Political Suicide (13 page)

Lou glanced over at her, but aside from her words, there were no giveaways. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ve been thinking the same about you. You know, I always thought of Hogarth as being tough, but never dirty. Maybe he’s just anxious to keep on top of the case because of the history he and Colston had.”

“I wish
I
could believe that everyone wanted to play by the same rules you want to play by, Lou. Your naïvete, at least until it wears thin, is sort of endearing.”

“Bryzinski will turn up that disc,” Lou averred.

Sarah’s expression was strained. “Dr. Welcome,” she said, “I don’t know if I believe in global warming, UFOs, or Bigfoot, but I am a thousand percent sure of one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Detective Christopher Bryzinski is up to something.”

CHAPTER 17

Lou could tell much about a person from their reaction to his neighborhood. The less they shrank at the sight of graffiti, boarded-up windows, and loitering bands of kids, the more likely it was that Lou would get along with them. Surprisingly, Sarah seemed completely at ease, if not indifferent, to Lou’s street. Perhaps they were destined to overcome their differences after all. Either that, or she was too absorbed in getting her hands on the copy of the Colston CD to notice the surroundings.

Lou parallel parked his car directly in front of Dimitri’s Pizza, which occupied the entire lower level of his building and featured, he would tell anyone who would listen, the tastiest, most lovingly prepared pies and calzones in the city. The aroma wafting out from the shop said the ovens were already in action. As usual when he arrived home to that distinctive bouquet, Lou began fantasizing about a large vegetarian—his and Emily’s favorite.

“I’ll wait here,” Sarah said.

“It’s fine for you to come up. You can meet Diversity, our cat.”

“Our?”

“Mine and my daughter Emily’s. She lives in Arlington, but spends a lot of time here. She and I train at the Stick and Move boxing gym across the street.”

“Sounds like my kind of gal. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but most of the doctors I deal with live in places, well, more like Dr. McHugh’s.”

“No offense taken. Living here helps keep me right-sized. Emily, too. The place and what’s left over after every month’s rent payment helps fill in a hole I once dug for myself.”

“I think I know something about that. And you both feel safe here?”

“This is a great neighborhood with terrific people. We’re careful enough not to leave our doors unlocked, but that’s about it. My ex wishes I would move out to the burbs, but I feel perfectly safe. Time for coffee?”

Sarah climbed out of the car, checked her watch, and frowned. “Thanks, but I’ve got to hurry, actually. I have back-to-back meetings that will take the rest of the day.”

Lou picked up his mail in the dimly lit foyer and led Sarah up one flight. The first few steps, he found himself hoping that Tiny Booker and his cronies could provide the promised protective services for Gary. The last few, he was focused on Sarah, trying to get a read on why she was still so distant, and hoping that once she had the copy of the CD he had made for her, things between them would lighten up.

Then he saw that his apartment door was slightly ajar.

We’re careful not to leave our doors unlocked, but that’s about it.

Instantly, he was on red alert, every fiber tense. He turned, held a finger to his lips, and motioned toward the door. Then he slipped his parka off and dropped it silently to the floor. His senses were crackling like a defective jumper cable as he mentally retraced his steps when he left for the hospital last evening.

We’re careful not to leave our doors unlocked.…

This was not carelessness on his part. He was sure of it. Something was wrong—very wrong.

“Go back outside and call 911, Sarah,” he whispered. “Four fifty Clinton Street.”

“Is there a rear entrance?”

“Yes, but I keep it double bolted.”

They listened.

“I don’t think anyone’s in there.”

“Please go down and make the call.”

“What are you going to do?”

Damn lawyer!
he wanted to scream.
This is no time to be standing here taking a deposition.

“I’m going in,” he said.

“Wait until I get back up here.”

Damn it, just go!

“All right, but hurry.”

As Sarah headed softly down the stairs, cell phone in hand, Lou debated crashing into the apartment. If he did, what little ground he had gained with the woman would certainly be lost. In fact, if this open door had anything to do with the disc he had hidden in his bureau drawer, the ground was lost already.

He knelt and made a careful study of the locking mechanism and the door itself. There were scuff marks along the base of the door that he had a hard time believing were there before. Again, he held his breath and listened.

