Power Play (An FBI Thriller) (32 page)

Perry Black’s condo

Monday, late afternoon

T
here was crime scene tape crisscrossed over her front door, and her shattered windows had been boarded up with plywood.

“How about we get your stuff packed up in ten minutes?” he said. “I’d like to get out of here and back to your mom’s.”

“I’m sure glad Dillon and Sherlock are okay.” She unlocked the front door and opened it onto a disaster area. Perry felt so mad she wanted to howl with it. “Davis, look at my beautiful living room.” Then she walked through the carnage, saying nothing more. She pulled a duffel bag from the hallway closet and walked into the bedroom.

Davis looked at the shattered Tiffany lamp on the living room floor. She’d really liked that lamp. He walked to the kitchen, pulled out a garbage bag, and cleaned out the refrigerator. “Eight minutes,” he called out.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m hurrying.”

“I’m stepping outside for a minute, but don’t run out on me like you did Gregory. Remember, it’s only because your mother threatened me that I’m still here guarding her pea-brained daughter.”
He heard her say something but didn’t make out her words because he was already out her back door, dumping her kitchen garbage bag in the trash can. When he walked back into her bedroom, she was standing in the middle of the room, holding a pretty blue sweater. “I can’t think what else to take,” she said, and she looked miserable.

“You’ve got enough warm stuff?”

She nodded.

“Then come on, time’s up. If you need more, we can always come back.”

She grabbed her duffel bag strap and put it over her shoulder and walked past him. She said, “My Kimber’s already at Mom’s. I’ll borrow her laptop until I can replace mine. Hey, wait up. You need another Band-Aid, the jungle leopard is peeling off.” She dropped her duffel and disappeared into the bathroom. She peeled off the old one and patted down the new one. “There, you’ve got a monkey now. It suits you better than the leopard,” and she left him to haul her duffel bag out the front door. They hadn’t spoken about what Natalie had said; he knew very well it wasn’t entirely a joke. They both knew it.

He saw one of her black sneakers on the floor beneath an old leather chair with a bullet hole in it that looked like a find at Goodwill from her college days—the chair, not the sneakers. He took one last look around. In her kitchen he saw the two washed cups in the drainer near the sink, one for each of them. In the bathroom he saw a black bra hanging over the shower rod along with a pair of abbreviated black panties he’d give just about anything not to have seen, and he remembered her rubbing her foot two nights ago when he’d heard a crash from the bedroom and rushed in, Glock at the ready, to see her on her back on the floor,
dressed in red boxers and a red sports bra and nothing else, one leg raised and bent toward her.

He’d slipped his Glock back into the clip at his waist. “What’d you do? What’s wrong?”

“I hit my foot against the dresser doing leg lifts,” she said. “Nothing’s broken. But, hey, you came flying in here to save me. That was fast.” She sounded pleased with herself. “The fact is, I was watching TV with the sound off because it’s usually annoying, and not paying attention. Entirely my fault, like everything else.”

He remembered telling her he liked the boxers and bra, the red looked good against her skin, and if she was finished rubbing her foot, it was time to go to bed.

Yeah, he liked that memory.

He heard the Jeep’s door slam. He followed her out, locked the door behind him, and replaced the crime scene tape.

He was at the end of the block when she said, “Day told me you’d been a horse’s ass.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t dump that entirely on my head. What I mean is I could have been more professional, I’ll admit that, but he was the one who started dishing out the insults.” He sounded, even to himself, like a kid in the schoolyard.

“Insults? Don’t you think you might have scared him? Two FBI agents bursting into his office with no warning? That must have been a huge shock. Listen, Day’s a really nice guy, he’d never—”

“He told me I couldn’t afford to take you to Cannes on a cop’s salary. He said when he was making love to you in Cannes he’d think of me.”

Day had said that? She didn’t want to deal with that right now.
She said, “Day told me you were trying to intimidate him, that you threatened to take him down to the Hoover Building.”

“Day thinks I’ve been trying to separate the two of you all week. He’s looking forward to the time when neither of you will ever have to see me again.”

“Why did you go see Day in the first place? I mean, you know as well as I do that he wouldn’t have anything to do with hurting me. For heaven’s sake, Davis, he thinks he’s in love with me.”

