The Rose Conspiracy (39 page)

“Unless…” Blackstone said. Then his voice trailed off.

“Unless,” he began again. Then fell silent, and finally continued. “Recall that Reverend Lamb said the ‘twin pillars' of speculative Freemasonry were, first, Hermes, the man of alchemy. The second was Pythagoras, the man of geometry. What do we get when we combine geometry with the ‘philosopher's stone'?”

Julia and Jason were staring at Blackstone.

“A geometric stone,” Blackstone muttered. “Would mean…a crystal…And a perfect crystal,” he said, “has
six
sides. Isn't that right?”

“Six sides, yes, that's right,” Julia said. “I should have remembered that from my chemistry classes.”

“Rose of 6…” Blackstone said. “Meaning an ancient, rose-type flower, somehow imbedded through a freak natural process inside a crystal. And preserving, as you have said, Julia, the super-concentration of resveritrol.”

“That would explain it, wouldn't it?” Julia said. “So, does this mean you will be changing horses and using your uncle's opinions at trial after all?”

“No,” Blackstone shot back. “I don't think it does. But it has given me some new questions that need answering.”

“Like what?” Julia asked.

Blackstone turned to Jason.

“Jason, after you talk to Tully Tullinger about getting more intel on Horace Langley's personal life, also tell him I want to talk with him privately. Ask him to call me.”

Jason nodded, scribbled it on his notepad, and left the room.

Julia was still waiting for an answer to her question.

“Let's summarize,” Blackstone said. He was now standing up and pacing around the conference room.

“Going with Dr. Cutsworth's conclusions, here is what we have: Langley has an inkling that the Booth diary might contain some data on where the Confederate stash of gold is located,” Blackstone said. “So, Langley wants to read the diary pages before the other ‘experts' have a chance to read it. Now Vinnie Archmont, who has access to Langley, has no idea that the diary pages may refer to some hidden treasure worth millions. Instead, she is sent on an errand from Lord Dee to try to get a preview of the diary because he is convinced that it may refer to some weird metaphysical prize—the location of the ‘rose in the crystal'—the dream-come-true for the alchemists and the upper elite of the Freemasons.

“Because Langley finds that the diary pages in fact do refer to the location of the gold he refuses to give Vinnie, or Lord Dee, or anyone else for that matter, an advance look at the diary pages. Instead, he copies down the coded poem that gives the clues. Only one problem, though. Someone else discovers what Langley has discovered, enters the Smithsonian building, walks in his office in the Castle, kills Langley, and takes the diary and the page of his notepad with his written copy of the poetic ciphers. Vinnie is innocent. But someone else isn't. Someone who knew
what Langley knew. Someone with a connection, obviously, to Horace Langley. That's the real killer. That's the conspirator.”

Julia thought on his explanation for a while. Then she weighed in.

“Sounds like a solid defense theory.”

But she asked further, “Do you believe every bit of it?”

Blackstone stopped pacing. He thrust his hands in his pockets and rocked a little on his tiptoes. Then he responded.

“Maybe not,” he replied.

CHAPTER 49

T
ully Tullinger was on the line. He had called Blackstone's unlisted home phone number. It was after eleven at night. In the background, where Tully was, there were the familiar sounds of an airport terminal.

“I just landed at BWI airport, and I got Jason's message. If you were anyone else,” Tully said to the law professor, “I would apologize for the lateness of the hour. But knowing you, it's probably midday on your freaky internal clock, I suppose.”

“You're close,” Blackstone said. He was in his gym trunks. He had just finished exercising and was wiping his face off with a towel.

“Sounds like you're huffing,” Tully said. “You doing more of that late-night workout stuff?”

“Yep.”

“I know you've got a bigger brain sitting up there on top of your spinal column than I do,” Tully remarked with a chuckle. “But I had always heard that when you get your physical motor running hard at night, it may be tougher to get to sleep.”

“For normal people that's true,” Blackstone said. “But when you're already an insomniac, it doesn't really matter.”

“Well,” Tully said, “I know you didn't want to chat with me about issues of personal health and fitness. So, what's up? I already have the assignment from Jason about going back over Langley.”

“Yeah,” Blackstone said. “That's the first part.”

“You know that I do my job well,” Tully said. “I went over this Horace Langley guy pretty closely on the first go-round on this case. Didn't find
anything very enlightening. I sent you my report. Included his biography. The whole bit.”

“I know that,” Blackstone said. “But we're missing something. I can see the hole in the middle of this. It's like a puncture in the skin of a jet airplane sucking all the air out. But we don't know where it is. You need to find the hole. Somewhere in this case there is a space that we haven't looked into. And it has to do with Horace Langley. We need to find the hole before the whole plane goes down.”

