Silenced by the Yams (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #3) (7 page)

He shot me a sly smile. “‘As Time Goes By.’”

“Is that another code word?”

“Come on, Miss Chick at the Flix dot com—‘As Time Goes By’—that’s the song I was whistling.”

Another light bulb.

I had to suppress a giggle. “From Casablanca, of course.” Poor Clarence was in sore need of whistling lessons. His “As Time Goes By” sounded more like a bad blues version of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

“Casablanca—one of my favorite movies,” I said.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Your website.”

Right. I kept forgetting how much people could learn about me from my website. An uncomfortable side effect of putting yourself out there on the internet. “Listen, you seem like a nice guy and all, but we need to get to the nitty-gritty here. I have to be somewhere at one o’clock.”

Clarence nodded. “I have something . . .” He started to stand and reach for his right cargo pocket at the same time when two hands landed on his shoulders, stopping him.

“Not so fast, buddy,” said a voice behind us.

I looked up, not surprised, but very happy to see who it was. “Colt! You came.”

“Colt?” Clarence shouted, jumping so hard that he broke free of Colt’s grip and fell onto the graveled path, nearly tripping another passing jogger. After a second, he righted himself and stood, panting heavily. He looked like a guilty child terrified that he might get a spanking for breaking his dad’s new Blu-ray player.

I rose carefully from the bench, trying not to startle him. “Clarence,” I said. “This is my friend, Colt. He’s okay. You can trust him.”

“Colt?” Clarence repeated, the fearful look on his face growing.

“Dude,” Colt added, spreading his hands out to show he didn’t have any weapons, “everything’s cool so long as you keep your hands out of your pockets.”

Poor Clarence just wasn’t calming down. He paced in tiny steps and mumbled incoherently causing passers-by to take notice and eye the three of us with suspicion.

 “Listen,” I continued, talking in soothing tones like I do to my kitties when rounding them up for their monthly flea treatment. “I just want to help my friend, Frankie, and you said you had information—”

“Deal over!” Clarence shouted. The terror on his face was replaced with anger. “I thought I was ready, but I’m not!” He tore off across the grass and through the trees.

I slapped Colt about a hundred times. “Look what you did!”

“You’re the one who asked me to come!”

“He wanted to show me something. He was just pulling it from his pocket.”

“What if he wanted to show you a knife or a gun?”

“I thought you had a date with Meeeeeee-gan.” I exaggerated the ee. I couldn’t help myself. The name simply begged for exaggeration.

We argued like an old married couple for a few more minutes until I realized I was now running up against the clock for my meeting with Guy Mertz. I told Colt about it, and he insisted on coming along despite my argument that he’d already scared off one informant. He promised to be discreet, so we marched off down the path toward the White House.

Twice along the way, we caught a glimpse of Clarence tailing us. Evidently Colt hadn’t scared him as badly as we thought. His attempts to be covert were weak: each time we turned around, he ducked behind a tree. He wasn’t very stealthy, to say the least.

Twenty hot, soggy minutes later we stood exhausted on the corner of 17
^th
and Constitution looking across the street at the hot dog stand where I had agreed to meet Guy. A man wearing Guy’s signature fedora and holding an umbrella stood nearby.

“Must . . . have . . . water . . .” Colt groaned. We’d long since drained the bottle I’d bought earlier.

“I’ll bring a couple of bottles back. I think that’s Guy over there now. You stay here.”

“Make it quick. I feel seconds away from total dehydration.”

The light at the intersection turned green and the pedestrian crossing signal told me to go. I started to step off the curb, but the sound of a car’s revving engine and squealing tires stopped me dead in my tracks. The next thing I knew, Colt was shouting, “Curly!” and tackling me to the ground. Gunfire sounded around us. Screams mingled with the deafening pops that seemed to go on and on and on while Colt held my head down, shielding me with his own body. Moments after the gunfire stopped, the shrill sound of a thousand sirens filled the air. We were one block from the White House—I nearly expected an Air Force fighter to swoop by.

