Collateral Damage (14 page)

By nine o’clock the pies were done and cooling on the counter. She’d turned down the beds and turned on the outside lights. Satisfied that she had done all Nikki had asked of her, she left the house by the kitchen door and walked down the street to her own home.

It would rain before morning, she thought. When it was damp and rainy, Mr. Woodley was in a great deal of pain. When she said her prayers at night, Paula Woodley always prayed for rain.

She was about to walk up her driveway when she noticed her neighbor walking his dog, a delightful little fur-ball named Maxine. She passed a few pleasantries with her neighbor, then went into the house. She was glad that Joseph was gone. She wasn’t much in the mood for small talk this evening.

Paula checked to make sure the aide had taken his pie. He had. She poured herself a glass of milk and cut a slice of pie for herself. She did love apple pie. When she was finished, she washed and dried her dishes and made her way to her bathroom, where she ran a hot bath. While the water was running, she walked back to the little room where her husband now lived. She opened the door, poked her head in, and said, “I think it’s going to rain before morning. Good night, Mr. Woodley.”

Paula pulled the door shut and locked it. There was no need to lock the door, but she did it anyway because she slept better knowing her husband was behind a locked door. She also locked her own bedroom door.

Paula looked at her naked body with all its scars, her eyes narrowing in momentary anger. Still, this was the part of the day she loved best, settling down into the warm tub with the rich cypress-lavender blend of salts she favored. This was when she turned her mind off and truly relaxed.

An hour later, as she was turning down her own bed, she saw a pair of headlights sweeping down the street. She sighed with happiness as she peered out the window to see a white van pull into the driveway at 11063 and into the garage.

The vigilantes had arrived.

Paula Woodley slept like a baby that night.

E
rin Powell knew she looked like she’d been ridden hard and hung up wet. Right now she’d give her right arm for just a few minutes of sleep, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Humiliated and chastised by the director himself for her running of the task force and the mistakes he’d said she made rankled big-time. There was nothing worse than being made to look like a failure in front of your colleagues, but she’d bitten the bullet and sucked it up, more determined than ever to make it all work for her. Although it wasn’t like she had anything worthwhile to work with. Sightings, mostly bogus, were virtually impossible to sort out. The vigilantes covered their tracks. It had taken her hours to come to terms with the fact that there simply were no clues worth focusing on. But, according to the director, the clock was ticking.

It was close to midnight when she realized that she wasn’t getting anywhere, but then she opened a thin folder of newspaper clippings. She knew immediately that she was onto something when she tried to match the vigilantes’ profiles against the articles in the folder. But then again, she’d thought she was on the right track when she’d ordered her agents to bring in the key players for interrogation. She couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was right, but the director had chopped her off at the knees. Everyone had lawyered up with the same damn woman, Lizzie Fox. That alone told her more than she needed to know. She had a wild and crazy thought that maybe the director himself was setting her up for…for what? She had no clue, and the idea that he might have a hidden agenda was preposterous—wasn’t it?

Erin looked down at her watch.

She had second-guessed herself last night and decided to stay and work late rather than lug all the heavy file boxes home. “Late” had turned into an all-nighter, and she was paying for it now.

She should go to the lavatory to freshen up a bit before her colleagues arrived. She thought about the long trek down the hall to the bathroom and nixed the idea. She ran her fingers through her hair and added some lipstick. She didn’t feel one bit better.

The empty coffeepot glared at her. She’d sent her secretary/assistant, Althea, home at three o’clock and told her to be back at six. It was almost six now. She wasn’t sure if she could drink another cup of coffee, but maybe the aroma would help to keep her awake.

It was Althea who had compiled the short list and explained why she thought it was the most credible. Althea was analytical to the nth degree. She was one of those rare people who could look at a maze and figure it out within minutes.

Erin remembered exactly when Althea had come to stand over her desk, and said, “Seven women, right? So, seven happenings or episodes or whatever you want to call them. Acts of vengeance would be my words of choice. All we have to do is find mention of seven acts of vengeance, and we’ll be able to nail it down.

“Remember now, when we first heard about the vigilantes, there were supposedly seven women. We know this because they were apprehended in California when they zeroed in on that movie star. But—and this is the big
but
—there was someone new to the seven, that countess whatever her name is.

“I remember reading about her a year or so ago. She lived on some mountain in Spain and was a wealthy recluse. Her entire family was wiped out in a storm in the ocean. And, get this, she grew up with Myra Rutledge, as did Judge Easter. That’s all background.”

“And this means what? Seven women, seven acts of vengeance. So what?” Erin asked.

