Total Mayhem

by John Gilstrap

  Jonathan had anticipated those words. “He doesn’t know that,” he said. “Welcome to my world, Wolfie. Let’s play a little poker.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  He explained.

  * * *

  Private investigator work wasn’t anything like Cody Johnson expected it to be. He’d read the books by the old pulp masters, and he had images in his head of going door-to-door to ask thousands of questions that by themselves meant little, but after a while stitched together the solution to a mystery.

  He had dreams of finding misplaced treasures and kidnapped children. He’d go nose-to-nose with flatfoots who didn’t know what they were doing. He’d watched old reruns of Mannix, the private eye show from the sixties, where the P.I. drove a cool car and got all the hot women.

  The reality of his job fell way short. Well, mostly. His degree in political science from Purdue gave him the skills that eased his way into the research, but so far, eight months into his job with Security Solutions, he’d yet to speak to a human being face-to-face during an investigation. He did mostly online peeping, exercising more of his ill-gotten skills as a lower tier hacker than he did the legitimate ones, but as long as he didn’t cross certain lines—and, swear to God, he didn’t fully understand where those lines were—no one questioned his results.

  It bummed him out that the company billed his time at a considerable multiple of what he actually made, but it had been made very clear to him by Ms. Bonneville that it was industry standard and that he should consider himself fortunate that a poly-sci graduate could get as lucrative a paycheck as he did straight out of undergraduate school.

  The one element of his childhood notions of the job that did play out was the part about the hot women. Megan Bobbins was two years older than he, but she started with Security Solutions just a week before he did and it turned out, was equally as frustrated with doing nothing but scut work.

  She was as thrilled as he, apparently, when Ms. Bonneville gave them this project to seek out a guy named Frederick Kellner. So far, they’d been able to tease out the fact that he was former military and that his credit sucked, but Ms. Bonneville already knew those details. Their real task was to find the guy and pass that information along. Most thrilling of all was the fact that this request had come directly from Mr. Grave himself.

  Now, there was a mysterious guy. Cody wasn’t sure that he’d actually heard the man speak, but it was clear from all the other employees that he was due a huge amount of respect. And not just because he owned the company and wrote their paychecks. Apparently, he was into a lot of important charities and stuff. And he was worth a bajillion dollars. Rumor had it that he was the wealthiest man in Virginia, but given the number of superwealthy people in Loudoun County, he had a hard time believing that.

  But that didn’t matter much either way. Cody was a thousandaire and happy for the privilege.

  He and Megan stayed late at the office chasing their tails, mostly, and when it finally got to be eight o’clock and he realized that his stomach was ready to consume itself, he announced to Megan that he was going home.

  That’s when she asked him to come to dinner at her house. It was nearby, she said, and she was a pretty adequate cook. And, let’s be honest, she had a ridiculous body. After considering the offer for approximately two seconds, he accepted.

  Nearby is always relative, and by Northern Neck standards, where convenience stores may be a half hour away, Megan wasn’t too far off. About thirty miles from Fisherman’s Cove, but smack on the water.

  And what a place it was! About four thousand square feet, he guessed. The whole back A-frame wall was entirely glass, but for the pillars or whatever you had to have to keep the glass in place. At this hour, it was impossible to tell what the view was, but it had to be of the river or one of its tributaries. The apex of the A had to be twenty feet tall.

  “Holy crap,” Cody said as he entered. “How do you afford this? I must have negotiated my salary wrong.”

  Megan laughed. “No, my daddy negotiated his salary well. Very well, in fact. He’s the CEO of one of the Beltway Bandit companies. He wanted his only daughter to live well.”

  “Yikes,” Cody said. “My dad’s a barber, and he’s just pleased I didn’t flunk out of college.”

  Megan smiled, then rested her hands on his shoulders. “Since we’re partners,” she said, “I know you’ll take this criticism in good humor.”

  Even eight hours later, he remembered the unsettled feeling. “Okaaay . . .”

