by Jack Du Brul
“Shit.” Mercer knew he’d just hit a dead end. “Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you, Chief.”
“I appreciate the call, Dr. Mercer. And if it’s any consolation, folks die every day in some mighty stupid ways. No sense making more out of this than there is.”
As he hung up the phone, Mercer knew that MacLaughlin wouldn’t leave the case alone, and neither would he.
Up in his bar, the last of the coffee in the pot had burned down to half a cup of tarry residue that could have been used as industrial solvent. Mercer sipped it cautiously while his dinner liquefied in the microwave. Something linked the Jenny IV to Jerry and John Small. They didn’t just die; they were murdered. He was sure of it. All he needed was a culprit, a motive, and some evidence.
Falls Church, Virginia
Mercer’s Jaguar was a dark shadow as it crept along the wide driveway, its throaty V-12 harnessed to a purr, its Pirelli tires hissing against the damp asphalt. A fine mist silvered the night in the twin beams of the car’s headlights. His eyes strained to see the house he knew must be at the end of the lane. No one’s driveway could be this long.
He glanced at the odometer and saw that he’d come nearly a mile since leaving the main road. When he looked up, he finally saw the faint glow of Max Johnston’s home. The car rounded one more sweeping curve, and the house was laid out before him.
It was a massive Tudor with countless gables, oak crossbeams, and steeply pitched roofs that stretched for almost two hundred feet. While the house was enormous, its whimsical style gave it a less imposing feeling. Most of the numerous windows on the first two floors were lit, warming the damp evening with a pale radiance. Mercer counted eight chimneys before pulling his car up to the covered entrance.
A valet met him and swung open the long door of the XJS Jaguar. Mercer noticed several dozen limousines lined up at the side of the house in parade formation. He stepped from the car, allowing the young valet to slide into the leather bucket seat.
From within the home, Mercer heard the solemn vibrato of a cello accompanied by a violin and what sounded like a harpsichord. He could not name the piece, but he appreciated the beauty with which it was being played. Beneath the cuffs of his tuxedo, his beaten TAG Heuer was strapped firmly to his wrist. Nine-thirty. Perfect. The dinner, a boring affair he was sure, was over, and the real reception was just beginning.
He handed his invitation to a somewhat fuddled footman. Mercer was hours late, and the servant regarded him warily, his drooping eyes scanning the card and Mercer with equal suspicion.
“I fell into a bottle of vodka and couldn’t get up,” explained Mercer as he brushed past the doorman.
The entry hall was a story and a half high with wide plank floors and a plaster ceiling. A cherry wood table sat in the center of the foyer, its gleaming top nearly hidden by a beautiful arrangement of cut wildflowers. The room was scented by their subtle perfume. Above the table, a glittering crystal chandelier hung like a fragile stalactite.
In a room to Mercer’s right, servants were preparing the dining table to become a dessert buffet. Tortes, cakes, mousses, and numerous other sticky sweet creations covered the table that could easily seat thirty people. The classical strains of the trio grew louder as Mercer wandered through the dining room. The nine-foot doors at the far end led to a living room larger than most suburban houses.
The furniture was all nineteenth-century revival, Duncan Phyfe and John Henry Belter mostly. Four separate conversation areas quartered the huge space, couches, love seats, and chairs arranged around identical tables like defensive fortifications. The paintings were predominantly American primitives with the exception of a portrait by Sargent of a mother and daughter and a Grant Wood landscape. A bar had been set up along one wall, guests lined up and chatting away their wait for service.
The musicians were in the center of the room. Mercer watched them for a moment. There was something erotic about a female cellist, he thought. This one, not particularly pretty but eye-catching nevertheless, wore a deeply slit cream gown. Her stunning legs were wrapped around her instrument like a lover’s embrace. He felt like a voyeur as he watched her fingers working the strings and turned away before his expression got him into trouble.
Through the series of French doors at the far end of the room, Mercer saw a huge marquee tent and clusters of tables that the two hundred guests had used for dinner. He was just noticing that the bartender had lime juice to make a vodka gimlet when a hand grasped him on the shoulder.
