Dead Watch

by John Sandford

  “Is that right?” the sheriff asked.

  “That’s right,” Jake said. “The barbed wire was kind of a thing. It’s also the kind of thing that’ll get the attention of the TV people.”

  The sheriff said, “Huh.”

  Jake said, “So it’s possible that they poured the gas on him and got more fire than they expected. But why didn’t they just bury him? They could have put him two feet down, two guys working hard, in the time it took to pile up that wood. If they’d done that, he might not have been found for years. Was the fire really meant to burn him up? Or was it an advertisement? This whole scene looks to me like it was designed to get the media to freak out.”

  The sheriff looked at him closely, starting from his shoes, then asked, “What exactly do you do?”

  Novatny said, “You know, if that’s what it is . . . Jake, fifty people are going to look at our reports, the crime-scene stuff. It’s gonna leak.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Jake said.

  The smell of the body had become intolerable, and there wasn’t much to do other than look at it. They were walking out of the woods and met Clancy halfway, coming in.

  He nodded. “It’s him.”

  Evening was coming on, and with it, the mos-quitoes. Jake walked down the road, kicking up little puffs of gravel dust, working his cell phone; Novatny walked the other way, working his.

  Danzig said to Jake, “Jesus Christ. Hang on, Jake, Jesus Christ . . .”

  Jake heard him, apparently on another phone: “It’s him. Yeah, ninety percent, they did DNA on him. Naw, naw, it’s him.” Talking to the president.

  Then he was back: “Does that leave you anywhere to go?”

  “Ah . . . maybe.”

  “Do I want to know about it?”

  “No. It’s not necessary—yet. And I’m on a cell phone here.”

  “Okay. Tell me when it’s necessary to tell me. Has the FBI detailed anyone to talk to Madison Bowe?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “Tell this Novatny guy that I’m calling the director. I want somebody with some rank to do it. I don’t want a goddamn sheriff’s deputy calling her on the phone. Tell Novatny to coordinate it with the director’s office. I’ll call the director right now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Novatny, Parker, and the sheriff were standing in the parking area, waiting for Jake to get off the phone. When he did, Novatny asked, “Now what?”

  “The case is yours,” Jake said. “Full-court press. You’re to coordinate with the director’s office on informing Mrs. Bowe. Danzig’s calling the director now. He may send the director himself over to tell her.”

  “That’ll put him in a good mood,” Parker said. “The director being such a warm human being in the first place.”

  “This is gonna be the mother of all task forces,” Novatny said to Parker. “And we got the gun. We need a full crime-scene crew down here right now. We need guys debriefing the Virginia cops. We need everything.”

  The sheriff turned up his hands: “Then I’m out of it. Anything you need, call me.”

  “You don’t sound that unhappy,” Parker said. “You don’t mind a bunch of feds trampling around your jurisdiction?”

  An excessively thin smile from the sheriff: “I got five hundred eighty-nine square miles to take care of, that don’t have anything to do with U.S. senators getting decapitated and burned at the stake. I’ll take care of the five hundred eighty-nine, you take care of the senator. Of course, anything we can do to help, we’ll do, you poor fuckers.”

  Back in the car, heading toward the helicopter, Jake said to Novatny, “About that tip, the guy with the guns.”

  “Schmidt,” Novatny said. “I’ve been thinking about that, but I didn’t want to mention it around the cops. What’d you find?”

  “I went by the house, nobody home. I looked in the windows. There are four gun safes in one of the bedrooms, their doors are open, they all look empty. Doesn’t look like there’s been anybody home for a while. There’s a note on the door from the Watchmen, asking him to check in. He apparently hasn’t.”

  “All right.” Novatny nodded. “You didn’t go inside?”

  “Of course not. But I was thinking, you might want to have some of your people take a look at it.”

  “I’ll do that,” Novatny said.

  “I mean right now. Because I’m gonna call the governor and tell him about the body. He’s gonna find out pretty quick anyway, and I want to be on his good side. Just in case that might be useful. If we have to approach the Watchmen . . . Anyway, you might want to have a couple of your guys on the scene before the Watchmen have a chance to go over the place.”

