by Rachel Lee
He looked at her so hard and so long that she finally stepped back. A black rage filled him, filled every corner of his heart and soul.
"I shouldn't even dignify that with a comment," he said shortly. "But I will. It's a lie. A damned lie. And if you print that damned lie, I will sue you on behalf of my daughters. Got that?"
Not waiting for her response, he turned and strode into the building.
The feeding frenzy had begun.
* * *
Before Grant arrived in his office, Jerry Connally brought Sam Weldon into Jerry's private office, next to Grant's. Out front, the staff was beginning to gather for the day's labors.
"Colombia," Sam said, taking a bite from a bagel that smelled as if it had just come out of the oven. "We can't ignore it."
Sam was Jerry's right-hand man, almost in the way he himself was Grant's right hand. No one man could keep his eye on everything, hence the need for a number of advisors.
But there was a major difference between the relationships. Jerry was Grant's friend from all the way back. Sam was an employee, hired away from a think tank. Jerry sometimes suspected that Sam cherished political aspirations of his own, because he sure wasn't making as much money here. Regardless, over the past four years, Sam had proved himself time and time again in foreign affairs—and a few other areas, as needed.
While they didn't always agree with his assessments, Sam had never yet failed to provide the facts and a reasoned course of action.
Jerry sighed. "We're not ignoring Colombia, Sam. We just aren't ready to act."
"The situation has changed, Jerry. It's not in this morning's papers, but it'll be on tonight's news. My source just e-mailed me an AP wire story."
And probably e-mailed the same story to nearly everyone in Congress, Jerry thought wryly. Or maybe not. The exchange was a simple one: in exchange for the heads-up on news stories of national importance, Sam made sure his contact got news out of the senator's office sooner. And, on occasion, exclusively. Jerry suspected the exclusivity, when it existed, was all one-sided. But that was how the game was played.
"What happened?"
"You read that there's been an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in two small villages in the Colombian highlands, right?"
Jerry leaned forward. "Wait, back up a minute. A couple of weeks ago, some humanitarian aid convoys were bushwhacked on their way into the highlands. This is something different?"
"Those convoys were bringing food. The fighting has wiped out farms. FARC guerillas fighting the government. Colombian troops—with some of our advisors, on the sly—fighting the drug cartels…and the guerillas. My source in the Pentagon tells me we tried to defoliate a cocaine crop and took out most of the vegetables for three villages."
"So this…illness…is new?"
Sam nodded. "In the last week. And, Jerry, it's not just any illness. It's a hemorrhagic fever. Nobody is sure what kind yet. But let me paint you a picture. Have you heard of Ebola?"
"Yes, of course. We had that flap a few years back when it appeared some infected monkeys had come in through Richmond or someplace."
"Well, it's a helluva bug, with a high mortality rate. Fortunately, Ebola isn't airborne, so it can be contained. This particular hemorrhagic fever is every bit as bad, and it spreads faster. One village has been wiped out. At least two others have been infected."
"Okay. So the U.N…."
"Sir, that's what I'm trying to tell you. The U.N. sent in a World Health Organization team. It was manned in part by personnel from CDC, with an assortment from the European nations. Last evening the WHO team was ambushed. Two British nurses dove under a truck and crawled away into the bush. Colombian troops found them six hours later. As for the rest…eleven dead, including five Americans."
Jerry sat back. "Shit," he said succinctly.
"The situation is grave, Jerry. Very grave. The senator has to make a statement. He has to call for U.S. troops to protect the U.N. teams, so they can reach the infected sites."
Jerry shook his head slowly. "Sam, I know Grant. He's not going to sign off on that. Colombia is a mess…politically, economically, socially. All we'll do down there is kill and die and eventually walk, leaving the same problems we found when we got there. He's going to apply just-war doctrine. It's a moral issue for him, and he's not going to bend."
God, he felt filthy even saying that, given his own recent crime. Inside, his very soul seemed to shudder.
"Jerry, listen to me. This is Grant's opportunity to appear presidential, forceful and strong. If he speaks out now in favor of intervention, nobody will doubt his guts just because he never served in the military."
