by Stuart Woods
“Easy,” Stone said. “We don’t want to have to send you home in an ambulance.”
“It’s the only thing that will simultaneously stop the adrenaline and restore the soul,” she said. “I’ve been fielding phone calls for three hours, always saying ‘no comment’ in one way or another. These people are relentless.”
“Let’s get some food into you,” Stone said, handing out menus.
“First, I have to spend ten minutes in the ladies’,” Shelley said, “if you will excuse me.” She got up and left the room, taking the remainder of her scotch with her.
“That is one frazzled girl,” Holly said. “But by morning, it will be over, and her life will return to normal.” Holly’s cell phone began to ring.
“And when will your life return to normal?” Stone asked.
Holly checked the calling number. “It’s my office,” she said. “I have to take this.” She pressed a button. “Hello?” She listened for a moment. “Where is it?” She listened again. “Hang on.” She covered the receiver with her hand. “It’s our Tech Services,” she said. “They’
ve got another hit on Fair Sutherlin’s cell phone.”
“Oh, no,” Dino said, putting his face in his hands.
“Where is it?” Stone asked wearily.
Holly turned back to her phone. “Where? At Sixteenth and H Streets?”
“That sounds familiar,” Stone said.
“It’s the Hay-Adams Hotel.”
Stone stared at her. “Here?”
Holly went back to her phone. “Call the number,” she said, then waited.
Stone and Dino waited, too.
Then, faintly, from across the room, came the tinny, electronic sound of a band playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” by John Philip Sousa.
The three of them turned and stared at Shelley Bach’s handbag.
52
TODD BACON SAT AT HIS DESK, WORKING. HE CONTINUED until eight P.M., when most of the staff in his department had left the building. Todd tidied his desk, locked his case files in his safe, then took a walk around Technical Services. The only people working were on computers, seemingly tracking a cell phone location.
Todd walked to the weapons room, responsibility for the securing of which was his, as the senior officer present. He went into the vault and picked up an ordinary-looking briefcase. He set it on the steel table in the middle of the room and opened it, checked the contents carefully, then he took two loaded magazines from a shelf, put them into the briefcase, closed the door behind him, and turned the combination lock.
He switched off the overhead lights, put on his jacket, and left the department, then the building. He drove out of the Agency grounds and headed for the southeastern side of the Distri lict of Columbia, setting Clinton Field into the navigator, since he had never driven there. It would take him the better part of an hour to arrive and get set.
TEDDY FAY AND LAUREN CADE began working in their kitchen in the hangar apartment at Clinton Field. Teddy put some oil and butter into a large pan with a little salt, then added twelve ounces of Arborio rice. He stirred the rice until it was golden, then began adding chicken stock, while Lauren browned a pound of Italian sweet sausages.
Teddy stirred continuously for twenty-five minutes while adding stock to the rice, as Lauren sliced the sausages into bite-sized chunks. After the rice had absorbed the carton of stock and was thick, Teddy added half a carton of creme fraîche and half a cup of grated Parmigiano Italiano, while continuing to stir, then he added some green peas that he had cooked earlier and folded them into the dish.
Lauren had set the table and opened a bottle of Amarone, a full-bodied Italian wine. She brought the plates to Teddy, and he heaped the risotto onto them.
TODD BACON PARKED ACROSS the street from Clinton Field, took the briefcase, and climbed over a fence around a water tank nearby. He judged the distance to the hangar’s lighted upstairs windows as about forty yards. He climbed the ladder to the top of the tank, about sixty feet high, then he set down the briefcase and opened it, exposing an unassembled Czech-made sniper rifle from the Cold War era.
He assembled the weapon in the dim light as he had practiced in his office the day before, then he screwed the silencer and telescopic sight into place and shoved a magazine into the lightweight rifle.
He sighted the weapon on the upstairs window of the hangar, and he could plainly see a man and a woman working at a stove. He swung the rifle to his right, took aim at a spot at the corner of another hangar, then he racked the action of the rifle and squeezed off a round. He could see it strike exactly where he had aimed.
