by Mike Lawson
“What stories?”
“Oh, like once in New York, before Morelli became mayor, a cop stopped his car one night because the car’s all over the road. Burrows paid a thousand-dollar fine and lost his license for being under the influence. The cop who made the arrest said Burrows was driving, but the cop’s partner, six months later, said that Burrows was sober as a judge and Morelli was so shit-faced he could hardly talk.”
“So Burrows took the fall for his boss?”
Packy shrugged.
“How far would Burrows go for Morelli, Packy?”
“I thought I made that clear.” Packy hesitated a beat then added, “Abe would die for him.”
Chapter 37
“Look,” Reggie said, “do we have to keep meeting here? This place gives me the creeps.”
“It’s a church,” the person on the other side of the confessional screen said. “How could a church give you the creeps?”
“I don’t know, but it does. It seems, I dunno, sacrilegious or something doin’ this here.”
“Humph,” the person said. “Is your tape recorder on?”
“Yeah,” Reggie said. “It’s too fuckin’ dark in here to take notes”—and then immediately wished he hadn’t cursed inside a church.
A front-page article in the Washington Post reported that the CIA had announced the discovery of an al-Qaeda training facility in Nigeria three months ago. Nigerian president Joseph Mbanedo vehemently denied that his country was harboring terrorists, but the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations had pressed for economic sanctions against the West African nation. Yesterday, a highly placed official at the CIA informed Washington Post reporter Reginald Harmon that closer analysis of satellite photos by the National Reconnaissance Office revealed that the suspected terrorist-training facility was in fact a soccer field used by members of a Methodist missionary church located a mile away. CIA spokesperson Marilyn Seely said that the error had already been reported to the President’s national security adviser, Stephen Martell, and that diplomatic efforts were underway to address the error.
Sammy Wix, the jockey-sized detective whom Emma had assigned to follow Charlie Eklund, said, “Every morning on his way to Langley, he stops at this Starbucks about six blocks from his house. He likes mochas. He gets out of his car—him and that big square-headed bodyguard of his—and they go inside and he gets his mocha. He’s usually there at about seven, give or take five minutes.”
“Thank you, Sammy,” Emma said.
Reggie didn’t know what the hell was going on, but his source at the CIA hadn’t steered him wrong yet. In fact, the bastard, whoever he was, was turning Reggie into a star. He’d even slowed down his drinking a bit, with all that had been going on lately.
His source had told him to go to this Starbucks in Falls Church. At about seven a.m., a black Lexus would arrive and a little white-haired guy and a big tough-looking guy would get out of the Lexus and go into the Starbucks. Reggie was to wait until they came out of the Starbucks, which they did about five minutes later.
As the white-haired guy was descending the steps, Reggie stepped in front of him, and when he did, the tough-looking guy reached into his coat and Reggie saw the automatic in the shoulder holster. Holy shit.
“Excuse me,” Reggie said, “are you Charles Eklund?”
The white-haired guy made a little it’s-okay gesture to the other man and said, “Yes.”
“My name’s Reggie Harmon, Mr. Eklund. I’m a reporter for the Washington Post. I was wondering if you had any comment on the recent articles I’ve written discussing major CIA blunders in West Africa and Indonesia. I don’t know if you saw the articles, but—”
“No, I have no comment,” Eklund said. “Now if you’ll please excuse me.” And Eklund stepped around Reggie.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Reggie said, and he started to follow Eklund but the galoot with the gun placed a hand in the center of Reggie’s chest and shook his head.
Reggie just stood there as the Lexus drove away, rubbing his chest where the man had touched him.
Chapter 38
“Reggie,” DeMarco said into the phone, “do you think you could get a copy of Paul Morelli’s schedule for the week before his wife died?” DeMarco could have obtained the schedule himself, but at this point he thought it prudent to keep his interest in Morelli hidden.
The reporter said, “Morelli? What the hell are you into, Joe?”
“I can’t tell you, Reg.”
