Flashpoint

by Ed Gorman

  The crowd swelled and so did my sinuses.

  And that was when I saw a familiar figure stepping out of the backseat of one of the unmarked police cars. And it was none other than my old friend Detective Farnsworth. I broke into a run.

  And as I was running toward him, Sarah slid out of the backseat and joined him. I could hear her sobbing from here. Head down, her shoulders shaking so hard Farnsworth slid his arm around her protectively as he moved her past the demarcation line and toward the open motel room where light lasered across the lot.

  No point in yelling. Farnsworth wasn’t about to let me join them and it would just upset Sarah all the more anyway.

  Several steps and I was behind the crowd and headed back toward my previous position. The number of press vehicles had doubled now. Network and cable news directors were dispatching reporters the way Hannibal had dispatched troops.

  I got a glimpse of Jane and the cop. They were deep in conversation.

  By now I was stamping my feet, rubbing my hands together, covering my ears. As soon as Jane got back and told me what she’d found out I planned to do the unthinkable and walk back to my Jeep and get my hat, gloves and scarf, something in my haste I’d forgotten to do.

  ‘Oh, God, Dev, what a terrible night.’

  ‘What’d you find out?’

  Her shudder might have been in response to the winds but I doubted it. More likely it had to do with what she was about to relate to me. ‘Howie Ruskin was shot to death by Hawkins. His story is that he’d had Ruskin under surveillance for several hours. When Ruskin came out of his room to go somewhere, Hawkins told him to stop. Ruskin tried to run and when Hawkins came after him Ruskin pulled his gun, but before he could fire, Hawkins shot him twice. Head and chest.’ She paused. Then, ‘And Sarah came out screaming and knelt beside Ruskin, who was dead. She picked up his gun and aimed it at Hawkins but he convinced her to put it down. And now you’re going to ask me if there were any witnesses to Hawkins and Ruskin and from what Connie knows, no. There were witnesses to Sarah and Hawkins, though. God, I feel so bad for poor Sarah.’

  ‘So Hawkins could be lying about Ruskin pulling a gun?’

  Her voice was a whisper. I was sure her mind was still on Sarah. ‘Could be. That’s what Sarah says anyway. It’s just hard to believe that somebody from the US Attorney’s office could be—’

  ‘Easy way to kill off the one person who could link Howie to the bad guys.’

  She still sounded disturbed about Hawkins. ‘What about Sarah?’

  ‘No. Ruskin never shared the secret stuff with her, she told me. He was afraid a beautiful woman would carry him off to Paradise, leaving Sarah behind with all this “info” as he called it that she could kill him with, so he kept it to himself.’

  Then I saw my chance with Hawkins. From the backseat of the car he’d been in stepped a heavyset detective in a gray topcoat. The man wore a fedora and gaped around as if he was worried about an assassin. Then he stepped back from the car and from the open back door Hawkins emerged.

  The two men shook hands and said some words, their breath pluming, the detective jamming a cigarette into his mouth, Hawkins digging his cell phone out and checking it as soon as the detective started walking away from him.

  ‘I need to catch Hawkins. Why don’t you wait in the Jeep and run the heater.’ I pitched her the keys and took off.

  As I moved I realized I’d probably have to get past the police blockade; otherwise Hawkins could just walk away safe inside the zone. But he surprised me. He talked to Officer Connie briefly and then headed toward his rental. The one he’d likely used when he’d first tried to kill Ruskin.

  He was unlocking the door to his rental when I caught up with him. He’d looked up when I was about twenty feet away from him. He finished with the door but didn’t open it. ‘I was going to call you before I left the parking lot.’

  ‘Tell me what it feels like to kill a guy, you mean?’

  ‘You forget. I checked you out; that’s an experience you’ve had yourself.’

  ‘You had to kill him.’

