Authors: David Baldacci
He wagged his head from side to side. “I can’t believe this shit. I can’t believe it happened. Here!”
“Just calm down, Chester.”
“How the hell am I supposed to calm down? There was a murder three doors down from my office.”
“And the police are investigating it, and they’re probably already running down some solid leads.”
Ackerman lifted his head and stared at him. “That’s right, you used to work down there, right?”
“Down where?”
“With the cops.”
“I was a defense attorney, so I was actually on the other side. But I know how the police work a crime scene. And this is high-dollar Georgetown, so they’ll pull out all the stops. Hell, even the chief herself was down here asking me questions.”
Ackerman blurted out, “Who do you think might’ve done it, Roy?” He looked ten seconds from stroking.
Roy said, “I have no idea who could’ve done it. I worked with Diane but I didn’t really know her personally. You were fairly close to her, weren’t you?”
“No, not really. I mean, she never really talked about her personal life with me.”
“You talked to the police?” he asked.
Ackerman rose and looked out the window, his hands fingering the striped braces he favored. They had gone out of style sometime in the nineties, only the man apparently hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. “Yeah. They asked me some questions.” He turned around to face Roy. “And I told ’em just what I’m telling you. I’m scared and I don’t know a damn thing.”
“It could just be random, you know.”
“Random, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Guy follows Diane in, kills her, and exits. Maybe it was a simple robbery.”
“But there’s a guard in the front lobby.”
“Ned’s more of a joke. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve come in the building in the morning and he’s nowhere to be found.”
“What the hell do we pay building fees for?”
“If you want serious perimeter protection, hire a real security firm who’ll send a trained person who carries a gun. The only thing Ned can do is whack an intruder with a frozen sausage biscuit.”
Roy popped up from the chair. “Is there anyone we need to call?”
The other man looked at him with a confused expression. “Call?”
“Yeah, like her relatives?”
“Oh, I’ve got folks doing that. Her father’s dead, but her mom lives in Florida, retired. Diane didn’t have any kids. She has an ex-husband, but he lives in Hawaii.”
“Did you just find that out?”
“What?”
“You said you didn’t know much about Diane personally, but you know all that.”
“I just found out!” Ackerman snapped.
Roy put up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay. That’s cool.” He headed to the door. “Do you mind if I take the rest of the day off? I don’t have anything critical pending and what with everything that’s happened.”
“No, sure, go on. Get some fresh air.”
“Thanks.”
“Roy, what was it like? Finding the body?”
Roy slowly turned around. “I hope you never have to find out.”
“Not too good, Mr. Kingman.”
Roy leaned against the marble reception console. “Police give you the once-over?” He nodded. “And
were
you away from the front at any time this morning?”
Ned eyed him a little hostilely. “Am I supposed to talk to you about this stuff?”
“Not if you don’t want to, no.”
“Guess it doesn’t matter. I don’t know that much, really.”
“So you saw Diane come in?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, either you saw her or you didn’t.”
“I heard her.”
“
Heard
her? Where were you?”
“In the back microwaving my biscuit. It always gets cold before I get here.”
“What time was that?”
“Around six. I’d just come on duty.”
“But you were eating a biscuit when I came in an hour and a half later.”
“I eat like five sausage biscuits every morning, but I try to space them out. I’m a big guy: I need constant fuel.”
“Did she come up through the garage elevator or by the front doors?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I didn’t see her.”
“Okay, so what did she
say
when she came into the lobby?”
“She said, ‘Hey, how you doing.’ And I called back that I was doing fine. When I got back to the front, she’d already gone up in the elevator.”
“You’re sure it was her voice?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard her lots of times. She’s usually with someone when she leaves the building, you know, for lunch or stuff, and she has a pretty husky voice for a lady.”
“But Ned, not to raise the obvious point, if you were in the back and she couldn’t see you, how do you know she was even talking to
you
? More likely she was saying hello to someone else coming in the building the same time as her.”
Ned looked puzzled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Roy continued, “The person had to be coming through the front doors. If she’d ridden up with him in the elevator from the garage she would have already said hello. And there’s only the one garage elevator, so it wouldn’t have had time to go back down and come back up with another person before Diane would’ve headed up in one of the office elevators.”
“You’re getting way over my head now, Mr. Kingman.”
