Kill and Tell Part 2

Chastain chuckled. "Relax. They were a gift from an old girlfriend. Women like them, so I keep them. They aren't much trouble, I just water them now and then."

Shannon's mama kept ferns, so he knew there was more involved in their upkeep than occasional water. He grinned a little, imagining a slow parade of women keeping Chastain's ferns in good condition, feeding and pruning and watering. Maybe he should get some ferns.

"You want some coffee?" Chastain asked. "Or are you heading home?"

"Naw, there's no point in it now. Coffee sounds good."

"Come on in, then."

A little surprised by the invitation but anxious for a chance to do some more brain picking, Shannon slid out of the car. Chastain unlocked the gate, and they walked into a long, narrow, bricked entry. A single light fixture set into the wall lit their way. A courtyard opened up beyond them, and in the predawn darkness, Shannon got the impression of lush vegetation, and the sweet scent of flowers teased him.

Chastain turned to the right and went up a flight of stairs. "I turned the house into four apartments," he said. "It was the only way I could afford the upkeep. This one's mine."

When he reached the upper balcony, he unlocked another door, reached in to turn on a light, and motioned for Shannon to enter.

Shannon looked around, his interest keen. The ceilings were high, at least twelve feet, the floors bare hardwood except for a few scattered rugs. A lazily whirling ceiling fan hung in the center. Most of Chastain's furniture was so old-fashioned and shabby Shannon thought it had to have been his grandmother's, though here and there a few new pieces had been added. The place was clean and fairly uncluttered, though there were newspapers on the floor beside a big easy chair, a coffee cup left on a lamp table, books scattered around. "No television?" he blurted.

"It's in the armoire," Chastain said, nodding toward an immense piece of furniture. "My grandmother loved watching soaps, but she refused to leave the television out where her friends could see that she had one. The kitchen's through here."

He led the way past a small inset dining room on the left, pushing open folding doors to enter the kitchen. It was a square, functional room, surprising in its normality. Stove, refrigerator, microwave, toaster, coffeemakera"Shannon had kind of expected a food processor or something, because it seemed Chastain was a man who appreciated fine food and would want to have all the appliances on hand for his girlfriends to cook for him. A wooden table for two was set against the wall.

Chastain expertly measured coffee and water and turned on the maker. "Make yourself at home," he said. "I'll be out by the time the coffee's done. You hungry?"

"I could eat."

"There're some pastry things in the freezer. Pop a couple in the toaster."

A moment later, Shannon heard the shower come on. He didn't want to put the pastries in the toaster too soon, so he walked over to the french doors and stepped out onto the balcony. His car was parked just below. To his left, lights were coming from the other set of doors, so he imagined that was Chastain's bedroom.

Shannon thought of his own place, with dirty clothes on the floor and dishes in the sink and dust all over everything. If he had a girl over, he had to rush around shoving clothes under the bed or in the closet, hide the dishes in the oven, try to blow the worst of the dust off, and it took a can of air freshener to cover the smell of dirty socks for a while. Chastain could bring a babe here anytime without worrying about how his place looked.

Man, this was the way to live. Nothing fancy, and just about everything was old as h.e.l.l, but he bet Chastain drew babes like a magnet. The way he dressed, the way he liveda women liked this stuff.

Shannon settled against the railing, thinking. Maybe he couldn't own a house in the Quarter, but he could take better care of his place, clean it up, maybe buy a few plants or something. No one would have to know he got them himself instead of a girlfriend giving them to him. And he needed some new threads; nothing flashy like the drug dealers, just maybe some good shirts and a nice jacket or two. And maybe a food processor. h.e.l.l, why not?

He was so involved with his plans that he didn't hear the shower cut off. A few minutes later, he was startled when Chastain walked out onto the balcony, freshly shaven, his short black hair plastered to his skull. He was b.u.t.toning a short-sleeved white dress shirt made out of some kind of gauzy stuff.

"Ah, h.e.l.l," Shannon said, disgusted with himself. "I forgot about the Pop-Tarts."

"I put them in," Chastain said.

Shannon felt embarra.s.sed into speech. "I was justa"man, this is nice, y'know? The house and everything. And I noticed the way you were with the witnesses, like you were gonna put your arms around them and say, 'Now, now,' any minute. Women like that s.h.i.t, don't they? I mean, thirty seconds of that stuff, and that girl turned off the spigot and started talking. I thought she was gonna throw herself at you."

