Take the Fourth (33 page)

After her confirmation she did indeed take that hot long shower but skipped the Xanax and opted for a glass of wine instead. She went to the bookshelf in the family room and pulled the only family photo album she had. With each turning of the page, a new set of tears rolled down her cheeks. She loved her Aunt Gracie more than she ever told her. With each turning of the page she vowed to herself that she would find the answers.

 . . .

Chapter 50
 

“O
.k., James Wartner, so what brings”

“The t is silent”

“What?”

“The t is silent.”

“Oh, ok. Mr. War… . ner. Did you change that when you moved from Arkansas?’”

“No, it was the pronunciation I was born with.”

“I see, so getting back to my initial question, what brings you into my station this evening?”

“You know as well I as do, so let’s cut the crap, it’s because my name is on that goddamn list, and every time something happens the police come knocking on my door.”

“So what did you do to deserve this?”

“Being broke.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, being broke, poor, I couldn’t afford a better lawyer, if I had you wouldn’t be talking to me right now and I’d still be living in my hometown back in Arkansas but that didn’t happen so I’m here and I thought I’d save you the trouble.”

“Well I’m afraid you didn’t save us any trouble, we’ve been looking for you all afternoon.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Did you now?”

‘Yes, on the radio, I figured there are not too many people on that list that walk the way I do.”

“And how did that happen?”

“Car accident, over twenty-five years ago, before our fire department got that jaws of life thingy, my foot was mangled up under the dash. They couldn’t save it, hence the prosthetic, hence the limp, hence the reason you were looking for me, hence the reason I’m here.”

“That’s not the only reason.”

“Goddamn list,” sort of mumbled under his breath.

“So where were you this afternoon?”

“The doctors.”

“For?”

“For none of your,” and he so wanted to use a choice profanity but thought otherwise, “ . . . . business really, but if you must know, a colonoscopy.”

“A colonoscopy?”

“What is it with these simple questions, a colonoscopy for Christ sake, you know where they shove a camera up your ass, I thought a man of your age would have had several done by now.”

“I haven’t”

“Well you should, I was glad I did, turned fifty-one, they found colon cancer, been going back and giving them a shitty grin every year since then.”

“So where were you yesterday, around eleven?”

“Same place.”

“The doctors?”

Yes… the doctors”

“Why?”

“Same reason”

“Same reason?”

“Yes, the same reason… . colonoscopy,” saying it in disbelief, “I was scheduled for eleven thirty, they ran late, then an emergency, then a reschedule for today, call them if you want, they’ll confirm. I spent the better part of two days reading Ladies Home Journal from nineteen seventy-two.”

Lynch knew if his alibi held up this was not their man, “Can you stay awhile?”

“Why did you ask? It’s not like I have a choice now is it?”

“Well can you?”

“Sure I’ll wait until your witness shows, I’ll just be sitting here smiling at that damn mirror until you say otherwise.”

 . . .

Chapter 51
 

S
cott knew this ordeal was about to come to a head when once again he was summoned to the Oval Office. He thought long and hard about his role in the plot to derail the Anderson and Carson ticket. It wasn’t just his role it was his plot, his plan, his evil doings that somehow caused the death of Grace Carson.

“Have a seat Scott,” no one else was in the room.

“Mr. President, I need to know, do you really want the entire story?”

“I’ll find out either way, you know my techniques.”

Without taking a seat and drawing a rather deep breath, “then yes, I did have a role in this morning’s deaths, I was the one who put the ball in motion,” as he saw the steam about to bellow, “please let me finish sir, I was the one who put the ball in motion and that ball was to have some pictures taken of Mrs. Carson, the so-called loving wife of senator Carson. It was supposed to be just some tabloid scandal. I received and viewed one of Grace’s personal emails to her husband discussing her marriage, she wasn’t happy, and it got me thinking, besides, since she didn’t have any seventeen year old daughters to get knocked up, infidelity seemed the next best thing, it never sits well with the American public and an elected official. So with the help of our friends at the Beta Group we had a man get as close to her as humanly possible. Again, photographs were all that we wanted. Photographs were all it was supposed to be. I’m, I’m still at a loss for words and as shocked as you are over this whole thing. It seems Mrs. Carson is dead because of what I might have started, at this time I was trying to gather as much information as possible before I filled you in sir. I still have nothing to go on and for that I apologize. The system is telling us nothing.”

“Have your letter of resignation on my desk within the hour.”

“I want to see this out Mr. President.”

“And you goddamn well better, I want to know what the fuck happened, what went wrong, we’ve been through a lot, and you know way too much, but, but mark my words, you will be the one who takes the fall should this get out, just have your goddamn letter ready and pray I don’t have to use it.”

Scott went back to his desk and pulled up a letter that he has had on file since the day Whitaker took the oath. He just changed the date, printed the thing out, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it to Stacy. Within ten minutes it was on the President’s desk.

