Collateral Damage (19 page)

E
lias Cummings walked through the underground garage to where his car was parked. He tried to remember the last time he’d actually driven himself anywhere, but he couldn’t come up with a time or a date. He hoped the five-year-old Chrysler would start. More to the point, would there be enough gas in the car to get him to McLean? He tried to remember when he’d last filled the tank. Once again he couldn’t come up with a time or a date.

A fine layer of dust was all over the black Chrysler, which told him it had been many moons since he’d driven it. The car chirped twice when he clicked the remote.

He settled himself behind the wheel, turned on the engine, then the windshield washers to clear the grimy windshield. He looked down at the gas gauge and saw that it was one line below full. He was good to go. The only problem was he didn’t want to go. What he wanted to do was go home and go to bed. He was sick and tired of the demands, the pressures, the agents. He was just damn sick and tired of everything.

He hadn’t wanted the damn job as director of the FBI to begin with. He’d been pressured into taking it on when the vigilantes came down on Mitch Riley. He struggled to remember how many times he’d trooped to the White House, how many times he’d respectfully declined the appointment. Until…Well, he wasn’t going to think about the
until
part, and if he was lucky, he’d never have to think about it ever again. The
until
part was why he was sitting here right now and why he
was
the director of the FBI.

He’d stepped up to the plate with gusto and done a damn fine job, with one exception: the vigilantes. Cummings could feel his shoulders tense up. The
Post
and every other damn paper in the District, and even the outlying papers, had had a field day with the Bureau’s unsuccessful attempts to apprehend the fugitives. Hell, the Bureau had been reduced to a laughingstock worldwide. There was no point in denying it, even to himself. Now, with new ownership at the
Post,
it was a whole new ball game.

Cummings swung the Chrysler out of the garage, flicked on the GPS, and roared down the street. His thoughts came back, darker and more ominous than before. He really didn’t want to think about the call that had come through on his private cell phone at six o’clock on the dot. Most telephone conversations were two-way calls, but this one was meant for him just to listen. He hadn’t said a word and when he closed his cell phone, his hand was shaking.

Cummings tried to slouch down in his seat, but his legs were too long. He wanted to close his eyes and recall the words he’d heard. But if he did that, they would be carrying him away in a body bag. Everyone knew you had to keep your eyes on the road in order to get where you were going. Not that he wanted to go there. He didn’t.

According to the voice on the phone, tomorrow’s paper was going to be devoted to editorials, op-ed pieces, columns, and articles—showing the paper had swung toward Martine Connor as the next nominee of the Democratic Party. And once she got the nomination, the paper would go all-out to get her elected president. Then the voice had given him a direct order: “Find out exactly who the new owner of the paper is. Sift through the mysterious corporations, the equally mysterious holding companies, and get back to me with the results.” The call had ended with the voice saying, “You’re the fucking FBI, so start acting like it.”

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried. He’d had a whole division of agents working on just that the moment the rumor hit the street that the paper was being bought up. He’d even sweated Lizzie Fox, who handled the final sign-off. For all the good it did him. He hated to admit it, but Lizzie Fox was almost as powerful as he was. So were the judges she was on a first-name basis with. On top of that, Lizzie Fox was a sexpot who looked hot as a firecracker, and he just looked like a grizzly old grandfather with watery eyes and two bad hips that needed to be replaced.

His worst nightmare was that somehow, some way, it would come to light that those crazy women owned the paper. He couldn’t conceive of how that could possibly be, but in this new world, anything was possible. Especially when it came to the vigilantes. He gritted his teeth as he tried to figure out how it could have been done. It couldn’t. It was that simple. He’d been assured by a hundred-plus lawyers that it could never happen. Did he believe those hundred-plus lawyers? Hell no, he didn’t. The minute he knew Lizzie Fox was involved, he’d tossed in the towel.

