Founders' Keeper (A David and Martin Yerxa Thriller - Book 1)

by Ed Markham

  “That’s not your concern.”

  He smiled bitterly as he handed her the photograph. “Here I was feeling awful about myself, and it turns out you have a picture of a suspect that you’re not sharing with the public.” His expression grew cold, and he said, “Thank you, Agent Carnicero. All my prior distaste for your organization feels justified.”

  Mueller continued to fidget in his seat. Jesus, stop that, Lauren thought, though she understood his discomfort; she wanted to tell Goodman she agreed with him about the Bureau’s decision not to publish the photograph, but instead she said, “I think we’ve taken up enough of your time tonight.” She nodded to Mueller, who stood from his chair. “We’ll be in touch with your assistant and your production staff. Let them know we’ll be asking for the audience and personnel information we discussed tonight.”

  “Yes of course,” Goodman said, not smiling and not offering to shake Lauren’s hand.

  She asked him, “Can you tell me where you’ll be for the next few days?”

  Goodman regarded her with contempt. “I’ll be returning to Washington tomorrow, where I have a home. I’ll be there all weekend. If you watched my program, you’d know I’m hosting a rally there on Sunday.” He paused, and a change came over him. His face grew tight with worry. “Do you think . . . is it possible I might be in harm’s way?”

  When Lauren raised her eyebrows, he quickly added, “I mean, whoever is doing this obviously has some kind of fascination with me or my program, but we’ve no idea if that fascination is supportive or, uh, potentially malicious.”

  Lauren stared at him, and the host seemed to recognize his own hypocrisy. He straightened his broad shoulders and raised his chin, recovering a little of his former disdain.

  “No need to worry,” she said. “The FBI will beef up security for your rally. You may not like us, but we’ll still watch your back.”

  “Oh, what a relief,” he said without enthusiasm. “Considering all the success you’ve had trying to stop these murders, that makes me feel much safer.”

  Chapter 13

  DAVID LOOKED OUT at the silvery, moonlit shelf of black-gray water that extended beyond the windows of his Lincoln. He was crossing the Delaware River on Interstate 95, just an hour south of Philadelphia.

  His mind was racing, replaying again and again his conversation with Carl Wainbridge.

  “The deceased is a Pittsburgh city councilman,” Carl had told him. “His name was Arnold Larue. Police received calls about a woman screaming, and found Larue and his wife stabbed to death in their home on the city’s north side. Special Agent Campbell and his people haven’t arrived onsite yet, but we have confirmation on the snake and message.”

  David hadn’t answered right away. “You’re certain?”

  “So Larue isn’t the person you were calling me about?” Carl had asked.

  “No.”

  David started to tell him about the pattern he’d uncovered in the media reports, but Carl had interrupted him. “I’m sorry, David. I’m getting another call I need to take.”

  He’d sat for a time thinking about what Carl had told him. Eventually he’d returned to his computer and opened a search page. He typed in Councilman Larue’s name and started looking for keywords that fit the media report pattern. Ten minutes and six search pages later, he’d yet to find one. He spent another fifteen minutes looking into Larue’s wife, but that also turned up nothing.

  Sitting back in his chair, he thought about the small amount of information Carl had passed on regarding the city councilman’s death. Nothing about it was right. To begin with, two people were dead. The pale woman had never killed anyone apart from her intended target. And the information about the neighbors hearing screams . . . it seemed sloppy in comparison with the stealthy, inconspicuous nature of her previous acts. There was also the location; David couldn’t believe a Constitution obsessive wouldn’t choose Philadelphia—the document’s birthplace—for the site of her Pennsylvania slaying. None of it fit.

  “Pop,” he said into his cell phone as he left the house. “Sorry to wake you.”

  Before phoning Martin, David had put in a call to the Bureau’s switchboard. He’d asked a friend in Research to get him Judge Perry’s address.

  Martin’s voice had been gravelly with fatigue but loud as ever when he answered. “What is it?”

