He had entered the room while I stood gawking. He was standing at the farthest curve of the windows, silhouetted by the afternoon light. He seemed to be staring at a building. I quickly realized that his attention was on the Haimler Building, a tall, graceful structure crowned by a complex glass design. The Haimler was one of Tyler’s award-winning creations.
“This isn’t the best time of day to see it,” he said without turning around. “A little later, it captures the light in an entirely different way.” His voice, as before, was calm, low, even. It unnerved me in a way that Booter Hodges’s self-involved rambling never would.
“Where is everybody?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder to make sure the door remained open.
“I sent them home. Right after you called. I don’t want anyone to know you were here today.”
“But the cameras-”
“Are off,” he said, finally turning around.
“Oh.” I felt a chill go down my back as he silently assessed me.
Corbin Tyler’s eyes and hair were raven black, which was all the drama on the playbill of his features. He was a slender man of average height. His face was pale and thin, his mouth soft and unsmiling. There was a look of cool determination in his eyes. Everything about him said he was serious.
“There is an envelope for you on the desk, Ms. Kelly. Take it and go.”
“I appreciate this more than I can say, Mr. Tyler. But I also have a few questions-”
“I will not discuss it further with you.”
“Why not? It’s not as if-”
He held up his hand like a traffic cop. I fell silent.
“Don’t push your luck,” he said. He folded his arms. Something in his manner told me that I should be grateful for the photocopy and go, but as Popeye might say, I am what I am.
“Do you know why Allan Moffett resigned?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I waited.
“Thank you for asking. Now, if anyone has seen you arrive and asks why I met with a reporter from the
I walked over to his desk, picked up the 9 x 12 clasp envelope on it, and paused, my eyes drawn to the only other objects on its surface-two framed portraits. One was a wedding photo, of a bride with a round, merry face; the other a graduation photo, of a young woman who had inherited the best of her parents’ features.
“My wife and daughter,” he said from behind me, then added, “My late wife.”
I turned to look at him. He hadn’t moved from the windows, but his face had changed. I thought it had changed, anyway, at least for a moment. He still looked serious.
“Your daughter is beautiful,” I said.
He turned his back to me. “She’s all I have now, of course. Over the years, I’ve learned that I will do almost anything to protect her. Now,
I reached the door and looked back at him. He hadn’t moved.
“Why are you letting me have this?”
“You speak as if I have given you a gift, Ms. Kelly. You’re wrong.”
IDIDN ’T ACTUALLY RUNto the elevator, but I thought about it. About halfway down the dark hall, I began to ask myself if this all hadn’t been too easy. As I passed the receptionist’s desk, I glanced at the phone and saw that one of the lines was lit. I paused and listened. I heard the low murmur of Tyler’s voice but couldn’t make out anything he was saying. The light on the phone went off. He had called someone. Who?
My instincts told me to get the hell out of there. I hurried to the elevator and pressed the call button several times, as if the elevator would somehow recognize my sense of urgency if I kept signaling it. Tucking the envelope under one arm, I searched through my purse, looking for something that could be used as a weapon. My keys were all that was handy.
I heard noises from the hallway, someone moving about, closing a door. The elevator car arrived. I stepped in, pushed the button for the garage, and watched Tyler emerge from the hallway just as the shiny brass doors closed in front of me, leaving me with nothing but a funhouse reflection of a tense woman’s face. Mine.
I clutched the unopened envelope as the car began its rapid descent, seeming to pick up speed at each floor. My mind raced with it. Corbin Tyler had easily handed over something which might damn him, and then made a phone call. Did he hand it over because he knew it wouldn’t leave the building? Would someone be waiting for me when the doors to the elevator opened?
The car suddenly slowed, a roller coaster dropping motion that was echoed in the lurching of my stomach. This wasn’t the garage. The elevator was stopping at the second floor. I moved away from the doors, leaned my back against the bank of buttons, my hand ready to press the alarm bell. I held my breath.
The doors slid open. I waited. Heard the stairwell door close just before the elevator doors slid shut.
The descent began again, and again the car lurched to a stop. The doors opened, this time in the cavernous underground parking lot. I held my hand on the “open doors” button as I peered out.
The stark overhead fluorescent lighting cast shadows everywhere. I saw no one. The elevator buzzed at me in annoyance. I stepped out into the garage; the doors closed softly behind me.
I heard every single footstep I made on the concrete floor, all the while wondering who else might be listening for them. I had my keys out, but still I fumbled to get the car door open. I got in, locked the door, and started the car. I heard the squeal of tires somewhere in the garage, hurriedly backed out, and roared toward the exit, my own wheels screeching. The startled attendant at the gate pressed a button and raised the gate arm just before the Karmann Ghia would have smashed into it, a contest I’m not sure my car would have won. The car jolted hard onto the pavement as it burst from the garage onto a blessedly empty street. I slowed, glanced in the mirror, and saw no one leaving the garage behind me.
I took a series of unnecessary turns just to make sure no one was tailing me, finally ending up at the
There was a plain white envelope inside it. This one was postmarked Las Piernas. Except for that and Tyler’s office address, the white envelope looked identical to the ones Claire had shown me. Typewritten, marked “Personal and confidential.” Inside the envelope, the slick paper of a color copy was folded in thirds. There was no writing on it. I unfolded it.
In what appeared to be an enlarged copy of a color photograph, I saw a group of people on a boat. It was a good-sized boat, a boat set up for serious fishing. I couldn’t tell its exact size or model from the photo, but it had the look of an expensive craft. There were seven men visible in the photo: Booter Hodges, Allan Moffett, Roland Hill, Corbin Tyler, Keene Dage, Andre Selman, and Ben Watterson. Hill was at the helm. Ben and Andre had their arms around a young woman. The other men were standing behind the woman, lifting cans of beer, as if in a toast. She was perhaps in her mid-twenties; the men spanned a range of ages, but all older than she by at least a decade. She had straight red hair, worn in a bowl cut. She held out a small sole; she was keeping the fish at arm’s length, but smiled proudly at the camera, in triumph.
I had no idea who she was.
I had the uneasy feeling that I was no better off than the fish.
16
BACK AT MY DESK, I decided to face up to the worst possibility-that Lucas wanted to use me in some way, to help him blackmail seven of Las Piernas’s leading citizens.
Setting aside all the objections I had to that theory, thinking of Lucas as a blackmailer raised other questions. The worst thing portrayed in the photograph was “refusing to toss back an undersized fish,” not exactly an offense that would drive someone to commit suicide or tender a resignation. So what did the photograph represent? What did Lucas want? Had someone killed him in order to be relieved of his threats? If so, who?
