Murder at the B-School Read online

  Montoya holstered his own pistol, and picked up Pirle’s by the very tip of its barrel. He ambled off into the shadows, in the direction of where Brouillard still lay on the ground. Reaching her, he again crouched, fingers outstretched to her carotid artery. “Señor Vermeer,” he called after a moment, “she is wounded, but it appears that she will live. Please come over here and sit with us while we wait for the medical assistance to arrive.”

  Easing down her shoulder strap, Montoya examined her more closely. The substantial wound in her left shoulder, just below the collarbone, had soaked about a quarter of the front of her white T-shirt, the blood black in the moonlight. She was still bleeding steadily, still more black fluid welling up out of the jagged flesh. He placed his left palm on the wound and applied as much pressure as he dared, not wanting to push bone fragments into her.

  She groaned weakly. Her eyes fluttered open.

  He saw that she recognized him. “Stay still and don’t try to speak, Captain Brouillard,” he said quietly. “You and your friend Vermeer are safe. I am sorry for causing you this pain in your shoulder, but I think you are losing too much blood.”

  Vermeer squatted alongside them. Even by moonlight, he had turned an odd color. He wobbled; he was having trouble keeping his balance. “If you are going to be sick,” Montoya said, addressing Vermeer, “please back up at least a few steps.” Vermeer shook his head. He bent down and reached for Brouillard’s right hand. He felt her fingers respond.

  “Not going to be sick,” Montoya continued. “Good. And to prevent fainting, sit down and put your head between your knees. And as for you,” he said, looking back down at Brouillard, “you I thought of arresting for the illegal disposal of radiator fluids. But I think instead we will take you to our excellent Vieques community hospital.”

  41

  SHE HAD SUGGESTED COFFEE, MIDAFTERNOON, AT THE ISABELLA Stewart Gardner Museum, on the Fenway. “Doesn’t strike me as your kind of place,” he responded, remembering her comment about his choice of the Stockyard restaurant. Which now seemed like years or decades in the past. “See how little you know about me?” she responded in turn.

  So she remembered, too.

  Now he was waiting in the cramped little bistro toward the back of the museum: the former home of Isabella Stewart Gardner, eccentric grande dame of the Boston fin de siècle art set. He hadn’t been here in years—not since a former girlfriend, an art student, had insisted that he come along with her and attempt some sketches. It hadn’t worked out, any of it.

  He saw her before she saw him. Her left arm was in a sling. Otherwise, she looked surprisingly well turned out: white cashmere sweater, tan slacks, shoes with a slight heel on them, hair down over her shoulders. She had surrendered her trench coat. Today nothing about her looked rumpled. Even the sling somehow looked well put together.

  He stood and gave her an awkward hug, around the edges of her jutting left elbow. But when he bent forward from the waist to give her a kiss on the cheek, she leaned away. “Hey, whoa, big fellow,” she said, looking embarrassed. She eyed his half-empty wineglass on the table. “Cops don’t drink or kiss on the job.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, she let him help her push her chair in.

  “You’re looking rich,” he said, deadpan, as he took his own seat.

  She smiled. “Funny. I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  It had been almost two weeks. Vermeer had received a tutorial in the relative status of wounded cop heroes and the people they rescue. She remained on Vieques for only a few hours, just long enough to be stabilized; then a chartered jet—volunteered by a financial services firm thrilled to get in on what looked like a public-relations bonanza—swooped down from Boston to retrieve her. The CEO had made the trip and had elbowed his way into all the pictures that Vermeer later saw: the frantic arrival at Logan, the unloading of the stretcher, the media feeding frenzy. THE HERO’S RETURN, blared the Herald. And in smaller type: THIS MS. MEANS BIZ.

  No one had thought to invite Vermeer along on that ride. And in any case, Agente Montoya made it clear that he wanted to have a conversation with him before he left the island.

