D.C. Dead sb-22

by Stuart Woods

  “When did it happen?”

  “Between five and six this morning.”

  “Thank you for letting me know,” Stone said.

  “See you at seven.”

  “Yes.” Stone hung up and went back to the table.

  “You look kind of funny,” Dino said.

  “Well, I don’t feel very funny,” Stone said. “That was Fair Sutherlin, from the White House. The D.C. cops called her a few minutes ago and told her that Muffy Brandon was murdered early this morning.”

  “Where was Paul Brandon?” Dino asked.

  “In Chicago, sent by the president to attend a meeting.”

  “Too bad,” Dino said. “If he hadn’t had an alibi, we might have cleared two murders in one fell swoop.”

  “Fair said the cops said the two murders resembled each other.”

  “Well,” Dino said, “if you’re a murderer, and you’ve got a technique that’s working, why change it?”

  Holly burst out laughing. “You sound like you’re talking about somebody’s golf swing.”

  “Golf swing, ball-peen hammer swing, what’s the difference? It’s all muscle memory.”

  “Actually, it was a claw hammer,” Holly said. “At least that was the tool in the Hart murder. Lieutenant Padgett told me.”

  “Time for you to do me that favor again,” Stone said.

  “Call the D.C. cops?”

  “Right. It was Padgett who called Fair, so I guess he’s on the investigation.”

  Holly looked at her watch. “It’s pretty early,” she said.

  “Padgett is already at work, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She got up, went to the phone, made the call, and came back. “It’s almost exactly like the Milly Hart murder,” she said, “even to the appearance of the wounds.”

  “Who found her?” Stone asked.

  “A housekeeper, who was sleeping downstairs. She came up to start breakfast and found Mrs. Brandon in the entrance hall, in her nightgown.”

  Dino nodded. “Killer rings the bell, Muffy gets out of bed and answers the door, killer whacks Muffy and leaves.”

  Stone looked thoughtful. “Seems to me I remember from our visit to the house that there was an intercom for the doorbell, and they had a multiline business phone system, same system, as mine in New York.”

  “So?” Holly asked.

  Dino spoke up. “So, Muffy Brandon knew her killer. Why else would she get out of bed and go to the front door? If it had been the milkman or the newspaper boy, she’d have told him to fuck off and then gone right back to sleep.”

  “Good point,” Holly said.

  “I wonder how many other women Brix Kendrick was sleeping with?” Stone said.

  “Why do you care?” Holly asked.

  “Because it’s a group of women who are dying at an alarming rate,” Stone said. “I’d really like to know if there were others, so they can be warned.

  “How are you going to find out if there were others?” Holly said. “Brix is dead, and so are the only two other women you know he was sleeping with. So is his wife, who might have known.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to find out who the others might be,” Dino said.

  “Why not?” Holly asked.

  “Because if there were others and someone knew about them, we’d have heard about it at Fair Sutherlin’s dinner party the other night. The people there seemed to know everything.”

  “It’s Washington,” Stone said.

  34

  Todd Bacon went over his checklist again, reading it aloud so Tank Wheeler could see that he had forgotten nothing. He walked down the long table, pointing at items and checking them off his list.

  “Perfect, Todd,” Tank said. “You’re in the groove already. Now let’s get those two officers down here and go over it all with them.” Tank picked up a phone and spoke to someone. “They’re on their way,” he said.

  “Tank,” Todd said, “did you ever work with Teddy Fay when he was here?”

  “Sure I did. Teddy trained me. He must have put me through hundreds of quizzes like the one you’ve just gone through. Teddy was terrific at briefing agents, and a genius at anticipating what kind of equipment they would need. He invented a big chunk of the electronic stuff that we still use to equip field people.”

  “I heard that he was important to the department,” Todd said.

  “He was more than important, he was essential. The Agency tried everything to get him to stay on, but he retired right on time. He’d made a bundle inventing kitchen and household gadgets that got sold on television in the middle of the night, so he could afford a happy retirement.”

