Dead Watch

by John Sandford

  “Our friends get taken care of,” Jake said. “Nothing illegal, or unethical, but they get the attention they deserve. They wind up with decent jobs and benefits and pensions.”

  “Okay . . . I’ll try to call her,” Green said. He looked at the cell-phone screen, then laid it on his desk, pulled out another tissue, and patted his scalp again. “Jesus Christ.”

  Jake got up, stepped toward the door, said, “See you in an hour.”

  Green called after him, “You’ve seen the FBI reports on Linc?”

  “I have not—but I talk to the lead investigator every day.”

  “There are rumors . . . barbed wire, no head, that sounds like he was tortured,” Green said.

  “I wouldn’t want you to pass this around . . .”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “We think that was an effort by his friends—your friends—to increase publicity,” Jake said. “I can’t tell you everything behind the supposition, and you might know more about it than I do . . .”

  “I do not,” Green protested.

  “. . . but he was definitely dead before he was decapitated, and before he was burned. The whole burning scene seems to have been set up to imply that the Watchmen were involved somehow . . . it was set up to resonate with the idea that the Watchmen are Nazis, or Klan, who kill people and burn them as examples.”

  “And they don’t? How about the Mexican kid . . . ?”

  Jake held up his hands, shutting Green off: “I don’t want to get in a political argument. The Watchmen may be Nazis, for all I know. But the scene itself seems to be a setup, managed by Lincoln Bowe’s friends. That’s what we believe.”

  He left Green staring at the cell phone. In the outer office, the secretary ditched the Vanity Fair again and stood up. “All done with the secret talks?”

  “Nope. I’ll be back. Could you tell me where I could get a bagel and a book?”

  She drew a quick map on a piece of printer paper, pointing Jake toward the campus and the campus bookstore, at the far end of State Street. As she gave him the directions, she patted him on the arm: a toucher, he thought. She was nothing but friendly, smiling as she sent him on his way. If he’d been fifteen years younger, he would have been panting after her.

  Might be panting a little anyway.

  Of course, there was Madison—the woman, not the town. Madison, who’d once kissed him. And then didn’t. He thought about that as he got oriented with the hand-drawn map, and started toward the campus.

  The girl’s map was accurate enough, but didn’t have a scale. He had to walk nearly a mile; flinched at the sight of a big GMC sports-utility vehicle with blacked-out windows, rolling along beside him. Remembered the beating he’d taken. If God gave those guys back to him . . .

  He smiled at the thought.

  The day was a nice one, the beginning of warmer weather, and the college girls were coming out of their winter cocoons, walking along with their form-fitting jeans and soft breast-clinging tops. Excellent.

  Maybe get a novel, Jake thought: he’d just read the first of a series of novels about British fliers during World War I, by Derek Robinson, and was anxious to get another. And, of course, university bookstores were the most likely place to find his own books; like most authors, he always checked.

  The store was a good one. He found The Goshawk Squadron and copies of both of his books, though only one of each, in what he thought was an obscure location. When he was sure nobody was looking, he reshelved some outward-facing books so that only their spines showed, and then faced out his own book. The shelf was still too low, but there was nothing he could do about that.

  Nevertheless, two copies. With a sense of satisfaction, he walked across the street, got a bagel with cream cheese, and sat on a bench in the sun and started reading about the Goshawks . . .

  Madison Bowe stood behind the etched-glass insert in the front door, watching as Howard Barber climbed out of his car, straightened his tie, patted his pockets as though checking for keys, then headed up the walk onto the porch. He was wearing the usual wraparound blades–style sunglasses and dark suit. He was reaching for the doorbell when she opened the door.

  He stepped inside, took his sunglasses off, said, “Maddy, what happened, you sounded . . .”

  She hit him hard. Not a slap, but with a balled-up fist, hit him in the cheekbone as hard as she could; but she was not a big woman, hadn’t thrown many punches, and he twitched away before the punch landed and that took some of the impact out of it.

  She tried again, but he was ready this time, brushed her off. “Hey, hey, what the hell?”

