The Nomination (32 page)

He learned that the man was a paragon of righteousness, a doting father, a loyal husband, a respected, even-handed judge, a community leader, a war hero.

He began to wonder if the Thomas Larrigan that Simone Bonet described in her tapes could possibly be the same man.

Had to be. The old photos showed a younger version of this Supreme Court nominee. The man's service time in Vietnam matched Simone's recollection. The story of the eye patch. Everything matched.

Mac Cassidy was sitting on a gigantic story—not just the scandalous truth about the president's choice for the Supreme Court, but also the truth about two murders—Simone and Jill Rossiter—and most likely a third—Bunny Brubaker—that had been committed in an effort to keep the story from being told.

And now Mac knew those truths. And there was no reason to doubt that anybody who was willing to murder Simone and Jill, and who was clever enough to make it look convincingly like a double suicide, and who'd kill Bunny Brubaker and make it look like a botched drug deal . . . they would certainly be equally willing to murder Mac Cassidy, and anybody else who happened to be in the way.

Jessie was leaving. That was good.

He hadn't figured out what to do about Katie.

HE SKIPPED LUNCH. He had this other story in his head, and he needed to get it written down. Not the true story detailed in Simone's tapes. Now he was interested in the imagined story. It was about the consequences of Simone's story. It was how he connected the events of the past few months, the way he thought they might have unfolded.

First Thomas Larrigan is tapped to succeed Justice Lawrence Crenshaw on the Supreme Court. Larrigan's name, along with several others, is mentioned in newspaper articles speculating about Justice Crenshaw's retirement.

Then Bunny Brubaker sends an envelope full of old Vietnam photographs—most of them pictures of Thomas Larrigan as a young soldier—to Simone Bonet.

A day or two later, Bunny is murdered in a crummy motel room in Davis, Georgia.

Then comes the president's formal Rose Garden announcement of Larrigan's nomination.

At about the same time, Simone Bonet calls Ted Austin about having her autobiography written.

So Ted calls Mac Cassidy, and Mac goes to Beaverkill, New York, to meet Simone.

Simone gives Mac some photos and documents. She begins telling her story onto tapes.

A couple of weeks later, Mac collects the tapes.

Then Simone and Jill Rossiter are murdered. It's set up to look like a double suicide.

Coincidentally—or maybe not—about that time Jessie Church, Simone and Thomas Larrigan's daughter, shows up.

That was the story so far.

There was a lot Mac didn't know. He didn't have much evidence of anything. Just Simone's tapes plus his own logic. He was speculating, noticing how the dots appeared to be connecting.

He was reading through what he had written, thinking it was a great story, although at this point devoid of evidence and utterly libelous and unpublishable, nothing more than fiction hung on a few disconnected facts plus a dead woman's memories, when he heard the back screen door into the kitchen open and then click shut. He glanced at his watch. Katie was home from school.

A minute later she appeared in the doorway to Mac's office.

He smiled at her. “Hi, honey,” he said, as he did every afternoon. “How was your day?”

This was when she always came over and gave him a hug and sat in the chair in the corner with her legs tucked under her and told him all about her day at school.

But this time she remained standing in the doorway. She blinked a couple of times. Then tears began spilling out of her eyes.

“Oh, sweetie,” said Mac. “What's the matter?”

He started to stand up to go to her when she lurched into the room. Directly behind her stood a man. He was gripping Katie's left arm just above the elbow. In his other hand he held a square black automatic handgun. He was pressing it against the side of her neck.

“Please, Mr. Cassidy,” said the man. “Sit down and relax.”

“Get your hands off her,” Mac growled.

“There's no need to raise your voice,” said the man. He had an earpiece hooked around his left ear.

“Who the hell are you?” said Mac. “What do you want?”

“You can call me Mr. Black.”

“Whoever you are,” said Mac, “you better let go of my daughter.”

Katie tried to twist away from the man, but he was gripping her arm tightly. He kept the nose of the gun pressed against her neck.

The man who called himself Mr. Black smiled. “You don't appear to be in any position to issue threats, Mr. Cassidy.”

I
t was a hair under two miles from the Concord train station to Mac Cassidy's house on the tree-lined suburban street across the river on the north side of town. Jessie had checked it out on her way into the city. She shouldered her pack and took off at an even lope. About halfway to Mac's house, she picked up the pace. She wanted to be there
now.

She turned onto Mac's street and jammed to a halt. A large, gray SUV was parked in front of a heavily wooded area four lots down from Mac's place. This struck her as an anomaly. In the couple of days she'd been there, Jessie had never seen any vehicle parked on the street. All the residents left their cars in their garages. Visitors and UPS delivery trucks and other business vehicles all pulled into the driveways.

That didn't mean nobody ever parked on the street. But still. It
was
an anomaly, and cops were trained to spot anomalies and to take them seriously.

She strolled past the van, trying to appear casual. From behind her sunglasses she tried to see into it, but she couldn't. It had tinted windows.

Massachusetts plates. Nothing remarkable about it.

