Killer Pursuit: An Allison McNeil Thriller

by Jeff Gunhus

  “What’s eating you?” Summerhays asked. “You’re as much fun as a hunting dog at a picnic.”

  Libby winced. He hated it when Summerhays tried to sound folksy. He was always mixing his metaphors and coming up with sayings that made little or no sense. He thought it connected him to the regular people. Libby thought it just made him look like a jackass.

  Summerhays leaned forward. “It’s not that thing we were talking about, is it?” he asked. “I thought you said you had that all under control.”

  “I didn’t say it was under control,” Libby said. “I told you that I would handle it.”

  Summerhays leaned back and looked out the window dramatically. It was the same look he liked to use in photo shoots. During the campaign they called it the thoughtful statesman. Libby knew it was a sham, just a pose. But it was better than the senator’s usual pose in private, fucking idiot.

  “Maybe we should call in some more help with this,” Summerhays said. His voice was loaded with gravitas as if he were discussing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead of a cover-up of his screwing a hooker on video.

  “What were you thinking?” Libby asked, a pit forming in his stomach as he guessed where the conversation was going.

  “Maybe you should call Scott Harris,” Summerhays said. “He’s good at this sort of thing.”

  Libby searched Summerhays’s face for any sign of guilt or shame for lying to him a second time. There was none. Libby chided himself for thinking that there would be. With sudden clarity, he realized it wasn’t the second time the man had lied to him. It was probably the hundredth. The thousandth for all he knew. Politician lies wasn’t exactly a news headline, but it left Libby cold.

  He was supposed to be on the inside. That was the only reason to put up with it all. Being lied to so easily, so boldly, made him feel like a sucker. As if all the compromises he’d made to hitch a ride on the Summerhays train had been pointless. He wasn’t in on the game. He was a pawn, just like everyone else.

  “Did you hear me, Libby?” Summerhays said.

  “Yeah, I heard you,” Libby murmured.

  Summerhays arched an eyebrow his direction. “You all right? You’re acting…off.”

  Truth was, he was buying some time to work through the position he was in. It occurred to him that Harris might have already told Summerhays they’d met. Maybe this entire thing, this seemingly casual suggestion to call Harris, was a bizarre loyalty test, checking to see if Libby was still playing for the right team. He considered just admitting he’d met with Harris already, but that came with its own levels of complications. There was a good chance Summerhays was actually testing Harris, trying to see if the man had told Libby they’d spoken. As much as he disliked Harris, Libby didn’t want him discredited. At least not while he was still useful. Either way, he felt jammed up. Say he hadn’t spoken to Harris and Summerhays might catch him in a lie. Admit that he had and make Harris look bad. He was trapped.

  Libby glanced up and Summerhays was studying him through squinted eyes. Maybe he had misjudged just how ruthless the man could be. Even though Summerhays could be an idiot, idiots didn’t make it this close to running the free world by luck. He was reminded that underestimating the man could be dangerous. For the first time since confronting the senator, he thought Summerhays might actually have had Catherine Fews killed.

  “I’m fine,” Libby said. “Under the weather. Puked my guts out last night. Just trying to work through it. That’s why I’m sitting over here away from you.” It felt good to lie to him. A small victory.

  Summerhays scowled, obviously not satisfied. “And Harris?”

  Libby drew in a deep breath and leaned forward in his seat, lowering his voice. “Look, this thing is bound to get messier before it gets cleaned up. Even if I did call Harris, hell, even if I’d already met with him and discussed our little issue, you wouldn’t want to know that information. If this thing goes south, it’s not just a scandal, it’s depositions, lie detector tests, prison time. You don’t want to know anything I do.”

  Summerhays leaned back, the hard look in his eyes from just seconds before fading back into his usual vacant look. Libby realized that he didn’t really know Summerhays at all. The face he’d been around for the last decade was a mask, the stern man beneath was the real guy. A shudder passed through Libby.

  “But you’re forgetting the most important thing, Libby,” Summerhays said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I had nothing to do with that woman’s death,” he said. “You know that, right?”

  “Of course,” Libby said. He realized for the first time that he didn’t really mean it. “I know you’re not capable of something like that. You’re innocent in all of this.”

  “Good,” he said, looking out the window as they entered the White House grounds for a meeting with the man Summerhays meant to replace. “Don’t you forget it.”

  17

  Allison waited for her coffee-date to park his car and catch up with her. She had chosen to make him follow her across town to Tryst in Adams Morgan. As someone who studied human interaction and psychology, the manipulation was almost second nature. Mike Carrel thought he had her backed into a corner. Her choice of venue was a small thing but it put her back in charge. If they were going to battle it out for information then, like an infantry commander, she would at least choose the ground where the engagement was going to happen. Tryst was one of her favorite places. It was her turf and she guessed that the eclectic look and feel of the place was not the reporter’s usual environment. She pegged him as more of a two-times-a-day Starbucks guy.

  But the location was only one advantage. The other was that the ride over gave her a chance to Google the hell out of the reporter and dig up a few details that might prove helpful.

  “Did you find anything good?” Mike said as he walked up.

