Guilty Minds (13 page)

S
lander Sheet had become a laughingstock.

When we returned from dinner, I flipped from channel to channel on the hotel TV while Dorothy checked online. Even though the Claflin story never got any serious traction in the mainstream media, it had been splashed all over. It wasn’t just the story that had been discredited, it was the website itself, mocked and derided and lampooned.

On the
Tonight Show
on NBC, Jimmy Fallon opened his monologue with a photo of Vladimir Putin next to him. “Huge news today,” he said. “Russia’s Vladimir Putin is transitioning into a woman. That’s right.” Then the photo turned into a Photoshopped picture of Putin as a very butch-looking woman with lipstick and flowing tresses, in a low-cut dress. “It’s got to be true,” Fallon said with a straight face. “I just read it on Slander Sheet.”

On ABC, Jimmy Kimmel announced that his show was now number one in the time slot, and after the applause, added with a blank look, “It was on Slander Sheet, didn’t you see it?” Each of the late night hosts did some riff on Slander Sheet. Online, the ridicule was widespread.

Dorothy said, “You have to admit, this feels pretty good.”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said tonelessly.

Gideon Parnell called me, profuse with gratitude. I didn’t know a man of his gravitas was capable of gushing, but he did. He’d put Claflin on the line, who was more restrained but still heartfelt in his thanks.

I should have been exultant. But something about this victory felt hollow.

Thoughts raced around in my brain that evening. I didn’t sleep well at all.

T
he next day passed in a blur of meetings, congratulatory messages, debriefs at Shays Abbott. Dorothy went to visit her brother again. I sent my nephew, Gabe, a text and met him after school for a late lunch at a vegan café he liked, not far from St. Gregory’s, the private all-boys school in DC he attended and loathed. The café was a tiny place, mostly for take-out, with a few tables. I knew at a glance that I wouldn’t be eating. They featured faux meat sandwiches made out of tempeh, and soups and salads. Gabe had a veggie burger. I had coffee. I took one sip and put it down. It tasted like something brewed by someone who disapproved of coffee.

Gabe was dressed all in black, his usual fashion. He wore skinny black jeans, a studded leather belt, black Chuck Taylors, and a Bullet for My Valentine T-shirt that showed a skull adorned with red roses. The only thing different was his hair. He used to dye it jet black, but he’d let his natural dark-brown hair grow out. I guess you’d call him “emo,” though he never did the whole emo thing, the lip rings and the eye makeup and so on. His only piercing was a gold stud earring in his left ear.

He was an interesting kid. He was my brother, Roger’s, stepson, but Roger was in prison, and Gabe didn’t get along with his mother, Lauren.
He was brilliant and insanely talented. He wrote and illustrated graphic novels—not comics; he was always correcting me—that were as good as anything I’d ever seen in a bookstore. He liked me a lot and I liked him. He was the closest I’d probably ever come to having a kid of my own.

He wolfed down two-thirds of his “burger” before stopping to talk. “How long have you been in town?” he asked.

“A couple of days.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said, heavy on the sarcasm.

“It was a last-minute trip. Plus the case got really busy all of a sudden.”

“What’s the case?”

“You ever hear of Slander Sheet?”

He smirked. “Yeah. Piece of shit gossip website.”

“Pretty much. It was about trying to get them to take down a fraudulent piece about a Supreme Court justice.”

“I heard about that. That was you?”

“Yup. Heller Associates.”

He took another bite of his veggie burger. “Very cool.”

“How’s senior year?”

He paused. “What do you think?”

“I imagine you hate it as much as you hated junior year.”

He looked away. “More.”

“Because of the college application stuff?”

He drew a pattern on his napkin with a fingernail. After a few seconds he said, “College is for losers and suck-ups. I’m not going to college.”

“Did you apply and not get in?”

“Please. I didn’t even apply.”

“What do you mean?” I hadn’t heard anything about this from his mother. She must have been desperate.

