Helpless (23 page)

Child pornographer or not, Tom hated to see a grown man look so afraid.

“Who ... who are you ... ? What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“James Mann?” Tom asked.

“Yes ...”

“If you try to run, I’ll hurt you,” Tom said. “If you make any noise, I’ll hurt you worse. Understood?”

James Mann just nodded.

“Take a seat,” Tom said, pointing to the bed.

“What do you want?” Mann asked, sitting as instructed.

“I want to know why the FBI thinks I sold you pictures of naked teenage girls.”

“What?”

“I’ve been arrested for distribution of child pornography in New Hampshire,” Tom said. “My name is Tom Hawkins. You can look it up if you want. The FBI came to see me.”

“Who? Who at the FBI?”

“Special Agent Loraine Miles,” Tom said. “She asked me about you. Do you know me?”

“No,” Mann said.

“Do you know her?”

“Yes,” Mann said. “She was one of the people who arrested me.”

“Okay. All right. That’s good. I think we’re getting somewhere now,” Tom said. “Have you ever seen me before?”

“No. No, never. Look ... look, I’m being framed, too. Somebody set me up. I’m not a child pornographer. I’m a family man.”

Tom looked around the room. “Could use a woman’s touch, if you ask me.”

“I’ve lost my wife,” Mann said. “I haven’t seen my kids since my arrest. I’ve been fired from my job. I’ve been completely destroyed. Even my friends and family don’t want me living with them. That’s how I ended up here. I swear it’s all true.”

“Talk,” Tom said. “What happened to you? I want to know everything.”

“I live in Medfield, Massachusetts,” Mann said. A pained expression overtook his face. “I mean, I did, before I got arrested.”

“Go on.”

“A few weeks ago, I came home really excited. I had big news to share. I could finally tell my family about my promotion. You see ... I used to work for PrimaMed.”

“The pharmaceutical company?” Tom knew all of this already. His information source didn’t miss.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Paul Rutledge, PrimaMed’s president, was retiring, and I’d been tapped by the CEO to become—”

Tom interrupted before Mann could finish. “The new president and chief operating officer,” he said.

“You know?”

“I know a lot of things about you.”

“Such as?”

“Such as you’ve only ever worked for PrimaMed. You started your career in sales, until your first big promotion into major accounts twenty years ago,” Tom said. “You were asked to lead a profitable business unit after only two years as a top performer. You held your current position as vice president of sales longer than any of your predecessors. You were a corporate superstar. Life had been good. Until PrimaMed’s rock steady stock tanked. Three consecutive quarters of missed Wall Street estimates. Tough luck. I’m guessing you didn’t receive a bonus like last year’s.”

“How ... how did you?”

“What happened with your promotion?” Tom asked. “I obviously don’t know everything.”

“Four months ago I was called into a closed door meeting with the CEO,” Mann said. “I found out the FDA was close to approving our new drug application for diabetes. Internal projections predicted hundreds of millions in new revenue.”

“Interesting. Keep going,” Tom said.

“We came up with a public relations plan to announce my appointment to president and COO on the same day we announced the FDA’s approval. That way Wall Street wouldn’t think Paul was leaving because of the company’s health.”

“Sounds like a good plan. What happened?”

“The night before the press release was scheduled to drop, I got a call from our CFO, Sue Rossnick. She was in a panic. Said that message boards all over the Web were lighting up. Word was spreading that something big was going down. Somebody leaked news about the NDA. Our stock was moving in after-hours trading.”

“Was that a problem?”

“Not really,” Mann said. “It was close enough to the drop. But one of the guys contributing to the chatter online ran an influential message board. A lot of the after-hours traders follow it. He posted something about me. He wrote that he had a reliable source in the FBI who told him that I was going to be arrested for distribution of child pornography.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I guess you were arrested,” Tom said.

“You’d guess right.”

“And what did they find on your computers?”

“A lot of child pornography.”

“Including the stuff I allegedly sold to you?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Who knew about the NDA?” asked Tom.

“A handful of people in the company,” Mann said. “The CEO, of course. Paul. Folks at the FDA. Some of our clinical trial vendors. It was endgame. Like I said, we had all the press releases ready to go. Word was getting around.”

