“I’m listening,” Zanesworth said.
“Maybe it was someone who Captain Cooke had flown, someone who was comfortable with Cooke. And who Cooke trusted. Shit,” Justin said, “I think I just answered my first question. No wonder you paid attention.”
“I’m not confirming anything,” Zanesworth told him.
“And I’m not done talking.” Justin told him about Hutchinson Cooke now, about the rigged manifold in his plane, about going to talk to Cooke’s wife and how, a day later, they were the targets of the McDonald’s suicide bomber. When he heard about the timing of the bomb, Colonel Eugene Zanesworth’s whole body seemed to collapse into the seat.
“You want me to tell you about the other bombs, Colonel? About how they aren’t what you’re being told they are? How the first one was used to murder Bradford Collins and the second one to kill a nasty little guy who worked for the FAA?”
Zanesworth was white as a ghost. “Martin Heffernan?”
“Is he the one who called to tell you that Cooke was dead?”
Zanesworth was staring straight ahead. Justin could tell he was considering his options.
“I can’t prove it, Colonel, but I’m reasonably sure that Heffernan’s the one who killed your captain.” And over the next silence, “If you’re in on it, I promise you I’ll bring you down. If you were just a dupe, which is what I think, I’ll do my best to leave you out of it. But I need the pieces. Now. It’s a big, dangerous puzzle and I’m missing too many pieces to solve it. So first tell me who arranged for Cooke to go to work for Midas.” Then quietly, “Was it the vice president, Colonel? Was it Phil Dandridge?”
“Yes. Yes it was.”
“And who called you to say that Cooke was dead?”
“Heffernan.”
Justin nodded, instantly pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Hey,” he said when Gary Jenkins answered the phone at the East End police station. “Your brother in school?”
“Chief?”
“Let’s skip the formalities, okay? Is your brother in school?”
“Well. . sure. . I guess.”
“I want you to get him out of class.”
“Now?”
“Not just now. Five minutes ago. The school’s what, five blocks from the station?”
“I guess.”
“Well I don’t want you to walk. I want you to drive. And I want you to use your siren. Go ninety. Then get him out of class, take him to the station, and tell him I want him to hack into New York phone company records. He’s done it for me before.”
“Sure. Okay. What do you want him to get?”
“I want the records for all calls coming in and out of Martin Heffernan’s apartment on November sixth, seventh, and eighth. I’m particularly interested in any calls he made to Washington, D.C., on those dates. You got it?”
“Yeah, sure. . uh. .”
“Gary, stop talking and get in the fuckin’ car. You got my cell number?”
“Yeah.”
“Well call me as soon as he has the info. If I know Ben he’ll have it in about ten minutes.” He hung up.
Zanesworth was staring at Justin as if he were a madman. “A schoolboy,” he said. “That’s who you’ve got on your side?”
“You’d be surprised,” Justin said, “what the youth of America is capable of.”
It took thirteen minutes for Gary Jenkins to call back.
“Ben did it,” he said. “But he-”
“Yeah, I know. Whatever he wants is fine.”
“TiVo. The one that tapes eighty hours.”
“Okay. As soon as I get back.”
“He wants the lifetime guarantee, too.”
“Just give me the information, Gary.”
“Okay, okay. There are two calls to D.C.” He read off the first number. “That one was called in the afternoon of the seventh.”
“What’s your phone number?” Justin said to Colonel Zanesworth. “Your office number.”
Zanesworth told him and Justin impatiently said into the phone, “Okay, that one’s confirmed. What’s the next one?” He listened as Gary rattled off the next number. Justin asked him to repeat it one more time. As soon as he heard it again, he hung up without even saying thank you, and immediately dialed.
He heard the voice answer on the other end of the phone, just one word, uttered in that bureaucratic monotone, then three more words, a little bit of life put into those, and Justin didn’t answer. The voice on the other end of the line waited a moment, when there was no response said, “Hello?” and Justin flicked his cell phone shut.
“You better get a story ready for where you’ve been this morning, Colonel.”
“Who answered the phone?”
“Things have just gotten even more complicated. So here’s my suggestion. The lieutenant had some kind of breakdown. You’ll have plenty of witnesses for that. Just say he got out of the car and ran, maybe he threw the keys away and it took you twenty minutes to find them before you could go looking for him.”
“Who answered the phone, son?”
“The Justice Department,” Justin said quietly. “The attorney general’s office.”
“Son of a bitch,” the colonel whispered.
And Justin, in much the same whisper, said, “Yeah. I think that pretty much sums things up nicely.”
25
He didn’t like being back at the house. For one thing, he wanted to get the hell out of Washington and back to East End Harbor. Not that East End would be any safer. But at least it was smaller. Here he felt like he was swimming around in a large fish tank, the only non-shark in the water. And all around him were people watching, just waiting for him to be eaten.
For another thing, being here felt too much like violating the dead.
Justin didn’t believe in ghosts, but sitting in his rental car, staring out at the slightly overgrown lawn with its wintery patches of brown, looking at the silent white two-story house, the suburban lot felt haunted. Justin felt haunted. Right now the whole world felt haunted.
But he knew he didn’t have much time. The place would be cleaned out soon, and Theresa Cooke was beyond caring about anything as trivial as breaking and entering, so Justin forced himself to open the car door and step out into the quiet street. Not breaking stride, determined to look as if he belonged there-as if he weren’t an intruder; as if he weren’t the reason the house was empty and silent and dead-he went up the walk to the front door. It didn’t take him long to break in. Then, inside the foyer, he closed the door behind him and stood still, just listening. All he heard was the silence.
He went upstairs. There were three bedrooms, one master and two for the girls. He was momentarily stymied; he’d only been expecting one extra room, but he figured out which one was Hannah’s-he checked the bookshelves; Reysa, the twelve-year-old, had a higher reading level-and he began his search. It didn’t take long. He tried not to disturb her things. It didn’t make sense, someone would be disturbing them soon enough, packing them up, giving them away, saving them, tossing them into the garbage, whatever, but Justin wanted no part of it. After a few minutes of combing through the dolls and toys, he shifted a large pink stuffed dog off to the side, away from the drawer it was blocking, and inside the drawer he saw what he was looking for.
He’d brought a manila envelope in his gym bag, along with a small piece of bubble wrap, and soon the envelope had a bulge in it. He’d put several dollars’ worth of stamps on it before he left home, figuring that would be plenty. Justin sealed the envelope, and left the little girl’s room, closing the door behind him. Then he was downstairs and out the front door, not bothering to lock it behind him-it made no difference now whether it was open or shut-and he walked back to the car.
Twenty minutes later, he noticed a mailbox on the street, in front of the entrance to a minimall. He pulled the car over, hopped out, and shoved the envelope into the box. He pulled into the mall when he saw a cell phone store. It took him less than fifteen minutes to buy and pay for a new phone with prepaid minutes. He didn’t want to be traced, not for this call, anyway. Using the new phone, he got the number for Bruce’s Gym in Boston. When a woman answered at the other end, Justin said, “Leyla?”