“College is bullshit. It’s all about the admissions process. The guy who founded PayPal says college is just the final stage of a competitive
tournament. The kids who get into the top colleges defeated all their, like, opponents. It’s like
The Hunger Games
. That’s all it is.”

I shrugged.

“It’s just a conveyor belt for upward mobility. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college, and so did Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. And hey, didn’t you drop out of Yale?”

“Don’t use me as an example. I dropped out to join the army. Are you planning to enlist?”

“Me? No way!”

“So maybe you’re an entrepreneur now, like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg?”

“What? No. I just refuse to be a drone. I’m not gonna join the herd.”

“Because you’re special and the rules don’t apply to you.”

He shrugged.

“There are people in the world who think the rules don’t apply to them,” I said, “and my job is to take them down.” I paused a moment. That sounded like sanctimonious crap. Surprisingly, Gabe didn’t call me on it.

Sanctimonious, maybe, but it made me think.
There are people in the world who think the rules don’t apply . . .

Why were we looking for an organization, a group, behind the scam to take down a Supreme Court justice? Couldn’t it just as easily have been an individual with an individually tailored agenda, a highly
personal
reason to want to bring Claflin down? If so, that would mean looking for a different pattern of evidence.

I found myself mentally withdrawing from the conversation with Gabe, not being fully present.

An hour later I was back at the hotel making calls.

—

I was in the shower around six when my cell phone started ringing. I let it ring to voice mail. There was no call I was waiting for, no one I needed to talk to.

It rang again immediately, but I had a headful of shampoo, and I let it go to voice mail again.

When I was drying myself with one of the hotel’s big, very thick bath towels, the phone rang a third time.

This time I picked it up.

The caller ID showed a number with a 571 area code. It looked familiar. I decided to answer it.

“Mr. Heller?” a voice whispered.

“Yes?”

“Nicholas Heller?” Still a whisper.

“Yes?” I said again, annoyed. It sounded like a prank call.

“Mr. Heller . . . I’m sorry . . . I need your help. Please.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Kayla.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly. “Who?”

“Kayla Pitts.”

The call girl whose lies had launched this whole thing. Of all people to hear from. How had she got my cell number? Then I remembered handing her my business card.

Her voice remained a whisper, but it sounded frantic.

“Please, help me. I think they’re going to kill me. Please. Oh, God. Please help me. No, I—”

T
he call ended abruptly, then there was a jostling noise, and then silence.

It sounded like the phone had been grabbed out of her hand.

I stood there a moment, dripping water, trying to make some sense of what had just happened. The girl had sounded genuinely in distress, but why would she be calling me? I found the call in my Recents and hit the button to call it back. It rang and rang and then went to voice mail: “Hi, this is Kayla. You know what to do.” It was the same number I’d used when I’d spoof-texted her, pretending to be Mandy Seeger.

I dried myself off and dressed quickly, thinking all the while. What was the girl up to? My phone showed two voice mails, both from her. I played them.

The same whispered voice. “Is this . . . Nicholas Heller? It’s . . . Kayla . . . Pitts, you know . . . I need your help. I’m . . . I’m in a van, I don’t know where they’re taking me . . . please help me.”

And then the next message: “It’s Kayla again. If you get this . . . just, please, you’ve got to help me. They won’t tell me where I’m going and . . . just call me, please, I’m scared.”

The two messages were fragmentary and frantic enough to sound genuine. But were they? I picked up the hotel phone and called Dorothy’s room.

—

“It’s obviously a setup,” Dorothy said, once she’d listened to the messages.

She’d just come out of the shower herself and smelled of shampoo or conditioner. Her close-cropped hair glistened with tiny droplets of water. She wore a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants.

“They hired this girl because she can act, right? She could say she had sex with a Supreme Court justice she never met and be convincing at it. Now they’re using her to draw you out somewhere so they can . . .” She fell silent, thinking.

“So they can what?”

“Whoever’s trying to set up Claflin is probably royally pissed off that you screwed up their plan. And they . . .” She paused again. “I don’t know, Heller, I don’t like this. It’s a trap of some kind.”

