The Authorities, page 11
“That’s what I’m asking,” Rutherford said. “You don’t, but Capp said he already had a detective and a head of personal security.”
“Yes,” Max said. “I’m the head of personal security, and Sloan is the detective.”
Rutherford looked at Sloan. Sloan shrugged.
They briefly questioned their would-be assailant before handing him over to the police. He was in a much more helpful mood now that he had a relatively comfortable evening ahead of him and a decisive loss at Max’s hands behind him. He said he had been in that alley nonstop since the previous day, not even leaving to use the restroom (which explained some of the nonpertinent evidence Rutherford had discovered). He hadn’t seen anybody enter or leave, but it was entirely possible that someone might have come through while he was asleep.
Once the police had taken Max’s new best friend away, Rutherford, Max, and Sloan continued with their search.
It would help if we knew what we were looking for, Rutherford thought. I mean, there are plenty of things here that could be a used to kill a guy. Rocks, bottles, boards, sharp glass. None of it fits the crime though, and all of it has probably been here for weeks. I’m not seeing anything out of place, and I’m definitely not seeing anything that shouts “murder weapon.”
Max shouted, “Murder weapon!”
Max was crouched at the far end of the alley. Soon Rutherford and Sloan were standing beside him. Moments later, Terri, Albert, and Sherwood, who had been summoned over their earpieces, joined them in studying what Max had found.
There, on the filthy pavement, lay a ball-peen hammer. It was not new, but it was also not trash. The wooden handle was worn and the metal head was dirty, but not with the dark, foul-smelling filth characteristic of the rest of the trash in the alley. It was the light coating of dusty particulate matter one finds on a tool at a construction site. There was no sign of blood.
“It was under an old piece of newspaper,” Max said, examining the wad of newsprint in his hand. “The Little Nickel, if that makes a difference. Maybe the killer is in the market for a new dresser?”
“Hold on to the paper and don’t touch anything else,” Albert said. “I’ll launch the quads to document the site.”
Terri said, “Good. Yes. Then I’ll call the police over. They’ll want to bag the hammer and the paper, and send them for analysis. Maybe they can find some prints.”
Sherwood held up his wand and said, “In the meantime, mind if my friends have a sniff?”
Terri nodded, and Sherwood crouched to wave his buzzing wand over the hammer.
“I don’t think you’re going to find any prints,” Rutherford said. “The head of the hammer’s dusty, but look at the handle. It’s been wiped clean.”
Max said, “It could be that the powder came off on the killer’s hand.”
Rutherford shook his head. “I think it’s drywall dust or something, and I’m sorry, but it’s been wiped clean all the way up the handle and onto the shaft. Nobody holds a hammer that high when they’re using it.”
For a moment they all contemplated this while Sherwood’s wand buzzed lightly. Max frowned at Sloan, then shrugged, turned to Rutherford, and said, “Yes, I take your point. Very good, young man. It makes sense. If the killer thought to dispose of the weapon, they certainly would have also thought to wipe it down.”
“Yes,” Sherwood said, squinting at the readout on his wand. “It makes perfect sense, except for one tiny detail. This hammer is definitely not the murder weapon.”
“Are you sure?” Terri asked.
Sherwood said, “The bees are.”
Terri said, “Well that’s something, but I think we’ll still document the site and have the police analyze the hammer. I hope you and the bees won’t be offended.”
“The bees won’t be offended,” Sherwood said. “They’re bees. They only know what they smell.”
Terri said, “Good.”
“And I won’t be offended either,” Sherwood added. “I’ll just try not to gloat when my bees are proved right.”
TEN
If Rutherford had to sum up the widow of the victim in two words, those words would be distraught and suspicious.
Distraught because she spent almost the entire time he was in her home crying into the steady stream of tissues supplied by Max. Suspicious not because she seemed guilty of anything, but rather because what little time she didn’t spend sobbing, she spent glancing warily at Sloan—who was sitting silently next to Max, Professor Sherwood—who was wandering around her home waving a buzzing wand at her belongings, and Rutherford—who was dressed like a ruffian and chewing on a toothpick.
The meeting had gotten off to a poor start. Immediately after a round of introductions, Professor Sherwood had produced a small spray bottle from his pocket and asked the widow, “Are you allergic to bee stings?” When she confirmed that she was, he mumbled, “That’s unfortunate,” and put away the spray bottle.
Rutherford’s angry demeanor hadn’t done much to improve the situation. Of course, Rutherford wasn’t actually angry. In the last hour he had taken in quite a bit of information, but he’d learned almost nothing, leaving him both confused and frustrated. To the casual observer, however, the expressions of anger and confused frustration are almost identical.
The team had split up after finishing in the alley. Terri and Albert had gone back to the office: Albert needed to process and analyze his scans and the long list of chemical compounds Sherwood’s bees had detected before he could verify that the item Rutherford was almost certain was the murder weapon was, in fact, not. Terri had to procure and organize as much information as possible about the victim, the crime, and the involved parties. Max, Sloan, Professor Sherwood, and Rutherford had driven off to interview the victim’s widow.