  “I heard that, too,” Todd said.

  “Funny, they’re still selling some of his inventions, and I guess they got someone to replace him who could come up with the gadget ideas, because you turn on the TV when you can’t sleep, and they’re selling them right now.”

  That notion stuck in Todd’s mind, but he had to push it to the back of his brain, because the two young officers arrived for their briefing. The man looked to be in his mid-twenties, though Todd knew he was probably older, and the girl appeared to be no older than eighteen or nineteen, though she was probably older, too. Todd thought it was brilliant casting for the mission.

  Todd and Tank introduced themselves, and Todd began the briefing. “Here are your passports,” he said, handing them each one. “You’ve already committed your legend to memory, and the dates in the passports are the ones you’ve memorized. You’re university students at Leeds, in the English Midlands, and you’re hiking in the mountains east of Beirut.” He picked up a small leather case and handed it to them. “This is a perfectly ordinary GPS navigator, made by Garmin, their latest model. When you activate it in Beirut, it will already have your track from England in memory, where a good tech can extract it. That will help support your legend, if you’re interrogated.”

  Todd held up two smaller, flatter boxes. “These are the GPS units that really matter. When turned on, they will broadcast an encrypted position that will tell us exactly where you are, even if you’re separated. You’ll hide this on your body: you, Jim, will glue it behind your scrotum; you, Carey, will put it inside your vagina. Those are the places least likely to be searched, but don’t count on their not being found. If you are arrested, hide them in the room where you’re being held and turn them on. If rescue is an option, these units will help make it possible.”

  He continued the briefing, holding up each piece of equipment, demonstrating it when necessary, then passing on to the next item. “Nothing you’re carrying will identify you as anything but what you say you are, from your passports to the contents of your wallets.”

  When he had finished the briefing, he held up two foil-wrapped condoms. “These are your way out, if everything goes wrong. Inside is a flat vinyl-encased container holding a small amount of a clear liquid. You can conceal it in your mouth, between the cheek and the gum. It won’t dissolve, but if you bite it hard, the liquid will spill, and you’ll have only seconds to live. As you were told in your training, it will always be your decision as to whether or not to use it, but if things get so bad that you no longer want to live, it’s there.”

  Todd watched as the two packed their clothes and equipment into their backpacks, then he shook their hands and sent them on their way.

  “That was good,” Tank said. “You didn’t sugarcoat it.”

  “How can you sugarcoat taking your own life?” Todd asked.

  “Joke about it. That was what I did in the beginning, but Teddy Fay brought me up short and told me to be direct with them. I felt better about it when I was.”

  That brought Todd’s mind back to where it had been before the briefing. In his pursuit of Teddy, the man had never seemed short of money. He had bought and discarded cars along the way, and that took cash. Teddy must still be designing those kitchen gadgets, he figured, and he still had a way to get them on TV and get paid for them. Exploring that might l
ead to finding him.

  Then Todd stopped himself. I can’t go on obsessing about Teddy Fay, he told himself. That part of my career and my life is over, and it’s not a good idea to revisit it.

  He joined Tank in the cafeteria for lunch, and put Teddy Fay out of his mind.

  35

  Stone arrived at Fair Sutherlin’s apartment and was greeted with a kiss to the corner of his mouth, with just a little tongue. Fair was dressed in tight jeans and a V-necked cashmere sweater that showed an inviting amount of cleavage, and her breasts seemed unfettered under the sweater.

  “I had a tougher day than I had planned,” she said, “so do you mind if we just order in some Chinese?”

  “Fine with me,” Stone replied.

