddenly seemed important, but he decided not to dwell on it. He settled back into the seat and closed his eyes. In an op, you took sleep where and when you could get it. And he was starting to get the feeling this was the last chance he was going to have for the rest of the night.
 
THE TAXI DROPPED HATCHER OFF IN FRONT OF A DARK brick building with cascading fire escapes. The gloaming sky was fading to black, but he decided not to wait for nightfall. Hadn’t even asked to be dropped off a block away. There was no sense in trying to be stealth in a zero-sum game. His play had either worked, or it hadn’t.
He rubbed his eyes and pulled out the cell phone. He brought up the call log again, then pressed send. There was still only one number. It rang twice.
“Hello?”
“I’m here.”
“At the door?”
“Yes.”
Hatcher heard a buzz and moved to the entrance, keeping the phone at his ear. The door clicked open when he pulled and he made his way through the small lobby to a set of stairs that cornered at a landing.
“I’m inside.”
“Third floor. Apartment E.”
The third-floor hallway was narrow, with uninviting doors of almost identical painted metal staggered on each side. He scanned the tiny labels beneath each peephole until he found one marked E. The doorbell was a small square. It sounded cheap and efficient through the door when he pressed it.
The door opened and Fred gestured for him to come inside. Fred bolted the door behind him.
“It’s not much, but it’s home.”
Fred’s apartment looked more like Hollywood’s idea of a command center than someone’s residence. In the center of the living room, a giant pane of glass divided a billiard-sized table and stretched toward the ceiling. One half of the glass was a transparent outline of the United States, the other seemed to be a diagram of New York City. Tiny circles and squares and arrows were drawn on the glass in an array of colors indicating various points on the maps. The surface glimmered with reflections from electronic equipment that lined bookshelves along the walls, industrial-type units with display screens and dials. Most of them were turned on, circular panels casting a glare, some in digital green, others gray, shimmering with bars of light that circled like the fast-moving second hands of a clock. They left faint image trails as they made their circuits, ghostly specters that quickly faded. Hatcher could hear the squawking of a police band as monotone voices traded barely audible numeric codes. The staticky whir of a shortwave radio droned consistently in the background, like an alien wind.
“Cozy,” Hatcher said.
Fred chuckled and circled the table, gesturing across the see-through maps for Hatcher to follow him. He passed another long, cafeteria-style table with fold-out metal legs. That table held an array of gadgets in various states of construction and deconstruction, with microchips and stripped wires and assorted computer input adaptors scattered among miniature screwdrivers and a precision soldering iron. Beyond that table was the entryway to the kitchen.
Hatcher followed Fred out of the room and saw Susan Warren sitting at a small dinette. She was huddled around an oversized cup of coffee, choking it with her hands. Her face came into view gradually as she raised her head. Her eyes were heavy and pink. Her mouth quivered into a weak smile. It was as sad an expression as Hatcher could ever remember seeing. And he’d seen some of the saddest.
Fred asked Hatcher if he would like a cup, and Hatcher nodded. Fred poured him some and set it on the table across from Susan, waving his hand for Hatcher to take a seat. The chair scraped lightly across the linoleum floor as Hatcher pulled it out, causing Susan to flinch.
Hatcher watched her for a moment, then said, “You were in love with him.”
Susan said nothing. She dipped her chin and peered into her cup.
“How many months along are you?”
She’d been like a statue sitting there, but seemed somehow to become even more still as the words sunk in. Her eyes shot up in a delayed reaction.
“Your shoes,” Hatcher said.
Susan rubbed away from the corners of her eyes with her palms. Processing what Hatcher had just said seemed to exhaust her. Fred stepped over and handed her a napkin. Her bottom lip trembled as she took it.
“How . . . ?” she said.
“You’re wearing a loose blouse. Stretchy, casual slacks. Maternity clothes. Something didn’t seem quite right about the look. Then I realized you hadn’t gotten around to comfortable shoes yet. The heels are low, but they’re too dressy for that outfit. I’m guessing you couldn’t bring yourself to wear tennis shoes or sandals. Not yet.”
“You got all that from my shoes?”
“That, and the fact you’re showing. Well, almost showing.”
Hatcher was lying, but felt justified. The shoes had been a minor point of curiosity that got him thinking. Something about them simply seemed out of place. But he knew even less about women’s fashion than he did men’s, and he didn’t have more than a vague idea what maternity clothes looked like. It was her reaction to the news about Garrett’s death that really triggered the thought. The look of someone suddenly alone in more ways than one. But he didn’t see any use in being honest. Telling her that her emotions gave it away would just bring them back to the surface. Shoes were safer.
“I can’t believe he’s gone. I just can’t.”
“Can you tell me what he had going on? Why the police were watching his office?”
Susan glanced over to Fred, whose body jerked as if stirred from a standing sleep. He took a seat at the table, set down a steaming coffee mug of his own.
“Garrett was investigating a certain someone. Collecting evidence.”
“My husband,” Susan said. “There’s no need to hold back now. He was investigating my husband.”
“Why?”
Susan began to fidget with the napkin. Hatcher watched as she absently twisted it into a rope. “I came to Garrett a few months ago. I had a feeling my husband was hiding things from me. He started playing golf.”
