Murder Miscalculated (16 page)

I was about to begin my hour-in-preparation tirade when Lynn squeezed my hand again.

“Not now, Kid,” she said. “Let Cochran talk.”

I didn’t want to, but I did as she asked.

Cochran shot her a grateful look and then spoke. “Talbot, The Kid and Ms. Vargas are wondering how Doris Whitaker learned that I have been staying at The Book Nook.”

“Oh, they are, are they?”

“Yes, and frankly, I am too. This shouldn’t have happened. I’d like permission to investigate.”

There was another long pause at the other end.

Talbot finally ended it by saying, “You are right, it shouldn’t have happened. Look, I’ve got to run. Let me check out a few things before you go any further on this, okay?”

He hung up before Cochran could reply.

Cochran got to his feet. “Something’s not right about this,” he said as he put his cell phone back into his pocket. He glanced at the clock. It was just going on three. “I’m going out for a while, should be back by dinner. Stick around the store, will you?”

“What if Chad and Jeremy decide to pay a visit?” I asked.

“They won’t.”

“Why not?”

He gave a wry smile. “Because now they know I’m here,” he made the sign of quotation marks in the air with his fingers, “protecting you.”

“He’s right,” said Lynn in surprise.

“Well, I guess it’s an ill wind and all that,” I said, agreeing. We watched him leave, noting the worry marking his young face.

I listened to the beaded curtain behind me, swinging widely, the strands clicking against each other in the first seconds after he left, then slowing and finally stopping . “What do you think?” I asked Lynn, studying her face.

“I think,” she replied after a long moment, “that Cochran has some doubts about Talbot, and I agree.”

In spite of the turmoil around us, Lynn and I couldn’t ignore the day-to-day demands of life. She had dance classes to teach, and so she headed upstairs to change into her leotard and get the studio ready for the first hordes of children coming for their after-school lessons. I had bookstore duties to occupy my time. It’s amazing how many mundane tasks are necessary in running a small business.

Several hours later I was up at the front of the store, straightening and shelving books and watching the front counter. I had calmed down considerably since our conversation, if you can call it that, with Talbot.

The bell over the door chimed. It was Barbara, coming in after yet another afternoon spent doing whatever mysterious task she was doing.

“Hello, Kid!” she called as she took off her coat.

She looked tired. I tried again to find out what she was up to but to no avail.

“Sorry, Kid. This is something I have to take care of myself.” She gave me a hug. “Thank you, though. I’ll let you know if you can help.” She disappeared into the back room.

Old Tom arrived a little while later at six p.m. As if on cue my cell phone rang.

It was Cochran.

“Kid, I think I need some help. Can you come meet me?” His voice was calm, almost flat.

“What’s up, Cochran? Where are you?”

He gave me the name of a hotel nearby. “Room 421. Call me when you are in the lobby.” He hung up before I could ask any more questions.

I left Old Tom watching the front and went into the back room and told Barbara I was going out to meet Cochran. Lynn came down the stairs as I finished, and I had to explain the odd telephone call again.

“Do you think it’s safe?” she asked.

“He didn’t give any sign of there being trouble,” I told her with a confidence I lacked, then gave her a quick kiss and left.

The Broadmore Hotel was only a few blocks away, and I walked them quickly through the rush hour traffic of vehicles on the street and office workers crowding the sidewalks.

I took out my cell phone as I entered the lobby and called Cochran. He answered on the first ring.

“I’m in the lobby and heading for the elevator,” I told him.

He gave a quick acknowledgment and hung up. I took the elevator to the fourth floor.

The elevator opened onto a hallway that was like any hallway in any high-priced hotel in the country. The thick carpet muffled my footsteps as I passed a series of doors. One door opened just as I was passing. A young woman clutched a purse and coat tightly, and she hurried past me and down the hall the way I had come, toward the elevators. A man had been standing behind her, and he closed it but only after giving me a defiant look as though daring me to say something. I ignored him and went on down the hallway.

I knocked on the door of suite 421. “Cochran? It’s me, The Kid,” I said in a low voice.

