Butterfly Knife

by Larry Matthews

Chapter Twenty-Two

  Malone went back to Washington to keep an eye on Elena. He knew that she had the next part in the drama that was playing out in Virginia and it would not be long before she crossed the Potomac. Her apartment was dark as he gazed up from a parking spot on Columbia Road. The smells of Latin cooking came to him and he had a brief thought that he could slip into a small café and pick up a papusa stuffed with soft cheese and spicy pork. His mouth watered as he imagined the Salvadoran heat from the dish, but his discipline overrode his hunger and he put the papusa in the back of his mind. Two young men walked by, arm and arm, and laughed as they caught him looking at them. “What’s up, old man?”

  He caught the light coming on in Elena’s apartment and glanced up to see her silhouette against the curtain. He had learned that she had an account with a quick-rental car company whose vehicles were available on a moment’s notice at parking garages in the city, so he suspected that she would grab one of them if she made a trip to the farm. He knew about all of her accounts and how much she owed on her credit cards. It was easy. He had acquaintances who could hack into sophisticated and so-called secure online accounts easily and deliver a detailed report to him within minutes. That is how he knew about her LightCar account and how often she used it and where she went and for how long. He would know exactly when she made an online reservation to go to Virginia.

  He stepped into a puddle of just-melted ice and felt the cold water seep into his shoe, soaking his sock, and he regretted that he had chosen the leather loafers over the water-proof hiking boots that now sat warm and dry in his room. He had chosen a businessman look for the evening and so was wearing a suit and tie under his overcoat. It occurred to him that in Adams Morgan a middle-aged man in a suit and tie might stand out more than a guy in a leather jacket and water-proof boots, but it was too late to change, so he lit a cigarette and hoped his wet foot would not become too numb to run if he had to.

  Elena took a bath to calm herself. She brought candles into the bathroom and set her smart-phone to play her favorite music on an Internet station that played Latin ballads from the 60s and 70s, the big production numbers with horns and conga drums; the songs that made her move and cry. She sat in the steaming water and closed her eyes, imagining a tropical beach under the stars, dancing in bare feet on the warm sand with Dave, who was bare-chested, wearing white pants and moving seductively, whispering that he loved her. It was a dream that she replayed every evening as she sought sleep. She wept as she asked herself if it would ever come true.

  The moment was shaken from her by the incoming call that broke the mood by blasting a ringtone of a Latin rock band. She sat up and saw that Dave was calling and for a moment she considered rejecting the call and sending him to her voicemail, where, she knew, he could plead for her to call him back, so she answered. “Hola.”

  “It’s me.”

  “I could tell. How are you? How is life on the lamb?”

  “Very funny. When can you come to see me?”

  “I don’t know if I want to.” She felt far away from his reality and she was still tied to the fantasy on the beach where he was another Dave, a loving Dave, not the distant, hiding Dave on the phone.

  “You’d like it here. It’s nice. It’s quiet.” His voice was soft.

  She considered what that meant. “Are you bored?”

  “Yeah, I suppose. I miss you. I want you to come.”

  Their conversation dragged through the weeds and thorns that couples throw down for each other in moments when their emotions are raw and they’re not sure if they want to talk to each other anymore. He was scared and lonely and he wanted to tell her the truth. She was weary of the games that they had been playing and she was feeling a moment of relief that he was locked away on a mountaintop. They looped through it all and, in the end, she agreed to visit him in two days, on her break, but she would not promise to spend the night. He begged and she relented. One night. She felt exhausted when the call ended and her Internet music resumed. She had no further interest in the fantasy that it produced, so she turned it off, dried herself, and spent the next two hours trying to find sleep.

 

  Minutes later, Malone’s phone vibrated and he pressed the “answer” button but said nothing. A voice told him that Elena would be going to Virginia in two days. He ended the call and went to his room, where he removed his wet shoe and placed it on a heating vent. He took a hot shower to warm himself and enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

  Captain O’Neil was not as fortunate. He was wrestling with a political problems on Indiana Avenue, where the chief and her minions were fielding calls from Justice and Interior about Ranger Etter and the link to the priest killings. The F.B.I. had not been reluctant to share the link and, in fact, had been calling everyone in their Rolodex to share the news. A source at the Washington field office had informed O’Neil that an agent named Ossening had even called Dave Haggard to share the news.

