Cape Disappointment (31 page)

“YOU MEAN THERE'S
no
meat on the menu? None?” Bert was incensed, the veins in his neck standing up with his outrage. It was as if this culinary lapse had been perpetuated solely to ruin his day. “You said it was a vegetarian restaurant, but I didn't think that meant there wouldn't be
any
meat. Can't you see how wrong this is? Is there a steakhouse in America that doesn't serve salad? So why can these clowns get away without serving me a lamb chop? Hell, lamb is practically a vegetable.”

“Tell you what. After we leave, I'll help you kill a buffalo in the arboretum, and you can roast it over a campfire.”

“Funny guy.” Like his brother, Bert was always hungry. He was also preoccupied with the impending arrival of our guest. Over the phone he had managed to convince me that good press relations were of paramount importance if we were to find the assassins who brought down the Sheffield plane. That's what it had devolved into, at least in his mind: a joint quest. It had been his idea to contact Ponzi, but once we were seated, he displayed enough anxiety that I began to think there was something he wasn't telling me. We were at Cafe Flora on Madison, on the garden side with all the plants and the waterfall: another one of Kathy's haunts.

We'd managed to grab a window table from which Bert soon spotted Ruth Ponzi trotting up the sidewalk in a tan trench coat. She looked as if she had three or four things on her mind and maybe had already
forgotten to pick up one of the kids from ballet class. “Now, when she comes in,” said Bert, “let me work on her. I know how to do this.”

Ponzi stood in the entrance for a few moments, then spotted us and came over. She was as disheveled as she had been the other morning at Boeing Field, if not more so. She nodded at Bert and then looked at me. “Mr. Black, have you changed your mind about our interview?”

“Let's talk.”

“Certainly. Hello, Bert. I tried to talk with you when you got arrested out at the Cape, but they wouldn't let me.” She doffed her coat, pulled her bag into her lap, and withdrew a pen and small notebook, eyeing me and Bert purposefully while she laid down an indecipherable scrawl. In no particular order, Bert and I started throwing curve-balls. It was fascinating to watch the way she wrote without looking at the page.

Bert said, “Have you ever heard of a company called Green Titles? It's CIA owned.”

“I can't say that I have.”

“Timothy Hoagland used to run it for the CIA.”

“Timothy Hoagland, as in the man who's running the NTSB investigation,” I said.

“Which makes the NTSB investigation highly suspect,” said Bert. “Also, check out the time of the plane crash and the time the FBI arrived at the Cape.”

“Less than an hour between,” I said.

“We've all driven out to Cape Disappointment,” Bert added, “and we know it takes more than an hour. Check out the Coast Guard logs if you don't believe us.” Bert reached over and touched her knee. “Ever heard of an EMI device? Electromagnetic interference? At the same time the senator's plane started going out of control, Black's cellphone went cowshit.”

“I found at least one other person in the vicinity whose phone went bad at the same time,” I said. “There may be more.”

“Same thing happened when the Paul Wellstone flight went down,” said Bert. “An electromagnetic interference device, besides being able to take a plane down by interfering with the controls, would screw up
anything electrical in the vicinity. Especially something like a cellphone.”

“Timothy Hoagland was also on the Wellstone NTSB inquiry board,” I said.

“Of course he was,” Ponzi said. “That's what he does.”

“Also, Black here got a call from his wife's phone last night. Except his wife's cellphone went down in the wreck.”

“Who was it?” Ponzi asked, looking wide-eyed.

“I don't know.”

“Okay. You've piqued my interest. I might be able to do a curiosity piece about the inconsistencies. Why don't you lay it all out step-by-step?”

“This isn't about inconsistencies,” Bert said. “This is a major conspiracy.”

“My editor is going to think it's a wild-goose chase.”

“We have your attention, though?” asked Bert.

“You have my attention, all right. If even only half of these things check out, they need explaining. On the other hand, coincidences often turn out to be nothing.”

