“A former equipment manager named Frank T. Delacroix. Know him?”
Tom tried to link the name but shook his head. “Should I?”
“He lives in southern New Hampshire and was in heavy rotation on the local news a while back. That’s why I’m asking,” Marvin said. Reaching for the floor, Marvin hauled up a stack of papers with a glossy black-and-white photograph on top. He handed the photograph to Tom.
Tom examined the picture and nodded as soon as he connected the dots. “Wait, I do know this guy,” Tom said. “He was at the country club shindig Boyd invited me to.”
Marvin returned a puzzled look. “Forgive the judgment pass, but you just don’t strike me as the country club type,” Marvin said.
“I’m not. Believe me, Boyd won’t be inviting me back anytime soon. He’s convinced I’m sleeping with his wife. But before all that, he introduced me to this guy as Frank Dee, not Delacroix.”
Tom flashed on a memory of Frank Dee from the club that night. He remembered wondering whether Dee had recently divorced. Apparently, it wasn’t a wedding ring he typically wore on that hand.
“Frank Dee is his new name,” Marvin said. “He changed it after he was released from prison.”
“Prison? What for?”
“Guess.”
“Betting on baseball?”
“Guess again.”
“Okay. Scopolamine smuggling.”
“Close,” Marvin said, smiling. “Try crystal meth. Seems like this guy was a master cooker. But as you now know, that’s not all he can cook. Mr. My-Name-Once-Was-Delacroix got into the restaurant business after he got out of the meth cooking business. He’s now the franchise owner for a bunch of restaurants throughout the state, including that Johnny Rockets on one-forty.”
“But why wasn’t this guy in jail? Isn’t crystal meth a pretty serious offense?”
“Case never went to trial,” Marvin said. “A few weeks before the trial a wee little procedural no-no came up. A technicality with the search warrant, which renders all the crucial evidence against Delacroix inadmissible in court.”
“D.A. dropped the charges after that, I suppose,” Tom said.
Marvin pantomimed the ringing of an imaginary bell. “And guess who Mr. Delacroix-Dee is related to? First cousin related.”
“Kip Lange,” Tom said.
Again, Marvin pantomimed that ringing bell.
“So Lange must have brought Dee into the deal,” Tom said. “Probably promised him a cut. But how does a guy like Dee run a family business? With the Web being what it is, you’d think somebody would have picked up on his past and made a big stink about it.”
“Well, Mr. Delacroix went through a pretty extensive life makeover. New ID. New Social Security number. Essentially, he became a whole new person. You search the Web and it’s clean of any link between the old Delacroix and the new Dee. Then I came across this New York Times investigative report about how the Internet is making it easier for people to live a double life. One article in the series focused on the Delacroix to Dee transformation. Apparently, the new Dee hired a company that specializes in online reputation management.”
“What’s online reputation management?” asked Tom.
“Basically, you can pay these specialists and they’ll keep you looking good on the Web. Its like a twenty-four-hour-a-day Internet watchdog to stamp out slander, lies, and malicious rumors about their clients. I wanted to know if Dee’s online reputation was still being scrubbed clean by somebody, so I posted a bunch of pretty inflammatory comments on the New York Times Web site that I figured would get picked up in a search engine and broadcast to anybody monitoring for such things.”
“And what happened?” Tom asked.
“Within twelve hours, my comments were removed. Then I got an e-mail from somebody at Cortland & Associates, warning me to refrain from any further attempts at slander or face legal action.”
“Who’s that?”
“Cortland & Associates is a large PR firm headquartered in Boston, but with offices all around the world. They do a lot of standard corporate PR work, but it seems they have a subspecialty in online reputation management.”
“But what you posted about Dee wasn’t a rumor. It was the truth.”
“The Internet is fast replacing television as the disseminator of the truth,” Marvin said. “What’s available online for people to find and read is what the people now believe.”
Tom moved the keyboard to Marvin’s computer over to where he could type.
“You look like you’ve lost another liter of blood,” Marvin said.
“No, it’s the name of that PR firm,” Tom said. “I met a guy at the club the night Boyd introduced me to Frank Dee. His name was Simon Cortland.”
“Interesting.”
“But you just made me think of something even more interesting than that. After I got out on bail, I paid a little visit to James Mann.”
“You did what?”
“I knew you wouldn’t approve.”
“I wouldn’t and I don’t.”
“I suggested Mann conduct a little bit of research. He took the risk. I just supplied him with some names. Anyway, we were talking about who would have framed him and why. He thought it had something to do with an upcoming promotion, but only a few people in the company even knew about that, or so he believed. But they did have the press releases ready to go.”
“The press releases,” Marvin said. “Are you thinking…”
Tom brought up the Web site for Cortland & Associates. He showed Marvin the page listing all of Cortland’s many clients. Using Marvin’s computer mouse, Tom highlighted one name in particular.
PrimaMed Corporation.
Tom and Marvin regrouped at the conference table.
“So Frank Dee is connected to Kip Lange,” Marvin said. “And we’ve got Cortland & Associates connected to PrimaMed Corporation, which is also connected to Mr. James Mann.”
“Lange is connected to me,” Tom said. “And so is James Mann.”
“But from what you told me, the only real connection we’ve established between Dee and Cortland is Roland Boyd.”
“So how is Boyd connected to Lange?”
“Well, he knew Lange,” Marvin said. “Weren’t you guys all on the same military base in Germany at the same time?”
“But he wasn’t involved with what happened to Greeley or with the heroin I took out of the country. Kelly was only worried about one person—the guy who orchestrated the heist and recruited her into his plan. Kip Lange. I can tell you after my run-ins with Roland Boyd that he’s just as dangerous as Lange. Kelly would have been terrified of him if she felt she had any reason.”
“What about Cortland and PrimaMed?” Marvin asked. “Do you think they have any links back to Boyd?”
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “But it sure seems worth finding out.”
Marvin fixed Tom with a cold, unblinking stare. “I need you to come clean with me, Tom. Not that I don’t trust you after you kept your James Mann rendezvous a secret from me, but is there any other reason for Boyd to have you penned on his permanent shit list?”
“No,” Tom said. “We were friends right up until he thought I was sleeping with his wife.”
Tom told Marvin about his having to break in and rescue Jill from inside Roland’s house.
“Are you and Adriana having an affair?” Marvin asked afterward. “Answer me honestly, Tom. Please.”
“No. God, no. Marvin, you can ask Adriana yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Yes. Ask me.”
Tom and Marvin looked up and saw Adriana Boyd. Their jaws fell open simultaneously. Her truculent stance matched the coldness in her eyes. Tom’s face lit up at the sight of her.
Adriana crossed the room in four long strides. She maneuvered over to where Tom stood, dodging the paper piles with graceful steps.