A Slow Walk to Hell (23 page)

Enrique grinned. “Then we got a break. Hector saw them. He saw the killers.”

Plural.

As Simon and I headed toward the door, he said stiffly to me. “Perhaps, Martin.”

Not exactly an endorsement of my suspicions about Major Coller, but I’ll take it.

S
imon and I made our way down the walkway toward the lamp post, where Enrique and the janitor waited. Eddie had drifted away from them, talking loudly on his cellular. He said, “That’s right, Jeff. We’re staying off the radio until the scene gets processed. After the Talbot killing, the last thing the lieutenant wants is more goddamn press—”

Looking past Eddie, I saw Amanda assist Mrs. Blake into the front seat of a police car. After closing the door, she leaned through the window and gave Mrs. Blake a hug. As she did, two cops contemplated her backside with leering smiles. Amanda suddenly turned and caught them looking. The old Amanda would have chewed them out, or at least emasculated them with a blistering comment. This Amanda just coolly walked away, looking beautiful and remote. The cops grinned, elbowing each other.

At that moment, I realized her transformation was complete; Amanda had really changed.

“Does Amanda really love this guy Bob?” I asked.

“Yes,” Simon said.

“So it’s too late for me?”

“Does it matter?”

“Very much.”

“I see.” He paused. “Do you love her?”

I watched Amanda join Enrique. Up to now, I hadn’t been willing to admit even to myself that I—

“Yes,” I said softly, “I love her.”

His pace slowed. “You’re certain of your feelings?”

I nodded.

He was quiet for a moment. With feeling, he said, “I care for you both, Martin. But you hurt her before and I won’t allow you do so again.”

“I won’t,” I said. “But I have to know if it’s too late.”

“That’s up to Amanda.”

“At least tell me if I have a chance.”

Simon’s expression softened. “You always have a chance.”

So it wasn’t over. While I realized the odds could be a hundred to one against me, I didn’t care.

I had a chance.

Enrique watched our approach, engaged in an anxious two-step. The instant we reached him, he practically leapt at us to describe what the janitor saw.

Enrique spoke in his newscaster precise style, consulting his notepad.

The janitor’s name was Hector Cruz. He’d been hauling trash to the Dumpster, when he spotted the car driving up to the rectory. It was between seven forty-five and seven-fifty
P.M
. Hector knew this because he’d been listening to a radio station over his Walkman and the quarter-hour commercial break had just ended.

Hector saw two men get out of the car. He couldn’t see them well because it was dark and they were too far away. Both seemed average in build, one taller than the other. He recalled they were dressed similarly in lightweight jackets and baseball caps. The jackets and caps looked black. He believed they wore jeans.

No, he never saw them enter the rectory. By then, he’d gone back inside the church.

“That’s all?” Simon said, when Enrique finished. “Two nondescript males in black jackets and baseball caps.”

Enrique pointed to the Dumpster, which was situated between the gym and the church. “What do you expect, Simon? We’re talking a distance of what, eighty, maybe a hundred yards. And the Dumpster can’t be twenty feet from the side door of the church. Mr. Cruz only saw the killers for a few seconds, when he walked back to the church.”

“A Walkman, huh?” Amanda said.

Enrique nodded. “That’s why he never heard the shots.”

“Been tough to hear them anyway,” I said, “once he was in the church.”

“What about the car?” Amanda asked.

“A silver sedan. Four door.”

Not the black BMW we expected. She said, “No make or model?”

“No.” He added, “He did say it looked expensive.”

“He must remember
something
about the killers’ appearance,” Simon said. “Gained at least an impression of their ethnicity or age or hair—”

“They had on jackets and caps, Simon.”

“Even so—”

“The height difference,” Enrique said. “He did say it was significant. It would have to be for him to notice.”

Simon squinted, suggesting this meant something. He became still, his brow deeply knitted. I hoped this wasn’t going to take long.

It didn’t.

“How different?” Simon asked Enrique. “Six inches. A foot?”

Enrique shrugged. “He said quite a bit.”

“Was the smaller man unusually short or—”

“His impression was the other person was tall. But he made a point of saying he couldn’t be certain because—”

Simon impatiently stepped around him to talk to Hector. Enrique glanced quizzically at me. I shook my head; I couldn’t venture a guess at Simon’s sudden interest. Amanda gave it a shot, pointing out that an unusually tall killer would be easier to identify.

A given if you had a suspect pool. But none of the players whom we’d come across could be described as unusually tall except for—

“General Baldwin?” Amanda said, as if reading my mind. “He’s tall, right?”

“Six-five.” I added, “I saw him at his dinner party at nine.”

“That gives him an hour. He could have left the party and returned.” This was Enrique.

“With the secretary of the Air Force and a congressman as dinner guests?”

That quieted them. Neither could fathom Sam slipping out on high-powered guests to slaughter three people, then return for dessert.

