But after a week, they were no closer to getting to him or even figuring out how they might. “We need to face facts,” Wells said, on the fifth day of their drive-bys. “This isn’t working.”
“He’ll let his guard down,” Shafer said.
“Not soon enough. And the guards are in the way.”
“We can find a nonlethal way to take them out.”
“Long shot, but say we can. Then what? We kidnap Murphy? Where do we take him, Ellis? Your house? It’s insane.”
“You can always get to people.”
“I couldn’t get to Ivan Markov. As much as I wanted to. And we’re not talking about killing him. We’re talking about interrogating him. Which means we can’t cut and run. It means we need time with him. Which we won’t have. And why exactly do we think he’s gonna talk to us now? He didn’t before.”
“We didn’t have D’Angelo before.”
“Ellis, no matter how many different cars we borrow, we’re low on time. Two guys can’t run long-term surveillance on a defended target. Especially not here. It’s too quiet. I can feel people watching me. We’re going to get spotted. In days. Not weeks.”
Shafer didn’t argue.
“It’s time to clue the bureau in,” Wells said. “Tell them everything. If they knew about the letter and D’Angelo, they might make progress. Or I can go back to New Orleans, talk to Noemie Williams, see if she remembers anything. Or Steve Callar. Or maybe we need to talk to Duto, see if he’ll tell us what game we’re playing.”
“Let’s give it a couple more days, see if anything breaks. It’s just possible Murphy’ll get bored, go for a drive on his own. Or a run, even better.”
“Two days,” Wells said. “No more.”
AND SOMETHING DID BREAK, though it wasn’t what Wells had expected.
Three p.m. Saturday, the seventh and final day of surveillance. Shafer was watching his daughter play softball, so Wells was alone. He had just cruised by Murphy’s house in a Verizon van. The armored van sat out front, as usual, a red Ford Econoline with two unsmiling men in front.
Then he saw two cars in the driveway of a foreclosure that was the closest empty house to Murphy’s. The first was a blue Audi A4 with a vanity Virginia license plate: “SLHOUSE.” It belonged to Sandra (“Call me Sandy”) Seward, a Century 21 agent who had several listings in the area. Wells had met her during his house-buying excursion. The second was a black Toyota Tercel. Wells had seen it before. Precisely three nights ago, stopping in front of Murphy’s house. At the time, it had worn a Domino’s Pizza sign on its roof. The driver hadn’t gotten out of the Tercel. He’d simply lowered his window, said something to the guys in the van—asking for directions, presumably—and driven off. Wells kept driving, reached for his phone, called Shafer.
“ YOU SURE ABOUT THIS ? ”
“He’s doing the same thing we are,” Wells said. “Casing Murphy, staking out the neighborhood as quietly as he can.”
“Because if you’re right, then we have to throw everything out. Murphy’s not involved. The killer’s on the outside. Unless Whitby’s put a contract out on Murphy. Which makes even less sense.”
“I’m telling you, this is the guy.”
They decided not to go after him at the house. They had no authority to make an arrest, and if the guy pulled a weapon, they risked getting the real-estate agent hurt and alerting Murphy’s guards. Instead, they would have to chance tailing the Tercel. Wells guessed the guy, whoever he was, was staying at a low-rent motel in D.C., a place that would take cash so he didn’t have to use a credit card.
They split up, positioned themselves at intersections on Braddock Road, which ran between Kings Park and the Beltway. If they missed him, they would have to alert Murphy’s guards to watch for a black Tercel. But Wells much preferred to find the guy himself, figure out who he was, before getting the agency or the Feds involved.
For an hour, Wells sat in a bank parking lot on the corner of Twin-brook and Braddock, watching the lights change. The Tercel didn’t show. He wondered if they had lost the guy, or if maybe he’d been wrong all along.
Then his phone rang.
“I got him,” Shafer said.
Fifteen minutes later, the Tercel was on the Beltway, Wells and Shafer behind. They crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge east into Maryland, then turned north on 295. The driver kept in the right lane at a steady fifty-eight. Probably he was worried about being pulled over in a car with fake plates. But caution made him an easy tail.
