Dark Ambition (52 page)

When he answered, Paul sounded worried. "I know I'm not supposed to ask where you go, but you've never been gone this long. Are you all right?"

"Actually, I've been in an accident. Nothing I can talk about. A car hit me."

"My God! Are you hurt?"

"Not serious. I need to get home, though."

"I'll come for you. Tell me where you are."

"Don't come yourself. Call Hal, the pilot you use. Tell him to get a seaplane. I want him to pick me up on the Shenandoah River in West Virginia tomorrow morning at eight and take me home."

"Give me your precise location. He'll be there."

Once she hung up the phone, she felt better. Everything was coming together. She'd get medical treatment at a private clinic in the Westport area where questions wouldn't be asked. By the time she was recovered and strong enough, the police manhunt would be over. Then she'd come back to Washington for Ben Hartwell and his little monster.

 

 

 

Chapter 33

 

"We're making a big mistake if all of us barge in and arrest Fulton," Ben said to Jennifer and Campbell. They were standing in the deserted Safeway parking lot, waiting for Traynor to join them with the arrest warrant.

"What do you want to do?" Campbell asked.

Ben look a deep breath and said, "I want one more shot at him by myself."

"Forget it," Campbell said. He didn't need to consult with Traynor to make this decision. "Bill goes with you. No way I'm letting you go in alone. We're at the point now where the perp could lose his grip on reality and start doing crazy things. Fulton could attack you. He could hold you hostage. For all we know, he's got a cache of arms in the house."

"I'm willing to take that chance," Ben said boldly.

"Sorry, Ben," Campbell replied. "It's not your decision. There's more than your life at stake. Fulton's got a wife and two kids in that house as well. I've seen enough of him to know that he's somebody who's so tightly strung he could easily pop at a time like this. The last thing I want is a hostage situation, with a woman and two children inside while a White House assistant, armed with rifles and grenades, has a standoff with the cops. If that happens, I'll be cleaning the sidewalk in front of the District Building for a very long time. No, we'll can take him downtown. You can go at him there."

"You're absolutely right," Jennifer said.

"Okay, okay." Ben turned to her. "But I do want to know something. Since you reject my Slater puppeteer theory, why do you think Fulton did it?"

Ben's question hung in the air. Jennifer didn't have an answer. She was beginning to doubt her conviction that Slater couldn't be this venal, that she would never have been attracted to such a man. She refused to believe it. What possible reason could Slater have for killing Winthrop? Disagreements over governmental policy couldn't be a motive for murder.

Ben pressed ahead with an idea that had been forming. "With Ed's driving ambition, he wanted to keep moving ahead in Washington. If the President didn't get reelected, he'd be out of the government—for at least four years. If he helped Slater solve this problem and get rid of Winthrop, whose indiscretions would wipe out the President's chance for reelection, he'd get a bigger job in the White House or somewhere else in the government."

"What a waste," Campbell said, ready to buy the idea. "Even though he is a pompous prick."

When Traynor pulled up, they all loaded into the large unmarked FBI sedan. There was room for a third passenger in the backseat—Ed Fulton, when they arrested him.

In front of Fulton's house, Ben and Traynor got out and walked toward the door. The FBI agent was in front, holding his hand inside his jacket, close to the shoulder holster, ready to go for his gun.

Standing next to the car, Campbell took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.

"Still haven't quit?" Jennifer said.

"Only at moments like this. You know," he said, gesturing toward the ritzy house, "I hate to see people pissing away their lives. Doesn't matter to me whether it's a black kid stealing sneakers or a fancy-ass Harvard lawyer living in Chevy Chase."

Jennifer was shivering from the chill in the air as she watched Traynor ring the doorbell, with Ben two steps behind. The woman who opened the door seemed vaguely familiar to Jennifer. From the distance, with her view clouded by the dirty glass storm door, Jennifer couldn't see the woman well enough in the few seconds before the door shut to remember where she had seen her before.

Inside, Theo was alarmed by this second visit in one night. Sensing from his face that this wasn't just another meeting to discuss the Winthrop case, Theo said to Ben, "What's wrong?"

"We have to talk to Ed."

"He's working in the study. I'll go tell him you're here."

"Thanks."

As Theo walked across the living room to the closed door of the study, Traynor moved up, placing his body between the door and Ben. In a single slick motion he unbuttoned his jacket and pulled the pistol out of the holster.

Ben began to say, "Is that necessary?" Then his better judgment prevailed, and he swallowed the words.

Traynor was pointing the gun at the study door when Theo opened it.

As soon as she looked inside, she gave a bloodcurdling scream, the most piercing, anguished, heart-wrenching scream Ben had ever heard in his life. Loud enough that Jennifer and Campbell heard it on the sidewalk and raced toward the house.

With the gun in his hand, Traynor ran toward the study. Ben was right behind.

There was no need for the gun. Fulton was sitting in his desk chair with his head slumped over the desktop and his hands next to his head. To the right was a glass with a little water and an opened brown plastic pharmacy container of pills without a label. On the left was a half-eaten bowl of dark chocolate mousse.

Traynor felt Fulton's pulse.

"I'm awfully sorry, Mrs. Fulton," he said to Theo, who was standing ashen-faced in the doorway. "Your husband's dead."

This time she didn't scream. She began crying hysterically. "What did you do to him? Get out of my house, you murderers."

