Tess Gerritsen - Whistleblower

Sam Polowski watched his superior strain at the system of wires and pulleys and thought the device looked more like an exotic instrument of torture.

“What you gotta understand,” gasped Dafoe, “is that there are other pull! issues at work here. Things you know nothing about.”

“Like what?” asked Polowski.

Dafoe released the handles and looked up, his face sheened with a healthy sweat. “If I was at liberty to tell you, don’t you think I already would’ve?”

Polowski looked at the gleaming black exercise handles, wondering whether he’d benefit from an executive power chair. Maybe a souped-up set of biceps was what he needed to get a little respect around this office.

“I still don’t see what the point is,” he said. “Putting Victor Holland in the hot seat.”

“The point,” said Dafoe, “is that you don’t call the shots.”

“I gave Holland my word he’d be left out of this mess.”

“He’s part of the mess! First he claims he has evidence, then he pulls a vanishing act.”

“That’s partly my fault. I never made it to the rendezvous.”

“Why hasn’t he tried to contact you?”

“I don’t know.” Polowski sighed and shook his head. “Maybe he’s dead.”

“Maybe we just need to find him.” Dafoe reached for the exercise handles. “Maybe you need to get to work on the Lanzano file. Or maybe you should just go home. You look terrible.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Polowski turned. As he left the office, he could hear Dafoe once again huffing and puffing. He went to his desk, sat down and contemplated his collection of cold capsules, aspirin and cough syrup. He took a double dose of each. Then he reached in his briefcase and pulled out the Viratek file.

It was his own private collection of scrambled notes and phone numbers and news clippings. He sifted through them, stopping to ponder once again the link between Holland and the woman Catherine Weaver. He’d first seen her name on the hospital admission sheet, and had later been startled to hear of her connection to the murdered Garberville woman. Too many coincidences, too many twists and turns. Was there something obvious here he was missing? Might the woman have an answer or two?

He reached for the telephone and dialed the Garberville police department. They would know how to reach their witness. And maybe she would know how to find Victor Holland. It was a long shot but Sam Polowski was an inveterate horseplayer. He had a penchant for long shots.

The man ringing his doorbell looked like a tree stump dressed in a brown polyester suit. Jack opened the door and said, “Sorry, I’m not buying today.”

“I’m not selling anything, Mr. Zuckerman,” said the man. “I’m with the FBI.”

Jack sighed. “Not again.”

“I’m Special Agent Sam Polowski. I’m trying to locate a woman named Catherine Weaver, formerly Zuckerman. I believe she-”

“Don’t you guys ever know when to quit?”

“Quit what?”

“One of your agents was here this morning. Talk to him!”

The man frowned. “One of our agents?”

“Yeah. And I just might register a complaint against him. Barged right in here without a warrant and started tramping all over my house.”

“What did he look like?”

“Oh, I don’t know! Dark hair, terrific build. But he could’ve used a course in charm school.”

“Was he about my height?”

“Taller. Skinnier. Lots more hair.”

“Did he give you his name? It wasn’t Mac Braden, was it?”

“Naw, he didn’t give me any name.”

Polowski pulled out his badge. Jack squinted at the words: Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Did he show you one of these?” asked Polowski.

“No. He just asked about Cathy and some guy named Victor Holland. Whether I knew how to find them.”

“Did you tell him?”

“That jerk?” Jack laughed. “I wouldn’t bother to give him the time of day. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him about-” Jack paused and cleared his throat. “I wasn’t going to tell him anything. Even if I knew. Which I don’t.”

Polowski slipped his badge into his pocket, all the time gazing steadily at Jack. “I think we should talk, Mr. Zuckerman.”

“What about?”

“About your ex-wife. About the fact she’s in big trouble.”

“That,” sighed Jack, “I already know.”

“She’s going to get hurt. I can’t fill you in on all the details because I’m still in the dark myself. But I do know one woman’s already been hit. Your wife-”

“My ex-wife.”

“Your ex-wife could be next.”

Jack, unconvinced, merely looked at him.

“It’s your duty as a citizen to tell me what you know,” Polowski reminded him.

“My duty. Right.”

“Look, cooperate, and you and me, we’ll get along just fine. Give me grief, and I’ll give you grief.” Polowski smiled. Jack didn’t. “Now, Mr. Zuckerman. Hey, can I call you Jack? Jack, why don’t you tell me where she is? Before it’s too late. For both of you.”

Jack scowled at him. He drummed his fingers against the door frame. He debated. At last he stepped aside. “As a law-abiding citizen, I suppose it is my duty.” Grudgingly, he waved the man in. “Oh, just come in, Polowski. I’ll tell you what I know.”

The window shattered, raining slivers into the gloomy space beyond.

Cathy winced at the sound. “Sorry, Hickey,” she said under her breath.

“We’ll make it up to him,” said Victor, knocking off the remaining shards. “We’ll send him a nice fat check. You see anyone?”

She glanced up and down the alley. Except for a crumpled newspaper tumbling past the trash cans, nothing moved. A few blocks away, car horns blared, the sounds of another Union Street traffic jam.

“All clear,” she whispered.

“Okay.” Victor draped his windbreaker over the sill. “Up you go.”

He gave her a lift to the window. She clambered through and landed among the glass shards. Seconds later, Victor dropped down beside her.

They were standing in the studio dressing room. Against one wall hung a rack of women’s lingerie; against the other were makeup tables and a long mirror.

Victor frowned at a cloud of peach silk flung over one of the chairs. “What kind of photos does your friend take, anyway?”

“Hickey specializes in what’s politely known as ‘boudoir portraits.’”

Victor’s startled gaze turned to a black lace negligee hanging from a wall hook. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“What do you think it means?”

“You know.”

She headed into the next room. “Hickey insists it’s not pornography. It’s tasteful erotic art…” She stopped in her tracks as she came face-to-face with a photo blowup on the wall. Naked limbs-eight, maybe more-were entwined in a sort of human octopus. Nothing was left to the imagination. Nothing at all.

“Tasteful,” Victor said dryly.

“That must be one of his, uh, commercial assignments.”

“I wonder what product they were selling.”

She turned and found herself staring at another photograph. This time it was two women, drop-dead gorgeous and wearing not a stitch.

“Another commercial assignment?” Victor inquired politely over her shoulder.

She shook her head. “Don’t ask.”

In the front room they found a week’s worth of mail piled up beneath the door slot, darkroom catalogues and advertising flyers. The roll of film Cathy had mailed the day before was not yet in the mound.

“I guess we just sit around and wait for the postman,” she said.

He nodded. “Seems like a safe-enough place. Any chance your friend keeps food around?”

“I seem to remember a refrigerator in the other room.”