“It could be the biggest story of your life,” I said. “A Pulitzer Prize waiting to drop into your lap.”

She thought about my statement while she regarded the two of us. I could tell the thought of uncovering something was hard to resist. “My editor doesn't live far. Let me call him.”

After her call, Ponzi told us her boss would be there in ten minutes. While we waited, Ruth contacted a researcher at the paper and repeated some of what we'd told her, securing a promise to have the fact-checking done right away. While we waited for her editor and the fact-checker, Bert and Ponzi sipped coffee and chatted.

The editor was a short, stout, pleasant-looking man in a sport coat and gray slacks. He had gray eyes imbedded in a tight, fleshy face and meaty hands. Ruth met him at the doorway, where they conferred out of earshot, the dubious editor glancing at us from time to time with undisguised misgivings. While they were talking, Ruth received a phone call, presumably from the researcher at the paper, and stepped outside into the cold to take it. It was late afternoon, just getting dark,
the cars on Madison shining their lights on the roadway. The editor jangled his keys in his pocket, glanced at us, then gave Bert that cockeyed look you sometimes get from relatives who know you well enough to dislike you but not well enough to avoid you, before following Ruth outside. From what I could glean, Ruth was importuning the editor and he was dragging his heels, but that was just a guess from their body language. In the end, the editor stalked down the sidewalk past our window without glancing in.

Ponzi raced back into the restaurant and sat heavily in her chair, draping her coat over her shoulders. “Hoo, it's freezing out there. Is it ever going to snow?”

“What'd he say?” Bert asked.

“He thinks it's a bum theory.”

Bert's face registered the same disappointment and shock as a child's would if he'd just poured coal out of his Christmas stocking.

“The facts we gave you?” I asked. “They check out?”

“They did,” Ponzi said, looking intently at Bert. “A lot of his attitude has to do with our prior relationship.”

“What relationship?”

“I gave her a couple of stories in the past,” said Bert.

“Which my editor didn't buy.”

“Like what?” I asked.

Ponzi and Bert looked at each other, but neither spoke. After the waitress asked if we were ready to order and we put her off, Ponzi said, “A conspiracy of the world's leading geneticists to construct a disease that affects only black people.”

“And all those dead geneticists,” Bert added. “Don't forget there are dead geneticists all over the planet. Your editor is a typical corporate stooge.”

“Never mind that,” Ponzi said. “I'm going to use my own time to look into this. If I can dig up more of what you've got here, I can get the paper to go along with a feature article.”

“It could grow from there,” Bert said, optimistically. “Into a series.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don't get your hopes up. And you? Are you ever going to give me that interview? No, of course you're not. You're in no condition to be
giving interviews. Go home and have some hot cocoa and get into bed. You look horrible.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn't mean it like that.”

“I know I look like hell.”

Not unexpectedly, Ponzi said she didn't have time to eat with us and excused herself. When Bert and I were alone, I said, “I've never been this depressed.”

“It come on sudden like?” Bert asked.

“Wham.”

“You been drugged.”

“Oh, come on.”

“They can do that.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“You're telling me somebody put a drug in my system that makes me more depressed than I already am? What's the point?”

“To hamper our work. You've riled up a hornet's nest here. You think they don't know you're asking questions? Think they're not going to fight back? Slipping you a potion is just the tip of the iceberg. People doing what we're doing end up committing suicide more often than you would ever guess. Think about what you're doing. You're tracking down a government killing and cover-up. Imagine four guys, each the size of a small house, showing up at your place, putting a gun in your hand, and pulling the trigger for you. Think you could stop them? Think anybody in this town would be surprised to hear you'd put a gun in your mouth?”

“That's not—”

“How much evidence do you think they're going to leave?”

“There would be an investigation.”

“There's an ongoing investigation into this plane crash, too. Didn't the CIA try to send poisoned cigars to Castro? Weren't there umbrellas tipped with poison darts in the U.K.? Some things we know. In a world of chemical miracles and secret prisons run by U.S. personnel, anything is possible. Don't be taking anything anybody gives you to eat or drink. A restaurant is probably okay, but even here they could go in the
back and pay somebody off and you'd be in la-la land. LSD is one of their favorites.”

