The Lacey Confession (34 page)

Walter went to Boston. He spent two days there, talking to people, some at Harvard, others in the financial trade. He also had former clients in Boston. One in particular, a mature woman from a legitimate old New England family—not one like the more popular, Johnny-come-lately Kennedys—was eager to help Walter. So many of the pre-Revolutionary Protestant families hated the upstart Irish, thought of them as twentieth-century fakes. Plus, Walter had helped this woman in a way she could never have hoped for, at a time when she thought she might lose everything. Now she could do him a service and she was truly thankful for the opportunity. He wanted to know as much as he could about Abby O'Malley. He wanted to know who her friends were, where she spent money and how much, and especially who she talked to on the phone, both hard-wired and cell phone. Such information could be had. He had done it before, more than once. All you needed was the right contacts and sometimes enough money.

“Would you like me to hire an investigator?” she asked Walter.

“I don't want anyone to do anything that might alert Miss O'Malley.”

“Of course not. And the last thing I would ever do is something that displeased you, Walter. You know how grateful I am.”

She said she would retain an investigator of the highest respectability, someone who would act with great discretion. The investigator's work would never be shown to anyone but her. When he was finished, his work product would disappear just as he would. That was important, Walter said. No records. She said she would call Walter when she had something. He thanked her, said he would be in Boston for a few days and would wait for her call. He never asked about her daughter. That's not the way he worked.

Sean Dooley was more than a little surprised to hear from Walter. A man doesn't hold a gun to your head, strip you naked on the floor and threaten to crush your balls beneath his foot, then call you up on a Sunday afternoon.

“You remember me, don't you Sean?”

“That I do.”

“Good. I need a favor from you.”

“A what? A favor . . . from me?”

“Tell me about Abby O'Malley.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me everything. I'll listen.”

It wasn't much. Dooley told Walter he'd never seen her. Spoken to her a few times, but never in person, always by phone.

“How'd she find you?” asked Walter.

“I don't know,” answered Dooley.

“You don't know? You get a call from a stranger and you never ask how?”

“Not with the kind of money she was offering.”

“To do what exactly?”

“Mostly to watch this old man. Englishman, a Lord or something. You never know with them. Follow him around. See where he went, write down how long he was there. Things like that.”

“How many times did you break in?”

“A few—broke into a few places . . .”

“Places where the old man had been?”

“Yes, that's right. But I never found nothing.”

Louis Devereaux didn't call for very much research. His background information was easy to get, some of it public record—Yale, University of Chicago, CIA. Of course, there came a time in Devereaux's public resumé when he began taking on titles at the CIA Walter knew to be pretense. The truth behind those things was harder to get at, perhaps impossible. But it hardly mattered. Walter was certain Devereaux had told him the truth about himself when they were in Atlanta. Men like that don't tell small lies, he told himself. Devereaux was eager to get Lacey's confession. But why? Walter was sure he was working on his own. It made no sense to think the CIA was behind such a thing. No, it was Devereaux. The question of motive, however, remained open. What could Devereaux want with Lacey's confession and why would he kill for it?

Walter considered the situation, the series of events that led him to this point. What Devereaux had going for him was the President of the United States. If the President wanted Lacey's document, if the President knew Harry Levine had it, why didn't he just ask for it? And wouldn't Harry have delivered it to the President? Walter was sure he would have. Why didn't he then? Perhaps he did, or perhaps he thought he was. Perhaps the President did ask for the document and put Devereaux in charge of getting it. Walter considered that as a possibility. Harry had never told him about details like that. He never said what the President specifically told him to do.

Of course, Walter thought, it was Devereaux. It had to be. He figured Devereaux for a killer, a big-time killer. Walter couldn't be exactly sure what Louis Devereaux did for the CIA, but he knew Tucker Poesy worked for him, and Tucker Poesy was definitely a hitter and probably not much else since she proved inept at what she tried to do in Walter's house. She paid a high price for that misstep. A busted jaw maybe, and a week, naked, tied to a chair, hand fed and watered, never knowing what might happen next, shitting and pissing all over herself. That's a high price, he thought. But in the end he let her go. She didn't kill Harry. She pulled a gun on him, in his own house. Ten years ago he would have killed her without a second thought, without a moment's hesitation. Ah, fuck her! he thought, with some degree of frustration.

Abby O'Malley and Louis Devereaux had some unknowns hanging out there. Still, Walter had every reason to believe all their unanswered questions would be resolved, soon. It was the Georgians who presented a more pressing problem. Walter had no idea who they were. Aminette Messadou was all he had. He'd never heard of her great-uncle or the story of his retreat from Georgia. He didn't know very much about the Russian Revolution except that was how the communists got their foot in the door. He didn't know the Czar's name. Never saw the movie. Never heard of the transwhatever federation.

