He rounded the curve, spotted his house, and simultaneously spotted a problem.
He was reaching for the remote garage door opener when he saw that there was a car parked in his driveway. Actually it was obliquely parked across both sides of the drive, trying to keep its ass out of the street.
With no place to park his behemoth of a truck, and no idea who his visitor might be, Malone drove on by, around the next curve, and pulled to the side of the street. He was certain the Ford Taurus was a rental car. If Detective Ford of the Metropolitan Police wanted him, he’d have called the cell phone, not grabbed a flight for the coast. Or worse, Ford would have asked the Sausalito Police to contact him, and Malone didn’t think that department needed rental cars. If it was the Feds for some obscure reason, they’d be driving one of their famous black Suburbans.
But what if Big Brother had sent one of his salesmen to Malone’s home as well as to Des Moines? He was assuming Big Brother had more salesmen than Dean Mal. Probably best to check it out carefully. Since Detective Ford had Oak’s Walther, his only weapon was a Montblanc pen and pencil set, but he decided to leave them in his bag.
He got out of the pickup and started walking back toward his house. The house was a basic rectangle of two stories, with the garage, kitchen, great room, a half-bath, and an office on the lower floor. Upstairs were three bedrooms and two bathrooms. There wasn’t much backyard to speak of. A twelve-foot deep patio of flagstone the full width of the house, then a mountain side held in place with a natural brick retaining wall that was five feet high. Atop the wall was a forest of shrubbery and trees. Privacy galore. The only escape from the backyard was through the house or around either side of the house. There were gates on either side, but who locked gates?
As he rounded the curve on foot, Oak scanned the house and the neighboring houses. Andrea and Abby Clanton’s house was on the right, but no sign of either of them. No movement anywhere that he could see. Why had he closed his shades? He didn’t have a view of the interior.
As he closed up, looking beyond the Taurus, he saw nothing amiss on the small front covered porch. The solid front door appeared intact, the small panes of stained glass in the upper half still in place. All of the windows on the front appeared to be in good shape. If he’d had a break-in, it would be through the sliding glass door in back. And why would a burglar leave his car in the driveway? Close enough to carry the big screen? And how many burglars rented their getaway cars?
He walked up the driveway, then around the right side of the house. Reached over the wooden gate to lift the latch, and then pulled the gate open.
No sounds. A red-tailed hawk sailed away to the east. A robin and a couple sparrows flitted in the hackberry and hazelnut along the right side of the patio.
He eased around the back corner of the house.
A figure sitting in one of the chairs at his patio table.
Nice figure.
Familiar.
“Miss Galway. What a pleasant surprise.”
She looked up at him. “About time you got home.”
He crossed to the table and took a chair. “My airplane was late. Apparently yours wasn’t.”
“I’ve been here a couple hours.”
He was happy to see her. She looked great in Levis, half-boots, and a turquoise pullover. Her auburn hair was neatly in place, the makeup light and flawless. And she’d been traveling for around six hours?
“You were certain I’d come here from Phoenix?”
“I was. And you did.”
He smiled. “You’ve changed your mind, submitted your resignation.”
“No, I haven’t. I called in and took two weeks leave time. God knows I needed to because I have about ninety days stacked up. I’m just exploring your arrangement here.”
“Explore away. Obviously, it’s not very exotic. I’m a simple man.”
“I’d bet that from the upstairs window, you have a glimpse of the bay.”
“Just a narrow glimpse. I don’t need much more. Are you hungry?”
“How come we always eat when we get together?”
“It was just a passing thought.”
“I’m starved.”
“Come on in.”
Bobbi picked up her huge purse from the table, and Malone led the way around to the front and unlocked the door. She preceded him inside and then stopped in the short foyer while he punched in the security code on the panel next to the door. Directly ahead was the stairway to the second floor.
“Well,” she said.
“Well, what?”
She indicated the great room to the left. “I’d have guessed you for a more masculine setting. This is nice.”
Oak thought it was unnecessary to mention that he’d bought the place furnished. He’d thought at the time that he could someday replace the pale gray upholstered pieces with leather, but he’d never gotten around to it. Just threw some yellow and red pillows around. Added a few silk plants in decorative pots. Live plants wouldn’t survive his long absences. He’d mounted some decent seafaring art to the walls. The occasional tables and the dining table at the back by the sliding glass door were of a light stained fruitwood in a contemporary design.
This half of the lower floor was one big room, the furniture arranged in a conversational grouping near the front and a group around the fireplace and flat screen TV on the side wall. The kitchen, with the utility room next to it, was on the right at the back. There was a counter with three bar stools dividing the kitchen from the great room. To his right was a doublewide door into the office which was furnished in cherry wood. The half bath was accessed from the office.
“Makes the room seem lighter,” he said.
“It does.”
“Make yourself at home, and let me have your car keys. I’ll get the cars off the street.”