“Nice word picture,” Tully said. “Given the amount of flying I have to do with my job. Yeah, thanks a lot for that. Okay. I'll turn the ground over one more time. Maybe…well, I can try a few things. Don't worry about it. If there is something out there involving Horace Langley, I'll find it for you. I know the trial date is coming up. I'll put a rush on this.”

“Then there's another matter,” Blackstone said.

“Please continue,” Tully said, with a tinge of cynicism. “You have my undivided attention. Is there some other part of my investigation on this case you also want me to redo?”

“No, this part is going to be strictly unplowed ground,” Blackstone said. “You remember the FBI agent working the Smithsonian case?”

“Special Agent Ralph Johnson,” Tully said.

“I need you to find out where he is right now,” Blackstone said. “So I can ‘just happen' to run into him. Hopefully he is on assignment where Henry Hartz and his team won't be watching, somewhere outside the District of Columbia.”

“You want me to trace an active FBI agent and tell you where he is currently located in his field activities?” Tully asked, with a measure of skepticism in his voice.

“Yeah,” Blackstone said. “That's part of it, yes. But more than that.”

“This should be good,” Tully said. “Don't stop now, I can hardly wait.”

“You need to leak to Agent Johnson the fact that I am trying to locate where he currently is being assigned.”

“Gee,” Tully said. “This is like one of those TV reality shows. Okay. And after I do this daunting task, then are you going to have me ingest a plate full of worms?”

“And your intel about Agent Johnson in particular,” Blackstone said. “I really need that pronto—ASAP—overnight delivery.”

“I get the drift here,” Tully said with a groan. “Oh man. You know, I took up this PI work as a kind of semiretirement after I left the NSA. You're killing me, J.D. There are things besides work, you know…stuff like rest, recreation, seeing my grandkids. Human relationships. Going to the beach. Normal stuff.”

“You can do all of that,” Blackstone said, “after Vinnie Archmont's trial.”

Tully said he would do what he could.

“You're the best,” Blackstone told his private investigator.

After the phone call, he showered. His mind was racing, but not about the criminal case.

After dressing in some sweat pants and a T-shirt, Blackstone went into the kitchen of his condo to get something to eat. Then he noticed his pile of keys lying on the kitchen counter. He picked up the key ring and fished through them until he came to a silver key a little smaller than the others.

After staring at it for a while, he stuffed his keys into his pockets. Then he walked downstairs to the parking area. He climbed into his Maserati and fired it up.

After twenty minutes he was in Alexandria.

He knew he was only about a half a mile from Vinnie's apartment. Cruising by the cross street where she lived, he turned off the main drag of Old Town Alexandria and onto Vinnie's street.

Blackstone stopped for a moment in front of her apartment building. He looked up at her window. The light was on, but the drapes were pulled.

He sat there, with the motor running for several minutes. His head was back against the headrest.

But this was not the place where he had intended to visit.

So he put his convertible into first gear and motored off.

Ten minutes later he was pulling up to a sign and an electric metal gate that read
Potomac River Storage.

He looked beyond the gate to the row-upon-row storage units with
locks on them. The entire area was lit by yellow lights on high poles that cast a strange aura over everything.

Blackstone remembered the access code to the electric gate. All he had to do was punch in the numbers and the gate would automatically swing open.

And he also remembered the storage unit number. He had been paying the rent every month for two years. But he had refused to visit it.

Blackstone reached out toward the ignition of the car and isolated the smaller silver key hanging from the key chain. He fingered it.

I told myself I wasn't going to do this,
he thought.

And he wouldn't.

Instead, he backed his car away from the gate and drove back to his condo.

CHAPTER 50

T
he next day, Blackstone was in his office. Shortly after his arrival, he noticed that an e-mail had come in.

It was from Henry Hartz. It was also being simultaneously filed, electronically, with Judge Templeton. Hartz explained, at the outset of the e-mail, that he had obtained a short extension of time from the District Court to furnish the final discovery information to the defense as a follow-up from the pretrial conference with the judge. Hartz had already provided, as required, an expanded explanation of the anticipated testimony of Shelly Hollsaker. Now the prosecutor was providing the last bit of information demanded by Blackstone: an explanation about the drinking glass at the scene of the crime.

In the e-mail, what Hartz had to say about that piece of physical evidence was not about to satisfy Blackstone.

Your Honor:

Pursuant to the verbal order of the District Court at our last pretrial conference in the above-styled case, the Government has conducted a thorough search of the evidence room utilized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with this case. The purpose of the search was to attempt to locate a drinking glass which had been identified by Special Agent Ralph Johnson in his 302 report, investigative report #2009456BDC. In that report, Agent Johnson identified a drinking glass on the desk of Horace
Langley, in the office of Secretary Langley at the scene of the crime. Agent Johnson was first on the scene, along with a member of the crime lab and several forensic agents whose duties included the sweep of the room for forensic evidence and preservation of that evidence.