by David Perry
Should he ask for an attorney? He’d watched enough television to know that if he did, the police were required to cease all questioning. Would they arrest him if he invoked this right? What the hell are you thinking? You haven’t done anything. Tell them the truth and get the hell out of here!
But he couldn’t tell them the whole truth. His activities had been illegal. Skulking around spying on people wouldn’t make the cops think he was the innocent type. He’d implicate himself in other crimes. If these cops got wind of his brush with the Secret Service, they’d look at him even closer.
Hopefully, Waterhouse had made copies of the conversation they’d risked their lives to record and e-mailed a copy to Detective Palmer in Newport News. The compact disc Waterhouse had given Jason was still in Christine’s laptop.
Shouldn’t he just tell these investigators that he was collecting evidence against Lily Zanns? That was, of course, his alibi. Peter and Waterhouse would back up his story. The recording would tell them everything they needed to know.
Five more minutes passed. Twenty altogether.
Before he could organize his thoughts, the tall, black man returned followed by another investigator. The second man wasn’t Stevens, the man from the driveway. This one was bookish in appearance, with glasses and a legal pad.
Jason got a better look at the lead investigator in the stark light of the interview room. His shoulders, wide and rigid, spawned two arms that looked like the trunks of small trees. Baxter had played some sort of contact sport, probably football, in his past. The rolled-up sleeves of his shirt were stretched tight by muscles rippling like steel cords. The man’s eyes pierced Jason. Despite his innocence, Baxter’s countenance alone made Jason want to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness.
Cal Baxter dropped a manila folder on the table with a loud crack. The second man seated himself and placed the yellow legal pad on the table, pen at the ready. Baxter unloaded his two hundred and fifty pounds into the puny, standard-issue chair.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Jason said quickly, before Baxter even opened his mouth.
“May I call you Jason?” Baxter’s voice was deep and friendly, as if he were Jason’s only friend on the earth. Nonetheless, a latent desire to inflict pain seemed to surround him.
Jason nodded stiffly.
“How about something to drink? Coke, coffee?”
Jason declined. The back of his throat was a sun-baked, gritty desert, but accepting any kind of graciousness would be letting his guard down. He needed to stay as sharp as possible. The fatigue and fear, though propped up by adrenaline, were growing heavier.
Baxter began matter-of-factly. “Your weapon was found at the murder scene. We traced the serial number through our databases with NCIC and ATF. It’s yours, Jason. There’s no doubt about it.”
“I just found out it was stolen. I don’t know how it got over there.”
“You said that before.”
“Did you see Sheila Boquist tonight?”
“No,” he lied. No sense giving them any more reason to suspect him.
“She was your girlfriend, correct?”
“Ex-girlfriend,” Jason corrected.
“Ex-girlfriend, right.”
The notetaker, a small, wiry man with rimless glasses, scribbled some notes.
“When did you stop dating?”
“A couple of weeks ago.” Jason glanced up at the video camera mounted at ceiling level in the corner of the room. He wondered how his words would sound when played back in court.
“Did you two get along?”
“For the most part,” he lied again.
“Did you see her tonight?”
“No,” he persisted.
“You sure?”
“I just said I didn’t.”
A knock came at the door, and a deputy stuck his head in. “Cal, you got a minute?”
“Jason, we’ll be right back.”
Both men walked out. The uniformed deputy took up his place outside the room once more.
When Baxter returned, he asked, “What time did you see Sheila tonight?”
“I told you I didn’t see her—”
“Did you have dinner tonight at Maggie’s Tavern?”
Jason felt his eyes widen. How did Baxter know that? “Yeah…I did.”
“Did you invite Sheila to meet you there?”
He looked at Baxter like the cop had sprouted a third arm. “No! What the hell makes you think that?”
Baxter removed a plastic bag from his folder. In it was the small, typewritten note card. Jason grabbed the corner between a thumb and forefinger as he read.
“I didn’t write this.”
“So you didn’t invite Sheila to meet you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“But you said you did have dinner at Maggie’s Tavern?”
“Uh…yeah.”
“So who did you meet there?”
“Christine Pettigrew.”
“How do you spell that?”
Jason spelled her name. Baxter asked for her address, home, and cell phone numbers. Jason recited them.
“How long did dinner last?”
“An hour, maybe.”
“Where did you go after your dinner date?”
Jason looked at him like the words were spoken in Mandarin.
“Jason, where did you go after dinner with your friend—” Baxter checked his notepad in front of him. “Christine?”
“I—was with my brother, Peter, and Walter Waterhouse.”
More scribbling. “What were you doing?”
We were hunting down a group of assassins! “We were…investigating.”
“Investigating what?”
“There’s been some unusual activity at the pharmacy I work at. First, it was an insurance scam…but it turned into something else, something worse. We know two people are going to be killed,” Jason said. “We have evidence, a recording.”
“So you and your brother and this guy, Walter, are trying to stop two murders?”
Jason nodded intently.
“Who’s going to be killed?”
“We don’t know their names.”
“Who’s going to do the killing, Jason?”
