The Collectors (16 page)
A
FTER CLOSED-DOOR TESTI
-mony was completed before the House Intelligence Committee, Seagraves and Trent had a cup of coffee in the cafeteria and later headed outside to stroll around the Capitol grounds. Since their official duties dictated that they spend a great deal of time together, this would raise no suspicions.
Seagraves paused to unwrap a stick of gum while Trent bent down to tie his shoe.
“So you really think this guy is ex-Agency?” Trent asked.
Seagraves nodded. “Triple Six, you know about that bunch, Albert?”
“Only vaguely. My clearance didn’t go that high. The Agency recruited me for my analytical skills, not my ability in the field. And after ten years of their bullshit I’d had enough.”
Seagraves smiled. “Jumping to the politico side really that much better?”
“It has been for us.”
Seagraves watched as his colleague carefully combed his dozen strands back into place, somehow aligning each one perfectly against its neighbor without benefit of a mirror. “Why don’t you just get a buzz cut?” Seagraves said. “A lot of ladies are into that macho look. And while you’re at it get yourself in decent shape.”
“After we finish our careers I’ll have so much money that whatever foreign country I end up in the ladies there will take me any way I want.”
“Suit yourself.”
“This Triple Six guy might be a complication. We might be talking thunderstorm status.”
Seagraves shook his head. “We do that, things will really heat up. For all I know he’s still got connections. And if I did him, I’d have to do his friends. That’s a lot of room to make a mistake and get the wrong people suspicious. For now he thinks Behan’s the guy. If that changes, then the weather forecast might read differently.”
“Are you really sure that’s a good strategy?”
Seagraves’ features turned a notch darker. “Let’s do a reality check, Trent. While you sat safely behind your little wonk desk in nice, comfortable Washington, I was putting my ass on the line in places you’re too scared to even watch on TV. You keep doing what you do, and let me worry about the strategic planning. Unless you think you can do it better than I can.”
Trent tried to smile, but his fear didn’t allow for it. “I wasn’t questioning you.”
“It sure as hell sounded like it.” He suddenly grinned and clamped an arm around Trent’s narrow shoulders. “No time to fight now, Albert. It’s going way too well. Right?” He squeezed tightly and only released his grip when he felt the pain in the other man’s body. It felt good, to feel another man’s suffering up close like that. “I said, right?”
“Absolutely.” Trent rubbed his shoulders and actually looked like he might start crying.
You must’ve had the crap kicked out of you on the playground every day.
Seagraves changed the subject. “Four State Department liaisons dead. That was some original spin.” He’d actually known one of the murdered men; in fact, he’d served with him. A good agent, but millions of dollars easily trumped any friendship he’d ever had.
Trent said, “You expect the government to be creative? So what’s next on the list?”
Seagraves tossed his cigarette down and glanced at his companion. “You’ll see it when you see it, Albert.” He was actually getting a little tired of his
junior
partner. That was partially what this little jam session was about, making it clear to Trent that he was and would always be a subordinate. And if things got dicey and it looked like the house of cards might tumble down, Trent would be the first person he’d kill for one simple reason: Mice always break under pressure.
He parted company with the staffer and walked to his car in a restricted area. He waved to the guard there who knew him by sight.
“Keeping my wheels safe?” Seagraves said with a grin.
“Yours and everybody else’s,” the guard said as he chewed on a toothpick. “You keeping the country safe?”
“Doing all I can.” Actually, the next thing Seagraves would pass Trent would be key elements of the NSA’s brand-new strategic surveillance plan for foreign terrorists. The media always assumed the NSA was doing things outside the law. They didn’t know the half of it, and neither did the myopic folk up on Capitol Hill. But some well-heeled haters of America living seven thousand miles away and at least eight centuries in the past were willing to pay millions of dollars to know all about it. And money, man, money always carried the day; screw being a patriot. To Seagraves’ mind, the only thing patriots got were a trifolded flag for their troubles. And the major problem with that was you had to be dead to get one.
