Get Back Jack (3 page)

The secretary cleared her throat again. “He, uh . . . .”

“I’m sorry,” Gaspar said, glancing lazily around her desk, as if he were looking for a nameplate or a business card. “I didn’t catch your name. Mrs. . . . ?”

Curiously, she didn’t fill in the blank. Maybe she’d noticed they hadn’t offered their names, either. Instead, she replied, “If you could just leave your contact information, that would probably be best.”

Gaspar said, “Glad to wait. Go ahead with your work, Mrs. Droptini.” His eyes settled closed.

Startled that Gaspar had somehow discovered her name, she said automatically, “Mrs. Droptini is my mother-in-law.”

Gaspar grinned. “You prefer Myra Dale, then?”

Myra Dale shifted uncomfortably in her chair and turned her attention to Kim, who smiled blandly as if she, too, was content to wait for O’Donnell’s appearance.

Kim glanced around the small lobby, ignoring Myra Dale Droptini even as she could feel the woman watching her.

Something was not right with the woman. Or the situation. Kim’s discomfort level rose as the Boss’s early morning warning about Reacher resurfaced. But at the moment, she saw very little out of the ordinary.

What did she need to learn here? She didn’t know. Her entire assignment had been contained in a single thin file. Too thin. O’Donnell could fix that. He’d known Reacher reasonably well back in the day. O’Donnell could add some color, if nothing else, to her black-and-white knowledge.

But would he? After the first few questions she’d prepared for him, she’d follow wherever the interview led. She expected to have plenty of time and to exhaust everything O’Donnell knew, even if he didn’t realize he knew it.

Was it possible that Myra Dale Droptini knew anything useful about Reacher? She seemed like a woman who would know what was going on in her boss’s business. Kim made a mental note to ask Myra Dale after she questioned O’Donnell.

O’Donnell’s private office down the interior hall was likely more spacious than the lobby, which was little more than an anteroom outfitted with two sets of armless chrome and black leather chairs separated by 12-inch glass-topped pedestal tables. There might be a small conference room, maybe another smallish space somewhere for a coffee pot. She sniffed. No coffee aroma floating around. Too bad.

Kim had no access to banking records so she didn’t know how successful O’Donnell’s business actually was, but he seemed to be doing all right.

The office suite was large enough for a solo private investigator in the nation’s capital. Class A space was notoriously pricey in DC; she didn’t hold it against him that his lobby was compact by her Detroit standards. One high-end piece of artwork hung on each narrow white wall, furniture was minimalist but expensive, and the carpet had been upgraded.

In her prior life, had she been auditing O’Donnell’s financial records, she’d have approved of his choices in quality and quantity. Good enough to inspire confidence; not so showy as to invite distrust. Precisely the correct mix for his probable clientele.

Current issues of political magazines rested on the tabletops along with small dishes of individually wrapped hard candy. Kim snagged a couple, unwrapped one, and popped it in her mouth, puckering up when the sour apple flavor hit her salivary glands.

O’Donnell wasn’t hiding from anyone. His current private investigator’s license was discreetly displayed near the door. According to official databases, O’Donnell had first obtained the license immediately after his Army discharge and had maintained it consistently since. His number was listed.

He also had a concealed weapons permit and several registered firearms, according to public records.

If he had a wife and kids, or even an ex-wife or step-kids, that information was missing from the files she’d located. Nothing about the immediate décor suggested O’Donnell was tethered to anyone in particular, but Kim noticed more framed objects on the walls of the corridor leading deeper into the suite. Family snaps?

When she wandered toward them, Myra Dale stiffened in her chair and made a small, choked sound. What was wrong with that woman? Kim kept walking and Myra Dale did nothing to stop her.

The most interesting photo was at least fifteen years old. A group of nine soldiers, two women and seven men, taken while they were on active duty. All nine looked different from their Army personnel file headshots, but they were recognizable. The giant in the middle was unmistakably Reacher. The rest were the eight members of his special investigative unit, including the ones who were now dead or missing, as well as O’Donnell, Dixon, and Neagley.

The other frames held flashy photo ops of O’Donnell with various politicians and prominent celebrities, suggesting he was well connected, too. Yes, O’Donnell was doing okay after leaving the big green machine.