  “You stink.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You smell bad,” she said with a big smile. “It’s like your deodorant’s worn off or something. Did you work out during lunch as usual?”

  He winced.

  “Well, there you go,” she said. “Do us both a favor and take a shower.”

  And that’s how it started. The first-floor guest room off the great room had this terrific, four-head shower, and he had to admit that the shower request could well be code for a good night ahead.

  It’s when he got out of the shower and saw that she’d taken his clothes that he realized it was going to be an interesting night. The fact that she’d somehow sneaked in and replaced the luxurious towels on the rack with a dish towel confirmed things. After drying himself as best he could, he used the wet rag to drape himself for modesty and stepped into the great room, and there stood Megan, as naked as he.

  A lot of career-ruining harassment followed, and Cody learned things about bodies and erogenous zones that he’d remember for the rest of his life. It was exhausting and it was wonderful, but ultimately, dinner turned out to be cold cuts and saltines. Here it was four in the morning, and he needed to do something to replace all those well-spent calories.

  As he slid out of bed, Megan stirred only a little, and he realized for the first time that he had no idea where she’d put his clothes.

  What the hell? He’d snack naked. There literally wasn’t a spot on his body to which she had not acquainted herself very, very closely.

  “Eat your heart out, Mannix,” he mumbled as he opened the door to the master bedroom and padded out into the great room. As he crossed the main level, past the massive gas fireplace that continued to spout flame and had made the place a little too warm, he said a little prayer that her fridge would have more stuff in it than his.

  Now, that was not a high bar.

  A chilly breeze pulled his attention toward the front door, which looked in the dim light that maybe it was open. Could it have been that way all night? If there was one thing for sure, it was that he didn’t give a lot of thought to Megan’s security precautions during their sexual Olympics. As he approached the foyer to shut the door, he sensed a shadow moving behind him and he whirled.

  Two men stood there, both dressed in black, but with their faces clear. Both had a military bearing about them, and one of them looked familiar.

  “Jesus!” Cody nearly shouted. He was vaguely aware that one hand covered his heart while the other covered his junk. “Who the hell are you?”

  The taller of the two cocked his head. “You’re Cody Johnson, right?”

  “Yeah. Who the hell are you?”

  The other one said, “We tried to visit you earlier, but when you didn’t come home, we came to visit your colleague. What an amazing stroke of luck to find you both here. Your state of dress answers what you’ve been up to.”

  Cody’s heart raced, but his brain felt frozen. He had no clue what to do. So he circled back to the familiar. “Who are you?”

  The taller one said, “Seriously, you don’t recognize me?”

  He stepped forward again, but Cody was already against a wall and had no place to go.

  Then he understood. “Kellner?”

  The taller man faked a smile. “You’d think when a man goes searching, he’d pay closer attention to who he’s searching for.”

  Cody never saw the knife, but he felt a horrific pain just above his pubic hair
line, and then it progressed to his rib cage. Just as he noticed the stuff tumbling out of his gut and he reached to tuck it back in, he felt nothing at all.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Technically, this was Irene Rivers’s meeting, but because Jonathan had the most to lose, he chose the venue, then didn’t advise the others where it was until they were already on the way. The Ritz-Carlton at Mason’s Corner was beautiful by any standard, but the Chairman’s Suite was truly stunning. Jonathan chose it because of its spaciousness and overall impact. He delayed the announcement so Uncle Sam and his loyal servants wouldn’t have time to bug the place.

  He’d been there for nearly an hour, napping on the curved living room sofa that overlooked the ho-hum skyline of this new Mecca for tech companies. He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until the doorbell rang. It was a door chime that toned the sound of Big Ben—or maybe another famous bell tower. He rose, walked through the dining room into the preciously decorated stone foyer and opened the door.

  He was greeted by a tall, fine-looking woman in a dark blue business suit who was armed with a briefcase that wasn’t big enough to hold more than a couple hours’ worth of reading material.