“What’s a rogue like you doing at a place like this?”
Mercer turned, smiling as he recognized the distinctive voice. “Looking to ravage a Cabinet-ranking bureaucrat.”
Connie Van Buren stretched up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “God, you’re good-looking, and you smell nice too.”
“Ah, but Connie, you’re married.”
“My husband’s in New Mexico,” she teased.
“And my libido’s in storage.”
“Forever the bachelor,” she chided him mildly. “When are you ever going to get married?”
“I’ll marry the first woman who leaves the seat up for me.”
They had first met years before when Connie was working at the Interior Department and Mercer consulted for a German mining concern called Koenig Minerals. At the time, she was devoting a great deal of energy to blocking the company from opening a mine in Utah. They had one of the worst environmental records in the world. Mercer had stepped in at Koenig’s request and to Interior’s great relief, smoothly worked out a compromise that was acceptable to both parties. Connie and he had stayed in touch, keeping track of each other’s rise through their chosen professions.
“I noticed you were absent from dinner. You were supposed to be on my left side. Instead, I had to suffer through some mealymouthed lawyer who spoke in press releases.”
“I figured it would be bad, but I never imagined Max would invite the lawyers too.”
“Max invited everyone he knows in the city. It’s not every day you endow a forty-million-dollar think tank, and he wants to make sure no one forgets it.”
Mercer looked around as more guests filtered in from the tented patio. Connie was right. The room was filling with some heavy hitters. The Speaker of the House was deep in conversation with the President’s Chief of Staff, and behind them, several nationally recognized television journalists were hanging on the words of a very drunk senior senator. The Johnston Group was certainly getting a big endorsement from Washington’s elite.
“Where’s our host?” Mercer scanned the crowd, looking for Max Johnston.
“Oh, he’s here, basking in the glow. He and the President played golf this afternoon, and the Old Man gave his official endorsement. Max is throwing this party just to let everyone else kiss his ring.” Connie paused as she recognized a man tracking across the room toward her. “Damn. Robert Baird.”
“Who’s he?” Mercer noted the man striding through the crowd.
“He’s a lobbyist for the nuclear research division of Petromax Oil, one of Max’s lackeys trying to curry favor. Excuse me while I duck into the ladies’ room.”
Baird actually made an “aw shucks” arm gesture as he watched Connie’s ample bottom waddle from the living room. He looked at Mercer for a moment, deciding if he was someone worth presenting his case to since he had been talking to the Secretary of Energy. Mercer flashed a dull smile, and Baird went in search of more powerful prey.
Mercer was watching him slink back through the center set of French doors when he saw her. Her back was toward him, angled away as she spoke with last year’s Nobel Prize winner for chemistry. In the staid Washington social circuit, a revealing dress was seen as an affront to everything the city stood for. The women present, though formally dressed, still exuded an air of conservatism that precluded any ideas of sex.
But she looked as if she’d just come from a Hollywood awards show. Her dress, deeply black against her white skin, was cut so low in the back th
at with a little imagination, Mercer could almost visualize a shadow where the two halves of her buttocks split into tightly rounded hemispheres. The skin on her back was flawless. She was tall, but her height was not a distraction; rather it was a pedestal to admire her from. She turned and he saw her eyes.
The mineral beryl is a relatively common stone of little or no interest; in fact it’s considered a by-product of mica and feldspar mining. Yet when aluminum is present in its makeup, beryl becomes aquamarine and is considered a semiprecious stone. And when nature adds traces of chromium rather than aluminum, beryl becomes emerald, one of man’s most coveted gems. The depth of an emerald’s color is determined by the amount of chromium. Too much and the stone is dark, inky, and dead. Too little and an emerald is pale and faded. This color difference is called kelly. A perfect stone, one with depth to its color while maintaining its brilliance, is considered to have good kelly, and its value soars proportionately.
Her eyes were green. A perfect kelly green that shot through Mercer like a live wire. She looked at him for a moment, scraping her nails through short hair that was dark yet blond and auburn at the same time, held to her neat skull with just a trace of gel. Mercer felt like he was drowning.