Seagraves drove back to his office, finished up a bit of work and headed home, which consisted of a thirty-year-old split-level rancher with three bedrooms and two baths, on a quarter acre of drainage-challenged dirt, that cost him nearly half his salary in mortgage and property taxes. He did a quick but intense workout and then opened the door of a small closet in the basement that he kept locked and protected by an alarm system.
Inside, arranged on the walls and on shelves, were mementos of his earlier career. Among other items was a brown glove trimmed with fur in a glass display box, a button from a coat in a small ring case, a pair of eyeglasses on a plastic holder, a shoe hanging from a peg on the wall, a wristwatch, two ladies’ bracelets, a small, blank notebook with the monogram AFW, a turban on a shelf and a worn copy of the Qur’an under glass, a fur cap and a child’s bib. The bib he felt a little remorse for. Yet when one killed the parents, often the child was sacrificed as well. A car bomb, after all, was indiscriminate in whom it destroyed. Each item was numbered from one to over fifty and held a history known only to him and a few others at the CIA.
Seagraves had gone to great pains and undertaken considerable risk to collect these objects, for that’s what this was, his collection. Whether they realized it or not, everyone was a collector of some sort. A lot of people migrated to the ordinary end of the spectrum, collecting stamps, coins and books. Then there were those who accumulated broken hearts or sexual conquests. And then there were those who found gratification in the accumulation of lost souls. At the far end of the continuum, Roger Seagraves collected personal items from people he’d murdered, or assassinated rather, since he’d done it under the color of serving his country. Not that such a distinction made much difference to the victims; they were still dead, after all.
He had come here tonight to place two new objects in the room: a pen belonging to Robert Bradley and a leather bookmark of Jonathan DeHaven’s. They were given places of honor on a shelf and in a shadow box respectively. He did so, placing a number on each one. He was approaching sixty in total. Years ago he had contemplated reaching a hundred, and he’d gotten off to a strong start, since at that time there were many in the world his country needed dead. Then his last few years on the job the pace had slowed considerably; a spineless administration and even weaker CIA bureaucracy had been the cause. He had long since given up his original goal total. He had instead gone for quality over quantity.
Any sane person being told the history of these items might judge Seagraves to be a psychopath maliciously collecting personal items of murdered people. They would be wrong, he knew. It was actually a measure of respect accorded someone from whom you’d taken the most precious thing they had. If anyone ever succeeded in killing him, Seagraves trusted they’d be a worthy enough foe to afford him the same honor. He locked up his collection and went back upstairs to plan his next move. He had something to get, and with DeHaven dead and buried, now was the time to get it.
Annabelle Conroy sat in a rental car at the corner of Good Fellow Street. It had been many years since she’d been here, and yet the place hadn’t changed all that much. You could still smell the moldy stink of old money, though it was now mingled with the equally foul aroma of new currency. Annabelle, of course, had had neither, a fact that Jonathan DeHaven’s mother, Elizabeth, had been quick to pounce on. No money and no breeding was what she had probably told her son over and over until the saying was ingrained on his very impressionable brain, finally allowing his mother to bully him into an annulment. Annabelle had not contested it, because what would the point have been?
Still, Annabelle held no ill feelings toward her ex. He was a man-child in many ways, erudite, kind, generous and affectionate. Yet he possessed not even a sliver of a backbone and ran from confrontation like the proverbial kid with glasses did from the bully. He had been no match for his omnipotent and acid-tongued mother; yet how many sons were? After the marriage had ended, he wrote Annabelle loving, moving letters, showered her with gifts, told her that he was thinking of her all the time. And she never doubted that he was. Deception was not part of his nature;
that
had been quite a new concept for her. Opposites apparently did indeed attract.