  Novatny nodded again. “We’ve got two Richmond guys at a Holiday Inn in Charlottesville, they’ve been working the case from there,” he said, as they pulled up to the chopper. “Give me Schmidt’s address and a ten-minute head start.”

  When Jake was back on the road, he called Goines again, told Goines to find the governor and to have him call back.

  “I don’t know how fast I can find him,” Goines said.

  “Make it as quick as you can. Make it an urgent priority,” Jake said.

  Goodman was back in ten minutes, as Jake was coming into Buckingham, this time at the speed limit. “Mr. Winter? This is Arlo Goodman.” A little less friendly than he had been; more formal, as if he were expecting trouble.

  “We found Lincoln Bowe’s body,” Jake said.

  Long pause, the airwaves twittering through the cell phone. Then, “Here, in Virginia?”

  “Down by Appomattox, between Buckingham and Appomattox.”

  “Ah, no.” He sounded genuinely surprised.

  “I thought you’d want to know,” Jake said.

  “I appreciate it.” A little warmer now. Goodman could turn it on and off, even over the phone. “Who else knows?”

  “Some cops. The FBI. The president. We’re moving to tell Mrs. Bowe. The FBI has taken over the scene, a full crime-scene crew is on the way in. Your BCI guys are already on the scene.”

  “They didn’t call me,” Goodman said.

  “The sheriff was discouraging calls, knowing that the FBI was on the way,” Jake said. “Everybody is walking on lightbulbs.”

  “They should have called me,” Goodman said. His voice was quiet, but suffused with rage. Somebody was in trouble.

  Jake asked, “You know anything about this, Governor?”

  A pause—a shocked pause?—then, “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a panic-stricken bunch of Watchmen looking for a gun guy named Carl V. Schmidt. I’m talking about the search being run from your office. Your Watchman even left a note hanging on Schmidt’s front door. The feds are closing in on Schmidt’s house now. If you guys know anything . . . I mean, it’ll all come out in the investigation.”

  “What’s the name again?”

  “Carl V. Schmidt.”

  “I don’t know it. The Watchmen are looking for him?”

  Jake ignored the lie; it was routine politics. “Yes.”

  “I’ll talk to John Patricia. Right now,” Goodman said. “Will you be on this phone?”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  Out through Buckingham, at Sprouse’s Corner, Jake stopped, looked left. He could take Highway 20 back through Charlottesville, and then north. He could be home in two and a half or three hours. Or he could go straight down Highway 60, back into Richmond. If he went north, he could stop at Schmidt’s place and see what the feds were doing. On the other hand, Danzig would want him doing political assessment, not crime-scene work, about which he knew nothing.

  He thought about it for a few seconds, then went straight through the intersection, down 60, back toward Richmond.

  Back toward Goodman.

  6

  Howard Barber arrived late, cursing the traffic, the cops who wanted ID, who might have doubted that he could be both a friend and
a Republican, who suspected he might be a media interloper of some kind

  Barber disabused them quickly enough. He had an officer’s voice, a CEO’s voice, the voice of a man who ran one of the hottest high-tech start-ups. They waved him through when he used the voice, pointed him at a parking spot next to a stand of azaleas. Before he got out of the car, he got on his cell phone, checked in with his office: “Hold everything for me, don’t put anything through. I’m at the Bowes’, it’ll take a while.”

  His secretary said, “You’re meeting Price and Walton at six o’clock at the Hay-Adams. You’re still going?”

  “I’ll be there. And call Colonel Lake and tell him what’s happening, that I can’t get out of this. I’ll call him first thing tomorrow.”

  He clicked off, sighed. He’d dreaded this. He got out of the car, went up the walk, said hello to a couple of people on the porch, got a biceps squeeze from one of them, then pushed into the scrum of people standing in Madison Bowe’s living room. Madison was talking to an old friend from Lincoln Bowe’s golf club, but broke away and came to Barber and hugged him. “Thanks for coming, Howard.”