Bobbi found her keys, and Malone went through the garage to open the door, and then moved her rental inside. He walked down the street to retrieve his truck, and then parked it next to the Ford. By the time he finished and closed the garage, he found her in the kitchen rifling through drawers looking for flatware. She’d already made two sandwiches of the sourdough and roast beef and mustard. She spooned coleslaw onto each of the plates. Malone poured milk and they moved in by the fireplace.
“I’m really glad you came out,” he told her.
“I wanted to see how the other half lived.”
“And you’re still curious.”
“And I’m still curious,” she admitted.
“About anything in particular? Beyond the senator?”
“Yesterday, after talking to you, I drove out to Silver Spring.”
Silver Spring?
“Ah, did you talk to Mrs. Dinmore?”
“Lorna. I did talk to her, condolences and the like. She was devastated, of course. Didn’t know how she was going to make it without Tracy.”
“Hell, Bobbi, he must have had insurance.”
“Just the government variety. And that’s not going to keep her and three kids living like they have been. The kids are enrolled in private schools.”
“Living well, are they?”
“From what I could see. She had a Mercedes 600 in the driveway. The house was about three grades above Tracy’s pay level. I looked him up, and he was drawing $146,000.”
“Not much in D.C.” Oak agreed.
“Other houses in their area were for sale at two to three million.”
“You think he had outside income?”
“I’d bet on it,” Bobbi said. “I couldn’t find any public records about an inheritance. Both of his parents are dead. I didn’t have a maiden name so I couldn’t research Lorna’s parents. From talking to her, I’d have to say there’s not much money from her side of the family.”
Malone chewed for a while, and then said, “What we’ve got so far is pretty slippery. Maybe Dinmore is living above his means. Given the hearsay evidence about his lack of character, maybe he was involved in something illicit. And ma
ybe with one or more of the three names he gave me.”
She started to say something, probably regarding Senator Patrick Corridan, but held off.
“Come on,” Oak urged.
“Tell me about Phoenix.”
He told her in some detail about his visit with Jim Mears.
“A glint in his eye? A tic of the lip? Talk about slippery.”
“Field experience talking, Bobbi.”
She dipped her head. “Okay, maybe. What else?”
“I explored Lani’s house.”
“With Lani present? I looked her up. Gorgeous lady.”
“Actually, she wasn’t around.” Malone outlined his search of the house.
“Breaking and entering is part of your regimen?”
“I didn’t break anything,” he insisted.
“And you may have sent someone on a wild goose chase to Des Moines?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Why?”
“I want to push them into coming after me here. Where it’s my turf.”
Bobbi grimaced. “I’ll go find a motel and check in.”
“Nonsense. Follow me.”
Malone led her upstairs and showed her the corner guest bedroom. Which had sheets he’d bought new and which had never been used. It wasn’t even dusty because he had a housekeeper who came in twice a month.
There was a small grouping of eight photographs on the wall above the bed, and Galway leaned toward them for a better look.
“Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Laura Bush, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, Pat Nixon,” she said. “But not the current. You collect first ladies?”
“Better than the first men,” Oak said.
“Granted.”
“The bathroom next door is all yours. Brand new towels. Well, five years old, but never used.”
She looked around. “All right, this works. Except for the bad guys you’ve aimed this way.”
He took her across the hall to the master bedroom, which wasn’t overly furnished, but which had a king sized bed to match his height as well its own fireplace, bath, and walk-in closet. At the back of the closet, he spun the combination and unlocked one of two medium sized vaults built into the wall. The other one had cash and documents. This one held handguns and ammunition.
He selected a .45 caliber Kimber semiautomatic for himself and picked out a Glock Model 19 in 9 millimeter for Galway. Grabbed two loaded magazines for each of them.
Holding the Glock butt first toward her, he said, “I imagine you know how to use this.”
She accepted it. “Of course. Used the same model duck hunting with my dad.”
Malone raised an eyebrow.
“Kidding, Oak. I had the agency training. You honestly think we’ll need these?”
She inserted one of the magazines and pulled the slide to chamber a round. He did the same with the Kimber and then shoved it into his waistband.
“I’d prefer to capture whoever shows up in one piece. It would be nice to have a little mano y mano discussion.”
“And you have experience with that, I suppose.”
“A bit.”
They went back downstairs and into the office. The desk was in front of the window, but the shades were still closed. The wall opposite the doorway was background to four bookcase units atop four cherry wood drawer and door base cabinets. At the back was a comfortable easy chair and ottoman in a rugged gray fabric to match the desk chair. A side table with a squat brass base lamp made for nice reading. On the wall to either side of the window was a small pair of etchings by Pablo Picasso. The real thing. Malone had located and paid dearly for them in Spain.
Galway sat in the desk chair and watched as Malone opened a pair of doors on a bookcase base unit to reveal a monitor. He turned it on and was rewarded with a quartered screen showing four landscape views.
“Each corner of the house has a surveillance camera, Bobbi. I’ve also turned on sensors that will give us a beep if anyone approaches within fifteen feet of the house. That’s a short distance, but the backyard isn’t deep, and I didn’t want to catch everyone walking their poodles past the front.”