And yet he had never once asked her to come back. Still, compared to the men she’d known in her life, all of them like her on the wrong side of the good and bad equation, he was the light of pure innocence. He held her hand and was quick to open doors for his “lady.” He talked to her about issues of importance in the world of normal people, a place as alien to her as a distant star. And yet Jonathan had made it less strange, less distant, in the brief time they’d spent together.
Annabelle had to admit she’d changed while with him. Jonathan DeHaven, though he would forever be firmly ensconced on the conservative side of life, had inched a little toward her, perhaps enjoying life in a way he never could’ve imagined before. He was a good man. And she was sorry he was dead.
She angrily swiped at a tear that fell far too easily down her cheek. The emotion was unusual and unwelcome. She did not cry anymore. She was not close enough to anyone to weep over death. Not even her mother’s. It was true she’d avenged Tammy Conroy, but the daughter had also made herself rich in the process. Would she have done one without the other? Annabelle couldn’t say for sure. Did it matter? Well, she had nearly 17 million reasons parked in a foreign bank account that said it didn’t.
She watched as a gray Nova rattled up to the curb in front of DeHaven’s house. Four men got out: the oddballs from the cemetery who’d said that Jonathan’s death had no official cause. Well, she’d said her good-byes to Jonathan and would now walk through the house, for once without the wretched eye of Mama DeHaven following every swing of her daughter-in-law’s irreverent hips. And then she would be on a plane out of here. Annabelle didn’t want to be on the same continent when Jerry Bagger discovered he was $40 million poorer and erupted on a greater scale than his fake volcano ever had.
The burn of the lava could easily reach D.C.
She slid out of the car and walked toward the house and a life that could have very well been hers if things had worked out differently.
T
HEY WERE ALL IN THE BOOK
vault after Annabelle had been given a brief tour of the main floor of the house. Caleb didn’t open the small safe behind the painting. He had no intention of letting anyone else see the
Psalm Book.
After she’d seen the collection, they went back upstairs, where Annabelle walked though the elegant rooms with probably more interest than she cared to show.
“So you’ve been here before?” Stone said.
She looked at him blankly. “I don’t remember saying whether I had or not.”
“Well, you knew Jonathan lived on Good Fellow Street. I just assumed.”
“People shouldn’t assume so much, they’d be better off.” She continued to look around. “The house hasn’t changed much,” she said, indirectly answering his question. “But at least he got rid of some of the uglier furniture. Probably after his mother died. I don’t think that would’ve been allowed until
Elizabeth
drew her last breath.”
“Where did you and Jonathan meet?” Caleb asked. She ignored this question. “He might’ve mentioned your name, but I don’t know what it is,” he persisted, drawing a warning look from Stone.
“Susan Farmer. We met out West.”
“Did you
marry
out there as well?” Stone interjected.
He was very impressed because she didn’t even flinch. But she didn’t answer him either.
Stone decided to play his ace. He pulled the photo out of his pocket. “We were told that Jonathan’s marriage had been annulled. Since you don’t like people making assumptions, I’m
deducing
from your tone about Elizabeth DeHaven that she was the instigator of that action. He kept this photo. The woman bears a remarkable likeness to you. My experience is that men don’t keep photos of women for just any reason. I think your case was special.”
He handed the photo over to her. This time he got a reaction. As Annabelle took the picture, her hand, rock-steady all these years, shook a bit, and her eyes opened a smidgen wider and appeared a little moist. She said wistfully, “Jonathan was a very handsome man. Tall, thick brown hair and eyes that just made you feel good about yourself.”
“And can I say you’re as lovely now as you were then,” Reuben added magnanimously, edging closer to her.
Annabelle didn’t seem to have heard Reuben. She did something she hadn’t done in a long time: She smiled, genuinely. “This was taken on the day of our wedding. It was my first, and only, marriage.”
“Where were you married?” Caleb asked.
