Dead Watch (31 page)

Darrell Goodman, worn and scared, put a finger to his lips, hooked Arlo Goodman’s arm, and pulled him toward the staircase. Arlo Goodman followed him down and around to the concrete tunnel in the basement.

“We had a big problem in Wisconsin,” Darrell whispered.

“Not too big,” Arlo said.

“Pretty big. The Green guy went after me, and George shot him. The secretary . . . we had no choice with the secretary. We had no choice.”

Goodman peered at his brother as though he’d gone crazy. “Are you telling me you killed them?”

“There was no choice,” Darrell protested.

“Sweet bleedin’ Jesus.” Arlo stared for another few seconds, trying to grasp it. “I should have strangled you when you were a kid.”

“Listen. Nobody knows,” Darrell said. “We rented the car in Chicago. We put a little mud on the plates, so they’re not on any camera. We went into a parking lot at the back of the building, and nothing faces the back except a brick wall and a door. We went up, nobody saw us. No cameras, we checked. We went in. We put the guns on them to scare them, I slapped Green a couple of times, and the next thing I know, he’s all over me. Then the chick . . . but we got out. Not a sign of anybody looking at us. Went right straight back to Chicago, fast as we could, dumped the weapons on the way, turned in the car and got out of there. I’m going to root the IDs out of the license bureau, nobody’ll ever know.”

“You dumb sonofabitch,” Arlo groaned. “No guns, no guns. Why’d you take guns? You were supposed to blackmail him, for Christ’s sake.”

“He came after me, man. And then George . . .”

Arlo waved him silent. “Where’s George?”

“Sitting in my office.”

“George has to go away,” Arlo said.

Darrell licked his lower lip. “That can happen.”

“Make it happen soon. The next few days. I don’t want to see him anymore.”

“Don’t worry about that . . .”

Arlo slapped his brother on the side of the head with his good hand. “This might screw us for good, dummy. I take it you didn’t get even a sniff of the package?”

“Not a sniff. But Green knew something, I think. We might’ve had a chance, until he came after me. Things just got out of control, you know?”

Goodman said, “Ah, jeez . . .”

“There’s something else—good news,” Darrell said. “We’ve been listening to the tapes again. Howard Barber told Madison Bowe that he was the one who shot Lincoln.”

“What?”

“I just found out. I don’t know what’s happening in Madison—maybe we can find some way to point the cops at Jake Winter. We know he was there in the morning. And then, if we leak the news about Bowe being gay, and if we leak Barber to the FBI . . .”

“Fuck the FBI. You always want to stick a battery up somebody’s ass. Okay. Check around, find out who Barber’s three closest pals are. Pick one. If he confirms it, we’ll nail Barber ourselves. Nail him to a cross. Maybe we can find a way to get Bowe at the same time.”

“I don’t think she knew.”

“Who cares? She knows it now,” Arlo said. “She’s obstructing justice by not telling the FBI. You just get that going. Figure out who Barber’s pals are. When we pick him up, nobody’ll sweat a couple of dead people in Wisconsin—or they’ll figure Barber did it.”

At a gas station just south of Eau Claire, Jake stopped for coffee and to plug Sarah Levine’s address into the car’s navigation system. After a few loops and dodges, seeing nothing unusual, he followed it to her house behind the Eau Claire Country Club. Still before seven o’clock. Prayed that she was home. Looked up in the sky, for airplanes.

Paranoid, he thought.

Sarah Levine was home. She came to the door in a housecoat, a short, square woman with a square face, blue-green eyes, pearly white hair, and worry lines on her forehead. Jake thought she was in her early sixties. She pushed open the glass storm door, peered at him nearsightedly, and said, “Yes?”

Jake held up his White House ID. “Mrs. Levine, I’m a researcher with the White House. I’m here to talk to you about a package of evidence about possible corruption involving a state highway project. I’m very serious. There have been some terrible things happening, possibly because of the package.”

Her mouth worked a few times, and she looked up and down the street, as if for help, and then she said, “What kind of terrible things?”

“Did you hear about the murders in Madison?”

“Omigod,” she said. “Who?”

“Al Green and his secretary. They were shot to death, yesterday, possibly by men looking for this package. There’s no way to know for sure, but you might be in danger yourself. We need to talk. And I need to establish my identification with you. That I really do work with the White House.”

He tried to look helpless. He saw her hesitate, then look at his walking stick. He leaned on it a little more heavily.

She said, “Al was shot? I just talked to him yesterday.”

“Yes, he was shot. The FBI is working the case now.”

“Are they coming here?” she asked.

“You’ll eventually have to talk to them, if they determine this package is relevant. But . . . Mrs. Levine, I really need to look at it, and talk to my superiors in Washington.”

Alone inside the house, she seemed more nervous about him. Jake took out his cell phone, called Danzig’s office. Gina answered: “This is Jake. I need to talk to the guy.”

“I thought you were all done?”

“I am. But something came up, and this is pretty urgent.”

Danzig came on the phone a minute later, his voice cautious. “Jake? I’ve been hearing some rumors about Madison . . .”

“The city, or the woman?”

“The city . . .”

“Yeah. I was there. Things are rough. But: I’ve made contact with the package in question. I need you to establish my bona fides with a woman here . . . It’s important.” He glanced at Levine and smiled. “She doesn’t necessarily trust me, given the circumstances. I would like to have her call the White House, and have her switched up to your office so she could talk to you for a second.”

“Is this absolutely necessary?” He didn’t want to do it.

“I think so, sir. We’ll have to talk to the FBI, though. There’s another copy, somewhere in Madison.”

Silence, then, “Tell her to call.”

“You can call the White House?” Levine asked doubtfully.

“Sure. It’s basically an office building with a big lawn,” Jake said. “This is the only way I could think to prove that I’m okay.”

She called Washington directory assistance, got the main number for the White House, and at Jake’s instruction gave her full name: “This is Sarah MacLaughlin Levine, calling for Mr. Danzig.”

She had to wait a minute, then said, “Yes . . . yes.” Another few seconds, then, “Yes. Yes I do.” She looked at Jake. “Okay, thank you. I’ll talk to him. Okay. Thank you.”

“They said you’re official.” She was more confident now. “They said you were coordinating with the FBI.”

“I am—but before we get too far down that road, we have to assess the contents of the package. We don’t want to get caught up in a fraud; we have to make sure that everything is legitimate; that they’re for real.”

“One thing, though,” she said. “This is about your . . . vice president. How do I know you just won’t throw them in the river?”

Jake tried to look as pious as he could: “Mrs. Levine, this package is going to come out, sooner or later. There are copies. Once I have it, there’s no way I can bury it. If I did, I’d go to prison. But we have to make sure that it’s real.”