Tailspin

  Rachael closed her eyes. She remembered the motion, remembered how she fought to come back, to get her brain working again, remembered them speaking, but what? Who?

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Jack said, “Okay, I want you to think about the weight distribution. Can you picture them carrying you? Is one of them carrying more of your weight than the other?”

  She thought about that. “Maybe,” she said, “maybe the person carrying my arms was female. I remember smelling some scent, close to me, not sweet, but not pungent enough for a man to wear it.” She shook her head. “But I can’t swear to it.”

  “That’s okay. At least you were aware enough to pretend you were still unconscious. It gave you a chance.” He paused, then lightly touched his hand to her forearm. “What you did, Rachael, it was amazing. You kept your head, kept the terror away, and used your brain. I am very proud of you.”

  “I didn’t think I was going to make it. The pain in your chest, it’s unimaginable. You want to open your mouth so badly, but you know it will be all over if you do. When my head cleared the surface—” She stopped, swallowed. “I knew they were still there. I could hear them talking, not ten feet from me, standing on the dock. When I got in enough air to convince myself that I was going to live, I slid back under the water and swam under the dock, and waited. I heard them walking back up the dock, heard the car engine. I came up to see the lights.”

  “You couldn’t make out anything? Think back—did you see a profile? Male or female? Can you describe the shape of the car?”

  “No, they were gone by the time I was getting out of the water.”

  “All right. Let’s go back to that diner.”

  Mel’s Diner was charming, right out of the 1950s, with windows all along the front, Formica tables covered with red-and-white-checked tablecloths, and plastic menus. All along the windows were booths, the vinyl dark brown and cracked.

  “I don’t believe it,” Rachael said as they walked in the front door. “That waitress, she’s the same woman who was here last Friday night. Business is light, people in only a few booths, like it was on Friday night. The cook, you can hear him whistling from behind the counter in the kitchen.”

  “Hey,” the woman said, doing a double take when she saw Rachael. “I remember you. Last time I saw you, you looked like a drowned rat. You look fine now, all dried out again. You all right, sweetie? Is this your husband?”

  “He’s my bodyguard,” Rachael said, read the woman’s name tag, and added, “Millie.”

  Millie whistled. “You know kung fu or jujitsu, foreign stuff like that?”

  “All of it,” Jack said. “You always gotta go with a pro.”

  “I’m thinking I’d like to hire a bodyguard, a hunky one like you, to keep that rat ex-husband of mine away from me. Could you kick him in the face for me? Can you kick that high?”

  “Well, maybe a kidney shot instead?” Jack asked. “That’s more in my range.”

  “You could start just about anywhere, honey.”

  They ordered coffee, and Rachael asked Millie about any customers she’d had last Friday night who were strangers to her. There’d been maybe a dozen tourists driving through who stopped in, but none of them had struck her as being weird or nasty.

  She left to pour more coffee into a local man’s cup, then came back, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking. Last Friday,” she said. “Hmm.”

  She handed Rachael some creamer she didn’t want.

  “I remember this one gent, he came in to get two coffees to go, one black, one blond with three sugars. Now that I think of it, he looked kind of on edge. No nervous tics, nothing like that, but he was impatient, tapped his fingers on the counter while I was pouring the coffee. It was maybe thirty, forty-five minutes before you came straggling in.”

  “What did the gent look like?” Jack asked.

  Millie pursed her lips. “He was maybe forty, longish black hair, sunglasses on, if you can believe that, like he was some sort of celebrity or some lame dumbo wanting to look like one. He wasn’t big, kind of thin, I think, and his clothes didn’t fit him all that well.” She screwed up her face, thought about it. “Sorry, that’s about it. I can’t think of anything else. But I remember thinking I wasn’t sorry to see the back of him.

  “I was pouring a refill for a guy next to the window and I looked out. I saw him sitting in the passenger seat of a big dark-colored car, maybe a Lincoln, but I’m not sure. He and another guy were talking, drinking their coffee. Then my boss called me and that was the last I saw of them.”

