An Absence of Light

“Right, Parnell Nieson. At each meeting Nieson wore a wig, an expensive one. Art thought it was a hairpiece after the first meeting, but he couldn’t be positive. Second meeting he was satisfied it was. Nieson… always had several days’ growth of beard, though Art said it didn’t hide the fact that he was obviously an executive type, expensive clothes, manicured nails, obligatory Rolex, all the stuff. He wore blue contact lenses. Art said he didn’t try to pretend he wasn’t disguised, though the alterations in his appearance were subtle enough, well done. Art never saw him drive anything. The guy always arrived at the meeting sites after Tisler, and he always left first.”

“What?” Graver zeroed in on the irregular procedure. “Every time?”

“I know, I know.” Burtell nodded, placating. “I jumped him about this. I told him he was crazy to let the guy dictate the terms of the meetings, that he was violating the basic rules of handling contributors. But Art smelled something big, and he argued that compromising on the meeting arrangements was insignificant compared to what he stood to get from the guy. He said he would humor him on that point He didn’t want to risk alienating him right from the beginning by insisting on something that, at this stage of the game, Art thought was trivial.”

Burtell paused, stepped over to Graver’s desk, and picked up his coffee mug. He sipped the coffee tentatively and returned to the window. Graver didn’t take advantage of this hiatus to speak. He didn’t want to relieve any of the pressure Burtell was feeling, or give him an extra moment to collect his thoughts. He let all the silence fall on Burtell’s shoulders.

With his free hand still in his trousers pocket, Burtell bent his head in thought and continued.

“Nieson told Art from the beginning that he hated Seldon. He knew that much, that Art would be looking for a legitimate motive, and he gave him an ‘honest’ one. They were competitors in the same business and Seldon had burned him once, burned him big-time. Nieson wanted to see him hurt.” He nodded to the folder opened before Graver. “You can see from the contact reports that he gave Art a lot of information relating to Seldon’s business, detailed information that he knew Art could corroborate. He knew what he was talking about But he never named names other than Seldon’s, never gave away a piece of geography that Art could work from-the ranch for instance-never mentioned relationships we could draw inferences from, never… well, shit, never gave us anything we could work back on. If we went any further with this, he was going to have to take us there.”

Graver turned a couple of pages in the folder before him.

“What about the information on the contributor’s ID record? What did you find when you checked into that?”

Burtell nodded, knowing this question was coming, and he clearly wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Yeah, I went into it” Pause. “None of it checked out.”

“None of it?” Graver was genuinely surprised. The Seldon investigation was losing blood with every revelation.

“None.”

“How long have you known this?” Graver flattened his tone. He wanted to sound cold, not worked up, as if he had gone past agitation to something more serious.

“After the first meeting we corroborated everything he’d told us about Seldon personally,” Burtell said. “After the second meeting, we corroborated everything he told Art about Seldon’s business. It was all checking out This was looking good, both of us could see the potential of these relationships considering the enormous price tag on the chemical industry here in Houston. The drug business speaks for itself. It was checking out It was solid. I have to admit, we were both getting worked up over this one.”

Burtell was good, aligning himself with Tisler and hoping to avoid the appearance that he was foisting all the blame for the investigation onto a dead man who couldn’t defend himself. He was putting just enough mea culpa into his explanation to keep Tisler from being a total scapegoat He took a deep breath and exhaled. The deceit was painful for Graver to watch. Burtell did it so well, with just the right nuance of uncertainty to make it look like he was defending himself-or admitting to poor judgment.

“Third meeting,” Burtell continued, “he gives us information about the actors on the drug end of the deal. We check it out through DEA, it’s good. But he doesn’t give us too much, not enough for us to initiate anything on our own. He still held the key to the relationships. He also finally gave Art his name and showed him an ID. That was two weeks ago. When Art came back and filled out the paperwork I got right on it There is in fact a Parnell Nieson who is an executive with Rochin and Leeds Chemicals. But Tisler’s source was not Parnell Nieson. I found a picture of Nieson in Rochin and Leeds’s most recent annual report Showed it to Tisler. Wasn’t him.”

“And Tisler confronted the source with this?”