The Dark Hour (9 page)

“I appreciate it, but there’s the files to read. Too much to do.”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning against the door. “Probably best. Besides, it’s not really my scene.
All
those politicians . . .”

He stopped what he was doing and looked up at her. “Maybe I should go. Pay my respects.”

Scotty, so predictable. “Your car or mine?”

S
enator Grogan’s widow, Olivia, a fine-boned woman with dark gray hair cut in a page boy, sat in the formal living room of her Washington, D.C., condo, surrounded by several family members. She rose when she saw Scotty enter, Sydney at her side.

“Of course I remember Special Agent Ryan,” she said, taking Scotty’s hand in both of hers, after the woman who’d answered the door introduced them.

Sydney, thinking the widow was rather dry-eyed, recalled there being a rumor of an affair between the senator and his secretary, and figured the woman must have known about it. Smiling, Syd glanced into the dining room, saw the table filled with food items brought by other visitors. She held up the pink bakery box she’d insisted Scotty bring, filled to the brim with fresh cookies. “I’ll just put these on the table,” Sydney said to no one in particular, then backed out of the living room into the dining room. She made herself as unobtrusive as possible, listening with one ear while Mrs. Grogan reminisced about her encounter with Scotty during his background interview of her husband.

In truth, Sydney wasn’t sure what she expected to find or even learn. But the moment she turned around and saw Tex walking in the front door, she knew her instincts in coming were right on the money.

It wasn’t long before Tex found his way over to her. “So what brings you here?” he asked, looking down at the table as though interested in the food, not her.

“My name came up in the same sentence as MI5, never mind the senator’s murder investigation. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Why do you think I’m here, darlin’?” He picked up a cracker with salmon spread, popped it into his mouth, then took a second. “I just wasn’t aware you knew about it yet.”

“I got called up to FCI this morning.”

“Good old Pearson. What did he have to say about it?”

“He wanted to know if I knew the senator. I don’t. I’ve never even met him.”

“No, but you’ve met Griffin, who was very much involved in the senator’s doings. It’s the only reason I can think of to connect you.”

“Maybe if I knew why the senator was killed?”

Tex looked around to make sure they weren’t overheard. “You’ve heard of LockeStarr Management?”

“Scotty mentioned that Grogan was going to be bringing up LockeStarr during his speech.”

“They were one of the companies being looked at to manage the U.S. shipping ports. Someone leaked info that they were being investigated. Apparently Grogan took that as a sign to come out publicly against them.”

“Who’s investigating them?”

“We are.”

“You
didn’t have him killed, did you?”

He gave her a look. “If we were in the business of hits on public figures, it sure as hell wouldn’t look like one. No, what I think it has to do with is this mess Griffin’s involved in. You happen to finish that sketch for him?”

“Yes. I actually have my briefcase in the car if you want to see it.”

“I do.”

Sydney glanced over, saw Scotty still involved in conversation with the circle in the living room. “Meet me out front.”

She walked up to Scotty, saying, “I need to get some aspirin from my briefcase.”

He dug the keys from his pocket, handing them to her, “I’m almost done here.”

“Take your time.”

Tex was waiting by her car when she walked outside. She unlocked the vehicle’s door, then opened it. “You realize the sketch I have is of your subject’s girlfriend, not the man Griffin saw?”

“We’ll take what we can get.”

Her case was beneath the front passenger seat, and she pulled it out, then removed a manila folder from within. It contained a copy of her reproduction. She handed it to Tex.

“What the . . . ?” Tex gaped at it for several seconds, then, his voice almost a whisper, he asked, “How sure are you about this looking like her?”

“Pretty sure, considering that one of the gunmen said it was a dead ringer for the boss’s girlfriend.”

“It’s also a dead ringer for Griffin’s dead wife.”

Sydney stared at Tex in disbelief. His expression never wavered. She looked at the sketch, recalling that moment in Italy when Griffin told her of his wife’s murder. “Griffin was there when she was killed,” she said. “He wouldn’t make that kind of mistake.”

