“Okay, I give up,” Sherman said. “Where the hell did that thing come from?” “And how?” she said. “This car was locked. I think I want to call a cop.”
“I agree, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“What if it’s loaded with heroin or cocaine or something?
And it’s in your locked car?”
That got her attention. She looked back down at the driver’s seat and felt a small tingle of alarm. A syringe. An empty syringe, from the looks of it. The plunger was depressed all the way into the barrel. She felt helpless. Call a cop? Or reach in there, pick it up, and throw it into that Dumpster over there? Where had this thing come from? She looked up at Sherman, who was obviously having the same thought that she was: Galantz. This was just like the note.
The cabin light in the car went out, as if the car was tired of Waiting for them. The admiral reached forward and opened the door. The light came back on.
“You’re sure you locked it?”
“I’m sure. I always lock it.”
“Just like I always lock my front door. So whoever did this was able to open the door without damaging it. Just like the front door of my house.”
“I still think we should call the cops,” she said again.
“Get word to Mcnair, or at least a patrol car.”
He reached in and picked up the syringe, touching only the edges of the flange nearest the needle. He smelled the needle, then withdrew the plunger a bit, again touching only the edges of the upper flange. She could see a tiny speck of red on the bottom of the barrel, below the zero line. He handed it to her gingerly, pointing out the speck.
“Do you suppose that’s blood?” she asked.
Suddenly, there was a blaze of bright headlights as a car came diagonally down the parking lot and headed directly for them. Only when it had pulled up fight next to her car did she realize that it was a police car. She suddenly felt very vulnerable, standing there in the parking lot, in uniform, with a, syringe in her hand. Two police officers got out and walked casually around the nose of the cruiser to the driver’s side of her car.
“Evening, sir. Ma’am. Got a problem here?” the taller one asked, eyeing the syringe. The other cop, a woman, was peering into Karen’s car with her flashlight.
“Yes, we do,” Sherman said. “I’m Admiral Sherman.
This is Commander Lawrence. We just had dinner in that Greek restaurant there. When we came out, we found this lying in the front seat.” Karen handed the syringe, point up, to the policeman, who took it and held it the same way Sherman had been holding it, by the edge of the top flange.
“We got a call that some Navy guy was shooting up drugs in the parking lot,” the cop said, looking first at the syringe and then at Sherman.
The policewoman had moved to the other side of the - car and was pointing her flashlight into the backseat area. Karen tried to remember what she might have back there.
“Well, I guess I can understand that,” Sherman said.
“We were just about to call you guys. This is Commander Lawrence’s car.
It was locked when we went into dinner, and there’s no sign of forced entry.”
“Yeah,” the cop said. “Can I see some ID there, Adimral?
Commander?”
Sherman fished his wallet out and flashed his Navy ID card. Karen fumbled in her purse for her wallet. She was angry to see that her hands were trembling. The policewoman came back around the rear of Sherman’s car and shook her head at the other cop.
“Give me an evidence bag, will you, Carrie?” . he said.
“One with one of those test-tube dealies in it. So, you found this thing where, exactly, Admiral?”
“Right on the driver’s seat. We saw it after Commander Lawrence activated the remote lock system and the interior light came on. It was out in plain view, as if whoever put it there wanted to make sure we saw it.”
“And you’re sure you locked the’doors, Commander?” ‘me cop sounded as if he was starting to get bored with it all. The policewoman was back with an evidence bag The cop handed the syringe to his partner, who dropped it gingerly into a tube in the evidence bag and took it back to the cruiser’ The cop took out his notebook.
“Yes, positive,” Karen said. Sherman asked him if he knew Detective Mcnair in the Homicide Section.
The cop stopped writing in his notebook and gave Sherman a suspicious look. A car went by, the driver slowing to gawk. Karen suddenly felt very conspicuous in her uniform. She could only imagine how the admiral felt.
“Mcnair? Sure. What’s he got to do with this, sir?”
“We just finished a meeting with him. This syringe may relate to a case he’s working, one that involves me. Can you make sure he knows about this?” -The cop put his finger in his notebook to hold his place and gave Sherman a perplexed look. “This something we should do right now, Admiral? Call the homicide people?”
Sherman shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Well, actually, I don’t know. I’m involved in a stalking situation, which may be related to a possible homicide. That’s where Mcnair comes in. I know, this isn’t making much sense.”
The other cop came back with a clipboard full of forms and handed them to the first cop. “You want a Breathalyzer kit?” she asked. “If not, I’ll go ahead and clear us.”
The first cop shook his head, and she went back to the car and got on the radio. The first cop took down their identification data. When he was finished, he put away-his notebook.
“Well, okay, Admiral. We’ll turn this thing in as a suspicious-incident report, and I’ll make sure a copy gets to Mcnair and company. I’ll forward this item to the police lab for analysis. You understand, Commander, it’s your car: If there’re drugs in this thing, you both may have some explaining to do.”
“I understand,” Karen said.
“Thank you, Officer,” Sherman said. “Please don’t forget about Mcnair.”
The cop nodded as he climbed back into the cruiser.
Karen suddenly needed to sit down and got into the Mercedes. Sherman walked around to the passenger side and got in. For a moment, they just sat there. His face was in shadow when he spoke.
“We were being watched,” he said. “That cop car was here too quickly.
Whoever put that thing in the car waited for us to come out, then called the cops.”
She swallowed but did not reply. She started the car, turned it toward the main entrance, and then turned right onto Old Dominion. “That’s a scary thought,” she said.
“But the good news is that nine-one-one calls can be traced.
Even if it turns out to be a pay phone, the call and the syringe are the first tangible evidence that something’s going on. This should also help to convince Mcnair that Galantz is real.”
“Maybe,” he said after a moment. “But I can see his problem: He has only my word for it that I got that letter, And he could make the case that I could have put that syringe in your car. That would explain how it got there without forcible entry.”
“But you were with me the whole time,” she protested.
“Think about it” was all he said as she turned in to his town house development.
Karen did think about it as she drove home. Train von Rensel had inferred something similar earlier. But why would the admiral commit murder? She had seen his house in Mclean. Money as a motive to kill his exgirlfriend seemed implausible to her. And Mrs. Klein had been first and foremost Elizabeth’s friend, and she wouldn’t be nice to Sherman if he had been some kind of bastard toward Elizabeth Walsh.