The Third Coincidence (20 page)

“All that, sis,” Jack interrupted calmly. “I’m glad you understand.

I was worried you’d be mad.”

“I was! I am! I’m trying not to be. Why shouldn’t I be? I called your house this morning and got no answer. If I’d reached you then, well, it wouldn’t have been pleasant. Dick tried to calm me down before he left for work, but he wasn’t all that successful.”

“Your husband’s a good man.” Jack told her while loosening his

tie.

“Damn it,” she said, turning her volume button back up. Then,

sounding more hurt than angry, she huffed, “You couldn’t even tell the truth to your only sister?”

Noting that the others in the Bullpen were all staring at him, grinning, Jack smiled and waved them off. It didn’t work.

“What would have been accomplished if I had told you?” he said, switching the phone to his other hand and giving his team a mind-your-own-business glare, which they also ignored. “You’d have worried and had the additional burden of keeping the secret.”

Jack sat forward and spun a ballpoint pen on his desk. “These things go with the job. Tell me you really understand?”

“Oh, I understand. I guess. You’re right. I would have worried then, like I’m worried now. Are you okay? Can you catch this LW?” “I’ve got a great team and President Schroeder is giving me full

support.”

“When I saw you walk forward after the president said your name, I almost fell off my chair.”

“How is your family?”

150 David M. Bishop

“Did you learn to change the subject in spy school? We’re all fine. Really. Don’t worry about us. Call me when this is over. We’ll all get on the phone and you can tell us the behind-the-scenes story.” “Michele, I had planned to call you this morning, a little later when it wouldn’t be so early on your end of the country. We don’t know where these killers will try to strike next. The government has round-the-clock protection in place for the justices and the Federal

Reserve governors, including their families, and mine.” “But you’re not—you mean us don’t you?”

“You should know that all three of you are under twenty-four- hour protective surveillance. You won’t see them so don’t look. The chance of anything happening is remote, but you need to know.” He gave her his current cell phone number, and the number for her protective detail. “I keep my cell phone with me day and night,” he continued, “but call the detail if you sense an immediate danger. They’re close. Then, when you can, call me.”

The mere fact that she had not tried to interrupt him, let him know she was taking what he said seriously.

“Don’t stop to help strangers or give directions. Keep your place locked up all the time and don’t open your door to anyone you don’t know. If something happens and you don’t have time to call, scream your head off. Start screaming at the slightest hint of a threat. Don’t stop to try and reason with whomever it is. Just scream and keep screaming. The protective detail will hear you.”

“Oh that makes me feel so much better,” she said. “We’ll get him, sis,” Jack promised. “Soon.”

Soon. He wanted soon. The president wanted soon. The whole damn country wanted soon. But he knew he was far from being as confident as he had sounded, and wondered if Michele had sensed that, too.

chapter 31

Unconfirmed report out of Europe: LW is a member of Hezbollah, trained as an assassin in Iran.

World News Report, June 15

“Who is it?” Jenny Robinson called from behind the front door of her condo.

“Harold’s Plumbing.”

She opened her door, leaving the flimsy slide chain in place. “The building manager sent me to replace the washers in your

faucets.” The plumber was wearing denim bib overalls and held his hands behind his back.

“I’ve got no leaks,” she told him.

“I unnerstand, ma’am, but the boss man has us change ’em all ever three years whether or not they’re leaking. He wants to avoid a bunch of service calls when one a you gets a drip. Five minutes, lady, that’s all I need.”

“Come back tomorrow,” she said, starting to close her door.

He spoke quickly through the narrowing crack. “You’re my last one today, lady. Please. I gotta work on the other side of town to- morrah. Honest, lady, I’ll be out of your hair in five minutes.”

In forty-five minutes Jenny expected U.S. Supreme Court Asso- ciate Justice Michael Roberts, the benefactor of half her rent, to visit and she was in no mood to argue.

“All right. All right!” She said, releasing the chain. “Come in.

But I need you gone in fifteen minutes.”

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“Won’t take me more’n five minutes. That’s my guarantee, Ms.

Robinson.”

Jenny closed the door and, after turning back toward him, saw the black gun looking even darker in the plumber’s white latex gloved hand.

Her reaction was to draw back in alarm. Then her basic instincts took over and her eyes softened, her mouth curling into a coquettish smile.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she cooed. “If you want sex, it’s okay. I’m an escort girl.” She had always preferred that title to hooker. “What- ever you want—just don’t hurt me.”

“Anything?”

“Name it, honey. Just don’t hurt me. My appearance is how I survive.”

He grinned. “Put on a thong and high heels. Then lay face down on your couch.”

He watched as she stripped down to the black thong and heels she already wore, and strutted toward the couch on incredibly long legs. Her jugs were as big as Kitt’s in San Francisco, and even bigger when she used her arms to accentuate her cleavage. Her bleached hair flowed over her shoulders to cascade down the sides of her well- tanned arms.

She’s enjoying this. She wants it.

He watched her walk while his mind altered the words from a story his mother used to read at Christmas: she shook like a bowl of jelly, only, Momma, it’s not her belly.

He wanted to touch her smooth skin, but as had been the case with Judith Breen at the Resort at Depoe Bay, he couldn’t chance it. He just couldn’t. He couldn’t endanger his mission.

“Okay, Jenny darling,” he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “lay butt up on the couch and put your face toward the backrest.”

When she did, he squatted like a baseball catcher next to her ex- pensive, overstuffed couch.

the third coincidence 153

“Hey, whore,” he said, “did one of your sugar daddies buy this couch for you?”

