ColdScheme (8 page)

“In the cranial implants, schizophrenics, Parkinson’s
disease, things like that. Like I said, it’s supposed to control production and
levels of hormone-like substances that are neurotransmitters in the central and
peripheral nervous system. The dopamine over-activity is thought to produce
schizophrenic symptoms. If a cranial implant, outfitted with a micro-shock
hammer trigger mechanism, could regulate where this hormone is released in the
brain region, then you’re on your way to normal life and good riddance to
destructive antipsychotic drugs.”

“But the field trials are still pending?” I asked.

“It’s halfway off the drawing board but nowhere near the
mass production stage,” he confirmed.

I glanced at my partner. He looked withdrawn. I continued,
“Someone could have made a leap off the drawing board to functional use.”

“Someone did,” Joe agreed. “And though it would be nice to
find out why, I think you ought to concentrate on the manufacturing sector, not
the motive.”

“The motive usually leads to the manufacturing sector, Joe.”

“Not in this case. Your motive here may be very complex. It
would take a team of cops, years to unravel. Just get whoever is producing
these chest bombs. That’ll be good enough.”

“That’s the urgency? Not the motive, not why?”

He motioned into the dining room portion. I saw a small,
intimate table dressed up in a white damask tablecloth. It was decorated with a
floral centerpiece and a pair of tall, purple candles. Half a dozen people
stood there, hiding in the shadows.

“The security guy who saw him first is over there. The
doctor arrived five minutes later. He wouldn’t have been able to do anything,
no matter how fast he got here. I talked to him. I didn’t get anything useful.
I let him go, to attend the female guest. The guard was shaken up. His teeth
were still chattering when I went over. I asked for a bottle of liquor but
those blue suits got huffy. The guard calmed down. I was able to talk to him.
The victim, Peter, worked full-time at this hotel for three years—normally.”

“Normally? I presume no one noticed any unusual behavior.
Nothing amiss with his work, punctuality, health?”

Joe pushed his head forward even more. He stared at me with
rigid intensity. “He didn’t know he had it in his chest, Meg. He couldn’t have
known. Hell, any man who would as much as suspect that he’s carrying a bomb
near his heart, will at least sweat now and then, break down, cry—go crazy.”

“Brick knew,” I murmured. “He must have been a strong person
to last four years with that knowledge.”

“This guy,” Joe stabbed his finger at the body that once
again looked as if it had been slam-dunked on the ground. “Didn’t know, Meg. He
lived a normal life, worked without showing any stress or tension. He couldn’t
know. That’s why I said that the motive is secondary to finding whoever is the
maker of these implant devices.”

“If they could implant a bomb into someone’s chest without
the person knowing he was a carrier…”

“Any citizen out there on the street can be such a walking
ghost,” he finished.

“It would take a doctor to carry out such an operation,
right Joe?”

He sighed. “Probably.”

“Should we start making rounds of the hospitals?”

“No. Leave those to me. Brenda will help too. She has
connections in quite a few city hospitals. Like I said, a real nice lady you
have there,” Joe complimented my partner and startled him.

I had to stir the pot. “Joe, how did you find out Brenda was
Ken’s…wife?”

He shrugged. “She told me.”

I smiled and grabbed Ken’s arm. “Let’s have a chat with the
security guard and the blue suits.” I turned to Joe. “Did you get them to tell
you who is staying here?”

“No. That’s your job. I was only interested in facts. You go
after the fiction. That’s all those blue suits will give you.”

* * * * *

The guard wanted a tranquilizer, a bottle of scotch and a
padded cell. He was a sullen young man, unmotivated to shake hands with
adulthood. His name was Vincent Amato. At age twenty-eight he was unmarried and
still lived with his parents, somewhere north of Waverly.

It was his second week on the night shift. I felt it would
be his last for a long time. He wanted a note from us, to give to his
supervisor, to get a “trauma leave”. He was licensed to carry a gun but never
fired it—on duty. He didn’t like firing ranges. We got an impression that his
job was an economic necessity, not an enthusiastic choice. He was happy to have
been assigned the penthouse. The guests who stayed here brought their own
security. It made his job easier.

