The Lightning Stones

by Jack Du Brul

  Mercer kept his anger in check. “Agent Lowell, what I saved from certain ruin from water damage will not help in the slightest in getting a conviction for Abe’s murder, so chain of evidence is moot. What it might provide is a direction to pursue, a clue perhaps as to what he and the others were working on.”

  Lowell leaned forward, his jaw working like he was gnawing on his next words before spitting them in Mercer’s face. Mercer ignored him and pegged Kelly Hepburn with his storm-gray eyes. “I am going off the assumption that Abe brought a geologic sample with him to the Leister Deep Mine. My hope is that whatever box or bag or carton it had once sat in was dumped in the trash when he transferred it to a more secure travel case. I could be way wrong here, but it makes logical sense.”

  “What makes logical sense here—” Lowell started, but Hepburn pressed a restraining hand against his shoulder.

  “Dr. Mercer makes sense, provided that the trash wasn’t emptied after Abraham Jacobs left for Minnesota.”

  “Abe arrived the morning he died, and I was in his office less than twenty-four hours later. Also he’s the only one to use this trash can.” Mercer lifted the bag and its sodden contents. “All this crap didn’t get in here by magic.”

  Though she’d recorded Mercer’s statement on her phone, she had also taken the time to jot down notes in a small spiral-ringed booklet. She flipped back a few pages. “You said that yesterday was the first time you met Jordan Weismann?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.” Mercer leaned back a little in his chair, noting Lowell’s hackles were back down.

  “But you hadn’t heard of her before?” Hepburn asked with a touch of doubt in her voice. “She says you share a mutual friend.”

  “Trust me, Agent Hepburn, Abe Jacobs was the most generous person I have ever known. He collected friends his entire life, and there are hundreds if not thousands of former students and colleagues left in his wake. I know just a handful of them—and even in those cases I probably haven’t spoken to them in years—so before you ask your next question, no, there is no way I can verify that Jordan and Abe were friends. I suggest finding out who her father is and pursue her relationship with Abe from that direction.”

  The agent wrote down Mercer’s suggestion. “We would like to speak to her, of course,” she said, lifting her pen from the pad.

  “No problem to me,” Mercer replied, “but she is asleep and spiking a fever. If it hasn’t gone down by tomorrow morning, I am probably going to take her to a doctor.”

  “Would you have a problem if I leave an agent here?” Hepburn asked.

  “None whatsoever, provided it’s not Agent Lowell.”

  Lowell bristled once again and his jaw went into overtime. “Relax,” Mercer said, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s for your protection. You see, Drag has gotten a taste of FBI ass and would go after yours if he had half a chance.”

  The agent came out of his chair, propelled by his well-muscled arms and a bruised ego. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Stand down, Nate,” Kelly Hepburn shouted. “That’s an order.” She shot Mercer a look that asked if provoking her partner had been strictly necessary.

  Mercer shrugged. He had done it because if he hadn’t, Lowell would have been assigned protective detail, and at some point the guy would have crossed a line and Mercer would have been forced to deck him. Nate Lowell looked to be the kind of bully that would stand behind his shield if he got his ass kicked, and Mercer would be facing a striking-a-federal-officer rap. He didn’t want to push his friendship with Dick Henna that far. Better to provoke a Pavlovian response in front of his partner and have Lowell sent home. One of the tac-team guys could come back and babysit.

  “Go outside and get some air,” she ordered hotly.

  Lowell pivoted on his foot and marched from the office. From Mercer’s perspective the situation got a little funnier because he could hear Harry and Drag coming through the front door as the FBI agent was trying to leave. Harry kept his old dog from biting at Lowell, but Drag barked it up like he was Cujo’s long-lost cousin. Mercer smiled at the ruckus, and even Kelly Hepburn snickered.

  “Sorry about Nate,” she said. “He was recently medically DQed from working HRT and hasn’t adjusted to being a regular field agent.”

  “Excuse?”

  “Explanation.”

  “He has the look of a door kicker,” Mercer admitted.

