Expose

by Saranne Dawson

  The phone rang and she snagged the receiver from its holder on the kitchen wall. Her hello was met by silence, and uneasiness immediately stirred within her. She said hello again, and when that went unanswered, she started to press the button to end the call, then stopped. She was convinced that someone was on the line.

  “Why don’t you just threaten me with dismemberment and get it over with?” she asked in saccharine tones.

  “Uh, look, I want to…” There was a long pause after the final word, and then the caller hung up.

  Kate frowned at the phone. What was going on here? If he was working his way up to some threat, he sure wasn’t very good at it. The voice had sounded almost frightened.

  She was still trying to make some sense of it when she heard the garage door roll up. Her car was in it, but Sam was apparently going to switch them around, as they’d been doing ever since the discovery of the bug. A few moments later, Sam came through the connecting door from the garage and slid his arms around her, then looked over her shoulder at the empty cat-food can on the counter.

  “Mmm. Chicken hearts and liver. My favorite dinner. It’s great to have a woman who’s a good cook.”

  “I just had a weird phone call,” she told him, ignoring his words, if not the kiss he planted on her neck just below her ear—a definite erogenous zone.

  Sam had always been affectionate. She had frequently come home with her mind still on her work and nothing else, but Sam had been able to switch gears quickly and leave his job behind. After their split, among the things Kate had missed most were those small gestures of affection, and it occurred to her now that she had given him very little to miss in that regard.

  She told him what had happened. He leaned against the counter, looking thoughtful. “You know, I’ve been half expecting to find a Deep Throat somewhere in all this.”

  “You have?” she asked in surprise. Deep Throat was the name given by Woodward and Bernstein to their highly placed and still anonymous source on the Watergate story.

  Sam nodded. “A lot of people out there would like to see Newbury and Armistead tied to the tail of an ICBM aimed somewhere in the Pacific. And if there’s a story at New Leaf, I don’t doubt that there’s someone there who knows or has guessed the truth and is upset, too.”

  “You’re right.” She should have thought about that herself. In every tangled story, there were people around the subjects who harbored suspicions they were unwilling or unable to act on. “I want to…” could have meant “I want to talk to you,” and then the caller either lost his nerve or something interrupted him.

  “Did you learn anything from Mrs. Crawford?” she asked, having nearly forgotten about his appointment because her own focus remained on the New Leaf story and Tony’s disappearance.

  “Only that James was definitely upset about something connected to his work. I’ll tell you about it over dinner.”

  “I MET BOTH THE CRAWFORDS,” Sam told her as they sipped cocktails while waiting for their food at one of their favorite old-time haunts. “They’re nice people and their remarriage seems to be working.”

  He paused only briefly before continuing, but it was long enough for Kate to get the message. She hadn’t thought about the Crawfords’ situation as being parallel to their own, and it came as something of a shock to her to realize that others could be in what she’d regarded as being their unique predicament.

  “She said that about a week or so before his death, Ja-mey seemed to be moody, which was apparently unusual enough for her to question him. He told her that the internship wasn’t working out as he’d hoped, but he didn’t elaborate, and she assumed that it was what she described as being the normal reaction to the reality of politics, as opposed to all the theory he’d been taught.

  “Right after that, he started to go in to work in the evenings. She was rather surprised, because he’d told her that he didn’t have enough work to do, but when she questioned him about it, he said that he was working on a special project. He didn’t say anything more about it, but she remembered having the impression that it involved the computer. She confirmed, by the way, that Jamey was a real hacker. They’d given him his first computer when he was six. When he was fifteen, he got sick with mono and had to miss two months of school, and that’s when he really got into it.”

  “Did she tell the police all this?”

  “No, she didn’t. It didn’t seem relevant to her at the time, and naturally, she was in a state of shock. Besides, the police were all but convinced that he was simply a mugging victim.

  “I told her that we’d uncovered some evidence suggesting possible illegal activities on Newbury’s part. She knows his reputation, of course, and that didn’t surprise her. Then I asked her if she could recall anything at all that Jamey might have said about either Newbury or Armistead that could suggest he’d been onto anything.

  “She said that Jamey had referred to Newbury more than once about that time as a ‘hypocrite,’ and that he was terrified of Armistead.’’

  Kate looked thoughtful. “Well, the term ‘hypocrite’ could certainly refer to his stance against legalization while he was taking money from someone who wanted drugs to be legalized. But it seems to me that if he was scared of Armistead, he wouldn’t have been taking any chances.”

  Sam nodded. “I brought that up, and both of them said that might not have stopped him. According to them, Ja-mey had a very strong sense of right and wrong, and with two parents who were career public servants, he also believed strongly in public service—not in feeding at the public trough. Jamey was a smart kid, though, and he would have been very careful—especially because the internship meant a lot to him.”

  “Even very careful people can make mistakes,” she reflected. “Or something totally unforeseen could have happened.”

  “Like Armistead or Newbury or someone loyal to them catching him in the act,” Sam agreed.

  “She should talk to Detective Coldron.”