Her answer was muffled by the cushions.

He slowly brought his hands up her calves, the latex dragging against her skin. Then up her thighs, his stroke slowing as it climbed the crown of her butt. Then slowly up her back, his shirt bunching over his shoulders and along the backs of his arms, until he grasped her neck and tightened his grasp. Moisture beaded on his forehead. Then a sudden snap, and she went limp.

Justice Roberts would find her precisely as she looked at this mo- ment. The plumber smiled, pleased with his design of the scene.

It had been back in March when he first followed Justice Roberts to this little love nest in condo 1214 in the exclusive Capitol Arms, a twenty-minute walk from the courthouse. He had returned to fol- low Roberts in April and May to reconfirm Roberts still visited Jenny Robinson, and still walked to get there. A week ago, using the skills he’d learned courtesy of the U.S. government, he had tapped Jenny’s phone at the phone company’s box in the building’s basement and heard Roberts tell Jenny he would arrive at his regular time, three in the afternoon.

“I’ll walk out with the tourists,” he had said, “wearing a different coat than the one I’ll wear in that morning. And I’ll wear a hat, some- thing I never do. When I get there, I’ll use my key. You can wait in- side to surprise me. I’m not going to miss an afternoon with my Jenny.”

The old widower had sounded like a school kid bragging about sneaking out of the house after his parents went to bed.

The horny old fool.

LW stood watching from Jenny Robinson’s window until Roberts suddenly appeared at the corner of Fifth and F streets, a cigarette dangling from the edge of his mouth. He had not been followed.

Three minutes later, standing near the door, LW heard light foot- falls on the carpeted hallway. He held the ends of his fingers loose

154 David M. Bishop

against the lock and through the latex felt the stuttering friction of a metal key nesting into the grooves.

The knob turned.

The door swung inward.

“Sweetpea!” Justice Roberts called. “Daddy’s home!”

chapter 32

President Schroeder meets with retired Senator Wilson Fowler, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Is he the rumored replacement for Jack McCall?

—New York Daily News, June 16

Ms. Lurleen Grissom’s fuzzy slippers sopped the water on her hard- wood floor as she slogged her way into the kitchen where she de- parted from her normal morning routine of turning on the coffeepot. She picked up her phone.

“This is Ms. Grissom in eleven fourteen,” she told Joe Carter, the building manager. “I have water dripping into my living room. It’s coming from that harlot’s penthouse above me. My expensive new Persian hallway runner is ruined, not to mention my slippers. I’m standing in water right now. I demand the building pay for my losses. You get up here, Mr. Carter. I expect you to do something about this. Fast. The water just keeps dripping from my ceiling!”

Joe took his time getting up to the crotchety old busybody’s condo. It annoyed him that this time Gripey Grissom might have a legit beef.

Ms. Grissom wasted no words. “My apartment is a damn swim- ming pool,” she said as soon as she opened her door. “Just look. Look at that.” Her hands roosted on her hips when she finished pointing.

After an apology and a bit of groveling, Carter called the tenant in 1214, a woman he thought of as Ms. Jenny Sweetmeat. When Sweetmeat didn’t answer, he dashed upstairs, the chain of keys sus-

156 David M. Bishop

pended on his belt loop jangling against his leg, Gripey Grissom audibly panting as she waddled up the stairs after him.

His knock went unanswered. “Ms. Robinson. Ms. Robinson. It’s Joe Carter, Ms. Robinson. Please open your door.”

When Ms. Robinson didn’t open her door, Carter used his passkey and upon stepping inside he heard a squish, looked down and saw water rising around his canvas shoes. Then he saw Sweet- meat. Face down on her couch. Butt up, wearing a black thong.

Ms. Jenny had asked him to help her slide that couch into posi- tion as a room divider. It remained his favorite help-me-with-this- will-you-Carter chore. When she had leaned to push, he had gotten his best look ever at her big knockers.

Sweetmeat must have tied one on and passed out, he thought. I’ll probably need to put my hands on her to wake her.

It took great fortitude for him to stop looking at Sweetmeat, but he did and went into the master bath to see water flowing over the rim of her old-fashioned tub, its brass claw feet standing ankle deep in water. He had often fantasized how she might look in that tub with bubbles clinging to the ends of her nipples. After turning off the water, he rolled up his sleeve, plunged his arm to the bottom, and pulled the drain plug.

When he came out of the bath, on the dining room side of the couch, he saw a man’s body. A large knife handle appeared to be balanced on his chest, and blood from his forehead had pooled and dried in one eye socket.

Carter didn’t know who the gent was, but he had the sinking feeling he would never realize his fantasy with Ms. Jenny Sweet- meat.

“LW task force. Nora Burke.”

“Nora. Paul Suggs. How are you?”

She remembered Suggs as a steady detective whose grin often revealed that brushing and flossing could not be part of his morning ritual. “I’m staying busy, Paul. What’s up at Metro?”

the third coincidence 157

“We have Supreme Court Justice Michael Roberts dead in condo twelve fourteen of the Capitol Arms on Fifth Street. Initial estimate about twelve to eighteen hours. The cause of death appears to be the knife sticking in his heart. Ain’t all this talk about ‘alleged’ and ‘appears’ a bunch of crap? The damn attorneys are taken over the cop business. Anyway, the killer carved LW in Justice Robert’s forehead, so, yeah, this here’s the work of your guy.”