“That’s interesting. He was very calm, very superior, during the questioning, like it amused him. He played mind games with me as soon as I started. But he went ballistic when I mentioned Walsh.”
“What’s your impression?”
“I don’t think he killed her.”
“Whether he did or not, something is going on. I asked for the police reports for the Cutler incident. There is one. Officer Peter Brassos wrote it. He says he and his partner, Jermaine Collins, went to the apartment in response to a 911 report of shots fired. There’s an account of an interview with Miss Goetz that jibes with her version of what happened, but Brassos wrote that he didn’t find any evidence of a shooting in the apartment and there’s no mention of a wounded man being helped out of the apartment.
“I had Brassos’s supervisor set up a meeting. Collins and Brassos told me the door to Cutler’s apartment was unlocked, but there was no one inside and no sign of a shot being fired.”
“What did they say about the wounded man?”
“They told me there wasn’t one.”
“Do you believe them?”
“No. They were nervous all the time I was questioning them. I’m certain they’re covering up something, but I don’t know how we can prove it. There isn’t any evidence that anyone was shot in Cutler’s apartment. I went back and talked to some of the other neighbors. No one admitted that they heard a shot or saw a man being helped out of the place. So what do we do now, boss?”
“I’d like to go to sleep but I’ve been thinking about Dale Perry all afternoon. That fucking gnome pissed me off with that name-dropping bullshit.”
“It’s probably not bullshit. I bet he has tea and crumpets with the AG and our boss every day at four. Guys like that move in circles we can’t even dream about.”
“They also put their pants on one leg at a time, Maggie. I still believe we’re in America where an asshole like Perry is subject to subpoenas and can be perp walked with enough probable cause. So, I’m thinking we pay him a visit and see if we can shake him up a bit. What do you say?”
If you went strictly by mileage Dale Perry’s mansion in McLean, Virginia, wasn’t that far from Keith Evans’s apartment in Bethesda, Maryland. In the real world, the two communities were light-years apart. As far as Evans knew, no Supreme Court justices, members of the Kennedy clan, or former secretaries of defense lived on his block, and none of the homes in Evans’s neighborhood were surrounded by a stone wall and sat on several acres with a view of the Potomac River.
“Old Dale is doing well,” Maggie commented.
“I don’t think we’ll find him begging for handouts anytime soon.”
“Unless the handouts are in the billion-dollar range and earmarked for Boeing or Halliburton.”
“True.”
The trip that started at the Chain Bridge ended at the spear-tipped wrought-iron gate that blocked the driveway to Perry’s house.
“You call on the intercom,” Evans said. “I don’t think he likes me, and you’re young and sexy.”
“That’s two strikes. Ask me to bring you coffee and I’m slapping you with a sexual harassment suit.”
Evans smiled and Sparks leaned out of her window and spoke into a metal box affixed to the wall. They waited, but there was no answer. Sparks noticed a small gap between the two edges of the gate. Out of curiosity, she got out of the car and pushed. The gate eased backward. Sparks pushed harder, and the gate opened enough for Evans to drive through.
“What do you think is going on?” Sparks asked when she was back in the car.
“I don’t know, but the gate shouldn’t open like that, and someone should have answered the intercom.”
Evans experienced a nervous tingle in his gut when Perry’s house came into view. Most of the three-story brick Colonial was dark.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Sparks said.
A driveway curved in front of a portico supported by white columns that contrasted pleasantly with the red brick walls. When Evans got out of the car, it was so quiet he could hear the river flowing behind the estate and the wind pushing through the heavy-leafed trees.
Evans walked under the portico and pressed the doorbell. The agents could hear the bell echo through the house but no one came to the door. Evans leaned forward and tried the doorknob. The door opened. He looked at Sparks, and the agents took out their guns.
Even in shadow the entryway of Perry’s house was impressive. A crystal chandelier hung over a floor laid out in a checkerboard pattern of black and white marble. A polished oak banister curved upward to the second floor along marble stairs. Evans imagined the elegance of the foyer when it was bombarded by the refracted light that would pour from the massive light fixture.
“Mr. Perry,” Evans called loudly. No one answered.
“There,” Sparks said, aiming her weapon down a hall that ran to the right of the staircase. Evans took the point and the agents moved cautiously down a narrow hall toward the light coming from a room at the end. Evans motioned Sparks to one side of the door. When the door was almost open, Evans slid into the room with his gun leading the way, but he knew instantly that the weapon wasn’t necessary. Dale Perry, the room’s only occupant, sat at his desk, his head back and his sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. His right arm hung straight down, and the fingers of his right hand almost touched the smooth side of a.38 Special. An ugly bloodstained wound at his temple was an advertisement for the cause of his death. Evans felt Perry’s neck for a pulse. Then he straightened up and holstered his weapon.
“Call 911.” He sighed. “Tell them we’ve discovered an apparent suicide.”
Chapter Twenty-four
It was the third item on the eleven o’clock news after the lead story about the arrest of the Ripper and a discussion of Claire Farrington’s pregnancy. Dana Cutler heard it while she was sitting on the bed in her motel room with her back against the headboard eating another ham and cheese sandwich. She lost her appetite when the anchorwoman announced the suicide of prominent D.C. attorney Dale Perry.
According to the news report, Perry had worked until 6 P.M. then driven home. His butler said that it was unusual for his employer to come home before eight, and Perry’s chef said that he hadn’t prepared dinner because he had been told that Perry was eating with a client and would be home late. Perry had given his staff the night off with no explanation. Although there would be no official determination of the cause of death until the autopsy was complete, an unidentified source had told a reporter for the station that the death looked like a suicide.
A few things occurred to Dana as she considered the implications of Perry’s death. According to the stories about Walsh’s murder, unidentified sources had told the press that the coed had been abducted from her car in the parking lot of the Dulles Towne Center mall. If Walsh was a Ripper victim that was one thing, but if the Ripper hadn’t killed her, Dana wondered how the killer knew Walsh had parked at the mall and where she was parked. Dale Perry’s mysterious client knew. Dana had phoned the client with the information. With Perry dead it would be impossible to learn the client’s identity.
Dana was certain that Dale Perry was no suicide and that she would die as soon as she was found by the men who’d killed Perry. Dana had been counting on selling her pictures to the president in exchange for money and a guarantee of safety, but with the president undertaking a scorched earth policy it looked like that option was off the table. What to do? Only one other option occurred to her.
The offices of Exposed, Washington, D.C.’s largest circulation supermarket tabloid, occupied two floors of a remodeled warehouse within sight of the Capitol dome in a section of the city that teetered between decay and gentrification. The inflated prices paid by upwardly mobile young professionals for rehabilitated row houses had sent rents soaring and the old established neighborhood businesses scurrying. As a result, trendy new restaurants and boutiques were interspersed with lots filled with construction equipment and abandoned storefronts.