The next morning I offered to make Anna breakfast but she begged off saying she wanted to get as much done on Ms Alston’s murder case as she could. I informed her that, considering what I was involved in, Masterson was probably the killer. She countered by telling me that regardless of my personal feelings, evidence would be needed for a conviction.
Once she was gone I grabbed my customary glass of apple juice and headed out onto the gallery. Everything was the same as yesterday – I was in my boxers, the street was coming to life, the fog was burning off, the hummingbirds and bees were humming and buzzing respectively – but everything seemed different. As I sat there I kept expecting to hear Ms Alston’s door close and see her down on the sidewalk looking back at me.
I didn’t see Ms Alston but as I sat there I did hear a door slam. I stood up and looked and saw a slick-looking man in a suit walking toward Ms Alston’s door. His name was Trevor Champlain and he was Ms Alston’s lawyer.
I had met him before at a dinner party – one that only involved eating – that Ms Alston had given. For some reason she had wanted me to meet him and after that one time I had put him out of my mind. Now I watched as he reached into his inner suit pocket and pulled out an envelope. He tore it open and shook a key into his palm, which he used to open Ms Alston’s door. After he entered the house and shut the door I sat back down.
I wasn’t concerned by seeing the lawyer across the street. Ms Alston had no family left. Her parents were long dead, she had been an only child, her husband had died almost ten years ago. She had had a daughter, Sarah, but the week I moved in Sarah had been murdered by her husband. They had no children. Ms Alston had told me, aside from her few friends who were still living, I was the only family she had.
I was lost in thoughts of how the vicious circle of life could claim a mother and daughter in the same way when I heard the door open and close across the street. I didn’t bother standing up to see Champlain leave, until I heard my name being called. Well, at least I heard the name Ms Alston used for me being called. I stood and looked down and there was the lawyer standing with a manila folder in his hand.
“Excuse me sir, but are you Marlowe?”
I chuckled. “My name’s Edward. Ms Alston is the only person who ever called me Marlowe. What can I do for you, Mr. Champlain?”
He looked taken aback when I used his name. “Have we met?”
“Yeah. About six, seven months ago. Ms Alston gave a dinner party and introduced us. Said it was important that we meet.”
“Ah, yes. I remember. The Solstice Dinner. I believe Rachel wanted me to meet you in case there were any, ah, issues.”
Champlain was one of those people that pronounced the word issue as “iss-you’s.” They annoyed the hell out of me, along with people who said they were “doing well.” He didn’t notice, or didn’t care, when I gave it right back to him. “Issues with what?”
“Then Rachel never told you. After that dinner she instructed me to change her will. She made you her sole beneficiary. Provided, of course, that you would be willing to accept.”
“Stay there Mr. Champlain, I think this may deserve a shirt and pants.”
After making myself decent I went downstairs and opened the door. I offered Champlain some apple juice but he declined. The way he looked at my unfinished dining room I think he may have thought I had rats. I wanted to tell him I hadn’t killed any rodents in weeks but I figured that would just make him uncomfortable.
Instead I offered him a seat and after he had made himself comfortable on the couch he repeated in more detail what he had told me outside. Ms Alston, having no heirs, had seen fit to make me the sole beneficiary of her estate. It was one of those awkward moments. I was genuinely interested in what her estate consisted of but, at the same time, she was my friend and had just been murdered.
“I can understand your emotions must be in turmoil right now, Mr. Fisk.”
“Please, call me Eddie. Or Edward.”
“Edward.” He nodded his head curtly, as if approving of my name. Thanks, that’s just what I needed, Trevor. “I can understand how you feel but Rachel was adamant about making you her sole heir. She felt that you best represented what she loved in this world and trusted you implicitly to make the right decisions with her fortune.” He opened the envelope he was holding and pulled out a few sheets of paper. “Would you like to read over the will?”
“No. If Ms Alston trusted you then I trust you Mr. Champlain. What is it that I need to do exactly.”
“Your signature at the bottom of each of these pages will suffice. There is a clause that states Rachel’s wishes for her burial, I believe she specified cremation. And of course there will be taxes and my fees but after those expenses you are to receive the sum of five million dollars. More or less.”
I think I may have blacked out for a second but I wasn’t sure. When I realized where I was Champlain was staring at me with a concerned look on his face.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “Did you say five million? Why in the world would she give me that kind of money?”
