Jim McGill 03 The K Street Killer

by Joseph Flynn

  She might let Putnam pick up the gas bill eventually; that could be written off as a transportation expense. But there would never be any charge in either time or money for her affections. They weren’t for sale.

  “You’re smiling, Margaret,” Putnam said as she pulled into a parking space near the offices of McGill Investigations, Inc. “You keep that up, you’ll drive me crazy.”

  As soon as she shifted into park, Sweetie reached over, took Putnam’s face in both hand and kissed him full on the lips. When she sat back he did look a bit delirious.

  Needing him functional for the moment, she popped open her door and got out of the car, telling her passenger, “Come on, let’s tell Jim about your phone call with the speaker.”

  McGill Investigations, Inc.

  McGill knew all about Skype. Abbie used it to speak with friends; Caitie used it to talk with her theatrical agent, Annie Klein. McGill could appreciate that seeing the person you were talking to brought a new dimension to long distance conversation, but having been born way back in the twentieth century, he felt that seeing the other person often lessened rather than added to the intimacy of electronic communication.

  He supposed that was the way earlier generations had felt when TV started to displace radio shows. Radio was the theater of the mind; television was right there in front of you, often with a cast of actors you wouldn’t have chosen. No matter. The new medium had supplanted the old one.

  Now, for the first time, McGill would have preferred Skype to the phone.

  Clare Tracy’s voice sounded to him exactly as it had when they’d both been twenty.

  He knew that physical appearance was far more mutable but …

  He would have liked to see how Clare looked.

  “How are you, Jim?” she said after he said hello.

  The routine greeting brought his mind back to the present with a jolt.

  “I’ve been better, Clare.” All the anxiety he felt about Kenny was clear in his voice.

  McGill heard the lock in the outer office door clack open. Footsteps followed. He recognized Sweetie’s stride; someone was with her.

  Having been silent a moment, Clare asked, “Anything I can do to help?”

  “How’s your bone marrow?” McGill asked.

  He surprised himself, coming right out with that.

  Showed, maybe, just a bit of the desperation he was feeling.

  “It’s fine as far as I know,” Clare said. “Would you like to borrow a cup?”

  She was trying to keep things light, but clearly knew the situation was serious.

  “My son, Kenny, needs to find a donor fast.”

  “No family matches?”

  “No. We have people volunteering, but I haven’t heard any good news yet.”

  Clare asked, “What hospital is Kenny at?”

  McGill realized Clare was going to volunteer to be tested.

  The Lord moved in mysterious ways, he thought.

  “GWU here in Washington.”

  “I’ll be on the first flight I can find,” Clare told him.

  In the outer office, the phone rang. Sweetie picked up.

  “If you’re a match,” McGill told her, “it’s going to put you off your schedule for a bit.”

  Clare laughed. “I’ve never met your son, but if he’s anything like his dad, I think I can make the sacrifice.”

  McGill wondered if having Clare drop in out of the blue might really be the miracle Kenny needed. Had he or anyone in his family done anything to deserve a godsend like that? He didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.

  “Thank you, Clare. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

  “Well … I might be one of a few people who has a pretty good idea.”

  That was true, McGill thought, as an old memory came rushing back, the reason he and Clare had broken up. The reason she’d left him, really.

  With that painful time still in mind, Clare told him about her visit with Hugh Collier that morning and what she had told him.

  “If he looked hard enough,” she said, “he would have found out anyway. This way I got a hundred thousand dollars for Em’s Em.”

  “For what?” McGill asked.

  “You really don’t know what I’ve been doing all this time?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  So she told him about Mother’s Milk, Em’s Em, and her role in it.

  “I was just a humble cop,” he said. “That stuff is way over my head.”

  Clare laughed again. “Yeah, a humble cop who marries the first female president.”

  That brought a question to mind. “You know Patti?”

  “Sure, we go back a long way.”

  McGill had always made a point of keeping his nose out of Patti’s presidential and political activities, unless she needed a dinner date or brought a matter to him and asked for his opinion. Still, he wondered how he could have missed hearing about Clare.

  “Small world, isn’t it?” she asked, knowing what he was thinking.

  Something she’d always been good at doing.

  “Tiny,” McGill said. “Call me when you know your arrival time. I’ll meet you or send someone to pick you up.”

  “Thanks. I’ll stop by St. Pat’s before I come, light a candle for Kenny.”

  McGill had to clear his throat before he could express his gratitude and say goodbye.

  He was no sooner off the phone than Sweetie knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Sweetie entered. She looked at McGill, saw the cloud of emotion on his face.

  “Everything okay with Kenny?” she asked.

  “He just got another volunteer to be tested.”

  “That’s great. Putnam’s decided to help.”

  McGill nodded. “Good.”

  “Did you hear the call that just came in?”

  “Heard the phone ring.”

  “It was a lawyer named Gerald Mishkin calling. He represents Harlo Geiger, the speaker’s estranged wife. She’s seeking a divorce.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, and she wants to hire you.”

  K Street, N.W.

