“Two weeks?” I said as I took out my phone.
“Three, tops,” Coach Downey said, putting his hands together in prayer.
“Hey, Mary Catherine,” I said, and explained the situation to her. “Thanks,” I said a minute later, and hung up.
“Well?” said Coach Downey.
“Tell him to come home with Brian today. Hope this kid likes togetherness, not to mention leftovers. Turns out there’s one last free bunk in the old shoe after all.”
Chapter 18
Two hours later, I was at my morning’s second academic meeting.
Unfortunately, this one wasn’t so benign.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come back later, Detective?” an annoyed thirtysomething personal assistant asked me from the other side of the stately high-ceilinged wood-paneled office I was sitting in.
“I’m absolutely positive,” I said, crossing my feet as I flipped through a Columbia University directory for the third time. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about me. I have all the time in the world.”
I was at Columbia, trying to track down everything I could about the decedent, professor–drug dealer Rafael Arruda. I couldn’t stop thinking about the professional way he had been hit. And that it might have something directly to do with the president’s shooter on the MetLife Building.
“But again, I must stress how highly irregular this is,” the PA said. “Vice president of academic affairs Hynes doesn’t handle things like this. You’re in the wrong department.”
There was a lot of that going around, I thought. I’d just been to the chemistry department in Havemeyer Hall, across the quad, where I’d spoken to two other administrative people, Dean this and Department Head that, about trying to find some information about Dr. Ecstasy, and they kept saying I had to speak to somebody else.
My head was truly starting to spin from the academic bullshit runaround, so here I was, digging in my heels at one of the big kahunas’ offices.
“Then again, maybe I’m in the right place,” I replied with a shrug. “Who’s to say?”
“Like I said before…” Ms. Short began, but then the door opened behind her and a slim, attractive middle-aged woman with wavy brown hair and a crisp camel hair coat walked in.
“Hi, Vice President. I’m Detective Bennett. Could I have a few words with you?” I said, showing her my shield before the PA or anybody else could bullshit me some more.
The vice president surprised me with a wide, friendly smile. “Of course,” she said. “Please call me Reba. Come in.”
I thought her inner office would be as stuffy with dark wood paneling and bookshelves as the outer one, but the decor and walls had a clean, modern, soothing California aesthetic. There was a cream-colored distressed desk against a denim-blue wall and a comfortable slipcovered couch. Light flooded in from an oversize window onto a miniature driftwood sailboat propped on a coffee table.
On her desk was a photograph of a blond girl of about eight, a glassy canopy of teal-blue water over her head as she surfed.
“Wow. Great picture. Hawaii?” I said as I sat down.
“The Maldives, actually,” the surprisingly pleasant Reba Hynes said, smiling at the photo. “My daughter, Emilia, really loves the water. We joke that she has gills instead of lungs.”
She tilted her head as she leaned back in her chair, still smiling at me. She had sharp, intelligent gray-green eyes, I noticed.
“Detective, I normally don’t do this,” she said, “but I take it you’re here about Rafael? Dr. Arruda, right?”
Normally don’t do what? I wondered, squinting. Cooperate with the police?
“Yes,” I said. “I’m trying to find out all I can about him.”
“What is your particular interest, if you don’t mind my asking? Are you in the narcotics division? I believe we already spoke to some precinct detectives.”
“No, I’m in Major Case, currently working on a joint task force with the FBI,” I said. “We’re investigating a national security matter that may tie in with the murder.”
Reba Hynes suddenly sat forward in the upright position with a semiconfused expression on her face. “Oh, that’s getting a little ridiculous, now, isn’t it, Detective? First, Rafael is some sort of drug dealer, and now you think he was a spy or something? I knew Rafael personally. He was one of the most popular professors on campus. Plus his narrative, his background, where he came from to achieve all that he’s accomplished…” She waved her hand dismissively at me.
She folded her hands on her desk and looked me directly in the eye.
“Rafael was with some friends in the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn’t make any sense for him to have done the things he’s accused of.”
“Well, we’re very interested in finding out who killed him,” I said. “I’d like to speak to his students and colleagues. They might be the link to finding his murderer.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Detective Bennett,” VP Hynes said, frowning. “We can’t release any information about students. We take our students’ privacy very seriously.”
“Not even to help solve the murder of one of your professors?”
“No, not without a subpoena. I’m sorry,” the attractive academic said, giving me her pretty smile again. “Now, if that will be all, Detective, I have a million meetings today.”
Chapter 19
But it wasn’t all. Not even close.
Instead of hightailing it off campus, I grabbed a quick lunch at the nearest Columbia cafeteria. I was jazzed to see that it had a Starbucks counter, so I picked up a turkey wrap with my Venti black.
As I tucked in at a corner booth, I watched as my new buddy, President Buckland, appeared on the TV over the counter.
On the news this morning, I’d seen that there had been a dustup in Russia near the Ukrainian border. A school and hospital had been blown up, and Putin was claiming it was from a Ukrainian mortar attack and was rattling his saber.