“Did she routinely say hello to you when she came in?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“Does that mean she did it once, twice, every other time? Never?”
“Uh, never.”
“Did you hear another person’s voice?”
“No, but like I said, I was using the microwave. It makes some noise. And then it makes a big ‘ding’ when it’s done.”
“Yeah, I know.” Roy glanced up at the security cameras mounted in each corner of the lobby. “Did the police take the security tapes?”
“It’s on a DVD. But no, they didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because the DVD loaded in the central board was full from a long time ago.”
“But once it got full won’t it just record over what’s already been filmed?”
“The system here doesn’t work that way. The disk gets full, it automatically shuts down until you put a new disk in.”
“Well, don’t people check it?”
Ned looked red-faced. “I did, I mean sometimes. But nobody ever told me how to really do it the right way, and I got to the point where I thought I might screw up, so I stopped checking it.”
“Well, you got that right. You
did
screw up.”
Ned said in a whining tone, “But I thought the cameras were just there for looks anyway, you know, to make people
think
they were under surveillance. I mean,
I’m
on duty for security purposes.”
“In light of what happened this morning that’s very reassuring,” Roy said sarcastically. “Did you see anyone leaving between the time you heard Diane and when I came in?”
“There were only a few people who came in during that time. All regulars.”
“Anybody from Shilling?”
“Not that I recognized, no.”
Roy scrutinized Ned. “Did you maybe take another break?”
“No, I swear, I was here the whole time. Okay, I was reading, but I couldn’t have missed someone passing by. The lobby’s not that big.”
That was true, thought Roy. And anyone coming up from the garage elevator would have to pass right in front of the security desk.
“So are you saying you saw nobody leave during that time?”
“That’s right. Just people coming in. I mean, it was early, who’d be leaving?”
At least one person might have
, thought Roy.
The killer.
“And you told the cops this?”
“Yeah, everything.”
“Does your firm carry lots of insurance?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Well, if I were you I’d find out, because your screwup affected a law firm big-time. And don’t forget, they can sue you without even having to hire an attorney.”
“Jesus, do you think they might come after me? I mean, they can’t, right? I’m just the security guard. I don’t have any money.”
“The courthouse is open to anyone, Ned. And, hell, they might go after you just for the sheer fun of it.”
Roy walked out into the sunshine. Whoever had killed Diane had probably gone up in the elevator with her. And maybe instead of leaving, that person had then stayed in the building somewhere. He or she might even be there now, working in another office.
Or in my office.
Diane had come in about ninety minutes before he had. Had she been killed immediately and the murderer long gone before Roy got to the office? Or had it happened minutes before he got there? Or had it happened while he was in his office and he hadn’t heard a damn thing? He tried to remember how cold Diane’s body had been. The fact was, if she’d been in the fridge two days or half an hour, she would still have felt pretty cold to him. Maybe the ME would have a better shot at answering that.
“You look like you’re thinking way too hard.”
Roy looked to his left where Mace Perry was perched on her Ducati staring at him.
“I can see the front entrance from my office. I’ve been staring out at it the last few hours.” He eyed the Ducati. “I wouldn’t have missed these wheels.”
“Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot. And I came back to try it again.”
Roy didn’t look inclined to accept her offer, but he said, “I never got your name.”
“It’s Mace.”
“Mace? That’s a weapon, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I am,” she quipped.
“Come on, what’s your name?”
“Really, my name is Mace.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
Mace looked toward the building. “I saw you talking to the security guard. What did he say?”
Roy looked at Ned through the glass. “Not much. Ned’s not exactly all that with it.”
“Tolliver might’ve ridden up in the elevator with whoever killed her. Ned was probably somewhere taking a sugar-slurp break. Killer did the deed and then either walked out or to his office in the building. Maybe at your law firm.”
“That’s one theory.”
“I’ll give you another one. You were the one who went up in the elevator with Tolliver, and she used her key card, so that leaves no record of you. You killed her and stuffed her in the fridge. You snuck down the stairs and waited until the guard came back. Then you waltzed in the building from the garage elevator side like it was the first time, so he could time-stamp you in his head. You go up to the office, fuss around at your desk for a while, go to the kitchen, open the fridge, catch the poor lady—which would explain any trace of her being on your person and vice versa—and then you call the cops in a fake-freak voice.”
Roy stared at her, his features darkening. “Is this how you try to make a fresh start? By accusing me again?”
