by Ana Barrons
Hall followed him around the corner and into a room with two empty beds. Rossi stuck his head out into the corridor and peered both ways before shutting the door behind them and leaning against it.
“Who do you think is following you, Joe?”
“I know I’m not part of the investigation,” Joe began. “And this isn’t my story anymore. I’m actually, uh, taking some vacation time.”
Hall crossed his arms over his chest. There was definitely something strange going on, but he knew instinctively not to push Rossi on it. Not yet. “Okay.”
“The shooter got away.” Statement. Hall nodded. “Is he the guy who beat her, or did Ned do that?” He took a breath. “Or was it both of them?”
“Campbell claimed he didn’t touch her, for what it’s worth. Catherine confirmed that this morning. She’s trying her best to talk to us but they’ve got her so drugged up...”
Rossi was swallowing convulsively, which told Hall he was right on the edge emotionally. If he really loved that woman, he had to be going nuts with her attacker on the loose.
“How are you planning to catch him?” Rossi asked, his voice scratchy as hell.
“Well, we’ve got the feds working with us.” Hall suppressed a grimace. “We have a last name and a rental car sitting nice and pretty in Campbell’s driveway that so far has yielded shit, but the forensics guys are all over it. They’re also combing the house, and we’re checking for samples of his skin from Catherine’s clothes.” He stopped when he saw the wild look in Rossi’s eyes. “We’ll get this bastard.”
“I want to help.” Rossi’s voice was gravelly, choked with anger. “If you’ll talk to me... I’m good at putting things together. And I’ve known Ned since I was a kid. Maybe I’ll see something you missed, or come up with an angle you didn’t think of.”
“Why aren’t you running with the story? Why give it to Weinstein?”
Joe closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly. “I would never give anything to Weinstein. Everyone knows that. I’m in no shape to write this story, that’s all. And I’m hoping you’ll agree not to bring my name into it, no matter what.”
Hall gave him a hard stare, trying to read the truth. “What’s going on, Joe? Did someone threaten you? Or is this about you and Suzannah Mitchell?”
Aha. He didn’t miss the flash of fear in Rossi’s eyes. Well, I’ll be goddamned. Someone had gotten to him, and if he was right, that someone was pretty damn high up in the administration, close to the very top.
Now all he had to do was prove it.
“Hall, listen to me,” Rossi said, lowering his voice to a desperate whisper. “All I’m asking is a chance to help you get this guy. I don’t want any credit, and I swear on my brother’s life, I will keep everything you tell me in strictest confidence.”
Hall sighed. Rossi was telling the truth, of that he was certain. And he was smart, much as Hall hated to admit it. But most of all, he knew a whole hell of a lot more about what had happened to Will Sadler and Blair Morrissey than any of them.
If he had to play by Rossi’s rules to get those fuckers, then he’d do it.
But he didn’t have to like it.
“I have a feeling Weinstein won’t balk too much if we skirt around your involvement in this,” Hall said. He waited for Rossi to respond and took his silence for assent. It was a brilliant move, really, handing the story to the last person anyone would suspect, and handpicking an ally in the deal.
“What else did she tell you?” Rossi asked. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single detail.”
Hall opened his notebook and rattled off everything he had learned from Catherine, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot. She had apologized for not being able to think clearly or remember everything she’d heard.
He prayed she’d remember eventually.
Rossi’s eyes never left his face. He barely blinked. When he finished, Rossi got up and paced around the room.
Hall waited.
“So, all she was really sure about was that Perelli was after a book, which is probably Blair’s appointment book.”
“Right.”
“And it hasn’t turned up yet, obviously.”
“Right, but we’ll find the damn thing if we have to take apart every piece of furniture in the place.”
“Weinstein doesn’t know about this yet.”
“I’m going to call him as soon as we’re finished here and tell him what he can print in tomorrow’s paper. And I’m going to bring the sketch artist by later today.”
Rossi nodded, but he didn’t comment. Hall wished he could say something to lift the poor guy’s spirits, but giving comfort wasn’t one of his strong suits—as his ex-wife was so fond of saying. So he kept his mouth shut and watched Rossi pace.
After a couple of minutes Rossi stopped, stretched, ran a hand around the back of his neck and turned to Hall.
“Here’s what you tell Weinstein,” he said.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Perelli studied the New York Tribune article.
A preliminary search of Ned Campbell’s townhome has revealed no new evidence in his shooting death and the serious wounding of Catherine Morrissey. Miss Morrissey remains in critical condition at Georgetown University Hospital and has so far been unable to communicate with police about the attempt on her life. FBI forensics specialists will assist in the search for clues to the identity of the shooter later this week. Meanwhile, police have turned their attention to more promising leads in their search for the person or persons responsible.
He laid the paper down on the red plastic tablecloth and took another sip of Johnnie Walker Black.
Damn that bitch for living!
From the window at the front of the bar he was in—some rat hole in a little town outside of Philly—he could see the cop drive by slowly. He frowned. That was the second time this afternoon. He threw some bills down on the table and made his way to the men’s room to consider his next move.