  “Jesus, Maddy . . .”

  “We need to talk.” People were watching them from around the room, the late senator’s wife hugging a strikingly tall, handsome black man who was wearing what appeared to be a five-thousand-dollar suit. You could almost hear the hmmm. Madison said, “Let’s go, ah, God, not in the kitchen, there are a hundred people in there, let’s go somewhere.”

  He followed her past the stairs to the study. The door was closed, and she opened it and poked her head in, saw that it was empty. “In here.”

  They stepped inside and she pulled the door closed: “Linc . . . Was it Goodman?”

  “I assume so,” Barber said.

  “Did they torture him? I don’t think he could have taken any pain . . .”

  “Maddy, I just don’t know,” Barber said. “Most of my contacts are at the Pentagon, not with the FBI. I called some staff people over on the Hill, but they haven’t been able to find out much. I assumed . . . What did the FBI tell you?”

  “They don’t know anything,” she said. “This Winter, the guy I told you about—he was apparently there. I tried to call him at home, but he’s not answering. I left messages.”

  “You said he was with Danzig’s office.”

  “That’s right. I assume he went down there with the FBI. He said he was going to kick some FBI bureaucrats, get them going. I pointed him at Goodman.”

  “I doubt that Goodman himself is involved—probably some Watchmen, maybe Darrell Goodman,” Barber said. “But Arlo Goodman is too smart . . . Actually, I don’t know what I think.” He shrugged, and glanced away.

  And Madison thought, He’s lying about something. She said, “I’ll try to talk to Winter. I’ll try him every fifteen minutes until I get him. He’s like you, he was in Afghanistan.”

  “I know about him,” Barber said. “He wrote a book about the Pentagon.”

  She nodded. “Johnnie Black told me. Winter’s Guide to the Inside.”

  “I think I ought to talk to him,” Barber said. “At some point, we might want to . . . influence the investigation. It’d be better if I did it, than you.”

  “Okay. When I get him, I’ll tell him to call you.”

  “It’d be better if he called me,” Barber said. “And I think it’d be a good idea if you told him about Linc and me. You know, the whole thing. That’d bring him in for sure . . .”

  “Oh, Howard . . .” She was appalled.

  “Look, it’s gonna come out. Better to come out that way.”

  Barber turned away from her for a moment, staring at the window that was covered with blinds, as though he could see through it. “God bless me.” He rubbed his face and then turned back and asked, “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m sad, I’m tired, I’m really angry.”

  “And you’re really, really rich.”

  “Howard . . .” Hands on her hips.

  He shook his head, held a hand up, a peace gesture: “Hey, Maddy. Linc once told me that of all the women he’d ever met, you were the only one who’d never thought about his money. I think that’s why he went after you.”

  She teared up, turned away, wiped the tears with the heels of her hands. “God, I hope he wasn’t alive. I hope he was dead before they burned him.”

  “I’m sure he was,” Barber said. “I’m sure he was. You gotta believe that, Maddy.” After a second, he added, “Talk to Winter.”

  Jake was on the highway, coming up to Amelia Court House, when Goodman called back and asked, “Where are you?”

  “Passing Amelia Court House, heading into Richmond.”

  “I talked to Bill Danzig. Now I need to talk to you,” Goodman said.

  “Are you at the office?”

  “I’m at the mansion. When you came into the office, did you come in from the capitol side of the building? Down a brick walkway?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The mansion is about, what, seventy-five yards from that. Yellow house, white pillars. There’s a gate to the mansion that faces the back entrance of the Patrick Henry. You’ll see a guardhouse, right there at the front. I’ll put you on the list.”

  Jake found a parking spot faster than he had in the morning, couldn’t read the meter clearly enough to see whether it needed money, plugged it with quarters, tapped along the deserted walkway in the growing darkness. The governor’s mansion was a two-story brick house, painted yellow, with four white columns over the front steps. The place was smaller then he’d expected, with a modest lotus-flower fountain in a front parking circle.

