Political Suicide (22 page)

“Told ya you’d know when I got here, Dr. Welcome.”

“It’s Lou,” he said.

“Papa Steve will do for me. That’s what comes from being the age of most of the guys’ daddies.” He shook hands with a grip that would have pressed garlic.

“Why the helicopter?” Lou asked.

“Guess the answer is the same as to why a dog licks his genitals.”

“Because he can,” Lou responded.

“I’ve been flying whirlybirds for about as long as I been blowin’ things up. Got friends in the business, so I borrowed one of their toys. Wyatt Brody is a head case. A damn smart head case, but a head case nonetheless. The men close to Brody are known around the base as his Palace Guards. They are tough and skilled and willing to do most anything for him. We got to be really careful. No matter how cautious I was, the guards could follow me. At least on the ground or the water they could. But no way could they could keep up with me in the air.”

“Why is Brody following you at all? What’s going on with him?”

“What’s going on is I think Brody is the one who murdered Elias.”

“You have proof?”

“Call it strong suspicion.”

“Not one of the Palace Guards?”

“Possible, but I doubt Brody would give any of them control over him like that. He’s all about keeping control to himself.”

Lou peered through the darkness at the man. To this point at least, he liked what he saw. Still, trusting Chris Bryzinski with Colston’s CD had cut him badly. “What can I do?” he asked.

“Brody’s taken a liking to me since I moved over to Mantis, but he doesn’t let anyone get too close. If he did kill Elias, I want to nail him, Lou. I want to nail him real bad. Elias and me have been through a lot together. I miss him. You can help me because that would mean helping your friend McHugh. It would also be payback for Hector.”

“Payback?” Lou took a step back. He could feel his jaw tighten.

“Sorry. I should have reasoned out that you might not know yet. Searchers found his body late yesterday.”

“Where?” Lou asked, swallowing against the lump that had materialized in his throat. Hector’s death was as much on him as on the men who had killed him.

“They found him on a wild part of the base,” Papa Steve said. “Word is he’d fallen off a cliff and broke his neck. Died instantly. Apparently, he’d been drinking, but the full toxicology report will take a few weeks. I heard they recovered an empty bottle of vodka near to where he landed. People think the guy was despondent about the rumor that he was going to get the boot from Mantis. Some people think he might have jumped.”

“That’s a lie,” Lou snapped. “I was in the woods when guys he said were the Palace Guard tried to kill him and me. Hector was nowhere near the base. He wasn’t drunk either. It’s all a setup orchestrated by Wyatt Brody.”

Papa Steve’s eyes flashed. “You think I don’t already know that?” he said. “Let’s have a seat in the cockpit and talk where it’s warm. We’ve got some things to discuss.”

The interior of the helicopter was an aviator’s dream, compact and loaded with high-tech gadgetry.

“When you defuse bombs for a living, you make a lot of friends in high places. I’m the guy you call when you don’t know which wire to cut. I’m also the guy who rigs up the wires in the first place.”

“I saw your tattoos that night at Mantis,” Lou said. “I think you saved my life.”

“So do I. I saw the ambulance bring you in. Hector and I are—were–pretty tight because he was my godson’s closest friend in Mantis. He asked if I thought he should meet with you. I told him I didn’t see why not. The cops showed up because of the gunshots. I just led them to Brody.”

Lou started wondering again about Papa Steve. Someone had to have told Brody about the meeting between him and Hector. There was also the matter of the policeman delivering Papavassiliou’s note to the doctors’ parking lot. Clearly, Papa Steve had the man checking on him, maybe even following him.

“So what are we doing here?” Lou asked. “Now it seems we’ve got two killers to catch, Colston’s and Hector’s.”

“We’re after Wyatt Brody. He’s all that matters. But we need to go at this very carefully, and I need to know that you’re all-in. Brody has been up to something for years. I made a promise to Elias when I agreed to transfer to Mantis that I wouldn’t bring anyone into the fold who isn’t a thousand percent committed to finding out what that something is. And I haven’t … until now.”

“So you’ve been helping Colston investigate Brody?”

