A Killing Sky (6 page)

“You're in deep doo-dah, all right, Frank.”

Carol Upwood twirled a strand of blond hair between her fingers as she leaned back against the wall of the elevator, used by detectives and brass only, that led from the garage to the third floor of the city hall, where the investigators from the Charlottesville Police Department worked. She was a five-foot-two spark plug of makeup, fingernails, and bluster. The only thing harder on a testosterone-laden ego than a brilliant woman is a brilliant woman cop, and Carol was most definitely that.

I stretched. It was late, almost midnight.

“Geez, Frank. You know, maybe you're gonna want to write a book about all this.… You oughta be takin’ notes,” Bill Ferrier said. A former Virginia State Police violent crimes investigator, Ferrier had been lured out of early retirement to work as a detective for the city in what was called the Crimes Against People Unit, which handled missing persons, not to mention homicides. Upwood was sort of his understudy.

When the doors opened I followed them down a short hall into the “big room,” where the detectives all worked, their desks clustered together, backed by cork bulletin boards. The floor was a speckled gray terrazzo, the walls painted cinder block. There was a drop ceiling with fluorescent lighting but no windows to let in the outside view, not that there was much of one anyway from city hall, tucked, as it was, in the shadow of one of the city's downtown parking garages. A Formica counter filled with files and other materials ran the length of the wall around the room.

Ferrier sat in his chair, while Upwood propped herself on the side of his desk and crossed her legs. Since it was after hours, she was wearing blue jeans and a police department sweatshirt. Most of the detectives worked irregular hours anyway, sometimes pulling twenty-four hours at a stretch. The sweatshirt partially obscured the Beretta she had strapped to her waist.

“Abercrombie's pretty hot about a PI sitting on a crime scene,” she said. Willard Abercrombie was the chief of the Charlottesville City Police. My relationship with him went back a few years. My kinship with the chief had been severely strained ever since the time he had charged a local Baptist minister with sodomy: a crime that the man—imperfect as he was—had not committed. I had stepped in to pull the preacher off the hook.

“I wasn't sitting on the scene, Carol. I called you guys as soon as I found the vehicle.” I didn't tell them I'd called and spoken to Marcia and Cassidy and Toronto first—a technicality. Marcia was going to call Dr. Karen Drummond, bring her up to speed, and arrange for her to meet with Cassidy.

After I called 911, the university police showed up in less than three minutes, followed quickly thereafter by the city people.

“Either way, some defense lawyer's eventually going to play hell with it. Not to mention the media.”

I shrugged and put my hands in the air. My best “not guilty.”

“How'd you know about the missing twin?” Ferrier said.

Bill is a good cop. Whatever happens, I know I can trust his word. When you're talking jail time or staring down the black barrel of some lunatic's personal protection device, that counts for something. When you're talking bureaucrats and power jockeys, it tends to take a backseat.

“I told you. I was hired by her sister.”

“Uh-huh. And where is she, again?”

“Like I said before, my client doesn't wish to have her whereabouts divulged at this time.”

He frowned, let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “That's just wonderful, Frank. We've got a U.S. congressman's daughter bugged out on us and you're playing a shell game with our major witness.”

“Not my call.”

“No?” He knew better than to try to shake me down. But he seemed disappointed. “This is the kind of shit that wrecks people's careers.”

I was about to say something like I ought to know, but I figured it wouldn't earn me any merit badges at the moment.

He looked across at his understudy. She shook her head, but he spoke anyway. “Carol,” he said, “maybe you oughta let me take the heat that might come down over this.”

“Are you kidding?” she said. “I'd rather go back to working security at the university.”

That Carol. Feeble little woman.

His eyes bored back into me. “What else do you know about this”—he looked down at his notes—”Cartwright Drummond?” Ferrier obviously didn't follow the news much.

“What do you mean?”

“She ever done this kind of thing before? Ever been in trouble? Maybe drugs or alcohol is involved.… And this swimmer you talked to, the boyfriend? We want to talk to him yesterday. I assume you know where to find him.”

“Delighted to be of assistance.” I smiled, but not too big.

“What about the names of the other friends you said you got?”

“Nothing remarkable, as far as I can tell, but I'm happy to share.”

“And the parents? What about them?”

“I know as much as everybody else, I guess. What I read in the papers.”

Politically incorrect Carol grunted. “Drummond's your basic scumbag. Trying to get reelected after the kind of crap he pulled …”

Ferrier looked to be thinking the situation over. I had come to him partly because of who he was, but also because in his current position he was a lot less likely to allow his chain to be jerked, if it came to that, by some higher-up.

“Lot of possibilities here, Frank, in what you're not telling us. Might just have to hold you as a material witness,” he said. “You know, let you think about this whole situation with the other twin and everything.”

