Tomahawk (38 page)

He was looking forward to telling all this to Kerry. He'd called from the infirmary, but his lips had been so cracked and sore, he'd kept it short. The one jolt had been her telling him all the defendants in the sabotage case had been found guilty. Sentencing would be in a few days. He did manage, though, to tell her he loved her, and that his offer still stood—to wait for her till she was free again.

So that remained to be faced. He took out his wheelbook. Other things going on.Standing up the team for the antiship tests
New Jersey's
installation and checkout should be complete.All in all, when the word came through, he could turn things over in good shape to whoever was going to relieve him.

“Drink, sir? Last call.”

He shook his head. He was keeping his promise.

Nursing that glow, he leaned back. In only a couple of hours, he'd be with her.

He looked for her as he came out of the gate but didn't see her. Probably she was down at the soup kitchen. He took the Metro to Crystal City and hobbled through the mall.

“I'm back,” he said, thrusting his head into Wester-house's office. “D'jou get my message? Seven good shots out of eight. And we've got a lead on where number five failed. Still taking it apart, but it's definitely hardware.”

“Ah … your nose?”

“Frostbite. Looks ugly, but it'll heal.” He rattled on about the tests, then noticed his boss wasn't listening. “Something the matter, sir?”

“Just a minute.” The captain picked up the phone. Dan noticed, with a pang, how heavy it seemed in his hand; how clearly, now that he knew, pain could be read in the sagging cheeks. “Mr. Lenson just reported in. Yes, sir … just now. Okay, be right up.”

“What happened, sir? My resignation come through?”

“The admiral wants to talk to you.”

They rode up side by side in the elevator. He wiped his hands on his trousers. Since the frost nip, they tended to sweat easily.

“Did you get the secure fax I sent, sir? About the map we found on the infiltrators?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Did you pass it to Shirley?”

“Yes, I did,” Westerhouse said. He looked at the panel. “Okay … here we are. No, you first.”

Niles was standing when they entered the inner office. His hands were locked behind him, making him look more than ever like a gloomy, and dangerous, bear.

“Dale. Dan. Sit down, please.”

“Thank you, sir.” He and Westerhouse sank into the upholstered chairs normally reserved for visiting VIPs. No question, he was here for his official farewell. It was a solemn moment, and he felt a nervous mixture of regret and eagerness.

Niles sat heavily, moving like Marlon Brando as the Don. He slipped a piece of paper from his desk and stared down at it.

The admiral said, “This is a difficult thing to tell you. I don't know any other way than just to say it. I'm afraid your fiancée is dead.”

Dan sat there, unable to move or to think. Finally, he made a little noise—not a chuckle, but an expulsion of
breath. “Sir? What are you saying? I talked to her just a couple of days ago.”

“She was found on the C and O towpath, day before yesterday. Here's the clipping from the
Post.
I'm sorry we had to give it to you this way. It wasn't brought to our attention till yesterday, and by then you were en route. I decided to wait till you arrived and tell you face-to-face. I'm sorry.”

Westerhouse added something, but Dan didn't hear the words. He took the clipping and held it in the tips of his bandaged fingers, staring at words that didn't Velcro into sentences. The headline read ACTIVIST FOUND SLAIN ON POTOMAC BIKING TRAIL.

Niles sat down next to him. But he didn't say anything.

Dan said, “We brought back an eighty-seven percent success rate.”

The director cleared his throat and glanced at Westerhouse. “Did you? That's good.”

Then suddenly, he was sucking in great whoops of air. It lasted only for a couple of seconds, though. They werewatching him Had to get out of here….. She'd bewaiting at the apartment. He felt confused, sleepy, as if he was freezing again. He shrugged off the admiral's hand, struggling up from the chair. “Sir, permission to go ashore?”

“Go home, Dan,” Niles said, and his little eyes weren't hostile for once. Just sad. “Dale, I don't want him driving.”

“I'll send Vic Burdette, sir.”

“Okay. Thanks for the report, the good work out there. … We don't need you back here till Monday, Dan. We'll talk some more then.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Thank God for rote responses. He couldn't actually force a thought through his mind. He came to attention, about-faced, and left.

He endured the ride home in a confused stupor, alternating with flashes of disbelief. He didn't respond when Burdette said something comforting. Just got out of the car and carried his luggage into the lobby.

He knew the apartment was empty the moment he un-locked
the door. He put the card that had been taped to it on the coffee table and went through each room in turn: living room, kitchen, bedroom.

Her blue dress, the one she'd worn to the party, hung in the closet, safe forever inside a sheath of plastic. Her scuffed shoes lay by the bed, where, apparently, she'd left them when she changed. It struck him again how little she'd owned.

The zombie body that carried him around inside it picked up the phone and dialed the number on the card.

He found himself talking to a hurried-sounding detective named Joe Ogen. Ogen said, “You're Lenson. Okay— yeah—boyfriend number two.”

“Number two?”

“Her driver's license address took us to a guy named Heineken.”

“Haneghen.”

“Right, up in Northwest. He gave us her parents' number. That wasn't an easy call to make. How about you? You taking this all right?”

“So far.”

