Conspiracy (32 page)

 

RUBENS WAS JUST
about to talk to Lia when one of the Art Room communications specialists told him that National Security Advisor Donna Bing was calling for him. Rubens told Marie Telach to brief Lia on what Gallo had found, then went to the empty stations toward the back of the Art Room to talk to Bing.

He glanced at the clock on the console as he sat down. It was five past nine. Bing didn't skimp on her hours.

Unfortunately.

Rubens pressed the connect button on the communications control clipped to his belt. The unit connected to his headset via an encrypted very short-range frequency (E-VSRF). “This is Bill.”

“Billy, how are we doing on Vietnam?”

“I'm about to roll up the operation there. As I told you earlier, we're confident that there is no connection.”

“And I told you to work harder. You're obviously missing key information.”

Rubens considered how to respond. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had already been briefed on Thao Duong's organization; Tommy Karr had installed permanent listening devices in Thao Duong's house and the digital records would be forwarded to the Citizenship and Immigration Services and the FBI for their use. There was simply nothing else for Deep Black to do in Vietnam. Even if the President wanted them to continue investigating the attack on Senator McSweeney—as the National Security finding directed them to do—it was senseless and expensive to keep Karr and Dean in Vietnam.

“Are you still there, Billy?”

“I am still here,” said Rubens. “And personally, I prefer to be called Bill.”

“Have you proved that Vietnam was not behind the attempted assassination of Senator McSweeney?” said Bing, ignoring Rubens's remark about his name.

“It will be hard to prove a negative.”

“Why do you always give me such a hard time? Is it because I beat you out for this job?”

“I am not giving you a hard time, Madam Advisor.”

“Have a full report on the situation to me by noon tomorrow,” said Bing, hanging up.

 

“
THIS TIME OF
night, where you're going to find the chief is in bed,” said the Pine Plains assessor, who was the only one in the village hall when Lia got there. “He hits the hay around nine, nine thirty. Doesn't like to be bothered, either. Comes in at five, though. Sometimes earlier.”

The assessor smiled and raised the cup of coffee to his lips. His small office was in the front of the building; the police department was in the back.

“How come you work so late?” Lia asked.

“First of all, job's part-time. I have a real job in Poughkeepsie nine to five. Second of all, gets me out of the house.” He smiled, then glanced at the clock. “I usually leave by midnight, though. Another half hour.”

“I have something to talk to him about that's pretty important,” said Lia. “Where does he live?”

“You're going to wake him up?”

“Why not?”

The assessor smirked.

“The chief lives right around from the station, on Church Street. Number Eleven. It's just the next block over—right at the end here, then another right. Third house on the right. Do me a favor though, OK? Don't tell him I told you.”

 

“
THE BODY, MUCH
as you expect,” Dr. Vuong told Dean, recalling the state of Sergeant Tolong's body when he'd been exhumed. “Bones. Much decay. You can see by the photos.”

Dean nodded but didn't bother reopening the file on his lap. The sergeant had been reduced to cloth and bones by the time he was dug up.

Dr. Vuong spoke decent English, far better than Dean had expected. Roughly sixty, the doctor was ethnic Chinese and had lived in the north during the war. He was short and energetic, and the whole room seemed to move as he spoke.

“So, the commission take control of the body. I examine. We do the paperwork. Many forms to complete.” The doctor's tone sounded almost triumphant. “The commission stay several days, then return.”

The doctor did not remember whether bullets had been recovered with the body, but there were chips and breaks on the rib cage—multiple gunshots, he thought, the sign of death from an automatic weapon. The locals had lacked the facilities for a complete autopsy under the circumstances, and in any event were more concerned with “preserving dignity of corpse,” as Dr. Vuong put it.

“How difficult was it to locate the body?” Dean asked.

“I am not sure. I do not believe hard. The commission had directions. Many details. He was near a road.”

“Near a road?” asked Dean. “How would I say that in Vietnamese? Let me think.”

The translator in the Art Room gave him the words.
Vuong said again, Tolong's body had been found very close to the road.

“Why wasn't he found soon after he died?” asked Dean. “During the war?”

The doctor shrugged.

“There were landmarks,” suggested Dean.

“Memory is the problem. It was said a friend bury,” noted Dr. Vuong. “Descriptions, jungle, war.” He finished his thought in Vietnamese.

“The war shook many memories,” said the translator, explaining. “It took some away, and it changed others. Some things I cannot explain. He was near the road, you have a point, but . . .”

“Anything is possible, huh?” suggested Dean.

Dr. Vuong nodded.

“I know this is an odd question,” said Dean, “but was any money found with the body?”

“Money?”

“American dollars?”

The doctor shook his head. Dean repeated the question in Vietnamese to make sure he understood.

“You have a good vocabulary,” said the doctor. “With more practice, you could speak very well.”

“Thank you,” said Dean. “Could you locate the spot where he was found on a map for me? I'd like to take a look.”

He ignored Rockman when the runner told him it wasn't necessary.

 

DEAN STUDIED THE
map as Qui drove, comparing the terrain and twists in the road to the paper as they made their way to the spot where Tolong's body had been dug up. Dean had an extra advantage—the exact spot where the dead Marine had been recovered was recorded by a GPS reading, and the Art Room told him when he was getting close.

“Pull over there,” said Dean as they came over a rise in the road. “It was to our right.”

Fallow fields lay on both sides of the road. Dean got out of the car and began walking in the direction of the grave site.

“A little more to your left,” counseled Rockman. “You got it.”

Dean wouldn't have needed Rockman's guidance. Though the vegetation had reclaimed the land, the ground was indented where the recovery team had dug two years before. Dean turned around. It was only ten yards from the road, if that.

