Killer Pursuit: An Allison McNeil Thriller

by Jeff Gunhus

  But that wasn’t the only reason she kept men at arm’s length, even though there was no shortage of interest from them. Richard’s death hit her hard even though they hadn’t even been together when he died. But the reconciliation. The sense that the relationship had been rekindled. The admission of old feelings that had never left. That things were about to start new between them. These were the things that made it so hard. She knew intellectually that she had idealized the relationship that might have been instead of remembering the challenges the two of them had the first time around. But losing the second chance to do it right, especially when she was the one who walked away the first time because she was scared, was almost too much to bear.

  The part of her brain where her masters in psychology held court admonished her that the attachment to Richard was a safe way to avoid new relationships and all the messiness that went with them. She hadn’t ignored that idea completely and had made a few half-hearted attempts to meet new people. But every date ended early and with her feeling bad for the guy who hadn’t done anything wrong except ask out the wrong girl.

  The wind gusted through the graveyard, stripping the trees of more leaves. She pulled her coat collar up and shuddered. As she did, she caught sight of the gravestone in front of her and nearly stumbled.

  KRAW

  It was an old granite marker, worn down from decades of weather, so it had to just be a coincidence. But just the sight of the name turned her stomach. A burst of images flashed in her mind. Crime scene photos. All those little girls. Raped. Mutilated. Images that would be with her forever.

  That was the last year of her life more than anything and she knew that her welling emotions as she walked through the cemetery were as much about the case ending as it was about her relationship with Richard. She felt a strange kind of grief and sense of loss accompanying the end of a case that had consumed her every day for all those dark months. But reliving Samuel Kraw’s look of bewilderment the second before the round from her gun split his skull made her feel that it had been a year well spent.

  She walked on and came to Richard’s grave. She pulled a misshaped bullet from her pocket and rolled it between her fingers. The forensics guys had dug the bullet out from the tree behind Kraw and offered it up to her as a keepsake. She kneeled to the ground and pushed the bullet into the soil until it was deep enough to be hidden from view. She sat back on her heels and allowed herself to drift through the pleasant memories to the man buried six feet beneath her. Agnostic in her religious beliefs, she didn’t know what the afterlife held, but she was pretty certain words spoken at a grave were heard only by the living. She didn’t say a word but sat there for ten minutes in the cold, paying her respects, pausing to remember her love for the man whose heart she’d broken.

  “You OK, sweets?” came her dad’s voice behind her.

  She stirred and glanced over her shoulder. Pat McNeil, a hard man who’d lived a hard life, stood shivering in the cold. Clutched in his big, heavy-knuckled hands, he held a knit cap. He held it out to her.

  “You’ll catch something out in this,” he said. “Gotta cover your head.”

  Allison got to her feet, took the hat and pulled it onto her dad’s head until it covered his ears.

  “You’re right, you do,” she said. “I thought you were going to stay in the car.”

  His eyes darted away from hers, that look of panic that broke her heart when he realized he’d forgotten something simple he should remember. He covered it up well. Too well. It was one of the reasons his diagnosis had come so late.

  “Damned if I’ll stay in a warm car while my girl’s out here freezing,” he said.

  Allison slid her arm into his and leaned against his broad shoulder. His false bluster disappeared and he put his arm around her, pulling her in tight.

  “I’m sorry, sweets,” he said into her ear. “Really, I am.”

  Buried in her father’s arms, she let go of the walls built up around her and let the emotions spill out. She stood there, clinging to her father, and cried.

  Even as his disease robbed him of his memory, his heart knew his little girl was hurting and still needed her father. He held her tight as she sobbed into his chest, knowing that no force on earth would make him let go of her until she was good and done.

  When she finally pulled back, he wiped the tears from her cheeks and smiled. “What do you say we rent some old movies from Blockbuster? I’ll make some popcorn and we’ll just hang out all day and get fat?”

  She smiled through the pang in her chest. The Blockbuster near their house had closed years ago and they’d talked at length on the drive up about her upcoming meeting that morning with Clarence Mason; the one where she was half-certain she was getting fired for shooting Garret in the leg. But she didn’t mention any of this. She just slid her hand into his and walked him toward the car.

  “Sounds good, Dad,” she said. “I’d love that.”

  6

  Libby Ashworth found it interesting that a man who was only a couple of months away from being elected president could live in a normal house in Alexandria with only minimal Secret Service protection. After the election, Senator Mark Summerhays would become the most protected man in the world with an entire army dedicated to his personal safety. While some men might chafe at the idea of the trappings of the office, Libby knew Summerhays looked forward to every bit of it. The political pols may have been surprised by the senator’s rise from political exile to front-runner status, but there was nothing surprising about it for Mark Summerhays. For him, it was just a matter of about goddamn time.

