Wrongful Death: A Novel

by Dugoni, Robert

  “I’ve never had that pleasure,” Pendergrass said.

  “I think you’ll find it a memory that will last a lifetime.” Park turned to Keane. “There are some people I’d like you to meet.” He looked to Pendergrass. “Could I steal the U.S. attorney from you for a few moments?”

  “Certainly,” Pendergrass said.

  As Keane walked off, the wrap across her shoulders slid, revealing a toned and muscled back. Pendergrass’s eyes did not stop there. They continued lower, to her toned and firm butt.

  Keane suddenly looked back over her shoulder, catching him. She winked.

  A burst of light illuminated the clouds, thunder just seconds behind it. Pendergrass felt the first drops of rain and, along with the other guests, moved quickly for cover inside what he was already calling the “the Great Hall.” Despite the weather, for whatever the reason, tonight it certainly appeared that fortune had smiled on him. A few days ago he had been pushing papers around a desk at Fort Lewis. Now it appeared he was moving toward his long-term goal. He’d heard others talk about their lives changing in an instant. Solders knew it well. Maybe this was his instant.

  Feeling emboldened, he made eye contact with a woman carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres, took two, and plucked a glass of wine from another passing tray. He then stepped toward a conversation, introduced himself, and soon found that he mingled easily among the rich and famous, his uniform an obvious icebreaker. Before he knew it, he was knee-deep in half a dozen conversations.

  “Did you serve in the war?”

  “How long were you in Iraq?”

  “Will you have to go back?”

  “Is it as bad as the media is portraying?”

  Others simply thanked him for his service. Pendergrass did not downplay the attention by explaining that during his tour he had never left the Green Zone and spent most of his time sorting through legal claims by angry Iraqi civilians seeking compensation for damage inflicted to their homes or other property by American forces. He tried to sound humble, opining that the real heroes were those soldiers who had given their lives. It made him think of James Ford. He had meant it when he told David Sloane that he wished he could compensate every family who lost a relative in Iraq, that he was, at heart, still a soldier. He wished Beverly Ford had taken the money.

  In need of a bathroom, he excused himself from a conversation. Not seeing any signs—this was after all, despite its immensity, still a man’s home and not a public facility—he wandered to the edge of the room and started down a hall, turned another corner, and found himself lost. Approaching the end of another corridor, he heard voices and slowed, embarrassed that he may have strayed into an area not intended for guests. He came to a room with a large stone fireplace, high ceiling, and fresco paintings, but the décor was not what caught his immediate attention. What caught his immediate attention was the sight of the shawl draped across the toned bare shoulders. Rachel Keane stepped through a doorway into an adjacent room, Houghton Park’s hand pressed gently against the small of her back.

  Pendergrass was about to turn away when a third person, already inside the room, moved to close the door behind Park. Catching a glimpse of the man’s profile just before the door shut, Pendergrass went numb.

  THE WIND-DRIVEN RAIN splattered on the roof and skylights, the water pinging through the overwhelmed gutters and downspouts. A spark of light pulsed blue against the window blinds and momentarily lit the living room. Seconds later, thunder rattled the windows.

  Then something banged.

  Sloane stood from his chair holding the Glock in one hand, his phone in the other. Another bang.

  This time the noise had a familiarity to it, and Sloane placed it—the screen door off the kitchen slamming against the house. When unlatched, the wind caught the door and flung it against the siding. The first time Sloane had heard the noise, it had startled him and Tina from a dead sleep.

  He walked to the kitchen and watched through the glass of the kitchen door as the wind caught the screen again and whipped it backward against the siding. The rational side of his brain told him to let it be, but he also didn’t want the noise to distract him from other possible sounds. He had forgotten to disable the bulb over the back door illuminating the porch and didn’t relish the thought of standing in the spotlight even for a moment, Jenkins’s theory that Argus wouldn’t snipe him notwithstanding.

