Dead Watch (30 page)

Novatny talked to the Madison chief, but didn’t tell Jake the outcome. They did cut Jake loose, at seven o’clock. “Are you going back to D.C.?” Novatny asked.

“Yes. But first, I’m going to check into a hotel and get some sleep,” Jake said. “I’m really screwed up.”

“One thing,” Novatny said. “Do not go back to Madison Bowe. She’s going to be a critical witness. Don’t mess with her.”

“Believe me. All I want is out,” Jake said.

Jake walked down to State Street, through a couple of alleys, in and out the back of a pizza place, and found a phone near the restrooms in a sports bar and called Johnson Black, Madison’s lawyer. He got lucky, made the connection, talked to Black for a moment, then ordered a beer at the bar and stood next to the phone. Madison called him back twenty minutes later from a phone in an M Street lounge. “Listen to me,” he said. “There’s been a disaster.”

He told her about it, then said, “So the feds are going to come to you. You confirm the homosexual angle and you tell them why you didn’t want that made public—that you were pushing the investigation into Goodman, and were afraid the homosexual angle would end it. You tell them that sexuality is a private matter, and you had no reason to think that it was involved in Lincoln’s death. You tell them that you had no idea that there was a setup . . .”

“I didn’t,” she said. “But now you’re telling me . . . I caused this girl’s death somehow. If I hadn’t sent you there . . .”

“You didn’t cause her death,” Jake said. “Somebody else did. You can’t anticipate the outcome of everything you do; you can go crazy trying. Somebody else killed them, not you.”

“But if I hadn’t sent you . . .”

“Madison, get a grip. It’s really critical right now. If you’re going to feel guilty, feel guilty about something you actually did.”

“But you don’t know . . .”

“Tell me later,” Jake said. “Not on the phone . . . Has anything happened there that I should know about? Is anybody pushing you?”

“One thing, but . . . ah, jeez, I can’t keep the girl out of my head.”

“Focus, goddamnit. What happened?”

“I talked to Howard, I confronted him. He killed Linc, but it was essentially a suicide. Linc had already taken an overdose. He claims that Schmidt is in Thailand, working as a bartender. That Schmidt is obsessed by brown hookers. Those are Howard’s words. He says that they can bring him back anytime they need to.”

“Ah, jeez. Listen, stay away from Barber. Stay away from him. He’s about to become the eye of a hurricane. He might be involved here . . .”

“Jake . . .”

“Tell the truth, but don’t tell them about the package,” Jake said. “Not yet. Just omit it. Don’t tell them what Barber said. And don’t tell them about this call. This never happened.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ve got to think. Listen, call me tomorrow, on my cell phone, from a public phone. At noon. If anything’s happened, I’ll let you know then. I can’t call
you
, because if there’s an investigation, they’re going to pull the phone records to see who was talking to whom.”

Off the line, Jake walked back to his car, found a Sheraton hotel, checked in, and began working Green’s cell phone. He’d been talking about a
woman
who had the package, and had automatically taken the cell phone out of his pocket, as though her number was there.

The phone was unfamiliar, but it took him only a minute to figure out the menu system. The call log showed one outgoing call after Jake’s arrival, lasting twenty-four minutes. The call was to the 715 area code.

Jake found a Yellow Pages in the closet, checked area codes. The 715 code covered most of the north half of Wisconsin. Now for the three-number prefix after the area code.

He signed on to the hotel’s wireless service, went out on the Net, found a listing for Wisconsin prefixes. The three-number prefix was in Eau Claire. He checked an online map: Eau Claire was probably three hours away by car. If the killers had gotten a name, somebody in Eau Claire might already be dead. In fact, if the killers had gotten either the phone number or the name, that person almost surely was dead . . .

He didn’t want to use the FBI search service to find the name behind the number; that could be tracked back to him.

But . . .

He lay on the bed, covered his eyes with his forearm, tried to think about it. If the killers had threatened Green and his secretary to get information on the package, did the killers get the information and then do the killing? Is that why the girl resisted, attacked a gun with her fingernails? Maybe she saw the bullet coming . . .

But if they’d killed the secretary to force the information from Green, there wouldn’t have been any percentage in giving it to them, because Green would have known at that point that he was doomed.

So maybe the killers
didn’t
have a name . . .

He needed to know whom Green had called without leaving obvious tracks. A thought popped into his head: the public library. Could it be that easy? He went back online, looking for an address of the local public library. When he found it, on the library website, he also found a list of telephone references available online. He worked through the menu, tracking the number: and found it. The Eau Claire number went to a Sarah Levine. He checked another directory and had an address. He said her name aloud, tripping a memory: “Sarah Levine, Sarah Levine . . .”

Lion Nerve. He picked up a pen, crossed out letters. He had Levine, plus o-n-r. Ron Levine.

Back online, using his government access to Social Security records. Ran Ronald Levine against ITEM: Got an immediate hit. Ronald Levine worked for ITEM for seventeen years. Retired, started collecting Social Security, then showed a change-in-status. He checked: Levine had died.

Okay. He knew who had the package—Ron Levine’s widow, Sarah. If she was still alive.

If whoever had killed Green had done it to get the package, and if they had gotten Sarah Levine’s name, then she was probably dead. They’d had more than eight hours to get to her. If they hadn’t, then what? Then, Jake thought, they didn’t get her name, and they could be watching me. Or coming for me.

The Dane County airport had an all-night Hertz car rental service. He called, gave them the rental information on his car, told them that it sounded funny to him—the engine would hesitate when it downshifted, after it got warm. Wondered if he might trade it for another. No problem. He told them he’d be in early.

Tried to sleep. He got his four and a half hours, but he was restless, waiting for something to happen. At two-thirty he was up and moving. He cleaned up, packed, did the on-screen check-out, and carried his overnight bag and case down to the car. Moving fast. If they were going to try to take him, they’d have to catch him in the hundred feet between the hotel and the car, and at three o’clock in the morning, they might be a little slow to react.

He saw nobody in the parking lot, but felt the chill in his spine as he was backing the car out. He made it to the Dane County airport, did the paperwork, upgrading to a Ford SUV, saw nobody out of place. As he was waiting for the Hertz guy to finish the paper, another thought popped into his head. If the watchers were good, and trained, he
wouldn’t
see anybody.

But now, at least, he wouldn’t be driving a car that he’d been seen in, that might even have a locator hidden on it; maybe a change of cars would throw them.

Out on the interstate, he headed north, driving a little too slow, watching for headlights that stayed back. Got off at a rural highway intersection, watched for lights behind him, saw one car getting off. Took another left, and another quick one, waited, then headed back to the interstate. If they had a team, they could still be with him. If they were in the air, they could still be with him.

But he could do more loops on country roads all the way up, and even, in the last few miles, maybe wrap up a trailing team in the streets of Eau Claire. Whatever: it’d have to be good enough.

All the way north, whenever his headlights swept across the black backdrop of trees, like a projector’s light in a darkened theater, he could see the flickering face of the dead secretary. The face would stay with him for a while, he thought. Cruelly, he found himself wishing she’d fallen facedown, so he wouldn’t have to see it.