Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 2

by Joseph Flynn

  “Good thinking,” McGill said.

  The deputy director nodded. “There was one thing that struck me that night. Just before I gave the order to grab the decoy, I noticed that the people Todd had used for his scouts were all socially prominent. I thought they looked like a cross-section of Who’s Who in America. From reading about Todd’s idea of crafting personalities to help people get the most out of themselves, and from meeting Lydell Martin, I got an idea.”

  Hearing DeWitt’s words, McGill thought he knew where he was going.

  Out of respect and a desire to keep things friendly, he didn’t jump the man’s idea.

  But if he was right, he just thought of a way to play off it.

  “What’s your idea?” he asked.

  “Well, part of it is that Todd, Crosby and Anderson wouldn’t take the risk of hiding out anywhere close to where we tried to trap them. They had to take off for somewhere else.”

  “In a car,” Leo said, “but not a gray one.”

  DeWitt said, “Exactly. It’s almost certain that they went to stay with another of Todd’s subjects, but how do we who those people are?”

  Sweetie saw where DeWitt was going now, too. She also chose not to interrupt.

  “Seems easy now,” DeWitt said. “We look in Who’s Who and we crossmatch the entries there against everyone we can find whom Todd knew as a classmate, student, colleague or friend. Any matches, especially people who experienced sudden leaps in achievement like Lydell Martin, we start watching. Tap their phones, if there’s any justification. With luck we’ll find him.”

  McGill liked the idea. It was smart and it was the kind of massive information collection chore for which the FBI was best suited. So was the job McGill had for the bureau.

  “That’s good,” he told DeWitt. “Here’s something else to consider. If Todd chooses not to stay with any of his subjects, he’s still going to make use of them. Todd and his friends will need money to live on. They’re not going to rob banks or get jobs. They’re going to take donations from the people Todd has helped. The money won’t come in cash-filled envelopes. It will be moved electronically.”

  DeWitt smiled. He liked the idea and appreciated that McGill was sending more work his way.

  He said, “What we look for are money transfers from several widely dispersed accounts among Todd’s crafted personalities to a single recipient account, his. We can follow the electronic trail right up to his doorstep.”

  Always practical, Sweetie told DeWitt, “Even for your people, that sounds like a big job. In the meantime, we’ve still got three very dangerous creeps on the loose. Assuming they have money, we also have to think they have guns.”

  McGill said, “You’re right, Margaret.” He looked around the room and told everyone, “So in the immortal words of Sergeant Phil Esterhaus, ‘Let’s be careful out there.’”

  Starved Rock State Park — Utica, Illinois

  Arn Crosby and Olin Anderson stood atop the sandstone butte that gave the park its name and looked out on the Illinois River one hundred and twenty-five feet below. The park was a great find: rock formations, canyons, woodland, riverfront. It was a wild world, set apart from all the placid cornfields that surrounded it.

  The place had a bloody history, too. An Indian chief returning from a tribal council downriver was ambushed and killed by members of another tribe. In revenge, the chief’s tribe and its allies caught several members of the hostile tribe on the spot where Crosby and Anderson stood. The chief’s killers weren’t attacked; they were besieged and starved. Hence the name.

  Having read the sign that told the story, Anderson asked Crosby, “You know what this reminds me of?”

  Crosby knew. He and Anderson had been all but married for the greater part of their lives.

  “The Pali on Oahu” Crosby said. “Kamehameha and his army paddled ashore at Waikiki and drove the local studs up to the edge of the cliff and they jumped.”

  “Or were pushed, depending on who tells the story,” Anderson said. “Either way, they died quickly. No prolonged agony, watching the meat disappear off their bones.”

  Crosby said, “You’re right. What the Indians did here was crueler.”

  “Wonder why some of the tribe that got caught didn’t die fighting.”

  “Or jump off the cliff,” Crosby said.

