by Andy Straka
“As you can see outside, I don't travel alone anymore.” The guy and the gal from the minivan had changed shifts again with the original crew. I guessed one or both of them would be somewhere in sight.
He checked over my shoulder. “Tall guy leaning against the storefront and reading the paper at ten o'clock.”
“Sounds like one of them.”
“What do you expect? You're fuckin’ with the feds and a congressman here, Frank. Why don't you just let it go? If Karen Drummond can put you in the clear, why not let the feds worry about her and her daughter?”
“Maybe later,” I said.
He shook his head. “Mother and daughter must really be worried someone's after them or something to want to hang around with you,” he said.
“Maybe they just needed a break from being the nightly feature at six, ten, and eleven.”
“Uh-huh. What, you their press secretary now, too?”
I said nothing.
“What happened to your leg?” he asked. Guess I hadn't done a good enough job of disguising the limp.
“Garden rake,” I said, trying to sound a little more convincing than I had with Juanita. “Stepped on it at first light when I was going out in the backyard to check on Armistead.”
“Right. I heard there was a break-in at Tor Drummond's estate in Ivy last night.”
“Really? Hate it when stuff like that happens. Bumps up the crime rate.”
“Someone slipped in and out right under all his security—a real professional job.”
“Must've made someone look bad. Hear any more about Haynes?” I knew Bill wouldn't let go of an investigation like this entirely without keeping tabs on it.
He shrugged.
“Bet he's not confessing, is he?”
“Nope. They had to let him go. No body, no other evidence, for now, and the video's inconclusive—can't prove he was driving the Jeep. I suppose they're hoping one of the two of you leads them to the girl.”
“They still seem pretty convinced that this is a kidnapping.”
His eyes searched the restaurant to make sure no one else was listening. “That's because there's been another note,” he said flatly.
I stared at him, trying to absorb what he'd said. “Not from Tor Drummond's office again, I hope.”
He shook his head. “They're keeping this under wraps, but it showed up at police headquarters. Came in the regular mail, Charlottesville postmark.”
“What did it say?”
He lowered his voice. “I have Cartwright Drummond. She is alive and I will keep her until it is time.”
“Until it is time. Time for what?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Sounds like it might be a hoax.”
“Maybe, except that inside the envelope was a Polaroid of someone bound and gagged. Not a very good picture, but looks like it could be her.”
“She's still here in the area, then.”
“Quite possibly.”
“So why are they still dogging Toronto and me?”
His voice remained calm. “Could've been you sent the picture, Frank.”
“Right,” I said. “Either that or the tooth fairy.”
He looked down at the table. “I know. I know.”
“What about Haynes?”
“Still the prime suspect.”
“You've got to admit, the evidence so far doesn't look good for the kid.”
“I hope you don't plan to try to dog him yourself.”
“Who, me? Why do that when I've got the feds? Don't pay my federal taxes for nothing.”
“What's going on, Frank?”
“I told you. I think Drummond's dirty and there's a connection.”
“Okay,” he said. “Just for the sake of argument, let's say you're right and maybe this case is more complicated than what it first appears. Absent a dead body or any other physical evidence, we still gotta go with the facts we've got in front of us.”
“I've always been a believer in facts.”
“C'mon, Frank. When are you going to tell me what you're working?”
Two families noisily entered the ice cream parlor looking for doughnuts: a father and mother and another mother alone with six or seven children in tow. We were seated in the back booth nearest the bathrooms, and I faced away from the group and the door, but I still kept my voice down.
“Drummond's dirty,” I said. “He may or may not be good for his daughter's sudden invisibility, but the guy's hiding something. Might even be seeing it on TV soon.”
“Well, hallelujah, hoorah. Next time I really want to know something I'll just park my butt over at the local station and sic one of their people on the case. Man, oh, man, by the time they get through with you and me this go-round, you'll be serving five to seven up in Orange County and I'll be camped in a stilt house, crewing on a sportfisherman out of Oregon Inlet to supplement my pension. Who's the brilliant TV type?”
“Diane Lemminger.”
“Lemminger? Isn't she the one who… ?”
“One and the same.”
He thought about that. “She's got some cable show out of Richmond now, don't she?”
“It's called Government Offense.”
“You know what she's got on Drummond?”
“I don't know for sure, but it has something to do with that foundation where those E-mails came from. You know if the FBI's looking into that?”
He shook his head. “Don't know. They weren't too thrilled when they heard you'd pulled it off the hard drive. If somebody wanted to, they could think you all did some tampering. Could try to make a case for obstruction.”
“Obstruction of what, if they aren't looking into it?”
“Guess it all depends on a person's perspective.”
“Cartwright Drummond was suspicious of her father.”
“We know that.”
“Yeah, but she might've been onto something.”
“I'm listening.”
