The Poet (59 page)

I looked at my notes. Subtracting the three-hour time difference, the fax came in at Quantico one minute after the call to the general number had been placed from Thorson’s room.

“Okay, Jack?”

“Oh, yeah, thanks. Uh, I had one other question.”

“Shoot-oh, shit, sorry.”

“That’s okay. Uh, the question I have is, um … Agent Thorson sent back an oral swab from the victim in Phoenix. Orsulak.”

“Yes, Orsulak.”

“Uh, he wanted to identify the substance. He believed it was the lubricant from a condom. The question I had was whether it was identified as coming from a specific brand of condom. Can that be done? Was it done?”

Hazelton didn’t answer at first and I almost jumped into the silence. But then he spoke.

“That’s a strange question, Jack.”

“Yeah, I know but, uh, the details of the case, and how you people do things, really fascinates me. It’s important to have them right-it makes a better story.”

“Hold on another second.”

Again he was gone before I could agree to hold. This time he came back very quickly.

“Yes, I have that information. Do you want to tell me why you really want it?”

Now it was my turn to be silent.

“No,” I finally said, trying the honesty route. “I’m just trying to work something out, Brad. If it goes the way I think it’s going, the FBI’s going to be the first to know about it. Believe me.”

Hazelton paused for a moment.

“Okay, Jack, I’ll trust you. Besides, Gladden’s dead. It’s not like I’m giving away trial evidence and there’s not much you can prove with this anyway. The substance was narrowed down to being similar to two different brands. Ramses Lubricated and Trojan Golds. Problem is they are two of the most popular brands in the country. It is not what we’d call unequivocal evidence of anything.”

Maybe it wasn’t evidence you could take into a courtroom, but Ramses Lubricated was the brand that Rachel had handed me from her purse on Saturday night in my hotel room. I thanked Hazelton without further discussion and hung up.

It was all there and it all seemed to fit. No matter how many ways over the next hour that I tried to destroy my own theory, I couldn’t. It was a theory built on a foundation of suspicion and speculation but it worked like a machine, all the parts meshing together. And I had nothing to throw into its gears that could bring it to a grinding halt.

The last part I needed was Bledsoe. I paced the room waiting for his call, the feeling of anxiety churning in my stomach like something that was alive. I went out on the balcony for fresh air but that didn’t help. Staring at me was the Marlboro Man, his thirty-foot-high face holding dominion over the Sunset Strip. I went back inside.

Instead of the cigarette I wanted, I decided on a Coke. I left the room, turning the night lock so the door wouldn’t close all the way and trotted down the hallway to the vending machines. In spite of the painkiller, my nerves were jangling. But I knew that this intensity would translate to fatigue in a little while if I didn’t ante up with a shot of sugar and caffeine. Halfway back to my room, I heard the phone ringing and I ran. I went for the phone before even closing the door, grabbing it on what I thought might be the ninth ring.

“Dan?”

Silence.

“It’s Rachel. Who is Dan?”

“Oh.” I could barely catch my breath. “He’s, uh-He’s just a friend at the paper. He was supposed to call.”

“What’s the matter with you, Jack?”

“I’m out of breath. I was down the hall getting a Coke and I heard the phone.”

“Jesus, it must’ve been the hundred-yard dash.”

“Something like that. Hold on.”

I went back to the door and closed it, then put my actor’s face on as I went back to the phone.

“Rachel?”

“Listen, I just wanted you to know I’m leaving. Bob wants me to go back to Florida and handle this PTL thing.”

“Oh.”

“It will probably be a few days.”

The message light on my phone came on. Bledsoe, I thought, and silently cursed the timing of his call.

“Okay, Rachel.”

“We’ll have to get together somewhere afterward. I was thinking of taking a vacation.”

“I thought you just did.”

I remembered the notation on the calendar I had seen on her desk in Quantico. It struck me for the first time that was when she must have gone to Phoenix to stalk and kill Orsulak.

“I haven’t had a real vacation in a long time. I was thinking about Italy maybe. Venice.”

I didn’t challenge her on the lie. I remained silent and she lost her patience. My acting wasn’t working.

“Jack, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I hesitated and then said, “There is one thing that’s been kind of bothering me, Rachel.”

“Tell it to me.”

“The other night, our first night together, I called your room after you left. I just wanted to say good night, you know, and tell you how much I enjoyed what we did. And there was no answer. I even went to your door and knocked. No answer. Then the next morning you said you had seen Thorson in the hall. And I don’t know, I guess I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Thinking what, Jack?”

“I don’t know, just thinking. I was wondering where you were when I called and when I knocked.”

She was silent for a moment and when she finally spoke her anger crackled through the phone like a fire.

“Jack, you know what you sound like? A jealous high school boy. Like the boy on the bleachers you told me about. Yes, I saw Thorson in the hall and yes, I’ll even admit that he thought I was looking for him, that I wanted him. But that’s as far as it went. I can’t explain why I didn’t get your call, okay? Maybe you called the wrong room and maybe it was when I was taking a shower and thinking about how nice the night had been, too. And maybe I shouldn’t have to defend myself or explain myself to you. If you can’t deal with your petty jealousies then find a different woman and get a different life.”

“Rachel, look I’m sorry, okay? You asked me what was wrong and I told you.”

“You must have taken too many of those pills the doctor gave you. My advice is that you sleep it off, Jack. I have a plane to catch.”

She hung up.

“Good-bye,” I said into the silence.

