by J. L. Brown
Jade leaned against the headboard in a hotel room downtown. Dante thought it would be bad luck to stay in the same motel that Judy had stayed in. Jade agreed. Regardless, she wasn’t keen to sleep in a motel one step up from seedy. Jade understood now why Judy had stayed there. It was the closest motel to the scene of the congressman’s accident.
A pickle on a plate was all that remained from her room-service dinner of a double cheeseburger and fries. Sipping a Pepsi, she checked the Shakespeare app on her phone. The sonnet attached to Judy Porter was number ninety-four. She read it again.
What did it mean? What did any of them mean? How did the reporter fit in? Had she gotten too close? To what?
This last question made Jade sit up.
Was Judy’s investigation connected to the Shakespeare murders? Was the killer acquainted with all his victims? Jade agreed with the professor; she didn’t think they were selected at random. What was the glue? Were they looking for an English professor? Teacher? How many serial-killing English teachers could there be in America?
She chuckled. She was tired and being silly.
Earlier, she’d reviewed Veritas’s timeline on Twitter, but she couldn’t locate a single tweet about Judy Porter during the last month. She made a mental note to tell Pat to check further back and submit another court order to the social media company in case the tweet had been deleted.
Assuming he hadn’t tweeted about Judy, why the break in pattern?
She laid each of the partial sonnets in a neat row in front of her on the bedspread and the full texts in a row above them. She wrote the numbers down: 1, 3, 7, 72, 94. After a moment, she wrote their equivalent Roman numerals: I, III, VII, LXXII, and XCIV. She sent Pat a text about the court order and the sonnet numbers, hoping the analysts would find a pattern.
Jade had read every sonnet in its entirety—all hundred and fifty-four of them—along with the online CliffsNotes and SparkNotes analyses of each one. Although she understood the poems better, she hadn’t discovered any clues as to their connection with the victims or to the identity of the perpetrator or where he’d strike next.
Her cell phone buzzed. Expecting Dante, she swiped to accept the call without looking at the display.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Pardon me?”
“Oh…”
“It’s Blake.”
She remembered that he didn’t want to see her. “Okay.”
“Are you in town?”
“No.”
“I want to explain.”
She squinted at the generic painting on the opposite wall. It looked like the one in her hotel room in Seattle.
“You’re up late,” she said.
“I don’t sleep much these days.”
“Why?”
“It hurts.” A pause. “How’ve you been?”
She glanced down at the sonnets. “Puzzled.”
Despite his condition, he’d asked her how she was doing. She imagined the remonstrations of her mother for forgetting her manners.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Been better. I’m home. Finally. I would like to see you sometime, but… not yet.”
“I understand.” And she did. She wasn’t sure she’d want him to visit her under similar circumstances.
“Anything new on who’s responsible? For the terrorist attack?”
“No,” she said. She’d been too busy with her team’s cases to check on his. “Have you found out anything?”
“No.”
“I’ll check with Counterterrorism.”
“No need,” he said. “I have my own sources.”
The president.
“But that’s not why I called,” he continued.
“Oh?”
“I heard about Judy Porter.”
“I haven’t told the president yet.”
“Her husband called me.”
“How do you—wait!” Jade grabbed the notebook on the nightstand. “You knew her.”
“She was in the press corps. We weren’t friends and didn’t drink together, but we saw each other at events. That’s how I met her husband, David.”
“What did you think of her?”
“A fine reporter. Did her homework. Practiced journalism the way it’s supposed to be. I respected her tremendously. It’s a loss for the profession.”
“Are you okay?”
“That’s not why I called either.” He paused. “Did you watch her broadcast the other night?”
“Not yet.”
“You should.”
“Because…”
“I don’t think the Shakespeare Killer killed her. I think it had something to do with Congressman Barrett’s murder.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Just a feeling,” he said. “I’m going to keep digging.”
“Blake, you should leave the investigating to the investigators. To me.”
“I want to help.” Another pause. “I have nothing but time on my hands.”
“As a law enforcement officer, I should dissuade you from pursing this matter further.”
“Perhaps, but I would pursue it in any event.”
Chapter Seventy
St. Louis, Missouri
“It’s late. Another murder?”
“Yes,” Jade said into her cell phone.
“Which sonnet?”
“Ninety-four.”
“‘For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,” quoted the professor. “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.’”
“That’s it.”
“At first blush,” Alaia Bennett said, “ninety-four is similar to the sonnet preceding it, contrasting virtue with appearance. This one, however, contains no reference to the poet or the young man.”
“What’s it about then?”
“The difference between outward appearance and inner worth. Or, as my grandma used to say, just because it looks good doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”
How did this sonnet apply to Judy? Was there more to her, or to what she was investigating, than met the eye?
