by Mike Pace
“Okay, okay, don’t shoot!” Zig looked angrily at Eva. “Why’d you have to show up? We could’ve fixed this. Ask Tom, we were going to rewind.”
“I called Marcie. She said Jess drove a Camry. Didn’t have a chance to see what’s on the phone, but got a feeling it’s going to be mighty interesting.”
Tom checked his watch: 11:00 p.m. He did his best to keep the panic from his voice. “Eva, I’ve got to go.”
She had her own cell phone in her hand. “Go? What are you talking about? I’m calling the cops, they’ll put this piece of shit under arrest, confiscate the phone as evidence, and interview us. First thing Monday morning, I go see the AUSA and get all charges dropped.”
“Fine, no problem. But I need to postpone seeing the cops for at least an hour. Call them, give them the phone. Tell them I’ll meet them at Second District HQ in two hours.” He offered her the gun. “Here.”
“Are you out of your mind? You’re going to leave me here with him? Wherever you’re going, I’m going. Where are you going?”
“To church.”
CHAPTER 62
The Ford headed north on Massachusetts Avenue, past the Naval Observatory where the vice president resided, and Embassy Row. Zig drove, with Eva in the front passenger seat. Tom sat in back so he could more easily train the gun on Zig’s head.
“I know you would never pull the trigger,” said Zig.
“My daughter’s life is at stake. I’d shoot anybody to save her, especially a piece of shit who killed an innocent young woman and allowed his best friend to take the blame.”
“I told you before, no one was supposed to get hurt.”
“Okay,” said Eva, “Tom, I’d like an explanation about the threat to your daughter because, frankly, you’ve been more than mysterious about the subject. But first—”
She pulled Jess’ phone from her pocket, found the video app, and hit play. She held the phone up so both she and Tom could easily see it.
Jess’ face filled the small screen. From the angle, it was clear she was filming herself. Seeing her alive and hearing her voice was unnerving.
“Hi, guys. Forgot my briefcase—no comment on my supposed habitual absentmindedness needed, Dad—so thought since no one’s around I’ll give you both the nickel tour.”
The jumpy camera panned a long, brightly lit hallway with a high ceiling and cream-colored walls. Rich mahogany doors lined the corridor. Every fifth door was marked with an American flag on one side, and a state flag on the other. Jess continued, “This is the third floor of the Russell Senate Office building.” They could hear her steps as she approached one of the mahogany doors. “And here we are at the offices of the junior senator from Oklahoma.” Tom could make out the iconic state flag—an Indian war shield on a sky-blue field.
The camera pointed at Jess’ purse, then the floor. “Got to find my keys; here they are.” Tom heard the sound of the key in the lock, and the polished corridor floor surface gave way to the darkened interior. They heard the door close, then the soft flick of a light switch revealing the royal-blue carpet. Jess refocused the camera and panned the reception area. “This is Bonnie’s desk; she’s the receptionist. Ancient. Been with Liz Guthrie since the senator first started practicing law in Norman. Really nice. You’d love her, Mom.”
The camera showed four doors leading from the reception area. As the camera lingered on each door, Jess continued her narration. “That’s Mark Anderson’s office. He’s the LA, which means legislative assistant. This next door is the AA’s office. Harvey’s the administrative assistant. Between us, he’s a bit of a stick in the mud.”
The camera moved toward a third single door. “This is what we call the bullpen, where your hotshot daughter works. Oh, before we go there, I’ll give you a peek at the senator’s office.” The camera approached double mahogany doors. She opened the door and the camera jumped as she flicked on the light.
A scream.
“Oh, my God, sorry!”
The cell phone screen clearly depicted the junior senator from the great state of Oklahoma with her back on her desk. She was naked from the waist down.
And her legs were wrapped around the naked loins of former Texas governor, former attorney general of the United States, and leading candidate for president, Bat Masterson.
The camera caught the flashing expressions of Guthrie and Masterson—surprise, anger, fear. Then greater anger.