  “A damn good one until he took a nine-millimeter to the gut. He’s recovered enough to stay with the Bureau but his door-kicking days are behind him.” Kelly Hepburn stood to leave. Mercer also got to his feet. He picked up the bag of wet garbage.

  “One last question,” she said. “What is your relationship to Jordan Weismann?”

  “My relationship? I don’t have one with her. She was in trouble. I bailed her out and now she’s asleep in my guest room. End of story.”

  “Where does she go from here?”

  “That’s not up to me. Call me tomorrow to see if she’s up for questioning and ask her yourself.” He found himself hoping her curiosity on this subject was more personal than professional. He presented the bag to her like a date proffers flowers. “Don’t say I never gave you anything, Agent Hepburn.”

  “I’ll be in touch in the morning, Dr. Mercer.” She shook his hand with a firm up and down motion, and she was out the door with the evidence slapping against her leg. Mercer heard Harry rumble something to her, and a second later the front door closed for a final time.

  Mercer met Harry and Drag on the spiral stairs, the pair of them struggling mightily. Drag’s slow pace was something Mercer was used to. He was a little concerned about Harry until he remembered the impotent lecher had been dancing for God knew how long before he came home. The old bastard hadn’t been hurt in the scuffle. He’d worn himself out partying.

  “Hell of a night,” White said.

  “Amen to that,” Mercer agreed noncommittally.

  “Hot girl in the guest bedroom, another just in your office, and you’re going to be sleeping with a flatulent basset hound who hogs the covers.”

  Mercer chuckled. “You know, I wish I liked at least one of my friends. That’s all I ask for. Just one. See you in the morning.”

  Harry moved off onto the library balcony. Drag didn’t miss a step and continued up, following Mercer for his spot on the more comfortable king-size bed on the third floor.

  “Damn Judas of a dog,” Harry muttered jealously. He called up after his pet, “No wet food for the rest of the week, you mangy traitor. It’s kibble or nothing.”

  He may not have understood the words, but he at least understood the tone. Drag ponderously turned himself around on the sweeping stairs, backing like a semitrailer to make the swing, and dutifully tottered off to bed after his real master.

  10

  Mercer was at Jordan’s bedside when she woke the following morning. Her eyes expressed the full gamut of emotions in a fleeting second, before drooping in abject misery. Mercer pulled a moist compress from her forehead and resoaked it in a bowl of cool water. He wrung it over the bowl so the clear water dripped musically and placed the towel on her fevered brow.

  “You’re going to a doc-in-a-box if your fever doesn’t break in the next hour,” he told her.

  Jordan struggled up against the headboard so that she was slightly elevated. Her hair looked brittle against the pillows, and she shivered. He held a glass of water with a flex straw to her lips, and she drank greedily. He pulled it away before she took in too much too quickly.

  She coughed, and when she spoke her voice rasped like Harry’s after a three-day bender in an Atlantic City casino. “For once in my life, I am not going to argue.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Like chilled death. Why am I so feverish?”

  “Trauma and shock,” he explained. “Your body doesn’t know how to fight either, so its default response is a fever. I’ve seen this a few times. It’ll break eventually, but you’d be more comfortable if we can
get you something stronger than over-the-counter meds. How’s your arm?”

  She moved it without thinking and winced. “Sore, but not as bad as it could be. Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t even know me.”

  He smiled down at her. “For one thing, you needed help and no one else was volunteering for the job, so it fell on me. Also you were a friend of Abe…and that makes you one of the good guys, so I’d help you no matter what. And finally I am helping you because Abe and I hadn’t seen each other in too long, and I hope that you have some idea what he’d been up to lately. I need to figure out what put him in the crosshairs of a group of trained killers.”

  He could see her cloud over with confusion and a lack of anything concrete to provide him. “Don’t worry about it now,” he said. “We can talk when you’re feeling better. And I don’t want to heap anything more onto your plate, but an Agent Hepburn of the FBI is here and wants to talk to you too.”

