Cold Glory

by B. Kent Anderson

  This morning, two officers were stationed outside her front door, and they had been on the property all night. Periodically, Brent Graves assigned extra officers to her for a day or two as part of what he called “training operations.” But Darlington was not naïve. She suspected the extra security people at times coincided with threats against her or the Court. The extra officers at her door this morning were young and fairly new. She’d seen them both a handful of times—a woman with coal-black hair and a very tall young man who rarely spoke. “Good morning,” Darlington said to them. “I take it all is well?”

  “Good morning, Justice Darlington,” the young woman said. “Everything is fine. How are you this morning?”

  Darlington patted the woman’s arm, being the Alabama grandmother. “I’m well, thank you. September is a fine month, the weather is good, my back isn’t bothering me too much, and I have work on my desk. I don’t think I could ask for much more.”

  At that moment, the black Town Car pulled to the front of the house. Darlington waved to the driver and started down the steps.

  * * *

  Graves had made his way through the ranks of the Judicial Security Division, first working security for federal courthouses in Kansas City, Denver, and Richmond before making it to D.C. He’d then been assigned to the D.C. Court of Appeals, and later the personal detail of Associate Supreme Court Justice Greene. When Darlington was appointed chief justice, he was named to head the Office of Protective Operations.

  Six months after Darlington was sworn in as chief justice, Graves bought a house five doors down and across O Street from her. It was pushing the limits of his price range, but his wife loved it, and it put Graves in the position of actually seeing Darlington from time to time in a nonofficial capacity. He had no doubt that the chief justice considered him a personal friend by now. She trusted him.

  Graves had juggled the duty rosters around a bit, and neither Thornton nor Pickett would be driving this morning. The driver was a middle-aged officer named Hellendaal, who’d joined the detail only three months ago. Graves had done some checking—Hellendaal was divorced, with no kids. Both his parents were deceased. His only family was a sister in New York. It was the best Graves could do.

  He finished his first cup of coffee and prowled the empty house, thankful that his wife was still in Connecticut, dealing with her family and setting her mother’s affairs in order. He read the Post, drank more coffee, and pulled two cell phones out of his pocket, placing them on his mahogany dining room table. Just down the block, Darlington would be stepping onto her porch. She would banter with Thornton and Pickett, then make the short walk down the cobblestone walkway to where Hellendaal was waiting with the car.

  * * *

  Senior Inspector Hendrickson pulled into the Marshals Service’s Crystal City complex at a few minutes after seven. Tired from yesterday’s flights to and from Oklahoma City, plus a total of five hours in the car between the city and Carpenter Center, and frustrated by the wasted time he’d spent on Nick Journey, Hendrickson just wanted to fill out his travel vouchers and finish his report.

  He went to his cubicle in the JSD section of the Marshals Service headquarters and completed his forms. He saved them to his computer, then printed copies. He took the old paper in the plastic sleeve that Journey had shown him yesterday and looked at it for a moment before tucking it into the file.

  Damnedest thing I ever saw, Hendrickson thought. “Whereas” and “to wit” and all that archaic language, not to mention that strange symbol with the swords and star and eagle. Journey was reading ancient history and letting his imagination run away with him. He closed the file and walked it down the hall. Neither Graves nor his assistant was in yet, but he left the file on the assistant’s desk with a Post-it note asking her to give it to the boss. She was an efficient woman, and Hendrickson was sure she would see that Graves got it.

  * * *

  Graves was tempted to walk outside, just to be sure that Darlington was where she was supposed to be. But that would have been a break in routine, one that could be possibly witnessed by neighbors. Graves never went outside in the morning until he was ready to leave. Georgetown had no Metro stop, and he drove himself to Crystal City every day.

  Graves had timed it over and over. He knew the chief justice’s habits as well as he knew his own. Darlington would stand and chat on the porch for thirty to forty-five seconds. Then it was forty seconds down the walkway, ten to actually get in the car. The driver would shut the door. It would take him fifteen to twenty seconds to move around to the front and get in the driver’s seat.

