“That’s quite all right, Mr. Coulter,” Kinney said, producing his badge. “I’m Bob Kinney, this is Special Agent Kerry Smith.”
“How do you do?” Coulter said. “Betty, will you get my thing for me?” He held out his tray and she took it away and went toward the kitchen.
Kinney nodded at Smith to follow her. “Give Mrs. Coulter a hand, will you, Kerry.”
“What’s this about, Agent Kinney?” Coulter asked.
Kinney reached into an inside pocket and produced the legal document. “Mr. Coulter, I have a search warrant for your home, your property, and your vehicles.” He handed it to Coulter, who opened it and began reading.
Kinney waited for him to finish. “Do you understand the warrant?”
“Yes, I do,” Coulter replied, “though I confess I’m baffled. Why do you want to search my place?”
“I’m afraid I can’t go into that right now, Mr. Coulter, but we’ll be as quick and efficient as we can, and I’d appreciate your cooperation.”
Coulter waved a hand. “Help yourself,” he said.
At that moment, Smith returned followed by Mrs. Coulter. She was carrying a familiar object, and she set it down next to Mr. Coulter’s recliner.
Kinney nearly flinched. The object was a walker. Coulter moved forward in his chair and grasped the aluminum framework, then hoisted himself painfully to his feet.
“You’ll have to forgive my husband,” Mrs. Coulter said. “He had a pretty bad stroke late last year, and he still has trouble getting around.”
Kinney watched Coulter move, and it was obvious that his right side had not yet completely recovered from paralysis. He waved Smith over. “Go outside and use the radio. I want only four agents inside, no weapons displayed,” he whispered. “It looks like we’re in the wrong place.”
“This won’t take long,” he said to Coulter.
“Take your time,” Coulter replied. “This sort of makes my day.”
23
KINNEY DIDN’T LIKE MAKING the phone call, but he did. The president couldn’t take the call but returned it half an hour later.
“Tell me the news, Bob,” Will Lee said.
“Mr. President, I’m sorry, but our man was the wrong man.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“He looked perfect, but the man had a stroke last year and, in spite of a lot of therapy, he still has to use a walker, and his right side is partially paralyzed. He’s right-handed, too.”
“You checked with his doctors?”
“Yes, we went over his medical records and talked with his physiotherapist. Our search of the house turned up absolutely nothing except four handguns, all registered and legal.”
“Well, keep at it, Bob. It’s only a matter of time before this man kills again.”
“I know, sir, and we’ll give the case everything we’ve got.”
The president hung up.
Kinney was discovering that he did not like disappointing presidents.
He called a meeting of his team, and when they were assembled, he spoke. “Let’s go through the whole thing again, every detail of every murder. There’s bound to be something we’ve missed.”
The team discussed every murder at length, and when they had finished, they had come up with nothing new.
“Have we found any other suspects at any other federal agency?” Kinney asked.
“No, sir,” the man in charge replied. “Coulter was perfect, but he’s obviously not our guy.”
Kinney thought for a moment. “Suppose he faked the stroke and is lying to his therapist about his paralysis? It’s elaborate, but it’s an excellent way of diverting suspicion from himself.”
An agent spoke up. “I spoke to his neurologist, who treated him for the acute effects of the stroke, and the man says there’s no way he could fake what he went through. Coulter nearly died. His physiotherapist says he’s worked extremely hard but has recovered very slowly. Faking is not an option.”
“I want a team on Coulter at all times. If he shows the slightest sign of not being paralyzed, we’ll be on top of it. See if we can get a wiretap warrant, too. I want us to listen to his phone conversations.”
One of the senior men spoke up. “Bob, this is a real stretch. The only benefit I can see in it is if, rather
when
there’s another murder, if we could establish Coulter’s whereabouts at the time, we could prove he’s not involved.”
“Do it,” Kinney said.
KATHARINE RULE LEE sat at the head of her conference table and looked at the people around her. “Do you agree with the FBI’s conclusions about Coulter?” No one spoke. “Anybody?”
Finally, an officer spoke up. “Reluctantly, yes. God knows it would have been easy if Coulter had been the man, but he’s clearly not. He’s just not physically capable of doing what this killer has done.”