After a few hours looking up these and other things on the Internet, Walter placed a call to Dr. E. Bard Leon, a professor at Marlboro College in Vermont. One of the skills Walter had perfected over the years was his ability to call a perfect stranger, tell the stranger he needed their help, and get it. Despite whatever decline he was in, if he'd kept anything he'd kept that. Like so many had done before him, professor Leon agreed to see Walter. It was an easy drive from Boston to Marlboro, Vermont, just a few miles west of Brattleboro. Before getting to the campus, he stopped at a small diner, on the side of the road, in an old wooden building, not a modern aluminum diner, and had a bowl of macaroni and cheese made with pure, white Vermont cheddar. It was the best he'd ever tasted.

Professor Leon turned out to be a walker, a nature lover, one of those fifty-year-old men who wore hiking boots and old chinos, sweatshirts and woolen hats. He had long hair, longer than Walter's. Grayer too. They walked about the hilly, wooded campus as they talked. Walter thought of telling Dr. Leon he was recovering from bypass surgery, but decided against it. If the walk proved too much, he could always stop and explain.

“Djemmal-Eddin Messadou was quite a fellow,” said Professor Leon. “Remarkable man.” Dr. Leon was the author of six books on Russian history, including a two-volume edition on the last of the Czars and a seventh about the long-forgotten Transcaucasian Federation. He loved to talk about all of them and spoke, uninterrupted by Walter who had no reason to stop him, for at least an hour while they strolled leisurely across the small campus and down the single, picturesque road leading to it. They walked slowly enough not to tire Walter at all. Everything Aminette Messadou had said was pretty much the way Professor Leon told it. The arrival of the Georgian had caused quite a stir in Europe.

“What about the personal fortune Djemmal-Eddin had? Jewels, gold, whatever?” Walter asked. “How did he get it out of the country before the Bolsheviks overran him?”

Dr. E. Bard Leon, distinguished Professor of History at one of the country's elite liberal arts colleges, looked at Walter as if he just realized he was talking to someone who knew nothing at all. “Djemmal-Eddin had no personal fortune, as you put it. That's not what he came west with. That is not what caused all the excitement. Not at all. Oh, no, Mr. Sherman, that is not what Djemmal-Eddin Messadou brought with him to Europe. Let me tell you about Solly Joel.”

According to professor Leon, Djemmal-Eddin had amassed many tons of the Czar Nicholas II ten Ruble coins. “Tons,” he told Walter eagerly, with a wonderfully warm smile. “Can you imagine it!?” Gold paid the bills for an independent Georgia as well as the ill-fated, short-lived Transcaucasian Federation. Djemmal-Eddin's son-in-law Frederick Lacey was a great help to the struggling new nation. He assisted in the negotiation of international trade arrangements supplying Georgia with needed materials of all kinds in exchange for some of the Czar's gold. While the coin itself held no monetary value for a supplier in England or the Netherlands, Italy or anywhere in Europe, the gold in the coin was always worth the value of .2489 ounces. No one turned it down as a form of payment.

With Dr. Bard Leon's help, Walter was now familiar with the history of Djemmal-Eddin's independent Georgia. In 1917, Georgia combined with its nearest neighbors to form the Transcaucasian Federation. By the spring of the following year, it was obvious the arrangement was not viable. In May 1918 Georgia declared its full and complete independence. The Federation of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Dagestan collapsed. Stability was never really established. The region was embroiled in chaos, overwhelmed by war. In early 1920, when both the British and the Americans pulled their expeditionary forces out of Russia—“How many people know they were even there?” Professor Leon had asked Walter—the fate of Georgia was sealed. The infant nation fell to the Russian Army on February 25, 1921. Professor Leon had described Djemmal-Eddin's retreat through the Klukhori Pass and Lacey's pivotal role in the operation. Lacey brought three ships to the port of Sukhum-Kale. Djemmal-Eddin used those vessels to evacuate many of his fighters, their families and whatever else they could load on board.

Here is where it got really interesting, Dr. Leon told Walter. Many historical gossips and more than a few academic historians as well believed Djemmal-Eddin escaped with as much as twelve tons of the Czar's ten Ruble coins. Only someone as close as Lacey—someone who was family—could have moved such a fortune without thievery. In Europe, those with whom Djemmal-Eddin did business during the time of his exile received gold in return for goods and services. Still, stories had it that the Georgian had hidden away more than eight tons of the coins. Lacey had done it, of course. He was responsible, and all who knew him or knew of him knew the gold was safe. If Djemmal-Eddin was a man of substance, Frederick Lacey was a man who instilled fear in the hearts of bandits, equally among those on horseback and those wearing suits and ties. After hearing this, Walter understood the appeal of Lacey's confession to those who could care less about John F. Kennedy. If the document contained the location of such an amount of gold, it held the secret to a treasure worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