  Graves checked his watch. Darlington should be climbing into the backseat right about now. He flipped open one of the cell phones, the one he’d picked up in the envelope at the park in Herndon. With his other hand, he absently jingled the contents of his pants pocket. Along with the keys and coins there, he felt the gold pin, the one with G.W. engraved on it. Its solidity calmed him, steeled him for the task.

  His thumb hovered over the phone’s keypad.

  * * *

  Darlington took the driver’s arm and held it as she lowered herself into the Town Car.

  “How is your back, Madam Chief Justice?” Hellendaal asked her.

  She squeezed his arm. “Please don’t call me ‘Madam.’ ‘Justice Darlington’ is fine. My back is fair today, thank the Lord.”

  “Glad to hear it, ma’am,” Hellendaal said.

  “This is a different car,” Darlington said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Time to switch them out.”

  “Really, I don’t need the largest car in the fleet, you know. I bet this thing gets terrible gas mileage, and with the price of gasoline, the taxpayers really shouldn’t have to pay all that much for me to ride in this big old boat of a car.”

  Hellendaal smiled. “Gas certainly isn’t getting any cheaper, ma’am.”

  He closed the door, waved to Pickett and Thornton on the porch, and started toward the front of the Town Car.

  * * *

  Graves looked at his watch again, remembering the instructions: the number of the other phone, the one with the red strip, was programmed into this one as speed-dial number two.

  He flexed his fingers like a pianist sitting down to perform, then pressed the number two on the phone’s keypad and the green button that would connect the call.

  * * *

  Darlington didn’t carry a briefcase, only a small purse. Work stayed at the court, and she never brought it home. She had a cell phone, but saw no need to carry it on the short drive to and from the office. She occasionally used it when traveling, but found it to be more of a nuisance than a beneficial tool.

  She smoothed the lapel of her jacket and watched as the driver walked around to the front of the car.

  She heard the muffled trilling of the phone, and her first thought was that it had come from behind her. But that didn’t make sense—her hearing must be playing tricks on her. First it was her back, now the hearing. Her eyesight would go next, no doubt.

  “Is that your phone?” she called to Hellendaal, and the car exploded.

  * * *

  Hellendaal screamed as a part of the Town Car’s wheel well smashed into his head. A jagged edge raked across his face, narrowly missing his right eye and slicing a deep cut all the way to his ear.

  He twisted and stumbled but stayed on his feet, shambling around the edge of the burning car. The car’s back half was enveloped in a halo of flame. Glass from the shattered windows crunched. Smoke boiled into the clear September sky. Hellendaal couldn’t see Darlington through the smoke and the flames.

  Pickett and Thornton ran down the walkway. Pickett already had her phone out, talking quietly, urgently. People in the stately row houses of O Street began to drift outside. At least two senators, an ambassador, and the Secretary of Commerce lived on this block.

  Within ninety seconds, sirens cut the air. Washington Metro PD and Fire and Rescue units arrived on the scene. Hellendaal was treated by the t
rauma team and loaded into an ambulance to Georgetown University Hospital. Professor Edmond Norman, the chief justice’s husband, came to his doorway. He first looked down at the pieces of burning metal in his yard; then his eyes trailed toward the car. He took another step. Thornton ran back up the sidewalk and held him back.

  “Not yet, sir,” Thornton said. “We have to secure the scene first. I’m sorry, sir.”

  Thornton looked toward the car, as if he weren’t sure of what he’d seen. Norman did the same; then the older man sagged into Thornton’s arms.

  * * *

  Just over one minute from the time the car exploded, a tall silver-haired figure emerged from five doors down, on the opposite side of the street. He stood still for a moment; then his feet began to move. Within three steps, he was moving at a dead run. He passed Commerce Secretary Newcomb and his wife, a bathrobe-clad Senator Brenson, and a growing crowd of spectators. He felt the intense heat from the car, and he almost gagged on smoke and the unmistakable and sickening smell of charring flesh.

