The Associate

BAXTER FLEW BACK to Pittsburgh the following morning, retrieved his car  –  a Porsche he planned to sell  –  from the long-term parking area, and checked into a motel by the airport. Credit card records revealed that he spent two nights in the motel and never checked out. His cell phone records showed numerous incoming calls and text messages from both Joey Bernardo and Kyle McAvoy, with no outgoing calls in return. He had two long conversations with Brother Manny in Reno, and some short ones with his parents and his brother in Pittsburgh. There were two calls to Elaine Keenan.

On the last day of his life, he left Pittsburgh before sunrise, headed for Scranton, a drive that would cover three hundred miles in about five hours. According to the credit card trail, he stopped for gas at a Shell station near the intersection of 1-79 and 1-80, about ninety minutes north of Pittsburgh. He then headed due east on 1-80 and traveled two hours until his journey came to an end. Near the small town of Snow Shoe, he stopped at a rest area and went to the men’s room. It was approximately 10:40 a.m. on a Friday in mid-November. Traffic was light, and there were only a few other vehicles at the rest area.

Mr. Dwight Nowoski, a retiree from Dayton who was traveling to Vermont with his wife, who was already in the ladies’ room, discovered Baxter not long after he had been shot. He was still alive but dying quickly from a gunshot to the head. Mr. Nowoski found him on the floor by the urinals, his jeans unzipped, the floor covered with blood and urine. The young man was gasping and whimpering and thrashing about like a deer hit by a car. There was no one else in the men’s room when Mr. Nowoski walked in and stumbled upon the horrible scene.

Evidently, the murderer followed Baxter into the toilet, took a look around to make sure they were alone, then quickly placed a nine-millimeter pistol, a Beretta according to the lab, at the base of Baxter’s skull and fired once. A silencer muffled the gunshot. The rest area was not equipped with surveillance cameras.

The Pennsylvania State Police closed the rest stop and sealed the area around it. Six travelers, including Mr. and Mrs. Nowoski, were questioned at length at the crime scene. One gentleman remembered a yellow Penske rental truck coming and going, but he had no idea how long it was there. The group estimated that another four or five vehicles had left the rest area after the body was discovered but before the police arrived. No one could recall seeing Baxter enter the men’s room, nor did anyone see the murderer follow him in. A lady from Rhode Island recalled noticing a man standing by the door to the men’s room when she entered the ladies’, and upon further reflection she agreed that it was possible he might have been a lookout. He was not going in, nor was he coming out. Regardless, he was long gone, and her description was limited to: male white, somewhere between the ages of thirty and forty-five, at least five feet eight but no more than six feet four, wearing a dark jacket that could have been leather, linen, wool, cotton, anything. Along with the lab reports and autopsy, her description was the extent of the physical evidence.

Baxter’s wallet, cash fold, and watch were untouched. The police inventoried his pockets and found nothing but a few coins, his car keys, and a tube of lip balm. The lab would later report that there was no trace of alcohol or illegal drugs in his system, on his clothing, or in his car.

The pathologist did note a remarkable degree of liver damage for a twenty-five-year-old.

Robbery was immediately ruled out for the obvious reasons –  nothing was taken, unless the victim was carrying something valuable that no one knew about. But why would an armed thief leave behind $513 in cash and eight credit cards? Wouldn’t a thief consider stealing the Porsche while he had the chance? There was no evidence that the crime had anything to do with sex. It could’ve been a drug hit, but that seemed unlikely. Those were usually much messier.

With sex, robbery, and drugs ruled out, the investigators began scratching their heads. They watched the bagged body disappear into the rear of an ambulance for the ride back to Pittsburgh, and they knew they had a problem. The apparent randomness of the act, plus the silent gunshot and the clean getaway, led them to conclude, at least at the scene, that they were dealing with professionals.

THE CONFIRMATION that a member of such a noted family had met such a strange and brutal end brightened up a dull news day in Pittsburgh. Television crews scampered to the Tate estate in Shadyside, only to be met by private security personnel. For generations the Tate family had offered "No comment" to every inquiry, and this tragedy was no different. A family lawyer issued a terse response and asked for prayers, consideration, and respect for privacy. Uncle Wally once again took charge and issued orders.

Kyle was at his cube, chatting with Dale about their plans for the evening, when the call came from Joey. It was almost 5:00 p.m. on Friday. He had eaten a pizza with Baxter late on Tuesday night, then chatted with him a few hours later, but had not spoken to him since. As far as he and Joey could tell, Baxter had disappeared, or at least he was ignoring his phone.

"What’s the matter?" Dale asked as she noticed the look of shock. But Kyle did not respond. He kept the phone to his ear and began walking away, down the hall, past the front desk, listening as Joey unloaded all the details now being splashed across the television. He lost him in the elevator, and once outside the building he called Joey back and kept listening. The sidewalks along Broad were packed with the late-afternoon rush. Kyle plodded along, without a coat to layer against the chill, without a clue as to where he might be going.

"They killed him," he finally said to Joey.

"Who?"

"I think you know."

Chapter 28

A funeral lasts for two hours," Doug Peckham was saying as he glared at Kyle. "I don’t understand why you need to take two days off."

"The funeral is in Pittsburgh. I have to fly there, then fly back. He was a fraternity brother. I’m a pallbearer. I’ll need to see the family. Come on, Doug."

"I’ve done funerals!"

"For a twenty-five-year-old roommate shot in the head?"

"I get all that, but two days?"

"Yes. Call it vacation. Call it personal time. Don’t we get a few personal days a year?"

"Sure, it’s somewhere in the handbook, but no one takes them."

"Then I’m taking them. Fire me, I don’t give a damn."

A deep breath on both sides of the desk, and Doug said calmly, "Okay, okay. When is the funeral?"

"Two o’clock, Wednesday afternoon."

"Then leave late tomorrow afternoon, and meet me here at five-thirty Thursday morning.

I gotta tell you, Kyle, this place is a powder keg. This Toby Roland split is getting nastier, and larger, and those of us who stay behind are about to get dumped on."

"He was my roommate."

"And I’m sorry."

"Oh, thank you."

Doug waved off the last comment, picked up a thick file, and thrust it across the desk. "Can you read this on the airplane?" While phrased like a question, it was an outright command.

Kyle took the file and locked his jaws to keep from saying, Sure, Doug, I’ll give it a look on the plane and I’ll sneak a peek at the wake and I’ll analyze the damned thing during the service and review my thoughts at the burial when they lower Baxter into his grave, and then, when I’m flying back to LaGuardia, I’ll flip through it again, and for every minute I’m even remotely thinking about this file, I’ll bill, or double bill, or maybe even triple bill the poor client who made the mistake of selecting this full-service sweatshop for its legal needs.