He swung the rifle back to the kitchen window and watched the woman carry two plates to a table and open a bottle of wine. She sat, facing the window, and Teddy pulled out a chair next to her. Teddy bent over and kissed her on the ear, then he lifted her chin and kissed her on the lips.
Todd aimed at the back of Teddy’s head and squeezed off the round.
“I LOVE YOU,” TEDDY whispered into Lauren’s ear, then he put a finger under her chin and tilted her head. He kissed her lovingly, then started to sit down. As he did so, there were the simultaneous sounds of glass breaking and a thud near him, as a chunk of Lauren’s forehead blew away and blood and brain matter spattered the wall behind her. Teddy knew, instantly, that she was dead, and he dove for the floor, as another bullet struck a plate of risotto and scattered it.
More shots came through the metal side of the hangar, as the shooter tried to find him on the floor, but Teddy had quickly crawled away from the window. He heard someone shout from across the street.
“SHIT!” TODD YELLED AT the top of his lungs. Todd quickly disassembled the rifle, closed the briefcase, clenched the handle in his teeth, and jumped for the ladder, clamping it between his feet and sliding down it to the ground in seconds. He tossed the briefcase over the fence, then backed off and got a running start at it. He hit the middle of the fence with his left foot, and his momentum carried him up and over itnds. . He grabbed the briefcase and ran for his car.
FROM THE KITCHEN FLOOR, huddled under the sink, Teddy heard the vehicle drive away. Teddy had no doubt who the shooter had been. He got an army blanket from the bedroom and spread it over Lauren’s body, then, brushing away tears and regaining complete control of himself, he went to the computer and logged on to the CIA mainframe. In less than a minute he was into the personnel files, and seconds after that, he had Todd Bacon’s home address. Teddy knew exactly where it was, since it was only a quarter-mile or so from his former home.
Teddy went to the bedroom, grabbed his ready bag, then took a roll of duct tape and wrapped it around Lauren’s body in the blanket. He lifted her onto his shoulder and took her downstairs to the hangar, where he set her gently down, then removed the passenger door from the airplane and stowed it in the rear seat.
Feeling no time pressure, Teddy went back upstairs, cleaned up the gore in the kitchen, then tidied up. He sat down and ate some of the risotto, since he didn’t want to run out of steam later, then he put the rest down the garbage disposal and the dishes into the dishwasher and started it.
He found a bottle of window cleaner and a dishcloth, and he went around the entire apartment, wiping down every surface that either he or Lauren might have touched. He went to his safe and removed his weapons and tools and took them down to the airplane, then he turned off the lights and went down to the hangar.
He found a pair of aircraft jacks that, he reckoned, weighed forty pounds together, and a length of chain. He lifted Lauren’s body into the passenger seat and wrapped the chain around her waist, then, using shackles from his tool kit, fastened the jacks to the chain, setting them on the floor of the passenger side. Finally, he fastened the passenger seat belt around Lauren. He stowed his tools in the luggage compartment, then he did a walk-around of the airplane, checked the fuel, got into the pilot’s seat, and started the engine.
A moment later, he used the remote control to open the rear bifold do
or, and he taxied the airplane out of the hangar, down the taxiway to the airfield’s single runway. He looked for traffic on final approach, saw none, heard none on the radio, and, without slowing or announcing his intentions on the air, taxied onto the runway and shoved the throttle forward.
He took off and climbed to seven hundred feet and headed for the Potomac River, then he flew down the river to the bay, then turned and headed for open water. He descended to a hundred feet, turned on the autopilot, and set the altitude hold, then he flew a good ten miles offshore. When he had reached that distance, he undid the passenger seat belt, dropped the two jacks overboard, and let them pull Lauren’s body out of the airplane and down into the sea. Then he reversed his course and, finally, turned toward Manassas Airport.