Tex returned the sketch to the folder, then handed it back to her. “I’ve known that woman for fifteen years. Hell. I was there when she broke her nose. Other than the short hair, it’s her.”

“It could be someone who looks like her.”

“It could be, but my gut tells me otherwise,” he said, then glanced over at Scotty, saw him watching them through the window. “Not a good place to talk. Meet me at Jumping Java at three,” he said.

After he left, she opened the folder, looking at the sketch, trying to make sense of what Tex had said.

Griffin’s wife was dead. He wouldn’t lie about something like that.

So who the hell was this?

Chapter 14

December 7

Washington, D.C.

T
he first thing FBI Special Agent Tony Carillo did was order up a copy of the blood panel from the shooter’s arrest, and with that in hand, walked it to the FBI’s own lab. Aside from the PCP, there was one drug listed that Carillo didn’t recognize.

The doctor at the FBI lab read over the report. “Nothing outstanding. This drug is used to treat hypothyroidism.”

“The guy was schizophrenic. Went off his meds. So this would be normal?”

“Depends. Went off his meds for how long?”

“I’m not sure anyone said. Why?”

“Might help to know why and when he went off. Because he didn’t like the way he felt on them? Or was it because his symptoms weren’t under control and that fed into his delusional fears?”

Carillo finished his coffee, then tossed the cup in the trash, saying, “Mind you I don’t know jack about psychiatry, but if he was paranoid and went off his meds because of a delusional fear, why would he still be taking his hypothyroid medicine?”

“Good question. Then again, if he was having thyroid issues, those symptoms can sometimes mimic schizophrenia. So can PCP.”

“Psychiatrist’s report confirmed the schizophrenia.”

“Did he know about the thyroid?”

“There wasn’t any mention of it in his report.”

“You might check. Could be a factor.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“Anytime.”

Next step for Carillo was calling the investigator at Metropolitan Police. He spoke with Kristofer Jones. “I seem to be missing a section of the report on the interviews on who knew the shooter. He have any relatives in the area? Coworkers? Friends?”

“Talk about your perfect loner,” Jones said. “Couldn’t find a thing on him. The closest we came was the girl who lived across from Hollis at his apartment complex, and the manager. The info should have been in the supplemental report.”

Carillo thumbed through the papers in his folder. “Seems to be missing from my copy. Either of them have anything to add?”

“The usual. Quiet guy. Nice. But then, maybe we just didn’t ask the right questions.” He gave Carillo the address.

The neighbor, Lisa Reed, answered the door on the first knock. She did not invite Carillo in, however, choosing instead to step out onto the porch. “Baby’s morning nap,” she said, pointing inside to a blanket on the floor where her infant was sleeping. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. I’m here about your former neighbor.”

“Hollis,” she said, closing the door, though not tightly.

“Right.”

“Like I told the officers who were here, I didn’t really know him. He was, I don’t know. Odd. Quiet, nice, but odd. Most would probably dismiss it because of his profession. He wrote computer programs. I’d heard he was obsessed with computers.” She crossed her arms, shivering in the cold air. “I was seven months pregnant when I moved in, so I suppose that might be why I didn’t really get to know him. We said hi, but that was it.”

“He ever have anyone over?”

“Truthfully I didn’t pay attention. I do know he was up very, very late at night, only because you could see his light on at all hours.”

“Any of your other neighbors know the guy?”

“Hard to say. They all pretty much keep to themselves. Most are older. Fifties, sixties. Wish I could tell you more, but that’s really all I know about him.”

“I appreciate your time,” he said. As she opened the door, he caught a glimpse of the baby again. “You said you were seven months pregnant when you moved in? How old is the baby now?”

“Four weeks.”

“So you haven’t lived here all that long?”

“Almost three months.”

“Any idea who lived here before you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Her mail still comes occasionally. Someone named Madeline Boucher.”

Carillo got the particulars on Ms. Boucher from the FBI office and drove straight there. Learned from a neighbor that she went by the name Maddie, and worked at a clothing boutique nearby, where he found her straightening the hangers of dresses on a display rack. She might have been all of eighteen, tall, blond hair, and blue eyes, wearing blue jeans and a pullover sweater.

