High crimes, p.6
High Crimes, page 6
Jackie again wore black jeans and a black T-shirt. Paint spatters freckled her shirt and arms: she was a painter who earned her living as a technical writer. Claire was still wearing her blue suit, a Chanel knockoff but a nice one, because she hadn’t had a minute to change. She was exhausted and her head ached and her neck and shoulders felt stiff. All she wanted to do right now was run a nice hot bath and soak in it for an hour.
The room glowed amber as the sun set.
“Ray Devereaux says Tom used to be some kind of clandestine army operative who got entangled in something,” Jackie said. “Jesus. You think Ray’s information is good?”
“He’s usually reliable. Always has been.”
“So what do you think, he did something for the government, the Pentagon, something undercover, and maybe he got into trouble? And … and he goes AWOL, just takes off, and he goes into hiding and changes his name, and then he moves to Boston and goes into business and hopes he never gets caught? And then, one day, by coincidence, your house is broken into and the cops run his prints, and bingo, the Pentagon’s found him? Is that how it goes?”
“Basically, yeah.” Claire turned to see whether Jackie was being ironic, or simply skeptical, but she wasn’t. She was thinking out loud, as she so often did.
“Hard to get a job with a firm if you have no references for them to check into,” Jackie went on, “so he starts his own business, and that way he doesn’t have people checking too deeply into his background.”
Claire closed her eyes again, nodded.
“So everything you know about Tom is a lie,” Jackie suggested gently.
“Maybe not everything. A lot. An enormous amount.”
Very softly, Jackie said, “But you feel betrayed. It’s, like, custom-made to rip your heart out.”
Tears came to Claire’s eyes, tears of frustration and exhaustion rather than of sadness. “Is it a betrayal if he’s escaping, hiding?”
“He lied to you, Claire. He never told you about it. He’s not who he told you he was. A man who can lie about his life, create a whole fake background, is a man who can lie about anything.”
“He contacted me again, Jacks.”
“How?”
“We don’t know if there are bugs here,” Claire said, pointing at the ceiling, although who knew where listening devices might be planted?
“Well, what are you going to do?” Jackie asked, but then the doorbell rang. They looked at each other. Now who could it be? Claire got up reluctantly and went to the front door.
It was a young guy in his early twenties, with a scuzzy goatee and a brass stud earring in his left ear, wearing bicycle shorts and a leather jacket. “Boston Messengers,” he announced.
Claire looked past him to see two Crown Victorias parked at the curb in front of their house. Passengers in both vehicles were staring at the visitor.
“Are you Claire Chapman?”
Claire nodded, alert.
“Jesus, lady, those guys out there stopped me and asked me a million questions, who am I and what am I doing here—you got something going on in here? You in some sort of trouble? ’Cause I don’t want trouble.”
“What are you doing here?” Claire demanded.
“I got a package for Claire Chapman. I just need to see some kind of ID.”
“Hold on,” Claire said. She closed the door, retrieved her purse from the hall table, and removed her driver’s license from her wallet.
She opened the door again and handed him the license.
The kid inspected it, comparing the picture to her face. He nodded. “I gotta ask for your Harvard faculty card, too.”
“Who’s the package from?”
“I dunno.” He looked at it. “Something Lenahan.”
Claire was immediately flooded with relief, then excitement. “Here,” she said, handing him her faculty ID card.
He looked at it, once again comparing the photos. “Okay,” he said warily. “Sign here.”
She signed, took the package—a flat, rigid cardboard envelope about nine by twelve inches—tipped him, and closed the door.
“Who’s it from?” Jackie asked.
Claire smiled and didn’t answer. Tom knew the phones were tapped, which meant that voice mail and the fax machine weren’t safe. He knew they’d be monitoring the mail. The sudden appearance of a courier might work just once, but without a court order they couldn’t intercept the package.
