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No answer.
I slowly step inside, my eyes drawn to the partly open white door across the bay that must lead into the house. You would reach the door by walking up a concrete step and James Mandir is sitting on it, looking at me.
But he’s not really looking at anything. He’s dead. He’s leaning against the doorjamb, his head bent at a quizzical angle, as if he’s about to ask a question. His mouth is curiously white. A large pool of blood surrounds his feet like a stain under an old car. In the dimness of the garage, it looks like several quarts of transmission fluid, except where it reaches up to his hands and wrists and then it’s brighter red. It’s come from three long, deep slashes into his wrists—two on the left arm, one on the right. The slashes are deep and parallel to the arm, certain to reach deep and get the arteries. A box cutter, blade extended, sits in the blood just below his right hand.
He wrote left-handed.
I approach slowly, almost floating. A strange calm envelops me. I call his name but it’s obvious that he’s long dead. Maybe his ghost is here floating with me. Frank Sinatra said that if he wanted to kill himself, he would climb in a bathtub and slash his wrists while listening to Sarah Vaughn on the record player. I don’t know if it’s a true story. That’s one of those stories that’s too good to check, or so goes the old joke in my business. I don’t hear Sarah Vaughn. I don’t hear a damned thing.
I break my stare-down with those dead eyes and see his mouth more clearly. Something is in it. It’s white, folded. A straw? My spinal cord turns suddenly cold and the feeling radiates out into my ribs. The blood slick is now one footstep away from me. I finally do a belated three-sixty around the garage—nothing. The lights are off but the neatness of the place makes it easy to scope out. I bend down and look under the BMW. I’m alone. Behind me, the outside world looks normal, but it’s as if I am watching it on a movie screen. Every muscle in my body wants to turn and run back through that door.
His mouth. The object is too short and thick to be a straw. It’s a folded piece of paper. I make my itchy muscles stay and step closer. I edge over to his left, which is somehow higher ground on the concrete floor. The blood hasn’t pooled here. I make a fist and use it to lean against the doorjamb—am I unconsciously trying not to leave fingerprints? It’s a move that comes too easily. I will worry about that later. I lean in closer…closer…the blood now an inch from the tip of my shoe. My hand brushes the edge of the paper but it stays firmly in his teeth. I look behind me at the movie screen. Nobody is looking in. I touch Mandir’s cheek. It’s cold.
Once again I lean forward, using the doorjamb to steady myself. I go lower and to the side until my abdominal muscles are aching. I reach as if I’m manipulating a robot arm, except I can feel the thick paper in my fingers and I pull.
I lean against the BMW and unfold the paper. It is curiously without any moisture, any saliva—just neatly rolled into a small tube.
It’s a business card. My business card. I stare at it then turn it over. The neat script in black ink stares back at me: “Eleven/eleven, asshole.” The old editor in me notices the comma. A grammatically correct killer.
I walk out to the car, numb but somehow unsurprised. Now it’s my move. Your move, asshole.
My feet carry me back to the car, where I lean heavily against the fender and dial 911.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The house phone is ringing when I bolt the door inside my loft a little after one. I think it might be the cops. It’s Heidi Benson.
“Mr. Montgomery wants to meet with you.”
I just let her hang. I’m in no mood to feel grateful.
“Today.”
“What time?” My pulse rate jacks up.
“Can you be here in an hour?” She asks. “Of course, you can. You live right downtown. Check in with the guard in the lobby and ask for me.” The line goes dead and I wonder how she knows where I live.
There’s time to take a quick shower to get the death off me and change into a suit. I keep James Mandir’s eyes out of my mind’s vision. The sheriff’s deputies were very nice. It’s amazing how a press card can still be a get-out-of-jail-free card—especially when they don’t know how many dead bodies are trailing me around. Especially when they don’t know my business card was found in his mouth. I kept my story simple: Mandir lost his job and wanted to talk to me. No, I didn’t know what about. I also didn’t mention the discrepancy between seeing him favor his left hand and that the box cutter lay near his right.
“He did himself the right way,” one of the deputies said. “Lots of fools slash diagonal, like in the movies.” Well, somebody did it the right way.
I check the time and call the managing editor at home. He doesn’t seem happy to hear from me. I apologize for calling on the weekend. Could one big story save a newspaper? I’m not naïve enough to believe that, especially when the Sterling and Forrest heirs want to cash out. But I have a big story. I lay it out for him calmly, with the foundation being Olympic Defense Systems, a history of contracting problems, a secret link to the CIA, and now a suspicious suicide. It’s less a settled story than a line of inquiry, I know, but this is how many great exposés begin: with questions.
Sometimes I move too fast. The biggest question is who killed James Mandir—and I know the answer: the same people who killed Hardesty and Ryan Meyers. There was no clear connection with Olympic until Rachel told me her father’s reaction when he read my first column on the company. Now this federal assassination squad has killed an employee who wanted to talk. Did the blonde do it? She had to have help. And why the hell am I going to talk to Pete Montgomery? They won’t kill me in their downtown tower. They think I know something. Otherwise, they would have killed me already. All this is far in the background of my brain as I talk to the M.E. There’s no time for doubt. I talk the story up as confidently as I can, and prepare for his questions about public records, lawsuits, documents, sources. He can’t block me with the National Security Letter because he doesn’t know that Olympic International is involved.
He just says, “It’s too late.”
“What do you mean it’s too late? I’ve got an exclusive interview with Pete Montgomery in thirty minutes.”
He says my name. “You’re going to be tapped on Monday.”
“Tapped.” That’s their management jargon for being told to take a buy-out or be laid off. I sit down, feeling as if all the organs inside me have disappeared, replaced by air.
“I’m sorry. You’re a high-cost employee. You make one of the top salaries in the newsroom.”
“How many other columnists?”
He’s silent. So, none. Just me. I’ve suspected this might be coming since the day of t