Jade was tired but not sleepy. She stuffed another pillow behind her head. “How did you become a professor?”
“I went to Spelman—the best historically black college in the country, by the way—and loved it. I was an activist before and after graduation, but I realized that no matter how hard I worked or how passionate I was, I wasn’t making any progress. We weren’t making any progress. I decided I could better serve the cause by teaching the next generation about our history.”
“Through literature?” Jade asked, not bothering to mask her skepticism.
“I don’t teach only Shakespeare,” Bennett said, “and the other great white writers. I expose my students to the writings of James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, Octavia Butler, Alex Haley, Alice Walker, and Lorraine Vivian Hansberry.”
“Who is Lorraine Vivian Hansberry?”
The professor tsked. “You need to know your history. We are descended from kings and queens. We are their wildest dreams.”
Jade thought of her parents. Sounded about right. “Tell me about Hansberry.”
“An African-American playwright. She was the first black woman to write a play performed on Broadway. A Raisin in the Sun. Heard of it?”
“Sure.”
“She was also a civil rights activist in the fifties and sixties. A little militant. Believed that black people should fight back using any means at their disposal, whether legal or illegal, violent or nonviolent, passive or aggressive.”
“Do you agree with her?”
“Absolutely. There’s no playbook for a revolution.”
“Sounds like a formidable woman.”
“She was. Married to a Jewish guy. And a closeted lesbian.”
Jade wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“Have you read any of the other authors?”
“I read
The Color Purple,” Jade said, “and some Toni Morrison in school. Invisible Man.”
“Pitiful,” the professor said. “It’s because of people like you that I teach.” She paused. “You should take my class.”
“Maybe I should.”
Chapter Seventy-One
The White House, Washington, DC
Whitney spooned a small wedge of grapefruit into her mouth, her eyes falling on the empty place setting.
She and Grayson had developed a routine of having breakfast and reading major newspapers from around the globe together in the Residence kitchen before heading to their offices in the West Wing.
After he had left, almost two months ago now, whenever they’d called each other, they discussed only the children or their work. They hadn’t discussed their relationship.
He hadn’t called recently.
She hadn’t called him either.
Every day, she ate breakfast alone. In truth, she enjoyed the solitude.
After finishing the grapefruit, she placed her dishes in the sink.
The phone rang.
She moved to the counter to answer it.
Only a handful of people in the world could reach her directly. Whitney glanced at the clock: 5:30 a.m. The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour. This wasn’t good news.
“Madam President, Jade Harrington.”
“Agent Harrington. I presume this isn’t a social call.”
“No, it isn’t. I’m in Clayton, Missouri.”
Whitney gripped the handset tighter. Grayson lived in Clayton. As did her parents. Her brothers and their families. Were her children visiting? Her mind spun with all the horrendous possibilities.
“I’m listening,” she said.
“Judy Porter was murdered here last night.”
“My God! I watched her on television the other night. Why was she still in Clayton?” That was the wrong question to ask. “Sorry, this is such a shock. What happened?”
“She was working on a story about Congressman Steven Barrett’s accident. She was found dead in the parking lot of the motel where she was staying.”
“Why couldn’t she let it go?” Whitney murmured.
“Let what go?” the agent asked.
Did I say that aloud?
“How did it happen?”
“She was stabbed.”
“How awful. Judy was a fine reporter. I truly respected her. She will be missed.”
“What couldn’t she let go, Madam President?”
Whitney paused, thinking. “A story. Any story.”
Silence on the other end. Then, “I wanted you to hear it from me before you heard it on the news.” Other voices in the background. Jade said to someone else, “I’ll be right there.” Into the phone, she said, “Ma’am, I’ve gotta go.”
“Thank you for this call. Please keep me informed.”
The agent didn’t respond before hanging up.
Whitney slowly replaced the receiver.
She made a mental note to call the reporter’s family. Whitney had met her husband once—Daniel? Dylan? David!—and that was the extent of what she knew about Judy’s private life.
Judy had kept digging into Whitney’s past long after most reporters would have quit.
Despite her sadness for the reporter’s family, she would no longer need to worry about Judy Porter.
Whitney’s past could finally be buried.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Washington, DC
Jade flew home a few hours after talking to Fairchild, leaving Dante and the rest of the team to finish the initial investigation into Judy Porter’s murder. They interviewed the motel’s guests, Judy’s cameraman, and the neighbors that lived along the road where Barrett was killed. Finding the witness to the congressman’s death was a top priority.
She thought about the president’s question.
Why couldn’t she let it go?
What was Judy Porter after?
And was she killed for it?
After landing at Reagan, Jade went home for a quick shower and change of clothes.
She dialed the number on the way to work.
“You rang, your highn-ass?”
“Good morning to you too. Why are you still in bed?”