"They deserved to be taken care of," Chastain said calmly. "They hadn't done anything wrong, and they were upset. They don't see the things you and I see every day." From inside came the sound of a toaster ejecting its contents, and the two men walked in.

Chastain got two cups down from a cabinet and poured coffee into them. He had made it strong, the way almost everyone in New Orleans did, and the kitchen was fragrant with chicory. Next, he placed the pastries on two small plates, dusted them with powdered sugar, and handed them to Shannon while he got two forks out of a drawer. Shannon put the plates on the small wooden table. "These aren't Pop-Tarts," he blurted.

"A girlfrienda""

"a"makes them for you," Shannon finished, and sighed.

"Yeah. They're pretty d.a.m.n good when I don't have the time for a regular breakfast."

"How many girlfriends you got?"

"I have a lot of friends who are women. I don't date all of them."

Shannon got the message. A gentleman didn't brag about his girlfriends.

These few hours with Chastain had been a revelation, Shannon thought. Watching him work, seeing how he was with witnesses, how he lived and dressed and comported himself, struck Shannon all of a sudden as how a man should be. "I bet you open doors for women, don't you?"

"Of course."

Of course. That was it. The att.i.tude. The att.i.tude was everything. Shannon felt almost breathless. When he made a few changes, he could almost see the women lining up to be with him.

"What's your first name?" Chastain asked when the pastry on his plate was almost gone.

"Antonio."

"Well, Antonio, you have to figure witnesses are already rattled; they don't need anyone coming on tough to them. Calm them down so they can think, go low-key so they don't feel threatened and keep things to themselves." He paused to take a bite. "Say you've got a couple of kids who were someplace they shouldn't have been, and they saw something. If they're scared, they'll lie to cover their a.s.ses because they know their parents are going to be p.i.s.sed. Rea.s.sure them. Talk to the parents yourself if you have to, so they don't scare the kid into shutting up entirely. You won't get anything if they do."

Shannon knew interrogation techniques: present yourself as understanding, even sympathetic. Maybe you're talking to a guy you know beat his wife to death. You say, "Man, I know how you feel. Sometimes my wife gets in my face, and I just want to punch a hole in something, you know?" Never mind that you're lying; the perp doesn't know that. He's scared, he's upset, he lost control and killed his wife, and he's looking at nothing but trouble. A friendly voice is maybe all he needs to spill his guts. Chastain gave that same friendly, sympathetic ear to witnesses, too. People probably tripped over their own feet to get to him and start talking.

"How much follow-up do you normally do on a case like this?" he asked Chastain curiously.

"As much as the lieutenant wants me to do." Chastain's voice was neutral. "If we can get an ID, I'll notify his family. They probably won't care, but at least they can take care of his burial."

"You think he was a mental?"

Chastain shrugged, indicating the odds were even. "He didn't look like a doper, didn't have that wasted look. Some of the homeless have families who send money to them. It's a lot easier than trying to take care of someone with a mental condition. Just turn 'em out on the streets."

Shannon nodded. The situation wasn't that unusual. Back in the seventies or early eighties, a bunch of do-gooders had gone to court to get patients released from mental inst.i.tutions on the grounds that they were perfectly capable of functioning in society. Well, they were, as long as they took their medication. Problem was, crazy people took their medication only when they lived in a controlled environment, like a mental inst.i.tution. Put them in the real world, a lot of them went off their meds and became more than their families could handle. When the stress became too much, a lot of the mentals ended up on the street, unable to hold a job or even carry on a decent conversation. They shuffled around talking to themselves, cursing people, relieving themselves in public. They were sitting ducks for mindless street violence, thrown in as they were with the dopers and the criminal element.

Something in Chastain's voice alerted Shannon, a cold undertone. "You're p.i.s.sed, huh?"

"Not yet. If it turns out he had a family that could have been taking care of him, then I'll be p.i.s.sed."

It was said mildly enough, but a chill ran down Shannon's spine. It struck him that despite Chastain's polite sophistication, when he was p.i.s.sed he could be one mean son of a b.i.t.c.h.

