The Jury Master (36 page)

The hardwood floor in the hallway creaked. She felt the rush of adrenaline but fought the urge to panic. She bent over and reached into the fridge. The man came around the corner quickly. Just as fast, Tina straightened and fired the soda can as hard and straight as she’d ever thrown a baseball to Jake. Slow to react, the man took it flush in the face, momentarily halting his progress—enough time for her to get out the back door. She flew down the back porch multiple steps at a time. In an instant she was around the corner, racing down the alley between the clapboard siding and the neighbor’s privacy fence.

“Help me!” she yelled, reaching the street and banging on the driver’s-side window of the police cruiser. “Help me!”

The officer never moved.

She pulled open the car door. “Help me!” she started. The officer’s body leaned to the left and tumbled out the door onto the street. Blood spattered the side of his face and the shoulder of his blue uniform.

She stumbled backward, unaware of the car that had stopped behind her, door open, or the man with the cloth. He cupped it tightly over her nose and mouth as he pulled her into the backseat.

64

T
ELL ME ABOUT
the officer,” Sloane said, saddened by the thought that another innocent person had died, and feeling some responsibility for it.

“Coop?” Molia took a deep breath and picked out a spot on the table, playing with a package of sugar as he spoke. “He was a good kid. Needed a break, but a decent kid. He was beat pretty bad—what would be expected in a high-impact crash.” Molia looked up at Sloane.

“But you don’t think so, do you?”

“No. Though I’m not at liberty to tell you why. What I will say is that the evidence is also inconclusive with regard to your brother-in . . . to Joe Branick.” He picked up his mug in one hand and put his other arm across the back of the booth. “Now, tell me, why is a San Francisco attorney so interested in a homicide in West Virginia?”

“It’s a long story, Detective.”

Molia looked over his shoulder at the counter. “Merle? Two pieces of your apple pie. I’ll take mine à la mode.” He turned back to Sloane. “We got time, David, but give me the
Reader’s Digest
version. I have a short attention span.”

For the next thirty minutes Sloane ate pie, drank a second cup of tea, and explained what he could, trying to sound rational. The detective nearly spit out his tea when Sloane told him he had just spent the afternoon with Robert Peak.

“Holy Christ!” he said, then blessed himself as an afterthought.

Sloane took the page of telephone numbers from his jacket and handed it across the table. “The number that keeps repeating is hers, if the story is true.”

Molia considered the page of numbers. “What do you think? You think Branick was banging her?”

Sloane put an arm along the back of the booth. “I suppose anything is possible, Detective, but I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Something his sister said—that her brother always did the right thing. I didn’t know the man, but from what I do know, he doesn’t seem to be the type to do that to his family.”

“According to Dr. Phil, we’re
all
that type, David.” Molia pressed a finger on the plate to get the last crumbs of pie. “But if you’re right, then it’s just an attempt to keep the family from pursuing this.”

“I think so. His sister said her brother was a man of integrity. That was one of the reasons he decided to go home to Boston, to leave the CIA. He was tired of the politics; he thought they were dirty.”

“I hope that didn’t come as a revelation to him.” Molia rubbed a hand over his bottom lip. “You think it’s Madsen? You really think he’s orchestrating this?”

“I’m not sure of anything, Detective. But he’s the one who’s been involved in this from the beginning, and with his background, he would have access to the men and the resources. And . . .” In his mind Sloane saw Madsen’s eyes, as dark and threatening as storm clouds.

“And what?”

“Well, it’s like your gut, you know? I have the same kind of innate ability, and I have this feeling that Madsen is involved in this, somehow.”

Molia puffed out his cheeks before letting out a burst of air. “We’ll need a hell of a lot more than what we have to storm the front door of the White House and accuse the chief of staff of conducting a military exercise on civilians.”

“Which is why I think it’s important we find this man, Charles Jenkins.”

“You think he’s friendly?”

“I wasn’t sure, but yeah, I think so, and I think we need to find him sooner rather than later. I don’t think we have a lot of time.”

“Why’s that?”

“Robert Peak said Charles Jenkins was dead. I know that isn’t true, but he might not be alive much longer.”

