The Fix

by David Baldacci

  “Still looking,” said Decker absently.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter much.”

  He shot her a look. “What doesn’t matter much?”

  “Billy’s in today. I gave him the card you left, but I don’t know if he ever called you guys. He was working when that man was here. If you want to talk to him, he’s not busy right now.”

  “I do want to talk to him.”

  She left and came back with a tall middle-aged man with graying hair worn in a ponytail. He had on a black shirt like the woman wore, and faded jeans. A green apron was tied around his waist.

  “Hey,” said Billy, as the woman went back to the counter. “I hear you’re with the FBI. You want to ask me some stuff?”

  “Yeah, you want to take a seat?”

  Billy sat across from him.

  “You work here long?” asked Decker.

  Billy laughed. “Back in 2008, I was an investment banker, if you can believe it. Then came financial Armageddon and I got tossed out on my ass. Lost everything. So I said to hell with it and never looked back. I’ve been working here four years. I can barely rub two dimes together, but I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

  “Good for you. You remember Dabney?”

  “Yeah. He came in that morning.”

  “Had he ever come in before?”

  “No. Least not that I saw. Now that I’ve seen his picture in the paper and on the TV I think I would’ve remembered.”

  “He sat at this table?”

  “Yeah. I passed by a couple times with some orders. Funny thing is, he didn’t eat a bite of his scone. I actually asked him if something was wrong with it.”

  Decker tensed. “Wait a minute, you talked to him?”

  “Well, yeah. The dude wasn’t drinking his tea and the scone thing caught my eye. They’re really good and they’re not cheap. And the guy hadn’t touched it.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Asked him if the scone was cold or something. Told him I could heat it up for him if he wanted. Get him some butter.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he didn’t have much of an appetite. Weird, huh, since he had just ordered it.”

  “Yeah,” said Decker. “But apparently he was a weird guy.”

  Billy chuckled. “Right, the whole murder thing. That is weird!”

  “Right,” said Decker dryly.

  “Anyway, he got really focused on something outside the window.”

  Decker tensed once more. “What do you mean, focused?”

  “I mean he straightened up so fast he almost knocked his tea off the table. He was looking right past me. Next thing he was on his feet and out the door. Almost forgot his briefcase. In fact I called out to him about it, otherwise he would have left it behind.”

  And if he had, Anne Berkshire would be alive right now, thought Decker.

  “So I cleaned the table off. Thought about putting the scone back behind the counter, but we have rules about that. So I just threw it away.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. I guess I should have called you guys. Amy gave me the card. But I’ve been off and just chilling.” When Decker said nothing, he added, “You want anything to eat or drink? I can warm a scone up for you.”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “You sure?”

  Decker didn’t answer. He was staring out the window.

  Billy finally got up and left.

  From this vantage point Decker could see pretty far down the street. He closed his eyes and clicked through mental frames until he got to the series he wanted. He traced every footstep that he had seen Dabney and Berkshire take. The timing here was critical, but he didn’t have all the information he needed to make an accurate analysis. But still, he had to try.

  Step by step.

  Decker wasn’t focused on the end of their respective walks, which had led to Berkshire’s death and Dabney’s mortal wound.

  He opened his eyes and peered down the street.

  He was fairly certain of one thing. The catalyst that had prompted Dabney to tense and stare out the window, as Billy had described, could not have been his seeing Berkshire. It just wasn’t possible from this vantage point. She would have been much farther down the street at that time and out of sight from this spot.

  So what had the catalyst been?

  And then it occurred to Decker.

  He got up and went outside and stood on the other side of the window.

  No phone had been found on Dabney, so it wasn’t an electronic communication. Since this had been planned out and Dabney was not supposed to survive, they could not use the phone. It would leave a trail, even if he tried to erase it. And perhaps whoever he was working with could not completely trust him to do that.

  But there was one signaling device that left no trail.

  There had been someone out on the street that Dabney had seen, and that person’s presence had been the signal. Perhaps it was the clothing the person wore, a gesture made, but something had triggered his abrupt departure from the café. And that also explained the untouched tea and uneaten scone. The café was simply the place for him to wait for the signal.