  He sat on the rock and looked down at the river. The water was gray on the chilly overcast day. Anderson sat next to him, his arms around an upraised right knee. The weather being what it was, school in session, people at work and no park ranger around, they had the place to themselves.

  “Speaking of the Pali,” Crosby said, “I’ve been thinking of Danny Kahanamoku lately.”

  Anderson smiled. “The Hawaiian. Wonder if that bastard’s still alive.”

  “Sure, if he hasn’t made love to Pele yet.”

  Pele was the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanos. Danny K. had said when he got tired of living he was going to paddle his canoe from his home on Maui to the Big Island and make love to the goddess by throwing himself into the molten heart of Mount Kilauea.

  Nobody who knew him doubted he was serious.

  Danny K. had served in the Middle East with Crosby and Anderson and had been captured by hajis when he’d been knocked senseless by an IED that killed two other guys. The hajis figured it right that Danny K. worked for the Americans, but at six-four and two-sixty, brown skinned but not black, they were unsure of what kind of giant human being they’d caught.

  “Never saw a Polynesian in their miserable lives,” Anderson said.

  “Sure didn’t speak Hawaiian,” Crosby said. “Couldn’t find anyone who did.”

  “Bastards thought he was spouting gibberish.”

  “Didn’t care for what he said when he finally told them in English he was preparing for death by talking to his gods.”

  Anderson said, “Sorta marked him as an infidel.”

  “If their threat to cut off his head was any clue, yeah.”

  “Good ol’ Danny K., though, he came back with three haji heads in a canvas bag.” Anderson enjoyed the reminiscence a moment and then asked Crosby, “You just happened to think of an old pal or was it more than that?”

  “More. I talked to Danny the way he talked to his gods.”

  Anderson smirked. “Didn’t know you’re fluent in Hawaiian.”

  “Danny K. understood. I talked to him because I can’t talk to you.”

  Anderson’s forehead turned bright red. “What the hell do —”

  Then it hit him. Crosby couldn’t talk to him the same way he couldn’t talk to Crosby. Because Todd had fucked with both their heads. But Crosby, devious bastard that he was, had looked for a work-around.

  Anderson asked, “You and Danny K. have a nice little chat?”

  “Sure. The guy has always been a good listener. Watch. I’ll talk to him again. He won’t even mind that I’m repeating myself.”

  Crosby stared out at a point somewhere above the river. Told the indomitable Danny Kahanamoku, wherever he might be, that a little mindfucker named Damon Todd had messed with his head, kept him from scheming with his best pal, Olin Anderson. The three of them were on the run from the Company but he and Olin had lost operational control.

  Anderson jumped in, focusing on the same spot in midair.

  “Hey, Danny, it’s Olin. I’m in the same fix as Arn. What do we do?”

  Almost immediately, the heads of the two former covert operatives jerked back and forth as if they’d been hit with a backhand, forehand combination. For a moment, they were stunned. Then they turned to look at each other and smiled.

  As one, they told each other, “Make love to the goddess.”

  They wouldn’t have to worry about any booby-traps going off in their heads if they beat the IEDs to the punch. If you didn’t worry about dying, who could have any hold on you? They’d known that all along, of course. It had just taken Danny K. to remind them.

  What was the point of continuing to
live if you were stuck on a rock starving?

  Maybe not for food but everything else that made life worth living.

  Better to jump or die fighting.

  The House on Gentleman Road — Ottawa, Illinois

  The first three rules of real estate were: location, location, location. The same thinking applied to finding a hideout. The old house on the outskirts of the small central Illinois town was as close to perfect as a fugitive could ask. Set two hundred feet back from the road, it sat among stands of trees front, back and on both sides. True, almost all the leaves had fallen by now but the trees grew so closely together that their trunks and branches provided hardwood camouflage.

  Beyond the trees, on the three adjacent sides and across the roads were empty farm fields. Todd didn’t know if corn or soybeans would be planted there, but his expectation was that the land would lie idle until spring.

