The Butcher's Boy (9 page)

"But that doesn't make it much more likely that this is a case of the sort that your section would be interested in, does it?"

"No, but I've got a couple of other things I'm checking on. The method isn't what's worrying me right now. I'm satisfied that he's good enough at what he does. What's missing is a reason for anybody to hire him to do it. And I still think he was hired. There's nothing about Veasy to give me an excuse to believe it, but I do. People who just get mad at each other use guns or knives."

The airplane whistled down to meet the runway, then thumped to a stop 41

before taxiing to the terminal. Elizabeth and Hart sat still while other passengers filed out, then slipped into the queue when there was an opening. As soon as they were in the carpeted tube that stretched from the airplane to the terminal Elizabeth spotted the man. He wasn't obtrusive enough to come to the attention of the other passengers. He could have been an airline employee, but he wasn't.

He stood there beside a wall ignoring everyone who went by him, looking straight at Elizabeth . She said to Hart, "We're being met."

"What?"

She leaned into him so her face was close to his ear and said, "They've sent someone to meet us."

Hart said, "I see him. It's good. Maybe we'll get this over fast."

They walked up to him and he said, "Mr. Hart? Miss Waring? Come with me, please." They followed him, and Elizabeth was surprised to see him open a side door at the end of the tube. Then they were in a small room with an entrance on the other side.

"Right on time," said the man. "I'm Pete Turnbull, FBI Denver." He held out his hand for each of them to shake. Elizabeth studied him and decided he couldn't have been more than twenty-five, but was trying by means of his neat, banker's blue suit and the serious, competent look on his face to cross the line into the thirties. It made him look precocious, like an overeager junior executive.

"Good to meet you," said Hart. "What now?"

"I'll take you to the office, where they'll fill you in on the case. Give me your baggage tags and I'll arrange to have your suitcases catch up with you there."

They handed him the tags, and he disappeared through the other door for a second, then reappeared, smiling. "There's a car waiting," he said, and they followed him out the door and down a corridor to the main lobby.

At the big swinging doors Elizabeth felt a gust of cold wind, so she wrapped her light-weight coat around herself tightly and plunged after Turnbull into the open air. In a second they had passed through it into the waiting car, which was parked in a loading zone with its motor running. Turnbull took the wheel and maneuvered them expertly into the circular drive and away.

"What can you tell us about it?" asked Elizabeth .

"The Senator?" said Turnbull. "Not much, really. You'll get the full rundown. I'm not on it. What I know is he died this morning, early, and was found by his legislative assistant a short time later. That much is in the papers.

The rest of it, if there is any more, they're keeping quiet for now."

Elizabeth looked at Hart, who seemed to be deeper in thought than the case would warrant. Then he said, in a voice that was too casual for the expression on his face, "Do you know if they've ordered an autopsy?"

"I haven't heard. I suppose they have, though. I know about five agents were put on this case today, and they're on overtime as of two hours ago, so they'd probably at least do that much."

Hart's expression didn't change. He sat back in the seat and said nothing.

The federal office building was a relic of the era when politicians liked to remind themselves and their constituents that this was, after all, the U.S.

government. The building was huge, with lots of Corinthian columns that weren't there to support anything except the public's awe and reverence.

Elizabeth and Hart entered through the broad portal, expecting to see the place had been empty since five o'clock . It was true that the dozens of smoked-glass doors off the foyer seemed to be locked up for the night, but there were still people coming and going, and off to the left there were five men who were unmistakably reporters sitting on one of the massive oak benches.

At the far wall was a directory of offices. The FBI was on the second floor, so they walked up the marble staircase. Elizabeth identified what had been nagging at her since she'd seen the place. It was like the buildings in Washington, with everything on a scale larger than people. The railing was too thick for a human hand to grasp, the doorways were at least ten feet high, the benches in the foyer made the reporters look like lost children. It was as though someone had taken great pains to make it clear that this was an outpost of Washington, and by no means a minor one. When they reached the second floor there was no question where they should go next. The cavernous hallway was dark and empty except for a single lighted office at the end.