  She shouted at him: “You killed Lincoln and you killed Schmidt and now the whole thing is coming down on us.”

  “No, no, no . . .” He had his hands up now, backing away from her.

  She was spitting, she was so angry, the words tumbling out of her. “Don’t lie to me, Howard. I know about the brain tumor, I know about the medication. I stayed up all night, trying to work out explanations, and there aren’t any. You killed Howard and you killed Schmidt. Now Jake Winter knows about the package and he’s looking for it.”

  “Ah, jeez,” Barber said, dropping his hands. She took a step toward him and he said, “Maddy, don’t hit me again. That hurt like hell. Just listen for a minute, huh?”

  “Howard . . .”

  “Linc died at . . . a friend’s place. He’d worked out the whole thing, the whole thing involving Schmidt. When he’d died, we took him down to the basement and shot him. We shot him in a way that would keep the slug in the body and we planted the pistol at Schmidt’s place.”

  “And killed Schmidt,” Madison shouted: but she was pleading for a denial.

  He gave it to her. “We didn’t kill Schmidt. Schmidt’s in Thailand, screwing twelve-year-olds. We’re not gonna kill some innocent guy.”

  “Thailand?”

  “Schmidt has a thing about hookers,” Barber said. “Young brown hookers. He’s also tied to Goodman. They were on the same base at Latakia, at the same time, and he kept trying to get into the Watchmen. And he likes guns.”

  “Guns . . .”

  “Guns. On top of it all, he was desperate for money. We told him about a job possibility in Thailand, tending bar in an American place down south of Bangkok. He took the job. We’d fixed it up through a pal of mine—had to pay most of his salary, so the Thai guy who runs the place essentially has a free American bartender for a couple of months.”

  She wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him, but she pushed ahead. “Lincoln was dead?”

  “I sat with him until he stopped breathing. He took an overdose of Rinolat.”

  “And Schmidt?”

  “Schmidt’s in a beach town about the size of my dick,” Barber said. “We told him he was hired to play the part of an old expat China hand. He’s grown a beard, makes drinks, he’s getting along pretty well for the first time in his life.”

  “Why don’t they know this? Why don’t the police know this?”

  Barber shrugged. “You don’t have to check out of the country yet. You just have to check in. We gave him the ticket, so there’s no financial record.”

  “Howard, if you’re lying . . .”

  “I’m not lying. Schmidt has no idea of who we are, of who bought him the ticket, of how it worked,” Barber said. “He just saw a good deal being handed to him by a guy in a bar, and he took it. If somebody thinks we killed him, if there were ever any legal question . . . he’ll be ‘discovered’ by an American tourist.”

  “Jesus, Howard. How can you keep this shut up? There must be so many people involved . . .”

  “The same people who’ve kept their mouths shut about Linc and friends all these years.”

  She stepped back to think about it; reeling from information overload.

  Barber said: “Now tell me about Winter. How’d he hear about the package?”

  “I don’t know how he heard about it, but he tracked down Tony Patterson, and Tony gave him t
he outline,” Madison said. “He doesn’t know where it is, or who has it. He doesn’t even know if it’s real. I told him about Al Green out in Wisconsin. A wild-goose chase. I mostly wanted to get him away from here. Away from you. You guys are the ones who mugged him, right? You could have killed him . . .”

  “Listen, listen . . . He goes to see Green, that’s another day or two. Maybe I can talk to a couple of people, get him shunted off again, in another direction.”

  “You didn’t answer the question. You’re the guys who mugged him . . .”

  Barber’s eyes shifted: that was an answer. She stepped toward him again, lifted her fist, but he stepped sideways, one hand up to block, and asked, “Is he the one who told you about the brain tumor?”

  “Yes. He . . .” She started to tell him about Rosenquist, but suddenly shifted, suddenly thought she might not want to. She still wasn’t sure about Schmidt, what Barber might have done to him. And her feelings about Jake were confusing: Wasn’t he the enemy? “He apparently found a computerized medical record somewhere. He’s got all kinds of computer access, intelligence services, the FBI.”

  “That sounds a little hinky,” Barber said.