Hector looked understandably nervous as Simon addressed him. Simon tried to disarm his concerns with a beaming smile. He reinforced it with soothing Spanish and Hector visibly relaxed.

In response to a question, Hector pointed to the driveway, where one of the cop cars was parked.

“The killers parked there,” Enrique said.

More conversation in Spanish. Simon gestured to a section of the walkway close to the house. Hector seemed puzzled. He shook his head.

Enrique said, “He’s asking him who walked up to the house first. The passenger or the driver? Hector thinks it was the passenger, but can’t be sure.”

“Do we care?” Amanda asked.

“Simon,” Enrique explained, “thinks the one in charge would go first.”

“Do we care?” Amanda repeated.

Simon held his hand adjacent to his head, palm parallel to the ground. His question about the height.

Hector thought for a moment, then moved next to Simon. He was at least five inches shorter than Simon’s six-two. He squinted at Simon’s head, then placed his hand several inches above it.

“More than a head taller,” I said.

Simon asked another question and Hector responded.

“He thinks the driver was the tall one,” Enrique said. “Again he isn’t sure.”

Simon began walking toward the driveway, motioning Hector to follow. After several paces, he lowered his voice and asked another question.

“What’s
this?”
Amanda said. “Is he—hell, he is. He’s trying to keep us from hearing him.”

The cops were standing around with blank expressions. None appeared to follow the conversation.

“Not us,” I said to Amanda. “We don’t speak Spanish.” I looked at Enrique.

Instead of appearing irritated, he had a stunned expression.

“You heard what Simon asked?” I said, jumping on the obvious.

A hesitant nod. “A couple words. Simon wants to know if—”

Simon spun toward him. “No,” he ordered harshly. “Not a word.”

Enrique flinched, shocked at his tone. His mouth obediently closed.

Amanda glared at Simon. “What the hell is this? We’re on the same team, remember?”

The cops watched this confrontation with spreading smiles. It wasn’t often they saw someone get into Simon’s face.

“It’s nothing,” Simon said to Amanda. “It’s an impossibility. It can’t be done.”

“What can’t be done?”

His attention was back on Hector. The two men ducked under the yellow tape and drifted toward the driveway, speaking in hushed tones.

“It
is
impossible,” Enrique murmured. “But why would Simon ask? Why in the world would he even consider the possibility that…”

Amanda and I watched him. He was slowly shaking his head, looking completely confused. Brushing past us, he headed down the walkway, still talking to himself. Amanda and I frowned, staring after him.

“You catch what he just said, Marty?”

“Something about a person being in two places at once.”

E
nrique went over to the limo and climbed in the back. He left the door open and we could see him sitting there, staring into space. While Amanda and I had no idea what question Simon had posed, Enrique’s reaction did confirm one thing.

Simon was thinking out of the box again.

“He’s finished,” Amanda said.

A reference to Simon who’d removed his wallet and was handing Hector several bills. From Hector’s response, we knew they were big. He smiled broadly and thanked Simon profusely. As Hector walked toward the church, Simon negotiated the crime scene tape and made his way over to Amanda and me.

His determined expression made it clear it was no use pressing him for answers, so when Amanda gave me a questioning look, I shook her off.

So much for accepting my input.

Once Simon got within earshot, she demanded, “When will you tell us?”

He shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell. It can’t happen.”

“Then why are you worried?”

“I’m not.” His denial contained a weary quality; he didn’t expect us to believe him.

“It?”
Amanda pressed, fulfilling his expectation. “What’s it? What can’t happen?”

Ignoring her, Simon addressed Eddie, who’d worked the phone earlier. “What’s the estimate for the ME and forensics?”

“Thirty minutes for forensics, Lieutenant. At least an hour for an ME, Doc Page.”

Simon nodded and started back down the walkway, away from the house.

“Where are you going now?” I asked.

“Church,” he said, without looking back. “I need to think.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. I need to be alone. I need to understand.”

“How two people can be in the same place at once?”

I had to hand it to Simon. He never reacted in any way. He just calmly scooted under the tape and kept walking as if he hadn’t heard me.

But the farther he moved away from us, we saw his head bend and his shoulders droop. No doubt about it; Simon was deeply troubled.

Amanda said, “You realize what this means, what it has to mean.”

“He believes it’s Congressman Harris.”

“How? It has to be more than Hector’s description of the killers. There wasn’t much there.”

“Obviously there was enough.”

For the next several minutes, we tried to come up with likely candidates who might fit Hector’s vague description of the killers. The problem was that we had to rule out everyone in Harris’s entourage. During the killings of Talbot and the priests, they were either in Pennsylvania or on an airplane. With regard to Coller’s murder, they wouldn’t have had time to drive to Arlington from the congressman’s Maryland home, after being dropped off by the helicopter.

“The Harris estate is near Fort Washington, right?” Amanda said.

“Yeah. Take at least forty-five minutes to drive to Coller’s.”

