The Third Coincidence (2 page)

He shuffled closer to the bush and leaned in farther. A strong hand grasped his arm.

Chapter 3

Nominees for the Supreme Court are being vetted.

—Philadelphia Inquirer, June 4

Later that morning, Jack McCall walked into the National Mall with the trees slapping back at the summer wind. Deeper into the Mall, near a rest area called the Summer House, he found a uniformed of- ficer and two detectives standing around the body of an elderly white male, a mere skeleton wrapped in skin as frail as wet tissue paper. The victim’s sparse hair, the color of dust. His jaw loose. Black flies dotting the gaping wound across his neck that had leaked onto dirt to form a soupy scarlet puddle. Age had shrunken the man, but not each part equally. His head looked oddly large in proportion to the rest of his body.

Jack’s gaze swept the area with the ease of someone familiar with making a quick assessment of his surroundings: a golf ball on the grass a few feet from the body, an old golf club under a bush with a broken branch, but no footprints in the planted area.

Thanks to an earlier call from his office, Jack knew this was Supreme Court Justice Herbert Clarkson Montgomery. He also knew that events were conspiring to push him into the middle of this—whatever this was—even before his meeting with the presi- dent. He need not take the assignment the president would soon ask of him. The wealth his grandfather had left him assured a comfort- able living. The man, born in Canada, his paternal ancestors trap- pers, had made his modest fortune using his knowledge of the Great

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Lakes to slip Canadian whiskey into the States. Jack’s father moved to the Chesapeake Bay area as a young man and legitimized the fam- ily through a long career in the U.S. Navy.

In any event, Jack didn’t need to decide his answer to the presi- dent now, but the question hung.

Jack approached the two plainclothes detectives, flashed his cre- dentials, and got their names: Lieutenant Frank Wade and Sergeant Nora Burke.

“While I’m here, I’ll be in charge,” he told Lieutenant Wade, a formidable black man with the indefinable aura of a film-noir cop. The kind that skipped his prayers and kissed the butt of his gun, a de- tective whose appearance said he had been there and back.

Wade twisted his mouth, then mumbled something. Jack waited a beat, the two of them looking uncomfortable enough to be wear- ing each other’s shoes.

“The FBI’s sending over an ERT,” Jack said. After noticing a quizzical look on Sergeant Burke’s face he added, “evidence re- sponse team.” Then he instructed the two local detectives to tell him what they knew.

“We got zip.” Wade said, raking his thick fingers down his stub- bled cheek. “The cut severed the old guy’s jugular, but not the carotid artery. That would have sprayed like a fountain. The medical examiner will tell us whether he bled to death or drowned after his blood back-flushed down his severed trachea. Either way, he hasn’t been waiting long to be found.”

“We’ve only been here a few minutes,” Sergeant Burke added. “You got here fast from Langley.”

“I was in town.” Jack said. “Who was first on the scene?” “Carlyle,” Wade bellowed. “Come over here and tell this man

what you told me.”

“Some tourist flagged me and my partner when we stopped on Pennsylvania,” the uniformed officer said. “The tourist hadn’t rec- ognized the old man. I did only because Montgomery always waved whenever we saw him walking. One day he introduced himself.”

10 David M. Bishop

“Did he walk often?” Jack asked.

“Every morning, ’cept in shitty weather.” “Where’s the tourist?”

Carlyle pointed. “My partner’s with him.” “Any other witnesses?”

“Not a soul,” Carlyle said. “The next six or eight people who had arrived at the scene, I had stick around. Sergeant Burke had them wait over there.” Another point.

“Anything else?” Lieutenant Wade asked.

Carlyle shook his head and started to leave. “Oh, Lieutenant,” he said, turning back. “I called Mall maintenance. They’re bringing over some stuff to close off this part of the Mall.”

“Good work, Officer Carlyle,” Wade said. “Protect the scene until the techs arrive.”

Jack turned to the lieutenant. “The small group of folks who came later, any of them know anything?”

“Little chance, Agent McCall—is that what we should call you?” “That’s fine. You were saying?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay. Take those people’s names and find out how to contact them. Then, assuming they don’t know anything, let them leave. While you’re doing that, I’ll take Sergeant Burke and we’ll talk with the man who found the body. Then your sergeant can fill you in.”

Wade nodded. His lips tightly clamped.

“Sergeant Burke, you go on over and take the lead,” Jack said. “I’ll come along in a minute or two. Don’t introduce me. I’ll fly low. And send Carlyle’s partner back to help lock down the scene.”

A rumble came from the dark clouds. Jack looked up and shook his head. He needed the weather to hold until the FBI’s evidence re- sponse team had done their thing. He started up the incline behind Burke, who was wearing a black pair of those stretchy pants that held her butt close. The wind at his back brought a noise. He looked over his shoulder. The Bureau’s ERT had arrived and was setting up for a grid search.

the third coincidence 11

“I think there’s eight, no nine,” Jack heard one of the technicians say. “I’m pretty sure now that I think about it. The ninth is the chief justice. I don’t know their names, let alone their faces.”

“The chief justice is Thomas Evans,” another said. “I’ve heard of this Montgomery guy, but I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. We all really need to pay more attention to these guys.”