Inside the office there was a single desk where a receptionist sat during the day. Agent Turnbull ushered them through the outer office and opened the door to a small room with a long conference table, where three men in shirtsleeves were talking across open file folders. Behind her Hart said, "Hello, we're Waring and Hart." Elizabeth decided it sounded like a company that sold expensive clothes to British gentlemen.

The men stood up and shook hands while the one at the end of the table said, "This is Bill Greenley. And Joe Mistretta. I'm Mike Lang. Have a seat, and we'll get you caught up. It won't take much time, because we don't know a whole lot yet. I think Bill can do it quickest."

Greenley was a man in his middle thirties who sounded to Elizabeth to have spent some time testifying in courtrooms. He had seemed a little uncomfortable during the obligatory amenities, and now he launched into his recitation as though it had been prepared and rehearsed in advance. "We've placed the time of death between 0630 and 0800 today. There was no one with the deceased at the time, but the Senator's legislative assistant, Mr. Carlson, came to meet him for breakfast at 0800 and found him dead. The preliminary report from the autopsy says the body temperature was eighty-six degrees at 1000 today, which would mean no more than four hours. Claremont was partially dressed at the time of death." He added parenthetically, "As though he were getting ready to go to breakfast. The preliminary report contained the observation that the cause of death was heart failure. Not damaged. Just stopped." Greenley set aside the sheet of paper he'd been looking at and took up another.

"The secondary report indicates that the Senator's blood contained traces 43

of an unidentified toxic substance, which was probably introduced orally."

Greenley paused to look at Elizabeth and Hart as though he wanted to let his statement blossom in their minds before he pushed on to the next level. "The toxic substance has been determined to be the probable cause of death."

"Does it have any competition?" asked Hart.

"No," said Greenley. "No lumps, bruises, cuts, or signs of a struggle. Heart and circulation okay for his age, according to the coroner."

"Have you got a lab analysis of the substances found in the room yet?"

"They're still working on it," said Lang. "But if you mean a simple overdose, I think not. Here's the list of the stuff they found. The only medicine was aspirin." He handed a sheet from another file to Elizabeth, who held it so that Hart could read it too: "Rolaids, one roll, unopened. Listerine mouthwash, four-ounce size. Polident, one box, seventeen. Aspirin, Ascriptin brand, one-hundred-tablet size. Empty glass, probably from alcoholic beverage. Glass for soaking false teeth. Deodorant, Mennen stick."

For the first time, Elizabeth spoke. "Who's actually in charge of the case?

The Denver police?"

"Right," said Lang. "They knew we'd be interested, and so they called us in at the start. But at least for the moment it's theirs."

"What are the ground rules?" asked Hart.

"As close to full cooperation as we can make it. Right now all we're doing is laboratory work, and they're doing the rest of it. We've agreed to share all information both ways. If somebody finds something that points away from Denver we take over that part of it."

"What if it turns out to be murder?" said Elizabeth .

"The unidentified toxic substance is making that look like a possibility,"

said Lang. "I don't like it, but there's no use hiding from it, and that's why we asked for reinforcements this morning." Elizabeth and Hart exchanged glances, but Lang continued. "If that's what it is, we take full responsibility. Assassinating a senator is a federal crime."

Elizabeth sat quietly and felt a wave of weariness come over her. Ventura seemed to be far behind her now, receding into some impassable distance composed of complications rather than mere time and space. For a while the Ventura case had begun to look hopeful, she thought. No, not hopeful, really, but so peculiar that there had to be something to it. She promised herself she wasn't going to forget about it. But now there was this. It would have to be gotten through somehow before she could start learning about her own killer.

She was surprised to find herself thinking of him in those terms, but now that she had, she accepted it. That was what he was—her own. Her first.

"So what would you like us to do while we're waiting for the lab work?"

asked Hart.