There were three balls in the air. Walter was not about to play favorites, pick one over the others. Not yet. No matter what he learned, his information served only to make a case for one or the other, not one against the other. This was the process he followed for decades. The time for judgment would come later, a time when he had all the data, when he could lay everything out and reach a conclusion in which he had confidence. What he learned in Vermont was valuable. The Georgian ball was still in the air, more so now than before. If Solly Joel was right, Lacey may have hidden gold worth five-and-a-half million dollars—
then!
Today that same gold would bring almost three hundred million, nearly a third of a billion dollars. It made sense that people who thought it was theirs would want it. No doubt people who had no claim to it would too, and Walter was equally sure either or both would kill to get it. The Georgians were a real possibility. He needed to find out. There was something he had to do. It was not personal. It was just professional. He called Isobel Gitlin.

The first time he called Isobel was about Leonard Martin. At the time she was writing obituaries for
The New York Times
, taking a terrible beating for her insistence that Leonard's first three killings were done by a single man. No one—not even her—had identified him then. A local man, in Tennessee, a man with a personal grudge had been arrested for the murder of the third of Leonard Martin's victims. Isobel thought the Tennessee authorities had the wrong man. Walter, of course, knew she was right. By then he was already on the job, trying to find who Leonard Martin was and then determined to locate the man himself. “I know you're right,” he told Isobel back then. He also said he was old enough to be her father, so she needn't worry about him. He was right. How could he have known he needed to worry about her? The first time she agreed to meet, she said she was bringing a gun. She was real cute.

Five years can be forever. Their conversation now was brief. He felt the tension and knew she did too. Isobel was, of course, polite. Yes, certainly she would see him. Whenever he suggested. They agreed to meet in Atlanta the next day. When she hung up, Isobel sat at her desk remembering New York, her kidnap of sorts by and her interview with Leonard Martin. When that strange ordeal ended, when she was safely home, she called Walter. He listened. He told her to catch the morning flight to St. John. Time passes, yet somewhere not far below the surface, Isobel wished he'd said that now. Take the morning flight to St. John. Ike and Billy would be there too. How would she have answered? Would she have gone? Instead she said she would meet him at a place called Malone's, a restaurant near the Atlanta airport. He told her to be there at three-thirty, too late for lunch and too soon even for the early-bird dinner crowd. The place was sure to be almost empty. They would have all the privacy they needed. He would be there when she arrived, he said. Look for him in a booth. “Find me.” That was it. A quick goodbye and then a day to wait, for both of them.

You always deal with what you know, not what you think. Walter didn't have to, but couldn't help reminding himself of that simple fact. Speculation was a flame, hot to the touch. Sometimes too hot. But fact was the fuel that fed the fires of discovery. He knew Harry Levine was dead. That was fact. He knew Harry had been found only after the intimidation of Isobel Gitlin. That too was fact. Whoever it was in Atlanta threatening to cut off her husband's fingers, there was no doubt he was directly involved. Fact? Not yet, but more than likely. Walter was proceeding his way, as he had done for forty years. He could not afford any thoughts about Isobel. Not today, he hoped. No personal commitment—that was the special ingredient in the formula for his success. If he expected to find Harry's murderer, he could ill afford to screw that up now. His past with Isobel was pushed deep into the dark hole beyond the heavy metal doors guarding his soul, his sanity. He'd opened those doors for her once, doors closed tightly when Gloria left, and he was burned for it.

Isobel knew about Leonard Martin's secret all along and kept it from him. She betrayed him, then rejected him. Hard as it was to move those massive plates, once they began to part he lost control. It was years since he closed those doors behind him again. To keep her out. Just as he had done so long ago with Gloria. He was taken by surprise at Il Localino. Still, it was Louis Devereaux who unnerved him more that night. It wouldn't happen again.

“Wow,” she said, approaching the table near the back of the restaurant where Walter was sitting. “You l-l-look great.”

“Nice to see you, Isobel. Please sit.” The formality caught her off guard. Walter looked stronger, younger, far more fit than the last time she saw him briefly at Il Localino and certainly he looked better than how she remembered him from years back. She wanted to say more about it. She wanted to ask what he had been doing to look so good. But clearly he was not about to make this a personal meeting.
“Please sit,”
he said. That meant business.

When the waitress came over, Walter looked to Isobel. She stumbled a little and finally ordered a glass of Merlot and a steak sandwich with French fries. Walter already had a Diet Coke in front of him and it was plain to see he'd already ordered whatever it was he intended to eat. She wanted to ask what happened—what happened with Harry Levine. But she was afraid. The look in his eyes said it all. It turned her stomach. She was ashamed, but strangely not regretful. She could never let them hurt Otto.

