At Any Cost (17 page)

After the snack, Tom walked Leah to the Metro. He kissed her cheek, told her to check in with him in a few hours, and watched her board the train for the
Washington Post
. As soon as her train pulled out, he dialed her psychiatrist and left a message. He knew from experience that Dr. Horner would not call him back. Confidentiality laws forbade him from even confirming Leah was a patient. But Tom hoped that the psychiatrist would call Leah, and maybe Leah would open up to him and agree to come in for a session.

Just as he ended the call, another call came in. Tom answered. “This is Tom.”

“Is this Agent Bishop?”

“Who is calling?”

“This is Karen Schwartz. You left a business card for me a few days ago regarding the death of Antoine Campbell.”

“Thank you for returning my call. Are you at your office now?”

“Yes.”

“I'm only a block away,” he said spontaneously. “If you don't mind, I would like to stop in and chat with you.”

“If it's no trouble …”

“None at all, Ms. Schwartz,” he said, looking around for a taxi. “I'll be there shortly.”

Ten minutes later, he arrived at the building where Antoine Campbell had jumped or been pushed. The same receptionist was at the front desk. Tom asked for Karen Schwartz.

While he was waiting, the receptionist said, “What's she really like? Fallon Hughes?”

“She is an indomitable patriot,” Tom answered. Normally he would be a little more charming but his lunch with Leah was still weighing on him.

“Is she nice?”

“Yes.”

“Is the president nice?”

He was saved from having to answer the question by the arrival of Karen Schwartz. She was a woman in her forties with brown hair and an attractive, alert face, framed by sexy librarian glasses. She shook Tom's hand then led him into a conference room.

“I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time,” she said briskly. “I have a meeting in half an hour.”

“I won't take up much of your time,” Tom assured her. “Your receptionist mentioned that you saw Antoine Campbell jump. I'd like you to tell me what you saw.”

“I was on my way back from my doctor's appointment,” she said, and then a spontaneous smile appeared. “I'm eight weeks pregnant.”

“Congratulations,” Tom said.

“I had just discovered I was pregnant, in fact. As you can imagine, I wasn't paying very close attention to my surroundings. As I arrived, I noticed a few cars parked weirdly on the street. I looked up and saw some figures on the top of the building. It was difficult to see clearly and as I said, I was distracted. I saw the figures on the rooftop interact and then one of them, Antoine Campbell, jumped.”

Tom decided to proceed in chronological order. “What kinds of cars were parked weirdly on the street? Were they marked police cars?”

“No. One was a white Ford Taurus and the other was a blue late-model Volvo. But then a marked Maryland State Police car showed up at some point.”

Tom did not react directly to that answer. “Did you see the drivers return to their cars?”

“No. As soon as he fell, I know it sounds awful but I wanted to get inside to get to my desk before they closed the building down.”

“He fell?”

“Well, you know what I mean. He jumped. But it was strange. I did have the impression that he jumped … facing the building. I can't be sure because it was sort of far away … but it did strike me that he appeared to be falling backward.”

“You said the figures ‘interacted.' How did they interact?”

“I don't know. They just … like, the police were trying to catch him, calm him down, and he wasn't having it.”

“Did you see them push him off the roof?”

Karen Schwartz looked surprised but shook her head. “No. I saw them … tangle. But I didn't see anyone throw him.”

“Did you see him jump?”

“I saw him after he'd jumped.”

“You saw him fall facing the building, but you didn't see him actually jump from the roof of the building.”

“That's correct.”

“Okay, Ms. Schwartz, that's all I have for now.”

She looked relieved. She stood up.

“If you think of anything else, please call me.”

“I will,” she said and walked him back to the receptionist office. She said goodbye and walked back to her office.

Tom returned to Johnson Sloan Pruitt and, after checking with the control room, relieved Jason Slaney from his post.

As he entered her office, Fallon looked up at him with a sunny, melting smile that made his heart flip in his chest. It still surprised him, how transfixed he could become by her, arresting him even when his mind was on other things.

“You look happy,” he said and dropped in the chair across from her.

“I am no longer suspected of murder,” she said with a grin.

“That is terrific news.”

“One problem down, eight million to go.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing new. My mother wants to act in a violent movie about a former-ballerina-turned-dominatrix-slash-assassin, my father is occupied with an impending war in Russia, my little brother is probably sleeping for his fourteenth hour of the day, and I have no idea what a map of the keys is. Just your ordinary, average day.”

She walked around to stand in front of him, reclining against the edge of her desk.

“How about we meet at Gwen's place? I'll bring over some wine and we have a nice, long …”

Fallon's eyebrow lifted.

“Talk,” he finished with a grin.

Fallon laughed. “That sounds marvelous.”

“Be there a quarter after eight. I'll be there at eight sharp. That way the Secret Service will never see me arrive. Just clear it with Gwen.”