“You're a raving lunatic.” I pushed my chair out and stood up. “I'm getting out of here before I end up as paranoid as you.”

“Too late, partner.”

I left enough cash to pay for both our meals and abandoned Bert, who was rhapsodizing to the waitress over the sweet corn pizza he'd ordered. Despite their age difference, he was doing his best to pick her up. Like Snake, his motto seemed to be any woman … any time.

I went home, gathered some of the equipment I was going to need, and shouted to Snake, who was in front of my TV, that I was leaving again.

PARKING A BLOCK AWAY,
I waited outside the Maddox offices in Kirkland, having stashed a car-wash flyer I'd found under my own wiper under Deborah's wiper, so she would have to walk around to the front of her little red sports car and show herself under the streetlight when she removed it. She didn't quit work until a little past seven-thirty. Out on the road I found myself running yellow lights to keep up with her. She was ruthless, cutting off other drivers, slipping into holes nobody else could see, and zipping in front of tractor-trailer rigs with impunity.

As I drove, I listened to the car radio, switching from one news channel to another, hoping for fresh news about the Sheffield investigation, but all I heard was the rehash they'd been dishing up all week. The plane was being reassembled at Boeing Field. Tests were being run. Autopsies were being performed. Sheffield's husband was running her campaign, and although pundits across the country were calling his leadership weak, Sheffield was still leading in the polls.

Driscoll drove straight to a market on Capitol Hill. When she came out, she drove three blocks and parked on the street, gathering up a small bundle of groceries and work-related materials and disappearing inside the three-story brick building where she was staying. For the next ten minutes I trolled for a parking space and eventually lucked into a spot within eyesight of her first-floor rooms. I'd brought a shotgun microphone I'd had made a couple of years earlier, which, all
things being equal, should allow me to hear conversations in her condo. When I turned it on, she was listening to Norah Jones.

As the motor grew colder, I sat in the dark and waited. After she'd showered, I heard her eating and making phone calls, all related to work. The TV came on, one of those reality TV shows that had captivated the country. Her phone rang a couple of times, but she let it ring.

He must have parked around the block, but when he showed up, Kalpesh Gupta disappeared into the building so quickly I had to assume he had a key. A minute later I heard the front door to her unit open and close, also without any knocking. “Hey, babe.” “I thought you were going to be here earlier.” “Got held up.” The TV show was still droning in the background, but my mike picked up their voices easily. It took a few moments to realize I was listening to the sound of a kiss.

Nobody in either campaign had any idea Kalpesh and Deborah spent their evenings together. It was obvious who was feeding information about Jane Sheffield's campaign to the Maddox group and whose shoes we'd seen the other night at Kalpesh's condominium.

“You love this show, don't you?” he said.

“Come here. Sit down.”

“In a minute. You want a drink?”

“I'll have a glass of wine.”

About then a car drove past on the street and the noise limiter on my shotgun mike activated. It was a police car, traveling slowly. I didn't duck, but I lowered the mike, knowing it resembled a rifle. The cop drove on.

“I missed you, baby,” he said.

“I saw you on the news.”

“It's not the way I like to get on TV.”

“I like you in those white collars.”

They were quiet for a few moments, in each other's arms, I guessed. The TV clicked off. I was beginning to be embarrassed. There were times when spying on people was fascinating and times when it was informative, but every once in a while the immorality of it made me feel like dirt. At heart we were all voyeurs, but few legitimately indulged in it more often or more shamefully than private investigators. I was thinking about folding up for the night when my car blazed with a
bright light from behind. Pulling the headphones off, I pushed the mike and the rest of my paraphernalia under a blanket on the passenger seat, then placed my hands in plain sight on the steering wheel, my wallet and loose driver's license in the hand closest to the window.