“The girl sounds terrified. Like she’s been abducted.”

“But why would she be calling you? You work for the other side.”

“I don’t know. It sounds genuine to me.”

“So what do you want to do about it?”

“Can you locate her phone?”

She looked at me, eyes wide, shrugged. She did not like to disappoint. “Not without physical access to it.”

“How about the Find My iPhone thing you used to locate my stolen phone?”

She shook her head. “I can’t think of a way. We don’t know her Apple ID. Her—what about the GPS tracker?”

I nodded. “It’s in her laptop bag. If she was really abducted, she’s not going to have her laptop with her, right?”

“Who knows. Let me get
my
laptop and we’ll see.”

She went to her room and was back a minute later with her laptop and her iPad. She set them both down on the suite’s dining table, which we’d been using for work. Both machines had been preloaded with the GPS program.

“It’s still in Arlington,” she said. “Hold on. It’s moving.”

I came over and looked at her laptop screen. A green dot was inching slowly over a map of northern Virginia, along a road identified as Route 66.

“Let’s go,” I said.

I
’d parked the Suburban on the street, and not in the hotel garage, exactly for a time like this, when we needed to move fast. While I maneuvered the SUV through the streets of Washington, Dorothy located the moving dot on her iPad. We crossed the Potomac on Memorial Bridge and continued on the interstate, Route 66, heading north and then west.

I was tempted to speed but didn’t want to risk getting stopped. The dot, blue on her iPad, was still in Arlington, but considerably west of us. We were heading due north along Custis Memorial Parkway, which was what Route 66 was called in Arlington. It was rush hour, it was getting dark, and the traffic was heavy, a sluggishly flowing metal river of vehicles.

“I still think this is a setup,” Dorothy said.

“I hear you. We disagree.” I gave her a meaningful look. “Notice I haven’t heard back from Kayla since the call was cut off?”

“So?”

“Seems inconsistent with a setup. If they’re trying to lure me, they’d have her keep talking to me, keep stringing me along. The way it
happened, it’s more likely they found her talking on the phone and grabbed it.”

“I’m not going to say it again.” She looked at me, then back at her iPad. “They’re in Falls Church now.”

“How often does the tracker update?”

“Every sixty seconds.”

“You charged it before you gave it to me, right?”

“Huh. I forgot. Very funny, Heller.”

“How long does the battery last?”

“Thirty days at rest. In motion, considerably less, but it should last the rest of the day at least. Probably a couple of days. They’re still on the interstate, in Falls Church, heading west/northwest.”

“Take my phone,” I said, “and try texting her again, just in case.” I took my phone from my jacket pocket and handed it to her.

“And say what?”

“Just ‘where are you?’”

It had just begun to rain, a few droplets splashing against the windshield. I put on the wipers, which only smeared the glass, so I flicked on the washers, and that cleared it up. But the rain only came faster, thrumming against the SUV’s hood.

“No reply?” I asked.

“Nothing.” She was silent for a time, and then went on, “Nick, what do you think’s going on? What’s your theory, why she called you?”

“She knows what I do for a living. She knows I have some idea what she’s involved in. I think she called me out of desperation—she doesn’t know what else to do or who else to turn to. She’s scared. That’s what I think.”

“So what’s happening to her? Hold on—they’re at the junction with 267, and they just took the exit onto the Dulles toll road. Where are they headed, do you think?”

“Dulles airport,” I said.

“Why?”

“Their whole plan just collapsed and they want to get her out of town before it spins out even further.”

“Who’s they?”

“That’s the question. It’s whoever wanted to take Jeremiah Claflin down.”

“And getting her out of town means—what?”

“That I don’t know either. She was the most important part of this conspiracy, whatever this conspiracy is, but also, I’m guessing, the soft spot—the most vulnerable part. She’s a frightened young woman who could easily spill the truth about what’s going on. And who put her up to it.”