“Gwen's always at her fiancé's house in Massachusetts Heights. I don't think it will be a problem. Thanks for thinking of it.”

“It was hardly a chore,” he replied dryly. “Now for a more serious subject. I have a theory about Antoine Campbell's death. I want you to listen before you comment.”

“Okay.” She watched him expectantly, with private joy sparkling in her eyes.

“What if Antoine Campbell called the police, reported his own car stolen, then led the Maryland State Police into the District, ran up the fifth floor of that building and then somehow knew about the weird fire escape issue, got to the roof. Then he jumped. And the Maryland State Police were witnesses, not assailants.”

“No,” Fallon said gently but firmly. “Why would he choose that building instead of the Verizon building?”

“Maybe he feared getting caught if he had that many more floors to get up.”

“Feared being caught? Why? He was suicidal in this scenario. He has nothing to fear.”

“Maybe he was really committed to dying.”

“Why would he need Maryland State Police as witnesses? It was midmorning. There were a lot of witnesses to his death.”

He liked this game, liked playing it with Fallon. She was smart. Tom was stubborn, the kind who would work doggedly on a problem until it was solved. Fallon, on the other hand, came at a problem with unusual angles, arriving at the unexpected conclusion. Their personalities meshed well together.

Based on what he was just discussing with her, Berringer's theory didn't fit the facts. What did fit the facts was the blue Volvo following Antoine Campbell. He called the police and told them he was in a stolen car to get them to move fast. In a panic, he then called Fallon, needing to document the truth somewhere, needing to tell somebody what he had discovered. Then for some reason Tom did not know yet, Antoine Campbell jumped out of his car and ran. He ran not to the Verizon building, which would offer certain death for a man hell-bent on destroying himself, but to a six-story building that had a hard-to-access roof. He could imagine Antoine Campbell running up to the fifth floor and hiding in that narrow little escape, waiting for the two men—and by now the Maryland State Police—to simply give up and leave him alone. But the receptionist said that the men had been on the fifth floor. Maybe they knew the building too; maybe they knew that cramped little nook where he would be hiding. They could not drag him back outside with him screaming. So they hustled him up to the roof. Maybe at gunpoint. Maybe they said they just wanted to talk to him. They crowded him. They walked toward him, making him walk backward, to the edge of the roof. He tried to dodge, and one of the men caught him and simply threw him off the building.

Tom could see it. That was more or less how it happened.

Fallon's motorcade swept through a slightly run-down neighborhood with weathered homes and neat, postage-stamp yards just three blocks east of the US Capitol. On New Jersey Avenue, the vehicles halted in front of a small A-frame house with a big porch; unlike its neighbors, it wore a fresh coat of sage green paint. From the chimney on the side of the house, fragrant smoke puffed out.

It was midafternoon—Fallon's lunch break—but the sky was chromium, dimming by the minute. Fallon declined an umbrella, though the mix of snow and light rain was cloying and cold, and stepped carefully up the slick cobblestone flags to the front door.

A few moments later, the door opened to reveal a heavily pregnant woman. She was slim, despite the basketball belly, with a lovely face framed by mad corkscrew curls piled on top of her head and spilling down her cheeks.

A tentative smile came to her lips. “You must be Fallon,” she said in a soft, pleasant voice. “I'm Charlotte, Antoine's sister.”

“I'm sorry to meet under such unpleasant circumstances, Charlotte,” Fallon said and extended her hand. The woman looked warily behind her to Tom and beyond, to the street, where the follow-up was parking behind the limo.

“This is Tom,” Fallon said. “He's my associate.”

Charlotte frowned. “Are you the cops?”

“He's Secret Service,” Fallon said simply. “He's here for me; he's not investigating … anything.”

Charlotte's face was devoid of expression for a moment, as if she were simply absorbing this information, then she nodded shortly, deciding it was okay to proceed. “Why don't y'all come in. It's cold out here.”

Removing his shades, Tom followed Fallon past the screen door into a clean, small living room with a new mint green sofa, glass tables, and a cozy fire roaring in the brick hearth. Everything was very clean and precisely placed in the room, but there were few decorations. No plants. A small framed picture of a large gathering of people was placed on the wall, but there was nothing else.

“We just moved in a few weeks ago,” Charlotte said, answering the room's emptiness. “We're still unpacking, actually. It's tough, though, with the baby and Charles working all the time.”

The hardwood planks creaked companionably under their feet as they followed Charlotte back to a yellow-tiled kitchen. The little curtains over the sink were open to the side yard and the house next door.

Charlotte put water in a teakettle and set it on the stove to boil. That accomplished, she addressed the two strangers in her kitchen. “Have a seat.” She gestured at the round breakfast table. Fallon sat while Tom remained standing near the wall under a clock. Fallon liked this house; she detected happiness in it. Maybe it was the expectation of a baby.

Charlotte eased her heavily pregnant body into an armchair. “What can I tell you?” she asked.

