Monument to Murder (24 page)

•  •  •

The man with whom Millius had met returned to his office at CIA headquarters, in Langley, Virginia, and went to his office, a small space behind a sign:
STATISTICAL RECONCILIATION
. He sat behind his desk and perused what Millius had given him. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the request had been initiated by the president. Millius was Jamison’s point man when it came to arranging unusual assignments at the CIA. His word was as good as the president’s, and had been since Fletcher Jamison was governor of Georgia.

CHAPTER   36

The office of Statistical Reconciliation, STAT-RECON, was tucked away in a secluded corner of CIA headquarters. Its existence went back more than sixty years under other names. Its stated mission was to analyze statistical information gathered by various agency intelligence sources. Its budget as included in the agency’s annual report to Congress was modest; its official listing on the CIA’s organizational chart showed it reporting to the chief of Statistical Intelligence. It was manned, according to staffing reports, by four people. Its current leader was the man who’d just met with Lance Millius on Roosevelt Island.

STAT-RECON was the outgrowth of a small, secret wing of the agency that came into existence in the late 1950s under the blanket term
Executive Action
. While the CIA was created to garner intelligence from America’s Cold War enemies, it was decided that it would also be necessary, at times, to take a more proactive stance—in other words, to “eliminate” selected enemies who posed a distinct threat to the nation’s security. The National Security Council (NSC) and its internal “Special Group,” also known as the 40 Committee, whose mandate was to “counter, reduce and discredit International Communism,” was established to oversee the Executive Action group within the CIA. These assassination attempts, either through direct action initiated by the CIA or by supportive groups within the target’s own country, necessitated establishing a clandestine operation to undertake “wet jobs,” the killing of foreign leaders—and others—when called upon to do so by the president and his top intelligence officials.

Because of its secretive nature, its operations and budgets were shielded not only from congressional oversight but from other top government officials. It functioned as a separate entity within the intelligence community, answerable to no one except the highest echelons of the CIA and NSC. There had been concern when the group was formed that because of its clandestine structure there was the possibility of perversion of its reason for existing. But that was considered a small price to pay when compared to the potential gains it could achieve.

Attempts were made on the lives of such foreign leaders as Patrice Lumumba of the Congo; Fidel Castro of Cuba; Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic; Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam; and General René Schneider of Chile. Some succeeded, some didn’t. But always these undertakings were conducted with “plausible denial” uppermost in mind.

The fear that such a secret organization within the government might be used for nefarious purposes was well founded.

In the 1950s, a small group of wealthy men, primarily oil barons from the Southwest, got together to discuss what they considered the downward path the nation was taking. At that time, the president, John F. Kennedy, had captured the American public. The White House had become Camelot; the youthful president could do no wrong in the eyes of most Americans. But the small group of wealthy men saw things differently. Kennedy’s agenda concerned them. He talked of pulling back support for the South Vietnamese government, which they viewed not only as creating an opening for a Communist takeover of Asia—the “domino effect”—but as negatively impacting the financial health of the military-industrial complex. Too, Kennedy’s failure to support the Cuban exiles and their 1961 attempt to topple Fidel Castro, or to destroy Castro during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, said to them that it was time to alter the course of the nation they professed to love, no matter how dramatic the required actions might be.

Their initial financial support of projects aimed at carrying out their vision was soon enhanced by donations from other wealthy men across the country. In effect, they created a government of their own with its own purpose—to rid the country of leaders whose visions for the nation clashed with theirs. They found willing accomplices within a small, rogue group of CIA operatives, and a complex web of financial fronts was established to further fund operations.

As always, plausible denial was a sacrosanct concept, both for the rogue element within the CIA and for this group of men. From the beginning, the actual dirty work was farmed out to individuals and organizations far removed from those who gave the orders. Members of organized crime were called upon from time to time to carry out hits on the group’s selected targets. In some cases, warped individuals with the wherewithal to eliminate a selected target, and who believed in the group’s brand of perverted patriotism, were utilized.

The wealthy cabal’s success in ridding the country of those they felt were taking the nation in the wrong direction began in spectacular fashion on November 22, 1963, in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza, when President John Kennedy was shot dead. Five years later, on June 5, 1968, the slain president’s brother, Robert Kennedy, a candidate for the presidency, was gunned down in the kitchen of a hotel in Los Angeles where he’d just given his victory speech after winning the California Democratic primary. In both cases, plausible denial was effectively implemented. Official reports on both assassinations concluded that the killers of the two Kennedys were lone gunmen acting alone. No conspiracy was determined. The group and its backers were free to continue their “crusade.”