Chastain gathered the dishes, rinsed them, and placed them in the dishwasher. After refilling both their cups with coffee, he said, "We'll take the coffee with us. Let's go do some paperwork." They both sighed.

Marc made a mental note. If he had time, he'd follow through on this case maybe a little more than he normally would. For one thing, he wanted to find out where this guy had got hold of a Glock .17. Little oddities like that annoyed the h.e.l.l out of him.

Chapter 5.

"How did you dispose of the body?"

"Drove his rental car over into Mississippi, put him in it, wiped it down. We made it look like a robbery. Someone will find him in a day or so."

"What?" The first man sat forward in his huge leather chair, which had cost almost as much as the average car. "Why in h.e.l.l didn't you dump him in a bayou so a gator could get him?" He was incensed.

The man standing before him patiently shook his head. "You don't want a bunch of spooks losing one of their guys and starting to nose around looking for him. Strange s.h.i.t can happen."

"Medina was CIA. The Agency isn't allowed to operate inside the country."

Like rulesa"and lawsa"weren't broken every day, the second man thought wearily. Sure, the Agency wasn't supposed to operate within its own borders. Did anyone who wasn't naive as h.e.l.l think it didn't happen anyway? Unofficially, of course. He didn't even bother to reply to that nonsense, just said soothingly, "Looking for Medina isn't the same thing as running an operation. And Medina was a contract agent, not a Company guy, so he worked for other people, too. The CIA is the least of my worries. Give them the body so they know what happened to him. You said Medina was a real hard-a.s.s, but from what I've heard, he didn't hold a candle to his son. I'd just as soon not have Junior snooping around looking for his old man."

"I haven't heard anything about a son," the first man said, frowning in concern. He glanced at the framed photo sitting on his desk, at the beloved, smiling faces. His own family was of paramount importance to him. As a young man, he had wanted nothing more than to win his father's approval and make him proud. He didn't dare expect less from Rick Medina's son.

"Not many people have. I've only heard a few whispers about him myself, and that's because I've done some work in the business."

"Can you find out where he lives, what he looks like?"

"No can do." The second man shook his head. "I don't have the contacts, and even if I did, a request like that would have me dead within an hour. I'm telling you, let it drop here. Don't do anything that will draw attention to us."

"What if you made a mistake, missed a fingerprint or something?"

"I didn't. We wore gloves, got rid of the guns, burned our clothes. There's nothing to tie anyone to Medina. If you're that nervous about it, you should have used someone else to make the hit on Whitlaw."

"No one else was even getting close to him. He was too good. I needed someone just as good." That someone had been Rick Medina. Pity. An unenc.u.mbered piece of muscle would have been much simplera"no family who cared much; no cops who cared. Medina came with complications, but that couldn't be helped, especially now. At least he had gotten the job done, something all those other clowns hadn't managed to do. He had concocted a good story to put Medina on the hunt, but once the kill was made, Medina had had to be removed, because if he ever found out he had been useda"well, it would have been nasty.

The first man sighed, getting up to pace slowly over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the carefully manicured lawn. There was nothing in this visit to excite interest, because he normally had a constant stream of visitors, people coming and going, asking favors, performing duties. Still, this whole business made him uneasy. He had thought it was finished years ago. He had learned a lesson, though: tie up all the loose ends. Medina had been a loose end; he regretted the necessity but didn't back down from it.

"What about the men you used?" he asked, wondering if they were more loose ends.

"I can vouch for them. None of them even knew a name; they were just doing a job. I've kept everything quiet."

"Good. What about the book?"

"No sign of it."

"d.a.m.n." The word was softly breathed. As long as that book was unaccounted for, he couldn't feel safe. What sort of madness had prompted Dexter Whitlaw to record the hit, anyway? It was evidence against himself, and it wasn't as if he could include it in his body count. But Whitlaw had evidently decided he had less to lose than someone else if the truth came out, and that the someone else would pay any amount to get that book. He had almost been right. When one had other options, one wasn't bound by the rules. "Where could he have put it?"

"I doubt he would have used a safe deposit box," the second man said, thinking. His name was Hayes. He was big, stocky, unremarkable in looks, just one more slightly overweight, slightly unkempt man who hadn't kept in shape. His gaze was remote and intelligent. "He moved around too much, and he would have wanted it where he could get to it fairly easily, plus you have to pay for the boxes every year. Same thing with lockers in bus stations. Most likely, he left it with someone he trusted, maybe a friend but probably someone in his family."