“I think it might be the same something Diane Lemminger's so charged up about, something to do with Second Millennium.” I took three pieces of paper from my pocket, copies of the checks and the note from Drummond's file, and slid them across the table so he could read them.
He looked them over. “Where'd you get these?”
“You don't want to know.”
He shrugged. “Doesn't look like all that much to me.
“People don't usually keep separate bank accounts without a reason,” I said.
“Maybe,” he said. “But it could also be an innocent reason.”
“Maybe.”
“I'm not liking the sound of any of this.” Ferrier's voice was now barely above a whisper. His coffee was long gone.
“Me either, believe me.”
“What if this has nothing to do with Cartwright Drummond's disappearance? What if we're looking at two separate problems?” he said.
“Somehow I don't think so. I think Drummond's made a public career for himself out of smoke and mirrors.”
“What's so new about that?”
“It's new if people died for it.”
We stared at one another for a long moment.
“I'll see what I can do,” he said.
26
I was crossing Water Street in front of my office, beginning to get in a rhythm with my limp, when Tor Drummond's yellow Hummer rumbled to life from the curb. His security men, who'd been talking to the remaining FBI agent by the silver Taurus, jumped back into their dark Suburban. This was obviously no campaign stop. There wasn't a microphone or a reporter in sight.
Drummond turned on his flashers and pulled to a halt right in front of me. He opened the hatchlike door and stepped out.
“Hey, Pavlicek!” His cowboy boots and jeans were jet black. He wore a white turtleneck sweater and a camel-colored cashmere sport jacket.
“Hey, yourself.”
The boys riding shotgun in the second vehicle pulled up behind the Hummer and also turned on their flashers. Turnip and hi
s friend, the same two I'd met before. They sat behind the glass, expressionless.
“Been waiting for you. I'd like to ask your advice about something, if you can spare a couple of minutes,” the congressman said.
I peered up and down the sidewalk. “I look like Lucy to you? Sorry, the advice booth's closed right now. Besides, I don't really have a couple of minutes to spare. Unless you're here to tell me where your missing daughter is.”
“Aw, c'mon, now, don't be like that. We may still be able to help each other.”
“Why? So you can try to set up me up for Cartwright's disappearance again? No, thank you.”
“I'm really sorry about that. Mel gets a little carried away sometimes. He's only trying to protect me.”
“Yeah. From whom?”
He held out his hands. “Just a couple of minutes. That's all I ask.”
“If you've got something to say that might help find your daughter, you're better off telling the FBI. And you can try siccing them on someone besides me while you're at it.”
“I'm here because I want to talk to you, Pavlicek. No one else. Don't you understand?”
I looked up to see a sharp-shinned hawk, smaller and quicker than a redtail, swoop from a tree around the corner of the library after a wren. It was rare to see sharpshins in the city, rare to see one at all unless you knew what to look for. Drummond saw me briefly staring and followed my line of vision. He might've seen the birds too.
“All right,” I said. I cocked my head in the direction of his goons in the trailer vehicle. “Lose the safety patrol and you can take me for a spin around the block.”
He crossed his arms and looked at me. Then he snickered and gestured toward his bodyguards. They neither questioned his intentions nor his actions. Immediately, the Suburban backed up and pulled around us, roaring off down the street. They turned right onto Second Street and disappeared.
“Okay, then?” he said.
I went around to the passenger side, found the handle, and pulled open the hatchlike door. I'd never ridden in a Hummer before. It felt like crawling into a cross between an Ml Abrams and something out of Star Trek. Tan-and-blue leather interior, giant silver gearshift, dials and controls. Computer monitor in the center of the dashboard to show us exactly where on the planet our little blip was located, using the global positioning system.
Drummond saw me staring. He patted the steering wheel. “Never ridden in one of these babies before? Here, let me show you how this works.” He pushed a button and tweaked some dials to pull up a street map of C-ville on the screen. Impressive.
“Personally, I prefer the Joe method.”
“Joe method?”
“Yeah. He's the guy at the gas station, knows where everything is, but no one ever stops to ask him directions.”
He turned the flashers off with a smirk, shifted into gear, and we moved away from the curb. I felt like one of the title characters in Kelly's Heroes expeditioning in my own tank down Water Street. I checked the side mirror just to make sure the FBI folks in the Taurus were following us—didn't think the congressman would try anything foolish with them around. They were. I also leaned into the seat and felt the comforting butt of the .357 beneath my jacket, just in case.
We reached the intersection of Ridge and Main, by the Lewis and Clark statue. He turned right down the hill. At the bottom we turned onto Preston Avenue.
“I saw you limping,” he said. “What'd you do, hurt yourself?”
“Seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?”
“What happened?”
“I'm in a risky profession.”
He grunted. “Saw that bird you were looking at, too. One of the detectives—Ferrier, was it?—told me you keep one like it yourself.”
“Not exactly. Different species.”
