Time to Kill (34 page)

He could run, Mason told himself, just adopt his new identity as Adam Peterson, not bother to contact Patrick Bell again and dump Beverley and … Mason stopped the mental litany. He wasn't thinking straight, as he should be thinking. He had to
know!
Until he knew, knew what ‘the Mason situation' was and whatever possible danger to which he might be exposing himself, he couldn't go on with the killing of Ann and Slater; conceivably, although he was sure he would have detected it, they could be under protective surveillance. Only when he knew could he decide if he had to run. And he wouldn't do that – wouldn't walk away from what he'd promised himself for the last fifteen years – until he was convinced the odds were stacked a mile high against him. Eighteen and a half hours to go, Mason calculated, checking his watch again. It was going to be like counting off the days and weeks and months as he had in the penitentiary.

The address relayed by John Peebles, in a voice discernibly relieved at no longer being personally involved, was on Tennessee Avenue, close to Lincoln Park, and Slater was there more than thirty minutes before the appointed time, surveilling the surrounding streets before locating the actual building itself, isolating the observation points to confirm it was a CIA safe house. There was the inevitable CCTV. That it was a safe house was on the one hand encouraging, because it showed they were taking his concerns seriously, but unsettling on the other. For the Agency to disclose a safe house could indicate that they had confirmed – although he couldn't yet imagine how – that Jack Mason was in the Frederick area and that he and Ann were being stalked.

Denver himself opened the door to Slater's summons, smiling affably. Nodding beyond Slater, the CIA man said, ‘You were very thorough, checking the place out. Think you got everything?'

‘I hope not,' responded Slater. ‘I'd feel safer if there were some I missed.'

Denver stood aside, gesturing Slater in. ‘There were. You didn't have a tail.'

A meeting of equals, thought Slater, starting to follow the other man but stopping abruptly at the door of a room overlooking the park at the sight of someone else already there. The man was so fat he overflowed the chair from which it would have been an effort to rise, which he didn't attempt. He smiled instead, raising a hand in greeting.

Denver said, ‘Dave Potter. FBI.'

‘How you doing?' said the man, his voice an ole-boy Southern drawl.

‘I'm not sure?' said Slater, questioningly. ‘I don't remember a lot of friendship between the CIA and the FBI?'

‘There isn't,' confirmed Potter, hands linked over his expansive belly, as if it needed support. ‘You were a shared case, remember? Everyone wanting to feed off you, make sure we got it all. And if there's any foundation at all in what you're telling us – telling Pete here, who's told me – it's more an FBI problem than CIA.'

‘I guess I'm holding a watching brief,' supported Denver.

But not the supervisor left holding the can if anything goes wrong, thought Slater, understanding the doorstep affability. He certainly remembered the combined attention of both Agencies. The debriefings weren't shared, although he accepted that the interviews would have been, so the separate agency interrogators could peck at the efforts of their predecessor to ensure they did get everything; picking the carcass – his carcass – clean. If the FBI were in charge it meant it was a Bureau safe house. ‘It's good to know it's still shared and that you're taking it seriously.'

‘You want something to drink?' invited Denver. There was a half-filled coffee percolator, with cups, on the table between him and the FBI agent.

Slater sat in the nearest chair, keeping the separation, and said, ‘No thanks. I'd like to know about Mason?'

Denver took the third chair, helping himself from the jug. ‘California. Got his parole supervision switched and is trying to get something in the computer industry.'

‘When?' demanded Slater.

‘When?' echoed Potter.

‘When – what was the exact date – that he went to California?'

‘May eighth,' said Denver.

‘Ann thinks he was outside her gallery on April twelfth.'

‘Thinks,'
qualified Potter, heavily. ‘Caught on a CCTV spool you didn't keep.'

‘You heard the recording from Lafayette Park?' This encounter would be automatically recorded, too, Slater knew. Probably videoed as well, although he hadn't detected a lens.

