Cape Disappointment (43 page)

“No.”

I was lying, of course. There was a consortium who wouldn't want her talking to me, but I didn't know who they were, and my only evidence that they existed was the testimony of a petty criminal and the tortured words of a man who would deny everything and who wanted to kill me, hardly evidence I could present to Hampsted. What was more, I didn't know what Deborah had been planning to tell me. I couldn't very well tell him I thought a group of professional assassins was running around trying to tidy up after the murder of a senator, not if I wanted him to believe anything else I said. The missing condom had done enough damage to my credibility.

By the time I finished my statement, the medical examiner's people had removed the body. Hampsted met me outside Deborah's front door. He was still overwhelmed by the dead woman's looks. Poor Deborah. Even in the afterlife she had the ability to addle men's brains.

“She have a boyfriend?” Hampsted asked. “Somebody who might have belonged to that condom you said you saw?”

“His name is Kalpesh Gupta. Used to work for Jane Sheffield, but after the plane crash, he went over to work with Maddox.”

“Funny. Since we last spoke I've been on the phone with one of her co-workers, and she swears the dead woman wasn't seeing anyone.”

“So why ask me?”

“Cross-checking.”

“She was sleeping with Kalpesh Gupta.”

“That a secret?”

“I think so.”

“So how come you know about it?”

“I saw him here one night.”

“And you were … what? Visiting her yourself? I thought you weren't interested in the lady. Or were you just waiting outside to see if you might get lucky?”

“I was working on something.”

“Something you weren't going to tell me about?”

“It turned out to be nothing.”

“And that didn't make you happy, did it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, a guy puts the moves on a lady and she doesn't reciprocate. He watches her and sees her with some other guy, so he watches her closer. Catches her in her bath and drowns her out of spite. Calls us. That guy could have been you.”

“You want to give me a lie detector test?”

“Forget it. For now let's just say you weren't involved. Was she having sex with more than one guy?”

“I only knew about Kalpesh.”

“But it was possible?”

“Anything's possible.”

“It's even possible she got in the tub and drowned by accident, isn't it?”

“No. That's not possible. She's thirty years old. Not three.”

IT WAS DARK
by the time I got into the car and used the cellphone. Bert answered right away. “Bert. Deborah Driscoll is dead.”

“Who's Deborah Driscoll?”

“She works for Maddox.
Worked
for Maddox.”

“Was she giving information to somebody?”

“I don't think so. I do think she was receiving confidential information from Kalpesh Gupta, who worked in the Sheffield camp. We'd set up a meeting. I think she was going to tell me about it.”

“There was a mole in the Sheffield camp? I was right, wasn't I?”

“He was feeding information to Deborah, but I suspect he was feeding it to someone else as well.”

“Gupta, huh? I think I've seen him on the news. That Indian dude?”

“You leave him alone.”

“You might not feel that way a week from now. Especially if more people you know turn up dead. This Deborah Driscoll? You fond of her?”

“You could say that.”

“I'm sorry. You tell the police?”

“They're not holding me, if that's what you're worried about.”

“Christ. You know what this is, don't you? They're cleaning up. It was triggered when I took one of their key players off the table, maybe their top man for all I know. It would be just like them to send the guy
who planned the crash to head up the investigation. That's why he was here early. Damn!”

“You really think Hoagland was in charge?”

“If he was, he was lying through his teeth and we were buying it hook, line, and sinker. Bastard. I know one thing. Once their cleanup starts, it's not going to stop. They'll be watching your house. You need to get out of town. You got cash squirreled away somewhere?”

“Some.”

“Don't use any plastic, or they'll be on you like white on rice. Where are you going? Never mind. I don't want to know.”

“How long do you think we need to hide out?”

“I don't know. We're moving into territory I've never visited before. We may have to hide forever.”

“That's not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Kathy won't stand for it. Hell, she wants to go back now.”

“Just lay low for a while. I may be able to work some of the old Slezak magic.”

“Bert?” But he'd already signed off.

When I arrived at the tiny house in north Seattle, Delilah was in the kitchen scarfing down dinner, already running late for her karate class. Kathy was in the bedroom with the door closed. Snake was on his computer, a set of well-oiled pistols on the table beside him. There were four voice mails on my cellphone when Snake handed it back to me. The first three were from Deborah Driscoll. It was eerie listening to her voice now that she was dead. “Thomas? Come over late this afternoon or this evening, and I'll try to connect some of the dots for you.” She didn't sound frightened in the least. The next message showed a little more reserve. “Thomas? Deborah again. I haven't heard back, but I'll assume you're coming. I'm afraid I have some negative points to make about James in relation to that plane crash. It's kind of scary now that I'm thinking it through. We'll talk.” The third message: “Deborah again. Just reminding you I'll be here all evening.” The earlier calls had come from a relatively calm woman, but in the last her voice was muffled under a scrim of tension. I wondered if she'd had an inkling of what was in store for her.

When Kathy came out of the bedroom she wore deck shoes, shapeless
polyester slacks, and a cotton jacket she must have gotten at the Goodwill. She wore a bad brown wig and had on a pair of thick glasses and freckles she'd applied with makeup. She was good at making her face go dead, too. With her new posture and attitude, she was the kind of woman nobody would look at twice. When she saw the look on my face, she burst into laughter. “What's up, Buster?”

