“Let’s see,” she said. “A ’ninety-five Harley?”
“That’s it.”
“It says here that it was taken to the police yard.”
“The one in Pikesville.”
“Correct.” Her fingers hit some keys. “Wait. There’s a second entry. Yesterday. The police were done with it, so they called us to pick it up and take it to a shop.”
“Which one?”
“Ironman Cycles in Gaithersburg.”
Before riding to Gaithersburg, Ben stopped at Bob’s BMW Motorcycles in Jessup. The service manager came outside with a writing board and balked at the sight. “Ouch! What happened to you?”
“Hit a deer.”
“Looks pretty bad.”
“The deer looks worse.” Ben beckoned him over and showed him the indicator for the ABS, which was blinking. “It malfunctioned, and the front wheel locked up on me.”
He knelt by the GS and poked around near the engine. “There,” he said. “I see it.”
“What?”
“Wire’s detached from the ABS module.” He drew a screwdriver from his breast pocket and fiddled with it. “The bracket’s still tight. Looks like someone pulled out the wire. Whoever did it knows what he’s doing. Did you cheat on your wife or something?”
“I’m not married.” Ben watched him reattach it. “Maybe it got caught on a branch while I was off-roading.”
“Unlikely, but you never know.” He stood and turned the ignition off and on. “Should work fine now.”
“Thanks.” Ben pointed to the left side of the GS, which was scraped badly. “Please go over everything else, make sure it’s safe to ride. I’ll bring it back next week to fix the damage.”
“What insurance company do you have?”
“Progressive.”
“Let’s verify it’s mechanically sound. Give me thirty minutes or so.” The service manager pushed the GS into the shop and maneuvered it onto a lift.
“I’ll be in the showroom,” Ben said.
Lined up across the showroom were over twenty new BMW motorcycles, ranging from a light off-road model to a luxury touring bike. The walls were covered with shelves of parts and accessories. In the rear was Bob’s museum of classic motorcycles and racing paraphernalia, which Ben never tired of ogling. But today’s visit was all business. He needed new gear to replace what had been ruined by the crash.
One of the guys came over to the apparel section and helped him pick out new boots, pants, jacket, and a Schuberth helmet. He paid with a credit card, cringing at the amount. But it was better to buy new protective gear than to fix broken bones and torn muscles.
He changed into the new riding outfit, discarded the taped-up boots and torn suit, and went back to the service area to watch through the glass wall as his wounded GS was being tended to.
The rear part of the building at Ironman Cycles, behind the service area, was a cavernous warehouse filled with new and used motorcycles of various makes—Harley Davidson, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Ducati, and BMW. Some were still in shipping crates, others assembled and ready for the showroom up front. Price tags dangled from used bikes, whose owners must have traded them in for a new ride.
The far-back corner was reserved for wrecks. A makeshift cardboard sign showed a sad face, the mouth curved down, the eyes dripping with tears. About ten wrecked motorcycles, some standing, some too badly damaged to remain upright, lying on the ground like maimed horses.
Zachariah’s stars-and-stripes Harley Davidson was no longer the proud motorcycle it had been prior to flying off the Camp David Scenic Overlook. It was a heap of twisted metal. Two plastic bins held the many parts that had been broken off in the crash or were removed by the police during its search. The seats had been sliced open, the inner padding strung out. The side bags were open, the leather cut in long lines. Even the tires were cut, their internal lining exposed.
But Ben had come here to look at one thing.
The filling hole on the gas tank was missing its cap. The odor of gasoline was still strong. Ben tried to fit in the cap he had found at the accident site. The oversized thread matched the size of the hole, but the tank had been deformed by the impact, and he could not screw on the cap. A close examination of the thread confirmed his suspicion that Zachariah had modified the tank to enlarge the hole.
Ben tried to insert his hand through the opening, but the sharp edges cut into his skin. The next bike over was a sporty Yamaha with a smashed front end. It was equipped with a chain drive, which was properly greased. Ben rubbed his hand against it until it was smeared with dark grease. Trying Zachariah’s gas tank again, with a bit of force he managed to slip his hand into it.
Watching his hand disappear into the hole, Ben cringed, expecting to feel a snake bite or mouse nibble, but there was nothing inside but a puddle of liquid at the bottom of the tank. Turning his hand, he felt up the inside of the tank all around. There was nothing other than a thin layer of goo from fifteen years of sealed containment. He felt the sharp edges inside the bent-up metal tank, which until days ago had been a perfect, teardrop-shaped gas tank in a shining American flag pattern.
Voices came from the other end of the warehouse.
Pulling his hand out, Ben shook it to get rid of the drops of gasoline.
The voices were getting closer.
Glancing at Zachariah’s Harley for the last time, Ben saw no other place where a floppy disk could have been hidden safely and not been discovered by Porter’s thorough search.
Walking away, his shoulder rubbed against the cardboard sign with the sad face, and he paused. Zachariah Hinckley had not been the kind of a man to modify a well-designed cap without a good reason.
Halfway down the warehouse, two salesmen were busy with a shipping crate. One of them noticed Ben, who smiled and said, “Just looking around.”
