George Chesbro: The Language Of Cannibals

"Uh-huh."

He took his gaze from the ceiling, leaned forward in his chair, folded his hands on top of his desk, and looked at me with a puzzled expression. "You read the news reports?"

"That's how I found out about it. Because of the defector business, his death made all the news reports. Lousy obituary for a fine man."

"I'm sorry about your friend's death, Frederickson, but the circumstances surrounding it certainly seemed straightforward enough. He drowned. They found the canoe he must have been using smashed up on the rocks over on the Westchester side. It looks like he went out Sunday night and never made it back. It happens in the riverfront towns; people go out on the Hudson in some light craft like a canoe or a kayak without realizing just how powerful and tricky that river is. The tide changes, or a wind whips up, and they can't get back; before you know it, they're gone. The river's three miles wide at this point, and the distance is deceptive; people have a lot of room to get into trouble out there. Considering your professional background and reputation, I'll be happy to show you the file on the case."

"I appreciate the courtesy, Chief, but that won't be necessary. I'm not here to look over your shoulder or question your work. I'm sure your inquest, or investigation, was thorough, considering the evidence and what you had to go on."

"Then what-?"

"I came here to offer you information I'm sure you didn't have when you conducted your investigation. It might raise some questions in your mind and cause you to reconsider your original finding."

"What information?"

"Michael wasn't exactly a boating enthusiast, Chief; he hated the water. He wouldn't have gone out on the Hudson or any other body of water on a battleship, much less paddling in a canoe."

Mosely thought about it, said, "That's interesting."

"Yeah. Interesting."

He thought about it some more as he absently tapped the fingers of his right hand on the top of the desk. "Sometimes people with phobias like that will purposely do something risky to force their fear out in the open in order to try to face it down," he said at last.

"Michael didn't have a phobia of water, Chief. He just hated it. As a matter of fact, he was a strong swimmer, and he'd done some ocean sailing at one point in his life. Fifteen years ago he was living on a houseboat in Island City with his wife and three small children. Some leftover garbage from the Symbionese Liberation Army, friends of people he'd helped put into prison, found out where he was living and decided to pay him a visit. They blew up his houseboat with a few pounds of plastique. Michael wasn't aboard at the time, but his wife and three children were. He got back just in time to watch the police and Coast Guard picking bloody chunks out of the water with fish nets."

"Oh, God," Mosely said softly.

"An experience like that tends to leave a mark on you, Chief. After that, he couldn't stand to be near any large body of water; I suppose he'd look at the surface and still see parts of his family there. So there's no way I see Michael happily paddling a canoe out on the Hudson."

Mosely continued to drum his fingers on the desktop. "I see your point, Frederickson."

"Uh-huh."

"You think he could have committed suicide, maybe chosen that way as a kind of symbolic means of rejoining his family?"

"No. I don't think he committed suicide."

Mosely fixed me with his steel-gray eyes. "You suspect some other explanation?"

“I’ll let you handle the suspecting, Chief. The only reason I'm here is to pass on that bit of information about Michael loathing water. There's no way you could have known that when you found the canoe and Michael's body, but I thought you might like to know that now; not many people knew about it, but I did. If he was out on the water in a canoe, it wasn't for recreational purposes; he would have had to have a good reason. I'm absolutely certain there's more to Michael's death than just an accidental drowning."

Mosely took a notebook out of a drawer in his desk, made a few notes in it. "I appreciate the information, Frederickson."

"I thought you would. Have you heard from the FBI on this yet?"

He shook his head as he studied the notes he had made. "Not a word." He made another note, then looked up at me. "The Bureau may be conducting their own investigation; if they are, I'm not aware of it. But no matter what they're doing, Frederickson, I'm going to be doing some more checking into the matter."

"I'd hoped you would," I said, rising and extending my left hand. "Thanks for your time, Chief."

He stood, shook my hand, then smiled thinly. "And if I didn't check into it further, you would. Am I right?"

"Chief," I said, suppressing a sigh, "you have no idea how much of my own work I have waiting for me back home on my desk. I can't think of any reason why I'd want, or presume, to try to do your work for you."

"I'll be in touch, let you know what else I find out, if anything. Call it professional courtesy."

"Thanks, Chief." I took a business card out of my wallet and handed it to him. Then I walked back across the office and opened the door.

"Frederickson?"

I turned back toward Dan Mosely, who was tapping the eraser of his pencil on top of his notepad. "Yes, Chief?"

"A question. I don't doubt anything you've told me, and your sincere concern is obvious. But is it possible that you didn't know your friend as well as you think?"

"What are you getting at, Chief?"

"If Michael Burana hated water so much, why did he choose to vacation in a riverfront town, and why would he choose to room in a place that's practically on the water?"

I released my grip on the doorknob, took a step back into the room. "What gave you the idea that Michael was in Cairn on vacation?"

Mosely gave a broad shrug of his shoulders, as if the answer were obvious. "Why else would he be here?"

"Christ, Chief, he was here on assignment."

Mosely shook his head. "Assignment? You mean he came to Cairn on Bureau business?"

Suddenly I felt tense, slightly bewildered. I was no longer aware of the pain in my wrist. "You didn't know that?"

"No."

"It's standard procedure for an FBI agent to establish a liaison with local law enforcement officials as soon as he or she begins an assignment."

"That I'm fully aware of, Frederickson," Mosely replied evenly. "The first time I ever laid eyes on Michael Burana was when we responded to a call early Monday morning and fished his body out from between two pilings down by the Tappan Zee Bridge. We made him as FBI from the shield in his wallet. What was his assignment?"

My mouth had gone dry, and I licked my lips and swallowed. It didn't help. "I'm not supposed to know."

"But you do."

"He was supposed to install wiretaps and conduct a mail surveillance. The whole business was probably illegal, but Michael's boss was never much concerned with minor technicalities like that."

"Who was he supposed to be conducting this surveillance on?"

"The Community of Conciliation."

Mosely abruptly dropped his pencil on top of the pad, leaned forward on his desk, and shook his head. Just before he turned his face away, I saw him smile.

"What's so funny?" I asked tersely.

When he looked at me, his smile was almost-but not quite-gone. "Sorry, Frederickson," he said evenly. "I don't mean to seem insensitive, but your friend must have been one hell of an agent and had one sweet-talking silver tongue. Either that, or he told you some things that may not have been exactly true. The Community of Conciliation owns a donated mansion on the north side of town, right on the river. That's where Michael Burana was staying, and that's where the canoe the Westchester police found came from. Some surveillance. Our investigation showed that the first thing Michael Burana did when he arrived in town was go to that mansion. And they let him in. That's where he stayed from his very first night in town."