Words of Conviction

by Linda J White

  Of course, it hadn’t occurred to either of her employers that Nina Carmelita Valdez was in the U.S. illegally and therefore shouldn’t have been working for them at all. Who knows? Maybe they used that little piece of information to control her. Crow wouldn’t have put it past them.

  But although she was in the country illegally, Nina had no criminal record, and Crow found nothing to raise suspicions about her. The fact that she’d been found with a pillowcase over her head containing a rag soaked in chloroform made him suspect she was innocent.

  But what about her associates? Her boyfriend? Her other relatives? The people she might talk to in her neighborhood?

  As he drove into Nina’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, Crow’s thoughts drifted back over the last twelve hours, to the call-out for the kidnapping, the assignments from Scott, the middle-of-the-night discussion in the senator’s backyard. And as he pulled into a parking space, he wondered about the agent working with Scott.A forensic psycholinguist. What was that? An academic, he knew that much. Not his type. Not his type at all. Still, she looked pretty, he thought.

  He turned off the motor and sat for a minute, watching the people on the street. He liked to get a feel for the neighborhood before he entered it, observing it the way he’d watched the mule deer he hunted on the Reservation for a long time before he took his shot. They were beautiful, and he hated having to kill them, but his grandfather had taught him well: Kill only what you need for food and use every part of the animal you can.

  By all rights, he shouldn’t have come to Columbia Heights alone, although his brown skin and black hair allowed him to get away with more than a white agent could. He wanted to be alone. Something was bothering him. He had some thinking to do. A partner would have interfered with that.

  His eyes shifted to his hand, still on the steering wheel, and to the five-inch scar on his left arm. He touched it. A wild-eyed mustang, a bay mare he’d drawn to ride at an Indian rodeo, had pitched him into a poorly maintained corral fence. The fence had splintered under his weight, and a piece of wood had cut a gash in his arm, sending torrents of blood streaming down toward his hand.

  Though just sixteen at the time, he could still remember his fascination as doctors in the Shiprock hospital emergency room cleaned and sutured that wound. The smell of the antiseptic, the neat black stitches, the sights and sounds of the ER stirred something within him that day. Most people look away when they’re being stitched, but not John Crowfeather. He watched the doctor’s every move.

  Afterward, he finished his business with the mare. He went back to the rodeo grounds the next night when no one else was around and rode that mare, rode her bareback with just a rope halter to hang onto, rode her until she stood exhausted with her head down, nostrils streaming, her eyes no longer wild. The owner was none too happy when Wild Rose trotted placidly out of the gate the next day, calm as a pony. He couldn’t figure it out. Crow heard he had sold her not long after that. He felt glad. He’d suspected the man had been abusing her anyway.

  Crow gathered his notebook, put it in his pocket, and made sure he had a pen. He wore his gun on his side and his cell phone on his belt. When he’d taken the job at the Washington Field Office, his plan was to get as far away from the environment of the Rez as he could. Home was the high desert, far above sea level, in the windswept, canyon-scored, red-rock beauty of the American Southwest. Here, he lived in a city built on a swamp, buffeted by heat and humidity, his vision blocked by canyons of buildings or the towering trees of the Eastern hardwood forest, surrounded, not by Navajos, white cowboys, and Mexicans, but by a parade of faces in every different color imaginable. Here he could get lost in the sea of ethnicity, drifting with no expectations, no past, and no future. Which is just what he wanted.

  Crow took a deep breath, opened his door, and stepped out into the world of Nina Carmelita Valdez.

  Mah-jongg, Kenzie had discovered, had become popular with well-to-do white women, at least in ethnically diverse Washington. A social game, based solely on luck, it was good for the kind of chitchat some women loved. Kenzie had no time for it. At least bridge, which her mother had played every single week for as long as she could remember, required more thinking. But the social principle remained the same.

