No matter how quickly the road beneath the wheels of my car flew by, I still seemed to be moving in excruciatingly slow motion. As it was, I was going well over the speed limit, and it was only thanks to the incompetence of the police, who often neglected the backcountry, that I was not pulled over. It was just as well, because my foot never moved from the accelerator, and if there had been cops, I likely would've tried to outrun them. But the road was mine and mine alone, with the rare exception of the occasional vehicle passing by in the opposite direction at a leisurely pace, completely and blissfully unaware of my predicament.
They seemed to be as still as statues as I passed them. indeed it seemed the entire world around me had stopped, frozen in time. I was alone with nothing but my thoughts and the wind blowing in my face. My ears took bleak comfort in the steady rumbling hum of the engine, as if it could drown out the desperate beat of my heart, or my inner conscience telling me that Gwen's blood would be on my hands if I failed to reach her before someone with malicious intent did.
I drove in complete silence, determined to let nothing distract me. Or perhaps I was also afraid. Afraid that if I turned on the radio and caught the news broadcast, that I might hear the worst. That Gwen had been dealt with just as Carter Matthews' wife and daughter had. The thought of her laying somewhere in a ditch, dead or dying, was enough to keep me going on nothing but a sheer rush of adrenaline. So I drove, my eyes never averting from the horizon where my destination lay, far off, unseen.
Getting to Gwen was all that mattered now. I had to make sure she was safe. I'd never been a particularly religious man, but in those frantic moments, with my mind racing through all possible scenarios and my heart pounding wildly in my chest, I finally had to accept that I was nearing the end of my rope. So I sent up a silent prayer to whoever or whatever might be up there. I begged that no harm would come to her, for I could never forgive myself. In those moments of debilitating anxiety, I found I could think of nothing else.
I was in deep, that much I knew. The thing that troubled me most was that I still wasn't fully aware of what exactly I was in. When I'd begun my conversation with Carter Matthews, I had only a vague theory of who might have been responsible for Stephen Sanford's death. Alistair Burton and Graham Godwin were certainly the prime suspects, and I could not definitively rule ouy other servants and members of the Sanford household, even Gwen herself. Yet there had something missing. The letter and check found in the chauffeur's room were the first clue. The mysterious "T" signature, and the allusions to a group of people making a "transaction", was a telling sign of organised crime in my experience. The language of the letters sent to Graham Godwin and to Carter Matthews all those years ago were strikingly similar in time. The connection was too strong to ignore.
It wouldn't have been tbe first time, of course. I'd dealt with plenty of gangs in my time as a PI. Usually these gangs ranged from small-time robbery and assault to the latest pandemic, drug trafficking, taking advantage of a great surplus that had existed since the end of the war. These people, however, seemed to belong to neither category. Nor did they appear to be related to the mafia or any territorial gangs. Their motives were a mystery to me, as were the majority of their members. Matthews had told me that he was a member, and so, for that matter, were Alistair Burton, Graham Godwin, and Stephen Sanford. In other words, all the major players in this macabre act were up to their knees in it. This organisation, this mystery group led by their puppet master, "T", was unlike anything I had ever come across. It was becoming more apparent that they held the key to unlocking everything in this case.
Yet that had seemed so abstract to me until Matthews described his horrific experience with them. I could see the unfiltered terror in his eyes as he recalled how they had executed his family in relatilation for merely allowing curiosity to take its course by opening one sealed envelope, revealing its deadly contents. Slowly it had begun to dawn on me that what I was dealing with went beyond a simple plot for murder. This was something far more terrifying, an organisation that would stop at nothing to get what it wanted. I knew now they would not hesitate to kill anyone who crossed them or stood in their way. That had apparently included even the mighty Stephen Sanford, and it would certainly include Gwen, which was all the more reason for my panic.
Talk to Vera Walters
That's what Carter Matthews had said to me. I'd always had my private suspicions since her name first came up, and with good reason. She had started working for the Sanfords just weeks before the old man's death. But the way Matthews had spoken her name, with trembling fear and trepadition...it seemed I had greatly underestimated her, and the danger Gwen was in.
