Eli called Loyd Berman from his cell phone and told him what had transpired. Berman told him to keep his mouth shut and bring the unsigned document to the office the following day. Eli heard news of the attorney general’s death on television the next morning. The newscast said Roland Milhouser had shot himself in his study at his home in Georgetown.
Eli was certain that Milhouser had been murdered. Milhouser had not shot himself in his study in Georgetown, and this fact alone should have been enough to launch a major investigation. Fearful Berman might be involved, he’d gone straight to the head of the agency. The murder or cover-up, whichever it turned out to be, had been expertly executed. Security records at the Department of Justice listed no record of Eli signing in to enter the building, nor had Milhouser been logged in when he allegedly returned from the state dinner.
The weeks that followed were a nightmare. The agency placed Eli on sick leave, insisting he undergo counseling sessions with the agency’s staff psychologist. With the help of a friend in the Secret Service, Eli spent weeks sorting through photographs of every Secret Service agent, both active and inactive. His conclusion was the men he had seen in Milhouser’s office were imposters. He doubted if Milhouser would have killed himself in front of two Secret Service agents, and Eli had been present in the outer office when he’d heard the gunshot. The men Eli had seen had been the killers.
Senator Weinberg resigned his position and returned to his home in West Virginia. A new attorney general took office. Eli’s friends in the agency told him to forget it, that whatever had happened was over his head. As Eli had told Joanne, Washington was a dangerous town.
Three months after the incident, Eli took his story to the Washington Post. After extensive research, the newspaper refused to print it, claiming they could find nothing to substantiate Eli’s claim that Roland Milhouser had been murdered. Although they had no proof, the paper believed Milhouser had been having an affair with a younger woman. He’d also been seeing a psychiatrist and had been placed on antidepressant medication. All evidence pointed to suicide.
The next day, Eli received his first threat, a computer-generated letter telling him to stop prying into the death of Roland Milhouser or his wife would be killed. Eli presented the letter to his superiors at the agency They examined it and found no fingerprints or other identifying information. The head of the agency suggested that Eli be placed on disability due to mental problems, ending his career in law enforcement. When Eli continued the investigation into Milhouser’s death on his own, an unknown person fired at Abby as she exited her car at a shopping mall.
Eli cashed in his retirement, leaving the rest of the money in the savings account for his wife. He kissed Abby goodbye one morning and told her he was going out to look for a new job. He never went home again.
Why had the attorney general of the United States been murdered? Because he had been having an affair with the First Lady long before her husband had been elected president. It had taken Eli years to uncover the truth, but his sources were irrefutable. It had broken his heart to leave Abby behind, but he refused to allow the woman he loved to live on the run as he had done for the past seven years. Eli had been declared legally dead, and his wife had remarried. Although he’d finally learned the reason Milhouser had been murdered, he had never been able to identify the men who had killed him. The people responsible for Milhouser’s death would not forget about Eli. Even today, he suspected they still had people attempting to find him.
Eli heard the shrill of a siren, and was jarred back to the present. He saw a string of emergency vehicles approaching. “I have to go.”
Pauline asked, “What do you want me to tell Joanne?”
“Nothing.” Eli rushed back to his truck and took off. As soon as he reached the freeway, he called Joanne on her cell phone.
“Pauline said someone was here asking for me,” she said. “From the description she gave. I assumed it was you. Why didn’t you stay? How did you know where to find me?”
“I was searching for Decker’s body,” Eli told her. “In case you’ve forgotten, that’s what I was hired to do. I saw your car and stopped. How did you figure out where the grave was?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “Elizabeth told me to meet her here this morning. I offered to help out. She said they’d searched on the other side of the amusement park and found nothing. This morning she woke up and decided that the man who called her could have confused a McDonald’s restaurant with a Carl’s Junior, which meant we were searching in the wrong area. There’s no doubt the body we found is Gary Rubinsky, and from the lack of decomposition, he hasn’t been dead more than a day or two.”
