by Joseph Flynn
The deputy director and the detective watched her depart. One of the Park cops on hand, a woman, offered to help Dr. Kalil down the cliff face. With thanks, she declined assistance, managing the descent nimbly on her own. Both DeWitt and Lang watched closely.
“You think she learned to climb in Africa?” Lang asked.
“Could be,” DeWitt said. “I know a little bit about climbing. Did some myself at Yosemite.”
“California boy?”
“Yeah. Most climbers, even the ones who aren’t hardcore, have strong hands. Looked to me just now like Dr. Kalil has a good grip. But she didn’t want to take the chance of shaking my hand.”
Lang said, “Maybe it’s a cultural thing, a woman not touching a man.”
“She refused help from a female officer. Did she shake your hand, Detective?”
“No. Maybe she doesn’t like Americans. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“It might be something recent, owing to the death of her brother here in the U.S. But, yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”
“Might be more than that, too,” Lang said.
DeWitt gave her a look, got the feeling she was toying with him.
“What do you know, Detective?”
“First thing I have to tell you, I’m politically incorrect as hell.”
“In any particular direction?”
“Yeah. I leave the presumption of innocence to juries. If I get a bad vibe from someone, I make a presumption of guilt, and I don’t worry if the guy — or the woman — isn’t the same color or nationality as me.”
“Go on,” DeWitt said.
“My family is all about public service. My two brothers served in Iraq, I’m in the Park Police and my sister … we call her the Lang of Langley.”
“CIA.”
“Yeah. I took one look at Dr. Kalil and the first impression I got wasn’t grief, it was a strong yen for revenge. So I excused myself for a minute and called my sister.”
“She talked out of school?” DeWitt asked.
“No, she’s too smart for that. But after I gave her Dr. Kalil’s name and description there was this silence, like she was running the woman through her computer. Then she says there’s really nothing she can tell me. Not that she has nothing, she just can’t tell me.”
DeWitt nodded. “She let you read between the lines without spilling any beans.”
“Right. So maybe you can talk to Langley. Just in case they forget to call the FBI.”
“I will.”
“You asked Dr. Kalil about her brother’s weight to get a fix on how strong the person who dumped him had to be, right?”
DeWitt nodded. “Lugging a hundred and twenty pounds up a thirty-foot climb takes some doing.”
“More than just strong hands,” Lang said.
“Yeah,” DeWitt agreed, sounding unhappy.
With all the other demands he had on his time, this was the last thing he needed.
A deepening mystery, with CIA involvement.
Third Street, NW — Washington, DC
Zara Gilford, a prisoner of the manners she’d been taught as a child, offered McGill and Deke coffee. They both declined. After a quick look around the condo, Deke went to stand guard outside the front door. McGill sat on a love-seat next to Zara.
“I’m so sorry, Zara. How did you hear the news?”
“A woman called.”
“A reporter?”
“She said she was an independent television producer.”
The only person McGill knew who fit that description came immediately to mind.
“Ellie Booker?”
“Yes, that’s her. She said she was sorry to have to tell me the news but —”
Zara began to cry once more. McGill gave her the clean handkerchief he always carried. His father had taught him to do that. Said you never knew when you might need one. Especially if you were a cop. Or even a private investigator.
McGill waited as Zara dried her eyes.
She said, “Ms. Booker told me my phone was about to start ringing off the hook. She suggested I turn it off, and not answer my doorbell either. She told me the media could be relentless. She also said I might consider checking into a hotel under another name, but not my maiden name because that would be too easy to find.”
Sorrow weighed heavily on Zara’s face. “Jordan is dead and now I have to become a fugitive.”
“No, you don’t, I’ll —”
“I called Karl downstairs. Told him not to let anyone but you come up.”
“Good, and your phone is off?”
“Yes.”
“But Karl can reach you through an internal line?”
“Yes.”
McGill felt compelled to express his personal regret. He told her he should have looked for Jordan along his running path instead of waiting for him. He might well have changed the outcome.
Zara shook her head and gently squeezed his hand.
“No, no. That would have put Jordan into a big grump. He said his run was the one place he could clear his head and just feel the joy of being alive.”
McGill persisted. “I might have be able to stop Abel Mays.”
Zara released McGill’s hand and studied his face.
“You don’t think that madman was responsible for Jordan’s death, do you?”
McGill frowned. “My Secret Service agent, the fellow who was just here with us, got the details from the police. Jordan was shot with Mays’ gun, that’s the initial understanding the police have. They’ll do tests to make sure, but —”
Zara held up a hand, cutting him off.
She was doing some serious thinking of her own. She reached a conclusion and shook her head. “No, I can’t believe that, regardless of what the police think.”
“Why not?” McGill asked.
“Even a professional killer couldn’t be so callous that he’d kill young boys and their football coaches as a subterfuge for killing Jordan. And he certainly wouldn’t allow himself to be killed as part of a cover-up. There has to be some other explanation.”
