“Very funny. Look, Ellis hung around the offices and the pressroom, but not around Strutt’s office. Don’t take my word for it. Check it out with the secretary. Ask LeGrande’s people across the hall.” Wyman stared pointedly into Rita’s face.
“Strutt said you could tell me if he knew a woman named Miriam Blalock.” Rita stared back.
Wyman laughed. “Congressmen know only as much as their staffers. It’s a good thing for the republic that we’re so smart. And no, he doesn’t know anyone named Miriam Blalock.”
“Do these guys ever do anything for themselves?” Rita asked.
Wyman opened his mouth to respond.
“Never mind I don’t want to know what it is.” Rita cut him off.
Wyman again marched across Rita’s invisible line into very personal space. “I’d like to help,” he offered. “Tell you what. Give me your address and telephone number, I’ll nose around and get back to you with what I find.” He held out his hand.
Without giving ground, Rita handed him a card from her coat pocket.
“Cold hands, warm heart,” Wyman said as he attempted to grasp her fingers. Rita pulled away.
Wyman turned the card over. “Business address. This is a very public place—Washington. If I do find something, I’d like to pass it on in private. Strutt doesn’t need bad press. How about your cell number?” He handed her a gold pen from the inside pocket of his topcoat.
Rita paused to consider then figured what could it hurt.
“Anything else?” he asked as he tucked the pen and card inside his coat.
“Not for now.”
Wyman turned for the marble steps, halted, and turned back to Rita. “By the way, you might want to check out Ellis’ last target. Hillman wasn’t the only one in that office with something to hide. His assistant, Mr. DeVane carries quite a secret from the past. A leak of that little gem could have killed Hillman—and DeVane.”
“How do you know that?” Rita asked.
“I know everything,” Wyman answered. “That’s my job.”
♏
She hated this place. Rita waited at the south entrance to Patuxent Institution. It was a fortress of the damned, like purgatory where you served an indefinite time until you were clean enough for heaven—or in this case, the real world. Karin taught GED classes here once a week.
A guard with a blank face took Rita’s name and checked his list. He nodded without a smile or any other betrayal of acknowledgement. Assuming she knew where she was going, he settled back into his guard post and let her ramble down the hall to the next locked passage. The entrance gate clanged shut. Rita never looked behind. The idea of no exit made her want to run.
After three more locked doors and check lists, Rita was on the corridor where offices lined the wall. She peered inside Karin’s door, but the small room was empty. Rita made herself at home behind the battered grey metal desk.
It was a small, typically institutional room with cream-colored block walls and nondescript vinyl flooring. The walls were bare except for an empty cork bulletin board and prison safety warnings printed on orange copy paper. Gunmetal grey filing cabinets crowded the open space.
Rita leaned back in the desk chair. It was the one state provided item which offered some semblance of human comfort. It was new and comfortably upholstered and had a high lumbar contoured back. From her assumption of authority, Rita studied the things that changed this room from “an office” to “Karin’s office.”
On the desk were two cheap black picture frames. One held a photo of Karin’s sister, her husband and two nieces. The other was an old photo of Karin and her sister with children playing at the water’s edge on the beach.
Rita smiled at this picture.
“Thinking of teaching a class here?” Karin had been standing at the door unnoticed.
Rita jumped out of the chair. “Relaxing.”
Karin carried a metal clipboard. She held it tucked to her chest, both arms crossed it, much the way a schoolgirl might carry her books. But it was no incidental action. The metal clipboard was armor against haywire inmates who attacked teachers with cleverly devised weapons.
“Anything new?” Karin went to her chair, dropped the clipboard, and sat.
Rita perched on the edge of the desk. “Not much. A minor run-in with the worst of Washington.”
Karin leaned forward.
“I met with Randy Wyman, Charles Strutt’s chief of staff, to get some information the good senator promised. He made it some big secret deal where we rendezvoused at the Lincoln Memorial at midnight. I felt like I was in some thirties spy film.”