Inside was a handwritten letter, which brought tears to her eyes—and a plan, which for the first time brought her hope.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A full moon. A warm night. The watchers at their stations in their government-issue sedans lulled by the tedium. It was barely half an hour later. The doorbell rang, and Claire answered it. She wasn’t at all surprised to see the two FBI agents, Howard Massie and John Crawford, standing there in almost identical trench coats. No doubt they’d been summoned by the watchers and had rushed over.
Massie spoke first as they entered. “Where’s the envelope?” he demanded. He was a large man, larger than she’d remembered from the nightmarish scene at the mall and the “conversation” that followed.
“First we talk,” Claire said, leading them into the sitting area just off the foyer, a sofa and a couple of comfortable upholstered chairs on a sisal carpet, around a tufted, tapestry-covered ottoman neatly stacked with old New Yorkers. It was a part of the house they rarely used, and it looked that way, sterile, like a display in a furniture store.
Crawford began, menacingly: “If you plan on hiding something from us—”
Massie interrupted, “We need your cooperation, and if your husband has tried to arrange a meeting—”
“How can you prove to me the man you’re looking for, this Ronald Kubik, really is the same man as my husband, Tom Chapman?” Claire said abruptly.
Massie looked at Crawford, who said: “It’s the prints, ma’am. The fingerprints don’t lie. We can show you photographs, but his face is different.”
Claire’s stomach felt as if it had flipped over. “What does that mean, his face is different?”
“There’s only a slight, passing resemblance between the photos we have of your husband and those of Ronald Kubik,” Massie explained. “Photo superimposition demonstrates beyond question that they’re the same person, but you’d never think they were the same person, not after the amount of plastic surgery he’s had. Sergeant Kubik’s an extremely bright man, extremely resourceful. If it weren’t for your burglary, and the thoroughness of the Cambridge police, running all the prints and all, he might never have been caught.”
“Sergeant?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Crawford said. “We’re only the contact agency. We’re really working on behalf of the U.S. Army CID. Criminal Investigation Division.” Massie watched her with heavy-lidded interest.
“What the hell is the army investigative service interested in Tom for?”
“I know you’re a professor of law at Harvard,” Massie said, “but I don’t know how much you know about the military. Your husband, Ronald Kubik, is facing a number of charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including Article 85, desertion, and Article 118, murder with premeditation.”
“Who’d he kill? Allegedly?”
“We don’t have that information,” Crawford replied quickly.
Claire looked at Massie, who shook his head, then said: “We know you’ve been contacted by your husband. We need to know his whereabouts. We’d like to examine the package.”
“That’s what I called you to discuss,” Claire said.
“I understand,” said Massie. His eyes were keen.
“You and I want two different things,” she said. “I only want what’s best for him. Now, whatever he’s done, I know it’s not going to be cleared up by running. Sooner or later the Department of Injustice will catch up with him.”
“We thought you’d see the light sooner or later,” Crawford said.
Claire gave him a look of withering contempt, then said: “I don’t want a perp walk. No showy arrests in a public place, no leading away in handcuffs, no guns drawn, no manacles or shackles.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Since he’s arranged to meet me at Logan Airport, the surrender will take place in the parking lot at Logan across the street from the terminal. I’ll make sure either he’s unarmed, or he throws away his weapon, and you’ll be able to confirm it.”
Massie nodded.
“Now, before the surrender, I’ll want time alone with him first—a minimum of one hour.” Massie raised his eyebrows. “In private, so we can talk. Your guys can keep a close watch, so you can make sure he’s not going to run, but I want privacy.”
“That may be a problem,” Crawford said.
“If it is, you can forget taking him in. Or seeing his letter.”
“I think,” Massie said, “we may be able to arrange it.”
“Good. Next, I want assurances from you that you will not freeze his assets.”
“Professor,” Crawford said, “I don’t think that’s—”
“Make it happen, gentlemen. It’s nonnegotiable.”
“We’ll have to talk to Washington.”