McGill said, “Ellie Booker told you all the details of what happened this morning?”
“She did. She also said she wouldn’t bother me with another call. She told me if I wanted to have someone I could trust to tell my story the right way, I could call her. She gave me her number.”
Couldn’t get much slicker than that, McGill thought. Cut off the source of your story from the competition and then sucker her into calling you.
Zara saw the look of doubt on McGill’s face and told him, “She also mentioned your name as a character reference. She said you’d come to her for help once.”
McGill had. He couldn’t deny that.
“Did you tell Ms. Booker I was working for you?”
“I did, but what do you mean you were working for me?”
“You came to me to prevent what happened. Now, it’s a police matter.”
“But you said the police think this Abel Mays person killed Jordan.”
“That’s my understanding.”
“Do you agree with them?”
McGill replayed Zara’s conjecture in his mind. Would a contract killer slaughter several innocent people as a cover for his own crime? No. Not that it was a matter of morality. It was a question of efficiency. Pros kept things simple. Besides that, the initial reports Deke had received described Abel Mays as a high school football coach who had no criminal record before that morning.
If Mays had held a grudge against the boys and coaches he’d killed, that would be a deranged but comprehensible reason for what he’d done. But why would he gun down Jordan Gilford? Because he’d found homicide to be so much fun? McGill couldn’t believe that.
Wouldn’t have bought the idea if someone else had tried to sell it to him.
Then there was Mays, himself, getting killed.
That was too neat. So what the hell could the answer be?
Zara cut through his reverie with a statement that rang true
to his ear.
“Mr. McGill, someone else killed Jordan or had it done.”
The woman was right, he thought.
“What I’d like you to do now is find that person or those people.”
He was impressed by both Zara’s logic and her resolve.
She continued, “Ms. Booker told me if I need help with anything, she’ll either do it herself or find someone who can. She also said if you could use her help, she’d be happy to help you.”
Zara was telling him she wasn’t about to let go.
He had to let her know, now, if he would help.
McGill said, “I’ll do everything I can for you, Zara.”
The Oval Office — The White House
Edwina Byington buzzed the president. Despite the chief of staff’s instructions to allow only Mr. McGill in to see the president, Edwina had to make a judgment call. After all, through her own scheming, she’d already seen to it that Margaret Sweeney had been given access and would be arriving any moment now. That being the case … in for a penny, in for a pound.
Maybe distracting the president with other business would be good for her.
“Madam President, Majority Leader Bergen is here. He had an appointment, but he says if the time isn’t right, he can —”
“No, Edwina, please send Dick in.”
“Mr. Majority Leader.” Edwina gestured him to the door and he stepped inside.
Dick Bergen, the senior senator from Illinois, had become the acting majority leader when his predecessor John Wexford of Michigan had suffered a stroke, became permanently incapacitated and had to resign his seat. Bergen was elected to the post by his Democratic colleagues in a race with his close friend from New York, Senator David Schumann.
Outside handicappers had thought Schumann would win, but the senator from New York made it a practice of appearing on television at every opportunity. His colleagues feared that electing him leader would make him so ubiquitous a public presence he’d soon wear out his welcome, and by extension that of his party.
Bergen, an eloquent, low-key personality who did most of his work behind the scenes, was judged to be a better bet. The president had remained publicly neutral, but Galia Mindel had dropped hints as to whom she personally preferred. The chief of staff also had led the senators to believe she didn’t want another New Yorker to have a position of great influence on the president.
So Schumann was more than a little peeved with Galia but bore the president no ill will.
Bergen shook the hand the president extended to him and took the seat he was offered.
“This is truly a terrible day, Madam President. I won’t take more than a few minutes of your time.”
Patricia Grant nodded and said, “You’ve come to tell me about the proposed twenty-eighth amendment to the Constitution. So are we going to elect future presidents by a direct vote of the people? If so, are we going to do so the way I’ve proposed?”
Having won reelection by a single electoral vote that had been pledged to another candidate, Patricia Grant’s return to office so outraged her opponents they were determined that it would never happen again. A new amendment to the Constitution would abolish the Electoral College and provide for direct elections of the president and vice president.
The president didn’t object, but she wanted Election Day either to be shifted to a Saturday or if kept on a Tuesday to have the day declared a national holiday. At Galia’s urging she also wanted everyone who cast a vote to be given a one hundred dollar credit against any federal income tax payment due. Both measures were conceived to increase voter participation.
Dick Bergen’s presence that morning was to inform her how the final vote in both houses of Congress was shaping up. Doing so on a Saturday morning would attract as little media attention as possible. Now, with the media focused on the mass murder at the Winstead School, it was even more likely to go unnoticed.
That was the calculation the president made when she decided to keep her appointment with the majority leader.
