by Jeff Gunhus
“Tell me,” he said, his voice lowered to a whisper, “what did it feel like right before the accident? What did it feel like in those few seconds before the impact? When you knew what was coming but couldn’t stop it. How did it feel to be so close to death?”
Easy, Allison, don’t blow it.
Allison slowly turned away from the man’s intense stare. She took a drink from her beer as if considering her answer carefully. Finally, she turned back and said, “Shitty. It felt shitty.”
The man’s face went blank with disappointment, but then the skin at the corners of his eyes creased as he smiled and then started to laugh. “That’s perfect,” he said. “I couldn’t agree with you more.” He raised his beer toward her. “To the shittiness of the near-death experience.”
Allison finished off her first beer and eyed the second one waiting for her. Decision time. She’d worked on this meeting for a week, but it would be for nothing if she pushed him too far. She made her move and stood up.
“Where are you going?” the man asked.
“It’s late and it’s been a rough one. I’m heading back to my place for a long bath and an even longer sleep.”
“Fair enough. It’s been a pleasure. Perhaps I’ll see you down here again.”
“Maybe,” Allison said, trying to sound offhanded. She called out to Mick and Stan that she was leaving and they waved good-bye. She put her hand lightly on the man’s shoulder. “Have a good night. Enjoy those beers.”
“I never caught your name,” the man said.
“Allison Davenport.”
“Nice to meet you, Allison. My name’s Arnold Milhouse. People call me Arnie.”
She shook his outstretched hand and hoped he couldn’t feel it trembling. “Good to meet you too, Arnie. See you around, OK?”
“You bet.”
Allison left the bar, second-guessing herself for leaving so quickly. She wondered if she should have spent more time talking to him. But getting the attention of a millionaire required not giving him what he wanted, making him want more, making him start the chase. She felt confident that she now had Arnie Milhouse’s attention. It was just a question whether he would take the bait. As she walked down the street, she tried to dredge up the confidence she needed to see her plan through.
She reached into her purse and felt her Glock 44 on the bottom right where it was supposed to be. The feel of a loaded gun always made her feel better.
Still, she fought down a surge of panic that she was blowing her first real chance to make a connection with Arnie. She just hoped she read him right and hadn’t ruined her chance to find out if he really was who she needed him to be.
Back at the bed-and-breakfast, she ran hot water in the sink. Taking the bar of soap, she manically scrubbed the hand that had touched Arnie. She always knew that before it was all over she would have to get her hands dirty. After years of waiting and planning, she was prepared to do whatever it took to succeed. Still, part of her clung to the idea that after it was over, no matter what she had to do, no matter how she compromised herself, she could somehow remain clean in the end. As she scoured her hands raw trying to erase the sensation of Arnie’s touch still crawling across her skin, she doubted whether that was possible.
She threw the soap in the sink and turned off the water. It didn’t matter. Success was the only thing she cared about. The only thing that mattered. She had to keep telling herself that. Eventually, she hoped she would start to believe it.
CHAPTER 5
Arnie Milhouse watched Allison leave the bar, appreciating the view as long as he could before the door swung closed behind her. He knew talking to her was a mistake; there was too much going on right now to get distracted. Still, the heat from her brush with death had emanated from her and made meeting her irresistible.
He chugged down the last half of his beer and chuckled to himself.
“Either it was all that, or maybe you talked to her because she was so hot,” he said under his breath to the reflection staring back at him, the guy in the suit and the loosened tie looking pissed off that his partner had gone chasing skirt when there were important issues to be dealt with. Arnie paid his tab and headed out.
The storm left as fast as it had come, blown out in a few hard hours of rain and thunder. The humidity, bad enough without the rain, coated the world with a thin sheen of moisture. Arnie had been farther south on business many times and knew that humidity could be worse, but that was no consolation as sweat started to build on the nape of his neck as he walked to his car.
He decided the threat of more rain was low, so he pressed the button on the dash of his BMW M6, lowered the top, and then drove out of the Main Street parking garage. The low murmur of the powerful engine filled the garage. Arnie rubbed the stick shift around the palm of his right hand, relishing the subtle vibrations from the transmission. He had never been a car nut until he purchased his first high-performance toy to celebrate his first win in the stock market. Back then it had been a Mustang, only because it was the first dealership he had come across. The Mustang had less finesse than many of the cars he’d owned since then, but it was full of piss and vinegar. He still had the Mustang in the garage, but now he was into whatever was new. Whatever was fast.
The tires of the M6 chirped as he rounded the corner out of the parking garage and headed up Main Street to Church Circle. He took the circle fast enough to lose traction in the rear wheels. He corrected the fishtail into the turn onto College Avenue, roared past the back side of the governor’s mansion, and yanked a hard left onto Bladen. From there he opened up the powerful German engine and headed for the on-ramp to Route 50 and the Bay Bridge. He was sure the accident on the bridge would be cleaned up by now, so he figured he had a thirty-minute trip back to the house.