Except . . . who had left it there? Where were they now? And why hadn't they parked in a driveway like everybody else?

She supposed she was being paranoid. Okay, good. A long time ago she'd learned to trust her paranoia. Paranoia kept you alive.

Jessie slipped into the empty lot. All of the houses on Mac's side of the street had backyards that merged into thick oak and pine woods. She stayed inside the woods and sneaked past three backyards. She realized she was probably being silly, but so what? No one had seen her, and aside from a few mosquito bites, no harm done.

A screen of hemlocks separated Mac's yard from his neighbors. Jessie skulked behind them as she approached the back of his house. She felt alert and fine-tuned. She didn't understand how it worked, but she'd had this feeling before, and it had never been wrong.

The man was crouching in the shadows behind some rhododendrons near the front corner of Mac's house. He was watching the driveway and the street. An earpiece was hooked over his left ear. He wore a dark windbreaker and dark pants. At his hip there was the small bulge of what Jessie assumed was a gun under the windbreaker. Why else wear a windbreaker on a warm, sun-drenched June afternoon except to hide a gun?

This didn't surprise Jessie. It was about what she'd expected when she first saw that SUV.

This guy was the lookout. His partner had to be inside.

Mac was in there, and Katie was probably home from school by now.

Jessie slipped her Colt Mustang out of her shoulder bag, then adjusted the bag so that it rested out of the way against the small of her back.

She'd try to get close enough to disarm him and disable his microphone before he said anything. At least his gun was holstered, so that if he spotted her, she'd be able to shoot him before he could bring his weapon into play.

He seemed intent on watching the front of the house. Jessie slipped quickly across the driveway, and by crouching low she was able to keep the foundation plantings between herself and the man in the windbreaker.

She'd snuck to within about ten feet of him when he lowered his chin and mumbled something. A message to his cohorts, who Jessie assumed were inside.

She was just a few feet behind the guy now. He'd finished talking—relaying the news that all was clear, she hoped.

Now!

One quick step and she had her a forearm under his chin. She braced her hip against him and levered him back, using all her strength, holding back nothing, the way she had done with the Lesneski man back in the redwood forest about a hundred years ago. Her forearm against his throat was cutting his wind, preventing him from yelling, from even gagging. With her other hand she jammed the muzzle of her gun into the soft place under his ear. She had her mouth close to his face. “Don't say a fucking word,” she hissed. “Don't even clear your throat, or I'll blow your head off, I promise. Okay?”

He nodded. No panic from this guy. He was a pro.

Jessie pulled him backward, dragging him behind the screen of bushes that grew along the side of the house, then turned him around and forced him onto his stomach. She sat on the backs of his thighs and jammed the muzzle of her gun against his rectum.

She bent over and put her face close to his ear. “Not a peep,” she whispered. “Pulling the trigger right now would be my pleasure. Understand?”

The left side of his face was pressed against the ground. His right eye looked back at her. He nodded.

She plucked the earpiece out of the guy's ear, held it to her own ear, heard nothing but static, and threw it into the bushes on the other side of the driveway. Then she took his handgun from the holster at his hip. It was a nasty square 9mm automatic. She popped the clip and dropped the gun and the clip into her shoulder bag.

“Okay,” she said. “Put both hands behind your back.”

He did. Jessie fished the handcuffs from her bag with her free hand and snapped them on the guy's wrists at the small of his back.

Then she got out her roll of duct tape and, using her teeth and one hand while she held the Colt with the other hand, she wrapped the man's ankles all the way up to his knees. Only then did she feel safe putting her gun on the ground beside her. She used both hands to wrap the man's face and head with duct tape. She covered his eyes, mouth, nose and ears, leaving just his nostrils exposed. Then she taped his hands, wrists, and forearms together, right over the handcuffs and all the way up to his elbows.

Jessie sat back on her heels and looked critically at what she'd done. The man might be able to squirm and worm his way along the ground. But he wouldn't get very far very fast, and she guessed that he wouldn't be able to tolerate much exertion since the tape prevented him from breathing through his mouth.

She patted him down. Car keys, pocket knife, some change.

No wallet. No identification of any kind.

That, all by itself, identified him.

Jessie knelt beside the guy on the ground. She jabbed her gun into his crotch, put her mouth close to his taped-over ear, and whispered, “Can you hear me?”

He nodded.

“Did Cohen send you?”

He shook his head.

She gave the muzzle of Colt a hard shove. A gurgle came from the guy's throat.

“If you're lying,” she said, “you can say good-bye to your testicles. Was it Howie Cohen?”

Again he shook his head.

She sat back on her heels. If these guys hadn't been sent by Cohen to kill her, it meant they'd come for Mac and the Larrigan tapes. How did she fit into that?

The smart thing to do would be to walk away right now. Head for the bus station. Continue what she started back in Muir Woods a couple weeks ago.

Disappear.

Not likely.

“Okay,” she said to the man in the duct tape. “You better be telling the truth. I will not hesitate to blow your balls off. I've done it before, and I enjoyed it. Nod if you believe me.”