  A few seconds later, Brent Graves was in command of the scene, and before Chief Justice Darlington’s body was even extricated from the car, the investigation had begun.

  CHAPTER

  26

  Tolman needed Kerry Voss.

  Voss was one of the non–law enforcement people at RIO, strictly on the research end of the spectrum. She’d joined the agency eighteen months ago, and all kinds of rumors about her past floated around: that she’d been a stripper, or a kindergarten teacher, or a substance abuse counselor, that she had a doctorate in sociology, that she’d had something to do with finances at DOD. There were even more tantalizing tidbits about her family background: one said that her original family name had been Vostrikov, and that her grandfather was a Stalin-era KGB agent who defected to the West.

  Voss remained carefully coy about her background, and Tolman resisted the urge to investigate her coworker. Besides, she rather liked the paradox that Voss presented. She and Voss were about the same age and height, which bonded them instantly in an office full of taller people. Voss had tattoos, one of a yin/yang symbol and one of Big Bird from Sesame Street. Still, her office was filled with pictures of her three kids. Most important to Tolman, she could follow money. Tolman had no equal in finding people, in reconstructing scenarios and lives, but she was weakest on financial tracking. That, on the other hand, was all Voss did for RIO: follow money trails.

  After a restless night—she’d walked to the NVCC campus but had been too distracted even to practice piano—Tolman was in the office before dawn. She turned on lights, started coffee in the break room, read meaningless e-mails as the staff started to trickle in. Voss had taken a personal day on Monday, something to do with one of her kids, and Tolman knew she’d be in early today.

  As RIO’s activity level built after seven thirty, Tolman walked out of her office and passed Hudson’s. Hudson was already at his desk, but Tolman passed by without slowing. She went past the front reception desk and turned right into Voss’s office. Voss was settling in at her computer, one hand on the mouse, another holding a pen that she tapped against a legal pad. Today she had longish brown-blond hair—Tolman was never sure of her natural color—and it was in a braid. Occasionally she showed up to work with it in cornrows. Voss’s quirky nature made Tolman like her even more.

  Tolman closed the door and sat down across from Voss.

  “You closed the door,” Voss said. “It’s trouble when you close the door.”

  “Morning, Kerry,” Tolman said.

  Voss pointed with her pen. “Door. Closed. What do you want?”

  “How are you, Kerry? I haven’t gotten to talk to you in a couple of weeks.”

  “You have no gift for bullshit small talk, Meg. I can read you like a book with a broken spine. You want something. But I’ll play. Let’s see, my daughter has developed a serious case of preteen attitude—she’s only nine, by the way—and my two boys fight constantly. My ex-husband just got remarried, my ex-mother-in-law wants to be my best friend, my car needs a new battery, and my garage-door opener doesn’t work.”

  Tolman laughed out loud. “You and I should go out and drink sometime, when things settle down. Sounds like you need it. What about the guys?”

  “Things never settle down. You remember I had met these two guys named Ramirez?”

  “No relation, and you met them about a week apart, right?”

  “Yep. Ramirez number one moved back to Texas. Ramirez number two stood me up for dinner at a fondue place.”

  “You’re not making this up, are you?”

  “No one could make this up. But I do have a good prospect, my youngest son’s soccer coach. Code-named Hot Soccer Guy. Ready to tell me why you’re in here with the door closed?”

  Tolman raised both hands. “I surrender. Just don’t tell me anything else about your life. I need access to some bank records.”

  “So? We do bank records all the time.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a little weak on the financial stuff.”

  Voss let that pass. “Do you have paperwork from Hudson?”

  “No.”

  “Now I know why the door is closed. What’s this about?”

  “You did some time with DOD, right?”

  “Let’s say I did, hypothetically.”

  “Hypothetically, if a couple of soldiers died in action in Iraq, their survivors would get benefits, right?”