  That conversation, actually a deposition, took place at the police station in Isabel Segunda the following day and was brief and cordial. Throwing caution to the wind, Vermeer turned down the offer of a lawyer. With a second policeman in the room and with the tape recorder running, Montoya asked Vermeer to tell him what had happened in the hours leading up to the deadly interlude at the sports complex. Vermeer told a very selective truth; Montoya only interrupted him for an occasional small clarification.

  When Vermeer finished his story, Montoya’s associate asked a series of questions that appeared to be aimed at determining whether Montoya’s use of deadly force was justified. That seemed fair: Vermeer went out of his way to commend the policeman’s judgment and professionalism. “I am absolutely certain,” he said, “that if Agente Montoya had not done what he did, both I and Captain Brouillard would be dead.” And of that, he was certain.

  In response to a final question from Montoya’s associate, Vermeer stated that of course he would be willing to return to Vieques in the event that he was needed at the obligatory inquest. Then the second policeman stated in both English and Spanish that this was the end of the deposition, after which he packed up the tape recorder and left the room.

  Montoya, seated and tipping back his chair, seemed to want to linger. “Is there anything else?” Vermeer asked.

  “Maybe just one more thing,” Montoya said, locking his fingers together across the top of his rounded stomach. “I am wondering if you know anything about a break-in last night at the home of the late Professor Pirle.”

  No, Vermeer said. He apologized for not being able to be more helpful; he really knew nothing about that. He did not mention his surprise at finding the MacInnes files still on the backseat of his rental car. The car had certainly been gone over carefully before it was returned to the Rising Moon. No one could have missed the files.

  And yet here was Montoya, shrugging, slowly rising from his seat, and shaking his hand. “Good luck,” he said. “I hope you will come back and visit Vieques again in happier times.”

  Good luck was not long in coming. As he was packing his bags at the Rising Moon, the phone rang. He tensed: Who knew he was here? Then he reminded himself that he could relax.

  “Professor Vermeer?”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “Thank you. Please hold for William MacInnes.” Before Vermeer could respond, he was put on hold. Then came the familiar gruff voice.

  “Professor Vermeer? MacInnes. I hear you had some interesting developments down there.”

  “Yes. But how the hell—”

  “Please, please. Don’t ask me how I find things out. Suffice it to say that I’m damned pleased with what you and Captain Brouillard pulled off last night. And may I say that I’m happy that Pirle isn’t around to stand trial. Got what he deserved, God forgive him. Justice while you wait.”

  “Not my doing. I mostly stood there and let the bullets fly.”

  “Without catching one yourself, which is the real trick,” MacInnes replied heartily. “But there are loose ends, are there not? I’m thinking of things lying around that might cause disrespect for the dead. So I’m wondering what you think: Would a house fire serve to tie up all those loose ends?”

  Vermeer shook his head, amazed. “Is that really a question you want to ask me on the phone, Mr. MacInnes?”

  MacInnes snorted. “Oh, don’t concern yourself about the security of this phone line. Take that as a given.”

  “Well, then,” Vermeer continued, against his better judgment, not believing that anything in the Rising Moon was secure. “Yes, hypothetically speaking, a house fire would probably help a lot of people, living and dead, including many that you and I have never even heard of. In fact, I had a little fire of my own, down on the beach this morning. But I suspect there are duplicate . . . loose en
ds . . . somewhere else in the world. Probably in the Boston area.”

  “Two house fires, then,” said MacInnes, chuckling, “more or less concurrent. Hypothetically speaking, as you say. Relax, Professor Vermeer. No one gets hurt in a hypothetical kind of fire.”

  “I hope not, Mr. MacInnes.”

  “One more thing, Professor. I’ve decided to divide the reward money equally between you and Captain Brouillard. A million apiece. That seems like the only fair approach.”

  “You didn’t come visit me in the hospital.” She looked at him a little reproachfully. “Although thanks for the corny balloons. Which they made me take home, by the way. A dozen overweight dinosaurs.”

  “You’re welcome. They’re Mylar. I’m told that they’ll last for months. And actually, I did try to visit you. I got within about thirty feet of your room and saw all the reporters camped outside your door. I just didn’t have the stomach for it. And I figured you didn’t need any more commotion, either. Can you imagine the photographers working the bedside reunion?”

