Keane stood. “It’s a lawyer’s trick, Tom. You put three completely unrelated events together, find one common fact, and it makes it look like something unusual has occurred. We do it all the time, and Sloane is obviously a very skilled lawyer. But when you consider each case individually, they’re not unusual at all. Phillip Ferguson’s suicide sounds as though it was directly related to his being blind. The other two sound like deadbeat drug dealers. That’s a dangerous business. I know—I tried a lot of drug cases. It’s only a matter of time before bad luck catches up to you. Don’t get sucked into Sloane’s mind games.”
Pendergrass nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Keane put an envelope on his desk. “This is for you, for all of your hard work.”
The envelope was embossed. Inside was an invitation. Pendergrass was dumbfounded.
“Have you ever met a president?”
The invitation was to the reception for Senator Johnson Marshall at the home of Houghton Park Jr.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes. You’ve done an excellent job, Tom. You have all the skills I look for in my trial attorneys.”
Pendergrass read the fine print on the invitation. “Black tie. I’m afraid I don’t own a tuxedo.”
“Don’t be silly. Tuxedos are common and boring. You’ll wear your dress uniform. You earned that right. Besides, I simply won’t accept common for my escort.”
Pendergrass felt his face flush. “Your escort?”
“Would you mind? I don’t have a date for the evening.”
He thought of Keane riding in his Ford Taurus with over 100,000 miles on it.
“I’ll meet you there,” she said. “I’m in meetings out of the office the rest of the day. Unless you don’t want to…”
“No,” he said. “I mean yes, I do.”
Keane stood and opened the door to leave.
“I’ll submit a final memorandum to the Tort Claims administrative staff,” Pendergrass said, “to let them know the file can be closed.”
Keane turned back. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll have someone here take care of it. You have more pressing business. You need to get your medals polished.” She winked and walked out.
Pendergrass sat back down, feeling like what a convict on death row must feel like upon receiving a reprieve.
The telephone rang. When he answered he didn’t recognize the voice.
“Captain? This is Joann Cox with the Tort Litigation administrative staff.”
“Thank you for getting back to me.” He had called to request James Ford’s file to complete the memorandum necessary to close it. “I guess I won’t—”
“Don’t thank me yet. I think there might have been a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Pendergrass asked.
“About the name of the claimant you provided to my staff.”
“What about it?”
“We can’t seem to find a file matching that name.”
ARGUS INTERNATIONAL
AS THE GUARD stepped from the booth, Sloane thrust his driver’s license out the window. “I’m here to see Robert Kessler.”
The man hesitated. This was a break in routine. He held up his clipboard. “I don’t see your name.”
“Get on the damn phone and tell Kessler I’m at the front gate. I don’t have time for bullshit from some petty-ass rent-a-cop.”
The guard’s smug expression vanished. He froze momentarily, then turned and started back to his booth, his movements stiff and robotic, as if he were holding himself together and could literally explode, showering the area with springs, wires, and circuits. Inside his booth he picked up the telephone and appeared to be explaining the situation to someone on the other end. After another moment he hung up the phone, took his time doing something in the booth, and emerged carrying a visitor’s pass.
He handed Sloane the white plastic card. Sloane threw it on the seat and looked up at the guard, challenging him. When the man’s thumb remained hitched in his belt, Sloane said. “Either you open it, or I drive through it.”
The guard’s thumb slid to the button.
Sloane parked in front of the third building, not surprised to see Anne, Kessler’s assistant, waiting to escort him. Ordinarily he never abused staff, but he was here to make an impression, and not a good one. The only thing Charles Jenkins hadn’t liked about Sloane’s plan was that Sloane had made himself the bait. Jenkins had likened it to a “crocodile hunt,” an expression he said he learned in Vietnam from a soldier from Florida. Apparently, when you hunted crocodiles, you set out bait, waited for the crocodiles to take it, and killed them.
“Mr. Sloane—”
He waved her off. “I know I don’t have an appointment. I assume he’s in?”
