The Jury Master (6 page)

“Sealed? May I ask why?”

Madsen turned back to him. “Because I do not know what could be in there that could be sensitive to this administration or national security. Mr. Branick was a White House confidant, Rivers.” Madsen paused. “But I assure you, from this moment forward, this is your investigation.”

7

D
ARKNESS GAVE WAY
to blurred light. Images pulsed and spiraled above him. Sloane lay on his back, staring up at the bank of fluorescent lights on his kitchen ceiling. Instinctively he struggled to sit up, but a wave of nausea caused the room to tilt violently off-kilter, like an amusement park ride, and he slumped back to the floor. He felt a hand on his chest. The face circling above him slowed and came to a stop.

Melda.

“Mr. David?” She slapped his cheeks and wiped his forehead with a damp cloth, stammering in rushed sentences. “I am so sorry, Mr. David. I was so scared. I hear the noises and think you were not to be home. You say, ‘Melda, I will see you Sunday night!’” She put her hand to her mouth, fighting tears.

Sloane sat up and ran a hand over a tender spot on the back of his head. A cast-iron skillet lay on the floor near Melda’s knees. It wasn’t difficult to put the rest together. As sweet as the apple pie she baked, Melda was a tough old bird and had never lost the bloodlines of the girl on the farm. She took her duties watching the building seriously. In the dark, with his back to her, she had swung first and asked questions later. Thankfully, Melda was in her sixties and not quite five feet, which limited the amount of force she’d been able to generate. The blow knocked him off balance; the condiments on the floor did the rest. He remembered barely getting his hands up in time as he slipped and fell forward, bumping his forehead on the kitchen counter.

He squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, Melda. You’re right; I came home early. I’m sorry I startled you.”

Widowed with no children, Melda had adopted Sloane. She cared for him when he was home, and cared for the building when he left on business. She collected his mail, fed Bud, the stray he’d found eating out of the Dumpster behind the building, and sprinkled food in the fish tank. She also took to doing his laundry, cleaning his apartment, and leaving plastic bowls of food in his refrigerator—tasks for which Sloane had tried to pay her. It had only upset her. In eight years he’d never raised her rent. What she paid, he invested in a money market account, and each Christmas he presented her with a cashier’s check, telling her it was a dividend from a computer stock he’d bought her.

He considered the open cabinet doors and empty shelves; their contents were spilled everywhere, dried goods mixed with plates, cups, and silverware. The pungent smell of balsamic vinegar filled the room. “What happened here?”

She continued to dab at his forehead with the washcloth. “You have been burgled,” she said, eyes widening. “The horrible mess, Mr. David.”

He gripped the edge of the tiled counter and pulled himself to his feet, his shoes slipping on the floor.

Melda stood. “I am going to call for you a doctor.”

“No. I’m okay. Just give me a second to get my bearings.”

She dried her hands on a dish towel. “The mess. Mr. David, it is everywhere.”

He walked into the living room holding on to the counter for balance and flicked on the lights. Melda was right. The mess was everywhere. Glass showered the carpet. The television tube had literally exploded. A paperback floated in the fish tank. Even the heating vent covers had been pried from the walls. Melda sobbed behind him.

Sloane turned and hugged her, feeling her tiny frame tremble. “It’s okay, Melda. Everything is going to be okay.” He spoke softly until she stopped shaking. “Why don’t you make us a pot of tea,” he suggested.

“I’ll make for you some tea.” She said it as if the idea had been her own, and walked into the kitchen to retrieve the kettle.

Sloane walked through the apartment, not knowing where to begin.

“Did you hear anything, Melda? Did you see anyone?” Sloane found it hard to believe, given the level of destruction, that it could have gone on unnoticed or unheard.

She filled the pot under the faucet. “I hear nothing, but I am out on the Thursdays . . . my dancing night.” She belonged to a seniors group through a local Catholic church. “This morning I come to clean and I find this,” she said. “I go back down the stairs and call the police. Now I come back and you are in the kitchen, but it is dark and my eyes . . . Oh, Mr. David, I am so sorry.”

Sloane stood in the center of the room considering his destroyed possessions, mentally replacing them where he last recalled them. Curious, he walked through the living room to the bedroom and turned on the light. His mattress had been torn apart like the couch, his closet emptied. But that was not of immediate concern. His immediate concern sat in plain view on the nightstand next to his bed, a gift from an appreciative client.

