by Stuart Woods
“So much for Fair’s cell phone,” Stone said.
The fax machine on the desk rang and began spouting paper.
“It’s the Arlington PD’s report on Charlotte Kirby’s killing.” He picked up the small stack of papers.
“Charlotte was a federal employee. Why isn’t Shelley’s bunch handling that?” Dino asked.
“Maybe that’s only in D.C., not Virginia,” Holly said.
“So, Stone, what does it say?”
“Single gunshot wound to the head, probably self-inflicted. A Walther PPK/S .380 found at the scene.”
“I didn’t see a gun, did you?” Dino asked.
“No, and I went to the bedside and opened the table drawer, so I was close enough.”
“Maybe it fell off the bed or got tangled in the covers,” Holly offered.
“No evidence of the presence of another person in the room,” Stone said. “Looks like a straight-up suicide to me.”
“I’ll buy that,” Dino echoed.
Stone handed Holly the file, and she began to read through it. “Here’s something: they found a box of ammo in her underwear drawer, with six missing. The gun had five in the magazine, and there was a single empty cartridge on the bed.”
“There you go,” Dino said. “She did herself.”
“Do you think Charlotte knew more about the March Hare than she told us?” Stone asked.
“She poured out everything else,” Dino said. “Why would she hold back on that? She must have hated whoever it is.”
“Holly,” Stone said, “does it say anything about prints on the ammo box?”
Holly flipped through the reports. “Here it is: no prints on the box or on the ammo in the magazine or on the magazine. Charlotte’s prints were on the gun.”
“Now that’s interesting,” Stone said. “How did Charlotte load the gun and leave no prints on the magazine or cartridges?”
“Either she wore gloves, or she wiped them,” Holly said.
“Why would she do either of those things? After all, she was about to kill herself. Why would she care about her prints?”
“The March Hare would care,” Dino said, “pardon my rhyme.”
“All the others suffered blunt trauma,” Holly said. “Why is Charlotte different?”
“My guess is, the March Hare lay in wait for the others,” Dino said, “but she found Charlotte in bed and it was easier to shoot her.”
“Did they run the gun, Holly?” Stone asked.
Holly consulted the file. “Bought used, at a gunshop in Richmond, Virginia, the year before last. Buyer named G. B. Smith, whose address was a phony.”
“Virginia is notorious for phony gun
sales,” Dino said. “We see the results on the streets of New York all the time.”“We’re knocking ourselves out for nothing,” Stone said. “The March Hare is careful, we already know that.”
“Tell you the truth, I thought Fair was our woman,” Dino said. “I didn’t like her attitude yesterday.”
“I never thought so.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dino said, “she was too nice.”
“No, just too straightforward. She had a full life—she didn’t have time to go around murdering people.”
“So,” Dino said, “we’ve got a very careful serial killer.”
“Looks that way,” Stone said. “And that’s all we’ve got.”
47
TEDDY FAY AND LAUREN CADE LAY NAKED ON THE BEACH AT Gay Head, on Martha’s Vineyard. It was Sunday afternoon. Most of the other nudists, all locals, with beach parking permits, had gone. Teddy and Lauren had sneaked down the trail from the parking lot and had managed to blend in with the couples and families who had been enjoying the sun on their bodies. They had enjoyed a long weekend in a B and B in Edgartown.
They packed their dirty dishes into the picnic hamper, folded their blanket, then got back into their clothes. It was a bit of a hike up the cliffs, and they were puffing a bit when they got to the car.
Teddy got the rental started and they began driving to the airport.
“You know,” Lauren said, “this island might make a better place to live than D.C. It’s lovely here.”
“It is,” Teddy agreed, “but remember, it has a New England winter, and what with one airport and a ferry to deal with, it’s a hard place to get out of, should we have to leave in a hurry.”
“You’re right,” she said. “But let’s find a place that has a good climate year-round, and where escaping our pursuers isn’t such a problem.”
“We had a place like that in La Jolla,” Teddy said. “The San Diego weather was great year-round, but we were run out of there.”
“But you did say they aren’t pursuing us anymore,” Lauren pointed out.
“That’s what they agreed to,” Teddy said. “Now we have to find out whether they really meant it, and to do that without getting caught we have to be ready to move on a moment’s notice.”
“For how long?”
“A year, maybe.”
“Or we could just go now,” Lauren said.
“If we went now, where would you want to go?”
“How about Asheville, North Carolina?” she asked. “I was there once, and they seem to have a good year-round climate, not too hot in the summers or too cold in the winters.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Teddy said. “Maybe we could fly down there next weekend, if the weather cooperates, and take a look at it.”
“That would make me feel as if we’re doing something,” Lauren said, “not just waiting for something terrible to happen.”
“Nothing terrif we’re ble is going to happen,” Teddy said. “Not if we go on being careful.”
“I just can’t get over the feeling that we’re living too close to the Agency, that sooner or later we’re going to bump into someone from your past that we’d rather not see.”
