FEARLESS (10 page)

Chapter Eleven

Ben rang the doorbell at Martin Coughlin’s house the next morning. The one-story rancher in Virginia sat on a large lot with a leafy green front yard that defied the burning of the beating sun. Rows of perfectly trimmed bushes and bright red flowers highlighted the white bricks. The place was right out of a “work hard and you get this” public service announcement.

That fit Martin. He had graduated with honors from the U.S. Naval Academy, went on to serve with distinction and retired in time to get offered an impressive position with NCIS. He had plenty of experience, even worked in a joint command with NCIS, but another man had been the lead contender for the senior-intelligence-officer position. Then the deputy director had put his old friend’s name at the top of the list.

Ben knew the details because there were no fewer than ten men in the special-agent field who had lined up to talk to him off the record. Martin was a favorite among the politically connected set, but men on the ground weren’t impressed.

There was talk of an ego and outrageous sense of entitlement. More than one person commented on his heiress wife and the family’s carefully crafted public persona, complete with two beautiful, blond private-school kids.

Although the gossip held a certain fascination, whatever Wasserman knew that might have got him killed interested Ben more.

After the second ring of the bell, the door opened. Ronald Worth stood there. “Good to see you again, Ben.”

Ben couldn’t really agree. “Sir? Why are you here?”

“To supervise your interview with Martin.” The deputy swept his arm across the foyer and in the direction of the mumble of voices to the right.

Because Ben hadn’t told anyone except Martin about the meeting, that could only mean Martin had run to his old buddy Ronald. The inbred information of this case made Ben’s head spin. There was nothing neutral about this case review.

When the case had landed on Ben’s desk, he had wanted to dig in. Now he wished someone else had pulled the assignment. Of course, someone else might be willing to go along with the deputy’s vision of the case, but Ben wasn’t that guy.

He glanced around. Everything was in a shade of blue or yellow. Not a stick of furniture looked out of place. The no-dirt, no-clutter thing made Ben wonder where these people hid their kids.

He turned the corner and stepped into the doorway of the formal living room. The dark wood and small, shiny collection behind a glass-front cabinet didn’t leave much room for question when it came to these folks’ financial status. The place had an old-money feel to it.

So did Mrs. Coughlin. She sat perfectly straight in her chair with her legs crossed under her dress, and she sipped tea out of a tiny cup.

Ben shook his head. It was as if he’d walked into a Rockefeller family photo.

A man rushed forward. Fortysomething, fit and wearing dress pants and a tie while presumably relaxing on his day off at home. Yeah, that was normal.

“I’m Martin Coughlin. This is my wife, Nancy.” She stood up with a smile seemingly frozen in place and came over to shake hands. “And this is John Gallagher.”

Gallagher had a rich, useless look to him. Fancy watch and a smirk where a smile should have been. He, too, belonged to the business-suits-on-Sunday group. Made Ben grateful he lived in Georgetown because he preferred jeans on his days off.

No one bothered to define the man’s role, so Ben guessed he should recognize the name. He didn’t. He filed it away in case he didn’t figure it out in the next few minutes.

He also made a mental note to polish his résumé because it was now clear the deputy had a telegraphed ending in mind to this so-called investigation, and finding out the truth didn’t appear to be a priority.

“Am I interrupting something?” Which struck Ben as impossible because he had called the meeting.

“We’re all here for your talk with Martin.” Something in the deputy’s tone suggested he expected to be made aware of all private meetings in the future.

Martin motioned toward the end of the couch. “Have a seat.”

Ben obliged even though the seat put him right in the deputy’s line of sight. Worth leaned against the wall right next to the baby grand piano. The bench had a cover that looked as if it had been brushed with a comb. Also, it didn’t have an indentation that would suggest someone actually sat down and played the instrument now and then.

“You are in a difficult position.” Martin sat perpendicular to Ben in a separate chair and assumed a serious man-to-man look. “We understand you need to go through the checklist, but the reality is the murderer’s identity is known.”