Again he consulted the papers in his hand. He used his pinky finger to point at a page and began to read. And the only reason he did it was to show off the ridiculous ring he had on that finger. Asshole. “Rachel stated that, because of his grassroots philanthropic actions and in order to continue those actions, I hereby bequeath Edward Hiawatha Fisk the entirety of my estate, my domicile located at 1022 St Philip St, New Orleans, Louisiana all furnishings contained therein and a sum of no less than five million, three hundred forty-three thousand, six hundred dollars and fifty-seven cents.”
I had nothing to say. I was touched by Ms Alston’s generosity, sure, but I wasn’t sure I needed another house and five million dollars. One thing was for certain, she was going to get a really nice urn.
There was nothing left but to sign the papers so that Mr. Champlain could continue with his day, so I did. He gave me a business card and promised to call as soon as all of the legal formalities concerning the property and money were out of the way.
I would like to say that for the rest of the day I got a lot done but I’d be lying. I was able to call back Ray and Nick to thank them for their concern but that was about it. Now that I think back on it I don’t even really remember the day passing. All I know is that all of a sudden it was four-thirty and Anna was walking out onto the gallery.
“A funny thing happened today at HQ,” she said as she walked through the door.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Mike didn’t come in. I got called into the Captain’s office first thing and he tells me that yesterday, after we got back, Mike walked into his office and handed in his badge and gun. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t.”
“Sure…” She grinned at me and leaned down to give me a kiss.
“Hey, since we’re sharing, I have some news, too.”
“Really?”
“Yup. I’m a millionaire.”
It took me a half-hour to get Anna to even begin to believe me once I explained what happened with Ms Alston’s lawyer. And it wasn’t until she called Champlain herself that she truly believed me. God bless her, she never once mentioned celebrating my new found wealth. Once Anna realized I wasn’t pulling her leg we did our best to switch our focus back to the case at hand. And Ms Alston’s murder case.
Anna told me that a review of the 911 call showed that it had come from inside Ms. Alston’s house. Unfortunately the forensics team was unable to come up with any prints.
“They were able to raise prints off of all of the phones in the house except one, the one in the front parlor. That one had been wiped totally clean. Also, besides yours and hers, there weren’t any other prints inside the house. That may be due to the fact that she cleaned religiously or that you’re the killer.”
“Well,” I said, getting kind of nervous at the prospect of being a suspect, “I know I wasn’t the killer. I was with you at police HQ and at the library all morning. I’m telling you, it had to have been Masterson. The night before she described a man that was wearing what Masterson was wearing when I saw him. He had to have come back to kill her.”
“That’s all fine but until we speak to him we don’t have a suspect. Aside from a second hand account of a suspicious man that could have been anybody, we’ve got nothing.”
“Fine.” Something had to give. I was sure that Masterson was behind Ms Alston’s murder. “Maybe we’ll find something at Masterson’s house tonight. If you’re still up for going?”
That last bit had been said with, I hoped, the right amount of “I would love for you to come” in my voice. To be truthful though, I didn’t want Anna with me. I had a feeling that I would run into Masterson tonight and if I did, not only was I going to hurt him, he’d probably end up dead.
Unfortunately, Anna wanted to be helpful. Hearing her say she would go gave me pause and almost made me not want to go. But I needed to close this case. If not for Sheila Dobbs and my own pride, then for Ms Alston.
Anna had a plan. “Tell you what, Hi. Why don’t we just wait until full dark to head out? That way, if Masterson isn’t home we can go right into his place without waiting.”
It sounded good but I added to it. “How about we head over there now? We can sit on Masterson’s house for a bit, see if he comes home and work on a plan on how to approach him if he does.”
She agreed that sounded better and we packed up to head over. We took the same stuff as the night before but this time I remembered to bring a couple of flashlights. Although I had told Anna that the lights at D’Ercole’s would give anybody working for Siebenkäs something to do, it had been false bravado. I didn’t like the idea of tempting fate while she was with me.
Anna suggested beignets for the stakeout but I squashed that idea. They’re best enjoyed hot and I had no desire to sully the honor of the beignet by eating them cold. I told her that although I would like a café au lait, convenience store doughnuts would be fine. After stopping next door for the doughnuts, we went by Café du Monde and then headed to Masterson’s.