His Rolex watch.

8

The Department of Justice,

Washington, D.C.

R
IVERS JONES RECLINED
against the cream-colored leather, rocking rhythmically and twisting a bent paper clip along his thumb and index finger while waiting for his call to be connected. He dropped the brown-bag lunch his wife had made for him into the waste can, along with a cold cup of coffee, and picked at a half-eaten bran muffin. He fixed his gaze on the ornately framed diplomas hanging in his drab government office:
S. RIVERS JONES IV
.

He had long since dropped the “S,” which few knew stood for Sherman, and the Roman numeral, which stood for “pretentious” if you were anywhere but in the Deep South. Well, he was no longer riding with the good old boys, driving their trucks with mud flaps and spittin’ Skoal through the gap in their two front teeth, and he wasn’t going back. Not ever. He longed for the day when he would never again have to look at the two oversize pieces of paper on his wall, reminders of a career choice his father had dictated. If not for the massive heart attack that killed the son of a bitch, Jones had no doubt he’d be admiring his diplomas right now in an office with a view of downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Jones picked off another piece of the muffin and tilted back his head to avoid getting crumbs on his suit. Parker Madsen’s call had awoken him from a sound sleep. Unlike the general, he was not one for getting up at the crack of dawn for calisthenics and revelry. He had just enough time to shower and shave—the shit had to wait—to get to the West Wing on time. Madsen demanded punctuality. The guy was a trip, with his “yes sirs” and “no sirs” and all that crap, but the inside word in Washington was that Madsen would be on the Republican party ticket as Robert Peak’s next running mate. That put Madsen directly in line for a presidential bid. No wonder he had his butt cheeks pinched tight over Joe Branick’s death. With the economy continuing to spiral down the toilet, unemployment and inflation going in the opposite direction, and terrorism against U.S. interests escalating, the unexpected suicide of a man supposed to be the president’s closest confidant couldn’t help matters. The general was looking out for number one, which was fine with Jones. He didn’t care who he hitched his wagon to, as long as he was taken along for the ride.

Jones had just hung up after a chat with the Jefferson County coroner. Dr. Peter Ho had offered no resistance. Not surprising. Most county employees were lazy. Ho was likely relieved he wouldn’t have to do an autopsy over the weekend. In a moment Jones would make things just as clear to the Charles Town detective, and he, too, would undoubtedly be relieved to have a file off his desk. The matter would be as good as closed, and Jones would have another powerful ally in his corner.

Jones’s secretary interrupted his thoughts to tell him that she had placed his call. He sat forward, wondering how the title “Congressman” or “Senator” would look on a framed piece of paper.

C
LAY BALDWIN SCOOTED
forward, the legs of the stool scraping on the linoleum. He drummed the counter a little faster with each unanswered ring. The assistant United States attorney’s secretary had made it clear he did not want to be put into voice mail. Baldwin rotated to consider the white eraser board on which he had printed the name of every member of the department. Ordinarily an orange magnet beneath the word “In” indicated the officer should answer his damn phone, but it didn’t mean squat if the name on the board was Molia. Tom Molia forgot about the board coming and going, and Baldwin was starting to get the feeling the detective’s memory lapses were intentional.

Baldwin stood, braced for the shock of pain that shot down his leg to his numbed right foot, and grimaced as he stretched the telephone cord to look through the venetian blinds covering the wire-mesh window. Sure enough, Molia stood in the middle of the room, entertaining Marty Banto and a couple of uniformed officers with more hand gestures and facial expressions than a teenage girl.

Baldwin yelled through the glass, “Hey, Mole!”

Tom Molia paused, looked up at Baldwin, and waved.

Baldwin pointed to the phone. “I . . . have . . . a . . . call . . . for . . . you.”

Molia held his hands to his heart and mouthed back, “I . . . love . . . you . . . too . . . Clay.”

Banto and the officers burst out in silent laughter.

Son of a bitch.
“Pick up the goddamn phone, Mole!” Baldwin watched Molia walk to his desk and lift the receiver. “Damn it, Mole. I’m not playing grab-ass out here. Answer your damn phone.”