“I know, baby,” Teddy said, patting her on the knee. He pulled into the little Vineyard airport. They parked the car in a rental slot and left the contract and the keys with the rental car agency. They stowed their luggage in the airplane, and Teddy did his usual careful preflight inspection of the airplane.
They took off to the south, headed back to Clinton Field, in D.C., and their comfortable hideout hangar. Teddy figured to be on the ground there before dark.
TODD BACON LANDED AT Clinton Field in the Agency’s Bonanza, usually kept at Manassas Airport, in Virginia, and taxied to the FBO, where he ordered fuel. There were two airplanes ahead of him, waiting for the fuel truck. The delay would give him time to have a look around.
Late on a Sunday afternoon, students were still doing touch-and-goes, and pilots based at the field were coming back from weekends away. Todd strolled nonchalantly over to the rows of hangars, where airplanes were being put away.
His number two had been fuzzy on which hangar he suspected of being Teddy’s, so as he walked, he mentally eliminated the ones where he could see the owners taking care of their airplanes.
Todd wore a baseball cap and sunglasses; he didn’t want to be noticed among the locals, especially by Teddy himself. He had not been able to keep the couple out of his thoughts, and he knew that coming here was against the clear instructions that Holly Barker had given him to think of Teddy as dead. He wasn’t even sure what he would do if he came face-to-face with the old man. He was armed, sure, but Teddy would be, too, and he couldn’t get into a gunfight in a place like this.
As he came to the end of a row of hangars he looked up and saw, silhouetted against the setting sun, a Cessna 182 RG on final for the runway. Same airplane as Teddy’s, but of course it was a different color. This one was two tones of blue, with red stripes, not a factory-issue paint scheme.
He watched it touch down, then brake and turn off the runway, and in the moment of that turn, the setting sun illuminated the pilot. He wasn’t young, and, like Todd, he was wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses. Todd couldn’t say he recognized him, since he had never seen Teddy u
p close, but there was a younger woman seated next to him, and he had seen her before, he thought, in San Diego.
Todd stood at the corner of the row of hangars and watched the airplane turn again and taxi toward him. Now the sun was reflecting off the windshield of the Cessna, and Todd couldn’t make out either of the people inside. He stepped back behind a corner of the corrugated metal building next to him and waited for the airplane to pass him, when he could get a better view of its occupants.
Then, from his position at the corner of the hangar opposite, he saw the door across from him go up. Apparently, the owner used a garage-door remote control to operate the big bifold door. The airplane slowed, and he caught sight of a wingtip as it turned away from him. Now he could look around the corner and see the whole airplane, but as it entered its hangar, the engine died, the airplane came to a stop, and the bifold door came rattling down. He had seen nothing of the occupants.
That was smoothly done, Todd sun was rthought. The owner could have stopped, fussed with his airplane, then affixed a tow bar and pushed it backward into the hangar, but instead, he had simply driven it inside. Of course, when he departed the hangar again he would have to push the airplane out, but Todd had no way of knowing when that would be.
There was probably a car inside the hangar, too, so the owner could drive, instead of fly, away. Todd walked from his hiding place toward the hangar, then walked around to the rear corner, looking for a window or an opening that would allow him to see inside, but the place was sealed.
He stepped out from the hangar, and he had to admire the way it was built. There was a bifold door at the rear, as well as in front: the owner could get into his airplane, start the engine, then depart through the rear door, again without exposing himself to people on the ground.
As Todd stood there, a light went on over his head. There was a security spotlight at each corner, and as he looked up, he saw a window on a second story.
He couldn’t get far enough away to see who was inside without bumping into another hangar. Todd walked back to the front of the building and looked toward where his Bonanza was parked. The fuel truck was just pulling away from it.
If Teddy Fay was upstairs, Todd
hoped he didn’t have surveillance cameras, as well as security lighting. He started back toward the FBO to pay his bill and fly back to Manassas.
UPSTAIRS, TEDDY WAS STARING at a flat-screen TV, which had been divided into four parts, each assigned to an outside camera.
“What is it?” Lauren asked, walking up behind him and looking at the screens.
“There was a man outside,” Teddy said, “but he’s gone now.”
“There are all sorts of people around here,” Lauren said, “especially at this hour on a Sunday.”
“You’re right,” Teddy said, returning the screen to one large one, with CNN on it. “I won’t worry about it.” He went to his reclining chair to watch the news. “What’s for dinner?”
48
DINO SAT IN THE LIVING ROOM OF THE SUITE AND PORED OVER a list of names of White House women, and their assignments and locations, that Tim Coleman, Will Lee’s chief of staff, had faxed over from the White House.
“Who did we miss?” Stone asked.
“Everybody, apparently. There are a couple hundred names on this list.”
“Is there anybody, anybody at all who seems likely?”
“Not to me there isn’t,” Dino replied. He handed the list to Stone. “You take a look at it.”
“Of course, Charlotte Kirby didn’t look likely to us, until we interviewed her.”
“She didn’t seem likely until she was dead,” Dino reminded him.
“I don’t have a clue where to start,” Stone said.
“Neither do I.”