Reacher might be doing okay, too, she realized. It was a new idea where Reacher was concerned. Maybe Reacher had enough money to buy his privacy. Could that be true? It was as likely an explanation for his success at disappearing as any other she’d considered.

In some ways, a wealthy Reacher made more sense.

She’d traversed the interior hallway almost to the last door on the right, which was cracked open. O’Donnell might be there, might’ve just instructed his secretary to say he was out. She and Gaspar could get this interview over with and head to Dixon in New York. Otherwise, they could flip the interviews: go to Dixon now, come back for O’Donnell tomorrow morning.

She’d taken another step toward the doorway when she heard Myra Dale’s voice behind her.

“Please,” she said, a bit more loudly. “Please don’t go in there. The officer said she’d be right back.”

The officer?

Kim didn’t look back, and didn’t stop. She counted on Gaspar to deal with Myra Dale Droptini. He said something and Myra Dale answered, but Kim paid no attention.

Just as she pressed against the door, she noticed the yellow crime scene tape that had fallen onto the carpet and been kicked aside.
What the hell?

When the door swung open, she confirmed enough space to enter O’Donnell’s personal office and stared at the cold, dried, bloody mess blanketing the room.

The next few minutes passed with glacial speed.

Kim’s experience said the scene was at least five days old. Maybe more. It fell into the familiar gap between before and long after murder. Which explained why the office felt not quite abandoned and not yet restored to whatever it would become. Probably helped explain Myra Dale’s odd behavior, too. Trapped out front in a workspace that seemed normal while incessantly aware that horror reposed down the hall.

Had Myra Dale been the one who discovered the body? Or had she been here when he’d been killed? Either way, Kim understood Myra Dale’s nervousness now and felt sorry for her. Some people recovered from such experiences, but many did not. Myra Dale seemed less resilient than she needed to be.

Kim’s experience supplied the warm, acrid scent of blood and bone and grey matter and guns attacking her nostrils as it had at fresher crime scenes. She imagined slimy specks clinging to her face and clothes. Even as her skin crawled, she felt separated from the atmosphere inside the room by the time gap between murder and what cold evidence remained.

Out of habit, her mind reconstructed the killing. The victim was most likely Dave O’Donnell. The blast had propelled pieces from the front of his head around the room, and blood had continued to flow from his head wound afterward as his heart kept pumping. Judging from the amount of dried blood covering his desk, around the outline of his fallen upper body and beyond, O’Donnell’s heart had been strong. Crime techs must have worked here for hours collecting evidence amid the gory mess.

Gaspar approached, glanced around the room, and then his gaze met Kim’s. “Droptini says she’s been closing out the confidential files this morning. An officer has been watching her to be sure she didn’t destroy evidence. Officer stepped out to get coffee. Expected back any second.”

“I’ll hurry,” Kim replied, grabbed her smartphone, glanced at her watch, and videotaped the scene, dictating just-the-facts into her official report.

“Thursday, November 11, 10:58 a.m. FBI Special Agents Kim Otto and Carlos Gaspar on the scene of what appears to have been a murder committed several days ago.”

Kim allowed the video to record the room’s contents. She left no time gaps that might provoke questions later. She panned the desk where the blood evidence suggested the body was found and thought hard about the audio report, what to leave in, what to leave out, before she spoke again.

“The victim appears to have been seated at the desk at the time of death and based on the estimated amount of blood loss and outline of the body’s position was probably male. Evidence of a single bullet removed from the wall directly in front of the desk chair suggests one shot in the head, back to front, at close range. Death was likely near instantaneous, although the gunshot was followed by a continuing heartbeat for several seconds.”

Muffled footsteps approached along the hallway carpet. Gaspar turned to block the visitor’s view, but Kim knew she was out of time.

“Report concluded 11:02 a.m.” She switched off the video and slipped her smartphone into her pocket just as a uniformed officer arrived at the doorway.

Gaspar engaged her to allow Kim a few more moments. Standing amid the bloody chaos for a final look, Kim noticed the high-tech speakerphone on O’Donnell’s desk.

Fingerprint residue blackened the buttons.