“Be careful, Joanne,” Eli said. “We don’t know who we’re dealing with right now.”
“You can say that again,” she answered, completely baffled. “What happened to Ian Decker is the big question. We can’t discount that he might have killed both Gary Rubinsky and Willie Crenshaw.”
“Let the police do their job,” Eli advised. “If Ian killed those two men, they probably deserved it. I talked to Tom at the jail last night. He swore Gary shot Ian in the parking lot of ABC Towing. I’m fairly certain Willie made the anonymous call to Elizabeth. From what Tom said, Willie drove them to that field to test fire the decoy gun. Willie’s primary source for marijuana owns a small farm around there, so both Tom and Gary were familiar with this area. They must have thought it was a good place to bury a body”
“But Tom is in jail,” Joanne argued, “and Gary is dead. Tom could have killed Gary, but he was in jail at the time of Crenshaw’s murder. The only person who has been out of pocket the entire time is Ian Decker.”
“Off the top of my head,” Eli said, “I can only think of one possibility.”
“Tell me.”
“Gary could have run out of money,” he said. “Maybe he tried to cut a deal with the mafia for the decoy gun. Instead of paying him, they killed him and took the gun. Stay in the courthouse where you belong. Everything about this case stinks. When I tell you goodbye, it’d be nice if you were alive.”
“Are you leaving town?”
“Soon,” Eli said, wishing he was already at sea. “I’m going to check one more lead. Unless it looks promising, I’m heading out.”
“What about Ian? Arnold paid you to find him.”
“Not every story has a happy ending.” Eli said, a statement he knew all too well. “Let me go now. Page me if you need me. Don’t worry, I’ll see you before I leave town.”
THIRTY-ONE
Sunday, February 18, 2001, 12:14 P.M.
BY SUNDAY morning, Leah was feeling fine. Mike had wanted to go to a friend’s house after lunch, but Joanne told him that she had something she needed to discuss with both of them.
Joanne sat her children down in the family room. “Visiting hours are from seven to nine tonight at the jail,” she told them, clearing her throat. “If you’d like to see your father, I’m willing to drive you.”
The children were caught off guard. “Maybe we should go another time,” Mike said, his face flushing. “Leah was, you know, sick yesterday and all.”
“I’m all right,” the girl said. “I want to see Dad.” She turned to her brother. “Don’t you want to see him, Mike?”
Joanne’s son was silent, brooding. “I don’t know,” he said. “Dad never said he was sorry. When he calls, he still acts like he’s some kind of big shot, like he’s only in jail because someone else made a mistake. Mom’s been through a lot. And he hurt me too. For two years, I thought my mother didn’t love me. He’s still never admitted that the awful things he told us weren’t true.”
Leah leaned over and touched her brother’s arm. “Please go, Mike,” she pleaded. “Dad loves you. The prison they send him to may be far away. We may not have a chance to see him again for a long time.”
Leah leaned back in the chair, tossing her feet up on the ottoman. “What Dad did doesn’t change the fact that he’s our father. He changed our diapers,
told us bedtime stories. He put together our toys at Christmas, taught us how to ride a bicycle. By not seeing him, we’re erasing half of our life. Mom should see him as well. He’s not an axe murderer.”
“I agreed to drive you,” Joanne said, shaking her head. “I admit you and Mike should see your father, but I have nothing to say to him.”
Leah’s eyes sparked with emotion. “I bet you have a lot to say to him,” the girl argued. “You’re mad as hell because of what he did. Why shouldn’t you confront him? Why keep it bottled up inside? Maybe that’s why you and I have trouble getting along sometimes. You associate me with Dad. Because I refuse to hate him, it’s like I’m taking his side. And you’re the one who told me it wasn’t right to hate anyone.”
“Some of what you said is true,” Joanne said, looking down at her hands. “I guess I do see you as taking his side sometimes. I’ll try to be more understanding in the future. I loved him. I tried to be a good wife to him. I never wanted our marriage to end. Seeing him would open up too many old wounds. I’m not emotionally prepared to deal with that just yet.”
