Collision (13 page)

“This is a custodial interrogation,” Seymour said in his flat, slow speech. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say—”

“Hold on, Detective,” Taylor said. “I want—”

Ignoring the interruption, Seymour continued, “… can be used against you in a court of law.”

He paused long enough for Taylor to say, “I have the right to have an attorney present and—”

Seymour leaned forward and spread his hairy hands on the table. “Okay. Okay. You'll get a lawyer. So I'm not asking you any questions. I just want to tell you how it all looks to us. We don't get many murders on the Hill. So I'm just thinking out loud. There's a guy dead in an odd place, a place where gay guys sometimes meet each other. And there's another guy there with a cell phone whose number is in the dead guy's pocket. First on the scene, right? Well, lots of times—from what I know and what I read—lots of times the first on the scene is the guy who did it. When that happens, well, that guy explains what happened, and then the crime is solved and nobody has any need to prolong the proceedings.”

Seymour smiled and made an invitational gesture with his right hand.

“Oh, I see,” Taylor said, smiling back. “This is not a custodial interrogation anymore. It's just someone asking me to tell him a story, give him a narrative.”

“That's right,” Seymour said, pulling a notebook out of an inside pocket. He opened it, turned a page, and glanced at it. “That's right, Doctor. What kind of a doctor?”

“That's a question, Detective. But I won't count that as interrogation. I hold a doctorate in astrophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I am assistant director of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum and director of the Albert Einstein Planetarium there. If someone behind that two-way mirror on the wall there goes to a computer and logs on to the museum Internet site and searches my name, he'll see my face and get positive identity.”

Seymour nodded, and Taylor continued. “Cole Perenchio called me this afternoon. I've known him since we both went to MIT. And we later worked at Goddard and NASA Headquarters over on E Street in Washington. We hadn't seen each other for … I don't know. About a year.”

“The NASA place up in Greenbelt,” Seymour said, nodding again. “I've escorted members who went up there for congressional tours. Yeah, Cole Perenchio. That was the name on his driver's license. A Virginia license. Expired.”

Taylor ignored the interruption and continued speaking: “Cole said he had something to tell me, but he was very … very, well, I guess I could say paranoid. But he's—he was—kind of religious, and I think that colors the way he looks at—looked at—things. Anyway, he said it was urgent and could we meet in some quiet place. I suggested my house—on the Hill, Maryland Avenue. Cole said, No, someplace private. Where there won't be any wiretaps or bugs.”

“Wiretaps? Bugs? What was he talking about?”

“More questions, Detective. The answer is, I don't know.”

“Tell me more. That's not a question.”

“We agreed to meet tonight. I thought of the Summerhouse. It's quiet. I didn't expect rain. Anyway, I got there, saw he was shot, and dialed 911. That's the story.”

“I still have questions,” Seymour said, switching off the video.

“Then I need a lawyer. And when do I get my cell phone back? I need to call my daughter. She—”

Both men looked toward the sound of the door opening. Seymour rose and seemed to stand at attention. A short, rotund officer entered. His uniform sleeves had two stripes and his epaulets bore two stars. He introduced himself as Deputy Chief Barnett, the watch commander.

“You are free to go, Dr. Taylor,” Barnett said. “Great Web site. Took my granddaughter to the planetarium a couple of months ago. You are not a suspect.”

“But, we're not through here,” Seymour said plaintively. He was stunned that his suspect was being given a get-out-of-jail-free card. “We need to have Mr.… or Dr. Taylor here … sign a statement. We need to take some DNA samples. Jesus, boss, Congress, the press will be all over us if we…”

Barnett turned and pointed toward the detective. “Seymour,” he said, “give Dr. Taylor his cell phone.”

Nodding to Taylor, Barnett said, “A car will take you home.”

Taylor stood and walked toward the door. Barnett, standing before the open door, shook hands with Taylor and stood there a moment, looking up. “Sorry for the temporary misunderstanding,” he said. “As Detective Seymour told you, we don't get many homicides to deal with. If what happened was a street crime—your friend was in the wrong place at the wrong time and maybe you, too, if you had got there earlier—we could handle it. But from what you said—yep, I was behind the mirror—it sounds like maybe there's more to it. So we'll probably have to call in the FBI. You are a material witness. So you'll be part of the investigation. But, of course, you're free to go.”