  Voss nodded. “There’s an immediate death benefit of a hundred thousand dollars, and that’s usually paid within thirty-six hours after the death is confirmed.”

  “Then isn’t there some sort of ongoing payment, like a pension?”

  “Right. If your hypothetical soldier were married at the time of death, the spouse would get a monthly payment. There’s also a monthly payment for each minor child.”

  “Okay, I need to know if a couple of soldiers’ families got these benefits.”

  “Well, Meg, if they’re dead, they definitely got the benefits. That’s the way the system works.”

  Tolman crossed her legs at the knee.

  “What?” Voss said.

  “I’m not exactly sure they’re dead.”

  Voss put down her pen.

  “They may be or they may not be,” Tolman said. “That’s really what I want to find out.”

  “There are easier ways to do that,” Voss pointed out. “You can get death certificates, all the usual stuff. That’s much more up your alley than mine.”

  “Some things about this case may or may not contradict each other, so I’m trying to verify independently.”

  “And independently of Hudson, too?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a bureaucrat and wants to cover his ass.”

  “Well, I’m a bureaucrat, too. So are you, for that matter. Just because you can carry a gun and get to call yourself ‘investigative specialist’ doesn’t change that fact.”

  “No,” Tolman said. “I know what I am.”

  “Besides, you get along great with Hudson.”

  “I certainly do. But he won’t give me what I need on this case.”

  “You want this done without authorization. I can see it now—one of those ‘federal agencies run amok’ sorts of projects. The reasons certain people believe the government has too much power. Privacy, civil liberties, all that jazz. Am I right?”

  “You are right.”

  Voss sighed. “I thought I left this kind of crap behind when I left—”

  “Yes?”

  “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. This is big or you wouldn’t ask. I know you well enough to get that.” She sighed again. “It may take a little while. I have three other cases—”

  “Just get me what you can, when you can. Please. I’m hoping the money trail tells me something I don’t already know.”

  “Oh, it probably will,” Voss said. “Money is kind of like a bloated corpse. It’s ugly, and after a wh
ile it starts to smell bad, but if you poke at it long enough, it will tell you something. Give me what you have.”

  “Thanks. I will definitely buy you a drink sometime.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  Tolman didn’t want to muddy the waters any more than necessary, so she gave Voss only the names of Michael Standridge and Kevin Lane, their army assignments, the dates the army had said they’d died, and their hometowns. She said nothing about Nick Journey or Fort Washita or Speaker Vandermeer or Chief Justice Darlington.

  Tolman left Voss’s office and headed back toward her own. As she passed the break room, she saw a cluster of half a dozen people around the small TV set. She caught snippets of the audio: “… driver was injured in the blast as well … the chief justice’s husband reportedly watched from the porch … no claim of responsibility … on the heels of Speaker Vandermeer’s…”

  Tolman elbowed her way into the crowd. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Hudson turned and looked at her. His face was gray. He said nothing, his eyes boring into hers. Somewhere out in the office, a phone rang, then another, then another. Hudson said nothing, turned, and left the break room.

  “What?” Tolman said.

  The crowd parted and Tolman saw the TV. The HNC graphic on the bottom of the screen read, CHIEF JUSTICE DARLINGTON ASSASSINATED.

  Without saying a word, Tolman ran back down the hall and threw open the door to Voss’s office.

  Voss, startled, looked up at her.

  “That project I asked you to do just got a lot more important,” Tolman said.

  As she ran back toward her own office, she noticed that Hudson’s door was now closed.

  CHAPTER

  27

  Journey called the school, telling Andrew’s teacher there was a family emergency. He packed a bag for Andrew and a small one for himself. He called the student who served as Andrew’s occasional caregiver and dropped off his spare house key with her, removing it from its hiding place under the back doormat. It would be safe with her. Then he called Amelia. On reaching her voice mail, he said, “I’m coming to the city. I can meet you at the usual place in two and a half hours. Something’s come up, and I need you to take Andrew for a day or two.”