Death's Last Run (36 page)

MARTHA

Martha felt like she was walking in one of those dreams where you can only go extremely slowly, like the air is really water, or maybe Jell-O, but only for you — everyone else can move at their regular, air-walking pace.

She walked like this the entire half block to Broadway, where she turned north to go to Starbucks. A man with a microphone approached, but her Secret Service guys said something to him and he backed off. Martha flashed a smile to the reporter to be on the safe side, but she was glad the guards had snubbed him; she didn't trust herself to talk to the press through Jell-O.

As she waited in Starbucks for the chai latte that she didn't even know if she wanted, she saw the blogger from the airport push open the door.

Martha pointed at him and his eyes shot wide open. He didn't bolt, though, like she would have expected. He froze in place and stared back at her.

“You,” she said, feeling for her voice, like she wasn't sure where she'd left it. “You are not Lorenzo.”

The blogger moved toward her but he was blocked by Secret Service, who patted him down.

Martha picked up her latte at the end of the counter. She peered around her protectors and said to the blogger, “I guess we could sit down.”

The blogger typed something into his phone and followed Martha to a corner table, as far from the windows as possible. The Secret Service guys said something to a man with a computer on the adjacent table. The man nodded at Martha in recognition before picking up his computer and taking a window counter seat. The guards took his table.

“So who the hell are you?” Martha said.

The blogger pointed to his phone. “I'm waiting for permission to tell you.”

Martha's eyebrows arched. Sacha used to tell her she looked like the Queen of Hearts when she did that — smug and mean.

“In the meantime, though, I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Did Sacha have a nickname as a kid? Something only you or your husband might have called her?”

Martha took a sip of the latte, as if maybe the answer was somewhere in the foam. “Alexandra the Great,” she said finally.

The blogger's phone chimed. He glanced at his new message and said, “My name is Noah. I'm with the
FBI
.”

Martha didn't know why this made her feel let down. Maybe she'd liked the idea that some righteous blogger was out tilting at windmills to vindicate Sacha's murder. Even if she'd known it wasn't really Lorenzo.

Noah met her eyes kindly. In another life, she would have thought that she'd like to introduce the young man to Sacha.

“I'm confused,” Martha said. “The case is closed, right?”

“The murder is solved — we have a confession and a man in jail. But the killer wasn't acting alone. Are you flying anywhere tonight or tomorrow morning?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No. But we might need your help.”

“I fly to Phoenix in the morning, and L.A. in the afternoon to tape Bill Maher.”

“Can you postpone Phoenix?”

“I can postpone both, if you'll tell me why.” Martha's chai latte tasted off. Not like the milk was curdled, but like the chai itself was different. Not a pleasant taste at all.

“I'll get you more information as soon as I can. Thanks for your cooperation.”

Martha stood up, walked to the counter, and ordered her usual: a tall, black bold. As she moved toward the trash and held the nearly full chai latte over the hole to dump it in, she felt closer to tears than she had in two weeks. They wouldn't come yet, but at least they were on the way.

She sipped the black coffee. Delicious.

CLARE

Clare's computer cast a blue glow around the kitchen. Her sink still had dirty dishes from before she'd left town. These four hundred square feet ate up most of Clare's salary, but it was worth every penny to live alone in the East Village.

Her brain was beginning to melt from not enough sleep, but the pot of coffee that she was midway through was keeping her eyes open and her fingers alert on her keyboard.

She was going through the video clips from the bear camera. There were other agents watching them officially — both in the
FBI
and the
RCMP
— but Clare had asked to see the footage, too, and though her role was officially over, no one had objected to her slogging through footage for answers.

Sacha had brought Jules into Chopper's woodshed, which he'd decked out as a pretty awesome chemistry lair. Sacha would have made an excellent investigative reporter. Her questions had Chopper basically guiding viewers through the how-to-make-
LSD
process.

Sacha and Jules had visited Richie at his apartment, hung out on his couch and watched some local dealers come and go. Richie seemed to be the town wholesaler. The young kids seemed to fear him, though he never raised his voice or even threatened them.

Jules had witnessed the border crossing, the knapsack filled with
LSD
changing hands. Jules caught the faces of the guys who collected the knapsack.
They
looked scary. Clare hoped this tape helped take them down.

Norris was caught in a few different clips — with Richie, with Chopper, in Wade's office at Avalanche where Sacha had left Jules sitting through some of her shifts. This video would have busted him for several years on corruption charges alone.

And Wade — Jules had seen Wade taking cash from Chopper and Richie, cutting them paychecks for some of that money and passing Norris' end to him at separate meetings. Unfortunately for him, the conversations Jules recorded made the transactions clear to anyone: he was laundering for Chopper and Richie, and delivering Norris hush money.