  “She’s going to. I think he might be interested, because he told me that he was never quite satisfied with the mugger explanation. But his superiors might not be inclined to let him pursue it—especially if they get a call from Armistead.”

  “Speaking of calls…”

  “Yeah. I hope it was someone willing to talk. We need a break, Kitty-Kat.”

  “There’s always The Ferret. I talked to him before I left the office, but he hadn’t had time to start checking on the New Leaf contributors and board members. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, but he told me he was going to stay and begin working on it.”

  “Sometimes I think he’s merged with his computers and doesn’t need sleep. Plus, this is exactly the sort of thing he really gets off on.”

  “Does he do any illegal hacking?” Kate asked, knowing that if anyone would know, it would be Sam.

  “Well, he promised me that he wouldn’t, but his exact words were, ‘I wouldn’t do anything that could cause problems for the paper.’ What I think is that he does do illegal hacking, but he does it at home. He’s got a setup there that’s even more impressive than the hardware at the office. He lives in this little studio apartment, and the only furniture in the place is his bed and a dresser. The rest of the space is taken up by his computers.”

  Kate frowned. “I know we need a break, Sam, but I don’t want it at that cost.”

  “Neither do I—though I’ll admit that if it comes my way, I won’t turn it down. But I’m hoping that your caller was an informant.”

  “We’d be no better than the people we’re investigating if we get information illegally,” she persisted.

  Sam raised his dark brows. “Weren’t you the one who was suggesting that we break into the offices at New Leaf?”

  “That was a momentary lapse of judgment. I wouldn’t have actually done it.” But she knew she would have, and she didn’t much like Sam’s pointing out that fact. “Anyway, there’s a difference between doing something not quite kosher yourself and having someon
e else do it for you.”

  “Right,” Sam said, chuckling. “It’s kind of nice to know that your logic hasn’t changed much in the past three years.”

  “Are you saying that the rest of me has changed?” she asked, feeling that slight uneasiness that presaged a personal discussion between them.

  Sam looked at her with a serious expression and nodded. “You have changed in some ways, Kate.”

  She wanted to ask if he thought the change was for the better, but she remained silent, even though she thought he was inviting the question.

  Our agenda is getting more and more crowded, she thought. When we finally do have a serious discussion about ourselves, it will take a lot of time and honesty.

  WHEN THEY RETURNED to the house, the machine indicated that three calls had come in during their absence. Kate hit the replay button. The first and third callers had left no message, but both times, the person had stayed on the phone for a while. Kate noted that the calls were about a half hour apart, and the last one had been about twenty minutes ago.

  The second one was from Lisa, who asked that they call her. Kate was eager to hear what she had to say, but she didn’t want to be on the phone if the anonymous caller tried again. After Sam’s departure, she’d discontinued Call Waiting because she had more than enough interruptions at work. Then she remembered the phone Sam had installed downstairs.

  “I’ll call Lisa back from downstairs,” she told Sam. “That way, you can pick up here if he phones again.”

  Lisa answered on the first ring, her voice shaky but expectant. Kate imagined her sitting by the phone, praying for news of Tony, and she thought again about the psychologist’s use of the past tense where Tony was concerned. She wished fervently that she could rid herself of the tendency to place so much emphasis on words, since experience had taught her that people used them so carelessly.

  As Lisa related her story, her voice became both stronger and angrier. The police had gone to New Leaf, where they were told that Tony had been seen leaving. The counselor who’d taken his place told them that Tony had left through a side exit to the staff parking lot, and the guard had seen him leave the property.

  Ted Snyder, for whom Kate was working up a serious dislike, had repeated pretty much what he’d told Kate: Tony was having an affair with another counselor and his work was suffering. According to Lisa, whose voice was now shaking with anger, the psychologist Kate had met with confirmed that she’d spoken to Tony about his work and his “personal relationship problems.”

  “It isn’t true!” Lisa cried. “Tony wasn’t having an affair with anyone. We’ve known each other for ten years, and he just wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “I haven’t known him long, Lisa, but I agree with you. What did the police say that they’re going to do?”

  “They said there isn’t much they can do. They’ll put out a bulletin on his car, to see if they can find it. They’re also going to talk to his parents. They live in Roanoke. But I’ve already talked to them, and they haven’t heard from him. They’re really worried, too. They know Tony wouldn’t just run off like that.” She paused for a moment. “I didn’t tell the police anything about you, but I think you should talk to them.”

  “I will. I’ll call them tomorrow. I have to figure out what to say to them. For what it’s worth, Lisa, I really do think something’s going on at New Leaf, but I don’t have any idea what it could be.”

  “I feel like I should have known more,” Lisa said with tears in her voice. “But because I’m a social worker and Tony is a counselor, we decided long ago it would be best if we kept our professional lives separate. Otherwise, we’d be talking about nothing but our work—you know? And it’s easy to ignore your personal relationship if you do that.”

  Kate said nothing, but once again, she realized that she and Sam were not alone in having such problems. She wrote down the name and phone number of the detective handling the case, then did her best to encourage Lisa before hanging up.