At Route 50, the Tercel turned west, into D.C., over the narrow, sluggish Anacostia River. Wells felt a faint thrill as he crossed over the bridge. He would always remember meeting Exley at the Kenilworth gardens, barely a mile from here, on the night that Omar Khadri had called him to New York. Exley. He didn’t know how to leave her behind. And yet he had. Maybe he just needed a cute New Hampshire cop who would take him on hikes and bust his chops when he retreated too far into himself. Maybe he needed to give that a try, anyway.
Two miles west of the Anacostia, Route 50 became New York Avenue, a rambling strip of liquor stores, strip clubs, fast-food restaurants, and cheap motels. Surveillance here was trickier. Shafer jumped the Tercel, so that they would at least have a chance at him if he made a light that Wells missed.
Just past Montana, the Tercel turned into the parking lot for the Budget Motor Inn. Wells cruised by in time to see the Tercel pull into a spot in front of room 112. Ten minutes later, Wells and Shafer were sitting down the block at a KFC.
Shafer had insisted on buying a four-piece dinner special, giving Wells the dubious pleasure of watching him eat. As he chewed, he spun the drumstick like an ear of corn. Disgusting but efficient, like so much that Shafer did.
“Sure you don’t want some?”
“Yes,” Wells said. Though he hadn’t eaten KFC in a long time and the chicken looked tasty. Terrible, but tasty. If that combination was possible. “When do we call the cops?”
Shafer laughed. A piece of chicken, or some chicken-like substance, flew from his mouth, landing on Wells’s hand. “Good one.”
“Then could you finish that, so we can go in?”
“He’s not going anywhere, and we’re not going in until after midnight.”
“He could go after Murphy before that.”
“This guy’s careful. He’s not moving until he’s sure.”
“Then I’m going home for a while, pick up some things.”
“Like what?”
“Are you really asking me that? In the middle of a restaurant?”
“It’s a KFC.”
“Things we might need.”
“And it’s finger-licking good.”
“Do not lose him, Ellis. You lose him, I might use those things on you.”
“You promise?”
Wells took the rest of Shafer’s chicken and left.
THE BUDGET MOTOR INN didn’t have a lobby. It had a waiting room, like a doctor’s office, if the doctor worked in Mogadishu. Wood-grain veneer on the walls and thick bulletproof glass protecting the front desk. A sign taped to the inside of the glass explained, “Credit cards or cash only. No checks. No exceptions.” The guy behind the glass was in his late twenties, black, with a shaved head and Urkel-sized black glasses. He barely looked up from his battered copy of Fight Club as Shafer and Wells walked in.
“You want one bed or two?”
“We don’t want a room,” Shafer said. He held up his CIA identification.
“Lemme see that.”
Shafer slid the badge under the glass. The guy frowned at it, handed it back.
“CIA? You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not allowed to do anything on American soil.”
“Everybody’s a lawyer.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m hoping to go to law school.”
Wells pulled out his own CIA identification, held it against the glass.
“John Wells? Mr. Times Square? Seriously?”
<
br /> Wells nodded.
“Where you been since then?”
“Hanging out on the beach,” Wells said. “Those fruity drinks with the umbrellas? Mai tais?”
“For real?”
“But now he’s back,” Shafer said. “And he’s better than ever. And he and I have business with the guy in room 112. Anything you can tell us about him?”
“You cannot be serious.”
Shafer slid two hundred-dollar bills under the glass. “For your college fund.”
“It’s law school.” The guy pecked at the ancient keyboard on his desk. “You’re gonna be disappointed. He’s registered under the name Michael Jackson.”
“He show ID?”
“Doesn’t say here, but probably not. You don’t have to if you pay cash up front and put down a three-hundred-fifty-dollar deposit. More than the whole room’s worth.”
“We’re going to say hi to him,” Wells said. “All we’re asking is that you ignore him if he calls you when we knock on his door.”
“What if he calls the cops?”