  Todd had been the one to visit the Realtor; she’d brought him to the house. He’d never have found it on his own. He’d simply told the woman he wanted a secluded but comfortable house where he might work on a scholarly book he was writing.

  The woman smiled at him and said, “I know just the place, quiet, out of the way, but in good repair. The late owner was something of a recluse. The heirs would like to sell the place, but I’m sure they’d let you rent rather than have no income at all and, who knows, if your writing goes well, maybe you’d like to buy it so you can write your next book there.”

  “Who knows?” Todd agreed with a smile of his own.

  The house was farmstead plain but, as described, sound in all regards. The roof didn’t leak, the windows didn’t rattle and the electricity and heat were connected to the town’s power grid. The furnishings of the late owner were still in place but in need of a dusting. The Realtor said she could have the house cleaned in a jiffy for a reasonable price.

  Returning to her office, Todd signed a six-month lease and paid for the duration of the agreement in cash. He added a hundred dollars to have the cleaning done expeditiously. If the Realtor saw any incongruity in a scholar carrying cash instead of credit cards, she kept it to herself. But Todd noticed an increase in her normal blink rate.

  Her pulse had undoubtedly quickened, too. The sight of a thick sheaf of hundred dollar bills had excited her. Within the context of a perfectly legitimate business transaction, she caught a whiff of something illicit and she liked it. Todd wondered, ever so briefly, if he should cultivate an acquaintance with her. He’d been a long time without a woman and …

  He decided to be smart. There would be other, less revealing ways to meet his needs.

  His best choice with the Realtor was to be polite, an academic gentleman too caught up in his work to have time for anything else. She’d see he wasn’t interested, not in the way she might be. She’d stop regarding him as anything other than a pleasant client.

  Or so he thought.

  At the moment, with Crosby and Anderson out of the house, Todd was engaged in a matter of study. Sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of pomegranate juice, he was looking at a Google map of Illinois on his iPad. Ottawa, he saw, was little more than ninety miles southwest of Chicago.

  Interstate 80 was only a few miles north of where he sat. You took that east to I-55 and it was a short drive northeast into the city. The highway ended at Lake Shore Drive. Turning north on that road, the first lakefront suburb you came to was Evanston — where the last he’d heard James J. McGill still owned a home. Travel just a bit further north along the shoreline of Lake Michigan and you came to Winnetka — where President Patricia Darden Grant had owned the estate that had been her home with her first husband Andrew Hudson Grant.

  Would she have sold the site of a tragedy? He’d have to find out.

  Todd looked out the window to let his eyes rest in a long-focus state.

  The trees were all but leafless now, but come the spring they would bud again and fill with a dense cloak of green. Todd’s plan to gain revenge on James J. McGill was as unembellished as the woodland outside. With the passage of time, though, it, too, would be filled out.

  Stopping so close to McGill’s natal home had to be more providence than coincidence.

  Todd returned his attention to the tablet and pulled up everything he could find in the public record about McGill’s life before he came to Washington. He also searched for Patti Grant’s early career as a congresswoman from suburban Chicago. He was hours into his research and had compiled pages of notes next to the computer. The beginnings of a plan were forming in his mind when he heard the front door open.

  Crosby and Anderson were back.

  George Town — Grand Cayman Island

  The idea that Linley Boland might have other adversaries pursuing him seemed perfectly logical to Welborn Yates. Once it was introduced, that was. Before that, it had never occurred to him. He was grateful Willa Pennyman had called him with the news.

  Now, he had to catch Boland before these other guys — maulers, he’d been told —caught Boland’s alter ego, Jackie Richmond.

  “Eddie said these maulers with a white yacht are looking for the bloke you want,” Willa had told him, and then she’d put her cousin, the taxi driver, on the phone to fill in the details.

  Welborn listened to him and asked, “You’re sure these guys aren’t cops?”

