Point of Balance (19 page)

The frustration and worry that had been simmering inside her for hours now reached the boiling point.

“Shit!” she screamed, and swiped the useless bits of paper off the countertop, along with the coffee cup, which shattered as it hit the floor tiles.

Enraged, Kate bent down to clean up the mess and glimpsed something that made her do a double take. Stuck to a gummed envelope containing a flyer was a folded oblong piece of paper that she'd previously overlooked. Her heart quickened as she unfurled and read it.

At last, there it was, the clue she'd been after.

22

Summary of Wednesday night's activities: I drank myself into a stupor.

I left the Marblestone in a rage, but it soon wore off. What I had seen on that screen had torn off a piece of my soul, a big chunk. I drove home, dragged myself to the sofa and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. To fall asleep was unthinkable. To face up to my thoughts, impossible. I desperately needed the solace of oblivion, to black out for a few hours, so I let Wild Turkey do its thing.

The sunlight awoke me at nearly eight o'clock.

I was on the carpet, facedown. I blinked a few times and tried to rein in the migraine that was gnawing at my brain. My right arm was smarting. I rolled up my sleeve and found three red lines, almost straight, each about a handbreadth long. They were fresh and very deep scratch marks.

How the hell did I do that to myself?

It had to have happened the night before. There were dried bloodstains on my shirt. But there was a total gap in my memory after I'd hit the bottle.

In the morning light, the rest of the night's events came back a little. The booze and the hangover made them a bit hazy, like a secondhand nightmare. But White's text message made reality abruptly sink its teeth in.

RISE & SHINE DAVE

HOW'S YOUR FLEXIBILITY TODAY?

The cell was by my head, leaning against the wall so I could see it clearly . . . and White could see me. The battery was charged up.

Whoever had done that, it wasn't me.

They broke in and were snooping around while I was out for the count. Did you laugh, you bastards, when you got a load of me stretched out on the floor like a rag doll? Get a kick out of it?

I gave the cell the finger before I picked it up. Then I noticed something on the edge of the sofa. It was a stain left by some grape juice, Rachel's favorite. I remembered the day, almost a year ago, when my wife had spilled a little, and the ever-helpful Julia rushed to wipe it up with a kitchen towel and turned a neat droplet into a purple blotch. We never did get around to cleaning it properly.

As I was driving to the hospital and trying to concoct a plan to get Hockstetter out of the way and myself back in the game, that stain hijacked my thoughts. A meaningless spot that a bit of spray could have cleaned away had stayed the course longer than the love of my life.

It has outlived my wife.

It will not outlive my daughter.

I showered and shaved in St. Clement's, away from White's prying cameras. While I was getting dressed, I glanced at the TV that was always switched on in the locker room. The Patient was on CNN, shaking the hand of the NSA director, General What's-His-Name. Both their faces were frozen into smiles. It seemed they had both attended an event at the White House where the president had mooted possible changes for the agency, “aimed at a freer future for the American people.” The president slipped up in one of the sound bites broadcast from the speech, and in another he said the word “people” twice in a row. The newscasters wondered why.

Only I knew what was going on: the president's tumor was getting worse and worse.

I finished dressing in a hurry. I wanted to look the part when I
did my rounds with the patients at nine thirty. They were all doing nicely, which briefly relieved my anxiety, but not for long.

Until I read the last name on the list they had given me.

“Is Jamaal Carter still here?” I asked Sandra at the nurses' station.

“They can't admit him to MedStar until tomorrow, so I asked Dr. Wong for permission. She said she'd dock it from your paycheck, Dr. Evans.”

“They don't make scissors that small.”

“On my pay you could give him a couple of aspirins.”

But not too many. St. Clement's charges patients $1.50 for every painkiller supplied, plus taxes. The hospital dispensary buys them for less than a penny each, so you tell me whether they couldn't afford to keep the kid in another night without making too much fuss.

What's more, Jamaal's name had just given me a brain wave. It might work if I could get him to myself. But for that I had to surmount a huge obstacle.

Mama Carter.

I've come across a few religious nuts in my time. Here on death row there's one who sings a hymn at 2:34 a.m. A different one every day. He has a sweet, almost ladylike voice. I have only seen him on his way past my cell, because they don't let us mingle.