  He was pretty good at it, not great. I’d seen much better, but he wasn’t bad. Tall guy like him with that gaunt face expressing the unique sorrow of a man who’d just taken the life of another man. Hands shoved deep in the pockets of his tweed topcoat. Green eyes tired, mouth broken by a frown, timbre of voice pitched low. Not horse shit, no; a couple of levels up from horse shit, his acting skills. A deep sigh. ‘Of course I had to kill him and I resent the implication that I didn’t. He pulled a gun on me; I didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘Poor baby.’

  His acting got a lot better when he covered the distance between us in four steps, got in my face and said, ‘You don’t want to push me tonight, Conrad. Not in any way. I can make your life real miserable if I want to.’

  ‘I believe it, Hawkins. You made Ruskin’s life pretty miserable, I’d say.’

  ‘Keep that in mind.’ Then, abruptly, he was walking back to his car.

  ‘The people you really work for going to give you a bonus, are they?’

  He stopped moving. Stood still for maybe thirty, forty seconds. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Sure you do.’ I was winging it now. ‘The first plan was you locate Ruskin so you could see how it was going with Tracy Cabot and Senator Logan. Ruskin must have made your real bosses nervous about something in the setup. But then Cabot got herself murdered and your people got scared and panicked. A lot of law enforcement people were going to snoop around and it was problematic how long Ruskin could stand up to the pressure before he cut a deal and started talking. So your job changed. You not only had to locate him; you also had to take him out. I doubt this was the first time you’d killed somebody for them. You almost nailed him in that little park near the college; if he hadn’t tripped you would’ve had him. When you came up to his room this morning he must have suspected what you were really up to. I was too stupid to catch on. I bought your act.’

  There were just the two of us. All the clamor of the cops and the emergency team and the crowd had faded, leaving just me and Hawkins. He’d listened to my accusations without moving but now he was facing me again. And smiling.

  ‘I hope you invite me to be in the room when you pitch your conspiracy theory to somebody. I want to watch their faces as your story gets wilder and wilder.’

  ‘It’s happened before. A group of billionaires plotted a coup to seize control of our government and get rid of FDR.’

  ‘Good. A history lesson. That’ll make your presentation even better. And I happen to know about that attempted coup, by the way. I’m a history buff. They weren’t very good at it. They needed to involve key generals and bungled it. But if you make a study of what they did then you can learn from their mistakes and not make those mistakes again. And today you have more generals who might be interested. Generals who don’t like what’s happened to this country.’ Something in my expression must have alarmed him; he was saying too much. ‘But that’s all theoretical. And crazy.’

  He opened the car door now. ‘I’m due at the police station.’ The smile was back. ‘Maybe you can start with them – with Hammell, maybe. I’m told he likes a good story. And you’ve got a good one. It’d make a helluva good movie, in fact.’

  He started his car, gave me a kind of half-salute and drove away. This time with a tiny smirk and look of superiority and mischief on his long, New-Englander face.

  I was walking back to the Jeep where Jane was waiting when my cell phone interrupted my scattered thoughts. I connected to hear Ben’s voice. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the motel where Ruskin was killed.’

  ‘So it is Ruskin. Sonofabitch. I had something like that in the back of my mind. All we’re getting from TV is that there was trouble at this motel. Maybe a homicide. I’m at the senator’s. Naturally, we were curious. I doubt a town this size gets many murders. Is this something that could help us?’

  ‘Yes.
But I don’t want to go into it on the phone.’

  ‘That’s all right. We want you to come out here anyway.’

  ‘See you soon.’

  ‘I saw you talking to Hawkins,’ Jane said when I got into the driver’s seat. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘He claims self-defense.’

  ‘Of course. Think he can get away with it?’

  ‘With Ruskin’s reputation for going armed and waving guns in people’s faces, Hawkins should have an easy go. Especially with no witnesses. Then there’s Ruskin drugging the bodyguard you got him.’

  ‘Oh, sure. In a trial the jury would see how unbalanced Ruskin was the day he was killed. And he was armed.’

  ‘Exactly. And Sarah herself told me that he ran out the door away from Hawkins. Hawkins is a federal investigator. He has a right to detain him and ask questions.’

  ‘Slick.’