  “Did they seem angry?” Rachael asked. “Or pleased, con gratulating each other?”

  “Honey, I was too far away and it was too dark, sorry.”

  Jack asked Millie more questions, then asked the same ones again, using different phrasing until he knew the well had run dry.

  Rachael hugged her before they left. “Thank you, Millie, thank you very much.”

  Millie patted her on the back. She looked at Jack again, up and down. “You being a professional bodyguard and all, you see to it you take good care of her, all right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jack said, and smiled at her. “Millie, do you think you’d recognize the gent from Friday night?”

  “I might be losing brain cells at a fine rate, but I still got enough to remember that face, even with the dumb sunglasses. He’s the kind you wouldn’t want to see in a bad dream.”

  “Good. I’ll bring you some photos to look at.”

  A man shouted out from the kitchen, “Millie! I got the flats and strips for number three!”

  “That’s pancakes and bacon,” she said. “I’m coming, Moe!” And she winked at Jack.

  Once outside the diner, Rachael threw her arms around Jack, hugged him hard until he grunted. “You’re a genius. I didn’t say anything, but I never thought it would be of any use at all to come back out here. But Millie was here and she remembered me. And that guy. You are so smart, Jack.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “I’m glad I laid out the big bucks and got myself a real pro.”

  He was laughing as his arms came around her. In the back of his mind, the FBI agent was screaming, Stop it, you moron, are you nuts? Step away from the girl, now. The FBI agent was loud and insistent, but he didn’t make any headway. Jack didn’t release her. In fact, he kissed her back and it felt so good he’d have given up his season tickets for the Redskins without a moment’s hesitation just to keep his mouth on hers and his hands—but the unwanted agent finally kicked him in the butt. Jack set her away from him to keep from yanking her down into the backseat of the car.

  She looked up at him, her mouth open, face blank, eyes wide. She was breathing fast, which his agent self demanded he ignore. She swiped her hand over her mouth. “What? Oh my God, Jack, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just that . . . I lost it. You’re really smart, Jack. Oh damn.”

  “It’s standard procedure, Rachael,” and that was true, but wasn’t that about the dumbest thing he’d ever said? He took a step back from her, had to. A beam of sunlight fell directly onto her and he saw the strangest thing. He saw her swinging a baseball bat. She walloped the ball and it flew and flew, and he realized it wasn’t Rachael, it was a little girl with Rachael’s smile and a braid in her hair—

  “Stop being modest. I’m going to tell Dillon how brilliant you are.”

  “Great Balls of Fire” blasted out of Jack’s jacket.

  Jack had never flipped open his cell so fast. “Jack Crowne here.”

  FORTY

  Jack drove down Wisconsin Avenue past a rare-cigar shop and an outdoor-gear emporium, looking for Brady Cullifer’s law firm. It was in an older building, grand-looking, really, understated, standing proudly next to a holistic healer.

  There were five names on the gold-etched sign on the front doors, two of them Cullifer.

  A worried-looking receptionist led them to Brady Cullifer’s office, knocked on
the door, waited for the “Enter,” and opened it. He stepped discreetly back, giving them a harried, nearly frantic look.

  Brady Cullifer came around from behind a large, well-worn desk that looked like it had belonged to his grandfather, which, Jack supposed, was possible.

  Jack said as he shook the man’s hand, “What’s with the receptionist? He looks strung-out.”

  “Oh, Rowley, he’s the firm’s major worrier, practically fingers worry beads whenever there’s a big case being tried. One of our lawyers just left to hear the verdict in a big personal-injury suit, so Rowley’s worrying big-time. Rachael, my dear, how are you? It’s good to see you.”

  Rachael smiled, let Mr. Cullifer hug her. She liked him, probably because he’d always been so kind to her, always seemed to accept her. He was about Jimmy’s age, with a bit of a paunch she remembered Jimmy kidding him about, lecturing him to get to the racquetball court. He was immaculately dressed, as always, in a lightweight gray wool suit, a pale pink shirt, and a dark blue tie that, surprisingly, tied everything together.

