Whitewash

by Alex Kava

  Suddenly the panic rushed into her like an injection, making her nauseated. A chill accompanied the panic as soon as she noticed how quickly darkness swallowed up the last shadows of twilight. She needed to get out of the car and she needed to get out now.

  Sabrina twisted her legs out from under the steering column. From what she could see, the car had gotten caught on the splintered remains of a fence. For now it kept the car from rolling over completely into the rain-filled ditch. Maybe she should try and force it to roll into the ditch? Would the water keep the car from igniting? Probably not. She tried the driver’s door, not surprised to find it trapped against the slope of grass and dirt. She’d need to climb up and out the other window. Halfway into her gentle maneuver, the vehicle groaned. She stopped, but it was too late. The shift in balance sent the car into a slow-motion roll, screeching metal silencing even the cicadas.

  This time Sabrina didn’t wait for the rocking to stop. On hands and knees she crawled across the car roof that was now her floor. She pulled and pushed at the door, relieved to feel it give without much struggle. She half crawled, half fell into the wet grass and mud. She didn’t stop. She was breathing in gulps, driven by the burning in her lungs and the taste of gasoline in her mouth.

  She reached the road and was able to get to her feet. That’s when she remembered her tote bag still stuck on the gas pedal and suddenly her mind tried to retrieve the list of contents: credit cards, driver’s license, condo keys. This was ridiculous. She need to get a safe distance away. But only when she realized she was still clutching the cell phone—though it was now encrusted in mud and grass—did she allow herself to hurry farther up the road into the dark.

  She didn’t look back when she heard the strange sizzle and the faint pops like a skillet full of bacon. The explosion blew her off her feet. Sabrina scrambled again on hands and knees into the wet grass as the fiery debris filled the night sky.

  Everything would be okay, she tried to tell herself in a useless attempt to stay calm. Her fingers were shaking so badly it took three tries before she could successfully punch in 911.

  33

  Washington, D.C.

  Jason had avoided Lindy’s phone calls all day. He could tell her he was at the office, at the gym, visiting friends. Or just admit that he was an asshole. But damn, he had to hand it to her, she was persistent, leaving three messages for him to call as soon as possible. Last night she hadn’t come across as a hanger-on. But then how would he know? He didn’t know her. He was sure he’d regret the whole thing. He just didn’t think it’d be this soon. He had hoped not to think about it at all.

  He paced his studio apartment, not an easy thing to do. The place was one room with a sofa sleeper, flat-panel TV, minifridge and a view of the Dumpster. It wasn’t usually a problem. He spent little time here except to change clothes and sleep. Besides, for Jason an apartment was only as good as its building’s amenities. There was a dry cleaner down on the first floor along with a small deli where he’d pick up a bagel, some fruit and a Red Bull for breakfast, sometimes a sandwich, too, if he knew he wouldn’t be able to leave the office for lunch. A newsstand sat right out front, so he had access to all the headlines of the day before he got to work.

  He could pace all night, but it was inevitable. He needed to call Lindy. Otherwise she’d track him down tomorrow at work. Senator Allen would fire him for sure if Lindy kept calling him at the office.

  Jesus! What the hell was he thinking?

  He flipped open his cell phone and punched through the “missed calls” list, stopping at her last one. He let out a deep breath, punched Talk and waited for it to dial her number.

  Three rings—could he be lucky enough to get her voice mail?

  “Hello?”

  “Lindy, hi, it’s Jason.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  Jason caught himself cringing and swallowing hard. Not exactly the reaction he wanted. Be cool, he told himself. You don’t have to apologize.

  “I’ve been kinda busy,” he said and before he could stop himself added, “Sorry I didn’t call you back sooner.” He winced and wanted to bite his tongue. He was so preoccupied in gauging his next response that he thought for sure he must have heard her wrong when she said, “Zach’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “He was murdered.”

  “Wait a minute. Who was murdered?”