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “You gotta manage the guy, Maddy,” Barber said, his voice urgent. “He’s talking to you, he’s coming to you, you gotta manage him.”

  “I’m trying. That’s why I sent him to Wisconsin.”

  Barber nodded: “That was quick thinking. If I hadn’t grilled Green myself, I would have said he’d be the guy who’d know . . .”

  “I just hope he doesn’t,” Madison said. “I just hope he wasn’t lying to you.”

  “Nah. He would have told me. He knew about me and Linc . . .”

  “So where is it? Why can’t you find it?”

  “We’re still looking, but we’ve decided that if we can’t find it, we wait until after the convention, and then we leak what we’ve got. We get people looking at that highway project. We have enough details that we can redo it—maybe even force the guy with the package out into the open.”

  She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “How did this ever start? How could you and Lincoln . . . What could possibly be worth it?”

  Barber examined her for a moment, as though he were puzzled, and then said, “We’re talking about the presidency, Maddy. We might be talking about changing the history of the country. If people like Goodman get their way, this place could go down like Rome. A hundred years from now, two hundred years from now, people will look back . . .

  “Spare me,” she said. “I don’t need any historical analysis. I need to get back to the farm. I need to go riding. I need to get away.”

  “Hang on, baby. We’re almost there. Hang on.”

  The whole thing had gone to hell, and Darrell Goodman didn’t quite know how to get out of it. He and George had flown to Chicago on a state plane, on Watchmen business. At O’Hare, they’d rented a Dodge van, the most inoffensive and invisible car that he could think of, and had headed north for Madison.

  The trip had taken longer than he thought. Both he and George were wasted from the overnight flight, and the stress; and Darrell was annoyed with George, because George kept having to stop at roadside rests and gas stations to pee.

  George had been an operator with the CIA, a contract guy, but wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Arlo Goodman had once said to Darrell, “Even the CIA needs guys who carry stuff. That’s what George did.”

  Darrell had driven: George had ridden silently along, half asleep, waking up every hour or so to ask if they could stop. George thought he had an infection, Darrell thought it might be his prostate, but whatever it was, George couldn’t drink half a Coke unless he was standing next to the can.

  And that seemed wrong; that simple problem had unbalanced Darrell. You didn’t have a mission fouled up because a guy had to take a leak. That wasn’t the way the pros did it.

  They’d gotten to Madison later than they’d hoped, but had just spotted the PollCats building when they saw Winter walk out the front door, tapping along with his cane. “Knew he’d beat us,” Darrell said. They watched as Winter turned away from the building, going on down the street. George, sleepy eyed, said, “Want to take him?”

  “No. No, for Christ’s sake. We find out if he got it, and if he didn’t, who’s got it, and we take it away from them.”

  They watched until Winter was out of sight, then pulled into the parking lot in back. From the parking lot to the PollCats front door, everything went fine. They saw nobody, heard nobody. George said, “This place is a ghost town.”

  Then they opened the door and everything went to hell.

  Now the blond-chick secretary was pressed back against the office wall, eyes wide with fear, George in front of her, dressed all in black like a movie villain from Batman, not letting her move. Darrell pointed a leather-gloved hand at Alan Green and said, “If you don’t give me that fuckin’ package, you fuck, I’m gonna break your fuckin’ weasel neck.”

  He knew that wasn’t the idea. There should have been an urbane approach, an understated threat, a sly blackmail, and instead, it had gone straight in the dumper, and here he was . . .

  And then he made the mistake of pushing Green in the chest. Green didn’t just look like a wrestler: he’d been one, at the University of Wisconsin, twenty years earlier. He was scared and angry and strong. He caught Goodman’s arm and made a move, so quick that Goodman, good athlete that he was, was spun off balance and found his arm locked and bent and choked off a scream and Green said, “I oughta throw your ass out. . . .”

  Nobody found out where he was going to throw Goodman, because George, in one quick motion, pulled a silenced .22 from a shoulder holster and shot Green in the back of the head. The gun made a spitting sound, clanked as the action moved, and Green went down like a load of beef.