But every day we take turns for a half hour in the six-foot-square “exercise yard” surrounded by massive concrete walls. If you crane your neck somewhat, you can see a piece of blue sky up there somewhere.

When they let us out for our exercise, we all take a good look at each other. We want to see what somebody looks like when they're about to die. The hymn singer is a frail boy, with pale, skinny arms riven by blue veins.

It's hard to believe he strangled nine old ladies with his bare hands. He said he wanted to send them to heaven as soon as possible.

Mama Carter hadn't killed anybody, that I knew, but what had happened to Jamaal had turned her already towering faith into something tangible and solid. When I walked into his room I found
her on her knees, praying at Jamaal's bedside. I cleared my throat to let her know I was there.

“Do you believe in God, Dr. Evans?” she asked as she stood up.

This time there were no kisses or hallelujahs.

“I believe in doing my best without expecting any reward,” I replied.

“Yesterday you told me you prayed.”

“I do. Normally when I have a problem. But I don't know if it gets me anywhere.”

“I prayed for the longest time for Him to protect my li'l Jamaal. And my prayers have been answered.”

Li'l Jamaal tossed and turned his six-foot frame in his cot, making his cuffs ring out against the bedstead he was shackled to.

“Hey, doc, think they can get this thing off of me? It makes my arm sore.”

“I'm afraid you'll be up before the judge first, bud,” I said, then remembered the gangbanger who'd been knifed. “Say, how's T-Bone?”

“He gonna live. They take him to another hospital. Dunno where.”

I looked out of the corner of my eye at Mama Carter. I wanted to talk to Jamaal alone, but for that I needed to get his grandmother out from under our feet.

“Mrs. Carter.”

“Call me Mama, please, Dr. Evans.”

“I must ask you to step outside for a minute.”

She stared at me and pressed her mouth into a straight, sharp slit.

“I'm sorry, but I ain't going no place.”

“Pardon me?”

“It was the same with my boy Leon, Jamaal's father. The cops got me away from him, so they could have a quick word. That detective, he asked me to step out for a minute too. Leon's been inside for sixteen years, so I'm staying right here.”

“Ma'am, can't you see?” I said, tugging at the lapels on my white coat. “I'm no cop.”

“You could be wired.”

“Mrs. . . . Mama Carter. I need to talk to Jamaal alone. Believe me, it's not him we're going to talk about.”

“I believe you, doctor. You seem a decent man. There's a lot of sadness in your eyes, but also the light of our sweet Lord Jesus.”

“Will you leave us alone, then?”

“No way. They could have wired the room.”

I suppressed an exasperated cackle.

“Okay, Mama, have it your way. Jamaal, I need a gun.”

“What the . . . !?” the kid said as he straightened up a bit and opened his eyes very wide.

Luckily, watching
The Wire
and
Breaking Bad
had improved my word power.

“A nine, a burner, a piece,” I said, trying to sound tough. “Whatever the hell you want to call it.”

“What this got to do with me, doc?”

“I want you to tell me where I can find one.”

“No way, bro, you wigged out,” he said, shaking his head.

“Look, kid, do I have to remind you that if you can walk it's thanks to me?”

The grandmother stood between us with her arms stretched out wide.

“Don't you even think of answering, Jamaal.”

“Mama, I need your grandson's help.”

“I knew you wanted to entrap him. You're trying to catch him out.”

“I'm not, Mama, I promise.”

“I don't believe you. What would somebody like you want a gun for?”

“I can't tell you.”

“That makes it worse. Because you'll break the law.”

“I won't mix Jamaal up in it.”

“Well, you say that.”

“Mama . . .”

“Get out of here before I call that cop who's sitting by the door. Ask him for a gun, not some black kid from Southeast.”

I gently held Mrs. Carter by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

“Listen, Mama. I won't harm your boy. But I do need a gun.”

“He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. So says the Lord,” she said, looking away from me.

“I am not going to kill anyone. I just need it to right a wrong, I can't tell you any more. I need you to believe me, Mama. Before you said there was kindness in my eyes. I need you to look in them and believe me.”