Arnie pushed Pink Floyd into the CD player and cranked the volume. Top down, saying fuck-all to any posted speed limit, wind hitting him from all directions, he sang along with Roger Waters.
Tomorrow was going to be hell. July 17 was always the worst day of his year. And for that day only, he wished he could have exactly what Pink Floyd was singing about. For one day he didn’t want anything to do with the vivid intensity that had once saved his life and now ruled it. Tomorrow, he wanted just what the song and the bottle in his hand promised. “Comfortably numb” sounded just fine to him.
Half an hour later he made the turn down the quarter-mile stretch of driveway leading to his home. He slowed down a little, partly to keep from running into one of the deer on his property, but mostly to extend the time he had left on his trip.
The road was lined with trees on either side, so that when it finally opened to the circular drive that curved in front of his home, the effect was like a curtain being whisked back from a prize on a game show. And that was exactly how Arnie thought of the house: a ten-thousand-square-foot waterfront prize awarded to him for having the balls to play it big in the stock market of the roaring nineties. The fact that there wasn’t a “For Sale” sign at the front of the drive was his prize for being smart enough to pull his money out before the tech crash.
While the dumbasses around him had taken margin calls with trembling hands (and occasionally concluded that the only way to answer the call was with a firearm to the head), Arnie sat on the sidelines like Scrooge McDuck, swimming in his stack of cash, tut-tutting at the people around him pissing away their fortunes. Then, once the dust settled, after the real damage had been done and the panic of weak minds had run its course, he swooped in on the carrion and snapped up positions to make another fortune in the recovery.
And now they wanted to take it all away from him.
Arnie pulled into the four-car garage that stood detached from the home but joined by a covered breezeway. He turned the engine off and remained in the car, listening to the click and pop of the engine cooling down. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest and replayed f
or the hundredth time his meeting earlier that day.
CHAPTER 6
The call from the FBI was unexpected. Arnie had been questioned by police before and always found it exhilarating. But the FBI? The fucking FBI? That was a different potato altogether, wasn’t it?
The agent was polite, almost embarrassed that he had been sent on his task. He called Arnie’s home first, which Arnie knew was a good sign. If they had something solid, something real, the Bureau didn’t extend a courtesy call. No, they banged down the front door wearing flak jackets, guns blazing. On the phone, the agent said there were some questions he needed to ask, that somehow Arnie’s name came up in a case he was investigating. Arnie lied and said he was going to DC on business anyway the next day, and he’d be happy to meet the agent in town.
Old Ebbit Grill was a favorite of the Washington in-crowd, the power elite, as they preferred to be known. Located across from the Treasury Building, one building away from the White House, Old Ebbit Grill fed presidents, cabinet secretaries, and every manner of rising and falling star for the last five decades. Dark wood interior, lots of brass, deep booths where information could be whispered in false confidence to reporters, where dirty liaisons could begin and end, where state secrets could be sold over a nice pinot noir. It was the perfect fixture in a city of deals and people on the make.
The agent had been sitting at the bar, a half-full bottle of Pellegrino in front of him. Arnie picked him out immediately. A JCPenney suit in an Armani world. The agent glanced to the front door every few seconds, obviously nervous, probably uncomfortable, Arnie suspected, to even be in the same building with the booze lined up behind him while he was on duty. He was young, fresh off the farm. That was a good sign. They were sending the kid out on a busywork assignment. Just running down sketchy leads no one else thought were worthwhile.
But that was what made Arnie nervous. Something had brought the kid to him. Something had brought the FBI into his life. That was unfuckingacceptable.
“You must be Special Agent Dewitt.”
The agent grinned and looked around. “I’m that obvious, huh?”
Arnie returned the smile. “Not at all. Frank, the manager, is a friend of mine. He pointed you out to me. That’s all. I’m Arnold Milhouse. You can call me Arnie.”
“Yes . . . great . . . I have a booth ready for us. Or would you rather walk?”
“Are you going to tell me some bad news? Something we shouldn’t discuss in polite company?”
Agent Dewitt blushed; he actually blushed right there in front of everyone.
Arnie slapped him on the back. “Well, whatever it is, I’m sure it’s nothing these walls haven’t heard before, right? Let’s grab that booth.”
Arnie ordered a glass of wine and made small talk with the agent until the waiter returned.
“Mind if I order something to eat?”
“No, go right ahead.”
Arnie ordered the chicken Caesar. “And anything my friend wants.”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Agent Dewitt said.
Once the waiter left, Arnie sat back in the booth and took a sip of his wine. “All right, Agent Dewitt. How can I help the FBI today?”
“Sir, first let me assure you that the questions I ask you today will be held in confidence and are part of an ongoing investigation. You are in no way currently a suspect in the case I’m about to discuss.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” Arnie said and laughed, even as his stomach fell away at the word currently. Did it mean something? Was it just standard procedure?