She watched Simon disappear into the church. “It’s impossible. You can’t be two places at once. Too bad. I was hoping to nail that dirtbag campaign manager Slater. He’s what? Five-eight or-nine? He could have been the shorter perp.”

“Guys like him don’t soil their hands on something as dirty as murder.”

“A girl can always hope.” She said it without a smile.

I said, “Colonel Kelly and General Baldwin are also out. Kelly’s too stocky to be either killer and we know Simon wouldn’t have any qualms about arresting either of them.”

She faced me. “So we’re back to square one. It’s people we haven’t met. Either pros or some other staff members.”

I told her I was leaning toward the latter because of the risky manner with which the priests’ murders had been carried out. I added, “Assuming they were staff members or acquaintances of Harris, I’m wondering how Simon recognized them. Chances are he wouldn’t have met them either.”

“Simon’s connected politically, right? Goes to fundraising dinners and cocktail parties. He might have run across them somewhere.”

“What about Enrique? He seemed to know them too.”

“He’s Simon’s shadow. He could have been present when Simon met them.”

Perhaps but—

I shook my head. “Simon still must have a
reason
for suspecting them. Something beyond their appearance. Something that told him these people might be capable of murdering—”

And then it came to me. I felt a step slow. I should have made this connection sooner. “Shit,
shit.”

“What?”

I relayed what Enrique told me. That Simon mentioned a third person in addition to Colonel Kelly and Sam who possessed marksmanship skills. “Simon didn’t consider them a suspect, probably because he believed the person had an alibi.”

She digested this with a slow intake of breath. “So that’s why Simon thinks it’s Harris, because this person is connected to him. Someone who could shoot…”

“Yes.”

“But Simon can’t get around the alibi. Until he does, he won’t tell us anything. He’s afraid of being wrong.”

“You know Simon.”

“Yeah.” She scowled. “Mr. Insecurity. He say anything else I should know?”

I gave her a rundown of my conversation with Simon, including his suspicions of Sam, my conclusion that Sam loved Talbot, and Simon’s grudging acknowledgment that Major Coller might be the person who betrayed Talbot. Because of my promise to Enrique, I withheld Simon’s comment that the gay club might hold the answer to the killings.

“Coller sold out Talbot, huh?” Amanda said.
“That’s
a twist.” Her tone suggested she was having trouble with this.

“It was either him or Sam, and I know it wasn’t Sam.”

“Any chance that General Baldwin only
pretended
to be affectionate toward Talbot, in order to throw off your suspicions?”

I hesitated. “Of course there’s a chance—”

“But you don’t believe it.”

I didn’t reply. She knew damn well I didn’t. She still appeared skeptical, but before she could pursue the topic, I asked her if Simon had mentioned anything I should know.

“A couple items. Doc Cantrell called him with the time of death. Since we don’t know when Talbot had lunch, all she could tell us was that it was five hours after he ate, give or take thirty minutes.”

Assuming Talbot ate around noon, that still put his murder around five in the afternoon. “And the second item?”

She gave me a knowing look. “The black BMW. We think it belonged to Major Talbot. Teriko found the purchase agreement in Talbot’s files. He bought a black M5 last week.”

I stared at her.

“Go figure. The killers must have taken it, but why? Did they get some kind of perverse jollies using Talbot’s own car when they took out Coller? If so, why didn’t they use that car when they came after the priests?”

“They probably realized the car was spotted by Officer Hannity.”

“Maybe.” Her brow crinkled. “Another thing I don’t get is why there was only one person in the car when Hannity spotted it? It wouldn’t make sense for the second guy to be hiding in the park. How would he know he’d need to take out Coller with a sniper shot?”

This break in the killers’ MO did seem odd. We now realized they must have teamed up to kill Talbot—one of them must have driven off in his BMW—and they also both attacked the priests. Yet, when going after Coller, they didn’t pair up. Was this a matter worth concerning ourselves over? It might be.

If the second killer had targeted another victim whose body we still had to discover.

I rubbed my face hard at the possibility.

“You think Simon will talk to us when he comes out?” Amanda was again looking at the church.

“Not unless he can get around the alibis.”

She gave me a sideways glance. “So you could be wrong about Slater dirtying his hands? Or maybe Harris was the third marksman? If we want to get really crazy, we could even throw Coller’s name into the ring—”

She stopped when something occurred to her. “Jesus,” she said.

“What?”

She focused on me, her voice excited. “That’s the answer. That’s why there was only one killer in the car. You don’t see it, Marty? What if Coller
was
the smaller killer? He fits the description. Slender, average height. He also must have been in on the Talbot killing. We knew Talbot wouldn’t let strangers into his house. Once Coller did his part, he became a loose end to be disposed of. Hell, it makes sense. You know it does.”

I had to nod my agreement. She stood there, grinning as if this was a breakthrough in the case. It wasn’t. Even if her theory proved true, it still shed no light on the second killer’s identity or who was behind the murders.

When I mentioned this, her grin faded and she turned to gaze toward the church.

“Screw it,” she said wearily.