BEFORE HE LAPSES

by Blake Pierce

  Several seconds later, the door was answered by a tall bald man. He was wearing a Navy T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He carried a cup of coffee in one hand and had the look of a man who was preoccupied with something.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Are you Mr. Earl Jackson?” Ellington asked.

  “Who’s asking?”

  Ellington was the only one to show his badge. He was once more taking the lead, making sure Mackenzie did not insert herself in any significant way unless she had to. “I’m Agent Ellington and this is my partner, Agent White.”

  She saw the traces of a smile touch the corner of his mouth as he referred to her in such a way. Apparently, they were both having trouble getting used to her new name.

  Earl Jackson looked a little frightened. His posture seemed to spread out a bit, as if he would block the doorway into his home if he had to.

  “What’s this about?” he asked.

  “We’re working on an investigation in Maryland that brought up a few different names from people that are involved in the government. One of those people just happened to be a lobbyist by the name of Bruce Dumfries. A man we know you disliked enough to quit a job and sever ties with Senator Eric Connor. We were hoping to speak to you about how you knew him.”

  “Yeah. I’m not interested in that,” Jackson said.

  “I can respect that,” Ellington said. “But this is a very pressing investigation and we need information that isn’t exactly readily available.”

  Jackson eyed them skeptically and sipped from his coffee. “What sort of investigation?”

  “We think there might be some men around Dumfries and Connor that could potentially know some details about a murder case we are trying to solve.”

  Mackenzie noted right away that Ellington had not inferred that they were eyeing Dumfries for the murder. It was a smart move, not giving Jackson the ability to automatically see the man in a new negative light.

  That look of fear came back into Jackson’s eyes. Without his saying a word, the expression spoke volumes. Jackson stepped aside and nodded for them to come in. “My wife is at work. If she were here, there might be some push-back on me allowing this.”

  “Can we ask why?” Mackenzie asked as they stepped inside.

  “Well, I assume you’re here because you know I once worked for Eric. And, as you said, that I quit. Well, things didn’t end there. I was relentlessly harassed by that asshole after I quit.”

  “Dumfries being the asshole?” Ellington asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And why did he harass you?”

  “He claimed I said too much when I left my position with Eric. Said I tossed him under the bus. Which is stupid. I had two people interview me. One of those, I shut down about a minute into it and revealed nothing. And the second one, I did my best to say it was because I felt uncomfortable working in such a position when he was around. And that was it.”

  “What do you mean by harassed?” Ellington said.

  They were in the living room now, Jackson taking a seat in a recliner. Ellington sat down on a couch opposite the recliner while Mackenzie remained standing next to him. It was a comfy place that seemed to draw the tension right out of all three of them.

  “Well, I originally moved to Richmond because my mother was in a convalescent home. She passed away about two months after I moved here. But by that time, my wife had picked up a really good job so we stayed. I work from home, helping remotely set up security systems for growing businesses, so I can work anywhere. So we just stayed here. We would get phone calls from people that used to work for Eric, threatening us. I called Eric and told him and it stopped for a while. But then there was one time where Dumfries himself showed up at our old home in downtown Richmond. He had a goon with him that constantly kept reaching for his waist, like he was packing heat.”

  “Were there ever any physical altercations?” Ellington asked.

  “No. Look...to be honest, the only reason I ever said anything about my reasons for quitting is because I figured it would become public record. If I ended up missing or dead, I figured that one little statement I made would instantly have people looking in Bruce Dumfries’s direction.”

  “That raises a ton of questions,” Ellington said. “For starters, what was the relationship between Dumfries and Connor?”

  “Oh, they were thick as thieves. Best friends. They disagreed on a lot of things, but they always had each other’s back. You see, Dumfries came from money. Old money. His family has been loaded ever since the early 1900s. When his father passed away and most of that money went to an already wealthy Bruce Dumfries, he ended up being worth around two hundred and sixty million dollars. And as I’m sure you know, he sprinkles it around Washington, earning favors and making powerful friends. One of those friends was Eric Connor.”

  “Any problems with Connor?”

  “Not at all. That man was great to me. Treated me well. A real stand-up guy. Which is why it blows my mind that he was friends with Dumfries…why he always covered up for the creep.”

  “Covered up what, exactly?”

  “All sorts of sordid shit. My partner and I would get calls when we were working for Eric…calls from Eric himself. He would ask us to go to the Dumfries residence and, as Eric would phrase it, clean up the mess. Turns out, Dumfries was a fan of beating his wife almost weekly. Cleaning up the mess was making sure she didn’t tell anyone. Paying her off, talking her down. Sometimes it was making sure she didn’t need to go to the hospital.”

  “And was she ever seriously hurt?” Mackenzie asked.

  “He snapped her wrist once. Broke her nose, too.”

  “He was married twice, correct?” Ellington asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What about the second wife?”

  “Dumfries and his second wife stopped living together after about a week. But he begged her to stay with him, just out of public image interest. She did, and they stayed together for about a year. He cheated on her constantly. We’d get calls about that, too. Calls to check on the prostitutes and escorts Dumfries had hired. He knocked a few teeth out, nearly strangled one. But he paid them off for their silence.”