“And?”
“And—those Hill staffers make me want to throw up. Everything’s a fucking power play.” Rita shivered.
“But did you get anything?”
“Stuffed sinuses, a parking ticket, and an interesting sidelight on Hillman’s best boy, DeVane.”
Karin put her finger to her lips for an instant. “What was that?”
“Wyman said DeVane had a very ugly skeleton in his closet and that DeVane wouldn’t have wanted that secret to see the light of newsprint. I’d have to agree that if I were DeVane, I wouldn’t want my failed embezzlement career on page one.”
“You checked it out?”
Rita nodded. “I did some electronic file rifling from the newspapers in Hillman’s home state of Pennsylvania. Sure enough on the first pass, DeVane’s name retrieved two stories from the Wilkes-Barre Sun . The young and altruistic director of American Family Relief got caught with his fingers in the till. Over a hundred thousand of well-intentioned donation dollars found themselves transported to DeVane’s bank account rather than to the single poor families they were intended for.”
“DeVane sure wouldn’t want a reporter to splash that information around. It could cost his boss as well as himself. Do you think Hillman knew about it?” Karin said.
“Maybe, maybe not. DeVane did probation rather than time. He made restitution with the help of his family—and admitted he had a gambling habit, which he gave as the reason for his foray into crime. Part of his probation hinged on rehabilitation treatment.” Rita answered.
“But even if he had remained a straight arrow, a story like that could destroy his career. I think it would also damage Hillman so close on the heels of that mystery money article.” Karin glanced at her watch.
“A motive maker if I ever heard one.” Rita slid off the desk. “I’m going to chat again with Mr. DeVane. But for now, I would like to invite you to dinner.”
“Sounds like a wonderful thing to me.” Karin tossed her clipboard into her desk drawer and slid her briefcase from underneath it.
“And your day? Any strange noises from your charming ex?” Rita led the way to the door.
“Not a peep.”
“The silence is making me crazy.”
“I’ve always heard that good things come to those who wait.”
They came to the first locked gate. A camera overhead allowed an unseen sentry to magically slide back the bars.
“Not my strong suit,” said Rita.
“You’re going to make something happen?”
They paused briefly at the second gate and again the barrier fell away.
“That I am.” Rita gestured for Karin to go first.
Karin hesitated and then marched ahead. “That makes me nervous, but I wish you good luck.”
Rita grasped her hand. “Thanks, that and a rabbit out of my hat should pull me through.”
Chapter 24
Bullfeathers Grill was jammed with lunchers on their respective roads to glory. All the tables were filled, mostly with parties of two, men who looked as if they had all dressed from the same closet. Babble level hovered at the high end of the decibel scale as waiters wove through the masses. The maitre’d’s eyes glazed with indifference when Rita entered.
“We won’t have anything for an hour,” he yawned.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m meeting somebody who’s already here.” Rita crane
d her neck to spot the quarry.
“Feel free.” The fact that she was meeting an established honored guest generated a flicker of interest in the maitre’d. He swept his arm toward the diners as a blessing for Rita to proceed.
She saw her target rise from a table near the back and slip around a corner where she knew the rest rooms were.
“Got a piece of tape?” Rita asked quickly.
The request flustered him enough that he did not inquire for reasons, but searched beneath the lectern and pulled out a desk roll to offer.
In the meantime, Rita ripped a piece of notepaper out of her portfolio and scribbled on it.
“Thanks.” She stuck half the tape strip onto the paper and wedged her way toward the rear of the restaurant. At the men’s room door, she plastered her notepaper—Out of Order—and swung wide the door.
It was a cramped space in beige tile. Two urinals and two black stalls faced the door. The muzzy air smelled of cigar smoke and industrial deodorizer.
“Excuse—hey, wrong room.” A grey-haired dignitary tucked himself hurriedly into his high-powered flannels as Rita brushed by him at the urinals.
