by John Lutz
“That’s the storage shed,” she said. “Stop here.”
They were a hundred feet away from a small wooden building with a flat shingled roof and boarded-up windows. “I can get closer,” he said.
“This is fine.”
He stopped the van, got out, and came around to open her door. Ava had gotten out, too. White head bent, Tillie was taking a key from her purse with a shaky hand. Ava reached for it. “You can stay here, Grandma. We’ll get it. Just tell us what to look for.”
“No, I may have to poke around a bit. Bring my walker.”
It took both of them to extract her gently from the car. Five minutes of patient effort and she was standing, leaning on the walker. All of them were breathing hard. She said, “I’ll be right back.”
Laker and Ava exchanged a baffled look. “I’m coming with you,” Ava said.
“Wait here, Ava.”
“I’ll come,” he said. “You’re going to need me to carry whatever it is, aren’t you?”
“No. It’s just an old book.”
Leaning on the walker, she slid it slowly forward and hobbled after it. After a few steps, she looked at them over her shoulder. The blue eyes were imperious. “Get in the van, you two. Turn on the air-conditioning. This’ll take a while.”
They obeyed. He was sweating, and the cool draft from the dashboard vents felt good. They watched as Tillie drew slowly nearer to the storage building.
Ava sat hunched with anxiety. She murmured, “If she falls she’ll never recover. But she’s so stubborn . . .”
“Sure I shouldn’t go after her? I hate to think of her trying to move boxes.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t want to give it—this book, whatever it is—up until she absolutely has to. She’s been very discreet. Ever since Granddad’s death, people have been after her to write her memoirs. You can’t imagine the persuasion agents and ghostwriters have applied. The advances publishers have offered. And of course various professors and archivists have been after her papers. But she’s kept her secrets.”
Laker gave her a sideways look.
“What?”
“Before, you said you thought it was a family photo album. But now you think it’s something a good deal more, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
Tillie had reached the door. Leaning over her walker, she unlocked it and pushed it open. Entering, she was lost from view.
Laker glanced at his watch. “I’ll give her a minute, then go offer to help.”
“She won’t welcome—”
A brilliant flash. The roof leapt up from the building like a cork from a champagne bottle. The boom of the explosion and the shock wave hit them, shaking the van on its springs. Flames burst from the doorway.
“Oh God—” Ava had her door open, one foot on the ground.
Laker pulled her back as shingles and planks rained down on the van, bouncing off its hood and windshield. Ava wrenched free and ran toward the building. Laker ran after her and tackled her. She kicked at him but couldn’t break his grip.
Raising his head, he squinted at the building. Already the fire was roaring. Soon its heat would be unbearable. He shouted, “Ava, it’s no use.”
She ceased fighting him. He lifted his weight off her.
After a moment she struggled to her knees, then to her feet, and allowed him to draw her away.
3
There had been eight men working on the estate that afternoon, all employees of Waxman Landscaping, Inc. It was their bad luck to be swept into the maw of a major incident investigation.
Local police questioned them on the spot, then herded them into the shade of a magnolia tree to await the state police. Upon arrival, the state police put them in a van and took them to headquarters, where they were questioned again. Their hands were examined for chemical traces left by handling explosives. Results were negative. Their IDs and records were checked. Again results were negative; the four Mexicans turned out to be legal immigrants. Then they had to wait, in case the FBI wanted to question them. But it turned out the FBI wasn’t interested.
The whole landscaping crew was a disappointment to the investigators. None were suspects; none were even useful as witnesses. Earl Richardson, the only one who was working close enough to the storage shed to see the explosion, was subjected to more interrogation than the others. When the transcripts were examined, it was noted that his answers were remarkably consistent, if otherwise uninteresting. He was a meticulous man, or more likely, an unimaginative one.
When the men were released, reporters and cameras were waiting for them in the parking lot. Those who had stamina, or wanted more attention, began to answer questions one more time. Earl Richardson slipped away into the gathering dusk.
His destination was the Rest Ease Motel, a quarter of a mile away. He checked in and paid cash. In his room, he went straight to the bathroom sink and looked at himself in the mirror. It was a long, appraising gaze.
A less-interested observer would have said there was nothing much to see.
Earl Richardson was a slim man of average height. He had thick brown hair under a sweat-stained John Deere cap, brown eyes, a craggy face. His sunken cheeks were stubbly with a few day’s growth. His muscular hands had dirt-rimmed nails and an assortment of scars.
He removed his shirt. He had a workingman’s seamed, brown face, neck and arms, but a pale torso. He wet and soaped a washcloth and scrubbed vigorously. The tan washed away in the sink. So did the dirt under his nails, and the scars on his hands. Then he opened his mouth, revealing teeth that sprouted unevenly with gaps between. He yanked out the prosthetic. His own teeth were white and even.
Next the cap came off. He turned on the faucets and bent over, and brown hair dye followed the suntan down the drain. His own hair was black. Once he shaved, the craggy, undernourished face looked fine-boned and faintly Asiatic, a long, slightly drooping nose and high cheekbones. Finally, he popped brown contact lenses out of his eyes, which he rubbed with evident relief.
