A Deeper Darkness Part 23

Fletcher and his younger partner, Lonnie Hart, were on the opposite side of the grave from her. She watched them standing straight, their shoulders back, their sungla.s.ses on, as well, knowing they were like hawks soaring over the trees, waiting for a vole to show its naked nose to the sky so they could swoop down and grab their tasty meal.

She'd disa.s.sociated herself from the situation. She had to. She had cheated. She took a full Ativan before they left, knowing she couldn't make it through the day without chemical support. She didn't think anyone would hold it against her.

Things were wrapping up, it seemed. Susan had been presented with Donovan's medals. She clutched the flag and the letter from the Army's chief of staff and stared blankly at Donovan's elegant, now-bare coffin. Eleanor was pale and breathing hard, trying to keep herself in check. Without their mother to hold them, the girls were lost and uncomprehending. Ally cried when the guns went off.

And then it was truly over. Susan touched her hand to the coffin, encouraged the girls to do the same with a whisper, then turned and walked away, her back straight, her shoulders square. The daughter, and the wife, of a soldier.

She knew what was going through Susan's mind. She'd done the same thing with Simon, after the memorial service. Sam bit her lip and tried not to embarra.s.s them all by crying out.

She walked twenty paces away, stopped by a huge old maple tree, and gathered herself.

"That was beautiful." A soft voice to Sam's right pulled her back. A tall man with dark hair and soulful eyes was standing next to her.

"Yes, it was," she said, voice still shaky.

"You a friend of the deceased? Or a friend of his wife?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

He slipped a card into her hand. "My name is Gino Taranto. I'm with the Daily News."

"And why is the media here?" Sam asked.

"Paying respects. You ever hear of friendly fire?"

"Of course."

"You ever hear of Major Donovan involved in a friendly fire incident?"

"No. Why?"

"You might want to clue in the cops over there to take a look at the records from Jalalabad, 2007. Might help them figure out who killed Major Donovan."

Sam turned to the man. He had a beard, and long s.h.a.ggy hair. The exact opposite of all the b.u.t.toned-down soldiers showing their respect to Donovan by being perfectly squared away. His juxtaposition was almost violent, and Sam felt anger bubble inside her. You could have at least dressed and combed your hair to show your respect. Jerk. Probably one of those a.s.sholes who protest at soldiers' funerals. She turned a cold shoulder, let her words cut.

"You should tell them yourself. If you have information about the murders-"

"And get fired? My bosses would shoot me on the spot for giving information to a cop. That's not my job."

"Then why tell me? Why not write about it?"

He put his finger to his lips dramatically in a hush sign. "Let's just say someone gagged me. And I know you've been working with them. You'll tell them to look deeper, and keep me out of it."

"I won't do any such thing." But he was already moving away from her, getting lost in the throngs of people moving back toward the road. She watched him go, confused. Why come to her? Why not go directly to the family? What the h.e.l.l kind of journalist was Gino Taranto, anyway?

She realized that she was one of the few people left near the grave, and her heart sank. This was the part she couldn't handle. Walking away. Leaving them behind, alone. But there was no choice. This was what had to happen. She pushed the slovenly reporter from her mind and turned to Donovan's casket.

She whispered a prayer, a poor subst.i.tute for saying goodbye, and turned away, the cracks in her heart opening wide. Everyone she had loved, had given her heart to, gone.

To distract herself, she glanced down at the card the reporter had put into her hand. It wasn't a normal business card. It had Gino Taranto-Daily News handwritten on the front. No address. No phone number. No way of contacting him directly. Weird. She flipped it over and saw more writing on the back. Numbers, to be specific.

39-40'58" N 079-12'25" W.

What in the world?

"Who was that you were talking to?"

She'd been so absorbed in what she was doing that she hadn't noticed Hart walk up beside her. She saw Fletcher over his shoulder on the phone.

She carefully put the card into her purse. For some reason, the first thought she had was not to tell Hart everything. And that was insane. She knew better.

"Some reporter. Said his name was Taranto from the Daily News. He said something about Donovan being involved in a friendly fire incident while he was in Afghanistan."

Hart knitted his brows. "We haven't heard anything like that. Fletch! Heya, Fletch!"

Fletcher held up a finger, the universal gesture for just a minute. He finished his call, then walked over.

"No one seems to have seen Whitfield. d.a.m.n, I really thought he'd be here."

"Some reporter talked to the Doc over here, said Donovan was involved in a friendly fire incident. Taranto, from the Daily. You know him?"