"Franklin Roosevelt never served in the military, either. Nobody doubted his guts."
Sam spread his hands. "Jerry, we can't afford to waffle on this one. That disease could put millions at risk."
Jerry shook his head again. "We're not waffling on this. Not at all. The senator is taking a very strong, very difficult position. He is insisting that the Colombians sort out their own civil war. And that's what it is, Sam."
"You hired me because of my ability to gauge public opinion and come up with rational foreign affairs policy."
"Yes, we did. But Grant Lawrence isn't going to sell his soul for a few votes. Some things are too important."
After Sam left, Jerry sat staring at the glass globe on his desk, a sour taste filling his mouth. Some things are too important? Yeah, right. Brave words coming from a man who'd done what he had.
Then he went in to tell the senator that he had to make a strong call for the State Department to step in and find a way for the WHO teams to reach the highlands safely. Maybe it wouldn't have to come to saber rattling.
Unfortunately, all he could see looming on the horizon was a bank of ugly, dark clouds.
14
Karen sat on a park bench in front of the hospital, waiting for Detective Tyson to pick her up. It was a pleasant spring morning, cooler than she was used to at home at this time of year, but comfortable. It seemed she had not been wrong to follow this case to Washington, given what Jerry Connally had told her about the accident.
The problem was, the accident could have been just that. An accident. It could have been utterly coincidental that those reporters had been right around the corner.
Although, in her business, she wasn't too inclined to believe in coincidence. The truth was usually obvious enough that it stood up and bit you on the nose. It usually was the husband, the wife, the lover.
And it was time to get back to work. She turned on her cell phone, and almost immediately the voice mail icon blinked at her. She dialed in and heard Previn's voice. He had news; she should call when she could. Closing the voice mail connection, she called him at the office.
"What's up, Dave?"
"I heard you got knocked around a bit, Karen."
"Minor concussion. The good news is that they did an MRI, and I do, in fact, have a brain."
Previn laughed. "Have the hospital send a copy down here. We'll put it on the bulletin board in the squad room, for when Simpson comes storming out asking 'Does anyone here have a brain?"'
"Not a bad idea," Karen said. "Although I can imagine the graffiti. 'Clean thoughts here,' with a tiny circle. 'Dirty thoughts here,' with a huge blob."
"What don't I know about you?"
It was her turn to laugh. "Nothing you're ever likely to learn. So…you said you had news?"
"Yes, I do. Turns out Stacy Wiggins and Alissa Jurgen had written each other into their wills. Jurgen gets the whole studio."
"Sounds like a typical business arrangement," Karen said. "Do you think there's something more?"
"Well, Jurgen's an admitted lesbian, and she had a case for Wiggins. It was not requited love."
He'd said "admitted lesbian" as if it were a crime. Karen bit back the urge to call him on it. "I knew that. Those things happen for everyone, Dave. Straights and gays."
"You're right," he said. "And I'd say the same thin
g if it were a straight situation. Jealousy and greed are two of the classic motives for homicide. Put them both together and it's worth a look."
"True. Although we don't know that Jurgen was jealous. We don't even know if Wiggins was seeing anyone. Jurgen only mentioned an ex."
She paused for a moment to rub her eyes and put on her sunglasses. The doctors had told her that bright light might bother her for a couple of days.
"I don't know, Dave. She didn't read like the type who could do what happened to Stacy Wiggins."
"Maybe not. On the other hand, she's a big woman. I'm guessing five-ten, at least. And she has to be in great shape, teaching dance and all." He paused for a moment. "And she has a temper."
"Oh?"
"I pressed her a bit. Love spurned. Now she gets the business. I didn't come right out and accuse her, but she got the message that I see her as a suspect."
Karen could imagine the scene. Previn still needed to work on his interviewing skills. "And?"
"And she threw me out. She kept it in check, but I could see the fire in her eyes. The look she gave me…Karen, I know angry women."