“Wasn’t sure what you were doing, Clay. I thought you were doing a little Irish jig out there. You got that foot-stomping thing going again.”

Baldwin stopped stomping his foot. “My foot fell asleep . . . and I’m English, not Irish. What do you think I’m doing? I have a call for you.”

“A call. Well, for God’s sake, Baldy, who is it, the queen herself?”

Baldwin let out a slow hiss. He knew that cops liked to abbreviate last names, but the nickname Tom Molia had bestowed on him also happened to accurately describe the number of hairs on his head, which continued to dwindle daily.

“It’s a U.S. attorney from the Department of Justice.”

“Well, hell, Baldy, why didn’t you say so? Enough of the chitchat. Don’t keep the person waiting. Put him through.”

“I told you—”

“Time’s a-wasting, Clay.”

Remembering the assistant U.S. attorney’s admonition, Baldwin hurried back to the counter and transferred the call.

T
OM MOLIA GAVE
Clay Baldwin a thumbs-up as he answered the phone. “This is Detective Tom Molia.”

“Detective Molia,” a woman responded, “are you available to take a call from Assistant United States Attorney Rivers Jones?”

It was one of those strange Southern names, which was perhaps the reason for the pretentious formality. Molia was half tempted to tell the woman, “Sure, have him call me,” and hang up, but decided against it. “Put him through,” he said, and sat down at a desk that looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in years.

“Detective Molia?”

“How you guys doing over there at Justice this morning, Rivers? You keeping cool or sweating buckets like us?” Molia leaned back in his chair and placed his feet on the corner of the desk, knocking papers and manila folders onto the worn linoleum. A small portable fan oscillated on an antiquated metal filing cabinet in an office that could have held two desks comfortably but into which three had been squeezed. Paperwork obscured framed pictures of wives and children, and the walls were an assortment of wanted posters, memos, and other oddities. A black silhouette torso from the shooting range with a bullet hole directly in the forehead was tacked in the center of the wall, with multiple dart holes. Two darts pierced it. A third dart lay on the floor near the detective’s desk.

“We’re fine, Detective. I’m in an air-conditioned office.”

“Well, be grateful for that, ’cause it’s going to be hot again today, I’m told.”

“You handled the Joe Branick matter, Detective?”

“You mean the suicide?”

“Yes, Detective Molia, I mean the suicide.” Jones spoke in a deliberate, put-you-to-sleep drone.

“No formal report yet, but it’s mine. My luck. I’ve been busier than a jackrabbit in heat the last week. I mean work, you know?” Molia lowered his legs, picked up the dart from the floor, and tossed it at the target, hitting the figure in the shoulder. He shuffled through papers on his desk. “At least this one looks pretty cut-and-dried. They found the guy a couple hundred yards from his car. Single bullet wound to the temple. Gun in his hand. Spent casing. Fired at close range. Probably not going to find the bullet, given the terrain. Powder burns on right hand and temple . . . yadda yadda yadda. I’ve ordered a ballistics test. Doesn’t get much simpler than this.”

Simple, except that no one had yet heard from Bert Cooperman, and despite assurances that Coop had put in for a vacation leave, there was no answer at his home, the cruiser was not parked out in front of Cooperman’s house, and now the Justice Department was taking notice of an open-and-shut suicide. The ache in Molia’s gut had become a pain that the roll of Tums and two swallows of the Pepto-Bismol he kept in his desk drawer hadn’t dampened.

“On whose authority did you order a ballistics test, Detective?”

Molia laughed. “On whose authority? What, are you kidding, Rivers? I got a dead man. I got a gun. I got a dead man
holding
a gun. I order a ballistics test. Don’t need any authority for that.” He heard Jones take a deep breath. “You got asthma, Rivers? I get a touch of hay fever this time of year myself.”

“I’m sure you followed normal procedure, Detective Molia—”

“Mole.”

“Excuse me?” Jones asked, his tone annoyed.

“Call me Mole. I haven’t heard ‘Detective Molia’ in years. You keep calling me Detective Molia and I’m liable to start looking around the room for my father. Love to see him, though it would scare the crap out of me—he’s been dead going on six years.”

“Yes, Detective, Molia,” Jones said. “As I was saying, I’m sure the ballistics test is routine, but this death . . . This man . . . was a White House staff member and a personal friend of the president.”