She peered under the stalls. One pair of Bally’s rested side by side.
“I said wrong room.” Mr. Grey Hair was making her presence his cause.
“Plumbing inspector.” Rita flipped her PI badge. She held the door for Mr. Grey Hair to exit. He glared but left without further comment.
Behind her she heard the shuffle of shoes and the jingle of pocket change.
“You can stay put DeVane.” She rapped the stall door with her knuckle.
Pants legs drooped around the Bally loafers as though the wearer was readying to pull up and make a run.
“Who the hell’s out there?”
“Somebody who’s pissed that you lied to them.” Rita answered.
DeVane said nothing.
“No, it’s not a constituent,” she said, “and I don’t have a gun so you can sit back down.”
DeVane hesitated then did as she said. “You said you didn’t know Bobby Ellis except for the number he did on your boss.”
The stall was silent.
“You said you had little dealing with him. You guessed he was doing a story on Strutt. You forgot a story he had on you. You forgot because it was such an old story, right?” Rita rapped the stall door again.
DeVane answered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit. The translation for that doublespeak is ‘how much do you know.’ Am I right?”
DeVane said nothing.
“I said, am I right?” Rita pounded the door with her fist.
“You’re right.” DeVane’s voice was low.
“So tell me about that fucking story in your own words—and remember I already know how it goes. I’m just looking for more lies.”
“Ellis had the story. He came to see with a photocopy from the Scranton Sun . I was scared. I saw my whole life flashing in front of me.”
“So you hunted him down and killed him.”
“No, goddam it. I thought you knew the story, smartass.”
“Go on,” Rita said.
“I begged him not to print it. Ellis was a decent guy. He knew what it was like to come back from big time addiction. He heard me out. In fact, he said that the sniffing out he’d done before confronting me confirmed I was square and hadn’t taken any wrong turns into relapse. He cut me a break.” DeVane said.
“And after that?”
“After that I was grateful. I felt I owed him. A couple of days later I called him about a gut instinct I had on something.”
“You sicced him on some other unsuspecting slob,” Rita said.
The feet stirred under the stall door and the changed jingled. “It was a good lead.”
“Ok.”
DeVane paused. “I told him I thought Strutt was taking money to drive the healthcare thing through.”
“Charles Strutt is taking money to push healthcare.”
“I think so,” DeVane sniffed. “You know, Hillman’s on that committee too so I’m on top of what goes on. Anyway Hillman’s opposed to a lot of stuff in that legislation. Strutt started out in the same place, but all of a sudden within the last three months, he’s done a 180. It’s like some alien took over his brain—or some deep pockets bought his influence. He’s been spinning weird interpretations on all the stuff he formerly disagreed with, making it sound like Mom and apple pie.”
“Talking out of every side of his mouth to cover any possible constituent concerns?” Rita asked.
“No. It’s different than weasel words. It’s a campaign. You know, you say something long and hard enough, you start to believe and then so do the rest of the people you say it to.”
“The PR approach to good government.”
“Exposure is everything.” The shoes pushed their legs to a standing position. A zipper hissed and a belt buckle clanked. Pete DeVane emerged.
“Welcome to the real world,” Rita said.
“This was pretty embarrassing,” DeVane said. “Why the hell can’t you ask for an appointment?” He walked to the sink to wash his hands.
“And you’d just clear your calendar so I could make you uncomfortable?”
“Ok, so you’re right. I wouldn’t.” DeVane tore off a paper towel. “But the men’s room?”
“I like a captive audience,” Rita laughed. “So Ellis took off after Charles Strutt. He didn’t go without proof.”
“I didn’t have much to go on, just a hunch,” DeVane said. “I sent him some contribution lists that had a lot of unusual organizations—things I’d never seen on PAC lists. I sent some memos that Strutt had written to committee members. It wasn’t that solid, but it gave him a place to start hunting. Ellis set up a mail drop for me under the name Anne Rice and I was to send him stuff as I got it.”