When I was finally able to lift my head, I realized that my Jackie O sunglasses had been crushed, my face was covered in tears and I was trembling uncontrollably.

Certain that we had just witnessed a terrorist attack firsthand, I gasped when my eyes finally landed on the hot dog stand where I had been headed. The mobile van was full of holes. The vendor inside was sprawled facedown over the counter and two bodies lay lifeless on the sidewalk. One of them, I was pretty sure, was Guy Mertz.

And when I turned my head away because it was too awful to watch, I caught sight of Clarence again, running for real this time, fast from the scene.

Chapter Seven

The FBI and Secret Service descended upon the scene like locusts onto a ripe summer crop. No Air Force fighters showed up, but two mean-looking, armed helicopters circled closely overhead, blowing dirt and stray pieces of trash around.

We were instructed to stay put by an officious and curt man with a badge; no potential witness could leave until interviewed by an agent. When I asked if we could leave briefly to buy some bottled water, he said only if we wanted to be arrested on the spot. So there we sat, baking and steaming as the sun glared in a high, cloudless sky. If we’d been shrimp, we’d already be cooked and ready for cocktail sauce.

Constitution Avenue is six lanes wide, so between the distance and the sheer number of emergency vehicles on the scene, it was nearly impossible to see what was transpiring at the toasted hot dog stand. Guy Mertz may have smeared my name badly in his report, but I didn’t wish him dead. I hoped dearly that he wasn’t one of the bodies splayed on the sidewalk.

 It was summer in Washington, DC, which meant there were easily two hundred tourists on or around Constitution Avenue at the time of the shooting. They all milled around now, waiting. Or rather, drooping.

Immediately after the shooting, people had bristled with a sort of excitement, actively sharing their experiences—“Did you see that car?” “It was black.” “No, it was dark green.” “There were two cars.” “There was a red car with three men and they all had guns and ski masks.” “It was a blue SUV and I think it was a female shooter with an assault rifle.” “Someone said they saw a man with a bomb strapped to his body and he was heading for the White House.” It was all a load of bull doo-doo. Colt was trained to make quick and accurate observations and he said the drive-by shooting was committed by two men, one caucasion, one Latino, driving a navy blue Lexus with Maryland plates. He couldn’t see the firearm, but from the sound, he suspected a 12 gauge semi-auto shotgun.

But ten minutes later, people were tired of talking or were too parched to open their mouths comfortably. Many started sitting and even laying down. When a nursing mother fainted, the FBI brought in a van full of water bottles which a PR crew distributed faster than a sexually twisted politician checking himself into “rehab.”

 Colt and I were draining our bottles when an agent finally approached us. She was tall, slim, dressed in black pants and a white t-shirt and I knew her only too well. So did Colt.

“Well, if it isn’t Mrs. Marr.” She managed to crack half a wry smile while wiping sweat from her dripping brow. My head hurt just looking at how tightly she had her thin black hair pulled into that pony tail.

I acknowledged her in return. “Agent Smith.”

Agent Marjorie Smith and I had worked together reluctantly during the FBI Mafia sting operation that brought Frankie and I together as friends. She was all business then, and I didn’t expect her to be any different now.

She gave Colt a terse nod. “Colt Baron, right?”

“You have a good memory,” he said. “Any chance you can make this quick so we can get a move on?”

“We’ll take it as quickly or slowly as necessary to get the information required.”

Another agent stepped alongside Agent Smith. He was shorter than her and looked to be about Howard’s age. His eyes were concealed behind a pair of aviator shades and the line of his mouth was thin and tight.

“Leo, this is Marr’s wife,” Agent Smith told the new arrival.

His posture changed immediately and a smile appeared. “No kidding?” He took my hand and shook it firmly. “I’m Agent Leonard Price—nice to meet you. We’re really sorry to see him go. He’s been an incredible asset to the Bureau.”

