Lethal Politics

by Bob Blink

  Her staff was rapidly dwindling, not that it mattered because the only task that remained and mattered to her was on hold until the new government was installed at the beginning of the new year, and then she would have a much more peripheral role in anything that might be done to improve the system. Had Nancy Craig been the winner, Toshiko could have looked forward to some meaningful advances, but neither of the present candidates had indicated anything that suggested meaningful support for completing the job of bringing comprehensive medical care to the United States. She'd talked honestly with her key staff some weeks ago, just after she'd informed the President she was dropping out of the race, and warned them they should seek alternate positions rather than hang on expecting the government to be concerned about their individual futures. Her time in the spotlight was definitely over, and they should recognize as much.

  Toshiko couldn't help the sour scowl that was a regular fixture when she was forced to come to the White House, but she was still the Vice President and as such had certain duties, some of which required her presence in the building. Today, the small joint-party meeting hadn't even been called by the President, but was one that she couldn't, in clear conscience, avoid, even though she knew it would be a half-dozen boring hours of interparty squabbling. So here she was.

  She was greeted by several familiar faces as she walked through the hallways toward the conference room where the meeting was to be held. Surprisingly she smiled. Sometimes she forgot that she did have friends here, people she genuinely liked. These were people trying to do the right things and not the political choice, regardless of whatever party was occupying the White House.

  As she was escorted across the lobby, she spotted Joe Thomas scurrying her way. She had always liked Joe, an incredible hard working individual who never shirked his duties. They had always gotten along well, and she recalled the better days during the last election when Joe kept them abreast of the state of their chances, and who had celebrated the win with them. His mouth was smiling, but she could see that his eyes were tight and she wondered if things weren't going as well for the President's re-election as she had been hearing.

  "Toshiko," he said, giving her a hug, a liberty not many would have felt free to take with the country's Vice-President. "You don't come here anymore," he added.

  "I'm old news," she said honestly, and with a grin that she reserved for people that she really liked.

  Joe shook his head as Toshiko examined him.

  "Is something wrong," she asked, unable to hold the question in. The problems of the White House weren't really her concern anymore, but something that affected a friend like Joe were a different matter.

  Joe nodded, his eyes a bit glassy at the question.

  "There's no way you could know, but we got word just a short time ago that Cindy is dead," he said, his voice hoarse making his words slow to come out.

  Toshiko had expected all manner of possible problems, but was totally unprepared for what she'd just heard. She feels the breath being knocked out of her. Cindy was always a little bit distant, but a genuinely nice person. Toshiko had felt the barrier between her and the young woman was based on the tension between Toshiko and the President, and Cindy hadn't wanted to be caught up in the cross-fire.

  "Cindy? The President's Cindy?" she asked.

  Joe nodded, his eyes even more wet.

  Toshiko had a million questions.

  "How? Where? What happened? How is the President taking it?

  Joe held up a hand to ward off the barrage.

  Talking slowly as he tried to respond, Joe forced out as much information as he had.

  "Murdered," he said. "Last night apparently. We don't have all the details. She was killed in what looks to be a home invasion robbery at her mother's house in New York. They police are still investigating, but when they realized who the victim was they called the White House."

  "Why was Cindy in New York?" Toshiko asked. "Was there trouble between her and the President?" It wasn't any of her business and normally she wouldn't ask such a thing, but for some reason the image of Cindy guiltily talking to CC that day came into her mind.

  "Nah, but he has been swamped and focused on the election. I don't think they really have much time together, so maybe she decided it was a good time to visit. I don't really know. It's a shock to all of us."

  "My god!" Toshiko muttered. "What about her mom?"

  "Apparently she was badly beaten, but not killed," Joe replied.

  Toshiko couldn't believe it. First Nancy Craig and now Cindy. Both killed. Both shot if Joe's information was correct. What was happening?

  One of her escorting agents tapped her shoulder and pointed at his watch, reminding her that she was going to be late to her session.

  "Let me know if you know anything more, will you please?" she asked Joe. "And tell the President I'm sorry. A lot of people didn't approve of their relationship, but I know he really cared for her. I half expected a Presidential wedding."

  Joe nodded as Toshiko was escorted away. All during the meeting she had difficulty focusing on the issues at hand. Her mind kept jumping back to Joe's unexpected revelation, and the day she'd last seen Cindy. She wasn't an intuitive person, but deep inside she had the inescapable feeling that the two deaths were somehow related. Maybe it was the timing. It had only been a few weeks since she'd been at Nancy Craig's funeral, and now another killing of someone in their political circle.

  Her thoughts jumped to the odd detective that had visited her. I need to tell him, she realized. Maybe I'm crazy, but he should know about the strange incident and the fact that Cindy was now dead. She wondered where his card might be. She hoped she could find it because she couldn't recall his name, only that he'd once been an FBI agent or some such. She hadn't really expected to ever need to contact the man, and hadn't really paid attention as to what she'd done with his phone number. She wished this stupid meeting would end so she could deal with what she viewed as the more important issue.