“Aw, c'mon, Bill. Which of my lawyers do you want me to call first?”

I had employed several over the years, actually. Specialists. Some were even my own clients. In Charlottesville you can hardly walk across the street without tripping over an attorney. I don't always get the personal loyalty or attention of having only one, but then again, I prefer being on the side with the expertise.

Ferrier was twisting his lips, apparently formulating a not too kind retort to my bringing lawyers into the equation, when there was a little disturbance on the far side of the room.

“Where is he? I want to talk to him right now.”

Chief of Police Willard Abercrombie waddled into the room like a walrus on quaaludes. He was better than two hundred and fifty pounds of impeccable grooming, a few inches taller than Ferrier, decked out in white shirt and tie, khakis, soft shoes, and navy jacket, his small blue-green eyes framed by tortoise-shell glasses.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “If it isn't our guest of honor.”

“Like I was saying about the lawyer—” I said to Ferrier and Upwood, ignoring the chief.

Abercrombie wasn't used to being ignored. He huffed and he puffed and he looked about ready to blow a circuit, but Ferrier cut in on him.

“We've explained to the chief your involvement in all this, Frank. I'm sure you'd agree that things have… uh… escalated a little beyond the scope of private investigation.”

I said nothing. But my estimate of Bill Ferrier shot up even more. He'd helped bail me out of a jam once before. Maybe he would come through again.

“When'd you get such a high-profile client list, Pavlicek?” Abercrombie asked. “I thought you specialized in chasing husbands out of whores’ beds.”

Some people are made vindictive by circumstances. Some may have just been born that way.

I stayed focused on the detectives. “You may have a point there, Bill—about the escalation, I mean.”

Abercrombie's eyes did a napalm. “Listen up, Pavlicek!” He moved right in front of me and shook his finger in my face. “I've got the governor demanding answers, the papers and TV stations beginning to call.”

“Then I guess you called the congressman and the young woman's mom,” I said.

“Of course I did. Left a message for the girl's mother. And I spoke with one of Congressman Drummond's people in Richmond. Fortunately, his flight was still over the Atlantic. The air force is diverting their plane to Iceland so Drummond can catch a different flight back to Dulles. Stopped a whole goddamn trade mission.”

“Proud of you.” I began to shake my head. Ferrier and Upwood stood like statues.

“You have a problem with that, my friend?” Abercrombie calling me “friend” was like Custer mailing a Christmas card to Sitting Bull.

“What, you mean besides the fact you may have just compromised the entire investigation?” I said.

“Frank … “ Ferrier was saying.

Abercrombie turned to his detectives. “I want this idiot taken into custody. Arrest him, charge him—I don't care what you do, but I want him held.”

“But, Chief,” Ferrier said.

“Thanks…
friend,”
I said.

The chief and I had never actually come to blows, but we came close now. He balled his fists, turned to glare at me, and his whole face contracted like a prune. He must have thought better of charging me, though. Either that or he thought it might not look dignified for the chief of police to be brawling in the middle of his own headquarters, especially with his white shirt and khakis on. Breathing heavily, he turned to Ferrier.

“I don't have time for this douche bag, Bill. I want him out of our hair and away from this investigation.” He spun around and stormed out of the room.

Ferrier was right behind him. “Hold on a second, Chief.”

They walked down the corridor together, out of earshot. Ferrier seemed to be patiently explaining something while Abercrombie's voice kept blowing. I picked out a couple of impressive-sounding phrases like “obstruction of justice” and “probable cause.”

Meanwhile, I was an instant pariah in the big room. The two or three other detectives who'd been on the phone or doing paperwork across the way, having bent an ear toward the entire exchange, now went back to their tasks as if I'd become the invisible man. Even Carol turned to straighten some papers on her desk and began writing something down on a yellow legal pad.

Ferrier returned and without saying a word grabbed me by the arm and quickly walked me back to the elevator. Surprised, Carol seemed to be undecided what to do for a moment, but then made the choice to tag along with us.

“Man's an emotion suppressor. Guys like that can be dangerous,” I said.

“Yeah?” Ferrier said. “Well, you better start doing a little suppression yourself—of the tongue kind.”

“I never saw anyone stand up to Abercrombie like that before,” Carol said under her breath.

“Don't encourage him.” Ferrier finally let go of my arm when we were in the elevator. “Listen, Frank. I'm not going to BS you. You know as well as I do that this thing's about to snowball. I'm not asking you to tell us everything you know, but I am asking you to think about what you're getting into.”

“Sam Spade's dead, Spencer's fiction, and the rest of us are just flesh and blood,” I said.

“Something like that. You better watch yourself.”

We all watched the elevator lights blink the changing floors.