Again, only silence.

Where is she?

His pulse hammering, Lou was about to ease into his apartment when Sarah opened the foyer door and started back up the stairs. Without waiting, he pushed against the door. The hinges creaked, as if reluctant to reveal what secret lay inside. Lou could feel Sarah behind him, her breathing rapid and uneven. Light spilled through the door and onto the landing. Lou was certain he had left the apartment dark except for a small lamp in the bedroom.

This was going to be bad.

The first sign of destruction, an overturned end table by the couch, was just the beginning. Lou pushed the door open more fully, swallowing back the bile that was percolating into his throat. He took one footstep inside and then another, now not only assessing the carnage, but also scanning the place for Diversity.

In the kitchen, he slid a huge carving knife from his butcher block holder.

“Don’t you want to wait for the police?” Sarah asked.

Now who’s being naïve?

“They don’t rush to these neighborhoods,” he replied. “Besides, I don’t think anyone’s here.”

“Just the same, I would wait,” Sarah said. “Whoever did this might be in the back room, in a closet or something.”

I hope they are,
Lou thought, tightening his grip on the knife handle.

He turned on the overhead light.

The search, at least from what he could see in the kitchen and living room, was professionally thorough. The cushions of his couch had been slashed open, spilling out clumps of stuffing like the fatty tissue of a wound. Chairs were upended. End table drawers were pulled out, the contents tossed onto the floor. His laptop was gone. The kitchen was a total shambles. Cabinet drawers were pulled open and solid cat food, mixed in with shards of his dishes, littered the floor.

The back door at the end of the hallway was closed, and he could see it was bolted. It looked as if the intruder had entered and exited through the front.

Still tense and brandishing the knife, Lou approached his bedroom. As he stepped through the doorway, Diversity dashed out and across Sarah’s shoes.

“Jesus!” she cried out, lurching back against the wall.

“That’s Diversity.”

“I know,” she said acidly, recovering her breath. “You told me in the car. Doctor, not that I don’t care about your cat, but where did you put the CD?”

One look into his bedroom, and Lou knew they were in trouble. The room had been taken apart as meticulously as the others. His attention went immediately to his bureau, where the drawers had been pulled out and their contents dumped onto the floor. Sarah, arms folded, watched as he searched through the pile of his clothes.

“It’s gone, isn’t it,” she said. “That’s what they were after.”

Lou continued throwing aside clothing, but he knew the effort was fruitless.

“It was hidden in that drawer under some papers. I … didn’t think anyone would do this. They took my computer, too.”

Sarah didn’t bother to retort.

“You tried,” she said finally. “Whoever did this knew exactly what they were after and how to find it. It would have been easier on you if you had just left it on the kitchen table.”

“Feel free to say you told me so.”

“Okay, I told you so.”

“Now what?”

Still holding the knife, he led Sarah to Emily’s room. There was not a thing out of place. Not a pillow, not a game, not a stuffed animal. The closet was similarly intact.

“I guess that clinches what they were after,” Sarah said.

Diversity had returned and now was doing a figure eight around their legs, purring loudly. Ignoring him, Lou left the room and buried the blade in the wall.

“I feel so damn stupid,” he said.

“I would say this wasn’t your best day. I’m sorry about your place.”

“That’s just stuff. I can’t believe I did this to Gary.”

“Well, we’ll do our best to fill in the pieces. Now we have two questions we need to answer: Who? And why?”

“I’m really sorry,” Lou said.

“I know you are.” In the distance, they heard the siren of an approaching police car. “No sense crying over spilt milk. You stay and take care of this business. I’ll take a cab back to the office.”

CHAPTER 18

It took most of two days for Lou to put his apartment back together—two days during which he had not heard a word from Sarah. No surprise. His next step would be to re-create as best he could the clandestinely recorded conversation between Elias Colston and the young marine named Hector. Not exactly evidence Gary’s attorney could use in court, but the closest he could come to another apology.

