Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

“Well, okay then. Here we go.”

Harry shifted into drive, and as soon as the car began to move Corley turned and headed for the elevator. He didn’t look back.

The clouds that had been gathering for the past couple of hours were teases, refusing to let loose and rain. Every few seconds, a couple of drops hit the windshield, but Mitch didn’t bother with the wipers. As his eyes went from mark to mark, he registered the fact that the building’s garage door was opening, and he saw an old Suburban begin to pull out. But at first he didn’t flag it as a significant event.

Meanwhile, the talk-show host was on a roll. “You know when debating interrogation techniques became irrelevant, my friends, if not absurd?”

“On 9/11, dipstick,” Mitch answered.

“September eleventh, 2001, when Islamo-fascists slit the throats of eight American pilots and proceeded to murder over three thousand American civilians- that’s when!”

Mitch eyed the Suburban again, and this time he gave it his full attention. It was hard to get a good look at the driver through the car’s windshield, but something about the silhouette seemed familiar.

Harry pulled out across the sidewalk and stopped. A garbage truck was blocking his way. He eyed the remaining garbage bags and sighed. “We’re going to be here all night.”

He watched the garbageman for a minute. Aware that he had an audience now, the guy began mixing in some pretty slick dance moves as he worked. Harry laughed, then stuck his head out the window.

“Hey, man,” Harry called out. “I need a favor. Could you back it up maybe five feet so we can get by?”

Mitch’s eyes were locked on Harry now, and as the garbage truck began backing up, he punched in Hall’s number.

“Yeah?” Hall answered.

“We got movement. Old Chevy Suburban. Harry’s driving.”

“Harry?”

“And-bingo-Geiger, the kid, and Harry’s sister are all with him. Where are you?”

“Ninety-eighth Street. Follow them-and run the plates so we know whose car it is. Call back with your loke and I’ll catch up.”

“Okay.”

With the garbage truck clear of the driveway, the Suburban pulled out into the street and drove west.

“All this crap about waterboarding and wall slamming?” the talk-show host continued. “Tsk tsk, oh my-and let’s be sure Abdul gets due process, too. Habeas damn corpus, my ass!”

“You got that right, dude,” said Mitch, and turned off the radio. He pulled a laptop out from beneath his seat, placed it on the passenger seat, and gently hit the gas.

An hour north of the city, Hall was driving up the Saw Mill River Parkway past woods broken up by sheer gray walls of rock. The holiday traffic wasn’t bad going in this direction.

Mitch came back on the speakerphone. “Okay, I got the car’s owner. Martin Corley, MD. Lives in the building. Divorced. No kids.”

“Do a cross-ref-maybe he’s got a place north of the city. Check property, electric, and phone records. Where are you now?”

“Route Nine, coming up on the Bear Mountain State Parkway.”

“I’m near Ossining, so not far behind you.”

Looking across the parkway’s divider, Hall saw the American Dream creeping south, bumper to bumper. Cars with families on their way home from a day in the country-radios blaring, dogs with their heads out the window, bicycles on racks, sleepy children in backseats with sunburned cheeks and taffy melting in their pockets. What a country: fifty thousand miles of highway helping people find a little peace somewhere.

Hall put the cell on mute and turned on the radio. He wondered what peace would feel like to him after all this time, and thought he knew the answer. It would be a moment where he wasn’t thinking three moves ahead-better yet, a moment when there were no more moves at all.

He didn’t have to wait long for a report to come on the radio.

“This is WCBS with breaking news. We’ve got more on the building explosion at West One thirty-fourth Street in Manhattan. Rich Lamb is at the site. Rich?”

“David, the building was a two-story structure, believed to be a private residence. The fire department, NYPD, hazmat crews, and federal authorities are all here, but no one is saying very much. I can tell you this: it looks more like an im plosion than an ex plosion. The place seems to have collapsed in on itself, leaving everything around it untouched.”

“Could this have been a terrorist act, Rich?”

“Investigators will have to consider that possibility. This place could have been either a target or a bomb factory where something went wrong. And, of course, the cause of the explosion could have been something less sinister, like a gas leak. Commissioner Kelly is due to make a statement soon. Until then, we’ll-”

Hall turned off the radio and unmuted his cell. It was time to play the string out.

“Mitch?”

“Yeah?”

“I think Geiger’s place blew up.”

“ What? With Ray in it?”

“It’s on the radio. A building on West One thirty-fourth.” He paused for effect. “Leveled. Nothing left.” Hall fashioned a sigh. “Jesus…” he said.

“Oh man,” said Mitch. “The poor fucker.” He let out a sigh that matched Hall’s. They were kindred spirits, each critiquing their own performance while studying the other’s.

Hall counted off an appropriate pause, then held on to his somber tone. “Anything new on Corley?”

“Just came up,” Mitch replied. “Corley owns a house in Cold Spring. Twenty-nine River Lane. Maybe fifteen minutes away.”

“Satellite it.”

“Already did. It’s outside of town, closest neighbor at least a quarter of a mile away. He’s got a dock on the river.”

“Boat?”

“On the dock. Looks like a rowboat. This is a helluva lot better than an apartment on CPW, huh?”

Hall smiled. The million monkeys were typing away, and one of them seemed to be on the verge of producing something quite extraordinary.

“Yeah,” Hall said. “It’s perfect.”

“Geiger…”

Geiger opened his eyes to see Harry staring at him from the driver’s seat. Otherwise the Suburban was empty.

“We’re here,” Harry said.

“Where is here?”

“Corley’s house in Cold Spring.”

Geiger opened his door, leaned out, and spat blood. “I have to get some ice.” He picked up the bag and got out of the car.

Harry met Geiger as he began walking slowly up a flagstone path. He reached out as if to help him, but Geiger shook his head.

“I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not.”

Geiger turned to face him, his eyes brimming with a hard light. “Yes, Harry, I am.”

As Geiger continued on toward the house, Harry looked around. To the west, the grounds stretched in a smooth, downward slope toward the water, untended and wild. Between the meadow and the river stood a dense line of trees; old firs and beeches, their trunks thick and knobby, spread crooked branches that cast long shadows in the fading sunlight. Ahead of Harry, the house-a two-story gray colonial-rested on the highest point of land, its eight-foot first-floor windows and wraparound porch providing a soaring view of the Hudson and the hills on its far side.

Bordered by tall, spike-topped ground lamps, the flagstone path led to the front entrance, and as Geiger and Harry neared the steps, Ezra and Lily appeared in one of the first-floor windows. Standing side by side, they were only dimly visible, the glass’s thick film of dust making phantasms of them, as if they were in the world but not of it.

From inside Geiger’s bag came the ring of his cell phone. Halfway up the steps, he stopped, took out the phone, and answered.

“Ms. Wayland?”