A Slow Walk to Hell (6 page)

“M
arty!”

As I hustled onto the balcony, I glanced behind and saw Amanda pop out from the office. “Dammit, Marty! Get back here.”

I took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the curious stares from the fingerprint technicians.

“Marty, I swear to God I’ll call General Hinkle. He’ll order you to tell us.”

I reached the foyer and looked back. Amanda was standing at the top of the stairs, her face tight with anger. “I’ll do it. I’ll call him. Don’t think I won’t.”

I shrugged. “So call him. It won’t change anything.”

“Meaning you still won’t tell us?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“You’re such an ass.” She spun on her heel and stormed back to the office.

By now the technicians were regarding me with crooked smiles. Berber hair grinned. “I’d say that’s one pissed-off lady.”

“What was your first clue?” I said dryly.

He laughed. “Kinda makes you feel sorry for the guy.”

“Which guy?”

“The one who gave her that rock she’s wearing. Poor bastard probably has no idea what’s coming.”

I was curious how he knew this. As big as Amanda’s diamond was, he would still have to be damned observant to notice the protrusion through her gloved hand.

“I noticed it a couple days ago,” he said, when I asked. “Musta been Wednesday. She dropped by the precinct to have lunch with Lieutenant Santos—say, you don’t look so good. You okay, buddy?”

I wasn’t, but managed a smile anyway. “I’m fine. How do I get to the basement?”

“Through the kitchen. Going to hide out there until she cools off, huh? I do the same thing with my old lady. Nine years we’ve been married and the only peace I get is when…”

I was walking away.

Simon and Amanda.

All I could think about was the possibility, just the possibility that it could be true. I kept telling myself Simon wouldn’t move in on someone I cared about. He wouldn’t.

By the time I reached the kitchen, I almost believed it.

I found the staircase at the rear, near a butler’s pantry. Before heading down, I confirmed I was alone, freed my cell phone from my belt and punched in a number.

“General Baldwin’s residence,” a male with an Hispanic accent said.

I identified myself and ask to speak to the general. As I waited, I heard the faint sounds of conversation.

Major General Samuel T. Baldwin IV came on the line thirty seconds later. As usual, he sounded thrilled to hear from me. After exchanging pleasantries, I asked him if he had a recent change of assignment and he said he did.

“For the last two months,” he said, “I’ve been the chief of Air Force Manpower.”

As intimated in the message I’d heard. Consulting my watch, I calculated the time for what I needed to do. “Mind if I drop by in say…half an hour?”

A pause.

When he spoke, I sensed his suspicion. Despite our history, he knew I wouldn’t pop by on such short notice without a good reason. “This a personal or professional visit?”

“Something’s happened. We need to talk.”

“I see.” Another pause. Longer. “Tonight’s not a good time. I’ve got a dinner party—”

“Thirty minutes.” I ended the call before he could argue.

While I didn’t seriously think he could be involved in the murder, there were too many connections for me to ignore. Not only was he Talbot’s boss, but I knew he could be capable of extreme violence. Then there was his attitude toward gays and his link to the threatening call.

I hadn’t lied to Simon; it hadn’t been General Baldwin’s voice on the message. But his Crystal City high-rise apartment was just down the street from the bar where the call had been made.

Another coincidence?

I went down the steps into the basement, worried about what I might see on the surveillance tapes.

The concrete box Enrique had described was wedged into a corner of the unfinished basement, not more than ten paces from the stairs. As I walked toward it, I realized Talbot could have locked himself in it, if he’d realized he was in danger.

Again, this reinforced the theory that Talbot knew his killer.

The steel door was open a sliver. I rapped once, got no response. As I pushed through, a familiar voice said, “No, shit? That recent, huh?”

I eased into a cramped space not more than ten feet by six, packed with video equipment. Racks of video recorders lined much of two walls. Over to the right was a small control console with a desktop computer and a phone, two television monitors mounted above it. The monitor on the left was displaying a grid of images from various surveillance cameras. In the upper left rectangle, I saw the front gate; toward the bottom, cops walking up the hill toward the pool.

My eyes shifted to a graying, bespectacled black man in a dapper tweed blazer, who was seated at the console, talking into the phone, an unlit pipe clenched in his teeth. He held up a finger to me. “Just a sec, Marty.”

Appearances can be deceiving, but not in Billy Cromaritie’s case. He dressed like a professor at an Ivy League school and was easily as intelligent as one. While Billy analyzed evidence for a living, his passion was technology. Computers, digital cameras, flat-screen TVs, you name it, Billy always had to have the latest and greatest.

Which explained why Simon sent him down here.

Ending his call, Billy cocked an eyebrow. “Now
that
was interesting.”

“What?”

He removed his pipe from his mouth and waved it around the cubicle. “Notice anything?”

“A boatload of VCRs.”

“Look at the concrete
between
the cinder blocks.”

I studied a portion of the wall, visible between the two TVs. “Concrete’s dark. It’s not close to being dry.”

“That’s because it was poured a little over a week ago.”

I stared at him.

“Yeah. That was the security company on the line. I checked out two tapes and was wondering why they only had a couple days’ worth of images on them. Ron, the guy I was talking to, told me that’s because this thing was slapped together in four days. Talbot paid them double for a rush job.
Double.”

His meaning was clear. Whatever was the source of Talbot’s fear, it hadn’t manifested itself until last week.

Two VHS tapes were stacked on the console. I asked if those were the ones he’d checked out.