All of these frightening thoughts were jumbled in my head as I wended through the lonesome country roads. The signs of civilization reappearing were frustratingly slow, and I felt as though I were spinning my wheels but not actually going amywhere. I checked my watch. Ten fifty. I still had at best half an hour until I was able to make it back to Manhattan, then depending on traffic and pedestrian street congestion, longer still to make the crossing to Long Island. It was time that Gwen may not have had. I willed the car to go faster, forgetting any semblance of caution. The time for that had long since passed.
At length, I was greeted once more by the familiar sight of the Manhattan skyline, and soon I found myself navigating through the late morning rush, which seemed to be crawling at an even more tedious pace than usual. I had to use every shortcut in the book to get through, only breathing a sigh of relief when I reached the Queensboro bridge. I checked my watch again, it was noon. Once more I was passing through the maze of neighborhoods, until at last I was again pulling up to the familiar grandeur of 1662 Seagrove Lane. All seemed peaceful and quiet. That only raised my suspicions and anxieties further. I quickly stepped out of my car and practically ran up to the door. I pressed my finger to the bell, letting the droning buzz ring out. Now all I could do was wait. I listened for any signs of movement beyond the door. For several moments, there was nothing but silence. Maybe I'd been too late. Maybe Gwen's fate was sealed the moment I left, and Carter Matthews had merely been the bait to draw me out. Then I became aware of a new sound...footsteps, faintly at first, then louder, until at last they stopped. This was followed by the jangling sound of the lock being undone, and moments later the door opened to reveal none other than Graham Godwin himself. The chauffeur looked at me with an unreadable expression, as usual. I had no idea what to expect.
"Good day, sir. Miss Sanford told me you might be visiting at a later hour today. That you had some prior business to attend to."
"You could put it that way," I answered noncommittally, hoping my worry wasn't as transparent as it felt. After all, Carter Matthews had all but implicated Godwin in the plot to kill Mr. Sanford. That's why even though I was more concerned for Gwen, I decided to ask about the other person I needed to speak to instead. "Is Miss Vera Walters in?"
Mr. Godwin nodded. "Miss Walters has just returned from a visit with her family in the city. You may find her in the guest house."
"And Miss Sanford?" I asked, phrasing it as an afterthought, although my quickening heart rate and shortened breath would have given away the truth.
"Miss Sanford has been anticipating your arrival. She is in the upstairs library."
I quickly thanked Mr. Godwin and rushed upstairs, not ready to believe until I saw her. There she was, sitting at that old desk where we'd first reviewed the police file together. And as she looked up at me, as I saw those green eyes light up as my own must surely have done, the terrible weight that I had been carrying on my shoulders seemed to melt away in an instant. Gwen stood and smiled at me. You can't imagine how badly I wanted to run to her and kiss her again, but my first priority was to keep her safe, and that meant even the relief of seeing her alive was, by necessity, short-lived. For sooner or later I would have to tell her about the disturbing clues I had uncovered regarding her father's death.
"Ray-"
i quickly closed the distance between us and took her hand, sending a silent message with my eyes that I hoped she would understand. Speak softly. We couldn't risk being overheard by anybody, certainly not by the members of the gang Matthews had told me about.
"What is it? Did you talk to him?" Gwen whispered.
"I talked to him all right, and it's much worse than I thought."
"What do you mean?"
I looked around to make sure we weren't being spied or eavesdropped on. "...I'll explain more later. I need to speak to Vera Walters. She's an important player in this whole mess. And...truthfully, I fear you are in great danger. You must stay safe while I am gone. Have you still got your gun?"
She reached into the drawer of the desk and showed it to me. "I won't hesitate."
"Good," I replied and quickly brushed my lips to her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin. She gently raised her hand to my own cheek, as if to pull me in for a proper kiss, and for what seemed an eternity we just stood there, inches apart im physical space, yet worlds apart in that which rules over the phyical realm, the mind. I wanted more. I could see in her eyes that she did too. But an invisible barrier seemed to have been erected between us, saying this was the wrong time. It was the middle of an investigation in which Gwen's very life could be at stake, and I needed to concentrate on finding out just who did this before they caused even more death and suffering.