Only Jana seemed immune. She was caught on tape using drugs of all kinds, but in Canada that was barely a misdemeanor. She could maybe get done for complicity — knowing about the crimes and not saying anything — but only a real prick of a prosecutor would go after her. More likely she'd be bullied into testifying against her friends.

What Clare hadn't found was any way Norris might be connected to one of Sacha's parents, a way that he might know — and use — her childhood nickname.

Irrationally, she glanced at her apartment door to make sure it was locked and chained. It was.

On her lined notepad, she wrote the names of her four top suspects:

Martha Westlake

Ted Mitchell

Fraser Westlake

Daisy Westlake

She just couldn't see murder.

But a nickname didn't have to be confined to a parent. It could be an aunt, a grandmother, a close friend. Maybe Kearnes had known he was the father — maybe Sacha knew, and had confronted him, and he wanted her out of the way so his campaign could be scandal-free. Maybe it was someone in Whistler? It would have to be someone who knew Sacha well.

Jana Riley

Wade Harrison

Chopper MacPherson

Geoffrey Kearnes

Fuck, there were way too many suspects. Clare gulped her coffee. She had to take them one by one.

Martha had gained politically, but anyone could see she was grieving horrendously. Yes, a killer could have remorse. But Clare didn't see a killer when she looked at the senator on
TV
.

Ted Mitchell — the assistant — was a young hotshot idiot, according to Noah, who had stopped by Martha's campaign office and met him. But Noah could be a hotshot idiot himself; Clare could see their personalities clashing. It wouldn't make sense to murder someone's daughter if you wanted them to win an election. A lot of people in Martha's position would have dropped out of the race, not stayed to fight it.

Fraser? Clare didn't see Sacha's father as the motivating force behind the murder. From his press interviews, he seemed kind and bland — strangely perfect for a killer. But why would he want her dead? Clare didn't know enough about him, so she put a question mark beside his name.

Daisy had been clear about wanting Sacha out of the family, out of the will — out of the way. Chopper and Jana had both told Clare that. But still — people who were clear about their intentions weren't likely to be backhanded as well. People normally played on one level — on the surface, or below it. It took intelligence to play both levels. Daisy didn't seem quite that clever, but maybe she was just that good.

Jana knew Sacha well. She was mildly deranged — probably because of all the drugs she did. If she had killed Sacha, it would have likely been spontaneous and drug-induced — not an elaborate scheme to set Norris up to do the deed. Also, Norris was paid. Jana did not seem to have money beyond the tips she made slinging drinks after singing provocative karaoke tunes at Avalanche.

Wade's motivation would have been to prevent his wife from finding out about their affair. But again, the elaborate scheme involving Norris made no sense. Wade was a drunk — meaning sloppy. There would have been holes in his plan that would have exposed him long before this. Clare was confident Wade was not to blame.

Georgia? Clare wished she'd gotten to know her, somehow, in Whistler. But she added her name to the list.

Chopper. Easily smart enough. He sure knew Norris well enough to know what would get under his skin, what would compel him to commit murder. Could he have disguised his voice on the phone so his friends wouldn't have recognized him? Maybe he used voice-changing technology. Clare wasn't sure how he would have made a phone call look like it came from Kearnes' campaign, but if anyone could do that, she'd give Chopper the credit.

Maybe it wasn't such a good thing that he'd ridden into obscurity.

But if it had been Chopper, why had he let Clare live?

Kearnes. Too far-fetched? It didn't feel right to Clare, but she couldn't scratch him off yet.

Clare stared at her list and felt like she was still at square one.

She felt dull at the thought of the perpetrator being one of Sacha's parents, possibly because she herself hadn't gotten close to them in this investigation, but she knew that was the most likely scenario. Family killed far more often than strangers did.

She pressed play on the next video in her queue.

Sacha walked into her mom's office and set Jules on the bookshelf. Ted was seated, working at the desk.

“Ted,” Sacha said. “How come you're in my mom's chair?”

“I need something on her computer.”

“Does she know?”

Ted threw Sacha a smirk. “I set up her password. Pretty sure she's cool with me having access.”

“Whatever. I'm going out. Tell my mom I'll do my own thing for dinner.”

“I'm not your messenger. If you'd like, you can write it down and put the note in her inbox.”

“God, Ted. You're going to see her, right? Can you just tell her for me?”

“Fine. But it's a favor, not my job.”

“Yes, it's a favor. I'm so very grateful. If I can ever return it — you know, give my mom a message for you — I'd be thrilled to even things out.”

“I said fine.”