“Remember that book you used to read to me when I was a little girl?”
“I read you a lot of books,” Joanne said, recalling the days when they were all together and happy.
“Alice in Wonderland,” Leah told her. “Where the girl falls down the hole and finds herself in another world. Well, that’s what happened to Dad. I don’t know why he fell into that hole, why he started gambling and got himself in so much trouble. But that’s the way I see it. He fell into a hole, and he couldn’t get out.”
Joanne bristled. “Alice in Wonderland is a children’s book. Your father isn’t a child.”
“No,” Leah corrected her. “That book was political satire. We studied it in school last semester. I was just trying to make a point, and like always, you don’t want to listen.”
“I am listening,” her mother said. “I just don’t agree with you.”
“You have to do more than listen, Mother. You have to understand. Most of the time when I talk about Dad, you just clam up and walk away.” She paused, and then proceeded. “I used to talk to Dad all the time. He told me the people at his work didn’t appreciate him, that guys with a lot less experience than him were being promoted. He wanted to prove that he was smart, that he knew more than anyone realized. And he finally did it, didn’t he? He invented that computer program. All these big companies wanted to buy it.”
“Before your father invented this computer security program,” Joanne told her, “he’d already started gambling and stealing money from his employer. All the money he made off the sale of his computer program is going to be lost. You know why? Because he built a house of lies. A house of lies always collapses.”
Mike had been pondering the statements of his mother and sister. “I’ll go,” he suddenly said. “What time do we have to leave?”
“We should leave here by four,” his mother told him. “We’ll stop somewhere in L.A. and have dinner before we go to the jail.”
Leah jumped up and hugged Mike, then walked over and embraced her mother. “I’m going to rest until it’s time to go,” she said, heading to her room.
The resiliency of youth was incredible, Joanne thought. The night before she had found her daughter in a blood-soaked bed. A day later, Leah was as perky as a cheerleader. Losing the baby had solved her problem, Joanne realized. She hoped Leah would keep her promise and not risk getting pregnant again.
The day was clear and sunny. Eli was huddled on the lower deck of the Nightwatch staring at a computer screen, the scrap of paper with Trudy’s phone number on it beside his console. This was his last lead. He certainly couldn’t take a chance and visit Tom Rubinsky at the jail again. He’d already taken too many chances.
He was still suspicious about how Elizabeth Decker had managed to find the grave. Eli didn’t put a lot of stock in intuition or luck. Outside of the organized-crime scenario, he wondered if it was possible that Ian had murdered Gary, then called and told his mother where he’d buried the body That Ian would want to get something as serious as a murder off his chest was compatible with his psychological profile. Attempting to extract information from Ian’s mother would be an exercise in futility Elizabeth would protect her son at all costs.
Eli tried calling Trudy’s phone number, but there was no answer, not even a recording. Having a last name would have made things easier. The only way he could get her address was to hack into the phone company’s database, which provided service to her area. After making a few calls, he’d discovered that the area of Los Angeles where she resided had previously been serviced by GTE, but several years ago GTE had merged and formed a company called Verizon. Hacking into a major communications company would be a time-consuming project. Eli searched the Internet, and found a dynamite program, far from legal yet precisely what he needed. By three o’clock Sunday afternoon, he had her full name and address. Her name was Trudy Gilbert, and the address was 555 Sheffield Drive, Unit 369.
Having no idea when his subject might return, Eli packed a cooler with soft drinks and sandwiches. Arnold Dreiser had paged him several times, but he had not replied. He couldn’t demand payment of the remaining ten thousand since he had not yet recovered the body of Ian Decker. Additionally, Eli wasn’t certain where Arnold Dreiser stood. The only person he felt certain he could trust was Joanne.