  When he released her, she said, “I’m fine, sir.”

  “Like everyone else in this town, I heard the FBI press conference yesterday morning about Jimmy’s death being classified as murder, not an accident, and that a woman shooter was possibly involved. Now she’s dead. Do you know why she died?”

  “Complications of surgery,” Jack said.

  “I take it you are Agent Crowne?” He raised a brow at Jack.

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said, and shook his hand. “We appreciate your seeing us on such short notice.”

  Cullifer waved them to a burgundy leather sofa, offered them coffee, and sat himself in a chair facing them. “Rachael, my dear, tell me what I can do to help you.”

  Rachael said, “You remember I told you what Jimmy did, how he accidentally killed that little girl. You acted like you didn’t know anything about it. I’ve been thinking that’s not true. Please, sir, tell me what Jimmy said to you about that little girl.”

  Brady sat down and drummed his fingertips on his desktop. Finally, he said, “Why would you think I know anything more about that poor little girl than what you told me, Rachael?”

  “You’re his lawyer,” Jack answered, “his longtime friend.” He raised his hand. “Please don’t invoke client confidentiality. I don’t think it applies anymore. The senator is dead, and this is an official investigation. It’s important, sir.”

  Cullifer slowly nodded. “Very well. Shortly before his death, Jimmy told me about his hitting and killing a little girl eighteen months ago.”

  Cullifer’s eyes clouded. “I couldn’t believe it, just couldn’t. When he finished, when I couldn’t think of another question to put to him, I asked him why he didn’t tell me sooner, but he said only that he was telling me now to prepare me because he’d decided to go public. He wanted it in the open, he wanted it done and over with. He told me he’d also informed Rachael, Laurel, Stefanos, Quincy, and Greg Nichols of his intentions. He didn’t know if there would be any blowback on me, but he was telling me just in case.

  “And I played dumb with you, Rachael, because he was my longtime friend, my client, as well as the whole confidentiality issue. You’re thinking I know more?”

  Rachael said, “He wanted all those close to him to be ready to deal with the media and any fallout, business and personal. He told me his family was furious with him.”

  “An understatement,” Cullifer said absently. He sat back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and tapped his fingers together. “He also told me he’d told Jacqueline and his daughters. They were exceedingly upset, as you can imagine. Jacqueline wanted him to keep quiet. They had several extended phone conversations about it.”

  “Were you furious with him?” Rachael asked.

  Cullifer said after a moment, “To be honest, I was devastated. You see, I knew something was wrong with Jimmy, knew it to my soul. I remember how distracted he was, how there were new lines on his face—a face, I might add, that was always youthful until the last year or so. But you know, I got caught up in a lawsuit and any concerns about Jimmy dropped out of my mind. Until it was too late. And then you came back from Sicily and told me what you were going to do, Rachael.”

  Rachael said, “The guilt was eating him alive; that’s why he was going to confess everything.”

  Cullifer said, “Yes, I know. Now, like everyone else who heard the FBI press conference, I wondered and wondered who would want Jimmy dead. Who would take such a risk? And believe me, killing a United States senator is a huge risk. The thing is, even after Agent Savich said he was murdered, for the life of me I couldn’t figure out a motive, not for Laurel or Quincy, not for his ex-wife, who’s very well off financially, believe me, or any of his colleagues. I honestly can’t imagine any of them killing him to avoid a scandal—that’s simply too far out there.”

  Cullifer looked thoughtful. “Tell the world what he did—I told him it would mean the end of his career, it would mean a huge scandal, a lawsuit to break the bank, it would have meant beggaring the estate, depending on the sharks the little girl’s family hired. But most of all, I told him he would be tried and convicted of vehicular homicide and go to jail.

  “Of course he knew all this. He also fully realized his family would be dragged into it—Laurel and Stefanos, and Quincy, all his staff on the Hill, me because I’ve been his lawyer for nearly forever.”

  Jack said, “Regardless, someone took it upon him- or herself to silence him. Rachael is convinced it’s Laurel and Quincy.”