"Yeah. You know him, too, we talked to him about that jumper last month. Remember? Writes that column on DOD every week. He's not a friend of the military."

"Wait a minute," Hart said. "What did he say to you, Doc?"

"Nothing, really. Small talk."

"Do you see him anywhere?"

Sam looked around. There were still people milling about, but no one who remotely resembled the man she'd talked to. She shook her head. "No. He dropped the bombsh.e.l.l and walked away before I had a chance to ask more. Why?"

Hart looked at Fletcher. "Dude that was talking to her wasn't short and bald like Taranto. He was six-one, built, with a full head of hair and a beard."

"f.u.c.k me!" Fletcher threw his phone down, drawing the disapproving stare of a uniform-clad pa.s.serby.

Hart got on his walkie, taking off at a jog toward the visitor's center. She could hear him yelling into the mouthpiece: "He's here, he's here."

Sam realized what they were talking about at last. She blamed the Ativan for making her dopey. She hadn't been talking to some beatnik reporter or war protestor.

She'd just had close and personal contact with their number-one suspect.

Chapter Thirty-Five.

Arlington National Cemetery

Dr. Samantha Owens

Fletcher was very unhappy with Sam. She'd apologized about fifty times, but he was still rigidly upset, the lines of his face tight and drawn, his shoulders combatively forward as he towered over her.

"Why didn't you signal, or call out? My G.o.d, Hart was right there."

"I'm sorry. I told you, I didn't know it was him. He looks different than the photo. He wasn't wearing sungla.s.ses, to start, and he had a beard and long hair. He wasn't dressed like the other soldiers. And I wasn't... I was... Well, h.e.l.l, Fletcher, I loved Donovan, too. I was saying goodbye to him, not looking for a killer. That's your job."

That calmed him down. Fletcher ran his hands through his hair. "I know, I know. I understand. Run me through it again. Anything you can think of. What exactly did he look like? What was he wearing? Did he smell like cigarettes?"

She went through it again and again, leaving out only the little bit of information that he'd handed her a card. She was being an idiot. She knew that. But she wanted to see what the numbers meant before she shared with them. Whitfield, if that was him, had approached her for a reason, and as much as she wanted to see Donovan's killer caught and punished, something told her there was more to Whitfield's involvement than met the eye. Donovan trusted Xander. His feelings on the man's character and integrity were clear in the journal. She decided she would honor those thoughts until Whitfield proved himself a villain, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Fletcher stowed his notebook in his back pocket. "All right. You did good. I know you want to get to the reception."

"Not really," Sam said. "But I don't think I have much of a choice. I'll be at Eleanor's if you need me."

"You need a ride?"

Sam looked at the string of cars leaving the cemetery and realized that, yes, she did need a ride. She'd come over with a friend of Susan's, not wanting to intrude on the family in their limousine, and the woman had obviously forgotten her, or figured she was catching a ride with another, and left.

"Come on," Fletcher said.

She followed him to the nondescript unmarked. Hart was already leaning against the car, waiting. Fletcher barked instructions as he walked around to the driver's side.

"We're going to give Dr. Owens a ride to the reception. Then I'm going to go talk to Taranto. You stick around the reception, see if Whitfield shows his face again, comes back to show his respects to the wife privately. And get someone you trust to watch this grave site overnight."

"Got it."

They climbed in, Sam in the back feeling strangely like a fugitive, especially considering her white lie to the detectives. She debated telling them about the card again, then stopped. She was breaking every rule she knew, but something told her to hold off.

Donovan, you're going to be the death of me.

Fletcher got on the phone to someone named Danny, asked him to track down the real reporter and get Fletcher on his schedule ASAP. He hung up after a few minutes and looked in the rearview mirror.

"So, Doc. We have another piece of the puzzle. Want to hear?"

"Lay it on me," Sam said.

"Woman who lives across the street from the scene where Hal Croswell was killed? Name's Margaret Lyons. Goes by Maggie. Three kids. Disappeared off the face of the earth the same day we found Croswell's body. Hasn't shown up for work, kids haven't shown up for school. Turns out she served in the same region in Afghanistan as Donovan's crew. What do you make of that?"

Sam didn't hesitate. "There are two possible scenarios that come to mind. Either she's the killer, and you got too close and she split, or she's a victim, like the rest of them."

"Mighty convenient that Croswell was killed in a house that Lyons knew was empty. She was the one who told us the owner travels all the time. She'd be in a position to know."