“Why would somebody want to make it look like you were a child pornographer?”

“I don’t know,” Mann said, sitting straighter on the bed, perhaps trying to convey to Tom that he still had some dignity remaining. “Listen, you’ve got to believe me. I’m in this like you are. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m being framed. Just like you.”

He’s not lying to me,
Tom assessed.

“How far would you be willing to go to clear your name?” Tom asked.

“As far as I had to go.”

Tom nodded. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” Tom said. “We’ve got to find who’s the real supplier of these pictures I had. You’re apparently a client of this supplier. You’re going to work backward until you find the real distributor.”

“But I told you I didn’t download any child pornography. I’m innocent. Just like you.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Tom said. “As far as I’m concerned, you do know how to find the dealers. If you don’t, you’re going to learn so I don’t have to.”

“That doesn’t seem fair to make me take all the risk,” Mann said.

“Life isn’t fair, James. But I am giving you a chance. I supply the names of the girls. You find the distributor. If you succeed, we both win. I’d say it’s a pretty fair trade.”

“What if I refuse?”

“You’ll probably end up a convicted child pornographer, and I’ll probably clear my name.”

Mann thought, then nodded.

Chapter 35

A
s Tom pulled into the parking lot of the Plenty Market, he noticed one peculiar thing. The parking lot was empty. The supermarket store lights were off as well. Tom checked his watch. It was quarter past nine at night, and according to the sign taped to the inside window, the market had closed over an hour ago.

Where was Boyd? Tom wanted to know.

Tom heard a loud whistle. The supermarket’s back door opened, expelling a thin shaft of yellow light that illuminated a narrow column of dark asphalt. A silhouetted figure emerged from the doorway. It was Roland. He held open the back door and motioned for Tom to come inside.

Tom didn’t realize there was additional parking by the loading zone, and now observed two cars taking up four available spaces. One of the cars, the Mercedes, he knew belonged to Roland. Tom entered a dimly lit stockroom, noticing Roland had on a neatly pressed dark suit. The stockroom was a cavernous, dry space with stacks of corrugated boxes sitting atop wooden pallets. A small office fronted by a large plate-glass window stood to Tom’s right. Tom saw a heavyset man seated at a desk inside that office.

The other car had to be his.

For a moment Tom thought it could have been Lange’s.

“Shopping after hours?” Tom asked Roland.

Roland didn’t respond. Instead, his eyes did the talking, and they didn’t appear pleased. Roland closed the door. Tom thought he heard it lock.

Roland walked past Tom and went to the back of the stockroom. Tom took a quick look behind him as he followed. The guy in the office stayed put.

Roland stopped, then turned to face Tom. He kept his arms at his sides.

“Where’s Lange?” Tom asked. “Is he here?”

“I didn’t find Lange,” Roland said. “I lied.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I needed to get you down here, and I knew if I told you I’d found Lange, you’d come. I don’t like to leave things to chance.”

“What are we doing here, Roland?” asked Tom. “I’m not a big fan of being lied to.”

“We need to talk.”

“About?”

“Adriana. Why’d she post your bail?”

“I don’t know,” Tom said. “I’m guessing she felt sorry for me. She hasn’t returned any of my calls. Why don’t we call her now and get this straightened out?”

“I told her not to call you back,” Roland said. “She already gave me her story.”

“And?”

“And she said she felt sorry for you.”

“Well, there you have it.”

“I don’t believe her.”

“Oh.”

“This is really tough for me,” Roland said. “I consider you a friend. One of my best. So I’m going to keep this as simple and straightforward as possible. Are you sleeping with my wife?”

Tom glanced behind him. The big man was still safely tucked inside his office. Tom didn’t know where this was headed, but every instinct told him it wouldn’t be someplace he wanted to go. Roland kept his expression about as revealing as the cardboard boxes behind him.

“Roland, this is crazy. You’re dead wrong if you think I’m sleeping with your wife. Let’s stop this right now, before it escalates.”

Roland stayed calm, calmer even than the night he confronted Bob at the club with the same accusation.

“I’m going to ask you again,” Roland said. “Are you sleeping with my wife?”