Mama finally looked up and met my eyes. Up close, her face showed all the ravages of age. Hardship and poverty had furrowed her brow, but not her soul or her dignity. The whites of her eyes were yellow and bloodshot, and her cheeks were puffy. She was pushing seventy, so she knew only too well what it was to ride at the back of the bus, to use blacks-only bathrooms and fight for her rights. She had lived an unsettled life in which certainty was the most elusive of prizes, and I was asking for her trust on a plate. For her it would be a monumental act of heroism to take a rich white guy's word for it.

“The Almighty moves in mysterious ways,” she said after a while, clamping her lips between words. “I'll ponder them while I sit on that chair and not listen to a word that is said in this room.”

I nodded in admiration and gratitude, and turned to Jamaal.

“Dude, talk to me.”

Kate

Kate checked the address one more time before she got out of the car. There it was: the corner of Twenty-Fifth and Greenmount, in Baltimore.

She had known that scrap of paper was meaningful as soon as she took hold of it. It was a crumpled, garden-variety gas station receipt. But the time stamp and location told her she was onto something. Dave could not possibly have been in Baltimore at one p.m. on a weekday, when he was supposed to be in the hospital. She would have liked to call or text him to make sure and avoid another false lead, but it was too risky. And she had nothing else to go on, either.

The receipt was for $24.71, or about seven gallons of gas. Whoever it was had paid in cash, so Kate couldn't be sure. But her intuition told her that that receipt had belonged to Svetlana.

She shivered with cold as she stepped out. The leather jacket did little to keep out the chill early morning wind. She raised the collar, although that didn't help much.

The yellowish first light of dawn cast her distorted and lengthy shadow along the cracked sidewalk. She had parked two blocks away from the gas station so as to stretch her legs a bit and reconnoiter the place. It didn't tell her a great deal she didn't already know about Greenmount. It was one of the scariest neighborhoods in the country. Derelict buildings were thick on the ground, and most had become crack houses or shelters for bums. There was nobody about, merely silence slicing between the empty shells on the wings of an icy wind.

The local stores were going under owing to the lack of patronage. The odds of falling victim to a violent crime if you went out
at night hereabouts were one in nine. Things were a tad quieter by day, but it sure was no neighborhood to hang around in for the heck of it.

What made you come here,
Svetlana?
Kate wondered, looking around her.

A shy twig of a girl, who looked unassuming and harmless, according to Dave. One who turned out to be a plant for the worst type of psycho killer: the kind that nobody even knows exists.

Even so, this was no place for her. Were you on your way someplace else?

If that were the case, Kate had nothing. She fought off the urge to run the last few yards to settle her doubts once and for all.

To tease information out of potential witnesses, you must never look desperate. If they are hostile, they'll turn the tables on you. If they are law-abiding, then they'll be so keen to help out they'll probably make up half of what they tell you, without even knowing.

When she laid eyes on Rajesh Vajnuli, Kate discerned the gas station attendant would belong to the second category. He was so helpful and efficient, he seemed capable of being in two places at once. His talents must have been wasted in that desolate backwater, with no customers to bend over backwards for. When she showed him her shield and it became clear she wasn't a client, his enthusiasm didn't dim one iota. The traditional mistrust recent immigrants have of law enforcers was conspicuously absent.

“Are you really a Secret Service agent?” Vajnuli said in a raucous voice and an accent that hissed the S's, like a kid sleighing through freshly driven snow. “Like in that show, you know, the one with Jack Bauer?”

“No, that was the CTU. A make-believe agency.”

Kate fielded similar questions at all times of the day and night. When a public appearance was announced ahead of time, an agent could spend hours face-to-face with the crowds waiting for the president. People got bored, and the biggest show in town was the agent standing firm a few yards away. Since she had been on the First
Lady's detail, they no longer picked her for such assignments. So she didn't have to reply so often to questions over vagaries such as Area 51 or the JFK assassination.

“The CTU doesn't exist?” the attendant asked, quite disheartened.

“Afraid not.”

“You're kidding me! What if someone wants to blow up a nuclear power plant? Who's to protect us from terrorist plots?”

“The FBI, the CIA, the NSA and thirty-three other agencies. Look, Mr. Vajnuli—”

“Call me Rajesh.”