  He crept below the marble counter, put the gun on the floor, and pulled the door open a crack. The wind howled. He slid forward but couldn’t reach the screen door handle and his fingers could not grip an edge to pull the door closed. Not wanting to linger on the porch, he stepped out, grabbed the handle of the screen, pulled it closed and latched the eyehook. Then he closed the kitchen door. Though it took only seconds, his heart hammered in his chest and his hair dripped as if he’d been sprayed with a burst from a garden hose.

  He walked back through the living room, shaking the water from his hair, when he noticed the shadow on the cloth blind, what he initially thought to be a bush beneath the windowsill rustling in the wind. Then the shadow moved across the blind right to left, the top of someone’s head ducking just beneath the sill.

  Sloane watched as the shadow progressed from one window to the next, perhaps trying to see inside by looking beneath the blinds.

  The crocodiles had come.

  The hunt was on.

  He pressed the send button as the shadow turned the southwest corner of the house. A moment later it reappeared on the blind of his den window. Sloane lost the shadow a second time as the person turned the southeast corner to the front of the house. Jenkins’s phone rang a second time.

  Jenkins did not answer.

  “Come on. Come on,” Sloane said.

  The shadow crept past the window to the right of the front door but did not appear in the window on the other side. Again Jenkins’s phone rang.

  Again he did not answer.

  Sloane dropped to one knee and pressed an ear to the door but heard only the whistle of the wind and the beating of the rain. When Jenkins did not answer after the third ring, Sloane hung up.

  He forced himself to remain calm, to think clearly. The police were not an option. Sloane had one shot at this, and for it to work, Argus had to think they had the upper hand at all times. He suspected they would send more than one man. The first time had only been meant to warn; this time their intent would be to kill. Were they planning to come through the back, hoping to flush him out the front door? That was information Jenkins was to provide. Not any longer, though why, Sloane did not know.

  He decided he could not stay in the house. His paths of escape were limited and could be directed. Outside he would have the cover of darkness, the weather, and the advantage of knowing the terrain. But that presented two problems: getting out, and deciding which direction to run.

  He wouldn’t make it across the neighbor’s lawn, not with the floodlight illuminating the flagpole and everything around it. To the west, the high tide had narrowed the beach to a six-foot strip that would force him to run in a straight line and not very fast in the rocks and shells, a bad combination if someone was shooting at him. That left the front door, where the man waited, and the easement off the back porch, which was basically a dead end.

  Not if you can reach the Indian Trail.

  In his mind Sloane recalled Jake stepping behind the blue community Dumpster while cleaning up fireworks after the Fourth of July and seeming to disappear. Following him, Sloane had pulled back a hedge and discovered an overgrown footpath that led through and behind the yards of the homes perched on the hillside overlooking Puget Sound. Further inquiry revealed the path to have been originally used by Native Americans to access the beach a century before man carved Maplewild in the hillside.

  If Sloane could reach the trail he would be well concealed.

  That was well and good, but it did not solve his first problem, getting out of the house. If Argus had stationed a man at the front door, they likely had one
or more at the back.

  The room again pulsed blue light, followed by a near simultaneous clap of thunder. It shook the house, nearly masking another sound; this one not the product of nature, but an explosion that plunged Sloane into total darkness.

  JENKINS SLIPPED AND slid on the wet ground, hurrying up the hillside from his hiding place. Three steps into the neighbor’s backyard he heard the command.

  “Freeze.”

  Jenkins froze.

  “Hands. Show me your hands.”

  He held up his hands, the backpack in one, his cell phone in the other. Rain sheeted off his camouflage poncho.

  The police officer had his gun drawn, as did his female partner, standing to Jenkins’s right. The male officer continued to shout, but Jenkins was having difficulty hearing him over the storm. Water dripped down his face. “What?”

  “Drop the backpack and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Jenkins dropped the backpack.

  “What’s in your left hand?” the officer shouted.