Had crime scene techs found evidence to identify the killer there? Could the victim have been conducting a telephone call at the time he was killed? If so, who was the caller and when, exactly, had he disconnected? More unanswered questions she filed away for later.

“Agent Otto, this is Officer Pat Schofield,” Gaspar said when she joined Gaspar at the threshold.

“Sorry, but I need to see some ID.” Schofield said it pleasantly, though. If she’d been wary upon arrival, Gaspar had somehow put her at ease already.

They showed their badges. Local law enforcement worked well with the FBI in DC and paths crossed often, although neither Gaspar nor Otto had met Schofield before. Satisfied by whatever Gaspar had said, Schofield didn’t seem overly concerned to find two agents in O’Donnell’s office.

“Why are you interested in the victim?” Schofield asked.

“We came to interview David O’Donnell about another case,” Gaspar explained. “Was he the victim?”

Schofield nodded. “So I’m told. This is my patrol area, but I wasn’t on duty Friday night.”

“You didn’t know O’Donnell, then?”

Schofield wagged her head. “No. You?”

“No,” Gaspar said. “What happened here?”

Schofield said, “Wish I could tell you. They just asked me to come up this morning while the secretary collected files.”

“Any reason we can’t talk to her about it?”

“She left when I came in. She wasn’t here when it happened, anyway. You’ll need to ask the detective in charge.”

“Do you know who that is?” Gaspar asked.

Schofield wagged her head again. “Just call the station. They’ll want to talk with you anyway.”

“Right,” Gaspar said. “Why hasn’t this place been cleaned up?”

“Sometimes it takes a while to get a crew out here,” Schofield said. “Or maybe the techs aren’t done. Like I said, I wasn’t on duty Friday night.”

Kim followed Gaspar out of the office and back through the door they’d entered forty-eight minutes earlier, heading downstream, away from the crime scene.

Could she have saved O’Donnell? Maybe. Not that it mattered now. O’Donnell could no longer be saved except, perhaps, by God. Which, under the circumstances, seemed unlikely.

Gaspar kept up a strong pace as they crossed the building’s main lobby, controlling his ever-present limp fairly well. He said, “Want me to call?”

Kim stopped at the glass exit doors. She knew what Schofield meant. The detective on the case would call them in after he heard from Officer Schofield. Expect them to explain themselves. That could not be allowed to happen. They needed high-level preemptive action to make sure they were never officially connected to O’Donnell or his murder.

“We’ve got a narrow window here, Sunshine,” Gaspar said.

She sighed. Nodded. He opened the untraceable cell. She heard him say, “Requesting interference.”

Kim tuned out the rest, pushed through the doors.

The more distance they put between O’Donnell and themselves, the better.

Once again, they were mired in death. Hardly surprising, though. They had come to expect violence in Reacher’s wake.

Had Reacher been here? Made sense.

Had he killed O’Donnell? No evidence to suggest otherwise.

“Still think Reacher’s old unit is just a bunch of unlucky ex-grunts, Cheech?” Kim asked when he’d finished his call, head bent against the icy rain pelting her face and slickening the sidewalk.

Gaspar ignored her question, hunched deeper into his overcoat against the biting November wind and speed-limped as swiftly as possible to catch up. Slightly breathless, he asked, “Where’s the fire?”

She kept her stride. She wanted to get away from O’Donnell’s office, and she felt an illogical urgency to reach Dixon. Whoever had killed O’Donnell had a six-day head start. If he’d left O’Donnell intending to kill Dixon, they were already too late.

After three more blocks at a near jogging pace, Gaspar grabbed her arm.

“Look,” he said, chest heaving, staring directly into her eyes. “Yes, it pisses me off that everyone we want to interview is dead before we get there and the Boss hides facts we need to know. Yes, it’s dangerous to ignore the implications.”

His breathing had slowed a bit. He lowered his head closer and softened his tone, too. “That said, you’ve got to know there’s probably no point in getting to Dixon at all, and there’s certainly no rush to get there.”

“You could be right. But what if you’re not?”

They might have argued further, but the icy cold made sparring on the sidewalk bone chilling.

He flagged a taxi. “Come on. There’s an earlier flight to Kennedy. We can catch it if we hurry. We don’t have time to go back to the hotel for our bags. We’ll do without them until we get back tonight.”