‘You know your meeting with Peebles was being recorded,' said Denver, unapologetic.

‘Then you know why we didn't keep the recording,' said Slater. ‘She made a mistake. People do.'

‘We're surprised she made a mistake about something like that,' said Potter. With obvious and heavy breathing the man came forward in his chair to pour himself coffee.

‘So am I,' admitted Slater. ‘That's just how it was. And if she was right it could have been him, according to the dates.'

‘What's convinced you she's right?'

Slater hesitated, the reservations colliding in his head. ‘I thought she might have been close to a breakdown, after David's death. We saw a psychiatrist, in case Ann had become …' He paused again. ‘Become confused. The psychiatrist is convinced she isn't; devastated, certainly, but not suffering from any sort of delusion or mental imbalance.'

Potter was slumped back, the coffee supported on his stomach. ‘You convinced, too, that Mason wants to cause you some harm … that he killed David even?'

Slater's hesitation continued. Then he blurted, ‘Yes!'

‘David died May nineteenth,' gently reminded Denver. ‘Mason was in California, 3,000 miles away, on May nineteenth.'

‘Who says?' challenged Slater.

‘His probation officer.'

‘Does he have to report to her every day?'

‘I don't think so,' said Denver.

From the look that passed between the two men Slater knew it was a requirement they hadn't asked about. Shouldn't lose his temper, he told himself; he hadn't expected to get this degree of consideration and he didn't want to lose it. ‘He could have flown back, ran David down and been back in California in two or three days, without the probation officer knowing he'd left the West Coast.' Emotion had started to rise as he spoke and he finished thick-voiced, coughing to clear the difficulty.

‘Mr Slater,' said the obese man. ‘We've all three of us got experience of things, the sort of things we're talking about. You can't plan intentionally to kill a person like that, like it's a day trip. It takes time, preparation. In your specific case, how could Mason have known that on May nineteenth David would have been going to school on his bicycle and not as he normally did on the school bus?'

Slater felt the exasperation growing but then punctured it with a sudden awareness. ‘You've spoken to Frederick police … to the people investigating David's killing. And the murder of the man in the underpass gully?'

There was another exchange of looks between the two other men. Potter said, ‘Yes, I have.'

‘I didn't tell them who I really am.'

‘Neither did I,' said Potter.

‘How did you explain your interest?'

‘That there could be a pattern, with other car incineration murders in other states. They'd be quite happy for the Bureau to take the investigation over. They're getting nowhere.'

‘Which means they're getting nowhere investigating David's killing?' seized Slater.

‘I'm afraid it looks that way,' said Potter.

‘Are
you taking it over, the death of the man in the underpass as well as David's? pressed Slater.

‘It was a cover story, Mr Slater. It doesn't – can't – come within FBI jurisdiction.'

‘If you can't take it over, why make the approach in the first place?' persisted Slater.

‘Because we want to know everything to satisfy ourselves that Mason hasn't found you,' said Potter. ‘I'm going to be honest with you, Mr Slater. And I apologize in advance if I offend you. The Witness Protection Programme, tidied up with all the various amendments over the years, works remarkably well. We snared a real son of a bitch in Mason, because you knew you'd get protection. We've made some big hits against organized crime with the same guarantee.' The smile did become apologetic, as promised. ‘Here comes the honesty. If, in some way we can't work out, Mason has found you and is planning some half-assed revenge, we want to stop him. Because if he managed to cause you or your wife some harm the protection programme goes to hell in a handcart and people stop coming forward and telling us things we need to hear. I'm sorry but that's the reality of it.'

‘So what is the reality of it?' Slater threw back. ‘You think he's found us?'

‘The jury's still out,' clinched Denver, awkwardly.

‘There's something else I haven't told you,' admitted Slater, anxiously, needing to keep them with him and not dismiss everything that seemed so easily dismissible. ‘Something that might sound ridiculous – why I held back from mentioning it – but could be the opposite—'

‘You're not doing a great deal to help yourself, let alone help us,' broke in Denver, accusingly.

