WIN by Coben, Harlan (best book reader txt) 📕

large square table that seats twelve, so that he can hold student seminars in an intimate setting.

“So glad you could visit,” Cornwell says to me.

He has me sit in front of brochures related to the political science department. I look up at him. His face is eager, ready to pitch me to support financially some sort of study or class. Kabir has no doubt hinted that I would be interested in funding so as to expedite this appointment. Now that I’m here, I nip this hint in the bud.

“I’m here about the stolen paintings.”

His smile drops from his face like a cartoon anvil. “I was under the impression you’re interested—”

“I might be later,” I say, cutting him off. “But right now, I have some questions about the art heist. You were the night watchman on duty.”

He doesn’t like my abruptness. Few people do.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Yes,” I reply, “I’m well versed in how time works, thank you.”

“I don’t see—”

“You know, of course, that one of the two paintings has been found, correct?”

“I read that in the news.”

“Terrific, so there’s no need to play catch-up. I’ve combed through the FBI file on the heist extensively. As you might imagine, I have a personal interest in this too.”

Cornwell blinks as though dazed, so I continue.

“You were the only security guard on duty that night. According to your testimony, two men disguised as police officers knocked on the door to Founders Hall. They claimed there was a disturbance that needed to be investigated and so you buzzed them in. Once inside, they subdued you. They took you to the basement level, duct-taped your eyes and mouth, and handcuffed you to a radiator. They rummaged through your pockets, pulled out your wallet, checked your ID, and told you that they now know where you live and how to find you. A threat, I assume. Have I got all this correct?”

Ian Cornwell slumps into a chair across the table. “It was a traumatic experience.”

I wait.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Professor Cornwell?”

“Yes.”

“My family lost two priceless masterpieces on your watch.”

“You’re blaming me?”

“I will if you refuse to cooperate.”

“I’m not refusing anything, Mr. Lockwood.”

“Terrific.”

“But I also won’t be bullied.”

I give him a moment or two so as to save face. He will capitulate. They always do.

A few seconds later, he offers up a contrite “I don’t know anything that will help. I told the police everything a hundred times over.”

I continue undaunted: “You estimated that one of the two men was five nineish with a medium build. The other was slightly over six feet tall and heavier set. Both were white men, and you believe that they were wearing fake mustaches.”

“It was dark,” he adds.

“Your point being?”

His eyes go left. “None of this was exact. The height, the weight. I mean, they could be accurate. But it all happened so fast.”

“And you were young,” I add, “and scared.”

Ian Cornwell grabs hold of these arguments as a drowning man does a life preserver. “Yes, exactly.”

“You were just an intern hoping to make a few extra dollars.”

“It was part of my financial aid requirement, yes.”

“Your training was minimal.”

“Not to pass the buck,” Cornwell says, “but the school should have provided your family with better security.”

True enough, though many things about the case and the investigation bothered me. The painting had only been scheduled to be on loan for a short time, and the dates were fixed only a few weeks in advance. We had indeed added security cameras, but this was before the days of storing digital video in the cloud, and so the recordings were kept on a hard drive on the second floor behind the president’s office.

“How did the thieves know where to find the hard drive?” I ask.

His eyes close. “Please don’t.”

“Pardon?”

“You don’t think the FBI asked me all these questions a thousand times back then? They interrogated me for hours. Denied me legal counsel even.”

“They thought you were in on it.”

“I don’t know. But they sure acted like it. So I’ll tell you what I told them—I don’t know. I was duct-taped and cuffed in the basement. I had no idea what they’d done. I spent eight hours down there—until someone came looking to replace me in the morning.”

I know this, of course. Ian Cornwell had been cleared for a lot of reasons, the biggest being that he was only a twenty-two-year-old research intern with no record. He simply didn’t have the brains or experience to pull off this heist. Still, the FBI kept surveillance on him. I, too, had Kabir go through his bank records to see whether a late windfall came into his life. I found none. He seems clean. And yet.

“I want you to take a look at these photographs.”

I slide the four photographs across the table toward him. The first two are blown up from the famous photograph of the Jane Street Six. One is of Ry Strauss. The other is Arlo Sugarman. The next two are the same photographs but using a new age-progression software program, so both Strauss and Sugarman look some twenty years older—in their early forties—as they would have at the time of the art heist.

Ian Cornwell looks at the images. Then he looks up at me. “Are you kidding?”

“What?”

“That’s Ry Strauss and Arlo Sugarman,” he says. “You think they—”

“Do you?”

Ian Cornwell looks back down and seems to be studying the photographs with renewed vigor. I watch him closely. I need to gauge a reaction, and despite what you may read, no man is an open book. Still, I see something going on behind the eyes—or at least I imagine that I do.

“Hold on a second,” he says.

He reaches into a cabinet near the bookshelf and pulls out a black Sharpie pen. He gestures toward the photographs. “Do you mind?”

“Be my guest.”

He carefully draws mustaches on the male faces. When he’s satisfied, he straightens up and then tilts his head, as though he is an artist studying his handiwork. I don’t look at the photographs.