The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (44 page)

Lesko walked to the bathroom where he stood for a
long moment gazing sadly into Donovan's shower, envi
sioning the body as it must have been found. He caught
a scent of something. He sniffed the air.

“What do you smell?” he asked Greenwald who
came in behind him.

“Deodorant? Maybe the shampoo.”

Lesko checked for a room deodorizer. There was none. He looked at the shampoo bottle that remained
open on the shower caddy. Head & Shoulders, for Don
ovan's dandruff. Wrong scent. The soap was Irish
Spring. Sort of a heather smell. But what
he smelled was
fruit. He opened the medicine cabinet. Nothing there
that smelled like fruit, either. Nor any medication that
suggested a heart problem.

“What are you thinking?” Greenwald asked.

“I'm not sure.”

“You think someone else was in here?”

“Let's go talk to the doorman again. The garage
man, too.”

The doorman had been on since noon. Yes, he said,
Mr. Donovan arrived alone. On foot, looking tired, in a
bad mood. Yes, he absolutely took the message slip and
put it in his right overcoat pocket. Yes, other people he
didn't know had entered or left the building that after
noon but all of them were with tenants or were clearly
known or expected by tenants.

The garage man had been polishing cars to make
some extra money. Had he seen anyone in the garage he
didn't recognize? No, he hadn't. Could anyone have
passed through without being seen? I guess, he an
swered, if I was busy. But they couldn't go anywhere.

“How come?”

“They couldn't steal a car without a magnetic card to
get past the barrier and they couldn't get up into the
building without a special elevator key only the tenants
have.”

Harry Greenwald took Lesko outside. “I'll have
forensics look at his keys. If they were copied recently
there'd be fresh impressions from the clamps.”

“Also Donovan's lock. There could be fresh shav
ings.”

“But say I find something,” Greenwald told him.
“What do we really have?”

“I know.” Not much. He'd been hoping for a de
scription. Maybe one that fit Robert Loftus. The missing
message, plus evidence that the keys might have been
copied, would be enough to get the apartment dusted
for prints, but Lesko knew none were likely to be found.
“You'll call me on the autopsy?”

“I'll call you. You have to promise to tell me what's in
your head, though. No cowboy shit.”

“I'll tell you. I know anything,
I’
ll tell you.”

Fruit.

Lesko couldn't remember what it was about fruit.

“Are you out of your mind?” Loftus found Pa
l
mer
Reid behind an antique horseshoe desk in Ambassador Pollard's library.

“You are forgetting yourself, Robert.” Reid looked
up icily from a notebook he'd been studying. “Kindly
leave this room until you can enter like a gentleman.”

“Let's skip the master-servant routine, Palmer.”
Loftus crossed to the desk and stood glaring at him. “I
want to know if you have involved me in the murder of
a former United States Attorney.”

Reid's expression was unchanged. “I have not the
foggiest idea what you're talking about.”

“This is a yes-or-no question, Palmer. Donovan's
dead. Did you or did you not have Burdick kill him?”

“Buzz Donovan dead?” Reid dropped his jaw. “Dear
God!”

“And you can fuck your dear God.” Loftus slammed
down his hand. “Do you have any idea what you've
done?”

Palmer Reid stared at him. “Burdick, you say. You accuse Burdick?”

Loftus made a fist. Here we go, he thought. One of
my men must have done.it. Acting on his own. Like Henry II didn't kill Becket, his barons did. “Forget it,
Palmer. I saw the movie.”

“The movie.” Reid blinked.

Loftus waved it away. “For two days now, Donovan's
been calling all over Washington asking about Banner
man, about you, and goddamn it, about me. Now all of a
sudden he turns up dead. You don't think somebody
might wonder about that? You don't think Lesko will wonder?”

“His heart . . .” Reid said feebly. ”A man that
age . . .“he stopped, realizing his mistake.

”. . . could go any time.” Loftus finished his sen
tence for him. “If I ask how you could know it was a
heart attack, what are you going to say? Lucky guess?”

Palmer Reid rose slowly from his chair, his face flushed, one hand making a small, trembling fist. He
turned his back on Loftus and sought to gather himself
by studying an English hunt painting on the paneled
wall.

“I have always been fond of you, Robert.” He
cleared his throat. “I find myself more hurt than an
gered at your behavior. It is beyond despicable.”

. Loftus wanted to scream. Instead he worked to calm
himself.

“It is out of affection for you,” Palmer Reid contin
ued, “that I have often tried to distance you from some
of the heavier burdens of my, office. I had hoped to
reason with the man.”

“But he was unreceptive.” Loftus closed his eyes.

Reid kept his gaze upon the painting. “I sought his
cooperation in an entirely forthright way. I appealed to his sense of duty. I extended my hand in friendship and
he as much as slapped it away. I made a very hard
decision, Robert.”

Loftus nodded slowly, as much in resignation as in
understanding.
It
wasn't just stupidity. Or more of
Reid's conviction that he could get anyone to believe
anything. It wasn't even an act. This man was out of his
fucking gourd.

“I understand, sir,” he said quietly.

“I hoped you might.”

“Could I ask, sir? Was this what you had in mind
when you said you'd give Bannerman something to think about?”

“Bannerman?”
             

“Paul Bannerman.” He gestured vaguely toward the east. “Westport.”

“Oh, no. That's quite another thing entirely.”

Loftus gritted his teeth. “I'd like you to know,
sir,
that you can rely on me fully. I can only hope that my
earlier outburst has not diminished your affection for
me.”

“We are all heavy-laden from time to time, Robert.
Consider it forgotten.”

“Can I hope, sir, that whatever you have in mind for
Bannerman . . . that I will not be distanced from that
as well?”

“You will be among the first to know, Robert.”

Loftus's eyes fell upon the notebook the old man had
been studying. He picked it up. The notes could only have been Donovan's. There were- several names and
phone numbers. Washington names. He recognized
them all. Several references to Bannerman, some to
Reid, two to Elena. Just bits and pieces, but Donovan
seemed to be on the right track. Loftus turned the page.
Westport. Community of agents.
Bannerman a rene
gade.
Several question marks after that one. Question
marks everywhere.

Sexually abused a child.
Loftus didn't understand
that reference at all. But the order in which the jottings
were written suggested that it was Reid who provided
the last several pieces. Yes. There was even a reference
to the burning of
Reid's stupid boat

Then,
What to tell
Lesko??? Susan caught in the
middle
between
Bannerman
and
this
lunatic.

Those were the last entries. The lunatic was clearly
Reid. And Donovan was clearly worried about the
safety of Lesko's daughter who,
as Loftus suspected,
probably knew nothing at all. Donovan, Loftus felt sure,
never got a chance to tell Lesko anything. Lesko was in
Westport while Donovan was being taken home and
killed. Loftus had followed Lesko to Westport although
he didn't dare risk getting off the train himself. The trip
had mystified him. Reid's conspiracy theories aside,
there was just no reason to think Lesko was involved with those people. More likely he'd gone to check out
Bannerman himself, more as a father than a cop. But
Reid wouldn't see it that way. Reid would see it as proof.