Burke pushed back a strand of strawberry-blond hair and started questioning the man who had found the body. After he repeatedly claimed not to have seen anything but the body where it lay, she jot- ted down how to contact him and let him go.

“I heard a rumor this morning,” Burke said, turning toward Jack, “that Justice Monroe didn’t die last week of a heart attack.”

Jack nodded. “Poison.”

“Montgomery makes two justices murdered. We’ll have more.” “What makes you say that, Sergeant Burke?”

“Because people die. Hatred doesn’t.”

Chapter 4

Capitol killings and terrorism: Are they connected?

—Detroit Free Press, Editorial, June 4

The watcher observed tonight’s prey, Federal Reserve Governor J.

T. Santee, back out of his driveway as the sun slid behind a high ridge in the Pocono Mountains. The red taillights on Santee’s new Jaguar glistened off Winding Trail Road, wet from the drizzle falling along the fringe of the huge storm system pelting Washington, D.C. He had considered capturing Santee to learn why he and the oth-

ers like him would sell out their country, but he already knew the an- swer. They lusted for the intoxication that came with being able to largely ignore the Congress and the president of the United States.

The watcher had spent his life on the lower limbs being shit on by the big birds sitting on the higher branches, but he had dedicated himself to change that. He’d take no unnecessary chances. In and out. Quick hits. Disappear.

The taste of damp eucalyptus flavored his lips as he held rough- textured binoculars to his eyes to see Santee lower his driver’s side window, then a red dot brightened as the man drew on the cigarette in his mouth.

Smoking will kill you, old man.

Three minutes to go.

The families of the five houses clustered near the peak were all home. The Santee estate held the kingly spot at the very top with a view to die for. The killer smirked at his unintentional pun.

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A previous reconnaissance had disclosed this road to be a favorite of the local area’s sex-charged youths, the wild card in the hand he would play tonight.

Two minutes.

He rolled his pant legs up above his knees, tossed his red base- ball cap onto the front seat, slipped an old housedress over his head, and pulled on a woman’s gray wig. Last, he lifted a baby carriage from the back of his Explorer.

At that moment, a shooting star streaked the night sky, cutting a widening swath as the clasp on a lowering zipper spreads material. The time had come for his next step in restoring America to a gov- ernment of the people, by the people, and for the people.

One minute.

The baby carriage bumped oddly as he pushed it across the blacktopped road to the spot where he would stand just out of sight. Santee’s speed alone would carry the Jag nearer the right side of the outer lane. Centrifugal force would protect the watcher standing on the white line just beyond the sharp turn. He eased the baby car- riage into Santee’s lane and waited. It would not be long.

Forty seconds.

Santee felt the pulse of his sleek machine through the leather- wrapped steering wheel. The Jag’s premium speakers, blaring a clas- sical CD, blotted out the squeal from the tires as momentum carried the Jag to the outer edge of the narrow two-lane road. The cool night gave him goose bumps. His breathing deepened. His heart raced.

At the three-mile post he lifted his foot from the accelerator and kept it off the brake. More than once he had promised his wife he’d stop, but she didn’t understand. Some older men in power cavorted with younger women, but he had seen such behavior revealed to ruin professional lives. Instead, when he got behind the wheel, he was seduced by the challenge of his road game.

Tonight he would bust his record. Then, by God, he’d keep his promise.

14 David M. Bishop

Santee slammed the accelerator to the floor. The eucalyptus- scented air poured through the moonroof to rustle his thinning hair. He felt young.

His Jag entered the turn.

Oh, my God.

Fear grabbed his throat.

Right in front of his speeding car stood an old woman pushing a baby carriage. For an instant his mind asked why she would be there, but there was no time for reasoning. He hit his high beams.

Her eyes brightened. Her mouth opened. Her hands shot up shielding her eyes from the glare.

He screamed for her to move the carriage, but the tightly built Jaguar suffocated his voice. He jerked hard to the right, strangling the steering wheel as his Jag smashed through the feeble guardrail. The left front tire clawed at the graveled edge, then spun freely in the air.

He watched with horror as the rocks below appeared to be reach- ing up to embrace him.

His last awareness, the humiliation of surrendering control of his bowels.

The rain spotted the watcher’s face as he rushed to the broken guardrail. The full moon, ducking in and out among the rushing black clouds, revealed a mangled mass more resembling an accor- dion than a car. A moment later the Jaguar exploded, the crash hav- ing apparently ruptured the gas tank, its contents somehow reaching the old man’s cigarette. He had not anticipated a glorious explosion.

The red glare, the bombs bursting in air.

His lower jaw quivered. He wanted to stay, to watch, to feel the warmth wafting up from below. But he could not risk it. The local teens could start arriving at any moment. They would see the bro- ken guardrail, look below, and report the accident.

The night clouds veiled the moon while he concealed the carriage, dress, and wig in the back of his Explorer. He had left the

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vehicle parked just around a bend, on a gravel-covered shoulder. The bushes on the downhill side absorbing the headlights of any cars coming up the hill. After making sure there was no traffic ap- proaching from either direction, he moved his SUV onto the road and went back to be sure there were no foot or tire tracks.

The rain had stopped. The crickets were again reporting their positions to other crickets. There was little ambient light, but some bright dots from the nearest town could be seen far below. He drove the first mile down the mountain slowly with his headlights off, pass- ing no one.