13. Elias
Chapter thirteen
Elias
Michael: Tierney's number. landline answers before six, never after eight. You get one try.
The voice on the line was dry and flat. In the background, I heard a TV. It was loud, like people who are a little hard of hearing keep it.
"It's from people I work for," I said. "They don't want anything from you. I know that doesn't mean much from a stranger at five in the morning. You can hang up and I won't call back. I just wanted the chance to ask you something."
A pause, and the click of a lighter. "You're dodging the question."
He needed more before he'd give me anything. One try.
"My name is Elias Ward. I work for a protection firm called The Guardians. The league retained us to look at some history around the Carolina team during the years you were there."
"I wasn't there."
"You were there from 2012 to '14, Mr. Tierney. They listed you as protocol technician on an embedded project with an outside company. You filed a workers' comp claim in 2013 for repetitive strain."
He didn't hang up, but all I heard was the TV in the background. A weather forecaster predicted a sunny day.
"Ray Halloran was trying to reach one of the players before he died," I said. "He didn't get through. I'm trying to finish the call for him."
"Ray's dead."
"Yes."
"I read the obituary." I heard clinks like ice rattling in a glass. "Cardiac event. The man had pancreatic cancer eating him alive, and his heart just quit one night, all on its own, two days after he got chatty." The dry voice remained flat. "Sure."
Through the wall behind me, faint, I heard Maddie Brickner's voice: Rise and grind, old man. Seconds later, the soft double thump of feet hitting the floor.
"The threshold sessions," I said. "When you ran them, who set the loading numbers? Was that you, on site, based on what the athlete gave you that day? Or did someone send them to you?"
He was silent while I heard a voice talking about rain three days from now.
"Are you a cop?"
"No. I used to teach movement science. Some of your old company's papers are still on my shelf."
"I don't talk on calls I didn't place," he said, and the line went dead.
I stood and looked out the living room window while the sky over the Colchester turned the color of dishwater. In my notebook I scrawled the date, then 5:15: first contact, Tierney, terminated from his end, duration 1:54.
Under it I wrote the only thing the call had actually given me. He hadn't refused to talk. He'd refused to talk on a phone he didn't dial.
Nolan left the bedroom at half past five wearing sneakers.
"Park," he said. "You're coming. It's your job."
We left the Colchester through the service entrance into air that hadn't cooled overnight. There was dew on every windshield on the block. We climbed into the SUV, and I drove.
He directed me into the park and west, past the golf course, the park roads curving empty under lamps still burning. The humidity rested in the hollows as a layer of fog.
Nolan suggested a slight detour. Near the top of a long rise, he said, "Pull off here a second."
I did. He got out slower than he'd let anyone at the rink see, and I walked around to stand next to him at the crest of the hill.
The hill fell away to a massive basin dotted with grand fountains, lit from under the water. Behind us the St. Louis Art Museum rose in Beaux-Arts majesty with columns three stories high.
Beside Nolan stood a statue of a king riding a horse. "That's St. Louis himself. He's the only French king they made a saint."
"I didn't know there was a view like this in the city," I said. "It goes on for miles."
"It's the best view in the city and half the people don't know it's here," he said. "The fountains run all night. I like being here before anybody's up."
"It's something," I said. That was all I had, and it was enough.
We stood there as bright streaks of yellow and orange signaled the sunrise. "All right," Nolan said. "Come on. The walk's down behind the hill in the trees." He turned back toward the SUV, and for the first few steps he moved like a man twice his age, short, shuffling steps, and he let me see it.
The air was cooler in the woods. "How often do you do this?"
"I usually come on the mornings the hip needs a little more coaxing." He ducked a low branch without breaking stride. "It's the one place I get to walk without a reporter filing a story."
The hip eased up a bit, and he walked faster. My long legs carried me in an easy lope at his side.
"I take about the same amount of time I do on the floor at home, except here it's prettier."
We circled around to return to the SUV on the opposite side of the road. "Game Five tomorrow," I said.
"Yep." He rolled his shoulders once. "It's a best-of-three for everything now." We walked a few more steps. "Do you like gardens?"
"Yes, I grew up with my mom fussing over roses."
"The botanical gardens here are great. We'll go when things calm down after the Cup."
***
Michael called at ten. Nolan had gone down to the building's gym to spin his legs out, and I stood outside the room with my phone in hand. Doyle's man stood near the elevator at the end of the hall.