  “Cell phone.”

  “Drop it!”

  Jenkins looked down at the puddle at his feet.

  “Now! Do not lower your hands. Let it fall.”

  The phone landed in the puddle.

  Then it rang. Sloane.

  Jenkins nearly reached for it, but his instincts to not get shot prevailed.

  “On your knees. Keep your hands above your head. I want to see them at all times.”

  Jenkins complied. “I’m a private investigator,” he shouted. “I’m armed.”

  The officer shared a look with his partner. “Where’s your weapon?”

  “My right hip, under the poncho.”

  The phone rang again. He and Sloane had agreed they would only call if necessary. Sloane was in trouble, and capable as he was in and out of a courtroom, he would be no match for Argus’s commandos alone.

  “Are you carrying any other weapons?”

  “No.”

  The shotgun and the AR15 rifle remained hidden in the back of Alex’s Explorer parked on the street.

  Again the phone rang. Damn it, Jenkins thought.

  The officer signaled to his female partner. She approached Jenkins from behind and grabbed his right wrist. The cuff pinched the flesh. The officer pulled his arm behind his back and quickly snapped the second cuff. Then she felt along his side and reached beneath the poncho to remove his gun.

  Lightening crackled, this time the thunder nearly simultaneous.

  Then something exploded.

  Jenkins jerked his head to look over his shoulder, but he could no longer see Sloane’s house behind the foliage. He half expected to see flames leaping into the sky.

  He looked down at his phone. The screen had gone black. “My investigator’s license is in my back pocket.”

  Sloane had insisted Jenkins get the damn license, worried about potential liability. Jenkins had called him a namby-pants. He hoped he had the chance to take it back.

  “We’ll get that all figured out.” The male officer helped Jenkins to his feet and led him through the yard. Jenkins looked again, but could not see Sloane’s home. The female officer carried the backpack and cell phone as they crossed the yard. Frightened faces peered from behind curtained windows.

  Jenkins leaned against the back of the police cruiser and spread his legs without being asked, hoping to move things along.

  “What were you doing in the bushes?” the male officer asked.

  “Watching a client’s house. He’s received anonymous threats. It’s the only place with a view. I should have asked the neighbor for permission, but you know people get squeamish about those kinds of things, especially when the request is made by a large black man.”

  “Who’s your client?”

  “David Sloane. He lives in the white colonial next to the easement.”

  “What kind of threats?”

  “Threats to his wife and children. He’s a lawyer,” Jenkins said, keeping his response vague. “My license and identification are in my back pocket. I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.”

  The male officer pulled out Jenkins’s wallet and opened the back door of the car. “Okay, take a seat out of the rain.”

  “Could you rush it?” Jenkins asked.

  He debated asking the officers to go to the house and check on Sloane, but Sloane had been adamant about not involving law enforcement. Law enforcement would only spook Argus, and that would give them time to destroy whatever evidence could still exist. Argus was also a trained combat force, and Jenkins could be sending two police officers unprepared into an ambush.

  “It will go as fast as it goes,” the officer said.

  Jenkins sat on the edge of the backseat, folded his knees to his chest, and squeezed into the car. His knees pressed against the hard plastic, and the handcuffs forced him to lean forward, putting a strain on his neck and back.

  The male officer directed his partner to go and reassure the homeowner, then slid in the driver’s-side door out of the rain, typing on a computer. He would run a Department of Licensing check to confirm that Jenkins did have a concealed weapons permit, and also check to ensure the gun wasn’t stolen. He’d also search for outstanding warrants.

  It was routine, but routine took time, and that was the one thing Jenkins feared Sloane did not have.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Pendergrass slipped inside a bathroom, locking the door. He stood at the sink, staring at his reflection in the oval, gold-leaf mirror, feeling sickened and lightheaded. He lowered the toilet seat and sat.

  Someone knocked.

  His head snapped to the sound. Another knock. He stood.