Ben tried to figure out if he agreed with any of that. “And that person is?”

“Lara Bart.” John jumped to take this one. “Looks like a lover’s spat gone wrong.”

“It’s terrible, but Steve always did struggle when it came to women,” Nancy said, complete with a sympathetic head shake.

The entire conversation was too choreographed for Ben’s liking. They each played a role, and none of them did so convincingly. He stared at the grandfather clock in the corner, watched it tick a steady beat and decided to play along. For now.

“Meaning?”

“He liked the type inclined to passion, and by that I mean fighting and screaming.” Martin glanced at his wife and waited for her to give him a pursed-lip nod before continuing. “He’d twice had the police called when fights with a previous girlfriend escalated.”

So the game was blame-the-victim. No surprise there. Ben decided to impart a little reality into the conversation. “Ms. Bart is a security-clearance investigator.”

John waved him off. “And the last one was a stripper. The career choice doesn’t matter. We’re talking about the personality type.”

Ben heard the dismissive tone and watched the fake smile slip. This guy, whoever he was, didn’t like playing this game. “Refresh my memory. You are involved in this how?”

“John is a friend of the family and handles all of our personal legal matters plus those of my business.” Nancy made the pronouncement as she took a seat in the only other chair in the room.

Ben didn’t get her at all. In fact, many of the facts didn’t fit. For all the fancy clothes and knickknacks, they lacked many of the trappings of obsessive wealth. The sprawling house, with its separate wings and three-car garage, was impressive by Washington, D.C., standards, where a square of property in a neighborhood with good schools cost a mint. But by all accounts this lady was so-much-money-no-one-bothered-to-count-it rich. Plenty of streets and parts of the metro area were filled with mansions. This wasn’t one.

Ben made a mental note to take a closer look at the company she’d inherited. He remembered it starting as a financial-investment firm with its tentacles in everything from pharmaceuticals to government contracts training militia operations overseas. Before the financial markets collapsed, Nancy and her board had diversified, removing them from the commercial real-estate market that had built the firm originally. She’d earned praise for having foresight and gratitude for hiring while every other business fought not to go under.

Where John fit in, Ben had no clue.

He really hated having his time wasted. “While this show of support is impressive, and I think it says a lot about who Mr. Coughlin is—”

“Please call me Martin.”

“I do have a few things we need to talk about. Maybe we could take a few minutes in private. We’ll run through the preliminaries, answer some open questions and move on.”

“Not necessary.” Martin’s wide smile faltered, taking on a more plastic cast. “You can ask me anything in front of them.”

Because that would be productive. “That’s not really the protocol for these types of things.”

Ronald shifted at his place against the wall. “You can make an exception.”

Which Ben took to mean he
would
make one or the deputy would end this pretend discussion prematurely. Ben balanced the pros and cons. No way would he get an honest answer. All he could hope for now was an honest reaction.

“It’s a difficult question and I apologize in advance,” he said.

“Just get to it.” Martin’s comment came out like an order. Adding the smile to the end didn’t soften the impatience.

Ben steepled his fingertips together. Why bother taking notes? This was all about impressions anyway. “What information did Steve Wasserman have on you?”

Martin’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

Nancy went with dropped-mouth indignation. “What are you saying?”

Before Ben could respond, the defensive shields snapped shut around the room. The air went from uncomfortable to choking with tension.

He told them what they clearly already knew as he watched for the smallest flinch or eye twitch. “Steve volunteered to be interviewed. He went to Hampton Enterprises’ owner, Greg Parker, and because of the confidentiality issues Parker called NCIS. When Wasserman refused to speak with anyone in government, Parker sent Ms. Bart out there.”

John reached into his pocket and came out empty-handed. It was the act of a former smoker, and the way he kept wiping his mouth suggested he needed a cigarette right now. “It sounds as if this Greg Parker got conned. Clearly Ms. Bart knew Steve. I’m thinking the entire interview was a front for something else, something going on between this couple.”