“Lots of guys play golf.”
“Not Brian. All he was ever interested in was his stupid Star Wars stuff. Then, all of sudden, he was off golfing all the time.”
“And you figured maybe he wasn’t golfing at all.”
“Things hadn’t been good for quite a while. People were calling the house and hanging up. I decided I needed some information. He was very secretive about his business. I didn’t really care if he had a girlfriend. I was planning a divorce.”
“How did you and Garrett meet?”
“There was a woman where I get my hair done. I overheard her telling someone about how she caught her husband cheating and hiding money. We started talking, and she said her investigator was the best, that he saved her life and didn’t even charge much. She gave me his number.”
“Why didn’t your lawyer hire someone?”
“I didn’t have a lawyer. I didn’t have access to that kind of money, not without asking my husband for it. And more important, once I did hire one I knew I would be starting something I might not be able to control. Like I said, I just wanted information first. Garrett was willing to let me pay him when I could.”
Hatcher glanced at Fred, who merely shrugged. “You’ll have to forgive me,” Hatcher said. “But that doesn’t make much sense. Lawyers deal with this kind of thing all the time.”
“I was scared, okay? Too scared to go to a lawyer.”
“Why?”
“Because I had this feeling something wasn’t right. More than Brian just hiding money or seeing another woman. Sure enough, Garrett found out he had taken out a life insurance policy on me. A big one. I didn’t even have a job. What did he need life insurance on me for?”
Hatcher scratched his chin, thinking. “Is that who Garrett was meeting when he was killed? Your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think your husband killed him? Or had him killed?”
“I’m not sure.” Susan shook her head. “Garrett was much more street-smart than Brian. Much tougher. It’s hard for me to imagine my husband taking him on. He’s a wimp when it comes to stuff like that, guys like that.”
“But you thought he was planning to kill you?”
“Garrett confirmed he was. That was what he was meeting Brian about. He was gathering proof. Enough to have him arrested.”
“Proof? You mean he was wearing a wire? Working with the police?”
Fred straightened in his chair, gave a little cough. “He was wearing a wire, but he didn’t get it from the police. He got it from me.”
Hatcher stared at Fred, who broke eye contact and looked away. He could hear the guilt in the man’s voice, the strain of believing he was somehow complicit in Garrett’s death, either by having assisted Garrett with the wire or simply by not having stopped it from happening. Hatcher knew the man was a bit off, a crazy old guy living in a world of grassy knolls and tinfoil hats, but from that tone alone he also sensed that this was someone who rewarded friendship with extreme loyalty. Maybe because friends were so rare.
“But if the subject had already been brought up, why wouldn’t he get the police involved? Let them do the heavy lifting? Make the evidence more credible?” Hatcher watched Fred’s eyes as they peeked through the thick lenses at him. They were unnaturally steady, holding a rigid gaze. Like he was waiting for Hatcher to catch on.
“Because,” Hatcher continued, answering his own question. “He wasn’t really gathering evidence to prosecute him. He was gathering evidence to blackmail him.”
“He was planning on turning the information over to the police later,” Susan said. “It wasn’t blackmail. Not really. He just wanted leverage to make sure I got what I was entitled to, half of what he owned. It was my money that started that company. I inherited it. From my aunt.”
Hatcher didn’t respond. A picture was starting to take shape. Blurry, incomplete, but a picture nonetheless.
“He said it would make it impossible for him to hurt me, that it would make the divorce a slam-dunk and give me plenty of money. Then he and I, Garrett and I—then we could be together. Brian wouldn’t be able to use the pregnancy against me.”
“Where is your husband now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been staying at a hotel, waiting for Garrett to call. I knew something was wrong, but he made me promise I wouldn’t go home until I heard from him. I didn’t know what to do.”
“How was he supposed to contact you?”
“TracFones,” Fred said. “Susan got one.”
“What’s a TracFone?”
“A type of pay-as-you-go cell phone. You can buy them anonymously, prepay for minutes. It’s how you called me. The phone I slipped you is one. Garrett bought a bunch of them. They’re practically untraceable.”
Hatcher nodded. Made sense. Garrett clearly had been a cautious man. Problem was, cautious men tended not to be killed by their marks. Hatcher was starting to wonder whether his brother had become an unrelated statistic, someone who’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to save the wrong woman. If he was really his brother.
“How did the police know about the murder-for-hire stuff?”
“The wire,” Fred said. “I made him a state-of-the-art digital recording apparatus, sewn into the sleeve of his jacket. Microphones at the cuffs. Lens for streaming video in one of the buttons. Top-shelf stuff. They must have found it. I doubt they would be able to recover the video, based on the accident. But the audio’s another story.”
Hatcher sat staring at the table for a moment. Ironic, he thought. The police knew what was said, but they didn’t know who said it. He knew who said it, but not what was said.
But something told him there was more to it than that.
“I think I need to take a cab over to Susan’s house, have a word with our friend Mr. Warren. I’d sure like to know what’s on that tape.”
Fred’s face brightened. “It just so happens I have a way you can.”



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