“I’ll bring the amendment up for a vote in the Senate first thing Monday morning,” Bergen said. “It will have language to provide the hundred-dollar tax credit to all voters, but Election Day will remain on a Tuesday to keep that tradition alive.”
“Election Day will become a national holiday?”
“Yes, ma’am. In the Senate’s rendering of the amendment.”
“You think the House Republicans will fight offering the American people an extra paid day off work once every four years?”
Bergen sighed. “I’m afraid the situation in the House is worse than that.”
The president momentarily closed her eyes, put a hand over her mouth.
As if she didn’t want to voice the thought that came to mind.
Looking at the majority leader, she said, “I had fervently hoped Peter Profitt would never be so foolish.”
Peter Profitt, Republican of North Carolina, being the Speaker of the House.
“I thought he would be more cautious as well,” Bergen said. “That’s still a possibility. My friends in the House say the amendment would pass if Profitt called for a vote on it. Then we’d have to go to a committee to resolve the differences between the two versions.”
“The Republicans won’t accept Election Day becoming a national holiday?” the president asked.
“No, ma’am, they won’t. Their counterproposal is to enshrine Election Day in the Constitution as the only day a vote for president may be cast, and it must be cast in person.”
“That’s absurd. They might as well write an amendment saying they’re the only party allowed to govern.”
“I’ve heard that notion has also been advanced, if only in jest.”
“But with sincere longing,” the president added.
“Yes, ma’am. Senate leadership has thought the House Republicans would yield on their Election Day-only voting position if we forgo the idea of making it a national holiday and forget about the tax credits.”
The president shook her head both in chagrin and to refute the idea for a political swap.
“All they want to do is minimize voter turnout. I won’t have that.”
That was when Bergen got to the point of bringing up the subject the president had found unspeakable.
“It might not come to that, at least not soon. My friends tell me it looks like Philip Brock has won the Speaker over to his idea of calling a constitutional convention.”
The president cursed. “Goddamnit. I thought Profitt was holding out to have the convention in Raleigh, and was getting no traction on that. That’s what Galia told me.”
Bergen told her, “That was his position, but Brock persuaded him of two things. First, Pennsylvania would never go along with petitioning Congress to hold the convention, if it were to be held in North Carolina. Second, the convention would be more historically significant if it were held in the same place where the original one was convened.”
“Philadelphia,” the president said.
“Exactly. What sold Profitt, I’m told, was Brock’s political calculation of how to make the convention a reality. All the Southern and Mountain West states are already on board. So Profitt’s influence in those region isn’t needed. The idea of going to Philadelphia, to walk in the footsteps of the Founders, is what Brock said it will take to bring the one additional swing state that will be needed after Pennsylvania joins the roll call.”
The president asked, “Which swing state, Dick?” Before he could reply, she held up a hand and answered her own question. “Ohio.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And the nominal reason to hold a convention at all is to add an amendment to the Constitution that Congress has all but written right now.”
“Except for deciding how many people each party would like to see turn out on Election Day,” the majority leader said.
The president looked at the senator. She knew he was a Georgetown University scholar, political science as an undergradua
te and then law school. He knew, as well as she did, what the true implications of a constitutional convention would be.
“That first convention in Philadelphia,” she said, “you remember what its original purpose was, don’t you, Dick?”
“Yes, ma’am. The stated purpose was to amend the Articles of Confederation, the body of laws that governed the country up to that point.”
“Right. An improvement, an update of existing law. And what happened?”
“The Articles of Confederation were scrapped and a whole new constitution, our constitution, was written.”
“And what might happen if a second convention were to be convened?”
The majority leader said, “Anything could happen, Madam President. We might wake up one day and discover we are living in a completely different country.”
Exactly what the president feared.
Before she could dwell on the awful possibilities, Edwina buzzed her.
“Madam President, Mr. McGill and Margaret Sweeney are here to see you.”
The National Mall — Washington, DC
Captain Rockelle Bullard of Metro Homicide watched the crime scene search officer back out of Abel Mays’ Toyota SUV holding a small object with a pair of forceps. The officer, Hoshi Takei, was female and Japanese-American. For Rockelle’s money, you couldn’t beat a woman when it came to cleaning up a mess men had made, and Officer Takei was tops in the department. She dropped the object into a plastic evidence bag and showed it to Rockelle.
The chief medical examiner’s people had taken Abel Mays’ body to the Consolidated Forensic Laboratory for examination, making Officer Takei’s search of the vehicle less revolting, though she had proven at several crime scenes to have an exceptionally strong stomach.
She told Rockelle, “Got a nine millimeter slug, Captain. Not badly deformed. Man must’ve had a thin skull, I guess. The job would’ve gotten done even if he’d had a hard head, though.”
“The man got shot twice,” Detective Meeker said. “Where’s the other round?”
Takei said, “Just getting started, Detective. Give me a minute or two, okay?”
Rockelle said, “You take all the time you need.”
