The Hollow Ones(18)

Almost marching music. She got out her phone and thumbed through to her Shazam app.

This improbable method of audio detection—the aged warbling of an ancient device decoded by the algorithmic genius of a modern device—worked. It was “What Now My Love” by Shirley Bassey, featuring Nelson Riddle and His Orchestra. Shazam put the release date at 1962.

The orchestration and vocal performance built to a frenzy and then ended suddenly. A snippet of patter from an old-school disk jockey started but was quickly shut off.

Then—white noise.

And then nothing.

She zipped forward, afraid the tape would snap. But the rest was blank.

Someone testing the machine? In 1962?

She examined the deck, eventually lifting it up. On the underside, burned into the plastic chassis with some kind of hot tool, were the initials ES.

Earl Solomon. That anticlimactic revelation—that the tape deck apparently belonged to the FBI agent whose office desk she found it inside—seemed to end her investigation.

He probably stuck it in the bottom drawer and forgot all about it.

Odessa returned to the office manager. “What am I supposed to do with the agent’s belongings?” she asked.

The office manager shrugged. “Any personal items should be returned, I guess? We need the office. Let me see if I have an address…”

Odessa found an empty carton in the printing/burn room and put everything inside.



Odessa cabbed over to Flushing and lugged the carton into NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital. She bounced from visitors desk to visitors desk trying to locate Earl Solomon. She was tempted to use her badge but it didn’t feel right, being on desk duty. Eventually she learned that he was out of intensive care, and Odessa made her way to the patient care unit.

The door was open. It was not a private room, but the first bed was empty. She stepped quietly around the half-drawn curtain. A black man lay sleeping, looking all of his eighty-six years. Tubes ran from the back of his hand and his forearm to pumps and monitors working in a hushed symphony. His breathing was shallow, his hair mostly silver, curly, and short.

Odessa set the carton down on the wooden arms of a chair. She had hoped there’d be family members holding a vigil, which would give her an opportunity to explain herself, hand off the possessions from his desk, and politely exit in a matter of minutes. She felt like a trespasser now. She didn’t dare wake him. Maybe he was sedated. She might have to use her badge anyway, in order to get information from the nurses’ desk, or else wait for the attending to come by on his or her rounds.

A small, flat television played in the high corner of the room. Once Odessa realized what she was watching, her chest went cold. It was a report on the funeral of Cary Peters’s wife and children. His own funeral was being held separately. She saw footage of the line of automobiles at the cemetery, a massive outpouring of sympathy and remembrance for the victims. They showed photographs sourced from social media, Mrs. Peters and the children at a water park, at a petting zoo, at a New York Rangers hockey game. Then a familiar photo of just Peters from his days working for the governor. A photograph of their house in Montclair, taken that night, lit starkly by emergency reds and blues of the first responders. And then, without context due to the muted volume, the photo of a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a jacket over a white blouse, smiling proudly. Odessa let out an audible gasp when she recognized her own photograph on television: her official FBI identification headshot.

And then back to the news anchor. It wasn’t even a local station, it was CNN. Nationwide. Odessa didn’t know what they were saying about her…and yet, she did.

“You from personnel?”

The voice startled her. Odessa whipped around, expecting it to be somebody at the door.

It was Earl Solomon. He was awake, if he’d ever been asleep. His eyes squinted at her, then widened. Warm and a little yellow.

“No,” she said, short of breath. She checked the television screen but the news had moved on to another story. She looked back at him. “I’m…Odessa Hardwicke. Special agent from New Jersey. Agent…Mr. Solomon?”

“Agent Solomon,” he said. “Earl. Put this up a bit, would you?”

He pointed out the bed controller, and Odessa raised the mattress two feet or so, in order that he could see her better. His lips were dry, his tongue pale. “You want some water?” she asked.

He shook his head. He pursed his lips and looked around as though trying to remember where he was. “New room,” he said.

Odessa nodded. She was still recovering from seeing herself on television. “Uh…are you comfortable?”

“Not so much.”

“You, um…you had a stroke, I’m told.”

“Some plaque got loose in my arteries. Lodged somewhere up in my head, blocked blood to my brain. Knocked me off my feet.” He patted the bed around his waist, smoothing out the top sheet. “Lucky I had my phone on me when I fell.”

“Your voice seems good. Any damage?”

He made a sour face again. “Can’t smell, nor taste. Dull tone in my ears. But if that’s it, I got off pretty easy. They did a scan, found some more plaque around my heart. And a fungus growing. And that’s not good.”

“No,” she said. “That doesn’t sound good.”