3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1)

3 a.m. (Henry Bins 1) Page 4

by Nick Pirog

:05

   

  “Callie Freig is the girl you've been watching out your window for the past three months,” Cal bellows.

  I shake my head. “Sorry, buddy, but I've never seen her before.” I had, just not while she was alive.

  “You've never seen a woman who has lived across the street from you for three months?” asks Ray.

  “She's only lived there three months?”

  Both Ray and Cal look confused by my question and I can't blame them. The woman could have lived there for the past six years and I might never have seen her.

  “I never saw her,” I repeat.

  “What about the Clemens?” asks Cal. “Have you seen them?”

  “Who are the Clemens?”

  “The people who own the house. The people who have lived there for the last ten years.”

  “Oh, the Clemens—” I pause, “nope, not ringing any bells.”

  “How long have you lived here?” asks Ray.

  “What did it say on my lease?”

  She glares at me. “Seven years.”

  “That's correct.”

  “And you've never seen the people that live in the house directly across from your window?” barks Cal.

  “I'm not awake during the day very often. I'm sort of a night owl. If you haven't realized, we are having this conversation at four in the morning.” Well, 3:54. If it was 4:00, he would be having a conversation with the linoleum.

  The two detectives take this in and I ask, “So who is Callie Freig?”

  Cal squints his distaste at the role reversal. Ray takes a deep breath and says, “Twenty-four-year-old female. Has been renting the house from the Clemens – who spend half the year in Florida – for the past three months. Craigslist post. Fifteen hundred bucks a month. Steep, but they gave her a good deal. No Facebook. No Instagram. Very little credit history. No next of kin. Parents unknown.”

  I'm left trying to synthesize all this information, pondering how and when she met the President of the United States, when Ray asks me for a glass of water.

  I nod at the kitchen and say, “Help yourself.”

  A cupboard opens and shuts and she asks, “Where?”

  I walk into the kitchen. 

  “Funny thing,” Cal says behind me. “We never did find Callie Freig's cell phone. And even funnier thing, last night, my partner said she heard two phones ringing, after you — and this is the funniest part — after you said you only had the one.”

  I pull a glass from the cupboard, fill it with water, and hand it to Ray.

  “And you think I stole her phone,” I say, trying to buy myself some time.

  Cal grins.

  “I'll be right back.” I head to the bedroom.

  It is 3:57 when I exit the bedroom. I have three minutes to get them out. Three minutes to convince them that I didn't kill Callie Freig.

  I hold out my hand to Ray. “I still use it as an alarm. Check it.”

  She takes the original iPhone from me and clicks on the alarm clock. It is set to 3:55 a.m. She hits it and chimes play. It isn't exactly the same as the ring on Callie's phone, but it is a close enough approximation.

  “Why do you have an alarm set for 3:55 a.m.?” scoffs Cal.

  “Tokyo markets close at 4:00 a.m. I set the alarm so I can remember to get my last trades in.” I have no idea what time the Tokyo markets close, but as Tokyo is on the other side of the globe, it seems rational. 

  “Why not use the alarm clock on your new phone?” asks Ray.

  “Uh—” I stall. “I made a lot of money while I had that phone. Good luck charm, I guess.”

  It is 3:58.

  “Speaking of, I have to make a last minute trade. Thanks for stopping by.”

  The two reluctantly head toward the door.

  “Oh, another thing,” remarks Ray. “We found a bunch of cat food across the street, but, well, no cat.”

  I look at Lassie sitting on one of the chairs at the table, curled in a ball.

  “And, while I was looking at that lease of yours, I happened to notice there was no mention of a pet.”

  “Just trying to save fifty bucks a month,” I say with a smile.

  “Really,” says Cal. “With all that money you made with that lucky phone, you're worried about fifty bucks?”

  I glare at him. Take a deep breath.

  “Lassie.”

  He jumps off the chair and sits at my feet.

  I take a deep breath. Please work. Please work.

  “Lie down.”

  He lies down on his belly and wags his tail.

  “Roll over.”

  He rolls onto his back.

  “Play dead.”

  He extends his legs, closes his eyes, and I swear he sticks his tongue out the side of his mouth.

  “Do a backflip,” I say, knowing I'm pushing my luck.

  Lassie doesn't do anything, and I look up at the two detectives – Cal whose eyebrows are scrunched and Ray whose mouth is slightly agape – and say, “We're still working on that one.”

  I open the door and the two detectives grab their shoes and leave.

  It is only when Lassie and I are lying in bed, when I realize my mistake and jump up.

  The glass Detective Ray was drinking out of.

  It's gone.

  And my fingerprints with it.

  :06

   

  I expect to wake up in jail. I don't.

  And when I still haven't heard a knock on the door at 3:25 a.m., I decide that one of three things has occurred: 1) it takes longer than twenty-four hours to match up fingerprints, 2) I hadn't left any fingerprints (which is a possibility as I had been very conscious of this and had tucked my hands into my sleeves), or 3) there had been a break in the case and even though they had matched my prints to those found at the scene, it didn't matter, because now they had their eyes set on the most powerful man in the world.

  But according to the internet, the President was meeting with last year’s NFL Champions, the Denver Broncos, at the White House. He wasn't being accused of murder. So that left 1) or 2).

  “Shall we go for a run, buddy?”

  Meow.

  Lassie scampers behind me for about a mile, then disappears. I'm just starting to loosen up when a car turns onto the street. I haven't seen a car on the road since the Ford Focus, the one driven by the Connor Sullivan en route to strangle Callie Freig. 

  The car is a Crown Vic.

  It pulls to the side of the road ten feet in front of me.

  I pull out my ear buds and stop.

  Ray steps from the passenger side and says, “We need you to come with us.”

  Cal clambers from the driver’s side and pulls open the back door. “NOW,” he says.

  I climb into the back seat.

  They both get back in and we drive away.

  It is 3:33 a.m.

   

  …

   

  “Did you ever go into the house across the street?”

  I'm sitting across from Cal. Ray is leaning against the wall parallel with the steel table.

  “No.” I'm guessing that they're bluffing. If they had my prints, I would have been arrested. Instead, I am in Interview Room B having a voluntary—which doesn’t feel very voluntary—chat.

  “So you never went inside the house?”

  “Never.”

  “Not once?”

  “No.”

  “Never were invited in, never had a sandwich, never opened the refrigerator?”

  My stomach tightens. “No. Never.”

  “What time is it?” I ask. Cell phones aren't allowed in “voluntary” interviews. I would get it back, I was reassured by the lady who took it. It had been 3:43 when I'd signed the form and handed it over. That had been more than five minutes ago.

  The door opens and a cop walks in. Hands Ray a piece of paper, who in turn hands it to Cal. Cal's goatee stretches wide. “Well, well, well.”

  I lean
forward.

  They had been bluffing. They hadn't gotten the results back yet. Apparently, it takes exactly twenty-four hours to match fingerprints.

  “Guess whose prints are all over that house?”

  Shit.

  “A partial on the hood of the car. A partial on the tire of the car. A partial on the handle of the refrigerator. A full on the closet door in the guest bedroom. A full on the sliding glass door.”

  “How did you get my prints?”

  “Were you not listening? They were all over the house.”

  “Yes, I was listening,” I grunt. “How did you get my prints, the ones you matched those to? I've never been arrested. I have nothing on file.” I glance at Ray. “If, by chance, you took my prints off a cup that you illegally stole from my house, you'd better believe that won't hold up in court.”

  “Of course that wouldn't hold up in court,” Cal laughs. “We got your prints off your cell phone. You know that form you signed that you didn't read?”

  Crap.

  “So I'm gonna ask again. Have you ever been inside the house before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you in the house three nights ago?”

  “Yes. But she wasn't murdered three nights ago. She was murdered four nights ago.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I heard her scream.” 

   

  ...

   

  “Connor Sullivan?” scoffs Cal. “As in the President of the United States?”

  I nod.

  He looks at Ray. She shakes her head.

  “I swear, I heard a loud scream and then a minute later a man walked out the front door and directly underneath the streetlamp. It was Connor Sullivan.”

  “Getting into, what did you say, a Ford Focus?” Ray says chuckling.

  I nod.

  “Where's his Secret Service? How would he get out of the White House?”

  “I don't know. Ask him.”

  “Why did you kill her?” asks Cal.

  “What?”

  “Why – did – you – kill – Callie Freig?”

  “I didn't. I'd never seen her before, until I went over there that night. Seriously.”

  “Yeah, you said that before. And guess what, I didn't believe you the first time. Your window looks out on her house. You never go to check the weather and see her walking to her car. Bullshit. You were in love with her. Watched her every chance you got. Then one night you go over there and strangle the shit out of her.”

  “I have Henry Bins.”

  “What?”

  “You are Henry Bins,” quips Ray.

  “Yes and I have Henry Bins. It's a sleeping disorder. I'm only awake for an hour a night. From 3 a.m. to 4 a.m.”

  Both shake their heads like Parkinson's patients. And here I was, the one with the condition. 

  “Google it.” I look up at Ray. “Seriously, Google it. Or you can just wait and watch what happens to me in what I'm guessing is probably four minutes.”

  “And what happens in four minutes, asshole?” asks Cal.

  “My body will crumple like JFK and I will basically be in a coma for twenty-three hours. Then I will wake up at 3 a.m., be awake for an hour, then repeat.”

  He pushes back from the table, his laughter riotous. “Well, if that isn't the biggest load of shit I've ever heard. Are you getting this, Ingrid? Are you listening to this shit?”

  I stand up. “That's why my prints are on the closet in the guest bedroom. I had to find somewhere to sleep. I got stuck under the car trying to get her phone out and I didn't have time to make it back across the street.”

  “You mean the cell phone you threw in a dumpster three blocks away?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, idiot, you busted it up, but it still logged its last known GPS. Took two hours going through some trash, but we found it.”

  My brain is whirring.

  I lean against the wall.

  Ray has been quiet for the last minute and I see her fiddling with her phone. “Um, Cal, you might want to come read this. I think this Henry Bins thing might actually be—”

  :07

   

  My head is pounding.

  I lift my right arm up and touch it to my scalp. I can feel a clump of hair missing and a patch of gauze in its place. I lift my left arm to assist in the damage assessment, but am met with the clink of restraint. I open my eyes. My left arm is handcuffed to the hospital bed.

  “What did you do?” asks a familiar voice. “Did you rob a twenty-four-hour bank?”

  Sara is Japanese-American, a nurse at Alexandria Municipal Hospital, and an ex-girlfriend.

  We'd started dating after my third concussion. She worked the 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift, so she would just scoot over after work and hang out until my hour was up. It was fun and casual for six months, but like the others before her, she realized seeing me for half an hour three days a week just wasn't enough. After four failed relationships, I realized the only thing worse than having Henry Bins, was falling in love with Henry Bins. Luckily, we'd been able to remain friends.

  “Nope. Murder.”

  She laughs and says, “Well, the good news is no concussion. The bad news is thirteen stitches.”

  “That puts me over a hundred. Is my next set free?”

  “I'll see what I can do,” she laughs, then as if I'd hit the refresh button, her smile fades and she says, “I have to alert the officers that you're awake.”

  I nod.

  She squeezes my calf and disappears behind the curtain.

  Ray and Cal walk through.

  I pull my arm up, clinking the cuffs, and say, “Does this mean I'm under arrest?”