48

The sun was going down and the sky was the color of ripe pumpkin with slashes of phosphorescent pink. It was beautiful and even the clutter of billboards up and down the strip looked beautiful to me. I was back out on the balcony, trying to think, trying to figure things out, waiting for Bledsoe to call back. He was the one who had left the message while I talked to Rachel. His message said he was out of the office but would call back.

I looked at the Marlboro Man, his crinkled eyes and stoic chin unchanged by time. He’d always been one of my heroes, an icon, no matter that he was always as shallow as a magazine page or a billboard sign. I remembered being at the dinner table, my position every night always to my father’s right. Him always smoking and the ashtray always to the right of his plate. Me learning to smoke by virtue of that. He looked like the Marlboro Man to me, my father. Back then, at least.

Back in the room, I called home and my mother answered. She went into histrionics asking whether I was all right and gently scolded me for not calling sooner. Finally, after I had calmed her and assured her that I was okay, I asked her to put my father on the line. We had not spoken since the funeral-if we had even spoken then.

“Dad?”

“Son. You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. You okay?”

“Oh, sure. We were just worried about you, that’s all.”

“Well, don’t. Everything’s fine.”

“It’s a crazy thing, isn’t it?”

“You mean about Gladden? Yeah.”

“Riley’s here with us. She’s going to spend a few days.”

“That’s good, Dad.”

“Do you want to talk to her?”

“No, I wanted to talk to you.”

That silenced him, maybe made him nervous.

“You in Los Angeles?”

He said it with a hard G.

“Yeah, at least a day or two more. I just … I called because I wanted-I’ve been thinking about things and I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what, Son?”

“Anything, everything. Sarah, Sean, you name it.” I laughed the way you laugh when something isn’t funny, when it’s uncomfortable. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“Jack, you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Well, you don’t have to say you’re sorry for anything.”

“Yes, I do. I do.”

“Well … we’re sorry, too, then. I’m sorry.”

I let a little bit of silence underline that.

“Thanks, Dad. I’m gonna go. Tell Mom I said good-bye and tell Riley I said hello.”

“I will. Why don’t you come down here when you get back? Spend a couple days, too.”

“I will.”

I hung up. Marlboro Man, I thought. I looked out the open balcony door and saw his eyes peeking over the railing, watching me. My hand was hurting again. So was my head. I knew too much and didn’t want to. I took another pill.

At five-thirty Bledsoe finally called. The news he had was not good. It was the final piece, the final tearing of the veil of hope I’d held on to. As I listened to him it felt like the blood was draining from my heart. I was alone again. And what was worse was that the one I had desired had not simply rejected me. She had used and betrayed me in a way I would’ve thought no woman could do.

“This is what I got, buddy,” Bledsoe said. “Hang on to your hat, is all I can say.”

“Give it to me.”

“Rachel Walling. Her father was Harvey Walling. I didn’t know him. When he was in dicks, I was still in patrol. I talked to one of the old guys from dicks and he said your guy was called Harvey Wallbanger. You know, after the drink. He was sort of an odd duck, loner type.”

“What about his death?”

“I’m getting to that. I had a buddy pull the old file out of archives. Happened nineteen years ago. Funny I don’t remember it. I guess I was working with my head down. Anyway, I met my pal over at the Fells Point Tavern. He brought the file. And, first off, this was definitely her old man. Her name’s in there. She was the one who found him. He’d shot himself. Temple shot. It went suicide but there were some problems.”

“What?”

“Well, no note for one thing. And for another, he’d worn gloves. It was in the winter, yes, but he did it inside. First thing in the morning. The investigator wrote down in the reports that he didn’t like that part of it.”

“Was there gunshot residue on one of the gloves?”

“Yeah, it was there.”

“Was she-was Rachel home when it happened?”

“She said she was upstairs in her bedroom sleeping when she heard the shot. In her king-size bed. She got scared, said she didn’t come down for an hour after the shot. Then she found him. This is according to the reports.”

“What about the mother?”

“There was no mother. She’d taken off years before. Rachel was left alone with the father then.”

I thought about that for a few moments. His mention of the size of her bed and something about the way he’d said the last line bothered me.

“What else, Dan? You’re not telling me everything.”

“Jack, let me ask you something. Are you involved with this woman? Like I told you, I saw on the CNN how she wal-“

“Look, I’m out of time! What aren’t you telling me?”

“Okay, okay, the only other thing noted in the reports that was strange was that his bed was made.”

“What are you talking about?”

“His bed. It was made. The way it had to have worked was he got up, made his bed, got dressed and put on his coat and gloves, like he was going to work, but then instead sat down in the chair and put a bullet through his head. Either that or he stayed up all night thinking about it and then did the job.”

I felt depression and fatigue wash over me in a wave. I slid off the chair to the floor, the phone still held to my ear.

“The guy who worked the case is retired but still around. Mo Friedman. We go back. I was just coming up in dicks when he was near the end. But he was a good man. I just got off the line with him a few minutes ago. Lives up in the Poconos. I asked him about this one and what his take on it was. His unofficial take, I told him.”

“And he said?”

“He said he let it go because either way he figured Harvey Wallbanger got what he had coming.”

“But what did he say his take was?”

“He said that he thought that bed was made because it never was slept in. Never used. He said he thought the father was sleeping with the daughter in the king-size and one morning she drew the line. He didn’t know about anything after that, none of this stuff that’s been going on lately. Mo’s seventy-one years old. He does crossword puzzles. He said he doesn’t like watching the news. He didn’t know the daughter became an FBI agent.”