I didn't know what to do. I could use logical reasoning and hard evidence to track down a killer, but there was no such sure fire technique for matters of the heart. And so I had settled on two thoughts: One, that I would not push Gwen away, as I often did to people in the past who got too close. I would not renounce the feelings I was developing for her, for I still held out hope that someday the time might be right after all. And two: that nor would I allow myself to do what I had done yesterday, as much as my lonesome heart desired it. I was only fooling myself by pretending that I would ever have a normal life. Gwen and I were from two different worlds. The hope that we may have a chance one day was a dream, no more, no less. How I was going to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory thoughts within my tangled web of emotions was a mystery on top of the mystery I was already dealing with.
My thoughts and feelings were an utter mess, but I said nothing more to Gwen, only sending a silent message with my eyes that I hoped was received. I hoped she did not think that my feelings from the day before were insincere, or that I had only been using her to get what I needed, but I couldn't say that here, not when bad actors might be listening, so I simply turned, reluctantly letting go of her hand and exiting the library without looking back. For I knew I would not have been able to resist temptation twice. Now that I knew she was safe, I had another date with a woman, only I had a feeling tbis conversation was going to be rather less pleasant, if what little I knew of Miss Vera Walters was true.
The guest house was small and meek in comparison to the mansion which stood in its wake, but it was still a very impressive and aesthetically pleasing classically designed structure. While Graham Godwin had his own room in the estate, Vera Walters had her own guest home. Godwin made sense as he had been a loyal servant to Mr. Sanford for decades. Walters was precisely the opposite. Out of the blue, she had joined Sanford's maid staff and instantly become a favorite with the old man. When I had first discovered this information, I puzzled over it. The very notion seemed contradictory to what was supposed to be Sanford's calling card. He demanded loyalty and rewarded those who gave it. What could Miss Walters possibly have done in her short time here to earn that honor? Now that I knew a little more about the organisation led by "T", it was beginning to come together, but progress was still slow, and I doubted any of my theories as they stood would have held up in a courthouse anyhow.
I was outside again, braving the chilly late summer New York wind, and I couldn't help wondering just what I would say to her, particularly if she had an escape plan, as Carter Matthews had. Usually these escape plans involved taking lives, and my life was the one on the chopping block currently. This was why I could not bring Gwen with me to interrogate either Matthews or Vera. The last thing I wanted was to increase her heartache, disappointment and fear when she found out how her father had met his demise, and that his killer or killers were still out there. I pressed the doorbell, an action I was growing accustomed to on this day, but this time I did not have to wait long before the door was opened. The young woman standing in the doorway looked a lot like I had imagined Gwen would look like before I first met her.
She could've been a Marilyn Monroe stand-in. She wore a pinup dress, the height of postwar fashion, with mesmerizing floral patterns which accentuated her hourglass curves and complemented her stylish blonde hair and sky blue eyes. But it wasn't just the high-end fashion, or her stunning looks, that set her apart. I could tell right away that Vera Walters was no ordinary maid in more ways than one. The look in her eyes said more than words ever could. She was probably the sort of woman who carried herself with an air of supreme self-confidence and belief that she could get whatever she wanted or needed by her sheer force of personality. She would be a far different sort of challenge than Carter Matthews had been. I knew J was going to have to be on guard at all times with her.
Miss Walters gave me a look that seemed to cut through all of my defenses, exposing my vulnerabilities. She was sizing me up, just the same as I was her. At first neither of us spoke, leaving the space between us to gather tension until at last she broke the silence. "So you're the one looking into the old man's death."
"You know of me?" I asked, though I wasn't actually surprised given what I had been told about Miss Walters already..
"Word gets around," she replied casually. "Would you like to come in? Something tells me you didn't stop by to talk about the weather."
"No Miss Walters, I'm afraid I didn't. I should introduce myself before we go any further. I'm Ray Allison, and I need to speak you in regards to the investigation into Mr. Sanford's death."
If Miss Walters was at all troubled by my bringing up the investigation, she didn't show it as she stepped aside and granted me entry to the guest home. She'd been expecting this, I realized, and no doubt had time to prepare for the obvious questions. But what she likely hadn't counted on was Matthews giving her up in the scheme. That was the card that I was counting on to turn this showdown in my favor. I followed her into the living room, which was, needless to say, far more elegant than that of Carter Matthews. Two comfortable looking, finely crafted couches were the centerpiece, and we each sat on one, placing us only feet apart.
"Well Mr. Allison, if you've come for information about the death of the old man, I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you."
I eyed her skeptically. "I've heard that before."