He did. Linda's outbursts were volcanic. She'd thrown a cup of punch in his face at the office Christmas party one year because he'd jokingly kissed Simpson under a sprig of mistletoe. The laughter had died in a heartbeat. On the other hand, perhaps his wife's rages had made him hypersensitive.
"Well, it's something to look into," she said. "See if you can find out where she was that night. But, Dave?"
"Yes?"
"Do it discreetly. Try to avoid the students and their parents, if you can. If she's innocent, I'd rather not have ruined her livelihood."
"We'll see," he said.
It wasn't the assurance she'd hoped for, but it would have to do. She had just hung up the phone when a car pulled up and a heavyset black man leaned across the front seat to the window.
"Detective Sweeney?" he asked. She nodded and rose, gathering her discharge forms under one arm. He pushed open the passenger door and extended his hand. "Terry Tyson, D.C. Homicide."
"A pleasure, Detective."
"Terry is fine," he said. "It used to be just Tyson, until that idiot bit off Holyfield's ear. I'm not going to change my name, though."
"No relation, I'm sure," she said.
"Actually, I'm told we're third cousins twice removed or some such. Not that I give a frog's hair. And you'll want to change clothes, I'm sure."
She'd had nothing to wear out of the hospital except the dress she'd worn to the party. "Yes, I would, if you can spare the time."
He laughed. It was a hearty laugh that rolled from deep in his ample belly. "I can spare all the time you want, as long as you don't want more than twenty-two days."
"What happens then?" she asked, after telling him the name of her hotel.
"Then," he said, "I get my gold watch and look for retirement villas in Florida."
"Just what we need," she quipped. "Another retiree. God's waiting room."
"God's gonna have Him a long wait," Terry said. "I've quit smoking, got my blood pressure down. The wife, you know. She says she's waited thirty years for a husband, and she's damn sure not gonna lose me just when I'm available."
"Wives can be that way."
"Lord, tell me about it. I told her I'd quit smoking if we could…you know…every day. She told me if I quit, we could do it three times a day. I haven't touched a cigarette in three months."
"Congratulations," Karen said. "On both counts."
He laughed again. The ice was broken. They could work together. "So, Detective, what is it that brings you to this lovely city that I can't wait to get the hell out of?"
Karen took a moment to regard his eyes. Easy to miss in his jovial demeanor were the intelligence and activity in those eyes.
"I figured Simpson had briefed you," she said simply.
"Oh, he did. But I've been a detective too long to trust lieutenants. So…what do you know, what don't you know, and what do you think you'll learn here in D.C.?"
She took a breath, a moment to organize her thoughts. "I know Grant Lawrence is high on the list of potential Democratic presidential nominees. I know he's pushing hard for an environmental bill, the success of which would establish him as someone who can forge a bipartisan bloc to get things done in Congress. I know that Abigail Reese was his nanny, a lifelong presence, and she was brutally murdered. I know his home office files were broken into, although it looks like nothing else was touched. I know there are powerful interests that oppose his bill, and I'm sure there are interests that would oppose his candidacy. And I know someone is stirring the rumor mill, possibly to the point of staging the accident Sunday night to create a scandal."
He nodded. "That's a good start. What don't you know?"
"Now that's a long list," Karen said. "Who killed Abby Reese? Was it politically motivated? Was it a conspiracy, or just some druggie who broke into a rich man's house trying to score some cash? How far are Randall Youngblood and his confederates willing to go to block this bill? Who set up the accident? Who's planting the rumors? I could go on, but you get the idea."
"Makes sense." He drew a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled slowly. Then, glancing over at her, he said, "Something I learned that helps to quit smoking. Take deep sighs several times an hour. Anyway, your case. How long since the murder?"
"Two weeks." Karen knew that meant a largely cold trail. As a rule of thumb, a homicide that wasn't solved within forty-eight hours was going to mean a long, difficult and all-too-often stalled investigation. "There weren't any fresh leads to chase down in Tampa, so it made sense to sniff around up here."
