The Devil's Teardrop

  Still, Kennedy was more than willing to risk this. And in his months of bargaining on Capitol Hill to get the measure through committee it appeared that the measure might actually pass, thanks largely to popular support.

  But then that city employee--Gary Moss--had summoned up his courage and gone to the FBI with evidence of a huge kickback scheme involving school construction and maintenance. Early investigations showed that wiring and masonry were so shoddy in some schools that faculty and students were at serious physical risk. The scandal kept growing and, it turned out, involved a number of contractors and subs and high-ranking District officials, some of them Kennedy appointees and longtime friends.

  Kennedy himself had extolled Moss and thrown himself into the job of rooting out the corruption. But the press, not to mention his opponents, continued to try to link him to the scandal. Every news story about payoffs in the "Kennedy administration"--and there were plenty of them--eroded the support for Project 2000 more and more.

  Fighting back, the mayor had done what he did best: He gave dozens of speeches describing the importance of the plan, he horse-traded with Congress and the teachers' union to shore up support, he even accompanied kids home from school to talk to their astonished parents about why Project 2000 was important to everyone in the city. The figures in the polls stabilized and it seemed to Kennedy and Wendy Jefferies that they might just hold the line.

  But then the Digger arrived . . . murdering with impunity, escaping from crowded crime scenes, striking again. And who got blamed? Not the faceless FBI. But everyone's favorite target: Jerry Kennedy. If the madman killed any more citizens, he believed, Project 2000--the hope for his city's future--would likely become just a sour footnote in Kennedy's memoirs.

  And this was the reason that Jefferies was on the phone at the moment. The aide put his hand over the receiver.

  "He's here," Jefferies said.

  "Where?" Kennedy asked sourly.

  "Right outside. In the hallway." Then he examined the mayor. "You're having doubts again?"

  How trim the man was, Kennedy thought, how perfect he looks in his imported suit, with his shaved head, his silk tie frothing at his throat.

  "Sure, I'm having doubts."

  The mayor looked out of another window--one that didn't offer a view of the Capitol. He could see, in the distance, the logotype tower of Georgetown University. His undergrad alma mater. He and Claire lived not far away from the school. He remembered, last fall, the two of them walking up the steep stairway the priest had tumbled down at the end of The Exorcist.

  The priest who sacrificed himself to save the girl possessed by a demon.

  Now, there's an omen for you.

  He nodded. "All right. Go talk to him."

  Jefferies nodded. "We'll get through this, Jerry. We will." Into the phone he said, "I'll be right out."

  *

  In the hallway outside of the mayor's office a handsome man in a double-breasted suit leaned against the wall, right below a portrait of some nineteenth-century politician.

  Wendell Jefferies walked up to him.

  "Hey, Wendy."

  "Slade." This was the man's first name, his real given name, believe it or not, and--with the surname Phillips--you'd think his parents had foreseen that their handsome infant would one day be a handsome anchorman for a TV station. Which in fact he was.

  "Got the story on the scanner. Dude lit up two agents, did a Phantom of the Opera on a dozen poor bastards in the bleachers."

  On the air, with an earplug wire curling down his razor-cleaned neck, Phillips talked differently. In public he talked differently. With white people he talked differently. But Jefferies was black and Slade wanted him to think he talked the talk.

  Phillips continued. "Capped one, I think."

  Jefferies didn't point out to the newscaster that in gangsta slang the verb "cap" meant "shoot to death" not "chandelier to death."

  "Nearly got the perp but he booked."

  "That's what I heard," Jefferies said.

  "So the man's gonna rub our uglies and make us feel better?" This was a reference to Kennedy's impending press conference.

  Jefferies had no patience today to coddle the likes of Slade Phillips. He didn't smile. "Here it is. This quote dude's gonna keep going. Nobody knows how dangerous he is."

  "How dangerous is--"

  Jefferies waved him quiet. "This is as bad as it gets."

  "I know that."

  "Everybody's going to be looking at him."

  Him. Uppercase H. Jerry Kennedy. Phillips would understand this.

  "Sure."

