The Chairman - A Novel Part 42

"Paul Strazzi was murdered in Central Park."

"What?"

"That was the widow. The deal's off to sell her stake."

Cohen relaxed into his chair and let out a long breath. "Congratulations, pal."

"Thanks."

A sly grin came to Cohen's face as he lounged in the chair. "So, how did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill Strazzi."

Gillette leaned forward and began searching the Web for stories on Strazzi's death. "Go get Stiles," he ordered, ignoring Cohen. "Tell him I want to see him right away."

"I feel so much for you," Isabelle whispered, pulling back from the kiss for a moment. "It's all happened so fast."

"I know," Gillette agreed.

"It scares me," she said.

"It shouldn't."

"Why not?"

Gillette hesitated, gazing at her long, black hair cascading down one side of her neck. "It just shouldn't." The phone on the end table beside the couch rang. He was tempted to ignore it, but then he saw who it was. "Yes, Miles."

"Are you going down to SoHo?" Whitman asked. "You need to tell me now if you are. I'm going to bed."

Gillette smiled over at Isabelle. "No, I'm staying right here. But thanks."

"Okay. Hey, why don't you come out here to Connecticut tomorrow for lunch? I've got some ideas I want to talk to you about. Ideas about the new fund. You've never been out here, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"Well, call me in the morning. We'll set it up."

"Yeah, sure." Gillette hung up, hesitating a second before turning back to face Isabelle. "Where were we?"

"Right here," she murmured, slipping her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply.

Stiles pressed the two b.u.t.tons on either side of the Glock's barrel, releasing the top half from the bottom so he could clean the gun. He was sitting in Gillette's study on the first floor of the apartment, cleaning apparatus spread out in front of him on old newspapers covering the desktop.

Gillette was upstairs with Isabelle. Alone with her. And that made him extremely uncomfortable. Gillette hadn't convinced him yet that she could be trusted.

24.

"QUENTIN, I WANT YOUR a.s.sESSMENT of the last twenty-four hours."

Stiles stretched and groaned. He'd fallen asleep in Gillette's study chair a few hours ago, cleaning his gun, and his neck was sore from sleeping in an awkward position. "I'm not sure there's much to a.s.sess."

"Strazzi's dead," Gillette reminded Stiles, checking his watch. It was almost nine o'clock.

"Big deal," Stiles muttered, getting up from the chair and sprawling onto the study's long leather couch. "You make it sound like he was the Wicked Witch, we're the Munchkins, and, now that he's dead, we can all come out and play."

Gillette took a bite of an apple he'd gotten in the kitchen on his way downstairs from the bedroom. "I think Strazzi was the one trying to kill me. I didn't for a while, but now I think he was. I think he was responsible for Donovan's murder, too. Donovan had to be out of the way before he could put the Dominion thing in motion, then go to Ann about her Everest stake."

"Wouldn't just the Dominion scandal have accomplished the same thing?" Stiles asked sleepily. "Wouldn't Donovan have come under the hot lights the same way you are now?"

"But that wasn't real and, if he were alive, Donovan would have been able to prove it right away," Gillette argued. "Even if the feds had somehow been able to force him to sell the stake because, by some huge coincidence, there actually was something bad going on that Strazzi didn't know about, Donovan would have sold it to someone else. Never to Strazzi."

Stiles thought about it for a few moments, then nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Gillette took another bite of the apple. "Did you get anything from your friends at the NYPD on Strazzi's murder?"

"Yeah, he was definitely hit. Whoever pulled the trigger knew what they were doing, too."

"But who would want Strazzi dead?" Gillette asked, more of himself than Stiles.

"That's the million-dollar question."

"I can think of a lot of people who'd want want him dead," Gillette said, "but n.o.body who'd actually pull the trigger." him dead," Gillette said, "but n.o.body who'd actually pull the trigger."

"Or arrange arrange for the trigger to be pulled?" for the trigger to be pulled?"

"Not if it really came down to it."

They were silent for a few minutes.

"Isabelle still upstairs?" Stiles asked.

"Yeah." Gillette looked up. "By the way, did your guy get to Canada yet?"

"I'm expecting his call soon." Stiles said, checking his watch. "So, how was your night?"

Gillette smiled. "Excellent. A lot of fun, and no sharp blades in the back. Imagine that."

Stiles put his hands underneath his head and shut his eyes as Gillette walked out. "Yeah, imagine that."

Pepper Billups had been working with Stiles and QS Security for three years.

Like Stiles, Billups had been Secret Service but was now enjoying the private sector. The money was better-if you were willing to work the hours-and there was more satisfaction. Even on days like this, when he'd just finished flying eight hours straight. First from New York to Calgary on a Gulfstream V, then from Calgary to Amachuck on a little King Air through some rough turbulence.

The trick to days like this was being able to sleep on any kind of equipment in any kind of weather. Before joining the Secret Service, Billups had been an Air Force pilot flying the big cargo planes-C-5s and C-130s. He'd been through his share of bad storms, especially during long flights like the ones from Delaware to Guam. During those flights, the crew would take turns at the controls, catching a few hours sleep strapped to a cot in the back with the cargo. If your turn to sleep came while you were flying through the ma.s.sive thunderclouds that built up over the Pacific in the summer months, so be it. It was sleep or exhaustion, so he'd figured out how to sleep. Compared to some of those flights, a King Air and turbulence over Canada was a day in the park.