The door opened. Cochran grabbed my arm, hurried me inside and closed the door behind us.

We were in a modest-sized room with a sofa and two chairs, a writing desk and a wet bar on one side. A set of closed curtains hid what I supposed were floo-to-ceiling windows looking out over the city. There was a door in the wall to our left, next to the sofa. It was closed. Cochran’s face was pale.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

He pointed toward the door. “Talbot’s in the bedroom. He’s dead.”

Talbot lay on his back on the bed in the next room. He was dressed as I was used to seeing him, in a business suit and tie, but his coat was off, hanging from the back of a chair near the wardrobe. The front of his shirt was stained with blood. To my unpracticed eye it looked like he had been shot in the heart. I sniffed the air. There was a copper smell from the blood as well as a trace of gunpowder—no surprise there.

Cochran stood behind me. “That’s how I found him twenty minutes ago.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No, not yet. I was hoping you’d call your buddy, Lieutenant Johnston.”

Mel’s an old friend of mine, despite being on the job. He’s a homicide cop and a good one. I took out my cell phone, found his number, called him and explained the situation.

“He’ll be here with a team in ten minutes.” I told Cochran after I hung up.

He avoided my eyes and went back into the living room and sat down in one of the easy chairs. I followed him and sat in the other.

“Any other reason you didn’t call the cops?”

He looked at me with a trace of a smile. “You mean, did I kill him?”

I kept my eyes on his but didn’t answer.

He held my gaze for a few seconds, then looked toward the bedroom where Talbot’s body lay. “No, Kid, I didn’t. But I could have.”

I asked him what he meant.

“When I got here the first time, Talbot was alive. We talked for at least fifteen minutes. He was just as upset as you and I were that Doris Whitaker knows about me.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“No, really, he was. Apparently he had told his mole in Wofe’s organization, and the mole told Wolfe. Talbot figured Wolfe had to be the one who leaked the information to her.”

“You said the first time you got here.”

“Yes. We talked for a few minutes, and then he got a call on his cell phone and told me I had to leave for a few minutes. It was obvious he didn’t want me to hear what he said. He told me he would call my cell phone when I could come back.”

“So you left him here alive?”

“I went down the hallway and around the corner and waited. I was able to use the reflection in a window at the end of the hallway to see the entire length of it. I saw a man come from the elevators and go to Talbot’s door, knock and go inside. A few minutes later the man left.”

“You didn’t recognize him?”

“No, I couldn’t see any details in the reflection.” He took a breath and continued. “I waited the fifteen minutes and then fifteen minutes more. I went back to Talbot’s room, but he didn’t answer the door, and he didn’t answer his cell phone either. So I got the maid to let me in.”

“How did you do that?”

“I’d been staying here myself up until a couple of days ago, remember?”

I nodded.

He continued. “I simply showed my ID to one of the maids. She remembered seeing me and Talbot together often enough that she didn’t think it strange I’d need to get into his suite.”

“And you found him like that?”

“Yes.” Cochran appeared calm enough, but I noticed his fingers lightly drumming on his knee, and he was biting his lip.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

Cochran cast a glance to both sides before answering. “The thing is, I know who the mole in Wolfe’s organization is.”

Mel arrived in eight minutes, not ten. He greeted Cochran and me and shook his head. “I’d like to say it’s good to see you again, Agent Cochran, but under the circumstances I don’t think I can.” He raised his hand, holding two fingers next to each other. “You do know that I’m this close to retiring, don’t you? I don’t need another messy case like last time.”

Mel and I go way back to when I was a street-wise teenager and he was street cop trying to keep kids like me out of trouble. Fortunately for me, our paths never crossed in a professional way, at least not until last year.

His team arrived just then, and he sent them into the bedroom to begin their evidence gathering. Mel took Cochran and me out into the hallway, where I let Cochran tell his story again. When he got to the part about seeing the man arrive and then leave, Mel asked him to wait for a minute while he sent someone down to the hotel office to see about securing a copy of any surveillance video they might have.

That done, he turned his attention back to us. “Agent Cochran, are you armed?”

