After an hour-long search, with half the area covered, he had collected a handful of plastic shards, three bolts, and part of the Harley Davidson insignia.
A wet area, about the size of an open book, smelled of gasoline. Next to it was a flattened bush with tiny red berries, which caused Ben to almost miss the sand-colored item, mostly covered in dirt. At first he thought it was a dry leaf or a piece of wood, but when he touched it with his finger, it felt too hard and smooth to be a product of nature.
He cleared off the dirt, uncovering a rectangular piece of plastic. Digging it up with his finger, Ben found himself holding an iPod Touch, colloquially called iTouch. It was identical to an iPhone but without the phone function. This one was encased in a protective shell of the same color as Zachariah Hinckley’s military-style undershirt.
Blowing on it, Ben delicately cleaned the screen and the sides, where tiny buttons were encased in small grains of dirt.
The iTouch was off, but otherwise seemed undamaged.
He glanced up toward the road. No one was watching.
With a finger pressing down on the power button, Ben held his breath.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, an iTunes logo appeared, followed by Stephen Cochran’s song, which had been playing just before the crash.
Back uphill at the scenic overlook, the sun was already halfway down to the horizon. Ben put on his helmet and jacket, mounted his motorcycle, and took off just as the familiar gray Ford arrived, its tires screeching.
As they passed opposite each other, Ben caught a glimpse of Porter’s face in the driver’s window. Had he realized the victim’s iTouch was missing and rushed back to look for it?
Whatever it was, Ben had no intention of waiting to find out. He accelerated downhill, grinning at the thought of the fastidious Porter hiking down the hillside once more and digging around for an iTouch that was already secure in Ben’s camera bag. The inspector didn’t seem like someone who enjoyed being one with nature.
Chapter 4
On the second floor of the townhouse, Keera felt the rattle of the garage door rising in its tracks. She wrapped herself in a towel, went downstairs to the kitchen, and opened the connecting door.
Ben rode into the garage and turned off the engine. He was clad in a black-and-yellow riding suit, with a matching helmet and gloves, and black boots that could have come right out of a World War II film, except that they were made of Kevlar—or so Ben claimed.
She waited at the door, leaning against the frame, watching his methodical disrobing. First the helmet came off, setting free his dark hair, which framed his face. His eyes were dark too, and serious, but with a naughty glint that often kept her on the verge of laughter. The riding suit came off, revealing a t-shirt with the iconic image of James Dean and the words: Cars Suck! Under his boxer shorts, his legs, which rarely saw the sun, looked like long sticks of chalk.
He bowed.
She clapped. “You should be on stage. They’ll tip you like crazy.”
He took her in his arms. “It’s not good for couples to compete.”
“Different clientele.” She kissed him on the lips. “Mine are going to laugh at your puny white ass.”
His hands descended, feeling her through the towel. “I see your point.”
“Not now.” She pulled away. “No time.”
Inside, he dropped his camera bag on the kitchen table, unzipped it, and pulled out the Canon. “You have to see these photos. I couldn’t ask for a luckier break—the guy literally died on camera for me.”
Keera gave him an angry look.
“What?”
“You feel lucky the guy died in front of you, and I would have killed myself to keep him alive had he made it to the hospital. We’re some match…”
“It’s my job. I don’t want people to die, but catching disasters on camera is how I make money.”
“Blood money.”
“Doctors also live off people’s suffering. Would anyone go to the doctor if they weren’t afraid of dying?”
“Afraid of dying in front of your camera!”
“I provide an essential social service.”
“For voyeurs and necrophiles.”
“You have a dirty mind. Don’t you think that regular folks who see my gruesome photos become more careful on the roads? Or you’d rather have them end up in your hospital?”
“Aren’t we clever?” She started on the few dishes in the sink. “Think of his wife, or girlfriend, getting a call from the police. Sorry to tell you, but your guy fell off his bike and died. Check out the Internet for his last photo. Have a nice day.”
Ben chuckled.
“It’s not funny. I don’t want to get a call like that, you know? I don’t want to!”
“Accidents can happen to car drivers too. Or to elevator passengers. Remember that woman in Tyson’s Corner? Got her head stuck—”
“I’m serious!” She shut off the water and used a towel to dry the dishes in rapid motions. “Why do you have to ride a motorcycle, with all these cars and trucks speeding by, all these idiots texting or yakking on the phone or doing their makeup? And anyway, that BMW beast costs as much as a new Toyota Camry!”
“I’m not a Camry kind of guy.” Hugging her from behind, Ben snuggled his nose in her wet hair. “And you’re not a Camry kind of a girlfriend.”
“Then buy a Porsche.”
“I like my bike. It gets me where I need to be no matter what traffic is like.”
“It’ll look funny with a baby seat strapped on.”
Ben stepped back, almost falling over. “Are you…?”
“What if?”
He faced her, peering at her face for a clue.
“Why does it scare you so much? Is it the responsibility? The…what do you call it? Commit—”
“I’m not afraid of commitment,” he said. “I’m committed to you.”
She held up her hands, turning them around. “Do you see a ring?”