He pointed at the two blue suits and mumbled that they
should have handled the gruesome discovery and subsequent contact with 9-1-1.
They were the guest’s bodyguards. It was their job to attend dead bodies lying
in the dining room.

“Which one of you gentlemen had found the victim?” I left
the oversized child and turned to the guards, holding post by the door.

Both were over six feet tall, in their thirties and
impeccably groomed. They had fresh haircuts and were clean-shaven. They must
have spent a lot of time in a gym, toning their impressive muscles. Their suits
were tailor-made. Anything from the rack would not have let them raise their
hands without ripping the fabric. They looked forbidding and humorless.

They tried to convince us for thirty seconds that they were
mute and deaf.

“We can do this downtown,” Ken said and turned, as if to
leave.

They decided to cooperate.

“We heard a rattle, then a fall.” The one, standing on the
right side, spoke up.

“And you are?” I asked.

“Bryce Seagram.”

“Kent Smith,” his companion said.

“I’m Detective Stanton. This is my partner, Detective
Leahman, homicide. Would you like to step over there?” I motioned to a side.
“We have a few questions to ask.”

“We can’t leave our station,” Seagram declared.

“Is your employer behind that door?” I nodded at the ornate
portal. He wouldn’t reply.

“Who had found the body?” Ken’s voice sharpened.

“I arrived from the kitchen—” Smith started. Ken cut him
off.

“We can wait, until the District Attorney’s assistant
arrives. He likes to bring along the media to capture these occasions on tape.”

“We were elsewhere in the suite when it happened,” Seagram
said hurriedly. “I was upstairs, patrolling the landing between bedrooms. Smith
was in the kitchen. That’s his normal post when the dining room’s occupied.”

“Who was in the dining room?” Ken asked.

“Our employer and his guest,” Seagram said.

“Very well. Let me summarize, Mr. Seagram,” Ken smirked. “You
were upstairs and out of sight—and earshot. Mr. Smith was in the kitchen, out
of sight but somewhat within earshot. Your employer and his guest were in the
dining room, ready to sit down to a midnight dinner, while the waiter was
getting ready to transfer the dishes from the trolley on to the dining room
table. Who let the waiter in?”

“I believe that was Ms. Alliston.”

“Is she your employer’s companion?” Ken nodded at me. I
started taking notes.

“Yes,” both replied.

“Where is Ms. Alliston now?”

“Upstairs, in the bedroom. The doctor is with her.” Smith’s
eyes went to the staircase leading to the second level.

“So Ms. Alliston had opened the door and let the waiter
inside. He had pushed the food cart into the dining room and… Then what?”

“She came to the kitchen,” Smith said, tightening his lips.

“She left her dining companion alone in the dining room,
with the waiter. Why?”

“She didn’t like the wine that was brought. She came to see
what else was in the cooler.”

“Go on,” Ken urged.

“We were going through the bottles. I heard dishes rattle.
Then I heard a voice, my employer, asking what was wrong. Something fell, hard.
The dishes rattled again. I left Ms Alliston at the cooler and moved for the
dining room. When I got there, my employer was calling the hotel security,
asking for a doctor. It was an emergency. The waiter was lying on the floor,
beside the cart. His chest was covered with blood. I attempted to resuscitate
him. I gave mouth to mouth. There was no sign of life. I placed my hand on his
chest. It went right through.”

“You’ve had time to wash your hands?” I looked up from my
notebook.

“Yes. It took the doctor and the security guard five minutes
to arrive.”

“Why didn’t you call 9-1-1? Why wait for the guard to arrive
and then have him call it in?” Even as I looked at him, notebook ready, I
perceived, out of the corner of my eye, a movement at the door. Someone was
coming through.

“Because I told him to wait.” The speaker emerged with those
words. He continued, “The waiter was dead. This is a hotel. He was their
employee. The hotel management should be informed about the situation, before
the police are notified.”

Twenty-one years of life swirled around me, as if those
words had the power to raise a hurricane. Deep down, I always knew—feared—that
this moment would come. I’d never had the courage to visualize it in detail. I
should have forced myself to run through a scenario of “what if?” It would have
saved me an attack of arrhythmia.