“Right. Both from cameras at the back of the house.”

“And?”

He looked longingly at his pipe before reluctantly sliding it into his blazer. “Saw the maid, Mrs. Chang. Also a gardener. Oh, and another lady. Kind of looked like my grandmother. She was here quite a bit over the last couple days. Probably Mrs. Johnson, the other housekeeper.”

It made sense that the images on the tapes went back several days. Because the video recorders were motion activated, a single tape could last a week or longer before being recycled. “No one else?”

“Not yet. We won’t find anything. You heard that the tapes from the front of the house and the gate are missing?”

“Yeah…” I was frowning quizzically at the television monitors.

“Let me guess,” Billy said. “You’re thinking it’d be a pain in the ass if Talbot had to come down here, whenever someone came to the gate.”

I nodded. “I’m also wondering how Talbot would even know if a camera had been activated by a motion sensor. He sure wouldn’t be sitting here, watching the whole time.”

“Damn right he wouldn’t. A tone sounds whenever a camera comes on. Like a doorbell. When it goes off, Talbot can call up the cameras from any TV in the house. Sweet, huh?”

“I didn’t hear the tone when I came up.”

“Simon had me kill it. It was driving everyone nuts. It only took me a couple minutes to figure out how.” He tapped the computer, pleased with himself.

I asked him how Talbot knew which camera picked up motion.

“A menu pops up on the TV. It shows which cameras are active. It’s similar to this.”

He clicked the mouse and swung the computer screen toward me. I saw a listing of the cameras, each with a corresponding number and a cryptic description of its location.

“See the numbered boxes?” Billy said. “Notice how some are red but most are green?”

“Green means active.”

“Right. Most of the cameras are operating because of the people we got crawling around. Normally, they’d be red. With his fence, Talbot wouldn’t even have animals setting off the motion detectors.”

I’d seen enough. With the missing tapes and the newness of the system, the odds were General Baldwin was in the clear. “You going to be around for a while, Billy?”

“Most of the damned night. Once I wrap up in here, I’ve got to get my ass upstairs. The chief wants the house completely processed before we leave.” He shook his head gloomily. “Jesus, I hate celebrity killings. Everyone jumping through their ass. Give me a dead gangbanger anytime. You’re in and out, and home in time for Leno.”

I grinned. Billy liked to bitch. But after twenty years on the job, he’d earned the right. “Mind if I borrow your car for about an hour?”

“Sure. Toby’s got the keys. He drove. You know Toby Chandler? Big, bald guy. I think he’s upstairs in the master bedroom.” His eyes flickered past me to the door. “Is that you, Carolyn? How’s the prettiest officer on the force?”

Turning, I saw an attractive uniformed cop with curly blond hair walking toward the cubicle, a cell phone in her hand.

Carolyn stopped just outside the door, blushing. “Hi, Billy. I was told a cell phone won’t work inside there.”

“It won’t.”

She glanced at me. “Agent Collins?”

“Yes.”

“This call is for you, sir.” She offered me the cell phone.

I realized at once who it probably was. “Looks like I’m in trouble, Billy.”

He laughed. “Better you than me.”

As I stepped from the cubicle and took the phone, I was thinking Amanda really had called General Hinkle.

I was mistaken.

Simon was on the other end. Instead of pressuring me about General Baldwin, he said simply, “I thought you might need a car, Martin.”

I hesitated, instantly wary. “Why?”

“Do you?”

“I might.”

“Fine. Tell the officer.”

“Simon, why are you doing—”

A click. He was gone.

I passed back the phone to the cop. “You have a car for me?”

From her shirt pocket, she produced a set of keys. The key chain was made of leather, with the initials A.G. embossed on it.

Amanda Gardner.

As I went up the stairs, I was thinking hard. Because of my reaction to hearing Baldwin’s name on the tape, I wasn’t surprised that Simon had deduced I might come down to the surveillance room or might need a car. What
did
surprise me was that he’d offer me the use of a vehicle, especially Amanda’s.

I knew how Simon’s mind worked. He wouldn’t give up this easily on finding out what I knew about General Baldwin.

He was up to something.

My hunch proved right.

The moment I passed through the pool gate, I spotted the figure sitting in the passenger seat of the Saab. As I came closer, the silhouette tipped me off to the person’s identity.

Opening the passenger door, I said, “Out, Amanda. I’m going alone.”

She shot me a frosty glare. “Then you’d better start walking.”

“I’m the one with the car keys.”

“I’d like to see you get me out of the seat.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Don’t make me kick your ass.”

She probably could. She was a third degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and I’d seen her reduce a weightlifter into a whimpering mound of flesh with a flick of her wrist.

We stood there, eyeing each other. Her perfectly formed face was defiant, all trace of her earlier emotional turmoil toward me long gone. She was now a hard-nosed cop, working a case.

“Have it your way. Catch.” I tossed her the car keys and started walking toward the house.

“Where the hell are you going?”

I kept walking.

“Oh, for—will you chill out? I’m not going tag along when you talk to General Baldwin. That’s where your going, right? To his apartment in Crystal City?”

I slowed to a stop, watching as she unfolded herself from the Saab. She’d obviously checked Baldwin out. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Why are you coming, then? You enjoy my company?”

She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. Chief Tisdale is waiting for me at the Pentagon. We’re going to search Talbot’s office.” She shot me a disparaging look. “After all,
one
of us should try to solve this murder.”