"Well it's the truth. I've only been working here a few weeks. I don't know anything about it."
I shook my head. "Now Miss Walters, I think we both know that's not true. Why not just make it easier on yourself?"
Miss Walters suddenly flew to her feet and glowered at me indignantly. I did my best to keep my wits about me, although I could not deny my heart rate quickened. I was, after all, in the presence of a member of this purportedly brutal secret organisation. Anything could happen. My instincts were all I had to rely on.
"You've got some nerve, you know that?!" She snapped. "What makes you think you can come down here and make such an accusation of me?"
It took all my willpower to not show a trace of anxiety. For I knew she would only have seized on that to her advantage. "Please sit down, Miss Walters, I am not accusing you of anything. Are you familiar with the name Carter Matthews?"
The mere mention of that name seemed to stop Miss Walters dead in her tracks. The flash of anger vanished from her face as she slowly sat down again. While she still gave off an air of defiance, her demeanor seemed to somewhat soften in those moments of silence as I let the implication hang in the air before continuing.
"So you are familiar with him. Well you should know that he gave it up, Miss Walters. You, Godwin, Burton, everybody. This has been a conspiracy from the very beginning. There's a group that set this all up, and everyone had their role to play. So, what's your role, Miss Walters?"
She didn't reply right away, and technically she had not actually admitted to anything yet. She might still call my bluff. I looked for any signs of an internal struggle, a sign that she might be close to breaking. To my dismay, I saw none, instead she seemed to have regained her composure in spite of my mentioning of Carter Matthews. Even so, her brief reaction was all I needed to know that he had been truthful when he fingered her as a player in this. Matthews' role, of course, had been relatively simple to intuit. He was a low level player who had been forced into the scheme. Determining Miss Walters' involvement was not so easy.
She struck me as an enigma, an undeniably beautiful and confident woman who had inexplicably gained the favor of the notoriously difficult to please Stephen Sanford, only for Sanford to wind up dead soon afterwards. My mind raced with possibilities, but I could not make sense of it, not yet. It all depended on how much I could get from her, and there was a real possibility that it might be nothing at all. Then she spoke again, and the words were the last I would have expected to come from her mouth...
"I want immunity."
"What?" I to make sure I had heard her properly. I hadn't expected anything like this to come up so soon in our conversation.
"If I tell you what happened, I need to know I won't get the chair."
So she was going to confess to something. And she was already trying to set the terms before telling me what she'd done. The knot in my stomach tightened. It was a sign that I was getting closer to the truth, yet still not nearly close enough.
"I can make no such promises, Miss Walters, you know that."
She gave me a melancholy smile. "You're a handsome man, Mr. Allison, but you're a terrible bargainer."
"I'll see what I can do," I offered cautiously.
Miss Walters nodded, then stood again and walked to the window. She seemed to me like a classical portrait, a conflicted woman gazing out at the beautiful landscape, separated only by a thin sheet of glass, yet unable to break free of her burden. While she stood there stoically, I quietly set up the tape recorder again.
"The Trident." She finally said in a murmured tone, although she still would not look at me.
"Pardon?"
Now she did look at me. Her beautiful face was lined with worry, her eyes a storm of bottled up emotion. She repeated it with greater conviction.
"The group is called the Trident. Named for the symbol of Poseidon, the ancient god of the sea, whose dominion extended to every corner of the earth. Like its namesake, the Trident is everywhere, dealing in arms smuggling on the international black market. But it all started here in the good ol' USA. New York to be precise, and they've managed to infiltrate everything from law firms to the NYPD itself. Ever since the war ended, there's been a surplus of weaponry gathering dust domestically, and nothing do with them, at least not legally. So they work underground, selling their services to other gangs, to foreign countries, to anyone willing to pay a price."
"To the highest bidder," I mused aloud. So it was an organisation that was designed to profit from war and global conflict. In this respect it did not surprise me that it might attract several wealthy and powerful men whose pocketbooks benfitted from this. However, I also had to consider that Stephen Sanford was already incredibly wealthy, and Sanford Muntion Co. was a highly influential company as it was. He also had the safety of his daughter to consider. Stephen Sanford was ruthless to his enemies, but he had never struck me as the sort of man who would recklessly endanger his family.