  Four years earlier, a victory in New Hampshire had given Senator Mark Summerhays an uncommonly virulent strain of the disease that plagued the United States Senate. Presidential ambition. Since winning his first bid for congress in his Florida district over a decade ago, he had been the golden child of the Democratic Party. He’d done everything right. Served in the unglamorous but important party-building roles and made the powers-that-be appreciate his talent. Raised more money for others than he had for himself. Toed the line on votes important to the party. Spoke out against the Bush Administration before it was popular to do so. Timed the winds just right in both supporting and then distancing himself from Barack Obama. Then, when he made the decision to run for an open U.S. Senate seat, no other serious Democrat challenged him and the Republicans put up a sacrificial lamb for a candidate. The resulting landslide had prompted the national press to speculate that the handsome, well-spoken, former entrepreneur was staging a run for the White House.

  He did, and did it well, until right after New Hampshire when unflattering stories about his business dealings bubbled up from the dark depths of scandal hell where he’d thought he’d paid good money to send them. Questions as to why his net worth had doubled and then tripled while serving in congress were hard to answer in a sound bite, especially because none of the answers were true.

  The only thing the national press likes more than a great success story is a catastrophic fall from grace. The knives came out and in weeks the Summerhays campaign fell to pieces. Not since Howard Dean’s primal scream in Iowa or Rick Perry saying “oops” after forgetting one of his own policy proposals during a national debate had someone so quickly turned from presumptive nominee to being ushered off the national stage.

  But, with Libby’s help, Summerhays had roared back for the next election and put himself not only in the race, but at the head of the pack as the thoughtful, intelligent choice for President, a chance to return to decent, wholesome values and get the country back on track.

  Libby thought about what a sham that was as he watched the presidential front-runner pound his fists into his desk, shouting a tirade of obscenities as his face turned a deep crimson and thin lines of spittle flew onto the papers in front of him. Libby had seen the tantrums before and he waited patiently for this one to run itself out. He kept his center of balance in case Summerhays decided to throw something in his direction.

 
Finally, the shouting stopped and the senator placed both hands flat on the desk and stared at the spot in front of him. When he looked up, his face was composed, the anger still there behind the eyes, but the panic was stored deeper where it was disguised more cleverly.

  “Seems your old man has a few tricks left in him, Libby.”

  “Seems that way.” Libby hadn’t missed the utter lack of denial in Summerhays’s outburst. Normally, he would have left it at that and worked the cover-up, but this was different. This one could end the campaign in a single news cycle. “Do you remember this woman? Catherine Fews?”

  Summerhays stood up from his desk and kicked his chair backward. The heavy wooded chair rocked into the small table covered with picture frames of the senator’s family, knocking some of the frames over which sent others down in a domino effect until only a few were standing. Libby suppressed a grin at the metaphor.

  “So you don’t think he’s bluffing then?”

  “You tell me, Mark. Does he have it? I mean, could he have it?”

  “What you mean is, did I sleep with this woman or not?”

  Libby stared impassively at his boss. He’d been through this before, the stonewalling, the lies. It was what came natural to these men after doing battle long enough in the war zone called Washington DC. But he wasn’t in the mood to play, so he waited.

  “Fuck yes. All right. I slept with her. She was supposed to be a pro. Total discretion.”

  Libby rolled his eyes at the man’s naiveté and thought as he often did recently that perhaps the country and the world would be better off if Mark Summerhays had faded into the sunset four years earlier instead of making his comeback. And, as his own follow up question to the witness, Libby wondered why he was still working so hard to get his man in the job.

  It was the power, of course. The unbridled, absolute power of the modern Presidency. And Mark Summerhays had the goods when it came to politics. The scandal after New Hampshire had been enough to knock the campaign off-course last time around. By the time it found its feet again, the electoral map was impossible to conquer and that idiot Dick Burns swept in and grabbed the nomination. But even then, the whispering, organized by Libby, started leading up to the convention that somehow the party had gotten it wrong. The kingmakers in the smoky backrooms wanted Summerhays added to the ticket as vice-president, but Burns had said no. Ballsy, but the wrong strategy because it would have taken Summerhays off the market.

  Over the next two years, Libby had successfully weaned the press off the shadowy world of Mark Summerhays’s business dealings: complex corporate structures, arcane rules governing the supply of defense products to foreign governments, most friendly, others not exactly on the good neighbors list. All of this had been too complicated to gain any traction with the American public. But Libby knew that a good ol’ fashioned sex scandal was a different animal altogether.

  Sell weapons to America’s enemies through a Byzantine network of suppliers and no one cared. Get caught with your pants down while you’re getting a blowjob from a DC call girl and the whole world tuned in for twenty-four hour coverage.

  “All right. Now, I’m going to ask you a question and I need to hear the truth, all right? No bullshit here. If you lie to me I can’t help you out of this.”

  “Don’t patronize me,” Summerhays snapped. “If you have a question, ask it.”

  Libby walked over and leaned in close to his boss’s ear. Even in the man’s private study in the senator’s home, Libby knew better than to ask his next question too loudly.

  “Did you have anything to do with this woman’s death?”