“A man of nature. You know my record on the environment is one of the strongest parts of my … “ He stopped himself in midsentence. “Never mind. I suppose whatever I say must sound like platitudes to a man like you.”
He had that right.
“So,” he said, “I understand you're keeping Karen and Cassidy's whereabouts a secret.”
“Who says I even know where they are?”
He smiled. “I thought you were hired by Cassidy.”
I said nothing.
“You think this evidence they've got against Jed Haynes is conclusive enough? I told you before what I thought of the young man.”
“I think it's more likely someone's trying to make everyone think Haynes has either killed your daughter or is keeping her somewhere.”
He twisted his lips into an odd shape. “Interesting theory. I hope you don't think I'd have anything to do with something like that.”
“Your chief of staff's trying to frame me, isn't he?”
“Ummm. Guess you've got a point there,” he said.
I shook my head and leaned back onto the leather headrest. The Hummer kept moving toward Barracks Road. “Doesn't it bother you, Drummond, that your own daughter and your ex-wife don't trust you?”
His turn to say nothing. But he seemed to grip the wheel a little tighter.
“Look,” he said after a few moments, “you seem to be the kind of man I can do business with.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind of man is that?”
“Independent. Tough and smart. I've employed a number of private investigators over the years, but most were disappointing.”
“Disappointing how?”
“They weren't willing to take risks.”
“You trying to hire me, Congressman?”
“Maybe. After all, I'm just as interested in finding out what's happened to Cartwright as Karen or Cassidy is.”
“Maybe even more interested.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What's Cartwright got on you that's got you so worked up?”
He shrugged. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
“I'm talking about Second Millennium. I'm talking about George and Norma Paitley.”
“Oh, yes, I've heard you've been down bothering Roberta Joseph and her daughter.”
“You told me you'd never heard of the Paitleys.”
“That's right.”
“Really? How come I turned a photo of you standing arm and arm with them over to the cops then?”
There was a slight, barely detectable hesitation to his answer. “Good God, man. You know how many people I've had my picture taken with over the past fifteen years?”
“I've also had a chat with Diane Lemminger.”
His face lost a little color when I said that. He stared, expressionless, through the windshield.
“You're the one who sent me to her, told me Cartwright had been talking to her, remember? She said she's working on a story about you.”
“Good God, my friend, I hope you don't believe anything she's got to say these days. No one takes that show seriously. Like I told you before, she's gone and become a harlot to the highest bidder with a camera.”
“Some might say the same about politicians.”
He shook his head. “I suppose it serves me right. I mean, for what I—for what Diane and I—did together. She'll probably take whatever she thinks she's got to the tabloids before she's through.”
Drummond bad learned to affect true humility and honesty so well, talking with him was like getting lost in a house of mirrors.
“Funny, because she's here right now in Charlottesville.”
“Here? What for?”
“I don't know. I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”
“I haven't a clue. Probably trying to dig up more dirt on me.”
“Maybe just visiting old friends,” I suggested.
“You really think I may have had my own daughter kidnapped or killed, don't you?” he said.
“You sure act like it.”
“Is that what Cassidy thinks too?”
“When she decides to talk to you again, you'll have to ask her.”
He nodded.
The sky was beginning to clear overhead as we waited in a line of cars headed down the hill toward the light at the big intersection with Emmet Street. The trees were infused with a shadow of spring green where the budding tips of new leaves grew fatter every day.
“You spent much time around hospitals, Pavlicek?” he asked.
“Some.”
“You know I trained as a physician, don't you?”
“Are you saying doctors aren't capable of murder?”
“Not at all. I'm only trying to get you to appreciate that there is often a finer line between life and death than most of the general public realize or want to even think about. Doctors must think about and deal with that line almost every day.”
“How do you deal with it up in Washington?”
He didn't answer. Which was about the most honest thing I'd heard him say.
We were looping around onto the 250 Bypass, heading back in the general direction from which we'd come. We drove in silence at the posted speed limit toward my office. Almost every driver we passed turned and gave the Hummer a look. Drummond appeared oblivious. I checked the side mirror for our FBI tail again. Still there.
“Someone broke into my house out in Ivy last night. Have you heard about it?” he said.
I shrugged. “Too bad. Anything taken?”
“Nothing that I could see. Whoever it was broke into my desk, though, and went through my papers.”
“Guess you'd better shore up your security out there,” I said.
“Exactly what I'm thinking. Which is why I thought I might offer you and your friend I've heard about— what's his name?”
“Toronto.”
“Toronto, then—a chance to work for me regarding this whole affair. I can certainly pay you a lot more than you're probably getting now.”
“Not interested,” I said.
“You sure? You might want to think about it.”
“I've thought about it. Not interested.”
He looked perplexed, disappointed. We climbed the hill to Lewis and Clark again and took the left onto Water. Eased back downhill toward the big parking garage where the Suburban sat idling at the curb.