“Yeah, well, I’m kinda busy these days. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve tagged the CIA twice in two days.”
Great, DeMarco thought, now Reggie had an ego.
“Look, Reg,” DeMarco said, “you do this for me, and if what I’m working on pans out, I’ll give you the whole thing on exclusive. I swear.”
This was a blatant manipulation. It was highly unlikely that anything DeMarco was doing would come to a publishable conclusion.
“But what are you working on?” Reggie asked.
“Reggie, just trust me,” DeMarco said, glad Reggie couldn’t see him rolling his eyes. “What I’m into is a whole lot bigger than the CIA’s not being able to tell the difference between terrorists and soccer players.”
The phone went silent for long time. Reggie was either pondering DeMarco’s offer or he had slipped into an alcoholic coma.
“Okay, Joe,” he said, at last. “I’ll give it a shot.”
“What you could do is pretend you’re writing a—”
“DeMarco, I don’t need you to tell me how to get information. I’m an old drunk, not a young imbecile.”
They hung up after agreeing to meet at a bar in Union Station at five.
The bar was on the main floor of Union Station. It was a nice open place with a subtle Southwestern theme—subtle if you overlooked the four ten-foot red-plastic chili peppers hanging from the ceiling. Sunlight streamed in through tall windows, and in case the windows didn’t provide enough illumination, there were small lamps placed along the bar for those patrons who wanted to see what they were drinking. Reggie instantly despised the place.
“What the hell are we doing in this yuppie spawning bed?” he said to DeMarco. “The lights in here are so goddamn bright you can see every broken vein in my nose.”
“It was convenient, Reg.”
“Its liquor license should be shredded. Bars should be dark and smoky. Brass and mahogany. Faded photos of old boxers on the walls.”
Before Reggie could offer further insights on the décor, DeMarco asked, “Did you get the senator’s schedule?”
“Child’s play.”
Reggie reached into a pocket and removed a sheet of paper. DeMarco snatched it from him and began to study it.
“If you tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I can help,” Reggie said.
DeMarco ignored him. The newspapers had said that the night Lydia Morelli was killed she had been temporarily released from her rehabilitation at Father Martin’s to attend a function with her husband. The paper hadn’t said what the function was, and DeMarco was curious as to how she had behaved with her spouse the last night of her life. On the date of the murder, the senator’s schedule said: “7:30 p.m., Jasco Dinner.”
DeMarco borrowed Reggie’s cell phone—the battery on his was dead—and called Madeline Moss, a socialite he’d had a brief fling with following his divorce. Madeline attended formal affairs six nights out of seven, and even if she hadn’t been invited to the event on Morelli’s schedule, she’d still be able to find out what DeMarco wanted to know. After chatting briefly with her—yes, it had been a long time; yes, he did remember the good times—he sicced her like a society bloodhound onto the trail of “Jasco Dinner.”
While waiting for her to call back, DeMarco perused the rest of Morelli’s schedule, and while he did, Reggie swilled booze at an alarming rate and badgered DeMarco to find out what he was working on. If he hadn’t given Reggie’s cell phone number to Madeline, DeMarco would have ditched him, leavin
g him to pick up a bar tab that was rapidly approaching three figures.
Nothing on the schedule caught his eye. Morelli had had speaking engagements almost every night that week, addressing such diverse groups as the AMA, a construction company convention, and the Air Line Pilots Association. He spent his days on Capitol Hill in a series of normal committee meetings, except for one day when he took the shuttle to New York to meet with some constituents up there. He returned from New York that same day in time to dazzle the docs at the AMA dinner. He also attended a luncheon for a new exhibit at the Smithsonian, visited the emergency ward and pediatrics section of a D.C. hospital, and had his hair trimmed. Every other morning he played squash at a club that would have refused DeMarco membership. Morelli was a busy man—just looking at his schedule made DeMarco tired.
The one thing he did learn was that Morelli had apparently not been terribly concerned about his wife because he hadn’t bothered to visit her at the clinic, except for the day he had picked her up to attend the Jasco function. He had simply packed her off for a week to keep her from talking to the press, then ignored her until the night she died.