“What the fuck are you doing?” shouted Guthrie, as she slid down the other side of the desk to the floor and straightened her skirt.
“I didn’t know—”
“Get out!” Guthrie screamed.
“Jesus, is that a cell phone?” asked Masterson. “Is she filming this?”
The camera went dark as Jess apparently shoved it into a pocket, but the sound of Masterson’s voice still came through.
“Give me that phone! Now!”
Tom heard Jess panting as she apparently ran from the office. He heard the outer door close and the click of her shoes on the hard corridor surface.
Then silence.
CHAPTER 63
“My God,” said Eva. “You killed her and set up your best friend to prevent your mentor from being ensnared in a sex scandal?”
Zig didn’t speak for a moment, focusing his eyes on the traffic ahead. Then his voice was almost too low to hear.
“He promised me chief of staff. I would run the White House. Really run the whole damn government.”
“You’re disgusting,” she replied.
She handed the phone back to Tom, who glanced at it dismissively and put it in his pocket. A part of Tom was curious how he had been dragged into Masterson’s little conspiracy, but that could wait for another day. “Speed up,” he ordered.
“Don’t want to get a ticket,” Zig responded.
“Speed up,” Tom repeated, and Zig goosed his speed up by 10 mph.
Eva asked Zig the obvious questions. “Why Tom? Why his gun?”
“Bat told me about the phone video, said I needed to retrieve it and, if necessary, use lethal force. I didn’t own a gun. I remembered glimpsing Tom’s gun in that paper bag at Napoleon’s, and I had a key. I figured I would use the gun to scare Jess, retrieve the phone, then return the gun to Tom’s apartment with no one being the wiser.”
“Masterson says ‘jump’ and, like a toy poodle, you jump,” said Eva.
“This country’s going to hell, and I believed the only person to right the ship was Bat Masterson. So it was in my view for the greater good. Like collateral damage in war—sad, unfortunate, but necessary for a noble goal. Besides, no one was supposed to get hurt. I felt energized that he was trusting me to handle this very delicate problem. I believed he was testing me. If I could make the Jess Hawkins problem go away, he could trust me with much more sensitive matters threatening the country when he was elected.”
“You’re sick,” said Eva.
Tom, only half listening, pointed to the spires of the cathedral in the distance, lit up against the dark sky. “There it is.”
Eva ignored Tom and pressed Zig. “Obviously, something went wrong.”
“When I knocked, she was dressed. She said she thought I was Tom. I hadn’t counted on him being on his way to her place, and I had no idea how soon he’d arrive. Bat had asked me to check to see if the barrel was threaded. It was. He provided me with a silencer left over from his military service days, just in case. I kept the gun in my coat. I was counting on convincing her it was not only in her best interest, but in the country’s best interest, to turn over the phone to me. I was authorized to offer her money, a job, whatever it took. I would only pull the gun as a last resort to scare her. That’s it. Scare her. Worst case, fire a suppressed bullet into the floor.”
They had to stop for the light at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue. Tom checked his watch: 11:19 p.m. Damn.
“The second the light changes, turn right on Wisconsin,” he said.
“What’
s the hurry?” asked Eva. “You won’t tell me what we’re doing at the cathedral. You asked me to trust you. Fine. But aren’t you curious about how Jess really died?”
“Yeah, sure. Lay it on us, Zig. Explain how you decided to take the life of an innocent young woman.”
“She was very nervous. Kept saying she didn’t want to get in trouble, didn’t know what to do. Said she’d seen enough Washington scandals on TV to know it usually was the little guy who got thrown under the bus. I tried to assure her, but she insisted on waiting for Tom. If Tom advised her to turn it over, she’d tell me where it was.”
“But you couldn’t do that,” said Eva.
“No. I believed with more time I could’ve convinced her, but I had no time. Tom could be popping in at any moment. I panicked and pulled the gun. Just to scare her, that’s it, I swear. She went berserk and threw a lamp at me. I ducked and fired reflexively, not at her but at the lamp. When I looked up, she was sliding to the floor with a bullet hole in her forehead. An accident, Tom. A horrible, horrible accident. My turn to panic. I did a quick search of her apartment, couldn’t find the phone, then got the hell out of there.”