It suddenly dawned on Cummings that he was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. How the hell did that happen? He didn’t stop to think about it, simply reached over for the magnetic flashing strobe, powered down the window, reached out, and stuck the flashing light on the roof of the Chrysler. A second later he activated the device, and it shrilled with the shriek of the siren. He inched his way out of the traffic and roared down the road, his hand on the horn for good measure. He was finally able to slow down once he passed what looked like a rear-end accident. He didn’t see an ambulance. A group of people were standing next to three state troopers gesturing wildly, no doubt each blaming the other. To his practiced eye it looked like, aside from the traffic pileup, the troopers had the situation in hand.

Still, Cummings kept the strobe flashing and siren wailing until he got to the turnoff that led to Nellie’s farm. He wondered, and not for the first time, how a federal judge managed to afford such a luxurious spread in McLean, where the prices were over the moon.

He drove up the long road that had to be at least a mile and a half before he came to the stout iron security gates. Nellie had done all right for herself. As long as you didn’t count losing a daughter in a terrible car accident. And yet, somehow, she’d managed to survive that mortal blow and go on. Just like Myra Rutledge had gone on after losing her daughter. Nellie had been a damn fine judge and had proven to be a good friend to his now-deceased wife and him over the years. He owed her, it was that simple.

He knew, just knew, Nellie Easter was involved in the mess confronting him, and he also knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He could threaten till he turned blue, and she’d never admit to anything but her name and possibly her Social Security number.

The big question facing him was why she had invited him out to the farm for dinner. Now that he thought about the phone conversation he’d had with her earlier, it hadn’t been so much an invitation but an order. Where the hell did she get off ordering him around? The fact that he’d accepted and was now just feet from her front door made him wonder why all the more. For a home-cooked meal? He hadn’t had one of those in months and months. A couple of stiff bourbons? Playtime with all her cats?
What am I doing here? Well, I’ll find out soon enough,
he thought, as he climbed out of the car and headed up to the wide front porch.

The lights were on, even the spotlights at all the corners of the big farmhouse. A bale of hay with a stuffed scarecrow sat underneath the porch light. Pumpkins, all sizes, were lined up, along with pots and pots of colorful fall flowers. His wife used to do the same thing, God rest her soul. Even when the children went off to college, then married, she’d continued to decorate the porch for every single holiday because they
might
come home. They rarely did because they were too busy with their own lives. He wondered what his wife would have thought if she’d known their two sons hadn’t made it home for her funeral. They came afterward, and he’d asked them why they had bothered. Ever since, they’d been estranged. His daughters were no better. They’d left right after the service, saying they had things to do. He just stood alone and shook his head. Ungrateful bunch of shits was his final assessment of his children.

They called on Father’s Day and, if he was lucky, maybe Christmas. He never called them, it was too painful to be told by whoever answered the phone that they weren’t there or couldn’t come to the phone.

A year ago he’d changed his will and left his sizable portfolio, his house, everything else he owned, thanks to his wife’s expert management, to the hospice that took care of her at the end.

He thought about the day he’d marched his ass into Lizzie Fox’s office and told her what he wanted her to do. When she’d looked at him with tears in her eyes and asked him why he was doing what he was doing, he’d said, “Just call me a wild and crazy guy, and let it go at that.” Then he did something even wilder and crazier when he appointed Lizzie Fox executrix of his estate. He’d walked away from her office with lighter shoulders knowing that his four children would never go up against Lizzie Fox.

Lizzie was up to her eyeballs in this mess, as he referred to it, just the way Nellie was.

Cummings banged on the door a moment after he spotted the doorbell. Normally, when he came out, he drove around to the back and entered through the kitchen. He took a moment to wonder why he’d come to the front door instead.

The door opened. “I have a doorbell, Elias. My cats are used to the doorbell. When you banged on the door, you scared them half to death. And, you’re late. My roast chicken is going to be all dried out, and you’re going to complain. Well, come in. Why are you still standing out there?” she asked briskly.

“I was admiring your décor and reminiscing. Marian always used to do up our porch like this. We’re getting old, Nellie. Do you remember the trick-or-treaters and how much fun it was on Halloween night?”

“I remember,” Nellie said with a catch in her voice. “It was a lifetime ago. I don’t think this is the time for either one of us to stroll down Memory Lane.”