Molia picked up the sheet of paper with the telephone numbers, then picked up his cell phone. “Did I say these things have a way of coming back like a bad lunch? I hate being right all the time.” He flipped open his phone. “Wish me luck; I’m about to really piss someone off.”

65

J
ENKINS STOOD ON
the deck of Robert Hart’s home, watching the storm clouds spot the sky black with pools of blood red.

“Have you seen the afternoon paper?” Alex continued to inch her way through traffic, her cell phone breaking up with static from the storm. “Big news from the White House. There’s a story coming out of Mexico City that Alberto Castañeda made a statement at a press conference this afternoon and blew the lid on the negotiations. Peak is apparently going to address the nation this evening.”

Jenkins considered the information. Castañeda had clearly stepped on Peak’s toes. If he hadn’t, they would have issued the statement together, likely shaking hands for the cameras on the White House lawn, which meant it was unlikely that the release of the information had been with the White House’s approval. It had also been an unlikely slip. Castañeda could not afford to make a mistake if he was truly trying to cut Mexico a better deal than the predicament in which it currently found itself. That meant he, or someone, had orchestrated it. In doing so, he had left Peak no choice but to go on national television and embrace the deal unconditionally. If Peak did not, if he looked lukewarm or indecisive, it would fuel the growing criticism that Peak was a president who straddled the fence, unwilling to make the tough calls. The Arabs would perceive an opening, find a way to scuttle the deal, and make Peak look bad in the process, effectively ending his presidency. If Jenkins was right—and he had no reason to think he was not—Castañeda’s next move would be to suggest a summit as early as possible, and Peak would accept it just as a man hanging from a cliff would accept a rope.

Was it coincidence that Joe had died the same week, working on the same issue, trying to find a man believed dead for thirty years?

“How far are you?” he asked.

“Twenty minutes, maybe half an hour.”

He could hardly hear her. “You’re breaking up.”

“I can see the lights of the accident up ahead, but the weather isn’t helping.”

The first drops of rain fell onto the concrete deck, large drops that splattered on impact. “If we’re going to stay here, we’ll need some candles and matches,” he said.

“You’ll find candles in the dining room cupboard. My father kept matches on the fireplace.”

The drops pinged off the deck surface and roof. Jenkins took cover inside, walking to the river-rock fireplace and finding a book of matches in one of the crevices. A gust of wind rushed at the house, rattling the windows, nearly masking the sound—nails pulling on hardwood. Jenkins dropped just before the shotgun blast shattered the floor-to-ceiling window in a shower of crystals.

“Charlie?”

He was rolling across the floor, hearing the pump action eject the shell, the shell hitting the floor, followed by the
click-click
sound of another shell being jacked in the pipe. He grabbed a fire poker as he rolled past the fireplace, knocking the set over with a crash, and continued toward the door. The second blast pounded the river rock, sending bits of stone and dust spraying into his face. Because he had just come off a commercial flight, he was unarmed, a target in a shooting gallery.

Alex’s voice was screaming from the telephone. “Charlie? Charlie!”

He stumbled to his feet, rushing off balance down the darkened hallway, in and out of rooms, shoving doors closed behind him—a mouse trapped in a maze. He shouted into the phone. “Did your father keep guns? Guns! Did he have guns?”

The line was dead.

He kept moving, searching for an exit—the house was like a fortress with bars on the outside of the windows. He rolled into an ornate bedroom and pinned himself against the wall, hoping to surprise the man when he kicked in the door. Footsteps sounded down the hallway, then stopped.
Shit. Bad idea.
Jenkins bolted from the wall as the door to the room exploded, the blast removing a large chunk of the wall and door frame and showering him in fine white dust.
Third shot.

The pump action ejected the cartridge and reloaded. The wall exploded in front of him.
Fourth shot.