  Cal doesn't hesitate and Mirandizes me. When he's done, I say, “Let me get this straight, you obviously read up on Henry Bins, you watched me fall at exactly four and crack my skull open, and I'm sure you've checked with the nurses here and know that I'm no stranger to the emergency room.”

  Ray nods.

  “So you believe I have this condition and yet you also believe that in this slim window I get, this hour, that I killed Callie Freig.”

  “Doesn't change the fact that the window of opportunity is still there, you easily could have killed her within that one hour,” says Ray. “Your prints are all over the place, including the car that her body is found on, not to mention that every single thing you've said, except for this stupid sleeping disorder, has been lies.”

  My mind is racing.

  “I need to make a call.”

  “Lawyering up already,” snorts Cal.

  “Actually, my dad probably thinks I'm dead, so I'd like to call him.”

  Ray hands me her phone. I raise my eyebrows and both the detectives leave. My dad is frantic when he answers. It was our card night and finding that I wasn't there, he called my phone. When I hadn't answered, he'd started toward the hospital.

  “Turn around and go back to my house.”

  I tell him what to do once he gets there.

  Before I hang up, I ask if he saw a cat prowling around outside my apartment.

  He hadn't.

   

  …

   

  The nurse – not Sara, though she'd come to say goodbye when her shift ended – is changing the dressings on my head when my dad shows up.

  The best word to describe my father is frumpy. He wears slacks too short and too high on his waist, sweaters that should have been given to the Salvation Army decades earlier, glasses that could fry a caterpillar in seconds. He has a full head of curly gray hair and three days’ worth of stubble on his chin.

  I introduce him to Cal and Ray, both of whom have taken seats, waiting for what I've told them is concrete proof of my innocence.

  “Do you have it?” I ask.

  He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the pink Samsung.

  I take it from him. It's dead, the battery having run out.

  “What's that?” as
ks Ray.

  Holding the phone up with my right hand, I say, “It's the phone I found under the car, the phone I can assure you I was not lying about.”

  “But we found Callie Freig's phone,” spits Cal.

  “Maybe she had two,” Ray says with a shrug. 

  I lower it out of his reach and say, “It's not Callie's phone.”

  “Then whose is it?” asks Ray.

  “It's the President's.”

   

  …

   

  “The President? As in the President of the United States?” asks my father.

  “Yep.”

  Cal is laughing. Doubled over. He composes himself and says, “That's your proof.”

  I hand the phone to Ray. “It's his.”

  “Is the President even allowed to have a cell phone?” she asks, taking it.

  “Of course not,” Cal manages.

  “Actually, he can, and he does.”

  Both Cal and Ray stare at my father. He continues, “Obama was so adamant that he be able to keep his Blackberry that they made a special stipulation that he could keep it.”

  “Really?” I found myself asking. I'd hoped this was the case, but I was still surprised.

  “Of course they had to make some considerations for national security, added encryption and disabled the GPS so no one could track him. But he was able to keep it and Connor Sullivan was allowed to keep his.”

  “But it's pink,” shouted Cal. “And why are we even having this conversation? This is not the President of the United States’ cell phone.”

  “The phone is white, the casing is pink,” I say. “And it's not just any pink casing. Look closer.”

  Ray turns the phone over in her hand. “It's got a ribbon embossed on the back. It's a Susan B. Komen casing.”

  “The First Lady,” remarks my dad.

  The First Lady had been diagnosed with breast cancer two years earlier. They caught it early and it'd gone into remission.

  Cal was silent.

  Ray hits the button for the nurse and when one comes a moment later, Ray asks, “Does anyone have a Samsung charger here?”


  “Deb would,” the nurse responds and returns a moment later with Deb's charger.

  Ray plugs it in and it takes ten seconds for the phone to come alive.

  “It's locked,” she says, showing everyone.

  “The Washington Monument,” remarks my father.

  “What?” asks Cal.

  “The lock screen. The picture in the background, it's the Washington Monument.”

  The monument is only six miles from my house and I'd assumed that Callie had loved it and taken a picture of it. Now I was hoping that it had a special place in Connor Sullivan's heart.

  I look at my dad. He shakes his head. He knows plenty about the President, but the monument doesn't trigger any tidings.

  “What use is it to us if it's locked?” says Cal. “Let's get it down to the precinct and get one of our resident nerds to crack it open. The faster we get it open, the faster we find out this phone isn't the fucking President's.”

  “How many numbers?” asks my dad.

  “Four,” responds Ray.

  My father mulls. When he mulls his lips move back and forth. Mull. Mull. Mull.

  “Try thirteen, forty-four.”

  Ray punches them in and my dad explains, “Thirteen was his number when he played basketball at Dayton. Forty-four because he's the forty-fourth president.”

  Ray shakes her head.

  “Switch 'em,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Forty-four, thirteen.”

  “Four-four-one-three,” she says aloud. Pause. “Holy shit.”

  Cal rips the phone from her hand, looks at the screen, and then hands it back to her silently. She shows it to both me and my father. The Washington Monument has dissolved into the home screen. The picture is of the President spread eagle on the eagle carpet that centers the oval office. A picture that would have been infamous had it ever been leaked.

  “Look at this,” Ray says, reading through his contact list. “The Vice President, the Treasurer, Supreme Court Justice Billings, the head of the CIA.” Ray shoves the phone in Cal's face and says, “Look at this picture. It's the President taking a selfie . . . and here's one of his dog . . . holy shit.” She looks at me. “You were telling the truth.”

  I nod.

  “Now will you get these cuffs off me so I can go home?”

  Cal nods at Ray and she unlocks the cuffs.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  :08

   

  Lassie is licking my face.

  Only it isn't Lassie.

  It's my dad's one-hundred-and-sixty-pound English mastiff.

  Murdock.

  Not only has Murdock been licking my face for God knows how long, he'd slept on my legs, and I am paralyzed from the waist down.

  Can't I go just one night without waking up feeling like I've been tackled by Ray Lewis? 

  By the time I get Murdock off me, get my legs to work, clean my face, change the dressing on my stitches, and join my dad at the kitchen table, it is 3:06 a.m.

  “Why are you walking like that?” he asks.

  “Your dumb dog slept on my legs.”

  He laughs.

  Murdock comes trotting in and buries his face in my dad's lap. “You're not dumb,” my dad tells him.

  He's not dumb. To be dumb, he would have to be much smarter.

  I open the fridge and see that Isabel has made a fresh round of sandwiches. Reubens. My favorite. I grab two and a strawberry protein shake and set them on the table where my dad is shuffling the cards. I grab a can of tuna, open it, and set it outside the door.

  Just in case.

  I dive into the sandwiches and flip up my laptop. 

  My dad deals the cards.

  “Nothing in the news about the President being arrested, if that's what you're wondering,” he says.

  I close the laptop and set it on the ground.

  “How much do you know?”

  “After you fell asleep, the lady detective told me most everything.” He smiles. “She's not bad looking.”

  I laugh. “No, she is not.”

  He's waiting for me to discard, but I also know he wants to hear my version of the story. I oblige him with a six of clubs and an animated narrative.

  “And you took the cat?” he says with belly laugh. “You hate cats.”

  “I couldn't leave him there. And he thinks he's a dog, so he's not too bad.”

  I give my dad a hug at 3:58 and let Murdock lick my face goodbye.

  I have my first peaceful sleep in a week.

   

  …

   

  It's 3:08 a.m. when I pick up the phone and dial Ray.

  She answers, then says, “He says that he lost the phone two days earlier.”

  “And you believe him?” I shout into the phone.

  “There is an official report filed,” responds Ray. “I have a friend in the White House who faxed it to me.”

  “Could it have been doctored?”

  “I don't see why not. But proving it would be hell.”

  “Well, did you at least get the President's fingerprints off the phone?”

  “Nope, he must have wiped it. And we didn't find his fingerprints in the house.”

  I blew out a long exhale.

  “What about the car? Did you check the stoplight cams or ATM cams for the Ford Focus?”

  “Yep. Nothing.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Us?”

  “You. Where does that leave you?”

  “Well, we can't do anything without rock solid evidence and the phone isn't enough. In fact, the Secret Service already came by and got it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep.”

  “And they had a quick conversation with my captain, who then tore me a new asshole for using my back channel
at the White House and warned me the only way we would ever go after the President is if there were a video of him strangling the girl and even then we probably wouldn't do shit.”

  “What about Cal? He didn't back you?”

  “No.”

  I wait for her to expand on this. She doesn’t.

  “So he just gets away with it?”

  “The only thing tying him to the scene is you and the phone, but the phone is no longer in our possession.”

  “There has to be a connection somewhere. You sure Callie Freig never worked at the White House?”

  “She graduated from Ohio State in the winter, then moved out here four months ago. She might have met the President in Ohio somewhere, but we'd never be able to prove it.”

  “What about friends and family? Ask them.”

  “No family to speak of. As far as friends, we can't locate any.”

  “But you have her cell phone records.”

  “Sure do. She called and received calls from all of one number. And that number is now disconnected.”

  “That's odd.”

  “Very. This could easily be how she communicated with the President, but the cell company couldn't get a report on the number. We'd need a warrant to dig any deeper and since my ass is still stinging, I'm not doing anything that could come back on me.”

  “So it's done. The President gets away with murder.”

  “For now.” She pauses. “Yes.”

  I hang up.

  Three minutes later, my feet are pounding the cold Alexandria asphalt.

  I dig a moat around my mind, fill it with alligators, and place a thousand archers on the turrets of my cerebrum, but I am unable to defend my thoughts. They are dominated by Connor Sullivan, Callie Freig, and the white noise of injustice.

  I do not have a temper. I don't have time for anger. But my insides are engulfed in blue flames.

  The car pulls to the curb. Doors open. Men jump out.

  I cut left into an alley.

  I think about what Ray said, that the only thing tying him to the scene is you and the phone, but the phone is no longer in our possession.

  I am the only connection.

  If I'm dead, no connection.

  My pursuers are ten strides behind me. I run a quarter mile, knock over two trashcans and exit the alley. Headlights flash at me. I cut right and sprint three blocks, then take a left onto a side street that leads to the Potomac. I can feel the headlights on my back, singeing as they grow closer and closer. I can hear the river. I hit the concrete embankment and turn. Both cars have skidded to a halt. The doors fly open and four men leap out. I gaze down at the moving water twenty feet below. 

  I jump.

  The water is cold, but I'm not in it. I am in a large drainage pipe that opens into the Potomac.

  Gross, I know.

  The pipe is impossible to see from the high embankment and I only know it's there because I'd jumped in the river once on a self-dare and crawled out just below it. It is roughly four feet high and I crouch down and wait.

  I check my phone.

  3:46 a.m.

  Two minutes later, I hear wheels squeal on the asphalt. 

  I wait another minute, then climb out and scale the embankment. My pursuers are gone.

  I have dual concerns as I start sprinting back: can I make the two-and-a-half-mile trek in time, and are those dickheads still out there looking for me?

  The constant head-turning and the many times I stop to hide decimate my time. With a mile left, I have four minutes. And since I'm not Usain Bolt, I'm screwed.

  The hunt begins.

  Where can I sleep for twenty-three hours without being discovered?

  There is only one logical answer.

  I shine my cell phone into the dumpster behind the Italian restaurant. It is two-thirds full and I'm hoping this means the pick-up is still a couple days off. I climb inside, dig myself down into the slimy refuse, cover myself in as many bags as I can, and close my eyes.

