The President's Daughter (23 page)

She appeared to be inspecting her nails—which were short and rounded, without polish—while listening somewhat pensively.

“But there is one thing. . . . If there is someone— anyone—who acts the least bit odd or suspicious, call me right away. I can’t go into it right now, but if anyone asks, just say I took a week off. . . . No, no, I’m fine, really. . . . No, I’m not in any trouble. It’s just . . . complicated,” Dina sighed. “I’ll tell you everything when I get back, but for now, if you could just hold down the fort . . . thank you. I appreciate that. . . .

“I think we need to figure this whole thing out before someone gets hurt,” Dina told Simon after she ended her phone conversation.

“That would be the plan.”

“Any thoughts on how we’re going to go about doing that?”

“No, but the day is young,” he told her. “Maybe after listening to my tapes again one of us will have some inspiration. In the meantime, just sit back and relax for a while. Try closing your eyes. You look like you could use the rest.”

Dina lapsed back into silence, her head back against the seat, her eyes closed as Simon had suggested. He turned the radio on low and searched for a station that had more music than static. Finding one, he settled back, got into the rhythm of the traffic headed for D.C., and left Dina alone with her thoughts until they arrived at the city limits.

“Looks as if the sky has finally cleared up.” Dina opened her eyes and squinted as she looked out the window.

“It’s been sunny for the past twenty miles or so.” Simon glanced over and added, “We’re only a few blocks away from the zoo.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind stopping?” Dina asked as she searched her pocket for the scrap of paper on which she’d jotted down the address of Blythe’s old apartment building. “I guess I was hoping that if I went to the place where Blythe lived, I’d have a stronger sense of her.”

“As long as you’re all right with it. You know, of course, that that’s where she . . .” Simon hesitated.

“Yes.” Dina nodded solemnly. “Where she died. Yes, I’m sure. . . .”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Simon circled the block several times before finding a parking place on one of the adjacent side streets. From there he and Dina walked around the corner to Connecticut Avenue and stood in front of the building that matched the address that Betsy had given Dina the night before.

The white apartment building had been one of many erected in the capital back in the 1920s and ’30s in the Art Deco style, with a limestone porte cochere, octagonal columns, zigzag decorative bands, and carved panels incorporated into its facade. By current standards it was fancy and fussy and just a little bit camp.

“Betsy said that Blythe had the second-floor apartment there on the right.” Dina looked up at the windows. “She said that back in the day, this was quite the place to live.”

Dina turned toward the street and stared. “It’s hard to imagine someone running down a pedestrian here— then reversing the vehicle to run over their victim a second time—without anyone seeing the accident.” Dina frowned. “It’s such a busy street.”

“Well, it was, what, almost two in the morning, and there was a witness, according to the police report,” Simon reminded her. “Albeit a somewhat intoxicated one . . .”

“I’ll bet if they had looked harder, they’d have found someone who was looking out a window. Look at all the apartment buildings on both sides of the street.” She turned back to Simon and said, “I don’t understand why the police weren’t able to find a more credible witness to the accident. Maybe they could have gotten a better description of the vehicle.”

“I don’t know that they spent much time looking for one,” he told her. “We’ve already figured out that the investigation was brought to a premature halt by someone who had enough pull to get such a thing done.”

Dina looked from one building to another, noting the number of windows that faced Connecticut Avenue.

“I don’t believe for a minute that no one saw the accident.”

“I agree, but thirty years later, what are the odds of finding that someone?”

“Slim to none,” Dina muttered. “Slim to none . . .”

She stood on the curb and watched the cars zoom by, taxis changing lanes and out-of-state vehicles moving faster than the posted speed limit. When the light at the corner changed, stopping traffic, she stepped into the street.

“She would have been right here,” Dina said, looking back at Simon, her eyes clouded. “The police report said she was struck at a point fifty-four feet from the intersection. She would have been right about here. . . .”

Dina stared at the street, as if envisioning the scene. “The police report said she had stepped into the street on this side, that she was crossing the street.” She turned to Simon, her head tilted slightly. “Why would she be crossing the street—headed away from her apartment building—at two in the morning? Where would she have been going at that hour?”

“That’s a question that probably could have been answered thirty years ago, had it been asked.”

