Mulch (18 page)

The guilt produced by her failure to be hypnotized—and at being mean to two little schoolboys—lingered like a bad taste. The very least she could do was to retrace her steps again, from her leaf-collecting days. She plotted her route home so it would take her by every house where she had stopped, starting with the one in south Bethesda, and ending at the place on Martha’s Lane in Sylvan Valley.

Finally, she returned home and pulled into the driveway, exhausted and starved. “I am a lousy sleuth,” she muttered to herself as she stomped out of the Camry. Not only had nothing clicked in her mind. No lightbulb had gone off that suddenly and brilliantly illuminated a lost fact. And near the houses in question, she had seen a set of human beings straight out of Norman Rockwell. Charming old lady and man. Ebullient young mother with preschoolers. Grade-school kids romping home to be greeted by a flustered suburban mom. Clean-cut father working on his garage. It was hard to visualize any one of them killing, sawing, and packaging a human being.

And yet, who could tell from outward appearances? Maybe that suburban mom had reason to become jealous….

Louise shook her head in disgust, went in the house, and kicked off her boots. That was it: This was the beginning and the end of her investigation of the mulch murder. It was just as she had told that strange Dr. Gordon: The police were going to have to solve it. She had no business poking around in murder.

B
ILL RIFFLED THROUGH THE PINK MESSAGE SLIPS
on his desk, then placed them neatly in a pile, selecting one out and putting it on top. Then he slowly pivoted his chair around, as if the movement would force to the top of his consciousness the thought that was troubling him. Instead of seeing the lights of the capital from his vantage point in Foggy Bottom, he saw only himself: a tired-looking blond man, blue shirt with shirtsleeves rolled up, hands knitted and resting on top of his
head. A man who looked fretful, guilty. What was he forgetting to do that disturbed him so?

“Why aren’t you on your way home to your wife?”

Startled, Bill swirled his chair around and sat up straight. Ed worked in the office next door. He stood in the doorway in coat and hat, a fat briefcase in one hand. Bill’s mouth dropped imperceptibly as the man sauntered in and slumped down in a leather armchair.

He eyed the briefcase thrown carelessly across Ed’s lap. “I was trying to clean up a few things so I wouldn’t have to do what you’re doing.”

Ed smiled and took off his hat, revealing a balding head with only a rim of dark hair left. He wrinkled his nose—Bill thought he resembled a rabbit when he did this—to persuade his glasses back in position. “I have something for you before I go, Bill. Try this on for size: The president’s theme in future is going to be SMO: supporting military operations.”

Bill said: “Funny, I thought it was going to be SPW, supporting public works.”

Ed shook his head. “Nope. That’s what we thought it was going to be, but it’s not. Anyway, not since the economy appears to be coming out of its slide again. Of course we know our economy is in for a long, slow downhill ride—no matter if the Dow reached a new high this week and my biotechs went up eight points. But the president’s theme is not going to be economics; unfortunately, we’re as bad off as when we were fighting the Cold War, he thinks. His mission is to lead the world out of trouble again.” He laughed. “Isn’t that the mission of all presidents? But the country cries out for more military budget cuts. So the key to it all”—he threw his
hand back in a godfather gesture—“is supporting military operations.”

Bill’s patience was wearing thin, yet he showed no sign of it to the garrulous man sitting opposite him. “How to get the best intelligence and the best military backup for the least amount of bucks, so we can continue to facilitate the UN policy of assertive multilateralism.”

“That’s it!” Ed looked pleased, as if in the presence of a brilliant subaltern, although Bill outranked him on the European desk where they both worked. “And right here at home, the challenge of how to get that result out of Congress. Ergo the emphasis on strategic arms—small, smart arms”—Ed rolled his lips around the s’s—“with the ability to stop the bastards without sending in fifty thousand men every time.” His eyes twinkled behind his thick glasses. “And you know what else?”

Bill looked at him soberly. “I don’t know, but I think you’re going to say it.”