  Brouillard smiled grudgingly. “Yeah. With you looking like you, and me in my backless johnny and the dangling IVs and really bad hair.

  “But you know,” she continued, “you were one of the few people I really wanted to see. Not the mayor or the senator or the other senator, either. My family, of course. A couple of guys from work, although not the other guys. And you. That was basically it.”

  A waitress arrived and asked if Brouillard would be eating. “No, thanks,” she replied. “My friend and I are going upstairs now. Could we have the check?”

  He trailed her along the colonnade that bordered the fanciful central courtyard, which somehow managed to be in full bloom in the middle of winter, then up a long flight of stairs to the second floor. They headed to the right rear corner of the building. “Here,” she said, stopping to usher him in first. “The Dutch Room. Called that, of course, because this is where Mrs. Gardner displayed her collection of Dutch art.”

  He looked around the dark, high-ceilinged room. Except for a sleepy-looking guard on the far side, it was empty. Five tall windows along the street side, separated by marble columns, were almost completely covered by full-length rattan shades. They threw the room into perpetual half-darkness, interrupted only by spotlights aimed at specific works of art. The deep maroon tiled floor, worn to an odd shade of pink where the foot traffic was heaviest, accentuated the somber air of the room. Several of the larger frames on the walls were empty.

  “Exactly as she left it,” Brouillard said, left arm immobilized, waving with her right, “except, of course, for the stuff that got stolen in the 1990 heist.”

  He remembered: a daring late-night theft of precious artworks. Then lots of police bluster and art-bureaucrat outrage, but nothing was ever recovered. The stuff was now presumably buried in the windowless vault of some Middle Eastern potentate or Japanese business tycoon, to be enjoyed by only one person forever, or at least until a guilt-ridden descendant fessed up.

  She motioned for him to sit in a chair that was not roped off, next to the window, and brought over a similar chair from the adjoining wall. Pulling her own chair up alongside him, she seemed at home. “That was my first year on the force,” she continued. “I came down here the morning after as the greenest of green rookies. My job was to keep the gawkers out so that the FBI and everybody else could do their thing. ‘Barbie-bar-the-door,’ somebody called me. Fortunately, it didn’t stick.”

  He pictured her standing in the doorway in a blue uniform, with cop paraphernalia hanging off her belt. Perhaps standing at parade rest: hands clasped behind her back, feet spread to shoulder width. He couldn’t imagine anyone calling her Barbie and getting away with it.

  “And let me guess,” he said. “You’ve been coming here ever since.”

  “Nope,” she replied. “Until the day before yesterday, I hadn’t been back. Except for one time when we actually chased a bad guy in through the front door and wrestled him to the ground in the courtyard, but I don’t count that as a visit.”

  “So exactly what are we doing here, Barbara?” It was the first time he had ever used her first name.

  Now she looked a little less poised, as if she was venturing off solid ground. “Well. See that frame right there?”

  She pointed at a fussy-looking dressing table that backed up against a brown-velvet-draped easel. On the easel was another empty frame, much smaller than its empty cousins up on the walls, although still gilded and overwrought. As a result, it looked as though it was trying too hard.

  “The gold one behind the table,” he said. “With nothing in it.”

  “Right.” She nodded. “That is where, up until sometime on the night of March eighteenth, 1990, you would have seen a painting called The Concert, by Jan Vermeer. Your great-great-great-whatever.”

  “Uh-huh. Uncle Jan.”

  She leaned toward him. “So. So I’m lying there in that damn hospital bed, spaced out from all that pain medication they’re pumping into me, and suddenly, I remember this exact scene, clear as day, almost from this exact angle, just like I saw it eight hours a day, three days running, more than a decade ago. I’m seeing that empty picture frame, against that desk. And then, after a while, in the hospital, I come back into my right mind, and I’m asking myself, why that particular scene, of all the scenes that could have come into my doped-up brain, at that point? Why am I conjuring up a picture of a picture I never even laid eyes on, not even once?”