  Beth Grable hung out with an elite group, the wives of Washington power brokers who lived in tony upper-Northwest D.C. They spent their days planning dinner parties and upscale charity fundraisers and driving their children around to the myriad of lessons considered must-dos in Washington society. Ballet. Piano. Tennis. Art. Soccer. There were also concerts at the Kennedy Center to attend, plays at Arena Stage, and openings at the art galleries dotting the city. Kenzie knew well the carousel of expected activities. She’d never had the desire to jump onto it.

  Kenzie adjusted her navy blue blazer, handy for covering her gun, as she got out of the car at the first house, conscious that her cargo pants and boots would be considered quite out of style in the homes that she planned to visit. There were seven mah-jongg players, besides Beth. One of them lived in a stone house on Reno Road, another in an elegant row house off Wisconsin Avenue; two others were in blocky, porched, brick homes off Connecticut Avenue near the Washington Zoo. Kenzie mapped out a logical route and visited them one by one. By the time she interviewed her third player, she’d been exposed to enough designer fragrance to last a lifetime.

  Washington heat and humidity, typical for August, defined the days. Traffic, especially around the zoo, seemed heavy. At one point, Kenzie wondered if she was wasting time covering the same ground that Jesse had the night before. But she knew sometimes a second interview would reveal something new. When Kenzie returned to her Bureau car after the sixth house, a fine glaze of sweat lay on her neck. One more to go.

  Laura Barstow lived off of Wisconsin Avenue in a tall, narrow row house within sight of the Washington Cathedral. Growing up, Kenzie had had a friend who lived in a similar house nearby. In fact, she could envision the layout of the Barstows’ home before she even stepped through the door.

  “Mrs. Barstow?” Kenzie asked as a perfectly coiffed woman in her late thirties answered the doorbell. A silver toy poodle with a high-pitched bark danced around her feet.

  “Yes?” The woman looked at her quizzically. She had bleached blonde hair pulled up in a French twist, gold earrings, and perfectly aligned white teeth.

  “I’m Special Agent Mackenzie Graham, FBI. I wonder if I could talk to you for a moment.” She showed the woman her creds.

  Mrs. Barstow’s mouth twitched slightly, but she recovered her poise and stepped aside. The poodle skittered around her feet. “Come in.”

  The interior layout looked exactly as Kenzie had envisioned it: small foyer, a stairway, then, to the right, the living room, dining room, and kitchen stretched out like train cars. In the kitchen would be a door leading to stairs going down to the basement, and a door to the outside.

  Mrs. Barstow led the way to a pair of love seats covered in bright yellow-and-blue polished cotton facing each other in front of the fireplace. Between them stood an antique cobbler’s bench that served as a coffee table, its rough wood contrasting beautifully with the smooth fabric of the love seats. A white area rug softened the light oak hardwood floors. White trim set off the sky blue walls. The room looked like a study in contrasts and the effect was striking. Kenzie thought of her own home: Every wall was painted antique white. The only paintings she had were cheap reproductions from the Smithsonian museum store. Her artifacts tended to be a couple of shattered skeets and an old copy of Dog World magazine.

  “Sit down,” Mrs. Barstow said, arranging herself on one of the love seats. The poodle jumped up and stood on her mistress’s lap, her little black eyes focused intently on Kenzie.

  As Kenzie sat down she could hear the muffled sounds of gunfire—a video game being played downstairs. Mrs. Barstow, dressed in black Capris and a turquoise shell, stroked the little dog, which seemed wound up like a spring. “How can I help you?” the woman
asked.

  “I understand you were with Elizabeth Grable last night.”

  “That’s correct. It was our mah-jongg night. But you already know that.”

  Kenzie shifted in her seat. Every time she moved, the dog barked. She wanted to soften things up, reduce the tension in the room. “Cute dog.”

  “She’s a pain. My daughter wanted her. I didn’t. Now I’m the only one Stella wants anything to do with.” Mrs. Barstow sighed.

  Kenzie smiled. “Well, she’s adorable.”

  “Not if you have to clean up her messes.”

  As if on cue, the little poodle jumped off Mrs. Barstow’s lap and ran toward the kitchen. Kenzie shifted the topic of conversation. “I don’t know very much about mah-jongg. It must be fascinating, to keep you all interested week after week. Is it like bridge?”

