Political Suicide (16 page)

“Papa Steve?”

“He is … was Elias’s closest friend, and Mark’s godfather. He and Elias served together in the marines. Elias would brag that Papa Steve could blow the antennae of a fly without killing it. They were like brothers. If Elias spoke about Wyatt Brody with anybody, it would have been with Papa Steve.”

Jeannine gave Lou Papa Steve’s number and promised to call Hector right away.

“One last thing,” Lou said. “Did the congressman ever mention a place called the Pine Forest Clinic?”

“Not that I recall. What’s that?”

“I guess from the logo that it’s a clinic of some sort located in Shockley, Minnesota. I found an empty envelope in the top drawer of Elias’s desk addressed to a James Styles at a P.O. box in Bowie.”

“Bowie, Maryland?”

“Exactly. And the return address was that clinic in Minnesota.”

“No idea. If I make any connections with that one, I’ll let you know.”

After repeating her promise to try to contact Hector Rodriguez, Jeannine ended the call.

Lou left a message for Papa Steve. The man’s gravelly voice mail greeting made Lou think of what Santa Claus might have sounded like if he carried a bazooka and a bag of C-4 explosives in his sleigh. He was on his way back to the kitchen table when Diversity attacked his leg from the side of the couch as if he were being chased by a coyote and Lou was an oak. The encounter lasted only a few seconds before Lou could shake free from his new nemesis, but the pain would endure considerably longer.

Cursing, he rolled up his pants leg, blotted away the blood from three neat rows of gouges, and swathed the area with soapy water and Neosporin. Then he added buying Band-Aids to the to-do list taped on the door of the fridge.

Twenty minutes later, the phone rang.

“Dr. Welcome,” he said, thinking it might be Papa Steve returning his call.

A youthful, somewhat anxious voice, said, “My name is Hector Rodriguez. Mark Colston’s mother called me a little while ago. She said you wanted to speak with me about Congressman Colston’s murder.”

Lou explained his involvement with the case.

“What’s that got to do with me?” Rodriguez asked.

“Elias Colston wrote down some notes regarding a conversation you had with him. Do you recall speaking with him at a bar a few years back? You talked about a bunch of things—Mark Colston, Wyatt Brody, and a group you guys call the Palace Guards.”

Lou thought about telling him the conversation had been recorded, but did not want to risk spooking him even more. He could usually tell when a patient was holding back on him, and Hector was giving off the same vibes.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the marine said after an edgy pause.

“Hector, a good friend of mine is facing life in jail for a crime he might not have committed. I think your conversation with Colston could be the key to sorting things out. Listen, I’ll come all the way out there to speak with you. I won’t need more than an hour of your time.”

Lou held his breath while Hector went quiet again. “One hour,” Hector said. “And not a minute more.”

CHAPTER 21

Lou finished an all-nighter in the ER plus an extra three hours covering for a doc with some sort of GI nastiness. Occupational hazard. Finally, he trudged to the on-call room and dived facedown on the narrow, industrial bed. His nightmare this day, what he remembered of it, anyway, featured cats.

By the time the alarm clock sounded at one in the afternoon, Lou was totally disoriented and probably as distressed in his gut as the doctor he had replaced. The trapezius muscles across his shoulders had developed knots the size of golf balls, and the grit in his eyes refused to wash away. It was the way of the typical late-night ER shift—feelings no less familiar to him than breathing.

Lou stopped at the hospital’s Starbucks for what he called road juice—espresso macchiato. Then he headed for the doctors’ parking lot, which was tucked at the center of the hospital complex, among a dozen or so buildings, half of them outdated and antiquated, and half under new construction.

Before leaving the lot for the four-hour drive to Hayes, West Virginia, Lou called home, wishfully expecting some sort of message on his answering machine from Detective Chris Bryzinski, telling him to stop by the station to pick up a copy of the disc. Nothing doing. Between Sarah’s scorn and Jeannine Colston’s rebuke, he wasn’t exactly feeling at the top of his game. He had learned many invaluable lessons from his years of sobriety, but he still balked at accepting anything less than perfection in himself.

Nothing doing there, either.