  Goodman twisted in surprise, said, “Jesus Christ,” looked at George, looked at Green. The blond secretary looked at both men, looked at Goodman’s eyes, knew she was dead: she launched herself at him with her fingernails, slashing, as quick as Green had been, cutting Goodman at the neck and down his arms, and Goodman said, “Jesus, Jesus,” trying to fend her off, and there was another quick spit and the blonde went down, bounced, landed on her back, naked blue eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

  Goodman was breathing hard, stunned, astonished, looked at George, gasped, “We gotta get the fuck outa here,” and he led the way out, said, “Put away the fuckin’ gun, we gotta get out,” and panic clutched at him and he shook it off, and they were out, the door locking behind them . . .

  Jake lost some time with The Goshawk Squadron ; glanced at his watch and was shocked to see that it was after one o’clock. He got up, put the novel in his case, and headed back to the PollCats office.

  Up State, down Johnson, watching the ass on a tall slender blonde, and when she turned, thought, my God, you’ve been watching the ass of a child. She stopped at a curb to cross the street, caught his eye and smiled a bit; not a child’s smile.

  In the old brick building, the smell of rug and flaking paint, up the stairs, to the PollCats door. It was locked. He rattled the handle, then knocked. No answer. And he thought, Ah, man.

  They’d run on him, and he hadn’t seen it coming. He rattled the door again, exhaled in exasperation. The critical thing was, time, and Green must know that. All he had to do was stay out of sight for a while. . . .

  He was turning away from the door when he noticed the shoe. The shoe was in the open doorway of Green’s private office. He couldn’t see all of it, just a heel and part of the instep. It was a woman’s shoe, upside down, the short stacked-heel in the air, and there, in the corner, an oval, that might be a toe in a nylon stocking.

  Jake backed away from the door. Wondered what he’d touched. Thought, Maybe it’s not what it looks like. Thought, What if somebody’s not dead, what if I can save a life by calling the cops? Thought, The big GMC with the blacked-out
windows.

  Thought, That’s ridiculous, there’s gotta be a thousand of those trucks in Madison . . .

  But he knew what was in the office. Felt it like an ice cube in his heart.

  He walked to the end of the hall, searching the corners of the ceilings, listening for voices. Heard nothing; but did see a woman in one of the offices, hunched over a stack of paper, working with a pencil. No cameras. But: he’d not tried to hide his approach. He’d used his cane, carried his case, hadn’t worn a hat. If anybody had seen him, they’d remember. And he’d for sure wrapped his fingers around the arm of a chair in Green’s office.

  “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” He walked back to the PollCats office, knocked once, then again, rattled the door. Nothing. The shoe sat there. “Goddamnit.”

  He used the steel grip on the cane to punch a hole in the glass panel. He punched out enough that he could get a hand through, didn’t try to hide the noise; but then, there really wasn’t much noise.

  He stepped inside the door, crossed to Green’s office.

  The blond secretary lay on her back, a palm-sized spot of blood under her head. Green was also on his back, a stain on the rug beneath his head. There was a spatter of blood on the glass of the pictures on the wall.

  Jake looked for a moment, then took out his cell phone and dialed. Novatny came up: “Yes?”

  “Chuck, this is Jake Winter. We’ve got a hell of a problem, man.” He looked at the blank dead face of the young secretary. “Jesus, Chuck, we’ve got, ah . . .”

  “Jake, Jake . . . ?”

  Novatny told him to walk out of the office and wait in the hallway, not to let anyone in the office. “I’ll have somebody there in five minutes. I don’t know who yet.”

  Jake hung up, took a step toward the door. Hesitated. Stepped back to Green. Reached beneath him, toward his heart. Felt the cell phone. Slipped his hand inside, took the phone, put it in the phone pocket of his briefcase. Looked at the office phone for a second, then took a tissue out of a box of Kleenex on Green’s desk, picked up the desk phone and pushed the redial button. The phone redialed and a man answered on the first ring, “Domino’s.” Nothing there—not unless Domino’s Pizza was delivering the package.