“He’s not calling the cops,” Shafer said.
THE TERCEL SAT in front of room 112, as it had all night, empty spaces to either side. Even with an RV taking up five spaces, the motel’s parking lot was only half full. But New York Avenue was alive with Saturday-night traffic, SUVs cruising by, pumping rap from behind tinted windows. A D.C. police car slowed as it rolled past, the cop inside looking curiously at Wells and Shafer. They ignored him and kept walking, and he disappeared. Wells didn’t want to be here for his next pass.
The noise from the street covered their approach. Wells loosened his jacket but left his pistol in his shoulder holster. He and Shafer were going in cold. They needed this guy alive. Wells reached 112 first, flattened himself against the wall, two big steps from the door. The window shade was drawn, the room silent and dark, lacking even the glow of a night-light.
Shafer stood fifty feet away. Wells counted five and nodded at him. Shafer walked noisily to the door, rapped his knuckles against its faded red paint. “Henry! ” he shouted. “That you, Henry?”
No response.
Shafer knocked again, harder. “Henry! Come out, you two-timing prick! ”
“Get lost!”a voice inside yelled back. Wells had heard it before but couldn’t place it.
Shafer hammered away like a woodpecker on meth. Inside, someone stood up and shuffled to the door. “I’m not Henry,” the voice said, more calmly now. “Please go away.”
“Henry! I’m gonna call the cops!”
The door opened a notch, still on the chain. “Henry’s not here.” The tip of a pistol poked through the gap between the door and the frame. “And you need to leave.”
“I am sorry,” Shafer said. “So, so sorry.” He raised his hands and stepped away.
The pistol disappeared and the door swung shut—
But even as Shafer backed off, Wells was moving. He rocketed forward, popped his shoulder into the door, carrying himself back to those crisp fall afternoons at Dartmouth. Two decades gone now. He’d been quick enough then to speed-rush from the outside, tearing past linemen and tight ends on his way to the quarterback. He wasn’t that fast anymore. But he was fast enough.
His shoulder hit the door and he felt the chain pull taut and then snap loose, the screws that held the fastener popping out of the wall. The door made solid contact with the man inside, and Wells got low and kept pumping his legs—never stop moving your legs, that’s where the power comes from, Coach Parker always said. The guy on the other side of the door grunted and went down, and Wells swung open the door and stepped in.
THE ROOM WAS DARK, illuminated only by the glow from the parking-lot lights outside. The man inside sprawled in the narrow aisle between the bed and the wooden chest of drawers that sat against the wall. Wells still couldn’t see his face. The man scrabbled back, groped for his pistol.
Wells leapt down on the man. As he landed, slamming chest against chest, he saw the face of his enemy.
Steve Callar.
Wells’s shock was so complete that for the first time in his life he dropped his guard during a fight. Callar took advantage. With his free hand, his left hand, he clubbed Wells twice. Wells sagged but held Callar’s right arm, the one that held the pistol. Callar heaved his body convulsively and tossed Wells off. They lay sideways beside each other, close enough for Wells to see every pore on Callar’s face, smell the sweet-sour whiskey on Callar’s breath. Then Callar rolled on top of Wells. Wells rolled with him, trying to use his momentum to flip Callar another one hundred eighty degrees and put him on his back. But the space between bed and dresser was too cramped and instead they got stuck side by side again.
Wells chopped at Callar’s face with his right forearm, the trick that had worked on Jim D’Angelo. But he didn’t have the momentum, and anyway Callar was fighting with a rage that Wells couldn’t match. Wells outweighed Callar by at least twenty pounds, all muscle, and yet Callar was giving him everything he could handle—
Before Wells could finish the thought, Callar twitched sideways and pushed his left leg between Wells’s legs and drove his knee into Wells’s testicles.
The agony was so enormous that Wells couldn’t move. Tears filled his eyes, and the air came out of his body. Somehow he kept his grip on Callar’s right arm as Callar tried to tug down the pistol. Callar grinned at him, a hard, crazy smile, and began to wrench his arm free. Wells was holding on with his left hand, his weak hand. His strength was ebbing. In a few seconds more, Callar would have him. Callar felt it, too. His grin widened.