“Well, don’t flatter yourself, he’ll probably get over it.” He paused for a moment. “You’re not going to marry the guy, are you?”

“Do you want me to get my Kimber at Mom’s and shoot off your earlobe?”

“Leave my eyebrows and earlobes out of this. Using my interview with Day Abbott as an excuse to ditch Agent Gregory doesn’t fly. I’m surprised you didn’t choke trying to pawn it off on me.”

“How many times do I have to apologize?”

“You might consider saying it like you actually mean it and saying it to Agent Gregory. I gotta tell you, he was relieved to hand you off back to me this evening.”

“He accepted my apology!”

“Not really. He’s a nice guy, too.” He shot her a look, sighed. “Okay, he tried to shove fatherly advice down your throat, didn’t he?”

“Well, yes, and he didn’t let up. This afternoon in the newsroom, it was too much. I couldn’t take it anymore, that’s all—and you’re trying to get me on the defensive again, when you were the ass with poor Day this morning. What did Aunt Arliss do to you?”

“She started out like she was going to tear out our tonsils, but then she backed off. Why, I don’t know. Maybe she saw reason.”

She sighed. “I wish Day hadn’t called her. He had to know it would cause trouble. And you better watch out for my mother, too.” She sighed again. “I shouldn’t have gotten upset with her. She doesn’t need that. She’s got to be on her way to see Hooley at the hospital by now. Can we stop there on the way home?”

Lazy Elf Motel
Morganville, Virginia

Late Monday afternoon

W
hen the whispering call from the manager of the Lazy Elf Motel came to Savich in the CAU that Blessed Backman was there, Savich and Sherlock were in the Porsche within two minutes, siren blaring, headed for Morganville, Virginia.

They found the Lazy Elf Motel on the edge of a middle-class residential section, on the seedy side, painted a pale yellow. There were half a dozen cars parked in the parking area. The
E
in
Elf
was blinking on and off. The manager wasn’t in the office. Together, they approached room 217, the end room on the second level, pressing against the dirty plaster of the outside wall. When they reached the door, Savich leaned in, listened.

He didn’t hear a thing. He turned quickly and shook his head at the Morganville officer who was standing on the far side of the motel parking lot. He wasn’t surprised, but he still felt a punch of disappointment. Blessed was gone. He whispered to Sherlock at his elbow, “I don’t hear anyone. He’s not here.”

She shook her head. “You know the drill, play it safe.” She nodded to the door.

Savich reared back and kicked the door in. “FBI, freeze!” The old door slammed back against the wall.

They went in high-low, fanning their Glocks, but there wasn’t anyone in the tatty old room.

An ancient cathode tube TV stood drunkenly on the edge of a dresser as if someone had brushed against it and hadn’t cared if it crashed to the floor. Three dresser drawers were all lopsided, shoved in carelessly. The small table beside the bed had one ashtray on it holding three butts. Sherlock scooped them into a small evidence bag. There was no sign of luggage.

As Savich went through the drawers, Sherlock checked the bathroom. Empty, two threadbare towels tossed on the floor, a squeezed tube of toothpaste on the ledge of a chipped porcelain bowl. She shook her head as she walked back into the room.

The bed was unmade; a used towel lay wrinkled on the floor. When she leaned down to pick it up, she saw something beneath the bed. She dropped to her knees and pulled out a camel wool coat. She rose, frowning. “It’s Blessed’s. Why would Blessed leave his coat?”

They heard a cell phone ring from the neighboring room.

Savich grabbed her around the waist and ran back through the open doorway, nearly threw her against the motel wall beside the open door, and flattened himself against her, his hands covering her head. There was an instant of silence, and then a huge blast shook the wall. A ball of orange flame exploded out the open doorway, shattered the wooden railing behind them and spurted down and out like a water hose directly onto an old Chevy in the
parking lot below them. Pieces of the bed frame and the antenna from the TV flew out the door with the flames, struck what was left of the burning wooden railing and fell onto the walkway and the empty parking lot next to the burning Chevy below them. Smoke curled into the air from the doorway, black, oily, smelling like Hell itself.