“Mr. Vajnuli, I need you to listen carefully. Look at this receipt,” she said, holding it out to him. “Your name is printed on it. Did you serve this customer?”

“Yes, that's what's down there, see? But I can't be sure who it was . . .”

“A young woman, twenty-four years old. Thin, high cheekbones, Eastern European accent.”

“Oh yes. That was a few days ago. She was here, I served her.”

“Do you know her name? Had you seen her before?”

“No, ma'am, I'm sorry.”

“I'd like to see your security cam recordings.”

Vajnuli leaned over in a confidential mood.

“Look, don't tell anyone, but the security cam recording system is very expensive. So we can only go back twenty-four hours. Enough for the cops to see who has held us up.”

Sure you don't keep them. Because that would have made things too easy
,
Kate thought, massaging the bridge of her nose.

“I see, and that day you weren't held up, right?”

“No, we're on a roll. We haven't had a robbery for more than a month now. Almost like my hometown, Mumbai.”

“And I guess you wouldn't remember her.”

“Quite the contrary, Agent Robson, I have total recall, especially for hot chicks,” he said, raising his eyebrows twice. Or at least trying to, as they barely rose above the frame of his Coke-bottle glasses.

Kate raised her eyebrows in turn—not in response to Vajnuli's flirting, but in surprise at the attendant's description.

“You'd say she was cute?”

“Oh, most definitely. She was short and very slim, but she wore a soft cotton dress and it showed her to advantage in all the right places, know what I mean? And she was dolled up. That's why she struck me, because that's not usual around here.”

“Neither is paying in cash, is it?”

“That's where you're wrong, ma'am. Many of my customers call in for gas every day. They come with a couple of bucks or a five spot and eke things out that way. The odd one has to pawn his TV midweek to pay for gas or food.”

“Can't you tell me anything else?”

“What's she done? Robbed a bank or something?”

“I am not authorized to reveal that information,” Kate said with a vague wave of her hand, an old trick she had learned in her days on the fraud squad. It could mean any old thing—the sole idea was to momentarily satisfy the witness's curiosity and keep him talking.

Vajnuli sucked his teeth several times before he went on.

“Well, she was very polite. That I do remember.”

“When she paid?”

“Not only that, but she also asked for permission to park her car in the lot here. It's reserved for the car wash clients, but what the heck . . . It's been broken for a year and I don't think the company wants to spend money on fixing it. I figure it won't be long before they close us down.”

Kate looked out the window. From the counter there was a great view of the space set aside for the lot, merely a couple of stripes painted on the blacktop.

“She asked me to keep an eye on it,” the attendant added. “I said yes, be my guest. Although if they'd stolen it, the most I could have done would have been to tell her how many people there were. In my country we have a saying, ‘Never get between a bear and his honey pot.' ”

“Wise words. Know how long the girl was gone?”

“Oh, I don't know. Half an hour, an hour maybe. I'm busy, you know?” he said, lifting up a book thicker than Kate's arm entitled
Advanced Quantum Mechanics
. “I have to get my doctoral thesis approved.”

“So I see. Thanks for your help.”

“Aren't you going to give me a card with your number? You know, in case I remember something and have to get in touch with you in a hurry?” he suggested, raising his eyebrows again.

“That won't be necessary, sir. Have a good day.”

Kate walked out of the store. The sound of the automatic door closing spared her the good-byes from a very disappointed Vajnuli. Outside, the bracing dawn breeze was laced with the acrid smell of gasoline.

A soft cotton dress.

Dolled up.

It had taken Kate fifty minutes to get to Baltimore. If Svetlana had been there by one, she must have left home at noon. David always took Julia to school on his way to the hospital. Svetlana would have fixed breakfast for them, and then the coast would have been clear for her to get ready.

Why would an ostensibly reserved student who always wore casual clothes dress up and drive forty miles midweek? Did she go for a job interview behind David's back? Then what was she really up to in the house? Could it be she wasn't part of the plot?

No way, José. Because she gave Dave her supervisor's number. A sham number. She must have known.

What truly unnerved Kate was that description of Svetlana. The gas station attendant was a lonely young guy ready to hit on anyone in a skirt who made the door go ding-dong.