Wells saw the opening.
He shifted his legs to block Callar from kneeing him again. And he hooked his right thumb into Callar’s mouth and pulled back Callar’s cheek. Callar’s face twisted and he snapped his jaws shut, trying to bite Wells’s thumb. But Wells pushed his thumb in farther and tugged until Callar’s cheek tore—
Callar screamed, a desperate bleat. He thrashed his legs and swung his head sideways and scratched at Wells’s face, long fingernails clawing into Wells’s face, as Wells pulled and Callar’s cheek tore further—
When he had done as much damage as he could, Wells pulled his thumb out of Callar’s mouth and made a fist and slammed it into Callar’s jaw, a miniature uppercut. He hit Callar once, twice, and a third time, and then shifted his grip to wrap his hand around Callar’s neck, Wells’s superior strength taking over now. He clenched Callar’s neck tighter, tighter. Callar’s face turned red and his eyes rolled up and foam mixed with the blood running from the corner of his mouth and—
THE LIGHTS FLIPPED ON, and someone pounded on Wells. Shafer.
“Don’t kill him, don’t, don’t.”
Wells rose to his knees and straddled Callar’s chest and relaxed his grip. Callar’s mouth opened, and the blood burbled out of his torn-up face. Wells and Shafer watched him breathe. Then Shafer grabbed the pistol from his limp right hand. Wells picked him up and put him on the bed. Shafer pulled two sets of cuffs from his jacket and locked Callar’s wrists together and then his ankles. The adrenaline evaporated from Wells, and he sagged against the wall.
“We need to go.”
“No,” Shafer said. “Rooms 111 and 113 are empty, and there’s no sirens.”
“That’s Steve Callar.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen his picture. He doesn’t look much like it now.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You should go in the bathroom, get yourself cleaned up.”
WELLS FLICKED ON the fluorescent lights and saw a berserker in the bathroom mirror. A thick, red trail of blood, maybe his own, maybe Callar’s, streaked down under his eye. Spit and phlegm covered his cheeks. Wells turned the tap and dabbed at his face until the wash-cloth was red. Traces of blood lingered, but he looked mostly human. He pulled down his jeans and boxers and winced as he touched his swollen testicles.
Shafer opened the bathroom door, holding a bottle of peroxide and a box of Band-Aids from the fi
rst-aid kit in the car. His jaw slipped open as he saw Wells poking at himself.
“Now’s really not the time, John.”
“Funny, Ellis.”
“Next time wear a cup.” Shafer tossed Wells the bottle and the Band-Aids, grabbed a towel, and left. Wells patched up his face as best he could and pulled his pants back up and walked shakily into the bedroom.
“He’s gonna need stitches,” Wells said.
“Stitches? You just gave him a new mouth. He’s gonna need a face transplant, like that French lady.” Shafer pressed at the bloody gash on Callar’s face with the towel.
“It’s not that bad.”
“Remind me never to get in a fight with you.”
“You need reminding of that?” Wells put a hand on Callar’s shoulder. “I still can’t see how he got to his wife.”
Callar groaned and stirred. Wells stepped away, drew his Glock, tried to keep his hand steady. Callar’s eyes blinked open. He poked his tongue though the hole in his face.
“You found me.”
“Saw you cruising the neighborhood,” Wells said.
“But you didn’t know it was me. Until you got here.”
“That’s right.”
“Anybody else know? FBI? Or is it just us chickens?”
“It’s over now, so why don’t you tell us what happened?” Shafer said. “Why you killed your wife and everyone else. And how you got from Phoenix to San Diego and back without anyone noticing.”
Callar laughed, a huffing laugh that turned into a vicious cough. Blood and spit exploded from his mouth, and a gob of phlegm landed on the television on the dresser.
“I’ve been telling you all along, and you still don’t get it,” he said. “My wife killed herself.”
The Midnight House Page 30