Dina took another few steps forward into the street as if counting her steps.

“Twelve feet from the curb.” Dina looked back at Simon. “Right here. This is where she was struck. This is where Blythe died. . . .”

“Dina, for God’s sake.” Simon stepped into the street and pulled her back as the light changed and a car sped through the intersection. “Could we not have history repeat itself?”

Dina seemed oblivious to the danger. “Don’t you just feel so sad here, knowing what happened to her?” Her voice trembled. “She had everything in the world to live for. A new baby, a man she adored who loved her deeply, even though the circumstances weren’t the best. How must she have felt, when she realized that the car wasn’t going to stop? How must she have felt, when she realized that just that quickly, she was losing it all . . .”

Simon put an arm around her shoulders and led her back to the car, their hips bumping occasionally as they walked. Simon opened the door for her, tucked her into her seat.

“Maybe we could come back again sometime, maybe visit Dumbarton Oaks,” Simon said as he slid behind the wheel, pausing to study the tension in her face.

“That would be nice, Simon. Thank you.”

Simon tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “It’ll give me an excuse to spend another day with you.”

He started the engine and checked the rearview mirror.

“Simon?” she said as he pulled from the parking spot.

“What?”

“You don’t need an excuse.” Her fingers touched his, entwined with them. “You’re the only thing about this whole mess that I wouldn’t change.”

“Even though I brought this mess to your door?”

“You’re not responsible for the truth being what it is. Just tell me that you didn’t ask me out because of my connection to your book.”

“I asked you out in spite of it,” he said honestly, and raised her fingers to his lips. He wanted to thank her for her generosity of spirit, wanted to comfort her, wanted to find a way to ease the painful emotions that must be churning inside her. Wanted to forget for a while that he was still a reporter and that he’d probably never uncover a story bigger than this one . . .

And so he said nothing but simply took a right onto Connecticut Avenue and headed toward the bridge that would take them to Arlington, thinking that for him, too, Dina was the best part of the whole mess. Both lost in their own thoughts, neither spoke until they reached their destination.

“Your development is really pretty,” Dina said as Simon drove through the faux Greek columns that stood at the entrance to the community of rented town houses that he temporarily called home.

“Thanks. It’s relatively quiet, too. There seem to be more single, executive types and young couples than families. I’ve only seen a few little kids around.” He made a left onto his street. “They have a nice recreation center—a pool and a very well equipped gym.”

“Do you use it?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “Gyms are for desk jockeys.”

Dina laughed, pleased that he had remembered the remark she made the first time they met.

“Nice landscaping,” she noted as she got out of the car. “A nice balance of shrubs and perennials, just enough trees . . .”

The mood had turned just a little lighter, for which Simon was grateful, for Dina’s sake. She’d dealt with the morning’s ghosts as best she could. He was thinking about how much he admired her strength as he went to put the key in the front door.

And realized that it was already open.

Not by much and not enough that you’d notice it from the street, but the door did in fact stand open by mere inches.

“Uh-oh,” he muttered.

He held out a hand to stop Dina from entering with him. Who knew who had been there, or why, or if they remained?

“Call nine-one-one on your cell phone. Tell them there’s been a break-in,” he said quietly.

“Are you serious? . . . Oh, my God, Simon, don’t go in there.”

He pushed the door aside far enough for them both to see inside, enough to know that someone had done far more than simply paid a visit. Tables and lamps were knocked over; cushions from the living room furniture were scattered about.

“Stay out here and call nine-one-one,” he repeated as he stepped into the hall. “And wait out there for the police to arrive.”

“Why is it safe for you to go in and not for me?” she asked as she dialed the number.

Ignoring her, Simon stepped inside, cautiously, one step at a time, though he was pretty sure that the person who’d broken in was long gone. There were no strange cars outside, and it wasn’t likely that someone would break in during daylight hours. Most likely, he was thinking, this had occurred during the night. His neighbors on the one side rarely arrived home before midnight and didn’t leave in the morning until after ten, and the town house on the other side had been vacant for two weeks.