My ears perked up and out of the corner of my eye I spotted Colt cringing.

“Where’s he going?” I asked.

“Oh, I just meant we’re sorry he’s retiring.” Poor Agent Price obviously didn’t know that he’d just dropped a secret bomb on me, but I could tell that Colt did.

“Oh, right,” I said, trying to keep calm and nodding as if I were the properly informed wife. “The retirement.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. At least not anything that was appropriate for public audiences. Howard had kept his job with the FBI secret from me for nearly twenty years, so why should I be surprised that I wasn’t informed when he decided to leave? I decided to change the subject. I asked them, as nonchalantly as I could, whether one of the shooting victims was the newscaster, Guy Mertz.

Agent Smith shook her head. “We can’t discuss that with you. We just need to know what you saw, if anything.”

“Nothing,” Colt said. “We didn’t see a thing.”

Even though I was shocked to hear him blurt out that lie, I tried to act cool, which wasn’t easy when the sidewalk under our feet could double as a diner grill.

Smith narrowed her eyes. “You’re awfully close to have seen nothing, Mr. Baron.”

“We were clear back there,” he pointed toward the Washington Memorial, “when we heard gunfire and ran closer, but we were too far away at the time of the incident for a visual.”

She wasn’t buying it. “You ran
toward
the gunfire?”

“I’m that kind of guy.”

She eyed me with equal suspicion. “Are you just that kind of woman, Mrs. Marr? Do you run toward gunfire?”

“Hey, I was just following him.”

“And those sunglasses,” she pointed to the pieces in my hand. “Did they break during the mad dash?”

Boy, they trained those agents well. She wasn’t missing a trick. Luckily for me, I have kids and have learned the fine art of fibbing on a dime. “Rogue Frisbee,” I said, adding a giggle for good measure. “On the mall—last time I’ll walk through the middle of an ultimate Frisbee match.” I brought a flat hand up to my nose to duplicate the fake event. “Hit me right between the eyes.”

Smith and Price traded looks that basically said, “these jerks are full of it,” but they backed down anyway. Probably because they knew where to find me. Which didn’t give me a warm and fuzzy.

“Fine,” Smith said. “You can go.”

“Thanks,” I sighed with relief.

Colt and I turned quickly on our heels to scoot our booties from the crime scene.

“Marr!” I heard Agent Smith shout before we’d gotten too far.

I stopped and turned.

“Remember,” she said. “We know where to find you.”

Yup. Just like I said.

*****

The vast expanse from the Washington Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial was crawling with federal agents and Park Police so I didn’t dare chide Colt for holding back his information. I have my paranoid tendencies, and as far as I knew, not only did the government possess the technology to pick up my conversation at a whisper, they could probably grab my thoughts from mid-air too.

“Where are you parked?” I asked him.

“I wouldn’t bring The Judge down here and risk her getting hurt. I took the Metro train.”

‘The Judge’ was Colt’s car. It was a red, lovingly restored GTO and evidently, everyone referred to these cars as The Judge. Me, I don’t name my cars. I’m too hard on them. If I named them, I’d feel guilty every time I hit a pot hole or went a year without an oil change.

Since I was parked near the Tidal Basin at the Jefferson Memorial, Colt agreed to head in that direction and hitch a ride home with me. He didn’t know I had one more stop on my agenda.

We climbed into my van. I turned the ignition and flipped the AC to ultra-freeze.

“Which way to the DC city jail?” I asked after we’d both buckled in.

Colt threw his hands in the air. “You have to be kidding me! Really? You haven’t had enough connection to murder and mayhem for one day? Now you want to go talk up a wiseguy?”

“Oh, give it a break. He’s not a wiseguy anymore. He’s a chef. Sometimes good people get caught up in bad situations and they deserve the chance to make things right and move forward.”

“Spending thirty plus years in the Mafia is hardly getting caught up in a bad situation, Barb.”