  “Zach Kensor. You know Zach. He was there last night with us at Wally’s.”

  “Murdered?”

  “Oh, my God, Jason. It gets worse. He was at the Washington Grand Hotel, too. It had to have happened while we were there.”

  Jason stopped pacing and sat down on the arm of the sofa sleeper.

  “Was it some random-violence…thing?”

  “He had a room. I know he was meeting someone. They were…” Lindy paused and in almost a whisper added, “You know, like we did.”

  There was that automatic cringe again. Jason had spent the better part of the day wishing he could just forget about last night, hoping that Lindy would do the same. Now hearing her whisper it as though it might be something she regretted, he wanted to call her on it. Instead he tried to focus on what she was telling him. Zach had been murdered.

  “Any idea who he was meeting?”

  “Yeah, sort of. In fact, I’m wondering if maybe I should contact the police.” Her voice suddenly sounded small like a little girl who was asking permission. Definitely not like the Lindy of last night who had been sure and confident. “I mean, I don’t know who it was exactly,” she clarified in a stronger tone. “But Zach told me last night that he was…maybe I shouldn’t say anything. He said he was having an affair with someone high-level. I think it might have been a senator.”

  34

  Tallahassee, Florida

  Sabrina left the homemade icepack on her knee though her whole body felt bruised and battered. Miss Sadie insisted she was still in shock. Evidently that was what the Gadsden County sheriff had thought, too. He brought her home himself, all the way back to Tallahassee. Sabrina had watched his eyes the entire time he took the report. She could tell he didn’t believe her, interrupting her twice to offer her an out by mentioning how bad that two-lane blacktop had become.

  “I could certainly understand someone losing control, especially right at twilight. Someone who wasn’t familiar with the roads.” He said it like a father coaxing the truth out of his teenage child.

  Sabrina stuck by her story even as she wiped mud from her elbows with the towel he had given her. She described the black sedan as best she could, but when the sheriff asked her for a description of the driver, her explanation that the car’s windows were tinted too dark sounded a bit fantastic even to Sabrina. He looked up at her and said, “Uh-huh,” and he could just as well have said, What movie did y’all pull this from?

  Once he deposited Sabrina at her condo, she no longer cared what the good sheriff of Gadsden County thought. She just wanted to forget the whole night, scrub it off and rinse it off in a nice warm bath.

  Sabrina had to go around to the back of the condo where she kept a spare key hidden underneath one of the terra-cotta planters—hopefully one of the few Lizzie Borden hadn’t destroyed. That’s when Miss Sadie caught Sabrina.

  “Girl, I thought someone was breakin’ in,” she scolded Sabrina, her voice coming out of the darkness, surprising Sabrina.

  She never thought of Miss Sadie as a small woman, but coming around the corner in her long, hot-pink chenille robe that made her coffee-brown skin look smooth as silk, wielding a baseball bat that appeared oversized in her small, arthritic hands, Miss Sadie suddenly looked like a vulnerable, eighty-one-year-old woman. That is, until Sabrina saw that she was choked up on the bat like an expert.

  Miss Sadie snapped on the patio light, took one look at Sabrina and turned the light off. Sabrina just stood there with the key in her hand, exhausted but waiting for the string of questions. She was in no mood to tell the story all over again. But the old wom
an surprised her. Instead of a barrage of questions, she pointed at Sabrina’s blood-and dirt-caked kneecap exposed by the rip in her jeans and the old woman gently said, “You’ll need some ice for that. Come sit down.”

  Before Sabrina could protest, Miss Sadie had disappeared back into her condo. Sabrina didn’t argue. She didn’t want to. She eased herself into one of Miss Sadie’s wicker chairs and she took comfort in the familiar scent of lavender and the screech of night birds. She had forgotten how good it felt to have someone care. It was impossible to understand what an absolute luxury it was to have someone care about you until you no longer had it.