Unlike D’Ercole, Masterson lived in the Quarter. This presented a logistics problem in and of itself in terms of the parking.
The French Quarter is basically blocks and blocks of houses and businesses crammed together. Because the houses, many of which date from the 18th century, were not necessarily for the wealthy, many of them don’t have a carriageway. For those folks lucky enough to have the carriageway, like me, you have a place for off street parking. But more often than not, you’re likely to find yourself on a street where no one has that convenience, which means everyone parks on the street. And, because there are businesses and residents competing for the same spaces, many people will park their cars on the street and leave them until they absolutely need them, using a bicycle or a scooter to run errands, just to save themselves a space.
Because the afternoon rush hour was in full swing as we headed out we would have to be lucky to nab a space on the street within sight of Masterson’s house. The Gods must have been with us as we cruised slowly down the street.
As Anna drove I noticed a young woman step out of a house that was a half block down from Masterson’s. I saw that the house she left did have a carriageway and told Anna to pull over in front of it. When she had parked I jogged down the street and caught up to the woman. I explained just enough of the situation and asked if it would be okay to park so that our car was blocking her carriageway door. She said it wouldn’t be a problem as she was already parked on the street and wished us luck. I walked back to Anna and let her know what the woman had said. There was a “Do Not Block Driveway” sign but I figured Anna’s NOPD credentials could take care of any problems that might arise from that.
As we sat in the car, drank coffee and ate doughnuts, Anna and I had the chance to catch up. I filled her in on what I had been doing since I left the police department six years ago.
She told me that she knew what I had been up to and I started to be surprised until I remembered that I had been calling her. Due to a combination of what she had been able to figure out from the background checks I had been asking for and some detective work, she had been able to keep up with my antics.
I remembered something she said when I saw her at Ms Alston’s yesterday and I called her on it. “That’s why you said you knew I lived across the street from Ms. Alston. You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”
“I care about you, Hi. If our situations were reversed I wouldn’t have expected any less from you.”
I loved that answer, so I let her off the hook.
When I told her that I was surprised she hadn’t made lieutenant, or even captain yet, she told me that her career had stalled after her divorce. “When I got married, Dan was still a low man in the prosecutor’s office. By the time we got divorced he was a rising star with connections in all the right places. I think the divorce, and me coming out of it better than Dan did, may have ticked off some of his cronies. Not a few of which work in the NOPD. Ever since then I’ve been stuck at sergeant. I’ve put in for promotions, hell, I even put in for a transfer out of Homicide, but I’ve been blackballed. So, now I just go in everyday and do the best I can for the city and the department. And try not to think about Dan and how he’ll be running for District Attorney in the fall.”
“If it makes you feel any better, he won’t get my vote.”
She leaned over and kissed me. “It does, thanks.”
After the serious talking was over we didn’t have too much longer to wait for things to happen. It got dark fast, as it usually does in the Quarter. That, along with the fact that the nearest streetlamp was down the street directly across from Masterson’s house, meant we were sitting in total darkness. As it got dark no lights came on at Masterson’s but I knew from experience that didn’t mean his house was empty.
Once the darkness was absolute I told Anna I was ready to go and had my fingers on the door handle to exit the car when she grabbed my arm. I followed her eyes to where she was looking and saw a man standing almost directly across the street from Masterson’s. At least, I thought it was a man.
Whoever it was stood on the opposite side of the streetlamp from us, just outside of the arc of light. I couldn’t see much of him and was amazed that Anna had spotted him, he was really just a darker shadow among dark shadows.
Anna whispered to me, “I don’t know how long he’s been there. I only noticed him because he moved just as you were about to get out of the car.”
I took my hand away from the door handle and watched the man. Because he was in shadow I couldn’t tell what he was doing. He could have been watching us, watching Masterson’s house or just picking his nose.
I glanced at the dashboard clock, it was 9:10. “Let’s give him a couple minutes and see what he does. At the very least we might be able to get a look at him if a car goes by.”
I must have jinxed us because for the next twelve minutes no cars came down the street and, odder still, no one walked down the sidewalk. For all that time the mystery man just stood there. He didn’t appear to turn to check behind him and I still couldn’t tell what he was looking at. He just seemed to be on his own stakeout and equipped with infinite patience.
