The Poet (58 page)

If Warren and Thorson were to be believed, who had made the calls from Thorson’s room? As the possibilities played through my mind they invariably came back with a dull thud in my chest to one person. Rachel.

It was the fermentation of various and unrelated facts that led me down this path.

First, Rachel had a laptop computer. This, of course, was the weakest piece. Thorson, Backus, everyone possessed or had access to a computer that would have allowed them to make the linkage to the PTL board. But second, Rachel was not in her room late Saturday night when I called and then even knocked. So where was she? Could she have gone to Thorson’s room?

I considered the things Thorson had said to me about Rachel. He had called her the Painted Desert. But he had said something else. She can play with you … like a toy. One minute she wants to share it, the next she doesn’t. She disappears on you.

And last, I thought of seeing Thorson in the hallway that night. I knew it had been after midnight by then and roughly near the times of the long distance calls placed from his room. As he had passed me in the hall I noticed he carried something. A small bag or a box. I now remembered the sound of the little zippered pocket opening in Rachel’s purse and the condom-the one she carried for emergencies-being placed in my palm. And I thought of a way Rachel could have gotten Thorson out of his own room so that she could use the phone.

A feeling of pure dread began to descend on me now. Warren’s flower was in full bloom and was choking me. I stood up to pace a little but felt light-headed. I blamed it on the painkiller and sat back down on the bed. After a few moments’ rest, I reconnected the phone and called the hotel in Phoenix, asking for the billing office. A young woman took the call.

“Yes, hello, I stayed at your hotel over the weekend and didn’t really look at my bill until I got back. I had a question about a few phone calls I was billed for. I’ve been meaning to call but keep forgetting. Is there someone I could talk to about that?”

“Yes, sir, I would be glad to help. If you give me your name I can call up your statement.”

“Thanks. It’s Gordon Thorson.”

She didn’t reply and I froze, thinking maybe she recognized the name from the TV or a newspaper as the agent slain in L.A., but then I heard her begin tapping on a keyboard.

“Yes, Mr. Thorson. That was room three twenty-five for two nights. What seems to be the problem?”

I wrote the room number down in my notebook, just to be doing something. Following the journalist’s routine of making a record of facts helped calm me.

“You know what? I can’t-I’m looking around my desk here for my copy and I seem to have misplaced … Darn it! I can’t find it now. Uh, I’ll have to call you back. But in the meantime maybe you can look it up and have it ready. What I was concerned about was that there were three calls made after midnight on Saturday that I just don’t remember making. I have the numbers written down here some-here they are.”

I quickly gave her the three numbers I had gotten from the Visa operator, hoping I’d be able to finesse my way through this.

“Yes, they are on your billing. Are you sure you-“

“What time were they made? See, that’s the problem. I don’t conduct business in the middle of the night.”

She gave me the times. The call to Quantico was logged at 12:37 A.M., followed by the call to Warren at 12:41 A.M. and then the call to the PTL Network line at 12:56 A.M. I stared at the numbers after writing them down.

“You don’t believe you made these?”

“What?”

“I said you don’t believe you made these?”

“That’s right.”

“Was there anyone else in the room with you?”

That was the point, wasn’t it, I thought but didn’t say.

“Uh, no,” I said, and then quickly added, “Can you just double-check those for me and if there is nothing wrong with your machines, I’ll be glad to pay. Thank you.”

I hung up and looked at the times I had written in my notebook. They fit. Rachel had stayed in my room until almost midnight. The next morning she told me she had bumped into Thorson while in the hall after leaving. Maybe she had lied to me. Maybe she had done more than bump into him. Maybe she had gone to his room.

With Thorson dead, there was only one way of pursuing this theory outside of going to Rachel, which I couldn’t do yet. I picked up the phone up once again and called the FBI office in the federal building. The operator, under strict orders to screen calls to Backus, especially from the media, was not going to put me through until I told her I was the one who had killed the Poet and that I had an urgent need to speak to the special agent. Finally, I was put through and Backus picked up.

“Jack, what’s the problem?”

“Bob, listen to me, I’m very serious. Are you alone?”

“Jack, what-“

“Just answer the question! Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I’ve just got-Look, just tell me, are you alone?”

There was a hesitation and his voice was skeptical when it returned.

“Yes. Now what’s this about?”

“We’ve talked about the trust in our relationship. I’ve trusted you and you’ve trusted me. I want you to trust me again, Bob, for the next few minutes and just answer my questions without asking me any questions. I will explain it all after. Okay?”

“Jack, I’m very busy here. I don’t under-“

“Five minutes, Bob. That’s all. It’s important.”

“What’s your question?”

“What happened to Thorson’s things? His clothes and things from his hotel. Who got it after he … died?”

“I gathered it all together last night. I don’t see what this has to do with anything. His property is nobody’s business.”

“Indulge me, Bob. This isn’t for a story. It’s for me. And for you. I have two questions. First, did you find the hotel receipts, the bills, from Phoenix with his stuff?”

“From Phoenix? No, they weren’t there and they weren’t supposed to be. We checked out on the fly, never went back. I’m sure the bill is being sent to my office in Quantico. What is on your mind, Jack?”

The first piece clicked into place. If Thorson didn’t have the bills, he likely wasn’t the one who had taken them from my room. I thought about Rachel again. I couldn’t help it. The first night in Hollywood, after we had made love, she got up and took the first shower. Then it was my turn. I envisioned her taking the room key from the pocket of my pants, going downstairs and slipping into my room to conduct a quick search of my things. Maybe she was just looking around. Maybe she knew somehow that I had the hotel bills. Maybe she had called the hotel in Phoenix and had been told.