“You know, if the March Hare hadn’t killed Charlotte Kirby, we’d be happily back in New York, and the Lees would have put this whole thing out of their minds.”
“Yeah, and the March Hare would be safe. Charlotte was a murder too far. a murdes r div
“Why was Charlotte a danger to her?” Stone asked.
“Because she was talking to us,” Dino said.
“Yes, but she was through talking to us. The newspaper articles put an end to that. She would never have spoken to us again.”
“I guess the March Hare didn’t know that. The same was true of Milly Hart and Mrs. Brandon. They had told us everything they knew, too, but still Ms. Hare felt she had to kill them.”
Stone put down the list of White House women. “So she didn’t know enough about our investigation to see that we were getting nowhere.”
“Either that, or she just likes killing other women.”
“Dino, can you remember a case of a woman who was a serial killer killing other women?”
Dino thought about it. “Now that you mention it, no. Men who are serial killers kill mostly women, and women serial killers always seem to kill men.”
“Can you remember a case where a serial killer, male or female, killed this many people for this reason—the elimination of witnesses?”
“Well,” Dino said, “maybe that’s happened with the Mafia at some point in the past. They sometimes had a tendency to wipe out a list of people they considered threats.”
“But these people weren’t threats to the March Hare.”
“She didn’t know that,” Dino pointed out. “She just assumed they were.”
“And she didn’t linger at the scenes. She hit these women in the head—or, in Charlotte’s case, shot her—and got out of there, not leaving any trace evidence. Could she be a cop?”
“Stone, everybody in the United States knows how crime-scene evidence is collected and analyzed—you don’t have to be a cop anymore. There are three or four very popular TV shows every week that explain it in detail.”
“Okay, so it didn’t have to be a cop. But she knew which women we were talking to.”
“It’s Washington, remember? Everybody in town seemed to know who we were talking to.”
“There’s one possibility we haven’t discussed,” Stone said.
“Tell me, please.”
“Suppose Charlotte’s death really was a suicide, not a murder.”
“Well, that’s a very attractive notion,” Dino said, “since it would confirm everything we told the president and the first lady the other night. But how do you explain the lack of prints on the magazine and the ammo in it?”
“Look, we know the March Hare is a very careful killer. Assume for a moment that Charlotte was the March Hare. She may have prepared the gun for use in a future killing, thus wiping the magazine and the ammo free of prints.”
Dino looked hopeful. “Now that, I like. It makes perfect sense, and it has the wonderful added advantage of making us look right the first time.”
“So why am I not calling the president right now and explaining that Charlotte Kirby committed suicide?”
The phone rang, and Stone picked it up. “Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Holly.”
“Good morning.”
“I’ve had a thought,” Holly said.
“Shoot. We’re about all out of thoughts.”
“What if Charlotte Kirby really did commit suicide? Maybe she just wiped her prints off the magazine and the bullets out of an excess of caution.”
Stone laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Great minds think alike,” Stone said. “Dino and I were just discussing the same idea.”
“You were not!”
“I promise you, we were.”
“You just like the idea because it makes you and Dino look better.”
“I can’t deny that benefit,” Stone said, “but you had the idea independently, and you aren’t trying to make us look better, are you?”
“Well, since I brought you into this, it makes me look better, too.”
“Tell you what,” Stone said. “You go see the director right now and tell her about our mutual theory. If she buys it, we’
re out of here.”
“She’s out of the office today,” Holly said. “Maybe tomorrow, too.”
“Where is she?”
“She goes places unannounced all the time, and she doesn’t share that information with me.”
“Should I call the president and tell him?”
Holly thought for a moment. “No, it’s better if we go through Kate. That way, if she likes it, we’ll have her on our side, and she can take it to the president.”
“I like the idea of her taking it to the president. I’d just as soon not see him for a while, myself.”
“You don’t sound entirely convinced of our theory,” Holly said.
“I’m afraid to be entirely convinced of anything,” Stone said. “Once bitten, you know.”
“I know. Well, we can wait until Kate is back in the offi
ce, or you can go to the president now. What’s your choice?”
“What’s your advice?”
“I’d wait for Kate. I’d like to have her on our side.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Stone said. “Dinner tonight?”
“What else have I got to do?” Holly said. “I can shake loose here by seven.”
“See you then.” Stone hung up and explained to Dino.
“Okay,” Dino said, standing up and stretching. “I’m going to the Smithsonian.”
“What part of the Smithsonian? It’s a big place.”
“I’ll go to the part with all the airplanes, if you’ll go with me.”
“You’re on,” Stone said.
49
STONE AND DINO STOOD UNDER A HIGHLY POLISHED DC-3, with Eastern Airlines markings, suspended from the ceiling of the museum. “Isn’t that gorgeous?” Stone asked.
“It sure is,” Dino said. “I took my first airplane ride in one of those, from the old La Guardia Marine Air Terminal to Boston.”iv>
“That airframe could really take it. Some of them did more than a hundred thousand hours.”
Dino tapped Stone’s elbow. “Look at that,” he said.