“I tell you this because, although you are not a suspect, you obviously still have the right to have an attorney present.”
“Look, I appreciate all the foreplay, but let’s just get down to it, shall we?”
Agent Dewitt nodded and pulled out a pad of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Do you now or did you ever have a relationship with a Suzanne Greenville?”
Suzanne Greenville. How the hell did they bring that to his door so quickly? Lunch suddenly got a lot more interesting.
CHAPTER 7
Arnie was aware of interrogation techniques employed by the police. He made it his business to know. For the last thirteen years, he used every available research tool to educate himself about police procedures and forensic evidence. When he thought about that first night in the convenience store, he shuddered to think how naïve he was to believe that watching a few TV shows prepared him to evade the police. It was only dumb luck and a couple of overworked detectives assigned to his case that let him get away with it.
The Internet made things easy with details about blood splatter patterns and crime scene analysis as simple to find as travel tips for a beach vacation. The most informative were the tell-all books from some of the FBI’s most accomplished profilers, who provided step-by-step descriptions of their greatest cases along with commentary on what mistakes the criminal made. To Arnie, it was like having a blueprint to follow. The key wasn’t just having the information; it was knowing how best to use it.
Even a greenie like Agent Dewitt here would know the basics. Words didn’t mean much; it was the body that mattered most. Liars looked up and to the left, accessing the creative sides of their brains. They looked down in shame. They fiddled with things in their hands when they were nervous.
Arnie picked up his fork and twirled it in his hand. He looked down at the table, then up as if clicking through his mental Rolodex of names.
He tried for embarrassed and nervous, but on the inside alarm bells were screaming for him to jump up from the table and get the hell out of there. Better yet, stab his fork through the little FBI fuck’s right eye, scramble his brain a little, then get the hell out of there.
He shook his head. “Suzanne Greenville? Doesn’t ring any bells.”
Agent Dewitt nodded in . . . what? Sympathy?
“Mr. Milhouse, I understand that this can be”—he leaned forward and whispered—“can be a little embarrassing. I have reason to believe you know very well that Ms. Greenville was a call girl who worked here in DC and Northern Virginia. A very highly paid call girl.” He let that sink in for a few moments, obviously hoping Arnie would fill in the dead space. “See, Ms. Greenville had a long-term plan, call it her retirement plan. She was working on a tell-all book and she had plenty to tell.”
“I still don’t see how . . .” Arnie pretended to be flustered.
“Ms. Greenville knew her story would be better with pictures, so she had a camera behind the bedroom mirror.” Agent Dewitt slid a small photograph from his notebook, keeping it facedown on the table. “Would you care to see yours?”
Arnie felt the heat rise to his face. He shook his head “no” and watched the agent push the photo back into his notebook.
“All right, obviously I did know Suzanne. I’m sorry. I just . . . you know . . .”
Agent Dewitt held up his hands. “It’s all right. Trust me, this same conversation is happening all over DC this week. A few being conducted by people far above my pay grade, if you know what I mean. Some people deny it even after we show them the pictures. Afraid of wives, I suspect.”
“I don’t have to worry about that.”
“You’re one of the lucky ones, then.”
“My wife died in an accident twelve years ago. In fact, tomorrow is the anniversary of her death.” Arnie put on a distant look, then stared down at his hands.
The agent cleared his throat. “I apologize, Mr. Milhouse. I didn’t know.”
Arnie let the tense silence drag out, gathering the agent’s guilt and sympathy as chips to be used later in the game. He suppressed a smirk at the thought that his no-good, waste-of-a-human-being wife had been useful for something at last.
Finally, the agent continued. “So, you did know her, then?”
“I used her on two different occasions.” Three occasions
actually, but he didn’t plan to talk about the last one.
“Do you have the approximate dates?”
“This was over a year ago.”
“Ballpark it for me.”
“I’d say the first time was the end of July last year. The next was a month after. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Agent Dewitt suppressed a smile, but he didn’t answer the question. He wrote something in his notebook. “Any other times?”
Arnie shook his head. “No, like I said, just twice.”
“Did she talk about any of her other clients with you?”
Arnie shook his head. “That sort of thing doesn’t exactly instill confidence, you know? When you do something like that, you’re betting on discretion.”
“That discretion makes this investigation more difficult.”
“So, what’s going on? What did she do? Blackmail someone with these photos?”
“Suzanne Greenville was murdered three weeks ago. Rather gruesomely, I’m afraid. We have reason to believe it’s linked to other murders.”
“You mean like a serial killer.” Arnie’s stomach muscles tightened. He felt a rush saying the words out loud.
“Something like that.”
“I haven’t read about it in the papers.”
“It’s public information. Just buried on page fifteen or something. Most people don’t realize that on any given day there are dozens of serial cases being worked by the FBI.”
“That many?” Arnie asked.
“They really only flare up with the public if there’s an angle.”