  Brady asked, “You’re certain only these people knew what he was preparing to do?”

  “As far as we know,” Jack said.

  “This was why Jimmy had stopped drinking and driving his car?”

  Rachael nodded. “After he killed the little girl, he never took another drink, and never drove his car again. That’s what he told me and I believed him.”

  “During the press conference, Agent Savich mentioned that a woman was involved.”

  Jack said, “Yes, we think so. But we don’t yet know who hired her.”

  Rachael said, “Sir, do you think Laurel and Quincy could have murdered Jimmy?”

  Cullifer arched a sleek eyebrow at her. “Laurel? Quincy? Kill their own brother? Evidently you believe it. As for me, Rachael, I don’t know. Again, the motive isn’t strong enough. I would prefer Greg Nichols, only because I don’t know him well. And he would indeed go to jail when Jimmy confessed.”

  He shook his head. “A real-life assassin, and you brought her down in the Barnes & Noble in Georgetown. Amazing.”

  Rachael said, “There’s something else, Mr. Cullifer. Jimmy was committed to telling the truth. After he died, as you know, I decided to make his confession for him because it was what he planned to do, and what he wanted to do. And I told those same people, to prepare them, just as I told you.”

  Cullifer didn’t say a word, just continued giving her that emotionless lawyer look until she said, “Someone has tried to kill me—three times.”

  It was rare to see a good lawyer caught off-guard. Cullifer leaped to his feet. “No! I can’t believe that, no, Rachael, it simply—” He stopped dead in his tracks. “That’s why you’re with an FBI agent, isn’t it? He’s protecting you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Because you plan to make Jimmy’s confession for him and someone is trying to stop you.”

  “Yes. I can think of no other reason.”

  “Are you still going to make his confession?”

  “I don’t know. I was sure about my reasons, sure about what Jimmy wanted, but now, I don’t know.”

  “It is a difficult question,” Cullifer said, and nothing more.

  Rachael said, “Several people have pointed out that it’s an ethical question. How can I presume to have Jimmy’s entire life judged by one incident, and I’m assured that is what would happen. I don’t know what to do, Mr. Cullifer.”

  “Are you sti
ll certain it’s what he would have done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do it and the fallout be damned.”

  They spoke to Brady Cullifer for another ten minutes. When he hugged Rachael good-bye, she said, “Thank you for accepting me as Jimmy’s daughter, sir. Thank you for your kindness.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to accept you, Rachael, not initially, despite Jimmy’s enthusiasm. I should tell you I hired an investigator to do a thorough check on you and your mother. That was what convinced me. And I didn’t charge your father for the investigator’s time.” He patted her cheek. “You’re an Abbott now, Rachael, all right and proper. If you choose to be his spokesperson, then I’ll be behind you one hundred percent.”

  FORTY-ONE

  They ate lunch at a taqueria known for its guacamole and chips, then took an array of photos back to Millie at the diner near Black Rock Lake.

  Millie was busy, and they waited. When she dropped into the seat next to them in a booth, Jack handed her a series of black-and-white shots. She looked at Donley Everett’s photo carefully, the man Jack shot in the kitchen at Slipper Hollow. She shook her head and picked up Clay Huggins’s photo, the man he shot and killed at Slipper Hollow, studied it for a good minute, then regretfully shook her head again. The same for Marion Croop. Jack handed her Roderick Lloyd’s photo, the man who walked right into Roy Bob’s garage in Parlow and started shooting. She shook her head again.

  Rachael was nearly out of hope when Jack looked down at the last photo, then handed it to Millie.

  Millie studied it, then looked up at them. “Now isn’t this a kick? I would have sworn it was a guy who came in last Friday night and ordered the two coffees, but it’s her”—she stabbed the photo with her finger—“all dressed up like a guy.”

  Jack and Rachael stared at Perky’s—aka Pearl Compton’s—photo.

  Rachael’s heart was pounding. “You’re certain, Millie?”

  “Yeah, all that blond hair—if you look at her and think black hair, then it becomes clear. Yes, Agent, it’s her. I’m sure.”