“No. I’m not.”

Tom kept his arms at his sides. Roland’s folded across his chest. Neither man spoke. The only sound Tom heard was a constant humming from the large walk-in cooler to his right.

“I don’t think I believe you,” Roland eventually said. “Last chance to convince me. Why did my wife put a hundred-thousand-dollar bet on you?”

“Roland, I’m just as curious as you are.”

Roland’s face slipped into a snarl. “Are you fucking my wife?” he shouted.

“If I were, don’t you think that’d be a stupid way to hide an affair?”

At that, Roland unhinged his folded his arms and let out a deep sigh. He studied Tom a long while. “Didn’t the SEALs train you in how to lie without being detected?”

“They trained me to do a lot of things,” Tom said.

“I bet.”

“I think now would be a good time for both of us to cool off,” Tom said. “Let’s have a sit-down. Me, you, and Adriana. We’ll talk tomorrow, with clearer heads.”

Tom moved to leave, but Roland grabbed him by the arm.

Tom spun around and locked eyes with Roland. “You don’t want to fight me,” he said. He kept his voice calm. “Bad odds. A lot worse than your wife’s bet on me.”

“I told you, I don’t fight.”

“Have a good night, Roland. We’ll talk.” Tom took two steps toward the rear door.

From behind, Tom heard Roland whistle loudly.

Damn, how he wished he could do that whistle.

The man seated inside the office emerged. Heavy jowled, with an oil slick of dark hair, he waddled over to Tom and blocked the way out. He wore a short-sleeved yellow shirt and a poorly knotted red knit tie that arched over his considerable belly. His name tag, pinned to his shirt, identified him as both Gill Sullivan and the general manager of the Plenty Market.

Tom eyed Sullivan with suspicion. “I’m guessing he’s not here to offer me a special on ribs,” Tom said, turning around to look at Roland.

Sullivan stood grinning, his arms folded and resting upon his massive midsection.

“Do you want to spend all your pretrial time locked up?” Roland asked.

“That’s not your call to make, Roland. Thanks to Adriana—who I’m not sleeping with, by the way—I’m a free man until my trial.”

“Not if you violate the conditions of your bail.”

“Well, I’m not going to do that.”

“Here’s my proposition to you, Tom. Admit to me that you’re having an affair with Adriana, or spend the night in the walk-in refrigerator here.” Roland pointed to the large refrigerator, coated in steel on all surfaces, big enough to park a VW Bug.

“What?” Tom squinted his eyes, unsure that he’d heard the man correctly.

“Admit it to me, right here, right now, or spend the night in the cooler,” Roland repeated.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” Tom said.

“Admit it.”

“I’d be lying. That’s not fair to your wife.”

“There’s no other reason she’d have bailed you out!”

“She likes me. We bonded over what happened to Stephen and my struggles with Jill.”

“Bullshit! I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She can’t keep her hands off you.”

“It’s the truth.”

“If you insist on lying to me, then you’ve got to spend the night in deep freeze,” Roland said.

“You can’t make me do that.”

“Yes. I can.” Roland turned to Sullivan and nodded.

Sullivan stepped around Tom, cocked his arm back, and thrust it forward with surprising speed. The general manager hit Roland in the face with a closed fist, hard enough to make a popping sound.

Roland staggered backward, then tumbled over a box of paper goods stacked knee high on a pallet behind him. When Roland got back on his feet, Tom saw a giant welt, red and rising, on his right cheek. Roland was breathing hard. He touched his hand gently to the injury.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tom cried out.

“What am I doing?” Roland said with disgust. “What are
you
doing? is the better question. Gilly, did you just see Mr. Hawkins here assault me?”

“That’s what I just saw,” Sullivan said.

“And you’d be willing to make that statement to the police?”

“Of course I would, Mr. Boyd. That man just attacked you.”

“What? What are you two trying to do?”

“Assault and battery are serious charges, Tom. I don’t think the judge is going to put up a bail number that Adriana, or anybody else, for that matter, could afford to post. Now, get in the refrigerator, Tom.”

“I’m not sleeping with your wife.”

“Get inside. Sleep on it. Maybe when you come out, you’ll be ready to confess.”