“Truth is, this is a very scary time for the country. Economy very rough, even if improving. Trouble everywhere you look abroad. Hell, the chief has his hands full. You
know
he’d love to get rid of the secretary of defense. That’s why he’s signing Hoffman on board. Small-weapons expert. Wants him to drive the secretary out. Hoffman’s kind of a wild man, I hear. But maybe just what we need. He was in on the very beginning in Vietnam.” Ed was a rambling conversationalist, but he tried to reward his listeners with a little pithy gossip, like the dollop of whipped cream on a stale piece of cake.

Bill suddenly sat forward and picked up the pile of phone
messages. “Ed. I’d love to talk more but I have to make a phone call. Catch you later, okay?”

“Right,” said Ed cheerfully, put on his hat, and left. Bill waited until he would have time to clear the hall, then got up and closed and locked the door to his office.

He fingered the top phone message. Tom Paschen, the president’s chief of staff, had called him. Not good. The whole burden of Bill’s hidden life weighed on his shoulders. He and Paschen had worked together years ago in the old Executive Office building, when both were assigned to the National Security Council. Paschen must know that he still worked for the company, under State Department cover. Then what did he want?

He got him on his first try. “Hi, Tom, how’s it going? What’s up?” Bill and Tom had no need for extra words.

“It’s Peter Hoffman—you know, the president’s candidate for deputy secretary of defense. Christ only knows why he wants him.”

“Yeah. Peter Hoffman. People here have been talking about him. And he talks to the press. So tell me about him.”

“East Coast money, nouveau money …” said Paschen. Bill remembered Tom Paschen’s family was Boston old money.

“MIT. Veered into Army intelligence as a very young man, in the early sixties. Bloody time then—remember? You and I were kids. A president was assassinated over there. Priests died. Monks conflagrated themselves. Christ, Bill, who knows what the
president
did back then. He and Hoffman met over there, served together; you’ve probably read Hoffman’s self-serving account in the papers. Hoffman developed as a soldier of fortune type. Jack Fairchild went into politics. Then Hoffman
grew up a little, began inventing weapons. He’s a genius at it, I’ll admit that.”

Bill could hear the dislike in Paschen’s voice; he knew the praise of Hoffman’s work was grudging.

“So that’s what the chiefs after—the weapons know-how. He invented that A-Fifty-five hand-held gun. A revolution in automatic weaponry. And his hawkish persona—shit, the president
loves
his hawkish persona. He even thinks that stuff’s going to carry him up in the polls.”

“Any details about his service in ’Nam?”

“None that you can put your hands on. Records are wiped clean. It’s the recent years that are potential trouble. He manufactures small arms, Acts as a broker. Makes a killing. Has connections all over the world. But he’s kept his nose clean.”

“That doesn’t sound like trouble.”

“I haven’t got to the sleaze part. There are stories out there we don’t like. Stories about women, always women … out of Europe, so they’re hard to check. He’s married again now, although I hear he always has a piece on the side—actually, a series of women, from what FBI surveillance has picked up.”

“You’re having him tailed by the FBI.” Bill’s heart thudded. “What would you want to know from me, then?” As a CIA agent, Bill would be flouting the National Security Act if he spied on an American citizen like Hoffman. Paschen must know what a bind he was putting him in. Didn’t he care?

Fatigue rolled over him. He wondered if he’d even have enough strength to get up and go home to Louise and Janie.

Paschen continued: “I want to know if you think the president
needs to pull back on this nomination—have the guy withdraw.”

Bill said: “I suppose he ran with Secord and Hakim and all that crowd.” Asking for more history. Buying time to think.

“Yeah,” said Paschen. “But not involved in Iran-Contra. And if he had been, well, nobody cares any more anyway. And then he only blew the way the country blew with Saddam. As I said, he’s kept his nose clean, for an arms dealer.”