  She handed him a menu. “You choose, and order too much so I’ll have leftovers to keep me alive for a few days. I’ll get the trays ready.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  Stone consulted the menu and noted that Fair had checked the dishes she preferred, probably on an earlier occasion. He chose the marked dishes that he liked, too, and called the restaurant, ordering pork pot stickers, shrimp balls, Yang Chow fried rice, General Tso’s chicken, orange beef, sweet-and-sour shrimp, and Mongolian beef, then he went to the bar. Fair had been drinking scotch on his previous visit, so he poured her a Chivas Regal and found some Knob Creek for himself, then he took the drinks into the kitchen.

  Fair was arranging trays containing napkins, silverware, wineglasses, and little individual salt and pepper shakers. He handed her the scotch. “That looks beautiful,” he said of the trays. “When I order Chinese at home, I tend to eat straight out of the cartons.”

  “I do that, too,” she said, “when there are no witnesses.” She took a gulp of her scotch. “Thanks for remembering,” she said.

  “Thanks for having my bourbon.” He took a sip. “How did you find your way to the White House?” he asked.

  “When I was a senior in college, at UVA, I volunteered to work for a Democratic candidate for Congress, as research for an eventual thesis for a master’s degree in political science. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and the congressman-elect offered me a job on his staff. I didn’t take it, but I had met some interesting figures in the party during the campaign, one of them Tim Coleman, the deputy chief of staff for Senator Hart, who gave me his card and told me to keep in touch. Just before I graduated, Tim called and invited me to come to Washington for a talk. He introduced me to the senator, whom I admired, and they talked me into forgetting my master’s and joining the Hart staff.

  “I began as deputy press secretary, and after a couple of years of that Tim got promoted to chief of staff, and I became his deputy.”

  “That sounds like a wonderful opportunity,” Stone said.

  “I got lucky,” she replied. “When Senator Hart died, Tim went to the White House, and the senator’s appointed replacement hired me to be his chief of staff. The guy knew nothing, and that made me look like I knew everything, but I have to say, I did a good job for him. That led to a job in the press office at the White House, during Will Lee’s first term, and when he got reelected, Tim Coleman moved me over as one of his two deputies.”

  “So you’ve been in the White House for how long?”

  “Nearly seven years.”

  “It must seem like home by now.”

  She laughed. “It seems like a sweatshop.”

  “Will you be glad when it’s over, and Will Lee goes home to Georgia?”

  “I suppose I’ll have mixed feelings,” she said.

  “Any plans for after the White House?”

  “I’ve got my eye on a House seat in Virginia,” she said. “I don’t think the guy is going to run again, and I think I’d be good at it.”

  “And after that, what? Governowhat? Gor? Senator? President?”

  She gave him a sly smile. “Who knows where the road may lead?”

  The house phone buzzed, and she told the doorman to send up the food. Stone met the deliveryman at the door, paid him, and brought the big bag into the kitchen. Fair gave Stone a bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge to open, then they heaped food onto their plates and took their trays into the living room.

  Fair switched on the TV. “Do you mind? I TiVo the evening news.”

  “Not at all.”

  They watched the news silently, and Fair spoke only when fast-forwarding through the commercials. When it was over, Stone said, “I thought there might be a mention of the Muffy Brandon murder.”

  Fair shook her head. “Nope, that’s a local story. If Paul Brandon were still in the Cabinet, it might have made the national cut.”

  “Since you worked for Senator Hart, you must have known his wife.”

  “Milly? Sure. She was in and out of the office all the time. I liked her.”

  “How about Muffy Brandon?”

  “I met her a few times at dinner parties. I liked her less. She was too skittish for my taste, too brittle. She was beautiful, of course, but, as far as I was concerned, not an attractive person.”

  “Any thoughts about who killed them?”

  She looked at him in mock surprise. “Are you kidding? You’re the investigator: you tell me.”

  Stone watched her closely for her reaction to his next statement. “I think the killer may very well work in the White House.”

  She choked on her wine. “Are you serious?”

  “I am.”

  “Please, please tell me why you think that.”

  “Things have come out in our latest round of interviews with White House people.”