Then he opened his eyes. They were blue.
He used one of them to wink at the image in the mirror.
4
The trouble with the other intelligence agencies, Sam Mason would say, with only minimal provocation, was that they were way the hell out in the suburbs, surrounded by tall fences, so people never saw anybody all day but their fellow spooks. That’s what made the CIA and the NSA so shy. They preferred to gather intel via satellite. If they needed to get closer, they sent a drone.
The Gray Outfit doesn’t do signals intelligence, image intelligence, or measurement and signature intelligence. We do human intelligence, Mason would conclude, heavily saucing the jargon terms with sarcasm. So we’re in the city, where the humans are.
So small and well-connected was the Outfit that Mason had been able to find room for its headquarters on Capitol Hill itself, in a Victorian-era townhouse within sight of the great dome. The bronze plaque by the door said, “National Alliance of Auto Parts Distributors, LLC.”
His office on the second floor had been a back bedroom. Its only window faced the blank wall of the building across the alley. That helped thwart electronic eavesdropping. Mason wasn’t the kind of guy to waste time gazing out a window anyway.
At the moment, he was gazing across his desk at Laker. “The report is in from the Maryland State Police,” he said.
There was no report on his desk. Mason hated papers for their tendency to fall into the wrong hands. Computers could be hacked, and don’t even talk to him about the Cloud. He kept everything in his head. His highly polished mahogany desktop held only his mountainous reflection. He was a bald, thick-necked man with wide, sloping shoulders. He looked like a professional wrestler when he didn’t have his bifocals on.
“Apparently there were paint cans and cleaning solutions stored in the shed, which was unventilated. Nobody goes in there and fumes built up. Tillie’s walker must have scraped the concrete floor and caused a spark. A tragic ac
cident.”
Laker stroked his beard. “Does anybody believe that?”
Mason didn’t answer. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in his high-backed leather chair, gazing at a stained-glass panel in the ceiling. He was ascetic about most things, but he liked a comfortable chair.
“It was a bomb and a cover-up,” Laker said.
“Easy, Laker. I wouldn’t say cover-up. The report is impressive. The state cops did a good job. They just didn’t find anything.”
“Meaning the killers knew their business.”
“If you’re right, they took a hell of a chance. Tillie North was a famous lady. With a lot of friends in this town.”
“The word was out. About her wanting to pass something on to her granddaughter. Somebody decided it was worth taking a chance to prevent that. I suppose nothing was found at the scene?”
“We’re talking about a wooden building, containing a lot of cardboard boxes full of paper. By the time the fire trucks got there it had all burned. Nothing left but shingles and gutters and nails.” Mason’s lips tightened. “And some teeth. A few bone fragments.”
“Anybody have a theory what Tillie meant to pass on?”
“Everybody has a theory. The Norths were the confidants of presidents. Every secret that’s been floating around this town for the last five administrations, they figured Tillie was about to spill it.”
“A lot of people are relieved, then.”
“Nobody is going to say that. But some folks I’m not going to name think an investigation would have major downside risks.”
“They’re not going to get their way. This isn’t over.”
“No. The pressure’s on. Somebody’s going to have an attack of conscience. Or make a stupid mistake. Which in this town often comes to the same thing.”
“I keep thinking about how Tillie—Mrs. North—was acting right before she died. Some of the things she said didn’t make sense. I have questions.”
“I read your report.”
“I’d like to have a talk with Ray Hilton. Try to get the FBI into this thing.”
“No, Laker. Weren’t you listening? Somebody’s going to make a stupid mistake, but it won’t be us. We can’t afford mistakes.”
“How about attacks of conscience?”
“Can’t afford those, either.”
5
That evening, a storm broke the heat wave that had oppressed Washington for weeks. Ava North, standing on Laker’s threshold, had damp hair and a streaming raincoat. He wondered, but didn’t ask, how she had found out where he lived. It was well off the beaten track, an old building in Anacostia, near the Navy Yard.
Her lower eyelids were puffy and red-rimmed, her face pale. She had been doing a lot of crying and not much sleeping. Ignoring his offer to take her coat, she stepped past him. He went to sit on the sofa while she walked around, looking at the views.
It took a while. Laker had the whole top floor. There were windows all around, and no interior walls except the one that turned one corner into a bathroom. Strong shifting winds shook the old window sashes in their frames and drove the raindrops at one window or another, making a sound as if somebody was throwing fistfuls of pebbles against the glass.
“Somebody told me you lived in a converted loft,” she said. “But this is just a loft.”
“The neighborhood isn’t fashionable enough to attract pro rehabbers. We’re all do-it-yourselfers in this building. It used to be a pin factory. If you pass a magnet over the cracks between the floorboards, you can still bring up a pin or two.”
She walked on. The lamplight from the sitting area no longer reached her. She was a willowy shadow against the city lights, head down, hands in her pockets.
“You look at people so hard, Laker. I can feel your eyes—tracking me, like you used to track a pass you meant to catch back at Notre Dame.”