Madeline finally called back and told DeMarco that the event in question had been an affair honoring Ellen Jascovitch, a do-gooder of Mother Teresa proportions who had devoted her life to battered women, homeless kids, and other charitable endeavors. Certainly a worthy event, DeMarco concluded, but nothing that sounded so important that it was necessary for Morelli to interrupt his wife’s treatment. Speaking in her catty, gossip-spreading hiss, Madeline informed him that Lydia Morelli had not attended the function. The senator had called the hostess personally and said his wife was “indisposed.” Madeline interpreted this to mean that Lydia had somehow managed to fall off the wagon in the short time between leaving the clinic in Maryland and the time of the dinner.
After DeMarco thanked Madeline for her help and swore her to secrecy—a promise he knew she was genetically incapable of keeping—he looked over at Reggie and saw that the reporter’s gaze was fastened onto a woman at the other end of the room. The woman was in her fifties, slightly plump, the skin under her jaw sagging a bit. Her hair was henna-colored and she wore too much green eyeshadow. She looked like a feminine version of Reggie—a once good-looking woman who had seen too much of life from the viewpoint of a bar stool.
Reggie felt DeMarco looking at him, and without taking his eyes off the woman, he said, “I know that gal over there. We were in Chicago covering the same story, can’t even remember what it was now, and she was there for some Texas paper. We started out trying to see who could suck the worm out of the tequila bottle, and by the time the evening was over we were back in her room tearing up the sheets. Goddamn, she was something then, Joe. Hotter than Houston burning.”
Reggie shook his head and said, “I never saw her again after that one night.”
DeMarco could tell the sight of the woman brought back bittersweet memories for Reggie, and he didn’t think the memories were all of high-voltage sex. Reggie was thinking back to those days when he had a fire in his belly that wasn’t caused by heartburn.
“Why don’t you go over and say hello to her,” DeMarco said.
Still looking at the woman, Reggie said, “Ah, hell, she’d never remember me. And the way I look now, I doubt she’d want to be reminded that we once danced the nasty.”
“Time didn’t stand still for her either, Reg. What have you got to lose?”
Reggie was silent a moment, then he said, “Hell, you’re right.” Rising from the bar stool, he checked his reflection in the mirror, straightened his tie, and patted down his thinning hair. Flashing his stained teeth at DeMarco, he said, “There’s a reason the ladies call me Charmin’ Harmon, DeMarco. Watch closely, lad, and learn.”
DeMarco crossed his fingers as Reggie approached the woman. She looked up, startled when Reggie said her name, then put her head close to his as he talked to her. Suddenly the woman gave a Texas whoop and threw her arms around Reggie’s skinny neck. They talked a few minutes, then the woman gathered up her things and they left the bar, going, DeMarco imagined, to some place where the lighting was softer and kinder to them both.
It pained him to admit it, but DeMarco was jealous of Reggie—the old lush was with someone and he was not. He looked around and saw there were couples everywhere. Couples walking hand-in-hand. Couples gazing into each other’s eyes. Couples doing everything but coupling. The only unattached woman he could see was a bag lady pushing a shopping cart overflowing with treasured trash; there clearly wasn’t room for him in her life.
Not ready to go home to an empty house, DeMarco ordered another drink from a passing waitress and forced himself to look at Morelli’s schedule again. In reviewing the schedule a second time, his eyes locked onto the visit Morelli had paid to D.C. General Hospital, his goodwill tour of the pediatric and emergency wards.
Chapter 39
Emma watched as Charlie Eklund, followed by his bodyguard, came toward the picnic table where she was seated. Eklund took mincing steps, raising his feet high, as if trying to keep the wet grass from damaging his expensive shoes.
