WINNER TAKES ALL

by Robert Bidinotto

  “Oh, God. The poor woman.” He hung his head. “This is horrible . . . unbelievable.”

  She had to say something.

  “It is horrible. But I don’t understand why you are telling us this. Why are you here?”

  Owens said, “We have been trying to track her movements since her husband’s death. We learned from her email records that she had moved here. Then we discovered that Mr. Trammel had paid for her apartment. We spent some time questioning the staff and some other residents here, and we found out that over two weeks ago she had met a man here in the lobby for what appeared to the witnesses to be a date. While she was waiting for him, she asked some of the staff if they knew anything about a Georgetown restaurant, Petit Plaisir. And that’s how—”

  “What did you say?” Avery said, jerking his head up. “Did you say Petit Plaisir?”

  “That’s right. Does that mean something to you?”

  “Yes. Yes! She had called me to ask if I could recommend a superior restaurant, and I told her that a Post reviewer gave that one a high rating. But I told her it was exceedingly expensive. She sounded disappointed. Again, you understand this was a woman who once could have afforded the best, but had lost everything. So, feeling sorry for her, I told her I would be pleased to make reservations for her, and that if she wished, she could take a friend—my treat.”

  Julia listened, incredulous—and trying not to show it.

  “Okay, that would explain it,” Cushing said to Owens.

  “To what are you referring?” Avery asked.

  “We checked out all the reservations at Petit Plaisir for the past several weeks, sir. We found you had made a reservation for April 28th for Mrs. Conn and ‘friend,’ billed to your card. Our investigation suggests that a man came here to pick her up on that evening, and that they dined together at the restaurant. But the waiters and hostess recall she seemed to become tipsy or maybe ill, and the man escorted her out. We’ve retrieved security camera videos that show the two of them leaving here, then arriving at and later leaving the restaurant, in the same stolen car where her body was found. We haven’t been able to identify the man in the video footage, though.”

  “So that is why you are here,” Avery said. “You saw those financial links to me.”

  “Yes, sir. Now, we’ve found out the man who was with Mrs. Conn doesn’t match your description at all. But just to settle things, do you recall where you were on the evening of April 28th?”

  “I do. I certainly do. I was at a meeting in my New York office with my staff. They can vouch for my presence. I remember because I phoned Mrs. Conn from Reagan airport in the mid-afternoon, to confirm the restaurant reservations with her. I am sure I can provide you the flight information. Also, I stayed overnight at the Grand Hyatt. That too is easily confirmed.”

  Owens nodded. “All right, thank you. Did Mrs. Conn happen to mention the name of the person she would be having dinner with?”

  He shook his head. “She did not. Or if she did, I cannot recall.”

  “Look, I’ll be honest with you. We’re puzzled about the circumstances of her death. Why does a senator’s widow go off to dinner with a man driving a stolen car? On its face, it doesn’t make sense. Is there anything you can think of or know about Mrs. Conn that might help us?”

  She watched Avery looking around the room, as if casting about for answers. Then his expression changed.

  “You remember something?” Cushing prompted.

  “I—” He stopped. Then continued softly, as if arguing with himself. “No. No, that is just ugly rumor. I do not wish to dignify . . .”

  “What is it?” Owens urged.

  Avery met his eyes. “It is unfair to say anything negative about people no longer here to defend their reputations. Particularly when it is only rumor. So, please treat what I am about to say with discretion. When I was raising money for Ash Conn’s presidential campaign, there were rumors floating about concerning the nature of his relationship with Mrs. Conn. The scuttlebutt was that they had an ‘open marriage’ and often sought out other partners, sometimes complete strangers. At the time, I put little stock in any of that gossip; after all, smears are the currency of the political world . . . Still, the rumors were persistent.”

  Cushing looked at Owens again. “That explains what we found on his computer at their house.”

  “Then it is true?”

  “It’s still all speculation, sir. But, based on what you knew of her, do you think it’s possible this man could have been someone she met casually—someone she barely knew?”

  “How would I know?” He spread his hands. “It is possible, I suppose.”

  Avery looked at her again.

  “My God. You think you know someone, and then it turns out they were not at all what you thought.”

  She nodded, but had to turn away. “It’s hard to believe.”

  After they had left, Julia poured him a brandy, but then excused herself. She went to her office, locking the door behind her.

  That’s when she began to shake, uncontrollably.

  His lies had been so fluid, so easy, so persuasive . . . to anyone who didn’t know him as she did.

  She had no idea how or why he might have been involved in Emmalee Conn’s murder. But from what she knew of him, and had seen—hidden in his office, and exposed on his face and lips moments earlier—she had no doubt he was involved.

  Ever since she discovered his secrets, she had been paralyzed by fear. Now she was more frightened of him than ever. But she was no longer paralyzed.

  This changed everything.

  She opened the top drawer of her desk and rummaged around.

  It took her only a few seconds to find Dylan Hunter’s business card.

  FORTY-THREE

  “What’s wrong?”

  Startled, Annie looked up from her desk. Grant stood in the open doorway of her small office, hands in the pockets of his gray suit trousers, brows knitted into a look of concern over wintry eyes.

