“She’s not an Arlington cop, is she?” Levy said.
“No, sir. All I could find out about her is that she’s ex-army enlisted and works for the Department of Defense. DOD personnel records identify her as a GS-Eleven procurement specialist, but her file has nothing in it that identifies exactly what she does or which division she works for. And a title like procurement specialist is not much help; she could be procuring anything from combat boots to tanks.
“I mean, this is really strange,” Perkins added. “I’m certain this woman is connected in some way to the Pentagon, but it’s like her personnel records have been sanitized.”
Levy just stood there, looking at the two pictures of Alberta Merker still visible on the monitor. He didn’t say anything, but he was thinking that the Department of Defense employed over two million military personnel and almost a million civilians. It was spread over the entire planet and had more departments, divisions, and bureaucratic niches than anyone could possibly imagine or keep track of. The fact that Merker’s personnel records were incomplete didn’t necessarily mean that someone was trying to hide the identity of her employer-but he suspected that in this case someone was.
“Where does she live?” Levy asked.
“College Park, Maryland, according to her tax returns. Also, per her tax returns, she’s single. But I don’t know if she lives alone or not.”
When Levy didn’t say anything, Perkins added, “Sir, if you told me why you’re interested in this woman, maybe I’d be able to get more data.”
“You don’t need to know anything else,” Levy said. “All you need to know is that she’s a security risk and I don’t want you talking about her to anyone.”
“Yes, sir.”
Levy turned to leave, then, realizing he’d been too harsh with the man, he said, “You did a good job on this, Perkins, and I appreciate it. And I’d tell you more if I could. It’s just that the situation with this woman is very sensitive.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
For your sake, I hope not, Levy thought.
13
DeMarco ate a can of chili for dinner and, while he ate, he felt sorry for himself. Mahoney’s absence was a gift-a gift that was now being squandered because he was wasting his time dealing with his cousin’s death. He also wondered what the hell the FBI was doing. He agreed with Glazer, the Arlington cop, that something very odd was going on.
He grabbed a beer from his refrigerator and went into his den to watch the evening news, but just as he was about to turn on the television his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID but the number was blocked.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hi, it’s me.”
It was Angela. Thank God. He could picture her: the long dark hair, the laughing eyes, the trim body he loved.
“Are you back?” he asked, hoping like hell that she was. She’d only been gone a few days, and he couldn’t believe how much he missed her.
“No. And I probably shouldn’t even be calling you, but I just wanted to let you know I was all right and that I was thinking about you.”
“I know you can’t tell me exactly where you are, but are you someplace safe? Tell me you’re not running around in the mountains looking for al-Qaeda guys in caves.”
She didn’t answer for a moment, as if she was trying to choose her words carefully. “I’m in a safe place, so don’t worry about me. I can’t tell you any more than that, because if the NSA intercepted this phone call I could get in trouble.”
“The NSA!” he said. “You think they’re listening to this?”
“No, not really, but you can never tell with those guys.”
“Well, in case they are, let’s give them something interesting to hear. Tell me what you’re not wearing.”
“Don’t be silly. Anyway, I miss you and I love you.”
“I miss you too. When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know.” To change the subject, she asked him what he’d been doing. He told her Mahoney was in the hospital, nothing serious, and he’d been planning to play golf until his boss returned to work. He was just about to tell her about his cousin getting killed when he heard a thud in the background and she said, “Joe, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll call you again as soon as I can.”
The thud could have been anything-something falling off a shelf, a door slamming-so why did he think it was an explosion? God, he hated her job.
He turned on the television, listened to the local news as he sipped his beer-and tried not to think about Angela in Afghanistan. The anchorman was yapping about a Washington Post reporter being missing, saying how the reporter had been an investigative journalist and had broken a number of big political stories. DeMarco had never heard of the guy. Except for the sports page, he rarely paid attention to the bylines in the paper.
The newscaster went on to say that management at the Post was concerned that the reporter’s disappearance could be related to whatever he was working on, although his editor didn’t know what that could be. Which made DeMarco think that maybe they oughta supervise their damn people a little bit closer. It sounded to him like a reporter could goof around all day and his bosses wouldn’t have a clue what he was doing.
Kind of like DeMarco.
The last thing the news guy said was the reporter drove a yellow Volkswagen bug, last year’s model, and if anyone saw one abandoned someplace, they should call the DC cops.
Volkswagen bug. What man would drive one of those? DeMarco wondered. They were cute cars. Cute was, in fact, their defining quality. They were the cars rich daddies bought their college-age daughters when they sent them off to school.
The news gal who was paired up with the news guy-for some reason they always worked in pairs, like it takes two people to read a teleprompter-was now talking about some brand of pet food that was making cats sick. This had happened before and the public was going nuts and it sounded to DeMarco as if the FDA was spending more money on the problem than they would have spent if people were dying.
His mind switched lanes again, back to his cousin. If Paul wasn’t mugged and if he wasn’t selling drugs, why was he killed at one in the morning? He could have been meeting someone-maybe a lover like he’d told Jane, the hospice boss-and they had some kind of lethal spat. But that didn’t sound right either, not from everything he’d heard about Paul. And why meet your lover at a public park at one in the morning? No, it was something else.
Paul was a nurse who helped people die. What if one of his patients had told him something? What if some guy on his deathbed had gasped out I did this terrible thing or I know this horrible secret about so-and-so. Then what? Paul tries to blackmail somebody? Nah, he wouldn’t do that. But what if he’d decided to tell a reporter about something he’d learned from a patient? That was a stretch, but possible. The problem with that bright idea was the time. Why the hell would he be telling a reporter something at one in the morning? And why even meet with a reporter? Why not just call the reporter?
Whatever the case, there was something he really wanted to know: the name of Paul’s last patient. Good ol’ Jane had refused to tell him.
He picked up the remote to change the channel, to watch something less depressing than the news, when the female newscaster said, “This just came in. Speaker of the House John Mahoney is reported to be in a coma at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Speaker Mahoney was admitted to the hospital two days ago for a routine gallbladder operation, but-”
DeMarco turned off the television and immediately called Mahoney’s chief of staff, a man named Perry Wallace. Wallace was bound to know more than the press. Wallace said that after they removed Mahoney’s gallbladder everything looked fine, but then he got some kind of infection, something called gram-negative septic shock, and went into a coma.