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Detective Darren Fletcher was getting incredibly frustrated. He had been left sitting in the antechamber of Congressman Leighton’s stuffy office for over half an hour now. He was about to start banging on the door to the great man’s inner sanctum and demand to be seen.
To kill just a bit more time, he checked his phone and saw the new message from the head of his division, Captain Armstrong, who had some semi-interesting news. Fletcher was being assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force that was investigating the subway attack. And three different Middle Eastern terror groups had stepped forward to claim responsibility. Fletcher was to report to the JTTF offices as soon as possible to get briefed.
He knew he should be honored, but all he could think about was the other cases he’d been working on that would have to be reassigned. And damn his partner, Lonnie Hart, who was on an island somewhere in the Pacific taking his first vacation in five years. He was still on disability after the shooting three months earlier, and honestly, Fletcher was wondering if he’d ever come back from it.
He didn’t like working alone, true, but the JTTF? All of their open cases would be given away. Fletcher wondered if he could fight to keep on one or two of them but knew that was probably wishful thinking.
His phone began to vibrate. Sam. Finally.
“What’s up?”
“Leighton’s official COD is an asthma attack.”
“I didn’t know he had asthma.”
“You do now. He didn’t have his inhaler on him, so if you could ask around and see if they know what he was taking, it would be a help. Save us the time while we wait for a subpoena of his medical records. Have you found out whether he rode the Metro this morning?”
“I don’t know yet. They’ve kept me waiting.”
“Well, this is just between us then. All signs are pointing to a ricin-like toxin. It looks and acts like it, but it’s not exactly right. It could be some sort of hybrid. I’ve given the samples to Amado for him to run through their lab, so we won’t know anything conclusive until those come back. I’m going to keep hunting to see if I can narrow it down even further. But if you can get a picture of his day, that would help.”
“I’m trying. Thanks, Sam. I’ll pick you up and get you home in just a bit.”
“No hurry. I only had a peek at the other bodies, I’d like to go over them more thoroughly.”
She hung up. Okay. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
He went back to the intern sitting at the front desk. She was a timorous thing, eyes wide and staring, probably wondering what she was going to do next. Most likely be sent back home to Indiana, if she’d been from Leighton’s district. If she were local, she might be reassigned, or be out of luck entirely. When he said, “Excuse me,” she jumped a mile.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’m going to have to insist on seeing the chief of staff immediately.”
“I’m sorry, sir. They’re in a meeting, and they said they weren’t to be disturbed. For anyone. He told me that you need to wait outside.”
Fletcher gave her his most charming smile. “You go in there and let him know he has one minute to open the doors or I’ll kick them in.”
Her rabbit eyes grew wide and she made a beeline for the doors. Fletcher didn’t wait, he followed right behind her, and when she opened the door, he touched her on the shoulder.
“Thanks. I’ll take it from here.”
“But, but...” Fletcher left her stammering in the doorway and stepped through into the congressman’s office. He didn’t make a habit of interrupting meetings—he had no right to do so—but there were exigent circumstances at play.
A thin man with precisely cut brown hair and a pristine gray pin-striped suit was sitting behind the desk, with three people, less well dressed, facing him—two men and a woman. If Fletcher hadn’t known the congressman was dead, he would have assumed the man behind the desk held the power. Which, in many ways, he did.
All four were staring at him now, but it was Pinstripe that Fletcher locked on to. His coolly appraising eyes swiveled to Fletcher, to the open door and the desperate intern, then back to Fletcher. Without moving, he said, “That’s fine, Becky. We don’t need you anymore today. Why don’t you head home. Someone will be in touch about tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered, and beat a hasty retreat, pulling the door closed behind her.
Silence. Fletcher cleared his throat and opened his badge case, flashed them his gold. “Sorry to bother you, but I’ve been waiting quite a while, and I have other places to be. Detective Darren Fletcher, Metro homicide.”
Pinstripe didn’t move. “Glenn Temple. I’m the congressman’s chief of staff. It is an unfortunate day.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Fletcher said automatically, a phrase he’d uttered too many times.
“Thank you. What can I do for you, Detective?”
“I’m investigating your boss’s death. I need to know everything that happened today.”