“He is, but it’s company policy that you wear the white visitor’s card.”
Sloane had left the card on the passenger seat. “I don’t care about company policy. I don’t like people keeping tabs on me. You know where I’m going, and I suspect with all the security goons you employ that I wouldn’t get far if I wandered off without an escort, which appears to be your sole purpose in this operation.”
Anne stiffened.
“So are you going to take me to Captain Kessler or fail at that as well?”
“I’d be happy to take you,” she said, neither looking nor sounding happy.
At Kessler’s office Anne knocked twice, opened the door, and stepped aside. Kessler sat behind his desk with his eyebrows knitted and worry lines creasing his forehead.
Kessler turned his wheelchair and came around the edge of the desk.
Sloane turned to Anne. “Thanks for showing me the way. If I need to use the bathroom, I’ll have someone call you.”
Anne looked to Kessler, who nodded, turned and pulled the door closed behind her.
Sloane never gave Kessler the chance to speak. “I’m not here for pleasantries, Captain, so we can cut the tours and cute jokes.” He jabbed a finger at Kessler’s face. “Why would you sign a report saying you got lost in a sandstorm when you did not?”
“I told you I don’t recall—”
“Bullshit. You know exactly what happened. Your lack of memory is a convenience.”
“A convenience? I’m in a wheelchair because of that convenience.”
“You’re in a wheelchair because you were selling and buying drugs on the black market and it caught up to you.”
“You don’t really believe—”
“I know all about it, Captain. Colonel Griffin filled me in.”
“Colonel Griffin—”
“You were stealing supplies off that convoy along with whatever narcotics you could get on base to sell or to trade.”
Kessler opened his mouth but Sloane again cut him off.
“Griffin told me everything—what you were doing and how you got all of your men to agree on what to say in those reports.”
“Griffin?”
“But it wasn’t Griffin who made up the story, it was you. I spoke with Cassidy just before one of your men shot him.”
“What?”
“He told me about your operation, Captain. He told me you gave the order to drive into that town. Only you picked the wrong town on the wrong day and—”
“He couldn’t have—”
“And I recorded it. That’s right, Captain. I recorded everything Cassidy had to say. And it will prove that Ford was not killed incident to his service.”
Kessler looked as though he were fighting a migraine.
“I was also there when the bullet took off the top of Cassidy’s head. I know he didn’t blow himself up. You had him killed, just like you had Phillip Ferguson and Dwayne Thomas killed.”
Kessler gripped the handles of his wheelchair, his knuckles white. “I brought them home. I brought them all home alive. Ford was—”
“You gave an unlawful order and led those men into that ambush. Then you convinced them to lie for you, to say it was the sandstorm. Griffin told
me all about that too.”
“That’s not true.”
“Everything was fine until Beverly Ford began to question what happened to her husband, and I became involved. But I’m not going away. I know the truth.” He pulled open the door before Kessler could respond. “This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. I’ll have the Justice Department and the FBI all over you and Argus.” He stormed back down the hall, shouting for others to hear. “The hammer is going to drop, Captain, on you and everyone else.”
Outside, Sloane walked quickly to his car, started it, and pulled from the parking spot. As he drove back down the access road to the gated entry, he let out a sigh of relief, though he also looked in his rearview mirror.
He had played his part. Now he just had to wait for the crocodiles to take the bait.
LAKE WASHINGTON
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
TOM PENDERGRASS HAD only seen pictures of Houghton Park Jr.’s home. Built on the shores of Lake Washington, it looked like a chalet from the Italian Alps, which the newspapers and magazine articles indicated was just what Park had intended. Park had apparently visited Bolzano, Italy, and became so enamored with its ancient castles that he had dispatched architects and engineers to study the finer architectural attributes. He bought and tore down multimillion-dollar structures on the lake, brought in cranes, and began laying stones. The process took more than two years to complete, with crews working under a cloak of secrecy and behind a large mesh screen erected along the shore to keep boaters from taking pictures. Rumors spread about lavish luxuries, including tunnels under the home where Park kept, among other things, a submarine he could launch into the lake.