"Whitlaw was estranged from his family." This was said with distinct disapproval. "He walked out on his wife and daughter twenty years ago."

"What was their last known address?" Hayes asked promptly.

"Someplace in West Virginia, but they're no longer there. I learned they moved to Ohio years ago, but I haven't located them yet."

"Whitlaw might have known where they live. He could have sent the book to them before he started trying to blackmail you. Set everything up in advance."

"That's true, that's true." Clearly disturbed by that possibility, the first man turned back from the windows.

"Have you traced their social security numbers, checked for tax records?"

"That would leave tracksa""

Hayes sighed. Yes, it woulda"if done officially, through the proper channels, which was the stupid way to do anything. "Give me their names and birthdays. I'll get the informationa"and I won't leave tracks."

"If you're certaina""

"I'm certain."

"Don't take any action without talking to me first. I don't want two women to be needlessly killed."

After Hayes had left, Senator Stephen Lake left his office and climbed the wide, curving staircase that swept in a graceful arch up to the second floor. The luxurious thickness of the carpeting silenced his steps; the polished ebony banister gleamed like jet in the summer sunlight. The air was sweet with fresh flowers cut from his own lovingly tended gardensa"lovingly tended by the gardener, that isa"and he paused a moment to inhale the wonderful, indefinable essence of gracious living.

He loved this house, had from the moment he was old enough to appreciate the beauty of it and everything it represented. He remembered, as a child, watching his father stoop and trail his fingers across the glossy, newly inlaid marble in the foyer, relishing the stone for both its own beauty and its testimony to his wealth and, more subtly, his power. Stephen's chest had felt full and tight with emotion as he'd absorbed his father's emotions and known he felt exactly the same way. He still did. He appreciated the lead crystal chandeliers, the exquisite furniture handmade by Europe's finest, the exotic woods from Africa and South America, the paintings in their gold-leaf frames, the ankle-thick carpeting that kept the chill of the Minnesota winters from his feet.

He had grown up playing on the beautifully manicured lawn, he and his older brother, William, taking turns being cowboys and Indians, pretending long sticks were rifles, and yelling "Bang bang!" at each other until they were hoa.r.s.e. Those had been great days. The cook had always had fresh, cold lemonade to refresh them after a day of hard play in the hot summer, or hot chocolate to warm them after romping in the snow. Inside, there had been the rich smell of their father's cigars, a smell the senator still a.s.sociated with power; the sweet fragrance of his mother's perfume as she hugged him and William and kissed their cheeks, and he had wriggled with delight. "My little princes," she had called them.

Their mother had loved them unconditionally. Their father had been more stern, harder to please. A frown from him could ruin the boys' day. William had found it easier to please their father than Stephen had. William was older, of course, but he was naturally more careful, more responsible. Stephen had been a little shy, more intelligent than his confident brother but less able to show that intelligence. William had often stepped between Stephen and punishment, deflecting the scoldings and loss of privileges that would have come his brother's way, because their father had often been impatient with Stephen's shyness.

Stephen had grown up wanting nothing more than to please his father, to be the kind of man of whom he could be proud. He wanted to be his father, a man people both feared and respected, whose smallest frown brought instant obedience but whose word could be trusted implicitly. William, however, had always been the crown prince, the heir, and so William had garnered most of their father's coveted attention. Stephen couldn't say their father's trust was misplaced, because William had beena wonderful. That was the only word for him. There hadn't been a mean, nasty bone in his body, and he worked doggedly to overcome his perceived failings. Even with all the responsibility on his shoulders, he had always been cheerful, smiling, ready to enjoy a joke or to play one.

William's death at the age of twenty-seven had devastated the family. Stephen's mother had never recovered from the shock, and her health began to deteriorate steadily; she died four years later. As for his father, he was shattered. Pushing aside his own grief, Stephen had tried even harder to make his father proud of him. He drove himself all through law school, studying longer and harder than his cla.s.smates, and graduated first in his cla.s.s. He married a sweet, lovely young woman from an extremely wealthy New Hampshire family and devoted himself to being a faithful, considerate, loving husband. They had two children, a boy and a girl, and Stephen watched his stern father totally melt over his grandchildren.