“You’re right. Do you want to tell me why I’m here, or should we wait till after we eat the dried-out chicken?”

“I lied. The chicken isn’t dried out. I knew you’d be late because you’re always late, so I put the chicken in an hour later. Come along now. I have your drink all ready.”

It was a pleasant kitchen, almost like his own when Marian was still alive. She’d change the color scheme every so often. It was homey and cozy. He’d always liked eating in the kitchen. For some reason he now felt calm, relaxed, as he waited for whatever shoe Nellie was going to drop.

“Does anyone know you came out here, Elias?” Nellie asked coolly, looking him straight in the eye.

“No, Nellie, no one knows. I gave my driver the evening off. He’s going to come back to the Bureau at midnight to pick me up and take me home. I told him I had to work late on something important. Why am I here, Nellie? Off the record, okay?”

Nellie casually stuck her hand in her pocket to bring out her cigarettes and lighter before she turned the miniature cassette player to the
ON
position. She offered her guest a cigarette that he refused. She lit up and puffed away.

“You really need to give those things up, Nellie.”

“I’m working on it, Elias. One of these days. We should make small talk now. Tell me how life is treating you. How did all those clowns you have working at the Bureau fare over Halloween?”

Elias bristled. “That was very unkind, Nellie, and so unworthy of you.”

“You think?”

Nellie got up and started to put the warming dishes on the table. She’d carved the chicken right before Elias arrived. In some ways it was like a Thanksgiving dinner, with all the same vegetables and stuffing. “Just eat, Elias. Tell me how good it is, and we’ll go from there. I can even make up a plate for you when you leave. We’re also having pie, but I didn’t make it. There’s this lovely lady who lives in Kalorama who makes the most delectable pies in the whole world. Today I was one of the grateful recipients,” Nellie lied with a straight face. There was no need for Elias to know that she’d picked up the pie from a Safeway bakery in town earlier in the day. “I’m sure you know her, perhaps not personally, but I’m sure you’ve heard of her, Paula Woodley, she’s the wife of the former national security advisor.”

The fork halfway to his mouth, Elias stared across the table at his old friend, who was chewing contentedly and slipping slivers of chicken to the cats lined up at her feet. He forked the stuffing into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and said, “This is every bit as good as Marian’s recipe. If you have something to say to me, Nellie, say it. I hate this dancing around things. I know what went on out there today. Why does it not surprise me that you know? Let’s hear it. I really am capable of eating, thinking, and talking at the same time. It’s called multitasking. I’d really like to know how you know what went down at the Woodley home?”

“Talking while you eat is not good for the digestion,” Nellie snapped. “I just know things,” she added as an afterthought.

“Then be so kind as to tell me what else you know before I haul your butt back to town.”

“That’s an idle threat, and you know it, Elias. Shame on you for even saying it. I know that Erin Powell was your mole and not Bert Navarro. I know that you set her up to fail. I know she sent a handwritten letter to your office saying exactly what I just told you before she skedaddled to parts unknown. That’s another way of saying she was undercover for the vigilantes.”

This was the shoe that dropped. Nellie’s bomb. Elias stopped eating. Suddenly he felt sick to his stomach. “And you know this…how?”

Nellie waved her arms around. “I just know things,” she said again vaguely.

Elias finished off his bourbon, then looked surprised when he saw that the glass was empty. He got up to refill it, and he didn’t stint. He looked down at Nellie’s glass, and she nodded. “Tell me what else you know.”

“No. You tell me what you know. I went first. Don’t even think about lying to me, Elias.”

“You’re one of
them,
aren’t you?” Elias asked. It was a statement of fact, not really a question.

Nellie surprised herself when she said, “Yes, Elias, I am. The only reason I’m telling you this is because I know those bastards on the hill have you by the short hairs. They’re blackmailing you. Don’t deny it. I saw Riley’s dossier on you. If it’s any consolation to you, I would have done the same thing you did and let the Devil take my soul for doing it. Now, it really is your turn. By the way, I know all about that weasel Winters.”