They breathed in, but it was hot and the smoke burned their lungs. Savich looked down at her, made certain she was all right. He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek, so thankful for a moment he didn’t speak. His ears were ringing; he imagined hers were, too. “We’re okay,” he said. “Thank the Good Lord this wall is concrete block.” Savich hit 911, relayed their location and reported the fire even though he knew the cops below them would already be calling for a fire truck themselves. He was on the phone when the yells and screams started and half a dozen people, some in their underwear, came bursting out of their rooms. A fire alarm went off.

Savich yelled, “FBI. The explosion is over and you’re safe. But there’s a fire. Leave your rooms and wait for the fire department. We’ll be coming to speak to each of you as soon as we can.”

As they walked down the stairs toward the still burning Chevy, they heard muttering, saw a few panicked faces and a few people shuffling back inside to get their things. Sherlock said, “I think some of them will make a run for it. This isn’t what you’d call a family sort of place.”

Two policemen ran up the stairs past them, broke into the room next to Blessed’s when no one opened the door. Thick smoke belched out. One of them looked in, covering his face. “There’s a
dead man in there, looks like the manager, killed by the blast. The wall between the rooms is blown out.”

Savich said, “Blessed did that. He had the manager in his control, told him to set the bomb off when he heard the phone ring. Blessed knew we were in the room. He’s still got to be close by.”

B
lessed watched Savich and Sherlock burst out of the motel room and press themselves against the concrete outer wall only a second before the bomb blast. It wasn’t fair. It was a fine blast, well nigh perfect, like wild orange lightning, spewing flames and black smoke. He watched it slam into the Chevy, igniting it like a torch. All it had managed to do was scare the crap out of the cheating couples with their quickies before going home to the spouse and kids. They burst out of their rooms, terrified, many in their underwear.

He cursed, then stopped. There was nothing he could do about blind luck. He realized he’d have been sorry to see them go up in the blast like that nasty-eyed manager he’d stymied into setting off the bomb when he called him. He’d hurried him along to his just reward, whatever that was. Luck wouldn’t be enough for any of them in the end. He would have to kill them himself.

He watched the cops drive up, sirens blaring. They scrambled out of their cars and scattered around the motel, not knowing what else to do until their boss, probably the chief of police in this Podunk town, drove up and they grouped around him, his thick rooster tail of white hair a kind of beacon to them. He watched Savich and Sherlock speak to all of them, warning them, no doubt, to be careful, not that any of them would believe what he could
do—no one ever did until it was too late. He smiled. He couldn’t wait to get up close and personal to some of them. The cops fanned out, and Blessed knew they were going to search through the neighborhood for him. But they wouldn’t find him unless he let them, not here, looking out at them from behind an old lady’s lace curtain, where everything was quiet and under his own control.

He smiled. Before the sun set, some of those cops would be shooting one another.

He watched Savich and Sherlock walk into the motel office with the big white-haired guy. Even in the fading afternoon light, Sherlock’s red hair glistened—so beautiful, her hair. When the time came, he’d make sure she didn’t shoot herself in the head. He’d dreamed of the guardian again last night, whispering to him to strangle her like he’d always wanted to. He could do it, he could.

He watched a couple more cars pull into the motel parking lot and four more men pile out. No mistaking they were FBI, all formal and tough and ready to take on the world. He saw Savich come out of the motel reception area, beckon them inside. Now they had backup, but it wouldn’t do them any good. Would Savich allow Sherlock to come out looking for him? He’d see soon enough. He flexed his fingers.

He saw two cops walking down the street, watched them check behind every tree, every bush. They knocked on the first door and he saw a young mother with a kid in her arms answer the door. One cop checked out the house while the other went into the garage and skirted around the yard. They were coming here next, the second house in the line of middle-class boxes, the one with the best view of the motel.

Blessed looked over at Mrs. Amity Ransom, ninety if she was a day, sitting placidly in a rocking chair, knitting needles clacking, an ancient Remington Army caplock revolver, her long dead husband’s, he supposed, loaded with bullets she’d readily showed him hidden beneath some yellowed doilies in a cabinet drawer. The old dear was ready. She sneezed, once, then again.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s allergies,” Amity said, not looking up from her knitting, and sneezed again.

“Amity,” Blessed said, bringing her face toward him, her expression as blank as her eyes. “There are two police officers at the door. I want you to invite them in to search, all right? Be nice to them. Hide the revolver under your knitting.”

She did, then walked slowly and carefully to the front door, and she sneezed again.