Bill sat back in his swivel chair and gently rocked. The niggling worry in his head had still not stepped forward and declared itself, and now he had this Paschen thing on top of it. “What do you want from me, Tom?”

Tom’s voice was cold. “I don’t like this guy. We’ve met a couple times and all my instincts tell me, ‘Don’t do it.’ He’s smart. He’s cunning. But you can’t just put some idiot savant in a deputy secretary job. I warned the guy about flagrant womanizing, and from what the FBI says, he’s quit operating dames out of his Georgetown place. But there’s something there I can’t put my ringer on. Hey, you know me, Bill. I’m no pussycat….”

Bill smiled. Paschen was smart, tough, and ruthless. He never could figure out how they became friends. He guessed because despite the means Paschen occasionally used, Bill usually agreed with the end he was trying to reach; because the man, like him, did things for love of country. Mostly, the damage Paschen did was to the egos of those not quite as cunning as himself.

“Yeah. You’re no pussycat.”

“But this guy … he’s like a savage underneath a thin veneer of respectability.”

Bill turned one side of his mouth up in a cynical smile. “And my role in this? Do you want me to scrape him and see how deep the veneer is? After all, mankind in general has only a thin layer of respectability.”

“He lives in your neighborhood, you know.”

“He does? Not in our immediate neighborhood—maybe in one of those homes on the parkway.”

“Nope. He’s just inside your Sylvan Valley paradise there, close enough to the colonial houses to make him feel better, maybe.” Bill was not used to the conversational tone coming from Paschen, but he knew it must presage the asking of a favor. “All I want you to do is ask him over,” proposed the chief of staff. “I know you like your privacy now, after all those years of batting around the world. And then, of course, I heard about that body they found in the bags in your yard—that’s damned unpleasant. But that’s all resolved now, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly resolved.” Bill laughed ruefully. “We don’t answer the phone until we’re sure it isn’t ‘Hard Copy.’”

“No kiddin’. I guess that’s right; a crime brings the media. It must have been a zoo.”

“It isn’t quite past tense yet, Tom. Someone from the press tries to get through almost daily. And the police …” Bill’s face Hushed red, and he was glad Paschen couldn’t see his anger. “This caricature of an Irish cop—I should say
prototype
, named Geraghty. Three times he’s been here at my office.” He laughed briefly. “It’s almost funny.” He wasn’t going to tell Paschen any more—about Louise’s failed session with the hypnotist, about his nagging worries….

“Sorry, old chap,” said Paschen. From one of the country’s
busiest civil servants this was a lot of sympathizing. “You should have sent him to me. I could have told him right off the bat
you
didn’t do it. But seriously, maybe I shouldn’t be asking so much of you.”

“No,” protested Bill. “Go ahead.”

“I was hoping your wife—Louise, isn’t it?—could have a dinner party. I remember being at one of them; she’s great at it. I bet she’s already met this guy, knowing how friendly she is.”

“Well, she hasn’t been able to move that fast.” Bill knew how tough it had been on Louise, job-hunting, trying to get acquainted, dealing for months with difficult contractors, then the murder. Paschen wouldn’t understand. And it hadn’t helped matters that she failed to go under when the police psychologist tried to hypnotize her. Now she would barely tell him anything about it.

Thankfully, yesterday, the garden editor she had been talking to for months finally threw her a crumb by offering to buy an article on ferns and pay her $300 for it. Bill hadn’t been able to tear her away from the computer since. She was slipping fern plants furtively into the house—strange varieties he had never seen before. By the time the article was completed, he would know more about ferns than he ever cared to, and possess an inordinate amount of them, probably about $300 worth. Both of them knew it was a small first step toward the career she wanted.

Staring out the window, he said, “I suppose I could ask Hoffman to my neighborhood poker group; I’m the host in a couple of weeks.”

“You lucky sonofabitch: I haven’t played poker since I was in high school.”

Bill grinned. “I believe that. We met once already at our house. Had a lotta laughs. From then on, Louise has called it the Giggling Men’s Club.”