“Nick, they’re turning off. They’re approaching what looks like an airport.”

“It’s way too soon to be Dulles.”

“It’s not Dulles, it’s . . . it’s a small private airport. The Middleton Regional Airport, it’s called. A general aviation airport. They’re turning in there.”

“Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“We’ve got to move it. General aviation means private planes, and private planes means no set schedule. They can take off as soon as they get there.”

The rain had become torrential, coming down in sheets, splashing up from the road. The visibility was poor. We drove in anxious silence, the windshield wipers beating a quick tempo. I took the turnoff onto Route 267, which would become the Dulles access road.

I passed a few slower-moving vehicles, but I couldn’t floor the accelerator. Traffic had slowed to a crawl; I couldn’t go faster than the cars
ahead of me. The four-lane highway had given way to two lanes, plus there were traffic lights.

“The dot’s stopped moving. They’ve come to a stop.”

“The airport’s probably ten minutes away. Check the map—is there a faster way?”

“We’re on the most direct route. The exit’s three point five miles ahead.”

But we were moving at no more than twenty miles an hour, so another quarter hour passed before we finally saw a sign that said
M
IDDLETON
R
EGIONAL
A
IRPORT
N
EXT
L
EFT
.

“Is the dot still stationary?”

“Just started moving again.”

“Shit.”

I signaled left, shifted into the leftmost lane, waited at the red light. I had no choice but to wait; the oncoming traffic was steady. I pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Finally the light turned green.

I gunned it. After about two hundred feet, another sign for the airport loomed into view, and I turned into the airport access road. Very soon I reached a parking lot where no more than five or six vehicles were parked. Next to the lot was a chain-link fence that enclosed the tarmac. There was a small brick terminal building, and there didn’t appear to be an airport control tower. A small private airport. I pulled into a space and left the SUV idling.

“What’s the plan, Nick?”

“Is it still moving?”

“No.”

“How accurate is this thing?”

“Very. Up to a foot.”

“So can you figure out where it is?”

She looked at her iPad, swiped at it a few times. “She’s on the tarmac.”

“Or at least her laptop bag is.”

She pointed. “There’s a security booth at the entrance to the tarmac.”

“Okay. Can you get out the scope?”

“The monocular . . . ?”

“The Canon.”

She took out from her bag a pair of 18 x 50 binoculars, and handed them to me. I put them to my eyes, turning them toward the tarmac. Once I got oriented, I located a plane on the airfield and zoomed in on its tail number.

“Could you write this down?” I said. “November one-five-five-X-ray.”

“What’s that?”

“A tail number.”

“Which plane?”

“No idea. Now, how about you go into the terminal building and look for her. See if she’s waiting somewhere. It’s not a big building—shouldn’t take too long.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Drive onto the tarmac.”

“You can’t.”

“We’ll see.”

She got out of the SUV and ducked down in the heavy rain, heading toward the terminal building. I drove over to the perimeter fence gate. There was a booth, but it was dark and empty. The entrance was blocked by a barrier gate arm. I drove up to the booth and found an intercom and a phone handset mounted on its side. A few feet above it was a security camera. I lowered my window, pressed the button, and picked up the phone. Rain doused my shoulder and my sleeve.

After a few seconds, a voice said, “Yeah?”

“I’ve got a load of luggage for November one-five-five-X-ray.”

“One moment . . .” A pause. Then: “November one-five-five-X, go ahead.”

I hung up the phone and rolled up my window. The barrier gate lifted and I drove on through.

I wasn’t surprised. In most airports, even the big ones, the perimeter security is minimal to nonexistent. For all the ludicrous security measures they put passengers through, the tarmac is the least defended part of an airport. General aviation airports, for private planes, are even more lax. Plus, I was driving a black Suburban, which looked official, like a government vehicle.

Still, I didn’t know where I was going.

