Jim McGill 02 The Hangman's Companion

by Joseph Flynn

  “I’m pretty sure that’s what they have planned for me.”

  Erna’s gallows humor brought Anna Lee to the verge of tears. She took Erna’s hand, and transferred a tiny object to it. Erna made sure she didn’t drop it.

  “Bless you,” Anna Lee said as she left.

  Lying down that night, Erna took a guarded look at the capsule she’d been slipped. It didn’t look big enough to knock out a gnat, but she took the fact that it was bright red to be a good sign. The vivid color had to mean it was potent, didn’t it?

  She fervently hoped so.

  She’d fasted herself to the point where she weighed less than she had in middle school. She’d been swallowing sips of mouthwash, forcing herself to get used to the awful harshness of it. She’d deprived herself of as much sleep as she could without collapsing.

  It all might have been an exercise in folly. Chances were the federal government would be only too happy to kill her. No reason to go to all the trouble she had.

  But Erna couldn’t shake the devil’s warning.

  Then the next morning the warden came to her cell and proved Satan right.

  “The president has commuted your sentence,” he said. “You’re not going to be executed. You’ll do life with no chance of parole. We’ll move you as soon as a space for you in another facility is found.”

  That was it. He walked off without making any personal comment.

  Erna decided to take her life that night, but now that the time had arrived it wasn’t so easy to do. Not that night or the next. It took her a week to work up the determination. In the meanwhile, Anna Lee came by and gave her two more red capsules.

  As skinny and tired as she was by then, Erna thought the three capsules would be more than enough to kill her. But that morning they’d brought her a new bottle of mouthwash — twenty-one percent alcohol — so she washed the sedatives down with that.

  She lay down, so exhausted she knew she wouldn’t have to wait long for the alcohol and drugs to take effect.

  She felt her tongue slide back and block her airway.

  She was almost there now…

  A glow appeared in the darkness, growing brighter as she drew near.

  Then, in all his radiant glory, Erna saw her Lord and Savior.

  Only he wasn’t smiling.

  And standing at his side was Andrew Hudson Grant.

  Chapter 1

  Monday, August 15th, K Street, Washington, DC

  Three a.m., a hell of an hour to get off work, Mark Benjamin thought.

  There had been times, of course, when he’d worked through the night. But he’d been in his twenties then, single and full of purpose. The purpose had been twofold: to see that his client’s special interests became the law of the land and to assure that his own net worth increased by leaps and bounds.

  Mark Benjamin was a K Street lobbyist, and while not yet one of the giants of his trade he was well on his way … except for the recent, unexpected and disturbing appearance of what looked to be a conscience. For that, he blamed his friend Putnam Shady.

  Putnam had been a fellow plunderer of the public purse for as long they’d known each other. Even better, Putnam was still single and Mark had been able to enjoy, vicariously, tales of his friend’s adventures with the ladies. Then a woman named Margaret had moved into Putnam’s basement apartment. She was having the damnedest effect on him.

  Mark looked up and down the street. Never a cab when you needed one.

  His car occupied a preferred slot on the premium parking level of the building behind him. But he knew it was as risky to drive tired as it was to drive drunk. He could go back upstairs and sleep on his office couch. Tonight, though, he wanted to hold his wife, engage in some pillow talk, maybe even ask her advice.

  Putnam had enlisted him to take part in a plan that was breathtaking in concept. Mark, disaffected by his work in ways he hadn’t even realized, had jumped at the opportunity to take part. Inevitably, though, he’d started to have second thoughts. He had made plenty of money in his years of lobbying, but fortunes far greater than his had disappeared in the blink of an eye. What if his finances went south and so did Putnam’s plan?

  Then where would he be?

  Cutting through his existential musing and the fog of his fatigue, Mark heard footsteps off to his left. Quite close to him. He hadn’t noticed anyone approaching. Had heard no roar of a car engine, no screech of tires. Certainly no violin trills of impending doom. But there in front of him was a man with a gun.

  Mark’s eyes went wide and he said, “What do you —”

  Want, he intended to ask.

  But he never got the chance.

  He was shot dead on the K Street sidewalk.

  By the dawn’s early light of a perfect summer day, homicide detective Marvin Meeker of the Metro Police Department regarded the crime scene and rendered his expert opinion.

  “Looks like Porky Pig.”

  His partner, Big Mike Walker, a.k.a. Beemer, shook his head.

  “Unh-uh, Porky wears a bow tie.”

  “Does not,” Meeker said.

