“This is a little unusual. I usually do my sleuthing on the internet.”
“I know. That’s most of what ProEye does, as you know. But this is what I was told. And they’d like you to go out today if possible. You can talk to Zeb if you want, but I know he’s in a meeting now. And they really wanted to get you out there fast. It sounded to me like there might be a nice field bonus in there for you, too.”
Gibson was thinking that doing a little field work would be a welcome change from staring at a computer screen for the next few hours. And bonuses were always nice. She would have to call her parents and hope they could come over. She had their calendar and she brought it up on her screen. Okay, they have no doctor appointments today. That’s a miracle.
“I think I can make that work. What can you tell me about the property and ProEye’s interest?”
“I’ve got the info up on my screen. The mansion was built in the 1920s by a man named Mason Rutherford. He was a robber baron who made his money in railroad, timber, and mining. He owned a mansion in Colorado, a five-story town house in New York, and this place in Virginia. It’s on land where a British Lord built his home; it was later burned down during the Revolutionary War.” She added in a joking manner, “So there might be a ghost or two around.”
“Just what I always wanted to be — a ghost hunter.”
“Rutherford died in 1940 and his wife, Laura, who was much younger than he was, lived there until 1998. She was a hundred when she passed away. And the place had fallen into disrepair. Must have cost a fortune to keep up.”
“And the current owner?” asked Gibson, who was wondering what she was going to wear on this field trip.
“Ah, that’s the notorious Rutger Novak. He bought the place about seven years ago and spent an enormous amount of money undertaking an extensive renovation.”
“Rutger Novak? I definitely know that name.”
“Right. He and ProEye have a history, and not a good one. Forgive me if I’m telling you things you already know, but Novak is German. He was a big international businessman thirty years back, though always on the shady side. Arms dealer, Middle East strongman backer. He worked both sides on pretty much every deal. He had some setbacks over the years, and it looked like he would go quietly into the night with the bucks he had left. But he apparently made some bad decisions that sucked him dry and then he started to borrow heavily, and it turned out the assets pledged as collateral were mostly phony. ProEye chased him years ago on behalf of a whole coterie of clients, and they ended up with egg on their faces and not a dollar to show for their efforts.”
Gibson said, “That part I know very well. It was before my time, but the firm has never forgotten it. It’s part of the company lore. They even tell it to you during orientation as a warning sign against complacency and not going the extra mile.”
“Well, time apparently caught up to Novak. Everything has now gone belly-up in the last couple of months.”
“Is he around or did he hit the road like last time?”
“Vanished, or so the file says. He owes so much his creditors are trying to grab everything they can. This mansion is one of them. That’s why they want you to go there. The firm wants to make amends for what happened last time.”
“You said near Smithfield? Can you be more specific?”
She heard some key clicks. “It’s between a place called Mogarts Beach and Rushmere on something known as Burwell Bay.” Robinson gave her the street address.
“Okay, that gives me some context. The short route includes a ferry, so that would take me about an hour or so and that’s if I hit the boat schedule dead-on. The long route will have me drive south through Newport News, cross the James River Bridge, head to Smithfield, and then it’s about eight miles above that, like making a horseshoe. All told that’s about an hour, too, depending on traffic, so that’s the way I’ll go.”
“See? It pays to have someone who knows the local geography.”
“I’m surprised no one has been there before now.”
“Well, we didn’t know about the property until an hour ago, which is why Zeb didn’t mention it to you earlier. The title was in the name of a shell company. We just punched through that wall. Our clients have documented liens on all of the man’s assets and have filed blanket legal papers allowing access to all his properties. We’re hoping Novak left so fast he couldn’t clean the place out, because our intel is that he loved the finest things in life and that place might be full of them. Paintings, furniture, sculptures — hell, the creditors will take Oriental rugs, silverware, the contents of a wine cellar or a library, whatever. Regardless, they’ll be lucky to get a nickel on the dollar.”
“Yes they will. Okay, I’ll head out as fast as I can.”
“And the kids?” asked Robinson.
“My next call will be to my parents. They’re local.”
“Thank God for local parents. Mine live on the West Coast. And I think that’s by design.”
Chapter 4
The black pantsuit was snug around the hips and tight around the waist with her stomach pooch drooping over it, although the white blouse hung well on her frame. But Gibson was pissed because while the blouse was hers, she’d had to borrow the pantsuit from Dorothy Rogers, her mother.
You did birth two kids. You don’t snap right back from that. Well, it has been two years since Darby was born, so you’re well past snapping-back stage.
Now she regretted the oatmeal almond cookie.
And she had seen the look her mother had given her when she’d come down the stairs in her clothes. No words, just that look — no, that smirk. But then her mother did remark, “I just bought that outfit at TJ Maxx. But then I have been working out a lot more and watching my diet. It’s very important as one gets older, although none of us is getting any younger, right, honey? But for now just button the jacket and no one will notice how tight it is on you. Baby belly can be a real bitch. Took me thirty years to get rid of mine. Many women never do.”
That was about as subtle as her mother ever got. Maybe any mother ever got with her daughter.
Gibson steered her mommy van south down Interstate 64 East, and then worked her way through surface roads to US 17 that sling-shotted her across the burly James River. Next, she turned north, passing through what had once been the hog-slaughtering capital of the world at Smithfield. Her nav system showed it was another seven miles to the remnants of Rutger Novak’s shattered empire. The whole journey would be less than fifty miles, but that was a long way in the tightly constricted parameters of this part of coastal Virginia. It was filled with military footprints, underwater tunnels, bridges, the ocean with wide sandy beaches, and the delicate lines of inland waterways that either crept along the earth like capillaries under the skin or gushed across it like fat arteries.
Gibson had thought about calling Zeb Brown back, but she knew he would be preoccupied with the case she had discussed with him this morning. And she was excited about getting out of the house.
She followed the directions until she turned down a long narrow road that was bracketed on both sides by mature trees that were just starting to bud out in early spring. Gibson reached down and touched the holster riding on her belt. In it was a Beretta eight-shot Nano, which was comparable in size and weight to the Glock 26 she had carried on the police force, and chambered the same ordnance. Its slightly smaller footprint fit her hand well. And the nine-millimeter Luger bullet that blew out of its barrel would stop pretty much whatever it hit.