by Davis Bunn
“I’m going to heal, Chief. I’m putting this behind me.”
“Lucas.” She started to reach over and touch his good shoulder. But she caught herself and settled the hand back into her lap. “You are a good detective. But you are also a good leader. Look at what you’ve done with a rookie cop and a green fed. You’ve made them a team. You’ve taken a cold case and you’ve brought us to the point of issuing warrants. Our division needs this kind of leadership. You’ll never know how rare this gift is until you get in my position. Every cop in the division respects you. They’ll listen. They’ll follow you.”
Her force of personality was so strong he could not say no, which of course was what he was going to have to tell her sooner or later. But just then, he was a little overwhelmed. So he lay there and he looked at her. She was an extremely attractive woman, even when in full commander armor. Her eyes were clear and intelligent, her face strong and determined and unlined. He could think of worse things to do with his idle hours than lie here and study her face.
Hannah was also comfortable with the silence between them. Which was a very strange thing. Good, but strange. When she spoke, it was in a voice he had not heard before. Soft. Warm. And something more. “Lucas, what you say with how you act and who you are speaks louder than a billion leadership seminars. I want those lessons taught to all the people under my command. I want them to know just how fine a cop can be. I want . . .”
She rose to her feet. “I better go before I make a fool of myself.”
She turned to the other bed and shook Matt’s shoulder. Harder.
“Wha . . . Chief?”
“Come on, Agent Kelly. We need to get you some coffee and talk over a couple of matters that can’t wait.”
Matt pushed himself upright, rubbed his face, asked, “Lucas?”
“He’s fine. You can see him tomorrow. Let’s go get you cleaned up.”
Lucas nodded to Matt, but his gaze remained fastened on Hannah Bernstein. He followed her departure, so uncertain how he felt he could not find the words even to say farewell.
Matt spent half an hour with Chief Bernstein. Just two pros handling a tough case. He checked by the campaign office as soon as he returned home. The office was filled with earnest faces and exposed nerves. The clock was hammering down. The staffers had all witnessed the altercation between him and his father after the gun dealer had been discovered. That plus his filthy state troubled them. But when Matt asked what the candidate had going that night, the staffers had no reason not to tell him.
He returned to his apartment and set coffee to brew while he showered. The sleep in D’Amico’s hospital room had taken the edge off his exhaustion, but he was still both sore and tired. He drove the short distance back to Mount Vernon and parked by the darkened church.
The Engineers Club was a bastion of old Baltimore. Rooms were occasionally rented out for weddings and charity events. But the rest of the time it held power within a private and luxurious grip. The club occupied one of the largest estate homes on Mount Vernon Square. The church, the Peabody, and the modern art museum were all better-known neighbors.
The walls were oiled wood paneling. The carpets were all Persian, the chandeliers Austrian lead crystal, the paintings antiques. Behind the main restaurant, leading off the corridor to the ballroom, were two discrete meeting chambers. Matt stationed a leather chair beside the door to his father’s room. He remained seated as the doors opened and the cigar smoke and the rich laughter rolled out.
His father and Sol moved into the final backslapping stages of farewell. All their guests bore the grand smiles and satisfied voices of having spent an evening carving up future spoils.
Paul Kelly kept his smile in place and his gaze on the last departing man as he addressed his son. “It’s been a long day. I’m going home now.”
“We need to talk, Pop.”
“Wrong. We needed to have you around last week. Now it’s nothing but too late.” He snapped his fingers. “Let’s go, Sol.”
“Pop—”
“You want to talk with me, call the office like anybody else.”
Matt followed them through the main salons. He waited while his father and Sol spoke with a few cronies. Sol did not once look Matt’s way. Paul Kelly let the maître d’ personally help him with his overcoat. Matt trailed along behind them as they stepped outside.
The two men came to a halt on the club’s top stair as a trio of police rose from their patrol car and stood waiting.
“What is going on here?”
Matt took control of the outer door and shut it in the manager’s face. He then said to his father, “The case involving Megan Kelly has now officially gone federal.”
Paul Kelly pointed a finger at the police. “I asked you about them. Not your shenanigans downtown.”
“There are both state and federal warrants out for Allen Pecard. This afternoon he shot a sheriff and the detective who recently met with you.”
Paul Kelly continued to stab the night. “Tell me what they’re doing here!”
“As of now, you are under twenty-four-hour guard. There is a jurisdictional issue. Soon as the election is over, it will change to Secret Service. But for now—”
Paul Kelly continued to glare at the cops. “You’re telling me I don’t have any say in the matter?”
“You can refuse. If you do, it will become a federal issue. Either the Secret Service or the FBI will maintain discreet surveillance. But it will require a lot more manpower. At least twenty agents. I’ll be moved out of my apartment and they—”
“No.” Paul Kelly dropped his arm and started for the car. When one of the policemen moved to the driver’s side of Paul Kelly’s Navigator, he snapped, “I’ll drive.”
“No, Pop.” Matt remained where he was. “Not anymore.”
“I always drive!”
Sol spoke for the first time. The quiet, almost-resigned voice he used so often when addressing Matt’s father with Matt around. “Paul. Enough.”