“What's up with you lately?” Sacha said. “You're acting like the annoying older brother I luckily never had.”

A strange smile crept onto Ted's face. “I guess I'm going to miss you. When you go to Whistler.”

“Yeah? That's kind of sweet.”

“Why don't you stay here? Marry me instead.”

Sacha laughed.

“I'm not joking. We'd be the perfect couple. I'll go into politics and that will leverage you to do all that community service you love, but with a super-high profile. The nation will love us.”

“But we won't love each other.”

“We get along well in bed,” Ted said.

Sacha wrinkled her nose.

“You don't think so?” Ted didn't seem hurt, just curious.

“Yeah. I mean, we have a good groove together. Especially that time in Georgetown at your condo with all those confidential files spread out. I felt like we were in a spy movie.”

Ted seemed to twig. “You were fucking me for files.”

Sacha shrugged. “We both had fun. Who cares?”

“I mean it. Marry me.”

“I have to go to Whistler. Maybe after. We'll see.”

“What's in Whistler? Some orphans to rescue? Some children you need to teach literacy to?”

“You're right that it's community service,” Sacha said. “But its more like the unconventional kind.”

“Tell me.”

“Not a chance. But the whole world will know soon. I'll only be gone for a year. Two at the most.”

“You have to tell me what you're doing. I run your mom's career.”

“Yeah. My
mom's
career. Not
my
life.”

“She's planning to run for president next year. Everything you do is public — and that's only going to be more true as the campaign gets underway.”

“Anyway, you don't run my mom's career.” Sacha laughed. “You work for her. You're an employee.”

“Is that why you won't marry me? You don't think I'm important enough?”

“I won't marry you because we're not in love.”

“You'll sleep with me for files, but you won't marry someone unless you're in love with them?”

“Yeah,” Sacha said. “And I slept with you for fun. I could have gotten those files another way if I'd wanted to.”

“Do you even like me?”

“You're like a brother to me. Like I said, the annoying kind. But the kind I love anyway.”

Sacha walked toward Jules, gave him a little wave, and left the room.

Clare stared at her computer. She watched the conversation a few more times. She'd need more proof — or Bert would, before making an arrest — but she was pretty sure she had her answer.

She grabbed her phone and called the number Norris had traced back to Kearnes' campaign. A male voice answered, scratchy from sleep, but professional even at four-fifteen in the morning. “Geoffrey Kearnes campaign headquarters. How can I help you?”

“Sorry to wake you. I have some questions that can't wait,” Clare said.

“Who's calling?”

“I'm calling from the
FBI
. Is Ted Mitchell a friend of yours?”

“Ted's one of my best friends. Is something wrong?”

“Not necessarily. Have you seen him recently?”

“We were out for a drink maybe a week ago.”

“Where?”

“You sure you're
FBI
?”

Clare frowned. “I can give you a callback number if you like. You can verify that you can trust me.”

“No, that's fine. This isn't secret. We were at the King Cole Bar. Fifty-fifth and Fifth.”

Clare had had a drink there once with Noah; she'd found it pompous beyond belief. “Do you remember what night that was?”

“I could look it up in my calendar.”

“Yes, please.”

“My calendar's in my phone. One sec.” In less than a minute, he said, “It was Thursday, February 16. We met at ten, stayed maybe two hours. Maybe three.”

“Business or pleasure?” Clare asked.

“A bit of both. Pleasure mainly, but we're both married to our jobs and it's a hot time in both of our careers, with our bosses both running for the Republican nomination.”

“Indeed,” Clare said. “You'd think you wouldn't meet at all, in the heat of such opposition.”

“Okay.”

Clare realized she'd sounded more confrontational than she wanted to. “Did you, at any point in the evening, lend your phone to Ted so he could make a call?”

“Um . . . yeah. Yeah, I did. He was checking his email all night. I mean, he's normally glued to his phone, but this night more than ever. Then his battery died. He asked to borrow my phone. He apologized — said it was a long-distance call. Like I gave a shit — I have unlimited North American minutes and my job pays for it, anyway.”

“Thank you,” Clare said.

“That's all?”

“That's all.”

She called Bert. His voice was, naturally, groggy.

“Vengel, you need to change your clock back to New York time.”

“I know who arranged Sacha's murder. Can you hook me up with one of our hackers? I need to get into the banks and other security footage — if possible, I'd like to get evidence before Westlake leaves for Phoenix in the morning.”

“Just give me what you have,” Bert said. “I'll figure out how to deal with it.”

“Please?” Clare said. “Hook me up with one of the computer gurus on the team — they're up all night anyway; they live for this kind of shit. In the morning I'll pass you everything I know.”