Харлан Кобен - Win

“Redundant,” I say.

“What?”

“A chickenshit by definition is cowardly. Either call yourself a coward or a chickenshit. But a cowardly chickenshit?”

She crosses her arms. “Really, Win?”

I consider telling her to love me for all my faults, but I refrain.

Patricia picks up a club — a nine iron for those keeping track — and starts pacing. “So after we talked, I go back to the shelter where we help abused teens. That’s what I do, Win. You know this, right?”

There is a bit of a rant in her voice. I don’t reply.

“I mean, lately, it feels as though all I’m doing is executive bullshit — raising funds — but at the end of the day it is about those teens that we rescue because they have no one and that’s Abeona’s mission. We help kids in trouble. You get that, right?”

“I do, yes.”

“And you know what started me down that path?”

“Yes,” I say, “I’ve read your brochure.”

She is still pacing, but the word “brochure” makes her pull up. “What?”

“You went through a severe and brutal ordeal. It made you recognize the need.”

“Yes.”

“Despite all the horrors you experienced, you felt lucky. You had the resources and support to put your tragedy behind you. Now your mission is to provide the same for those less fortunate.”

“Yes,” Patricia says again.

I spread my hands as if to say, Well then .

“So what was that crap about reading the brochure?”

“I don’t think that’s the full story,” I say.

“Meaning?”

“It was more than your recognizing a need.”

“Like?”

“Like survivor’s guilt,” I say. “You escaped from that hut. The other girls did not.”

She does not reply. I continue.

“You believe now that you owe those girls something. Simply put, those girls haunt you because you had the audacity to live. That’s the part that really drives you, Patricia. It’s not so much that you had resources and others do not. It’s that you survived, and irrational as it is, you blame yourself for that.”

Patricia frowns at me. “That Duke psychology major didn’t go to waste.”

I wait.

“Do you know why I’m upset right now?” she asks.

“I can make an assumption.”

“Go ahead.”

“After we talked, you went back to the Abeona Shelter. Rather than hang upstairs in your executive office, you rolled up your sleeves and went into the field because you felt the need to connect or get to your roots or some similar banality. Perhaps you took the van out on rescue missions. Perhaps you counseled a young girl who was recently assaulted. At some point, you raised your head and took a good look around at this rather impressive shelter you, Patricia, built. And then you got misty-eyed and marveled to yourself something akin to: ‘These girls are all so brave, while I’m not going to the FBI because I’m a redundantly cowardly chickenshit.’”

Patricia almost laughs at that. “Not bad.”

“Am I close?”

“Close enough. I have to come forward, Win. You get that, right?”

“It doesn’t matter what I get. I’m here to support you.”

“Good, but you’re wrong about one thing,” she adds.

“Oh, do tell.”

“Those girls who never came home?” she says. “They don’t haunt me. They just expect me to do right by them.”

We see no reason to wait. I call PT and tell him that Patricia is ready to talk.

“Glad you chose to call us,” PT says.

“Why’s that?”

“Because we were coming to you. See you in an hour.”

He hangs up, but I didn’t like his tone. An hour later — PT is nothing if not prompt — an FBI helicopter lands at Lockwood. We exchange pleasantries before convening in the parlor, where the Vermeer’s empty frame looms larger than normal. PT has brought a young agent he introduces as Special Agent Max. Special Agent Max wears hip neon-blue-framed glasses. I don’t know whether Max is his first name or last, but I don’t care either.

PT and Max sit on the couch. Patricia takes our grandfather’s old chair. I stand and coolly lean against the fireplace mantel like Sinatra against a lamppost. The word you are looking for is “debonair.”

PT cuts right to it. “Win told me that the suitcase we found at the murder scene belonged to you. Is that correct?”

Patricia says, “Yes.”

“You know about the murder, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Did you know the victim, Ry Strauss?”

“No.”

“Never met him?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Ever been to his apartment at the Beresford?”

“No, of course not.”

“Ever been to the Beresford at all?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Don’t think so?”

“I guess at some point I may have been there for a function of some kind.”

“A function?”

“A fundraiser, a party, some kind of social event.”

“So you were at the Beresford for something like that?”

I don’t like this.

“No,” Patricia says, seeing it too, “I don’t think so. I don’t remember. But it’s possible. I’ve attended fundraisers in many apartment buildings on the Upper West Side, but I don’t specifically recall one in the Beresford.”

PT nods as though he’s totally okay with that answer. “Where were you on April fifth?”

That is the day of the murder. I do not like the way this is going — more of a tat-tat-tat interrogation than a cooperative coming forward. I decide to break up the rhythm. “What exactly is going on here?” I ask.

PT knows what I’m doing, so he ignores my question. “Ms. Lockwood?”

“Call me Patricia.”

“Patricia, where were you April fifth?”

“It’s no secret,” she says.

“I didn’t say it was a secret. I asked where you were.”

I say, “Stop.”

PT now turns to me. “I’m asking questions, Win.”

“It’s okay,” Patricia says. “It’s public knowledge. I was at Cipriani that night for a fundraiser.”

I confess that this information surprises me.

“The Cipriani in midtown?” PT asks.

“On Forty-Second Street. By Grand Central station.”

“So you were in New York City?”

“If Grand Central station and Forty-Second Street are still considered New York City,” Patricia replies with a hint of irritation, “then the answer is yes.”

“When did you arrive in New York City?”

She sits back and looks in the air. “I spent two nights at the Grand Central Hyatt. I arrived by Amtrak on Friday and departed Sunday.”

The room grows silent from the obvious implication. Patricia breaks it.

“Oh please. We’ve recently opened an Abeona Shelter in East Harlem, so I would venture to guess that over the past six months, I’ve been in New York City almost as much as Philadelphia. I can get you my work calendar if that will help.”

“That would be nice,” PT says.

I stick my nose in again. “Is there a point to this?”

“Win,” Patricia says. The edge in her voice is there but blunted. “Let me handle this.”

She is right, of course.

Patricia turns her attention to both PT and Max. “So what is your theory here? A quarter century after my father was murdered and I was kidnapped, I... what... found out that the perpetrator was living as a recluse in New York City, so I killed him?”

“No need to get defensive,” PT says.

“I’m not defensive.”

“You sure sound defensive. Your suitcase connects you to the murder scene. I would be remiss if I didn’t explore every avenue. Which leads me back to the night of your father’s murder and your abduction.”

“What about it?” she asks.