  “Much more fun.” Mrs. Barstow seemed to relax as she began explaining the rules of the game. “We all take turns hosting. Whoever is the host gets to set the rules.”

  “They’re not standard?”

  “You can vary them. Beth likes to gamble, so when we’re at her house . . .” Mrs. Barstow stopped. She seemed suddenly aware that she might have revealed something negative. “Oh, I mean, the gambling isn’t high stakes. It’s just for fun. We set a limit.”

  “A limit?”

  “No more than two hundred dollars. That way, nobody loses any serious money. There’s no buy-in or anything.”

  Kenzie nodded and smiled sympathetically, trying to keep the woman talking. In her mind, though, two hundred dollars seemed like serious money.

  “Anyway, we play and sometimes when we’re done, Beth will read our fortunes.”

  “Read your fortunes?”

  “Yes, with, you know, the mah-jongg tiles. She’s really into it.”

  “OK. So how did Mrs. Grable seem last night?”

  “Beth? Oh, Beth is always the most fun. I mean she is stuck, as we all are, in the Washington social scene. Everything so proper. Reporters everywhere. Constituents looking over your shoulder like you’re their servants. It’s hard. But Beth fights it. She won’t give in to that pressure.” Mrs. Barstow shook her head. “And you know, ever since Beau Talmadge reentered the scene, she’s been high on life.”

  “Beau Talmadge?”

  Mrs. Barstow colored. “You don’t know about Beau Talmadge? I thought . . . oh my goodness.” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  Kenzie waited. Then she took a stab. “Is he the one from Georgia?”

  Relief flooded the woman’s face. “Yes. The college beau. No pun intended. He moved up here and suddenly Beth came to life. Not that they’re having an affair,” Mrs. Barstow explained quickly, “but you know, they’re friends, and he has the time to do things Bruce isn’t interested in.”

  “Like . . . ?”

  “Like going places. Having fun. The kind of thing every woman needs.”

  Not quite every woman, Kenzie thought. She was getting tired of the foo-foo. “And where does Mr. Talmadge live?”

  “Somewhere on the Hill. I don’t know. He works for one of those think tanks. Or a lobby group. Sounds boring, but honestly, he is the most fun!” She hesitated. “And he is not the reason Beth went to see an attorney.”

  Kenzie forced herself to look nonchalant. “Yes, I guessed that,” she said, thumbing through her notebook, pretending this was not new information.

  “It was just to see what her rights were, you know? Every woman should know that.”

  Kenzie nodded. “In case of divorce.”

  “Of course.”

  The conversation turned to Zoe, and specifically Beth’s feelings toward her little girl, which Mrs. Barstow characterized mostly as “concern” and “annoyance.” Kenzie probed a little more. Just what kind of mother was Beth? From what Mrs. Barstow said, the answer seemed “maybe not the best.” But would she kill her kid?

  Fifteen minutes later, it became clear that Kenzie had milked the woman for all the information she could get. She thanked her and left, with the poodle nipping at her heels.

  Driving back to the Grables’ house, Kenzie called Scott. “I’ve got three things for you,” she said. “A name, a lead, and information.”

  “Shoot.”

  “The name is Beau Talmadge. College boyfriend. Recently moved to the D.C. area. He and Beth have been seeing each other, just as friends, or so they say. He works for a think tank or a lobby group and lives on Capitol Hill.”

  “Terrific.”

  “The lead is this: Beth Grable has been to see a divorce attorney.”

  “Whoa.”

  She gave him the details.

  “Thanks, Kenz. I’ll get somebody on that.”

  “If somebody can find out where Talmadge lives, I’d like to follow up.”

  “Will do.”

  “One more thing: Mrs. Grable likes to gamble.”

  “Really.”

  “Yep. That may be a source of debt. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.” Kenzie hung up, satisfied with her efforts. She had new, promising information and she’d come precipitously close to her mother’s house on Woodley Road but had managed to avoid contact. Not bad for a morning’s work.