  “The FBI?” It was clear she had no recollection of their visit the night before. “What do they want me for?”

  Kelly Hepburn had been just outside the bedroom listening to make sure Mercer didn’t try to coach her or influence anything Jordan might say. She came around the corner and said, “I need you to corroborate the statement Dr. Mercer provided last night, Jordan. I’m Special Agent Kelly Hepburn.”

  She flashed her badge and entered the guest bedroom. Mercer had to hand it to her. Harry had just told him that Jordan was coming around less than two minutes earlier. The tac guy, Simmons, who had spent the night sitting at the bar in the rec room, had radioed that information to whoever was outside, and Kelly Hepburn had knocked on the front door twenty seconds afterward. She was making certain her witnesses spent as little time together as possible without making it seem they were under suspicion.

  Mercer had already noted when he’d let Hepburn into his house that she was wearing a more flattering suit than the night before, and a silk rather than cotton blouse. She wasn’t so obvious as to use more makeup, but her jewelry was better and he guessed her shoes were the best her closet had to offer. Despite this, her handshake had been cool and professional, like the night before, and her eyes hadn’t lingered on his any longer than was polite. He was left to assume that she was dressing for someone back at headquarters or one of the tac-team guys in the van outside. Since there was no sign of no-neck Nate Lowell, he could at least cross her partner off the list.

  Jordan glanced quickly at Mercer, unsure. And then she found a little of the strength she had so ably demonstrated the day before. “My dad was our family’s big disappointment,” she said, helping herself to another sip of water. “He became a scientist while his two brothers both went into law. One is a senior partner in Pittsburgh, and the other is a municipal judge in Philadelphia. I’ve learned enough from them to know not to talk to the authorities, especially the FBI, without a lawyer present.”

  “As is your right, Miss Weismann,” Kelly Hepburn agreed. “However neither you nor Dr. Mercer are under suspicion at this time, and I will not make any notes or recordings of this conversation. How about that? All I want is to verify what Dr. Mercer told me last night and I will be on my way.” She was hit by a sudden thought and turned to Mercer. “I was going over my notes this morning, and I can’t believe I didn’t ask you what happened to the automatic pistol you took from Abraham Jacobs’s house. Where is the Walther P-38?”

  Mercer looked at Jordan, not correcting Hepburn’s mistake as to the gun’s manufacturer. “Tell her where, and it should mostly satisfy her that we aren’t the second coming of Bonnie and Clyde.” He saw Agent Hepburn stiffen. “I said mostly satisfy.”

  The woman from the FBI relaxed.

  Jordan said, “Mercer hid the gun in the ceiling of one of the second-floor classrooms. I think it was either 212 or 214.”

  “Room 214,” Mercer verified. “I didn’t know what the police outside the building were doing, so I thought it best not to walk out armed to the teeth.”

  “Prudent,” Hepburn remarked casually. “And, Jordan, why exactly were you at Hardt College and, more specifically, at Abraham Jacobs’s house?”

  She looked a little sheepish. “I was being a bum, really. I, oh hell. Okay, I lost my job about five months ago and my savings ran out and I was just evicted from my apartment. I asked my dad if I could move back in with him, but he said no. Quelle surprise. He and I are no longer close since my mom died. He buried himself in work and I…had other distractions.”

  Neither Mercer nor Agent Hepburn needed her to elaborate on the point.

  Jordan continued, “Abe and my dad worked together back when they both taught at Carnegie Mellon, and he was always like another uncle to me, so when Dad told me I had to make it on my own, I copped out and begged a bed from Abe until I can figure out what I am going to do next. Abe was only supposed to be in Minnesota for a few days, and he hinted he might be able to get me something at Hardt when he came back.”

  “What did you do for work?” Hepburn asked.

  “I was a planning and zoning researcher for the city of Scranton. Budget cuts killed my position.”

  “Is that what you studied in school?”

  “Not exactly. I was an environmental studies major.” She gave a wan smile of unrealized dreams. “I had planned on saving the world, but that didn’t work out either.”