  She looked at him as if she expected an answer. “Uhm, because,” he began, “you . . .” He considered making a joke. Seeing the look in her eye, he stopped. “Sorry, Barbara. I don’t have a clue.”

  Disappointment flickered on her face. She pushed her hair back from her face with her right hand, then returned it to her lap. “Well, so,” she said, now looking a little flustered, “I get out of the hospital day before yesterday, and I want a quiet place where I can get away from the mayor, and the press, and the agents, and the publishers, and the speakers’ bureaus, and all the rest of it. And that same picture comes back into my head—this scene here—even though now, of course, I don’t have much in the way of painkillers in my brain to blame it on. So I get a lift down here. And I sit where you’re sitting. For about two hours. I just sit and think about things.”

  At that moment a guided tour flooded into the room: eleven tourists and a docent. Brouillard and Vermeer fell silent as the docent steered their attention toward the Rembrandt next to the doorway. The docent talked about how the sunlight falling on his right shoulder lit up that shoulder and steered the eye toward his face. She explained that this was Isabella Stewart Gardner’s first major acquisition, when the grande dame first began thinking about making a museum for the public. The tourists shifted from foot to foot, not answering her leading questions. Then the docent talked hurriedly about the empty frames on the far walls, in which the tourists seemed more interested. She suggested that the reason why the Rembrandt hadn’t been stolen was that it was painted on wood and couldn’t be rolled up. The group clucked sympathetically, shook their heads, and moved on.

  “Sounds like Uncle Jan should have invested in some plywood,” Vermeer said into the silence that had gathered again around them. He wondered what she was trying to say. He wondered what he wanted to say. He realized that he was jealous when the tour had come through: He wanted her to himself. He was happy to be sitting alone with her again.

  “Look,” she finally said, not looking. “I’m not good at this kind of stuff, so I think I’ve gotta just come out with it and take my chances.”

  So why was his heart quickening?

  “So,” she continued, “I’ve thought a lot about this, and I think that you and I should work together.”

  He knew he should nod, so he nodded. Work together? Somewhere inside, not in his head, he heard his illusions falling to the floor.

  “Before you say I’m crazy,” she plunged ahead, putting her right hand on his knee in what looked l
ike a stop sign, “hear me out. I’m quitting being a cop. Yeah, really. The fact that there’s a million bucks somewhere in Switzerland maybe speeds up my thinking, but I was getting to that conclusion on my own, anyway. I had always thought about going into private work, starting an agency, but I didn’t want to wind up taking dirty pictures of cheating spouses. You know? Who wants that? So I didn’t act on it.

  “But now I have some money, and a lot more publicity than I ever wanted to deal with. And thinking about that empty picture frame, I got this idea that maybe we could put my experience and your contacts or connections or whatever you have, together. And your smarts, too, of course. I like the way you think. And maybe we could make something of it. Do interesting stuff. You know.”

  She stopped abruptly, as if someone had stomped down on her emergency brake, but then started up again. “Or maybe now that you’re back off the shit list at Harvard, maybe you’ll want to get back into that stuff. Teaching and writing. And stuff. I wouldn’t blame you. It looks like a pretty good life, summers off and all, and you’ve spent a lot of time—”

  He put his hand on top of hers. She flinched but didn’t remove it, and stopped talking and exhaled audibly.

  “Look over here, Barbara.” Reluctantly she turned to face him. Maybe it was a trick of the light in the gloomy room, but her eyes appeared to be full.

  “There’s no way in hell,” he said, his voice far less certain than his words, “that I’m going back to teaching first-year finance. Not going to happen.”

  She nodded.

  “From a practical standpoint,” he continued, trying to sound responsive, thoughtful, constructively critical, although he wasn’t feeling any of those things, “your idea for a business doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But from an equally practical standpoint,” he hurried on, feeling her hand tensing up beneath his, “that doesn’t really matter much. Because with enough resources behind it, sometimes even a wacky idea will fly. And it would take two people a lot of time to burn through two million dollars. Or even what’s left after taxes. Assuming we pay taxes.”