The president had supplied him with a copy of all the documents related to Robert Lee’s death and the preliminary investigation. Although a number of jurisdictions had been involved, the paperwork wasn’t overwhelming, a sign that thus far in the thinking of the investigators, there was nothing unusual about the case.
The initial radio transmission had been picked up by the Coast Guard at 1902 hours and relayed to the sheriff’s office in Easton, Maryland. A boat had been dispatched, arriving on the scene at Bone Creek Cove at 1927 hours. The eyewitness who’d reported the accident directed divers in their effort to locate the victim. The body was pulled from the water at 2010 hours.
The sheriff’s people made a tentative ID from both the boat registration and a driver’s license found among the personal belongings aboard the victim’s sailboat. When they discovered that they had the president’s legal counsel under a blanket, they called the FBI, who took over the investigation from there.
The autopsy showed a depressed skull fracture and acute subdural hematoma beneath the right temporal bone, consistent with a blow to the head. No other wound or unusual marks had been noted. The lungs were filled with brackish salt water. (An accompanying lab report indicated the water in the lungs was chemically and biologically similar to samples taken from Bone Creek Cove.) The cause of death had officially been listed as drowning.
According to the statement given by the only eyewitness, a woman named Jonetta Jackson, Lee had been sailing across the inlet, north-by-northwest with the wind. She happened to be following him, a hundred yards back and slightly east, also running with the wind. They were the only boats in the area.
There’d been a lull in the breeze. Both sailboats had come to a stop, sitting dead in the water. Then the wind picked up again, only it had shifted, coming now from almost due north. As she prepared to come about, her attention was focused on her own boat. When she glanced again at Lee’s sailboat, she saw him begin to stand, his attention apparently grabbed by something on the shore. At that moment, the boom swung around and caught him in the head. She saw him go overboard.
Ms. Jackson had sailed as quickly as she could to his location. By the time she reached his boat, he had gone under. She immediately radioed the Coast Guard. In her statement to the FBI, she indicated she was a very good swimmer, and she had entered the water, hoping to locate Lee. Unfortunately, the murky water of the inlet prevented her from seeing anything below the surface. She’d held her position until the sheriff’s boat arrived, and she’d directed the divers in their efforts. According to the notes of the agent who’d interviewed her, she seemed quite shaken by the whole experience.
The Bureau had done a routine background check on Jonetta Jackson. The eyewitness was a consultant with a firm called Hammerkill, Inc. that specialized in high-tech security issues. Prior to that she’d been a special agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a veteran of twenty years, who’d been cited for meritorious action at Waco. Her love of sailing was well known. Her credentials as a witness were impeccable.
Given all the evidence, the FBI was comfortable with a determination that Robert Lee’s death had been the result of a tragic accident and nothing more.
Looking at the evidence himself, Bo thought the same thing.
However, the president was convinced otherwise.
Bo walked to the window. He had a good view of the nation’s capital, a city that quivered in the heat of the August afternoon in a way that reminded Bo of a mirage in a movie. It was a city built on promise, on compromise, on inspiration and empty rhetoric both, on history poorly remembered and easily bent, and once in a while, on good people with the best of intentions who battled against the distrust, misdirection, and deceit that was politics as usual.
He thought about his meeting with Dixon. What had he sensed from the man? Decisiveness. Sincerity. Calm in the face of a difficult situation. All these character traits bumped against something in Bo, something that had to do with how he felt about Kate. He knew it would be easier to feel for her what he did if he believed the man who was her husband was terribly flawed and badly tarnished.
But he liked Dixon.
So, assuming that the president was correct and Robert Lee was onto something, what could it be?
Jonetta Jackson agreed to meet Bo at a Starbucks on Dupont Circle. She was a tall woman, muscular, with sharp dark eyes. As she spoke of her experience on the inlet of Chesapeake Bay, it was obvious the tragedy still affected her.
“I didn’t know who it was. Sometimes I wonder if I had, would I have tried harder, reached him sooner.”
“How far away were you?”
“Less than a hundred yards. I kicked on the engine and motored over as quickly as I could.” She shook her head. “Even so, when I reached his boat, he’d already gone under. I dove. Jesus, I went down a dozen times, but that water was so murky.”
She was dressed in a dark blue skirt and blazer, with a cream-colored blouse. She looked like an athlete, like a woman who could have pulled Robert Lee to safety if she’d been able to find him. She sipped from the cappuccino Bo had bought for her, and she nibbled on a croissant.
“You radioed for help right away?”
“Before I went into the water. I knew I’d need medical backup at the very least.”
“You said in your statement that he was alone. You’re certain?”
“I was close enough that I could see his boat pretty well. He was alone.”
“You also said something seemed to have caught his attention. Any idea what?”
“Like I said, the wind came up suddenly and shifted. I was busy with my own boat, preparing to come about. When I looked back at him, he was just beginning to stand, looking toward shore. I saw that big boom swinging, and I knew what was going to happen. I even opened my mouth to yell, but it was too late.” She let out a deep breath, as if she’d just gone through the experience again. “So, no. I didn’t see what he was seeing. I was watching him.”
