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“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. “And we’ll figure out a time to look through the file.”
“Yeah,” Avery said, nodding her head and taking a step back. “Please do.”
He watched her walk through the front door and into the lobby of the Lowell. When the elevator doors opened and she stepped inside, Walt turned and started for his hotel. As he walked the empty streets he realized that for the first time in years, a woman other than Meghan Cobb occupied the folds of his mind.
CHAPTER 34
Manhattan, NY Friday, July 2, 2021
THERE WAS A KNOCK ON HIS HOTEL ROOM DOOR JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT. Sprawled across the bed, Walt used two pillows to prop himself up in a sitting position. A freshly poured glass of rum was on his lap and ESPN on the television. He had kicked off his shoes when he arrived back from dinner, and poured himself a nightcap to settle himself after his impromptu confession and the confusing scene that had taken place in front of Avery Mason’s hotel thirty minutes earlier.
The knock came again, and his mind spun. He allowed into his thoughts the absurd notion that it was Avery knocking on his door. To check on him, perhaps? He had been a bit rattled after telling her the story about Meghan, one he had shared with no one before. Many knew scattered details about the affair, but no one knew the specifics. Until now. Until he had, for some inexplicable reason, confessed them to a television journalist. The knock came a third time. How had she found him? How did she know where he was staying and what room he was in? And, most urgently, was she here simply to comfort him, or was there another reason for her presence?
Some foreign emotion stirred in his chest as Walt stood from the bed, unsteadily placed his drink on the nightstand, and took a quick look in the mirror. The hazy eyes of a man who’d had too much to drink stared back at him. He ran a hand through his hair, took a deep breath, and walked to the door. When he pulled it open, Jim Oliver stood in the hallway.
“André Schwarzkopf,” Oliver said as he walked past Walt and into the hotel room.
Walt leaned his head against the edge of the door and briefly closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find on the other side of the door. He wasn’t sure he wanted Avery to be there. He wasn’t sure what might have transpired between them had he found her standing in the hallway. He felt at once disappointed that she was not there, and foolish for believing she might be. He closed the door.
“Who?”
“The brownstone in Brooklyn,” Oliver said. “It belongs to André Schwarzkopf. He flies under the radar but has been known to dabble in procuring false documents. Mostly passports, but also the occasional birth certificate and green card. We had a file on him.”
Walt shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He worked hard to change gears. “What’s it mean?”
“Garth Montgomery is either trying to get out of the country, or needs to move from wherever he’s hiding now—maybe Mexico or South America—to somewhere else. Somewhere new. He needs documents to do it, probably a passport. And his daughter is helping him. How long was she in this guy’s house?”
Walt shrugged, thinking back to the morning he followed Avery to the Park Slope neighborhood. “Maybe twenty minutes.”
“Did she have anything when she left?”
“Just her purse, same as when she entered.”
Walt walked to the nightstand and picked up his drink. “Put somebody on the guy. Keep tabs on him twenty-four/seven.”
Oliver nodded. “Already on it. Tell me about the cemetery.”
“The cemetery?”
“Yeah. When you followed her to Green-Wood Cemetery.”
“Not much to tell. She took a slow stroll through the grounds. I stayed at a good distance. She approached a grave site, hesitated for several minutes before she actually stood over it. Then she dropped flowers and hurried away. Whose graves were they?”
“Annette and Christopher Montgomery. Her mother and brother.”
Walt stared into his rum. “That’s sad.”
“Her mother died while we were investigating Garth Montgomery. Had a heart attack after he disappeared and all the details about him came out, including his fifteen-year affair with a woman half his age. We thought the death of his wife might cause him to surface, but the son of a bitch stayed in hiding. Can you believe that? Didn’t even go to his own wife’s funeral. A real son of a bitch, this guy. We’ve been watching Claire Montgomery for three years now. She visits Green-Wood Cemetery every year.”
“Every year?”
“She comes to New York every summer. Usually flies American and stays for a day or two before heading home. The only reason that we’ve ever been able to come up with for her trips to New York is to visit Green-Wood Cemetery. But this year, she changes things up. She drives instead of using the airlines. And she hasn’t used her credit card once since leaving LA. She paid for two weeks at the Lowell using a cashier’s check. She’s trying not to leave any trails. We’re convinced she either sees her father on these trips, or is in contact with him some other way. The trip to André Schwarzkopf’s brownstone is the first piece of concrete evidence we’ve managed in all the years we’ve followed her.”
“What happened to the brother?”
“Who?”
“Her brother. What happened to him?
