Oath of Office

thugs out of the city, and get yourselves double-crossed and ambushed. No one’s attention to details is all that sharp. The stories get twisted on one another.”

Cap strode up to the police chief and, hands on hips, glared down at him. It was as if Michelangelo’s David had decided to confront the tourists who were gawking at him. “Do I look hysterical?” he asked.

Lou, who was kneeling nearby, inspecting the soil, glanced back at his chisled friend and grinned.

“Duncan, don’t get me wrong,” Stone was saying. “I just think we should go at this in the morning with a lot more men and some dogs.”

Cap took a step back.

“What about Notso?” George insisted.

“Notso’s dead,” Cap said. “I saw him get shot.”

“I don’t give a damn what you saw. I’m not leaving my cousin out here in this stinkin’ field to get eaten by animals.”

“We don’t even know if this is the right field,” Stone said.

Lou felt the situation getting tense. He did not know George well enough to predict his actions or whether Cap would be able to control him. He imagined him facedown in the dirt with his hands cuffed behind him and Gilbert Stone’s knee in the small of his back.

At that moment, Lou’s hand brushed over another clump of dirt. This one had something hard embedded in it-something hard and sharp. So sharp that it took a few seconds for him to realize that he had been cut. He inspected the side of his palm. Blood was oozing out of a half-inch-long slice. Carefully, Lou worked his fingers around the edges of the object that had cut him. He scraped the dirt away and was left with a large shard of glass- thick, textured glass.

“What’s that?” Stone asked, inspecting the object with his flashlight.

“Broken spotlight glass, if I’m not mistaken,” Lou said. “I’d guarantee it.”

“Told you!” George chirped.

Stone fingered the glass.

“Well?” Lou asked.

Stone shrugged. “Well, I think it’s time we go pay a visit to William Chester.”

“Who’s that?” asked Lou.

“The guy who owns these fields, that’s who.”

CHAPTER 31

A twelve-foot-high vine-covered stone wall enclosed Cross Winds, the Chester estate. Stone left his two officers to continue patrolling the fields, and then drove Lou, Cap, and George to the far western part of Kings Ridge and up a broad circular drive lined with trees. A security guard posted at the gated entrance checked everyone’s ID before calling inside and granting the group passage. Mounted security cameras monitored their arrival.

Ah, the joys of big bucks, Lou thought sardonically.

Cross Winds was a resplendent two-story neoclassical mansion featuring large, gently arched windows, and stone chimneys. The windows were dark from within, save for one on the first floor.

Even in the darkness, it was obvious the grounds were a source of pride to the owner. The grass, cut to the height of a putting green and tastefully illuminated by a series of in-ground lights, glowed the color of a polished emerald, while the hedges were pruned with a carpenter’s precision. Sprawling rock gardens and flower beds completed the remarkable landscape. Protruding past the corner of the main house was a portion of a large, dimly lit greenhouse.

The odd quartet proceeded up a short flight of stairs and onto a wide veranda that featured a dozen classic rocking chairs. Lou’s ankle challenged him with every step. Stone used a huge bronze wolf’s-head knocker to confirm their arrival, and in seconds, a cast iron lantern dangling overhead bathed them in a diffuse incandescent glow.

The massive front door opened, revealing a round-faced man in his mid-sixties-swarthy and fit in a weight lifter’s sort of way. He had narrow Eastern European eyes and thick silver hair combed in a sideways part as straight as the hedge trim outside. Despite the early hour, it seemed as if he had not been sleeping.

“William Chester,” he said, shaking each man’s hand as he directed the group into the elegant foyer inside.

His hands were thick and powerful, and Lou wondered if he might be putting something extra into each squeeze-an immediate message as to who was in charge and not to be trifled with. The gesture was understandable. On their drive over, Lou had used his smartphone to research the man. Chester’s rise to industry dominance would have sent Horatio Alger scurrying for his typewriter.

Chester, age five, along with his father, mother, and a sister, immigrated illegally to the United States from Poland as stowaways onboard a cargo ship. Having spent their life savings to secure safe passage, the family changed their name from Chudnofsky to Chester, and settled down in a single room in the heart of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. Chester would later say the run-down building where his family lived would have been condemned had it not been needed by the city to house the rats.

Eventually, Bernard Chester found employment in the garment district. However, the family’s good fortune proved short-lived. Carlo Gambino, of the Gambino crime family, assumed control over the district, and Bernard became a leader among those opposed to him. William had just turned eleven when his father, along with several others, was gunned down.

Penniless, Chester supported his family by sweeping floors in a plant wholesaler. Within a year, he had shown an unusual aptitude for stimulating plant health and growth, and was hired away by the Barlow Seed Company-first as a salesman, then as an assistant manager to Donald Barlow, who subsequently became his mentor. By the time William was thirty, he was managing the Barlow Company, which was by then among the twenty top-grossing operations of its kind.

When Barlow died suddenly and without family, his company passed to Chester. The subsequent growth of Chester Seed and Fertilizer, soon to be Chester Enterprises, put the company among the top ten in the industry worldwide.

Barlow died suddenly.

The phrase, from the Wikipedia article on William Chester, resonated in Lou’s mind. Over the final mile to the Chester mansion, he searched Donald Barlow on Google, then Yahoo, and finally Bing.

The third try was the charm.

A small article in a thirty-three-year-old issue of the Miami Herald reported the accidental death of seed giant Donald Barlow, who was washed overboard during a surprise squall while sailing aboard his fifty-two-foot yacht, Green Thumb.

The only other one on board at the time was Barlow Company executive William Chester, who immediately radioed the Coast Guard and followed their instructions. Despite Chester’s efforts, and an extensive sea and air search, Barlow’s body was not recovered. Police say that a cause of death hearing, routine in such deaths at sea, will be held in the near future.

William Chester, impeccably dressed in deck shoes, chinos, and a turquoise knit shirt, led the quartet to a conference room just off his study, offered them soft drinks and water, and motioned them to take any seats they wished around what looked to Lou like a mahogany table that might have cost the total of all the furniture he had ever owned.

“Well, gentlemen,” Chester said in a calm, authoritative voice, “I confess that I am rather shocked at the story as Chief Stone has related it to me. Suppose each of you give me your version. And please, take your time.”

“How far back would you like us to go?” Lou asked.

“Why, back to the beginning, of course, Dr. Welcome. Why don’t we begin with you, and then Mr. Duncan,