He stroked his beard, wondering what she was doing here. But he didn’t say anything. He let her take her time.
She turned away from the windows, stepped into an area demarcated by low bookshelves that he used as an office. She inspected the treadmill with a platform on which rested his computer. “So you’re one of those trendy people who works at a walking desk. It keeps you fit, obviously.”
“I think best on my feet.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
She wandered over to a wooden platform, on which stood a teepee. The ceiling was just high enough to clear the tops of the stakes. “This looks like the real thing.”
“It is. Made by a full-blooded Sioux who respected his traditions. He started with deerskins. Terrific guy. Good friend.”
“He gave it to you.”
“Left it to me.” Laker hesitated. “He went back for his fourth tour in Iraq. It was one too many.”
“The teepee is your bedroom, I guess. You were one of those kids who were always pestering their parents to let them camp out in the backyard.”
“They didn’t mind, except when I wanted to do it in January.”
“The loft isn’t soundproofed. Neighborhood like this, you must get a lot of street noise all night long. Are you a sound sleeper?”
“No. But it isn’t noise that keeps me awake.”
She was approaching the area where he was sitting. A glass coffee table rested on a Persian rug with an intricate pattern and muted colors. Sofas and armchairs surrounded it.
“I’ve been busy the last few days,” she said. “Dealing with messages of condolence. Hundreds of them. Most of the people didn’t know Tillie well. She’d outlived almost all of her generation. They’re just taking the opportunity to pump me for information. Hot inside stuff. Or they’re angling for an invitation to the funeral. Rumor is, every living ex-president is going to attend. It’s become quite a hot ticket.”
She stepped into the light and stood looking down on Laker, still with her hands in her pockets. “Your phone message was different. You sounded genuinely sorry. More than that. Guilty. You’re thinking you should have saved her.”
“I should have been more alert. I used to be, every minute, for years. In the Middle East I wouldn’t dream of getting into a vehicle or entering an unfamiliar building without having it swept first.”
“For a bomb, you mean?”
He nodded.
“You think my grandmother was murdered. So do I.”
She sank down on the sofa opposite him. Sighed heavily. “But, Laker? It wasn’t your fault. You were driving an old lady around suburban Maryland. Why would you expect any trouble?”
“A lot of people knew what we were doing. Hashtag tilliebequest. I’m wondering how word got around so widely and so fast.”
“This is Washington and she was Tillie North.”
“Yes, but it had to start somewhere.”
“It started with Tillie,” Ava said.
“You mean she let something slip to people at the retirement home?”
“No question of letting it slip. It was deliberate. I’ve found out that the day before, she made half a dozen phone calls. They were to people who were likely to spread the word that there was something very special from her past that she was going to pass on to her granddaughter.”
Laker frowned. “She had decades of experience in feeding or starving the rumor mongers, whichever suited her purposes. Why would Tillie want Washington to know she was making you the heir to her secrets?”
“Washington already knew that. I visited her every week. She’d named me executrix of her estate. When she died, I would go through everything she’d left behind. So you have it backwards, Laker. She arranged this outing so everyone would know she had not passed on her most closely guarded secret to me. Not yet. She was about to.”
“You’re saying, she was offering someone the chance to prevent it from happening. Destroy the secret. Kill her.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why she insisted on going in the shed alone.”
Ava bowed her head. Laker got up and fetched a
box of tissues, which he put next to her. But she wasn’t sobbing. She just couldn’t go on.
He said, “My turn to say it. Don’t blame yourself.”
“It does me some good to recall how hard these last few years have been on her. Her body getting weaker, more pain-wracked all the time. It didn’t help that her mind remained clear, her memory sharp. She’d seen a lot of life. Too much. She was ready to go.”
A gust of wind shook the windows and made rain patter against the panes. He thought back to the drive to the house in Chevy Chase. Tillie had known she was going to her death. Had seemed resigned—more than that. Almost cheerful. Quizzing them about World War II code words. What had she been thinking about in her last moments? He said, “Would you like a drink?”
“I’m not much of a drinker. What would you recommend for an occasion like this?”
He went to the tall black safe where the pin company president had kept his cash. It was so heavy that subsequent tenants had just left it where it was. Laker had turned it into a liquor cabinet. He selected a bottle, brought it back, and poured two small glasses.
Ava sniffed hers suspiciously. “It smells like furniture stripper.”
“It’s Speyside Cardhu, a single-malt scotch. You’re supposed to—”
She threw her head back and upended the glass.
“God. It tastes like furniture stripper, too.”
“I was about to say, you’re supposed to sip it.”
“Pour me another. I’ll try again.”
He did and she lifted her glass. “Matilda Brigham North. Hail and farewell.”
They clinked glasses. Laker said, “It was a good death. I’m sure she felt that way. Whatever her secret was, it will never be known. You’re safe. It’s over.”
Ava gave him a long, level look over the rim of the glass. He felt lightness in the pit of his stomach and a ripple down his spine. In a low voice she said, “It’s only beginning.”
“What?”
“Grandma wasn’t trying to keep me safe. She knew no one could keep me safe. She was just giving me a headstart.”
