Conspiracy (44 page)

“Absolutely,” said Ball.

“Things won't really get rolling until after lunch.”

“I'll fade into the background until then.”

“Good,” said the agent, turning to go.

 

LIA REALIZED SHE'D
been mistaken when she looked for Amanda Rauci outside of Pine Plains. The police chief wouldn't want her body discovered, certainly—but if it were, he'd want to be the one to control any investigation. So surely he would have found a hiding place in his own village.

Pine Plains had been settled in the late seventeenth century, its main streets and principal boundaries laid out well before the country gained its independence. Because of that, there was relatively little undeveloped land in the village. The biggest parcel, about two acres, was behind the old grocery store at the edge of town. The store, shuttered for several years, had a back lot overgrown with weeds and small trees. Trash dotted the area. But there was no body, or signs that the ground had been disturbed.

Next, Lia looked at some wooded lots near the school. It surprised her to find that these were spotless, without litter or even cigarette butts; either students in general had changed since she was a kid, or they were much more conscientious about trash in Pine Plains.

Finally, she scoured the creek bed that ran through the southwest corner of town. All she got for her effort was wet sneakers.

By three o'clock, she decided that it was useless. She checked in with the Art Room, then went over to the police station to see if Chief Ball had called in.

“Now, hon, I told you I would call,” said the dispatcher. “Did I call?”

“My phone's been off.” Lia glanced around the station. There ought to be something here, she thought, some sign she should be able to interpret. “So he hasn't come in?”

“Haven't heard a peep.”

“That's unusual, right?”

“Very.” The dispatcher lowered her voice. “Chief Ball is working with you? His wife said—”

“No.”

“And you really don't know where he is? He's not . . .” She let her voice trail off.

“No,” said Lia. “But the longer he's gone, the worse it looks. Is there anyone you can think of who might not like him?”

“I know what you're thinking,” said the dispatcher. Her face reddened slightly. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I called in Sergeant Snow to cover things. He'll be in around four, if you want to talk to him.”

Lia nodded. “If you were going to hide something big—the size of a large suitcase or trunk, say—where would you hide it? It would be around town somewhere, somewhere most people wouldn't look.”

“Is that what the chief is looking for?”

“No. It has nothing to do with him.” Lia leaned down on the dispatcher's desk, as if she were truly contemplating an impossible question. “Can't be in your house. It's not in your office—”

Lia stopped herself. Why not in his office?

Or rather, his building.

“Can I use your bathroom?” Lia asked.

“Down the hall, near the stairs.”

 

AS SOON AS
Lia saw the freezer at the bottom of the steps, she knew she'd found Amanda Rauci. Lia pulled the lock pick set out of her belt and went to work on the lock. She had it open within thirty seconds. Taking a breath, she closed her eyes and pulled open the door to the freezer.

A stack of ice pops, covered with frost, sat on one side.
Opposite it was a small aluminum foil–wrapped package with a handwritten label that read: “Venison, '06.”

Otherwise the freezer was empty.

 

“WHERE DO YOU
keep the deer meat that the chief butchers?” Lia asked Mrs. Ball a short time later.

“The meat's long gone now,” said the chief's wife. “We had the last of it in February. I made venison steak for Valentine's Day.”

“But until it's all eaten?”

“Well, in the garage. We have a freezer.”

“Do you mind if I take a look?”

Confused, Mrs. Ball started to leave the house to show her the way.

“I think I want to do this alone,” Lia told her.

Mrs. Ball started to tremble. Lia thought she might collapse. But a policeman's wife had to have a reserve of strength to survive, and she called on it now, pulling herself together.

“You'll need the key,” she told Lia, going to the kitchen to get it.

 

WHEN THE KEY
that the chief's wife gave Lia didn't work, Lia knew she was finally right. She forced her emotions away as she picked the lock.

A pair of ice trays sat over a black garbage bag at the top of the chest.

Amanda Rauci lay beneath the bag.