“They killed him,” Walter said, without her asking.

“I'm s-s-sorry.”

“I didn't come here for an apology.”

“Why did you come here?”

His resolve was jolted, on its way to shaken. Could she do this to him with a simple question like that? Damn! He wanted to say—
For you. I came for you!
Asshole! he berated himself. “I need to know about the guy who threatened you and your husband. I have to put him somewhere, with someone. He leads me to them and right now I don't know who they are.”

“Walter, what is this all about?”

“You mean, who is Harry Levine? Who was Harry Levine?”

“That would be a good place to start.”

He told Isobel about Harry, his position in London in the Foreign Service and the quirky circumstances that brought him to Sir Anthony Wells' office. He told her about Lacey's confession. He told her the mystery surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy was solved. He knew she would believe him, and he was right. He said it made sense that some people might kill to get it or to keep it from public view. He said he found Harry in Europe and told Isobel how he took him to New Mexico to keep him safe. That's all. He never mentioned Conchita Crystal. After all, she hired him and thus deserved the anonymity he so scrupulously protected for all his clients. It made no difference that he sent the money back, even less that she never cashed his check. He related the story of Frederick Lacey and Joseph P. Kennedy. He repeated what Harry told him about the summer of 1940, about the suicide of Audrey Lacey. He left out nothing about Lacey's wife and the continuing interest from her family. He told her about Devereaux, calling him by name. He said he was the one who took him to Il Localino. Isobel winced when Walter reminded her of that clumsy moment. Walter gave her the full story. Finally, he said, “So, we have the guy who showed up saying he was Christopher Hopman.”

Isobel's steak sandwich came during Walter's talk. So did his seafood salad. She picked at her plate. He didn't touch his. He recalled how she practically attacked her burger that day in Billy's when she got in from St. Thomas after her long flight from New York. He saw her again, in his mind's eye, in that white top with the spaghetti straps. Back then she ate and talked with equal fervor. Not now.

“Walter, do you remember when we were in New York, at my apartment, going over everything we had, trying to figure out who killed Hopman and the others, trying to identify Leonard Martin?” It was a foolish question, one that came perilously close to offending him. All the more because she was not looking for an answer.

“There was a point, then,” she continued, “a point where you refused to tell me something—a feeling you had about Leonard's son-in-law, Carter Lawrence—we called him
Kermit
—and I was hurt. My feelings were hurt because I trusted you and you held back. I know you remember.”

“Yes,” he said.

“You said to me, you said you told me everything you knew, just not everything you thought. I remember it clearly. That was the way you worked, you said. I think you were sorry—sorry that you hurt my feelings—but you couldn't help yourself. Right?”

“Yes,” he said.

“After that, you changed. You did tell me everything. I know you did. It was thrilling to work together like that. But now, you're not telling me half of what you know. Forget what you think. You're telling me maybe a tenth of what you know. Basically, you're telling me squat.”

“You didn't tell me . . .” He could feel those iron doors struggling to break free, to swing wide. He'd have no part of that now. “Tell me about your visitor,” he said, fighting his stronger instincts. “You said he had a trace of an accent.”

“He did,” Isobel replied. “I've thought about him—I've thought about little else since . . . since.”

“His accent?”

“Eastern European maybe. Actually, I was thinking even farther, into Asia. There's a section of Russia—or what used to be Russia—stretching from Central Asia to Europe. The republics at the western edge are very Western. The people are more European than Asian, genetically that is. They're white people. In fact, they're Caucasian, which is the name of a mountainous area . . .”

“Azerbaijan? Dagestan or Georgia? Which one do you think? The Transcaucasian Federation? Was he from there?”

“What?”

“I've heard of them. I can even point them out on a map. I'm not as dumb as you think I am, Isobel.”

“I never th-th-thought . . .”

“Yes you did!” Oh shit, it was all coming apart for him. He'd loved her. Christ, he really had. He would have changed so much for her. And worse, he planned to, never thinking she would turn him away. But turn him away she did. She had a life to lead and he was nothing more than an old man, a dumb shit, a way to pass the time. “You want to know more?” he challenged her. “Here's more. You killed him. That's right. No fucking around, you gave him up. You traded Harry Levine's life for Otto's precious fingers.”

“No, no,” Isobel sobbed. “I didn't understand . . .”

“Bullshit, Isobel! You knew damn well. The sonofabitch who threatened you wanted Harry and you gave him up.”

“I'm sorry,” she cried. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

“Yeah. Fuck you!” Walter reached in his pocket, took out some bills, threw them on the table, and walked out on her.
Oh, Christ!
he was thinking.
Am I only getting even?