  Summerhays took a step back, a horrified look on his face. “Of course not. How could you—”

  “I want you to think now, Mark,” Libby went on, still whispering. “Did you complain about this problem to anyone? Someone who might have misunderstood what you were implying?”

  “I haven’t talked to anyone about Catherine Fews between the night I was with her and today. It was a stupid thing. I thought that—”

  Libby held up his hand. “Save it. You’re not a real politician in this town unless you’re screwing around on your wife.”

  “Yeah, but they all get away with it.”

  Libby suppressed a sneer at the man’s self-pity. It was the same revulsion he had felt toward Clinton’s private rants about the unfairness of how the press treated his extracurricular activities. How Kennedy, whom Clinton revered above all, had done much worse than anything he’d ever done while in office and the press hadn’t touched him.

  “Now we have to decide what we’re going to do about this.”

  “Hey, this was your plan, remember? Shake up the establishment, rattle Mason’s cage by siding with the guys who want him out. All we shook loose was this new threat he can hold over my head. Great plan, Libby. Just great.”

  “The plan was perfect,” Libby said calmly. “We picked up endorsements from dozens of people who want to see the son of a bitch gone. If I had been informed of the complications I might face, then I could have adjusted the plan.”

  “You screwed up. Why can’t you just fucking admit that?” Summerhays screamed.

  “Calm down,” Libby said. “This is a time for rational, collected thought. Emotions only clutter vision.”

  Summerhays pointed a finger at him, ready to unload a salvo of invective, but he caught himself and swallowed hard. He lowered his hand and slumped against the edge of the desk.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about everything.”

  Libby recognized this stage of his boss’s manipulation technique. Anger followed by remorse, then the inevitable compliments and pleas for help. He wondered whether his father would put up with this ridiculous behavior or if he would make a stand and call the man out on his bullshit right there and then. As soon as the thought formed, he cursed himself for letting the old man get into his head. Talk about manipulation. Mason was the master at it.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Libby. You’re the sharpest hand there is, I know that much.” Summerhays clasped his hands together on his lap. “This one is big, I know. I’ve never needed your help more than I do now. Can I count on you, Libby? Can I count on you to pull me through this one?”

  “Of course you can.” And you’ll let me choose the next Director of the FBI when you take office, you son of a bitch, or I’ll bury you faster than a cat buries its own shit.

  “So tell me you have a plan.”

  Libby had spent every minute since his meeting with his father deciding on a course of action, wading through the complex political calculus of risk to come to a decision.

  “Of course I have a plan,” Libby said.

  “Tell me,” Summerhays said, leaning forward.

  “It’s better that you don’t know.”

  Libby’s boss stood and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the manicured back garden. Libby watched, amused at the man’s transparent attempt at drama.

  “Yes, I understand. Better that I don’t know.”

  Libby nodded. “Stay loose. You have a campaign to win.” He turned and left the room feeling no better than he had before the meeting but with a new sense of purpose.

  He pulled a burner phone from his pocket, a pre-paid cell he’d purchased with cash. The fact that he knew the number he dialed by memory made him feel dirty. He held the phone to his ear, scanning the hallways both in front and behind.

  The phone clicked and he heard breathing on the other end.

  “We need to meet,” he said.

  “Tomorrow,” a deep voice replied.

  “No, tonight,” Libby said.

  A pause. “Tomorrow. Noon. The place I told you last time.”

  Click.

  Libby curled his fingers around the phone and nearly threw it at the wall. He stopped himself, seeing an original Peale painting was in his line of fire. It was a rare painting of George Washington during his decisive victory at Yo
rktown. Libby shuddered as he thought how close he’d just come to throwing his phone through a priceless canvas of one of his heroes. One of the few truly great Americans. The first president’s eyes leveled at him like a disapproving father.

  He doubted Washington would have patted him on the back for the meeting he’d just set up for the following day. But Libby knew in today’s world, in order to do the work of the angels, you sometimes had to get in bed with the devil.

  Libby turned heel and strode down the corridor, eager to put as much distance between himself and those scathing eyes as possible. He already had one impossible-to-please father; he sure as hell didn’t need another.

  7

  Allison fidgeted in her chair in the waiting area, feeling completely out of place. She took in her surroundings. Instead of the typical government-issued grey carpeting and pressboard furniture, the room had a regal feel to it. Lush navy blue carpet. Tasteful wallpaper that picked up the accent color and gave the room a warm, rich feel. The couch on which she sat had the smoothness of a silk-blend and comfortable pillows to prop her up. The receptionist’s desk, an antique Chippendale’s by the look of it, guarded a double-door entrance on the opposite side of the room from the entrance where two Marines in dress uniform stood guard in the outside hallway. A look at the ancient woman serving as Clarence Mason’s secretary made Allison wonder who was more fearsome in protecting the Director of the FBI, the single old woman or the two young Marines. Allison’s money was on the old lady.

  Shouting erupted from inside the office. It appeared not to be a very regular occurrence as the old woman looked up sharply from the computer screen toward the door. She glanced to the two Marines, but they didn’t budge.