House Secrets (40 page)

Eklund placed his hand on Hanover’s urn and said, “Thank you, Blake, and may you rest in peace.” Then he sat down next to Emma, his eyes shining with tears.

The chaplain stood silent for a moment, not knowing what to do, then he cleared his throat and said. “I think, ah, if it’s okay with you I’ll skip the reading from the New Testament.”

Emma and Eklund both nodded.

“An honor guard will now accompany Mr. Hanover’s ashes for interment in the Columbarium Wall,” the chaplain said. “I’ll, uh, go outside and tell them we’re ready.” The young priest left the church, his relief evident.

“Thank you for coming today,” Eklund said to Emma. “I’m very disappointed that the people who worked with Blake are not here. I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed.” He paused theatrically then
added, “I’m afraid that my own funeral will one day be equally well attended.”

Eklund looking for sympathy was more than Emma could take. “I have to go,” she said and rose from the pew. She didn’t intend to accompany the honor guard to the Columbarium and hear taps being played for Blake Hanover. Taps made her cry. She’d heard them played too often for too many people she’d cared about.

Eklund looked up at her and said, “You won. Paul Morelli will never be president. And you know something, my dear? I don’t care. So I’m not sure how you did it, but I hold no hard feelings against you.”

Emma just shook her head and turned to leave.

Eklund sighed. “I’m thinking of leaving the agency,” he said. “Voluntarily. The world has just become too confusing a place. It’s time for me to go.”

Emma looked down at Eklund. “Charlie, you lying little prick,” she said, “who do you think you’re kidding? You’ll never retire.”

A ringing telephone pulled DeMarco out of a sleep so deep he felt as if he were being pulled from the womb. As he reached for the phone, he pried open one eye and checked the luminous hands on the bedside clock. Two a.m. Christ.

“Joe Bob. How the hell ya doin’, boy?”

DeMarco hadn’t spoken to Sam Murphy since they had destroyed Paul Morelli almost two months ago. Murphy had tried to contact DeMarco after Morelli’s arrest, but DeMarco didn’t return his calls. He had no desire to hear Murphy tell him what a great job he’d done; helping the Texan get a step closer to the White House was not something he was proud of.

DeMarco put his head back on the pillow. Keeping his eyes closed, he said, “What do you want, Sam?”

“That young cop, Gary Parker, he was just killed.”

DeMarco sat up in bed. “What happened?”

“He was hit by a car. Happened about five hours ago.”

“Hit-and-run?”

“No. He had just parked his car near that place you got him on Capitol Hill and he got hit crossing the street to get to his apartment. He didn’t cross at a crosswalk and he was a little buzzed at the time he was killed. The guy who hit him stopped and called the medics, and he was as sober as a judge.”

DeMarco didn’t say anything for a second. He was thinking of how Gary had looked the last time he had seen him on TV, the big grin on his handsome face, the cocky tilt of his uniform cap. A portrait of a man who had the world by the balls.

“Sam, I’m sorry to hear he’s dead, but why are you calling me about this at two in the morning?”

“Two? Shit, boy, I plumb forgot the time difference. I was juss sittin’ here, having a drink, and thought I oughta talk this thing over with you. It bothers me.”

“It bothers me too, Sam, but why call me? Don’t you have any friends?”

“You don’t understand, Joe Bob. I didn’t call to ponder the fickleness of fate. I had my people look into Parker’s death, to see if anything looked funny. Well, something did. The guy that hit him is a small-time hood. Has convictions for robbery, car theft, petty shit like that. He’s not the kind of guy that stops and calls the cops when he kills somebody.”

“If it was an accident, why wouldn’t he stop? Particularly with his record, why take the risk of being nailed for a hit-and-run?”

“Because of who he is. This guy would lie even if the truth made a better story.”

“What are you trying to say, Sam?”

“I’m sayin’, what if Morelli set this up? What if he paid this punk to run Parker down? Since he wasn’t drunk, he probably won’t even do any jail time. It’s a free killin’!”