The light changed. “Go, go!” ordered Tom. Zig turned right on Wisconsin. Tom saw the sign for Pilgrim Road. “Turn right here.”
“And so you framed your friend,” said Eva.
“I returned the gun. We had no idea that Tom would be arrested. Bat and I couldn’t do anything over the weekend, but he arranged to get you out on Monday. He had some contacts—people I don’t know and don’t want to know—who he arranged to swear they were driving by and saw a black man running out of her house right before you arrived. Everything would be smoothed over.”
“Except the phone was still out there,” responded Eva.
“Park there,” said Tom, pointing to an empty lot on the south side of the cathedral.
Zig did as he was told. When the car stopped, he turned back to face Tom. “I swear to you, I would never have let you take the fall.”
“What about being king of the world?” asked Eva.
Tom spoke before Zig could respond. “Okay, Eva, I want you to wait here with Zig.” He gave her the gun and checked his watch. “At midnight, call the cops. I’ll meet you back here.”
Zig’s voice quivered. “Tom, you’ve got to believe—”
Tom ignored him, jumped out of the car, and disappeared into the shadows.
CHAPTER 64
He made his way as quickly as his bruised ribs would allow up the steep, grassy hill. He was familiar with the Cathedral Close, the grounds of the cathedral, having visited the site on several occasions during his early days as a college architecture major.
He passed the Bishop’s Garden and the Herb Cottage on his right, followed the narrow path to the south side of the structure, then carefully wound his way around chunks of carved stone—pieces which had fallen off the cathedral during the earthquake back in August 2011.
Tom looked up. This close to the cathedral, the central tower seemed to rise all the way to the sky. A full moon slipped away from a dark cloud and cast the rich Indiana sandstone in a pale glow.
There was an unnerving stillness—he could no longer hear the sound of traffic from Wisconsin and Massachusetts Avenues. He felt a sense of foreboding. Imagined? Or justly caused by the presence of evil?
He checked his watch again: 11:41 p.m. He followed the south wall until he came to a small door, half hidden behind heavy shrubbery. The knob turned easily and he entered.
The narrow, dimly lit hallway led to a staircase, at the top of which he spotted another door. What if it was locked? But then, the priest wouldn’t have been able to gain access, and presumably would’ve called. Presumably. Tom climbed the staircase two steps at a time and tried the knob. The door opened.
He found himself in the southwest corner of the narthex and moved quickly into the nave. Like its twelfth century Gothic predecessors, the Cathedral was laid out like a Christian cross. The nave made up the long piece of the cross and represented the largest segment of the floor plan. Cavernous—50’ wide and 150’ high. The walls of the nave featured three rows of stained-glass windows, each of which illustrated famous stories from the Bible or, in some cases, images of Americana.
The moonlight, filtered by the multicolored glass on the south wall, illuminated the space in eerie shades of pale blues and reds.
The vaulted spires met in the center of the ceiling, creating a spine down the middle. In the shadows, Tom could barely make out the bosses—flat, circular keystones that separated the opposing arches and kept them from collapsing in on themselves. The bosses appeared as a row of huge, decorative buttons running down the length of the center spine, some measuring almost five feet in diameter.
He heard something from far down the aisle toward the transept, the crosspiece that intersected with the nave.
“Janie? Matt?”
“Daddy?” Her voice was faint.
Tom hurried down the aisle to the south transept, the baptistery, breathing heavily to reduce the dull stabs of pain every time he moved. Janie, still in her pajamas, sat next to the priest on a wide bench under a three-paneled stained-glass window. She scooted down from her seat and jumped into his arms.
“Baby, you okay?”
She stretched back so she could see him and nodded. “Father Matt, he said we were going to meet you in a church and it would be fun, and afterwards, you’d let me stay up for ice cream.”
“Father Matt was right, honey.” He squeezed her again. He turned to the priest. “Anything?”
