“I’m just curious,” Morris said. “You cover here, I’ll be back in an hour or two.” He went down to the garage and got into their unmarked car. At the Capitol he flashed his badge to get into the garage, then took the elevator up a floor and walked to the office of the Capitol Police.
Morris had had occasion to visit the Capitol on business, and he had always made a point of treating the cops there as equals, not as security guards. He asked to see Howard Atkins, the chief, and was shown in immediately.
“Hello, Avery,” Atkins said, standing up to receive him and pumping his hand. “Take a seat. Coffee?”
“Thanks, I will.”
Atkins buzzed somebody and a uniformed cop came in with two paper cups on a tray.
“You hear our news?” Atkins asked.
“On TV. I came over because I have an interest. Can you describe the scene for me?”
“The minority leader ate his gun,” Atkins said. “I haven’t been able to draw any other conclusion. Of course, we’re still talking to his family and staff. We hope to find something in his background that would explain this.”
“I have a feeling you won’t find anything that would explain it,” Morris said.
“Tell me why.”
“You hear about the guy in the men’s room at the Four Seasons restaurant?”
“Yeah, sure. You think there’s a connection?”
“Maybe. What kind of gun was involved?”
“An old Walther PPK, vintage World War Two.”
“The one at the Four Seasons was a Colt .45, vintage Korea.”
“So, two old guns?”
“Right, and I’ll bet your Walther didn’t have any prints on it or the cartridges except the minority leader’s.”
“Good guess, Avery,” Atkins said.
“Tell me, Howard, did any of your people look at the trash cans in the area?”
“I’ll find out.” Atkins left the room for a moment, then came back. “My people didn’t go into the trash. You want to do that with us?”
“If you don’t mind, Howard.”
The two men left the office together. “What are you looking for?” Atkins asked.
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
Two young cops did the work while the two older men watched. They found it in the third wastebasket. Morris pointed. “That’s what I’m looking for.” He put on some latex gloves. “If I’m right, it won’t have any labels or laundry marks. Somebody washed and ironed it at home.” He took the handkerchief from the young man and unfolded it. “Identical to one I found in a wastebasket at the Four Seasons.”
Somebody produced an evidence bag and put the handkerchief into it.
“So,” Atkins said as they walked back to his office. “Is this somehow going to break our case?”
“I don’t think so,” Morris said. “What it tells us is that these two apparent suicides are connected. The two men did know each other. Creed Harker was a Republican lobbyist, I’ve seen his picture in the papers with the minority leader.”
“That’s very interesting,” Atkins said.
“The two guns interest me, too. Harker was a collector, but I think when we look into it, the .45 won’t be something from his collection.”
“It sounds like what we need is a suspect with some more of those handkerchiefs in his dresser drawer.”
“Or a gun collection with a couple of missing guns.”
“Did your people find anyone of interest to talk to?”
“A couple of dozen people, but all credentialed for the House. We’ve got a tight security system here.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Tell you what we’re going to do, Avery,” Atkins said. “We’re going to start all over and question everybody near the scene again.”
“I won’t get in your way, but I’d like to hear what you find out.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”
The two men shook hands, and Morris went back to the garage and got his car. All the way back to the station he racked his brain. Nothing new came to him.
56
Stone didn’t sleep well, even after an athletic hour in bed with Carla. In the middle of the night, he put on a robe and slippers and went down to his office. He opened his big safe and took out the red leather notebooks of Eduardo’s journal. It troubled him that he had to learn of Carla’s relation to Eduardo from a coincidence involving his choice of a translator. He had thought he knew everything about Eduardo’s estate, except for what money he might have hidden from the IRS.
He began leafing through the journal, which he couldn’t read, looking for initials. In the fourth journal he found a reference to A.F. He pored over the Italian, trying to make sense of it. He could not, but in the next volume he began coming across the initial C. Then he turned a page and found a sealed envelope. He used a letter opener to get at the single page inside, then he unfolded it and switched on his desk lamp. It was a codicil to his will, handwritten and witnessed like the other codicils he had found in Eduardo’s safe. Apparently, Eduardo had kept it separate from the others and had intended for Stone to find it, since he had given him the journals. The codicil left two million dollars to Anna and made Carla an equal heir to his estate, along with Mary Ann, Dolce, and Ben. Eduardo had done the right thing.
Stone felt hugely relieved, because it had worried him that Eduardo would have been so solicitous of Anna and Carla for decades, then ignored them at the end. It had been out of character, but now all was put right. Except that, at a moment when the estate had been fully settled, he would have to explain this to Mary Ann. And worse, to Dolce. He did not relish the task.
Back in bed, he finally slept soundly. When he awoke, Carla had gone; she had mentioned an early meeting at the Times.
Late Saturday morning Bruce Willard took a stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue, looking into the shop windows, exchanging an occasional greeting with a competitor. He thought about what Elton had done about the sale of his personal effects and how he would handle it when the time came. He was going to need more storage space than he now had, and it would have to be especially secure as well as temperature and humidity controlled. He could afford to acquire the space now, what with his inheritance from Evan. He was thinking about that when a gray car pulled up to the curb next to him, and a window went down.
“Good morning,” the man said. “I’m Sergeant Avery Morris, DCPD. We met at the Four Seasons the other day.”
“Oh, yes,” Bruce said.
“Will you join me in the car for a moment, please? I have some more questions.”
Bruce took a deep breath as he walked around the car and got in. He was going to have to be calm and helpful while telling the man nothing. He got into the car.
“I asked you the name of the elderly gentleman you were with, and you told me ‘Elton.’ Was that a first or a last name?”
“A first name. I’m sorry, that’s just the way I think of him. His last name is Hills.”
“Who is he?”
“An interesting question: he’s the father of a friend of mine, now deceased. He’s led a very reclusive life for at least thirty years, and I think our dinner was the first meal he’s eaten outside his home for thirty or forty years. Beyond that, I don’t know how to explain who he is. He apparently lives on inherited wealth. I met him because I attended his son’s funeral.”
“How did his son die?”
“In a traffic accident in New York.”
A tiny light went on in Morris’s head. “Hit-and-run?”
“Yes.”
“Was his son a congressman named Hills?”
That was out of the bag, now; time to be forthcoming. “Yes, Evan Hills.”