The Third Coincidence (16 page)

As they walked away, Nora asked, “Why did you give them the street Taylor lived on and us the side and back streets?”

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“This LW may be a nut, but he’s no dummy. Rex’s report de- scribed Taylor’s house as a two story with the bedrooms upstairs in the back. The houses behind Taylor’s are one story. From the back street, the killer would have a clear view of the upstairs rear. He may have used that look as his last checkpoint to be sure he had Taylor at home. If I’m right, once the bomber turned onto Taylor’s street all systems were go.”

“The back street’s your idea,” Nora said. “ You work it. I’ll take the side street.”

An hour later Frank and Nora met at an intersection.

“I found a man who saw a guy on a bike around ten that night,” Nora said. “He had taken his dog out the side door for his evening walk. He described the rider as young and average size. That’s all. You get anything?”

“Was the bike red?”

Nora shaded her eyes from the sun to look up at Frank. “Too dark. He couldn’t see any colors.”

“Guess at the man’s age.” “The rider?”

“No. The man who saw the rider.” “Early seventies. Why?”

“Older citizens often describe people in their thirties, even their forties, as young.”

“Why did you ask if the bike was red?”

Frank turned and pointed. “The widow who lives over there be- hind Taylor’s house, her name’s Constance Harding, saw a rider on a red bike dressed in a black outfit stop at the curb. At first the lady thought he was staring at her. Then she realized he was looking over her home at the back of Taylor’s. When the biker started up again, he passed under that streetlight. That’s when Ms. Harding saw the colors and, get this, he wore a red baseball cap. The woman de- scribed him as about the age of her grandson and about his size. Her grandson is thirty-two and weighs a hundred seventy pounds. With him on the bike, she couldn’t guess at his height.”

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“What time did she see him?” Nora asked. “Ten fifteen.”

“That fits,” she told him. “My guy saw the biker a little after ten.

How’d the lady know the exact time?”

“She hates the news, so she sits outside between ten and eleven.

She hadn’t been outside long.” “She hates the news?”

“Her protest. I listened to the whole spiel. Believe me, you don’t wanna know. But she’s sure about what she saw. I believe her.”

“A bike rider here in Cleveland and a flower-delivery person in Oregon, both wearing a red baseball cap,” Nora mused, poking Frank in the chest. “That can’t just be coincidence.”

Frank hopped up on the curb and walked with his arms out for balance. “Maybe her grandson is LW?”

Nora punched Frank on the arm. He faked a teeter, and stepped off the curb.

“What kept the rider from seeing the Harding woman?” she asked.

“She has a screened-in porch and sits in the dark, finds it relax- ing. She’s lived there for decades and she’d never seen the red bike or the rider before, and not again since. Tell you what. Let’s finish this street and one more block on each side. And ask if they know anyone in the neighborhood with a red bicycle. Don’t mention the red cap. Let’s keep that on the QT.”

“We’ve got a lead,” Nora said, showing her excitement. “I’ll keep going while you call Jack, and then go find Detectives Harpo and Zeppo, so they’ll know to ask about a red bicycle.”

“Unless you’d like to go back, that way you can spend a few more minutes with Hamilton?”

“You want I should punch you again?” She held up a clenched

fist.

Nora watched as Frank walked away a little faster. The red cap

wasn’t much, but it matched with what they learned in Depoe Bay. Now, the question was, where would the red cap take them?

chapter 26

An anonymous caller: LW’s militia is a loose confederation of terrorist and supremacy groups.

—Marian Little, NewsCentral 7, June 13

LW watched Gerald and Martha Garfield through silver-mirrored sunglasses. The Supreme Court nominee and his wife had just finished an early dinner out and were taking a meandering walk in downtown Washington, D.C. They had the tired gait of the elderly and the roving eye of the tourist. He followed them inside the Wash- ington Marriott on Twenty-Second Street and up to their room.