  ‘How about going out to Robert’s with me?’

  ‘Fine.’

  I was glad to get away from it all. I still didn’t have any warm feelings for the little prick but I was sorry for Sarah.

  And speaking of Sarah …

  Just as we were starting to pull out of the parking lot Detective Farnsworth appeared in my headlights, waving his arms for me to stop.

  ‘What the hell,’ I said, hitting the brakes.

  He strode over to my Jeep. I had the window down waiting for him. When he leaned over and looked in, he said, ‘Evening, Jane.’ But he didn’t wait for a response. ‘Conrad, I’m going to pull my car around here so you can talk to Sarah. I promised her I’d set it up. I want to calm her down. I actually like her; that’s why I agreed. I don’t know what she saw in a scumbag like Ruskin.’

  So Farnsworth was on our side after all. I pushed my luck. ‘Are you sure yet that Hawkins was justified in killing Ruskin?’

  Surprise played on his face, then curiosity. ‘You have any particular reason to say that?’

  ‘No witnesses. Anything could have happened.’

  ‘You’re getting ahead of yourself, Conrad. We’ve got a whole investigation to go before we make any judgments. But he’s an investigator for a US Attorney and he had a right to find Ruskin and to ask him questions. Ruskin was a clown but he always made a big deal of carrying a gun and being so good with it.’

  Between the lines of those sentences were two words: ‘Case closed.’

  ‘So wait here. You can get in the backseat with her. ’Night, Jane.’

  ‘’Night, William.’

  After he was gone, I said, ‘See how fast he bought my story about how Hawkins maybe killed Ruskin in cold blood.’

  She snapped her fingers. ‘Like that. You’ll get tired of telling your story, Dev.’

  ‘How about you? Do you believe it?’

  ‘I don’t not believe it. I’d like to learn more about it. You know, do the due diligence.’

  ‘Now there’s a vote of confidence.’ But I was smiling when I said it.

  Farnsworth’s unmarked car pulled around and parked about fifteen feet from my Jeep. He pulled the emergency brake on and stepped outside.

  ‘Tell Sarah I said hello,’ Jane said.

  ‘Will do.’

  I got out and walked over to Farnsworth.

  ‘Ten minutes. Detective Hammell is waiting for us.’

  I nodded and walked to the door. As I slid in I saw that Sarah was huddled in the opposite corner as if she was trying to hide. I’d expected tears and panic. Maybe she’d run out of both.

  After I had slammed the door and sat there for an interminable silent minute – I wondered if she’d gone into some kind of shock – she said, in a voice I barely recognized as hers, ‘He lied and exaggerated so much it was hard to know what was real sometimes. Until last night when somebody shot at him, I didn’t really believe any of this. And even then—’ For the first time she really looked at me; for the first time her eyes showed the warmth I usually found there. ‘It’s a terrible thing to admit, Dev, but when we were at the hospital I half wondered if he’d set this all up. You know, hired somebody to shoot at him. Every once in a while he’d do things that got him “press” as he always called it. Usually a few months before he had a book coming out or before he was giving a big speech somewhere. He knew how to promote himself. But this wasn’t one of those times.’ No tears, not even now. ‘So I’m alone and I don’t have any idea what to do, Dev. In a weird way I always thought of us as one person. He hated me saying that. We’d have big fights about it. Especially if he was having one of his little affairs. But I really do feel like half of me is gone now.’

  ‘You’re a whole person, Sarah. And a good person.’ I moved much closer to her.

  ‘They’re going to be rough on me, aren’t they? The police and the press, I mean.’

  ‘I doubt the police will be. I never read any of his books but I saw him say on TV one night that he never gave you the details about any of his activities. That he was the only one who knew them. That you only found out what they were after they’d happened. I think the police will believe that sooner than later. But the press is another matter. They’ll be after you for a couple of years. So will the supermarket tabloids and a few of the papers of note. Some people will write books about him. And you. And they’ll make up outlandish stories that the American press will take as fact. There’ll be absolutely no evidence whatsoever for them. But the people who write them will make a lot of money doing it. And now it’s fact quote unquote. So you can expect stories like that somewhere along the line about Howard.’

