Multiple Exposure A Sophie Medina Mystery (27 page)

Duval showed up at twelve sharp wearing black running shorts and a faded gray USMC T-shirt, and carrying a small backpack slung over one shoulder. Wraparound sunglasses, Nats baseball cap, and a water bottle. Just another D.C. resident out for a run on a spectacular end-of-summer Saturday.

He sat next to me on a stone bench in the shade of an oak tree and said, “Thanks for coming. Been waiting long?”

Something told me he hadn’t just arrived. Maybe he had binoculars in that backpack and this was a trick question to test my honesty.

Maybe I was becoming paranoid.

“I got here early since I didn’t know the park or where this monument was located.”

“Seriously? You’ve never been here? You mean you don’t know about the drum circle?”

“Seriously. What drum circle?”

“It’s famous, been going on for years. People show up with djembes, bongos, timbales—anything that makes noise—every Sunday, rain or shine, starting at three o’clock. You come to play, dance, or just listen.” He cracked open his water bottle. “You can look it up on the Internet, see a couple of videos. There’s always a crowd.”

“Including you?”

He shrugged. “You’d be surprised how much lower your stress level is after you spend a couple of hours wailing away on a drum.”

Up until this moment I’d figured Napoleon Duval vanished into the ether at the end of the day until he reappeared the next morning wearing his crusader’s cape. Now it seemed as though maybe he lived around here. If he did, then Duval and I were now neighbors.

“You didn’t invite me here to talk about cultural events in D.C. and broaden my horizons,” I said, “did you?”

He set down the water bottle, unzipped the backpack, and took out a large envelope. “Have a look.”

I undid the clasp and slid out an eight-by-ten photograph. Slightly out of focus, it appeared to have been taken in a hurry. A hundred or so people—men only, no women—were divided into two angry groups facing each other. A few of the younger ones in the front rows had their arms raised, ready to hurl whatever they were holding. Stones, by the look of it. I didn’t see any weapons.

With all the editing I do in my profession, I’m an expert at scanning faces even in big crowds, homing in on whether eyes are open or closed, if the smile is forced or natural, details like that. Blurry or not, I spotted Nick right away and my heart lurched against my rib cage. He was standing between two men on the periphery of that hostile scene, dressed in a white kurta shirt and a knit kufi cap like his friends. The beard and dark blond hair were even longer than in the picture I’d seen of him in Vienna, and his skin was deeply tanned as though he’d spent a lot of time outdoors. If you didn’t know better, he almost passed as a local.

Where in the world was he? A city street, not a residential district. Crumbling buildings of brick and concrete block with corrugated flat metal roofs. A distant minaret and a gold onion dome, fuzzy through a web of crisscrossing telephone lines. Weeds poking through cracks in the broken pavement. Cars that looked old, from a different generation. Gray skies, a pale blue line of mountains in the background, everyone dressed in drab colors. These people were poor. I ran through a mental list of all the places I’d been with IPS that looked like this. Almost all involved wars or an ongoing conflict; the leaders were despots, corrupt individuals who swept their country’s resources into their own coffers, living like kings while the masses endured grinding poverty.

The only clues were the minaret and the gold dome. Somewhere with mosques and churches, Muslims and Orthodox Christians. Abadistan fit that description.

I looked up. “Where was this taken and when?”

“See anyone you recognize?” Duval asked.

“Oh, come on.”

“Answer the question,” he said, “please.”

“Of course I do. That’s Nick. Right there.” I pointed to him. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

“We weren’t entirely sure,” he said. “Thank you for confirming it. And to answer your question, it was taken in Iskar fifteen days ago.”

I’d been right. Iskar was the provincial capital of Abadistan, a small port city on the Caspian Sea where Crowne Energy had its offices . . . used to have its offices.

“What was Nick doing in Iskar?” I said. “I’m sure you know that, too.”

“Actually, we don’t know.” He held out his hand for the photo and slid it back into the envelope. “But I will tell you this. Fifteen days ago, Nick’s CIA handler was found with his throat slit in a warehouse used by Crowne Energy.”

I swallowed and said, “Nick didn’t do it.”

“I understand your loyalty to your husband. I didn’t say he did.”