  “What things?”

  “I haven’t reported to the president yet, so I can’t tell you.”

  “Have you mentioned this to anyone outside the White House?”

  “Just the people involved in our investigation.”

  “Please promise me you won’t breathe a word of that to anyone else. It’s the sort of thing that the media would go nuts over, and we’d be overwhelmed for days, maybe weeks, dealing with it. It would just make it harder for us to get our work done in the months Will Lee has left in office.”

  “I won’t tell anyone else. It’s just a theory, at this point.”

  “Well, it’s a very scary theory,” she said. “When do you plan to wrap up your investigation?”

  “We were about ready to do that, until the two women were murdered,” Stone said. “Now we’ll have to wait and see how everything plays out.”

  “I wish to God Will and Kate hadn’t asked you to look into Mimi’s and Brix’s deaths,” she said. “Everything that’s happened seems to be because you’re here, doing this.”

  “Sometimes I feel the same way,” Stone said.

  “Enough shoptalk,” she said. “I have an early day every day, so we should so we shget into bed now.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him, then she took his hand and put it inside her sweater, on her breast. “Are you game?” she asked. “I don’t have time for foreplay.”

  “I’m game,” Stone said, stripping off her sweater, while she worked on his buttons. He was astonished at how swiftly she had inflamed him.

  36

  Stone was wakened by an electronic beeping. Momentarily disoriented, he first thought he was at home in bed, then that he was back at the Hay-Adams. Then Fair rolled over on him and brought him fully awake.

  She came quickly, then made it her business to see that he did, then she was out of bed and heading for the bathroom. “Go back to sleep,” she said. “I’ve got an early national security briefing, but there’s no need to roust you out of bed.”

  Stone looked at the bedside clock: just after five A.M. He felt oddly rested, then it occurred to him that they had been in bed by eight-thirty the evening before. He had had a full eight hours of sleep. He heard the shower turn on.

  He got out of bed, found his clothes, and got dressed. He was combing his hair, using her dressing table mirror, when he saw the lipstick. He picked it up: Pagan Spring. He opened th
e cap, and it seemed almost unused. So what? he thought. It seemed to be a very popular lipstick.

  He went to the bathroom door, and she was getting out of the shower. “Dry my back?” she said.

  Stone grabbed a towel and rubbed her down all over, enjoying the process.

  “I want to do it again,” she said, “but I’m on the clock. Start the coffee, and put some muffins in the toaster oven, will you? I’ll drop you at your hotel on the way to work.”

  Stone did as he was told, and by the time the coffee was ready, she was in the kitchen, standing while eating a muffin and drinking coffee. “You’re an extremely good lover,” she said.

  Stone looked at her, surprised. “Thanks. So are you.”

  “I haven’t had enough sex since my last relationship,” she said. “It’s the job. There’s no time to meet anyone.”

  “I’m glad to have been of service,” Stone replied.

  She tossed off her coffee. “Let’s go,” she said. She led him out of the apartment, and they took the elevator down to the garage, where her Prius was parked.

  “I would have thought they’d send a car for you,” Stone said.

  “When I’m chief of staff,” she replied, driving out of the garage. “The president doesn’t like it when staff start ordering up White House transportation without some real need. It’s easy for me to drive myself.”

  She stopped just short of the portico at the Hay-Adams. “You’d better get out here. We don’t want to be seen together at this hour of the morning.” She gave him a kiss, waited until the door was closed, then drove away.

  The Muffin hadn’t been enough for Stone, so he ordered a full breakfast from room service. He was already eating his eggs when Shelley came out of Dino’s room, followed shortly by Dino. They sat down. “When did you get in?” Dino asked.

  “Late, but I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I ordesred breakfast.”

  “And what did the evening reveal that will aid our investigation?” Dino asked.

  Stone thought about that. “As far as I’m concerned, it eliminates Fair as a suspect,” he said.