Back in the States, he’d gotten start-up money from an American Express program, and had put together software that integrated digital radio receivers with mapping programs for low-level infantrymen. The receiver was worn on the wrist, like a large watch, and, among other things, could provide real-time aerial views of combat scenes at the platoon and squad level, as well as linked graphic displays to coordinate maneuvers at the company, platoon, and squad levels. Just like a video game, Jake thought, if you didn’t mind a really bloody “Game Over.”
By seven o’clock, he had everything that was nonclassified. If he needed more, he could go to Novatny, but he was reluctant to do that until he saw where things were headed. Satisfied with the morning’s research, he went to his newspapers, journals, and mail.
The Times had a two-column right-corner headline on Bowe, while the Post stripped the story across the top of the front page. Neither story had anything he didn’t know, except that an autopsy had been scheduled for last night.
At eight o’clock, he got Novatny on the phone: “What happened with the autopsy?”
“This is confidential,” the FBI man said. He crunched, as though he were chewing a carrot.
“I’m a confidential guy,” Jake said.
“I’m just saying . . .”
“Yeah, yeah . . .”
“For one thing, the chemistry will take a while. But: he was dead when they set him on fire, though recently dead. He’d been shot right dead in the heart. In the heart at least. We don’t know about the head, of course.”
“Did they recover any of the slug?”
“Yes, they did. Deformed, but useful,” Novatny said. “A copper-jacketed .45-caliber hollow point. As it happens, we recovered a .45-caliber pistol in Carl Schmidt’s house yesterday evening, hidden in the basement. It was full of copper-jacketed .45-cal hollow points with Schmidt’s fingerprints on them. I would bet my mother’s virtue that we’re gonna get a match on the slug.”
“Whoa.”
“My thought exactly,” Novatny said.
“When will you know?” Jake asked.
“A while. But today. Don’t want to screw this up.”
“I’m surprised that you didn’t get a through-and-through.”
“Well, you know, .45s aren’t exactly speed demons. With hollow points, they’re throwing a slug that looks like an ashtray, ballistically, and this one hit a vertebra after passing through the heart, and stuck. It’s hard to tell because of the burning, but the autopsy showed some kind of unusual debris in the wound canal, so it might have gone through something else before it hit him.”
“Weird debris? Like what?”
“Gotta wait for the chemistry,” Novatny said. “But it wasn’t a shirt, there were no fabric fibers. They’re working it.”
“Call me when you get it,” Jake said.
“Could get some of it today. Won’t get all of it for a couple of days.”
After he’d hung up, Jake leaned back in his desk chair, closed his eyes, and thought about it. If Schmidt was the killer, not only was he stupid, but he’d dumped Arlo Goodman in a political trash can. The media no longer dealt so much in facts, which had become unfashionable, as in speculation. And once they started speculating on Schmidt’s involvement with the Watchmen, and the Goodman-Bowe feud, combined with the sensational way Bowe had died . . .
He thought again: Should he make the call? An anonymous call about Bowe’s gay lifestyle would stop the investigation short. The news media had always been thoroughly hypocritical about sex, publicly preaching tolerance for anything but child sex, while at the same time exploiting any sign of sexual irregularity by politicians or other celebrities.
Stilclass="underline" he hesitated.
Did he really want to stop the investigation? In terms of his job, it would certainly be expedient, even if it led to an incorrect conclusion. And he felt the pull of his loyalty to Danzig. He should tell Danzig.
And he would, he decided: but just a little later. Maybe after he talked to Barber, after he’d looked into a few more things . . .
Two phone calls, the first to Danzig, to bring him up-to-date on everything but the gay stuff. The second to Ralph Goines, Arlo Goodman’s assistant.
Jake identified himself: “I need some information immediately, or as fast as you can put it together. I need to know when you first started putting out feelers about Schmidt and how you did that. Did anyone see or talk to him after you started putting out feelers? Is there any way to know whether or not Schmidt knew you were looking for him?”
He expected Goines to get back. Instead, Goines said, “Hold on. I’m going to put this phone down, I could be a minute or two.”
Jake held on, heard music in the background. Country-western, he thought. Then Goines picked up. “We began talking about him on the first, April Fools’ day. He was still around. We had a guy named Andy Duncan stop by and chat with him about Bowe’s disappearance. Duncan went as a Watchman, but he’s also an accident investigator for the highway patrol, and he knows what he’s doing. He got back to us and said Schmidt seemed to have missed the news stories that Bowe was gone. Remember, the stories weren’t that big, it was more like, ‘Where has the senator gone to?’ ”
“Okay. The point being that somebody asked him specifically about Bowe after Bowe disappeared.”
“Yes. Then he worked in a roadhouse down there, as a bartender. A couple of Watchmen talked to him the day after that, and probably the day after that, too, although we haven’t nailed that down. This was what, ten days ago. Anyway, when the newspaper stories started getting bigger, and we got a couple more guys wondering about Schmidt, we went down to see him again, and he was gone.”
“So this would be a week ago.”
“Don’t quote me, but it was about that. We can put a precise timeline together and e-mail it to you.”
“Mmm. That’s okay. Listen, I can’t give you the precise information I have, because it’s classified. But—everybody will know this in a next few hours—the hunt for Carl Schmidt is about to go big-time.”
“They found something.”
“Yes. Tell your boss. Way the media works, they could be holding his feet to the fire.”
Jake kicked back in the chair again, closed his eyes. Schmidt. He needed to know more about the guy. Because Schmidt had struck him as a loser, but not necessarily a moron.
If he’d been warned that people were curious about Bowe’s disappearance and his possible involvement, would he still have hidden the gun in the house? If he really wanted to keep it that badly, he could have put it in a couple of Ziploc bags and ditched it out in the woods. He could recover it in two minutes, but nobody would have found it in a hundred years . . .
And that scratched semicircle on the floor of the basement. He’d been pleased with himself for detecting the possibility that the bench had been moved so somebody could stand on it. But now that he thought about it, Schmidt might as well have painted an arrow pointing to the hiding place. Was he really that dumb?
He dug around in his briefcase, found the note that had been given to him by Goodman’s treacherous intern, Cathy Ann Dorn. If he could catch her before she went to work, maybe he could get a little insight on the Goodman team’s reaction. He dialed the number on the paper, and a young woman answered: “Delta-Delta-Delta. How can I help you?”
“What?”
“TriDelts. How can I help you?”
He was nonplussed. A sorority house? “Uh . . . do you have a Miss Cathy Ann Dorn?”