  Minutes later Miss Sadie emerged with an economy-sized bag of frozen peas wrapped in a bright yellow Home-Sweet-Home kitchen towel. She also had a tray with a steaming mug and a plate of food.

  “Hot toddy,” she said, placing the mug in front of Sabrina. “My special recipe. It’ll calm your nerves.” Then she put the plate before Sabrina, laying out her good silver and a cloth napkin. “And a little something to calm your soul.”

  Miss Sadie took her place beside Sabrina and sat quietly while Sabrina ate and sipped and told the story again.

  35

  Monday, June 12

  Washington, D.C.

  Jason Brill had already rifled through the Post and the Times. All he had found about Zach’s murder were a couple of paragraphs at the bottom of page three and Zach was an unidentified male at the Washington Grand Hotel.

  Now Jason flipped between cable-news channels on the small portable TV he kept in his office. He’d gotten here earlier and practically locked himself away, looking and listening for anything about Zach. He’d gone through three Red Bulls to keep him charged for the rest of the day. But so far he couldn’t find anything more in the newspapers and not even a phrase on the crawl of any morning-news station. He expected more in a city where reporters gobbled up this sort of stuff. He thought it was odd, but at the same time found himself almost relieved and hoping Lindy hadn’t called the police.

  While he didn’t find anything much about Zach, he did find an op-ed piece about Senator Allen and the upcoming energy summit. He’d already made several copies and highlighted key phrases that called his boss “a progressive thinker,” “a liberator from foreign oil” and one of the few on Capitol Hill who “genuinely gave a damn about the environment.”

  It was the kind of piece that Jason considered a personal success after months of sending out press releases and repeating those key phrases anywhere and everywhere. It was good news and the boost they needed to get the EchoEnergy contract approval by the Appropriations Committee. Most of all, it was a relief that Friday’s vomit fiasco hadn’t found legs to last through the weekend.

  There was an unexpected, gentle tap at Jason’s office door. It startled him so much he almost jumped out of his chair.

  “Come in.”

  A pause, then the door opened just enough for Senator Allen to peer in around it. Immediately Jason thought it a bit odd, or maybe his boss was trying to do something he didn’t want to do—like fire Jason. Could the senator have already heard about Jason’s extracurricular activity with the enemy camp?

  “You’re here early,” Senator Allen said. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. Just wanted to get a jump start on the week,” Jason told him, glancing at this watch, pretending he didn’t know exactly what time it was. He was always here early. The senator would know that if he was here early.

  “I could ask you the same question,” Jason said, using one of the senator’s favorite phrases. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh, sure.” He opened the door wide enough to wave a hand at him. “I decided to do some old-fashioned arm-twisting instead of sitting back and letting the chips fall where they may.”

  Jason was relieved, but also pleased. Without asking, he knew the senator had seen the op-ed piece. Positive media coverage motivated him beyond anything Jason could say or do.

  “That sounds like a great idea. What do you need me to do?”

  “Lunch. I’ll need you as backup. Make reservations at Old Ebbitt’s. Get my regular table.”

  Jason wondered if he should tell Senator Allen to exclude Senator Holden for a day or two. But then how could Jason tell his boss without explaining how he already knew that one of Senator Holden’s top staffers had been murdered?

  “You got it,” he said and left it at that.

  36

  Tallahassee, Florida

  By Monday morning Sabrina’s accident had become an annoying inconvenience rather than a dramatic brush with death. Her shoulder ached and her knee looked like a miniature Jackson Pollock painting—splashes of purple and blue with streaks of red. It had taken two frozen bags of peas and one bag of okra to take down the swelling and to get her through the night. Otherwise all she was left with was the inconvenience of having her car and wallet torched.

  She tried to call the lab to let them know she’d be late. No one answered the lab’s main line and instead her call kept getting bounced to Dwight Lansik’s voice-messaging service. She left a message, but after finding Lansik’s duffel bag in his closet and his car still in EchoEnergy’s parking lot, she wasn’t hopeful that he would be picking up his messages.