TODD BACON DROVE ERRATICALLY away from Clinton Field, panting for breath and sweating profusely, his car weaving along the roadway. He prayed that there was no cop in the neighborhood, for he would surely be stopped for drunk driving.
As he put distance between himself and the airport, his breathing and pulse returned to something like normal, but he reckoned his blood pressure was still high. The feeling of panic was somewhere in his chest, just deep enough to allow him to drive the car normally.
He reached his home in Virginia, a new town house development, and got the car into the garage, where he sat for snormallyeveral minutes, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. Finally, he dragged himself into the house, got out of his clothes, and fell, naked and exhausted, onto the bed.
Images of Lauren Cade’s exploding head still fired in his brain, but gradually they went away, and he fell into a deep sleep.
53
WHILE STONE AND HOLLY STOOD AND STARED AT SHELLEY’S handbag, Dino walked over to it and began rummaging inside. Finally, exasperated, he took hold of the bag, turned it upside down, and emptied the contents onto the desktop.
Stone and Holly walked over and gazed at the jumbled heap of the bag’s contents. Holly poked around with a finger and came up with a lighted cell phone, the source of the music. “This was missing from the scene of Fair Sutherlin’s murder, remember?”
“I remember,” Stone said, “but look at this.” He picked up a second cell phone, then, rummaging through the pile, came up with four others. “One of these is Shelley’s,” he said, “and I’d be willing to bet a large sum that the others belong to Mimi Kendrick, Milly Hart, Charlotte Kirby, and Muffy Brandon.”
“Souvenirs,” Dino said. “Serial killers often take souvenirs from their victims.”
“So I made a mistake,” Shelley said from the bedroom doorway.
The others turned to look and found her pointing a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at them, FBI combat-style.
“One little mistake,” Shelley repeated. She seemed to tighten her grip on the weapon.
“Shelley, are you going to kill us all to cover yourself?” Stone asked. “That won’t work. People saw you enter the hotel. You’re well known by now to the staff. You can’t kill everybody.”
Shelley thought about it. “Dino,” she said, “I want you to do exactly as I say.”
“That depends on what you say, Shelley,” Dino replied.
“I want you to pick up my bag and hold it open, and, Stone, I want you to rake everything on the desktop into the bag. And don’t either of you try to use a weapon or I will have to kill you all.”
Dino shrugged, picked up the bag, and held it open. Stone raked the pile of junk, including all the cell phones, into the bag.
“Now what?” Dino asked.
“Bring it over here and set it on the floor three feet in front of me,” Shelley said.
Dino did as she directed.
Shelley, keeping her pistol pointed at them, picked up her handbag and backed over to the door. She set it down, opened the door, then picked up the bag and backed out of the suite, letting the door slam behind her.
Dino produced his own weapon and started for the door.
“Let her go, Dino,” Stone said. “We can’t have a gunfight in the hotel.” He got out his cell phone, looked up a number in his frequently called list, and pressed it. He waited for a moment. “This is Stone Barrington. I met with Deputy Director Smith this morning. I want to speak to him immediately. This is an extreme emergency. I’ll hold while you find him.” Stone covered the phone with his hand. “Let’s let the FBI deal with this,” he said.
“We should call the DCPD, too,” Dino r Seminded him.
“Let Kerry do that. His word will carry more weight.”
Dino walked to the terrace door and opened it. Hot D.C. air flooded into the room, as did noise from the traffic below.
“Stone? It’s Kerry Smith. What’s wrong?”
“Listen to me carefully, Kerry: it’s not over. Charlotte Kirby was not the March Hare. The March Hare is Shelley Bach.”
There was a brief silence. “Tell me this is a joke.”
“It is not a joke. We’ve just found the cell phones of the five murdered women in Shelley’s handbag. She pointed a gun at us, then took her bag and left our suite at the Hay-Adams.”
“She’s headed down Sixteenth Street,” Dino called from the terrace. “Her car is a silver SUV, a BMW, I think.”