Bo took a sip of his iced coffee. “When you were ATF, you were cited for valor at Waco.”
“Yes.”
“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“We got the order to go. Then all hell broke loose. They fired on us from the compound. One of my fellow agents went down. I just pulled him out of there.”
“I understand you were wounded yourself at the time.”
“I didn’t realize it then. I was pretty intent on getting Alex out.”
“Alex?”
“The other agent. We partnered on occasion.”
“Alex. Did he make it?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.” Bo listened to the ice crack in his coffee. “Somebody tipped them off, right?”
“Yeah. But hell, we knew that going in. It was a mistake. A criminal decision.” She sounded bitter. Bo wondered if that had anything to do with her choice to move into the private sector.
He wanted to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand, Robert Lee. “On the map, Bone Creek Cove appears small and out of the way. What were you doing there?”
“Probably the same thing as Lee. The bald eagles. Because the inlet’s isolated, there are a number of bald eagles that nest there. They’re quite beautiful.” She lifted her coffee cup, but before she drank she said, “Not a lot of people know that. I’d just as soon you keep it to yourself. I’d hate to see that lovely place overrun.”
“Maybe that’s what caught Robert Lee’s attention. He saw the eagles.”
“Maybe.”
“Did you see any eagles that day?”
“No. That day all I saw was a man die.” She pushed her croissant away, barely touched. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Go right ahead.”
“You’re Secret Service. The investigation was FBI. What’s your interest?”
“His proximity to the president. We just want to be on the safe side.”
“A good idea,” she agreed.
After t
hey’d separated, Bo thought about Jonetta Jackson. He figured if she hadn’t been able to save Robert Lee, probably no one could.
chapter
thirty-five
Bo pulled up to the northwest gate of the White House at 6:00 P.M. The Uniformed Division officer on duty checked him through. Bo drove to the West Wing, where Lorna Channing awaited him.
They’d agreed that it might be best for Bo to conduct whatever investigation he felt was necessary within the White House in the evening when many of the staff had gone home for the day. Even so, there seemed to be an enormous amount of activity in the West Wing.
Bo knew the White House employed more than 1,600 personnel. He’d heard it described as a small kingdom made up of innumerable fiefdoms, each with its own rules and ruler. Within such a setting, he could easily imagine intrigues. As he and Channing proceeded to the second floor, Bo caught glances directed his way. Eyes latched onto him and held in a way that made him feel exposed. How secret was his mission, he wondered.
Upstairs, Channing paused at a modest outer office. “Working late, Dorothy,” she said to the secretary there.
The nameplate on the desk said D. DELVITTO. She was a small woman, and when she glanced up from her computer screen, she looked tired. “There’s so much to do these days.” She gave Bo a quick once-over.
“I’m picking up some items from Bob’s office,” Channing said.
Dorothy Delvitto nodded somberly. “The president left word you’d be dropping by.”
Channing led the way inside and Bo followed, closing the door behind them.
He stood in the middle of the room. He didn’t know where to begin, so for a moment he simply tried to take in the place, hoping to get a feel for how Robert Lee might have worked, how he might have organized himself, where he might have put certain things. All of which would have been easier if Bo had the slightest idea what he was looking for.
Lee was a neat man. The office was clean and orderly. There were shelves of books dealing with law and with congressional issues, several filing cabinets, and near the window, a hutch with a computer, monitor, and printer. In one corner sat a large safe. A big desk was central and, except for a couple of neat stacks of papers, was free of clutter. To the left on the desktop, set in a gold frame, was a photograph of Lee standing proudly beside his docked sailboat. Another photograph, in a much larger frame, occupied a place to the right. This one was a family portrait, Lee and his wife flanked by two sons who very much resembled their father. They all looked happy with life and with one another.
“Where do we begin?” Lorna Channing asked.
“Let’s see what he’s got on his desk.”
Bo began by checking the stacks of papers. Memoranda, mostly, composed but lacking Lee’s signature initials. Not sent? Nothing of their content leaped out at Bo as significant to his purpose. Channing shook her head as well.
They went carefully through the desk drawers and drew a blank there.
“The computer?” Lorna Channing said.
Bo went to the hutch and turned on the PC. It booted and asked for a password. Bo looked at Channing, who just shrugged her shoulders.
“Ask Ms. Delvitto if she knows,” he said.
When she came back, she said, “Maggie.”
Lee’s wife. It made sense. Bo typed in the name, but was denied access.
“He must have changed it without telling his secretary.”
“I wonder when,” Channing said. “And why.”
Bo sat back a moment. “What are his sons’ names?”
“Nick and Cal.”
Bo tried them both, then Nicholas and Calvin. No luck.
“Any pets?”
“Not that I know of.”
“All right,” Bo said. “Let’s check the file cabinets.”
He abandoned the computer and, with Channing, went through the cabinets, drawer after drawer. He didn’t hope to stumble across anything marked as obviously as Senator Dixon’s Conspiracy, but he hoped something might click. Nothing did.
He turned his attention to the big safe, which occupied a whole corner of the room. It was a Wilson, bolted securely to the floor, and locked. “Do you know the combination?”