“Next question,” I said to Backus, ignoring his own question. “Did you find any condoms with Thorson’s things?”

“Look, I don’t know what kind of morbid fascination you have with this but I’m not going to go on with it. I’m hanging up now, Jack, and I don’t want you-“

“Wait a minute! What morbid fascination? I’m trying to figure out something you people have missed! Did you talk to Clearmountain today about the computer? About the PTL Network?”

“Yes, I’ve been fully briefed. What’s it got to do with a box of condoms?”

I noticed he had inadvertently answered my question about condoms. I had not said anything about a box.

“Did you know that a call was placed to the PTL Network from Thorson’s room in Phoenix on Sunday morning?”

“That’s preposterous. And how the hell would you know something like that?”

“Because when I checked out of that hotel, the clerk thought I was an FBI agent. Remember? Just like that reporter at the funeral home. He gave me the hotel bills to take to you people out here. He thought it would save the time of mailing them.”

There was a long silence after this confession.

“Are you saying you stole the hotel bills?”

“I’m saying what I just said. They were given to me. And on Thorson’s bill there were calls to both Michael Warren and the PTL. And that’s funny, since you people supposedly didn’t know about the PTL until today.”

“I’m sending someone over to pick up those bills.”

“Don’t bother. I don’t have them. They were stolen from my room in Hollywood. You’ve got a fox in the henhouse, Bob.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Tell me about the box of condoms you found in Thorson’s things and I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.”

I heard him exhale in a tired, I-give-up fashion.

“There was a box of condoms, okay? It wasn’t even opened. Now, what’s it mean?”

“Where is it now?”

“It’s in a sealed cardboard box with the rest of his things. It goes back to Virginia with his body tomorrow morning.”

“Where’s this sealed box?”

“Right here with me.”

“I need you to open it, Bob. Look at the condoms, see if there is a price tag or anything that shows where he got them.”

As I listened to the sounds of him tearing cardboard and tape my mind served up my memory of the sight of Thorson coming down the hall with something in his hand.

“I can tell you right now,” Backus said as he was opening the property box, “they were in a bag from a drugstore.”

I felt my heart leap and next I heard the crinkling sound of a bag opening.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Backus said in a voice showing his strained patience. “Scottsdale drugs. Open twenty-four hours. Box of twelve condoms, nine ninety-five. You want to know the brand, too, Jack?”

I ignored his sarcasm but his question gave me an idea for later.

“There’s a receipt?”

“I just read it to you.”

“What about the date and time of purchase, that on there? Most of these computer registers put it on there.”

Silence. So long I wanted to scream.

“Sunday morning, twelve fifty-four.”

I closed my eyes. While Thorson was buying a box of condoms, of which he wouldn’t even use one, someone was in his room making phone calls.

“Okay, Jack, what’s it mean?” Backus asked.

“It means everything is a lie.”

I opened my eyes and pulled the phone from my ear. I looked at it like it was some alien thing attached to my hand and slowly dropped it back into its cradle.

Bledsoe was still in his office and answered on the first ring.

“Dan, it’s Jack again.”

“Jack Mac, what’s up?”

“You know that beer you said you owed me? I thought of something else you can do for me instead.”

“You got it.”

I told him what I needed him to do and he didn’t hesitate, even when I told him I needed it done now. He said he couldn’t promise results but that he’d get back to me one way or the other as soon as possible.

I thought about the first call made while Thorson was out of his room. It had been to the general public line at the Quantico center. It hadn’t struck me as odd when I called the number on the plane. But now it did. Why would someone call the general number in the middle of the night? I knew now that the answer could only be that the caller did not want to call a direct number at the center, thereby revealing knowledge of that number. Instead, through her computer, she called the general number and when the operator recognized the fax mating beep, the call was transferred to one of the general fax lines.

I recalled that during the Sunday morning meeting on the fax from the Poet, Thorson had recited the details after getting the rundown from Quantico. The fax had come through on the general number and had been transferred to a fax machine.

Without a word an operator at Quantico switched me to the BSS offices when I called and asked for Agent Brad Hazelton. The phone rang three times and I thought I was too late, that he had gone for the day, when he finally picked up.

“Brad, it’s Jack McEvoy. In Los Angeles.”

“Hey, Jack, how’re you doing? Pretty close call for you yesterday.”

“I’m doing okay. I’m sorry about Agent Thorson. I know everybody works very closely together there …”

“Well, he was pretty much an asshole but nobody deserves what happened to him. It’s pretty awful. Not a lot of smiling faces around here today.”

“I can imagine.”

“So what’s going on?”

“Well, it’s just a couple of minor points. I’m putting together a chronology of events so that I have this story down straight. You know, if I ever get to write the whole thing.”

I hated lying to this man who had only been friendly to me, but I couldn’t afford to tell him the truth because then he certainly wouldn’t help me.

“And, anyway, I seem to have misplaced my notes on the fax. You know, the fax the Poet sent to Quantico on Sunday. I remember Gordon said he got the details from either you or Brass. What I wanted to know is the exact time it came in. If you have it.”

“Uh, hold on, Jack.”

He was gone before I could say I would hold. I closed my eyes and spent the next few minutes wondering whether he was actually looking up the information or first checking to see if he could give it to me.

Finally, he came back on the line.

“Sorry, Jack, I had to look through all the papers here. The fax came to machine number two, in the academy office’s wire room at three thirty-eight Sunday morning.”