  “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

  He stepped in and closed the door behind him.

  “Don’t lie to me. I’ve passed by three times today, and each time you’ve either been staring into space, or huddled over your desk fiddling with your ring.” His eyes moved to her hands. “Like now.”

  She withdrew them from the desktop. “It’s personal, Grant.”

  “No doubt,” he said, claiming the visitor’s chair. “But not when it starts to affect your work. What’s going on with you and Dylan?”

  She avoided his gaze. “Just more of the same.”

  “It looks more serious than that. Come on, Annie. Tell me.”

  She hesitated for a few seconds. Then, under the weight of his silence and penetrating gaze, she gave it up and told him.

  He tapped a fist lightly against an open palm, making little slapping sounds.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you two had come to terms.”

  “It was so out-of-the-blue, Grant. I just don’t understand.”

  “No? You do realize the same day he came to see you, he watched a presidential candidate he liked get gunned down, right in front of him, by a shooter who then tried to kill him. And before that was the trauma of the terrorist bombing . . . I’m curious: Did he ever tell you about the mother and baby?”

  “He mentioned them, yes. But only in passing.”

  He grunted. “Just like him. Well, I was with him afterward. I can’t begin to tell you how much that affected him. He had just spoken with them, minutes before. Afterwards, he found a piece of the baby’s doll in the rubble.”

  “Oh!” She shuddered. “That’s . . . hideous.”

  “You know, every time he remembers them, he’s probably thinking about you, and any child you might have together. He’s terrified that would happen to you, if you stay together. Because it almost did. And he can’t allow that.”

  Her desperate grip on hope began to slip away.

  “Grant—what can I do?”

 
; He regarded her steadily. “I don’t know, Annie. Because—as a man—I understand how he feels. And I’m not sure he isn’t right.”

  It made her angry.

  “I can’t accept that,” she snapped. “I won’t.”

  His flinty features had sagged. He looked weary, and by more than their words to each other. Perhaps by a job in which tragedy was too often the outcome.

  “I worry about you, you know.” His gravelly voice was softer. “You were supposed to have a much-needed vacation at his cabin, but it turned into a nightmare. Now you’ve come back to more of the same.”

  She didn’t respond. She contemplated the light from her desk lamp sparking on her engagement ring.

  “Annie, it’s clear you can’t focus right now. I think you need to take some real time off—away from all of this.”

  “No!” She rose to her feet. “I’m not going anywhere. I have a job to do right now and, damn it, Grant, I’m going to finish it!”

  “See how wrought up you are? You’re proving my point.”

  She took her seat again. Tried to steady herself before she spoke.

  “Look, I need to do this. I’m making a lot of progress. Besides, I can’t afford to dwell on what’s happening between Dylan and me. I need to keep busy. Please, Grant—don’t pull me off this. Not now.”

  He sat motionless, long legs crossed, long fingers steepled, watching her, his pale eyes unflinching, unrevealing.

  “All right,” he said at last. “You’ve come this far. You’ve earned this, Annie.”

  She sighed in relief. “Thank you, Grant.”

  “So, what’s your next step?”

  “I’m cooking up some irresistible bait.”

  2

  It was difficult to meet privately and discreetly in Washington with someone as recognizable as Julia Haight. A restaurant or other public location, where she and Hunter would be seen, was out of the question. A hotel room would afford privacy, but she would be out of place entering any pedestrian hotel.

  So Hunter booked a spacious, elegant suite in The Jefferson, one of the nation’s finest luxury hotels. He arrived at the three o’clock check-in time, arranged for hors d’oeuvres, wine, and coffee service to be sent to the room, then headed there to wait. Meanwhile, reasonably disguised beneath a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses, Julia also summoned a cab from her apartment and arrived a half hour after he did. Heads turned as she entered and crossed the ornate lobby to the polished brass elevator.

  In the room, Hunter took her hat and coat as she put away the sunglasses in her purse. He noticed the drawn lines of stress on her face, the flickers of anxiety in her eyes. He seated her on the sofa, before a glass-topped coffee table bearing the refreshments, and poured a glass of Pinot Grigio to relax her.

  Then he took the armchair at the end of the table and a sip of Cabernet.

  “From what you hinted at on the phone, this is a brave thing you are doing, Julia.”

  She shook her head emphatically, sending ripples through her auburn hair.

  “I’m not brave, Dylan. If I were, I wouldn’t have settled for a man like Avery. Perhaps there was an excuse back then for an insecure young woman searching for a better father figure—that’s what it really was, you know. You see, I had fame and money, but no self-esteem. I still felt like a loser. But Avery was the epitome of a winner. Money, fame, power . . . he had it all.” She sighed. “Or so it seemed.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were just a kid.”

  “But there’s no excuse for me in the years since them. Deep down, I sensed something very wrong about him. If I were truly brave, I would have asked more questions and demanded more answers. I would have looked for the truth about him, instead of hiding from it and making excuses for him. Now . . .” She gave a little shrug. “Now, I’m terrified of him. Petrified. But after what I’ve seen and heard, I couldn’t live with myself if I kept silent.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  She picked up the small purse she’d set beside her on the sofa, opened it, then fished out a gray thumb drive.