Martin nodded. “Her personal items were found in the house. I told them.” Martin leaned in. For the first time in this meeting he wasn’t watching from the sidelines. “Figured they had a right to know.”

Not under any investigative strategy Ben had ever heard of. He circled back to the question pounding his brain. “Do you have any idea what Steve intended to tell Ms. Bart or what he did tell her?”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Martin didn’t offer more or try to convince them. He said his line then sat back in his chair. Other than a quick glance to his wife, he looked disinterested in what was happening around him and not one ounce threatened by the questions coming at him.

The clock chimed with a deep, heavy bong. Ben wondered if that was an omen. Maybe a signal of the impending death of his NCIS career.

“You can’t think of anything that happened, maybe something you didn’t think mattered but Steve could have let fester? It could be something minor that he spun into something bigger in his head.” Ben tried to give them every out and shift the responsibility to the poor dead guy.

“Nothing,” Martin said, ignoring the potential out sitting right in front of him. He looked to Ronald. “What about you? We were both there. If Steve was upset about something, it would likely affect both of us.”

Ben stilled. The comment sounded suspiciously like a warning.

Ronald’s intense glare never left Ben’s face. “This line of questioning will not lead anywhere positive. Find another.”

Ben was starting to get that. If he wanted answers, he’d have to go around his boss. “It’s just for background. We ask these things to rule them out.”

“Focus on Ms. Bart, Ben.” The deputy’s voice had a deadly ring to it.

“I plan to do just that.”

The deputy glanced in the direction of the front door. “Then I will walk you out.”

Ben took the hint. There was no information to be found here. Whatever they knew, and they clearly knew something, was buried under layers of loyalty and years of cover-up. That led Ben directly back to their days at the Naval Academy. The school bound them together.

He knew from only a few minutes of digging that Martin and Nancy had married at the academy’s chapel right after graduation. The rich girl and the newly commissioned military officer. An odd match and a perfect place to start investigating.

Ben had almost made it to the front door when the deputy’s furious voice smacked into the back of his head. “You are on a thin line.”

Ben turned around. “I’m not doing anything any special agent wouldn’t do.”

Ronald’s face was a deep flushing red. Anger radiated off of him and crashed into everything around him. “You’re looking to ruin the reputation of a good man. You’ll need to go through me to do it.”

Because he’d already blown it, Ben took one more step in the direction of his firing. “Don’t you think it’s odd the wife and her partner insisted on being here?”

“No one insisted on anything.” Ronald crowded them closer to the front porch and put his hand on the door as if to block anyone from getting inside.

“I just think it’s interesting that the wife needed her assistant, but you didn’t bother to bring yours.”

The deputy’s face fell. A thrumming tension pulled it down until the frown took over his entire face. “Are you trying to ask me something, Ben?”

“No.” Ben grabbed his keys. “I think I have what I need here.”

* * *

C
LIVE
SAT
AT
the window of the Thai restaurant across the street from the coffeehouse where he usually exchanged information with his boss. They passed everything in the middle of a newspaper left on the table for only a split second. One of them would get up and the other would swoop in.

Today he had put a buffer between them. He wore a baseball cap pulled low and sunglasses. In this neighborhood in the middle of summer, he fit in. No one outside of the usual trendy college, stare-at-their-laptops crowd was there.

Neither was his boss.

He waved the waitress away as he concentrated on the people passing on the sidewalk and all he had to accomplish. Time ticked by and the loose ends kept getting longer.

Because Clive had destroyed his main work cell in the marina, he was at a disadvantage. Sure, his boss had other numbers to reach him, but he hadn’t tried any. The man followed the news closely, so by now he had to know about the marina explosion. Unless he’d totally fallen asleep, he should be able to move the pieces around and realize the marina fire had everything to do with this operation.

Clive turned his glass on the table, careful not to let it clank against the wooden top. His boss had wanted Wasserman out of the way. Clive had made that happen but hadn’t been paid. The note inside Davis Weeks’s file explained that the remainder of the transfer would occur when Lara Bart was neutralized. A task that turned out to be harder than expected.