“That’s the reason I transferred,” Papa Steve said. “Colston wanted to shut down Mantis, not because his son died serving the unit, but because he felt, as did others in Congress, that the unit was redundant. The functions of Mantis could be integrated with the SEALs and other Special Forces outfits for better efficiency. I think you can guess that was not a popular idea with Wyatt Brody.”

“What happened?”

“Brody had a vendetta against Colston because of the funding issues. He’s promised to ruin him anyway he could. I think he just lost patience.”

“He doesn’t know about your connection with Colston?”

“Can’t tell. You know the old adage, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That may be what he’s doing.”

“Jesus,” Lou murmured. “And you think what Elias was doing in Congress gave Brody enough motive to commit murder?”

“I think anybody who threatens Mantis is putting themselves in harm’s way.”

“Including you.”

“And you,” Papavassilious said.

Lou had theories of his own—connections between Brody’s thesis on fear and Colston’s interest in Reddy Creek—that he was not yet ready to share with Papa Steve.

“So, what have you found out?” Lou asked.

“Just that no matter how much funding Colston hacked from Mantis, Brody always has found a way around it.”

“Maybe he ran out of tricks.”

“That’s what I think. Elias was squeezing too hard, and Brody finally decided to take him out.”

“Where does that leave us, then?” Lou asked.

“I need something from you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been following Dr. McHugh’s case. I know of his lawyer’s firm. They are famous for their in-house approach to explosives and ballistics. A friend of mine—one of the best in the connect-the-wires-and-watch-things-go-boom field—once got paid big bucks to give some lectures to the lawyers there. He said they were all brainiacs. You being friends with McHugh, I wondered if you knew his attorney, a woman named Cooper, Sarah Cooper.”

“I know her,” Lou said.

“Well, I need to see the ballistics report on the slugs that killed Elias.”

“Why?”

“You saw Brody’s gun collection, right?”

“It’s an image I’m having a hard time forgetting.”

“Well, I’m willing to bet that one of those weapons was used to kill my friend. I need that ballistics report to narrow down the choices, and I need it done quietly in case whatever weapon was used is still around.”

The bullets. Lou wondered if this was the whole point of Papa Steve arranging this meeting. Maybe Papavassiliou was completely on the level, but maybe Brody wanted to know if he had anything to fear from the ballistics report, and he had asked Papa Steve to find out. It worried Lou to involve Sarah with anyone from Mantis.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, “but you’re not going to be able to prove that Brody had the opportunity to kill Colston.”

“Why is that?” Papa Steve asked.

“He told me he was at a Marine Day parade on the day Colston was murdered. People saw him leading Mantis into the stadium. They can prove he couldn’t have been the shooter.”

Papa Steve appeared unfazed. “I’ve been keeping an eye on Brody for several years,” he said, “and I’ve seen things that contradict what Brody told you—a pattern.”

“Pattern? What do you mean?”

“Brody leaves the base at the same time every single Wednesday.
Every single Wednesday.
”

“Where does he go?” Lou asked.

Papa Steve shook his head. “That I don’t know. Wish I did,” he said. “He’s not easy to follow. The Palace Guards keep a close watch on him. But I do know he leaves to go someplace every Wednesday. He usually comes back after three or four hours.”

“You were at the parade, weren’t you?” Lou said.

Papa Steve smiled. “I wanted to see if Brody would disappear from the parade, too—you know, keep up with his pattern. He did. Walked out like he was headed to the bathroom. I followed him for a while, but the Palace Guards picked up my tail, so I had to back off. They’ve gotten in the way every time I’ve tried to follow him. What I do know is that Brody was headed west, toward Elias Colston’s house. And that is irrefutable evidence, because I’ve got it all on videotape.”

Lou quietly pondered the implications.

“What does that tell you?” Papa Steve asked.

“That he’s a liar, but I already knew that. What now?”

“What now is that you get me the ballistics report and we take it from there.”

CHAPTER 30

After two sets of woefully misleading directions from two locals, Sarah eased her rental car to a stop in front of the office of the
Belmore Current,
the newspaper Edith Harmon had taken over four years ago after fleeing North Carolina.

EASTERN MAINE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
,
the sign over the front door proclaimed.

Sarah pulled on the door handle before realizing that the interior lights were shut off and the place was locked.
Damn.
She felt momentarily deflated. Then she noticed a small handwritten note secured to the door by a suction cup.