Individually, the features of her face were perfect, softly rounded lips framing a sensual mouth that seemed just on the verge of laughter. Her cheekbones swept down the sides of her face with the grace of a gull’s wing, and her chin was strong with a slight cleft. Above her stunning eyes, her brows were wide and dark, shocking on such a delicate face but adding an undeniable magnetism. Her nose was small and gentle, very feminine.
From her high, broad forehead to her narrow throat, she was exquisite. There was no comparing her to the brassy trophy women that many of the men here called their wives. She had the looks of a fashion model, daunting and unobtainable, but he thought he noted a charm that those women didn’t possess.
She shifted her weight from one long leg to the other. Her dress clung to hips that curved from her narrow waist with unmatchable grace. The slit up the front swept aside to reveal one smooth inner thigh and, had Mercer been able to breathe, the sight would have taken his breath away. The front of her dress covered her body completely from her calves to her throat, but he noted that her unsupported breasts were small and high, the chill of the damp night forcing her nipples against the fabric.
“What can I get for you, sir?” The bartender distracted Mercer.
By the time he’d ordered a gimlet and turned back toward the French doors, she was gone. Damn.
He took his drink, absently muttering a thanks. It was then that he became aware he’d been physically aroused just by that quick glimpse of her. That hadn’t happened to him since his eighth-grade class had a twenty-one-year-old substitute for a week.
“You can put my clothes back on.”
“Excuse me?” Mercer turned and his breath jammed in his throat. She was even more beautiful up close. Her lips had an enticing pout that he unconsciously felt himself swaying toward.
“You just undressed me with your eyes, and I’d appreciate it if you put my clothing back on, Dr. Mercer.” The mischievous glint in her eyes showed that she was relishing Mercer’s discomfort. He guessed her age at early thirties, that perfect moment in a woman’s life when she retains the beauty of youth but tempers it with the knowledge of experience.
“You know who I am?” Mercer was incredulous. He was certain that he would remember her if they’d met before.
“My, how quickly they forget.” She laughed and started to walk away, her backside switching from side to side while the narrow ridge of her spine remained straight. A few paces away, she turned back. “We met yesterday morning.”
She was lost in the crowd by the time Mercer realized who she was. He had been so enraptured by her looks that he had never paid attention to her voice, throaty yet soft, alluring and… recognizable.
Mercer nearly spilled his drink as he lunged into the crowd looking for her. She had been his vocal opponent at George Washington University. He had a hard time reconciling that shabbily dressed girl with the stunning beauty who’d just walked away. What in the hell was a militant environmentalist doing at a reception hosted by one of the largest oil companies in the world?
He moved forward quickly, apologizing to guests as he brushed by in his search. Suddenly, a man turned, and they bumped nearly face to face. Both were startled by the contact. Mercer saw that the man had gone nearly white when he saw Mercer, but his color returned quickly, and his handsome face split into a broad grin.
“Mercer, I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Max Johnston seemed genuinely pleased to see Mercer at his party.
Johnston was in his early sixties but looked ten years younger; his body was thin and wiry, honed from a legendary workout routine and biannual triathlons. His face was lined and weathered from the Texas sun where he was raised, but he had acquired a veneer of Ivy League polish that masked his origins. His hair was still thick and wavy, silvered just at the temples. He grasped Mercer’s hand and pumped it vigorously.
The person Max had been speaking with drifted off.
“I had to mug a headwaiter to get his tuxedo.” Mercer smiled back. “Quite a turnout, congratulations.”
“I have a lot of hope for the Johnston Group,” Max said as if reading from a prepared speech. “The President set a challenge to get America off its oil addiction, and I think we can help.”
“Isn’t that like cutting off your nose to spite your face?” joked Mercer.
“Hardly. Petromax is so diversified that shutting off our oil imports may actually help the company. In fact, I just closed a deal to sell off our last three supertankers. No, we’re ready to help shape the future.”
