Authors: Robert Ellis
“Frank’s gonna make a lot of money as a result of his partner’s death, isn’t he?” the U.S. Attorney started in again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Linda said.
“Sure you do, Ms. Reynolds. Your media buy adds up to almost seventy-five million dollars. Who could forget that?”
Grimes took a glass from the dish rack and filled it with tap water. Frank could see the detective’s face reflecting in the window over the sink. Grimes seemed troubled, staring outside and thinking it over as the U.S. Attorney continued to grill Linda.
“Your accountant told us that the firm takes fifteen percent off the top. That’s about a eleven million, two hundred thousand.”
Grimes lowered the glass. He was gazing at something on the counter, and Frank thought that it might be the two photographs set in frames beside a bowl of fresh apples. Frank could see the photos clearly, standing just ten feet away. The first was a picture of Jack Kennedy. The president wore a golf shirt and sunglasses while aboard his sailboat. He had a smile on his face, big and bright like he owned the world. The second was a more recent shot. Linda and Jason Hardly had their arms around each other and were smiling like they’d staked out their piece of the world, too. But it wasn’t the pictures Grimes had his eye on. It was the pad and pen beside them. The detective seemed to grunt, stepping away from the sink and jotting something down. It looked to Frank like Grimes was doing the math as he listened to the U.S. Attorney in the living room.
“Eleven million, two hundred thousand dollars,” the U.S. Attorney repeated, probably shaking his head. “That’s a lot of money. The kind of money most people only dream about. With one partner gone, your accountant says that you split the pot not by three, but by only two. After your expenses are paid, he says that’s five million dollars each. Maybe even a couple hundred thousand more.”
They had him, Frank realized. The U.S. Attorney finally had a motive. It was a lie, of course—pure fiction. But Frank imagined that it was a story a grand jury would understand. Missing the blood on the floor, Grimes left the room like he understood it, too. Frank sat down at the kitchen table and listened to the U.S. Attorney lay out his case. Frank had killed his partner for the money, he was saying, and made it look like a robbery committed by a teenager. There had been a witness to the teenager’s killing, Alan Ingrams. Frank lied to his friend Reverend Neilmarker, using the pastor to help him locate the witness. Then Frank murdered Ingrams, too. But there was another witness, someone picked up on a DUI outside their office on the night of the killings. Ozzie Olson. Frank murdered Olson, made it look like a suicide, and then dragged Linda over to his office pretending to find the body.
They had him. Without embarrassing the Merdocks by introducing the affair or mentioning the sex shots Olson had taken. Frank had done it for the money.
“They argued a lot, didn’t they?” the U.S. Attorney said. “Woody and Frank didn’t like each other. Woody even went behind Frank’s back, hiring someone to snoop on his client.”
Frank suddenly realized who was in the body bag. Everyone involved except Doc Neilmarker was dead now. Because the pastor was a friend, anything he said on Frank’s behalf could easily be turned upside-down. The U.S. Attorney had put the puzzle together in his own way without any loose ends.
“You’ve twisted everything,” Linda said, her voice quiet like she might be breaking down.
“I guess I don’t have to remind you that you’re gonna profit, too.”
He was inferring that Linda might be involved. The U.S. Attorney had taken her to the edge of the cliff. Now he was letting her see what might happen if she fell.
“I don’t know where Frank is,” she said, her voice shaky but gaining strength. “And it’s late. I want you to leave.”
“I’m not finished,” the U.S. Attorney said, bullying her.
“Yes, you are. Unless you have a warrant, you are.”
“That could easily be arranged,” the U.S. Attorney said.
“Then arrange it,” Linda shot back at the man. “Now get out of my house. You heard me. Get out.”
No one said anything. After a long moment, Frank heard the three men cross the room to the foyer. The front door opened and closed. Frank checked the time on the microwave and saw sunlight streaming in the windows. Then Linda stepped into the kitchen. They didn’t connect at first. Startled by his appearance, she didn’t recognize him and he thought that she might even scream.
“It’s me, Linda. It’s me.”
She let out a gasp, her eyes moving over his face quickly.
“They found Eddie,” she said.
Frank nodded. “We need to get out of here.”
She glanced at the counter and noticed the pad that Grimes had been using to add up the money. “What’s this?” she asked.
She ripped the top sheet off and handed it to him. A chill rolled up his spine as he looked at it. Grimes hadn’t been doing the math or even jotting a stray thought down. Instead, he’d known that Frank was in the room all along and had left a note. It said to keep in touch and included the number to his cell phone.
Chapter 72
They were moving now, Frank wheeling Linda’s Explorer through the late morning traffic. He saw a 7-Eleven on the corner. When he started to pull into the lot, Linda sounded incredulous.
“What are you doing? We need lawyers, Frank. The meanest lawyers money can buy.”
“We need to think this through.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” he said.
He pulled into a parking space and told her to get two coffees and a pack of cigarettes. She stared back at him, her green eyes burning. Then, without a word, she got out and hurried into the market.
Frank kept the engine running and looked through the window, watching her at the counter. Linda had faced off with the U.S. Attorney and stood her ground. She’d even kicked the man out of her house. When they were finally alone, she had helped Frank clean up, dressing his wounds quickly, even lovingly, and giving him a fresh shirt that he guessed belonged to Jason Hardly.
She swung the door open, tossing the cigarettes at him before she climbed in. Frank opened the pack and lit one, sipping coffee and hoping that the double dose of hot caffeine mixed with nicotine might revive him. He pulled back onto the street. He let a block go by, then another, watching her tug on her seatbelt and stew. Her eyes remained bright, everything about her, magnetic.
