Cape Disappointment (29 page)

After we parked at Maddox headquarters in Kirkland and entered the offices, we were confronted with a heavyset, crew-cut security guard in a tan uniform with a portable metal detector. The guard and the detector were both new. I waltzed through while Snake was asked to remove four pistols— two of them .44 Magnums with eight-inch barrels—a pair of handcuffs, a sap, and some brass knuckles. I knew he had at least one more weapon on his person, though it wouldn't show up on the detector. Snake also kept a standard handcuff key secreted in his clothing. When Armageddon came, he was determined to be ready.

“When we're out in the boat I use him for my emergency backup anchor,” I joked to the guard. Snake flashed his private investigator's license and concealed weapons permit for the city of Seattle, but it didn't stop the guard from getting on his walkie-talkie and summoning reinforcements. The first to arrive was one of Maddox's regular security people, Glenn Boddington, whom I'd worked with until ten days ago. I nodded at Boddington and said, “He's with me.”

“Just the same, we can't let all those weapons in.”

“No. That would be nuts.”

“He's going to have to check them with Neil,” Boddington said. “How've you been, Thomas?”

“Weathering it.”

“Good to see you. Coming back to work?”

“Not just yet.”

Leaving Snake at the door with the security guard, I wandered through the rooms until I found Deborah Driscoll near Maddox's dark office, Deborah looking not as bright or as attractive as I remembered, though just as tall, her hair just as red. She looked wan and tired. “Jesus, that's one hot dish,” Snake whispered into my ear after catching up with me. I had to look around to see who he was talking about, because there were probably twenty people within spitting distance and most were women, but of course he was referring to Deborah.

“Thomas, Thomas.” Deborah seemed particularly enthusiastic to see me. I introduced Snake, who did his best to fade into the background. “You coming to work with us today?” Deborah asked.

“Not today.”

“I wish you'd change your mind. It would do you good to keep busy.”

“I am keeping busy.”

“Really? Doing what?”

“We're investigating the Lincoln assassination.”

Deborah smiled and sat on the edge of her desk, nodded to somebody peeking through the window in her office door, the nod signifying she would take care of whatever the problem was later. Snake flopped on the sofa and picked up the same golfing magazine I'd read the day they hired me. It was easy to see why Deborah Driscoll had managed to convince so many CEOs to dump money into the Maddox coffers. Even from across the room she had a way of making you feel as if it were just you and her in a phone booth. Crossing her arms under her breasts, she trained her green eyes on me and said, “Tea?”

“Sure.”

She brought out cups and a teapot. The office was bustling with campaign activity, but she was going to fix tea for me. It was a sign that she cared and that I was valuable. I liked her for it. Snake declined.

“What can I do for you, Thomas?”

“Deborah, it occurs to me that our office occasionally has had information we shouldn't have had.”

“What do you mean?”

“Information only the Sheffield people should have been privy to.”

“Like what, for instance?”

“The fact that she was getting an endorsement from a former president. A lot of little stuff.”

Deborah gave me a smile she probably reserved for retarded children and said, “It's a small community, Thomas. Telephone, telegraph, tell a campaign worker. I'm sure they knew plenty of what was going on here, too.”

“Just the same, I'm wondering if somebody with the Sheffield group wasn't leaking campaign information to this office.”

“We don't do spy networks. You should know that. In fact, that's why we hired you, isn't it? To keep an eye out for that sort of thing.”

James Maddox came bustling through the offices, surging across the room to shake hands. “Thomas! Great to see you! We're feeling your pain. I mean that. All of us. You losing your wife like that, well … it's hard to know what to say.”

“Thank you.”

“But here you are. Ready to roll up your sleeves and go to work.”

“Not exactly. I'm poking into the events surrounding the accident.”

“You don't mean the plane crash?”

“That's what I mean.”

“I know you're a private eye, but don't you … ? The government will handle it. You need to stay out of it, don't you think? I wasn't going to mention this, but I had a conversation with the National Transportation Safety Board people this morning. Your name was mentioned. They don't want to hear from you again, Thomas.”

“They told you that?”

“I guess you represented yourself as a voice of this office.”

“I told them I worked for you. I do, don't I?”

“Of course. But—”

“Listen, Jim. There was something wrong with that plane going down and I'm not sure I have any faith in the way it's being investigated. I'm going to look into it.”

“I've had talks with the man in charge over at NTSB, Thomas, and I can assure you they're going to find out what happened.”

“Are you saying you know they're going to get to the cause of the crash because you have information the rest of us don't, or are you saying you have a generalized faith that our government can sort this out?”

The question befuddled Maddox. His normally impassive face ranged through a panoply of emotions, so that I couldn't tell what he was thinking. In the end, my guess was he knew nothing about the probe. “They're going to handle it, Thomas. They're going to find out what happened. I know they are.”

Maddox proceeded into his own office and closed the door. Deborah looked at me and said, “I don't blame you for wanting to know why your wife is dead.”

“Thanks, Deborah. How's the election looking?”

“The numbers are leaning the wrong way. But Sheffield's husband has never even served on a school board. We're going to run ads about it that will hurt them.”

Deborah gave me a lingering look and cast a glance over her shoulder at the closed door to Maddox's office. “Look at it in this light, if you can,” she said. “If there were such an individual as you were asking about earlier and they had made some kind of deal with us, don't you think part of that deal would include a promise to keep their name confidential?”

