Murder Becomes Manhattan by Jeffrey Eaton

Author:Jeffrey Eaton [Eaton, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, murder, terrorism, thriller, suspense, New York City, architecture
Publisher: Jeffrey Eaton
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

***

He waited until well after lunch was over, well after Roberto (who was uncharacteristically chatty for some reason and suggesting they should perhaps consider several other avenues of investigation) finally left his suite. He waited until after all the housekeepers had left his floor and after the new mayor had finished his press conference about the storm.

After all that, he set the room service items out into the hallway and locked and bolted the door to his suite. Then he padded quietly into the bedroom, closed the louvered doors separating it from the living room, strode over to the nightstand closest to the windows, opened its bottom drawer and carefully retrieved the purple-sandalwood puzzle box he had brought along with him to New York. Discreetly, he shifted to one side a panel on the bottom of the box, then manipulated another panel on its side, which then allowed the top of the box to slide out from a parallel track of grooves. Inside, the bright red flash drive still lay on the thin, white-felt cushion he had placed it on the night it had been given to him by the acolyte at Saint John the Divine.

“So, my little high-tech marvel, what surprise do you have in store for us?” he whispered.

When Lee opened the drive’s contents, he discovered it bore no documents, just one long sound file. He sunk, not at all certain he had the right software on his laptop to listen to the file. But once he double-clicked it, he instantly heard the voice of Reverend Mallory, partly camouflaged by a random, repeated shuffling of papers and the scraping of a chair or two across the floor.

“So, Caitlyn, you seemed pretty distraught when you contacted me. You . . .” Here the tape became momentarily unintelligible, as more shuffling and relocation overrode the conversation. Then it went clear again, with Caitlyn in mid-sentence.

“. . . conflicted, Father, as to how to proceed, how best to proceed, that is, or even whether I should do anything about it at all.”

“I see . . .” More shuffling, then silence. Lee moved his head closer to the laptop. He heard what sounded like very soft crying.

“Damn, I wish I had purchased a laptop with better speakers,” Lee muttered.

The conversation continued.

“Do you want to share the details with me, Caitlyn? It’s not necessary for me to minister to you, but it could be helpful if . . .”

Lee heard a large exhale, then, “It’s just that I had so much hope, Father. On one level, I knew that by involving myself like this, I was reinforcing the worst stereotype ever. Starry-eyed twenty-something . . . you know . . .” She spoke a couple of sentences Lee could not decipher due to what sounded like the recording device being shifted to a different angle. “But then everything was falling into place exactly the way I had been promised it would. Everything.” The conversation stopped as Caitlyn began to cry again. For a minute or so, neither spoke as Reverend Mallory quietly tended to his wounded lamb.

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