On the ninth floor he took off his sunglasses, placed an antacid on his tongue, and used the shiny frame around the elevator door to curve the brim on the red baseball cap he took out from under his windbreaker. He slowed his pace while a room service waiter pushed a serving cart into a room down the hall. He stopped outside Garfield’s room, adjusted the fit of the stun gun tucked in his waist- band, knocked, and stood back from the peephole. In his hand was a large brown envelope, the kind that came with a red string wrapped around a paper disk to secure its flap.

The door opened with the safety chain still in place.

“Mr. Garfield?” The crow’s-feet beside LW’s eyes added inno- cence to his still boyish smile. “I have a package from the president’s chief of staff, Mr. Clarence Stafford. I’m required to have you sign for it, sir. My pen ran out of ink at my last delivery. Do you have something you could use to sign for this, please?”

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Garfield released the chain and opened the door. “One you can keep young man. Come in.” Garfield, a sallow-complected man, turned his back on the deliveryman and walked into the room. LW followed. The automatic closer brought the hotel door shut behind them.

Mrs. Garfield sat knitting next to a lamp, her feet on an ottoman, her legs covered by the room’s spare blanket. She smiled at the courier and returned her attention to her handiwork.

Mr. Garfield picked up a hotel pen, but before he could turn, LW held the stun gun against the side of his neck. The 100,000 volts of low-amperage electricity mimicked Garfield’s body’s natural elec- trical signals. The old man went into temporary paralysis, lost mus- cle control, and fell to the floor, his tongue protruding between his bluish lips.

Mrs. Garfield’s knuckles paled white as her fists tightened around her knitting needles. “Who are you? What do you w—?”

While she had been speaking, LW tossed the stun gun to his left hand and jammed it against her breast. Her rigid body rose from the electrical trauma. After several seconds, LW took the stun gun away, and Mrs. Garfield’s head flopped sideways onto the chair’s over- stuffed arm.

In her convulsive reaction, Mrs. Garfield had thrust her arms upward. This action had driven one of her knitting needles into the underside of LW’s forearm.

LW pushed up the sleeve on his windbreaker. His skin had been punctured, and the blunt hole felt hot, but he saw no blood. He slid the offending needle partway inside the back of his pants and low- ered his windbreaker over the top end.

He checked the elderly Garfields. They were dead. After taking out a penknife, he finished the job.

Jack stepped out of the shower to answer his phone. “Jack. Fred Hampton here.”

They could say what they wanted about the obese FBI director,

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like the crack about the president getting two FBI directors for the price of one, but at five thirty in the morning Hampton was already on the job.

“LW has struck again.”

Jack stood dripping water onto his bedroom carpet. “Who? And where the hell was the surveillance?”

“The victims were not being protected. They were Gerald Gar- field, a nominee for the Supreme Court, and his wife. They were here in town for his appearance before the Senate’s confirmation committee.”

“Shit. I never thought about nominees.” Jack sat on his bed. “It’s logical. Damn it. Fred. It’s logical as hell. It does him no good if the government keeps replacing his victims. He’d kill some nominees hoping to discourage others.”

“I’ve already started the ball rolling to extend protection to all the nominees and their families.”

“Can we be certain LW was the killer? Where did it happen?” “At the Marriott on Twenty-Second. The bastard carved LW in

their foreheads. Rex Smith is in charge at the scene.” “I’ll go over myself, Fred.”

“I’ll let Rex know you’re coming. Are you making any progress?” “LW knows where he’s going,” Jack told Hampton. “We don’t. Tell Rex to be alert for witnesses who might have seen someone wearing a red baseball cap. Could be a delivery person or a courier, maybe a hotel handyman. Make sure that doesn’t get out to the

media.”

After he hung up, Jack called Rachel and discovered that she had planned to spend the day with the experts developing their first, sketchy LW profile. He decided not to take her off that, and called Nora to meet him.

Jack left his house while still fussing with his tie knot on the way to his car.

• • •

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Nora got to the Marriott before Jack, and found Agent Rex Smith alone on the ninth floor wearing an open-collar, rusty-red shirt and tan slacks. “Hello, Rex.” She smiled. “You look like you were some- where other than at home when the call came in.”