  Mackenzie and Ellington shared a look at this news. “And why did you not share all of this when you stepped out?”

  “Because he’s bad news.” He left it at this for a moment. Mackenzie thought he was starting to grow uncomfortable again, maybe regretting everything he’d said. “I don’t know it for sure, but I’m pretty sure Dumfries had at least two people killed while I was working for Eric. And I know he regularly made threats to people. He was very intimidating. But he was charming in the public eye so when he showed this dark side of his behind closed doors, it was almost paralyzing. He’s very good at showing the world one face while saving the other for just a select few. It also helped that he plays the innocence card—always trying to stay out of the spotlight. But when it does hit him, he plays it up well.”

  “What makes you think he had people killed?” Ellington asked.

  “There was this online journalist that started to kick up a story. He’d found out about the prostitutes, only when he came after the story, he came for Eric. Had his facts wrong and Eric proved it. So the reporter dug deeper and ended up finding Dumfries was the one he was looking for. He ended up speaking to an old college roommate of Eric’s…a guy that knew Dumfries well, too. I think this guy tipped Dumfries off because he ended up requesting a meeting with him. I know this for a fact because Eric had us check the guy out for Dumfries before they met. So the reporter and Dumfries met and then no one saw him for like two days. And when he came back to work, he was quite happy. As for the journalist, he was found three weeks later in a pond somewhere out in the country. He’d been beaten to death with a baseball bat.”

  “And no one made the connection?” Mackenzie asked.

  “One person did. Again…this is all assumptions on my part. Just connecting the dots. But the person that
got suspicious and started asking questions after the journalist was found…I know for a fact that a check for thirty thousand dollars was written to her. Straight from one of Eric’s accounts so it wouldn’t be linked to Dumfries.”

  “Sounds like Eric Connor wasn’t as innocent as he seems, either.”

  “He dabbled, too. He had two prostitutes he would see regularly. But that was after his marriage ended. As far as I know, he never did that sort of thing when he was married. But his connection with Dumfries…I never got it. Never understood it.”

  “You’re making it sound like with Connor as a shield of sorts, Dumfries is untouchable,” Ellington said.

  “He might be. He was always good at shoveling over his crap. And when he needed help, Eric was there. Dumfries loves control and he loves power. But he also knows that if he made much of himself, all of his little dark delights would be called out and shown to the world. He’s happy to stay where he is. He’s comfortable there, shelling out his money from the dark. He’s made strong friends and I’m pretty sure he has some low-rate bodyguard around him most of the time. The kind that came to my house with him to threaten me. I’d imagine the same kind that did away with the journalist.”

  “Mr. Jackson…do you have any proof of any of this?”

  “Nothing tangible. But I received calls from Eric…calls where he told us that there was another mess at the Dumfries house that needed to be taken care of. I only ever actually spoke to Dumfries on a few occasions. I hated him. I felt like he saw me as his clean-up crew, a little peon that worked for him as well as for Eric.”

  “What about the other bodyguard that was working with you at the time?” Ellington asked. “Could he corroborate these stories?”

  “I’m sure he’d love to, but he can’t. Not too long after I left, he left, too. He told no one where he went and left no trace. I’ve often wondered if he’d also had enough but maybe Dumfries got to him before he could escape.”

  “So if we tried getting a meeting with Dumfries…”

  “I’d be careful,” Jackson said. “FBI or not…the man has some weird and powerful ties. I still don’t quite know how. There’s a rumor floating around that he was very good friends with Richard King back in college.”

  “Richard King,” Ellington said. “You mean the head of the Justice Department?”

  “That’s him. Also…he’ll have people fighting for him. When Eric was reelected the last term, it was a close election. His winning tipped the senate and he made it known that a lot of his success came from loyal friends and supporters like Dumfries. He actually called the fucker out in his victory speech, thanking him. If Dumfries goes down, Eric would be affected, too. Control of the senate would basically be up for grabs. And Maryland needed that win…the Democratic party did, anyway. There’s too much at stake.”

  “Mr. Jackson,” Ellington said. “Do you have a number for how many women he abused?”

  Jackson shook his head. “No. I know there were at least two. Three if you count his first wife.”

  “Do you know where his first wife is now?”

  “No idea. I intentionally never really tried to keep up with him.”

  “Any idea how long it’s been since you received one of those threatening visits or phone calls?” Mackenzie asked.

  “It’s been over a year. That’s why I was hesitant to let you in. It’s been a year and I was daring to hope that chapter of my life was finally over.” He stopped here and looked directly at Ellington. “Look… if you go after him, it has to be a certain and ironclad thing. It has to be in a way where he doesn’t have a chance to set his goons on you or to pay to have what you find covered up. And while I hate to think of Eric in such a way, I think Dumfries could sway him. And if he gets Eric on you, the bureau would get hit with so much crap…”

  “Trust me,” Ellington said. “We’ll take every precaution.”