“So there is a spy?”

“There's always somebody.”

“But you're not going to tell me who?”

“Thomas, the information they give is never important. Just morsels they send along. You know nothing in politics is secret for long. The thing is, it makes the staff feel better if they think they're being fed inside dope. It never amounts to anything, and it works both ways.”

“They might have been giving information to somebody else, and if they were, I need to know about it. Who was it? Tell me.”

“Listen to me, Thomas. After Maddox gets elected, he'll have the clout to make this plane crash investigation get done properly. He can set up an independent panel. Whatever you want.”

“Sweep it under the rug until then? Is that what you're asking? Sweep my wife's death under the rug?”

“You know I'm not saying that. It's just—I want to help. I like you, Thomas, and I want to see you get through this.”

“If you wanted to help, you'd give me the name.”

Outside in the parking lot, Snake turned to me. “That is one hot mama. Think she's a natural redhead?”

“Don't even go there.”

I WAS SPRAWLED OUT
on the saggy motel bed, gazing toward the shower. I couldn't help smiling as I watched her moving behind the glass panel. After she stepped out and finished toweling herself off, she noticed me watching and gave me a grin. Still smiling, she strolled across the room, climbed onto the bed, and lay down beside me. After a moment she propped herself on one elbow and gave the tip of my nose a kiss.

Kathy rested her wet head in the crook of my elbow and rolled over so we were both facing the ceiling. “This is exactly what we needed. To spend some quality time together.”

“Would you like some more quality time right now, sister?”

“This
is quality time.”

“Even more quality.”

“I'm all qualitied out for a while.”

“I guess I am, too.”

“I guess. So, to change the subject, what are you planning for after the election?”

“More quality time?”

“Be serious.”

“What am I planning? I'll go back to the office and chase down philandering husbands. Or wives. Check out the computer geek some nervous woman found on the Internet, then give her the sad news he's
not marriage material and he's not the CEO of his own investment firm like he said he was, but drives a rendering truck three days a week and goes to the dogfights on the weekends. Snake has a warehouse theft ring he wants me to help out with. How about you?”

“Jane has asked me to go back to D.C. with her.”

It took a few moments to figure out if I'd heard correctly. “That's quite a bombshell.”

“I know.”

“How long has this been on the back burner?”

“Not long. Besides, it's not a signed and sealed offer. She has to win first.”

“In order not to win she'd have to be videotaped engaged in sex with …”

“Don't say it.”

“Say what?”

“A band of Hungarian circus acrobats, or something similar. Don't you want to know what I said to Jane?”

“Of course I do.”

“I said I'd talk it over with you.”

“And that's what you're doing now.”

“Right.”

“Is it what you want? To go to D.C?”

“It never entered my mind. What would you think?”

“I don't want to live back east. Besides, we've got that little house where we met. We'd never find anything nearly so charming or so dumpy.”

“I would be asked for a three-year commitment.”

“I don't know if I want you hanging around a woman who has sex with acrobatic dwarfs.”

“Who said they were dwarfs?”

“I just assumed they were.”

“Really. Be serious. I can't go unless you come with me.”

“It would sure be lonely around here without a wife.”

“Glad to hear that.”

“I'd miss all the quality time.”

“Good, because our quality time is about the only reason I keep you
around—” She cut me off with a kiss. Then we did some more kissing. And then we were both asleep. Sometime in the night I woke up mulling over Jane Sheffield's offer and Kathy's reluctance to tell me about it when it was first proffered, which I knew hadn't been yesterday or even the day before. I could only guess how long she'd been keeping it to herself. She should have been able to predict my feelings on the matter. I'd lived in the Pacific Northwest my whole life and loved everything about it. She had to know I had the mountains and the water in my blood. She had to know there wasn't anyplace I would rather live than where I was.

In the middle of the night, I woke up and realized by the pattern of her breathing that Kathy was awake, too. “You sleeping?” I whispered.

“I couldn't help thinking what a seedy motel this is.”

“And?”

“I was thinking about all the people who've been in this room. What they must have been escaping from to come here. About all the people who couldn't afford anything more than this. We're kind of slumming, but this is the best some people ever get.”

“You're right.”

“It's all I want. It's on the beach. All those bats flying around outside the light. It's perfect.”

“So are you,” I said, giving her a hug. It was the last thing I remembered until morning.

I'M STRUGGLING TO COME AWAKE.
It's not unlike trying to swim to the surface of a huge bowl of pudding. I'm in a hospital bed. I'm groggy, trying to figure out where I am. I feel like I'm drowning. I've had the feeling before. I've been in this room before. There's a patch of night sky showing at the dark window. Slowly, I roll out of bed and walk to the window, where I sit on the sill. I'm aware I've been up before. I'm also aware the doctors don't want me moving around. I'm dizzy. I have bandages on my skull. My ribs are taped. My stomach hurts when I move.

Outside, the city is quiet. The streets are empty. I believe I'm in Swedish Medical Center, the Cherry Hill campus, but I'm not certain.

I'm here because of the bomb. It all starts coming back. It doesn't seem fair that each time I awaken I am again forced to the realization that Kathy is dead. It's like getting the news for the first time— over and over. For a few moments I actually think I'm back in the motel room with her. I limp back across the cold floor and struggle to get between the sheets. A nurse checks on me, mistakenly assumes I'm asleep, then leaves the room.