“I used to hate this job, especially when there was no body,” I said.

They said nothing. The elevator doors slid open in the parking garage.

“Am I free to go now?”

Ferrier gestured with an open hand, as if that should be obvious.

For a moment, I thought about telling them about the old
Post
articles concerning the hit-and-run, but decided I'd better hold off until I knew more. “Tell me one thing. You think Cartwright Drummond's been greased?”

“Don't push it, Frank.” He craned his head out the door and took a long look down the garage to make sure no one else was within earshot.

“Pretty please?”

He coughed. “Wouldn't that have been your supposition?”

I nodded.

“Like you said, no body, though,” Carol interjected. “For now, it's officially still just an abduction.”

“I'm impressed,” I said.

Ferrier cocked his head at me in a curious manner.

“ ‘Supposition.’ You know, most people would've just used the word ‘thinking’ or ‘guess.’ “

“Get the hell out of here. And no leaving the state. You so much as breathe the wrong way and you'll be doing your peeing in a steel toilet where privacy ain't been heard from in years,” he said as the elevator doors closed in front of them.

Ouch.

Marcia sat across from me in the Ford. We were headed west on 1-64 toward Afton Mountain, sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups, Armistead tucked in her hawk box in the back of the truck. Marcia had only been hunting with me a couple of times, but she'd volunteered to come along and play bush beater this morning. The sun had just winked over the horizon behind us, spreading its flaxen light over the hills, the cold gray of the day before a distant memory.

“It always looks so beautiful,” she said as we topped a rise in the highway and the Blue Ridge suddenly popped into view.

“Yup.” I yawned and flexed my shoulders, just beginning to feel the effects of the coffee.

Needless to say, it'd been a night of little sleep for both of us. Dr. Karen Drummond had arrived from Richmond and turned out to be, for once, almost exactly the type of person the media had portrayed: an intelligent, compassionate, no-nonsense kind of individual. I could see why Marcia and she were friends.

Still in shock, Dr. Drummond was furious and maybe even a little frightened about the possibility of her husband's involvement in her daughter's disappearance. She agreed with the approach of keeping Cassidy's whereabouts a secret, although she was a little reluctant, at first, to keep that information from the police. By the time she left to go talk with them, however, Marcia had convinced her that Toronto and I could be trusted and that Cassidy would be safer where she was.

“Have you heard from Jason?” I asked.

Jason is Marcia's son. Has lived with her since her marriage ended years ago. A little younger than Nicole, in his senior year at Charlottesville High School.

“Oh.” She swatted comically at the air. “He called last night from Nags Head. He said they're having a great time, even though it's still cold down there too. He caught a bluefish off the pier.”

“Don't mind him spending time with his dad and stepmom?”

“Not really. In a way, I'm glad he can experience a husband and wife functioning at least seminormally. Lord knows, his father and I hardly ever did.”

A mile or two down the road we approached the exit that would take us into the stretch of piedmont fields and woods where I had permission to hunt.

“You ready to talk more about Tor Drummond?” I asked.

She shifted in her seat a little. Nodded.

“Talk to me.”

“What do you want to know?”

“He's got this goon tailing his daughter. The other twin's disappeared, and he's having late-night phone conversations with her. Then we find her bloody car. He capable of murder?”

She didn't answer at first. “I don't know,” she said finally. “Maybe.”

“What went on between you two?”

“Who says something went on?”

I checked the impulse to say something.

Her lip quivered a little; her eyes darted away from me. She seemed to be marshaling her thoughts, perhaps arranging memories in a way that would make sense to someone else.

“I told you I was a volunteer,” she said.

“Right. When exactly was that?”

“More than fifteen years ago—seventeen, maybe. Cassidy and Cartwright weren't even in kindergarten yet.”

“That's when you all became friends.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of work did you do?”

“I worked on his first campaign. Phone calls, stuffing envelopes, that sort of thing. Art and I had only been married a few years, and Jason was still little too, of course. Karen had just finished her residency in pediatrics. She was working part-time for a practice here in Charlottesville, and she used to bring the girls and they would sit and play with Jason.”

“Was Drummond still practicing at that time?”

“No. He never finished his residency. Said he'd decided he enjoyed politics too much.”

“Quite a switch.”

“I suppose.”

“I take it money's never been much of an issue for the Drummonds.”

“No, it hasn't. Tor's always had more money than was probably good for him.”

“So you all became pals. Drummond's up for reelection every couple of years. You work on more than one of his campaigns?”

“No,” she said. “I quit after the first one.”

“How come?”

She hesitated. “I don't know. I got too busy, I guess. Karen and I have stayed friends, though.”

She could tell I wasn't buying it. I took the Crozet exit and turned right on U.S. 250. “Why'd you stop working on the campaigns, Marsh?”