Fallon looked over at Tom for guidance. He was the investigator; they should have planned this better so he led the questioning. “Well,” Fallon began slowly, “first of all, I'm very sorry for your loss. It was … horrible.” Such stupid words. She felt like a klutz, and she felt like she was in some way being rude, intruding on this woman's grief.

“Thank you,” Charlotte said simply.

Fallon looked desperately to Tom. He nodded almost imperceptibly, encouraging her to continue. “Charlotte,” Fallon said, “I spoke to your brother before he died. He called my office.”

Charlotte's expression hardened, like she was bracing herself. She inhaled a small, sharp breath but said nothing.

“He wanted to discuss something with me and he never got the chance. I wonder if you might know … what he wanted to talk to me about?”

Charlotte's face paled. Some distilling emotion began to wash over her face and Fallon felt certain that they'd done the right thing by coming here. Charlotte did know something.

“What did he say?” Charlotte asked.

“Just that he needed to speak to me,” Fallon said, hedging. “He did mention one thing I thought was odd. He said something about a map of the keys. Do you know what that means?”

She frowned. “No. I've never heard of that. I have no idea what it means.”

“Do you know if he had any connection to Fallon?” Tom asked.

Charlotte began to shake her head. “He wasn't political or anything.”

Tom Bishop, the experienced investigator, continued. “Do you know if he had any connection with anyone who might have been a national security threat?”

Charlotte shook her head. “No. I can't imagine Antoine being involved with anything having to do with national security. I mean, I know that he was doing some work for the NSA. But he didn't have access to anything classified.”

“Did he ever mention someone named Richard Mullinax?” Fallon asked.

“That name does not sound familiar,” she replied.

The teakettle whistled and Charlotte got up to prepare the tea. In silence, she served the tea. Fallon took a polite sip.

Tom placed his mug of tea on the table. “Did he ever talk about the president or anyone else in the executive branch of government?”

Charlotte shook her head. “No. As I said, he wasn't political.” She touched her pregnant belly, for reassurance—for the child inside or for herself.

Tom asked, “Did he have any connection to anyone who might be a national security concern?”

Charlotte shook her head. “No. But …” She looked past Tom and Fallon to the window over her sink. “I don't know what to believe anymore.”

“What is it?” Fallon asked calmly.

Charlotte looked back at her. “Two days before he was killed he told me he was worried that he was being followed.”

Fallon kept her expression neutral, trying not to appear too eager when she asked,

“Did he say who he thought might be following him?”

Charlotte put both her hands around her teacup, letting the warmth and rich aroma of Earl Gray warm her. “He told me that I wouldn't believe him,” she murmured; the regret was unspoken but soft and luminous in her onyx eyes. “And I said he was right. I didn't want to know what he was up to. He hadn't been in trouble in years, but I recognized all the signs. He was being secretive, nervous.”

“What kind of trouble had he been in?” Tom asked.

Charlotte shrugged. “The usual, I suppose. He'd been in jail for hacking, and when he got out, he seemed to change. He finished his college degree and started a little business.”

Charlotte's pretty face was pinched with regret and sadness, raw grief roiling just below the surface.

Bracing herself, Fallon asked, gently, if it was at all possible that Antoine had killed himself.

Charlotte laughed bitterly, shaking her head. “He had never been suicidal, and he certainly was not suicidal when he was killed.”

… he was killed.

A shiver ricocheted through Fallon.

Trying to appear at least outwardly calm, Fallon asked, “Why do you think he was killed?”

“It's obvious,” Charlotte replied. “My brother didn't run off a six-story building miles from both his home and office to kill himself. He was not suicidal. He was murdered.”

Charlotte's fierce words were delivered with the calm certainty of a scientific conclusion.

“Do you have any idea who would have wanted him dead?”

The room fell silent. Tears pooled and fell from Charlotte's dark eyes. Fallon felt the horrible impact of the question, despite Tom's kind tone when he asked it. Charlotte dabbed her swollen eyes with a tissue.

“What about his old cronies? Is it possible any of them had a grudge against him?” Tom asked quietly.

Charlotte shrugged. “I doubt it. It had been years since he had been in contact with them.”

Tom Bishop appeared as the ultimate professional: compassionate, engaged, but all business. He was a comforting presence: tall and strong, bristling with efficiency and intelligence. He was the very definition of authority.

After ten more minutes of discussion gentled in deference to the woman's grieving, Tom Bishop thanked the woman for her time and he and Fallon stood to leave.

Tom handed Charlotte his business card. “Please give me a call if you think of anything.”

Charlotte took the card and followed Tom and Fallon to the foyer of the small home. They thanked her again for her time and walked down the rain-slicked flagstones to the motorcade. Settling in the seat, Fallon looked back at Charlotte, so joyously round with child. Love exists, Fallon thought vaguely. It was an obscure idea, conjured seemingly from melancholy and a desperate desire to believe. Maybe, in the absence of those we love, the idea of love itself would do.