  "So, we need some help," Jefferies said, lowering his voice to a pitch that resonated with the sound of money changing hands.

  "Help."

  "We can go twenty-five on this one."

  "Twenty-five."

  "You bargaining?" Jefferies asked.

  "No, no. Just . . . that's a lot. What do you want me to do?"

  "I want him--"

  "Kennedy."

  Jefferies sighed. "Yes. Him. To get through this like he's a hero. I mean, the hero. People're dead and more people're probably gonna die. Get the focus on him for visiting vics and standing up to terrorists and, I don't know, coming up with some brilliant shit about catching the killer. And get the focus off him for fuckups."

  "Off--?"

  "The mayor," Jefferies said. "Kennedy's not the one--"

  "No, he's not the one running the case." Phillips cleared his baritone voice. "Is that what you were going to say?"

  "Right," Jefferies said. "If there's any glitch make sure he wasn't informed and that he did his best to make it right."

  "Well, it's a Feebie operation, right? So we can just--"

  "That's true, Slade, but we don't want to go blaming the Bureau for anything." Jefferies talked to his ten-year-old nephew in just this tone.

  "We don't? Why exactly?"

  "We just don't."

  Finally Slade Phillips, used to reading off of a TelePrompTer, had had it. "I don't get it, Wendy. What do you want me to do?"

  "I want you to play real reporter for a change."

  "Sure." Phillips began writing copy in his head. "So Kennedy's taking a tough line. He's marshaling cops. He's going to the hospitals . . . Wait, without his wife?"

  "With his wife," Jefferies said patiently.

  Phillips nodded toward the press room. "But wait--they were saying . . . I mean, the guy from the Post said Kennedy didn't visit anybody. They were going to op-ed him on it."

  "No, no, he went to the families who wanted to remain anonymous. He's been doing it all day."

  "Oh, he has?"

  It was amazing what $25,000 could buy you, Jefferies thought.

  Phillips added, "That was good of him. Real good."

  "Don't overdo it," Jefferies warned.

  "But what do I do for footage? I mean, if the story's about him at the hospitals--"

  Jefferies snapped, "Just show the same five seconds of tape over and over again like you guys always do. I don't know, show the ambulances at the Metro."

  "Oh. Okay. What about the fuckup part? Why do you think there'll be a fuckup?"

  "Because in situations like this there's always a fuckup."

  "Okay, you need somebody to point a finger at. But not--"

  "Not the feds."

  "Okay," said Phillips. "But how exactly do I do that?"

  "That's your job. Remember: who, what, when, where and why. You're the reporter." He took Phillips by the arm and escorted him down the hallway. "Go report."

  14

  "You don't look good, Agent Lukas."

  "It's been a long day."

  Gary Moss was in his late forties, heavy-set, with short-cropped kinky hair, just going gray. His skin was very dark. He was sitting on the bed in Facility Two, a small apartment on the first floor of headquarters. There were several apartments here, used mostly for visiting heads of law enforcement agencies and for the nights when the director or dep director
needed to camp out during major operations. He was here because it was felt that, given what Moss knew and whom he was soon to testify against, he would survive about two hours if placed in District custody.

  The place wasn't bad. Government issue but with a comfortable double bed, desk, armchair, tables, kitchen, TV with basic cable.

  "Where's that young detective? I like him."

  "Hardy? He's in the war room."

  "He's mad at you."

  "Why? Because I won't let him play cop?"

  "Yeah."

  "He's not investigative."

  "Sure, he told me. He's a desk driver, like me. But he just wants a piece of the action. You're trying to catch that killer, aren't you? I saw about it on TV. That's why y'all've forgotten me."

  "Nobody's forgotten about you, Mr. Moss."

  The man gave a smile but he looked forlorn and she felt bad for him. But Lukas wasn't here just to hold hands. Witnesses who feel unhappy or unsafe sometimes forget things they've heard and seen. The U.S. attorney running the kickback case wanted to make sure that Gary Moss was a very happy witness.

  "How're you doing?"

  "Miss my family. Miss my girls. Doesn't seem right, when they've had a scare like that, I can't be there for them. My wife'll do a good job. But a man should be with his family, times like this."

