Jesus, this guy’s everything I thought, isn’t he?
Ryan set the folder down, seeing that it was part of the Gooding Murder file. That meant Frank Allen – again. He called him.
‘Thanks for the info on Kelly. What brought it up?’
‘Mark Charon was over,’ Allen told him. ‘I’m doing the follow-up on his shoot, and he brought the name up, says it came up in one of his cases. Sorry, pal, I forgot I had this. He said he’d drop it off. He’s not the sort of guy I’d figure for being drugged up, y’know, but…’ His voice went on past the point of Ryan’s current interest.
This is going too fast now, too damned fast.
Charon. He keeps appearing, doesn’t he?
‘Frank, I got a tough one for you. When that Sergeant Meyer called in from Pittsburgh, anybody else you mention that to?’
‘What do you mean, Em?’ Allen asked, annoyance beginning to form in his mind at the suggestion.
‘I’m not saying you called the papers, Frank.’
‘That was the day Charon popped the dealer wasn’t it?’ Allen thought back. ‘I might have said something to him … only other person I talked with that day, come to think of it.’
‘Okay, thanks, Frank.’ Ryan looked up the number of Barracks ‘V’ of the State Police.
‘Captain Joy,’ said a very weary voice. The barracks commander would have taken a bed in his own jail if he’d had to, but by tradition a State Police barracks was just that, and he’d found a comfortable bed for his four and a half hours of sleep. Joy was already wishing that Somerset County would go back to normal, though he well might make major’s rank from this episode.
‘Lieutenant Ryan, City Police homicide.’
‘You big-city boys sure are interested in us now,’ Joy commented wryly. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I was on my way to bed last night when another one of your people called down here, Lieutenant Chair – something like that, I didn’t write it down. Said he could ID one of the bodies… I did write that down somewhere. Sorry, I’m turning into a zombie.’
‘Could you fill me in? I’ll take the short version.’ It turned out that the short version was plenty. ‘The woman is in custody?’
‘You bet she is.’
‘Captain, you keep her that way until I say different, okay? Excuse me, please keep her that way. She may be a material witness in a multiple homicide.’
‘Yeah, I know that, remember?’
‘I mean up here, too, sir. Two bad ones. I have nine months invested in this.’
‘She isn’t going anywhere for a while,’ Joy promised. ‘We have a lot of talking to do with her ourselves, and her lawyer’s playing ball.’
‘Nothing more on the shooter?’
‘Just what I said: male Caucasian, six foot or so, and he painted himself green, the girl says.’ Joy hadn’t included that in his initial recounting.
‘What?’
‘She said his face and hands were green, like camouflage stuff, I suppose. There is one more thing,’ Joy added. ‘He’s a right good shot. The three people he whacked, one shot each, all in the X-ring – like, perfect.’
Ryan flipped the folder back open. At the bottom of Kelly’s list of awards: Distinguished Rifleman, Master Pistol.
‘I’ll be back to you, Captain. Sounds like you’ve handled this one awfully well for a guy who doesn’t get many homicides.’
‘I’d just as soon stick to speeders,’ Joy confirmed, hanging up.
‘You’re in early,’ Douglas observed, coming in late. ‘See the paper?’
‘Our friend’s back, and he got on the scoreboard again.’ Ryan handed the photo across.
‘He looks older now,’ the sergeant said.
‘Three Purple Hearts’ll do that.’ Ryan filled Douglas in. ‘Want to drive down to Somerset and interview this girl?’
‘You think … ?’
‘Yes, I think we have our witness. I think we have our leaker, too.’ Ryan explained that one quietly.
He had just called to hear the sound of her voice. So close to his goal, he was allowing himself to look beyond it. It wasn’t terribly professional, but for all his professionalism, Kelly remained human.
‘John, where are you?’ The urgency in her voice was even greater than the day before.
‘I have a place,’ was all he was willing to say.
‘I have a message for you. James Greer, he said you should call him.’
‘Okay.’Kelly grimaced – he was supposed to have done that the day before.
‘Was that you in the paper?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ she whispered, ‘three dead people on the Eastern Shore.’