“You’re not pregnant,” he concluded, sinking into a chair. “Wow, you really got me.”
“Chicken.”
“I don’t see myself as a dad, that’s all.”
“I wonder why. How’re you going to change if you’re avoiding—”
“Please, I’m not in the mood for a therapy session.” He turned on the camera and showed her the LCD screen in the back. “Look at these. He’s saying something.”
“It’s too small. I can’t see.” Keera walked to the stairs. “I need to get dressed and ready.”
“You look totally ready to me.” He followed her. “Wait up.”
“Why?” She stopped halfway up the stairs, looking down at him. “You want to make a baby?”
When Keera came back downstairs, Ben was standing in front of the TV in the living room. He had connected the Canon so that the photos appeared on the large screen and was scanning through them like a fast slide show. “This is good stuff,” he said. “But something stinks—”
“I’m late,” she said. “Let’s go.”
He turned to her. “Mama Mia!”
She posed with a hand on her hip, her coal-black, curly mane cascading over half her face, down to her chest. The red dress wrapped her from chest to knees without shoulder straps or buttons or anything else to disturb the smoothness of the cloth clinging to her feminine contours.
Ben raised the Canon and snapped a few photos.
“Don’t you have enough of those?”
It was true. He never tired of photographing Keera, something she found either flattering or annoying, depending on her mood and the state of their relationship. She had teased him that his compulsive photo taking was due to his subconscious expectation of her walking out on him one day, leaving him with only digital images and deep regrets.
Keera put on hot water to boil. “What’s
bothering you?”
He pulled up the first series of photos he had taken from the overlook. “You see the guy lying there. He’s trying to say something.”
“How do you know? Maybe he’s just moaning in pain.”
Ben focused on the man’s face, which filled the TV screen. “Look at his lips! He’s speaking, pronouncing something with a great effort.”
She watched.
“What’s he saying?” Ben paused the slideshow. “At first the lips are closed. What letters do that?” He counted on his fingers. “B, F, M, P, V, or W.”
“He could be praying.”
Ben ran the photos quickly forward. “He only said one word before—”
“Oh, Jesus!” Keera turned away as the man in the photo twisted and slumped, never to move again. “I don’t want to see this!”
“Don’t you see people dying in the hospital?”
“It’s not the same!”
“Look again. Here. He’s saying something.” Ben played it slowly. “It’s a message. Or a name. Could be that he knew the guy on the Ducati and was trying to name him. What do you think?”
“His wife,” Keera said. “I think he’s saying the name of his wife, the person he loves most.”
“How do you know he’s married?”
“You can tell when a guy is married. He’s groomed, well-dressed, clean. I mean, look at him. He’s like…together.”
“I’m not married and I’m like…together. Am I not?”
“No.” Keera combed his hair with her hand, clearing his face, tacking it behind his ears. With the back of her hand she felt his cheek. “How long since you’ve shaved?”
“Okay. He’s married.” Ben flipped through the photos quickly. They were taken in quarter-second intervals, which turned the rapid slideshow into a virtual video clip. “The guy knows he’s dying. The last thing he can say should be an important message.”
“You’re really clueless,” Keera said. “I’ll bet you it’s the wife’s name.”
Ben ran through the photos back and forth. “His lips close twice, so the word has two of the letters B, F, M, P, V, or W.”
“Barbara,” Keera said. “Or…Mirabelle.”
“Pamela,” Ben said.
“Could be something more exotic: Villanova?”
“That’s a university, not a girl’s name.”
“Wilhelmina?”
“Come on,” Ben said. “Even if he’s married, the guy rides a Harley. He can’t be with a Wilhelmina. It doesn’t jive. How about Barbie?”
“You wish.” Keera thought for a moment. “Could also be two names, like Mary-Beth.”
Peering at the Canon’s feed on the TV screen, Ben was unconvinced. “Look at his face. I can’t believe he made that kind of effort to stay alive another minute just to say someone’s name.”
“Don’t you believe in true love?” Keera dropped a tea bag in a cup and filled it with hot water. “Wouldn’t you call my name—”
“Wait a minute!” Ben grabbed his iPhone and got on the Internet. “I can Google him. Zachariah Hinckley Maryland.” He typed the search and waited a minute. “I’ll be damned. Here they are, in Silver Springs. Zachariah and Palmyra Hinckley.”
“See? Pal…my…ra.” Keera pointed at the man’s lips in the slideshow on the TV. “P, then M.”
“Maybe.”
Ben drove Keera’s twelve-year-old Mustang while she used the vanity mirror to put the finishing touches on her makeup. “Your mom called,” she said. “We had a nice chat.”
“Yeah? What about?”
“About you. What else?”
He downshifted and went faster. “And?”
Keera flipped back the visor and sat back, wrapping the winter coat tightly around herself. She grabbed the door handle as he took a turn without slowing down, tires screeching, and sped up on the straightaway. She tried to whistle a tune, not very successfully, and it deteriorated into laughter.
“You blinked first,” he said, lifting his foot off the accelerator. “You’re dying to tell me.”
“Nothing to tell,” Keera said innocently. “Girl talk. You know.”
“Come on, out with it!”