Kate was a good-looking woman in her own way. Her lean, wiry frame gave off a special vibe, but she was a severe judge of herself. When she looked in her bedroom mirror she couldn't see past her
pointy elbows and the flab that was beginning to gather under her butt cheeks, which no amount of daily jogging could burn off.

You would have to be desperate to pick up a Secret Service agent
,
she thought.

The attendant was probably no more than a horny youngster who got the hots for anyone. But even so, David's description of Svetlana didn't remotely tally with his.

Could he really have been blind to the nanny?

A healthy, straight man who takes no notice of a twentysomething chick with a nice rack living in his own home?

Although he was in mourning, Kate had been around enough men to know that was not possible.

Unless we're talking about David, right? The man who only had eyes for Rachel from the moment he saw her.

It was the Spring Block Party in Georgetown, the legendary event they held every year right outside the campus. It was Kate's first, and she was raring to go. It was the second time around for her sister, who wasn't much into crowded festivities. She had said no, but Kate didn't know the meaning of the word. She had shown up at her dorm with a huge sign saying “I NEED TO PARTY.”

“You will not drag me down there,” Rachel insisted, rolling her eyes and turning back to her desk.

“You can't do this to me, Rae. We'll have a ball!”

“No we won't. It'll be all booze and guys trying to get into our pants.”

“Sounds cool! Come on, what's with you? I've been working my ass off all winter to get ready for my midterms. Look, it's even chair shaped,” she said, shaking it under her sister's nose, while Rachel vainly tried to study an anatomy book. “Doesn't it look flat to you?”

“You get your butt out of my face,” Rachel said, tittering. “I said we're not going, and that's final.”

So they went. They danced, they drank, and when it was Kate's turn to get more drinks, she bumped into a tall, dark-haired guy
with green eyes. They jabbered about nothing in particular, small talk. Kate could remember the conversation verbatim, but that didn't matter. Because the only line that truly counted in their chat (uttered solely because Rachel wouldn't stop pinching her arm to say she wanted to get away) was:

“David, this is my sister.”

And the rest was history. His head spun toward her so quickly the girl in
The Exorcist
would have been green with envy. When a half hour later Rachel told her that David (“Guess what? Turns out he's in med school, like me”) had invited her to have a drink somewhere quiet, and asked whether she minded. Kate's smile quavered a little, but she said no, no sweat. She would repent at leisure over the years for that hasty lie, wondering what might have happened had she said what she really felt. That she had seen him first, that Rachel wouldn't even have been there were it not for her, that it just wasn't fair . . . but nothing could have taken away that spinning head or the twinkle in his eyes when he saw her sister for the first time.

No, David would have taken no notice of Svetlana, at least not in that way. Nonetheless the attendant's comment hinted at something, something important.

She had dressed up for somebody.

She was on a date, with a guy she couldn't see on weekends, because she had told David she didn't have a boyfriend. David said she used to spend the weekends shut up in her room, with her nose stuck in some books.

But there was someone. A boyfriend. And if there was a boyfriend, there was a lead. Some string to pull on.

Or there would be if I knew where she went from here. A coffee shop, or maybe—

The cell's ringtone disrupted her train of thought. She picked it up instantly on seeing it was her boss.

“What the hell's going on, Robson?” McKenna's voice came through thick and angry.

“I don't know what you mean, sir.”

“I've been up all freakin' night prepping for the St. Clement's security op. And before the briefing starts, in comes the chief of medical staff and says there's a change of plan, that we're off to Bethesda. The surgeon won't be your bro-in-law, but some Baltimore prick who hasn't had a single goddamned security check, no clearance, nothing. He could be a clean-shaven Osama for all we know.”

Rachel was struck dumb.

“Still there, Robson, or has that diarrhea been the death of you?”

“Osama's dead, sir,” was all she could find to say.

“So Renegade says. I say show me the evidence. Anyway, you'd better haul your ass over here right now or you'll be sorry.”

He hung up.

Kate stared at the phone. She didn't get it. Exactly what was all that about? Who had made that call? Because if it had been the White House, that left David in a real fix and turned Julia into excess baggage.