  “What cops you know travel on yachts?” Eddie replied.

  Welborn couldn’t think of any offhand.

  As small as Grand Cayman was, Welborn also couldn’t think of a way Boland/Richmond could remain at large for long. Not with two bounties on his head. Not with who knew how many locals looking to cash in on him. If Eddie had it right, the maulers would … do what? Feed Boland to the fishes? That wouldn’t be an inappropriate fate for him. But it also wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as seeing Boland led into a federal courtroom in handcuffs and leg restraints to be tried, convicted and sentenced in front of the families of the guys he killed.

  To make sure that happened, there was only one thing for Welborn to do.

  Get rid of the competition. Drive off the maulers.

  He decided it was time to go to the local cops, the Royal Cayman Island Police Service. He’d come clean about why he was on the island. He asked Eddie to pass the phone back to Willa and told her what he was going to do. Her reaction was understandable.

  “This mean nobody’s getting any reward?” she asked.

  “No, not at all,” Welborn said. His mother had instructed him that the worst thing to waste was the good will of others. He told Willa, “The police of any country always welcome appropriate help from a concerned citizenry. If someone you know were to provide a tip that leads to an arrest, there will still be a reward, at the same terms we previously discussed.”

  Willa told him, “You talk so pretty I want to hug you.”

  A sentiment Welborn had heard before.

  “So you’ll continue to help, you and your family?”

  “Too right, we will.”

  Welborn cautioned, “But, Willa, by bringing the police in on this, it would look very bad for anyone who helped the maulers Eddie mentioned.”

  “We’ll see everybody knows that, too.”

  Welborn thanked Willa for the warning again.

  Then he lay down, trying to sleep in the master cabin of Irish Grace. Carina had told him she was certain Jackie Richmond would look for her boat. Jackie no doubt still wanted to get to South America and, the way she figured it now, try to sell her boat out from under her.

  What she hadn’t decided yet was whether he’d try to force her to bring the boat into harbor or try to dump her overboard while still at sea and attempt to steer himself into port under motor power. Either choice would present challenges for a villain.

  From a storyteller’s point of view, that was.

  She also didn’t know whether she’d want to see her character killed off.

  Carina said she’d work on the story from her suite at the Ritz-Carlton.

  Welbo
rn could have the master cabin on her boat. She’d changed the linens before arriving in Grand Cayman. If Jackie sneaked aboard during the night, he’d find Welborn instead of Carina and … it’d be fun to figure out how that should end, too.

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek and the keys to her boat.

  Told him where he could find her LadySmith .38.

  Said he shouldn’t change the linens before he left the boat.

  Welborn dozed only lightly through the night, and kept the gun close at hand.

  Carina’s clean sheets notwithstanding, her scent still filled the air.

  With the arrival of the morning sun, Welborn got up, did a quick scrub and shave in a small but well appointed bathroom compartment. Satisfied that he made a presentable appearance for an officer in the United States Air Force, he locked up the .38 where Carina kept it and headed off to the central station of the RCIPS.

  The official motto of the island cops was: We care, we listen and we act.

  Welborn certainly hoped so.

  Five minutes after he’d left the boat, Jackie Richmond found Irish Grace.

  Welborn introduced himself at the Central Station of the RCIPS as a captain in the United States Air Force attached to its Office of Special Investigations. He showed his identification to prove his bona fides. As a colleague in law enforcement, he was given a polite reception from a desk sergeant.

  When Welborn said he worked directly for the president of the United States and provided a White House phone number — which was duly checked out — he was ushered into the office of Deputy Commissioner Edison Graves.

  Knowing there was still another step of the police hierarchy to be climbed, Welborn told the deputy commissioner that his father was Sir Robert Reed the former personal secretary to Her Majesty the Queen. The Cayman Islands were a British Overseas Territory. Welborn was quickly ushered into the office of Commissioner Edward Peck.