Cochran nodded and removed a pistol from a shoulder holster. He handed it butt-first to Mel.

Mel accepted it and sniffed the barrel. “Clean,” he said, as he handed it back

Cochran put it back into its holster.

“Your men will find that Talbot’s gun hasn’t been fired either.”

“You touched it?”

“No, just gave it the sniff test.”

Mel sent us back to The Book Nook after a few more questions. “Why am I not surprised?” he said when learning that Cochran was staying there. He told us he’d stop by later in the evening.

A policewoman passed us as we were leaving. She carried a sheaf of printed photographs.

Cochran stopped her and called to Mel, “Lieutenant Johnston, may I take a copy of this?

Mel waved his agreement, and Cochran accepted a copy. He barely glanced at it before handing it to me. “Who else would it be?”

The photo, a screen grab from surveillance tape, showed a tall, thin man with a tight ponytail. Though his face was not completely visible, I had no doubt of his identity. It was the man who’d killed Zager as I picked his pocket.

As we left the hotel Cochran suggested we stop and pick up a couple of cups of coffee. I suspect he could have used something stronger but didn’t mention it. A few minutes later, with both of us sipping from paper cups, we walked over to a bench on the square and sat down.

Cochran took out his cell phone and called someone. He turned his head away as he spoke, but I had a pretty good idea who he had called. When he was done he put away his phone, then sat without talking.

That didn’t bother me. I had a lot of thoughts going through my mind, as well. I waited for Cochran to decide when and what he was going to say.

“That was Riley,” Cochran said. “He says there’s a special investigation team arriving in a few hours.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll pick them up late tonight at the airport.”

“A special team?”

“The murder of an agent gets pretty high priority.” He fell silent again.

I checked the action around the square. It was getting chilly as the evening drew near. Aside from a couple of homeless people wrapped in blankets, we were the only ones using the benches. Everyone else was in a hurry to get someplace. I slipped the paper sleeve off my coffee cup and warmed my hands on the cup.

Cochran turned to me. “I never liked Talbot. He was an ambitious bastard who didn’t care who he hurt as he moved up the ladder at the agency.”

I didn’t reply, and after a pause he continued. “Still, I was working for him on this assignment. He was my boss, and someone killed him.” His eyes pleaded for understanding. “I’ve got to help them do whatever it takes to find who killed him.”

“Regardless of who gets hurt in the process?” I was thinking of the warrant for Barbara that Talbot had.

Cochran nodded. “I know there’s no chance of a connection between Barbara and this, but I won’t be handling the investigation. The team that’s arriving tonight will look through his files, and they’ll find that warrant.” We returned to nursing our coffees, neither willing to give voice to our concern.

I changed the subject. “Back at the hotel you said you knew who Talbot’s mole is in Wolfe’s organization.”

“Talbot told me when I arrived. Believe me, Kid, he was just as worried as we were that Doris Whitaker had found about you helping us. That’s when he told me. The mole is Dennis Metcalf, Wolfe’s lawyer.”

“His own lawyer? Isn’t there some kind of rule about client confidence and all that?”

“Ordinarily, yes, but a lawyer is also an officer of the court and duty bound to report knowledge of a crime. Not that Metcalf is operating out of any sense of civic duty.”

“Oh?”

“No, Talbot cut a deal with Metcalf. Full immunity for any crimes he may have committed while working for Wolfe in exchange for all the details on Wolfe’s operations.”

“Sounds like a sweet deal for both Metcalf and Talbot.”

“Yeah, up until now. Wolfe must have found out about Metcalf’s deal with Talbot. Talbot told me the data card that was supposed to be in the courier’s wallet was the last bit of confirming evidence, tying all of Wolfe’s activities and accounts together.”

“No wonder Talbot was so eager to get his hands on it.”

Cochran nodded. “Riley suggested I pay Metcalf a visit. He’s staying at The Meridian. I gave him a call, and he told me to come over.” Cochran eyed me.

“And?” I asked.

“I’m thinking I’d like you to come along, too.”