Political Suicide (10 page)

“And Mrs. Colston?”

“She has periods of great sadness, Hector, but then she bounces back.”

“That’s understandable. I enjoyed the couple of times she had me over with Mark for lunch, and that time for Thanksgiving. Give her my best.”

“I will. Speaking of lunch, here’s our sandwiches. Where would you like to talk?”

“Mind if we go out to those tables back there? As usual, the air-conditioning in this place ain’t workin’, and there’s good shade and privacy.”

Summer. Lou made a mental note. Whenever this conversation had taken place, it wasn’t recent.

“That’ll be fine,” Colston said.

“Okay if I order a beer to bring along?”

“Go for it.”

“Want one?”

“No thanks, Hector. I’m not that focused a driver under the best of circumstances.”

There was a period of noise as the two men left wherever they were and settled in at one of the tables outside. Lou could not be at all certain, but it seemed as if Hector’s speech was somewhat pressured and tense.

“So, sir,” the marine said after a time, “let me explain why I asked to see you. It wasn’t my idea, actually. It was our commanding officer, Colonel Brody. He asked me to speak with you.”

“Wyatt Brody, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I met him briefly at Mark’s funeral. He wasn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy type.”

“No, sir. That’s not the colonel. Mark was one of his favorites, and believe me, the colonel doesn’t have too many of those.”

“Mark never spoke much about him, only about some of the other Mantis soldiers, like you.”

“Well, the colonel is one tough dude, sir. And that’s something of an understatement. He’s very upset about some of the things you’ve been doing in your committee—cutting expenses to Mantis.”

“It hasn’t been just to Mantis, Hector. I feel our country is headed in the wrong direction, and it’s time to adjust our priorities, specifically in the direction of more and better education. Drugs, street violence, welfare, crime, overcrowded prisons. There is no solution to the social ills that are dragging this country down other than more teachers and better schools, and the money has to come from someplace. Supporters call my proposals a blueprint for hope, and that’s exactly what they are. Hope for our cities. Hope for children everywhere.”

“Pardon me for saying it, sir, but education ain’t worth much if towel-headed terrorists can just walk in here and blow up our schools. So long as they got the oil, they got the power. And the only thing they’ll ever listen to is somebody else’s power that’s bigger than what they got.”

“I believe we have enough intelligence and firepower to prevent that, provided they are used in the right way.”

“Yes. Well, pardon me for siding with the colonel on this one, sir. He feels you should be showin’ your son and his unit more respect, especially given that you’re a marine yourself. We’re the number-one best unit in the marines—hell, in the whole damn military. Please excuse the language. We are right up there with the SEALs, and rated even tougher than the Rangers or Delta Force. But our manpower and weaponry are being hacked away.”

“Pushing for those cuts hasn’t been easy for me, Hector. Several times it’s come down to my son’s memory or my conscience.”

“Mr. Colston, sir, you got to reconsider,” Hector pleaded, his voice half an octave higher than it had been. “The colonel is hard like no one I ever dealt with before. And he’s got people around him.”

“People?”

“Tough dudes, enlisted from the streets and put right in Mantis.”

“What do you mean. Hector?”

There was a prolonged emptiness before Hector responded, this time in a strained whisper. Stunned, Lou listened to the exchange.

“We call them the Palace Guards, and wherever the colonel is, they’re not far away.”

“Are they like a gang?”

“In a way, maybe. I really don’t know.”

“So, Hector, is this meeting some kind of warning from Colonel Brody?”

Extended silence. Another harsh, whispered reply.

“Mr. Colston, for Mark’s sake, for your sake, you gotta pull back and take some of the pressure off of Mantis. Mark gave his life for the company and this country.”

“You seem nervous, Hector. Has Colonel Brody threatened you if you don’t succeed with me?”

“It’s Dr. Brody, sir. Did you know that?”

“Doctor? Like a medical doctor?”

“Not like any medical doctor you ever had, and nobody talks about it much, but yeah, he’s a doctor of some kind. I tell you ’cause that’s how smart he is. Smart and tough and backed up by some of the hardest men this side of hell.”