Taylor nodded, thanked Deputy Chief Barnett, and moved quickly out the door.

Detective Seymour was not happy. “So tell me how this goes down. We have a guy in custody who's found at the scene of a murder, and you spring him in less than an hour just because he's a big shot?”

“Watch your mouth, Detective,” Barnett cautioned. “I released him because I listened to his statement and I believe him. And I don't want to have a story in tomorrow's
Post
that as far as the Capitol Police, the gang that can't shoot straight, are concerned, ‘No good deed should go unpunished'!

“Dr. Taylor could have walked away from the crime scene and all you would have found was a piece of paper with Taylor's number on it. So you would have gone to the Smithsonian tomorrow and arrested him on that?”

“Yeah, well all I know is that in this town, money talks…”

“And bullshit walks, Detective,” Barnett shot back. “Don't slam the door on your way out.”

 

26

Darlene Taylor was standing
in the doorway of a three-story brick house. A hall light silhouetted her, the shadow of her slim body streaming onto a small lawn. Beyond was a low wrought-iron fence that bore a bronze historical marker showing the house had been built in 1877. A rainy breeze sent a shower of orange leaves flying down Maryland Avenue toward the lighted dome of the Capitol, a few blocks away.

When the police car pulled up, Darlene ran to the opening gate in four quick steps and threw her arms around Taylor. She was nearly as tall as her father, even now, in bare feet. She wore gray jeans and a sweatshirt bearing the faded blue letters “USAF.” In a moment she stepped back and said, “Well, thanks for finally calling me … and from a cop car. What the hell was that all about? I was worried sick.”

“Let me in the house and I'll try to tell you,” Taylor said. “I'm still sorting it out.”

They walked directly through the entry-hall door to the kitchen. Darlene went to the refrigerator. “There's chicken salad,” she said.

“Thanks, sweetie,” Taylor said, uttering a word that always pleased and mildly exasperated her. She served a helping onto a plate already set, with knife, fork, and napkin at one end of the table in the middle of the kitchen. “Eat and go to bed,” she said, taking her usual chair across from him.

“This is very good chicken salad.”

“Mom's recipe,” Darlene said softly.

A sudden flash of memory. A neighbor had brought chicken salad to the house after Caroline died. He had taken only a bite of that salad.
Now it's going on six years, and Caroline is sort of still here.

“It's the curry,” he said. “Exactly enough curry.”

After finishing the salad, Taylor rose, went to the refrigerator, and took out a beer. As he twisted off the cap, Darlene frowned. “A glass of milk would be better for you at this hour,” she said. “It's nearly one o'clock.”

He sat down again. “A teetotaler like you,” he said, “would not understand that after you've been accused of murder, a glass of milk is not quite enough.”

“Murder?”

“Hold on. I told you I was still sorting it out,” he said in a slow, steady voice that she recognized as his lecturing voice. “Yesterday I got a phone call from an old friend, and—”

“Who?” Darlene asked.

“Cole Perenchio. You wouldn't know him.”

“And he's the dead man, the murdered guy?”

“Yes. I haven't seen him in about a year. He was still at Goddard when I left. He told me he needed to speak to me, privately. He—”

“What did he want to tell you?”

“I don't know.”

“You must have some idea,” she persisted.

“Sweetie, this is a long night. A lot of questions. I told the cops and now I tell you: I didn't have any idea about what he wanted to tell. I suggested that we meet at the Summerhouse. From there, I thought I could convince him to walk home with me. Where we'd be more comfortable.”

“The Summerhouse? I know you admire Olmsted and the Capitol grounds. So do I. Still, a funny place for some kind of secret meeting. But okay. So you—”

“When I got there, he was on a bench. Dead. Shot in the back of the head.”

“My God! If you had…”

“No. Somehow I feel he was targeted, followed. I don't think anyone wanted to kill
me
. But the Summerhouse. I'll never think of it the way I always have.”