First, though, it was Emily’s weekend. Lou watched from the kitchen as the teen made a curious check of the apartment. He had done a decent job putting things back together, and she never turned the sofa cushions over, so his hasty suturing job remained undiscovered. Crate & Barrel still carried white china, and a new Mac was no problem, especially since she had brought over her own laptop.

Still, even though Emily’s room remained intact, she was stunningly intuitive, and Lou wondered if sooner or later he would have to go from omission to outright lying, a skill at which he was totally inept. For a time, he debated if he should even allow her to spend the weekend, but finally decided that whoever ransacked their home had left with what they came for and weren’t likely to return.

Gradually, it began to feel as if his gambit had succeeded, and it was back to business as usual. Emily was alternating string games with Diversity with setting up a game of Monopoly on the alcove table. She and Lou had a movie lined up for the evening. But now their day would feature lunch with Lou’s father at the Wave Rider, virtually the only restaurant the three of them ever ate at together.

Dennis Welcome had four great loves in his life: his family, his red Chevy pickup with 200,000 miles on it, his union, and the Wave Rider’s double bacon burger. Though Dennis lived in Virginia, Lou shared a meal with him frequently, including Emily whenever possible. With the senior Welcome between carpentry jobs once again, and his inability to distinguish solitude from solitary confinement, Lou felt glad this was an Emily day. His father’s lunch invitation, ill timed as it might seem, offered a much-needed break from what had been an extremely stress-filled couple of days.

The Wave Rider, a surfer-themed sports bar that had rarely served an actual surfer, was pleasantly busy. All twelve flat screens were playing some variant of an ESPN sports show. Dennis, distinguishable by his salt-and-pepper crew cut, stood up from his customary booth and waved to Lou and Emily as soon as they set foot inside the place. He wore faded blue jeans, dusty work boots, and one of his collection of flannel shirts, this day red.

“Grandpa!” Emily squealed, dodging waitresses and patrons as she sprinted into Dennis’s burly arms.

“How are you, Dad?” Lou asked.

“Oh, great and great,” Dennis said, tapping his knuckles on the top of Emily’s head. “Okay, then, enough chitchat. I’ve got me a man-sized craving.”

“You know they do serve a nice variety here,” Lou said. “Rumor has it that the double bacon burger may be slightly less than healthy.”

“Blasphemy!” Dennis cried, looking to Emily for corroboration.

“Put Dad on trial for food treason,” Emily said.

“Instead, I’d suggest you spend a little time researching arteriosclerosis,” Lou said.

“And I’d suggest you spend a little time mending your shirt.” She pointed to a one-inch tear just above his belt.

“Diversity,” Lou groaned.

“What?” Dennis asked.

“Diversity is my new cat,” Emily said without looking up from the menu. “He and Dad aren’t exactly getting along.”

“You got a cat? Who named him?”

Emily pointed a thumb at her chest. “It’s in honor of my mission to bring multiculturalism to the Carlisle School. I was going to move in with Dad, but Mom wouldn’t let me, so we got a cat.”

“So when you’re in Arlington, that makes your dad the guardian of Diversity. I like it.”

Lou poked a finger through the hole in his shirt. “The cat and I are getting along just great.”

“That’s sarcasm,” Emily said. “Diversity hates Dad because Dad blames him for things he could never have done.”

“‘Hate’ is a very strong word,” Lou said. “I would prefer you didn’t use it.”

“Would you prefer ‘despise’? Detest? Dislike? Abhor? Resent?”

“Any of those,” Lou said. “How about ‘is adjusting to’?”

Emily executed a textbook-perfect eye roll. “Okay. Diversity is adjusting to how much he resents my dad.”

Dennis’s laugh was always good to hear. The year-long assault on his spirit since his wife’s cancer death had been hard on all of them.

“Grandpa,” Emily said, “can you order me a veggie burger, side salad, and a sparkling water?”

“What about the bacon burger? I thought you loved those?”

“She’s thinking about going vegan,” Lou explained.

“I’m almost vegan already,” Emily said. “Another year, and I’ll be a hundred percent.”

“You always set goals and you always achieve them,” Dennis said. “Just one of the many things I love about you.”

“Oh, look,” Lou chimed in, “they’ve added catburger to the menu.”