Free Clawback by Mike Cooper Page A

river. I walked briskly after her, and when she came to the dead end, where the walkway was built above the FDR viaduct, I could see her turn right. South. Good enough. All I had to do was keep moving in the same direction, and eventually, after she turned around to come back, we’d meet.
    A steady roar came from the viaduct beneath my feet, the cars clogged in rush hour. Exhaust drifted up. Trees in Carl Schurz Park, which extended several blocks downriver, were at a fall foliage peak, orange and red and yellow.
    I went into the park and found an unoccupied bench. Not so many people out. More than the crummy weather, it was the end of the workday, when everyone wanted to get home. Children no longer seemed to have unsupervised time outside. And the nighttime crowd hadn’t emerged yet.
    If the mayor still lived at Gracie Mansion, which was in the park, I’d have had plenty of company. But laws preventing the use of taxpayer funds on private citizens meant that unmarried partners could not be accommodated at Gracie, and the current mayor prefers to bunk with his girlfriend. The mansion was available for city functions, but mostly unused. I sat and waited.
    By the time Clara returned it was well into dark. The river was shadowed, and lights glowed in the low Queens skyline on the other side. A few streetlights had come on, along the pathways in the park behind me. She must have run for an hour.
    When she was thirty feet away, I raised a hand in a wave, but kept to my seat.
    “Clara!”
    She slowed but didn’t stop, instead swinging her head left, right, checking the entire area before focusing on me. Good reaction.
    “Just me,” I said.
    After a moment she halted, putting her hands on her hips, breathing a little hard from the run. “Silas? What on earth are you doing here?”
    “I
live
here, as you well know. Have a nice jog?”
    “A little wet.”
    I’d noticed that. Her shirt was soaked, from drizzle or sweat, clearly showing the dark outline of a sports bra underneath. The nylon shorts, equally wet, were plastered to the long, clean muscles in her legs.
    “Want my jacket?”
    “Don’t be silly.”
    We were at the edge of the park, alone. Somewhere a siren rose and fell.
    “You’re almost home,” I said. “Long run? Why don’t I walk you. We can catch up.”
    “Since six hours ago?” But she was smiling. “You’ve been working, if you’ve got more to report already.”
    I got up from the bench, feeling stiff. I have to say, my ass hurtfrom sitting so long—people were smaller or tougher or something in Olmstead’s day.
    “Marlett’s death is more and more suspicious,” I said, as we started down the path.
    “You mean apart from the fact he was assassinated by a sniper, on his doorstep, in the most expensive county in Connecticut?”
    I looked sideways at her. “Foul play does seem to be involved, yes.”
    “Good to know.”
    “There’ve been two others,” I said. “So far.”
    “Others?”
    “Betsy Sills and Jeremy Akelman.”
    She was slower than Johnny, but only by a second or two. “
Three
suspicious deaths. All money managers of some sort. Oh my God.”
    “Yes.”
    “I can’t believe this isn’t news yet.”
    “Nothing connects them directly.” Not exactly true, but I didn’t see any reason to bring Ganderson into it. “It seems…odd.”
    “Shit, I wish I had my phone. I sort of remember Akelman—got hit by a car or something. And Sills drowned. Do you have any proof they were murdered?”
    “No.”
    “That’s okay, I can still use it. What an awesome lead! It’s perfect—just what I need to follow up my stories on Marlett.”
    Which was, in fact, what I’d been hoping for.
    “I saw you made the big time today.”
    “Thirty thousand hits, as of midafternoon.”
    “Incredible.”
    “Better than anything else I’ve written, by far.”
    “Akelman and Sills, though—that’s no more than rumor. Utterly unsubstantiated, far as I know. Can you post it