Without waiting for a response, he made like he was examining one of the motorcycles. When the two salesmen refocused on what they were doing, he headed back to Zachariah’s Harley. Shoving his hand back into the gas tank, he pressed downward through the puddle of gasoline and the layer of goo. The bottom felt soft.
Sliding his hand farther in, he managed to get his fingers to the edge of what felt like a loose floor inside the tank. Digging under it blindly, he forced the flat piece to rise until it stood up inside the tank. Feeling under it, Ben touched plastic-type material that was wet and gooey. He worked to separate it from the real bottom of the gas tank, digging his nails through years’ worth of accumulation.
Finally loose inside the tank, it felt like a small package, padded with multiple layers, the outer of which was disintegrating.
“Hey there!” One of the salesmen approached. “Can I help you?”
“I’m good.” Struggling to maintain a grip on the small package, he bent it while pulling his hand out through the hole. He half-turned to hide his hand and the item he had just pulled out of Zachariah’s gas tank. “What a tragedy—such a beautiful machine! What happened to this Harley?”
“Heard it was fatal,” the salesman said. “Are you in the market for a Harley? Winter is the best time to buy a bike, you know.”
“I was thinking about it.” Slipping his soiled hand and the gooey package into the pocket of his new jacket, Ben grinned. “My girlfriend’s busting my balls to buy a car, not a second bike.”
“Uh oh!” The salesman laughed. “Time for a new girlfriend!”
When Ben arrived at Ray’s place, the vehicle gate swung open, the steel door unlocked, and the wooden front door opened for him as if by magic. He went downstairs to the basement, where all the plasma screens on the wall showed the same photo: Candidate Joe Morgan in a set of white Mormon undergarments.
“You like?” Ray waved her arms grandly. “I’m thinking of adopting it as our corporate screen saver.”
“Very attractive,” Ben said. “Did the Latvian d
o it for you?”
“For free? Are you kidding? I found it on Google Image—could be authentic, you know? Snapped through Morgan’s bedroom window or a hotel room.”
“Photoshop.” Ben pointed at the neck. “See the line here? It’s a headshot of Morgan combined with a stock photo of a Mormon man in sacred undergarments.”
“Too bad.” Ray reset the monitors. “How’s the witch hunt going?”
“Ha.”
“You look like hell,” she said. “Are you back to playing football?”
“How did you guess?”
She pointed at his forehead. “What’s this?”
“New makeup I’m trying.”
One of the monitors showed the view from the surveillance camera outside, focusing on the black-and-yellow GS upfront. “And your beast looks like road kill. What’s going on?”
Ben told her what had happened yesterday at the overlook—the meeting with Palmyra and the psychiatrist, the empty floppy disk pack on the cliff side, the kick that almost sent him plummeting to his death, and the abortive chase.
“Gee,” Ray said, “if you were James Bond, the series would be over after the first installment.”
“Thanks for your sympathy and support.”
“Did you get any photos?”
“Of the Ducati?” Ben shook his head. “A useless side-view, out of focus. He was real fast. But I might have something else. It’s from the dead guy’s Harley. Haven’t opened it yet.”
Pulling the flat package from his pocket, he walked over to an ancient laundry basin, which Ray now used to stock up on dirty dishes. He rinsed some of the goo off the package, exposing soft, gray material that had already dissolved into tatters. He removed the outer layer, exposing another, then another, seven or eight layers in all.
Inside was a floppy disk—a black plastic disk resembling a small turntable record, encased in a flexible plastic sleeve. The Radio Shack paper sticker on the sleeve had deteriorated, flaking off when Ben touched it. He couldn’t see any handwriting on it, but it might have disappeared over time.
“Five-and-a-quarter inch.” Ray held it between a finger and a thumb. “Late eighties, early nineties. Big institutions and government agencies used it well into the nineties. The smaller diskettes with the hard plastic shells came next. Remember those?”
“Vaguely. What can we do with it?”
“Upload it!” Ray drove her power wheelchair around the line of computer servers.
Ben followed her. “You have a floppy drive?”
“I can handle punch cards too.” She turned on the lights over a wooden counter piled with electronic odds and ends. “Please, step into my office.”
He watched her boot up an old desktop computer and slip the floppy disk into a drive. The machine made grinding sounds. On the screen, an icon appeared. Ray clicked twice, and the document opened.
User ID: Zachiboy
Password: DCMTDBS
File: BFD111995
“Wait a minute,” Ben said. “There must be more. Look for another file—lists of names, personal information, service records.”
Ray clicked back to the directory. “This is the only file on this floppy.”
“Can’t be. Maybe it’s encrypted?”
Trying two other methods of searching for data, Ray shook her head. “There’s nothing else. Sorry.” She reopened the document. “He’s giving us a user name and password—the keys to open a file. But where is that file?”
“Another floppy disk?” Ben groaned. “That would be number four.”
“Four?”
“The first disk I saw was the one Porter removed from the body. He showed me a porn DVD the next day, but I bet he switched them, though what he had found was a decoy. The second one was found by Palmyra Hinckley at home. She tried to open it, but the computer froze. She destroyed it. Probably another decoy. Now we have the third.” Ben snapped a photo of the screen and glanced at the rear of the Canon to make sure it was legible. “This is a clue to the location of the fourth floppy disk.”