  :09

   

  Every once in a great while, I will wake up a couple minutes early. 2:59. 2:58. Once, even 2:57.

  It’s like Christmas, each minute a beautifully wrapped gift just waiting to be opened. Should I allow myself an extra minute in the shower? Could I read three more pages of my book? Run another quarter mile? Watch a YouTube video? Watch the swimming pool scene from Wild Things, twice?

  Today, I wake up at 2:58 a.m.

  Two extra minutes.

  It requires one of these minutes to pull myself from the now three-quarters full dumpster. And it necessitates another minute to rid my hair and body of the potpourri of spaghetti, breadcrumbs, day-old lasagna, and maggots. As unpleasant as maggots are—and they are unpleasant, trust me on this—I try to look on the bright side: I wasn't killed by those pesky guys trying to kill me, and I wasn't discovered by an underpaid busser who called 911, and I wasn't at a landfill. All things considered, I called myself lucky. And quite honestly, I'd slept well. Day-old lasagna is like memory foam.

  I take the back way to my condo, which adds two blocks, but I don't want to risk discovery by the goons patrolling the street in front of my condo, and when I walk through the door, it is 3:06.

  I check the blinds, but don't see any suspicious cars on the street. As for the goons, I’m not sure if they were a hit squad, the Secret Service, or some angry congressmen, but I know I hadn't seen the last of them. I latch the security lock on my door, throw my clothes in a garbage bag, and shower.

  When I sit down to the computer, it is 3:17 a.m.

  There is no breaking news about the President being arrested and I concede that he's gotten away with murder. And that I should let him if I want to remain alive.

  I check my stocks, which have been crippled over the last couple days – I'd lost about 40k – and I decide to ride out the storm with a couple of them and sell off the remainder.

  I try to watch Game of Thrones, but I can't remember what has happened in the previous episodes and I feel lost. What happened to the Kingslayer's hand? Although it has been nearly twenty-four hours since my harrowing chase and physically my body has recovered from the fight or flight-endorphin release, my brain has not. I feel sluggish, my synapses delayed and unresponsive.

  At 3:42, I give up and lie down on my bed.

  For the first time I can ever remember, I fall asleep on my own.

   

  …

   

  The next few days pass in relative monotony. I have made a couple small tweaks, as I have decided never to venture outside again, and I run on my new treadmill that I'd had overnighted and delivered (the days of leaving my door unlocked are in the past and I had Isabel meet the delivery people and let them in). Anyhow, the treadmill is the latest and greatest, and there is a screen that shows where you are running. You can run the Appalachian Trail, the streets of Boston, the beaches of San Diego, or even the nearby Potomac.

  I mean, who needs to go outside, am I right?

  It's my fifth day on the treadmill, and I opt for a little run down the streets of DC. The White House looms in the background and I flip it off.

  I've run 2.43 miles when I hear a noise.

  I jerk my head toward the door, my eyes scanning to see if the regular security lock, and the Ideal Security Heavy Duty lock I'd had installed are both latched. They are.

  I continue running.

  At 2.51 miles, I hear it again.

  I jump off the treadmill and tiptoe to the door and gaze through the peephole. Nothing.

  Was I hearing things?

  Two steps back toward the treadmill and I hear it again. I again press my eye to the peephole. Again, nothing.

  I unlatch both locks and gently ease the door open.

  Meow.

  “LASSSSSSSSSSSSSIE!”

  He jumps into my arms.

  I hold him up high, my cheeks cramping I'm smiling so hard. “BUDDDY! . . . WHERE DID YOU G—DUDE! WHAT HAPPE
NED TO YOU?”

  Lassie is a bloody mess. He has a huge cut on his belly, a bite out of his ear, and one of his eyes is swollen shut. I swear he is smirking as if to say, “You should see the other five guys.” 

  I set him on the table and go to work on him with a warm cloth. He winces as I touch him, but altogether he's a pretty good sport.

  I'd been so happy to see him and so overwhelmed by his many cuts that I'd failed to notice he smelled something awful.

  “Dude, did you pick a fight with a skunk?”

  Meow.

  “What are these?” I pull out two spines from his butt. Porcupine spikes.

  “Dude, did you pick a fight with a skunk and a porcupine?”

  Meow.

  I am laughing uncontrollably and hug him tight.

  He winces.

  “Sorry, buddy.”

  I feed him a can of tuna, then I give him a bath in the sink. I gently rinse all the dried blood off him. He is having trouble keeping his eyes open. “I've been there, buddy. Trust me.”

  I carry him to bed and rub his little body until he falls asleep.

   

  …

   

  “Lassie . . . Lassie!”

  His eyes flutter, but he doesn't move.

  It's 3:03 a.m.

  I gingerly roll him over. The cut on his belly is red and swollen. I touch it with my finger and he yelps.

  Shit.

  “Dude? Are you okay?”

  He's not.

  My heart starts racing.

  “I'm sorry, buddy. We'll get you fixed.”

  Meow.

  My eyes are filling with tears and I wipe them away. He's just a stupid cat, I tell myself. I grab my phone and am about to search for an emergency vet when I stop. I've actually seen the emergency vet before. It's adjacent to the park about a mile and a half away.

  I don't have a driver's license, but I do have a little Vespa that I use every so often.

  I grab Lassie and a backpack, then bolt out the front door.

  It’s the first time I have left the sanctity of my apartment since the chase. I scan the street. It’s all clear.

  I open the backpack and put Lassie inside. 

  “Ten minutes, buddy,” I tell him.

  I make it in seven.

  Lassie clings to my shoulder as I walk through the sliding glass doors of the Alexandria VCA Emergency Animal Hospital. 

  There is no one else there and after filling out some paperwork, we see the doctor.

  It is 3:20. 

  “So, what seems to be the problem?” the vet asks in an Australian accent. He has reddish blond hair, glasses, and tells me to call him James, or as he says it, Jahms.

  “He was gone for about a week, came back all beat-up last night. I think he picked a fight with a skunk and a porcupine.”

  “Is that right?” He laughs. “Well, let's have a look-see, shall we?”

  Lassie looks at me over his shoulder as the doctor begins his examination and I reassure him, “It's okay, buddy.”

  The doctor flips him over and looks at the cut on his belly. “Somebody really got you there, didn't they?” He gazes up at me and says, “Looks like he got pretty lucky, actually. The skin on the belly is pretty soft. A little deeper and he could have done some real damage.”

  He presses on Lassie's belly and I expect him to wince, but he doesn't. But when the doctor touches a little higher on his ribs, he lets out a painful wail.

  My stomach tightens. I wait for the doctor to tell me that he is bleeding internally and will surely die. But, after another minute of prodding, the doctor diagnoses some bruised ribs—nothing major. He prescribes some pain meds and gives me a couple ointments to put on his cuts.

  I blow a sigh of relief.

  “Hear that, buddy? Just some bruised ribs.”

  Meow.

  “He should be back in action in a couple days.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” I remember something from a week earlier when I'd been petting Lassie and ask, “Actually, while we're here . . . did you happen to feel that lump on his shoulder?”

  He shakes his head and I guide his hand to a little lump behind Lassie's right shoulder.

  I wait for the doctor to tell me it is obviously cancer.

  “Microchip.”

  “What?”

  “That's his microchip. Sometimes they put it in behind the shoulder.”

  He sees my confusion and asks, “You didn't have the microchip put in?”

  “No. I found him on the street about a month ago. No tags.”

  “Well, whoever owned the cat had a microchip put in. Costs like fifty bucks, some places do it for free.”

  My mind is racing.

  “Could you find out who he belongs to?” I ask. “I mean, I should at least try and track them down, right?”

  “Sure thing.”

  He opens a drawer, unwinds a little scanner, and plugs it into his computer. A moment later, he runs the scanner over Lassie's shoulder, like he is produce at the grocery store. He writes the name, phone number, and address on the back of one of his business cards and hands it to me.

  I read the name and try to keep a straight face.

   

  …

  It is 3:46 when we get back.

  I put two of the tiny little pain pills inside a blueberry and feed it to Lassie. Then I spread ointment on all his cuts and then carry him and my laptop to bed.

  I pull out the card the vet gave me.

  Jessica Renoix.

  A Richmond address.

  I Google “Jessica Renoix and Connor Sullivan.”

  There are several hits. I click on images.

  Bingo.

  There is a picture of Jessica Renoix and the then Governor of Virginia, Connor Sullivan. 

  Jessica Renoix is Callie Freig.

  :10

   

  It'd been a double homicide. Twelve nights ago, Callie Freig had been murdered. But so had Jessica Renoix.

  It is 3:07 a.m.

  Lassie and I are back in my bed. I'd given him another round of pain medicine and he is on his back snoring. The cut on his belly has improved dramatically and he'd told me in face licks that he was feeling a little better.

  I've been staring at the picture of Connor Sullivan and Jessica Renoix for the past couple minutes. Under the picture of the two, a caption reads, “Campaign volunteer Jessica Renoix gets an armful of incumbent candidate, Governor Connor Sullivan.”

  The photo must have been taken six years earlier during his final reelection campaign as Governor of Virginia.

  In the photo, there are fifteen people clad in white T-shirts with the slogan “The Man With the Plan.” Sullivan had been quoted ad nauseum on television saying, “I've got a plan . . .” During his bid for governor it had always been “I have a plan for this great state” which quickly became “I have a plan for this great nation” during his bid for president. To his credit, he'd had a plan, and he was delivering on all fronts. The economy was the strongest it'd been in eight years, unemployment the lowest in a decade, and every troop had been pulled from the Middle East.

  Jessica Renoix and the President are front and center. Jessica is petite and of medium height. Though she must have been barely out of high school, her confident eyes and wry smile speak to a girl who is not naive about the realities of the world. The President is wearing a crisp blue shirt under a black blazer. He towers over her, his right arm draped over her shoulder. There is nothing overtly sexual about the pose, and if anything, the contact appears fatherly. I surmise that any of the other fifteen volunteers could just have easily been in Jessica's place.

  I spend the rest of my forty-five minutes in bed, scouring the internet for more information on Jessica Renoix.

  I find very little.

   

  …

   

  It's ten minutes into my day when I scroll down to Ray's telephone number and nearly hit the Call bu
tton, then decide against it. I want to know more about Jessica Renoix before I talk to the detective.

  I log onto the internet and find a company that does background checks. I fill in all the information I have on Jessica Renoix—a six-year-old address and a long out-of-service telephone number—then pay the nearly $200 for the rush job.

  “Well, now I guess we just wait,” I say to Lassie, who is lick-eating his breakfast. In forty-eight hours, he has made a near full recovery.

  Meow.

  “You would think you would care more. This is your mother we're talking about.”

  Meow.

  “Yes, living with me is awesome, but still.”

  Meow.

  “Candy? What kind of candy?”

  Meow.

  “Dude, Twix is a cookie.”

  We argue about this for another minute, then I open the door to the balcony and he goes to his mound and takes care of business. The fresh air feels wonderful and I decide I am going running outside.

  Goons be damned. 

  There is a brown box on the kitchen table with an Amazon sticker. It had come two days earlier, but I'd yet to open it.

  A minute later, I'm holding the strongest Taser on the market.

  I shake it at Lassie. “Next time you go pee-pee on the carpet, zap. Four thousand volts, buddy.”


  He laughs.

  I pull on my beanie, slip on my running shoes, and open the front door. Lassie sticks his head out, surveys the hall, then slinks back in. If I'd gotten over my little scare, Lassie was yet to get over his.