“Why in the hell would Morelli do that?”

“Revenge, boy! You stupid or still asleep?”

“You’re getting paranoid, Sam—a common affliction of a guilty conscience.”

“Real funny, partner.”

“I’m not your partner.”

“Sure you are, boy. And with what we’ve done together, you always will be.”

Before DeMarco could tell him to go to hell, Murphy said, “Look, I want you to check this out. See if Morelli’s tied to it in some way.”

“Not interested. The only further involvement I want with you is when I vote for your opponent in the next election.”

“I ain’t told you everything yet, smart-ass. After the cop was killed, I had my people check around and see if anybody else who helped you had any recent misfortune. Well, that photographer, Berg, he had some kind of accident.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know exactly. I just found this out an hour ago and I don’t have all the details yet. All I know is Berg had an accident and he’s in the hospital. So now what do you think? Two guys help you and two guys have accidents.”

When DeMarco didn’t say anything, Sam Murphy added, “I’m telling you, I
know
it’s Morelli. I can feel it in my gut.”

“Sam, if he wanted revenge, it’s me and you he’d be going after, not Gary Parker or Arnie Berg. They just had walk-on parts in this little drama.”

“And that’s why you better listen to me. You can’t get Secret Service protection like I can, boy. So if I was you, I’d be checkin’ the locks on my back door right now.”

“I appreciate the warning,” DeMarco said.

“So help me out. Help yourself out. Find out what happened to Berg. Find out if Morelli was involved in that cop’s death.”

“Nope.”

“Come on, Joe Bob. If we can tie Morelli to this, we can finish him off for good. Now I know that appeals to you.”

“Sorry, not interested.”

“Listen to me, you smug bastard. I know you don’t like me, but this ain’t about me and you. You talked that young cop into helping you, and now he’s dead. You
owe
it to that boy if I’m right.”

DeMarco didn’t respond immediately. If Murphy was right and Paul Morelli was responsible for Parker’s death, DeMarco did owe
him. But he didn’t trust Murphy and wanted no further involvement with him.

“Bye, Sam,” he said.

Murphy started swearing. The last thing DeMarco heard before he hung up was “sanctimonious fucker.” The vocabulary of a wildcatter with a college degree.

DeMarco couldn’t get back to sleep after the phone call. He put on a robe, went into the kitchen, and made a cup of chamomile tea. When he was a child and had nightmares, his grandmother used to give him chamomile tea; he hoped he had not outgrown its powers.

He sat drinking his tea, looking out his kitchen window at the blue lights twinkling annoyingly on the eaves of his neighbor’s house. He wondered why the putz left them on all night. He knew if he’d still been married there would have been a holly wreath on his front door, a decorated evergreen in his living room, and a dozen poinsettias scattered about the place to provide splashes of Clausian red. His ex-wife had been big on Christmas. But his ex was no longer with him, and now, as he looked around his unadorned home, he felt like young Scrooge in the flight path of a Dickens ghost.

Thoughts of Christmas past were soon replaced with present-day concerns of Paul Morelli. A man who would kill his wife and an innocent teenager to protect his career was capable of anything, and Morelli wouldn’t be human if he didn’t feel the desire for vengeance against those responsible for his downfall. But why kill Gary Parker? As he’d told Sam Murphy, Gary was just a bit player. If Morelli wanted revenge it was DeMarco and Murphy he should be going after—and maybe he would. Maybe he was just saving the best for last.

DeMarco didn’t have any illusions that Morelli couldn’t figure out he was responsible for his ruin. He was sure a good investigator would be able to prove that DeMarco had met with Sam Murphy twice and would be able to tie him to other people involved in the sting. So although he doubted that Parker’s death had been anything other than
a tragic accident, tomorrow he’d find out what had happened to Arnie, and maybe he’d call Brenda to see if she’d had any recent close brushes with death. He also decided it might be prudent to find out where Paul Morelli was.