  David told him about the connection between the murders and Philip Goodman’s cable news program.

  “Christ,” Martin had said. “I watch Goodman sometimes. He’s about the only one of them I can stand. How the hell did I miss that?”

  David related his misgivings about the latest victim, as well as the pattern he’d recognized in the media reports. “I’m driving up to Philly. I think this judge is her next target.”

  “Come on up,” Martin had said, the sleep gone from his voice. “I’ll be waiting.”

  “How would you feel about waiting at Perry’s? To keep an eye out?”

  “I’d feel just fine about it.”

  He gave Martin the judge’s address, and then put in a call to the Philadelphia Police Department to report a suspicious person lurking outside of the judge’s home. “We’ll send someone over to take a look around,” the PPD desk officer had said. “Can I ask your name, sir?”

  David had hung up without answering. Martin called forty minutes later to say he’d arrived outside the judge’s house just in time to see a Philadelphia Police cruiser pull away.

  “All quiet here,” he’d said.

  “I’ll be there in about an hour,” David had answered.

  The moon had dipped most of the way down to the horizon as David exited I-95 and made his way onto the expressway, heading north along the banks of the Schuylkill River toward the city’s northern reaches. There were few other cars on the road as he passed the tan, illuminated bulk of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, sitting high on its hill above the waterworks promenade and the cuckoo-clock structures of Boathouse Row. He exited the expressway onto the tree-shaded, creek-hugging curves of Lincoln Avenue and meandered his way north toward Judge Perry’s affluent neighborhood.

  As he passed the dark, silent houses—many built of stone and mortar in the late 1700s—David felt a rush of foreboding. The sudden peal of his cell phone nearly made him flinch. Pop, he said to himself as he pressed a button on his steering wheel to answer the call. But it wasn’t his father calling.

  “David.” The man’s voice was shot through with urgency. “This is Jared Campbell. I’m in Pittsburgh at this murdered councilman’s house. Carl told me he gave you the details.” There was a short pause. “The snake and the message—they’re not a match. If you saw them you’d know in a heartbeat. Some copycat is trying to pin this on our guy. I don’t have time to go into all of it now, but Carl said you had a lead on the next victim?”

  David started to answer, but then he thought of his father standing sentry alone at the judge’s house—probably armed with nothing but his coffee mug.

  “Judge Lawrence Perry,” he said as he stamped his foot down on the accelerator. His vehicle leapt forward. “I’ll be at the judge’s home in five minutes. Send backup.”

  “What the hell are you—” Campbell started to say, but David hung up on him.

  As he sped up one of the steep, tree-lined swells of Wissahickon Avenue, he tried three times to reach his father’s cell phone. There was no answer.

  Chapter 14

  THE STATELY OLD homes were still and lightless as Edith’s SUV rolled slowly toward the end of the private lane. Behind the houses on her left, well-manicured lawns blended into a wooded valley that sloped down severely to the Wissahickon Creek. To her right, a plank fence separated the road from a wooded hillside that flowed upward toward a dense copse of trees, beyond which she could just see the dormered peaks of a brick and timber Tudor-revival mansion.

  She parked along the curve of the private lane’s cul-de-sac, leaving the car pointing in the direction from which she’d come. She walked t
o the back of the SUV and retrieved what she needed, then she locked her vehicle.

  As she approached the fence, she tried not to imagine the eyes that could be watching her from the dark windows of the adjacent houses. She put one hand on the fence’s topmost board and worked herself between its planks. Her breathing was calm and rhythmic as she made her way up the hill and through the woods to the back of the house.

  She had planned to cut a ring in one of the glass windowpanes of the back door that led into the kitchen. But to her surprise, the door was unlocked.

  The light above the kitchen stove burned a quiet yellow as she stepped into the house and removed her shoes. She left them on the mat near the back door and took a few moments to let her eyes adjust to the light. The room smelled of wood polish and herbs, and somewhere in the dark silence she could hear a clock ticking.

