Lynne Heitman - The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

“You called us. You said you had some things to discuss.”

“I did?”

“Yes,” Southern groused, “you did.”

“Oh, my.” Harvey reached up and straightened his lenses. “This is most embarrassing.” He turned his head and scratched behind his ear. “I have recently adjusted my medication, and I have been doing some odd things, such as leaving the house without telling Alex. That was quite unusual. I am certain she told you.”

Ling seemed quite concerned, though I was reasonably certain he wasn’t buying any of it.

“Please accept my apologies,” Harvey said. “I know you gentlemen are busy, but I cannot, for the life of me, think of why I might have called you.” He looked at me with eyebrows raised, as if I could help.

“We’ll have to talk to your doctor. I’m sorry, too,” I said to Ling. “I was out this morning, or I would have prevented this.”

“Really?” Ling shifted around. “Where were you?”

“Um…having breakfast. With a client. He’s an early bird.”

Harvey scooted himself to the edge of the cushion and started to pull himself up with his cane. “You have my assurances, Special Agents, that this will not happen again.”

“That’s okay.” Ling was as serene as ever. “We were coming anyway. We had some questions for you.”

Harvey looked up at me as he eased back into his chair. Southern stepped up and handed his file to Ling. Ling flipped through it. When he found the item he wanted, he passed it over to Harvey. I went and stood behind Harvey’s chair so I could see it, too. It was the same passport photo of Roger he had shown me.

“This man is Roger Fratello,” Harvey said.

“Then you know him?”

“He is a seminotorious fugitive from our area. Of course I know of him.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“How would I?” Harvey passed the picture back to Ling.

“We were thinking that, wherever he is, you might have helped him get there.”

“That is nonsense. Would either of you like some tea? I brewed a fresh pot.”

“No, thanks. How about the name Stephen Gerald Hoffmeyer?”

Harvey furrowed his brow. “Nothing comes to mind, but I am a sick man. With the medication and the illness, as I told you, my mind is not what it once was.”

“Maybe we can give your memory a nudge.” Ling passed over another item he pulled from his file. “We found this in a safety deposit box in Brussels.” It was a photograph of a single piece of scrap paper. A list of codes was written on it. “We think they might be numbered bank accounts.” Ling looked at Harvey. “Check out what’s written across the top.”

Harvey and I both leaned in. I was the one who almost started wheezing when I saw that it said “Baltimore.” Harvey was calm.

“Are you sure that does not refer to a city in Maryland?”

Southern’s expression soured even more, but Ling’s brightened. He seemed to be enjoying the challenge presented by the elegant stone wall that was Harvey Baltimore. I might have enjoyed it myself had I not been trying so hard to keep up. It was a side of Harvey I hardly ever got to see.

“Good point by you,” Ling said. “We can’t really tie the list to you because the only usable prints are Roger Fratello’s. We don’t have the same problem with the cash.”

He offered up the next exhibit, a photo of the individual stacks of banded U.S. currency he had spoken of. The stacks were arranged in rows-three across and two down-and wrapped in plastic. “We found that bundle in the same box in Brussels. That shrink wrap is great for prints. Yours were all over it. Can you explain that?”

“I already-”

Ling held up his hand to shut me up. He was polite about it. “If you don’t mind.”

“I am an accountant,” Harvey said. “I handle money, typically other people’s money. I am not responsible for where it goes or what it is used for after it leaves my hands.”

Good answer. We hadn’t even coordinated.

“Do you do business with drug cartels? Because that’s where we usually see bills bundled that way.”

“I certainly do not.”

Ling nestled back against the couch, as relaxed as if he were sitting in his underwear at home watching The Untouchables on DVD, or whatever his tastes ran to. Maybe Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “By the way, you both understand that you can go to prison for lying to us, right?”

“Title 18,” Harvey said. “United States Code, Section 1001, makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation in any matter-”

“That’s the one. Let’s talk about motive. That’s really the only part I don’t get, although, personally, I think it all comes back to Rachel.”

“Rachel is not part of this.” Harvey’s answer came out in a high-pitched voice, too fast to be the truth.

Ling noticed, too, and then he came out with his ace in the hole. He started pulling pictures out of his file and passing them over to Harvey, watching Harvey’s face the whole time. They were black-and-white surveillance photos, the kind divorce lawyers get from private investigators who do that sort of work. The only source I could think of was Susan Fratello. Maybe she had finally gotten fed up with Roger’s serial philandering.

The first showed Rachel kissing Roger in the front seat of a car. Ling put down a second and a third. Harvey’s right leg twitched enough to send the pages on his lap sliding to the floor. I reached down and trapped them against his shin, and I saw it in his face. He wouldn’t last much longer.

I collected all the exhibits and handed them back to Ling. “We get the idea.”

“Maybe she came to you and asked for help in getting Roger out of harm’s way.”

“That is not the case.” Harvey’s forehead was starting to glisten. His breathing was shallower. “Rachel is not part of this.”

“Did I miss something,” I asked, “or did you gentlemen articulate at some point exactly what it is that you want?”

Southern stared at Harvey. “He knows what we want.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“We want your partner here to tell us where to find Fratello so we can drag his ass home and nail him for the murder of Special Agent Walter Herald.”

“Excuse me? Murder?”

Ling was reassembling his file. “We believe Roger was involved in the murder of an undercover officer named Walter Herald. Walt was Special Agent Southern’s partner.”

Gauging the look on Southern’s face, had I tried to express condolences, he would have pulled out his service weapon and shot me. “Roger Fratello killed your partner?”

“Walt was undercover at Betelco for nine months. He approached Roger about flipping on his scumbag partners. After he agreed to do it, the cocksucker turned around and told them about Walt, and they killed him. We never did find Walt’s head or his hands.”

No wonder he was so pissed off. “So, the Russians killed him?”

Southern shot right back. “Anyone who was involved in the conspiracy to kill or cover up the murder of a federal officer is in deep shit.” He was talking to me and staring at Harvey. “Anyone in that position would be well advised to cut a deal and spill his guts rather than go down for felony murder.”

I put myself between Harvey and Southern. “Are you planning on taking him in?” Neither man made a move, which meant the answer was no.

“Here’s the thing,” Ling said. “One of the chief beneficiaries of Walt’s murder was Rachel. After his body turned up, no one wanted to testify. We couldn’t bring any indictments.”

Harvey looked at him. “Rachel wasn’t the only beneficiary.”

“That’s true.” Ling didn’t argue with him. “But you’re in with some bad people on this one. You don’t want to take the heat for them, and you don’t want to be screwing with the Russian mafiya.”