Matthew checked his watch. “Nothing so far.”
Tom sensed there was more. “But?”
“But I feel, I don’t know—the presence of an intruder.”
“What’s an intruder, Daddy?” asked Janie.
“Uh, it’s like a headache. Father Matt has a little headache, but I’m sure it will go away soon.” He looked toward the apse, the high point on the cross floor plan where the altar was located. “Why here?” he asked Matt.
The priest pointed up to the third lancet of the stained-glass window. The bottom panel showed Jesus standing over a cowering Satan. “Renounce the devil. That’s what the panel depicts. Of all the glass in the church, this is the only one where Satan is shown defeated. Seemed an appropriate place to wait it out.”
“Wait what out, Daddy?”
“Wait until the midnight ice cream store opens, sweetie. Why don’t you tell Father Matt your favorite—”
The sound of footsteps. He hugged Janie close and turned to see Eva and Zig approaching. They stopped in the center of the nave. Tom now saw there was a third person with them.
Bat Masterson’s calm baritone echoed inside the cavernous space.
“Tom, this has to end, this will end—now.”
CHAPTER 65
Tom couldn’t leave Janie, but if Masterson was there, good chance he somehow had taken possession of the gun.
He set his daughter down. “Baby, you go keep Father Matt company for a minute while I talk to these folks.”
“Uncle Ziggy!” She waved, and Zig, with a sickly smile, waved back.
Tom checked his watch. Ten minutes. He left Janie and the priest, and hurried up the aisle to the trio.
As he reached them he saw that his suspicion had been correct. Masterson, with Zig at his side, held the gun on Eva.
“I need the phone, Tom,” said Masterson, his voice calm, authoritative.
“I’m sorry,” said Eva. “He must’ve been tracking Zig’s—”
“I don’t care. Here.” He pulled the phone from his jacket and tossed it to Masterson. Tom pivoted to return to Janie.
“Hold on,” ordered Masterson.
“What are you going to do, Bat? Shoot me? And Eva, and a priest, and my daughter? Go destroy the evidence. I couldn’t give a shit about your political career. On Monday, you figure a way to get me off, and we’ll pretend nothing happened. Without the tape, no one would believe Eva and me
anyway. I’ve got to go. Give us ten minutes, then we’ll talk. Have a seat. Maybe the both of you should take advantage of your surroundings and pray for forgiveness.”
Tom took Eva’s hand and pulled her toward the baptistery, hoping Masterson wouldn’t shoot him in the back.
“What’s going on?” asked Eva, not attempting to hide the fear in her voice.
“If I had the time to tell you, not only wouldn’t you believe me, but you’d think I was bonkers. And right now, I don’t have the time. Hopefully, nothing will happen.”
“You’re scaring me.”
They reached the priest and Janie.
“Can I go see Uncle Ziggy?” asked Janie.
“Maybe later,” said Tom. “Now let’s do what Father Matt says.”
Matthew bent down to Janie’s eye level. “Honey, do you know any prayers?”
Janie looked up at her dad.
Other than as an architecture student, Tom hadn’t been inside a church since his mother’s funeral. When Janie was younger, Gayle had raised the question of their daughter’s religious upbringing. Tom had made it clear that Gayle could take her to Sunday school if she wished, and Gayle had done so.
“What about the prayer you say with Mommy right before you go to sleep?” asked Tom. She nodded.
“That’s a good prayer,” said Matthew.
Tom thought sure he smelled something. He looked around, but nothing seemed out of place. He noticed both Masterson and Zig had indeed taken a seat. Zig held his head in his hands. Maybe he was praying.
Tom sniffed.
“Sulfur,” said Matthew. “The smell of hell.”
Eva raised her voice. “Damn it, will somebody please tell me what’s going on?”
Tom tried to calm her. “Eva, if you can just give us—”
“What are you doing with your daughter and a Catholic priest inside an Episcopal church at midnight?”
Matthew and Tom simultaneously checked their watches. Five minutes.
