Enigma (FBI Thriller #21)(76)

“All right, but I don’t know if it’ll be helpful. Bowler drew a deep breath. “I’m almost certain he’s Russian. I’ve had Russian clients before and I know the accent. I’d say he was educated in England, sounded like an upper-class Brit, but still he had this slight Russian accent.” Bowler shrugged. “But there have to be lots of men around who sound like him. My hearing his voice and recognizing he was Russian, that’s no reason to kill me.”

Enough to sign your death warrant. Russian—Ruth couldn’t wait to tell Dillon.

She said, “Tell us about the first phone call. What did the man say to you? Be as exact as you can, Mr. Bowler.”

“He told me about Manta Ray—Liam Hennessey’s his real name—that he was going to be tried for robbing a bank and for murder. I’d heard about the case already. He told me Manta Ray had something that belonged to him, something important and he wanted it back. Manta Ray would know what it was, and he would give Manta Ray two million dollars and arrange to set him free if Manta Ray agreed to return it to him. But it had to be done quickly, so I had to tell Manta Ray to accept a plea bargain right away, which he did. I assumed it was something Manta Ray had robbed from the bank, but neither of them told me what it was. I realized the deal went through when they broke Manta Ray out on his way to federal prison a couple of days ago. That’s pretty much all I know.” Bowler’s eyes went again to the dead man. “I told him what I told you, but he kept smiling and telling me in that slow Southern drawl of his to say something he didn’t know or he was going to have to hurt me. I knew he was getting ready to kill me. I could tell by his eyes. I’ve never talked so much in my life.”

Ollie said, “How did you communicate with this man—okay, let’s call him the Russian—after that first phone call?”

“It was simple, really. Both of us had passwords to a single account. He’d write an email, save it as a draft and I would log in, read the email in the drafts folder and then delete it. I’d write a response, save it to drafts.”

“Give me the password,” Ollie said.

“There is no way to retrieve it,” Bowler said. “You know there’s no way.”

Ruth said, “What is the password?”

“Mac and cheese,” Bowler said.

Ruth shook her head at him. “Why didn’t you simply tell us all this Monday at your office, Mr. Bowler? We could have saved all the drama and you could have prevented two attempts to kill you.” And us, you putz.

She saw Bowler couldn’t take his eyes off the dead man in the kitchen and the blood, black and viscous around him. He shuddered, shook his head. “I knew you couldn’t prove anything, and I had to hang tough. I never thought— Well, I was wrong.”

Ruth wanted to kick him. “You’ve defended some very bad people over the years, you know how they think. The Russian, you’re telling me you never even gave it a thought?”

Ollie started laughing. “It was all about money, Ruth. How much did he pay you, Mr. Bowler?”

He gave them an earnest-lawyer look. Ruth almost smiled.

“Yes, there was the money, I won’t deny that, but as I told you, I’ve had several Russian clients, and this man, this Russian, he knew a great deal about some of the, ah, services I’d performed for them. I could take the money he offered or he could make those services known and ruin the firm with what he knew.”

Bowler ran his tongue over his cracked lips. “I got the first half of the money right away. I was to receive the second half after he’d gotten Manta Ray free. It was a lot of money—five hundred thousand dollars—and all I had to do was be the go-between.

“But everything happened so fast. You were at my office and I knew you didn’t believe me, but where would you find any proof?”

Ollie said, “Mr. Bowler, of course we were on your doorstep right away. You were the only one who visited Manta Ray in prison in Richmond. It was obvious after Manta Ray escaped we’d come calling.”

He shrugged. “Yes, but again, you couldn’t prove I’d had anything to do with Manta Ray’s escape. Listen, I only wanted to get the other half of the money he owed me and put it all behind me, so I wrote the Russian a draft email using our system, but there was no reply. I called the number he gave me for emergencies. I didn’t speak to him, but the man I talked to said he worked for the boss, and he agreed to bring the money to the Bilbo Baggins restaurant in Alexandria.”

Ruth said, her eyebrow raised, “And naturally you believed him? He’d walk in with a bag of money? A cashier’s check?”

Bowler stuck out his chin. “The whole deal, it was straightforward, part of our agreement. Why shouldn’t I believe him? I waited for him, but he didn’t come. I didn’t know you were following me, Agent Noble.”

“That’s good to know. Did you call the number again? Ask what was happening?”

“Yes, but there was no answer. I wanted to get home, see what Renée thought we should do. I nearly ran to my car. I passed an older couple in the garage and then I heard the old man getting hit and moaning, and I knew I was next. I had my gun with me and I ducked behind a car when the lights went out. I heard you calling out to me, Agent Noble, and then the lights came back on and there he was, his back to me. I shot him and ran out the rear garage exit and into a motel down the street. I knew I couldn’t go home, they would be waiting, so I came here. I called Renée, told her and Magda to hunker down and make arrangements for us to leave Washington for a while.”