The rumors only made the entrance to the property, which Pendergrass saw from the window of a luxury bus shuttling guests to Park’s home from a designated parking area, more disappointing. There were no imposing gates or walls, no guards—nothing to give away the fact that the property belonged to one of the richest men in the country, if not the world. The entrance was a simple one-lane drive with two four-foot-tall brick columns on each side, a nondescript light fixture atop each. Still, Pendergrass didn’t doubt that the property was equipped with sensory devices that when tripped unleashed a horde of security personnel.
The invitation had included directions to the designated parking area three miles from Park’s home. Pendergrass knew the arrangement was to minimize having to search so many cars, but he was just grateful to leave his Taurus behind, parked amidst cars that cost nearly as much as a down payment on a home. However, as the bus descended the road, Pendergrass noticed the owners of those luxury automobiles also subtly craning to look out the tinted windows at the manicured lawns, fountains, and pristine gardens. It reminded him of the moment in the movie Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the lucky Gold Ticket winners and a family member first entered the inner sanctum of the chocolate factory.
The bus stopped beneath a porte cochere where women in black evening gowns greeted each guest and directed them into an enormous hall. Massive wood beams crisscrossed the ceiling, from which hung three enormous chandeliers. Pendergrass estimated the room could accommodate two full-sized basketball courts. He soon felt adrift amidst a sea of black-and white-clad guests, and trays of champagne, wine, and hors d’oeuvres. Not seeing Rachel Keane, he wandered toward French doors leading to a stone patio over which a large white tent had been erected. The one thing Houghton Park couldn’t dictate was the weather, and it didn’t look about to cooperate. Dark clouds had amassed to the south, and the winds indicated they were blowing north. Pendergrass stood as if considering the storm, trying not to feel self-conscious.
“Tom, I’m so glad you made it.”
Rachel Keane approached in a stunning, form-fitting white evening gown. “And I’m even more glad that you wore your uniform.”
Pendergrass reached out to take Keane’s hand, but she stepped past his arm, pressing her cheek to his, kissing it lightly. “A man in uniform can be such a turn-on,” she whispered.
THREE TREE POINT, WASHINGTON
SLOANE ARRIVED HOME later than he had intended. After his performance in Kessler’s office, he had returned to his firm in Seattle, wanting to stick to routine. He called Tina and Jake from a pay phone in the lobby of the building. Both were fine. They had spent the day in Ellensburg after picking up supplies. Jake found a tack shop and became enamored of a black cowboy hat. Tina bought it for him. She said when they returned to the ranch, Jake put the hat on and the caretaker gave him a lesson on an Appaloosa.
“I hope he doesn’t take to horseback riding the way he did fishing,” Sloane had said. “We’d have a heck of a time with the neighbors if we kept a horse in the backyard.”
He could tell from the moments of silence in their conversations that Tina was worried about him, but both of them knew he had to finish what he had started and that she was in his corner. There would be no going back.
With the heavy cloud layer continuing to roll in from the south, it was dark as he parked in the easement next to Jenkins’s mud-caked Buick. They had agreed it unwise for him to park in the detached garage because when the doors closed, he would be momentarily lost from Jenkins’s view.
Exiting the Jeep, Sloane fought his instincts to look about and pushed through the gate to the back porch. Jake’s fishing pole leaned against the barbecue on the lawn. A light wind brought the briny smell of the Sound. The tide was in.
As he stepped inside, Bud jumped onto the counter, but Sloane didn’t want to linger in the kitchen with all the windows. He walked into the front room. The shades remained down. Bud followed him upstairs, meowing and winding between his legs, making a pest of himself. Sloane changed into jeans, a black T-shirt, and dark, rubber-soled shoes. Returning downstairs, he turned on the lamp near the couch, and sat across the room in a leather chair with the Glock in his lap and his cell phone pre-dialed to Jenkins’s number.