“Vegas—where else?” she said, her gaze holding fast on the photo. “Jonathan was in town for a book convention. We hooked up, hit it off and were married. All in a week’s time. Pretty crazy, I know. At least that’s how his mother saw it.” She ran her finger along Jonathan’s frozen smile. “But we were happy. For a time anyway. We even lived here for a while with his parents after we were married, until we found a place to live.”
“Well, it
is
quite a large house,” Caleb said.
“Funny, it seemed far too small back then,” she remarked dryly.
“Were you out in Vegas for the book convention too?” Stone asked politely.
She handed the photo back, and Stone put it back in his jacket pocket. “Do you really need an answer to that question?”
“All right. Have you been in contact with Jonathan over the years?”
“And why would I need to tell you if I had?”
“And there’s no reason for you to,” Reuben piped in, scowling at Stone. “In fact, that’s getting a little personal.”
Stone was obviously put out by his smitten friend’s traitorous comment but said, “We’re doing our best to figure out what happened to Jonathan, and we need as much help as we can get.”
“His heart stopped beating and he died. Is it that unusual?”
Milton explained, “The medical examiner apparently couldn’t determine the cause of death. And Jonathan had just had a full cardio checkup at Johns Hopkins. He didn’t have a heart attack or anything else, apparently.”
“So you think someone killed him? Who could possibly have a problem with Jonathan? He was a
librarian.
”
“It’s not like librarians don’t have enemies,” Caleb said defensively. “Indeed, I’ve been around some colleagues who can get pretty mean-spirited after they’ve had a few glasses of merlot.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Yeah, I bet. But no one’s going to pop someone because they got fined for an overdue book.”
“Let me show you something,” Stone said. “It’s up in the attic.”
When they arrived there, Stone said, “That telescope is pointed toward the house next door.”
Reuben added, “Yeah, it was looking into the owner’s bed—”
Stone cut in. “I’ll explain, Reuben, if you don’t mind.” He raised his eyebrows and glanced at Annabelle.
Reuben said, “Oh, right. Yeah, go ahead and explain, Oliv—I mean, it was Frank, right? Or Steve?”
“Thank you,
Reuben
!” Stone snapped. “As I said, the telescope is pointed at the house next door. It’s owned by the head of Paradigm Technologies, one of the largest defense contractors in the country. The man’s name is Cornelius Behan.”
“He likes to be called CB,” Caleb added.
“Okay,” Annabelle said slowly.
Stone looked through the telescope, sweeping his gaze along the side of Behan’s house, which stood across a sliver of grass from DeHaven’s. “I thought so.” He motioned for Annabelle to take his place. She focused the telescope’s eyepiece on the spot where he’d been looking.
“It’s an office or a study,” she reported.
“That’s right.”
“You think Jonathan was spying on this guy?”
“Perhaps. Or he might have inadvertently seen something that led to his death.”
“So this Cornelius Behan killed Jonathan?”
“We have no proof. But strange things have been happening.”
“Like what?”
Stone hesitated. He had no intention of telling her about his being kidnapped. “Let’s just say that there’re enough questions here to make us look further. I think Jonathan DeHaven deserves that.”
Annabelle studied him for a moment and then took another look through the telescope. “Tell me about this CB guy.”
Stone briefly gave her a sketch of Behan and his company. Next he mentioned the murder of the Speaker of the House, Bob Bradley.
Annabelle again looked skeptical. “You don’t think that’s connected to Jonathan? I thought terrorists had claimed responsibility.”
Stone told her about the military contracts that Behan had won under the old regime. “Bradley’s predecessor as Speaker had been convicted of unethical practices, so it’s not a stretch to speculate that he might have been in Behan’s pocket. And then Bradley comes along as Mr. Clean, and Behan might not have wanted certain things to be investigated. So Bradley had to die.”
“And you’re thinking that Jonathan stumbled on this conspiracy, and they had to kill him before he could tell anyone?” She still sounded unconvinced, but not as much.
