The President's Killers (16 page)

SIXTY-SIX

Even though most of the rooms at the large Kolb house were lighted, they made it up to Denny’s second-floor room without being seen.

After Meesh got all the red and white paint scrubbed off his face, they went through Lott’s wallet. It contained more than six hundred dollars and a driver’s license. The name and address on the license was Jerry Lott of 1844 East Street, Falls Church, Virginia.

That was it. No credit cards, no insurance papers, no Social Security card.

In a compartment behind the folding money, they found a scrap of peach-colored paper with Meesh’s New Jersey address scrawled on it.

“Oh, God!” she said. “That’s scary.”

“That may be how he got here. He had your place staked out and followed you.”

The scrap of paper had been torn from expensive stationery. On the other side was part of a letterhead.

ice’s

F Street, N.W.

20051

039

“F Street Northwest,” Meesh said. “That’s probably Washington. Falls Church is just outside Washington.”

“He had me fooled. I thought he worked out of New York.”

“Wonder what the top line is? With the apostrophe.”

“Maybe a bar or restaurant.”

The jacket of the airline ticket he found in Lott’s pocket contained a Midwest Express receipt and a car-rental contract. Both bore Lott’s name and the Falls Church address. The car-rental office had a Washington address.

“Let’s see if he has a phone listed.”

They called Information. There was no listing for Jerry Lott or any other Lott on East Street in Falls Church.

“Now what?” Meesh asked.

“I don’t know. This letterhead and the Falls Church address are it. I’ve got to check them out.”

“Go there?”

He nodded.

“I’m going with you.”

“No. You can’t.”

“You’re going to need help. Everybody is looking for you. The whole country.”

“You want them looking for you, too?”

Her blue eyes flashed.

“No way,” he said.

She kissed him. “There are a couple things we have to do, Mr. Kinney. One of them is to get reacquainted.”

She pressed her entire body against him, clamping her mouth on his when he tried to speak. He wrapped his arms around her and forgot about Lott and the FBI and the police, surrendering to the tender feelings that drew him to her like a magnet.

“And the other thing we have to do,” she murmured an hour later, snuggling against his damp chest, “is get a little rest. We’ve got a helluva drive tomorrow.”

As they headed up the walk toward the Mazda the next morning, Denny spotted the white police cruiser and nudged Meesh.

“Just keep walking.”

The police car was coming towards them on Langdon.

He shifted the grocery bag to his other arm. They had wrapped Lott’s semi-automatic Glock in Denny’s boxer shorts and crammed it into the bag with the other clothing.

The patrol car drew up to the curb in front of them.

“Oh, Denny!” she whispered.

He looked both directions but saw no other police vehicles. “Just stay loose. Act natural.”

The car door, emblazoned with a huge blue shield, swung open, and a heavy-set, uniformed cop got out.

Denny, turning to Meesh, glanced up at the sunny skies. “Beautiful day, eh?”

“Yes, it’s great.”

The cop, a swarthy man with a black mustache, came up the walk towards them.

Denny nodded. “Good morning.”

“Morning.”

The cop looked relaxed, the expression on his face indifferent. He walked past them and up to the house.

They got into the Mazda, Meesh sliding behind the wheel, and watched the cop knock at the door.

She started the engine.

“Nice and slow,” Denny said. “We’re not in a hurry.”

“The hell we aren’t!” she whispered.

“Land’s sake,” Mrs. Kolb exclaimed when she opened the door and saw the uniformed officer. “You folks sure do take your sweet time. I called yesterday.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the police officer said.

“I don’t know what would happen if someone was killing someone.”

“Yesterday was a busy day. Big football game. I understand you’re having a little problem with one of your boarders.”

SIXTY-SEVEN

They ditched the stolen Mazda near a downtown Avis office. Denny waited on a nearby park bench while Meesh went inside to check out a Ford Taurus.

She did the driving. If a state trooper were to pull them over while he was at the wheel, the game would be up.

It was only a couple hundred miles to the Chicago area. From there, they made their way across northern Indiana and Ohio and onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

It was a tedious drive, with mile after mile of flat farmland and monotonous woods. When they stopped for dinner at a cafeteria along the Turnpike, it was dark. There were fewer than a dozen people inside.

When they finished eating, Meesh went to the rest room and Denny returned to the counter for a piece of pecan pie and cup of coffee.

“Over there!” a loud small voice exclaimed behind him.

He turned and saw two freckled redheads, a boy and his kid sister, staring at him. The boy was pointing.

“See him!”

Their mother hushed them.

Denny kept his eyes on his tray but heard their muffled voices talking excitedly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a chunky man in a green jacket join them. There was more muted jabbering.

“Shhhhh!”