“You new in town, sister?”

“Just fell off the turnip wagon.”

“I think your own mother would walk right past you.”

She stepped across the room and hugged me. “I've been reading all that material you left and … damn it … there are things a lot of people know but nobody will talk about. Things that need talking about.”

“Last time we spoke, you seemed to think I was a nutcase.”

“I didn't say ‘nutcase.' You're not a nut. Well, you are, but not that kind. Somebody murdered Jane and those others. Bert knew something. That meant others must have, too.”

“Bert saw Hoagland in town before the flight. He thinks he was contacting Maddox.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“No joke. That's what he said.”

“You think Maddox knew about the crash before it happened?”

“I'm beginning to wonder.”

“Thomas, the official version comes out tomorrow, but they're already calling it an accident. Do you think … ?”

“Bert says if you start trying to convince people, you'll be making yourself a target. After talking to Hoagland, I tend to agree. Oh, and Deborah Driscoll was killed this afternoon.”

“Oh, God.”

I told her about it. When I finished and she'd asked all the pertinent follow-up questions and I'd answered them, I added, “I think we need to get out of town. Maybe make one stop on the way out.”

“And go where?”

“We'll figure it out. I always think better when I'm holed up in a motel with a sexy farm girl. Are you wearing sexy lingerie and garters?”

“Of course.”

“There's at least that.” I kissed her.

From the other room, Snake said, “You guys can cut out the mush.” “Give me a break here,” I said. “She was dead until last week.”

KALPESH STOOD OPENMOUTHED
in the doorway to his plush downtown condominium. After greeting me, he stared at Kathy without recognizing her. It was amazing. At the other end of the hallway, two workmen in coveralls puttered with an exit sign. “Why don't we step inside?” I said.

“Yes, of course. Both of you, come in.” Once we had the door closed behind us, Kalpesh looked at Kathy as if he thought he might recognize her, then gave up on it.

“My cousin,” I said. “Carol.”

“Sure. Glad to meet you.”

Every time I'd seen him around the Maddox camp he'd been leery of being left alone with me. I could tell by the way he kept staring that he thought there was a possibility I was here to blame him once again for Kathy's death. “That plane was taken down,” I said.

“That's ridiculous, and you know it.”

“It isn't.”

“Who would take a plane down? A terrorist?”

“Government sponsored,” I said.

“The Saudis? Pakistan?”

“Us.
Our
government.”

When he realized how invested I was in the concept, he stepped back and invited us to sit down. The living room was immaculate as it had been during my first visit. Over Puget Sound, we could see streaks of rain drifting in above the city lights.

Earlier, Snake had gone to my house to check on things and pick up his belongings. He'd reported via cellphone that my house was still being watched and that the neighbors were reporting visits by men in civilian clothing who, judging from their haircuts and bearing, were military. I was beginning to wonder what we'd gotten ourselves into. I was beginning to get angry, too, knowing that in front of me was the man who maybe had helped start the chain of events that led to all this. Whether he'd known what he was doing or not, Kalpesh, I was sure,
had been the mole in the Sheffield camp. I was hoping that now, with Deborah's death, I might be able to shake him up enough to get something out of him.

“I want to know who you were talking to when you worked for Jane Sheffield.”

“We've been over this ground before. I wasn't spying.”

“But you were. For Deborah and probably for somebody else. I just want to know who that somebody else was.”

“Did she tell you that?”

I wasn't sure if he knew about her death. Obviously, if he'd killed her he knew, but I couldn't be sure he'd killed her. If he did know Deborah was dead, he didn't necessarily realize I knew. It had only been a couple of hours. “Did Deborah tell you I was giving her information?”

“Yes.”

He looked disappointed, as if he hadn't expected her to rat on him. Or, as if this whole line of questioning was tiresome. “I didn't give her any information. Not as such. True, we were seeing each other when I was working with Jane, and we had a number of telephone conversations pursuant to that relationship. She may have extrapolated from some personal things I said, but anything of a political nature she took away from those conversations was strictly accidental.”

“I don't believe you.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued, and after it had dragged on a while, I said, “Kalpesh, why did you change camps?”

“Beliefs change. Circumstances change. We all have to make our decisions.”

“How long have you known you were going to switch camps?”

“I … really don't see how that is any of your business.”

“Answer the question and we'll go away.”

Without replying, Kalpesh walked to the front door and put his hand on the knob. As we left, he said, “It was nice to meet you, Carol.”

As we left, the two workmen were still monkeying around at the end of the corridor. When they saw us, one of them put a walkie-talkie to his mouth and spoke into it, turning his back on me when he saw me watching. It may have been an innocent work radio, but then, I was beginning to lose my belief in innocence.

“Think you should have mentioned Deborah Driscoll's death?” Kathy asked.

“I'd like to be there when the police show up and ask him if he was sleeping with her. I'm guessing he thinks that was a secret.”

“Won't they find his fingerprints all over her place?”

“Maybe.”

“He didn't recognize me, did he?”

“Not even close.”

The elevator arrived and we stepped into it. “They're spies,” Kathy said, as we descended to street level.

“Who?”

“Those two guys at the end of the hall. They had feds written all over them.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Geez. I'm beginning to sound like Bert.”