Finally, just when I was beginning to think the lack of vehicle traffic was ridiculous, I heard a car turn slowly onto the street behind us. As it came around the corner its headlights swept across where the figure was standing and I could see that it was indeed a man. He was turning to walk away from us and I could see his trench coat billow out behind him.
I reached for the door handle again and was in the act of pulling it when I heard a voice to my right, through my open window.
“Don’t move, sir.”
An instant later a flashlight flared in my eyes and to our left the car that had been creeping down the street identified itself by switching on a very bright spotlight. It was a NOPD zone car. The cop that had approached my door had apparently gotten out of the car before it came around the corner in order to approach Anna’s car. If he had been a good cop he would have noticed the man under the streetlamp. When he didn’t ask us if we knew the man I figured we were dealing with only an average cop.
It didn’t take long for Anna to straighten the beat cops out. She was controlling herself better than I would have had I done the explaining; I was pissed. Without cussing or raising her voice, she explained that she was working a homicide stakeout and I was a reporter from a local paper who was writing a public interest piece on homicide detectives. The cops apologized for interrupting the stakeout but said they had received a call from a concerned resident who had seen us sitting in the car. The caller had been worried that we were looking for a house to rob and had called the police. Three minutes worth of reassurances later and we were free to continue our creep watch.
We sat in the car for a while and discussed our options, and the man we had seen. Anna had been busy checking her mirror when the cops showed up and hadn’t actually seen the guy turn and walk away. She asked me if I recognized him and I answered in the negative.
“Aside from the fact that he was wearing a trench coat I didn’t get a good look at him. I want to assume it was Masterson but, like you mentioned earlier, anybody can wear a coat like that.”
“I wasn’t trying to be a bitch about it, Hi. I think we just need to make sure that, if we’re going to be accusing folks of murders and whatnot, we get a positive ID. Call me paranoid but everything that we do will probably go across Dan’s desk at some point. The last thing I need is for him to play the asshole and kick a case because of a lack of evidence.”
She was right and I knew it, but that didn’t help my state of mind. Like I said before, I needed to act. I always have. It didn’t matter to me if I was moving in the wrong direction for a while, so long as I was moving. I knew, and experience had shown me, that if I just kept moving eventually the pieces would fall into place and things would work themselves out.
Right now though, I wanted to avoid an argument with Anna. She knew my personality so I wasn’t concerned about her getting angry at me. I just had bigger fish to fry.
Anna was turning around in her seat and looking behind the car and I asked her if everything was ok.
“Yeah. It just shook me when I saw that guy standing under the light. I mean, I didn’t see him walk up or anything. Shit, he could’ve been standing beside the car listening to us and we wouldn’t even have known.”
I found myself comforting her because I needed her here mentally. “Don’t stress yourself out about it.” I reached for my door handle once again. “Let’s just get into Masterson’s. The guy took off down the street and I know from the last time I was in there that there is no other access to his courtyard. The way the zone car spooked him we might be in the clear for a while. Plus, I have an article to write.”
We exited the car and did our “couple out for a stroll” act again. When I had previously come to Masterson’s the carriageway gate had been left open and I hadn’t needed to pick the lock on it. The only lock I had needed to open had been on the back door. This time, if the carriageway gate was locked, I wouldn’t have the concealment of a hedged in backyard. I had planned for this eventuality by bringing my snap gun along.
Originally invented for police use, the snap gun is, in simple terms, an automatic lock pick. Traditionally to pick a lock, the pick user must set the pins in a lock one at a time. With the help of a tension tool, you’re then able to keep the pins in place and, with enough patience and skill, open the lock. The snap gun eliminates the need to set each pin individually. It consists of a bar that, when activated by a trigger, quickly slams into the pins. The theory is that, for a fraction of a second, the pins are exactly where they need to be to open the lock. All the operator needs to do, in essence, is pull the trigger and quickly rotate their hand as if turning a doorknob.
I consider myself old-school when it comes to lock picking and have developed my skills so that I can usually get a lock open in around thirty seconds. As a consequence, I had never used the snap gun in the field. I was hoping it would work.
As we walked down the sidewalk toward Masterson’s I took the snap gun out of it’s holster and got it ready in my hand. If this was going to work it had to be done quickly. Another disadvantage of using the gun is that it’s loud. On a quiet enough street, if somebody had their window open, there was a chance they would hear the device clicking.