‘I’ll get back to you,’ he said almost as fast as the chill hit him.
??ll? didn’t have the paper delivered to his apartment for the obvious reason, but now he needed one. There was a dispenser at the corner, he remembered. He only needed one look.
What does she know about me?
It was too late for recrimination. He’d faced the same problem with her as with Doris. She’d been asleep when he’d done the job, and the pistol shots had awakened her. He’d blindfolded her, dumped her, explained to her that Burt had planned to kill her, given her enough cash to catch a Greyhound to somewhere. Even with the drugs, she’d been shocked and scared. But the cops had her already. How the hell had that happened?
Screw the how, son, they have her.
Just that fast the world had changed for him.
Okay, so now what do you do? It was that thought which occupied his mind for the walk back to his apartment.
For starters, he had to get rid of the .45, but he’d already decided to do that. Even if he had left no evidence at all behind, it was a link. When this mission was over, it was over. But now he needed help, and where else to get it but from the people for whom he had killed?
‘Admiral Greer, please? This is Mr Clark.’
‘Hold, please,’ Kelly heard, then: ‘You were supposed to call in yesterday, remember?’
‘I can be there in two hours, sir’
‘I’ll be waiting.’
‘Where’s Cas?’ Maxwell asked, annoyed enough to use his nickname. The chief who ran his office understood.
‘I already called his home, sir. No answer.’
‘That’s funny.’ Which it wasn’t, but the chief understood that, too.
‘Want me to have somebody at Bolling check it out, Admiral?’
‘Good idea.’ Maxwell nodded and returned to his office.
Ten minutes later a sergeant of the Air Force’s Security Police drove from his guard shack to the collection of semidetached dwellings used by senior officers on Pentagon duty. The sign on the yard said Rear Admiral C. P. Podulski, USN, and showed a pair of aviator wings. The sergeant was only twenty-three and didn’t interact with flag officers any more than he had to, but he had orders to see if there was any trouble here. The morning paper was sitting on the step; There were two automobiles in the carport, one of which had a Pentagon pass on the windshield, and he knew that the Admiral and his wife lived alone. Summoning his courage, the sergeant knocked on the door, firmly but not too noisily. No luck. Next he tried the bell. No luck. Now what? the young NCO wondered. The whole base was government property, and he had the right under regulations to enter any house on the post, and he had orders, and his lieutenant would probably back him up. He opened the door. There was no sound. He looked around the first floor, finding nothing that hadn’t been there since the previous evening. He called a few times with no result, and then decided that he had to go upstairs. This he did, with one hand on his white leather holster …
Admiral Maxwell was there twenty minutes later.
‘Heart attack,’ the Air Force doctor said. ‘Probably in his sleep.’
That wasn’t true of his wife, who lay next to him. She had been such a pretty woman, Dutch Maxwell remembered, and devastated by the loss of their son. The half-filled glass of water sat on a handkerchief so as not to harm the wooden night table. She’d even replaced the top of the pill container before she’d lain back down beside her husband. Dutch looked over to the wooden valet. His undress white shirt was there, ready for another day’s service to his adopted country, the Wings of Gold over the collection of ribbons, the topmost of which was pale blue, with five white stars. They’d had a meeting planned to talk about retirement. Somehow Dutch wasn’t surprised.
‘God have mercy,’ Dutch said, seeing the only friendly casualties of Operation BOXWOOD GREEN.
What do I say? Kelly asked himself, driving through the gate. The guard eyeballcd him pretty hard despite his pass, perhaps wondering how badly the Agency paid its field personnel. He did get to park his wreck in the visitors’ lot, better placement than people on the payroll, which seemed slightly odd. Walking into the lobby, Kelly was met by a security officer and led upstairs. It seemed more ominous now, walking the drab and ordinary corridors peopled with anonymous people, but only because this building was about to become a confessional of sorts for a soul who had not quite decided if he were a sinner or not. He hadn’t visited Ritter’s office before. It was on the fourth floor and surprisingly small. Kelly had thought the man important – and though he actually was, his office as yet was not.