“What time is it?” asked Zoe.
“Eight.”
“Damn. I overslept. Where are you?”
“Just flew in from St. Louis. On my way to the office. How’s Card?”
“He’s fine. Been sleeping with me. Really cramping my style. I put his name on the mailbox, by the way.”
“Funny,” Jade said, turning right on E Street. “I’m picking up my baby tonight.”
“Ooh… am I your baby?”
“My furry one.”
“Damn,” Zoe said. “We’ll be here. Let us know if you’ll be joining us for dinner. I’m going back to sleep. Why is the snooze button for only nine minutes?”
“Don’t know. I’ve got my own mysteries to figure out.”
She pressed the button near the radio to end the call.
In her office, Jade booted up her computer. An email from Pat, with all of Judy’s broadcasts for the past year, awaited her.
She considered Blake’s suspicion that Judy’s death was a copycat killing, that it wasn’t the Shakespeare Killer.
Blake said he had a feeling. Jade made decisions based on evidence, but she, too, placed a great deal of faith in her intuition. She should have dissuaded him from helping her. Despite his investigative reporting skills, he was a civilian. She ignored the small part of her that looked forward to spending more time with him.
Jade clicked on the video that Blake had recommended she watch. Judy Porter stood by the side of the road adjacent to a wooded area, speaking into a microphone, describing the circumstances of the congressman’s car accident. She also described the coincidences concerning his death and the special election to replace him. Nothing Jade hadn’t heard before. No mention of the witness. Judy might have been trying to locate someone else who could corroborate his story.
She tensed when Judy mentioned that although the death was ruled a homicide, the FBI had dropped its inquiry. Jade paused the recording and leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. Thinking back to the dinner she’d had with the president in the White House Residence, she remembered that Fairchild asked her to investigate the accident. Jade had delegated the assignment to Pat. Pat discovered that the single-car crash wasn’t an accident. The car’s brakes were tampered with. The congressman had no chance of navigating the sharp turn or avoiding the oak tree. Since the car was totaled and the family believed it was an accident, they’d sold it to a mechanic, who sold it for parts.
The perpetrator of Jade’s first major case, the Talk-Show Killer, happened to be in the area at the time. Judy was right. Many coincidences surrounded this case. Jade didn’t believe in coincidences, and she suspected that the reporter hadn’t either.
Something wasn’t right.
Amid everything else going on, she hadn’t kept track of the outcome of the congressman’s case.
She called Pat. “How’s the court order for Twitter coming?”
“Still waiting.”
“Anything back on Adey?”
“No luck so far.”
“Whatever happened to your inquiry into Congressman Barrett’s death?”
Pat hesitated. “I was told to stop.”
Jade had been Pat’s direct supervisor at the time.
“I don’t recall telling you to stop.”
“You didn’t.”
“Who then?”
Even as she asked, the answer came to Jade.
“Barringer,” Pat said.
Chapter Seventy-Three
The White House, Washington, DC
After another dinner alone, Whitney retreated to the Treaty Room on the second floor of the Residence. Like many of her predecessors, she used the room as a study when she worked late.
The room and the table were named by for
mer first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in honor of the numerous treaties signed there: from the end of the Spanish American War in 1898 to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979.
Whitney set the pen down next to the briefing book, still thinking about Judy Porter. Instead of relief, unease weighed on her.
At the knock on her door, she beckoned. “Come in, Sasha.”
Sasha had called fifteen minutes ago, asking to see her.
The chief of staff crossed the room and stood looking at the stack of books on the table: biographies (Mikhail Gorbachev, Catherine the Great, and Leo Tolstoy), a book on Russian history, another on Russian politics, and a young adult novel squeezed among them.
“Homework?” Sasha asked.
“‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.’”
“Sun Tzu. The Art of War. When do you have time to read all those books?”
Whitney glanced at them. “Reading helped me to get here”—she swept her arm in a gesture that took in the entire White House—“and is sometimes my only salvation. How did it go?”
“Fine. She’s at home, resting. Scared more than anything else.”
Sasha had flown home to Texas two days ago. Her mother had showed symptoms of a heart attack.
“I’m glad it was just a scare.”
“Thank you.” Then, her face neutral, Sasha said, “Awful about what happened to Judy.”
Whitney sat back in her leather chair and crossed her legs. “Such a tragedy. She was a good reporter.”
Sasha held her eyes. “Like a dog with a bone.”
“She was persistent.”
“It was more than that, though.”
What was she implying?
Sasha continued, “Well, you won’t need to worry about her any longer.”
Was her relief that obvious?
“That’s an awful thing to say, Sasha!”
“Yes, it is.” Sasha handed Whitney a sheaf of papers. “Here are your remarks for tomorrow.”