Paul Kelly wheeled about. He glared at them, back and forth, and then stalked to the passenger side and wrenched open the door. “If you’re going to drive, then drive!”
Sol hurried to catch up. Matt watched them drive away, then walked off into the night.
Saturday morning Matt called the hospital and then went for a long run. His shoulder and chest still ached somewhat from the attack at Upper Heyford. His thigh gave warning twinges but no longer throbbed. He took it easy for the first three miles, until his motions became smooth and the discomfort settled farther into the background. Then he pushed. Not for long, but a push just the same. The first time since the blast, and it felt very good. Upon his return he stretched for almost an hour, working the thigh and shoulder and upper body until everything moved smoothly. By eleven he felt genuinely ready to start a tough day.
Matt phoned his Washington office and left a long message for Van Sant, detailing what had gone down the previous day. He showered and dressed and drove to the D’Amico residence on Eastern. The house was an old Baltimore brick townhome, a corner unit in a single structure that ran the entire block. The street fronted Patterson Park, once a haven for nearby blue-collar communities. Now the city paid street performers to draw people in, but only during the day. At night the place was ruled by gunfire and sounds the locals had come to dread.
D’Amico’s front door was opened by a striking middle-aged woman named Sharla with skin like cinnamon. She hugged him hello as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Matt endured the coffee and small talk, trying hard to see Katy through the affection Sharla and Connie showed. Then he drew Connie outside.
“I spoke to Lucas this morning,” she said. She started to reach for his hand and hesitated, as though she was wondering where the bound–291 aries were after the previous evening. Matt wanted to sweep her up. Seize her so hard he breathed for them both. Instead, he did what she had started to. Reached over and took her hand. Connie looked down at their hands and then up int
o his face. Just looked. But it felt better than any other woman’s fiercest embrace.
“Lucas doesn’t want Katy to know about him taking a hit,” she said. “He’s been away before. He’ll be back soon. That’s all.”
“Fine.”
“She’s such a sweet girl. She has school during the week. I’ve taken today off; I’ll have her while Sharla’s at work. Sharla is Clarence’s wife.”
Matt assumed it was a flaw in his own nature, having been unable to see more in Katy than a shapeless woman in black sweats cutting designs from a book and singing about bluebirds. “Who’s Clarence?”
“Lucas’s partner. Out with a chest thing.”
Eastern Avenue was the connecting artery between Fells Point and Little Italy. Saturday traffic thundered by. Matt felt the diesel wind of passing trucks but saw only her. “I want to make a run to Perryville. It’s probably futile, but I need to check something out.”
“The chief would probably have something to say about one of her officers talking shop while holding hands with a fed,” Connie said.
“Then I’m glad the chief isn’t here.” He squeezed the hand, felt her gaze in his bones. “If you talk to Lucas, tell him I’ll stop by on my way back.”
“Then you’ll come here, right?”
“You betcha.”
She skipped to the front door, smiled down at him like he had recited poetry. “I’ll be waiting.”
The journey north was a tumult of emotions and conflicting desires. Every meeting with Connie threatened to lift the lid off his internal cauldron. Yet he ached for more of everything—more time, more closeness, more connection—hungered in a way he had never known before. Connie asked for nothing but him. He had no idea who that was. Which was no surprise. Any number of departing ladies had tossed the question at him. What terrified him most was that for once he wished he knew the answer.
Camp Perryville was a hollow place. After passing the empty guard station, Matt entered grounds military in their precision and neatness. Even the oldest houses along the riverside lane held a faded charm. The newer structures were solid and glaringly white against the gray autumn day. Yet there was a lifeless quality to the place. Even a fife-and-drum corps would have sounded funereal. An old man sat on a bench beneath huge shade trees that dripped colors around his feet. He wore a faded robe and rested a cane between his legs. He was surrounded by a platoon of empty benches. He stared in the direction of the water. Matt drove directly across his line of vision and the old man did not even blink.
The Records Building was one of the camp’s oldest, a wooden structure five stories high. Paint flecks covered the front lawn in patches, the only disorderly spot Matt noticed on the entire base. The steps were warped. Wires dangled above the double front doors where a light had once hung. The left-hand door did not have a knob, just a plastered-over hole. The interior was worse. The linoleum floors were ribbed and peeling back. The air smelled of mold. A ribbon of wallpaper snaked almost to the floor. The windows were filthy and the screens ripped. A woman in a nurse’s uniform was seated behind the information desk, typing into a computer. She gave him a minute to take in the place. “Pretty awful, huh.”
“I’m trying to find something nice to say.”
She liked that enough to rise from her chair. “We were scheduled to move out last year. Now they’re saying January. I’m pretty sure I can hold out that long. But I have my doubts about the two doctors they’ve got stuck upstairs.”
Matt stared at a ceiling stained in patches the color of old oak. “They let people upstairs?”
“They were both retired, then brought back to help out with troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. What can I do for you?”
Matt showed her his ID. She inspected it without expression. “State Department Intelligence. After all this time, you’d think I’d have seen everything. But that’s a new one.”