  “I guess we'll have to get you a Taser too.”

  Meow.

  “No, I'm not getting you a knife.”

  Meow.

  “We'll discuss this when I get back.”

  After running on the treadmill for close to week, I forget how amazing the air tastes. I decide to take a different route and head north toward Summer Park. I've already thought of escape routes, should the need arise. The stun gun is in my right hand, cranked on high.

  I sweep the perimeter as I run. No signs of life. I try to remain on alert, but my mind continually drifts. I try to move past her, but she keeps popping back into my thoughts. Not Callie Freig. Not Jessica Renoix. Detective Ray. Her auburn hair, her crooked smile, how she would stare at me when she thought I was a murderer. I try to configure what her body is shaped like beneath those jeans and bulky sweatshirts. What sounds she might make. How her nipples would respond to my teasing tongue.

  Bright lights.

  Two sets.

  Escape Route D.

  I dart across the street. There is a ditch and I jump down into the water, then crawl up the embankment and enter Summer Park.

  I head for the darkened tennis courts to my left. I crash through the chain-link gate, hurdle the net, then start on the eighteen-foot fence enclosing the two courts. I turn and look over my shoulder. Three guys have entered the court. They are all wearing black. They have guns. I wonder why they don't shoot. As I sweep my leg over the top of the chain-link, all three hit the fence and shake it for all it's worth. Somehow I'm able to hold on, then hop down the last ten feet.

  I look through the fence at them. They could be Navy SEALs for all I know. 

  “Hey, guys.”

  They don't respond.

  They go to work on the fence and I wait until all three near the top.

  “Sorry about this.”

  I taser the chain-link fence.

  Three screams, then three thuds as they fall to the green court floor.

  I turn and run.

  “Don't move.”

  I'm staring into the barrel of a gun. 

  “Drop the Taser.”

  I drop the stun gun.

  “You guys okay?” he calls to his buddies.

  “That motherfucker electrocuted us.”

  He picks up the stun gun from the ground and looks at it. Then he pushes it into my chest and I scream.

   

  …

   

  I'm in a car.

  “You okay?”

  My vision is blurred. “What time is it?” I ask.

  “3:35 a.m.”

  I squint at the voice.

  “Don't worry, we'll get you back before your 4 a.m. curfew.”

  I recognize the voice, but the face still swims in front of me.

  “Henry Bins,” he says. It isn't a question.

  My vision is starting to clear. I'm in the back seat of a car. My chest is burning.

  I try to speak, but only a cough comes out.

  He hands me a Perrier and I take a small sip. A chill courses down my arms. 

  “Mr. President.”

   

  …

   

  The car light above illuminates Connor Sullivan's face in roughly the same shadow as the streetlamp had two weeks earlier. He is wearing jeans and a University of Dayton sweatshirt. He could be any other guy out for a drive. But he's not. He's the President of the United States.

  “Sorry about my guys,” he says. “No harm was supposed to come to you.”

  I bring my hand to my chest where I was shocked and know a ruby red burn is in the making.

  I nod.

  “I know time is of the essence, that for you time is always of the essence, so I will get right to the point. I knew the moment I saw your face in that window that you were going to pose a problem.”

  We lock eyes, relive that moment in time. 

  I think about his words: that you were going to pose a problem. Callie Freig had also posed a problem. And she was dead. So why wasn't I?

  “I didn't kill that girl,” he says.

  I would have been more apt to believe if he told me he could turn off gravity. That if I dropped the Perrier in my hand, it would float to the ceiling.

  I scoff.

  “I don't blame you,” he says with a shake of his head. “If I had the information you have, I would have no doubt that I killed that woman. Let's see, you heard a scream, you saw me leaving, you found my cell phone, and you made the connection between me and Jessica Renoix.”

  I try not to blink. I wonder if my house is bugged. Or if they know everything I've searched on the internet. Or both.

  He takes a breath and says, “I met Jessica six years ago when she volunteered for my reelection campaign.” He whistles. “Still remember the day she walked in. Every male from eighteen to fifty literally stopped and stared. She had that effect.”

  “How long did it take for you to start sleeping with her?”

  “Not long. A month into the campaign, the lot of us were staying at a hotel. She snuck into my room and, well, I didn't turn her down.”

  “I didn't take you for much of a philanderer.” In fact, he reeked of the consummate family man.

  “Nothing I'm proud of,” he offers with an upward glance. I'm not sure if he was repenting or checking the roof of the car for tears.

  “And you've kept this up for six years?”

  “No. It only happened the one time.”

  I am confused and must look it.

  “She videotaped it. Came to me the next day and demanded a hundred thousand dollars.”

  My eyebrows rise.

  “I paid her. She disappeared the next day.”

  “You paid her?”

  “If that video got out I would have been ruined. Paid her a hundred thousand dollars cash and she took it with a smile and disappeared. Didn't hear a peep from her for six years. Then I got an email a month ago. She was back and she wanted more money.”

  “Did you give it to her?”

  “I did. Two weeks ago.”

  I study his face. I find myself believing him. But that he was being blackmailed by Callie/Jessica didn't mean that he didn't kill her. In fact, it gave him motive.

  “I know what you're thinking, even a better reason to kill her. And don't think it didn't cross my mind. But she'd gone away for six years the first time I paid her. I had little dou
bt she would disappear for another six, whereby if she ever came back to the well, I would have served out my presidency and I could deal with the fallout if the tape came out.”

  “Okay, so say I believe you. What happened that night? And start from the beginning, like how you got out of the White House and into a Ford Focus.”

  “You know that was the first time I'd driven in nearly three years. Man, it felt good!” He laughs.

  I don't react. I'm still sitting next to a killer. And I don't give a shit when the last time he drove a car was.

  He straightens.

  “I told my guys I wanted to go for a drive and that I didn't want any record of it. Red, the guy that tased you, heads up my detail. He made it happen, but he insisted he come with me. Snuck me out, got me into that car, and we drove. We went five miles, then I pulled over and told him to get out. Some SS might not have gotten out of the car, but Red and I go back to college. We'd played ball together for two years. Like brothers. He got out. I told him I'd pick him up in an hour. Drove down to the address that Jessica – I had no idea she was calling herself Callie now – had given me, and went inside.

  “I gave her the money, two hundred grand this time, and she took it. She tried to kiss me and I pushed her away. That's when she started screaming. I covered her mouth and told her to shut up, then I ran out.”

  “What about your phone?”

  He shakes his head. “I had this great plan to record the exchange so I would have proof she was blackmailing me if it ever came to that, but Jessica is smart. She patted me down, found the phone, and said she was keeping it. It was her insurance if I ever tried to prove she was blackmailing me.”

  “And what, you just left and then someone came and strangled her?”

  “Yep and they took the two hundred thousand dollars with them.”

   

  …

   

  The President drops me off five blocks from my house at 3:50 a.m.

  I open the door and ask, “So if you didn't kill her, then who did?”

  He had no idea.

  :11

   

  I have no idea if the Clemens moved back. If they have, I will know in the next thirty seconds.

  I pick up a rock from a nearby garden and weigh it in my hand. It has some heft, maybe three pounds. It will work.

  My plan is to smash the lock on the sliding glass door and hope it opens. I raise the rock above my head.

  Meow.

  I look down.

  I decided to bring Lassie along for my B & E encore, hoping he might be able to sniff out something the cops had missed.

  “I know it’s a stupid idea, but how else are we going to get in?”

  Meow.

  “Really?”

  Meow.

  “Well, why didn’t you say something earlier?”

  He shrugs, then leads me to a flower pot at the back edge of the porch. The flowers are long dead, having not been watered in two weeks, and the soil is filled with small crusty leaves. I dig my hand in the soil and feel around, then hit pay dirt. I pull out a key.

  “Good job, Watson.”

  Meow.

  “No, I’m Sherlock.”

  Ten seconds later, we are inside.

  It is 3:10 a.m.

  The TV remote is in the same place I last saw it, and I decide the Clemens are still tanning their hides in the Florida sun. I wonder what their plans are for the estate. And I also wonder if they believe in ghosts. Ten to one, the house would be on the market within the year. Virginia real estate prices were on the rise, some were even throwing out words like “seller’s market,” but I’d be surprised if the Clemens get sixty percent of their asking price.

  As for the cops, if they’d moved stuff around, they’d put it back in relatively the same fashion as they’d found it.

  I head into the kitchen and I grab myself a couple string cheeses from the fridge. Lassie springs onto the counter and begins clawing at one of the cabinets. I open it and find some little treats. I feed him a couple. He gobbles them down.

  “Dude, you didn’t even chew it.”

  Meow.

  “You’re gonna spoil your appetite.”

  Meow. 


  “If you find us a clue to who killed your mom, I’ll give you a couple more.”

  Meow.

  “Seven? How bout three?”

  Meow.

  “Four, but no more.”

  Meow.

  “Fine, five.”

  He jumps off the counter and zips out of the kitchen.

  After my unlikely chat with the POTUS, I was far from convinced that Jessica Renoix had not died at the hands of Connor Sullivan. But he had put a couple chinks in the armor, enough that I was looking for a connection between Jessica and a third party. If this was a ménage à trois, then someone knew the President was coming over to Jessica’s house with a big bag of cash. I was hoping to uncover some clue as to who that person could be.

  I spend five minutes in the living room looking through a bunch of pictures on the walls. The Clemens appear to be in their late sixties, but that could have been exacerbated by UVA and UVB rays. There is a son and a daughter. Four grandchildren by the looks of the framed school pictures.

  Finding nothing that speaks to the murder of Jessica Renoix, I make my way into the master bedroom. I hit the flashlight on my phone, illuminating the many elephant trinkets scattered about the room. I wonder if Jessica or Mrs. Clemens was the elephant nut. I guess the latter. In fact, everything in the room, the entire house, appears to belong to the Clemens. Had they known Jessica well enough to let her around all their valuables without a care in the world? Detective Ray had said the Clemens told her Callie/Jessica had contacted them through Craigslist, so Jessica wasn’t an old family friend. Ray also mentioned they’d given her a great deal on the rent. Did she charm them, much like she’d charmed the President?

  Jessica had been living in the house for going on three months, yet there was no sign of her.

  The closet was full of the Clemens’ clothes. The dresser as well. Well, at least most of the dresser. Unless, Mrs. Clemens was wearing thongs and a size two, which I highly doubted, the bottom three drawers belonged to Jessica. I rifle through her bra and panties, then her shirts and tops, then her jeans. I stick my hand into the pocket of each pair of jeans. On the fifth pair, I find a small slip of paper. A receipt.

  I unfold it.

  Best Cash Pawn Shop.

  She sold something to them for $1,200.

  Meow.

  I look down at Lassie.

  “Too late, buddy. I already found it.”

  Meow.

  “Okay, okay.”

  I give him two more treats.

  Meow.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Five minutes later we are home.

   

  …

   

  “It’s up here on the left.”

  “That neon sign?” asks my dad.

  Best Cash Pawn Shop is in one of the sketchier parts of town, just on the outskirts of DC. The drive had taken nearly 35 minutes and I’d eaten my breakfast in the car.