He retreated to an alternative exit. The weapon was a 12-gauge, pump-action combat shotgun, probably a Spas-12 or a Mossberg 500. Both were American military favorites. The problem was, the Mossberg carried five shots, but the Spas carried seven shots in the tube and one in the pipe. Eight total. If the man wasn’t reloading as he went—and Jenkins thought he was not—he either was down to his last shot or had a weapon still half full. Jenkins rolled underneath a pool table and out the other side, fumbling for a ball in one of the pockets. The room was as dark as night, the only window covered by a pulled shade. The door burst open. He hurled the ball, striking his target. The gun jolted upward, the blast blowing a hole through the ceiling.
Fifth shot.
Jenkins considered rushing the man, heard the pump action, and quickly dismissed it. The weapon was still loaded. His assailant had chosen the heavier Spas for the extra rounds. His luck.

He dove out of the room and rolled through a Jack-and-Jill bathroom and out the other side, into a large entertainment room with a high beamed ceiling and a wooden bar. Liquor bottles and glasses reflected in a mirrored wall beneath an old-fashioned Tiffany lamp hanging by chains from the ceiling. The only other exit from the room was out a sliding glass door onto the second-story deck, and he already knew there was nowhere to go from there but down.

Dead end.

66

T
HEY STOPPED AT
a supermarket so the detective could purchase milk, bread, and potatoes. He also bought a bag of cashews, which were now open on the front seat of the Chevy between them. The detective leaned forward, peering through the windshield at angry clouds rolling across a darkening sky, manifesting on currents of air as if someone had hit the fast-forward button on a video player.

“Thunderheads,” he said, explaining the phenomenon of an East Coast thunderstorm to Sloane. “The persistent heat and humidity during the past week made it inevitable, sort of like boiling a kettle of water with the lid on, you know? The pressure builds until it blows. Just a matter of when and how much steam is gonna blow off. This looks like it could be a good one. Not like California—those are just showers compared to what we can get out here.” He sat back. “I should just shut my yap. You’re going to get a firsthand illustration. What’s that thing about pictures being worth a thousand words?”

Dusk became night in a matter of minutes, punctuated by an arc of lightning that crackled across the sky, coloring the charcoal-gray cloud layer in a burst of purplish hue, like the colors of a healing bruise.

Molia counted out loud, “One thousand one, one thousand two—”

Thunder clapped and rumbled. He looked over at Sloane with noticeable pride; the storm had arrived, and it did not disappoint them. Rain fell like sheets of clear plastic. Molia turned on the car’s headlights and turned the knob for the windshield wipers. The driver’s-side blade never moved.

“It’s the damn heat,” he said, quickly rolling down the window. “Melts the rubber right to the glass.” He reached out and gave the blade a quick jerk. It broke off in his hand. “Damn. That’s a problem.” As if on cue, lightning crackled again and the thunder roared. “We’ll need to let this pass. I know a place close by—not much on atmosphere, but best bowl of gumbo you’ll ever have.”

Sloane was still full from the pie. “What about the pot roast?”

“Call this an appetizer.”

Minutes later they turned off the highway onto a country road that cut through thick scrub and white ash, elm, and birch trees before widening at a small clearing. A dilapidated oblong wooden structure sat at one end of the lot, which was more dirt than gravel and had felled logs for parking curbs. The wind, blowing a gale, caused a hand-painted sign hanging at an angle over the screen door entrance to bang against the building like an unsecured shutter. Its red lettering, faded to a dull pink, read, “Herring Company Café & Bait Shop
.
”

Outside the café were two vintage 1950s gasoline pumps.

Sloane pointed to a sign in the restaurant window between swipes of the blade and spoke over the rumble of thunder. “Closed. Looks permanent.”

Molia looked genuinely perplexed. “Les and Earl have been threatening to retire the past ten years, but I never thought they’d do it.” He turned to Sloane. “Two brothers. Fought like they were on opposite sides of the Civil War. Some say they were. Les ran the café and Earl managed the gas station. Had a thriving business for fifty years; every hunter and fisherman in the state started and finished his day here.”

“Not today.”

Molia shook his head. “Too bad. The gumbo was to die for.”

The roar came from behind them. Not thunder or anything created by nature, but the manufactured sound of a car engine at high rpm, whining and revving. Sloane turned his head in time to see the battered white pickup truck slide across the dirt and gravel, the back end fishtailing as the driver corrected, causing the truck to tilt as though it might actually tip over before it bounced back on a course straight for them. The barrel of a large-caliber weapon extended out the passenger window.