“Anne Rice?”
DeVane laughed. “The vampire author. Ellis had a thing about politicians as vampires.”
“Sounds like Bobby.” A lump rose in Rita’s throat but she choked it down.
“He was a decent guy. I’m sorry about what happened to him.” DeVane reached to touch her arm, but she moved away.
“He didn’t deserve what he got.” Rita swallowed hard one more time. “So where is the mail drop?”
DeVane gave her the Silver Spring address which she’d already visited, the place where the mysterious Miriam Blalock got her mail. He told Rita that he’d never been there and had no idea if it was still in Ellis’ name. But he did give her the box number. He also told her he’d stopped gathering information after Ellis’ death.
“Start again. Anything,” Rita said. “Send it to me. You have my mailing address in Baltimore. I’m going to finish Bobby’s story.”
“It didn’t get him anywhere—and he’s dead,” DeVane warned.
“Only the good die young.”
“I’ll nose around some more,” DeVane promised. He gestured toward the door and Rita led the way.
“One more thing.” She turned to face him. “That story on you is old. It didn’t just fall out of the sky. Somebody wanted to slam you—or Hillman—by hurting you. Any ideas as to a perpetrator?”
“This is a tough game,” DeVane said. “Opponents will do what they can to neutralize you. Partisan politics is one step above gladiators at the coliseum.”
“Then I want you to think who had something to gain by blowing your credibility or your boss’s,” Rita said. “Get back to me on that.”
“Could be a long list.”
“Make it a short one—one where the prize is big enough for blood sacrifice.”
DeVane nodded.
The men’s room door burst open and the maitre’d flung himself inside, his face red and eyes wild. “What the hell is going on in here?”
Rita flipped the PI badge again, so quickly the maitre’d continued to stare at the space where it had been.
“Plumbing inspection. Water pressure’s down and
there’s no hydraulic percolation in your toilets. Get your maintenance people to check it out. I’ll let it pass for now, but I’ll be back next week for verification.”
She held the door as DeVane walked out. She followed, leaving the maitre’d speechless inside.
♏
It was a calm sea and Rita, her parents, and brother floated placidly in a skiff over glassine waters. Suddenly the sky purpled and the boat rocked to ever growing swells until the tiny craft rocketed like a billiard ball on a well-banked shot. Her mother cried. Her father laughed. Her brother hugged the boarding rail while she endured buffeting with distant stare and cold eyes.
“Help!” her mother shouted.
“No one can hear you,” said her father.
At last the skiff toppled. She alone could keep her head above water. Her father sank immediately. Her mother and brother flailed with arms stretched toward her. She had to save them, but just as she was about to touch their fingertips, waves crashed between. Over and again Rita pounded the water with frantic strokes but she seemed to be frozen in place.
In a flash she knew her mother and brother were gone.
Rita bolted upright in bed. Her T- shirt clung with sweat to her breasts and her mouth was hot and cottony. The Great White Hunter stopped his paw licking to stare curiously.
“What are you looking at?” she said.
The Great White Hunter resumed his bath and Rita lay down on her wet pillow. She rolled her head to check the clock. It was 3:45 a.m. and she knew that sleep was gone forever. She jumped in the shower, then dressed in jeans, running shoes and layered sweaters against the October chill. The Great White Hunter had already snuggled a nest into her abandoned comforter.
“Clean the house while I’m gone.” Rita scratched his head and saw him open a wary eye.
On the way out of the driveway, she braked when she noticed the shiny reflecting eye of a deer just inside the pasture. Rita tapped her horn and the animal cleared the fence.
At the 7- Eleven, she stopped for coffee and a package of cupcakes. Two bleary-eyed teens stared into the soda cooler while a scruffy bearded clerk, hardly older, kept watch. A truck driver came in for cigarettes followed by an off- duty nurse looking for the same.
DRIVEN: A Rita Mars Thriller Page 19