  He had spent his life in politics, working on the Hill, herding legislators like a border collie. He’d learned to anticipate their moves, outthink them, nip at their heels when he had to. He’d spent all of his energy trying to get the herd going in the right direction. It exhausted him, but he loved it. Loved it, until he woke up one morning and realized he, Grayson Chambers, was forty-five years old, unmarried, unattached, unappreciated, and unsung. An unsung hero, that’s how he thought of himself.

  Who had been responsible for the cable legislation that had opened up the market and earned investors millions? He had. Who had been responsible for highway funds being channeled into Illinois road projects? He had. Who had been responsible for the defense authorizations and homeland security bills that benefited the “clients” of his boss? He had.

  And what did he have to show for it? Nothing. Not a thing.

  He had begun to resent the long hours. The isolation. The lack of appreciation. When the senator hired a girl straight out of Northwestern, when he’d started grooming her to be equal to Grayson, it tipped the scale.

  No one should have to take that. Not after what he’d seen. Not considering what he knew. And so he had left. But somehow the next job hadn’t worked out. Not at all. Life was really not fair. Now he had to get even. This plan had been a year in the making. It had to be perfect. He believed it was imperative no one suspect him.

  In the back, the little girl cried softly. Sandy comforted her. Why couldn’t she get her to shut up? He had no idea kids were such a pain.

  But this wouldn’t take long. The senator would cave quickly. He knew his man.

  As she walked up to the Grables’ house, Kenzie nodded to the two D.C. police officers standing outside. She pushed open the front door and spotted Beth in the back, talking on her cell phone. She turned left, walked through the parlor and into the dining room. Scott had his phone to his ear, too. She waited for a moment but it was clear he would not get off soon. “I’m going to talk to Beth,” Kenzie mouthed, and Scott nodded. She walked back to the kitchen, where the senator’s wife paced up and down.

  When she saw Kenzie, Beth clicked the phone off, her eyes sparking with anger. “Well, did you have fun grilling my friends? I mean, what’s that all about?”

  “It’s routine, Mrs. Grable.”

  “Well, it’s an intrusion, an intrusion into my personal life.”

  “We’re trying to find your daughter.”

  “Did you look at Bruce’s friends, too? Now Bruce, he’s got some winners on his list, let me tell you.”

  Kenzie interrupted her. “Mrs. Grable, can we talk? In the sunroom?”

  Beth stared at her for a moment. “Come on,” and she led the way.

  Perfectly made up, dressed in a flowery summer dress and pearls, Beth Grable looked more lik
e a woman about to go shopping at Filene’s than a mother whose daughter was missing. Clearly, Beth focused on looking good. Kenzie tucked a strand of her own hair behind her ear.

  She asked Beth again about the evening Zoe disappeared, the time she left, her instructions to the nanny, how long she was gone, about any uncomfortable encounters with strangers.

  Beth answered her questions directly but seemed irritated at being interviewed again. She fidgeted with her pearls, picked a thread off her dress, and snapped at Kenzie periodically. “I mean, it’s enough you all are here, in my home, but now you’re interrogating my friends? Listening to my calls? I have no privacy!”

  You have a missing daughter, Kenzie thought. What else matters more? Then she popped the big question. “Tell me about Beau Talmadge.”

  She thought Beth Grable would explode. “You have no right . . . !”

  “It’s for Zoe, Mrs. Grable.”

  “He’s a friend, that’s all. Just a friend.” The tendons in Mrs. Grable’s neck popped out.

  “I’m sure of that. But I’d like to talk to him. Could you give me his phone number?”

  Beth fumed. Suddenly, Scott appeared at the door of the sunroom, his face intense, and motioned to Kenzie. “Excuse me, Mrs. Grable,” Kenzie said. “I’ll be right back.”

  7

  What’s up?” she asked Scott, following him back into the dining room.

  He kept his voice low. “Crow found something.” He glanced past Kenzie to make sure no one remained in earshot. “The nanny is an illegal alien. Her sister, who lives over on Columbia Road, is here on a green card. But the sister’s boyfriend is a sex offender. Someone saw him yesterday with a little blonde girl.”

  She looked up at Scott. “So what are we doing?”