Billups descended the steps of the small prop plane in the darkness of the early morning, bundled up in his parka against the freezing cold. As he reached the snowy, windblown tarmac, he was approached by a short, wiry man sporting a ski hat and a full beard.

"Ernie Grant?" Billups asked.

"That'd be me. You must be Pepper Billups."

A grin spread across Billups's wide face. "How could you possibly possibly tell?" tell?"

"When my contact said you were black, I told him I didn't need any further description. We don't get many of you guys up here. No offense," he added.

"None taken," Billups a.s.sured the other man, who seemed friendly enough.

"Follow me," Grant called loudly over the wind, turning and heading for a Jeep that was barely visible, twenty yards away, in the gray light.

Billups followed Grant to the idling Jeep, slamming the door shut after he'd hopped inside. Shivering. Glad it was warm inside. "Christ," he said, rubbing his nose. "What the h.e.l.l's going on?" It felt like someone had sprayed Novocain in his nostrils.

"The inside of your nose is frozen," Grant explained. "Couple of seconds and it'll thaw out. From now on, if you have to run while you're outside, cover your nose with your arm."

"Right." Come to think of it, he'd seen Grant do that as he sprinted for the Jeep. "So, let me get this straight, you're a big-game guide?"

"Yeah."

"What kind of big game do you have up here?"

Grant gunned the Jeep's engine and peeled out toward a gap in the chain-link fence surrounding the tiny airport. "My specialty is reindeer. Guys come from everywhere for 'em." He smirked. "I guess there's something about blowing away Rudolph. I don't get it, but these guys love it."

Billups grunted. He didn't get it, either. "You were with the Mounties, right?"

"Yeah, until about five years ago when I got into the guiding thing. There's a lot more money in that."

"But you trained with Quentin Stiles at some point, right?" The Jeep's engine was loud, so they had to yell to hear each other. "At Glynco or something." Stiles always seemed to know someone from somewhere. The guy was amazing.

"Yup."

"Well, I appreciate you helping us out."

"Glad to do it. First we'll stop at the garage and look at the truck, then we'll go over to the police station and you can see the body. Okay?"

"Sounds good."

Ten minutes later, Grant pulled up in front of what looked like an abandoned building. It was next to a church that wasn't in great shape either. "This it?" Billups asked skeptically.

"Yeah. Come on," Grant called, climbing out of the Jeep and heading across the snow toward the building.

Billups covered his mouth and nose with his arm and followed. A door in front opened as they neared the building, and he hurried inside after Grant, stamping on the cement floor to get the snow off his boots. To his surprise, the inside of the garage, though messy, was warm and modernly outfitted.

"Which way, Marcel?" Grant asked a small man in greasy overalls.

Marcel gave Billups the once-over, then waved for both of them to follow him. He led them to the back of the shop and a Ford Explorer. "Some guys coming down from the oil fields found it abandoned out near Lake McKenzie. We towed it back in."

"Where's Lake McKenzie?" Billups asked Grant.

"About fifty miles north of town. What was wrong with it, Marcel?" Grant asked, turning toward the little man and pointing at the SUV.

Marcel shrugged. "Don't know. The guys who found it said the battery was dead, but I haven't looked at it yet." He hopped in behind the steering wheel and turned the key. Nothing happened.

"Yep," Grant said. "Battery."

"Or the starter's gone," Billups observed.

Marcel lifted the hood and climbed up on the b.u.mper to get a better look. "But why would the battery die out by Lake McKenzie when the guy was coming down from the oil fields? Why would he turn off the engine, then try to restart it? Even if he was refueling, he wouldn't have turned the engine off for that long, certainly not long enough for the battery to die." Marcel leaned under the hood, scanning the engine with a flashlight. "Hold this," he said, handing Billups the light. "Right here." He pulled Billups's hand. "That's it. Keep it right there."

Billups watched the little man lean farther over the engine.

"That's strange," Marcel said, scratching his head with his dirty fingernails.

"What is?" Grant asked.

"Give me the flashlight." Marcel snapped his fingers as he reached back.

Billups handed it to him.

A few moments later Marcel jumped down from the b.u.mper.

"What was it?" Grant asked.

"Alternator plug was out."

"So what?"

"So the truck was running off the battery the whole time," Billups answered for Marcel. "It would have kept going for a while, but, when the juice was drained from the battery, the engine died."

"The guy driving this thing didn't know much about engines," Marcel spoke up. "It's not like it would have shut down right away. It would have been a gradual thing. The lights would have flickered before going out. It was snowing that night, so the windshield wipers would have gone slower. The engine would have had power surges. Anyone who knows even a little bit about engines would have stopped and seen that the plug had been pulled out."

"Pulled?" Billups asked. Billups asked.

Marcel nodded. "I'm pretty sure."

"How can you tell? Maybe it just fell out."

"I don't think so. I plugged it back in, then tried to pull it out. It's hard to pull out, and there were fingerprints in the grease down there."

"You think someone caused this guy's truck to break down?" Billups asked. "You think it was intentional?"

"Yeah, I do."