“Don’t patronize me, Agent Duval.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. We don’t know who killed our guy, but until this photo surfaced, we had no idea Nicholas Canning was in the region. One of our local informants was taking pictures of this scene just before it turned into a full-blown riot. Imagine our surprise when we started looking to see who was among the boys in the band and he popped up.”

I ignored the sarcasm and said, “Why were they rioting?”

“A young Abadi who owned a fruit stall in the local market was shot and killed by a Russian
militsia
the day before. The Russian said the kid was armed and threatened him. When they got to his body, he was holding a banana, not a gun.”

“Oh, God.”

Across from Duval and me, a young African-American mother chased two little boys playing with a bright blue ball near the reflecting pool. The kids shrieked as one of them threw the ball into the water and it drifted out of reach.

The mother stood there, hands on hips. “Now what did I tell you about throwing that ball near the water?”

“Ms. Medina, if your husband didn’t murder his handler, I’ll bet you anything he knows who did,” Duval said. “Let me repeat what I told you yesterday: He needs to come in and stop running. I can’t urge you strongly enough to do what you can to make that happen. Do I make myself clear?”

I nodded, feeling numb. “Yes.”

“Good,” he said. “Because the longer he stays out, the guiltier he looks. Now he’s wanted for questioning in connection with two deaths, not just one. The way we see it, he had means, opportunity . . . and possibly a motive for both of them. If he is in possession of those well logs, they are worth a great deal of money to the right people. In a court of law, you line up means, motive, and opportunity and you’ve made a good start toward a murder conviction.”

“Nick is no murderer.”

Duval stood up. “Then get him to show up and prove it. You have a nice day, Ms. Medina.”

18

Duval walked away without turning around because to do so would have ruined his perfect, devastating exit line. As soon as he passed the fountain, he veered off toward one of the staircases and I lost sight of him. For a long while I sat on the granite bench next to the mottled bronze statue of James Buchanan and replayed our conversation over and over in my head until a sharp little wind blew across the reflecting pool, ruffling the water and skittering dry leaves across the plaza. Finally, I got up, walked out of the park, and headed down 16th Street with no destination in mind except the need to clear my head.

My God, how had it come to this? Nick wanted for questioning in the deaths of his boss and his CIA handler? If Duval’s people found him, they would be merciless. Not if,
when.

Sixteenth Street gradually became less residential and more commercial after I passed the Scottish Rite temple, where the blocks were lined with embassies, hotels, trade associations, and think tanks. It felt good to walk, to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and just keep going, counting off steps in my head, because that way I didn’t have to think.

Eventually I ended up at Lafayette Square in front of the White House. There was a crowd, as there always is, the usual mix of protesters holding signs or sitting in the park—
GET THE US OUT OF THE UN, NO TO OFFSHORE DRILLING
—and gawking tourists snapping pictures or staring at the lovely, serene mansion on the other side of the high wrought-iron fence. Now that Pennsylvania Avenue was closed to traffic between 15th and 17th Streets for security reasons, a group of guys played street hockey on the broad, smooth expanse of granite. If Nick had been here, he would have somehow sussed out that there would be a pickup game—jungle drums, texting, whatever—and shown up with a pair of inline skates and a borrowed hockey stick. He’d have gotten a kick out of playing with a bunch of aging jocks a few hundred yards from where the president of the United States might be watching—maybe with some envy—from a window.

It was one of the many things I loved about my husband—his spontaneity, his delight in something offbeat or quirky, his passion for anything to do with sports. Whenever he traveled, especially on business, he’d take his running shoes and look for a game to join—soccer, basketball, softball, even bocce—or else he’d round up a bunch of people and organize something himself. Even if they didn’t speak the same language and nobody understood anyone else, Nick didn’t care. He was the Pied Piper; he could talk you into going along with him, doing anything.

I loved that adventurous streak, his zany sense of humor, and his sense of wonder. He was a romantic and a daredevil, a man of great charm and a serious scholar. Right now I missed him so badly the ache hurt like a physical pain in my heart.

I found a bench in Lafayette Square and pulled out my phone, intending to write Nick one more time and plead with him to get in touch with me. Instead a text message from Jack popped up on my screen. He’d sent it ten minutes ago.