The inside of the house was cool and silent. Simon paused in the hallway and listened for the sound of someone taking cover, but there was nothing to indicate that he was not alone in the house. He peered through the living room into the dining room. He’d been working on his laptop on the dining room table two nights ago, before he left for what he thought would be a day trip to the Pierce farm. It had never occurred to him to take the computer with him. But he could see from where he stood that it was gone.

“Shit!”
he yelled to no one in particular. “Damn it!”

Dina ran through the door. “Simon . . . ?”

“My laptop is gone. Along with the disk that was in it.” He met Dina’s eyes from the next room. “The disk on which I’d kept a running set of notes . . .”

“Oh, no...”

The center drawer of the small sideboard stood partially open, its contents dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. Simon opened the drawer all the way and stuck in his hand. It came out empty.

“The tape is gone.”

“Damn.” Dina slumped back against the wall. “Now we have to worry about someone else knowing—”

“I don’t think so,” he told her, his eyes darkening with anger. “This was no random break-in, in spite of the fact that someone took pains to make it look like one. The person who broke in knew there was a tape and came for it.”

“Who . . . ?”

Simon looked beyond her and waved to the first arriving officer. “Hi,” he called out. “We’re in here!”

“What are you going to tell them?” Dina whispered.

“That it was a random break-in, of course.”

The list of missing items was short, and the list Simon gave to the police was even shorter. He reported the theft of the laptop. “I’m renting here, so I don’t have a lot of personal items with me. There really wasn’t anything else to steal.”

“Except the television.” The young officer wandered back into the living room. “I’ve been wanting one of these wide-screen jobs myself. Nice stereo. Nice VCR. Wonder why they only took the laptop?”

“Maybe that’s all they could carry,” Simon offered.

“You go upstairs?” the officer asked.

“Ah, no,” Simon admitted.

“I’ll just take a look and make sure no one’s up there,” the officer said as another patrol car pulled up out front, lights on but no siren. He waved to the newly arriving officer and waited until he’d reached the front door. “Looks like only a laptop, so far.”

“You in the FBI?” the newly arrived officer asked Simon.

“No.”

“CIA?”

“No. Why?”

“Just asking.” The officer shrugged. “Usually the only times you see a job like this—the place tossed and nothing stolen but the computer—it’s got something to do with the government.”

He followed the first officer up the stairs. Within moments both officers were coming back down.

“Did you have another TV set upstairs?” the first one down asked.

“No, only the one in the living room.”

“Would you come on up and take a look around and let us know if anything’s missing?”

Simon did, but there was nothing out of place.

“Odd, you know, that they only tossed the first floor,” the younger of the two officers noted.

“Maybe he got scared away. Maybe he heard my next-door neighbors come in last night.”

“Maybe he found what he was looking for in the laptop,” the second officer said as he took a notebook from his back pocket. “Now, let’s start at the beginning. . . .”

From the beginning to the end took all of twentyfive minutes. There was not much to tell, Simon explained. He’d gone out the previous morning and returned this afternoon to find his house broken into and his laptop stolen.

“Call us if you find that anything else is missing,” the second officer said as he left, stealing one last appreciative glance at Dina before closing the door behind him.

“So. What now?” Dina asked when both patrol cars had departed.

“First, we check the jacket pocket,” Simon muttered.

“Excuse me?” She frowned.

“I’ll be right back,” he said as he took the steps two at a time.

He was back in a flash, holding a tape in his hand. “All is not lost.”

“I thought you said that the tape was stolen.”

“They only found the copy. This is the original.”

“But someone else has the other. Which means someone else now knows—”

“I suspect that this someone has known all along, so he didn’t need the tape to tell him something he didn’t already know.” Simon slipped the tape into his pocket and took Dina by the hand. “This someone took the tape so that I wouldn’t have any evidence of Kendall’s statements.”

“You think you know who took it?”

“Only one person knew about it.” He locked the door behind them. “Dina, I think it’s time you met Philip Norton. . . .”

The trip back to Georgetown was not the leisurely ride they’d taken earlier in the afternoon. This time around, Simon drove like a man possessed. In less than thirty minutes, Simon was on his way up the steps to Philip Norton’s front door and ringing the doorbell.

“Simon, I wasn’t expecting—” Norton stood in his doorway, his pipe suspended halfway to his lips, his eyes fixed on Dina, who, at that moment, was standing a foot behind Simon.