“She’s concerned about you. That’s all.”
“And you happen to agree with her.” Ben took another turn and stopped in front of the club. “Let’s see. First, he’s still riding that stupid motorcycle. Second, he’s still pursuing that foolish freelancer gig. Third, he’s still not—”
“—eating enough,” Keera ended the sentence. She leaned across toward him, threaded a hand under his jacket and shirt and rubbed his belly while imitating his mother’s voice. “He’s a skinny weed! Make him eat!”
“I’ll eat you any time.” He took Keera’s face in his hands and kissed her. “Any time.”
“How about tomorrow night?” She stepped out of the car. “At your mom’s place. She’s making chicken soup with those golf balls.”
“Matzo balls.”
“Yes, those.” Keera raised her coat collar. “Bye.”
He watched her trot to the door in her high heels and long legs. Wisteria’s Secret was an upscale version of an unsavory nightclub. Its location, on Wisteria Avenue, gave it its name, a clever play on the famous lingerie catalogue company. Ben waved at the bouncer and drove off. At the end of the dark street, he turned the corner and sped up the road toward the circular neon sign of Starbucks.
Chapter 5
The usual faces were there, pecking at their laptops while the baristas joked around about something. Ben didn’t have to ask, and the cashier yelled, “Skinny chai latte, hot, for Ben,” and collected the money while exchanging pleasantries.
The table in the back was his favorite, providing a full view of the place while ensuring privacy. Ben set aside Zachariah’s iTouch and untied the plastic bag that held the debris he had collected at the accident site.
There were perhaps twenty items. He examined each one and passed it from one pile to the other. The bolts could have come from anything, but even if they came from the Harley, it meant nothing. A shard of hard plastic had most of a white star against blue and red. A metal brace with two little holes could have fallen off the engine. A hose clamp, made of rubber, looked as if it had torn away from its position. A zipper tab, bent badly, had the tiny letters US stamped into it. And a chrome cap from a gas tank. He set it aside, but then picked it up again and held it up. The top part was an original Harley Davidson piece, but the bottom part—the threads that would screw into the fill-in hole in the gas tank—seemed disproportionately large.
He took paper napkins, grabbled each end, and tried to detach the cap from the threads part. It took some wriggling, but they started to turn in opposite directions until the threads section separated from the chrome cap, which had its own original threads stamped in. It appeared that the original cap had been made for a smaller tank opening and was fitted with a larger threads part to fit a larger opening.
He set aside the two pieces.
Taking a sip of chai, Ben turned on the iTouch. No password was required. He checked the e-mail folder. It was empty. Same with text messages. Past sites visited on the Internet had a list of addresses, all of them for the Washington Post news website. He clicked on one of the links and an article appeared.
Presidential Candidate Joe Morgan to Speak at Watergate Hotel:
In an appearance jokingly dubbed ‘I’m not a crook!’ GOP presidential candidate Joe Morgan will deliver a speech tonight at the Watergate Hotel, where burglars paid by the Nixon reelection campaign once broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.
Morgan is expected to sprinkle a few potent jokes meant to emphasize the stark differences between the dirty politics of four decades ago and his own campaign to ‘Restore America’s Soul.’
The fundraiser, at
$10,000 per attendee, comes with a seven-course meal and a video presentation of the candidate’s achievements as a single-term Maryland governor and a successful businessman. A Mormon bishop and a rabbi will say a joint prayer in line of the first-ever Mormon presidential candidate’s declaration that he’ll govern the country “on behalf of all faiths.”
With the elections only weeks away and his lead in the polls widening every day, the campaign’s aggressive fundraising reflects GOP confidence that victory is at hand – provided there’s enough cash to continue dominating the airways with anti-incumbent commercials while making sure that nothing happens between now and November to disrupt Morgan’s confident march to Pennsylvania Avenue.
Checking a few of the other articles Zachariah Hinckley had read on his iTouch, Ben found that they all dealt with the presidential elections, particularly with the GOP candidate and his rising prospects of winning the White House.
Moving on to the iTunes memory, he found a bunch of songs, mostly eighties and a few military marches.
He put the iTouch down on the table, disappointed. It was an older model, which explained why Zachariah Hinckley used it as a music player on his Harley. He must have carried a phone as well, which Porter probably had removed after the accident. But he had used the iTouch to surf the Internet for articles about Joe Morgan. It was odd, but unlikely to be related to the accident or the elusive Ducati.
Using his iPhone, Ben called Fran at her Maryland State Police office.
Her voice mail came on. “You’ve reached Lieutenant DeLacourt at the Hate Crimes Unit. If this is an emergency, dial nine-one-one. Otherwise, leave a short message.”
“Hey. It’s Ben Teller. I found an iTouch near the accident site at the Marine Veterans’ Ride today. I’ll stop by tomorrow to drop it off.”
After Ben finished his chai and read some of the newspapers left by other customers, a question occurred to him: If there was nothing to Zachariah’s iTouch but a music collection and a paltry Internet surfing history, why had Porter rushed back for another search? And why had Porter conducted such a detailed search to begin with?
The Mormon Candidate - a Novel Page 3