Dropping the dinghy into the water, for the first time Eli wished he had installed an outboard motor He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and would have to expend an enormous amount of energy to get to shore. Because of the great weather falling on the heels of the heavy rains of week before, the sea was filled with boaters. He longed for the azure waters of Bali, stretching out on the beach and relaxing, far from the problems of the civilized world. Years ago, he’d discovered an isolated island, far from the luxury hotels and ports where all the cruise ships docked. Almost everyone in the small village were natives. He was ready to toss down rum and Cokes in the village bar, possibly wrap his arms around the smooth, warm skin of a beautiful, joy-filled woman. The farther away a person went from civilization, the closer they got to paradise.
Sunday, February 18, 2001, 1:30 P.M.
Eli was parked on Sheffield Drive, about to doze off. He’d already emptied the cooler, and the boredom of sitting and staring at an apartment complex was about to lull him to sleep. A Mustang convertible suddenly roared past him into the parking garage, driven by a strikingly pretty young woman with long, dark hair Eli exited the Toyota and followed her through the maze of buildings that made up the Coronado apartment complex. He stood several feet away as the woman stopped in front of the door to apartment 369, reaching in her purse for her keys. Bingo, he thought, knowing he’d located Trudy Gilbert. Before she entered the apartment, Eli rushed up to her, flashing the phony ID he’d used at the jail. “Detective Brown,” he said. “I need to see some identification.”
“What did I do?” Trudy asked, reaching into her purse again for her license.
Once Eli had confirmed that he had the right person, he said, “We can talk inside if you’d like. I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your neighbors.”
“Fine,” Trudy said, kicking open the door.
The apartment was lavishly furnished, with velvet sofas and marble tables. “I’m sorry,” Trudy told him, smiling sweetly. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“No problem,” Eli said, dropping down on one of the sofas. From the looks of the apartment, he assumed she was a working girl. He occupied himself by flipping through the pages of a magazine when he suddenly saw Trudy standing over him, a 9mm Ruger in her outstretched hands. “Don’t move,” she said. “Put your hands over your head.”
Eli had made some poor decisions in his lifetime, but this might end up being the worst. He followed her instructions, raising his arms over his head. Trudy walked over and flipped open his jacket, snatching his .45 out of his shoulder holster and dropping it into one of the poc
kets of her white leather jacket.
“Now get out,” she said, motioning toward the door with the gun.
“Wait a minute,” Eli said, standing. “I just want to talk to you. I’m not here to arrest you.”
“Out!” Trudy shouted. “Leave or I’ll shoot you.”
“No problem,” Eli said, walking toward the door.
A male voice called to her from the other room, and Trudy was momentarily distracted. Eli lunged at her, twisting her arms behind her back and forcing her to the floor. He removed the 9mm from her hand, then reached into her pocket and retrieved his Smith & Wesson.
“Who’s in the other room?” Eli said, releasing the safety on his revolver and pointing it at the bedroom door.
“You don’t understand,” Trudy cried. “They shot him. He would have died if it hadn’t been for me. I didn’t have a choice. Gary was going to kill me.”
Eli yanked Trudy to a standing position, then shoved her toward the bedroom. Ian Decker was propped up in bed with several pillows behind his head. His skin was ashen, and there was no doubt he’d been seriously injured. After depositing Trudy in a chair, Eli went to check on Decker. “Who shot you?”
“Gary Rubinsky,” Ian said. “Who are you?”
“I was hired by your attorney to find you,” Eli told him. “Have you been treated at a hospital?”
“No,” Ian said weakly. “Trudy put some medicine and bandages on my back. She said if I went to the hospital, the police would arrest both of us.”
Eli sat down on the edge of the bed. Gently rolling Ian onto his side, he removed the bandages and examined the gunshot wound. The entrance wound was only a few inches to the left of his spine. “The bullet has to be removed,” he told Trudy placing his palm on Ian’s forehead. “He’s burning up with fever. He needs medical treatment immediately. He’ll die if he doesn’t go to the hospital.”
Trudy hung her head and began sobbing. “I don’t want him to die.”
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