  I turn around and look at Murdock and Lassie in the back seat. They hadn’t gotten off to a great start. According to my father — who had driven to my house around midnight — when he and Murdock had entered my apartment, Lassie had come out from the bedroom to investigate. Murdock — big, sweet, dumb, Murdock — had never seen a cat before and went berserk, barking his head off and chasing the cat all over the condo to the point where the couch was overturned and the downstairs neighbors were banging on the walls. My dad was trying to harangue the giant pooch when Murdock suddenly stopped barking. My dad looked down and couldn’t believe his eyes. Lassie had somehow found the bag of treats I’d brought home the night before, opened it, and had dropped a treat at the feet of the enraged canine. Murdock ate the treat and Lassie set another peace offering at his feet.

  When I w
oke up a couple hours later and walked into the living room, the two were asleep next to one another, Murdock’s huge paw cradled around the small cat.

  “Don’t forget who feeds you,” I tell Lassie, who is lying on Murdock’s back, gently rocking with each of the mastiff’s breaths.

  Meow.

  “You can’t have two BFFs.”

  “Are you okay?” my dad asks.

  I ignore him and point to a place across the street and tell him to park.

  “You sure this place is open?” he asks. 

  “It said it was open twenty-four hours.”

  There is a group of unsavory characters standing just outside the entrance and my dad says, “You want me to come with you?”

  “No, better you stay with the car.”

  I hop out and walk past three leering gangsters, trying not to look like I’m carrying five thousand in cash in my right front pocket. I push through the barred door and the chiming of bells alerts someone to my presence.

  The man behind the counter is a white guy with a ponytail. He is wearing a jean jacket and fingerless gloves. He looks like what a guy who is working at a pawnshop at three in the morning is supposed to look like.

  “What can I do for ya?” he inquires as I approach.

  I pull the receipt from my pocket and hand it to him. “My girlfriend sold this and I’d like to buy it back.”

  He scrunches his face at me, then pulls up glasses attached to a chain around his neck and peers down at the receipt. There is a code on the receipt that reads 2F49.

  It could be anything, a TV, a coat, art, jewelry. I’m hoping whatever it is will somehow connect Jessica to whoever killed her. Killed her and took $200,000. 

  “Let’s see here,” he says. He walks down the counter, bends down, and says, “You’re in luck. Number forty-nine is still hanging around.”

  He pulls out a watch and lays it on the counter.

  It is silver with a black leather band. The second hand sweeps effortlessly across the numerals. It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.

  “Nice watch,” he says.

  I nod.

  “This what you’re looking for?”

  “That’s it,” I say, hoping it is. “You remember the girl who sold you this?”

  “I wasn’t here, but Chip, one of the other guys was, and he told me about some hot little number who came in wanting ten thousand for some watch.” He pauses, “That sound like your lady?”

  I nod, but I’m thinking about Jessica. She wanted ten grand, but took twelve hundred. She must have been desperate.

  “How much for it back?” I ask. 

  “How much you willing to pay?”

  “Three grand.”

  He laughs and says that it is worth three times that.

  “Thirty-five hundred,” I counter.

  Laughs again.

  “Four.”

  Less laughing.

  “Forty-five.”

  Almost a nod.

  “Five.”

  “Deal.”

  I fork over all five grand. He polishes the watch for me, then hands it over, and I realize I have just spent five grand on a watch that most likely belongs to Mr. Clemens. I put it in my pocket and walk quickly across the street and get back into the car.

  “You get it?” my dad asks.

  “Yeah.” I turn and look at Lassie and say, “I really could have used you in there, buddy. Guy cleaned me out.”

  Meow.

  “You would not have gotten it for fifty dollars.”

  He laughs.

  “Let’s see it,” my dad says.

  The clock on the dash reads 3:53 a.m.

  The gangsters are staring at us from across the way and I say, “Let’s get out of this neighborhood first.”  

  We drive for five minutes, then pull into a neighborhood with fences.

  “Now that is a nice watch,” my dad says, though I hardly hear him. I am too busy trying to make out the inscription on the back. I read it out loud, “To Risky, may all your dreams come true. Mom and Dad.”

  My dad’s eyebrows jump.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I think I know whose watch that is.”

  I stare at him.

  He explains how he is openly referred to as Risky.

  My dad says the name. “Ricky Sullivan.”

  The President’s son.

  :12

   

  Years ago, my dad tried to drag my lifeless body from his car up to my condo, but it hadn't ended well. It'd taken him over twenty minutes, he'd slipped two discs in the process, and my neighbor down the hall, thinking my dad was disposing of my body, had called the cops. Since then, anytime I fell asleep in the car, he'd recline the seat, put a pillow under my head, lay a blanket over me, and crack a couple windows. And although he wouldn't admit it, I know he checked on me every couple hours throughout the day.

  At 3:00 a.m., I wake up, crawl from the car, and make my way up to the apartment where my dad, Murdock, and Lassie are all spooning on the bed. Lassie and Murdock both jump off, run forward, and lick me clean.

  “Hey guys, did you have fun playing?”

  “They sure did,” my dad says, pushing himself up. “Long lost brothers, you'd think those two are.”

  I laugh.

  The four of us move to the living room.

  “You gonna stick around?” I ask my dad.

  “No, I think we're gonna head out. Got some things to do tomorrow.”

  “Cards on Wednesday?”

  “Always.”

  “What are you gonna do about the watch?” he asks.

  “I'm not sure. I have to do some research. But if the President's son is involved, I'm going to find out.”

  In the couple of minutes before I'd fallen asleep last night, my dad had told me everything he knew about Ricky Sullivan. The President's only child made the Bush twins seem tame by comparison. He'd gotten into his fair share of trouble when Sullivan was governor — though he was never officially arrested for anything — and his father's rise to the presidency did little to quell “Risky's” insatiable appetite for fast cars and fast women. He had been likened to Prince Harry on several occasions and the two were actually close friends. In the past year, he'd kept a low profile and was said to be buckling down for his second year at Georgetown Law.

  “I thought of something else,” my dad says, “about the President's son.”

  I nod.

  “I guess he has a bit of a gambling problem. His bookie was busted a couple years back for cocaine possession. He thought rolling over on the President's son's gambling habits would lighten his sentence. It didn't. But the story did leak to the press; Risky was into him for about eighty grand at the time.”

  As if I hadn't put it together, my dad adds, “The two hundred grand that was stolen.”

  “You might be on to something,” I tell him.

  He shrugs and says that he'd better get going. He starts toward the door. Murdock appears to have no intention of leaving his sidekick and lowers to the ground next to Lassie.

  “Say goodbye to your friend,” I tell Lassie, picking him up and making my way toward the open door. 

  Meow.

  “No, he can't stay over.”

  Meow.

  “Because you guys are gonna stay up all night drinking soda and playing video games, that's why.”

  Meow.

  “He's coming back over in a couple days and you guys can stay up as long as you want.”

  Meow.

  “Grand Theft Auto VI? Is that even out yet?”

  Meow.

  “I'll see what I can do.”

  Murdock jumps up on my chest and gives Lassie a big kiss goodbye, then my dad yanks him by the collar and shuts the door. I can hear him whining in the hallway as my dad wrestles the beast away from the door.

   

  …

   

  Lassie and I are just sitting down to eat when there is a knock a
t the door.

  It is 3:11 a.m.

  I look through the peephole, expecting to see my father, thinking he'd left something at my condo. It's not.

  I pull the door open.

  “What the fuck, Bins?”

  “And a hello to you, Detective Ray.”

  She storms in. She is wearing a black top and tight jeans. Her hair is up. Her arms are also up. As is her apparent temper. “You didn't have to go to the FBI!”

  “FBI?”

  She cuts her eyes at me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Her eyebrows rise, then slide together. “You don't know?”

  I shake my head. 


  “Tomorrow morning.” She pauses. “They’re going to arrest the President for murder.”

   

  …

   

  “What?”

  “Callie Freig isn't really Callie Freig.”

  I put on my best surprise face. Big eyes. Open mouth. A loss for words. It works.

  “The FBI got an anonymous tip. Before she changed her identity, Callie Freig was actually a young girl named Jessica Renoix. She worked for Sullivan's governor campaign in Virginia. The tip also said that they saw the President leave the woman's house the night of the murder.”

  She looks at me skeptically.

  “It wasn't me,” I assure her, then add, “Still that's not a lot to go on. The Secret Service came and got the phone, so they couldn't use that. You would think the FBI would have more.”

  “They do.”

  She takes a deep breath.

  “President Sullivan underwent a battery of tests when he became President, one of which was a DNA workup. His DNA wouldn't show up in a routine search of the national DNA database, but the FBI has it on file somewhere. They ran his DNA against a couple of hairs found in her bed and it was a match.”

  I didn't have to fake my surprise face this time.

  “They made a courtesy call to my Captain, because the homicide is technically our jurisdiction, but yeah, they are arresting him at the White House tomorrow morning.”

  “What did your Captain say?”

  “What could he say? He let the biggest arrest in the history of the United States slip through his fingers. He smelled like he'd drank a fifth of scotch by the time he called me and Cal into his office and told us what was going on.”

  I thought of Cal, who had been so adamant that I'd killed her. “It would have been nice to see Cal's face.”

  “He still thinks it's bullshit,” she scoffs. “Thinks it's some big left-wing conspiracy to get the President out of office and get a democrat back in.”

  “Asshole.”

  She nods and both of us go quiet. I wonder if she is playing the same simulation in her head, the one of the President being arrested, and the media atomic bomb that is going to explode tomorrow. This will, without a doubt, be the biggest story since 9/11.

  “I talked with him.”

  She cuts her eyes at me. “Who?”

  “The President.”

  “Yeah, right. You talked with Connor Sullivan.”

  “I did. Two nights ago.”

  It takes her three seconds to realize I'm not joking. She takes two steps toward me. We are a foot apart.

  “Tell me.”

  I start at the beginning. The very beginning. “So, Lassie isn't my cat. I mean, he is now, but he was Jessica's.”

  She looks at Lassie who is sitting on the top of the couch. Hearing his name he meows.

  It takes ten minutes for me to bring her up to date: the vet, the microchip, Jessica Renoix, the goons, the tasing, the back seat chat with the most powerful man in the world. I leave out the part of my breaking back into the house, the pawn receipt, and the watch. 

  “She was blackmailing him?”

  “That's what he said.”

  “And this tape, it never came out?”

  “I think even the people of Jupiter would know if a video of the President banging an eighteen-year-old campaign volunteer leaked out.”

  “Okay, so then what? He admits to being there that night, bringing the blackmail cash, and then leaving. Then someone else comes and kills her and takes the money. Who?”

  Well, his son for one. He'd obviously been in contact with Jessica at some point. Maybe he knew about his dad's affair. Maybe she'd told him everything. Maybe he needed the money to pay off his gambling debts. Maybe Jessica and Risky were supposed to split the money, but he got greedy and killed her. Lots of maybes.

  “I don't know,” I reply. “Odds are it's a bunch of bullshit and Sullivan did it.”

  “Is that what you think? You think it's bullshit? You think he was lying?”

  I run the clip back in my head. His clenched jaw. His commanding gaze as he said, “I didn't kill her.”

  “No.” I say, “I think he was telling the truth.”

  She exhales.

  I reach out and touch her arm. I'm not sure why, but I do. It is an automatic response, as unconscious as my next breath.

  She looks at my hand on her shoulder, then looks up at me. I don't know what is going on behind her soft brown eyes. But I want to know.

  “You want to stay for some coffee?” I ask.

  “It's three-thirty in the morning,” she says with a laugh. “I've got to get to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a circus.”