Stone repeated that information to Kerry Smith. “She’s armed and dangerous, Kerry, and we have no idea where she’s headed.”
“Can you back this up with evidence, Stone?” Kerry asked.
“The evidence is in her handbag,” Stone replied, “and Dino Bacchetti, Holly Barker, and I can testify to that.”
“How many phones were in the bag?”
“Six, in all. One must have been Shelley’s. We called Fair Sutherlin’s phone, and Shelley’s bag began to ring.”
“How about the other four? Can you swear that they belong to the other victims?”
“No, that’s just our assumption. You’d do well to capture that bag, as well as Shelley.”
“All right, I’ll issue the orders immediately. You three stay there. I’m going to send some agents to talk to you.”
“We’ll be right here,” Stone said, and hung up. He put the phone into its holster, went to the bar, and poured himself a stiff bourbon. “Anybody else?”
“Me,” Dino said.
“Me,” Holly said.
Stone poured the drinks, and they all sat down.
Dino was the first to speak. “I’ve been sleeping with a serial murderer since we arrived in this town,” he said.
“Do you know,” Stone said, “that in all our investigating and checking, we never checked the whereabouts of Shelley at the times of the various murders? Not once?”
“When she got called to go to the White House, after Mrs. Kendrick’s murder, she was already at the White House,” Dino said.
“It never occurred to me,” Holly said. “She was the FBI’s lead investigator on all the murders. If she hadn’t hung on to those phones, nobody could ever have made even one of the charges stick.”
“So, she was just one of Brix Kendrick’s conquests,” Dino said.
Stone nodded. “She eliminated Mimi from Kendrick’s life. That makes sense—she wanted him to herself. Then, when he didn’t play that way, she started taking revenge.”
“And she was right among us the whole time,” Dino added. “She knew every detail of our investigation from day one.”
Holly took a swig of her scotch. “And now I’m going to have to call the first lady and director of my agency a">
“That we got it wrong twice,” Stone said. “At our dinner with the Lees, when we told them Charlotte Kirby was the killer, and, of course, now.”
“We’re going to look like assholes,” Dino said. “Amend that: we are assholes.”
“You’re not going to get an argument from me,” Stone said.
Holly said nothing.
Stone got up and started toward the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Dino said. “The FBI will be here in a minute.”
“I’m going to
pack,” Stone said. “Then I’m going to answer their questions for as long as it takes. Then I’m going to get the hell out of D.C.”
Dino got up and started toward his bedroom. “Good idea,” he shouted over his shoulder.
“Fellas,” Holly called out, “this may take longer than you think.”
54
STONE ANSWERED THE DOORBELL, AND SPECIAL AGENT DAVE King stepped inside and introduced his partner, Special Agent Ann Potter.
“Now,” King said, “tell me what the hell is going on here.”
“Dave,” Stone said, “do you remember that when we visited the crime scene at Fair Sutherlin’s apartment, Shelley Bach asked if you had found her cell phone?”
“Yes, I do,” King said. “We had not found it.”
“That’s because it was in Shelley’s handbag at that moment. She had taken it on an earlier visit that afternoon, after she murdered Ms. Sutherlin.”
“Are you completely nuts?” King asked.
“Listen to me, Dave: Holly had the CIA do a search for the Sutherlin cell phone, and it was at this hotel. She had them call the number, and we heard it go off. It was in Shelley’s handbag.”
“Shelley was here?”
“She was. She was in the bathroom when the phone rang. We emptied out her bag, and there were six phones in it. We believe one was Shelley’s and the others belonged to the five women.”
“You don’t know that,” King said.
“She came out of the bathroom with a gun in her hand, took the bag, and left.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Holly,” Stone said, “can you put traces on the other four cell phones, and on Shelley’s, as well?”
“I’ve got Shelley’s number,” Dino said.
“I’ve got Milly Hart’s,” Stone said. “Don’t bother with the Kendrick phone. She’s been dead for a year. Can you get the numbers for Brandon and Kirby?”