“What it means is the countess wasn’t in on it in the beginning. She stepped in at the end. Why? Did they lose a member of the group? In one of those articles, I think it was the one that talked about the national security advisor, he said there were six women. All we have to do is pinpoint the dates, find out who died at that time, or something over the top that made the papers, and we can attribute it to the vigilantes.”

“That’s all well and good, Althea, but what is that going to get us? Is it going to help us find them? Will the people involved even talk to us? They’re not going to want the notoriety, and they’ll all lawyer up in a heartbeat. We need to know where the vigilantes are so we can catch them and put them in prison where they belong.”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Erin, but you are not going to catch those women. They are so well connected it’s unbelievable. Just think about the circuses that took place when there was a sighting—like Elvis, only seven times bigger. The public is behind them. One hundred percent.” Althea’s voice was so flat and sounded so ominous that Erin flinched. “And you know what else, I think you’re right, and this is all a setup. You’re the Judas goat on this one.”

To a certain extent, it all made sense, but the big question was, why?
Judas goat, my ass,
had been Erin’s first thought.

But now she was so fuzzy-minded that she was inclined to go along with Althea’s way of thinking.
Should I play this close to my vest, or should I share it with the members of the task force?
Her heart kicked up an extra beat at the thought.

She let her mind run wild. Why would the director set her up? Why would he put the FBI in such a position? Was he secretly on the side of the vigilantes? He was a personal friend of Judge Easter, he’d gotten Mitch Riley’s job when the vigilantes tossed him to the feds. Did the vigilantes go after Riley so that Cummings could step into his job? Stranger things had happened. Was this task force just something the director started up to throw everyone off his trail or was it to appease…who? Certainly not the media.

Erin rubbed her red eyes, which were full of grit. When she opened them, she saw Althea already standing by the coffeepot. She could hear the slow, steady drip, which was almost mesmerizing.

“I see you didn’t go home. You look awful, Erin. You don’t owe this place your life, you know. Did you come up with anything?”

Erin tapped a file on her desk. “I read through the vigilantes’ profiles at least ten times each. At this point I know just about everything there is to know about them. I crosschecked their files with the incident files that you pulled. And, yes, there are seven. In some instances it might be a stretch, but I think we can tie all seven together as long as we don’t use glue.

“For instance, Myra Rutledge’s daughter was killed by a Chinese guy with diplomatic immunity. He thumbed his nose at all of us, and nothing was done to him. Then suddenly he disappears, and everyone connected to him is recalled to China. Ted Robinson somehow came up with the theory, or be it fact, that Myra’s Gulfstream plane made a trip to China. Not long after that, there were reports that John Chai, the man who killed Barbara Rutledge, was seen in the province where he lived. The rumor, according to Robinson, was that the man had been skinned alive and was insane. I think that was Myra’s revenge.

“Moving right along here to Alexis Thorne. She went to prison for something she claims she didn’t do. The two people who framed her, Arden Gillespie and Roland Sullivan, ended up in prison with tattoos all over their bodies but mostly on their faces. The name that was tattooed was Sara Whittier. That’s Alexis Thorne’s birth name. That’s two down. She was cleared and her record expunged. She walked away with a tidy sum of money when guess who sued on her behalf? Lizzie Fox was her attorney. No one ever mentioned that. That proves to me that Lizzie Fox knew at least one member of the vigilantes before she represented them at the end when they were caught.

“I can’t connect a particular vigilante to what happened to the national security advisor. It might have been a freebie, for all I know. He, by the way, is more or less a vegetable. His wife takes care of him. That makes three.

“Four is Senator Mitchell Webster. There was talk he was going to be Cartwright’s running mate for the presidential election. He disappeared off the face of the earth. His wife was Dr. Julia Webster. She disappeared, too. Her car was seen at Myra Rutledge’s estate more than once, along with the other vigilantes’ cars. This is all according to Ted Robinson, who verified it with pictures in which Julia Webster’s license plates are clearly visible. Their story was they played cards or dominos or some damn thing. For whatever reason, the countess is the one who replaced Dr. Webster. Robinson said there were rumors that the senator had HIV. Which would then lead you to believe he infected his wife. It’s possible that she died. We have no solid proof on any of it. Mitch Webster was never seen or heard of again.