  Chapter 24

  Karl had had an extremely busy, but he believed he'd had a productive week. He had started by flying to Los Angeles and surveying as much of the crime scene as he could given his limited access and his constraint on not making his interest in the case known. Then he'd continued on to Northern California and met with Eric Craig to gather as much background on his wife's travel and campaigning activities as possible. Fortunately the man was unusually organized, and might have even been thinking of eventually writing a book on his wife's political entry before his life came tumbling down. He had detailed records of where she'd gone, how many people attended rallies, and everyone involved in her campaign. He was more than willing to share everything, thrilled that Karl was taking such an interest in the matter.

  Karl was immediately uneasy about the shooting itself. He had wandered the street behind the open patch where the sniper had hid, examining both the concealment and the view of the study that was available to the shooter where the victim had been killed. He had walked across the rocky ground to the sandy patch where the shooter had lain. Two factors stood out to him. First, the lack of any kind of forensic evidence that was recovered from the scene other than the obvious marks in the ground where the shooter and rifle had been located, and the spent casings that had been picked up a short distance away. Spending as much time as the shooter would have needed to do, it seemed surprising that no genetic trace material had been found. In his mind the shooter would have had to plan to ensure the site was so sanitized, which wasn't consistent with the suicide that followed later. Of course, that might not have been Bud Marshall's initial intention, and something that descended on him afterwards, especially since he'd killed more than his intended target. If indeed, he killed anyone.

  This last thought was prompted by the actual shooting dynamics. Mr. Marshall would have been required to fire his two shots in rapid succession, the first to take out the window, and the second to strike his target. The methodology was inconsistent with his shooting styl
e. Karl knew, because he had checked.

  The reports provided by his former partner had documented where Bud Marshall normally practiced his hobby, so Karl had made a point of visiting the desert range. The time had been well spent.

  "A careful shooter?" Karl had asked after his initial exchange with the range master at the desert facility.

  "The older, ex-cop, happy to be consulted on something after a number of years monitoring weekend shooters, nodded sagely. "He tried for the best groups he could manage," the ex-cop said. "He'd make a shot, stop and check with his spotting scope, then sit back as if thinking about what he wanted to do differently on the next shot, or pondering why his shot had hit where it had. He never said what he was thinking. He was somewhat of a loner. Sometimes he'd take five minutes between shots, even writing notes in a small notebook he always brought. I wondered from time to time if he was waiting for his rifle to cool, so each shot was from a weapon of the same temperature. Some people blast off a string of five or ten rounds in rapid succession and see how they group. Mr. Marshall was never like that."

  "Did you ever see him shoot rapid follow-up shots, maybe to see how they would group?"

  The range master shook his head. "Never. Not even when he switched over to that nice AR he acquired a few months back. Even that rifle he treated like it was a bolt action. Sometimes he'd simply feed a single cartridge into the chamber rather than load up the magazine."

  "But he was a good shot?" Karl asked.

  "One of the better shooters I've seen out here," the range master confirmed. "But very studied and rigid in his approach."

  Karl thought back over the conversation. So if Bud Marshall shot in that careful, meticulous way at the range, why had he chosen an approach for the killing that required him to act out of character, and make two shots in rapid succession? It didn't feel right. Of course, it was a feeling and not strictly proof of anything. Karl couldn't help remembering a line from one of his favorite movies when the hero replied to a question about his surprising performance with a handgun, which he never carried. The character had answered, "Just because I said I don't feel a need for a pistol, doesn't mean I don't know how", or words to that affect. Maybe Marshall had talents he didn't normally demonstrate, that he had confidence in when the need arose.

  Karl didn't buy it. Bud Marshall had no previous history of killing anyone, including no military experience. If he was planning a murder, it stood to reason he'd want to hone the very moves he'd need to follow to be successful, knowing he'd probably have a touch of buck fever for his first killing, and only one chance to carry it off.

  While his impressions of the shooting weren't enough to press his friend, he felt the other oddity he'd uncovered was more likely to show the investigations had missed something. Mrs. Craig had traveled extensively, and while his physically visiting the places she'd gone and stayed would take weeks, and be extremely costly, such travel would probably not be particularly productive. Hotels and the like weren't too cooperative about revealing information about their guests to random detectives, and while he still owned and carried his old FBI badge, it was a crime to use it pretending he was still an agent. Given his age he would likely to be disbelieved or cause someone to check back with the Bureau with unfavorable results for himself. No, he would save the badge for those rare, special occasions where it might open just the right door.