  “Ms. Grosvenor?” he asked.

  The United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia gave an annoyed smile. “Agent Bonner?”

  “Indeed,” Jonathan said. “Come on in.”

  Sandra Grosvenor had been a U.S. attorney for less than two years, and Jonathan happened to know that she and Irene had gone to law school together. The FBI director’s strong recommendation help shape President Darmond’s opinion of his nominee, so Ms. Grosvenor owed Wolverine a big favor.

  “I promise that I’m harmless,” Jonathan said.

  Grosvenor crossed the threshold. “I’m not,” she said. “And to tell the truth, you look rather predatory.”

  Jonathan gestured for her to follow him into the living room. “It’s a façade,” he said. “I turn it on to scare bad guys while I’m arresting them.”

  “I did some research on the way,” Grosvenor said as she headed for one of the two curved sofas. “I can’t find any cases closed by you.”

  “How about that.” He was ready for Irene to arrive.

  “Is it safe to assume that you are the collector of entirely unusable evidence in a case that the entire world wants to see closed?” Grosvenor’s expression was hard to judge. She had an intense glare, but he couldn’t tell if it was anger or merely curiosity.

  “I’m afraid I can’t speak to that, ma’am,” he said.

  “Why are you even here?”

  “Because Director Rivers asked me to be,” Jonathan replied.

  “Why?”

  “There are some requests to which one simply says yes,” Jonathan replied. He knew Irene wanted him there in case she got confused in the details, but he saw no reason why the chief prosecutor in his jurisdiction needed to know that. This whole thing was seeming more and more like a mistake.

  “Am I making you nervous?” Grosvenor asked.

  “Nervous is the wrong word,” Jonathan said. “Let’s go for aware.”

  “But you do know what all of this is about,” Grosvenor pressed.

  “I’m sure that Director Rivers told you everything she thought you needed to know,” Jonathan said.

  Her gaze became even more intense. Jonathan didn’t crave conflict with this lady, but he wanted to shut their conversation down. He prayed that Wolverine was right when she said that the U.S. attorney was a realist, not a crusader.

  Two minutes passed in awkward silence as they avoided each other’s gaze. Finally, the doorbell chimed again, and Jonathan nearly jumped off the cushion to answer it.

  As expected, Irene was there with her daytime security contingent. They reflexively took up their nutcracker stances against either side of the door.

  Before she entered, she said, “Agent Brooks, would you mind standing post inside the door?”

  “Not at all ma’am,” he said. He looked to Jonathan and something changed behind his eyes. For a second, Digger thought Brooks might rabbit, but he didn’t.

  Irene followed and closed the door. “Please come in,” she said. “We’re going to take a seat and have a chat.” To Jonathan, she added, “Nice digs.”

  “You know me. Only the best.” He winked.

  As Irene ushered Brooks into the living room, she said, “Special Agent Porter Brooks, I’d like to introduce you to Sandra Grosvenor, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.”

  Brooks looked more and more as if he wanted to bolt. “Nice to meet you,” he said. His hand trembled as he shook hello.

  “Have a seat,” Grosvenor said.

  Brooks helped himself to the chair Jonathan had vacated. Jonathan took a position immediately behind Brooks and out of his view. The intent was to make the man as unnerved as possible. From the way he squirmed, the strategy seemed to be working.

  “So, tell me, Porter,” Grosvenor said. “May I call you Porter?”

  “Whatever you’d like,” he said. He looked for guidance from his boss, but Irene remained stone-faced.

  “Okay, Porter, let’s get right down to it. What is your relationship to a person named Iceman, and how did you meet?” It was a deliberate effort to knock him off-balance, and it worked. Color drained from his face.

  Grosvenor continued, “And before you get locked into making stuff up to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, we have incontrovertible evidence that will nail your ass to the wall. I’m not going to lie to you. You’re going to prison. The death penalty may or may not be a variable, but you’re going to prison.”