  Thank goodness the rental car agency had her driver’s license on file, one of the perks of online membership. It didn’t, however, seem to make a difference when choosing a car. They had already delivered a subcompact when she specifically had requested a four-door sedan. Her mother’s accident had left Sabrina with an irrational phobia of traveling in anything smaller than a four-door, but the agency’s representative said this was it, if she wanted a car before noon. That was just one of her problems.

  Since she hadn’t gotten her driver’s license switched yet from Illinois to Florida, the local Department of Motor Vehicles couldn’t help her with a replacement.

  “This move was supposed to be temporary,” Sabrina tried to explain to the clerk over the phone.

  “And I’m sure the state of Illinois can help you get a temporary replacement.”

  She called the Cook County DMV for the city of Chicago. Of course they could issue a replacement driver’s license. All Sabrina needed to do was present a birth certificate and one other form of identification at any one of their county offices.

  “There’s no way it can be done over the Internet or by mail?” But even as Sabrina asked, she knew it was a ridiculous question. Before the woman finished her string of disgusted sighs, Sabrina tried to redeem herself. “Okay, what about getting a new license in Florida? I’ve been a resident for almost a year.”

  “Usually you can present your license and simply apply to the new state according to their rules and regulations.” The woman sounded like a recording only not as friendly. “But in your case, where you don’t have your current license to surrender…” She went on to explain a long-drawn-out process that included letters of request and verification that would take weeks.

  Sabrina was beginning to think it would be faster to fly up to Chicago, but then how could she do that without a driver’s license and a credit card for identification?

  Damn! She hadn’t even thought about the credit card. She had only one and used it for everything. The credit card doubled as her ATM card.

  However, the credit card company renewed Sabrina’s faith in the world of technology. After about a half hour of transfers and verifications that included her mother’s maiden name, Mrs. Jones, the company representative, assured Sabrina a new card would be on its way within twenty-four hours and express delivered to her Florida home.

  By now Sabrina was pulling into EchoEnergy’s park, thankful she had forgotten her badge on her lab coat and her security key card in the pocket. At least there were two items she wouldn’t need to replace. She punched in her pass code at the guard hut. Before she found parking for the small tin can of a rental car, she drove to the back lot closest to the river. Sabrina made two trips around and through the aisles
of cars, but there was no mistake. Dwight Lansik’s white Crown Victoria was gone. She hoped Lansik was back and had simply moved his car.

  Sabrina had missed most of the morning, but her colleagues worked independently of each other. She expected them to hardly notice her absence. After all, they hadn’t noticed their boss had been missing since Thursday. And yet when Sabrina walked into the lab she seemed to surprise all three of them, catching them huddled together as if they were waiting.

  “There she come,” Pasha said in a tone that registered somewhere between urgency and relief.

  “Your message said something about an accident?” O’Hearn said.

  Anna came out from behind the table the three were gathered around. She put her hands on her hips and looked Sabrina over. She couldn’t help thinking Anna could at least try to hide her disappointment that Sabrina was okay. In fact, Anna sounded a tad too smug when she announced, “Here she is, Mr. Sidel.”

  William Sidel came out of Dwight Lansik’s office with his cell phone pressed to his ear. The others had looked surprised to see Sabrina, but Sidel did a double take. His eyes met hers, but it wasn’t surprise as much as astonishment. He clicked off the phone without saying goodbye. His boyish, ruddy face turned a bit pasty. If she didn’t know better, Sabrina would have said that William Sidel looked at her like he was seeing a ghost.

  37

  Washington, D.C.

  Natalie Richards waved Colin Jernigan into her office from where he hesitated at her door. She shifted the phone into her other hand and pressed it against her opposite ear. She hadn’t been able to get anything done this morning. The phone calls had been relentless, all of them so-called “emergencies” or “urgencies” that supposedly only she could handle. Her assistant handled all the details, but Natalie still had to be the voice—or rather her boss’s voice—of reassurance.