‘What is it, Mr Slater?' demanded Potter.

‘My wife and I go every day to David's grave,' explained Slater, avoiding the looks of both men. ‘We did, after the confrontation in Lafayette Park. When we got there, there was a bouquet of tulips very definitely placed on top – taking precedence – of our own wreath. There was no card. I took them to a laboratory I've occasionally used and had them checked for fingerprints; tulip stems are very smooth, a good surface—'

‘What did the laboratory get?' interrupted Potter.

‘Nothing,' said Slater. ‘They were absolutely clean. Which they shouldn't have been. No one could have touched those stems without leaving a trace … unless they'd been very carefully and individually wiped. Or whoever put them there wore gloves.'

‘Which whoever laid them there could have been doing,' said Denver. ‘Why'd you think it could be Mason?'

‘Goading us. Letting us know he's found us.' Slater looked up at last, tensed for the ridicule. Instead of which Potter said, ‘Where are they now, these flowers?'

‘I left them at the laboratory.'

Potter went quickly to speak but didn't. More slowly, gesturing towards a side table upon which there was a telephone that Slater hadn't seen before, the FBI man said, ‘Call them! Make sure they haven't disposed of them!'

‘They will have done by now,' said Slater. ‘Why should they have kept them?'

‘Call them!' insisted Potter, making a vague hand movement. ‘At the Hoover Building downtown we've got state-of-the-art laboratory facilities no commercial laboratories could afford or dream of.'

Slater knew he shouldn't feel self-conscious, the object of their attention standing at the telephone, but he did. There was a delay locating the man through whom he usually dealt and to whom he posed the question, and he was kept even longer on hold while the man tried to find the answer. Almost ten minutes elapsed before he was able to turn back to the two intelligence agents, the relief surging through him. ‘They've still got them! They were my property that they didn't have authority to dispose of. They're holding them, for me to collect.'

‘Something that's been saved at last,' said Denver, critically.

‘There's something else you haven't told us about, isn't there, Mr Slater?' accused Potter.

Slater shook his head, confused. ‘No!'

‘You haven't told us that you and your wife have bought handguns.'

‘It hasn't come into the conversation,' protested Slater. ‘We only made the purchase and went through the formalities a day or two ago!'

‘The local PD have set up a computer base on their combined enquiry. Your name registered automatically, with the application and confirming address,' said Potter.

‘I've already told you that my wife has been diagnosed without any mental problems, which I know would have precluded a licence being granted,' said Slater, knowing it was important to cover every prohibition. ‘We're going to join a club, take lessons. I said earlier that my wife is devastated by David's death, as I am. She's also terrified, as well as convinced, that who she saw on the CCTV was her ex-husband. She's at home now, refusing to go back to her gallery, every alarm and protection on until I get back.'

‘What do you think she'd do, if she saw someone on the street she identified as Jack Mason?' asked Potter. ‘Do you think she'd wait, to be sure? Or shoot and wait until afterwards to find out if she was right?'

‘Are you going to block the licences?' said Slater.

‘That isn't an answer to my question, Mr Slater.'

‘I don't have an answer to your question.'

‘What would you do in exactly the same circumstances?' came in Denver.

‘Ensure I'd properly identified the man.'

‘And then what, after you had properly identified him as Jack Mason?' said Denver. ‘Would you try to kill him?'

It took a long time for Slater to reply, convinced as he was that the gun application depended on his response. ‘If I thought he was going to try to kill Ann or me, harm us in any way, I'd have every legal right to defend both of us.'

‘If you genuinely believed your lives to be in danger,' agreed Potter.

‘Do you think they could be?' asked Slater.

‘I told you we don't have any positive evidence or reason to believe they might be,' reminded Potter. ‘More immediately I think we should go and retrieve those flowers, as soon as we can.'

‘I would have imagined there's good enough reason for my wife and I to get handguns,' argued Slater.