“Haneghen gave me your name, said you were Navy, said she'd been living with you the last couple months. But after I left the note at your place, we found out you were up in Canada, and confirmed that with your boss. So right at the moment, I'm not sure whether you need to come in.”

“Of course I'll come in. When?”

“Well, let's go over a couple things now, over the phone…. She had a bike, right?” the cop asked him.

“That was mine.”

“What kind was it?”

“A Motobecane. Grand Touring. Silver.How did this happen? Can't you tell me a little more than what was in the
Post?”

“We don't know a lot more than that. We're thinking right now the original motive was robbery, and that there were multiple assailants. We found her wallet thirty yards up the trail. It was empty. That's not a good place to be after dark.”

“You said ‘the original motive.' What does that mean?”

“I mean that after they dragged her off the bike there— and apparently nobody was around—they dragged her off into the weeds.”

Dan said numbly, “And then killed her.”

“Uh-huh. With a knife, it looks like. Though actually it could have been anything, piece of glass, so forth.”

“Have you got any … leads?” Shit, he thought, I sound like a TV show.

“Give me your number there again. I'll give you a call tomorrow, okay?”

“Wait a minute. Where are you? I've got to talk to you about this.”

“Whoa, not today. Just had another shooting, over at Foggy Bottom. Give you a call. Got to go.”

He sat on the bed, marveling at how little he felt. It was like frostbite. He knew he was injured. He knew when he thawed out that it would be painful. But just at the moment, he didn't feel anything. The room looked as if she'd just stepped out. There were her things, still lying on the bed—her bra, her purse.

A black-bound book, edged in red. The cover was limp leather and he thought at first it was a Bible. But when he picked it up, he found it was a diary.

He gave the doorway a glance, as if she might surprise him in the reading. June, then August… dissatisfaction with Haneghen October … a brief mention of meet-ing him.

Then, with a sudden stillness of his heart, he was reading the last words, judging from the pen thrust between the pages, that she had ever written. He could hear her saying them.

He says he's going to leave the service. I never asked it of him. I told him I loved him, the way he was. And it's true.

The one thing I'm not sure of is his drinking. When he drinks, it's terrifying, like he's someone else
…
not violent, but out of control. If he can't stop, I can't stay with him. I'm not going to place myself in that position.

But if he can, I' m going to marry him. I will marry him, and when I come out of prison, I will stay with him forever.

Holding it on his lap, he drew a shuddering breath.

After a time, he got up and went into the kitchen. Opened the cupboard where he'd kept the scotch. To find a note propped in front of it.

Please don't. Not till you talk to me. I'll help, whatever it takes to get your mind off it. Okay? Remember, I love you!

He stared at it, then closed his eyes. The shuddering began again, deep in his diaphragm.

Suddenly, he jerked the bottle out of the cupboard, lifted it high, and smashed it apart on the counter with every ounce of his strength. Glass and liquor exploded, stinging his hand. But he didn't care. He didn't care at all.

Like a cloud sliding over his heart, he shuddered to the first icy breeze of an all-consuming storm.

IV

THE TEST

22

 

 

 

The District of Columbia Municipal Center was north of the Mall, a sandstone block with Art Deco stainless panels and Egyptian capitals. The steps at the entrance were thronged with loungers, jugglers, scowling matrons towing whining kids. Seeing his uniform, a man with whiskey breath and melted eyes stopped him to tell him about Anzio. Dan tried to be polite, but found a dollar bill worked faster. A desk cop in the lobby said Homicide was on the third floor.

When the elevator doors opened he confronted two dozen grim-looking men smoking and leaning against stained pink marble wainscoting as high as their heads. A sign read THIS WAY TO LINEUP. He went the other way, down a corridor of locked doors, and found 3032. This, too, was locked, though phones were ringing inside. He knocked and waited, his breath a pale plume. The building seemed to be unheated.

No one answered. He was knocking again when two bulky-chested black men in short jackets strolled wearily down the corridor toward him. “What you got goin'?” said one. “Want to take a ride?”

“See what I got goin' with cold cases first.” They reached around him and punched a code into the lock. He grabbed the closing door.

Homicide Branch had green walls and a pink tile floor and no partitions among the thirty littered desks. Phones jangled. Radios blared. Portable heaters whined. Someone
was yelling frenzied obscenities at the far end of the long, narrow room.

Behind him, one of the cops said, “You havin' problems?”

“Looking for a Sergeant Ogen.”

“Right through to there. Four desks down.”

Ogen was about six four. He had suspenders, a crew cut, and an impassive stare. He wore a large revolver in a shoulder holster. When Dan introduced himself, he didn't offer to shake hands, just pointed to a chair beside his desk. Hardly able to hear himself through the pandemonium, Dan said, “Is there someplace quieter?”

“What?”

“I said, there someplace quiet we can talk?”

“Just a minute,” said Ogen, and he went back to his study of the binder he'd been looking at when Dan came in.

At last, he closed it and sighed, then got up and led him to the far end of the room. On the way, Dan noted a blown-up wall poster of Dick Tracy talking on his wrist radio; a chart with colored tape showing trend lines, all headed up; and a map of the District divided into seven parts. Red pushpins dotted it, each bearing a twisted wire pennant with a date. There were a lot of pins.