  Lassie jumps off the couch and rubs up against her leg as she starts for the door. She leans down and pets him, then stands and pulls the door open.

  “Did you vote for him?” I ask.

  She turns. Stares for a second. A flash of her crooked smile.

  “Rain check on the coffee,” she says.

  :13

   

  Within ten seconds of waking up, I am on the internet.

  PRESIDENT ARRESTED!

  PRESIDENT ARRESTED FOR MURDER!

  PRESIDENT SULLIVAN A MURDERER!?!

  PRESIDENTIAL MURDER!

  MURDERGATE!

  Those are just a few of the headlines.

  I click on a video and watch as the President is escorted by his Secret Service detail and no fewer than fifteen FBI agents down the White House steps. The Director of the FBI is one of Sullivan's strongest opponents. He is making a statement. No one is above the law. Even the President.

  There are other videos: Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Bill O'Reilly, all chomping at the bit. This is the biggest scandal since Cain and Abel went to the old fishing hole and only Cain came back. I don't spend too much time on the videos, but do watch a couple flashes of press conferences: the head of the FBI, the White House Press Secretary, even one where Charles Barkley weighs in (“That guy an idiot”). Bottom line, the President was arrested for the murder of Jessica Renoix. The Senate and House are calling for an impeachment and the wheels are in motion. For the moment, Connor Sullivan is still the most powerful man in the world, but that could change any moment.

  “What do you think, buddy? Should they impeach him?”

  Lassie cocks his head to the side, thinking.

  Meow.

  “Stone him?”

  Meow.

  “Cut off his hands?”

  Meow.

  “Okay, no more Game of Thrones for you, buddy.”

  We get out of bed, get some grub, and sit down to the breakfast table. I search “Ricky Sullivan.”

  I read a couple tidbits about him, corroborating most of what my dad had already told me. The latest hit was from twelve hours earlier. Some website called TMZ. “Risky's Wild Spring Break.”

  I read the small blurb, then call my dad.

  He answers.

  “Get the car. We're going to Vegas.”

   

  …

   

  The drive time from Alexandria to Las Vegas is approximately thirty-four hours.

  When I wake up, we are in Colorado.

  “Good morning,” my dad says.

  “Morning.”

 
I turn around.

  “Hey, guys.”

  Lassie is chewing on Murdock's ear. He stops long enough to give me a quick kiss then goes back to the business at hand. Murdock seems to be enjoying it thoroughly.

  “You mind driving for an hour?” asks my dad.

  “Not at all.”

  We pull over and switch spots. My dad is asleep within three miles.

  I pull out my phone and log onto the internet. It takes me a couple moments to find what I'm looking for. I click play.

  Connor Sullivan is standing behind a lectern on the White House steps. At the time of the press conference, he is still the POTUS.

  “My fellow Americans,” he begins, “I come before you not as the President, but as your fellow man. A man wrongly and unjustly accused of a crime I did not commit. I have every faith in the United States judicial system and that I will be found unequivocally innocent of this heinous crime. I am not disenchanted but proud that we live in a democratic state where its highest powers are not above the law, and hold no ill will toward the FBI or any other institution. The truth will come out. God bless this great nation.”

  Not bad.

  I wonder how long he actually spent in a jail cell before they rushed him into a courtroom and posted bail.

  Doesn’t matter.

  What matters is in the background. His wife is there. His son isn't.

  I put the phone down and force myself to the road. I've seen mountains before, but nothing as majestic as the snow-capped Rockies that loom under the full moon.

  At 3:58, I pull the car over into a small dirt enclave and I nudge my father. We switch seats.

  When I wake up, it will be the bright lights of Vegas.

  :14

   

  There are 122 casinos, 874 clubs, over 2,000 restaurants, and more than 50 strip clubs in Las Vegas. Nearly everything is open until four in the morning, if they close at all. And Ricky Sullivan could be in any one of them. That is, if the paparazzi and his father's arrest hasn’t sent him underground. It takes my dad six hours and five greased palms, but he finally tracks the President's son and his buddies to the XS Nightclub.

  At 3:06, my dad pulls up to the massive Wynn hotel and I jump out. After a twenty-minute wait in line, and a fifty-dollar cover charge, I enter.

  House music blares. Purple, orange, and green strobe lights threaten to give me a seizure. The air is sticky, a million tiny post-it notes. I feel like I've walked into a beehive. It's madness. 

  I push my way through the swarming bodies. A young woman wearing six square inches of fabric grabs my crotch and whispers something unintelligible in my ear.

  She grabs my hand and yanks me toward the dance floor.

  I shake her hand off. I measure women in minutes and she is worth about thirty seconds. Detective Ray flashes across my mind. I give her all sixty.

  When I finally get to the bar, it is 3:34 a.m. 

  “Where's Ricky Sullivan?” I scream at the closest bartender. 

  He feigns ignorance. I am not the first person to ask him this question tonight. I wave a hundred dollar bill at him. He walks over and snags it, cocks his head to the right, then moves on to the next customer.

  It takes me four minutes to push my way through the crowd and to the VIP tables. Two bouncers guard a thick rope that cordons off ten plush circular tables that currently hold three NBA stars, two rappers, a restaurateur, a comedian, an actress, a supermodel, a late-night host, and the President's son.

  Ricky Sullivan is with two other guys and eight scantily clad women. They are sitting on a plush purple sofa. At least a thousand dollars’ worth of bottle service litters the table next to them. Three men in black suits stand close by—Ricky's Secret Service detail.

  They look especially alert and I'm guessing the past forty-eight hours have been a deluge of reporters and paparazzi trying to get a snapshot or a comment.

  The bouncers appraise me as I approach.

  They are checking my wrist for the bright green band that all the “visitors” to the VIP section are wearing.

  I have one.

  I bought it from a girl on the dance floor for $200. She wiggled it off and I was able to wiggle it on.

  What can I say? I have dainty hands.

  They let me through and I pick my way past four of the tables. When I am within six feet of Ricky Sullivan and his posse, two of the Secret Service goons jump forward and block my path.

  “Hey, guys.”

  They don't respond.

  “I just need a quick second with Ricky.”

  They look at one another.

  “Get lost,” says one.

  “Ricky!” I yell. He doesn't turn around.

  The Secret Service guys start pushing me back.

  I pull the watch from my pocket and toss it underhand. It lands on the lap of a girl next to Ricky.

  Before my arms are wrenched behind my back, I catch Ricky's eyes as he sees the watch.

  “He's good.”

  The force that is about to break my wrist lessens slightly. 

  “I said he’s good! LET HIM THROUGH!”

  I dust myself off, give the two SS a little nod, and walk past. Ricky has already ushered all the girls and his two buddies from the table. It’s just him and the watch.

  I sit down a couple feet from him.

  I grab the Ciroc vodka and pour myself a vodka cranberry.

  “Where did you get this?”

  I look up.

  Ricky Sullivan has his mother's brown, doe eyes and soft features. He has his father's weight, but on a foot shorter frame. He's lost twenty pounds in the past few years but he's still a chubbo.

  “I got it from the pawn shop that Jessica sold it to.”

  He inhales.

  “When did she take it?”

  He pours himself a stiff drink, takes a long swallow, and says, “About two months ago.”

  “Did you know?”

  “Yeah, I knew. But I didn't care. Just figured she needed money and was too proud to ask. It wasn't the only thing she took.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “A coffee shop on campus. She said she had a class with me, but I could tell she was lying. But who cares?” He shrugs. “She was the sexiest girl I'd ever seen.”

  He asks who I am. I ignore him.

  “Did you kill her?”

  He is a deer in headlights. His doe eyes start to leak. He is crying. It takes him thirty seconds to compose himself.

  “NO!” He sniffs. “She was the first girl I ever really cared about. Ever.”

  “Did you know about her connection to your father?”

  He shakes his head. “No, she never talked about her past. She just wanted to, well, screw mostly. At least, at first. At the beginning, I think she just wanted to fuck the President's son. But then, I think, she kinda started to like me.” He smiles sheepishly, like the idea of a girl actually liking him for himself is preposterous.

  “Did you ever go to her house?”

  “No. I didn't even know where she lived. Dave and Jerry,” he nods toward the two Secret Service guys who had manhandled me, “would sneak her up to my apartment.”

  “How long were you two involved?”

  “Three months.”

  “Did you know her as Callie or Jessica?”

  “At first it was Callie, but after six weeks, we were in bed, and she told me to call her Jessie.”

  Jessie?

  “And she never told you about her past, how she worked for your father's campaign?”

  “Nope, never.”

  “What would you talk about?”

  “I don't know. Movies, books, she wanted to go to vet school someday, to travel. She liked sports, especially the Ravens. She loved to play cards. We'd play cards for hours.”

  “Did she ask about your dad?”

  “At first. She wanted to know what sort of dad he was. Was he around? Stuff like that. But she abhorred politics. My dad didn't come up very often
after the first couple weeks.”

  “How did you find out she was killed?”

  “Jerry came in and took my cell phone. Told me that Callie had been murdered. Brought me a new phone a couple hours later with a new phone number.”

  That would explain the phone number that had been untraceable. It hadn't been the President's. It was Ricky's.

  “What's the spread on the Laker's game tomorrow?”

  He scoffs. “I haven't gambled in six months. I learned my lesson.”

  I nod.

  “What do you think 'Jessie' needed the money from the watch for?”

  “I don't know. She didn't have a job. She had to pay rent somehow.”

  “And you didn't care that she stole a ten thousand dollar watch from you?”

  “I know I should have. But I didn't.”

  “You loved her.”

  He is quiet.

  He did.

  “Do you think your dad killed her?”

  His lips quiver.

  I've heard enough. And I'm out of time. I chug the rest of my drink, pat him on the shoulder and leave.

   

  …

   

  I drive my one hour, this time in Tennessee.

  The next time I wake up, I am in my father’s car parked outside my condo. There is an unmarked car parked down the street and I feel the occupant’s stare as I get out and enter my building.

  My dad and Murdock leave, and Lassie and I sit down to the computer.

  I log onto the internet.

  The email from the company I’d paid to do a background check on Jessica Renoix is waiting for me in my inbox. I click on it and am not surprised to find very little information. There is a credit card, a phone, and an Oregon address. All are for show. Just like they’d been for Callie Freig. 

  That’s why Jessica needed the money from the watch. She wanted to change her identity. She had done it before.

  Twice.

  I'd known four Jessicas in my life. Some went by Jess. None went by Jessie. It was a totally different name. Like a Matthew going by Mark. Didn't happen.

  I go to the Virginia Missing Person’s Database and search “Jessie.”

  No hits.

  Maybe I'm wrong.

  I think back to what Ricky had said. She liked sports. Especially the Ravens.

  The Baltimore Ravens.

  I log onto the Maryland Missing Person's database and try again. 

  Two hits.

  One is a twelve-year-old boy.

  The other is a sixteen-year-old girl.

  Jessie Kallomatix.

  She is younger, but there is no mistaking it. 

  It's her.

  Jessie Kallomatix is Jessica Renoix is Callie Freig.

  Two Google searches later and I have it all figured out.

  What had Ricky said? “She'd ask what kind of dad he was. Was he around a lot?”

  Connor Sullivan had lied.

  She'd been blackmailing him all right, but not because he'd slept with her.

  She'd been blackmailing him because Connor Sullivan was her father. 