 

GETTING TO THE
Paley house so early allowed Ball to seem like part of the furniture as the day went on; each arriving wave of agents and security personnel found him already ensconced. But he couldn't escape scrutiny entirely, and he had to leave the house with the others when the Service conducted two separate sweeps for bombs and hidden weapons.

After the second sweep, the security teams were issued fresh ID tags. Ball knew from experience that the tags would be used to segregate the teams into different zones and assignments, and that in order to stay in the house at night he would have to be with the senator's personal staff.

But when Ball got to the table, he saw that his tag was coded for access to the external areas only.

“Hey, you made a mistake here,” said Ball, pointing at the badge. “I'm with the senator.”

“You have to take that up with Lucinda.”

“I'm not moving until I get the right badge. This is my job you're talking about. My neck.”

“Look—”

“Hey, I'm with the senator's staff, all right? Now come on. I know you guys are in charge, but let's be realistic.”

Lucinda Silvestri, in charge of the house team, appeared in one of the doorways.

“What seems to be your problem, Mr. Stevens?”

“My problem is, you guys don't want me to do my job.”

Silvestri walked over to the table and bent close to the agent who was handling the passes. Ball leaned closer to listen.

“Excuse us, please,” snapped Silvestri.

“Maybe I should call the senator.”

“You can call the President for all I care,” said Silvestri.

Ball clamped his mouth shut, though he continued to seethe. He could accomplish what he wanted to accomplish outside, but that wasn't the point—the senator's security was supposed to be inside the room when the senator arrived. Not protesting would be extremely suspicious.

But Ball didn't want to call the campaign if he didn't have to. He'd already checked in with the coordinator O'Rourke normally reported to, who had been in the middle of a million things and seemed to barely hear him when he asked where O'Rourke was. The person he'd have to talk to to get anything done was Jimmy Fingers—and he feared the weasel would recognize his voice.

The agent who'd been talking to him about Rockland County earlier was standing near the stove, going over a map of the exterior grounds. Ball walked over to him, reintroduced himself, and asked if he could plead his case.

“It's my job, you know?” said Ball. “And you've seen for yourself, I'm not getting in the Service's way. You guys are running the show, but I'm here. I have to do my job.”

The agent shrugged but then went over to Silvestri.

“At least he's an upgrade over O'Rourke,” Ball heard him say.

“All right. We'll give you the proper tag,” said Silvestri finally. “Stay awake, though.”

“With the coffee you guys brew, I'll be awake for the next ten years,” answered Ball.

 

THE MCSWEENEY CAMPAIGN
made a bus available for the reporters covering the senator during his appearances. The bus tooled along at the end of a procession of vehicles that included the senator and his aides in a pair of Ford sedans, bodyguards in a Chevy SUV, and various hangers-on in a Chrysler minivan. While strictly speaking there were no assigned seats in the bus, a caste system generally dictated who sat where. The best seats were in the back, where the big dailies and newsmagazine people sat; smaller papers and freelancers got the middle; and newcomers got everything else. Karr found this out by accident, plopping down next to Theresa Seelbach, the
Newsweek
writer he'd met the day before. She smirked and started to laugh, then explained how it worked.

“It's like junior high,” she told him.

Karr had skipped much of junior high, but he started to get up anyway.

“Oh, don't worry,” she said. “Sit down. You're kind of cute, and so big I don't think anyone will ask you to move.”

Karr smiled, though he felt himself blushing.

“Got anything useful for your story yet?”

“Not much,” said Karr. “We don't actually see McSweeney too much, do we?”

“Not really. Ten minutes here, five minutes there.”

“Maybe I can write about the food. Breakfast was OK.”

“God, I couldn't stomach anything,” said Seelbach. “Going
to be another boring day today. A million stops. We'll hear the same speech and step over the same drunks.”

“Maybe somebody will take a shot at him again,” said the reporter sitting behind them.

“You think?” said Karr.