That asshole, Campbell, had called him by name in front of the bitch—and had said Dale’s and Sam’s names as well. All hell was about to break loose in Washington, D.C., and he wasn’t interested in sticking around for it. But damn it all, he hadn’t gotten paid yet, and he was counting on that money to get him out of the country and into comfortable digs for a long, long time. As soon as the bitch woke up enough to talk, going anywhere near Dale would be impossible. Which meant he had to take matters into his own hands.
Option one: kill the bitch while she was in the hospital. Difficult, but not impossible. Problem was, he’d need help, which made things much messier, and more expensive. Although he had little doubt the vice president would be willing to pay to save his ass.
Option two: Find Blair Morrissey’s little black book, which the police didn’t know existed, and get it to Dale before the feds found it. Without the book, there was nothing that would lead the police directly to Mitchell. The VP might have to resign if things got too hot, but he wouldn’t go to prison on circumstantial evidence and hearsay alone.
Option three: Find Blair Morrissey’s little black book, thereby saving the vice president’s ass and then cash in big when the time was right. There were bound to be names in there that a whole lot of rich men would pay to keep secret.
He was going to clean up on this.
Of course it was possible Campbell had destroyed the book, but if those tapes he kept were any indication, Campbell liked to hold on to information that could be useful down the road. Particularly in a place like Washington, D.C. It also would have provided him with some insurance in case Mitchell decided to make him the fall guy. Campbell’s untimely death, of course, had made him exactly that.
For which the vice president and Dale will pay well in excess of the five million they already owe me.
He smiled as he crossed the parking lot, tipped his hat at the officer giving one of the other patrons a ticket and hopped into the pickup truck he’d borrowed and would leave in the long-term lot at Reagan Airport after his job was done.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Shortly after dark, Joe took a cab to the Connecticut Avenue entrance to the National Zoo, walked the length of it and used his disposable cell phone to call another cab to meet him at the lower parking lot near Rock Creek Parkway.
If Dale French had someone following him, Joe wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
The cab dropped him off at Georgetown Park shopping mall, where he took the escalator to the first floor and exited on Wisconsin Avenue. He then wended his way down a couple of side streets and dropped onto a bench where he could see who was coming from every direction. After five minutes he was certain he hadn’t been followed.
He made his way up 29th Street, walking at a leisurely pace, and began to unwind when the crowds finally thinned. A few blocks from Ned’s house he began to study the layout of people’s yards and gardens relative to one another. He nodded and smiled at the occasional resident sitting out on their front steps, and responded like a true Washingtonian to the question so often asked in early August.
“Hot enough for you?”
“Nah, the humidity’s only ninety-eight percent.”
His black T-shirt was damp from sweat, but how much was due to the oppressive humidity and how much to his agitated mental state he couldn’t say. Hall had shown him the final police sketch of Perelli, with which Catherine was more or less satisfied, giving him a face and general physique to attach his fury to.
Furious or not, though, Joe had to try to think like the man. Even if Perelli hadn’t read Weinstein’s article in the Tribune, all the major news media around the world were carrying the story. Both he and Hall believed Perelli would go into Ned’s house after he’d scoped out the neighborhood for twenty-four hours—he wouldn’t wait any longer, because with each passing day the likelihood of the cops finding Blair’s book would increase.
Hall had three officers inside the house and snipers from MPD’s Emergency Response Team in position in an upper window next door and in the house across the street. Dan Rankin would be in the house behind Ned’s, presumably with the ERT Commander who’d direct the operation. The neighbors were being blessedly cooperative—in most cases willingly vacating their homes until the guy was caught.
Joe checked his watch. By six o’clock today Hall had everyone out of Ned’s house and went around locking up and turning on security lights and lamps over the house. Everyone drove off in cars parked up and down the block—except for the team holed up inside the houses they’d taken over. Hall would be inside a nondescript van with remote listening equipment so he would know exactly what was happening at all times.
Joe only hoped the whole charade hadn’t been for nothing.
When he got tired of wandering the streets, he settled himself on a tree trunk conveniently located next to someone’s garage, where it was mostly blocked from view. A couple of days worth of newspapers were lying on the front lawn, so he figured it was safe to assume the residents were out of town. He was three blocks from Ned’s house, closer to Wisconsin Avenue.
He waited.
It had been days since he’d had a real night’s sleep, but the adrenaline was pumping like it used to when he was confident of a scoop. His muscles were tensed for action. His hearing and vision seemed more acute, as though his animal instincts were cranked up to high.
He prayed they’d gotten this right.
A Georgetown church bell pealed twelve, and then he heard it—gunshots.
Holy shit!
He sprang to his feet and ran toward Ned’s house, hugging the bushes. Go go go!
There was a sudden loud rustling ahead—a man leaped over a low brick wall, running like hell in the direction of Wisconsin Avenue.
Perelli? Joe burst onto the street and came at him diagonally. The man’s eyes widened as Joe flung himself at his legs and took him down in a tackle his high school football coach would have been proud of. Perelli’s gun clattered on the sidewalk. He bucked and twisted and tried desperately to pull out of Joe’s grip to reach it, but Joe dragged him backward.