  Metro Homicide Detective Big Mike Walker, a.k.a. Beemer, got a fine new suit, the nicest he ever owned, out of his new undercover assignment. That didn’t make him one bit happier about it. He’d still have to give back the Bella Russo briefcase and the Mercedes S65 AMG that also came with the gig.

  Having exited the car, Beemer walked alone down Lobbyist Lane. It was after dark now. There were lights on in several of the buildings he passed. Gaming the government was a 24/7 business, especially for those schemers new to their craft. The top dogs, the ones who routinely dressed the way Beemer did when he was trying to get someone to take a shot at him, they were off to cocktail parties, expense account dinners and the other diversions of those who carried water for the nation’s plutocrats.

  Not that Beemer thought about the larger implications.

  He spoke softly, the microphone in the knot of his Italian silk tie picking up every word. “Know what I see, Meeker. I see bullet holes in this fine suit, and a damn Porky Pig pin on the lapel. The crime scene people will come along and photograph me layin’ on the sidewalk like that.”

  Detective Marvin Meeker, watching from a distance, replied, “Don’t you worry, Beemer, I’ll take Porky off and put him in my pocket before anyone can take a picture.”

  “You’re a real comfort, you sonofabitch. Just your luck you’re the skinny one.”

  Beemer had been given the job as the decoy because Brad Attles, the last lobbyist to be killed, was a big black man. Lieutenant Bullard’s idea was maybe the killer took a special dislike to large African-American lobbyists. So why not give him his preferred target?

  They could pad Meeker out, Beemer had suggested. The lieutenant said anybody who had the eyesight to plug four lobbyists would detect something that clumsy. She hadn’t even let Beemer carry his service weapon under his coat, said it wou
ld ruin the lines and be another giveaway. He had to carry his Glock in his briefcase.

  “Just do a Cleavon Little,” Meeker had told him.

  “Yeah, sure. ‘Scuse me while I whip dis out.’ Fuck you.”

  “You’ll be fine. You got two boys with long iron watching you.”

  Two snipers from the Special Tactics Branch. Damn good shots, but they could get bored like anyone else. Probably be playing cards when the bad guy finally showed up.

  “I hate this shit,” Beemer said.

  “Don’t blame you,” Meeker conceded.

  “And these damn shoes hurt.”

  The lieutenant said the shoes had to be high end to go with the suit. The pair of Edward Greens that Beemer had on went for better than a grand, but the biggest pair they’d been able to find were a size too small.

  Meeker told Beemer, “Man, just curl up your toes. You don’t stretch those things out too bad, I’ll buy ‘em off you when this is all over.”

  They’d told Beemer he could keep the shoes, too.

  Metro Police Headquarters, Indiana Avenue, N.W.

  As a show of respect to Rockelle Bullard, Welborn Yates went to police headquarters. He had been there before, but not recently and to be fair it was his turn to make the trek. Besides that, Rockelle had followed through and sent him a copy of the case files on the lobbyist murders. He’d finished reading them less than an hour earlier.

  The cop working security at the entrance to the building looked old enough to be Welborn’s father. He didn’t seem to be particularly happy with what was probably his final assignment as a sworn police officer.

  “State your business,” he told Welborn.

  Welborn produced his ID. “Captain Welborn Yates, United States Air Force, Office of Special Investigations, detailed to the White House. I’m here to see Lieutenant Rockelle Bullard. She’s expecting me.”

  More often than not these days, Welborn, at Galia Mindel’s direction, wore a business suit to work at the White House. Before going to police headquarters, though, he’d stopped at home to put on his military uniform. Didn’t seem to impress the old cop one bit.

  He muttered under his breath, “White House.”

  As if he didn’t believe that for a minute.

  “Something wrong?” Welborn asked.

  “Bad feet, hemorrhoids and my teeth hurt. How ‘bout you?”

  Before Welborn could respond, the cop picked up a phone and called Rockelle.

  They exchanged a few more words and Welborn was given a visitor’s badge.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Homicide’s part of major cases,” the cop responded. “Follow the signs.”

  Welborn knew that but said thanks again.

  Rockelle Bullard took note of Welborn’s uniform.

  “Spiffy,” she said, “anybody salute you?”

  “Not a soul,” Welborn told her.

  Rockelle’s office was a bit smaller than Welborn’s, not nearly as well furnished and the paint on the walls was a generation older. But it did come with a mini-fridge. To Welborn’s great surprise, Rockelle took a bottle of White House ice tea out of it and handed it to him.

  He accepted with a smile and sat down.

  “How’d you get this?” he asked.

  “On my way out of the residence, I asked this guy named Blessing if I might have one for the drive back here. He brought me two. I was going to drink that one in your hand, but seeing as you were nice enough to visit …”

  Welborn grinned and twisted the top off.

  He raised the bottle in salute. “To your health, Lieutenant Bullard.”

  He took a large drink.

  “That stuff is habit forming,” Rockelle said, looking at him enviously.

  “How they keep us at our desks,” Welborn told her. “I’ll see if I can get you some.”

  That earned him a smile.

  “So what do you think, now that you read the files?” Rockelle said, taking the seat behind her desk. “You think maybe Putnam Shady has some murder in him, after all?”