  “What do you mean?” Allison said.

  “Either you were looking me up on your phone the entire way over here, or you’re just about the worst driver I’ve ever seen.”

  “Which of those things gets you the most girls? The big ego or the insults?” Allison asked.

  “They both work pretty well, actually,” Mike said. “On the kind of girls I tend to date, anyway.”

  Allison smiled. Certainly he had to know a sexist comment to someone in a male-dominated world like the FBI would strike a chord. It had been purposeful and deftly played. Rather than being annoyed by it, she found herself admiring the work. She was self-aware enough to know that his looks were playing into her reaction to him. Studies showed that good-looking people were generally more trusted and, while Mike Carrel’s smug expression might have made her want to knock him out, she couldn’t deny that he belonged on a magazine cover. Not only that, but what she’d learned about him on the way over also cast him in a good light and dramatically changed her perception of him.

  “Let’s grab a seat,” Allison suggested.

  Mike held his hand out. “After you.”

  “An asshole and a gentleman,” Allison murmured as she walked by him into Tryst.

  The popular coffee shop was always busy. The fact that it had a full bar and some of the best mixologists in DC working behind it had something to do with keeping the place hopping into the night. During the day, the attraction was ostensibly the coffee and fresh baked goods, but the real draw was the chance to hang in a space that was so purposefully not a Starbucks that being a patron felt like a stand against homogeneity and the corporatizing of America. There was a hodgepodge of irregularly shaped couches, unique chairs and tables of all sizes. The walls were a deep red and pocked with built-in shelves filled with books set loose in the wild by staff and patrons to find a home in someone’s hands for an afternoon. The clientele was as oddball as the furniture, everything from K Street lobbyists to young techies writing code to artistic-types writing longhand in pretentious journals. The hiss of the espresso machine spouting steam into stainless steel mugs of milk mixe
d with a soundtrack of alternative music piped in through speakers in the ceiling. Allison felt like she was walking into her own living room.

  “Want something?” Allison asked.

  Mike pulled a phone out of his pocket and read the screen. “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he said, distracted.

  “Two Cuban coffees,” she said to the young man behind the counter. She stole glances at Mike as she completed her transaction. “Everything OK?”

  Mike slid the phone back into his pocket. “We all have bosses, right?” he said. “Mine just happens to be a fifty-year-old man who discovered texting about six months ago. Now he just can’t stop himself. Emoticons and everything.”

  Allison smiled. She had the same experience except it was her dad, not her boss. And with him it was FaceTime on his new iPhone about a year earlier. He thought it was the coolest thing and had called her a few times each day from different locations in their hometown or on his day trips to trout streams around Maryland and Pennsylvania. Until his mind started its downhill slide, that was. Now the FaceTime calls came from inside the house or from the backyard on a warm day. She nearly shared that information with Mike but checked herself. This wasn’t a social meeting. The man had inserted himself into her investigation and she needed equal parts charm and coercion to keep him from ruining it by releasing the information she’d just uncovered at the morgue. A tattoo carved out of a dead prostitute’s body by an off-duty FBI agent was the kind of juicy news that the American public loves to obsess over. Her name would be trending on Twitter within an hour and the entire press corps would be trying to scoop each other by trying to decipher Catherine Fews’s real name. Not exactly the under-the-radar investigation Mason had asked her to do. She knew if it leaked out that her time left on the case would be measured in minutes instead of hours.

  “Not your typical law enforcement hangout,” Mike observed as a tattooed woman with bright red hair and a nose ring passed them.

  “There’s caffeine and alcohol,” Allison said. “What’s not to like?”

  Mike shrugged. “Cops like conformity. Can you imagine Garret Morrison in here?”

  Allison tried not to betray her shock that he’d play his hand so openly. She assumed his relationship with Garret would be something he’d hold close. She took the two Cuban coffees from the barista behind the counter and handed one to Mike. “I forgot you and Garret are buds.”

  “And you and Garret are not,” Mike said, following her to a small table in the least busy corner in the large open room.

  Allison took a seat, searching for the best way to respond. As usual, the most direct route won out. “But that’s not why I shot him.”

  Mike laughed, nodding. They both knew that her role in shooting Garret was not part of the public report but the story had made the rounds. It was an acknowledgement that she knew Mike had sources deep in the Bureau and that it didn’t faze her.

  “No, but given Garret’s reputation, I’m sure you found some kind of enjoyment in it,” Mike said.

  Allison shrugged and decided to get down to business. “How much did you pay Maurice to tip you off at the morgue?”

  “Couple hundred and some killer Caps tickets right on the glass,” Mike said. “Turns out, the weird little guy is a hockey fan.”

  “Anyone else stop by the morgue except me?”

  Mike looked at her blankly, sipping his coffee, as if the question had just passed through him. After a few beats, he put the coffee back on the table and leaned forward. “What are we doing here? I have all the information I need. I have the high school name and year. That’s enough for me to go dig up this girl’s history and have an exclusive story that will sell a shit-ton of papers and get my boss off my back.”

  “You do that and it corrupts my investigation. Makes it harder for me to find the killer,” Allison said.

