Cape Disappointment (48 page)

“I know he once got caught stealing women's panties off a clothesline.”

“Do you know what he was doing before he left town?”

“I didn't know he left town. If he did, he probably had women's panties with him.”

We all stared at one another for a while. I knew what they were here for and they knew I knew; they were trolling to see if they could provoke a reaction, if they could see whether I was a confederate or just an acquaintance. “All right then,” I continued. “You want to know what was on his mind? He thought the Sheffield flight was taken down on purpose.”

Neither of them registered anything like surprise. “Were you two investigating this?”

“We talked about it before my wife turned up alive.”

“Your wife. We'll want to talk to her later.”

“She's in the next room.”

“We know. Did Slezak ever say anything about doing injury to anyone in the government?”

“Not that I recall.”

“He talk about overthrowing it?”

“The United States government? No.”

“What was the nature of his thinking?”

“He said certain elements were subverting democracy.”

“Which elements would that be?”

“I never found out.”

“But he thought somebody shot down Senator Sheffield's flight?”

“Brought it down somehow. He wasn't always specific.”

“That was ruled accidental.”

“He didn't believe the ruling.”

“Do you?”

“Is this a personal question, or do you want to know for some official reason?”

“I'm going to tell you something, Mr. Black. I want you to keep it in confidence.”

“Sure.”

“We're reviewing the Sheffield crash. We know you and Slezak were doing the same thing. Plenty of people have pointed out discrepancies in the NTSB report. We would appreciate it if you and your friends leave it alone until we come to our own determination.”

“When will that be?”

“It will take some time.”

“Okay.”

“So you won't look into it?”

“Not for a while.”

“You ever meet Kalpesh Gupta?”

“Of course. He worked with my wife on the Sheffield campaign.”

“And what was the nature of your relationship?”

“We weren't close friends if that's what you mean.”

“Had you met Timothy Hoagland?”

“I met him at Boeing Field at a press conference.”

“And what did you talk about?”

“I still thought my wife was dead at the time. I don't remember any of it.”

“You never saw Hoagland after that?”

“Not that I recall.”

“What else can you tell us about Slezak's investigation?”

I told him about the death of Ruth Ponzi's husband and Deborah Driscoll. He appeared familiar with both incidents. “You were a friend of this woman?” he asked, referring to Driscoll.

“We worked together.”

“And what was Slezak's interest in these deaths?”

“Bert thought they were killed to intimidate anybody who might have been digging for information on the Sheffield crash. Deborah Driscoll called me and was going to tell me something I wasn't supposed to know about the campaign.”

“And what was that?”

“I don't know. She died before she could tell me.”

“You think two people were murdered to keep your friend Bert Slezak from continuing his investigation?”

“Basically.”

“Sounds a little far-fetched.”

“It does, doesn't it?” A senator's plane diving into the ocean for no discernible reason sounded far-fetched, too, but I didn't bring it up. An NTSB investigator dying the day before his report came out sounded far-fetched, but I didn't mention that, either.”

“Mr. Black, I'm going to be frank. I've been instructed to try to make a deal with you. If it were up to me, I wouldn't be telling you any of this.” He sighed. “We're after a black bag group. Rogue operatives, some of whom may at one time have worked for the government. We believe they may have committed treason.”

“Treason? As in shooting down an airplane with ten people on board?”

“We're not at liberty to reveal any more than that. Our plan is to take the group apart, but that's going to take some time and a lot of patience. We think you may have tangled with them.”

“In what way?”

“We're not sure. All we know is you were on their hit list.”

“Am I still on it?”

“They seem to have disbanded. However, we have an offer for you. Keep your nose out of our investigation, and we'll stay out of your life. How does that sound?”

“Like a threat.”

“Don't mistake our intentions. All we want is to work without distractions. If we're going to catch these people, we need to be left alone. We don't want the general populace to find out about this. In fact, we'll deny everything said here if you repeat it. Are you following me?”

“How do I know you're going after them? How do I know you're not part of it yourselves?”

“We're the FBI. We're on your side.”

“Information is what feeds a democracy. If there's monkey business afoot, the populace needs to know the details.”

“You're taking an unreasonable attitude, Mr. Black.”

“Anybody can tell you, that's the attitude I usually take.”

“If you're contacted by Bert Slezak, you better get in touch with our office. He's committed crimes, and we're going to bring him in. It would be a pity if we had to name you as a co-conspirator.”

“What crimes?”

“Just stay out of it.”

THEY SPENT A LONG TIME in Kathy's office. At one point, I heard her laughing through the door, so I knew it wasn't all business.

“They give you a hard time?” I asked after they'd left.

“They worked hard at being gracious.”

“Not with me.”

“They said you copped an attitude.”

“Me?”

“You really think it was smart to get sarcastic with the FBI?”

“I was just trying to be myself.”

“Apparently you succeeded. You think they're really trying to bring the black bag boys to account?”

“I think they're part of the cleanup operation. They were here to intimidate us into dropping it. Nothing else.”

“I thought the same thing. Thomas, you're not going to keep looking into this, are you?”

“Jane Sheffield and the others were murdered. Maddox is a United States senator today because of that murder. I'm not even sure the election was straight. What do you want me to do?”

“I think you and I can go on with our lives, if that's what we choose. It's a matter of what we decide to do.”

“Don't I know it.”