When the senator’s doctors declared him miraculously cured after only two weeks at Father Martin’s, Morelli made a brief attempt to resume his life but he was hounded relentlessly by the media and became the scornful subject of every hot-air essayist from George Will to Howard Stern. His Democratic colleagues began to push quietly for his resignation from the Senate while his Republican foes cried loudly for his expulsion. But as expulsion took a two-thirds majority, the Republicans had to settle for making impassioned statements to the press about how they found working with a sexual predator disconcerting.

One day after almost breaking down in tears on the Senate floor, Morelli issued a statement saying that he was departing Washington for a brief period. He needed time alone, he claimed, to sort out the curve balls that life had thrown him. All the political commentators jerked a thumb in the direction of the dugout: they were convinced that Morelli was finished in politics.

DeMarco hoped the commentators were right, but knew it was usually a mistake to assume the public had standards. He agreed that Morelli’s chances of reaching the White House were nil, but was afraid Morelli might be able to hold his seat in the Senate indefinitely. Ted Kennedy’s past had not kept him from getting reelected every six years in Massachusetts, and today he seemed to be the reigning patriarch of his party.

At the time he took his leave of absence, demands for Morelli to resign had reached a screaming crescendo. The Senate Ethics Committee was being urged to at least censure him if they couldn’t do more. Oddly enough, by his simply walking away from his post, Morelli’s opponents appeared to go into a holding pattern, apparently awaiting his return to the Capitol before taking further action. What fun would it be to stone someone in absentia?

So Paul Morelli was temporarily gone, supposedly off licking his wounds and pondering his future—or maybe Sam Murphy was right, and it was revenge he was pondering.

The tea finally began to do its job and DeMarco began to feel drowsy. According to his grandmother, he should now be safe from the things that went bump in the night.

DeMarco found Arnie Berg on the fourth floor of Columbia Hospital. He was in a private room, looking out a window, and from his location he could watch the homeless in Washington Circle fight over bottles of Thunderbird wine. DeMarco suspected Arnie was envious of them.

Arnie was in a motorized wheelchair, the kind with a little joy stick that allows the occupant to operate the chair with only one hand, or in his case, a couple of fingers. He was wearing a neck brace, but even with the brace his head lolled forward. DeMarco walked up to him and put a hand on Arnie’s shoulder and his head twitched in surprise. He touched the joy stick and the wheelchair spun around so he could face DeMarco.

“Arnie,” DeMarco said slowly and softly. “It’s Joe DeMarco. Remember me?”

“Of course I remember you. I’m a fucking crip, not an imbecile.”

His words were slurred, but his voice was strong.

“What happened, Arnie?”

“I killed myself.”

There was nothing DeMarco could say to that.

“Anyway, why do you care what happened to me?”

“I care, Arnie. We weren’t friends or anything, but . . .”

“That’s for sure.”

“. . . but I don’t like seeing you like this. And I appreciate the help you gave me with Paul Morelli.”

DeMarco looked for some sign when he mentioned Morelli’s name, but Arnie’s face didn’t change expression. Maybe it couldn’t.

“Since you’re so grateful,” Arnie said, “I’ll let you change my diaper the next time I shit.” He tried to smile, but only half his face moved. Spit drooled from the corner of his mouth, down his chin.

DeMarco wanted to take out his handkerchief and wipe Arnie’s chin but he knew that would only make the man hate him more.

“Arnie, I need to know what happened.”

“Why?”

DeMarco saw a spark flare in Arnie’s eyes. Old habits die hard. Arnie was trying to figure out how to get his slice of the action, not knowing or caring what the action was. But the spark died quickly. Arnie Berg was through cutting deals.

“Arnie, please. Tell me what happened.”

He looked at DeMarco sullenly for a moment, then said, “I was out drinking with this buddy of mine. We got totally shit-faced. When we got back to my place, I decided to show him my pigeons. I keep—I kept—racing pigeons on the roof of my apartment. Anyway, we go up there to look at my birds, and the next thing I know I wake up in a hospital, ninety percent vegetable. I fell off the fuckin’ roof—a two-story swan dive.”