Putin was shameless in his desire to put the old USSR back together, with the Ukraine as his first target. His invasion strategy was straight out of Hitler’s playbook: claim that because there were ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, Russia needed to support them by invading. Hitler had said the same thing about Czechoslovakia. And before he’d invaded, he, too, had staged false flag border attacks inside the German border, which was exactly what Putin’s newest maneuver was looking like.
But President Buckland was all over it, I saw. As I watched, he started a slide show with satellite surveillance photos that showed Russian military trucks and soldiers coming in from the north to the supposedly Ukrainian-attacked hospital and school.
Take that, Putin, I thought. Wow. That was a bold move. Buckland was calling out Putin’s bullshit for all the world to see.
Was that why that hit man had been there to shoot the president? I wondered. Putin knew he now had a formidable foe in our new president; did he figure the best way to beat him was to clear the playing field?
Doyle called me a minute later. “Hey, Mike. Major score last night on the recanvass. A super up the block showed us a security cam we missed. I just e-mailed it to you. It captures what happened. It’s incredible. Watch.”
I did. It was murky black-and-white. First, it showed three drug crew guys standing on the sidewalk. Then, a second later, they were flying like bowling pins as a motorcycle streaked into them. Two people leaped off the bike, already shooting. They were all in black, wearing helmets. One was smaller than the other, with wide hips. A woman? I watched as she put a bullet in one of the downed drug guys’ temples, then casually walked toward the building’s front entrance.
Were we looking at a male-female hit team? That was a new one. And two on seven? That took some major guts. Not to mention training.
I watched the video again. The hit team was so smooth, so calm, just taking their time. These were no rival gangbangers. These people were military or ex-military, major pros.
I looked up again at the president on
TV.
Two pros take down a drug crew a week before another pro tries to pull a Lee Harvey Oswald on Buckland?
I ran through the video of the hit team again and again on my phone. I sipped my coffee as I stared at them. I especially concentrated on the male.
I tried to match him up with the brief glimpse of the shooter I’d gotten at the MetLife Building. Both were about six feet with a slim build.
But was it the same guy? I wondered.
I just wasn’t sure.
Chapter 20
Lisa Hunter was a pretty, full-bodied, olive-skinned girl with shoulder-length raven-dark hair and a lot of dark eye makeup. I met with the Columbia premed student at a little after two in the afternoon.
Lisa was one of Rafael Arruda’s chem students. After lunch, I’d gone over to the bursar’s office, and after talking to a surprisingly unfussy, cooperative clerk, I’d actually been able to track down a few names.
One of the students I’d interviewed told me that Lisa was rumored to have been Rafael Arruda’s lover. If that was true, my long shot hope was that she might have some insight into why he’d been taken out by a team of professional assassins.
I sat with Lisa on the edge of a sunny windowsill in the back of an empty Havemeyer Hall chemistry lab. Outside the window, across the quad, workers were brushing snow off the top of the massive dome of the campus’s famous library.
“Is it too warm?” I said as I laboriously opened the big window beside us a crack.
Lisa shrugged as she kept her eyes down on her brown leather boots. She took a Zippo lighter out of her laptop bag and started playing with it. She wore a gray hoodie that was too big for her, and I thought she seemed very depressed and vulnerable. Was that why the creep Arruda had seduced her? I wondered. Her vulnerability? Probably. I felt sorry for her.
“So it’s true about Rafael?” she said, her face going a little gray. “I mean, Dr. Arruda. He’s dead? He was murdered by drug dealers?”
As I nodded, an old-fashioned bell clanged loudly out in the empty corridor for a moment and stopped.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, blinking. “He was so smart. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Some of the other students I talked to said he gave them drugs. Namely, ecstasy. Did he ever give you any drugs, Lisa?” I asked.
“No,” she said, not looking at me. The rapid snap of her lighter was loud in the empty room.
“That’s a lie,” she said after another second. “Yes, he gave me drugs. Ecstasy, ketamine, even crystal meth once. I never even really did drugs before. He was really interested in their effects on me. Like, obsessive about it. He sometimes even gave me a survey sheet to fill out. Like it was an experiment.”
I’d heard the same thing from some of his other students. He must have been using them as guinea pigs for his drug batches, testing their strengths so he could price them accordingly. His own students. He easily could have poisoned or killed them. Arruda was a real piece of work, all right.
“We were sleeping together,” Lisa suddenly said as she looked out the window. “You probably heard that, I’m sure. I thought I loved him. I guess I did.”
She snapped the lighter again and again.
“I’m so stupid,” she whispered.
“Lisa,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself. This guy was bad news. I’m not here to pry into your personal life—really. I’m just trying to find the guys who killed him. Were you two together a lot? Did he ever take you to his house, or maybe to an apartment in Hamilton Heights?”
“No, he would pick me up over on Broadway, and we would go to this motel in the Bronx. I’m from a small town in Rhode Island, and at first I thought it was kind of gritty and exciting. You know, like that old Police song ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me.’”
She made a disgusted face.
“Then he started being a jerk to me after a month or so. But I couldn’t stop seeing him.”
“Lisa, did he mention if anyone was after him? Maybe you heard him talk on his phone about someone or something he was worried about?”