He nodded.

She figured she didn't have much time. Whoever was inside the house was depending on this guy to submit periodic all-clear messages. When Mr. Outside failed to report on time or to answer a call, Mr. Inside would know something was wrong.

So Jessie slipped around to the back porch and crept up the steps to the door, holding her Mustang down alongside her leg. The outside screen door was shut, but the inside door was open. She could hear the grumble of male voices coming from somewhere inside. She couldn't understand what they were saying. One of the voices, she was quite sure, was Mac's.

She took a breath and tried the screen-door latch. It opened with a click that sounded like a gunshot.

Jessie remained motionless for a moment, holding the door ajar.

The murmur of voices continued.

She pulled the door open and slipped quickly into the little foyer where Mac and Katie hung their coats and hats and kept their boots. She eased the screen door shut behind her and latched it silently.

She listened. The voices sounded like they were coming from the other end of the house, past the kitchen and the dining room and down the hallway. They were in Mac's office, she figured.

She slid along the wall of the foyer and paused at the archway into the kitchen.

She darted her head around the corner and quickly pulled it back, then studied the image of the kitchen that had registered behind her eyes like a snapshot. In that mental photograph, the kitchen was empty.

She listened. She heard nothing. No scrape of a shoe on floor tile. No soft inhale or exhale of breath.

Nobody took a shot at her.

She waited for about a minute, holding her weapon in both hands beside her face, ready to shoot. But there was nobody to shoot at.

She slipped into the kitchen, paused again, listened, then started for Mac's office, where the grumble of voices seemed to be coming from.

She eased herself around the corner from the kitchen into the dining room . . . and that's when a hand clamped over her mouth and yanked her head back, and at the same time, something sharp pricked her neck just under her right ear.

Oh, shit.

“Drop the weapon, Miz Church,” a deep male voice growled into her ear.

Jessie let her little Colt automatic fall from her fingers. There was a thick carpet on the dining-room floor, and the gun made a muffled thump when it landed.

“The bag,” he said. “Drop it.”

She shrugged off her shoulder bag and let it slide onto the floor.

He shoved it aside with his foot.

The man had his hand over her mouth. It felt as if her face was in a vise. He pulled her backward so that she was pressing against him. His mouth was right beside her ear, and now the knife was on her throat. He moved the blade and it sliced the tightly-stretched skin under her chin.

The pain was sudden and sharp.

He smelled of stale cigar smoke and Old Spice.

Jessie felt a trickle of warm blood dribble down to the hollow place at the base of her throat. One more ounce of pressure on that knifeblade and it would cut through her tendons and ligaments and cartilage and arteries.

He moved the blade away from her throat, and then she felt the point of the knife prick the skin at the base of her spine. He let go of her face. “Put your hands on top of your head,” he growled, “and lace your fingers together.”

Big mistake. Jessie whirled, ducked, and kicked all in one blurry motion, a hard kick with all of her strength and all of the momentum of her pivot behind it, and her instep got the guy square between the legs.

He let out a quick, sharp breath, a combination of a sigh and a groan. He dropped his knife, grabbed his crotch with both hands, fell forward onto the carpet, and curled into a fetal position.

Jessie was on him in an instant. She picked up his knife and jabbed its point in the soft place under his chin. She bent close to his face, so close her nose almost touched his. “One word and I'll kill you,” she hissed. “Stand up.”

The guy rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Now,” she whispered. “Stand up or I'll cut your throat.”

The guy managed to get onto his knees, then push himself to his feet. He was bent over and kept one hand cradling his balls.

Jessie stepped behind him, locked her forearm around his throat, and pressed the knife blade against the side of his neck. “Let's go,” she said.

She walked the guy through the dining room and through the archway that separated it from Mac's living room.

It wasn't at all what she'd expected to see.

Mac and Katie were sitting on the sofa. Mac had his arm draped around Katie's shoulders. Katie had her legs drawn up under her. They both looked almost relaxed.

A man she'd never seen before was in the leather chair across from them. He had blondish-brown hair. He wore a blue shirt and khaki pants and white sneakers and a black earpiece. One ankle was crossed over the other leg, and his right arm was dangling over the side of the chair. He was holding an automatic handgun in his right hand. It was pointing at the floor.

They all looked up when Jessie pushed the guy into the room.

Katie, she noticed, had been crying. Her eyes were red, but now they were dry.

Mac nodded and smiled at Jessie.

The man in the leather chair bowed his head. “Ah, Ms. Church,” he said. “You are quite good, aren't you? Please. Join us. Mr. White, you look like you'd like to use the bathroom. Let him go, Ms. Church. He won't harm you.”

Jessie moved the knife and took her forearm away from the man's neck. He mumbled something and staggered out of the room.

Jessie went over and sat on the sofa beside Mac. “What's going on?” she said.

“We're negotiating,” Mac said. He touched her throat, then showed her his fingertip. It was red with shiny blood. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her.