The others nearby laughed, but the reporter who had said it turned serious. “Gallows humor, son.”

“Who do you think shot at him?”

“One of his campaign people, I'd bet,” said Seelbach. “Why do you think he started listening to them?”

The others started making similar jokes. It was clear that the reporters had no serious theories, or at least weren't sharing them.

“What about the Vietnamese thing?” asked Karr as the jokes petered out.

“Oh, that's a crock,” said Seelbach. “The Secret Service and the FBI say there's no evidence. McSweeney probably made the whole thing up to draw attention to the fact that he served there. He never does or says anything without an agenda.”

“Whoever did it, it was great for his campaign,” said the reporter behind Karr. “He was fading before then. Look at him now. He's on top of the world. If I were him, I'd put that sniper on the payroll.”

“As long as he continues to miss,” said Karr.

This time, the others laughed with him, rather than at him.

 

DISCOVERING AMANDA RAUCI'S
body in Chief Ball's freezer changed everything. Ball was now formally a murder suspect, and obtaining warrants to gather information about him would be child's play.

Which bummed Gallo big-time. He would have much more enjoyed hacking into the different databases and taking what he needed, rather than having to deal with the bureaucracy.

Still, there was something to be said for the bureaucracy. A search of FAA flight records showed that a C. Ball had purchased tickets in Cleveland for Chicago and Houston, in Chicago for LA and New York, and in LA for Pittsburgh and Miami. The car that Amanda Rauci's credit card had been used to rent was found at the Cleveland airport after the plane manifests were checked, so it was a pretty good bet that C. Ball was the police chief.

The question was where was he now?

“These are only the lists of the people who bought tickets,” Gallo told Johnny Bib. “We're still working on the final lists, the people who actually showed up. Those come from the airlines themselves. My bet is on Pittsburgh,” he added. “It's the smallest city—doesn't really go with the others.”

“Ha!” said Johnny Bib. His voice was shrill enough to echo off the noise-dampening ceiling of the computer lab.

“Ha?” asked Gallo.

“Ha!” repeated Johnny Bib.

“Each time he lands, he buys two tickets,” said Gallo.
“When he reaches his final destination, he doesn't buy any. Both the Miami and the Pittsburgh plane landed yesterday afternoon. So he's in one of those cities—Pittsburgh, I think.”

“Why does he buy two tickets?” Johnny Bib asked. He sounded like a philosophy professor lecturing a freshman class on Plato and the Socratic method.

“He doesn't want us to know where he's going,” said Gallo.

“
Ha!
” said Johnny Bib.

“Maybe Pittsburgh is too close to Cleveland,” Gallo said. “If he was going there, he could have driven. That would be harder to trace.”

“Ha!” said Johnny Bib.

“I give up,” said Gallo, completely baffled by his boss.

“He . . . knows . . . we . . . are . . . watching,” said Johnny Bib, pausing between each word.

“He never left LA!” said Gallo, finally getting it. “He just wants us to think he did.”

“Ha!”

 

RUBENS LISTENED QUIETLY
as Gallo laid out what he had found and surmised from the FAA passenger lists. The security tapes at Los Angeles International Airport were being scrutinized; Chief Ball had not been spotted yet.

“It's possible that we're overthinking this,” Telach said. “One of the other candidates is in Florida this weekend. I think it's Winkler.”

“No, it's Dalton,” said Gallo. “And, like, there hasn't been one attempt on another candidate, despite the threats.”

“Maybe Ball made the threats to throw us off the trail,” said Jackson over the phone speaker. He was with the FBI liaison in Washington.

“I very much doubt that it was Ball who made the threats,” said Rubens. “I don't believe Ball had anything to do with the assassination attempt, either.”

“It doesn't fit the pattern,” explained Gallo. “It's an anomaly.”

“You mean there's another killer?” said Jackson.

“A would-be killer, Mr. Ambassador,” said Rubens. “The question is whether he will attempt to improve on that status.”