Carillo identified himself, and saw her expression turn to one of resignation. “I was hoping no one would make the connection,” she said.

“What connection?”

“As the girl who used to be friends with the guy who murdered the senator?”

“Regular ice breaker at parties.”

“Yeah. To say the least.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Same as everyone else? The clichéd he was so quiet, I would have never suspected?”

“Except for his mental illness?”

“That part I didn’t know. I mean, mostly we were just friends. We lived in the same apartment complex, and, well, during that time he was fine. It was the last couple months that I started noticing changes. It was odd. These weird little bursts of paranoia, talking to himself, the delusions that he was being followed.”

“By who?”

She shrugged. “God only knows. At one time it was aliens. Another it was aliens from Atlantis. I mean, really out there. That if he didn’t do something, they were going to kill everyone.”

“Aliens from Atlantis?” Aliens he’d expect to pop up in the conversation of a mentally ill patient. Even Atlantis, he supposed. He just didn’t expect them in the same sentence. “Anyone else witness this behavior?”

“The entire world. He devoted his Web site to it.”

Another fact that hadn’t been mentioned in the police report. His computer, yes, having a Web site, no. The computer hadn’t yielded much information, because every file on it was deleted, so any Web sites he’d visited in the past were unknown, but the investigators had attributed the deleted files to the paranoid tendencies of being watched. “What was the name of the Web site?”

“Above Atlantis NWO.” When Carillo raised his brows in question, she added, “That stands for New World Order.”

Carillo jotted the name into his notebook. “And one more thing. About when did he start using PCP?”

“Excuse me?”

“The drug PCP.”

“No way. That guy was so squeaky clean, he wouldn’t have
ever
used anything. He barely drank. His brain was a temple—his words, I kid you not—and he wasn’t about to pollute it with anything. Except coffee. He
definitely
drank coffee.”

“He had PCP in his system at the time of the shooting.”

“I have a hard time believing it. As weird as he was, I really liked him.” Maddie moved from the dresses to a table with scarves artfully tossed about on it, and she pulled one up, fluffed it out a little, as though that arrangement was far superior. Carillo said nothing, merely waited, his experience always having been that it’s best to let people talk, fill in the silence, and after a moment, she paused in her ministrations, looking up at him. “Not just weird. Brainy weird, you know? And very into conspiracy theory.”

“What sort of conspiracy theory?”

“The typical. Corrupt government. Major corporations funding politicians to further their own interests. I mean, no one took him seriously. At least not at first. But then he sort of became obsessed.”

“Over what?”

She gave a cynical laugh. “He hacked into the server of some company with some program his friend helped him write and said the evidence was right there. Don’t ask me what it was, because I have no idea.” She picked up another scarf, running it through her fingers, before laying it across the table. “Look. I’m sorry the senator was killed, and I’d really like to help, but when Hollis started saying that they were going to implant him with some mind-controlling device, that was when I started distancing myself. A little too sci-fi for me, you know?”

“You know the name of this friend who helped him write the program?”

“Izzy.”

“Izzy what?”

“That’s it. Just Izzy.”

“Any idea where I can find him?”

“Sorry. The only time I ever met him was at Hollis’s place. He was always working on Hollis’s computer. Almost like a fixture there, if you know what I mean.”

A woman walked in, and Maddie gave Carillo a tentative smile hinting that she hoped he was done with the conversation. He slipped his card on the counter. “If you think of anything else, give me a call.”

“Sure thing.”

Outside, Carillo went over his notes, wondering at the possibility that Hollis’s symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia were brought on by PCP usage. Who else would bring up aliens from Atlantis? And brain implants? He could see why the guy would be dismissed as a nutcase. But a couple of things bothered Carillo, the hacking into the server for one. According to the police, the guy’s hard drive was clean, but maybe a tad too clean. And now there was this mysterious friend, Izzy, who might have helped him program his computer.