“You got that right.” He stepped toward her. “But I always look forward to seeing you so I’m not complaining.”

Nora swivelled her hips. “All you Fed hardbodies, and so little time.”

They had just stopped laughing when Jack stepped out of the el- evator. “I understand LW initialed his work?”

“That he did. Carved in their foreheads,” Rex said, as they en- tered room 914. “Given the positions of the bodies and the blood blurring the letters, I doubt the hotel workers who found them looked closely. Hotel security agreed to sit on the information about the initials.”

Mrs. Garfield’s fleshy white arms were decorated with four bracelets. They didn’t look gaudy and they were not expensive. She was simply someone’s grandmother who would not get any older. She looked at peace, unlike her husband. His mouth was agape. One arm stretched toward his wife. His feet twisted in the opposite direction from his arm, an uncomfortable looking position he no longer felt.

“Any witnesses?”

Rex shook his head. “Not yet.” “What’s that smell?” Nora asked.

“The hotel employee who found the Garfields barfed.” Rex grinned. “We’ve spoken to the hotel guests who are still here. None of them saw or heard anything. Agent Amanda Walker is talking with the other employees.”

Nora knelt beside Mrs. Garfield. “She was knitting what looks like a blanket for a bassinet.”

Jack put his lips inside his mouth, then released them making a popping sound. “Doesn’t crocheting require two needles?”

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“Yes. One is kept free much of the time to pull yarn into the pattern.”

“Where’s the other one?” Jack asked.

After several minutes they concluded the other needle was miss- ing.

“Could she have stabbed LW?” Nora asked. “Tell me about knitting needles.” Jack asked. “The points taper, but are blunted.”

“That means, if she did stab him, that the wound would not be serious,” Rex interjected. “Mrs. Garfield doesn’t appear to have been a strong woman. Still, I’ll let the evidence team know to be espe- cially careful looking for blood.”

“If he bled, it might’ve dripped onto the blanket she was knit- ting.”

Rex nodded.

“What time were the Garfields found?” Nora asked. “Around six thirty this morning.”

“Why did someone from the hotel go to Garfield’s room at that hour?”

“The White House had called to ask Garfield some question in preparation for an early meeting on the hill. When they got no an- swer, the hotel’s front desk was asked to send someone up to Garfield’s room. A young girl working the shift behind the counter offered to go up as she went on break. She’s the one who barfed.”

A stout woman approached.

“Tell me you’ve got something, Amanda?” asked Rex.

She nodded. “Maybe I do. Time will tell how significant it is. A room service waiter said he delivered an order to room nine thirty- two. When he came out of that room, he saw a man carrying a large envelope going into a room down the hall. He described the wearer as average height, medium build, and not too old. Oh, yes. He says he was wearing a red cap. He says he could have been going into room nine fourteen. He’s not sure. He only got a glance.”

Nora looked at Jack.

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“I want to talk to that waiter, Rex,” Jack said, before turning to Nora. “Check with the guests in the three rooms on each side of nine fourteen and the three nearest rooms across the hall. Unless the waiter is hallucinating, either nine fourteen or one of those nearby rooms had a visit from someone wearing a red baseball cap.”

Rachel had just put the last pin in the picture of nominee Gerald Garfield, adding him to their graveyard section, when Jack and Nora returned from the Marriott. They joined the others at the table to re- port on the Garfield murder scene. After they finished, Rachel began passing out copies of the LW profile.

“This report rests on the sightings of a man or men we’re as- suming were the killers in Oregon and Cleveland,” she said. “The descriptions in both cases are about the same: average height, aver- age weight, what appeared to be short hair under the cap, and about thirty to thirty-five years of age. The vagueness of this reflects LW’s ability to blend in. This description also matches the one Jack and Nora just got for the courier seen entering Garfield’s room in the Marriott. The red baseball cap remains the single feature that stuck in the minds of the witnesses.”