  “Just a minute.” He turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face. Then he dried his hands and face on a hand towel, checked his appearance again in the mirror, took a deep breath, and pulled open the door.

  A well-coiffed woman leaned against the doorframe, breasts swelling over the top of a low-cut, sequined gown. Her eyes widened as if she had discovered something she liked on the menu. “Hello, soldier,” she said, words slurring. “Don’t you look yummy.”

  He stepped past her.

  “Hey, don’t run off.”

  Walking back into the Great Hall, Pendergrass did not see Park or Keane, although the crowd had thinned, most now outside under the tents. He hurried quickly to the tent and surveyed the faces. The crowd buzzed with anticipation. Pendergrass looked at his watch. The president was due to arrive at any moment.

  He needed to leave quickly. He needed to warn Sloane.

  Houghton Park exited the French doors to the wing of the house and approached Johnson Marshall. The incumbent senator stood on the patio in spit-polished shoes, a navy-blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. Keane emerged through the same doors a discreet moment later.

  Park raised his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m advised that the president will be joining us very shortly. At this time, however, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Washington’s own senator, Johnson Marshall.”

  Marshall stepped forward to applause. Pendergrass didn’t wait to hear the speech. He stepped back into the Great Hall, now deserted but for the staff, and moved quickly across it to the porte cochere. The bus was not there. He’d have to walk. He started up the driveway on foot. Halfway up the road, four police motorcycles descended toward him, lights flashing. Pendergrass walked back down and stepped to the side as the president’s motorcade arrived. Secret Service exited black Town Cars and fanned out across the property. Two agents moved directly toward Pendergrass.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to return to the party,” one of the men said. “We need to secure this area.”

  Pendergrass didn’t bother to debate. He walked down the road and back inside the Great Hall. Starting across it, he had a thought and veered in a different direction, retracing his earlier steps. He found the corridor that led to the room with the stone fireplace and frescoes, crossed to the door into which Ke
ane and Park had stepped, and reached for the handle.

  “Tom.” Pendergrass subtly pulled back his hand, turned. “I’ve been looking for you,” Keane said.

  Pendergrass maintained a calm demeanor. “I was looking for the bathroom. I must have got turned around.”

  “Certainly understandable in this place,” she said. “You missed the announcement. The president has arrived.”

  “That would be just like me to miss it.” He smiled. “Story of my life.”

  Keane took his arm. “Well, I’m not about to let that happen to my escort.”

  Walking back to the Great Hall, Pendergrass thought of the three dead guardsmen. Astronomical. What were the odds of all three dying so close to one another? Astronomical.

  He thought of Captain Robert Kessler.

  Then he thought again of David Sloane.

  THE IDEA CAME suddenly.

  Sloane did not question it.

  He ripped open the door and aimed the gun. The man had turned his head to the reverberating echo from the explosion, giving Sloane the split-second advantage he had sought. The only thing that kept him from pulling the trigger was he had aimed too high. By the time he corrected, the synapses in his brain had ordered him not to shoot.

  Captain Robert Kessler turned back and flinched, but otherwise sat motionless staring up at Sloane through the rain.

  “I’m alone,” Kessler said. “And I’m unarmed.”

  “What are you doing sitting out here in the rain?”

  “I can’t stand.” Kessler smiled. “I couldn’t get up the steps to reach a door.”

  Sloane scanned the yard but did not detect anyone else. “What do you want?”

  “I know Cassidy didn’t tell you we were selling supplies on the black market.”

  “Yeah? How do you know that?”

  “Because it’s a lie. And because Cassidy would have had no reason to lie. You also had to know Cassidy. That boy began to twitch the second we left base. He wouldn’t have sold a pack of cigarettes for a million dollars if it meant staying off our FOB longer than necessary. So I’m guessing you came to my office to let me know it was Griffin who told you that story, just like you put me on the stand to let me know he coordinated the witness statements.”