“Hector, you know I’m a pretty powerful man in Washington. Just say the word, and I can bring some serious clout down on your Colonel Dr. Brody.”

Lou heard some shuffling and imagined Hector pushing to his feet.

“Those guys smoking back there against the restaurant. At least two of them are Palace Guards. All I want is your word, Mr. Colston—your word that you will lighten up on Mantis and replace some of the money you got taken away.”

“The best I can do is to promise I’ll think about my position.”

“Please, do that, sir. Please.”

“All right, Hector. I promise. One last thing.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know anything about Mantis soldiers being killed at a place called the Reddy Creek Armory?”

“Never heard about nothing like that. What is it?”

“I don’t know. There was a blog I came across written by a reporter in North Carolina that mentioned it. When I tried learning more, the blog was gone, wiped off the Internet. I couldn’t find any other mention of any killings anyplace. It’s as if they never happened.”

“No idea, sir. Never heard of no Mantis marines bein’ involved with any killings.”

“Okay. Thanks, Hector. Let me know if you hear anything like that.”

“I will. Now, please, do what I asked and help keep Mark’s unit strong. He died for Mantis and our country.”

“You have my word.”

The disc went silent.

Eyes closed, Lou sat alone in the late afternoon chill. Suddenly, he realized he was soaked with sweat.

CHAPTER 13

The American flag outside the state police barracks in College Park, Maryland, still flying at half-mast to honor Congressman Elias Colston, fluttered in a light breeze. Lou parked his Toyota and remained in his seat for a time, thinking about the violent deaths of Elias Colston and before that, his son. He wanted to feel exhilarated about his discovery of the CD—a discovery that might ultimately connect the two, but the only emotion he could connect with at the moment was sadness.

For a time, his thoughts drifted to work. Walter Filstrup, irritated that a client Lou was monitoring had been arrested for murder, had assigned him two more difficult cases—a pediatrician with bipolar disease who had decided to stop her meds and had become frighteningly argumentative at work before going on a shoplifting rampage, and an anesthesia resident who had started sampling the narcotics on his tray, and was in immediate need of hospitalization and detoxification. The result, in addition to shifts in the ER and the strain of trying to get to the bottom of the Colston murder, was a mounting exhaustion that tempered any feeling of accomplishment at finding the disc.

Lou had listened to the recording twice, and had made a copy for Sarah, which he buried beneath the socks in his bureau drawer next to some personal papers. It was all there on that disc—everything the police would need to divert their attention away from Gary McHugh and onto Colonel Wyatt Brody, commander of the elite fighting force Mantis, under whom Mark Colston served until his death.

Just before entering the police barracks, Lou tried, once again, to call Sarah. She was taking a deposition and would probably be out of touch for at least the rest of the day. Her assistant, a pleasant-sounding woman named Andrea, turned him over to her voice mail. At least there was proof Lou had tried to get in touch with her.

The investigating and arresting officer, a detective Chris Bryzinski, sounded amiable on the phone, and anxious to do the right thing, although he also sounded convinced of the guilt of Gary McHugh. Lou had significant experience with the Maryland State Police. At what he hoped was the beginning of the end of his active addiction, he had been arrested in Baltimore buying amphetamines from an undercover cop. The police treated him fairly then, and he had every reason to believe this detective would appreciate the significance of the remarkable conversation between Elias Colston and Colston’s son’s best friend.

If things went the way Lou anticipated, Wyatt Brody would immediately become a person of intense interest in the murder of the congressman. Brody’s motive for the killing was at least as strong as the one being attributed to McHugh. Elias Colston had been spearheading the reduction of funds to all aspects of Mantis, the crème de la crème of marine fighting units, as well as to virtually every other aspect of the military.

In addition to wanting to keep his unit afloat, Brody appeared to have surrounded himself with some handpicked toughs known to the rest of Mantis as the Palace Guards. It was not clear from the recording exactly how far the guards were willing to go to protect Brody’s interests, but there was no doubt that Hector feared them.