  Or maybe that’s only your imagination, she thought. She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her now, heating the blood in her arms and legs and delivering a pleasant rush of lightness to her head. It was always like this at the start, and it gave her some comfort to feel her body readying itself for what was to come. Enjoy this final moment of peace, she told herself.

  She stood for a few seconds, soaking in the quiet darkness. Then she moved on.

  As she walked down the wide corridor that connected the house’s kitchen to its front hall, her reflection flickered in the glass of each of the picture frames hanging on the wall. They showed the judge and his wife with friends and family, with children and grandchildren. Edith didn’t look at them.

  When she reached the front staircase, she paused again and stood listening. She heard nothing, and started to climb, mindful to walk only on the outer edges of each step where she would be less likely to disturb unseen creaks or groans.

  She paused at the top of the stairs, again waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  At the end of the hallway, she could see that the door to the master bedroom was slightly ajar. She pulled from her pocket a small vial of almond-brown liquid. As she moved down the hallway, she could feel the cold bulk of the Colt revolver against her hip. She stopped at the threshold to the bedroom and removed the top from the vial. Her hand was steady as she dribbled the grease onto each of the door hinges to ensure they would not betray her. She re-capped the vial, slipped it into her pocket, and withdrew a syringe. The door swung open soundlessly.

  Inside the room, a wide four-poster bed protruded like a tongue from one wall. Edith’s eyes played over the gently heaving bedspread, and then grew wide.

  Only one! her mind shrieked, and she could suddenly feel her heartbeat thundering in her temples. Only one lump beneath the sheets. Only one body. ONLY ONE.

  Chapter 15

  MARTIN RAISED THE mug to his lips and tipped in a swallow of the dark liquid.

  Still hot, he thought with satisfaction. Even on a warm night like this one, he liked his coffee steaming, and his travel mug had never failed him in that regard. He wished he’d remembered to grab his cigarettes from the freezer. It was well after midnight, so technically he could smoke one if he felt like it. And he felt like it.

  Sitting in his car facing the corner of the judge’s home, he had sightlines on both the east and north boundaries of the property, as well as a view of the entrance to the road that swept along the far side of the mansion.

  He looked at his wristwatch and saw it was 4:12. In three minutes, he would drive down again to the private lane at the bottom of the wooded hill abutting the property, which he’d been checking every quarter hour.

  He felt a little tired but also alert, and grateful he’d decided to have only one whisky earlier that evening. This kind of surveillance work brought him back to his early days in the Bureau, especially the time he’d spent working Organized Crime in New York. He missed those days, but he wasn’t sentimental about the past. Move forward, or beg to be buried, he liked to say.

  His eyes played along the edges of the judge’s well-kept lawn, watching for signs of movement. As he did his sentinel’s duty, he thought of David and looked forward to seeing him. He’d felt rotten leaving his son after their argument, but he knew there was nothing else to be done about it. Experience had taught him that time was the best repairman, and the wound between them would heal more quickly if he didn’t pick at it.

  He hummed softly to himself without realizing it; The Drifter’s “Up On the Boardwalk” was still in his head.

  A couple minutes passed and he started his engine. He pulled forward past the front of the judge’s dark house and made his way down and around to the private lane on the other side of the wooded hill. On his previous four trips, the street had been empty. But now he saw a dark vehicle parked at the far end of the cul-de-sac. He stopped humming.

  Looking at the SUV, he recalled the treads Forensics had discovered behind Mitchell Cosgrove’s home. He pulled across the road so that he was facing the vehicle and turned on his brights, illuminating the truck’s cabin. He could see no one inside. He left his own car running and stepped from it, giving the SUV a wide berth as he made his way toward the driver’s side door. His eyes flashed from the vehicle’s cabin to the fence and wooded field separating the road from the judge’s home. Peering into the vehicle, he could see nothing on the front or back seats. The trunk area was covered by a blue tarp.