His cover story really wasn’t much of a cover story, more like the truth taken from the pages of Parson’s Weems book “
The
Life
of
George
Washington
with
Curious
Anecdotes
Equally
Honorable
to
Himself
and
Exemplary
to
his
Young
Countrymen.”
Sure the story of little George fessing up to the brutal destruction of one of his father’s favorite fruit bearing trees was indeed embellished a bit but the heroic nature of a boy or in this case, a man telling the truth in front of the utmost power and in the midst of almost utter annihilation speaks volumes for his integrity, even when the circumstantial evidence states otherwise. Yes, Scott was a smart cookie, he could bluff with the best of them but it became clear to Scott to fold for he decided the end game was more important than the single hand and he wanted very much to continue playing in the highest stakes of a game.

The President was also a smart cookie, you don’t get to be president of the United Sates otherwise, though some would question George W. Bush. In any case, President Jonathan Whitaker had an ace up his sleeve but it just so happened to be the same ace that his chief of staff uses from time to time. He dialed his direct number.

“Scott was just in my office, he confessed to being involved in this morning’s breaking news.”

“I’ve already been doing research for him.”

“And?”

“And yes, he’s involved but from my brief conversation with him this morning he’s looking for the same answers as everyone else.”

“What else?”

“I found that the John Doe from this morning, who police are now calling Blake Linge a banking consultant, is actually Blake Remus, and get this, he’s a Beta Group employee.”

“Scott mentioned that he had the group involved, I guess he was their inside man?”

“Appears that way, pretty good cover, records in all the right places. He did basic work for the group, nothing too outside the lines, mainly drop-offs and pick-ups, with the occasional gray area here and there but right now I’m looking into finding John Smith.”

“Who?”

“Lieutenant Colonel John Smith.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Scott mentioned him to me, actually he said you were the one looking for him.”

“And his story?”

“Not much to tell at this point in time, he was a marine, a deeply undercover op, retired, and as of almost four years ago, deceased.”

“So I’m betting he’s not eighty-sixed, where is he now?”

“That’s the million dollar question. He’s not in the system, he should be by our standards, but he’s not, never did exist in the system as far as I can tell at the moment.”

“Has he worked for the group?”

“His past bank records appear that way, looks like a heavy hitter, you don’t get this kind of cash without being totally covert.”

“Scott said this was just a scandal, just pictures, then why use a man of this stature?”

“Another million dollar question, I’m sure this guy could handle a camera just as easy as a berretta or a glock, but mix in the fact that he’s not in the system and I think it’s a bit of overkill for just some snap snaps.”

“Okay, Scott’s hiding something and I need you to find out what it is and when you do”

“You’ll be the second to know.”

“Second?”

“Yes, I’ll be the first.”

Jonathan wasn’t in the mood for his pissy little semantics and hung up without so much as a closing remark. It now looked liked his morning plate was full. Although Scott called first, just like in the game pinochle, trump wins and in this suit the trump was the President.

He logged back into the system but before he could do anything something happened. He came face to face with one of the most cursed-out-loud screens a computer monitor could display and on cue he uttered, “fuck me.” It was the “blue screen of death.” A critical system error had occurred. His computer froze and the only thing he could do was power it down and then back on again. Things like this just happen; it could have been overheating, faulty memory, a bad video driver, or a thousand and one other things inside the black box. If it happened again he would have to investigate further but he didn’t want to cross that bridge unless he had to, plus there was no way in hell he was going to let the fellas of IT near his computer.

While his computer rebooted he took the opportunity to take a restroom break, clear his head, and make a trip to the cooler for some hot water and a teabag. When he got back to his office he placed his steeping cup of tea on the desk and again uttered, “fuck me.” There it was again, the “blue screen of death.” This wasn’t good, not at all. He powered it down again and realized the amount of time he would need to do a restore if this continued to happen. Before he turned it back on, he got down on his knees and removed the side casing of his computer. This time he uttered, “son-of-a-bitch,” in almost disbelief. His cpu fan was choked full of dust and debris. He was almost certain the computer was overheating. Being a computer expert he should have known better than to let his machine go maintenance free for so long, but being the computer expert, he had the remedy on hand. From the bottom drawer of his desk he removed a can of compressed air, placed the little plastic straw in the end and fired away, blowing dust and debris everywhere. Within a minute he had the casing back in its proper place and fired up his machine. When his desktop reappeared he was relieved that he didn’t have to do a restore from his backups since that would have taken the better part of the afternoon.

Then like puberty hitting Aquarius, it dawned on him, in order to do a complete restore it would take his latest backup, with backup being the operative word here. Why he didn’t remember this before was beyond his grasp at the moment but he took a few of those moments to point his application to the secondary database. Upon a major malfunction of the real-time database the secondary/backup would kick in automatically without so much as a hiccup to the end user. Since the regular database was running smoothly he had to manipulate his settings and change the port number (the computer address to the database) in his property file. Since he rarely did this he had to locate the exact number buried in or on his desk somewhere. It used to be written on a scratch piece of paper but he had no clue where that could have gone—he didn’t care either since anyone who would happen to glance at the number would assume it was a five digit zip code if left out in the open. Since his desk was a lost cause the easiest way to find the number was to search his system and he found it in an obscured extraneous file. Now it was a matter of inserting it into his application and rebooting the program. When his application came back online he was connected to the secondary database and started checking for any errors he may have missed the first time around.

 . . .