  At the guard gate, a uniformed guard was talking to a second man. The second man was dressed in a black raincoat, black shirt, black trousers, and black canvas Converse All Stars. He was wearing a khaki tennis hat. He was lean, with a face too weathered for his age, which was about the same as Jake’s. With his long nose and black clothing, he had the aspect of a crow. He saw Jake coming, watched him for a moment, then turned away and played with a television at the back of the guardhouse.

  The guard said, “Jake Winter.” Not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll take you in,” he said. He popped a latch on the steel gate and led the way across the parking circle, up the steps, and through a double door.

  Through the doors, the mansion seemed to expand. A fasces-styled chandelier hung overhead, with a long hall leading to a couple of big public rooms. A portrait of the Virgin Queen looked down the hall at them. The guard pointed to his left: “In here.”

  A parlor. Goines was standing just inside, leaning against the doorjamb. Three other men, none of whom Jake recognized, were lounging on two long leather couches in a conversation area, briefcases at their feet. Legal pads were strewn across a coffee table in front of them, along with two coffee cups, two bottles of beer, and a silver bowl, shaped like a maple leaf, full of peanuts and M&M’s. One man had his feet on the table; another had taken off his shoes to show a pair of dark brown dress socks. A hint of cigar smoke rode on the air; a portrait of George Washington looked down from above.

  The room vibrated with cronyism: this was the inner circle, no question about it. And Goodman was the chairman of the board. He sat, squarely, in a huge leather chair, at the head-of-the-table position between the two couches.

  “Jake,” Goodman said. He stood up, gestured to a smaller, lower leather chair in the foot-of-the-table position. As Jake took it, Goodman said, pointing with his bad hand, “You know Ralph; and John Patricia, Handy Rice, Troy Robertson. Men, Mr. Winter is former special forces, got shot up in Afghanistan.”

  Robertson said, “You look sort of bureaucratic.”

  Jake shrugged. “I sit in an office, I’m outa shape. It’d probably take me . . .”—he made a little show of surveying Robertson—“. . . seven or eight seconds to snap your neck.”

  The staff members laughed, and Goodman smiled down at him. Robertson said, �
�Snap Goines’s. He’s getting to be a major pain in the ass.”

  Rice asked, “You want a beer?”

  Jake took the beer, and they went to business.

  Goodman said, “Jake, I swear to God, I swear on the bodies of my dead friends in Syria, I swear on anything you want—I had nothing to do with Lincoln Bowe’s death. Neither did the Watchmen.”

  Jake nodded, and waited.

  Goodman leaned forward, took a few peanuts from the bowl, rattled them in his fist, like dice. “So . . . now we get to the part where I sound like the psychotic that Madison Bowe says I am. I believe this whole thing is a carefully constructed conspiracy to bring me down. I believe Lincoln Bowe was involved, and probably Madison Bowe. She’s been too good at ripping me. It seems scripted. Does that sound insane?”

  Jake raised his eyebrows a bit, and then said, “It doesn’t sound insane. I don’t know whether it’s probable.”

  “Good. That’s all we want from you, that attitude,” Goodman said. “Danzig says you’re the best when it comes to developing information about a confusing political situation. We need information. We’re trying desperately to figure out what’s happening. Can you see that?”

  Jake nodded. “Yeah—because that’s what I’m trying to do, too.”

  “I want to suggest that you do two things at once. Make any assumptions you want. Assume that I did it myself, that I set Senator Bowe on fire after cutting his head off in the kitchen. Okay?”

  Jake nodded: “I’m sure the FBI will do that.”

  “But I want you to make another assumption, too,” Goodman said. “Assume that there’s a conspiracy against me. Start from that point. If you make that assumption, if you look at it that way, too, maybe you can see what we can’t. Because I’m telling you, we seem to be getting wound up tighter and tighter in this thing. Like this Carl V. Schmidt. Like Bowe getting immolated here in Virginia. But we didn’t have anything to do with it. We are being set up. We can feel it. And it could have serious, serious consequences.”