“He was always cryptically talking on his phone,” Lisa said, shrugging again as she darted a pained look at me. “Only in Spanish, though. He could be rude like that, speaking in Spanish in front of me to people, like I didn’t exist. I was sad when I first heard the news, but I think I’m happy now, Detective. In fact, I’m glad the bastard’s dead.”
“Lisa, if this is too much for you to deal with, they probably have counseling services on campus. Maybe you should talk to someone.”
“Maybe,” she said with another shrug. “I don’t have a lot of friends here. New York, I mean. It’s so cold at times. I’m thinking about maybe going home at the end of the semester. Get my head straight.”
“That might be a good idea, Lisa,” I said as another bell sharply rang out in the hall. “Here’s my card. Don’t hesitate to call if I can be of help to you. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Thanks, Detective. Maybe I will.”
Chapter 21
After a day spent digging dry holes, I finally lucked out by walking smack-dab into the middle of Bennett pasta night when I got home.
Mary Catherine must have been part Sicilian somewhere way back in her family tree, because the Irish lass made the kind of meatballs and marinara gravy Martin Scorsese’s mother would have been proud of.
I gleefully pulled up a plate and sat down beside our new houseguest, Marvin Peters, who’d come home with Brian. Marvin was a big African American kid, about six four, with double-wide shoulders and a boyish, round, soft face that made him look approachable despite his formidable size. He looked like a friendly bear. He also looked a little shell-shocked as he sat staring at our frenetic dinner table.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it, Marvin?” said Seamus, who was sitting on the other side of him. “But I’d be doing more shoveling than staring, if I were you.”
“He’s right, Marvin,” I said. “You’ll need to tap into some of your athletic skills at mealtimes around here if you want to feed yourself before it’s all gone.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you letting me stay with you, sir,” Marvin said, staring at me earnestly. “All you guys are such kind people. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I do,” said Seamus as he swirled spaghetti on his fork. “A Catholic school win in the all-city basketball finals this year should do quite nicely. Also, Manhattan College would be a grand school for you to play for in a few years. A grand school with a fine Catholic tradition, right here in the city of your birth.”
“Seamus, would you please stop recruiting Marvin at the dinner table,” I said. “I can’t believe I had to actually just say that.”
“What? A priest isn’t allowed to support Catholic schools now?” Seamus said. “We’ve been locked out of the all-city three years in a row. And Manhattan needs to make it back to the dance, and quick. Marvin here is fierce powerful, so he is. Just look at him. He’s our meal ticket.”
“Seamus, do I actually have to send you to your room?” I said as everyone started to giggle. “He’s a real priest, Marvin, I swear. I know it’s difficult to believe.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Mr. Bennett.” He turned toward Seamus. “I don’t know about Manhattan College, sir—I mean, Father. I’ll have to look into that. But I’ll do my best for you to win this year in the all-city, if we get there. I promise.”
“Don’t let Seamus bother you, Marvin. He just likes to tease,” said Mary Catherine, not missing a beat with our newest family member.
Marvin smiled his friendly-bear smile.
“Hallelujah,” Seamus said sheepishly.
Chapter 22
“Puller, ready,” President Buckland said as he gently shouldered his Mossberg over-and-under 12-gauge shotgun.
“Ready,” said his son, Terrence, a safe twenty feet to his rear.
“Okay, let’s see one,” Buckland said.
There was the familiar click and whang of the remote-controlled trap machine, and then two clays were aloft in front of him. The little terra-cotta Frisbees bobbed a little in the cold air as they sailed for the tree line of leafless poplars and maples and white oaks, as if trying to get away.
As if.
Buckland tracked textbook smooth from the waist, and then, two quick shotgun blasts later, another two clay pigeons were subtracted from the world.
“You’re on fire, Dad!” Terrence said as he gave his father a high five.
“It was some pretty sweet shooting, wasn’t it, son?” Buckland said, glancing over at the First Lady, who sat smiling by the fire pit. “One might even say it was done with perfect execution. Which only makes sense, my being the head of the executive branch and all.” He winked at his son.
Terrence groaned along with his mother. The three of them were at Camp David, the famous presidential retreat in rural Maryland, standing beside the snow-filled tennis court where they’d set up a trapshooting rig.
Some presidents jogged or golfed to blow off steam; Buckland liked to shoot things. The family actually had a regulation skeet course built at their personal vacation place in Pennsylvania.
“Très classy,” his wife said after Buckland picked up the tall boy can of Heineken at his feet and took a pull and burped. “If only the press could see you now. Where’s the paparazzi when you need them?”
“Now, now. No more stalling, scaredy-cat. I do believe it’s your turn,” Buckland said.
The blasts of the First Lady dusting her two clays were still ringing in the air when the black Chevy Suburban pulled up behind their security detail back on the road.
“Were you expecting them?” she said.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, honey. I got this,” President Buckland said as he started walking over to Secret Service head John Levitin, standing by the SUV’s back door.
“Don’t waste your breath,” President Buckland said as he sat in the backseat. “You drove all the way up here for nothing.”