  :15

  It takes three days – well, three hours – for it all to come together. Three hours of planning, phone calls, and favors. 

  I pull open the curtains.

  The car is still there.

  Still watching.

  It is 3:03 a.m.

  At 3:04, I hear the sirens.

  “Here they come.”

  Meow.

  “Sorry, buddy. I have to do this one alone.”

  Meow.

  “Yes, it's going to be dangerous.”

  Meow.

  “Danger isn't your middle name.”

  Meow.

  “Because I didn't think to give you one.”

  Meow.

  “Pistol? I don't think so.”

  Meow.

  “No. I don't care if he is a triple threat. How bout Roger?”

  Meow.

  “Well, Lassie Timberlake Bins sounds stupid too.”

  Meow.

  “Well, I don't care what Murdock says.”

  Meow.

  “Fine, your middle name can be Danger.”

  Meow.

  The ambulance pulls up in front of the condo.

  “All right, Lassie Danger Bins, it's go time.”

  Three minutes later, I am in the ambulance and we are flying down the street.

  “Hey,” Sara says from the passenger seat.

  “Thanks again.”

  Her boyfriend, Clay, and his buddy, Jake, who had taken me out on the stretcher both nod. Clay says, “It was a slow night.”

  “Did they follow?” I ask.

  “Yep,” Sara says with a nod. “They’re probably two lights behind us.”

  A minute later, the ambulance pulls up to Summer Park and I jump out.

  “Good luck.”

  I nod and take off running.

   

  …

   

  I bang on the window and she jumps.

  “Shit, you scared me,” she says, climbing out of her Crown Vic.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I got here right at three, just like you said.” She pauses. “You gonna tell me what this is all about?”

  I scan the side street for approaching headlights. “Not yet. Not till he gets here.”

  “Who?”

  I ignore her.

  Ten seconds later, lights turn onto the street and grow brighter as the car pulls into the lot and parks next to us.

  The door opens and he says, “Get in.”

  Ray's eyebrows jump five inches off her forehead. “Is that the President?”

  I nod.

  The two of us climb in the back of the town car.

  Connor is wearing the same outfit as last time: jeans and a gray sweatshirt.

  “This is Detective Ingrid Ray from the Alexandria PD,” I say.

  He takes her hand.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. President.”

  “Likewise.” Then turning to me, he asks, “So what is this about?”

  I hadn't told him anything. In fact, I'd simply called the private number he'd given me the day we'd first met and left a message telling him to meet me at Summer Park at 3:15 a.m. That it was important.

  I hand a piece of paper to him and say, “Tell your driver to go to this address.”

  He looks down at the paper, if the address means anything to him, he doesn't show it. He pushes a button and the divider slides down and he passes the paper through to his driver.

  “Hey, Red,” I say.

  He nods.

  The divider goes back up and the car begins to move.

  I can feel four eyes on me.

  “You lied to me.”

  The President doesn't flinch.

  “There was no video.”

  Sullivan's face is marble.

  “You never slept with her. She never seduced you.”

  I wait for Sullivan to scoff, to tell me that I'm full of shit, to get out of his car.

  He doesn't.

  “She was your daughter.”

  Ray pinches my leg. A “what the hell are you doing?” pinch.

  “Yes, she is.”

  “What?” Ray shouts. “Jessica is your daughter?”

  He nods.

  “Wait, what, how . . .” Ray bumbles.

  “I'll explain in a second,” I tell her.

  “How did you find out?” Sullivan asks.

  “Your son.”

  He sighs.

  “She told him to call her Jessie.”

  “Jessie? I thought her name was Jessica?” Ray shouts, trying to piece things together.

  “She changed her identity twice,” I tell Ray. “Her real name was Jessie.” I explain about the pawn receipt and my chat with Ricky Sullivan in Vegas, how I'd found Jessie on the missing person's database on the internet, and how after searching her name, I'd put the pieces together.
Then I turn to the President and say, “He thinks you killed her, you know.”

  “Better than the alternative,” he says, leaning his head back. “Better than him knowing he's been fucking his half-sister for the past three months.”

  “Wait!” shouts Ray. “Will one of you tell me what is going on?”

  I nod toward the President. “Why don't you start at the beginning? And no lies this time.”

  “All right, but first tell me where we're going.”

  “You don't recognize the address?”

  “Just that it is in Maryland. Should I know?”

  “Yeah, you married the woman who lives there.”

   

  …

   

  It was a story that was said to have won Connor Sullivan the presidency. A story that could have been told in any bar in the world. It made you see him as a guy, any guy, who accidentally married the wrong woman.

  Kimberly A. Bells was born in Nevada. She went to college at a small school in Ohio, Dayton University, where she met and fell in love with one of the stars of the basketball team. After graduating, Kimberly moved to Virginia with her new love, married him, spawned him one child, and eventually became the First Lady of the United States of America.

  Kimberly S. Bells grew up in Virginia, met Paul Kallomatix when she was 22, and had a daughter. The couple would move to Maryland years later, stay happily married for sixteen years, then divorce bitterly. 

  Both marriages took place at the same church in northern Virginia. Kimberly A. Bells to Connor Sullivan on the Saturday. Kimberly S. Bells to Paul Kallomatix on the Sunday.

  To this day, it still isn't known how it happened, if it was the clerk at the courthouse, the minister, or a third party, but the documents were mixed up and Connor Sullivan ended up married to Kimberly S. Bells and vice versa.

  You would think one little initial wouldn't have been such a troublesome problem and it wasn't, at least, not until it came time to pay taxes. It took Connor Sullivan two weeks to figure out why he owed so much money to the United States government. It was because he wasn't married to a third grade teacher as his wife had been for the past three years, but to a marketing executive who made nearly three times her salary.

  He finally realized the small faux pas and after a couple of phone calls, rectified the matter.

  “I wanted to meet her, meet the woman I was married to,” the President says with a laugh. “But not just her, I wanted to meet him too.”

  I glance at Ray and wonder what is going on in her head. 

  “The address on file for her was only a half hour away and one day I found myself in the neighborhood and decided to pop by.” He shakes his head. “The second she opened the door, I knew I was in trouble.”

  I'd seen a couple pictures of her on the internet. When the story had come out during Sullivan's initial run for governor, some journalists had tracked her down and taken some photos. She was of medium height, brown eyes, high cheekbones, full lips.

  “Did the affair start that day?”

  “No. We just talked for an hour. Laughed over the whole thing. Promised to get our spouses together and have dinner some night.”

  “But that never happened?”

  He shakes his head. “In fact, I didn't see her for another three years. Then I was up in Maryland for a meeting and I ran into her. She and her husband had moved up there a couple years earlier. We had coffee and well, you could tell she was unhappy. The marriage was on the rocks. She never saw him. He worked constantly. After that, we'd see each other a couple times a month.”

  “When did the affair start?”

  “In December of that year. Kim, my wife, was out of town for the week. The other Kim called and said she'd be down in Virginia for a couple days visiting her folks. She came over and, well—”

  “How long did it last?”

  “Six months. I stopped when my wife told me she was pregnant.”

  “Was the other Kim okay with it?”

  “I guess so. I never heard from her again.”

  “Then how did Jessie come into the picture?”

  “Well, she'd already changed her name when I met her. If she'd come to work for my campaign and said her name was Jessie Kallomatix, I don't know if I would have let her work for me. So, when I met her, her name was Jessica Renoix. She worked hard for me for three months, then one day she comes into my office, tells me point-blank who she is, that her mother had gotten drunk one night and told her about her affair with me. Then she shows me a little baggy and a piece of paper. The baggy has a lock of my hair in it, says that she cut it off my head one night when I was asleep on my desk. The piece of paper is a DNA test. She says that I'm her father and that she wants a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “And you gave it to her?”

  “I did. And she disappeared the next day. I didn't hear from her until three months ago.”

  “What did she say?”

  “It was an email. I have the same private email I had back then. It was a picture of her and my son.”

  “That must have gotten your attention.”

  “Sure did.”

  “And this time she asked for two hundred grand?”

  “Yep.”

  “To stop dating your son?”

  He nods.

  “And then you went over there that night to give her the money.”

  “But she didn't want it.”

  “What?”

  “She didn't want the money. She said she really liked my son, that she'd fallen in love with him.”

  “And that's when you killed her?”

  “NO.”

  I didn't think he had, but I wanted to see his reaction.

  “Why did she scream?”

  “I pushed her up against the wall and slapped her. Told her what she was doing was sick, that if she didn't stop seeing my son I was going to make her disappear. I dropped the bag of money and left.”

  The car slows. I look out the window. We are in front of a small row house.

  It is 3:34 a.m.

  Twenty-six minutes.

  Twenty-six minutes to get a confession.

  :16

   

  “Does this place look familiar?” I ask the President.

  He shakes his head.

  I'd doubted Kim Bells lived in the same house she lived in over twenty years ago, but you never know.

  We get out. I tell Red to park a couple blocks down the road and he peels away. The four of us walk up the small stone steps. I am in front, then Detective Ray, then the towering Sullivan in the rear.

  “You really think she had something to do with Jessie's murder?” asks Sullivan. “That she would kill her own daughter?”

  I shrug. “Only one way to find out.”

  I ring the doorbell.

  Nothing happens for a long minute.

  I ring the doorbell again.

  Lights come on. The padding of feet. The door opens.

  “Uh, yeah?” The twenty or so years have not been kind to Kim Bells. The thirty pounds she's put on since the photo drip from beneath a pink tank top and the skin under her eyes is a heavy black. She is wearing gray sweatpants. She is twice the size of her daughter. It would have been easy for her. Easy to strangle her daughter to death. 

  I pull Ray to the side.

  Kim's eyes widen. “Connor?”

  “Kim,” he says with a nod.

  “Can we come in?” I ask, checking the street for activity. 

  “I, um, guess so.” She takes a step backward and the four of us walk past.

  I find the living room and the others follow.

  I introduce myself and she shakes my hand limply. Ray shows her badge and I can see every muscle in Kim's body tense.

  “What's this about?” she asks with a hitch in her throat.

  “It's about Jessie,” answers Sullivan.

  The air in the room drops a thousand degrees.

  “Jessie?”

  I
try to read her emotions. Her labored breathing. The double blink of her eyes. The smack of her lips. Could be guilt. Could be indigestion.

  “I haven't seen her in eight years,” she spats.

  The three of us look at one another.

  Sullivan doesn't buy it. Maybe it's a wrinkle around her mouth, a flicker of the eyes. It's something. A crack in the veneer. She's lying. 

  “Bullshit,” he scoffs.

  She doesn't respond.

  Sullivan sees blood. This is the woman who framed him for murder. He has every right to be furious. He has every right to want to physically harm her, which he looks as though he might do any second. I step between them.

  “How could you do it?” he screams. “How could you kill your own daughter?”

  “Kill? Who? Jessie?”

  “You murdered Jessie and framed me for it!”

  Kim's head whips left, then right. “She's . . . Jessie's dead?”

  Sullivan looks at me. Back to Kim. Stares at her. Through her.

  “Are you saying that you didn't kill her?”

  “NO! I didn't even . . . No . . . I would never . . . I mean she was a terrible person . . . psychotic . . . but I would never hurt her. Never . . . Oh, my God, she's dead . . . how? WHEN?”

  I knew that she didn't kill her, but I find it hard to believe she didn’t know her daughter was dead.

