“Interesting,” I said. “Abby referred to a card in one of her notepads. I assumed she was referring to the jack of hearts. She knew about the gas card, didn’t she, Benton?”
“I suspect Pat Harvey told her. Mrs. Harvey had known about the card for quite a while, thus explaining her accusations during the press conference that something was being covered up by the feds.”
“Obviously, she no longer believed that when she decided to kill Spurrier.”
“The Director briefed her after the press conference, Kay. Had no choice but to inform her that we were suspicious the gas card was left deliberately. We were suspicious from the beginning, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t take it seriously. Obviously, the CIA took it very seriously.”
“And this silenced her.”
“If nothing else it made her think twice. Certainly, after Spurrier was arrested, what the Director had said to her made a lot of sense.”
“How could Spurrier have gotten hold of a Camp Peary gas card?”
I puzzled.
“Camp Peary agents frequented his bookstore.”
“You’re saying that he somehow stole this card from a Camp Peary customer?”
“Yes. Suppose someone from Camp Peary walked out of the bookstore leaving his wallet on the counter.
By the time he came back looking for it, Spurrier could have tucked it away, said he hadn’t seen it. Then he left the gas card in Jim and Bonnie’s car so we would link the killings to the CIA.”
“No identification number on the card?”
“The ID numbers are on stickers that had been peeled off, so we couldn’t trace the card back to an individual.”
I was getting tired and my feet were beginning to hurt when the parking area where we had left our cars came into view. Those who had come to mourn Abby’s death were gone.
Wesley waited until I was unlocking my car before touching my arm and saying, “I’m sorry for those times “So am I” I didn’t let him finish. “We go on from here, Benton. Do whatever you can to make sure Pat Harvey isn’t punished further.”
“I don’t think a grand jury will have a problem understanding how she’s suffered.”
“Did she know about the DNA results, Benton?”
“She’s had a way of finding out details critical to the investigation, despite our efforts to keep them from her, Kay. I suspect she knew.
Certainly, it would help explain why she did what she did. She would have believed Spurrier was never going to be punished.”
I got in and put the key in the ignition.
“I’m sorriest about Abby,’ he added.
I nodded as I shut the door, my eyes filling with tears.
I followed the narrow road to the cemetery’s entrance, passing through elaborate wrought-iron gates. The sun shone on downtown office buildings and steeples in the distance, light caught in the trees. I opened the windows and drove west toward home.