We neared Masterson’s and I prepared myself. As I was turning toward the lock, a car alarm went off down the street. Quickly taking advantage of the noise, I grabbed the latch and tried to open it, locked. I inserted the snap gun into the lock and pulled the trigger. After five pulls I was able to get the lock open and I pulled Anna through the door. As I secured it behind us Anna pulled her hand out of her pocket and pressed the alarm button on her car remote. I smiled in the darkness and thanked her for the diversion.
“Well, you know what they say, ‘In for a penny…’”
We went around the back door of the house and this time I pulled out my traditional picks. I was familiar with this lock and needed only a few seconds to get it open. I followed Anna inside and as I shut the door I heard a soft thump that seemed to come from upstairs, toward the front of the house. In the darkness I felt Anna tense and I knew she had heard it too. We stood in the kitchen with our arms touching, straining our ears to catch the noise again but it wasn’t repeated.
Having told Anna that I had been here previously she knew I was familiar with the floor plan of the house. She let me lead and I headed for the stairs. As we climbed I suddenly, inexplicably felt the need to slow down. It almost felt as if the house was listening. Anna sensed my trepidation and touched the back of my leg.
She walked up one stair to stand beside me and leaned in close. So close I could feel her lips brush against my ear as she whispered. “Did you hear something else?”
I pivoted my head so that I could now whisper to her, “No. Call it cliché, but doesn’t it seem too quiet?”
She squeezed my arm in assent and I continued up the stairs. Because the gate had been locked I assumed that someone had been back to the house. It could have been Masterson or it could have been someone as harmless as a daytime housekeeper, but I wasn’t taking the chance that the house was empty. Especially after the noise we had heard. After what seemed like an eternity, we reached the top of the stairs. I reached behind me and grabbed for Anna’s arm, to indicate she should follow and I headed for Masterson’s bedroom and study.
The last time I had been here the rooms had been torn apart. I had seen Masterson as he stepped out of the bedroom and I assumed it had been him who did the damage, although I didn’t know why. It seemed that if he was looking for something he would know where it was, this being his house.
If Masterson had been back he hadn’t bothered to clean up after himself. And if it had been a housekeeper who had locked the gate, she wasn’t going to get a bonus for missing this mess. No one had closed the curtains either, and the glow from the streetlamp across the street lit up the room enough that I didn’t need my flashlight. The papers still covered the floor and now, as I stood in the room and looked around I could see the dim shape of an open safe inside the closet.
I walked over to it and pulled my flashlight out of my pocket. I was about to switch it on when I had a thought. I stood back up and walked over to Anna, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, covering the hallway. Leaning in close I whispered to her, “Check the street and close the curtains.”
I went back to the closet and squatted down. Turning on my haunches I could see Anna’s dim figure beside the window. She stood still for a moment, presumably checking the street. As I watched her, she quickly slid the curtains shut. Once she was done she made her way back to the doorway. As she passed me I heard her whisper, “All clear.”
I turned to the safe and quickly turned my flashlight on and then back off. In the flash of light I could see that the interior of the safe was empty – just like D’Ercole’s – but before the light turned off something familiar had caught my eye. I turned the flashlight back on and this time kept it on. Sticking out from under the side of the safe was a piece of paper. I leaned down and fished it out.
Anna saw me smile, walked over to where I was and knelt down beside me. “What is it?”
I tilted the paper so she could see that it was a business letter. Across the top of the sheet was The Siebenkäs Group letterhead. The sender’s information didn’t have a name but the address was the same building that I had gone to yesterday. The letter was dated from a year ago and read:
Mr. Masterson:
We are pleased to inform you that your unit is ready. As per our policy we are able to hold the unit here, as a courtesy to you, for a period of six months. After this time has expired we will require payment for housing and upkeep. Please contact us at your earliest convenience so that we may know your plans and act accordingly.
Sincerely,
The Siebenkäs Group
I was happy but Anna didn’t share my joy. “That’s great, a letter from a company stating that something Masterson paid for is ready. It tells us nothing about what’s going on.”
“It links Masterson to Siebenkäs,” I countered. “That company is creepy as hell and can’t be trusted. You’re right, we don’t know what this letter was for but at least we now know that The Siebenkäs Group knows Masterson. Which means they may know why he is now creepy as hell.”