“Aren’t you involved with the exploration of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge?” Despite his desire to find that woman again, Mercer found himself drawn into a conversation with his host.
“Yes, but that’s only a small part of what we’ve planned. The oil we pull from the Refuge will provide Petromax with the capital to establish itself as the leader in alternative energy technology. We’ve already started pilot programs, and our lab people are close to developing a commercial hydrogen-cracking unit using seawater as fuel. Fusion thinking has taught us that there is more energy in matter than we had ever imagined.” Johnston held up a half-full glass of champagne. “There’s more power in this glass than mankind has produced since our first fire in some cave two hundred thousand years ago, and day by day we are getting closer to getting at it.”
Mercer looked past Johnston’s shoulder and saw the woman walking toward them, her body swaying to the chamber music while her eyes remained locked with his. He sensed he was about to be in the middle of a conflict between Johnston and the environmentalist. “Uh-oh.”
Max turned, following Mercer’s line of sight and muttered, “Oh, shit.”
“You know her?”
Before Max could answer, she was with them, slipping a slim arm under Max’s in a familiar gesture. Max regarded her indulgently for a moment, then turned back to Mercer to make the introductions. Before he could speak, she piped up.
“I apologize for lying to you, Dr. Mercer.” Her smile numbed him. “We have met once before yesterday, but I doubt you’d remember. It was about ten years ago in Houston, when Petromax announced the discovery of the Edwards Plateau Oil Field. I remember that you were wearing an olive-colored suit with a black-patterned tie. You were the only man there without a cheesy cowboy hat.”
“Honey, those hats are the symbol of the greatest state in the Union.” Max turned from the girl and looked Mercer in the eye. It was a look of trepidation. “Well, then, I guess introductions aren’t really necessary, since you two know each other.”
Mercer found his voice. “I could still use a little help here.”
Max gave her a fond smile. “This is my daughter, Agatha.”
“My grandmother had to suffer through life with the name Agatha.” S
he stuck out her hand, which Mercer took like a pilgrim grasping a religious icon. “But I’ll be damned if I will. Please call me Aggie, Dr. Mercer.”
It was as if an elemental force passed between their hands. Mercer held onto her long after a simple introduction demanded, long after mutual attraction expected. Long after… it was only when Max delicately coughed that he reluctantly let her go. Their eyes remained locked, clear green to cloudy gray, virgin earth to stormy sky.
“I only use my professional title when I call for dinner reservations. Please drop the ‘Doctor’ and just call me Mercer. Everybody does.”
Aggie pulled back a half step. “Are you so ashamed of your accomplishments that you’re trying to hide your identity? My God, you single-handedly destroyed an entire mountain in India when you staked out the Ghudatra mines. What about your work in Australia? How many aborigines had to be relocated after the firm you worked for pegged a hundred thousand acres for an opal mine? Don’t be modest, Dr. Mercer. To some, you’re a hero. Right, Daddy?”
Max Johnston was looking uncomfortable. He glanced around, making sure that none of his well-heeled guests had heard his daughter’s outburst. It was clear he’d listened to her views so many times that he could repeat them by rote.
“That’s enough, Aggie. You promised to be my hostess tonight and not spout your drivel,” Johnston hissed. “Christ, you’re about as considerate as your mother was.”
He turned to Mercer. “Sorry about that. Let’s go get a drink.”
He put a strong arm around Mercer’s shoulder and led him away. Mercer turned his head and saw the look of utter hatred Aggie directed at her father.
“You don’t have any kids, do you?” Max asked as the bartender fixed another gimlet and refilled the host’s champagne flute.
“No. I realized young that I can barely take care of myself, so how the hell could I care for a child?”
Max smiled, relaxing slightly. “She’s my greatest joy and I’ve been proud of every one of her accomplishments, even if they were designed to get back at me. Do you know she graduated at the top of her class at grad school? She got a degree in environmental engineering, of all things. She is quite brilliant, but she wastes it on these quixotic quests. I guess she never really had to grow up. I spoiled the hell out of her. Hell, I still do, by letting her screw around with that ecological group.”