  And it was clear what the person would be signaling.

  That Anne Berkshire was on her way.

  Decker crossed the street and walked down the pavement. He was tracing the route he had taken, and also the one Dabney had navigated. He turned his head from side to side, taking everything in and comparing it to what he had seen on the day of the shooting.

  The construction barrier that had been there earlier around the open manhole cover was gone, but everything else looked the same.

  He passed the guard shack and kept going. Up ahead would have been Dabney. In his mind’s eye Decker placed the dead man on the street walking.

  Then there was Berkshire coming from the other way. Decker had had no reason to focus on her, but he pulled up the memory frames he did have of her to see what he could make of it.

  He had been too far away to really see her face, so he couldn’t tell her expression. He did remember that she was not walking like Dabney had been, with long confident strides.

  The man walking the last mile to his death.

  The pair had moved closer. They had eventually turned, Dabney to the left and Berkshire to the right. Then, like two passenger trains aligned on parallel tracks, they had drawn nearly shoulder to shoulder.

  That’s when Decker had looked away to the food truck to decide whether or not to buy a breakfast burrito. He had checked his watch, opted not to, and turned back.

  By then the gun was out and pointed at the base of Berkshire’s neck.

  Then the shot rang out.

  She dropped to the pavement, dead.

  The guard came running up. They confronted Dabney.

  He shot himself.

  Memory frames over.

  Decker stood there in the middle of the sidewalk as people walked past on either side of him. He stared down where there were still minute traces of blood from the two dead people.

  Then he looked up and wondered what had happened to the person who had possibly signaled to Dabney.

  “So that’s where you went.”

  He turned to see Jamison standing there.

  “Milligan called Mrs. Dabney, and she in turn called MD Anderson. I was right. Walter Dabney did go there, where his brain cancer was diagnosed. He had told the hospital he was not going to seek treatment.”

  When Decker didn’t react to any of this she said, “What is it? You got something? You usually do after wandering around alone.”

  “We need to get the camera feeds from this area for that day.”

  “But we know what happened here, Decker.”

  “No, we really don’t.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  IT WASN’T THE cliché of the lady in red.

  It wasn’t even a lady. At least it didn’t appear to be, but it was impossible to tell.<
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  Decker sat there and stared at the person holding a giant lollipop while wearing a clown suit.

  “You really think that’s it, the signal?” asked Bogart.

  “We looked at six days’ worth of film,” said Decker. “Did you ever see a clown in any of the others at that location at that time of day? And we made inquiries and no one could account for why the clown was there. No circus or other show in town. The clown had no sign advertising an upcoming event. I think the probabilities are the clown was the signal.”

  Bogart glanced at Milligan. They were once more at the WFO, in a small room where an enormous TV screen dominated one wall.

  “You’re probably right,” Bogart admitted.

  Jamison said, “And the clown disappeared around the building only after he had a clear sight line of Dabney—in other words, after it was confirmed that Dabney had gotten the signal and was on his way to kill Berkshire.”

  Bogart sighed. “And the clown was wearing makeup and a floppy hat and bulky clothes and gloves. I couldn’t even tell if he was black or white. I couldn’t say for sure whether he was actually a male.”

  Milligan said, “And we’ve checked other cameras from the areas where the clown was headed. He or she is on some of them, but then there’s a gap and the person’s gone.”

  “The clown obviously knew where the cameras and the gaps were,” opined Bogart. “A well-thought-out plan.”

  “So there’s a conspiracy going on here,” said Jamison. “These people got Dabney to kill Berkshire. And since he was already dying he killed himself.”

  Bogart said, “But how did they get him to do that? According to Agent Brown, the gambling debts were paid off. The Russians or whoever it was had no incentive to do this. And Brown also said that she didn’t think the mob would be involved in this. They just wanted the money. And having worked on some of those cases, I agree with her.”

  Milligan said, “So, again, how did whoever it was get him to do it?”

  Jamison looked at Decker. “Do you know?”

  Decker didn’t say anything right away. His mind was whirring and facts and suspicions were crowding in on one another, threatening to cancel each other out.