I could see Anna opening her mouth for a rebuttal but before she could speak we heard the same soft thump that we had heard when we were down in the kitchen. I instantly switched off the flashlight and we sat in the dark, again listening. The noise came again, this time accompanied by a barely audible rasping that sounded faintly like two large snakes sliding across each other. There was no mistaking where it came from. I leaned close to Anna, my mouth against her ear, and whispered, “Upstairs, maybe an attic?”
I felt her nod and we stood up. We went back out into the hallway and I turned my flashlight back on. I directed the beam toward the ceiling and immediately found what I was looking for: A trap door leading to an attic crawlspace. Because the house had nine foot ceilings and I don’t jump, I gave Anna a boost. On her second try she was able to snag the plastic ball on the end of the door rope and pull it down. It hung down to a level just above my head and I reached for it.
Before I could touch it I heard the same rasping sound from before and the rope started to slowly go back up. I reached for it again and this time I was able to grab a hold. As I started to pull the rope down I could feel a slight resistance on the other end and then it suddenly went away. Once the rope had come down as far as it could go I stood there holding onto it with one hand and unholstered my SIG with the other. Anna likewise armed herself and, when she was ready, she nodded to me.
Some things you don’t forget no matter how long you’ve been off the job and doing a building search is one of them. As a cadet you’re taught that the first cop through a doorway is very likely the one who gets shot; unless you go in hard and fast. Attic entries were more difficult but, with the right attitude they could be made with no officer casualties.
Once Anna had nodded to me, my old police training kicked in. The only variable that I was unsure of was whether the ladder attached to the trap door unfolded or slid straight out when the door was lowered. Training dictated that I simply take the door out of the equation. Instead of lowering the door quickly and charging up the steps, I took my time. I slowly pulled the rope until the door opened slightly and saw that the ladder was folded. I kept opening the door and when it was fully open I unfolded the ladder, again slowly, and braced it against the floor.
Once the ladder was down we both checked our weapons and flashlights. Because Anna had her department issue Mag-Lite and I was using a smaller pen-light, we switched. With our equipment sorted out Anna again nodded to me and I slowly climbed the ladder.
I went up until my head was almost level with the ceiling and then I bent down. Crouched down I was able to go up another two rungs and once there, I nodded my head. Anna then climbed the stairs after me and mirrored my actions. She pressed tight against my back with her hand on my hip. After a brief moment I felt her signal her readiness with a pat and I responded with another nod.
From this point was where we would go fast. I felt Anna take a deep breath, and then she moved.
Lightning quick she stood straight up and threw my pen-light, which she had turned on, into the attic. The point wasn’t to illuminate the space, it was to startle, and hopefully disorient, whoever was up there. As I felt Anna squat back down I switched on the larger Mag-Lite and bolted up the steps. Before I had taken two steps I could feel Anna again pressed against my back, following me closely. I had forgotten to tell her that I would go right but I hoped she would remember the old days, and that I always went right; she did.
As my head came above the level of the attic floor I could see, intermittently illuminated by the still spinning pen-light, a figure crouched in the far right corner of the attic. Whoever it was had their face turned away from me. I could see they were crouched on a blanket, between two stacks of cardboard boxes. I immediately called out to Anna ‘one right’, and trained the Mag-Lite and my weapon on the person.
I kept my light and weapon steady while Anna worked her way around the open trap door and to my side. When she was standing beside me, on my right after completing her 360 degree search, she spoke, “left clear.”
Now came the hard part. The figure we could see was obviously alive – it was trembling – but we still couldn’t identify the person because they had their back to us. All we knew was that they were wearing a short-sleeve shirt and shorts. Curiously enough, the person also had a large set of headphones around their neck. I could barely make out the cord heading toward the floor although I couldn’t see where it ended.
Anna stooped and picked up the pen-light and, once she had it, we stepped closer to the figure. Anna called out, “Let us see your hands, slowly.”
As the figure raised it’s arms it spoke, “Please. Please, don’t kill me.”
It was a man and I realized that I recognized his voice, although it was different somehow. “What’s your name?” I asked, even though, deep down, I already knew the answer.
The man turned and faced us and I had my suspicions confirmed as I got my first good look at him.
“Mr. Fisk, is that you? Oh, thank God. It’s me, Clayton. Clayton Masterson.”