Jason lowered his head. His words sounded ridiculous, like those of a man trying to save his own skin. But they had proof now. It was time to let the experts handle it. “Her name is Lily Zanns. She owns the Colonial Pharmacy in Newport News. She and two other people are planning it. Walter should be e-mailing a copy of the recording to Detective John Palmer in Newport News.”
Baxter looked at Jason as if he were a ten-year-old boy, trying to explain how the water from the bathtub had managed to flood the bathroom floor.
“We’ll check out your story. I need the phone numbers for your brother and this Walter character.”
Jason recited the numbers. Notetaker scribbled them on his legal pad.
Notetaker asked Baxter a question. “Do you want me to start having the boys make the phone calls?”
Baxter shook his head and leaned over, invading Jason’s personal space. “Not yet.”
The notetaker stopped writing and looked up.
“Why don’t we cut the bullshit, Jason,” Baxter continued. “Tell me where you were last night after seven o’clock. We already know where you were, at least for part of the night. So just come clean.”
Jason squirmed in the chair. “Well, if you know, you tell me.”
He expected Baxter to recite the litany of events. The yacht, the package, following Sam Fairing. Deep down, Jason knew that wasn’t going to happen. He also knew Baxter wasn’t buying his story. “Jason, we also know you had an altercation with Ms. Boquist on the twenty-eighth of September. Witnesses saw you and the victim argue after some party. She then kneed you in the cojones. We also have some witnesses that confirm Sheila was at Maggie’s tonight.”
Jason sat perfectly still, afraid to move.
“Being a guy, I can understand how embarrassi
ng that would be. I bet it really pissed you off. So you invited her to the restaurant tonight to get a little payback. You know, rub her face in it. That’s what happened, isn’t it?” Baxter smiled at Jason. His expression said he thought he was right on.
Jason shook his head. “No,” he whispered.
Baxter removed three photographs from the folder and laid the first one on the table. Jason’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped as the images registered. He had spent a rotation in pharmacy school in surgery at Medical College of Virginia. He’d peered over the surgeon’s shoulder, watching various procedures over the course of two weeks. A triple bypass. An aortic valve replacement. A splenectomy. The inside of the human body, blood, entrails were not something that caused him shock or revulsion.
But when he saw the blood, the open, unseeing eyes of his gutted ex, he leaned forward and opened his mouth and began to dry heave. The photographs were in full, living color, every nuance, every detail captured expertly by the crime-scene photographer.
Sheila’s naked body lay sprawled almost facedown in the blood-soaked carpet. The hilt of an everyday kitchen knife protruded from her abdomen, glistening, slick with blood. Her glassy, green eyes stared like those of a discarded doll.
Baxter laid the next picture on top of the first. This one had a better view of the fatal slice. The wound yawned across her belly. From inside the gash peeked out severed layers of skin and yellowish subcutaneous fat, a bluish-purple haze of some internal organ, probably the liver. The third photograph was much like the first two.
An electric charge zipped through him. He shuddered. “Holy shit!” he muttered, burying his head in his hands.
Baxter did not speak for thirty seconds. Finally, he said, “A neighbor phoned the police and said she heard fighting and arguing from Sheila’s address. The woman also said that a red Mustang was seen leaving the scene shortly after the fight. You own a red Mustang, Jason. You weren’t driving it when you came home. Where is it?” It was not a question.
Jason knew he’d been set up. He hadn’t driven his Mustang since he’d rented his first car, the Ford Fusion. He opened his mouth to explain, when Baxter interrupted him.
“Jason, here’s what I know…” Baxter paused and leaned back in his chair, leaving the photographs in plain view. “Sheila Boquist was killed with a knife stabbed in the abdomen. There was a five-inch gash from here to here.” Baxter motioned with his hand over his own chest. “She bled to death. She was stabbed with a four-inch blade. That knife had fingerprints all over it. Your fingerprints. And only your fingerprints. The knife is one that came from your kitchen set.”
Jason felt as if a knife had been stuck in him. “I didn’t kill her!”
“Your gun was also found at the scene.”
“I told you, it was stolen. I didn’t kill her!”
“Two wine glasses were found. One of them had your fingerprints on it. We’ll be checking it for your DNA as well. I’m sure that it’ll come back positive. Stop wasting everyone’s time. Just tell me what happened.”
“I didn’t do it!”
“You invited her to the restaurant to teach her a lesson. It got heated. You followed her back to her apartment. You argued some more and then it turned really violent. The body had some bruises on the arms and legs. So you grabbed her. She fought back and you stabbed her. It got out of hand and then you—”
“No!” Jason screamed. This can’t be happening! “No!”
“The question I have,” Baxter continued, “is when did you decide to take the knife from the house? Did you take it to the restaurant, or did you stop home after you left dinner? Why not just shoot her?”
Jason sat with his head in his hands, trying to catch his breath.
Baxter waited for Jason to calm. “I want to take an impression of your shoes, Jason. Will you allow us to do that?”
He was doubled over now, like he was in pain. “I didn’t kill her!”
“Jason, the hardest part is taking the first step. After that, everything is easier. Just tell me why you killed her.”
In his whole life, Jason never thought he’d ever utter the next words, which came out in a tense whisper. “I want to talk to a lawyer.”