“Could he have done these murders, using an accomplice?” Kate asked.
“Possibly,” the man replied, “but I have to consider it very unlikely. Certainly, Coulter has the expertise to tell somebody how to build the bomb and use the poison, and lots of people are good shots, but we can’t find anyone in Coulter’s background who would be a candidate. We’ve gone through all of his periodic personnel reviews and polygraph tests. We’ve looked at all his known associates and at his personal politics, which are pretty much nonexistent. The man’s not even registered to vote. Before his stroke, he and his wife had no interests more boisterous than bingo at their church and a regular bridge game. They’re dull as dishwater.”
“Certainly, his employee evaluations back that up,” Kate said, fingering his file. “I’ve never read anything duller. When he was still on active duty, the man actually recorded the daily soap operas, so he could watch them at weekends.”
“There’s no intellect at work there,” somebody said.
“Is everyone satisfied that there’s no current or former employee of the Agency who comes even close to fitting the profile for this killer?”
There was a murmur of assent from the group.
“All right, then: I can tell the president that the man is not from our ranks.” She stood up. “Thanks, everybody.”
BACK AT HER desk, Kate called Will. He came on the line immediately.
“What’s up?”
“I just wanted you to know that our people here have reviewed the Coulter file and every other possible suspect employed by the Agency, both now and in the past, and that none of our people fit the FBI profile of the right-wing killer.”
“You feel certain of that?”
“As certain as we can be. We’ve given it our best shot, and there’s just nobody. Apart from Coulter, we don’t even have anyone to interview.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” Will said. “I’ll see you this evening. You going to be on time for dinner?”
“I should be, if nothing comes up.”
“See you then.” The president hung up, and the first lady went back to work.
24
DR. DON BEVERLY CALHOUN wrapped up his Sunday morning sermon as he often did, casting aspersions on the patriotism of the president of the United States and the Democrats in Congress, and in his wrap-up prayer he gave thanks for the guardians of the American faith on the right wing of his own party. The service was carried on one hundred and twenty-one television cable and satellite systems around the country.
As the choir intoned a protracted amen, Calhoun stepped down from his pulpit and walked quickly up the aisle toward the rear of his huge church, his eyes downcast as if in walking prayer, so as to greet his congregation one by one as they left the church—or, at least, those members of the congregation who wished to delay their Sunday dinners for an hour or so in order to have their flesh pressed by the reverend.
Calhoun took up his station at the end of a funnel created by a series of brass stands and velvet ropes, and volunteers helped herd the crowd into the increasingly small space. A volunteer stood on each side of the reverend, the better to assist individuals in not stopping to chat, since their spiritual leader’s time was more valuable than theirs.
The first handshakers were those who occupied the rearmost pews in the great tabernacle, and most noticeable among them to the reverend was a creature who nearly turned his stomach. He was of medium height, but of great girth, wearing a loud necktie with matching suspenders and no coat. He sported a waxed mustache, the ends of which pointed heavenward, and the worst toupee the reverend had ever encountered—a reddish brown that contrasted sharply with the gray, nearly white fringe of the man’s own hair, which flopped over huge ears. He had protruding front teeth and wore heavy, black eyeglasses with extremely thick lenses.
He reached for the reverend’s hand with both of his, grabbing it in a viselike grip that made the preacher’s eyes water.
“Yes, yes, Reverend,” the man said, “you preached the truth!”
And then he was gone, whisked down the front steps by volunteers, leaving the reverend to nurse his crunched hand. The man walked with a pronounced waddle, as befitted someone of his girth.
The reverend looked down at his hand, and to his astonishment, found that it was bleeding from a tiny wound. He whipped a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at it, then faced the coming throng. So many more hands to shake, and his hand had been nearly disabled. “The miserable son of a bitch!” the reverend muttered under his breath, startling the little old lady who was next in line.
Ted waddled through the huge parking lot and, near its outermost fringe, boarded the RV, where he stripped off his clothes, the padding, the teeth, the mustache, the ears, glasses, and two wigs. Shortly, he was on his way north on Peachtree Road, toward the highway around the perimeter of Atlanta and the interstate north.