  “I see you’ve set up your laptop over on the desk.” She handed him the drive. “You need to see what’s on here.”

  They went to the desk; he dragged his armchair over for her. He inserted the thumb drive into the computer and let it auto-launch the photo software.

  “I’ve set this up as a slide show,” she explained. “I’ll tell you what the images are as it runs.”

  Within the first two minutes, Hunter knew exactly what he was seeing. The gun and ammo. The fake passports. The burst transmitter and burners. The Order of Lenin . . .

  For the next eighteen minutes Hunter sat riveted and numb—barely able to speak or ask questions—while image after image revealed the terrible truth about the man known to the world as Avery Trammel.

  When the slide show stopped, he turned to her.

  “I was wrong, Julia. When I said that this was a brave thing you are doing. It’s way more than that. It’s an act of heroism. I can’t tell you how important this is”—he stressed the next words—“or how dangerous.”

  Her lips grew tight. “I figured that much. So . . . am I right that he’s some kind of Russian spy?”

  “I don’t think there can be any doubt.”

  “But there’s more,” she said. “I am certain he was having an affair with Ashton Conn’s widow. Emmalee Conn—the woman they just found murdered. And I’m just as certain he had something to do with that, too . . . I see that shocks you. Well, imagine how it shocks me.”

  “I thought I’d already reached my capacity to be shocked. Why do you suspect him?”

  She spent the next few minutes explaining.

  Afterward, he remained still and silent. He was vaguely aware she was watching him while he tried to fit all the pieces together. She broke into his thoughts.

  “So, I suppose the next step is to turn him in to the police, or the FBI.”

  “Maybe,” he said, still looking away and mulling it over.

  “Why ‘maybe’?”

  He switched his focus back to her.

  “Julia, thanks to you, I think what we have here is more than enough for the FBI to launch an investigation. But I know how long these espionage and criminal investigations take. They’ll want to watch him, bug him, trace all his finances and track his movements, find out who all his associates are, try to connect him to other spies. It could take years.

  “Meanwhile, there are other problems. If the police investigation into Emmalee Conn’s murder proceeds, it could interfere with the FBI espionage investigation. Another thing is how you are affected by all of this—and how what you do might affect the investigations.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you now face a choice. If you suddenly leave your husband, he’ll become suspicious about why. He might worry that you learned some of his dirty secrets. That could either put you in immediate danger, or he could get spooked and run. He certainly has the means to take off and vanish. So he’d get away with murder, and whatever else he’s been doing. On the other hand, if you stay with him, there’s no telling how long the investigations will take. You’d be in constant danger, for a long time. And that’s not acceptable to me.”

  “Or to me!”

  “There’s one more thing. I am sure your husband is wrapped up in illegal activities involving the presidential campaign—in ways I’m only beginning to discover. Now I see the serious possibility of Russian involvement and manipulation. I have no hard evidence yet, but what you’ve just shown me throws a whole new light on things. The problem is, the clock is ticking down toward the election, in just a few months. But the official investigations are going to take much longer than that. So it’s likely whatever schemes your husband is involved with to affect the outcome of the election will continue, without interference. And I find that unacceptable, too.”

  She chewed at her lower lip. “So . . . what do you think we should do?”

&nbs
p; He considered carefully before answering.

  “Whatever we do, we need to do it sooner, not later. Within days and weeks—not months, and certainly not years. I have a few ideas simmering about that. But some would involve your participation, Julia. And I have no right to ask that of you. You’ve done enough already.”

  “What kind of participation?”

  “Forget about it,” he said. Then added, “You have to understand that it’s my responsibility to protect you, no matter what.”

  She regarded him for a moment.

  Then slowly shook her head.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “It’s not up to you to make decisions like that for me. It’s my life. My life is my responsibility.”

  “Julia, I won’t—”

  She reached out, seized his arm.

  “Listen to me, Dylan. Avery—or Avis, or whoever the hell he is—has wrecked my life. He’s lied to me and betrayed me for almost twenty years. He’s robbed me of two decades of my life! The son of a bitch has to pay for that. I have to make him pay. It doesn’t matter that I’m scared of him. The only thing that matters to me now is justice. And if there’s anything I can do to help bring him to justice—well, I want you to tell me what it is.”

  The words struck deep. He had to get up.

  He crossed the room, to the window. Her voice, growing angry, followed him.

  “So tell me what I can do!”

  He looked out over the city. They were on an upper floor, and the window faced south. Above the tops of the buildings he could make out the spire of the Washington Monument. He knew that somewhere between that icon and himself was the White House, invisible and lost, drowning in that vast gray sea of political structures and establishments.

  “Don’t you give a damn about justice, Dylan?”

  He winced. Turned.

  “All right, Julia. If you want to help, here is what I think you can do.”

  3

  After she left, he sat on the sofa in the hotel room, sampling the hors d’oeuvres and finishing the glass of Cabernet. From the briefcase in which he’d fetched his laptop, he removed a file folder, and from that, a small stack of pages he’d retrieved from the internet.