Джозеф Файндер - House on Fire

I watched her, impressed. She was good.

“Oh, sure, our government sends thousands of young people to fight wars in foreign countries,” she went on, “and gives guys like you medals for killing the enemy. But if one person has to die—”

“Maggie wanted to hand the file over to the FBI,” I said. “You needed it kept secret. So you could use it as leverage against your father.”

How, I wondered, would she keep me from turning a copy over to the FBI? Or some newspaper? Did she think that because we were lovers, I wouldn’t turn against her?

She turned and saw Detective Goldman coming across the lawn.

“How many people did you kill, Nick? The next question is, why? Because at least I know why I did what I did.” In a smaller voice she said, “I’m sorry she had to die.”

My eyes filled. I felt more sadness than anger. Sukie was a sociopathic manipulator who needed to keep me on the trail. She’d researched me. And played me, skillfully. At one point she even pretended to want me to stop, feigning worry about my well-being, so I wouldn’t suspect her. Instead, I’d redoubled my efforts.

Telling me to stop was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. And she knew that.

“You didn’t really go to all those funerals, did you?” I said. “You told me you did, sure. And you went to Sean Lenehan’s because you knew I’d be there.”

She stared at me with some combination of resentment and indignation. “Maybe not as many as I said, but I’ll be making a doc about the horrors of this epidemic, and I’m going to win a goddamned Peabody Award.”

“From your prison cell?” I said, deliberately echoing her words.

She just looked at me for a long moment.

Detective Goldman nodded in my direction and said, “Susan Kimball, you have the right to remain silent.”

I couldn’t look her in the eye.

A few days later, after the arrests of Conrad Kimball, Cameron Kimball, and Sukie Kimball, Gabe called me, sounding desperate. I told him to come by my office. He came in a half hour later, visibly upset, and showed me the Schwab app on his phone.

“I called Schwab and they said it’s too late, there’s nothing they can do about it,” he said.

The balance in his account was zero.

Four point six million dollars had disappeared.

He was stunned and angry and despondent. “They said an authorized wire transfer was requested, and the funds have been moved to an offshore account.”

I nodded, because I wasn’t surprised. It was Victor, after all. He’d siphoned the $4.6 million away, as he’d always planned to.

“He played you, Gabe, just like he plays everyone,” I said gently.

Like Sukie played me, I thought.

“You know the old story about the little boy and the rattlesnake?”

Gabe shook his head.

“A little boy’s walking one day when he sees a rattlesnake on the ground in front of him, shivering,” I said. “And the snake says, ‘I’m old and freezing and about to die. Please pick me up.’ And the boy says, ‘But you’re a rattlesnake. You’ll bite me.’ The snake says, ‘No, if you pick me up, I’ll be nice. We’ll be friends.’”

“So the boy picks up the snake,” Gabe said, impatient.

“Exactly. And of course the snake bites him. And the boy says, ‘I trusted you! You promised me! Now I’m going to die!’ And the snake says, ‘Yeah, but you knew what I was when you picked me up.’”

Gabe nodded.

“Victor took advantage of you,” I said, putting my arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry it happened. But you knew he was a snake. I told you so.”

My phone buzzed. I picked it up. It was one of the New York Times ’s health reporters. I’d gotten her name from a friend.

“Excuse me,” I said to Gabe.

Into the phone I said to the reporter, “I wanted to give you a heads-up. I’m about to email you a very large file of documents that I think you’ll find interesting.”

Later, Cameron told the police that he meant only to burn his father’s evidence files, in the home office. He hadn’t intended for the fire to spread to the rest of house.

He didn’t know the files were in fireproof safes and cabinets anyway.

Sukie needed me to understand why she had had to do what she’d done. In her mind, the brilliant ends — her anti -opiate corporation — plainly justified the brutal means: Maggie’s death.

She didn’t know that I knew the woman and cared about her.

She also didn’t know until later that the flash drive I’d given her, ostensibly with the Tallinn files on it, actually contained the same bug I’d used at Phoenicia headquarters. It had copied the contents of her computer and emailed everything to me.

I had plenty of evidence to give Detective Goldman.

Maggie Benson’s parents were still alive, so sadly enough they had to bury their younger daughter. Maggie had also left a brother and a sister. There were a lot of family at her funeral in Madison, Connecticut, in a fine old Gothic Revival Episcopal church.

I was surprised to see Patty Lenehan, Sean’s widow, there. She’d driven all the way from Westham, on Cape Cod, a good four-hour drive. She wanted to pay her respects.

After the funeral service, she and I talked for a bit outside the church. We talked about Sukie Kimball and why she’d done what she’d done. She told me that Brendan was starting to do better.

Then she told me she’d gone to see the funeral home director in Westham who was trying to rip her off. She told him that if he insisted on billing her eighteen thousand dollars, she’d go to the VA and the local newspaper.

He quickly backed down.

“Well done,” I said. I knew I couldn’t have done any better.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?” she said, her gaze lingering.

We drove together to the cemetery, a big and beautifully landscaped place right outside of Madison. Maggie’s parents had arranged for a military honor guard detail, a couple of young army guys from the local recruiting office. They folded and presented the flag, from over her casket, to Maggie’s parents. They played taps, again using a boom box.

It was a beautiful fall day, crisp and clear, almost cold. The trees were red and orange and gold, and leaves swirled around us. The wind was strong. My eyes watered.

After the casket was lowered into the grave, I found Maggie’s parents. Her mother was small, like Maggie had been, and had the same beautiful eyes. The same liveliness. Her father was a big man in a wheelchair, bald and square-jawed and powerful looking, even in his old age.

“Maggie told me about you,” her mother said. “She said you were one of the good ones.”

I shook my head modestly. “I wish I was as good as she thought I was,” I said.

She tilted her head, but before she could ask me to explain, her son put his arms around her.

Maggie’s father took my hand warmly. His big hand was leathery and dry and cracked. He was looking around at his gathered tribe, his surviving son and daughter and their spouses and kids.

“Family,” he said to me. “It’s a powerful thing, isn’t it? End of the day, it’s what holds us together.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t know how to reply. The sun was glittering, dancing on the autumn leaves. Finally I said, “I’d like to think so.”

The Kimball family isn’t based on any real-life family. Long before I decided their money derived from pharmaceuticals, I was drawn to the terrain of great family wealth, dynastic ambitions, and shame. For legal assistance I’m indebted to Joe Teig of Reed Smith, Christopher Lynch of Reed Smith, David Sheldon, George Warshaw, Mark Batten of Proskauer, Jay Waxenberg of Proskauer, Jay Shapiro of White and Williams, Lori Smith of White and Williams, and particularly Celeste Letourneau of Reed Smith.