Emma had picked Tuckahoe Park in Falls Church for the meeting, the park being halfway between her house and his. The reason she’d chosen the park, though, hadn’t been for Eklund’s convenience. It was instead because it was partially surrounded by thick woods and hiding in the woods were her friends Mike Koharski and Sammy Wix, each armed with a rifle. Emma doubted that Eklund—or more specifically, his armed bodyguard—would try to harm her, but as Clausewitz had said: you plan for your enemy’s capabilities, not his intentions.
“Good evening,” he said as he took a seat across from her at the picnic table. His bodyguard remained standing, far enough away that he couldn’t hear the conversation. “Thank you for choosing a place where I can sit while we talk.” He paused, then said, “May I assume that the reason we’re meeting is that you now plan to threaten me.”
“As you said, Charlie, it’s good to deal with intelligent people. And you’re right. I’m going to threaten you, and you are going to stop following me and Joe DeMarco, and you’re not going to do anything further to aid Paul Morelli.”
“I’ve never done anything to aid Senator Morelli,” Eklund said.
Emma realized that that statement might indeed be true. “Maybe not,” she said, “but you are willing to cover up the fact that he killed his wife.”
Emma didn’t know what Charlie Eklund knew regarding the night Lydia Morelli had died but she was certain that he knew something. He had had people following her, so he could have a witness who had seen Abe Burrows leaving Morelli’s house that night, a witness who could contradict the story that Morelli had given to the police. Taking things a step further, he might even have bugged Morelli’s home and heard everything that had happened.
Before Eklund could make a denial, Emma said, “You’re a reprehensible little shit. You’re willing to let a murderer become president just so you’ll have somebody in the Oval Office that you can control.”
“I think you’re overestimating my influence,” Eklund said, flicking imaginary lint off his trousers.
“Possibly. But what I know for sure is that you are not going to do anything to harm people I care about.”
“And I’m not going to do this because?”
Emma opened her purse. When she reached into her purse, Eklund’s bodyguard reached under his coat. Emma ignored him, but she hoped he didn’t pull his weapon. That could get him killed. She pulled an envelope out of her purse and took three photographs from the envelope. The photos showed Eklund speaking to Reggie Harmon. They were standing in front of a Starbucks coffee shop.
“This week there have been two major leaks by a highly placed source at the CIA and those leaks have been very embarrassing to your director. The reporter who wrote those stories is the man in these photos, speaking to you right in front of the coffee shop where you stop every morning on your way to work.”
“Ah,” Eklund said. “So you think you can convince my director that I was Mr. Harmon’s source.”
“Yes. The reporter won’t reveal his source but he will tell people he met with his source at a Catholic church two blocks from your house—and that he’s met with you.”
“And you think those two facts and these photos are enough? You might not be as bright as I thought,” Eklund said, his small mouth turned up at the corners, his bright little eyes hard as flint.
“Oh, but I am, Charlie. I asked myself a question, one I should have asked earlier. I asked: Why would you take this kind of risk? Why would you go off on your own, unsanctioned by the agency, and have people watch Senator Morelli? At first I thought it was simply because you didn’t want an anti-CIA president in the White House, or if you had one, you’d want to be able to control him in some way. But I think this isn’t about you protecting Langley from the White House. I think this is about you protecting yourself.”
“Myself?” Eklund said.
“Your job is your life, Charlie, and you’re way past retirement age. The friends you once had at Langley have already retired or died and you don’t have the influence you once had. I think you’re on your way out. What you’ve been doing is trying to find something you can use to blackmail Morelli so if they try to make you retire, you can force him to intervene. Or maybe you’re thinking even more ambitiously than that. Maybe you’re thinking that with the right leverage, you can force Morelli to make you the director.”
Eklund didn’t say anything but he was no longer smiling.
“Whatever the case,” Emma said, “I think your current director, who’s just had his ass reamed out royally by the president, would love to have something like this, someone to blame all his troubles on. I think if Colin Murphy sees these photos he’ll send your old ass packing and then he’ll spread it all over the Hill that you’re a media snitch, something that’ll make it hard for you to get confirmed as DCI even if you do have Morelli in your pocket.”