  She clenched her fists helplessly. If Tony had been killed, she could easily become a believer in the death penalty. And she knew, too, that she would never forgive herself for her part in his death.

  She knew exactly what Sam would say if she told him that. He would tell her that Tony had cooperated with her for his own reasons and of his own free will. They’d had that discussion once before, when a story Kate had worked on had resulted in some very bad things happening to a person who’d cooperated with her. And it irritated her then and now to know that Sam could handle it better than she could.

  She had just started up the stairs when she heard the phone ring. Sam was in the kitchen with the cordless. He said hello twice. “Don’t hang up!” he added quickly. “If you want to talk to Kate, she’s here.”

  He handed her the phone and she said, “Hello, this is Kate Stevens. Can I help you?”

  Her heart thudded noisily and her mouth went dry as the line remained open, but the person said nothing.

  “Look, if you have information for me, I’ll meet you anywhere you like.”

  There was another long pause, and then a male voice said, “At the park in Frederick in one hour.” The line went dead.

  Kate repeated the message to Sam. “Can we even get to Frederick in one hour?”

  “Sure—at this time of night. And I know where the park is—or at least where one park is.”

  Kate nodded. “The one where they have the antiques and crafts show every year.” They’d gone to it several times.

  “Are you sure you want to go?” Sam asked.

  “Of course. Look, Sam, this isn’t the person who’s been threatening us. He sounded scared himself.”

  “All right—but I’m taking the gun just in case.”

  She was about to protest, but stopped herself when she thought about how dark and deserted the park would be. She wasn’t so much worried about the man they were meeting as she was about anyone who might follow him.

  They hurried out to the car, taking Sam’s Porsche, since he’d been checking regularly and knew it wasn’t bugged. But Kate could see that Sam was clearly worried about this late-night rendezvous.

  “Why couldn’t he just say what he has to say over the phone?” Sam asked.

  “Who knows? He sounded so scared that I didn’t want to say anything that could make him hang up. And anyway, he didn’t give me a chance to get a word in.”

  “Which is exactly what I’d do if I wanted someone to meet me in a place where I could grab them. He knows you’re a reporter and that you’d be almost certain to come.”

  “But he must also know that you’ll be with me. After all, you answered the phone.”

  “I think maybe I won’t be with you,” Sam said as they drove through the night. “What I’m thinking is that I’ll get out before we go into the park, and then I’ll follow you on foot.”

  “Okay.” But she realized now that she wouldn’t have been so eager to go out there if Sam wasn’t with her. “It’s almost certainly someone from New Leaf,” she mused.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have picked Frederick for a meeting place. Let’s hope that it’s one of the people Tony has been talking to.”

  ALMOST EXACTLY AN HOUR had passed by the time they reached the entrance to the park. Sam drove past, then pulled over in a dark spot. “I’ll get out here and circle back so that I’m near the parking area. You go there and wait. Don’t get out of the car if anything seems at all suspicious. Just get out of there and I’ll meet you back here.”

  Kate heard the fear in his voice and understood what it was costing him to stifle those fears and that they were for her, not for himself. She leaned over and kissed him impulsively.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For trying so hard not to give in to your urge to protect me.”

  He chuckled. “I guess I didn’t do as good a job of hiding it as I’d thought. But I am trying, Kitty-Kat.”

&nb
sp; He slipped out of the car and quickly melted away into the darkness.

  Chapter Ten

  Kate climbed into the driver’s seat of the Porsche, then slipped it into gear and returned to the park entrance. There was a large parking area just inside, and a quick glance confirmed that it was empty. She drove slowly into the lot, uncertain just how to proceed. The park was large, but surely he hadn’t intended for her to roam about in the darkness. Or near darkness. The park was in fact lit, though not well enough to chase away the shadows.

  Now that Sam was gone—though presumably not very far—Kate soon began to see the danger of her situation. Was that what Sam wanted? Was he giving her enough rope to hang herself? In view of the threats against her, the metaphor was chilling, to say the least.

  After hesitating for a few seconds, she drove to the very center of the deserted lot. She knew that by doing so, she was making herself into a perfect target, but she was also guaranteeing that no one could sneak up on her.

  She started to turn off the ignition, then decided to let the car idle in case she needed to make a fast getaway. The low rumble of the engine could hide some sounds, but she wasn’t concerned about that anyway. If anyone approached her, she would see them.

  The seconds ticked slowly away. Kate scanned the shadows at the edge of the lot, wondering where Sam was. She assumed he would cut through the wooded picnic area that was off to her left. There were lights on tall poles among the trees, but no matter how hard she stared, she could see no movement in there. At one side of the picnic area, not far from the parking lot, was a small building containing rest rooms. She wondered if he might be hiding there.

  A car appeared on the road that bordered the park, and Kate held her breath, waiting to see if it would turn in. But it moved past the entrance without slowing, then disappeared. She let out her breath with a sound of annoyance.

  The problem was that they were too eager for a break—and maybe their would-be informant knew that. Or maybe he’d changed his mind. If he didn’t show up and then called again, what would she do?