  “You really didn't know she was dead?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Really?” asks Ray, her first words in over twenty minutes. “Did you know about the President's arrest?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess I heard about that.” She looks at Sullivan. “But I didn't want to believe it. I started reading an article about it in the paper a few days ago, but I had to stop.”

  I could see it in her eyes, still to this day. I'm not sure how Sullivan had felt about her, but she had loved him.

  “But you'd seen her since she was sixteen.” I say. It isn't a question.

  “Yeah, once,” she admits reluctantly. “She came by about two years ago asking for money. No 'Hi', no 'Sorry I ran away without telling you three years ago', just 'Got any money?'”

  “Did you give her any?”

  She shakes her head. “That girl ruined my life. Started doing meth when she was twelve, having sex by thirteen. Cost me my marriage and hundreds of thousands of dollars in rehab. They foreclosed on my house. I lost everything. I didn't give that lying slut a dime. Best thing that ever happened to me was her leaving that day.”

  “Why didn't you call and get her removed from the Missing Persons database?”

  She shrugs. “Never thought to, I guess.”

  “You could have told me,” interjects Sullivan.

  “Told you what?”

  “That Jessie was mine.”

  “Yours?”

  “My daughter.”

  “Jessie's not your daughter.”

  “According to the DNA test she showed me, I am.”

  Kim scoffs. “Jessie was a pathological liar. Pathological. She started making her own fake report cards on the computer when she was seven. They were perfect. Her teacher couldn't even tell the difference. She forged a sixty thousand dollar check when she was eleven. She made fake IDs for everybody at the high school when she was fourteen.”

  That would account for all her fake identities. I'm sure she'd had help along the way, but if she had one foot in the world, it would have been far more accessible.

  “But I called the company who did the test. They wouldn't give me much information, but I wiggled out of one of the receptionists that Jessie Kallomatix was in their files.”

  “That was probably from when I had her tested when she was young, to make sure Paul was her father and not you.”

  “And he was?”

  “Yep.”

  “Shit.”

  Sullivan had a right to be pissed. He'd paid out over $300,000 based on Jessie being his daughter. But he didn't look pissed. In fact, he was smiling.

  I could tell he was thinking about Ricky. Glad his son hadn't been sleeping with his half-sister. That must have been giving the President nightmares.

  “That's why she sent you the picture of your son the second time,” I say to the President. “Because if she would have blackmailed you for being your daughter, you would have checked more thoroughly this time. You would have had Red or one of your other guys get to the bottom of it. So she started hooking up with your son. She knew you would keep that to yourself.”

  Sullivan nods.

  “Hooking up with your son?” asks Kim.

  Sullivan spends the next ten minutes explaining everything. From how he'd first met Jessie, to her blackmail, to the picture she sent of her and his son, to him going over to her house and dropping off the money, to her being found strangled to death.

  I look down at my cell phone.

  It's 3:50.

  Ten minutes.

  Sullivan gazes at me. “So then, another dead end.”

  Lights turn onto the street.

  Get brighter. Brighter. Brighter. Then disappear.

  All six eyes are trained on me.

  I put my finger up to my lips.

  Ten seconds later, there is a knock.

  “Bins,” comes a voice. “Bins, it's me. I'm here.”

  I pull the door open.

  :17

   

  Paul Kallomatix is wearing the same suit he’d been wearing when I’d first met him. His forehead is heavily creased over furrowed brows. His goatee is perfectly groomed around his gaping mouth.

  “Hey, Paul,” I say.

  “What the fuck is going on here, Bins?” he says, ignoring my jest. He sweeps his eyes over his ex-wife, his partner, and the President of the United States. “Kim? Ray? What the fuck is this?”

  “You tell me, Cal. Why don't you tell me about Jessie?” spits Ray.

  When the President had been telling his story about the marriage mix-up, he'd said the name Paul Kallomatix and Ray had gone silent. I could almost see her trying to put the pieces together in her head. Cal? A murderer? 

  Cal looks over his shoulder. Thinks about running. Thinks better. His goatee smirks and he takes two steps in and closes the door.

  “Are the guys you had following me still at the hospital?” I ask.

  “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “Sure you do. The off-duty cops that you had watching me the last week. Watching to see if I was going to take a drive up to Maryland to see your ex-wife.” Luckily, she lived in a different house. One he obviously didn't know about if he'd driven up here to meet me in this one.

  “Again. No fuckin’ clue what you're talking about.”

  “You're late by the way.” I'd texted him this address right before I'd knocked on Ray's window. Told him to meet me here at 3:45. And to be alone.

  “Why'd you do it, Cal?” asks Ray.

  “Do what?”

  “Why'd you kill her?”

  “You? They got to you?” he scoffs. “Come on, Ray, I didn't even know it was Jessie until they showed that picture of her with him,” he nods toward Sullivan. “And what difference would it have made? He killed her.”

  He glares at the President.

  “If you aren't gonna tell them how it went down, I will,” I say.

  “I didn't do anything to that girl.”

  Not his little girl. That girl.

  I look down at my phone.

  3:54 a.m.

  Six minutes.

  “What happened when Jessie accused you of raping her?”

  There had been an article about it on the internet. It was one of the things that came up when I searched 'Jessie Kallomatix.' When she was twelve she accused her father, a Maryland cop, of raping her. The case was later thrown out, but it made big news.

  “What other lies did she make up about you?”

  His face is turning red.

  “How much of your hard earned money did you spend s
ending her to rehab and therapy?”

  I can hear his teeth grinding together.

  “I'm sorry.”

  He looks at the President.

  “I'm sorry,” Sullivan repeats.

  Cal snorts. Snorts again.

  “It all started with you!” he screams. “You sticking your little dick where it didn't belong.”

  He scans the room. Locks eyes with each of us. I can feel it. Feel the dam breaking.

  “THAT LITTLE CUNT RUINED MY LIFE!”

  Spittle shoots from Cal’s lips.

  “If I could strangle her again, I would.”

  The four of us don't dare move. Don't dare derail the train.

  He shakes his head back and forth as he walks in a tight circle.

  “Do you know that when she was fourteen she told me that if I didn't buy her a Range Rover when she turned sixteen that she was going to tell everyone that I got her pregnant and forced her to have an abortion? That little bitch got me kicked off the force. No one in Maryland or DC would touch me, even after the judge ruled that I never touched my daughter. My wife,” he points at Kim, “thought I was a sick bastard who raped our little girl and divorced me. Then I had to file for bankruptcy because I spent my life savings putting my psycho fucking daughter through rehab three times.

  “Then two months ago, I get called to a strip club. One of the strippers is going bat-shit on a customer, and low and behold it's my own flesh and blood. She's coked out of her mind, and I take her home, and she tells me a funny story about who her real dad is. Turns out this crazy fucking girl who ruined my life isn't even mine. Says that she has his hair in the freezer if I want proof. She passes out and I start looking through her place. Her email is open on her computer, and I see a message to the President. She's blackmailing him. He's supposed to drop off two hundred grand in two days.

  “I didn't plan on killing her. I was just going to take the money. I deserved it, damn right I did, after all the shit she put me through. But when I broke in and saw her holding the President's fucking cell phone, I decided it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I dragged her to the garage, wrapped my hands around her larynx—the same one that told a judge that I'd raped her—and squeezed the life out of her. Left the President's cell phone under the car, sprinkled some of his hair on the bed, grabbed everything of Jessie’s I could find, then tossed the cell phone and wallet in the dumpster two blocks away.”

  “You're the one,” Ray says, shaking her head at Cal. “You're the one that gave the FBI the anonymous tip.”

  “Well, our captain turned out to be too big of a pussy.”

  “But you said yourself, Cal, that you didn't think it was Sullivan.”

  “Well, no shit, Ingrid. What the fuck was I gonna say? I know that's his fucking hair because I put it there?”

  “She's yours,” Kim says.

  Cal looks at his ex-wife, who continues talking.

  “Jessie was lying. She was always lying. Connor wasn't her dad. You were. I had her tested when she was a baby.”

  The color drains from his face.

  He staggers.

  I lean over to brace him.

  “No . . . no . . . NO!” he yells. 

  He is behind me before I can react. I can feel the gun sticking to my ribs. 

  “Move over there!” he shouts, directing the others to the front of the living room, their backs to the window. 

  “Settle down,” says Ray. Her fingers inch toward her gun.

  “Don't even think about it!” Cal shouts into my ear.

  She drops her hand.

  “You don't have to do this,” I find myself saying.

  It is 3:58 a.m. 

  In two minutes I am going to fall over and he's going to think I'm trying to get away and he's going to shoot me.

  “You!” he screams in my ear. “If you would have just minded your own fucking business, then everything would have gone just fine.”

  “My bad,” I say, though I don’t think he hears. He is too busy thinking. Formulating an escape plan. He breathes heavily in my ear for twenty seconds. Thirty.

  It is 3:59 a.m.

  I have to do something.

  Now.

  I lift up my hand.

  I do the peace sign.

  At least that's what I'm hoping Cal thinks it is.

  “Don't fucking move.”

  I flash the peace sign again.

  Two.

  I drop a finger.

  Ray glares at me curiously.

  One.

  I drop the second finger.

  Now.

  I whip my head to the side.

  The sound of bursting glass fills the room.

  When I look down, I see Cal on the floor, a bullet hole just over the bridge of his nose.

  The last thing I remember is Red crashing through the door, the sniper rifle held at his side.

   

  …

   

  POLICE OFFICER FRAMED PRESIDENT!

  PRESIDENT INNOCENT!

  SULLIVAN DIDN'T DO IT!

  INNOCENT-GATE!

  Those are the headlines.

  The FBI interviewed each of us — mine was done over the phone — but the main evidence was the tape of Cal's admission that Red had been recording through the microphone in the President's sweatshirt. Lucky for us, he'd been listening and knew that Cal had taken me hostage. I'd noticed a glimmer off Red's scope through the window, something Cal had evidently missed.

  I'd woken up the next night in my bed and had later found out that the President himself had carried me up the three flights, though I'm sure Red helped. There had been a card next to me. An orange Monopoly card. A Get Out of Jail Free card. I think it was the President's way of saying that he owed me one.

  That had been four days ago.

  Lassie and I were still trying to decide what we should use the card for.

  “What do you think, buddy? Should we cash this baby in for a ride on Air Force One?”

  Meow.

  “The Taj Mahal? Is that even a thing?”

  Meow.

  “What it is with you and Justin Timberlake?”

  Meow.

  “A bag of mice? Now that's a little too practical.”

  Meow.

  “That's what I'm talking about. Jet packs.”

  Meow.

  “I think Jessica Alba's husband might have something to say about that.”

  Meow.

  “Pretty sure you can only do that in Mexico.”

  Meow.

  “I'm gonna act like you didn't say that.”

  Meow.

  “Thanks. Now I'm thinking about midgets.”

  Meow.

  “He's the President, not the Wizard of Oz.”

  Meow.

  “Twenty Murdock clones? Seriously?”

  I'm pretty sure this would have gone on forever, or at least for the forty-seven more minutes left in my day, had a stunning, and very naked woman not walked in with two bowls of cereal.

  “Breakfast in bed.”

  Ingrid plops down next to me.

  She feeds me a big spoonful of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and says, “I think the Justin Timberlake thing sounds pretty good.”

  “I bet,” I say, sending us both into a fit of laughter.

  At 3:55, she looks up at me, panting and says, “You got time for one more?”

  “I guess we'll see,” I say, grinning.

 

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