“I’m not accusing you. But you’re a lawyer. You know what’s coming. You were on the scene alone with a dead woman. The cops will go down this very same trail with you at some point. So you better be prepared to answer. You can practice on me.”
“Why, so you can go back to the cops, tell them, and they can run holes right through my explanations?”
“I told you, I’m not a cop. And if what you’re saying is the truth it would be pretty tough to pin a murder rap on you.”
“Okay, I’ll play along. I accessed the parking garage with my card. That shows I got in around seven-thirty. Took the elevator up to my office, did some work. Went to make coffee and found Diane. I made the call to 911 at two minutes past eight. Records show she was at the office ninety minutes before I got there. I didn’t even know she was there.”
“That won’t cut it. You could’ve parked your car down the street, walked into the garage, waited for her to arrive, ridden up in the elevator with her, killed her, left, driven your car to the garage, and the same scenario follows.”
“Ned said he heard Diane saying hello to someone. That doesn’t fit with your scenario.”
“The testimony of morons is always heavily discounted by the blues and the courts. And the fact is, you could’ve come in when you said, at seven-thirty, gone up in the elevator, killed Tolliver, stuffed her in the fridge, and called the cops. Plenty of time.”
“Okay, what’s my motive?”
“I’m a purist chick when it comes to a criminal investigation, meaning I eyeball opportunity first. Motive usually comes later. But if it’s there, the cops will find it.”
“So what should I do? Grab the next flight to a country that has no extradition with the U.S.?”
“Nah, it’ll probably be okay.”
Roy looked startled. “Probably?”
“I’ve got a good nose for killers, and it’s not twitching around you. So where’d you play basketball?”
“How do you know I did? Just because of the office door hoop?”
“It’s partly your height, and the way you walk, and how you dissected my playing career earlier.”
“And what’s the other part?”
“I saw a set of Audi keys on your desk earlier. I checked the garage here. There was an Audi parked near the entrance, which would peg it as yours since you got here so early. In the backseat were a duffel bag, three basketballs, and four pairs of expensive B-ball shoes that pretty much only collegiate or professional players will put out for.”
“University of Virginia Cavaliers.”
“I actually already knew that since you also have the big cool orange sticker on your rear bumper.”
“You know, you look like the police chief.”
“She’s a lot taller than me.”
“I meant in the face, and the eyes. You both have green eyes, with some flecks of bronze.” He looked at her more closely. “And a tiny bubble of magenta in the right one.”
Mace studied her eyes in the Ducati’s side mirror. Incredibly enough, for the first time, she did see bronze and the pop of magenta.
“I don’t know any guys who even realize magenta is a color.”
He pointed at her. “I knew I recognized you. You’re her sister, Mace Perry. Should’ve remembered as soon as you said your name.” He broke off. “But the newspapers said your name was originally Mason Perry.” He looked at her funny. “Mason Perry, Perry Mason the TV lawyer? Is that a coincidence?”
“My father was a prosecutor, but he really wanted to be on the other side. So Mason Perry it was. But I go by Mace, not Mason. In fact, I had it legally changed.”
“What does your father think of that?”
“I don’t know. He was murdered when I was a kid.”
“I’m sorry, Mace. Didn’t know.”
“No reason for you to.”
“But weren’t you in—”
“I just got out.”
“Okay.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked awkwardly around while Mace fiddled with the straps on her helmet.
“For what it’s worth, I think you got a raw deal,” he finally said.
“Thanks. For what it’s worth, I think you’re telling the truth.”
“You know, the only reason I believe in reincarnation is because of Mona Danforth.”
“What do you mean?” she said curiously.
“How else can you explain Joseph Stalin coming back as a girl?”
Mace grinned. “You had run-ins with her as a CJA?”
“I wasn’t important enough to actually warrant the lady confronting me head-on. But her lieutenants ground my face into the legal dirt on more than one occasion. And the stories about her around PD are legendary.”
“You up for lunch? We can take turns devising torture methods to use on Mona.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Ben’s Chili Bowl. I’ve been dreaming about Benny’s half-smokes for two years.” She slid off the passenger seat cover. “Hop on.”
“I don’t have a helmet.”
“Then don’t hit your head if you fall off. Pretty sure my insurance lapsed.”
The Ducati sped off a few seconds later.