TWO WEEKS AFTER THE ELECTION
I set up a meeting with James Maddox. I knew he routinely traveled with a posse, so I specified he show up alone. I'd spent a lot of time analyzing the phone numbers I'd taken off Hoagland. Maddox's number had shown up five times, both incoming and outgoing. I could think of several reasons why Hoagland would be talking to Maddox on the day he drove out to kill me and Kathy, none of them good.

From time to time I employed the services of a technical whiz just out of high school. I had him fix up a cheap cellphone I'd acquired so that calls emanating from it appeared to be emanating from Timothy Hoagland's old number. One phone company technician told me it was impossible, but my boy genius arranged it without much difficulty. Then, knowing my incoming call would show up as one from Hoagland and that the sound quality would be mediocre on my cellphone, I phoned Maddox doing little to disguise my voice. “We need to meet.”

“I thought … Is this … ? What happened to you? We knew you were playing dead, but then you really disappeared. Everybody's looking for you.”

“I'm only going to be in town a few hours. Something has come up that you need to know about.”

“Tim? Your voice sounds funny.”

“I've been traveling.”

“I haven't heard from you. I didn't—”

“Shut up and write this down.” It was pretty obvious he was used to taking orders from Hoagland.

We met in West Seattle on California Avenue at a tiny roadside park overlooking Elliott Bay, the lights of downtown Seattle, and the shipping terminals on Harbor Island. I arrived forty minutes early and concealed myself in the brush, waiting for Maddox or his confederates to arrive early and set up an ambush, but Maddox showed up alone five minutes before the appointed time and, motor running, waited in his Mercedes. I called him again on the dummied-up phone and told him to turn his engine off and walk out to the overlook. “Why the cloak and dagger?” he asked.

“If you can't guess, I'm not going to say it on the phone.”

“I just don't know why—”

“Think about the last person who had your seat in the Senate. Think about it real hard.”

He shut off his motor and walked to the overlook. Even though nobody was around and he was only traveling thirty feet, he locked his car. I let him stew in the cold wind for ten minutes and then sneaked up behind him. “I suppose I should call you ‘Senator' now.”

He jumped. “Black?”

“Happy to see me?”

“You'll have to leave. I'm meeting somebody.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“It's private. What are you doing here, anyway?” Maddox looked around for more surprises.

“I thought all along you were too damn confident about winning the election.”

“What do you mean?”

“You knew you were going to win even when the rest of the world thought you were screwed.”

“Confidence. It's a valuable asset to a politician. To anybody, really. You should try it.”

“Baloney, it was confidence. Kalpesh was working in the Sheffield camp, feeding information to Deborah. You guys knew everything they were going to do before they did it. When that didn't turn the trick, you brought in the big guns and had her plane taken down.”

“Are you insane?”

“And you're here to meet one of those big guns, aren't you?”

“Who would I be meeting that possibly—?”

“Timothy Hoagland.”

The name coming out of my mouth surprised him as much as my arrival had. “Hoagland's dead.”

“Then why are you meeting him? And how did you know that plane was going down before it happened?”

“My friend, paranoia is a one-note symphony. It bores people. Try to vary it a little.”

“You guys had it in the bag and knew it.”

“We had information, sure. Somebody from the other camp volunteers it … for whatever reason. Maybe they're looking for a job after the election. Maybe they're just a disgruntled employee. Get used to it. Everybody does it.”

“Does everybody conspire to murder their rival?”

“I don't have to listen to this.”

“You still haven't told me why you're out here in the cold waiting for a dead man.”

“He called.”

“Hoagland called? I thought you said he was dead.”

“Somebody called from his phone. Now get the hell out of my way.”

“I think you were involved in a conspiracy to commit murder. A murder that would have included my wife if she hadn't had a stroke of luck.”

“I saved your life, you ungrateful wretch.”

“Thanks for reminding me about the bomb. The question there is, was it set to get you or was it set to get me?”

“Don't inflate your own importance.”

“There's no inflation here. I'm just thinking it through.”

“You really have gone over the edge.”

“And Deborah? Who gave the order to get rid of her?”

“You need help.”

“Sooner or later, I'm going to prove this. Or enough of it to put you in jail.”

We glared at each other for a few seconds, during which he put on a show of righteous indignation. A few weeks ago it might have worked;

I might have doubted the conspiracy existed, doubted a U.S. senator was capable of such things, that there were black bag organizations in our country perpetuating outrageous travesties, but not now. For a few moments I thought about exacting justice on my own. I could slam the heel of my hand into his windpipe and have him on the ground in seconds. He'd be gasping for air, and I'd be standing on his throat. I could do it. I had the rage, the strength, and the cunning. I'd recovered from the bombing and was lifting weights again. He was a desk jockey. It was dark and nobody would see. Nobody would hear his cries, if he even had time to cry out. I would roll his silver-haired body down the hillside into the brush and drive his car to another city.

Instead, I watched him flounce back to his car and lock the doors behind him. Maybe he knew how close I'd come to assaulting him. Maybe it showed on my face. He knew the bomb had been meant for me, and he'd known it before it went off. Thinking back on how he'd treated me that day, it was easy to see that now. They killed four innocent bystanders in their attempt to get me, nine others when they killed Jane Sheffield. Add to the list Ponzi's husband. And Deborah. Tommy. It was maddening to know all this and not be able to prove it. It was even more maddening to watch him drive away and know he would soon be in Washington, D.C., preparing to rule the country.