“Damn, Oak. Do you always prepare your houses this way?”
“First time. Never needed it before, but hey, you never know what you’ll need until you need it. This is what I meant about meeting this guy on my turf. I think I’ll have some forewarning.”
He settled into the easy chair.
“You see the computer on the desk there. I don’t use it much. My laptop is still in my suitcase.”
“I brought mine.”
“Planning on a little research and analysis?” Oak asked.
“I was afraid it might happen that way. But we don’t have much.”
“Think about Dinmore and his lifestyle. The most frequent and fruitful trail to follow in these things is the money.”
“But Mears has money he inherited. Lani Dixon has married lots of it. Patrick has accumulated quite a bit during his time in Congress. What’s to follow? There’s no other evidence.”
Malone dug into his back pocket. “I picked up a little. That card was tacked to the wall outside Mears’ office.”
Bobbi took the card and unfolded it. “This is just a bunch of organizations he belongs to.”
“Yes. Then here’s Lani’s resume. Also a picture, I think from a few years ago.”
Galway scanned the photo quickly. “I think she’s had plastic surgery.”
Oak took the photograph back. It was a head shot, and he couldn’t see her full chest. “You think so?”
“I looked her up on line where there are some society photos. I think her nose is thinner.”
Nose, then.
“You’re probably right,” he agreed though he wouldn’t have noticed the nose himself.
Bobbi went through the resume. “Hasn’t worked much, has she?”
“Not for a paycheck. But look at the organizations she belongs to.”
“Sure, a lot of them. Oak, anyone can be a member of these groups for ten or twenty bucks a year. They don’t necessarily do anything to contribute to the groups’ goals, but it looks good on the civic duty list.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right about that, Bobbi. I wonder if we could find a list of Corridan’s and Dinmore’s civic organizations.”
“Ah, Oak,” she said. “You’re devious as hell.”
She spun around in the chair and turned on the computer.
*
Lani Dixon pushed the button to end the call after May hung up.
This was disturbing. She didn’t need this. She shouldn’t have called May.
Except that it was her practice to call May once a week on Sunday afternoons for any updates she needed to know about. In the past, every update had been positive. Extremely positive.
Still clutching the cell phone, she paced her sanctum sanctorum which took up the entire third floor of the white brick townhouse on N Street Northwest. She had her own sitting room, her own lavish office, her own exercise room, and her own bath. It was all done in dusty rose with plum accents. It was her place to meditate, read, do as she pleased, and David had learned to leave her alone when she took up residence there. After all, he had his own home office on the second floor with the guest bedroom and master suite, all of which she had decorated to the nth degree.
Also, David was antithetic toward the idea of exercise and would not have utilized any of the world class equipment that furnished her exercise room. Lani, however, felt entirely decomposed for whole days if she missed her daily two hour routines on the Nautilus elliptical machine, Life Fitness home gym, or padded mats.
She had just passed forty years of age, and hated it, but she still looked like she was twenty-five. She damned well intended to keep it that way, and her dear friend Michel Francois, the plastic surgeon, assisted in some areas.
She kept pacing, moving between the sitting room with its paired sofas and 6o-inch flat screen TV and through the French door
s into the office furnished in French Provincial. She wanted to call the Chair, but of course, she couldn’t do that. Why did he have the prerogative of a blocked telephone?
Conversely, she could call Mears, and she raised the phone to hit the speed dial. It rang eight times before he finally answered. Sunday afternoon, so he was probably with his family and had to move somewhere else to talk on that particular phone.
“Treasurer.”
He would know it was her by the cell number.
“Have you talked to May?”
“Of course.”
“She told you about the Recruiter?”
“The three of us agreed,” Mears said, “that something needed to be done about the Recruiter.” He meant her, himself, and the Chair.
“But . . . but this!”
“It was necessary.”
“And this man named Malone?” she asked. “He showed up at your office?”
“Yes. I didn’t know who he was, and I had to call back and press the Chair damned hard to finally get the full story.”
Mears told her all about Malone killing the man who had killed Dinmore. May’s version had been much shorter, with much less detail.
“This is terrible!” she said. Her pitch had gone up a few notes.
“The Chair says it’ll be contained. I believe him.”
“It better be. I can’t take this.”
“You take the money,” he reminded her.
“Speaking of money, what happens to Dinmore’s account? How much is in it?”
There was a long pause, then, “Well, I don’t know.”
“You’re the Treasurer. You’re supposed to know.”
“Let me check. I’ll call you back.”
Lani didn’t feel any better after that call, either.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
What if I have to leave Washington?
Oh my God! What if I have to leave the country?
*
Alicia Hampstead was at her home on Wyoming Avenue Northwest in Kalorama Heights watching the 11:00 news when the disposable cell on the coffee table vibrated, shaking itself on the parquet surface of the table. Both the disposable and her smart phone were on the table, but the smart phone chimed.
Solid Oak Page 8