Rutherford had hoped to spend the car ride learning more about Max and Sloan—in particular, why Max asked all the questions if Sloan was the detective. While Rutherford drove, Max very readily talked about himself and his background. And then he continued to talk about himself for the entire trip, never once saying a word about Sloan or their work together.
As a young man, Max had entered the Koninklijke Landmacht, the Dutch equivalent of the US Army, and then the Korps Commandotroepen. He showed a certain talent for hand-to-hand combat, and learned everything possible about every fighting system he could. He rose through the ranks until he was recruited to the Dutch Secret Service, the AIVD, which stood for a series of consonant sounds so discordant that Rutherford’s ears couldn’t parse them as human speech, instead leaving him with the mental impression that Max’s tongue and teeth were fighting.
Max spent many years guarding the lives of the very highest-level members of the Dutch government and learning many profound and surprising things about how the world actually works.
“Of course,” Max said, “Few of the citizens ever knew who I was, or that I even existed, but in certain circles, I was quite well-known.”
“Really?” Rutherford asked. He was genuinely interested, but couldn’t manage a more intelligent response because the weather had turned nasty, and he was peering through a rain-soaked windshield at the rain-soaked road, trying not to rear-end the rain-soaked car in front of them.
“Yes. In the security industry, I am known throughout Europe as the least deadly Dutchman on Earth.”
Rutherford went over that sentence mentally several times before replying with the question, “And they mean that as a compliment?”
Max laughed. “I understand your confusion, but yes, they do. Even if they didn’t, I would take it as one. Any fool can win a fight by using too much force. It’s much harder to win a fight using minimal force. The greatest challenge is to defeat an attacker by barely using any force at all, and if you can make your attack seem so passive that an outward observer might think you’re trying to help your opponent, well, then you’ve really accomplished something.”
Max went on for the rest of the drive discussing nerve clusters, biomechanical levers, and nonaggressive verbal cues—talking about anything but his arrangement with Sloan.
Now Rutherford was standing behind the couch on which Max and Sloan were seated. This gave him a good view of the victim’s widow, Olivia Arledge, who was sitting in a chair opposite them, and the backs of Max and Sloan’s heads.
He thought about the brief glimpse of scar tissue he’d seen earlier. He wondered if perhaps Sloan couldn’t speak.
Maybe Max asks all of the questions, but she’s the one who figures things out, Rutherford thought. Then she tells him later, using sign language or something. That would work, but if he doesn’t ask the questions she wants him to ask, she’d need to signal him somehow. That’s why she has to come with him into the field. Otherwise, she could stay in the office and he could report to her. I think I may be on to something here. Of course, I’m not solving the mystery I’m supposed to be solving, but they don’t seem to really want my help anyway. Oh well. I’ll watch them solve their mystery, and that’ll help me solve mine.
“Mrs. Arledge,” Max asked, “did it not strike you as odd when your husband didn’t come home last night?”
“No,” she sniffed. “He gets caught up in his research and falls asleep at the office all the time. He used to say it was an occupational hazard of being the one kind of doctor who has a couch.”
“That’s funny,” Max said kindly.
“Not really,” Mrs. Arledge said. “Other doctors work around beds, so the joke doesn’t really work. But he thought it was funny, and I liked seeing him laugh.”
At that, a fresh torrent of tears broke loose, absorbed by several more tissues.
Once she’d regained her composure, Mrs. Arledge said, “I wasn’t really concerned at all until I woke up and he wasn’t here, but I’d slept late. I had a bit more to drink than usual last night. I figured he’d come and gone without waking me.”
Max was silent for a moment, then leaned forward a bit. “Please, tell me, you say you drank more than usual last night. May I ask why?”
“Some friends and I go out once a week. Usually somewhere here on the east side, but it was Julie’s turn to pick. She wanted to go to Canlis, and that’s far enough away that a few of us carpooled, so I wasn’t driving.”
It’s good that we won’t have to ask her if she has an alibi, Rutherford thought. And it’s interesting that she has such a good one ready to go, and explained it so fully on the first try.
Max said, “I hate to pry, but did your husband seem to be under any unusual stress of late?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Any problems with his patients?”
“No. He was finding his work more rewarding than he had in years.”
“Because of his work helping people with social disorders.”
Mrs. Arledge nodded, and for just an instant Rutherford saw her expression darken, but given the circumstances, who could blame her.
Max asked, “And he wasn’t suffering any financial problems?”
The answer was quick and emphatic. “No.”
Max pressed the issue. “Is it possible that he was, and chose not to tell you? Husbands do that sometimes.”
Mrs. Arledge shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t have done that. And he couldn’t have anyway. We have equal access to all of our accounts. I handle more of the details than he does. No, money wasn’t a problem. We own the house outright. We have plenty set aside for retirement. Our investments are all doing well, and Tyler has almost bought out the practice anyway. I don’t know who killed Daniel, but I can’t imagine it was over money.”