  A childlike smile. ‘You can call him Howie. He was definitely more of a “Howie.”’ Then, her body relaxing for the first time, ‘Is it all right if I start calling you sometimes? Just telling you how I’m doing and maybe asking for advice.’

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘I’m even thinking of moving to Atlanta. I’ve got a cousin there who’s about my age. She’s divorced and has plenty of room in her house.’ Then, ‘He didn’t have to kill him.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I said that to Detective Farnsworth and he just sort of mumbled something. He’s been very nice. I was hysterical and he sat with his arm around me the whole time and told me that his little daughter had died from cancer when she was three and that he knew how hard it was to lose somebody, but that eventually things get better. But he still didn’t believe me – about Hawkins, I mean.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘You do? Thank God. Thank God.’ She reached out and took my hand.

  ‘But nobody else will believe us unless I can find more evidence and that’ll be tough.’

  She squeezed my hand. ‘But you believe it. That’s the main thing for me right now. That you believe it.’

  The way she leaned forward I think she was going to kiss my cheek but just then Farnsworth knocked on the back window.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m so glad we got to talk, Dev. This means so much to me, you can’t imagine.’

  I was the one who kissed her on the cheek. ‘Any time, night or day, you call me, to catch up or if you have a question, all right?’

  ‘I will, Dev. I will.’

  When I got out of the car I looked into the eyes of a man who’d lost a three-year-old to cancer. Unimaginable. We just stared at each other and then he walked away and got into his car with Sarah in the backseat. They drove away. Neither of them waved.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Mrs Weiderman was smiling when she let me and Jane in and behind her, in the living room most likely, there was the kind of laughter you hear when people are just sitting around getting stiff on good drinks and saying screw it to everything else. Considering everything he was up against, Robert had done damned well tonight.

  Mrs Weiderman led us there then stood aside as if ushering us into a temple of pure delight. ‘Just go in and have some fun, you two.’ I wasn’t going to spoil anybody’s fun by bringing up the possibility that one of them might be the person who had done Tracy Cabot wrong.

  Maddy flun
g herself off a divan and tore across the room and gave me the kind of hug a man of less probity and wisdom might mistake for more than a simple excited greeting. But I knew Maddy and I knew better. ‘Sorry, Jane. I couldn’t resist. And by the way, you two make a very cute couple.’

  Jane and I realized, about the same second, that little Maddy was a wee bit tipsy. And all the cuter for it. We smiled knowingly at each other and stood there while Robert and Ben and Elise all toasted us. James just stood there trapped in his prison of being James.

  I can’t tell you much about the next twenty minutes or so because it was just chatter. Robert and Ben were at least half bombed and filled with the kind of radiant optimism only alcohol can inspire. Or, as Robert put it, ‘Now we know that Ruskin killed the Cabot woman.’

  ‘And how do we know that?’ I said.

  ‘Suicide by cop. Or in this case federal investigator. He intentionally ran away from Hawkins so Hawkins would be forced to kill him.’

  Ben, who never played along with anything, played along. ‘You have to admit there’s some logic to it.’

  Who was I to parse that sentence? ‘Some logic’ can only be used when your blood alcohol reaches a certain illegal limit.

  But for all the underpinning of fantasy and desperate hope it was pleasant to see Robert again. The old Robert, the one I liked if not exactly admired, the one who could often be bought for the going rate but who tried not to let his whoring get in the way of taking a stand when the oligarch party (as well as too many members on our side) tried to make life even easier for people who had yachts to worry about and even tougher for people who had impoverished little ones to worry about.

  Somebody decided to check on how the talking heads were assessing Robert’s performance. The giant TV screen bloomed to colorful life, presenting us with three dolorous men and one preening woman. Ostensibly this was ‘our’ cable network but with a few exceptions the yakkers were just the usual Beltway boys and girls who bathed in their own imagined importance. But tonight they were pretty good, actually.