Tyson drew his hand over his chin in slow, rhythmic movements. "I've been a cop for just almost thirty years now. A detective for twenty-five of those years. Homicide for twenty. I've come up with a way of working a case. I look at the core of a case first, victim, crime scene evidence, family and friends, known associates and enemies. That's most of your murders, right there. When that doesn't work, I find the farthest piece of fringe there is and start fraying at it. Sooner or later, you get to the middle."
Karen smiled. "I wouldn't have put it in those words, but that's pretty much how I work, too. You might say that coming up here is fraying at the fringe."
"Maybe," he said. "But not if, while you're up here, you're sniffing around the big dogs. That part of the case isn't going to unravel yet. If it were, it would have already. No, Detective, we need to find us some real fringe and commence to fraying on it."
"Like?"
He winked, though the rest of his features had settled into a poker face. It was a grim wink. "Like who set up that car accident."
* * *
An hour later, Karen had showered and changed into work clothes: a pair of khaki slacks, a navy blue cotton top and a slate-gray blazer. Tyson was waiting in the hallway outside her room.
He nodded as she emerged. "The plainclothes uniform. It's the same everywhere, I guess."
"Pretty much. At least I don't have to wear a tie."
Tyson tugged his collar a bit looser. "Twenty-two more days. Now we need to get a late lunch."
Karen hesitated. Now that she was out of confinement, she wasn't eager to be delayed any longer. But she was, she acknowledged, operating as a guest of the D.C. police. "Sure," she said.
"I know you're champing at the bit."
She glanced at him. "It shows?"
"Hell no. You got a good poker face, Sweeney. But I'd be champing at the bit if I were you. Sorry, but lunch is essential. I'm diabetic."
"That's rough."
"My fault. Too many doughnuts." He patted his belly and let out that deep engaging laugh. "No more doughnuts for me, but I can still hit a greasy spoon."
Which was exactly where he took her, a place that served breakfast round the clock and food that would make the American Heart Association quail. And all of it was delicious.
While they ate, he slid a manila envelope across
the table to her. "While you were showering, I did a little checking.
"Reports and statements on the accident. You'll want to read them, but here's the nutshell. Y'all were headed north on K Street, crossing over Nineteenth, when a gray Taurus driven by Walter Russell overtook you in the left lane. At that point, a white Beemer came flying out of Nineteenth from the left. Russell says he swerved to avoid the Beemer and bumped your limo, but the Beemer drove right on into him and slammed him harder into y'all. The Beemer was stolen. The driver got out and skipped the scene before anyone got a look at him. That's what we know."
"Okay," she said. It pretty much fit what Jerry had told her already.
"What we don't know is who was driving the Beemer, and who called in the phony tip to the Times, which put their reporters a half block away from, but not in sight of, the accident scene."
"Convenient staging," she said.
He nodded. "Or coincidence, except the phony tip makes me think it's not a coincidence. Which means there was at least one more player. Someone to let the driver of the stolen Beemer know when you were coming into position."
"Russell?" she asked.
"Nope. His cell phone hadn't been used all night, and there was no walkie-talkie in his car. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"So where does that leave us?"
"After lunch, we're going to the impound lot. I wanna show you something."
Another hour passed before they even left for the lot, and the drive was a long one. By that time, Karen was really getting antsy.
Terry pulled into the impound lot and stopped in front of a white BMW, the front of which was crumpled. Flecks of gray paint were stippled over the bumper and right fender.
"That leaves us here," he said, walking over to the driver's side door. Black powder clung to the handle, window and door frame, and the rearview mirror.
"Any prints?"
He laughed. "Of course not. There are smudges, most likely from leather gloves, but that won't get us anywhere. We did, however, catch a break."
He pointed to the deflated air bag. A rectangular hole had been cut from it, near the top. "Seems it didn't fully inflate before he made impact. The way I figure it, he was leaning forward at the time. Trying to look around the corner for y'all. He didn't have time to lean back before the crash, so he hit the steering wheel as the bag was deploying. The lab guys found a couple of fragments of teeth, and cut out a blood smear."