She looked down at the floor for a moment, then up at me. “What else? I think... Yes, yes — because it makes sense. Question six: Who was Tom Kostner’s helper, since it wasn’t the daughter? Answer: It was the young man who had dinner with them. Question the last: Who was the young man, or rather, why was the daughter evasive about him? Answer the last: Because he wasn’t who she claimed. He was her brother.”
“Okay,” I said right away, “sure, but—”
“No!” She shook her head and raised a hand. “Wait.”
I waited. She stared through me for several seconds, concentrating intently, then came and sat down on the bed beside me with a defeated expression on her face. “I’ve been theorizing on the basis of insufficient data and I’ve been caught.”
“I’ll grant the theorizing, but—”
“No. If I’m right about the brother, R. J., don’t you see? — then I have to be wrong about some of the rest, maybe most of it. Do you think I’m right about him?”
My turn to ponder. “I... wouldn’t bet against it. In fact, it makes almost too much sense.”
“Odds in favor?”
“Oh... two to one, at least, or, no, I’d say ten to one.”
“Oh, dear.”
“But why does that make the rest of it wrong?”
“Not wrong so much as untenable.” She rubbed her forehead, a rare gesture. “What are the chances of both children willingly conspiring in their father’s suicide?”
“You’re the psychologist.”
“Remote, R. J., extremely remote. With Catholics especially, such a prospect would be nearly unthinkable, and for two...” She looked away, concentrating again. “Of course, there is an alternative scenario...”
“Yep. Always has been. So what do we tell the clients?”
The housing bubble that burst in 2007 cluttered the Chicago suburbs with a variety of mostly oversized, overpriced, and underfunded real estate, making the row of large, pretentious townhomes no particular surprise, except for the fact that Mark Kostner was living in one of them. In late 2012 the development they populated was still only half completed, and about one finished unit in four stood empty, haunted by the ghosts of unrealized expectations and financial betrayal.
Three days after our return from Minneapolis I toured the models, paying special attention to the version the Kostner son lived in and filling the ear of the woman in the sales office with plausible guff about how we’d just retired and were looking for a place with no yard work. That night, while Ginny cruised close by, I went calling for the first time in six years, not exactly breaking but definitely entering the young man’s abode, after ringing the doorbell to make sure he was really off at his law school class in DeKalb.
Six years is a long time not to have done something, and once inside the townhome I was nearly stopped cold by the realization that I had no notion of what I was trying to find and only a hazy recollection of how to go about looking for it. I stood there in the foyer telling myself what I used to tell other people — don’t panic — while the seconds ticked away on my mental clock.
“Documents,” I finally muttered when my brain kicked in, after which I shot my flashlight’s beam into all the rooms on the ground floor before heading up the dark stairway. Mark Kostner, second-year law student, was doing some rent-free house-sitting this term for a relative to save on living costs — or so he’d explained to Ginny that afternoon while I’d viewed the models — and therefore, in theory, at least, I could ignore anything that didn’t appear to be his.
The stairs led into a loft with four doorways leading on to other rooms, and the first I peered into was Mark’s: An open textbook beside a closed laptop was evidence enough, and a trio of record storage boxes in a corner clinched the matter. I gave the boxes a temporary pass and looked instead in a dresser and then a cheap rolling file. That’s where — still by flashlight — I found exactly one significant document, a passport issued June 2012 that had been used twice, both on trips to Canada, the first in early July for three days to Manitoba, the second from August 12 — the exit point into Ontario being Grand Portage, Minnesota — to August 23 — reentry made from Manitoba into the Lost River State Forest.
I’d been hoping for more, but either times had changed or Mark was too young for me, probably both. The outcome, at least, was that he’d grown up in a world where records were no longer kept, not even in record storage boxes. Instead they were locked away in computer files or accessed online, and since he was probably far too tech savvy not to have set up logins and passwords beyond my skill to break, even looking at his laptop was going to be a waste of time.
I looked anyway, and to my surprise it came alive when I lifted the lid, showing a glowing desktop screen covered over with icons and images, one of which appeared to be a photograph in miniature of Mark’s father and sister against a woodsy background. After studying the keyboard for a moment I maneuvered the cursor to the image and opened it to full size, revealing Tom and Teresa Kostner arm in arm grinning at the camera, the former wearing what appeared to be the same dark shirt and Levis as in the suicide photos. Light filtered down through the surrounding trees in a way that seemed familiar, too, and the nearest thick trunk behind the pair on their left could have doubled for that of the hanging tree.
It was a photo I knew I wanted a copy of, and for once in my life I had a brainwave in front of a computer. I opened Mark’s e-mail and sent a message to myself with the photo attached, then buried the evidence of doing so in the trash.
This was just about the moment when I heard a soft, rustling sound coming at me through the darkness from off toward the doorway to the loft. A flashlight beam sprang on just as I looked, nearly blinding me to the silhouetted figure behind. I did see the gun.
I also heard the voice saying, “And just who the hell are you?”
Ginny Carr
In October 2002, shortly before Steve joined Carr Investigations and Security, I helped R. J. twice on one case, and now, almost exactly ten years later, I was at last “in the field” and on my own again, although facing a far easier task and one, thank God, that involved very little overt lying.
I’d garbed myself in an outmoded business suit and low heels befitting my advanced age and fictional supernumerary position with CIS — “Part-time Field Interviewer” — but otherwise I appeared as myself, with a minimum of makeup and my hair in its usual form and coloring. I did use my maiden name. Discovering Mark Kostner’s place of residence and getting hold of his cell number had been unexpected challenges, and I began the interview by saying so.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Sorry. The chance came along to house-sit for my uncle, and I bailed on the grad student dorm.” His gaze took in the large living room. “It’s about six thousand cheaper here, even with the commute, and just slightly more roomy.”
“It’s very nice, yes,” I agreed, then went on, “As I mentioned in our phone conversation, Carr Investigations and Security has been engaged to look into you father’s suicide. A group of his old friends are the clients of record, and they’re anxious to have a fuller explanation. Mr. Carr, senior, even went to Minneapolis to talk to your sister, since she actually spent some time with your father in the days before his death. Unfortunately, she was unable to add much to what we’d already discovered.