Traffic was reasonably light as he headed out of the city and toward the Monongahela Mountains, a segment of the Appalachian range straddling West Virginia and Virginia. A Talking Heads CD helped battle back the blearies, and the notion of meeting face-to-face with Hector Rodriguez more or less completed the job.

Would Hector be able to remember enough details of a conversation from years ago to satisfy Sarah? Lou had his doubts. He wondered how Gary was doing in jail. Being locked up was certainly the ultimate lesson in humiliation.

It was just after sunset on a day that was hovering around freezing, when Lou rolled into Hayes. The
ENTERING HAYES
sign was legible, but pocked with bullet holes. His plan was to spend some time before his rendezvous with Hector getting a feel for the place. Hector had provided detailed directions to their meeting spot, but Lou needed only to exit the highway to find the Wildwood Motel. Pulling into the driveway, he took in the folksy look of the weather-beaten sign suspended on a pair of rusty hooks. Judging by the dearth of cars in the motel parking lot, he suspected it was not frequent that someone tacked up a
NO
before the word
VACANCY
.

The Wildwood might not get a five-diamond rating from AAA, but the clean, single-story motel was head and shoulders above the residents’ quarters at Eisenhower. Having phoned ahead, Lou already had a room waiting in his name. If things did not go well with Hector, and there were no notes to compile, he would probably just put on another Talking Heads CD, leave a tip on the unmade bed for housekeeping, and drive home.

Hayes was a military town—pretty much as expected, but on a smaller scale. Lou drove around some of the back roads, but quickly concluded that Main Street was where most of what passed for action took place. It had two bars, one Chinese restaurant, a burger joint, and a dilapidated lumber mill that still appeared to be active. Wanting to get more familiar with the home of Mantis Company, Lou made a pit stop at a bar called Ralphie’s, which possessed the grungy charm of the dives he once loved to frequent but, at this day and hour at least, none of the patrons.

He ordered a Diet Coke from the bartender—mid-forties, apron, tattoos, nicotine stains, five o’clock shadow—and rated the fountain Coke a surprising seven and a half for taste, temperature, and carbonation. On the Welcome scale, developed after Diet Coke replaced Wild Turkey as his drink of choice, three was undrinkable unless he was touring Death Valley, and two was undrinkable under any circumstances. He had yet to meet a perfect ten.

“You ain’t from around here,” the bartender said with an Appalachian twang.

“You did that without even pulling out your Ouija board.”

“My what?”

“How’d you know I was an outsider?”

“Hayes is a small place. Everybody knows everybody. Even the visitors to the base.”

“Name’s Lou Welcome.”

“Bell,” the bartender said, extending his hand. “Ralphie Bell. You said Welcome?”

“Just like the mat.”

“Like the wh—? Oh, I get it.” He chuckled until he laughed. And then he laughed until he doubled over in a spasm of cigarette-driven coughing.

“So, where is everybody?” Lou asked

“Hayes stays pretty quiet until after eight o’clock or so. That’s when the boys from the base are allowed to come into town. That is, if they have the night off.”

“Is the base far from here?”

“The entrance is ’bout a half mile away. But careful that you don’t stumble onto their property without you knowin’ it.”

“Why’s that?”

“The base is ’bout fifteen square miles that includes some of the wildest country in these mountains, and not much of it is fenced in. There are lots of ‘No Trespassing’ signs posted about, but the number-one crime in Hayes are hunters who trespass without realizing what they’ve done. Trespassin’ and carryin’ a weapon around here is really frowned on.” Bell loaded and shot an imaginary pump-action rifle.

“Ouch!” Lou said, clutching his chest. “Tell me something, Ralphie, does Wyatt Brody ever come in here?”

Bell scoffed. “Once in a great while he pops in for a drink an’ stays a few minutes. But the truth is, Colonel Brody don’t really socialize with nobody that I know of. Soldiers say he’s on some sort of mission from God, and sometimes he sure acts that way.”

Lou tried, but could get no further insights on the man who might have murdered Elias Colston. On the chance he was going to need to try again with Ralphie Bell, he left two dollars for the drink, plus a ten. It was going to be up to Hector Rodriguez to fill in some huge gaps.