  “Does so,” Beemer insisted.

  The detectives turned to the two uniformed cops, the crime scene technician and the M.E. for arbitration. None of them wanted to get involved.

  Beemer said, “If he don’t wear a tie, he wears a jacket or somethin’.”

  Meeker asked, “You sure?”

  “‘Course I’m sure. Them Disney critters might walk around with their asses hangin’ out but they always got something on.”

  The crime scene tech spoke up. “Disney doesn’t do Porky.”

  Both detectives looked at her.

  She said, “The brothers do him.”

  “What brothers?” Meeker asked.

  “Warner Brothers.”

  Both detectives chuckled. Beemer said, “It was any other brothers, ol’ Porky’d be a plate of ribs.”

  Both detectives, the crime scene tech, the uniforms and even the M.E. laughed.

  That was enough to make the good-looking African-American woman down on one knee beside the body of the victim look up.

  “The minstrel show about over?” she asked the detectives. “You two ready to do some police work?”

  The woman stood up. Six-one in her stocking feet, her shoes added another couple of inches. She looked down on both Meeker and Beemer. She outranked them, too.

  “Sure, Lou,” Meeker said.

  Beemer nodded.

  Homicide Lieutenant Rockelle Bullard said, “Good. Now that we remember we’re all law enforcement professionals, what do you think we have here?”

  Meeker was about to answer when a car pulled to a stop at the curb. Nice ride, too. A Porsche Boxster all shiny and black. A guy in a suit got out and looked at the body. Gawkers weren’t unfamiliar at crime scenes but not many had the nerve to stare at a dead body with a bunch of cops standing right there wondering what his interest might be.

  One of the uniforms was about to get the guy’s story when Rockelle held up a hand. “Tell the gentleman I’ll be right with him.” She turned back to her detectives. “What do we have here?”

  “Dead white man,” said Meeker.

  “Shot in the chest,” added Beemer.

  “Right here on K Street.”

  “Third one the last three weeks.”

  “Every one of ‘em got a little pig pin stuck on his lapel and—”

  All three homicide cops saw the gawker’s head snap back when he heard mention of the pig. Now Meeker and Beemer wanted to go talk to him, too. But Rockelle hadn’t released them yet.

  “Anything else in common?” she asked.

  “All of ‘em wearin’ Gucci ‘n’ Armani,” Meeker said.

  “Just like this one,” Beemer said.

  Looking over at the gawker, all three detectives thought: Just like that one.

  Turning back to the victim, Meeker said, “Means he’s likely some big shot lobbyist, too.”

  Rockelle flipped open the
bloodstained billfold she’d taken off the body, paged through it with a gloved finger, stopped when she saw a family photo. The victim, a woman and two young children. She looked over at the guy in the suit.

  “You care to step over here, sir?”

  The gawker approached the cops and all of them saw tears forming in his eyes.

  “You know this gentleman, sir?” Rockelle inclined her head at the body.

  “I do. His name’s Mark Benjamin.”

  Meeker asked, “That pig pin, it means something to you?”

  “Mark wouldn’t wear it.”

  Rockelle Bullard asked, “Why not?”

  “He was Jewish. Used to keep kosher. Then he became a vegan.”

  Beemer said, “Maybe he just liked the cartoons.”

  The guy smiled; it only made him look sadder.

  “He wasn’t big on cartoons.”

  “Did you know Mr. Benjamin well?” Rockelle asked.

  “In a certain way. We were both looking to improve ourselves; we played squash against one another. Mark is…was in better shape than me, but I had a better feel for the game. I usually beat him, and he’d lie on the court after a game, just about like he is now, and ask God where was the justice.”

  Meeker said, “So you recognized the man from your car?”

  “Yes.”

  He and Beemer both looked dubious.

  Rockelle asked, “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Putnam Shady.”

  “Is there anyone who can confirm where you’ve been the past several hours.”

  “Yes. Margaret Sweeney.”

  Now, Rockelle reacted in surprise, recognizing the name. “Would that be—”

  “Yes, that Margaret Sweeney. The one who works with James J. McGill.”

  Meeker asked, just to be sure, “You know the president’s henchman?”

  “We’ve never met,” Putnam said, “but I’ve heard a lot about him.”

  Beemer returned to an earlier subject. “You think that pin looks like Porky Pig?”

  Putnam said, “Only at a glance. If I remember right, Porky wears a bow tie. A jacket and white gloves, too.”

  The K Street Killer is available for the Kindle from www.amazon.com