Gone to Laundromat. Be back soon.

In her experience, nearly every town, no matter what size, had at least one Laundromat. Belmore had the Caribou, located across the street from the office of the
Current.

I might not be an investigative reporter,
she thought,
but I have a pretty good idea where I’m going to find Cassie Wilkins, née Edith Harmon.
Before heading there, she surveyed Edith’s office through the glass front door. She had seen the inner workings of a newspaper before, but never one so small. Edith, it appeared, had a talent for economical use of space. Shelving units lining the walls were stacked with legal-sized boxes, all of them clearly labeled.

The printer sat atop a three-drawer filing cabinet, and a foldout table in the center of the room provided a work area for two of the smallest laptop computers Sarah had ever seen. The
Current
was at most a two-person operation, which truly surprised her. She had picked up a copy of the newspaper on her drive into town and been impressed by the depth and breadth of coverage. Edith Harmon, it would seem, was as good at writing and running a newspaper as she was at disappearing.

This is it
,
Edith,
Sarah thought as she traded the chilly morning air for the humid heat of the Laundromat.
I’ve found you. Now, let’s see what you have for me.

The powerful odor of detergent hit her head-on, and reminded her of the piles of unwashed clothes she left back at her condo—a common occurrence anytime a major trial took over her life. There were two rows of stainless-steel washing machines, and double-stacked dryers of the same brand lined the walls. Sarah had not used a coin-op since her days at Princeton, back when there were gladiatorial battles for every available machine.

Looking around, she saw four people in the Laundromat, two of them under the age of five. The mother of the rambunctious boys playing peekaboo through the round glass door of a front loader was a heavyset woman decorated by a mural of tattoos on her thick, sleeveless arms. The other woman was folding clothes fresh from the dryer at the far end of the room. From behind, she was petite, with shoulder-length curly dark hair. She was dressed in jeans, worn Western boots, and a wool-blend bomber jacket that fit snugly to her slender body.

You’ve got to be Edith. I just hope you don’t bolt when you learn why I’m here.

Finding this woman had proved to be no simple feat. As resourceful and connected as Grayson Devlin was, Sarah had given him precious little to go on—a no-longer-extant blog from years ago, and something about two Mantis soldiers killed during an apparent robbery attempt at the Reddy Creek Armory in Raleigh, North Carolina. She had found no news stories about any armory robbery, Reddy Creek or otherwise, and no other blogs that mentioned anything about the place.

As it turned out, what little Sarah had to go on was more than enough information for her boss. Sarah did some advance legwork before approaching him with her request for help. The mystery blogger, she concluded, had to have been an investigative reporter. There were three newspapers in the Raleigh area that would employ a reporter interested in a robbery at Reddy Creek—
News & Observer, Raleigh Downtowner,
and the
Metro.
Not surprisingly, Devlin had contacts at each. After less than two days, he called Sarah into his office.

Pay dirt.

“Her name is Edith Harmon,” Devlin said. “She used to work for the
News and Observer.
”

Sarah’s eyes brightened. “That’s great news,” she said. “Where is she at now?”

“She’s dropped the Edith Harmon name and goes by Cassie Wilkins,” Devlin said, glancing down at his notes. “She runs a small newspaper in Belmore, Maine.”

“Why did she change her name and leave the paper in Raleigh?”

“Don’t know. It wasn’t easy getting the information I got from her editor.”

Sarah shrank at the revelation. For Devlin to admit something did not come easily was significant. Years ago, he told her, Devlin and Rodgers had won a major libel suit that could have bankrupted the North Carolina newspaper. Edith’s new identity and whereabouts were a closely guarded secret, and Devlin had given his promise that her confidentiality would be protected by Sarah.

“Meaning I’m expecting you to come back from Maine with something that’s going to help us win the Gary McHugh case,” he said.

Winning the McHugh case would more than make up in media coverage for whatever price Devlin had had to pay or whatever marker he’d had to call in to get information on Edith Harmon. Losing the case, however, would have just as powerful an effect in reverse. Devlin had never threatened Sarah’s future as a partner in the firm, but she had heard stories of others in the past who had been ignored to the point where they had wilted professionally and eventually resigned, and she knew that possibility was constantly looming.