  Lukas remembered the girls, twins, about five. Tiny plastic toys braided into their hair. Moss's wife was a thin woman, with the wary eyes you'd expect of someone who's just watched her house burn to the ground.

  "You celebrating?" She nodded at a gold, pointed hat with happy new year printed on it. There were a couple of noisemakers too.

  Moss picked up the hat. "Somebody brought it for me. I said what was I supposed to do with half of Madonna's bra?"

  Lukas laughed. Then she grew serious. "I just called on a secure phone. Your family's fine. There're plenty of people looking out for them."

  "I never thought anybody'd try to hurt me or my family. I mean, when I was deciding to go to the FBI about what I found at the company. I figured I'd get fired but I never thought people'd want to hurt us."

  He hadn't? The kickback scheme involved tens of millions of dollars and would probably result in the indictment of dozens of company employees and city officials. Lukas was surprised that Moss had survived long enough to make it into federal protection.

  "What were you going to be doing tonight?" she asked. "With your family."

  "Go to the Mall and watch the fireworks. Let the girls stay up late. They'd like that more than the show. How 'bout you, Agent Lukas? What'd you have planned?"

  Nothing. She had nothing planned. She hadn't told anybody this. Lukas thought about several of her friends--a woman cop out in Fairfax, a firefighter in Burke, several neighbors, a man she'd met at a wine tasting, someone she'd met in dog class where she'd tried futilely to train Jean Luc. She was more or less close with all of these people and a few others. Some she gossiped with, some she'd shared plenty of wine with. One of the men she slept with occasionally. They'd all asked her to New Year's Eve parties. She'd told them all that she was going to a big party in Maryland. But it was a lie. She wanted to spend the last night of the year alone. And she didn't want anybody to know this--largely because she couldn't have explained why. But for some reason she looked at Gary Moss, a brave man, a man trapped in the firestorm of Washington, D.C., politics and she told him the truth. "I was going to be spending it with my pooch and a movie."

  He didn't offer any cloying sympathy. Instead he said brightly, "Oh, you have a dog?"

  "Sure do. Black Lab. She's pretty as a fashion model but board-certified stupid."

  "How long you had her?"

  "Two years. Got her on Thanksgiving."

  Moss said, "I got my girls a mutt last year. Pound puppy. We thought we'd lost her in the firebombing but she got out. Had the good sense to leave us behind and just take off, got away from the flames. What movie were you gonna watch?"

  "Don't know for sure. Some chick flick, probably. Something good and sappy that'd make me cry."

  "Didn't think FBI agents were allowed to cry."

  "Only off duty. What we're going to do, Mr. Moss, is keep you here until Monday then you'll be moved to a safe house run by the U.S. Marshals."

  "Ha. Tommy Lee Jones. The Fugitive. Wasn't that a good movie?"

  "I didn't see it."

  "Rent it sometime."

  "Maybe I will. You'll be fine, Gary. You're in the safest place you could possibly be. Nobody can get to you here."

  "Long as those cleaning men stop scaring the shit out of me." He laughed.

  He was trying to be upbeat. But Lukas could see the man's fear--it was as if it pulsed though the prominent veins on his bony forehead. Fear for himself, fear for his family.

  "We'll get some good dinner brought in for you."

  "A beer maybe?" he asked.

  "You want a six-pack?"

  "Hell, yes."

  "Name your brand."

  "Well, Sam Adams." Then he asked uncertainly, "That in the budget?"

  "Provided I get one of them."

  "I'll keep it nice 'n' cold for you. You come back and get it after you catch that crazy guy."

  He toyed with the hat. For a moment she thought he might put it on but must have realized that the gesture would look pathetic. He tossed it onto the bed.

  "I'll be back later," she told him.

  "Where you going?"

  "To look at some maps."

  "Maps. Hey, good luck to you, Agent Lukas."

  She walked through the door. Neither wished the other a happy New Year.

  *

  Outside, in the cool air, Parker, Cage and Lukas walked along the dimly lit sidewalk on the way to the Topographic Archives, six blocks from headquarters.