“Keep your voice down!”

He glanced in their direction. The whole family was staring at him. He cursed his stupidity. He’d left his drugstore eyeglasses in the car.

The man in the green jacket got to his feet and went over to speak to the young Hispanic man at the cash register. They both stared at Denny.

Denny got to his feet slowly and took a swallow of coffee, doing his best to look unconcerned. He crossed the room, drank at a water fountain, and ambled out of the building into the darkness.

At the end of the walk, he glanced back at the building. The carrot-topped kids were at the window, watching him.

Three tractor-trailer trucks were parked in the dark lot. He opened the cab door of the middle one and climbed into it. Then he slid across the seat and slipped out the other side.

He made his way back to the Ford Taurus.

Moments later, Meesh hurried out to the car. “What’s wrong?”

When he explained what happened, she started the engine and shoved a newspaper into his hands.

“It’s no wonder. Take a look!”

At the top of the front page were two photographs. One was a computer-generated picture showing what he looked like clean-shaven and without eyeglasses.

SIXTY-EIGHT

Five minutes after they hit the Turnpike they passed a police car speeding in the opposite direction, lights flashing. Two minutes later, another roared past.

“Somebody back there called the cops,” Meesh said.

“I can’t believe I was such an idiot!”

They drove for ten minutes, then got off the highway and found a motel in a place called New Stanton. Denny waited in the car while Meesh went into the office to register.

The simple furnished room looked heavenly. It was a safe haven. Meesh crossed the road to a liquor store and returned with wine and potato chips.

The crisp, fresh-smelling sheets never looked more inviting. With only a bathroom light on, they sipped the wine and snuggled against each other.

He ran his fingers over her soft, smooth belly. “Where would I be without you?”

“Probably with some young phys ed major in Madison.”

“You think somebody would go for bronze hair?”

She giggled. “Probably not.”

She had a thousand questions about Lott and McQueen. She wanted to know everything — what they looked like, how they dressed, how they talked, when and where Denny had seen them.

The job interview at the Short Hills Inn surprised her.

“I didn’t know you were going on interviews.”

He kissed her eyelids, thinking about all the times he’d hurt her by doubting her loyalty and behaving like a jackass.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I’ve been a jerk so many times. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you, sweetheart.”

She pressed the full length of her nakedness against him, and they made love. Afterwards, damp and exhausted, they clung to each other, forgetting the crazy mad world outside their motel room.

The next morning Meesh went to a discount drugstore two blocks from their motel and returned with aluminum crutches, a maroon-and-gold Washington Redskins cap, a home barber’s kit, and two newspapers.

Denny put her laptop aside, pulled the cap on, and clunked across the room on the crutches.

“I thought they might help you blend in with the crowd in Washington,” she said.

“They’re great!”

He was less enthused about the electric clippers. She tied a towel around his neck and he sat on a chair feeling as forlorn as a three-year-old getting his first haircut.

“Ever done this before?”

“Nope,” she chirped. “But it looks like fun.”

She started in front of his right ear, wielding the clippers as if she were shearing a sheep, cutting the hair as close to the skin as she could. As she worked her way around his head and across the top, she bent down and kissed the top of his head.

“What? Did you take a chunk out of my scalp?”

“No, I did not! I love you, that’s all.”

When the last patch of hair was gone, she stepped back to admire her handiwork. He went into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked like a brand-new Army recruit. Even brother Rob would have had to look twice to recognize him.

“Well,” she said, “what do you think?”

“My God, I’m ugly.”

“No, you’re not. I think you’re cute.”

The news on Meesh’s laptop was sobering. The Government was offering a two-million-dollar reward for information leading to Denny’s arrest and conviction.

SIXTY-NINE

When she glanced across the car seat, Meesh couldn’t help giggling. She felt as though she was sitting next to Bruce Willis.

“Are you laughing at me?” Denny demanded, grinning and daring her to admit it.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, fixing her eyes on the road. “Why would I do that?”

“I have no idea. Unless it’s because I look like a white sawed-off Kobe Bryant.”

“No, no, I think your shaved head is cute. I ought to be a barber.”

“Yeah, right.”

Before leaving the motel, they had pored over maps on the web. New Stanton was only two-hundred miles northwest of Washington. Instead of getting back onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, they decided to follow lightly traveled, secondary roads south to Uniontown, then southeast into Maryland.

They rode for several minutes in silence.

“What’s with Korn-Ritter?” Denny said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to get away.”

“Oh, no problem. When I told Jason I wanted to take a few days off, he was thrilled.”

“I’ll bet.”

When she told him what really happened, he pecked her on the cheek. “I’m sorry.”

She threw back her shoulders. “I’m not.”