  He said, “Dabney stole secrets from military projects he was working on. DIA found that out.” He paused. “If they found it out, others could have too.”

  Bogart said, “And you mean blackmailed him with evidence of his treason? To kill Berkshire?”

  “It would help explain the fact that we have as yet been unable to establish a link between Dabney and Berkshire. They may have no connection.”

  “It’s sort of like Strangers on a Train,” said Milligan. “But just one way. They blackmail Dabney to kill someone they want done away with for their own reasons.”

  “But why would he do it?” asked Jamison. “The guy was dying. Why would he care if what he did came out?”

  “He might’ve been dying, but his family wasn’t,” replied Decker. “And from the interactions we’ve had with his wife and daughters, it’s quite clear that they thought the man walked on water. The fact that he was dying might’ve made it easier for him. He knew he’d never go to trial on this. And he might’ve hoped that his actions would be blamed on his illness.”

  “But if he were unmasked as a spy?” said Bogart.

  “Then he would have no way around that,” said Decker. “His career would end in disgrace. And he might take his daughter down with him. If he kills Berkshire and then himself, maybe he hoped everyone would focus on that. He might not have known the DIA was on to him. But if someone was blackmailing him, they would have him dead to rights. That might have been enough for him to take the deal.”

  “But how could Dabney be sure if he carried out the killing that they’d live up to their part of the bargain and not reveal the espionage part?” asked Milligan.

  “I’m not sure he had much of a choice. But if they did try to reveal that information, it might somehow draw focus on them. And why would they care if the espionage ever came to light? Dabney was already dead. And people who blackmail other people to murder aren’t necessarily altruistic. For all we know they’re actually enemies of this country. No, they would have every incentive to keep mum so that our side wouldn’t even know the theft had occurred. Dabney probably figured the same thing.”

  Milligan said, “So he kills Berkshire and himself. That means the blackmailer is out there still.”

  Jamison said, “Other things being equal it might be someone Dabney was working with. Otherwise, how would they know he was stealing secrets?”

  “Could be,” said Bogart. “But there are also lots of ways someone he wasn’t working with might have gained access to that knowledge.”

  Decker said, “Which leads us to the question of why this ‘third party’ would want Anne Berkshire dead in the first place.”

  “So now instead of a connection between Dabney and Berkshire, we need to try to find one between Dabney and this unknown blackmailing third party?” said Milligan, frowning. “But the third party must have some connection to Berkshire too, since they wanted her dead.”

  Decker nodded. “That’s exactly right.”

  Bogart said, “Where do we start?”

  “Well, as Alex and Todd suggested, the blackmailer had to have some connection to Dabney and Berkshire, however extenuated, even if Dabney and Berkshire didn’t know each other. The ‘third party’ would be the conduit between them. They had to know about the theft of secrets and they had to communicate with Dabney. They hopefully left enough of a trail for us to follow.”

  “So we have to go back to square one,” said Milligan wearily.

  “There are a couple of ways to attack this,” said Decker. “One is the Berkshire angle. If someone wanted her dead, there’s a good reason. That reason may lie in her exceptionally sketchy past. So we may be able to track down the blackmailer by digging more deeply into Berkshire’s history.”

  “And the other way?” asked Jamison.

  “Dabney. You’re not going to agree to kill someone without persuasion. And that sort of persuasion isn’t going to come in a tweet, text, or email, because I doubt anyone would write something like that down. So there had to be meetings with Dabney. We just have to find who they were with.”

  Bogart said, “Why don’t Todd and I run that angle down. You and Jamison can hit it from the Berkshire end.”

  Jamison nodded. “And we can compare notes along the way to see where we stand. Sound like a good plan, Decker?”

  Decker sat there staring off.

  “Amos, I said does that sound like a good plan?”

  Decker finally stirred and looked at her as though he had just realized she was in the room. He said slowly, “I don’t know, Alex. I don’t know if anything sounds like a good plan right now.”

  CHAPTER

  27

  WHEN DECKER AND JAMISON got home that night, someone was waiting for them. Danny Amaya looked pale and nervous.

  said, “Danny, what’s wrong?”