At Georgetown main campus having lunch with Sully. He has info. Will fill you in.

Jack’s priest friend who had been a classmate of Scott Hathaway and Taras Attar.

I called and he answered right away. “Hey,” he said. “I just sent you a text.”

“I know. I’m in Lafayette Square. I could take a cab and be at Georgetown in about ten or fifteen minutes. We could talk in person. Would that be okay?”

“Sure.” He sounded surprised. “Get the cab to drop you by the stadium. We’re at the JesRes around the corner. Good thing there’s no home football game today or you’d never get near the place. See you when you get here.”

After I hung up, I wrote Nick and this time I didn’t bother with any of our coded messages.

Everyone looking for you after incident in Iskar. They have photos. Get in touch. URGENT.

Then I walked over to 15th Street and hailed a cab to Georgetown.

*

Jack and a man with snow-white hair cut like someone had used a perfect round bowl were sitting on a stone wall in front of the redbrick Jesuit residence hall—the JesRes—when I joined them in the lower-level plaza by the front entrance fifteen minutes later. Neither of them had on their funny clothes, as Jack called them, but there was something in the way they carried themselves—a dignity, or perhaps a certain grace and presence—that marked them as priests, in spite of the jeans and T-shirts.

Jack got up to kiss me and introduce me to Father Patrick Sullivan. Father Pat had eyes the same brilliant blue as the football stadium banner I just saw that said
BLEED HOYA BLUE,
and his fair skin was covered with so many freckles and sunspots he almost looked tanned. He shook my hand and said with a faint Irish lilt, “Himself’s been telling me all about you.”

“The good parts are true,” I said, and the blue eyes lit up as he laughed.

“Have a seat, Soph.” Jack made space for me between the two of them. “I told Sully you were curious about Scott Hathaway and Taras Attar’s friendship when they were students.”

I nodded. “You knew them, Father?”

“That I did,” he said. “We were all on the chess team. I believe that’s how Taras and Scott met each other, as well. Both terrifically competitive lads in just about everything. When they played each other, you’d think it was Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky all over again, the rivalry was so fierce.”

“Did you also know someone named Katya?” I asked. “I don’t know her maiden name, but her married name is Gordon. I believe she was a friend of Scott Hathaway’s.”

The blue eyes crinkled in thought and he frowned. The drone of traffic from Canal Road below us, the sound of planes overhead taking off and landing at Reagan Airport, and the hubbub of a busy university campus on a beautiful Saturday afternoon faded to a pleasant background buzz. Two female students passing by on the upper level sidewalk called out to Father Pat.

He acknowledged them with a wave and said, “Katya? No, sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. But then, Scott had the ladies hanging all over him. She could have been part of his harem. It was hard to keep track . . . Scott flirted with every pretty girl he met.”

So Father Pat didn’t know Katya. Not the answer I’d been hoping for, but at least he confirmed that Hathaway had always been a skirt chaser.

“Did Taras have the ladies hanging all over him, too?”

He nodded. “Oh, indeed. Handsome devils, the pair of them, and they knew it. You heard stories about . . . well, competing, as lads do. I’m sure you can imagine. Though Taras was a wee bit more serious than Scott. Had to keep up his grades since he was here on scholarship. Plus, I believe he worked on campus . . . the library, I think it was. ” He paused and said, “May I ask why you’re curious about them after all these years?”

“I was one of the photographers at the National Gallery the other night when Senator Hathaway defended his friendship with Taras Attar to the Russian ambassador. The situation got pretty ugly, but Hathaway wouldn’t back down,” I said. “I just wondered how the two of them had become friends.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I read about that little dust-up with the ambassador in the paper. No, the friendship’s genuine. They were thick as thieves in those days, always had each other’s back. The only time I remember any acrimony was when Scott took up with . . . I guess you’d call her an exotic dancer. He met her at a bar off campus. From what I heard she was an absolutely stunning lass. Taras said she was no good and that she’d only bring him grief, but Scott wouldn’t listen. He was obsessed . . . missed our end-of-year tournament because they’d been off together somewhere. He caught the devil for it, but he didn’t care, which was surprising if you knew Scott.”