“I learned that Marsha Erickson is scared to death of Christopher Farrington,” Brad answered. “I bet he paid her off and she’s smart enough to know that you don’t double-cross the president of the United States.”
“I bet you would have learned a lot more if I’d been along. She would have related better to a woman.”
“I don’t think so. I’m not kidding when I say she was scared. As soon as I mentioned Farrington she panicked.”
“Damn.”
“I tried.”
Ginny took hold of his hand. “I know you did, and you’re probably right about her not talking to me, either.” She sighed. “Without Erickson’s mother we have nothing.”
“We tried our best. Now all we can do is hope that Paul Baylor proves that Laurie Erickson’s pinkie isn’t in the Mason jar and whoever Tuchman’s got working on the case goes to the police.”
“There’s not much chance of that with the Dragon Lady supervising. You said yourself that she’s Farrington’s big buddy.”
“If I tell you something will you promise not to get mad at me?” Brad asked Ginny.
“That would depend on what you tell me.”
“I’m relieved that Mrs. Erickson wouldn’t talk to me and that we have no further leads. I don’t like Clarence Little one bit. He’s a sick bastard who deserves to be on death row. This case is probably going to cost me my job, and it might have put your position with the firm in jeopardy if Tuchman learned you’ve been helping me, so I’m glad it’s over for us. There, I’ve said my piece. If you want to hate me, go right ahead.”
Ginny squeezed Brad’s hand. “I don’t hate you and I’m sorry the case has caused you so much trouble. It’s just that…Damn it, I believe in our system of justice. If it’s going to mean anything at all it’s got to work for scum like Little as well as for the decent people who get in trouble. But you’re right, enough is enough. I won’t get on you anymore about the case. I’ll even take some of your workload off your hands so you can catch up.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but two of the partners I work with are on vacation, so I’ve got some free time. And I want you to have some free time because I’m horny.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Damn, I was hoping to catch a few innings of the Yankee game.”
Ginny stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Who would you rather sleep with, me or George Steinbrenner?”
“How long do I have to make up my mind?” Brad asked with a grin.
Ginny grabbed Brad by the ear and pulled him to his feet. “Get in the bedroom, Bradford Miller, before I really get mad.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Dana Cutler drove aimlessly to give the adrenaline in her system time to subside. Then she gassed up and headed for Pennsylvania. She spent the night sleeping in a farmer’s field then drove through Ohio on back roads, spending the next night in an abandoned warehouse outside of Columbus. Dana was in the middle of a meal at a fast-food place in Des Moines, Iowa, when she decided that she couldn’t keep running. She had a lot of money, but it would be gone eventually, and the forces hunting her were much better at finding people than she was at escaping detection. She knew that for a fact after what had happened at the Traveler’s Rest. If she was going to survive, she was going to have to fight back, but how?
Dana abandoned Jake’s bike in the rear of the restaurant. She felt bad about ditching the Harley, but she couldn’t risk riding it anymore. She vowed to buy Jake a new one if this one wasn’t returned to him and if she wasn’t dead or in prison.
After dyeing her auburn hair jet-black in the bathroom of a gas station, Dana put on the glasses she’d saved from her escape from The 911 and changed into a plain, loose-fitting print dress that made her look poor and pathetic. Then she walked a mile to the public library on Grand Avenue, intent on learning as much as she could about Christopher Farrington in the hope that the key to her survival lay somewhere in Farrington’s past.
Any president has access to scores of trained killers. He is, after all, the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States. But there’s a difference between sending an army to fight a country’s enemies and murdering a college coed. Dana didn’t doubt that Farrington had access to people who would obey the order of a president to kill a helpless civilian, but where would he have found such a person on short notice? Unless Farrington had planned to kill Charlotte Walsh before he asked her to come to the farm, the decision had been made after she left the farm and before she returned to her car in the mall parking lot. That suggested that the killer was someone very close to the president.
Dana followed a young couple inside and wandered through the library until she located an open computer. She logged on with the password from the motel and started to Google “Christopher Farrington,” but she stopped in midstroke. At the motel, she’d been reading something when the TV news report of Charlotte Walsh’s death interrupted her. What was it? Dana shut her eyes and tried to remember. A murder! That was it. Charles Hawkins had been a witness in a murder case in Oregon, something to do with a teenage babysitter.
Dana’s fingers flew over the keyboard. In a few moments she had the case name. Seconds later, she had a number of hits by using the name “Clarence Little.” The more she learned about the murder of Laurie Erickson the more confident she was that Charles Hawkins and the president had copied Little’s modus operandi in Oregon and Eric Loomis’s in D.C. to cover up the murders of two teenagers who had become threats to Farrington. A newspaper story informed her that Clarence Little was challenging his conviction for the murder of Laurie Erickson by claiming an alibi for the time of Erickson’s death. Eric Loomis was denying that he was culpable for Charlotte Walsh’s death. Dana saw a pattern starting to develop. Later that evening, she got on a bus headed for Portland, Oregon, where Brad Miller, the attorney of record for Clarence Little, was practicing law.
Chapter Thirty-five
Keith Evans stayed at the hospital with Maggie Sparks while the doctors stitched up her cheek. The wound was nasty but the damage was all cosmetic. Maggie joked that the scar would make her look tough. Evans drove her home after she was discharged and offered to stay with her, but she said she’d be fine. When Evans finally got to sleep it was three in the morning and he didn’t get up until eight.
At the office, Evans was bombarded with questions as soon as he stepped out of the elevator. He assured everyone that he and Maggie were okay. He had almost reached his office when Justice Kineer’s secretary grabbed him and led him to the justice’s office for a private, detailed account of the motel shoot-out.
Evans finally made it to his office at ten-thirty. The first thing he noticed was a thick folder sitting squarely in the center of his desk. He sat down and read the tab. It was Dana Cutler’s classified file. Evans opened it and blinked. He found himself looking at photographs that documented a scene so gruesome that it took a while for his brain to process it.
Three men were sprawled on the floor in different parts of a rec room. There was a pool table in the middle of the scene, and Evans noticed a pool cue on the floor next to the right arm of one of the victims, a burly, bearded man wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. When he looked closer, Evans realized that the man’s right hand was not connected to the arm. He also noticed several deep, slashing wounds on the man’s face, neck, chest, and legs. The body was drenched in blood.
Evans shuffled through the stack of photographs. The other men had also been hacked to pieces. Evans tried to remember if he’d ever seen such carnage and the closest he could come to it was an act of Russian Mafia vengeance that had wiped out an entire family. But those murders had been carried out unemotionally in an orderly manner because the executioners had been interested in sending a message. These killings suggested pure savagery.