  O’Neil saw this for what it was: the F.B.I. was grabbing the priest killings and its ancillary issues, Dave included, under the assumption that it was now a federal case. This presented some problems for O’Neil. No department welcomes federal intervention in its cases. Some of it is the natural tension between the locals and the feds. In O’Neil’s case, there were too many tentacles wrapped around too many arms in this investigation to feel comfortable walking away. There was too much to lose.

  A new detective, a woman named Angela de Angelo who had been moved up from undercover district duty, was sitting across from O’Neil’s desk, waiting for him to assign her a partner and a case. She was a chubby black woman from Northeast who had recently completed required course work at the University of the District of Columbia, making her eligible to move up in the department. O’Neil looked at her. “What do you do when you have two bad choices?” he asked

  She assumed “the attitude” of the black-woman-in-charge and spit out, “Pick the one that’s worse and go with the other one.” She offered him a steady gaze that said there were no other options.

  O’Neil took a deep breath. “You’re right. You’ll be with Jefferson on the priest cases.”

  Detective de Angelo was ecstatic. The priest killings were the top-of-the-line cases in the homicide unit at the moment. She had no way of knowing at that moment that Jefferson had asked for someone to “do the shit work” of organizing reports and other paperwork, work that no one else wanted. It would keep her at a well-worn government desk while other detectives worked the streets. But for now, she was happy and felt worthwhile.

  “You can go,” O’Neil added, waving her to the door. He watched her leave as she closed the door. He picked up his cell phone and called Dave, who was sleeping in the cabin and having a dream that he was about to go on the air for a national broadcast and had no copy and was not prepared in any way to speak to America about anything. It was a dream he had been having for years. He always woke up breathing hard. But this time the dream did not reach its conclusion because the dobro ringtone woke him. In his dream state he believed that Elena was calling. “Hi, are you here?” he answered.

  “Where?” O’Neil’s voice startled Dave.

  “Oh, hi, Captain. I was sleeping. What’s up?”

  “Well, it appears that you already know what’s up, that’s why I’m calling. How are you?”

  “Under the circumstances, I’m okay. I hope you’re calling to tell me you got the killer.”

  “Not quite but we’ve got some leads working.”

  “Sounds like a press release. Speaking of that, have you guys released the autopsy findings that link the priests killer to the Etter murder?”

  “Indiana Avenue is working on that. Our good friends at the F.B.I. are pissing on the furniture around here, so things are touch and go, case-wise.”

  “In other words, they’re taking over the investigation.”

  “Not yet, maybe later.”

  “Does the F.B.I. have anything to do with me being here?”

  O
’Neil took a moment to answer. “It’s not their place, no. But I’m pretty sure they know where you are.”

  Dave thought about Ossening’s call and knew damn well that the F.B.I. knew pretty much everything, maybe even the stuff that Frank was alluding to and probably hiding. He listened to O’Neil breathe and wondered how long he could take to say something before O’Neil jumped in on his own. The near-silence spoke volumes to O’Neil.

  “You’ve talked to Ossening, haven’t you.”

  “He called to say hello and how are you,” Dave said.

  “And to tell you about the autopsy, I’d wager.”

  “So, Captain, what’s next?”

  “We’re working on it. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid for at least twenty-four hours.”

  “And what would you consider stupid?”

  “Leaving where you are or advertising your location. Stuff like that.”

  “Elena is coming down to see me. She’ll be spending the night.”

  O’Neil was relieved. Elena’s presence would lessen the chance that Dave would go out beyond the wire, so to speak, and get hurt. She might calm him down and give O’Neil time to work up a plan to keep things from blowing up. “Good. That’s good. I’ll get Frank to take you two out to dinner. You’ll be safe with him.”

  “Sid and I had a nice little talk with Frank, by the way. He’s an interesting guy.”

  “Frank’s got some stories to tell, that’s for sure, but I wouldn’t take them too seriously.” O’Neil would call Frank later to hear what he had told the newsman. It was critical that their stories match. “I’ll let you get back to your nap. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

  Dave was wide awake and he jotted down notes about the conversation. It was a story that kept evolving and changing, almost as if the priests killings had become secondary to something else. How much could he share with Elena? He wished Sid were there to sift through it with him. He opened his laptop and wrote a think piece about another day in hiding, called the desk and filed it, and searched the cabin kitchen for a bottle of bourbon, which he found under the sink. He poured himself a small glass and stared at the fire in the wood stove.