  Jonathan couldn’t figure out where she was going with this. If prison was inevitable, what’s his incentive to talk?

  “So, here’s what’s in play,” Grosvenor continued.

  “The perp walk. All the media that would surround you, make the Brookses household names for all the wrong reasons. You’ve got three children, is that right?”

  Brooks sat silently.

  “Silence is not an answer,” she said.

  Brooks’s jaw muscles twitched. “Why tell you what you already know?”

  See? Jonathan thought. He’s already digging in.

  “Interesting point,” Grosvenor conceded. “Because the press is going to dig deep into all of them. Maybe not James because he’s only eleven, but certainly his big brother, Aaron, and his sister, Jill. It’ll be hard for them to live with the fact that Daddy was a traitor to his country. Your record is going to be the first thing that’ll pop up in any background investigation for any job they seek.”

  Jonathan began to understand her strategy, and he was impressed.

  “And Jill,” Grosvenor continued. She let that phrase hang in the air, then reached for her briefcase.

  In the silence, Irene leaned forward. “I’ll take your weapon,” she said. “Nicely, please, so my friend behind you doesn’t have to shoot you in the spine.”

  Jonathan couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked as if Brooks was crying as he reached under his suit jacket and handed over his standard-issue SIG Sauer P226. He handled it with two fingers and passed it to Irene with the muzzle pointed down harmlessly.

  “The one on your ankle, too, please,” Irene coaxed.

  Brooks passed it over with equal gentleness. An old-school snub-nose .38 five-shot revolver. Then, without being asked, he pulled his creds case out of his jacket and unclipped the gold badge from his belt. He handed them both to Irene. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  Jonathan wasn’t a lawyer, but that sounded a lot like a confession.

  “But you have to understand that I can’t cooperate with you,” Brooks said. “They’d destroy everything.”

  Irene put on her kind face. Maybe she was genuinely concerned. “How did it get to this, Porter? Why?”

  “Money,” he said. “Same story you hear over and over. I took the money for something that seemed so inconsequential, a minor breach of se
curity. Then he had his hooks in me. I couldn’t get out.”

  “Tell me who they are,” Irene said. “How many of them there are.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell us what you do know.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t.” The kind face had gone away.

  “Fine, if that’s what you prefer. I want an attorney.”

  Grosvenor laughed louder than the moment deserved. “Ah, that’s sweet,” she said. “If it makes you feel better, I’m a lawyer, and so is Director Rivers.”

  “I want my own lawyer,” Brooks said. His sadness had been replaced with belligerence. Everybody knew that a criminal interview ended the instant a suspect requested an attorney.

  “Good for you,” Grosvenor said. “That’s not happening. I want to talk about your daughter, Jill. You do know that she has a drug habit, right?”

  Brooks had locked up completely now.

  “But did you know that we had her on felony distribution?”

  His walls just took a hit.

  “Understand, Mister Brooks,” Grosvenor said, emphasizing the fact that he was no longer part of the Blue Brotherhood, “I have no desire to hurt anyone. I would hate to see poor Jill indicted for crimes that would put her in prison for at least eighty years, likely more.” The USA made a show of opening a manila file with a flourish. “Because here’s the God’s honest truth. A few months ago, when this criminal referral came across my desk and I realized that she was the daughter of an agent, I hesitated. Then I found out you were on the director’s security detail, and I looked for a reason to sit on the referral. Thankfully, I found out that she was in a treatment facility—no doubt a part of your financial stress—and I put the referral in my drawer.”

  She leaned closer. “So, here’s your incentive. If you cooperate with us, she gets to keep her life. You have my word on that. Now that she’s out of treatment, I hope she’s truly on the road to recovery. Imagine how awful it will be when I send agents to arrest her in the middle of one of her classes. I’ll have her pushed to the floor and handcuffed in front of her friends. And then she’ll get the perp walk.”