  Washington, D.C., is a city of occasional beauty and some architectural brilliance. But at dusk in winter it becomes a murky place. The budget Christmas decorations did nothing to brighten the gray street. Parker Kincaid glanced up at the sky. It was overcast. He remembered that snow was predicted and that the Whos would want to go sledding tomorrow.

  They'd trim the bushes in the backyard, as he'd promised Robby, and then drive out west, toward the Massanutten Mountains, with their sleds and a thermos of hot chocolate.

  Lukas interrupted these thoughts by asking him, "How'd you get into the document business?"

  "Thomas Jefferson," Parker answered.

  "How's that?"

  "I was going to be a historian. I wanted to specialize in Jeffersonian history. That's why I went to UVA."

  "He designed the school, didn't he?"

  "The original campus he did. I'd spend days in the archives there and at the Library of Congress in the District. One day I was in Charlottesville, in the library, looking over this letter Jefferson had written to his daughter, Martha. It was about slavery. Jefferson had slaves but he didn't believe in slavery. But this letter, written just before he died, was adamantly proslavery and recanted his earlier opinions. He said that slavery was one of the economic cornerstones of the country and should be retained. It seemed strange to me--and strange that he'd write it to his daughter. He loved her dearly but their correspondence was mostly domestic. The more I read it the more I began to think the handwriting didn't look quite right. I bought a cheap magnifying glass and compared the writing with a known."

  "And it was a fake?"

  "Right. I took it to a local document examiner and he analyzed it. Caused quite a stir--somebody slipping a forgery into the Jefferson archives, especially one like that. I got written up in the Post."

  "Who'd done it?" Lukas asked.

  "Nobody knows. It was from the sixties--we could tell that because of the absorption of the ink. The archivists think that the forger was a right-winger who'd planted the letter to take some of the wind out of the civil rights movement. Anyway, from then on I was hooked."

  Parker gave Lukas his curriculum vitae. He had an M.S. in forensics from George
Washington University. And he was certified by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners in Houston. He was also in the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners, the National Association of Document Examiners and the World Association of Document Examiners.

  "I did free-lance work for a while but then I heard that the Bureau was looking for agent-examiners. Went to Quantico and the rest is history."

  Lukas asked, "What appealed to you about Jefferson?"

  Parker didn't even consider this. He responded, "He was a hero."

  "We don't see many of them nowadays," Cage said.

  "Oh, people aren't any different now than they ever were," Parker countered. "There've never been many heroes. But Jefferson was."

  "Because he was a renaissance man?" Lukas asked.

  "Because of his character, I think. His wife died in childbirth. Just about destroyed him. But he rose above it. He took over raising his daughters. He put the same amount of effort into deciding what kind of dress to buy Mary as he did in planning an irrigation system for the farm or interpreting the Constitution. I've read almost all of his letters. Nothing was too much of a challenge for him."

  Lukas paused, looking at a window display of some chic clothes, a black dress. He noted she wasn't admiring it; her eyes took in the outfit the way she'd looked at the extortion note, analytically.

  Parker was surprised something like this would distract her. But Cage said, "Margaret here's one hell of a, whatta you call it, designer. Makes her own clothes. She's great."

  "Cage," she chided absently.

  "You know anybody who does that?"

  No, Parker didn't. He said nothing.

  She turned away from the window and they continued down Pennsylvania Avenue, the stately Capitol ahead of them.

  Lukas asked him, "And you really turned down an SAC?"

  "Yep."

  A faint laugh of disbelief.

  Parker remembered the day that Cage and the then deputy director came into the office to ask him if he'd leave the document department and run a field office. As Cage had observed on his front porch earlier that day Parker was not only good at analyzing documents; he was good at catching bad guys too.

  An agent or an assistant U.S. attorney would come to him with a simple question about a document. Maybe a suspected forgery, maybe a possible link between a perp and a crime scene. And sitting in his bonsai-tree-filled office in the lab Parker would relentlessly cross-examine the unfortunate law enforcer, who only wanted some technical information on the document. But that wasn't enough for Parker.