“Detective Stanton,” he nodded at me and smiled. He turned
to Ken. “Detective Leahman, pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m Crossley
Morgan Tavistock.”

He turned and dismissed the bodyguards with a brisk nod.

I remembered him as a tall, thin man, with a crooked shadow.
He had always favored light colors, clothes and accessories but it didn’t make
his shadow less ominous. Tonight, he wore taupe slacks and a pale blue sweater.
I remembered him choosing these colors whenever he went to play a round of golf
with the Chief Executive Officer of our country, or any one of the White House
staff. He only wore the banker’s blue when terrorizing his many Boards of
Directors, or being interviewed by the media.

He was sixty-two now. Other than a couple of deeper wrinkles
above the bridge of his aquiline nose, he hadn’t changed at all. His eyes were
still blue, like mine. They were not impersonally still now but I knew he
wouldn’t have lost that talent.

He could stare at a person and convey the message that he
was looking right through him. I had often heard his staff say, that the
Chairman had the ability to erase with his eyes his entire Board of Directors.
As a child, I used to wonder how one could erase people with one’s eyes. I had
never asked what it meant. As I grew older, I learned—through experience.

“Meg?” Ken looked at me. I exhaled slowly and thought of my
daughter. It was the right tool, strong medicine.

“How long would you say you were alone with the waiter in
the dining room?” I asked.

“No more than five minutes. My dining companion went to the
kitchen, to make a wine selection,” he stared at the food cart that stood
beside the table. Joe had already released the body. The paramedics had taken
it away. He continued, “The one that the hotel sent was not suitable.”

I could take notes without looking down. This time I kept my
eyes trained on the notebook, as I asked questions. “Did you notice any
discomfort in the waiter during that time?”

“None.”

“No unusual gestures? Balance? Facial expression signaling
distress?”

“He appeared fine, normal. He wheeled the cart into the
dining room and proceeded to set up the table.”

“Did he say anything?”

“The staff in this hotel is well trained, Detective.”

“Service with a silence, as opposed to service with a
smile,” I said, voice hardening.

“If I want conversation, I’ll call a board meeting,” he
replied, mocking harder.

I looked up—and met his steel-blue eyes. “Human voice is an
excellent tool to convey a sign of distress, sir. People may drop dead in
silence but it’s most unusual for a person to drop dead with an exploded chest
in total silence.”

He measured me coolly. “He didn’t make a sound. He didn’t
know it was coming. He was totally unaware that anything like that was about to
happen. Not even a sound of surprise. It simply struck him dead.”

“Thank you,” I said dryly. “That’s precisely what I needed
to know.”

“Did you know the victim, sir?” Ken took over.

“No. He was staff. One of three, I believe, who were cleared
to provide service on this floor.”

“How close were you to the victim when it happened?” Ken
continued.

“Five feet. His chest didn’t burst open. I was not sprayed
with his blood, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s an internal reaction,” I murmured, looking at him.
“Imploded would be a better description, than exploded.”

“You do know who I am?” he addressed Ken. I saw Ken didn’t.

“Yes,” I spoke up. “And we have no idea whether this is
something that was meant to occur here—for your benefit—or simply an event that
occurred out of turn, out of control.”

He smiled briefly, mirthlessly. “I wasn’t harmed in any way.
So it’s not an assassination attempt.”

“Just a mere inconvenience,” I said.

“A shocking inconvenience, Detective. I’m sure it is not a
mere coincidence.”

“Why not?”

“Isn’t it your job to find out?”

“It might make it easier if you gave us a hint of why you would
think that it’s not just an unfortunate and bizarre incident.”

“It could be just as you say, if it happened to someone on
the street. However, when this sort of thing happens to someone in my position,
I’m sure it can’t be dismissed as a mere coincidence. Like I said, this waiter
was one of the three hotel staff who was cleared for this floor.”

“So you think that your enemies had sent him to drop dead at
your feet, to spoil your dining pleasure?” I asked.

He motioned at the door. “I didn’t have to come out, you
know.”