  He stepped back and looked up the hill toward the back of the judge’s house, and then he walked quickly to his car. He switched it off and opened his trunk, where a digital safe was bolted to the floor. He typed in the combination and withdrew his old Bureau-issued Smith and Wesson 9mm semi-auto. As always, he checked the clip and made sure the safety was on, then he slipped it into his belt at his lower back. He grabbed a flashlight from the duffel bag that never left his car, and made his way between the fence rails and up the hill toward the judge’s home.

  Chapter 16

  FOR THREE TERRIFYING seconds, Edith heard only the ringing of silence in her ears.

  She stared wide-eyed at the single body outlined beneath the judge’s bed linens, and her mouth twisted in a grimace of disbelief. The darkness of the room threatened to choke her.

  Then a sharp noise shattered the quiet. It was the sound of a man clearing his throat.

  She spun wildly and fought to suppress the scream that had worked its way to her lips.

  Soft orange light lined the edges of a closed door on the far side of the bedroom—the glow of a nightlight, she thought. She realized there was someone awake and in the master bathroom, and she heard him clear his throat again.

  Without hesitating, she took five quick strides to the side of the bed where the solitary body lay motionless beneath the covers. She saw dark hair draped across a pillow, and she lifted the edge of the comforter to reveal the fleshy shoulders and back of a middle-aged woman. The shoulders stirred, and Edith plunged the needle down into the skin of the woman’s neck. She depressed the plunger, emptying the syringe’s contents into the groaning body.

  As she did this, she heard the bathroom toilet flush. She turned toward the sound, leaving the syringe hanging from the woman’s throat. As she withdrew the Colt revolver from her pocket, she could hear the woman gasping for air. She felt a burst of exhilaration—of anticipation mixed with relief.

  The bathroom door opened and the silhouette of a man appeared, outlined by the weak orange of the night light. He was short and round, and wore a white undershirt and boxers that flared unattractively at his thighs. He took two steps toward the bed, his eyes not yet seeing through the inky darkness. Edith switched on a lamp on the bedside table, and the man released a shout of alarm.

  “Don’t move, don’t speak,” she said. The calmness she heard in her own voice reassured her.

  “What the hell is—” the man began to say, but then he saw the gun. He raised a hand to his mouth, muffling another shout. His eyes leapt from Edith to his wife’s motionless body, where the syringe stood out from her neck like a flagpole.

&nb
sp; “Judge Perry,” Edith said. “Your wife is alive. I’ve only sedated her. But unless you do exactly as I say, I’ll kill you both.”

  The man’s cheeks began to twitch, and Edith felt her anger and her confidence swell. She turned and pressed the barrel of the revolver against the woman’s temple.

  “NO,” the judge said. He took a quick step forward, but then thought better of it and retreated.

  “Do as I tell you, and I won’t hurt her,” she heard herself say. She felt stronger now that she could brace herself against her anger. “Put some clothes on. If you turn to face me without asking for permission, I’ll shoot your wife in the face.”

  The judge let out a small groan of distress. He focused his eyes on the ground as though trying to collect himself.

  “Don’t think,” she said. “Get dressed.”

  She watched intently as the judge’s paunchy bulk moved across the floor of the bedroom to a standing bureau. He retrieved from it a pair of khaki shorts and a half-zip sweatshirt, and she looked on as he struggled to pull the garments onto his walrus-y frame. When he’d finished, she instructed him to step into the center of the room with his hands laced behind his head. She could tell from his face that he’d regained some measure of composure, and this recognition unsettled her. She took a step toward him. When he flinched, she felt her strength return.

  “Who are you?” the judge stammered.

  “DON’T SPEAK,” Edith snarled at him, forcing him back two paces. She moved away from the bed, keeping the gun trained on his stomach. “Pick up your wife and carry her downstairs.”

  The judge nodded and walked to the edge of the bed. Edith watched as he bent at the waist and attempted to slide his arms under his wife’s body.

  “Not like that,” she said. “You’re far too fat. Kneel down and pull her onto your shoulder.”