“Olson takes pictures of Merdock doing his girlfriend,” he said finally. “That’s where this starts, right?”
She didn’t say anything, but nodded grudgingly.
“Then the Merdocks make a mistake,” he said. “They think Woody has the pictures, so they kill him. Even worse, the cops make a mistake and arrest Olson for the murder.”
He could see her eyes going. She was chewing it over, though still refusing to speak to him.
“So what’s Olson thinking when he’s arrested?” he asked, sipping his coffee. “I’ll tell you what he’s thinking. The story’s on the front page and all over TV. The Merdocks have figured it out. Olson’s out in the open and he’s next.”
“He’s not next anymore, Frank. We are.”
“Come on, Linda. Olson’s read the papers and knows what happened to Woody and those two kids. He’s scared shitless. He hates me so much, I’m the last one he’d talk to. He’s not going to the cops because they think he killed Woody. So what’s he do? What would
you
do?”
She looked back at him anxiously and shook her head.
“He’s calling you but he can’t reach you—the hang ups, remember? You told me that someone had been calling you ever since Woody died. When I hit his redial button, the call went to your house. Olson’s gotta get the pictures to someone he thinks will do the right thing. The night he was murdered, he said he went to the post office. Why would he bring that up with Raymond holding a gun to his head?”
“Olson wanted you to know that he mailed them,” Linda said.
Frank nodded, remembering how Olson had told him that it was the wrong time to be alone. It was dangerous now. Olson needed to get rid of the pictures. He was probably trying to make a run for it when Raymond showed up instead.
“So who could Olson count on?” Frank asked. “Who would he send the pictures to? Who’s left?”
“Helen Pryor.”
Their eyes met. It had to be Helen. Frank glanced at the cell phone plugged into the cigarette lighter.
“It’s election day,” he said. “No one’s working. Call her and tell her to meet us at her office. We’re on our way.”
Linda grabbed the phone and flipped it open. As Frank gave her the number, he swerved into the next lane, making a sudden left and heading for Capitol Hill.
Chapter 73
Raymond looked past Jake from the backseat as Norman inched the Lincoln toward the corner. When his view cleared, he saw Frank and Linda hurrying into the Russell Building through a side entrance.
“Just like Jesus,” Jake said. “Back from the dead.”
More like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, Raymond thought to himself without saying anything.
After the fire department managed to contain the blaze, they had scoured the area block by block searching for Frank’s body. When they didn’t find a corpse, they checked his office and the house—one step ahead of the U.S. Attorney the whole way. Although they still hadn’t caught sight of him, they’d been following Linda’s SUV since it left her house. Now they finally had confirmation.
But why would they come here?
The Russell Building stood directly across the street from the Capitol. Raymond couldn’t help thinking that it was an odd place to go when you were on the run. And Frank was definitely on the run. Jake glanced at him and seemed disturbed by it, too.
They had reached an understanding. Sometime during the night as they gazed at the fire and Norman slept. Both he and Jake had slipped past reason. It was emotional now. Personal.
“What next,” Jake said.
Raymond shrugged. What next in a job that had gone to shit with
what nexts
? There was always the unknown factor when it came to Frank Miles. He wasn’t exactly the person Jake had first described, and Raymond continued to find it troubling. He thought about the gun he’d seen in Frank’s desk drawer the night he had murdered Woody. It was a big gun, a .45, not the weapon of choice for the faint of heart.
Jake got out of the car, saying that he’d be right back. Raymond watched him cross the street, continuing up the sidewalk to the main entrance of the Russell Building. The doors were locked, and Raymond could see Jake cupping his hands and peering through the glass into the lobby. After several minutes, he hustled back to the car and gave Raymond a hard look.
“Helen Pryor’s got an office in there,” he said, still thinking it over. “Her name’s on the building directory.”
Raymond didn’t know who Helen Pryor was. Besides, the sidewalks were empty and the building was obviously closed.
“She ran against Olson,” Jake added after a moment.
Raymond remembered seeing it on Geraldo Rivera’s cable TV show. Geraldo had recounted the whole story, playing Frank’s spot against Olson over and over again with delight. Before Frank had humiliated Olson, Olson and Helen Pryor had been friends.
Chapter 74
Files and papers littered Helen’s office as if an attorney worked here.
They started with what they found piled on her desk, working their way through the rest of the room as quickly as they could. Frank, Linda, and Helen searching for something Olson might have sent as if their lives depended on it. A manila envelope. A mailer from the post office. Anything that might contain the photographs Olson had taken of Merdock with his girlfriend. Every witness had been murdered. Olson’s photographs were the only thing left connecting Merdock to the victims.
“They’re not here,” Helen said. “And why would Ozzie send them to me? I don’t understand.”
Frank grimaced. “They’ve gotta be here.”
The senator’s chief of staff entered the room. She was blond and cute and in her late twenties. Frank had always had a good relationship with her. When he and Linda broke up, she had even made a play for him. But now Frank was spoiled goods. He’d lost his name, his business. Frank could feel the ice as she ignored him and approached Helen. He was valueless to her ambitions now, a Beltway bitch clawing her way to the top of the heap.
“There’s nothing up front,” she said in a voice laced with boredom. “Is it okay if I leave now?”
Helen nodded. “Thanks for opening up the office.”
The blonde gave Frank a vicious look and walked out. When the door closed, Frank turned back to Helen. They’d searched the entire office and Olson’s package wasn’t here. He was feeling panicky again, like they’d made a wrong turn somewhere and time was running out.