"I've got three ways to put someone on Tierney," Michael said, "and none of them survive contact with him."
"Give me the first."
"I can fly an operative out from Seattle and have him knock on the door with a story. The problem is Tierney's the kind of guy who doesn't answer strange calls on his landline after six. Unfamiliar knuckles on his door, and he'll be out the back."
"And number two?"
"The second would be a local contractor. Only problem is he's still a stranger, and this time we have to trust somebody we don't know."
"There's one more."
"Yes." He took a breath. "Kate Halloran. She's motivated to help, and Tierney would likely feel sympathetic with her."
"No," I said.
"I agree with you. He might feel for her, but that doesn't mean he'll spill what we need to her. For him, she's mostly a stranger with a sad story."
"I pulled up flights though I knew they were impossible for me. There was a 4:10 pm out of Lambert and a red-eye back. If Doyle doubled the coverage on Nolan for game night—"
I closed the tab.
"So the best asset we have is you," Michael said, "but you're contractually welded to a hockey player. That means you on the phone is all we have, and he hung up on you."
"He'll answer a second call."
"You base that on—"
"He didn't refuse to talk," I said. "He refused to talk on a phone he didn't dial. Tierney was setting the terms, not closing a door. I'll call and let him pick the time and the line to talk."
"That's not wishful thinking?"
"No, it's holding a man to his word."
"Fine. Then we wait for him to come to us, which is my least favorite plan." He paused. "That's all I've got, except I have to say it—Mac reminded me that now isn't the time for improv. That means you don't fly anywhere, Elias. Not even for an afternoon. Your job is the man in that condo."
"He's in the gym."
"You know what I mean."
"Yes, I do."
He didn't hang up. I heard shuffling on the other end.
"Ward." It was Mac's voice. "Michael says our witness hung up on you."
"I'll call, and he'll answer, long enough to set up a conversation on his terms."
"I think you're probably right. Skittish ones usually circle back, once they've given it some thought." A beat. "Game Five tomorrow. Is the arena sealed?"
"Doyle's got it. He runs solid coverage."
"Good." I heard paper rustling. "How's your head, Elias?"
I hadn't rewritten the disclosure statement I trashed.
"Head's fine," I said.
"Alright," Mac said. "Go win a hockey game."
***
Frey called a little after one, while I was eating food out of a tray, sitting at the island. Nolan was watching tape in the recliner and threatened to skip lunch.
"Two-day break," Frey said. "How's your guy? I counted the finished checks in Game Four until it wasn't fun anymore. Somebody in that organization better be icing him down like a prize racehorse."
"He's managing. He says veterans don't feel June."
"Veterans feel June twice." I heard a door close on Frey's end.
"I keep thinking about those alumni. I read a report on one in the Chicago clinic a few days ago.
After I read it, a colleague sent me the imaging for a consult.
Forty-six years old, hip like a man of seventy.
There was no history of an injury. Nothing. "
"Which club did he play for?"
"Can't say. You know I can't tell you that."
I asked a question to test him. "For the white papers you showed me," I said. "The interoceptive load work. Who was the corresponding author on those? Was it Reis himself, or did he farm it out?"
"Reis on the early ones, through about '09. After that it's a woman named Okafor. She went to a university job in Calgary years ago and won't return my emails." He laughed. "Why, are you going to write the rebuttal? I'd love to read it."
All the details were right. Michael had pulled the publication records, and I'd read them twice.
"No rebuttal," I said. "I'm just trying to see the whole animal."
"The whole animal." I heard tapping on a surface, maybe his pen or pencil on a desk. "You know what your problem is, Elias? It's the same as mine. We think understanding a thing counts as doing something about it." Papers shuffled.
I started to respond, but he spoke first. "Listen, while I've got you.
I keep chewing on that history nobody will discuss with me, and I remembered I've stayed friendly with a couple of the old-timers.
Guys from the embedded era, retired now, with no love for the current regime.
If you're stuck, I could put out a feeler. No names attached to why I'm asking."
I considered the offer. "There's a name I keep hitting," I said. "Tierney."
"Tierney." He was silent for a few seconds. "No, it's before my time, but the tech guys from then all knew each other. Somebody will remember him. Can you spell it?"
"It's like it sounds." I shared the spelling.