“Five is Kathryn Lucas. I searched for hours and couldn’t find anything the vigilantes would or could do for her. Until I came across an article sent by one of the wire clipping services—about three guys in California who got their balls chopped off and mailed to them. In Ziploc bags, no less. Now, ask yourself who could or would do something like that? A doctor, and Julia Webster was a doctor. The article said the testicles were surgically removed. The deed doesn’t seem to fit any of the other vigilantes, so I’m giving it to Lucas. I’m thinking she might have been raped, but that’s just a guess on my part. Slicing off some guy’s balls is making a pretty strong statement.
Three
guys getting their jewels hacked off is an even bigger statement. Those women are cold and heartless. They fit the bill.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Althea asked. “Let’s just say for the sake of argument that the ladies did those things. What can you do about it? What can the FBI do about it? First you have to catch them. So, give me the why of it all.”

“See! See! That’s what makes me think you were on the money when you agreed with me that just maybe the director is setting me up,” Erin whispered, having heard conversation outside the door. Her crew reporting for work. “Not a word of this to anyone, Althea.”

They were looking cocky, even Bert, which surprised Erin. She knew they liked it that the director had dressed her down and did everything but call her a fool.
Well, we’ll see how it all ends and who’s left standing,
she thought. It was a bitter thought, and she was stuck with it.

Erin stood up and walked over to the last whiteboard. At five in the morning she’d filled it in. “Take a look at this,” was all she said.

The agents moved on her order and read all her notations. Mangello even put on his reading glasses to make sure he didn’t miss anything.

Bert took the initiative. “I see what you’ve done. By process of elimination in all the sightings and by cross-referencing, you’ve tied the vigilantes to these particular seven incidents. And what does that mean to us? For all we know there could be twenty-seven or fifty-seven incidents that we don’t know about. I see you didn’t include the incident with the G-String Girls, when it was said the vigilantes actually did their D.C. performance. What’s your objective here?”

The other agents smirked. Erin’s eyes narrowed. If they only knew what she was thinking. She knew in her gut that Navarro was the mole in the office, but she couldn’t prove it. She’d become convinced he was her mole when she was sorting through all the reports at four in the morning. He was involved in just about all the incidents involving the vigilantes. He was the director’s number one, and suddenly he was her number one. The word “spy” came to her mind. And he was a friend, a good pal, of Jack Emery. He also had easy access to Judge Easter. After her own surveillance of Bert the night before, it didn’t come as a startling revelation. She played it cool, or what she hoped passed for cool, as she stared him in the eye. “If I have to explain it to you, then you need to go back to the Academy.” She had to get him out of her hair, and she knew just how to do it.

Navarro’s hackles rose, but he didn’t say a word. He knew more was coming. He also knew he wasn’t going to like it.

“Landos, you’re going to the federal pen to talk to Arden Gillespie and Roland Sullivan. I want you to squeeze them for all they’re worth. If you shake the tree hard enough, something might fall to the ground. Record the conversation. If it looks like they might know something not on the record, you can barter a little, and we can talk to the federal prosecutor. See what they have to say about Sara Whittier, aka Alexis Thorne, being one of the vigilantes.

“Agent Akers, you stay in the District and get me everything you can on Senator Mitchell Webster. Try to tie down the wife’s current residence. She’s a doctor, so you might want to try the AMA.

“Mangello, there’s not much known on John Chai other than that he killed Myra Rutledge’s daughter. I want you to go to the Chinese Embassy and ruffle their feathers. See what you can find out. By nature the Chinese are a closemouthed lot, but they have American employees. Concentrate on them. Then I want you to go after the woman who fouled up Isabelle Flanders’s life. I think her name was Rosemary. She was in a mental hospital. She might be in better shape now, so see what you can get out of her.

“That leaves you, Bert. I want you on the next plane to Chicago. Then you go to California. Two of those three guys who are minus their balls now live in Chicago. The third is still in California. If you go over my head to the director on this, you will be eating shit for the rest of your life. Are we clear on that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bert said smartly. “Do we dare ask what you’ll be doing, Erin? Since you’re so big on all of us trusting each other, I for one would like to know.”

The others muttered something that sounded like,
“Yeah, we want to know.”

“I’m going out to Kalorama to talk to the former NSA and his wife. One of those woman-to-woman talks that might give us the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” It happened so quickly she almost missed it—the flicker of alarm in Navarro’s eyes. Whatever it was she thought she saw, it was gone in a nanosecond. Erin felt a thrill of excitement, making her wonder if it was what she had said or where she was going that sparked the alarm in Navarro’s eyes.

“You’re all still standing here. Move! Go! Bert, you only have ninety minutes to catch your flight. You have an e-ticket. Call in every two hours after you arrive. That goes for the rest of you, too. If I’m not here, Althea will patch the calls through to me. That’s an order.”