  Welborn shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  He didn’t say so, because it wouldn’t sound professional, but he was putting his faith in Margaret Sweeney. He didn’t believe there was a killer alive who could deceive her at close range — and the scuttlebutt was that she and Putnam were getting very close.

  Rockelle asked, “You start asking around yet, see if maybe other people have different opinions?”

  “Not yet.”

  Rockelle nodded. “Could be touchy, if you did, him being a friend of the woman who works with the man who’s married to the president.”

  Welborn smiled. “Almost sounds like the start of a nursery rhyme, doesn’t it? But, no, that’s not why. I’m not concerned about my job. The president likes me, and my fiancée’s family has money.”

  “Must be nice,” Rockelle said.

  “Has its advantages. I did have questions about a couple of things. Your ballistics reports show each victim was shot with a different gun. Seems kind of strange, don’t you think?”

  Rockelle said, “I do think its strange, just don’t know what to make of it yet.”

  “Could be a white guy thing,” Welborn told her.

  “What?” She thought he was messing with her.

  “Well, there could be some Asian-Americans involved, maybe even some African-Americans. What I’m getting at is a certain stratum of affluent males, mostly white, likes to affect tough-guy personas to offset the fact that they make a lot of money without doing any heavy lifting.”

  “So they buy guns?” Rockelle asked.

  “More of them than you might think,” Welborn told her. “They even practice at firing ranges and become decent marksmen. So they can feel good about themselves. Consider the wife, the kids and the home to be protected. That’s the number one reason they give for buying a weapon, protecting their homes.”

  “You read all this somewhere?” Rockelle asked.

  “As a matter of fact,” Welborn said.

  He didn’t add that he tried to make good use of all his down time at the White House and read extensively on matters that might be helpful to him in his job.

  “Interesting thing is,” he said, “a lot of these defenders of hearth and home wind up losing their weapons to burglars when they and the little lady are out of the house. Off on vacation or just out to see a movie.”

  “You getting around to something here?” Rockelle asked.

  “I am. What we have is a series of shootings done with different weapons, all of them high end. The guns could have been bought or they could have been stolen. If they were purchased legally, we’re probably out of luck. But assuming they weren’t, it might be interesting to check reports of stolen weapons in the metro area over, say, the past year and see if there’s any connection between the victims of theft and the victims of shooting.”

  Welborn drained the remainder of his bottle.

  Rockelle considered the notion.

  “Rich boy guns used to kill rich boy lobbyists?” Rockelle nodded. She liked the symmetry. “Yeah, there could be something to that.” The obvious thought crossed her mind. “So why’re you giving this to me instead of working it yourself?”

  “Just being cooperative,” Welborn said.

  “Or,” Rockelle told him, “you’ve got another angle you like better.”

  “An angle I like as much.”

  “What is it?” Rockelle asked.

  “Your reports say you could find no manufacturer information on the pig pins.”

  “Them again?”

  “Yeah,” Welborn said, “I want to see if I can find out who made them.”

  “Who made them, who sold them, who bought them?”

  “Exactly.”

  Rockelle said, “Fine. I’ll take the guns, you take the pigs.”

  To make sure he was on good terms with the Metro homicide lieutenant, Welborn asked Rockelle if she’d like to come to his wedding that Saturday at
the vice president’s house.

  “Am I going to be the only black person there?” Rockelle asked.

  Welborn told her, “You’re welcome to bring a date.”

  GWU Hospital

  McGill and Carolyn held hands and looked through a pane of glass into the room where Kenny lay sleeping. McGill thought his son looked like a poorly rendered wax likeness of himself. Only the monitors attached to him and the slight rise and fall of his chest gave any sign that he was alive. Carolyn, who had been at the hospital the whole day, had been crying soundlessly ever since McGill arrived.

  Her fingernails pressed ever deeper into the palm of his hand.

  The pain was almost an accusation that all this was his fault.

  He suffered stoically because maybe it was. Who knew?

  Neither of them could enter the room because chemo as strong as what Kenny had been given knocked the hell out of the body’s immune system. An infection that might ordinarily be fought off or treated was now as real a killer as the disease. For the same reason, neither Abbie nor Caitie had been allowed to enter the room.

  Each girl had shown up at the hospital on her own initiative. Abbie had taken public transportation. Caitie had badgered the Secret Service into chauffeuring her. Now, the two sisters slept in each other’s arms, more or less sitting upright on a sofa in a lounge at the end of the corridor.

  McGill asked his ex-wife in a quiet voice, “Did Kenny tell you he’s going to beat his disease?”

  Carolyn nodded. “Four times. The last time he was so weak I almost didn’t hear him.”

  McGill let go of Carolyn’s hand and put his arm around her shoulder.

  He said, “Let’s take him at his word then.”

  Carolyn turned her face into McGill’s chest, trying to muffle a despair that was now audible. He used his free hand to stroke the back of her head. It made no sense to him that their son had been given to them only to be taken so soon.

  But he knew other parents had certainly shared the same thought.

  Only to find out the reason for their grief would never be explained.