Then he waited.
FROM THE UNDERBRUSH on the hillside Jenkins scanned the area surrounding Sloane’s home as Sloane pulled into the spot beside the Buick. Jenkins didn’t like Sloane being in the open, though it was unlikely Argus would try to kill him with a sniper shot. Their first priority would be to recover the fictitious tape recording of Michael Cassidy’s confession. It had been a smart play by Sloane. It would buy him time. If Argus stuck to their prior MO, they would make Sloane’s death look explainable—a suicide like Ferguson, an accident like Cassidy, or a random killing, as with Dwayne Thomas.
Jenkins also didn’t like being this far from the house, but no other alternative afforded him a view of the property and surrounding area. To the east and north the house faced the street and the public easement. The beach and the Sound were to the west. To the south, across an expanse of lawn, Sloane’s neighbor illuminated a flag atop a pole with a bright spotlight. That left the hillside behind Sloane’s property. Jenkins parked the Explorer on the street above Maplewild and accessed the hillside by cutting through yards.
Sloane disappeared from view as he passed through the gate and reappeared atop the back stairs. He lingered a moment, then pushed inside. Shortly thereafter a muted light reflected through a shaded window, the sign they had agreed upon that everything inside the house was all right. Jenkins knew exactly where Sloane would be sitting.
Sweat rolled down his forehead into his eyes. The humidity, unusual for the Northwest, had built all day, and the dark cloud layer gave the impression of a paper bag filled with water, capable of bursting at any moment. The lighting on the street was poor. A lamp on a utility pole cast the easement in an orange glow. Otherwise the street lamps were few and far between. Apparently the homeowners on Three Tree Point valued their privacy.
As the evening wore on, the wind began to gust out of the south, stiffening the flag on the neighbor’s pole. Moments later the cloud layer flashed a brilliant purple and white, followed by a rumble of thunder that shook the ground.
And the paper bag burst.
Jenkins re
ached into his backpack and pulled out one of the camouflage ponchos he and Sloane had bought for their trek to Cassidy’s trailer as great globules of water fell from the sky. They had put the ponchos away damp, and the plastic had stuck together as if melted. Jenkins fought to unravel it without ripping holes. When he had finally succeeded, he slipped it over his head and pulled it around his torso. Then he picked up the binoculars to scan the area, though he did not need them to see that a van had parked in the easement, directly beside Sloane’s Jeep.
PENDERGRASS FELT HIMSELF blush, but before he could respond—not that any words came immediately to mind—Keane pulled away.
“Rachel.”
Keane turned to the sound of her name being called. Pendergrass recognized Houghton Park Jr. from images in the media.
“Houghton, how are you?” Keane kissed Park on the cheek, then turned to introduce Pendergrass. “This is Captain Thomas Pendergrass.”
Park’s gray hair was slicked back off his forehead with a liberal dose of gel. “The young man you were telling me about?” He extended a hand. “Houghton Park. So very glad you came.”
“Captain Pendergrass served in Iraq and is the newest member of my civil litigation team.”
“A soldier and an attorney,” Park said. “Is that like an officer and a gentleman?”
Pendergrass smiled. “I’m still a JAG lawyer at present,” he said, though he had not missed the fact that Keane had apparently spoken to Park about him.
Keane slipped her arm through the captain’s. “But he’s going to consider a fulltime position in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, aren’t you, Tom?”
Pendergrass smiled. “I certainly hope it will be an option.” He suddenly remembered that he wanted to let Keane know about his conversation with the Tort Claims staff, and their inability to find James Ford’s file, but decided the issue could wait until they were alone.
“Good for you,” Park said, smiling. “Never come cheap or easy, my father used to say.”
They all smiled politely.
“Thank you for having me,” Pendergrass said.
“It’s my pleasure. We are all indebted to you for your service. The president will be arriving shortly. Have you ever met a president, Captain?”
Wrongful Death: A Novel Page 26