Running through Ben's mind was the thought that Theo was right. They had killed Fulton. If they had gotten to the house sooner, he would still be alive. It was obvious what had happened. Once Fulton remembered that he had used his own phones to call Gwen, he realized that they'd be back with the evidence. He must have gone upstairs, kissed the children, and kissed Theo good-bye. Then he walked into the study, and...

"Get her out of here," Traynor said to Ben, "and find Art for me."

The latter order was unnecessary. Jennifer and Campbell were pounding on the front door. As Ben opened it, Theo disappeared upstairs to be with Kevin and Kirstin who had been awakened, terrified by their mother's screams.

Traynor said to Campbell, "Let's do it the right way this time. You get your medical examiner and forensic people here. We'll give you backup if you need it."

Campbell picked up the phone and called police headquarters.

Meanwhile, Ben began looking around the study, searching for some confirmation that Slater had orchestrated Winthrop's death.

"Don't touch a thing," Traynor said.

Ben didn't have to. What he found lying face up on the floor next to the desk chair was a computer-generated note that said,
I'm sorry for what I've done. Theo, Kirstin, and Kevin, never forget. I love you always.

As Ben read the note, he became despondent. How could he have been so stupid to let Fulton kill himself and take his secrets to the grave? They'd never find Gwen. They had nothing. Slater was safe. They would never get him now.

Back in the living room, Ben told Jennifer what he was thinking.

She nodded in agreement. "You're right. The Winthrop case is over."

Her face tearstained, Theo came downstairs after putting Kirstin and Kevin back in bed, without telling them what had happened. She planned to deal with that later, when she was alone with her children.

Jennifer got a good look at Theo for the first time. Bells instantly went off in her head. Oh, my God, she thought, barely restraining herself, that's the same woman who came out of Jim Slater's office the evening of my surprise visit. Jennifer had known from the rumpled clothes and the scent of sex that they hadn't been writing a speech. What an idiot she'd been to fall for Slater. All the time he'd been fucking the wife of a subordinate. She'd never have anything to do with that bastard again.

Through her rage and jealousy other thoughts began to emerge. What was Theo's relationship with Slater? Ben had been pushing the theory that Slater was involved in Winthrop's death. Maybe he had a point. But Theo was mixed up with Slater. Was she involved in the Winthrop affair too?

Jennifer went into the study and looked around. "Art," she whispered, pulling Campbell aside, "make sure the medical people take the chocolate mousse as well as the bottle of pills, and have them dust the room for prints, including the computer keyboard."

"What are you looking for?" Then he got it. "You don't think Theo...?"

"Let's talk later. Not here. I know something that you don't."

* * *

"Would you like another drink, Mr. Rogers?" the flight attendant asked as United Flight 924 made its way over the Atlantic from Washington Dulles to London Heathrow.

"No, thanks. I think I'll just finish this scotch," Chip Donovan replied.

He leaned back in his seat in first class and thought about what he would do when he reached London. The first thing would be to discard the James Rogers passport. It was probably unnecessary, but he couldn't afford to take any chances. Besides, the James Rogers identity was expendable.

Once he hit London, then what?

He'd take it one step at a time. Check into a small, out-of-the-way B and B in Belgravia, then wait for the coded message that Ophelia, his secretary at the agency, had promised to leave on his answering machine at home.

It was possible that everything might blow over, and he could go home again, retiring in serenity to North Carolina. The more he thought about it, though, that seemed wishful thinking.

Figuring he would need to be alert when they landed, Donovan tried to sleep, but his mind refused to stop running. He wasn't only concerned about his own situation. Something else was gnawing at him, as it had been ever since Joyner had called him on the carpet about China and Operation Matchstick. Who the hell had compromised Chen? That was what had set in motion all of this trouble. He was determined to find that out if it was the last thing he ever did.

 

 

 

Chapter 34

 

Jennifer and Ben filed slowly into the attorney general's office. Hawthorne looked grim. On his desk was the morning
Washington Post
with a front-page picture of Ed Fulton and a headline that read, presidential aide takes his life, cause unknown.

The White House spin doctors had worked late into the night. Just in time to make the
Post's
deadline, a nameless "White House source" had leaked the information that Ed Fulton had been overworked and depressed. In addition, the young man had unspecified personal problems.

Ben said, "We should have known this would happen."

"That's enough," Hawthorne replied. "You did what you thought made sense at the time. Hindsight's always twenty-twenty."

"The issue is, what do we do now?"

"I don't think there's anything left to do," the AG said. "The Winthrop case is closed."

Ben didn't respond. Last night Jennifer had told him about Theo's connection with Slater. "I saw her coming out of Slater's office. She's involved sexually with him. There's an element here we're missing." Ben wasn't so sure about Slater's involvement with Theo—it sounded like female jealousy to him—but he was convinced that Slater has been Ed Fulton's puppeteer. He desperately wanted to continue with his investigation.

At the same time, he feared that if he shared these thoughts with Hawthorne, the AG would tell him to stop further work on the case. The last thing the administration needed now after bad press from the Winthrop murder and Fulton suicide was a sex scandal involving the President's chief of staff and the wife of the aide who killed himself. So Jennifer, Ben, Traynor, and Campbell had agreed last night when they took stock over a nightcap at Ben's house to operate on the q.t. until they had more solid evidence.