  Fortunately in this digital age, almost all of the information he sought was on the hotel's computer system, which for reasons that eluded him were almost always connected online to the Internet. Anything on the net wasn't secure, no matter how frequently you changed, or how cleverly you chose your passwords. Now while he knew his way around a computer with surprising skill for someone in his age group, a hacker he wasn't by any means. On the other hand, he knew a number of shady individuals that were. Some he'd encountered during his years in the Bureau, and a couple of others during his years of detecting after retirement. For a substantial number of Eric Craig's dollars he'd been able to enlist the services of one of the best of these. Not only did this get him the information he sought, but it did so in a significantly compacted time frame, eliminating the massive number of hours of travel the direct approach would have required.

  His request of the hacker was relatively simple. Verify that Nancy Craig and her people were registered at the hotels her husband's records claimed they stayed at, and then create a database of who else was registered at the same hotel during each of those dates. While anyone watching her didn't have to stay at the same place, Karl believed they would, at least some of the time, since that would maximize the observer's chance of learning whatever he was interested in.

  The results of this effort were interesting. He never found an exact matchup, and for a great many days, the larger portion over the period he was interested in actually, there was no match at all. But for certain periods, many days in a row, there appeared to be someone, or some ones actually, following the same itinerary as the candidate. Of course, it wasn't as straight-forward as that, but what he found made him all the more certain it was meaningful.

  There was never the same name that showed up each day at successive hotels. But there were several names that occurred too frequently. A Mr. Jones would have a reservation at one hotel, and a Mr. Smith at the next. Then there was a Mr. Baker, and finally, and less often, a Mr. Arnold. When he had the hacker dig deeper he discovered that whichever of the recurring names was shown, the reservation was always for two rooms, and there were three or four in the party. He concluded that they alternated who made the reservations in the case anyone started checking for a recurring name.

  Even more interesting was that the credit cards that were used to secure the rooms and cover all charges were issued by the same company, a company that mysteriously didn't exist. Except his hacker friend indicated that there were traces that suggested the company had existed, but no longer did. In addition, a search of rental cars and airlines showed that the same names and credit cards were used to book vehicles and flights that followed the route being taken by the campaign personnel.

  Certain now that he'd found a thread that he could unravel, Karl had the hacker do a search of hotels, motels, and other such accommodations in a five-mile radius of Mr. Marshall's home and of the Craig residence in Palos Verdes. He found nothing matching the names and credit card in the vicinity of Palos Verdes, but he found a pair of rooms a short distance from where Mr. Marshall had lived.

  This all should have been uncovered by the formal investigations conducted by the FBI and Secret service. Karl wondered if someone had the power to short-circuit the efforts of the Bureau, but then realized it was far more likely that those managing the effort had most likely suffered from preconceptions about who was guilty. If you entered the inquiry believing that Bud Marshall was the killer, then the kinds of things you directed your team to examine would be adversely affected. He'd have to speak with Kevin about how this could be missed. He could imagine a investigating team reporting that no repeating names were found, while Kevin and those in Los Angeles only saw the summary report from those in the field and not the detailed lists, allowing the connection to have been overlooked.

  It was time to contact Kevin for direction and provide Mr. Craig with an update of his findings. He had nothing conclusive, everything was subject to a bit of interpretation, and no real names to go with the mysterious trackers he believed he had found, but in his mind there was no question that someone had been monitoring both Craig's wife and Mr. Marshall, her supposed killer.

  That was when his cell phone rang.

  Chapter 25

  Detective Karl Baxter absentmindedly set his phone down as he considered the surprising call from the Vice President. Another killing! Sheer coincidence? Possible, but somehow he doubted it. Related to the Nancy Craig shooting? There was no way to know at this point, and he couldn't see why it would be, but then he considered the relationship between the dead woman and the President, who, as he'd told Mrs. Yan
o, was the person who had benefited the most from the candidates death.

  His previous thoughts of calling his former partner at the FBI were pushed aside. This needed to be followed up, and might provide something more solid to support his growing belief he had uncovered a real plot. The killings were too coincidental, and he didn't like the fact both looked to be something other than they might really be. But how to get a handle on what happened and who was behind the action? What was he going to learn by flying to New York and trying to get a look at the crime scene that the local police wouldn't have already discovered? It was a long shot, but he decided to call Ghost, his hacker friend.

  "I have more work for you," he said when Ghost picked up his phone. "This should be an easy one."

  "You're becoming my best customer," Ghost replied. "What can I do for you now?"

  "I know you said the company behind those credit cards had vanished, but could the cards still be active?" Karl knew from his FBI days that cards could continue to be viable so long as funds existed in an account to pay any incoming charges even if the phony business behind them had collapsed.

  "Sure," Ghost replied, confirmed what Karl believed. "You want me to check?"

  "Yes. I need to know if any of the four cards we discovered in the past effort have seen recent use, especially anything in the last couple of days."