The compact, one-story, gray brick station was situated just off the Capital Beltway in a section of town that had a number of one-story businesses and not much that Lou could see to attract people to them. Lou spoke to a uniformed officer through a Plexiglas shield and took a seat on a well-worn chair in the waiting area. He was right on time, if not a little early. Five minutes passed, then ten. When they spoke on the phone, Bryzinski had seemed eager enough to meet.

Now?…

Another five minutes. Lou fingered the disc, sleeved and wrapped, in the pocket of his jacket, and thought about leaving. He was about to do just that when the door to the inner sanctum of the station opened and a bowling ball of a man motioned him in. He was five-six or -seven and seemed close to that wide across, huge-headed and balding. His brown suit coat, buttoned at the middle, failed to hide the bulge of his shoulder holster.

“Detective Bryzinski,” he mumbled, not bothering with a handshake.

So much for impressions over the phone.

“Lou Welcome,” Lou said, matching mumble for mumble.

He followed the detective past a
NO SMOKING IN THIS BUILDING
sign into his office, a featureless, wildly cluttered space that reeked of stale coffee and possibly Bryzinski himself. Stacks of folders and loose papers covered virtually every square inch of desk, as well as a portion of a laptop and an ashtray shaped like Florida, filled with loose change.

Without being asked, Lou took the steel-armed institutional seat on the guest side of the desk. Bryzinski settled into his high-backed Staples standard, looking immediately like an overindulged pooh-bah. A diamond ring cut into the flesh of his right pinkie, and a narrow gold band did the same to the wedding finger on his left. Lou tried briefly and without success to form an image of the wife who awoke each day next to the man.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Bryzinski said after a time. “We’re short two men—one home sick and the other shot.”

“Shot?”

“Don’t ask.”

Lou didn’t. “Well, thanks for seeing me,” he said.

“I don’t have a lot of time.”

Why am I not surprised?
This was a man who was chronically inconvenienced.

Bryzinski pursed his lips in a gesture that said,
Okay, let’s get this over with.
“So now,” he said, “you told me who you were over the phone, and I checked you out. Let’s skip the ‘friend of Gary McHugh’ part and cut to the chase. What’s going on, and how does it affect my case?”

And remember, I don’t have a lot of time.

Lou hesitated, seriously considering simply bolting from the toxic office. After a few empty seconds, he put the CD on Bryzinski’s desk, beside a tower of files and other papers that looked on the verge of collapse. He reviewed his visit with Jeannine Colston, and his inspection of Elias’s office, carefully choosing his words to avoid any implication that Bryzinski and his cohorts had underdone their jobs.

The detective seemed to be listening with one ear, occasionally looking out the window and not bothering to take any notes or to record Lou’s statement. It was not the least bit difficult for Lou to imagine the cop forming a conclusion before the investigation had actually begun, and tailoring his inspection to support what facts he had.

“Did you bring the frame?” Bryzinski asked when he had finished.

“The frame?”

“Yes, the frame.” Irritation replaced the ennui in the detective’s voice. “The thing that might have fingerprints all over it.”

Lou began to feel dumb. He wanted to snap back something like,
How about you try to spend an hour running a busy inner-city emergency room?

“I’m sure it’s still in Colston’s study,” he said instead.

“Look,” Brezinski countered as if he were lecturing a third-grader, “I bet you think that you’ve cracked this case wide open. Well, take it from me and twenty years as a cop: You haven’t.” He patted the stack of papers closest to him. “You see these? These are from other people—lots and lots of other people. People who also think
they’ve
cracked the case wide open. Get what I’m saying?”

“I think this is more than just a random tip,” Lou said.

“Do you know what I’ve got to do?” Bryzinski continued on as though Lou had not even spoken. “I’ve got to go through each and every one of these. And guess what they are? They’re all shit. Total and complete crazy shit. You know why? Because everybody wants in on the action when it’s somebody big who gets killed. Everybody, even the marginally sane ones, has a fact or a theory. And you know what else? See these other piles? I got about thirty-eight active cases, and I can’t get a frickin’ tip on any of ’em. Know why?”

“Well, I’d guess—”

“Because they’re nobodies. They’re just people. Regular joes. All ages. All races. Bad guys, good guys. But none of them are a congressman, and none of them had a wife who was shtupping a big-shot society doctor.”