“What we have are two unsolved deaths of government people with Cornelius Behan as a common denominator and a neighbor of one of the dead men.”
Caleb added, “Behan was at the funeral today.”
Annabelle said sharply, “Which one was he?”
“Little redheaded guy—”
Annabelle finished for him, “Who thinks way too much of himself and had the tall bottle-blond wife who despises him.”
Stone looked impressed. “You sum people up quickly.”
“I’ve always seen an advantage in it. Okay, what’s our next move?”
Stone looked startled. “
Our
next move?”
“Yeah, once you give me a crash course on the info you’re obviously holding back, maybe we can make some real headway.”
“Miss Farmer,” Stone began.
“Just call me Susan.”
“I thought you said you weren’t going to be in town long.”
“Change of plan.”
“Can I ask why?”
“You can ask. Can we meet tomorrow morning?”
“Absolutely,” Reuben said. “And if you need a place to bunk—”
“I don’t,” she said.
“We can meet at my house,” Stone suggested.
“Where’s that?” she asked.
“At a cemetery,” Milton said helpfully.
Annabelle didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
Stone wrote down the address and directions. When she went to take it from him, she stumbled and fell against him, grabbing on to his jacket to keep from falling.
“Sorry,” she said as her hand closed around the photo in his pocket. A second later she was pulling it out. And then something happened that had never happened before. Stone’s hand closed around her wrist.
He said in a low voice so only she could hear, “All you had to do was ask for it.” He released his grip, and she smoothly slid the photo into her pocket, her startled gaze on Stone’s grim features. She regained her composure and faced the others. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Reuben took her hand, gently kissing it in the style of the centuries-ago French gentleman. “I want you to know what a true pleasure it’s been making your acquaintance,
Susan.
”
She smirked. “Thanks,
Reuben.
Oh, there’s a nice view of what I’m assuming is Behan’s bedroom from up here. He’s getting it on with some hot chick right now. You might want to check it out.”
Reuben whipped around. “Oliver, you didn’t tell me that.”
Annabelle looked back at an exasperated Stone. “That’s okay,
Oliver,
Susan’s not
my
real name either. What a shock, huh?”
A minute later they heard the front door open and close. Reuben quickly took up post at the telescope, but just as quickly moaned, “Damn, they must have already finished.” He turned to Stone and said reverently, “God, what a woman.”
Yes,
thought Stone,
what a woman indeed.
Annabelle climbed into her car, started it and then pulled out the photo, rubbing her wrist where Stone had grabbed it. The guy named Oliver had actually caught her picking his pocket. Even as a kid assigned by her father to fleece tourists in L.A., she’d never been caught in the act. Tomorrow might prove to be very interesting.
Her attention turned to the photo. It was amazing how one picture could bring back so many memories. That year of her life was the only truly normal one she ever had. Some might have thought it boring, or at least uneventful. She had considered it wonderful. She’d stumbled across a man who’d fallen in love with her. No ulterior motive, no hidden agenda, no leveraging for a bigger con down the road. He’d fallen in love with just her. A bookman and a con girl. All odds were against them making it, and as she well knew, only a fool bet against the odds.
And yet a gentle man who collected books had somehow captured her heart, toughened and scarred as it was. Early on in their relationship Jonathan had asked her if she collected anything. Annabelle had told him no, yet maybe that wasn’t true, she thought now. Perhaps she did collect something. Perhaps she collected lost chances.
She stared up at the big old house. In another life she and Jonathan might have lived there, with a passel of children, who knew? It was probably a good thing it hadn’t turned out that way. She would’ve likely made a terrible mother.
Her thoughts turned to the obvious issue. Jerry Bagger would be erupting in two days. The smart move would be to leave the country now, despite what she’d told the men about meeting tomorrow. It didn’t take her long to decide. She was staying and seeing it through. Maybe she owed it to Jonathan. Perhaps she owed it to herself. Because right now seemed a good time to end her collection of lost chances.