“No,” Channing said. “Maybe Dorothy does.”
She stepped outside and returned a minute later.
“Aside from Lee, only Ned Shackleford and John Llewellyn know the combination. I’d rather not alert them to what’s going on.”
Bo sat in the chair at Lee’s big desk, made a steeple of his fingers, and thought for a while. He looked at the family portrait and considered how Lee’s death hadn’t just robbed a man of his life. It had destroyed the lives of those who loved him as well.
He looked at the photo of Lee with his beloved sailboat and recalled the documents and reports he’d gone through that dealt with the investigation of what had happened on the inlet of Choptank River. He nodded to the computer.
“Try Gryphon,” he said, and spelled it out.
“Gryphon?”
“It’s a mythical animal. Body and hind legs of a lion, head and wings of an eagle.”
Lorna Channing stepped to the keyboard and typed. “We’re in,” she said. “How did you know?”
“It’s the name of his boat.”
First Channing did a search for files whose label names contained the words William Dixon. There were none. Next she searched for files that contained William Dixon in the text. There were several dozen.
“This could take a while,” she said.
“Try files created since the president put Lee on the senator’s tail.”
There was only one, a file labeled W. D. Schedule.
“Let’s see what it is,” Bo said.
A document several pages in length came up. The upper right-hand corner of each page contained the notation William Dixon.
Bo said, “What do you make of it?”
Channing looked the pages over. “I’d say they’re Senator Dixon’s daily schedules. Meeting agendas, appointments. They don’t look like much.”
“Sometimes important things don’t. Let’s print it out.”
When the printer had finished, Bo gathered the pages. “I’ll take these and see if I can make anything of them. Are you sure you don’t want to contact Shackleford or Llewellyn about the safe?”
Channing shook her head. “The fewer eyebrows we raise around here, the better.”
It was nearing seven-thirty when he returned to his hotel. He hadn’t eaten since he’d lunched with the president, and he was hungry. He ordered a chicken Caesar from room service, and while he waited for his food, he took a careful look at the documents he’d taken.
On the surface, the information provided seemed pretty mundane. As Lorna Channing had surmised, they were simply the daily schedules for Senator William Dixon over a period of three days. They began the day after the president had asked Lee to look into the activities of his father, and they ended Friday, the day before Lee was killed. They didn’t appear to be formal schedules, the kind Dixon’s office might prepare, but had been created, perhaps, from the information such schedules might provide. Bo scanned the list of appointments and meetings. The senator seemed to be very conscientious in greeting his visiting constituents. A substantial portion of each morning was dedicated to this. The senator also met with several lobbyists every day. He attended committee hearings. He had physical therapy sessions, and an appointment with his dentist. There was one meeting Bo couldn’t quite decipher. It was simply noted as “NOMan. 3:00 P.M.–5:00 P.M.” Apparently Robert Lee had had trouble with this one as well. Parenthetically, to the side, he’d queried, “(National Operations Management?).” For some reason, the name rang a bell with Bo, but he couldn’t quite place it. He made a note to check what the hell NOMan was.
By the time he finished his dinner, he’d gone over the pages of scheduling several times. Nothing of particular importance leaped out at him. Still, he hoped there was something he was missing.
Bo knew what his next move should be, but he was reluctant to do it. He should check Robert Lee’s home for anything he might have left there. However, Lee was to be buried the next day, and Bo didn’t want to intrude on the family’s preparations, nor did he particularly relish the thought of wading into all that grief. On the other hand, if the family knew the concern, they’d probably want him to pursue his investigation with all due speed and thoroughness. Or that’s what he told himself, anyway.
He called the White House and was connected with Lorna Channing. Because of the uncertainty about the integrity of White House phone communications, she and Bo had agreed to exchange information only when they met in person. Bo didn’t explain what he’d found on the computer, but he was clear about what he now needed. Channing agreed to help.
• • •
Robert Lee’s home was outside Alexandria, along the south bank of the Potomac, in an area where the houses were big, mostly brick, with yards the size of football fields, and surrounded by stately trees that had probably been around when the British still ran things. Several cars sat parked in the drive when Bo pulled up. He walked a long sidewalk to the house. The door had a black wreath hung on it. Night had come. The wide porch was lit by a fixture styled like an old gas lantern. Moths bumped against the glass. Bo rang the bell.
A white-haired man answered the door. He wore a black knit shirt and black slacks. His face wore a black expression.
“Yes?”
“I’m Special Agent Bo Thorsen. Secret Service.” He held open his ID.
The man looked at him blankly. “What do you want, Agent Thorsen?”
“I understood the White House would call about my visit.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Grandpa.” A kid, maybe seventeen, stepped up beside the older man. He had brown hair and brown eyes, like Robert Lee. Under other circumstances, he might have had Bobby Lee’s famous smile as well. Bo recognized him from the family portrait on Lee’s desk in the West Wing. “Mom got a call. She knows someone’s supposed to be coming to get some things from Dad’s office. She said to let them in.”
The Devil’s Bed Page 24