“Can you think of a reason why any of his patients would want him dead?”
“No. He’s giving them mental health care for free.”
“Did he mention if any of them struck him as dangerous?”
“He wouldn’t have been treating them if they did. The whole point of his research was to study harmless, seemingly intelligent people whose attempts to make personal relationships easier made them impossible instead. At least that’s what he told me.”
Max frowned. “I’m not certain that I understand.”
Mrs. Arledge wiped her eyes and said, “I’m not sure I do either, really. He tried to explain it to me more than once. He was tired of working with people from the software business, but he didn’t know what else to do. He took on a new client, and the guy talked for the entire first session without ever really saying anything. Dan said it was like he’d created his own language by stringing together quotes from business books, motivational posters, and Francis Ford Coppola movies.”
Rutherford knew people like that. Heck, he thought, replace “business books and Coppola movies” with The Simpsons, and she’s basically describing me and my friends in high school.
“Dan could have dropped him,” she continued. “He wanted to at first. He said it made him uncomfortable the way this guy talked nonstop without seeming to engage mentally, but Dan was intrigued by his own discomfort, so he stuck with it until he got to the bottom of the problem. The guy mostly just quoted things he thought were smart because he worried that if he ever said what he really thought, people would find out that he was dumb.”
Max said, “That’s sad.”
Rutherford thought, Yeah it is. And, if you replace “dumb” with “not funny,” she has now perfectly described me and my friends in high school.
“Dan said that he started seeing versions of that guy’s behavior everywhere, and thought it might be a treatable condition. I’d hate to think that any of his patients had anything to do with this. He really was trying to help them.”
Max said, “I think I understand, and you’re right, it seems unlikely that the people he was helping for free would wish him ill. Still, did he ever make any mention of any patients who made him uncomfortable?”
“No, you still don’t get it. They all made him uncomfortable. They were there because they made everybody uncomfortable. If one of them was acting particularly hostile or threatening, he’d have seen it as his job to get to the bottom of why.”
Max nodded. “Sadly, Mrs. Arledge, it seems possible that he may have done just that.”
ELEVEN
It was nearly five o’clock by the time they finished interviewing the widow. They checked in with Terri, who told them to knock off for the night. Rutherford’s car was still where he’d left it that morning, parked at the police station that had been his workplace what felt like a year ago. He drove the sedan to the station parking lot, got out, and waved as the others drove off. Then he sat in his Miata, trying to process the events of the day. When it was clear that he wouldn’t be done with that particular project any time soon, he drove home.
He immediately took off and laundered his costume pants and shirt. He hadn’t done anything to soil them, but the shirt’s former owner had, and the very idea of that was enough motivation for Rutherford to use a quarter of a bottle of body wash to scrub his upper torso.
After his shower, he called his sister, Vanessa. She was worried sick about him. So was their mother, now that Vanessa had shown her the video.
“She wanted to call you,” Vanessa said, “but I told her to let me. I know how to deal with situations like these.”
Rutherford said, “That’s true,” and he meant it. He’d never met anyone more adept at finding drama, amplifying drama, and placing herself directly in the middle of the drama, all the while declaring that she doesn’t need this drama.
“I don’t need all this drama,” Vanessa said.
Rutherford said, “I know.”
He listened to her vent for a good long while, then apologized for keeping her, and their mother, in the dark. He told her that he had been offered an exciting new job. She asked to hear all about it. He told her that he couldn’t tell her anything. Then he listened to her vent some more.
From the moment he parted with the team until he fell asleep that night, at least half of his brain was continually working on what he’d seen and heard that day. He developed a theory, then slept on it. When he awoke, he was convinced that he had the answer. Not to the murder of Dr. Daniel Arledge, of course—he didn’t have nearly enough information for that. He was still convinced that the ball-peen hammer in the alley was probably the weapon, the patient who had left in a huff was interesting, and the widow’s ready-made alibi still seemed a bit suspicious. But none of that was solid enough for him to draw a conclusion yet.
However, he thought he had the answer to the Max/Sloan conundrum, so he shifted his focus to planning the most dramatic possible way to reveal what he’d figured out.
The next morning he drove downtown, fighting his way through the customary gauntlet of confusing one-way streets, clutch-destroying hills, and self-righteous pedestrians who seemed angry at him for stopping in time to not run them over. He didn’t have a means of accessing the top-secret garage Terri had shown him, and he couldn’t find street parking, so he was forced to pay for a spot in the parking structure that held the secret garage entrance.
The lobby of the building was the domain of a doughy, grim-faced security guard who refused to allow Rutherford upstairs without an ID badge. Albert hadn’t given him any credentials, only the ridiculous oversized Russian hand-cannon. Showing it to the guard would almost certainly have gotten him into the elevator, but he decided against it.
When he explained that Mrs. Wells would vouch for him, the guard took another look at Rutherford’s leather jacket, ZZ Top shirt, and worn jeans, and shook his head. For just a moment, Rutherford considered showing him the gun after all, but then the guard called Terri and described her “visitor.”