“Give it up, you bastard,” Joe growled.
Perelli slammed his fist into Joe’s temple, but he didn’t pull his hand away fast enough. Joe grabbed him by the wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. Perelli grunted in pain. Behind him, Joe could hear people crashing through the bushes but he didn’t turn around. He wanted his moment alone with Perelli.
“You hurt her,” Joe said, his voice shaking with rage. “I should kill you for that.”
Footsteps stopped behind him, so Joe leaned closer to Perelli’s ear. “If you’re smart, you’ll give them all up to the cops, because sure as shit they’ll let you go down alone.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Perelli’s breath was coming in pants and he seemed close to passing out.
Joe twisted his arm harder, making him cry out. “Looks like you’re the one who’s fucked, Perelli.”
“Get off him, Rossi,” a familiar voice said, gripping Joe’s shoulder. “We’ll take it from here.”
Joe pushed himself up and a plainclothes cop cuffed Perelli and read him his rights. Dan Rankin was still gripping his shoulder. Now there were several pairs of feet slapping the pavement and the crackle of walkie-talkies all around him, but Joe’s gaze remained fixed on Perelli. It was all he could do to restrain himself from kicking the guy to death.
“I don’t want to know what you’re doing here,” Rankin said. “But I gotta say, that was one hell of a tackle.”
Chapter Fifty
Surfacing from a blessedly dreamless nap, Catherine didn’t understand what all the ruckus was in the hallway. She heard raised voices and scuffling and something—or someone—hitting her door. Alarm raced through her. Was it him? Was he trying to get at her, here, in her hospital room?
Then a familiar voice was calling her name. Joe. He sounded upset. What on earth was going on?
The door to her room opened. “I’m sorry, Miss Morrissey.” It was one of the orderlies. “Mr. Rossi is insisting on seeing you, but the doctor says no one—”
Joe elbowed past the orderly and burst into her room. “We got him, Catherine,” he said, sounding out of breath. “Let me in and I’ll tell you— Goddamn it, let go of me!”
“Please let him in,” she rasped. “I need to see him.”
The orderly’s expression was both angry and grateful. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the commotion here?” A police officer appeared—one of Catherine’s guards who had obviously stepped away for a moment—and the orderly explained the situation, saying the patient had asked to see Joe. The officer frisked Joe thoroughly and finally let him inside.
Joe stood there, gazing at her, as handsome as sin in his jeans and black T-shirt, no matter that he was worn out and rumpled.
“Joe,” she said, and the tears began to fall.
He crossed the room in two long strides and wrapped his strong, gentle arms around her. The feel and smell of him, the warmth of his body, made the tears fall faster.
“I wanted to kill him for what he did to you,” he said, his face in the crook of her neck. “That’s all I could think about, finding that bastard and beating him and beating him and beating him.” His voice cracked and he couldn’t go on for a moment. “When I got my hands on him tonight, it was all I could do not to break his neck. I’ve never been that close to killing someone with my bare hands before.”
“Who?”
Joe leaned back, his warm hands gripping her upper arms. �
��Perelli. We got him, Catherine. The police took him away in handcuffs. We got the bastard who did this to you.”
Catherine stopped breathing. “My God,” she whispered.
They had him. They had captured the beast.
Joe was studying her face, his eyes disbelieving. Shocked. Furious. Disgusted? His fingertips brushed her cheek and she flinched. “What did that animal do to you?” he whispered.
“Did he— Did Perelli kill Blair too?”
Joe hesitated. Swallowed. “I— We don’t know. Yet. But the police will make him talk. At the very least we’ll find out who else was behind the cover-up.”
She closed her eyes. “Please. I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
“I know you don’t want to talk about him,” he said gently. “Or think about him. I wish to God you didn’t have to, but he’s in your brain and I love you too much to leave you alone with this.”
A sob bubbled up, but she held it in. “I’ve changed,” she whispered. “I’m not the same.” She had lost too much. Not only her sister, but in a very real way she had lost herself as well. She’d lost her faith in the basic decency of human beings, and she had no idea how she would ever get it back. What did that leave her?
The hand gliding so tenderly over her scalp, and what was left of her hair, was warm, and as familiar as her own. She didn’t flinch this time.
“We’ve both changed. Any innocence we may have had is gone. But you’re still Catherine. You’re still the woman I love.”
And then suddenly she began to sob—quietly at first, and then louder.
Joe sat on the bed and pulled her into his arms, carefully so he wouldn’t hurt her. “That’s right. Cry and I’ll hold you. I’ll hold you forever.”
“He was...” she sobbed, “killing me.” And Joe was opening her up to feel it all over again, as though it weren’t bad enough that she relived it all in her dreams. When she told Detective Hall and that reporter everything she could remember, it was like she was relating someone else’s nightmare. But Joe’s arms hadn’t been around her then, and she hadn’t had her face nestled into his chest, smelling him. Loving him.