Temple flicked his hand at the three staffers. “Sperry, get the datebook for the detective. Allison, you and David are dismissed. I’ll be in touch later.”
Fletcher needed to get the upper hand here, and fast. “I’d actually appreciate all of you sticking around. I’m going to have to interview each of you individually.”
Three sets of eyes looked to Temple for approval. There was no question who was running this little fiefdom. All of Fletcher’s nerves were singing; something was wrong with this picture. It wouldn’t have been the first time a group met to practice their stories, making sure they had all the details straight.
“Why don’t we start with you, Mr. Temple?”
A pause, just a few breaths, and Temple nodded. “That’s fine.”
The three underlings stood and melted away, out the door, silent as the grave.
Fletcher helped himself to a seat.
“Mr. Temple, can you give me an idea of what’s happening here?”
Temple got up and went to the small wet bar in the corner of the spacious office, dropped a few ice cubes in a glass, poured in a clear amber liquid from a crystal decanter.
“Just some damage control. The congressman has enemies. Drink?”
“Scotch, if you have it.” A disarming answer. A by-the-book cop would never drink on duty. It was meant to show Temple Fletcher was a good sport. That this talk was man-to-man. Trust could be built in the strangest ways. And it had been a seriously shit day. He needed a drink.
Fletcher accepted the crystal lowball and took a sip. “Mmm. Macallan 25?”
Temple gave the first hint of a smile. “You know your Scotch.”
“Occupational hazard. You say the congressman has enemies. Any of them crazy enough to want to kill him?”
Temple resumed his spot behind his boss’s desk. “You think he was murdered?”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know what to think. One minute he was fine. The next, he was down on the floor, choking to death.”
“You witnessed his collapse?”
“The end of it, yes. He arrived this morning at eight, like he always does. We had the morning staff meeting. He was upbeat, cheery. The vote on the new appropriations bill is tomorrow, and he felt like it was a done deal. The last vote before recess, and trust me, these guys have earned a rest. Without him, without the promises he’s made, the deals he’s guaranteed, that bill has no chance of passing. I’ve spent the day trying to shore up our votes, but it’s not going to happen. Months of work, down the drain. We’re fucked.”
Temple tossed back half of his glass.
Fletcher was again reminded of why he hated politics and politicians. Cold-blooded bastards, the lot of them.
“So after staff, we watched the news about the attacks for about ten minutes, then had a few meet and greets, the usual stuff, people in from Indiana who want to bend his ear, get their picture taken. He had five minutes with each of them, then a coffee down in the dining room with Windsor Mann, the head of Ways and Means. He came back to the office a little ruffled, but Mann always pisses him off. They have to pretend to be friends in front of the cameras, but they don’t like each other much. He came back to the office, had just hung up his jacket and shut the door for some quiet time when Becky heard a commotion and knocked. He didn’t answer so she came and found me. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, but when I got the door open, he was down. He has asthma, I don’t know if that’s part of the record yet. It looked like he was having a really bad asthma attack. He didn’t like to let people know, thought it made him look weak.”
“How’d he make it into the service?”
“Oh, this was something he picked up in the first Gulf War. Bunch of them came home with lung damage. His manifested as asthma. Pretty severe, too, and stress didn’t help things.”
“So you entered the office, saw he was down, and then what?”
“I searched his jacket pocket, thinking I’d get his inhaler, but it wasn’t there. Then I saw it on the floor next to him. I picked it up and handed it to him. He could barely hold on to it. We got it in his mouth and I pressed the trigger, but it didn’t seem to help. His eyes were rolling into the back of his head, and he was turning blue. He kept an EpiPen in his briefcase, but his briefcase wasn’t in the office. I looked everywhere. He’d stopped breathing by that point, so I started CPR and yelled for someone to call nine-one-one.”
“Where’s the inhaler?”
“I have no idea. The EMTs probably took it.” He looked to the ceiling and shut his eyes. “I should have called earlier. If I had...”
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think that would have made a difference. The autopsy has been completed, and the attack was quite severe.”
Temple didn’t say anything, just maintained his position with his face aimed at the ceiling, like he was trying to hold back tears from spilling down his cheeks.
“Did the congressman take the Metro this morning?”