“And I don’t want the FBI charging him with violating the False Identity Act. In fact, I’ll want all civilian charges dropped.”
Crawford glanced at Massie in astonishment.
“And I’ll want all of these assurances in writing, signed by an assistant director of the Bureau. No one lower. I want complete accountability. No one’s going to try to wriggle out of this by claiming they didn’t have the proper authority.”
“I think we may be able to arrange this,” Massie said. “But it’s going to take some time.”
“You take too much time, the window of opportunity slams shut on your fingers,” Claire said. “I’ll want signed documents by noon tomorrow. Our rendezvous is early evening.”
“Noon tomorrow?” Crawford said. “That’s—that’s impossible!”
Claire shrugged. “Do your best. Once we come to terms, you can read Tom’s letter. And then you can take him into custody.”
* * *
Claire left the house early the next morning wearing a bright royal-blue coat she’d bought once at Filene’s Basement in a fit of fashion dementia. She took Annie to school, walked her into the building and to her classroom, then returned to her Volvo and drove to her office. Two Crown Victorias followed like faithful sheepdogs.
At eleven-forty-five in the morning, a package arrived by courier from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston field office. It contained the letter she had requested, signed by an assistant director of the FBI, whose signature was an indecipherable jagged up-and-down EKG.
Half an hour later a messenger came by to pick up a sheet of paper and take it to Massie at the FBI office downtown.
When Connie went off for lunch a little after one, Claire gave her a shopping bag, which contained the bright-blue coat, neatly folded, and asked her to leave it with the waiter at the bustling fern bar/restaurant where Connie invariably ate lunch with her regular luncheon companions, two other Harvard Law administrative assistants.
Claire then taught a class, and canceled several afternoon meetings.
At four-thirty she packed up her briefcase, closed her office, said good night to Connie, and walked to the elevator. If a watcher was lingering in the waiting area on her floor, she didn’t notice. She took the elevator to the basement and wandered through the tunnels beneath the Law School campus for a while until she was certain no one was following her. They knew the tricks of their trade, they knew surveillance and patterns of pursuit, but she knew the entrails of the Law School.
At precisely five o’clock, just as Claire had promised the FBI agents, her Volvo pulled slowly out of the faculty parking garage. As she passed on foot, from a good distance away, Claire could see the dark-haired driver in a royal-blue coat and oversized sunglasses, a pretty fair approximation of Claire, or at least as close as Jackie could pull off, with the assistance of a wig she had hastily purchased downtown. The Volvo took a right into rush-hour traffic on Mass. Ave., followed closely behind by an unmarked Crown Victoria, and then pulled out of sight. Jackie would drive to Logan—a nasty, traffic-choked route at this time of day—and go from terminal to terminal as if confused about which one she was supposed to go to, and they would no doubt follow.
The letter Claire had couriered to Massie—single-spaced, printed on the LaserWriter in Tom’s home office on letter-size twenty-pound Hammermill CopyPlus Bright White paper, taken from a sealed ream and therefore without fingerprints, and unsigned—had instructed her to meet him at the Delta terminal at Logan, where he’d be arriving at five-thirty on the New York shuttle. There would be watchers waiting at the arrival gate, but, because they were suspicious, they would naturally follow her Volvo, to make sure she was going where she said she would.
Then Claire took a leisurely stroll to Oxford Street, behind the Law School, and located Tom’s Lexus at a metered parking space. It had been a few hours since Jackie had parked it there, and the meter had long ago expired, so Claire wasn’t at all surprised to find a Day-Glo–orange parking ticket tucked under the windshield-wiper blade.
* * *
Take the FM radio from the bedroom, Tom had instructed in the letter he’d sent her, not the one she’d drafted for the FBI’s eyes. Tune it to a station high on the dial, around 108 megahertz. Make sure the signal comes in loud and clear. Now take it out to the garage, and bring the antenna as close as you can to every surface on the car.
