“I don’t think they’ll find it,” Rodgers said.
“Talk to me,” McCaskey said.
“The night after the murder, I had dinner with my traveling companion,” Rodgers told him. He was being nonspecific because of the unsecure line. “When I got there, she was talking with your target. My companion had a shopping bag. She told me it contained comfortable shoes, Nikes, which she never put on. She is wearing high heels now as well. I’m thinking—”
“She may have given her the dress for disposal after I exposed the crime,” McCaskey said.
“Correct.”
“That was the night of the second crime,” McCaskey said.
“Also right.”
“Got a name on that shopping bag?” McCaskey asked.
“Groveburn,” Rodgers said. “Yellow plastic, red rope handles.”
“We’ll look into it at once,” McCaskey said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find the hypodermic there as well.” He turned the car around and headed toward Kat’s apartment on the corner of New Hampshire and N Street. “One more thing. What is her attitude about all of this, Mike?”
“She is acting more offended than guilty,” Rodgers said. “If she is worried, she’s being very cool about it.”
“An operation like this would not hitch its wagon to a bunch of Jittery Janes,” McCaskey said. “Mike, thanks for this. I’ll leave a message if we find anything. Meanwhile, watch your back.”
“Never been good at that, Darrell,” Rodgers said. “Good or bad, the future’s in front of you.”
Rodgers hung up, and McCaskey handed the phone to Maria. “Mike is getting philosophical,” McCaskey said. “That means he’s worried.”
“Mike is always worried,” Maria said.
“True,” her husband replied. “But most of that is usually on the surface. This is coming from inside.”
McCaskey briefed his wife, who asked what he thought Rodgers might be worried about.
“That Kat could be guilty,” McCaskey told her.
“Of what? Does he think she could have masterminded it?”
“I don’t know if he believes that,” McCaskey said. “My own feeling is that someone like Link had to be involved. Not only because of the sophistication and coordination of the kills, but because it would be difficult to execute without someone covering for them inside Orr’s office.”
“Which brings me back to why,” Maria said. “Could this really be all about money, about Wilson’s plans for boosting European investments?”
“It could,” her husband replied. “We’ll know that when we talk to the people who did it.”
“Assuming we get them,” Maria said.
“We will,” McCaskey said confidently.
“At Interpol Madrid, our success rate solving homicides was a little over sixty percent.”
“We did a little better than that at the Bureau, but not enough,” McCaskey said. “That was one reason I joined Op-Center. Results change when people like you, Mike, and Bob Herbert are added to the process.”
“Your tactics also have changed,” Maria pointed out. “We just did a break and enter.”
“That is true, though I look at it as exploratory surgery. It sounds more benevolent than criminal.”
“Sweetheart, there is nothing criminal about what we are planning,” Maria said with absolute confidence. “We have a clear objective and will limit ourselves to that. Ms. Lockley will never know, unless we find something, in which case we will be in a position to step back and build a stronger case.”
“We are still invading her privacy,” he said. “We are still ignoring the Bill of Rights.”
“What we are planning is less of a crime than those committed against Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lawless,” Maria replied. “If we can stop a third homicide, then it is a risk worth taking.”
“Obviously, I agree, or I would not be doing it,” McCaskey said as he turned onto N Street. “But I am not going to pretend it is legal.”
“To me, legal is less important than moral,” Maria said. “My conscience is not going to bother me tonight, whatever we find.”
There was no explaining to Maria the American idea of personal rights. That was as pointless as arguing against Maria’s logic. One was an absolute, the foundation of a national philosophy, the other was airtight. The only way to sidestep either was by embracing the other. McCaskey had made his choice.
The apartment building was a three-story, white brick structure. There was an outside door with a lock, a foyer for mail, and an inside door that led to the apartments. They would have to go through two locks before they reached the apartment. That would not be a problem. McCaskey carried a magnetic snap gun in his car. The original snap gun was developed in the 1960s so that law officers who were not trained lockpicks could open doors using something other than traditional raking techniques — that is, inserting a pair of picks and searching for the proper combination to turn the lock. The snap gun generated torque that simply muscled the lock back. It also tended to bend or destroy the lock, evidence that someone had forced their way in. The magnetic gun generated a powerful magnetic force in whatever direction the user indicated. It popped the lock and any interior dead bolts in an instant.
McCaskey and his wife approached the door. They had decided, if asked, that she was looking for an apartment and he was a broker. He put the point of the palm-size unit into the keyhole. He used his thumb to adjust the directional vector to the right. The lock opened immediately. The couple moved into the foyer, where they got a free pass. A resident was just coming out and opened the door. McCaskey dropped a pen and stooped to pick it up as the man passed. He did not want his face to be seen. Then McCaskey and Maria went inside. Since the elevator had a security camera, they took the stairs to Kat’s third-floor apartment. There were five other apartments on the floor. While Maria watched the doors, her husband took a palm-size disk from his jacket pocket. He put it against the door-jamb. It was an ampere detector. If the door were wired with a burglar alarm, this would show current. He watched the digital readout. There was nothing. Although there could still be a motion detector inside, most urban apartments, especially newer buildings such as this one, had been prewired for perimeter entry. McCaskey used the snap gun to open the knob lock and dead bolt. McCaskey put the snap gun in his jacket pocket and removed a pair of leather gloves. He pulled them on so he would not leave fingerprints. The couple went inside.
The shades were drawn, and the apartment was dark. There was a small penlight attached to McCaskey’s key chain. He flicked it on. Neighbors might know that Kat was away. He did not want them seeing lights behind the shades.
They were in a small corridor that led to the living room. McCaskey swung the light across the floor to look for pet hair. If Kat had a pet, she might also have a walker, someone to come by and take it out. He saw no traces of fur, nor did they hear anything. They started forward.
“I do not smell a fireplace,” Maria said.
“I know,” her husband replied.
They entered the living room. There was no fireplace there or in the master bedroom. They searched Kat’s closets for the bag Rodgers had described.
“That’s a good sign,” Maria said after they had finished looking in the kitchen cabinets.
“Why do you say that?”
“Those are the kinds of bags women save,” she said. “They make good gift bags or tote bags. Ms. Lockley had other bags in the broom closet. She obviously got rid of this one.”
“Intriguing but circumstantial,” her husband replied. He looked around. He went to the bookshelf and pulled down her college and high school yearbooks. He flipped through them, looking for a name that might have come up during the investigation, a possible collaborator. There was none.