“Good luck.” Ray ejected the floppy disk. “This dead guy is screwing with you. And for what? The Mormons’ baptism for the dead? It’s old news.” Tossing the disk into a garbage can, Ray rolled back to her desk. “Stop wasting your time.”
“Then why did they send the Ghost after him? And after me?”
“I don’t know. It may be unrelated—his accident and your kick in the head. There’re some very upset dudes out there from your previous investigations.”
Ben looked at her. “Come on!”
“Okay,” she said. “Even if the Mormons are trying to intimidate you to make you drop the investigation, I think they’re overreacting. Even if you managed to find that floppy disk with Morgan’s hand scribbling, this story will die in forty-eight hours.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve released thousands of news items and watched them rise and fall on the charts of Internet hits. This one isn’t going to catch fire. Every religion has its quirky rituals. Americans are tolerant, especially with something that’s been known a long time like the Mormon posthumous baptisms. Old news, no news.”
“And the cover-up? The Ducati attacks? Isn’t that hot news?”
“Only if they manage to kill you.” Ray laughed. “If that happens, make sure to send me a photo of you gasping for your last whiff of air.”
“I’ll put it on my to-do list.” He headed upstairs.
“Make sure it’s a good photo,” she yelled. “Don’t blur your face!”
Chapter 41
They shook hands, and the lawyer beckoned Ben to a sitting area. The corner office was larger than the average living room. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooked Capitol Hill on one side and the White House on the other.
A secretary brought in fresh coffee and sugar cubes—white and brown.
Lawrence Ginsburg was an elegant man in his seventies. He wore a blue buttoned-down shirt, a red-striped tie, and matching suspenders. He poured a cup for Ben. “Sugar?”
“Thanks.” Ben popped a white cube into his mouth and broke it up with his teeth, sucking on it.
“Isn’t it getting too cold to ride?”
“I use a heated jacket.” Ben showed him the loose wire and connector. “Why did you agree to meet with me?”
Ginsburg chuckled. “Not because I expected you to pay my usual fee.”
“Which is?”
“Eight hundred dollars per hour for local matters. Ten thousand a day plus expenses when I’m travelling.”
“Do clients actually pay that kind of money?”
“Willingly.” He poured himself coffee in a mug that bore the firm’s name in gold letters: Shulger Roberts & Ginsburg. “Have you considered law school?”
“Not for me.” Ben sipped from his cup. It was good coffee.
“Why not?”
“I’m too honest.”
Ginsberg laughed.
“No offense.”
“None taken. Many of my colleagues fit the stereotype.”
“But not you?”
“I was cut from a different cloth.”
“Tell me,” Ben said.
“The mail room,” the lawyer said. “Right here in this building. That’s where I started, making seventy-five cents per hour. The firm was called Shulger & Roberts back then. I worked here through college and law school. Other than the time I clerked for Justice Brennan, I’ve been here my whole adult life—a very fortunate life.”
“A busy life too. Your name shows up in every major legal battle before the Supreme Court.”
“That’s how I learned to respect the media.”
“You looked me up?”
“We have to, ethically. Whenever I get a call, my secretary does a conflict check of the person’s name to make sure no
ne of the other three hundred lawyers here represents you or someone suing you.”
“I’m not involved in any legal matter.”
“Not anymore.” The lawyer glanced at his notes. “We found one case from about a decade ago. Ben Teller vs. Maryland High School Football League, et al. Verdict for defendants. Must have hurt to lose the case.”
“My shoulder hurt, and my pride—being carried out on a stretcher in the middle of the state championship game. The case, however, was painless.”
“Sports lawsuits are hard to win.”
“I wouldn’t sue. My insurance company sued on my behalf to recover medical expenses.”
“A subrogation suit.” He glanced at the notes again. “You majored in English at College Park, earned a master’s in political science from Johns Hopkins, did an internship at the Baltimore Sun, declined a job at the paper, now in your fourth year as a freelance journalist-photographer with a nose for corruption scandals and car wrecks.”
“But you still decided to see me.”
“I figured you’re onto one of my corporate clients.”
“Fair enough,” Ben said. “But actually, I’m here about one of your pro bono clients—the Gathering of Holocaust Survivors.”
“A wonderful organization.” Ginsburg put down his cup. “What do you want to know?”
“I’m researching the proxy baptisms issue.”
The lawyer’s face hardened. “Oh.”
“Weren’t you the lead counsel in negotiating a settlement agreement with the Mormons?”
“A settlement? Three settlement agreements. And three hundred thousand broken commitments. Dealing with the Saints is like trying to shake hands with a fish!”
“That’s harsh.”
“Let me show you something.” He turned to the door. “Barbara!”
A moment later, his secretary appeared in the door with a writing pad. “Yes, Mr. Ginsburg?”
“Please bring in the timeline from the Gathering vs. LDS file.”
When she left, he gestured around the vast office. “You see all this? Fancy, isn’t it?”
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