  Jackson nodded, but didn’t seem too convinced. “I wish you the best of luck. I know I’d sleep a lot easier at night if that son of a bitch was finally taken down.”

  “You talk about him like he’s some kind of monster,” Ellington said.

  Jackson shrugged and asked: “Jekyll and Hyde…was that guy a monster?”

  “No,” Mackenzie said. “Just a doctor that had an evil side that came out.”

  “That’s Dumfries, then. That’s him exactly.”

  He ended this statement with a look that sent a little chill through Mackenzie. It was the look of a man that knew the monster—and also knew that as long as monsters had shadows to lurk around it, they would always exist.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  “Agent White, how have you been?”

  It was a loaded question, particularly coming from McGrath, through the other end of her phone. She looked out of the windshield, the next exit for DC coming up. They’d left Earl Jackson behind an hour and a half ago and she was still fighting the chills from that encounter. When she had seen the call from McGrath coming through, the chill increased but she knew it would be useless to ignore the call.

  “I’m good,” she answered. “Maybe a little out of sorts.”

  “Rested, I hope? Your head doing better?”

  “Yes sir. You got the medical reports yet?”

  “No. They’ll be here soon. Look…Mackenzie…”

  A flash of warmth passed through her—whether from fear or actual emotion, she wasn’t sure; McGrath had never referred to her by her first name.

  “I’ve been thinking more and more about it, and I feel that I know you well enough to understand why you chose not to let me know about the pregnancy right away,” he continued. “But at the same time, I consider it reckless for you to have been in such an active capacity these last few days. It makes me feel truly terrible to think that something could have happened to the baby just because you opted to not tell me about it. It’s made me realize that I value you more than I probably show.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I want you to take the remainder of the week off,” he said. “But I want to schedule a meeting with you on Monday morning. Nine o’clock, in my office. I want to go over some options about how to keep you on cases without you feeling the need to play Wonder Woman. And we also need to go over maternity leave and all of that.”

  “Yes sir. I appreciate that.”

  “Enjoy the next few days. I won’t lie…you probably have some desk-riding in the future. But I’m sure you’ll excel at whatever I put in front of you. Take care, Agent White. Or is it Ellington now?”

  “We’re still dancing around that one,” she said.

  They ended the call and Mackenzie honestly wasn’t sure how to feel. Here they were, actively going against McGrath’s orders for her to stay off her feet, when he had called to deliver what was easily the most touching sentiment she had ever seen from him. It made her feel awful.

  “That was McGrath?” Ellington asked.

  “Yeah. It was sort of touching.”

  She dwelled on the conversation for a moment and realized that perhaps one of the reasons she was finding it so hard to take a back seat on this case was because it had come about during a time of huge transition. She had been married, she was going to have a child, and, beyond all of that, her career seemed to be on a great trajectory. The fact that McGrath hadn’t just chewed her ass out was proof of that.

  And honestly, why ruin a transition with feeling like she had failed in bringing a case to a close? Why kill her momentum in such a way?

  She looked back out to the road, thinking over one more detail she had picked up yesterday. She had mentioned it to Ellington but almost in passing, as if it weren’t all that important.

  It was the fact that Bruce Dumfries would not be speaking at the conference tomorrow, but Senator Connor would be. So that, at least, made it clear why Dumfries would be there.

  And the venue was only four hours away from their apartment.

  It certainly had her thinking, even after the heartfelt call
from McGrath.

  “You okay?” Ellington asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, hoping it wasn’t obvious that her mind was preoccupied. “Just thinking.”

  ***

  Later that afternoon, Ellington was called back in to headquarters to hop on a conference call with Yardley, Harrison, and the bureau resource department. He’d received a call and a few emails concerning the case, all of which he shared with Mackenzie before he left.

  For starters, Yardley and Harrison got a positive ID on the man who had been in the hotel lobby, asking for Mackenzie. He had seemed to be aware of where the cameras were, always lowering his face when he was within range of one. But there had been a few frames when he had been speaking to the woman at the desk where his face had come into view. His name was Donnie Curts and he had a pretty extensive criminal record which included breaking and entering as well as a few months in prison for fracturing a man’s arm during a home invasion. A manhunt was currently underway to find him.

  In other news, Daniel Humphrey had decided to sic his lawyer on the bureau, a tactic that looked like it was going to blow up in his face since he was the one who looked like the bad guy in the entire thing.

  “And here’s the real kicker,” Ellington had said as he’d started to make his way for the door. “Neil Rooney is scheduled to make some sort of an announcement this afternoon. Rumors are swirling that say it’s a statement to inform the public that he will no longer allow Humphrey as his campaign manager.”

  It made Mackenzie feel slightly blind; maybe even a little naïve. They’d spent so much time focusing on the man at the lower end of the totem pole that they had neglected to look up. After hearing about the alleged crimes and twisted behavior of Bruce Dumfries, the skeletons that Humphrey had been dancing with seemed innocent by comparison.

  Ellington was at the door by then and Mackenzie realized that she was following behind him closely, like the dutiful little wife seeing her husband off to work. She stopped in her tracks when this feeling came over her and they shared a kiss before he left.