Stephen began his political career by running for local office, as his father advised; that was how to build a base of loyal const.i.tuents. After serving a term as district attorney, he ran for the state legislature as a representative, then for the state senate. With twelve years of state and local politics under his belt, he seized the opportunity when a U.S. representative from the state retired, and he ran for his office. He discharged his duties as conscientiously as possible, and bided his time, watching the senators from his state for signs of weakness. When one became involved in a s.e.x scandal, Stephen made his move and ran against him in the next election. He became a United States Senator at the age of forty-one and steadily built his power base and his reputation.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Senator Lake climbed the remaining stairs and walked down the wide upper hall to the suite of rooms at the back of the house. He knocked lightly, then opened the door. "How is he today?"

"He ate well," said the nurse with a soft smile. Cinda Blockett was a sweet creature, as tender with his father as she would be with a newborn. Her husband, James, also a registered nurse, worked the first shift with her and provided the muscle necessary for caring for a total invalid.

James had carried Walter William Lake to the huge, overstuffed recliner positioned in front of the windows, with a perfect view of the sweeping grounds and the glittering blue lake beyond, patrolled by majestic peac.o.c.ks. Stephen pulled up a chair beside his father and took a gnarled, wasted hand in his. "Good morning, Father," he said gently, waited a second to see if there would be any signal of recognition such as a blink of the eye, then began to talk about the latest news, both on television and in the newspaper. He didn't restrict himself to politics but talked business, too, and science. Every time a s.p.a.ce shuttle went up, Stephen kept his father informed. He didn't know if any of what he was saying was actually received and processed in the working portions of his father's brain, but he never gave up.

He sat with his father for more than an hour, spelling Cinda and James so they could have a leisurely meal. His father was never left alone. Three shifts of nurses cared for him, kept him fed, exercised his wasted muscles, turned and moved him so his fragile skin didn't rot with bedsores. They made his existence as comfortable as possible, playing his favorite music, turning on the television to the programs he had liked, reading aloud to him or playing books on tape. If there were any cognitive parts of his father's brain still functioning after the ma.s.sive stroke that had felled him eleven years before, Stephen hoped he was doing enough to keep those parts stimulated, to make his father as happy as possible under the circ.u.mstances.

He was now one of the most powerful, most respected people in Washington, and he would never know if his father was proud of him.

When Cinda and James returned, and Stephen left his father's suite, Raymond was waiting for him just as the senator had known he would be. Raymond Hilley, sixty-nine years old, had worked for the Lake family for fifty years. Stephen couldn't remember a time when Raymond hadn't been there, his father's right-hand man, almost an uncle to him and William when they were growing up. When William died, Raymond had sat down on the floor and cried, huge tears running down his battered face.

Eleven years ago, when the stroke incapacitated Walter William Lake and Stephen became the head of the family, Raymond's skills and unswerving loyalty had transferred to him.

"Let's go down to my office," the senator said, clapping his hand on Raymond's shoulder as his father had always done, a sign of friendship and acceptance.

Coffee was waiting for them, brought in when Cinda and James finished their lunch and returned to the suite. With Hayes, the senator had sat behind his desk while Hayes took one of the chairs opposite, but with Raymond, he went over to the sitting area, and they took chairs as friends, as family. He poured Raymond's coffee first, putting in three teaspoons of sugar and diluting it with milk until the coffee barely had a tan color. He took his own coffee with a little cream, just a drop really; his father had drank it black, but even after all this time, Stephen couldn't give up that tiny drop of rich cream to mellow the bite of the coffee. Sometimes he was embarra.s.sed by his weakness for cream in his coffee; it seemed to say he was a watered-down version of his father, a milquetoasta"yes, that was a better comparison, both in sound and in image. He knew better, of course. He had made some hard decisions in his life, not the least of which concerned Dexter Whitlaw and Rick Medina. He didn't feel good about what he had done, but neither did he doubt the necessity.

Raymond sipped the excessively sweet brew in his cup, sighing in pleasure. "I followed him to the airport," he reported in his gravelly voice, which sounded as if he had once eaten gla.s.sa"and liked it. "He didn't stop, didn't use his cell phone, just went straight to the check-in counter and then to the gate."

"He could have called someone from the gate."