"But why Sanford?" I asked, voicing my inner thoughts. "Why would he partake in something like this?"
Miss Walters took a few steps closer to me, a sigh escaping her lips. "You're an investigator, Mr. Allison, you ought to know better than anybody. Greed is an insatiable lust, corrupting even the well meaning, much less the seedy types such as Sanford. Too much is never enough."
I knew she was right. Like everyone else, I had known Sanford shamelessly engaged in unsavory practices and comducted business with individuals who were shady at best. Only his reputation as a war hero had insulated him from the criticism of the media. All of this was an open secret, so it should not have come as any sort of surprise to learn that he would be involved in an organisation like this. I suppose I had subconsciously been overestimating him, allowing my ideals to blind me to the cruel reality. His greed had not only gotten him killed, it had also endangered his daughter's life.
"Who did this, Miss Walters?" I asked softly.
"...Burton had it done," she finally said. "He and Sanford were both power players in the Trident, but Sanford was too much of a loose cannon. He could've exposed the other members, cost them millions, and that just wouldn't do. So Burton and Godwin got rid of him, and staged it to look like suicide."
"And who was T, the one sending the letters and writing the check?"
"T is more than just a person, they are the person. The boss, the big cheese, whatever you want to call it. They run the whole operation. Sanford and Burton weren't just in business together, they were running the Trident together."
"So there could have been a power struggle," I mused. As if this case wasn't confusing enough, there was another element to it.
As you can imagine, I took all this in with a flood of conflicting thoughts. Sure, it felt like a genuine confession, and it matched up with my suspicions, but that was not enough to alleviate me of my concerns. The fact remained that her sudden appearance shortly before his death was too suspicious to simply overlook. The fact that she had ties to this group, the Trident, was enough motive for her to lie. Even so, her word and that of Carter Matthews was all I had to go on. Two insiders was more than most PIs had to work with. I was depending more on my gut than hard evidence at this point...
"And what of yourself? You had the same means and opportunity as either of them. What was your business with the Sanfords?"
"You really know how to sweet talk a girl, don't you Mr. Allison?" Her eyes almost seemed to become seductive for a moment, which temporarily unnerved me, before she heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Fine, if you must know, I was meant to be supervising the chauffeur to make sure he got the job done. For this, I needed to gain Old Man Sanford's trust so I would have access to the estate."
"And how exactly did you gain his trust?"
"That's not particularly relevant to this investigation, is it?"
This interrogation was getting off-track, and I was rapidly losing patience with Miss Walters' stalling.
"Everything is important at this point, Miss Walters," I insisted.
"I have my ways, Mr. Allison, let's just leave it at that." Another seductive gaze, this one she held slightly longer, just long enough to emphasize her charms before I forced myself to look at something behind her. I had more than caught her meaning.
"That's all I need to know for now, Miss Walters, but I'm going to continue to look into this, and I may to contact you again, so don't skip town or anything."
"Just to the contrary, Mr. Allison, I'd like to help you."
I stopped in my tracks. mid-turn. "Help me?"
"Sure, think about it. I can take you to the bank where Burton wrote out that check. It wasn't at their usual bank, so it'll take you ages to find it on your own. And once the Trident realizes you're hot on their trail, they'll do anything to off you and little miss Sanford to protect their interests. You'll be six feet under before you ever get close. Let's be frank, detective, I can get information from the inside that you can't."
I pondered her words carefully. "Why are you suddenly so eager to cooperate?"
Miss Walters gave a small, but sly, grin. "I've taken a liking to you after all, Mr. Allison. I know what the Trident is capable of. I assume you do as well if you have already spoken to Carter Matthews. And I don't wish any harm to come to you. So what do you say, detective?"
And what could I say? Was I suspicious that she had an ulterior motive? Of course. Did I think there was more to the story that she could not, or would not, say? Certainly. Did I trust her? Not one bit. But you must understand what a golden opportunity this was. A chance to turn a key participant in the plot against the other co-conspirators. Assistance like that is rare and invaluable to any investigation, and I would have been a fool to turn it down. So although so didn't trust her sudden altruistic offer, although my every instinct was telling me that Miss Walters was trouble and that I was going to regret this decision, I did what I felt I had to do. For the case, for justice, for Gwen...
"All right, Miss Walters, I accept your offer."