Lou had no trouble finding his way back to the Wildwood, but he had a harder time locating the way to the bonfire pit, where Hector insisted they meet. The path, leading off from a pair of worn picnic tables at the rear of the motel, was partially overgrown with brush, and the ground was crunchy with thin ice. A stiff breeze had cropped up, and Lou was grateful that he had steered clear of the bargain aisle when choosing his parka at Eastern Mountain Sports.

Using his cell phone as a flashlight, he emerged after a hundred feet or so into a wide clearing. At the center of the clearing, a broad, stone-rimmed pit still emitted the potent scent of recently burnt wood. Beyond the pit, a sliver of moonlight escaping from clouds scudding overhead revealed the silhouette of a stocky man standing more or less at attention. The vapor from his breathing swirled eerily in the thin light.

“Dr. Welcome?” Hector’s voice and accent were unmistakable.

“That’s me. Thanks for doing this, Hector.” Lou approached him, prepared to shake hands, but Hector remained as he was. Even in his bulky, military-issue parka, he was powerfully built, and through the evening gloom, he looked swarthy and handsome.

A warrior.

Lou spoke again. “I appreciate that you allowed me to meet with you, Hector. I think it might be important.”

“Tell me what you want to know.” His coolness matched the evening.

Lou shifted his weight from side to side to get the blood flowing to his feet. He reached in his pocket for his gloves and realized he had left them on the front seat of the Toyota.

“If it’s okay with you,” he said, “I’d rather talk indoors. I rented a room at the Wildwood, so we could speak there if you want.”

Hector shook his head dismissively. “Can’t do that. People might see me with you. Coming or going. That’s why I got here early and took the back way, through the woods. Talking to a stranger in this town will lead to questions, and questions aren’t good for my career.”

“Understood,” Lou said, blowing on his hands now.

From the clouds of frozen vapor, Lou could tell that Hector was breathing at about half the rate he was. He suspected that the marine’s pulse was a fraction of his as well.

“So let’s do this,” Hector said. “What do you want to know?”

“First, I want you to know something,” Lou said. “I didn’t tell you the complete truth when we spoke by phone. Elias Colston didn’t take down any notes about your conversation. He recorded it and transferred the recording to a CD. I gave that CD to the police, and now it’s gone missing along with a copy I had in my apartment.”

He left out about his place having been ransacked, and that was probably just as well. Even from six feet away, Lou could see the younger man tense and go pale.

Hector inhaled deeply and tilted his head skyward. “Congressman Colston was my best friend’s father,” he said. “I said things that night I wouldn’t want certain people to know about. Why didn’t you tell me this when we talked on the phone?”

“I was worried you’d panic if you knew and refuse to meet with me. Look, I’m sorry, Hector, for misleading you in any way, but we’ve got to come as close as possible to re-creating that conversation. Every detail. Every point you made. Everything you said. I have a tape recorder here.” Lou extracted a miniature state-of-the-art instrument from his parka. “We won’t know what’s going to be important or not until we get it all down.”

Hector eyes flashed. “You don’t get it, man,” he said. “I told the congressman stuff that I shouldn’t have told him. I loved that man. He was like a father to me. That’s why I was trying to warn him to back off from Colonel Brody and Mantis. But if word gets out that I talked about the Palace Guards, then I’m a dead man walking. What in the hell could have happened to that disc? Who has it now?”

“I … I don’t know. The police have it. I’m sure of that.”

“Damn.”

“As I recall, you didn’t say much about the Palace Guards at all. Can you tell me about them now?”

“I shouldn’t tell you nothin’. It’s not safe for you to know. These guys—the Guards—they’re badass, man.”

“Please, Hector. You’ve got to help me help the man who’s in jail for Elias’s murder. I don’t believe he did it.”

“The news said he was havin’ an affair with the congressman’s wife. Why should I care what happens to him?”

“Because Mark’s father would have cared. He would have wanted justice to be done no matter what, even if it meant freeing his wife’s lover.”

Hector looked about furtively. “Okay, listen, I’ll help you because I love that family. But you got to find that disc.”

“I’m doing my best.”

“The Palace Guards are sort of picked by Colonel Brody before they even join the Corps. They mark themselves with a tattoo of barbed wire wrapped around their wrist. That’s how you can tell who’s Guard. We all have one of a praying mantis right here on the bottom of our forearm. That’s how you can tell who’s Mantis.”