  In mock horror Mercer said, “Dear God, a tree hugger.”

  Jordan laughed until she coughed. “Sorry. And don’t worry. Two years working for a crumbling municipality has crushed any youthful optimism out of me. I haven’t hugged a tree in a long time.”

  “What is your father’s phone number?” Kelly Hepburn asked.

  “You said you weren’t going to take any notes,” Jordan pointed out.

  “I’m not, but I have a pretty good memory for numbers and I just want to verify your story.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call him,” Jordan said, not exactly pleading but uncomfortable with the idea. “He doesn’t know I went to Abe’s, and I’m afraid with Abe’s death and me being at his house, my dad might, I don’t know, like hold me responsible or something. I know it sounds crazy, but he would jump to a conclusion like that.”

  “I will be circumspect, Miss Weismann,” Agent Hepburn assured her. “Why don’t you try describing the men who attacked you.”

  Jordan immediately looked to Mercer for help. Hepburn was seasoned enough to know that now was the time to separate the two of them. Under the best of circumstances, witness testimony was notoriously unreliable, and Jordan’s could be influenced by Mercer’s body language and micro-expressions. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Dr. Mercer, would you be so kind as to give us a few minutes alone?”

  He immediately understood the reason behind her request. He also recognized how adroitly the agent had gotten Jordan talking. He gave Jordan’s good shoulder a squeeze. “You’ll be all right. Just tell her everything you remember, and if it gets too much for you, you can stop at any time.” Mercer glanced at Hepburn for confirmation, and the attractive agent nodded. “See you in a few minutes.”

  Mercer burned the time sitting at the bar in the rec room with Harry, who was three-quarters of the way through the Washington Post crossword. Mercer decided against another cup of coffee. He hated waiting but knew there was no other choice. It would take hours before the FBI had anything preliminary from the trash and perhaps longer still to garner any information about the nature of Susan Tunis’s research project. Mercer had developed the habit of polishing lengths of old railroad track as a way of freeing his mind so he could think clearly, but right now even that distraction seemed frivolous.

  He had to admit that for the first time in a long time he was an outsider. Since the last national election he had lost his role as special science adviser to the president of the United States, a job that required very little of him but opened doors all over Washington and beyond. Now he was just another citizen, and even though his friendship with Dick Henna had bought h
im a little professional courtesy, he held no illusions that Agent Hepburn was obligated to keep him in the loop. She needn’t share anything with him about her investigation even though he desperately wanted in on this. He wanted justice for Abe’s murder but just as badly he wanted to understand the bigger picture. There were other layers to this crime, shadows lurking deeper in the background. Someone had paid a great deal of money to get at whatever Abe had brought to that subterranean chamber, and they didn’t care who died in their quest to possess it.

  The civilian death toll so far was limited to Abe, Dr. Tunis, and her people, and the hoist operator but it was a miracle that the only fatality at Hardt College had been one of the gunmen. Still, there were dozens injured, some critically, and until Mercer unraveled the mystery he felt certain the butcher’s bill would continue to rise.

  Thirty minutes later, Kelly Hepburn backed out of the guest bedroom and softly closed the door. She came into the rec room just as Harry pushed the completed puzzle away from himself and stood. It was noon and time for the first drink of the day.

  “Can I get you anything, sweetheart?” White asked as he stepped around the mahogany bar to prepare his drink. Behind the rows of liquor bottles on the back bar was an antique-looking world map stuck with pins of various colors. It was a map of the places Mercer had traveled, and it looked like with the exception of Antarctica there weren’t many corners of the earth he hadn’t visited.

  “A Diet Coke, if you have one,” she said and took a seat next to Mercer, “and the understanding that if you ever call me ‘sweetheart’ again, Mr. White, I will shoot you.”

  “We only have regular Coke,” Harry fired back, peering into the refurbished fifties-style lock-lever fridge, “and I suppose calling you ‘honey’ is out too.”

  “Regular is fine, and you’re very perceptive for a guy with one foot firmly in the past and the other inching toward the grave.”