"That's one of the things we were trying to decide when you arrived.

We've asked for everything Washington could send us on the Senator—friends, 44

enemies, habits, even old news stories. It'll take time for them to dig it out, though, and it probably won't give us anything we didn't get from Claremont's assistant hours ago. The best we can do at the moment is probably to put together as much of the background as we can, and figure out what to do if that toxic substance turns out to be arsenic, say, or cyanide. It might be best if you just went to your hotel and got some rest. No use all of us sitting here."

"Or maybe to the Senator's hotel," said Hart. "I suppose it's still being held pretty close by the local police. Would we step on their toes if we went over to take a look?"

"No," said Lang. "That's part of the deal. Joe, can you take them over? I'll call you if the lab work comes in."

Hart and Mistretta waited at the doorway for Elizabeth to go first, but then Mistretta edged out in front, striding down the hallway and struggling into his coat. They followed him down the stairs and along an unfamiliar back corridor that opened on a parking lot with only about a dozen cars scattered at varying distances from the building, looking forlorn and stranded. A light snow had begun to fall.

As Mistretta turned out of the lot and drove down the side street toward the Constellation Hotel, Elizabeth said, "Joe, where do you think this case will end up? Murder?"

"When you see the room you'll be able to make up your own mind, Elizabeth," said Mistretta. "But I won't hedge, because an hour from now you'll have reached the same conclusion anyway. The door was locked from inside, the window was locked from inside, there is no reason to believe anybody saw the Senator from midnight until 8:00 a.m. I think before the night is over we'll have a lab report that the toxic substance was some kind of poison you can buy over the counter. And I think tomorrow by noon we'll have a confidential report from the Senator's doctors at Bethesda Naval Medical Center saying he had terminal cancer, or an even more confidential report that he was being blackmailed, or something of that sort. Because whatever happened to him, the chances are pretty good that he did it to himself. And if I have to make an early call, I'll go with the odds every time."

Elizabeth thought about this for a few seconds, and then Mistretta added,

"And it was poison."

"So?" she asked. "Unusual, I'll admit, but it happens."

"True," he said. "But it's hard to find a poison that doesn't leave the victim feeling pretty awful for an hour or two before he dies. And if he doesn't expect to feel that way he picks up a phone and calls somebody."

The hotel room looked as though it had been the scene of some unusually messy kind of mechanical failure. Every smooth surface was covered with a thin film of greasy black dust. The bedclothes were churned into a pile at the foot of the bed. On the rug in the center of the floor was the chalked silhouette of a human form, caught in an attitude suggesting a grotesque dance.

Elizabeth found an empty spot in the room and stood, looking around 45

without touching anything. It was hard to imagine what the place had been like when it was occupied by living people. The police had apparently looked at everything, dusted the whole room for fingerprints, taken everything that was movable back to the laboratory for study.

Her trained mind shifted into its analytical mode and concentrated on the elements before her. The absent cups and glasses were taken care of; the body; Claremont's luggage. She looked into the closet. His clothes were gone too. All that was left, really, were the four walls and furniture, covered with fingerprint dust. She walked to the bathroom. The U-shaped trap was gone from beneath the sink; the drainpipe ended abruptly a foot below the fixture. Even the toilet had been tampered with: the tank cover was on the floor covered with the ubiquitous black dust.

"This isn't doing me much good," said Elizabeth . "It doesn't look like a hotel room anymore."

"I know what you mean," said Mistretta. "If there ever was anything to find in here, it'll turn up in the lab reports. The forensics people were in here for six hours. It looks like they've covered everything."

"Do you mind if we try something else?"

"Why not?" said Mistretta. "Until the final autopsy report comes in, anything's as good as anything else."

"Then I'd like to see another room like this one. The best thing would be an empty one on this corridor," said Elizabeth .

"Good idea," said Hart. He had been silent the whole time, walking around the room making notes on a pocket pad, tearing off sheets, and stuffing them into his pockets.