KINNEY WAS SLEEPING soundly in his own bed, with Nancy Kimble’s naked body intertwined with his own, when the phone rang. He reached for it automatically. “Kinney,” he mumbled.
“It’s Kerry Smith, Mr. Kinney,” the younger man said. “I’ve got the duty this morning, and we’ve had a call from the trauma center at Piedmont Hospital, in Atlanta. They’ve got a patient presenting with similar symptoms to those of Timothy Brennan’s, last week.”
“Who is it?” Kinney asked, knowing it wasn’t going to be anyone anonymous.
“Dr. Don Beverly Calhoun, the television evangelist. He had just gotten home from his Sunday morning service when he became ill, and his wife called an ambulance. The hospital wants to know if there’s any treatment for what killed Brennan.”
“Give me the name of the doctor in charge and his phone number.”
Smith dictated the information.
“I’ll call you back,” Kinney said. He disentangled himself from Nancy, swung his feet onto the floor, opened a bedside drawer and reached for a thick address book. He dialed a very long telephone number and waited while it rang.
“Carpenter,” a woman’s voice said.
“It’s Bob Kinney at the FBI, in Washington,” he said. “We met when you were over with your boss a few months ago.”
“Of course. How are you, Bob?”
“Terrible. You remember, some years back, you had an incident in London where a Bulgarian dissident was poisoned by somebody from that country’s intelligence service, stabbed with a sharp umbrella tip?”
“Yes, I remember that incident.”
“I seem to recall that your people were working on some sort of antidote to whatever the Bulgarians used.”
“Yes, we had a medical team on that for several months.”
“Were they successful?”
“They think so, but we’ve never had another case on which to try it.”
“I may have one for you now. Do you have a pencil and paper handy?”
“Yes.”
“This is the number of the physician in charge of the case, at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. Please contact the relevant person on your end and have him or her communicate directly with the doctor.” He read out the name and number, plus his own number. “Will you let me know how this comes out?”
“I’ll make some calls and get back to you as quickly as I can,” Carpenter said, then hung up.
Kinney hung up the phone and sat on the edge of the bed, shivering in the air-conditioning. He called Smith back. “We may have some medical help from the British intelligence services,” he said. “They’ll call me back. Now tell me everything you know.”
“Not much, I’m afraid. Dr. Calhoun complained of a bone-crushing handshake from one of his congregation, standing on the front steps of his church after the service, and he found himself with a small, bleeding wound on his hand.”
“Have you been in touch with the agent in charge of the Atlanta office?”
“I’ve paged him, and I’m waiting for his call now.”
“Get him and his people on this, and find me some witnesses to this event. There must have been a lot of people around. Isn’t this preacher on television?”
“Yes, the service was televised nationally.”
“Find out if he was still on television when this guy shook his hand. We may have a shot at a picture of the guy, or at least a description from a witness. There had to be a bunch of witnesses around.”
“I’m on it,” Smith said, and hung up.
Kinney crawled back into bed and gathered up Nancy in his arms.
“You’re freezing,” she said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“You heard?”
“Sort of.”
“Looks like we’ve got another murder on our hands, or at least an attempt.” He sat up. “Excuse me a minute.” He grabbed a robe, went to his computer, and logged onto the Internet, then to the ACT NOW website.
Sure enough, a big X had been drawn through the photograph of Dr. Don Beverly Calhoun. The phone rang, and he picked it up. “Kinney.”
“It’s Carpenter. I got hold of our lead medical man on the golf course. He’s calling your doctor in Atlanta. Apparently, they came up with a possible antidote, and he’s going to have somebody fax it to the Atlanta doctor. It can be formulated in the hospital pharmacy. It’s the fastest way to get the man treated, and, apparently, time is of the essence.”
“Thank you, Carpenter,” Kinney said. “I’ll let you know if this works.” He hung up and dialed the White House, but the president was unavailable. “Tell him Robert Kinney called, and there’s been another attempted murder. The victim is Dr. Don Beverly Calhoun. He’s being treated at an Atlanta hospital. This is my number, if he needs to reach me.”