"That's true. But I thought you had Whitfield pegged as the main suspect?"

"We have several leads we're pursuing right now." He emphasized the several, which made Sam think he still wasn't sharing everything he knew. Either not sharing, or at a loss and not as good a detective as she needed him to be. She tucked that into her head while he continued.

"It's possible that Maggie Lyons is in it with Whitfield. Her husband, drunken lout that he is, claims she came back from Afghanistan preggers, and insists the kid isn't his. He divorced her over it. We got a brief look at her financials last night, and she's got a steady stream of income that's unaccountable. Just a little extra each month. It helps keep her afloat."

"Being paid off?"

"That's a distinct possibility. Maybe being paid to keep quiet about something? Or her ex is right and the kid isn't his, and the real father is making some sort of off-the-books child support payment?"

Sam looked out the window. They were driving over the Key Bridge, the Potomac River murky below them. She saw the fine square outline of the Kennedy Center reflected in the waters, the elegant white marble structure perched on the eastern bank of the river, and wished things were easier. She used to spend a lot of time at the Kennedy Center.

"Detective Fletcher, maybe you need to listen to what this Taranto guy has to say. Maybe the key to all of this is an incident that occurred in Afghanistan, and has nothing to do with Donovan and Croswell here in the States. Did you ever speak with that Culpepper man again? His mentor? I didn't find a lot in Donovan's journal referencing him, outside of the fact that he was one of his favorite commanders, though I can go back and look some more. I'd need his nickname-that's the biggest problem. Donovan's shorthand used the nicknames for his compatriots."

"You didn't see Culpepper? He was at the funeral. The tall gray-haired man wearing a chestful of medals who spoke at the end. We've talked a couple of times. He's been...very helpful. Donovan didn't have a second phone issued by Raptor."

She watched Fletcher for a moment. "Culpepper is a suspect, too?"

"He was their commander in Afghanistan."

"But I thought he was out of the country when the murders took place."

"He was. Doesn't mean I don't have my eye on him. He might not have held the gun, but the man does own a firm that employs mercenaries. He certainly knows enough killers to arrange a murder. I've already been lied to once by a suspect in this case. Right now, everyone is in play as far as I'm concerned."

When Sam returned to Eleanor's, the post-burial reception was well under way. The house was full of people. Some cried, some gawked, some got quietly drunk in the corner. Eleanor was sh.e.l.l-shocked, too busy keeping everyone in food and drinks to grieve with them, and Susan had stepped out onto the back porch with the girls to have a private moment.

Hart walked Sam around to each guest personally, but unless Whitfield was a master of disguise, he wasn't there. Finally excusing her from her manhunt duties, he went to the kitchen for some coffee, and Sam took the opportunity to escape upstairs. It was quiet in her room. Blissfully quiet. She shut the door and it seemed the whole world disappeared, leaving her alone for the first time in hours.

She'd been a solitary being for so long that she forgot what it was like to be around people all the time. Work was a different story-there she was focused on the task at hand and the people were fully under her control. She could close the door to her office and be a.s.sured no one would bother her, go home and turn off the phone, revel, or wallow, in the silence. Here, in D.C., she was at their mercy, and she was starting to get frachetty. Between Susan and Eleanor and Fletcher, someone was always calling, or wanting to feed her, or ask questions or talk earnestly, and it was wearing her out.

Despite that weariness, Sam realized that something had changed. She hadn't had the urge to wash her hands at all today. Something in her deep and abiding grief had altered, and she wanted a little time and s.p.a.ce to figure out what was happening.

She pulled her laptop from her bag and opened it. It booted quickly, and she went to Google immediately. She typed in "Friendly Fire Edward Donovan Afghanistan."

There was nothing that stood out. She surfed through to a few sites, but none of the references were about her Donovan.

Then she pulled the card Whitfield had given her out of her wallet and looked at the numbers. Typed them into Google, as well.

A fraction of a second later, up popped a map with the header "Savage River State Park and National Forest."

Coordinates. The numbers were lat.i.tude and longitude. She couldn't believe she hadn't seen that before. Blaming grief for making her senseless, she brought up several more maps and looked through them all. The coordinates seemed to be rather general. The closest thing to them was probably the forest ranger station.

Sam resisted smacking herself on the forehead. Well, of course it was. Donovan was an Airborne Ranger, and so was Whitfield. With a bit of cunning, he was telling her where to look. Where to find him.