CHAPTER 60
Notus stepped off the Air Tran flight 707 at Newport News—Williamsburg International Airport and strolled up the Jetway. He had killed in far more sophisticated places. London, Paris, Prague, and Zurich, to name a few. Newport News, Virginia, was a working class town by comparison. But a job was a job. And this one would pay well.
Notus was not his real name, of course. It was the pseudonym given to him specifically for this assignment. Notus, a god of Greek myth, carried the wet, storm-laden southern winds of late summer.
The call had come three hours ago. He’d been banging the cute waitress with the nice ass and small tits. The ringing cell phone had interrupted him before he had a chance to finish the job. He’d pushed her out the door wearing nothing but her panties and an armful of clothes. The mission was a priority delta.
There’d be plenty of time for Carol or Cheryl or whatever the hell her name was later. Maybe he’d make it up to her with a weekend in the Bahamas. Hell, after this job, he could afford to take a whole year off. The money was that good and—from the sound of it—this assignment was going to be a walk in the park. Notus was unrivaled at what he did. His business was death. In ten years, he had compiled an impressive resume.
They would be paired in two-man teams. Notus noticed his soon-to-be partner, Deacon Jim Miller—also an alias—sitting at the small bar watching CNN. Notus had had no idea what Miller looked like until that very moment, and didn’t know his real name. If things went to shit, the less they knew about each other, the better.
Their target, a certified public accountant, was a woman. She was an average citizen who’d managed to get mixed up in something she shouldn’t have. Notus didn’t know what that was, and he didn’t give a shit. Nor did he know why Hammon wanted her dead. Her photo and data had been securely e-mailed to his Blackberry. She was the cute next-door-neighbor type every guy wanted to bang. The job should be easy.
Each man wore a dark blue baseball cap totally absent of insignias, emblems, or logos. Just plain blue caps. On the right side, pinned just above the ear, was a small gold ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life that had been all the rage many years ago. Now, ironically, it symbolized not life but death.
Miller sipped a Heineken and watched Notus file slowly past. They nodded imperceptibly to each other. Notus strolled down the long glass corridor to the baggage claim. He didn’t know who’d come up with these names. “Deacon” Jim Miller, gun for hire in the late eighteen hundreds, had been a teetotaler, a devout Methodist. He’d been hanged in 1909 for a contract killing of an Oklahoman cattle rancher. These names were a piece of work, he thought.
Never looking in the other’s direction, they waited at the baggage carousel. Twenty minutes later, Notus exited the terminal, pulling his bag behind him. He found the car. The keys were hanging in the ignition. He paid the fee and circled back to the terminal to pick up Miller, who climbed in without a word. They drove to a motel on Jefferson, staying cautiously under the speed limit.
* * *
To the north in Richmond, Zephyr, the west wind of Greek mythology, walked out of another airport terminal. Tom Horn, another gunman and killer for hire whose namesake had dispatched seventeen men in a span of four years in the late nineteenth century, climbed into their rented car. They would drive to Newport News in an hour’s time. Their target was a man named Peter Rodgers, an ex-marine sniper.
* * *
Eurus, the east wind in Greek myth, slipped the sedan under the awning at a hotel just north of the Coleman Bridge in Gloucester, Virginia. He’d driven three hours since the call. The man known as Robert Ford, the cowardly assassin of Jesse James, opened the passenger door and plopped onto the seat, slinging his bag into the backseat. In another hour, they, too, would arrive in Newport News. Ford placed
the dossier on the seat between them. He leafed through it. “His name is Walter Waterhouse,” he told Eurus.
CHAPTER 61
“This is Baxter,” the deep, gravelly voice said.
Peter spoke quickly. “Detective Baxter—”
“That’s Investigator Baxter,” the man interrupted.
“My name is Peter Rodgers. I’m Jason Rodgers’s brother. You’re holding him right now.”
“That’s correct. He’s under arrest for murder.”
“Jason just called me. I’m calling to tell you Jason was with me most of the evening. I’m his alibi.”
“Okay,” Baxter replied. “What were you two doing tonight?”
“Are you going to—check out—what Jason told you?”
There was a pause on the line. Baxter’s heavy sigh communicated his displeasure. “Peter!” he began. “To be quite honest, your brother didn’t tell us a whole lot about where he was. Another investigator is looking into his alibi. He’s probably tracking you and your friend down—” Baxter paused. Peter heard a page moving and guessed he was checking his notes. “Walter Waterhouse, right now.”
Peter had called Waterhouse after hanging up with Jason. The call rolled to his voice mail. That was right before Peter put in a call to the lawyer who’d handled the incorporation of his gun shop. The man said he knew a good criminal attorney. He’d call him first thing in the morning.
“We have strong evidence that two men are in danger. We have a recording.” Peter then outlined what had happened.
“Mr. Rodgers, can you provide me with proof as to where Jason was and for how long this evening?”
“You think I’m lying?”
“You’re his brother. It wouldn’t be the first time someone covered for a family member. We have some very hard evidence against your brother. In fact, I have just been handed some evidence which puts this crime into a whole new light.”