I passed a refueling truck, an unmarked low brick building, then the one-story brick terminal building. No one was gathered on the pavement in front of it. No passengers preparing to board. But a small plane, a Cessna, was being refueled from a truck on the tarmac about two hundred feet away. That was the plane. I knew it instinctively. This was no setup. Kayla Pitts had been taken to this private airport to fly her somewhere. Some place she didn’t want to go.

I drove on another hundred feet until I reached a hangarlike building whose overhead door was rolled all the way up. The bright light spilled out onto the asphalt. I could see vending machines, tables, and desks. A few guys standing around. It looked like it might be a pilots’ briefing area. In one glance I saw what I needed.

I parked the Suburban next to the building, alongside a truck. I consulted the iPad once again. The green dot still hadn’t moved. It appeared to be about a hundred feet outside the terminal building. That would be exactly where the Cessna was being refueled. I assumed that meant that Kayla’s luggage, including her laptop bag, had already been loaded into the plane’s cargo hold.

Then I switched off the ignition, got out, and went over to the hangar. On the way, a walk of no more than fifty feet, I got drenched. I entered the hangar looking like a drowned rat. Three guys standing around
a coffeemaker, foam cups of coffee in their hands. One of them glanced over at me. I smiled, said, “How’s it going?” and kept on moving to the back corner of the hangar, where a row of rain slickers were hanging on a rack along with reflective vests. They were for the airport maintenance and service crew. I grabbed one, as if it had my name on it, and put it on. Over it I put one of the orange-and-yellow reflecting safety vests. I noticed an array of big Maglite flashlights on a narrow table below the safety vests. I took one and put it in the front pocket of the slicker. It was one of the high-intensity, super-bright, tactical Maglites. They got as bright as five hundred lumens, almost.

If you act like you belong somewhere, most people assume you do. For all they knew I was one of the fixed-base operator crew, starting his evening shift, caught in the rain. The three guys were laughing, saying something about the Redskins game last night. No one said anything to me. I belonged.

My phone buzzed, and I took it out of my pants pocket.

“I found them,” Dorothy said. “Two guys and a girl who looks like Kayla. They’re in the waiting area.”

“Does she look like a captive?”

“She does and she doesn’t. It’s not like she’s in handcuffs or anything, but these two guys look awfully intimidating, and she looks scared.”

“Can you tell if either of the guys is armed?”

“I don’t have the eye for it the way you do, but not from what I can tell.”

“Okay.”

“But please don’t take my word for it, Nick.”

I thought a moment. “I think I see their plane refueling. If you can plausibly hang around there without being detected, keep your eyes on them. I want to make sure they’re not going anywhere but out on the tarmac. Call me if you see any unusual movements.”

I flipped the hood of the slicker up over my head and went back out
into the night. The rain was easing a bit by now, less torrential, steadier. The fuel truck was pulling away from the Cessna, having finished the refueling.

I stood in the rain a few hundred feet from the terminal building and watched the glass doors.

I looked at the plane and noticed the tail number and memorized it: N483C.

After about five minutes my phone rang.

“It’s them. They’re heading out to the tarmac.”

“Okay.”

I saw three people approach the glass doors from inside and then emerge into the rain. Two large male figures, both in black rain ponchos with hoods up, flanking one smaller figure, a woman. One of the men was holding an umbrella over the woman’s head. They were being considerate, which surprised me. Was she their hostage or not? Was she being taken against her will or going voluntarily?

The man who wasn’t holding the umbrella was walking in front of the other two, moving more briskly than the others. He half-walked, half-ran. Then he clambered up the short flight of steps and into the plane.

I took out the Maglite, grasped it backhanded, pulsed it with my right thumb a few times to get their attention. Both of them turned to look at me, squinting in the darkness to make out my face.

Then I angled the beam slightly to one side and pulsed it on, then off. Pointing it directly at them would blind them—five hundred lumens would do that; a beam that bright was downright dangerous to the cornea—but I only wanted to see their faces. A cone of brilliant light flashed on for a brief moment and then faded away, but it was enough for me to confirm that the woman was Kayla.

And her escort was the bald man.

Curtis Schmidt.