Temple sniffed once, hard, then faced Fletcher again. “He takes it every morning. Part of his job, he says, to be with the people, be a part of the populace. Of course, he has security on him, and he only rides it one stop, from Eastern Market to Capitol South. You know. Kisses his wife goodbye, hops on the subway. It makes him feel normal, like a regular guy. Joe six-pack, he liked to say. So yes, he was on the subway today.”
“Where’s his wife now?”
“Gretchen? Flying in from Terre Haute. She’d gone home to get one of their...charities settled. She is devastated.”
“I’ll need to speak to her as soon as she arrives. And I need to speak to his detail. I’ll also need the names of all the supporters who were here this morning.”
“I will have the detail get in touch immediately, and the list of people sent to you.”
“The detail weren’t here, in the office?”
“Not at his time of death. In the building, yes. More than likely. They were scheduled to go out with him at two. The congressman had a meeting this afternoon at the University Club. He was scheduled to speak to the Daughters of the American Revolution, of all things.”
Fletcher appreciated the irony—speaking to a group whose membership could trace their lineage to the first attempts of the country to gain their freedom on the day the most important city in the world was attacked by terrorists was rich.
Temple tapped a pencil on the clean desktop. “Do they know what the attack was comprised of? What the agent was?”
“We don’t know yet,” Fletcher replied. “What about the rest of it?”
Temple glanced at him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.”
He gave Fletcher a pointed look. “Trust me. I don’t know.”
“Mr. Temple. We’re both grown-ups here. I have no intention of using the information to demean or embarrass the congressman’s legacy. You saw the text. The language seemed...purposefully inflammatory. Has the congressman been harassed lately?”
He shook his head, finally showing some interest in the situation. No, that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been disinterested before. He was under control. Very much under control.
“Peter Leighton is an American patriot. He served his country honorably in the service, came home and decided to continue his selflessness in this thankless job. He is the greatest man I know.”
Fletcher sat back in his chair and took a sip of his Scotch. “You know, I’ve been a cop in D.C. for eighteen years. I’ve seen a lot of shit. It is not my job to be judge or jury. Your boss had a reputation in the very quiet corners of this town, and you can’t expect me to believe that, as his number-one guy, you aren’t aware of that.”
There it is. Right over the plate.
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Come on. You want to tell me what this is all about? Who might have sent something like this? Who did the congressman piss off?”
Temple swiveled the computer screen around to face Fletcher.
“Who hasn’t he pissed off? My God, we get five thousand emails a day, and I’d say a solid ninety percent are upset about something. Take, take, take, blame, blame, blame. That’s all these people know.”
“Mr. Temple. Please. I’m talking about something a little more private than constituents with a burning desire for a new road.”
Temple shook his head but wouldn’t meet Fletcher’s eye.
“Truly, don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There are rumors...”
Temple laughed. “This is D.C., Detective. If there isn’t a rumor about you, you’re doing something wrong.”
* * *
It was a good story, as far as stories went. Temple looked like a hero, he’d done everything he could think of to save his boss. The interviews with the three other staffers corroborated his story. Either they were all telling the truth, or they had decided on the story before Fletcher got there.
Not a single one was willing to breathe a bad word against their boss.
This was going nowhere, fast.
Fletcher got a crime scene tech to come to the office and take exclusionary fingerprint samples. That took fifteen minutes, and while it was going on, Temple arranged for the service detail who’d been with the congressman this morning to meet them in the office. Fletcher dismissed Temple and talked to them—a man and a woman, Mac and Sally—grizzled old hats who’d been assigned to the congressman for several months. Nothing in the routine this morning was different from any other day. They didn’t know where his briefcase was. Neither were feeling ill. Both were going for stoic, but Fletcher could see they were genuinely distressed over the news.
He pushed them on the rumors, too, but they clammed up. He took their statements, assured them he’d let them know what was happening, and let them leave, feeling vaguely uneasy.
They gave him a list of the people who’d been in the office over the past few days, and this morning. The official congressional photographer would send over the photos from the morning’s meet and greet. Otherwise, it seemed there was nothing here.
Someone was lying to him. He just didn’t know who. Or why.
Chapter 9
Washington, D.C.
Dr. Samantha Owens