“I have a problem.”
She leaned on the counter.
“I’m investigating a murder.”
“Here?”
“Baltimore.”
“You think it was one of our former patients?”
“Probably not.”
She actually smiled. “Yep. Sounds like a problem to me.”
“I’ve got a list of names. All vets. One of them may or may not be involved in our case. What I want to know is whether any of them were ever patients here.”
“Veterans from which war?”
“Vietnam.”
She straightened in stages. Her smile was gone. She gave him a long, unblinking look. Then, “We don’t keep records from that far back. They’d all be in the DOD vaults outside Crystal City.”
Matt knew he had said something. But for the life of him he could not figure out what it was. “What about backup computer records?”
“Computer. Backup. Hah.” But she was not laughing.
“So there’s nothing here that might help me?”
“Only the doctor’s own case files. Long as they’re on staff, we keep all their case files on-site.”
“Can I show you the list?”
She shrugged. “Free country, isn’t that what they say?”
He unfolded the handwritten list from the confrontation in Sol Greene’s office. She went down the short list of names. She stopped at the bottom. Just looked. Long enough for him to say the name aloud. “Porter Reeves.”
She lifted her gaze. Gave him nothing.
“You’ve heard that name before, haven’t you.”
“Like I said, all case records are strictly confidential.”
“How can I get access?”
“Formal request to DOD, go through channels.”
“That could take years.”
She didn’t respond.
“I would appreciate anything you can give me,” Matt said, pressing as firmly as he dared on each word. “Anything at all.”
“You need to talk with Dr. Turminian.”
“Could you spell that, please?”
“I’ll go one better.” She turned back to her desk, wrote on her pad, then tore off the sheet. “Alexis is one of the doctors who’s been brought out of retirement. He’s been around here since Nam.”
Matt saw it was a street address in the neighboring town. “You want me to phone his home on a Saturday?”
“Go on over. I’ll call and give him a heads-up. Guys like this, they live and breathe work.” She looked at him then. Passing another of those indecipherable messages. “You want answers, he’s your best chance. But even there I’d say it’s slim to none.”
The warming day had burned away the clouds by the time Matt emerged from Records. He followed the nurse’s instructions back to the main highway and took the bridge across to Havre de Grace. The bay sparkled and autumn colors lit the shoreline like a flaming necklace. Havre de Grace was a well-preserved hamlet, a waterfront market town that had served northern Maryland’s outlying regions for over two hundred years. Main Street was a dense collection of shops and cafés overlooking the waterfront. Marinas and hordes of tourists crammed the street’s other side. Traffic moved at an easy weekend pace. Sails spread over the blue waters, moving as easy as the traffic, the wind as gentle as the sun.
The base psychiatrist resided in a Victorian manor one block off the water. Peaked turrets adorned both ends. Two rows of late-blooming azaleas framed a long front porch. Matt climbed from the car and spotted a man trimming rose vines from a side trellis. “Dr. Turminian?”
He did not rise from his stooped position. “You’re the young man Sally phoned me about?”
“Matt Kelly.”
The man dropped his shears and stripped off work gloves. “I suppose we can talk. But there’s little I can do for you.”
Matt followed him onto the porch. The doctor was slightly bowlegged and moved at the fragile pace of one well aware of his advancing years. “Anything you can tell me would be more than I have right now.”
The psychiatrist had a slight accent Matt c
ould not place, Greek or Armenian perhaps. Age had shrunk him into a tanned figure with skin too large for his frame. His energy had receded with his hair. He was not hostile so much as watchful. “Sit yourself down, young man, and tell me what it is that’s brought you out from the city. But if it has anything to do with patient records, the answer will be no. I must warn you of that at the outset.”
Dr. Turminian had a psychiatrist’s ability to listen with his entire being. He sat in a rocker pulled up to the porch railing and watched Matt go through his story. Then, “I take what you say very seriously, Mr. Kelly. But I can only repeat what I’ve already told you. All patient-doctor records are confidential. The same vow I have kept for forty years would force me to refuse even a direct order from Washington.”
“Could you at least tell me whether you have ever treated a patient named Porter Reeves?”
Something flickered deep in those dark eyes. There and gone. “I’m sorry. No.”
The doctor was ready to dismiss him. Denial was cemented into every fabric of his being. But Matt needed more to put his plan into shape. He searched for a question—any question would do, so long as it caused the doctor to speak.
He touched the list in his pocket. Thought about the mystery of a man who might be both bomb consultant and bomber. He asked the doctor, “Why would a man lead two lives in two opposite directions?”
Alexis Turminian relaxed a fraction. General questions of personality were clearly open territory. “You’ll excuse me for saying, it seems rather interesting to hear that a young man is investigating his own mother’s death.”
“It started out differently. I just wanted to make sure the police did their job.”
“And now?” When Matt did not respond, the doctor nodded. As though he took Matt’s hesitation for the proper response. “It is remarkable how life moves us in the most unexpected of directions. One moment, we think we have everything under control. The next, and it has all changed. A man suddenly finds himself old and no longer required at the work that has defined his life. A mother is taken from her son. A patient . . .”