Listen for interference. Listen for a squawking noise. Listen for the abrupt change in the quality of reception.
If you detect the presence of a transmitter somewhere in the car, or you’re not sure, don’t go anywhere.
If the car is clean, go.
But wait for rush-hour traffic. Drive in rush-hour traffic, because they’ll find it hard to follow you when the traffic is dense. Drive at nightfall, when tailing is harder, because lights are visible for a long distance.
Take a circuitous route, he had instructed, which was easier said than done. If you’re being followed, nothing is really circuitous. Before you get on the Massachusetts Turnpike, drive around the city. Make four right turns, one right after another, to flush out any followers, because anyone still behind you has to be following you.
Make plenty of left turns, because left turns are harder to shadow unnoticed. Go through yellow lights whenever possible. Come as close to running reds as you can without getting killed.
They will not follow directly behind if they’re attempting covert surveillance. They will follow one or two cars behind. There may be as many as four vehicles following you. Or there may be none.
Watch the right rear of the car, the blind spot that followers favor.
Drive at inconsistent speeds. Speed up, then slow down. Drive very slowly, excruciatingly slowly, forcing everyone to pass you. Stop at a rest stop and park in the back. Have dinner. Kill a couple of hours. Take some hard object and smash out your rear right taillight. Then return to the pike.
At least once, make a U-turn on the pike, wherever there’s a turnoff.
Once you’ve passed Exit 9 on the turnpike—out beyond Sturbridge, in the far-western part of the state—begin to drive slowly, in the right lane, with your flashers on.
At first she had marveled at Tom’s expertise at tradecraft, at the techniques of surveillance. It was a side of him she’d never seen.
Then she remembered who they said he’d been, and she knew that at least part of it was true.
* * *
At just past ten o’clock at night, when it was too late to call Annie even if she dared, which she didn’t, she was driving along a stretch of the turnpike in the Berkshires near Lee, Massachusetts, where the road was lightly trafficked. She thought about Annie, asleep in bed, with Jackie downstairs, smoking.
The road became hilly out here. It cut through ravines, then out into the open, up a steep grade to the top of a hill. She drove slowly, in the breakdown lane, hazard lights flashing. No one was following her, that she felt sure of. As she began her descent down the steep gradient, she noticed, in her rear-view mirror, a car pull out of a wooded turnoff, lights dark, and accelerate until it was just behind her. The car flashed its high-beams twice.
She pulled off the road into the next turnoff, which was shrouded by a dense copse, and switched off her lights.
Her heart hammered.
She stared straight ahead, not daring to turn her head to look.
The other car pulled up just behind her and coasted to a stop. She heard the car door open, heard footsteps on the pavement.
Now she turned to look out of her rolled-up window and saw Tom, a few days’ growth of beard like charcoal smudge on his face, binoculars hanging from a strap around his neck, smiling down at her, and she smiled back.
Tears flooded her eyes, and she threw her arms around him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She followed him in the Lexus along a meandering route, off the turnpike, onto local roads that became country roads, until she had no idea where they were. Tom was driving an old black Jeep Wrangler, though where he’d gotten it he hadn’t explained. They passed through a small town that seemed frozen in the 1950s. She glimpsed an old orange Rexall Drug sign, a Woolworth that had to be fifty years old, an antique round Gulf sign. The town was dark and shuttered. Along an unlit country road past a low modern brick elementary school, through a railroad crossing, and then nothing for a very long time. Then Tom signaled her to stop.
She parked the Lexus and joined him in the Jeep.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’ll tell you everything. Soon.” He took an abrupt, unmarked turnoff into a dense forest, the road degenerating in abrupt phases from macadam to hard-packed gravel, on which the wheels crunched for a good five minutes, to rutted earth for even longer, until it dead-ended at a shelf of rock, jutting shale and schist and irregular boulders. He switched off the lights, then the engine, and let the Jeep coast to a stop. Then took a large black Maglite from the floor and motioned for her to get out with him.