  “Not my problem,” Mike said. “And from what I understand from a few calls I made on the way over here, it’s not yours either. Not officially anyway.” He held up his hands. “Don’t worry, I was discreet. Only asked who was working the case. Your name didn’t come up so I left it alone. Having information other people don’t is a good thing in my profession.”

  Allison felt some relief but was also conscious of the man digging his claws deeper into her. Or at least he thought he was.

  “I’m taking some time off,” Allison said, sticking as close to the truth as possible. “Not uncommon after an agent is involved in…in something like what happened with Kraw.”

  “See, now that’s something I’m interested in,” Mike said. “What exactly happened there? How did you all find him to begin with?”

  Allison got it. This was the real reason he was there. The play-by-play of the grisly deaths down in Louisiana was what he was really after. Catherine Fews was just a bargaining piece.

  “I’ve read your work,” Allison said. “It’s obvious you know people in the Bureau who like to run their mouths when they shouldn’t.”

  Mike shook his head. “Not on this one. I’ve pieced together a few things. Made a couple of good guesses based on the official report that make me think there’s more to the story than is getting out.”

  “You mean Garret Morrison didn’t want to tell you a story where he wasn’t the hero,” Allison said.

  “I never said Garret was my source.”

  “The only people who think that’s still a secret are you and Garret,” Allison said. “He’s just using you.”

  “I’ve had a front seat at every major serial killer investigation over the last fifteen years. You tell me who’s using who. If Garret was my source, that is.”

  Not every serial killer case, Allison thought. The press after the Arnie Milhouse case had been kept to a minimum, likely again due to Garret’s influence. Or, more accurately, the lack of him leaking the kind of details that made the press go crazy.

  Even Charlie Rangle, the young man Allison had inadvertently gotten involved in the whole mess, had resisted every offer to tell his story to the press. When Allison asked him about it he admitted it was tempting, especially since girls went nuts over a guy on TV. But he just didn’t want to talk about it. Being tortured by a madman and knowing with absolute certainty that the only escape was death had a way of changing a person. For Charlie, it put a darkness into his otherwise carefree, go-with-the-flow lifestyle. Refusing to talk about it was his way of keeping it at bay. In fact, he’d moved to California after his injuries healed just to get away from people asking him about it. Allison still checked in on him once a month or so by phone to see how he was doing, knowing from her own experience with the darkness that it could only be ignored for so long. Eventually, it fought its way out. And when it did for Charlie, she wanted to be there for him.

  “Are we here to make a deal?” Mike asked. “Or did you just want an overpriced coffee?”

  Allison sipped her drink, savoring the sweetness of the raw sugar that had been added to the espresso as the barista made the pull. She would have paid double the price for it. But Mike was showing the first signs of impatience. That was good. “I’m not here to make a deal with you. I’m here to explain to you why you’re not going to print the information you got today.”

  “Let me help you out here,” Mike said. “Here are three points to consider. First, I have the information about the girl’s tattoo. If you don’t give me a better story to write, then I’ll go track down this new one.”

  Allison’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She ignored it at first, but then she realized it was the burner Mason had given her. She pulled it out.

  “Second,” Mike continued, a little slower, unsure that he had her attention.

  “I’m listening,” Allison said.

  “Second, I know you’re investigating a murder case on the down-low, apparently without the knowledge of the guys who are really investigating it.”

  Allison read the text a second and third time, as if rereading it would somehow reorganize the letters into a differe
nt message.

  “If you were an investigative journalist, you would probably find that very interesting, right?” Mike said. “Are you even listening?”

  Allison stood. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  “What?” He looked down at her phone. “What happened?”

  “Maurice from the morgue…” she started.

  “Our weird little friend? What about him?” Mike asked.

  “He’s dead.”

  18

  Harris checked his teeth in the rearview mirror, picking at the bits of salad stuck there. He hated salad but he forced himself to make that one of his meals each day. After hitting fifty, the pounds were easy to accumulate if he wasn’t careful. It wasn’t like the old days when he could down a plate full of bacon and eggs and waffles for breakfast, destroy a couple of burritos for lunch, then steak, fries and beers for dinner. He still ate too much fast food, but the one salad a day made him feel that he was at least putting out an effort. Still, later that night, he planned on having a porterhouse steak at the nicest place he could find. It was a cheat since the cut of meat was really two steaks in one: a New York strip on one side of the bone and a filet mignon on the other. He wasn’t technically breaking his self-imposed rule. One steak per kill. Even with this rule, his cholesterol was still too high.

  Harris wasn’t completely sure if he should count Maurice as a kill. He had been more of a creature than a man, sniveling and weak, unworthy to be stacked up next to the other people in Harris’s list of victims. He relived the exchange, trying to find some buried pleasure in it because the entire event had been less than satisfying.

  One thing the little dipshit had done well enough was text him as soon as the FBI agent arrived. The arrival of the reporter to the scene at about the same time he got there showed the weasel was at least entrepreneurial. He had to hand it to the guy. But even though there was never any mention of exclusivity in the original transaction, it still pissed him off.