“I didn't think you were a fortune hunter, Mr. Dean,” said Qui.

“How's that?”

“You came to Vietnam for lost treasure?”

“No.” He smiled faintly, then began walking around the edge of the area where the body had been found. There were several other excavations, all farther from the road.

The body should have been easy to find.

Dean glanced back toward the car and saw that Qui wasn't there. He found her a short distance down the hill, standing next to fallen tree limbs.

“There was a village here during the war,” said Qui. “It's gone. It must have been Catholic.”

“How do you know?”

She pointed to some rocks a short distance away. They were the foundation of a small building. Beyond it, Dean found several stones laid flat—gravestones. There were other signs—an overgrown path that went to the road, scattered pieces of wood and branches, worked stones that would never have appeared here randomly.

“When the VC took over, some loyal villages were razed,” said Qui. “I would imagine this was one.”

“That's a shame.”

“The whole war was a shame,” said Qui. “To the victors, the spoils. To the losers, death.”

“We fought very hard,” said Dean, suddenly feeling that he had let her down by not saving her country.

“I'm sure you did. But someone always loses.”

 

CHIEF BALL'S HOUSE
was dark when Lia got there. She got out of her car and walked toward the front door, not quite sure what she was going to say to him until she pressed the doorbell.

She rang twice before she saw a light flick on inside and heard footsteps.

A short, frumpy middle-aged woman dressed in a red terry-cloth robe opened the door. She stood behind the screen door, eying Lia warily.

“Yes?”

“I'm looking for Chief Ball,” said Lia. “The chief isn't here right now.”

“He's not here?” said Lia. “Where would he be?”

“I don't know,” said the woman, eying her up and down. “Who are you?”

“Lia DeFrancesca. I'm with the federal marshals.”

“Is there trouble?”

“I have to discuss something with him, about a case.”

“I can have him call you in the morning.”

“I'm here, Elizabeth,” said a voice behind her. “Thank you. Go back to bed now.”

The chief appeared behind his wife. She glanced at him as if she was going to say something, then moved away. Ball opened the door and stepped outside. He'd taken the time to dress, even putting on his shoes.

“What is it you want?” he asked Lia.

“Amanda Rauci. She's disappeared. We're hoping to track her down.”

“Rauci is who?”

Lia's explanation leaned fairly heavily on the possibility that Amanda might have run away because she was somehow involved in murdering Forester, and hinted that she might have retrieved some evidence from the area. Lia left out the fact that Rauci had done a credit check on Ball roughly six hours before.

“Rauci.” Ball squirreled up his face. “Was she the one in my office this afternoon?”

“Was she?”

“Well, it was someone. She was a Secret Service agent, right? Wouldn't tell me what the hell it was about.”

“Did she have a notebook with her?”

“Notebook. Maybe. The one you asked about?”

“Did she have it?” Lia asked. “She might have. I didn't take inventory.”

“What did she want?”

“She asked whether I'd spoken to Forester before he died. I told her the same thing I've told everyone else. No. You people don't seem to take no for an answer.”

“Do you?”

Ball frowned. “You telling me she's missing?”

“She's in this area.”

“How do you know?”

“She used her credit card locally.”

“So why do you think she's missing?” asked Ball.

“No one's seen or heard from her in days.”

“That doesn't mean she's missing. Maybe she doesn't feel like talking to anyone.”

“But she did talk to you.”

“If she comes back, I'll be sure to tell her to call home,” said Ball. He started to open the door and go back in, but Lia held it closed.

“What exactly was she asking about?”

“Besides looking for the notebook,” said Ball, “she asked me about Forester's wife, whether I'd seen her in town. Pretty ridiculous. She showed some picture that probably fits half the people in town.”

“Forester's wife?”

“You know, I've never seen so much damn fuss about a jerk who killed himself before,” said Ball. “Waking people up in the middle of the night—can't this wait until morning?”

“Can you think of anything else she might have said?”

Ball shrugged. “We only talked a few minutes. I got the impression she was on her way somewhere.”

“Where?”

Ball shrugged. “She went down One Ninety-Nine after she left the office. Could be going anywhere.”

 

CHIEF BALL WATCHED
the federal agent back out of the driveway and onto the road.

These people were worse than cockroaches. Blind, but persistent.

He was all right for now. This changed his plans for the morning, though. He had to move Rauci's car tonight—right now, if possible.

Drive it over to Rhinecliff and leave it near the train station. That part was easy. Getting back without a car wouldn't be.

He could go down to Poughkeepsie, take a train to the city, then another over to Harlem Valley.

Too much. And he had too much to do anyway.

His wife was waiting upstairs, just as he knew she would be.

“What's going on?” she asked, her voice halfway between whining and pleading.

“I'm working on something with the
federales
,” he said, opening his bureau drawer.

“Is that where you were all night?”

Ball sighed. There were times when her voice drove him completely up the wall. Yelling at her would shut her up, but in the long run it was counterproductive. He looked at her and shrugged. “I'm not supposed to say.”

“Not even to your wife?”

“It has to do with a Secret Service agent.”

“Not the suicide.”

“Yes. The suicide. It's complicated, Elizabeth. Please
don't go blabbing.” He took two pairs of socks from the drawer.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm going to be doing a little legwork over the next few days. I won't be around. I'll check in from time to time.”

“Leg work? With female marshals?”

“I don't go for those Asian chicks, especially when they're teenagers,” he said. He turned around and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. “But thank you for thinking she'd be attracted to me. Now get some rest, all right? And don't go blabbing, all right? This is an important case we're dealing with. The wrong word in the wrong place, and some murderer goes free.”

“Murder?”

“Forget I said that, and keep your mouth shut. Please.”