Tears appeared in her eyes again. She sniffled.

I waited.

“Tor Drummond tried to rape me,” she said.

I took my foot off the gas and looked at her. Her eyes were puffy, and her voice seemed to come from some far-off wilderness of grief and despair. I pulled the truck over to the shoulder, found a tissue for her in the glove box, and gave her a few moments.

“Witnesses?” I said.

She shook her head. “Of course not.” She lifted her shoulders in a sob and leaned her head against the passenger door's window. She dabbed at her cheeks with the tissue and gently blew her nose.

I gave her a few more moments. This was no time to rush. “You want to tell me how it happened?”

She turned her head and looked out the window. Fog was lifting over the field beside the road. Testifying to a true Virginia spring, a few trees here had actually begun to sprout their leaves already, despite the recent cold. Some cars swooshed by, then a John Deere tractor followed by a line of frustrated motorists.

When she spoke, her mouth moved, but the rest of her seemed locked in some frozen section of her memory. “It was a couple of days after the election. At the time the district was mainly centered in Richmond, and Drummond had his headquarters there. Tor won by only a few hundred votes. When the official results were finally announced, he and Karen threw a victory party for the staff and volunteers. The hotel ballroom had been booked for the night of the election, so they held the party at someone's house in Richmond. A big house. Belonged to some big contributors. I don't remember the name.”

She took a deep breath.

“Art stayed home with the children in Charlottesville, so I drove down with another volunteer. It was getting late. They were playing Rolling Stones music on the stereo, and there was dancing and a lot of champagne. Karen finally left to go home with the two girls, but Tor, the owners of the house, and a few of the staff and volunteers, including my ride home, wanted to keep celebrating.

“I went upstairs to use the bathroom. It was the kind between bedrooms—you know, with two doors. I thought everyone else was still downstairs. I'd had a little to drink, but I wasn't drunk. Tor must have followed me or something because I was just turning to lock the second door when he elbowed his way in.” She shook her head in disgust.

“What did you do?”

“I was too shocked to react at first,” she said. “I asked him to leave, but before I knew what was happening he had his arms around me, pulling my head back by my hair and kissing me hard. I wanted to scream, but I just couldn't. It almost didn't seem real. He started grabbing at my dress and was trying to undo his belt when, thank God, someone knocked on the other door.”

“What happened then?”

“He broke away and slipped out the door he'd come through. I was so shaken up, I pretended I was ill. The girl who'd driven me down from Charlottesville came upstairs. They got me out to the car and she took me home.”

“That's it?”

She nodded.

“You ever tell anyone about this?”

“No. Not for a long time, that is. The only other person who knows about it is Karen Drummond. I told her after she decided she wanted a divorce from Tor.”

“How about your ex-husband? Why didn't you tell him?”

“Are you kidding? Art would've tried to kill Tor.”

“The thought's just been crossing my own mind,” I said.

“Besides, what good would it have done? At first, I just kept telling myself Tor had been drunk, he didn't know what he was doing. Then I started wondering about myself. Had I done something to encourage him? Later I decided I hadn't, but I doubted anyone else would ever believe me.”

I nodded. When I was a rookie cop in New York, I'd interviewed a rape victim, a young woman who worked on Wall Street, well educated, emotionally stable. But she'd decided in the end not even to press charges. She'd met the schmuck in a bar, gotten a little tipsy, and finding they both shared a passion for art, let him talk her into dropping by her place so he could see her small collection of paintings.

“Now you know why I never volunteered for another campaign,” Marcia said.

“But you stayed friends with Karen and the girls.”

“Yes. But to this day, I've always done my best to avoid Tor.”

“How about him? He never approached you, never tried to get you alone to go for the grab-and-pull act again?”

“No.”

Sophisticated sexual predators will sometimes move on once the thrill of the hunt is gone. “You ever try talking to him about it?”

“Once. It was a few months later, when Art and I were beginning to have our troubles. He called the house looking for Karen and the kids—they'd been by to visit earlier in the day. Tor asked me how I was doing. I don't remember exactly what I said, something about Art and his drinking. Then I told him point-blank: ‘You men need to take more responsibility for your actions with alcohol.’ “

“What did he say?”

“He said I needed to be more careful how I presented myself around ail-American studs like him and Art. I knew then and there I'd never be able to accuse him of anything and make it stick.”

“You know if Drummond's ever done this to anybody else?”

She shook her head. “Like I said, I try to have as little to do with him as possible.”

I put my arm out and gently pulled her to me across the seat. She leaned on my shoulder, and I kissed the top of her head and held her close. The curtain of fog continued to rise from the fields while we watched. Here it would be a while before the sun was able to burn through the haze.