lucky, the bodies would have never been found.'
Hoyt shook his head. 'Hell of a theory.'
'There's more.'
'Like?'
Carlson looked at Stone. Stone pointed to his cell phone. 'I just got a strange phone call from someone at Briggs Penitentiary,' Stone said. 'It seems your son-in-law called there today and demanded a meeting with KillRoy.'
Hoyt now looked openly stunned. 'Why the hell would he do that?'
'You tell us,' Stone responded. 'But keep in mind that Beck knows we're onto him. All of a sudden, he has this overwhelming desire to visit the man he set up as your daughter's killer.'
'Hell of a coincidence,' Carlson added.
'You think he's trying to cover his tracks?'
'You have a better explanation?'
Hoyt sat back and tried to let all of this settle. 'You left something out.'
'What?'
He pointed to the photographs on the table. 'Who gave you those?'
'In a way,' Carlson said, 'I think your daughter did.'
Hoyt's face looked drained.
'More specifically, her alias did. One Sarah Goodhart. Your daughter's middle name and the name of this street.'
'I don't understand.'
'At the crime scene,' Carlson said. 'One of the two thugs – Melvin Bartola – had a small key in his shoe.' Carlson held up the key. Hoyt took it from his hand, peering at it as though it held some mystical answer. 'See the
Hoyt nodded.
'That stands for United Central Bank. We finally traced this key down to their branch at 1772 Broadway in the city. The key opens Box 174, which is registered to one Sarah Goodhart. We got a search warrant for it.'
Hoyt looked up. 'The photographs were in there?'
Carlson and Stone glanced at each other. They had already made the decision not to tell Hoyt everything about that box – not until all the tests came back and they knew for sure – but both men nodded now.
'Think about it, Hoyt. Your daughter kept these pictures hidden in a safety-deposit box. The reasons are obvious. Want more? We questioned Dr. Beck. He admitted knowing nothing about the pictures. He'd never seen them before. Why would your daughter hide them from him?'
'You talked to Beck?'
'Yes.'
'What else did he say?'
'Not much because he demanded a lawyer.' Carlson waited a beat. Then he leaned forward. 'He not only lawyered up, he called Hester Crimstein. That sound like the act of an innocent man to you?'
Hoyt actually gripped the sides of the chair, trying to steady himself. 'You can't prove any of this.'
'Not yet, no. But we know. That's half the battle sometimes.'
'So what are you going to do?'
'Only one thing we can do.' Carlson smiled at him. 'Apply pressure until something breaks.'
Larry Gandle looked over the day's developments and mumbled to himself, 'Not good.'
One, the FBI picks up Beck and questions him.
Two, Beck calls a photographer named Rebecca Schayes. He asks her about an old car accident involving his wife. Then he visits her studio.
A photographer no less.
Three, Beck calls Briggs Penitentiary and says he wants to meet Elroy Kellerton.
Fourth, Beck calls Peter Flannery's office.
All of this was puzzling. None of it was good.
Eric Wu hung up the phone and said, 'You're not going to like this.'
'What?'
'Our source with the FBI says that they suspect Beck killed his wife.'
Gandle nearly fell over. 'Explain.'
'That's all the source knows. Somehow, they've tied the two dead bodies by the lake to Beck.'
Very puzzling.
'Let me see those emails again,' Gandle said.
Eric Wu handed them to him. When Gandle thought about who could have sent them, the creeping feeling in the pit of his stomach started to claw and grow. He tried to add the pieces together. He'd always wondered how Beck had survived that night. Now he wondered something else.
Had anyone else survived it?
'What time is it?' Gandle asked.
'Six-thirty.'
'Beck still hasn't looked up that Bat-whatever address?'
'Bat Street. And no, he hasn't.'
'Anything more on Rebecca Schayes?'
'Just what we already know. Close friend of Elizabeth Parker's. They shared an apartment before Parker married Beck. I checked old phone records. Beck hasn't called her in years.'
'So why would he contact her now?'
Wu shrugged. 'Ms. Schayes must know something.'
Griffin Scope had been very clear. Learn what you can, then bury it.
And use Wu.
'We need to have a chat with her,' Gandle said.
Chapter 16
Shauna met me on the ground floor of a high-rise at 462 Park Avenue in Manhattan.
'Come on,' she said without preamble. 'I have something to show you upstairs.'
I checked my watch. A little under two hours until the Bat Street message came in. We entered an elevator. Shauna hit the button for the twenty-third floor. The lights climbed and the blind-person-counter beeped.
'Hester got me thinking,' Shauna said.
'What about?'
'She said the feds would be desperate. That they'd do anything to get you.'
'So?'
The elevator sounded its final ding.
'Hang on, you'll see.'
The door slid open on a massive cubicle-divided floor. The norm in the city nowadays. Rip off the ceiling and view from above and you'd have a very hard time telling the difference between this floor and a rat maze. From down here too, when you thought about it.
Shauna marched between countless cloth-lined dividers. I trailed in her wake. Halfway down she turned left and then right and then left again.
'Maybe I should drop bread crumbs,' I said.
Her voice was flat. 'Good one.'
'Thank you, I'm here all week.'
She wasn't laughing.
'What is this place anyway?' I asked.
'A company called DigiCom. The agency works with them sometimes.'
'Doing what?'
'You'll see.'
We made a final turn into a cluttered cubbyhole occupied by a young man with a long head and the slender fingers of a concert pianist.
'This is Farrell Lynch. Farrell, this is David Beck.'
I shook the slender hand briefly. Farrell said, 'Hi.'
I nodded.
'Okay,' Shauna said. 'Key it up.'
Farrell Lynch swiveled his chair so that he was facing the computer. Shauna and I watched over his shoulders. He started typing with those slender fingers.