“Neither will I,” Darlene said. “And I do remember him.”

“What? You never would have met him. I never really knew him socially, never invited him home. We were colleagues, guys who worked together. After he left Goddard we kept in touch. Lunch, maybe a beer—well, for me, not him. Anyway, you never met him.”

“Yes, I did. You took me to Goddard on one of those stupid take-your-daughter-to-work days. It was
so
embarrassing. I'll never forget it. Here I was, a thirteen-year-old, starting high school, and you were treating me like I was an eight-year-old, holding my hand, bragging about my marks, my cross-country running. Oh, I'll never forget it. We were in that room with the big centrifuge they used for spinning astronauts, and they were doing a job for the Department of Transportation, seeing what it would take to make a car roll over, spinning a big SUV around and around. That was terrific, but of course I couldn't tell you that because I was sulking.”

“The centrifuge. That's right,” Taylor said, amazed at her uncanny ability to recall minor events. “What else do you remember?”

“I had said something about not seeing many black scientists. I was just beginning to go big into civil rights. And you said something about NASA was working on it—you always did have a good word for NASA. And—”

“Well, for good reason,” Taylor interrupted. “It was a good place. And they were always working on increasing their racial diversity.”

“Right,” Darlene said. “And I'm sure things are different now. But I'm talking about my memories. I remember saying something like, ‘Then where are the black experts besides you?' And you said, ‘Well, I'll show you a black guy that I sometimes work with.' And you took me off to the place where they did Earth observations with satellites, and you introduced me to Cole Perenchio. He had an odd name for a black man. I wanted to ask him about it. He was polite but … I don't know … uneasy. It struck me that he was the kind of person who was a loner and isn't comfortable around kids.”

“What else do you remember?”

“Not much. Just that I felt sort of sorry for him?”

“Why?”

“Well—you're going to like this—I think because he didn't seem to be fatherly. Like he didn't know how to deal with kids, with people.” She smiled and paused to reach across the table to break off a bite of cheese.

“I
do
like that ‘fatherly.'”

Taylor paused, lost in memories that Darlene's memories summoned.
The first year without Caroline, the first year as a lonely, solitary father.
He had a mind that he tried to keep compartmentalized. But sometimes, that mind blurred then and now.

“You're right about Cole,” Taylor said. “He was a bachelor, and lots of times instead of going to the cafeteria for lunch he'd just wander off somewhere. Yes, that was the way he was.… Strange.”

 

27

The GPS on the
Mercedes dashboard said that it was 125 miles to the New Jersey Turnpike. By being a cautious driver who happened to have a police radar detector in his car, Viktor Yazov figured he would beat the GPS estimate of two hours and fifty-one minutes by at least twenty minutes, even though he had to stop at all the tolls; E-ZPass gave out too much information.

He paid the toll for Baltimore's Harbor Tunnel forty-two minutes after leaving Washington, and now the rest of the trip was a no-brainer. Cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge and hit that first stop on the Jersey Turnpike and get that hamburger. Back to home grounds.

Most cars, showing E-ZPasses, whizzed through the entrance to the New Jersey Turnpike. Yazov inched his way up a non-E-Z lane and was handed a toll ticket. A few miles down the turnpike, Yazov turned in to the first service stop, the John Fenwick, named after a seventeenth-century Quaker. Yazov pulled up to a Sunoco pump and ordered an attendant to fill the tank, as usual paying cash, adding a five-dollar tip that earned him a clean windshield. He drove to the parking area and parked in the first row, in a space facing the food court. They hurried inside, visited the men's room, guardedly avoiding eye contact, and headed for the lines strung out at the counters for the brand of your choice.

Yazov ordered two Burger King combos, fries, and coffee. Kurpanov fidgeted in the Nathan's line, stammering when he ordered two hot dogs and a chocolate milkshake. They had agreed to take their food to the car rather than linger inside. But Kurpanov insisted on dousing his hot dogs with mustard and ketchup. He was several steps behind Yazov when he hit the button to unlock the car. At that moment Yazov saw two New Jersey State Police cruisers enter the parking lot.