“He can’t fire you, can he?”

She’d thought about that possibility. “I have no idea.”

“What happens if all this comes out? I mean, if it comes out you’ve aided and abetted an assassin?”

“Well, No. 1, you’re not an assassin. And No.2, I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks.”

The conversation made her think about her life at Korn-Ritter, the pressures she was under there, the fierce competition for a lousy promotion, and Jason’s selfishness.

“You know something?” she said suddenly. “Jason’s an asshole.”

Denny gave his left eye an extended rub, a feeble attempt to conceal his huge grin.

The
Washington Post
story on the manhunt contained a surprise. It claimed Clay Willis had once served as an informant for the FBI.

Denny read several paragraphs to her. The report, attributed to an unnamed source within the agency, was hotly denied by a Bureau spokeswoman.

“Maybe that’s why Lott sent me to that FBI office”

“Why? What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it raises questions whether the FBI was involved somehow in the assassination. It certainly puts them on the defensive.”

She slowed to let a car pass. “Think that’s a possibility?”

“What? You mean, McQueen and Lott being with the FBI?”

She glanced at him. “It’s possible, isn’t it?”

He’d thought about that before. “Well, I don’t know. I just can’t believe —.”

“Oh, no!”

“What?”

“Don’t look back,” she said. “Just keep talking. Just keep talking.”

In the rearview mirror there was a blue police car with lights flashing.

SEVENTY

At the FBI’s secret command center in a Government agricultural research center, six miles south of Madison, Bambrick was livid. He wanted answers.

“How the hell did this guy get onto us?”

“The cops,” Libretti said. “Somebody over at the cop shop must have tipped him off.”

Bill Karlstrand, a columnist for the local
Wisconsin State-Tribune,
seemed to be on to the Bureau’s intensive manhunt in Madison.

When he called the Madison field office and Larry Fagan ducked the call, Karlstrand badgered his secretary. He wanted to know if the FBI had sent additional agents to Madison in the belief the country’s No. 1 fugitive was hiding in the Madison area. The secretary played dumb.

“One of our guys was questioned by a couple of cops yesterday,” Moran told Bambrick. “They saw him sitting in a car outside a sorority house and wondered if he was some kind of pervert.”

The huge eyes behind Bambrick’s glasses blazed. “What the hell was he doing camped outside a sorority house?”

“He’s from the Des Moines office,” Moran said. “He didn’t know it was a sorority house.”

“And it was probably pretty obvious,” Libretti said, “that he was from out of town and didn’t know the city.”

The enormous eyes darted back and forth behind the glasses. Bambrick scowled and shook his head.

“For all we know,” Moran said, “it could have been someone here at the research center who knows someone at the newspaper. Or maybe someone at the Ramada Inn got suspicious.”

“I think it was the cops,” Libretti said. “Fagan’s people were probably hounding them too much. So they probably just started wondering if we’re up to something.”

Bambrick was convinced publicity would kill any chance they had of quickly nailing Kinney.

“If the local papers make any noise about this,” he grumbled, “we’ll have the TV networks and every yellow journalist in the country here in four hours.”

Libretti tried to calm him down.

“There’s no way the media weren’t going to find out about this, Ed. Sooner or later it was going to come out. And I don’t think it’ll blow us out of the water. If everyone in town knows Kinney is here somewhere, it could help us.”

For almost an hour they weighed their options. Moran thought they should go to the newspaper and ask the editors to sit on the story, at least for a couple days.

Libretti doubted the editors would agree to that. Bambrick was sure they wouldn’t.

“We don’t know how much Karlstrand really knows,” he growled. “I don’t want to give him a story he may not have yet. I want to wait. Have Fagan dodge the guy for another day or two.”

He figured the newspaper was unlikely to run a story until it received some sort of confirmation from the Bureau.

Moran and Libretti gave Bambrick a quick update on the manhunt, which so far had yielded nothing.

“And what are we learning from the cops — anything?” Bambrick asked. “Any reports of suspicious behavior that could involve our friend?”

“Not much,” Moran said. “There’ve been a few drug busts. A fist-fight outside one of the campus pubs. A student with a handgun in his room. That sort of thing.”

“What do we know about the kid with the gun?”

“He’s from Pennsylvania,” Moran said. “They haven’t been able to find him.”

“Did you see the newspaper story about the guy shot to death in the football stadium?” Libretti said. “They found him under the stands.”

Bambrick made a face. “I saw it. Any relevance?”

“I doubt it,” Libretti said. “They haven’t been able to identify the guy yet. Local yokel, apparently.”

“All right,” Bambrick snapped. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope the goddamn newspaper surprises me and shows some sense of responsibility.”