As the years passed, it was decided that a more well-ordered assembly of on-tap killers was needed. That’s when three men in Washington, D.C., each a former CIA operative, established a clearinghouse, an employment agency of sorts to provide selected individuals to accomplish further assassinations as deemed necessary. Included among the three was a small, bald, bespectacled man known to his colleagues, and to those he recruited as paid assassins, only as Dexter.

•  •  •

Carrying the folder containing information on Robert Brixton, the man left Langley and drove to a parking lot in Maryland, where he used a special cell phone to make a call.

“Dexter?”

“Yes.”

“Morris,” he said, using the predetermined code name.

“Yes?”

“Can we meet in an hour? I have something for you.”

“Of course. Number Seven.”

Number Seven was on a list of meeting places shared by Dexter and his caller, the parking lot of a Roy Rogers fast food outlet on Belle View Boulevard in Alexandria, Virginia.

Dexter placed the cordless phone back in its cradle in his office in the building south of the Pentagon. Visitors to the building saw a small sign on the front,
Z-STAT ASSOCIATES,
which was registered as a legitimate corporation whose official source of business was providing consulting and administrative services to the CIA’s Office of Statistical Reconciliation.

He left the building and went to where the meeting would take place.

The man handed him the envelope. “There’s an urgency to this,” he told Dexter.

“He’s here in Washington?”

“The Hotel Rouge, on Sixteenth.”

“It will be taken care of,” said Dexter. “The usual fee.”

“That will be fine. Let me know when it’s completed.”

“Of course.”

The fee would be six hundred thousand dollars paid through the multimillion-dollar hidden fund at the CIA, provided by nameless, faceless rich men scattered across the country.

CHAPTER   37

Bob Brixton met for breakfast with Will Sayers. The rotund Savannah reporter, now Washington bureau chief, consumed a hearty platter of eggs, pancakes, bacon, and sausage as he listened to Brixton recount the events of the past few days. The private detective’s frustration was evident as he told Sayers of Mac Smith’s failure to arrange a meeting with Mitzi Cardell. That Sayers had also come a cropper in trying to speak with the D.C. hostess only added to Brixton’s glum mood.

“Maybe I ought to just pack up and forget about getting people to talk,” he said as he picked at a bowl of fresh fruit and the remains of a Danish pastry.

“That’s one possibility,” Sayers said, “but it doesn’t sound like you.”

“What
does
sound like me?” Brixton said, more to the fruit bowl than to his breakfast companion. “Tilting at windmills? Chasing my tail in circles? I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept thinking that even if I could nail down that Mitzi Cardell and her father had something to do with the murder, and paying off Louise Watkins to go to prison, what’s the end result? Nobody’s going to indict them back in Savannah. The statute of limitations ran itself out long ago. What’s to be gained? It makes for a juicy story, puts a dent in Mitzi Cardell’s reputation, but so what? I’m not out to hurt her or her father.”

“I thought you wanted to find out what really happened for your client, the kid’s mother.”

“Yeah, that would be nice, give her a sense of closure. That’s what’s been keeping me going, to do right by her. But is it worth it?”

“Only you know that, Robert. Why don’t you pick up the phone and call Mitzi directly?”

“Oh, I thought of doing that when Mac Smith offered to give it a try. Fat chance she’d talk to me after she blew off you and Smith.”

“Well,” Sayers said, wiping his mouth on the red-and-white railroad handkerchief he always carried, “I’d at least give it a try before you throw in the towel.” He motioned to the waiter for a coffee refill as Brixton’s cell phone rang.

“Bob, it’s Cynthia. You actually have your phone on.”

“I never turned it off from last night. What’s up?”

“Detective Cleland called twice. He says it’s important that he speak with you.”

“You give him my cell number?”

“I didn’t want to do that until I talked with you.”

“It’s okay. Give it to him. You getting ready to leave town?”

“We put it off a week.”

“What else is happening?”

“Not much. How are things going with you?”

“They’re not. Going anywhere, I mean. I’ll stay in touch.”

Brixton and Sayers were about to leave the restaurant when Brixton’s phone sounded again.

“Robert, it’s Joe Cleland.”

“Hey, Joe. Cynthia said you’d called. What’s up?”

“Something I thought you ought to know. Sitting down?”

“Yeah, I’m sitting down.”

“Seems like the obit section of the
Morning News
gets read by lots of people, including the prison population over at Coastal State, in Garden City. Catch this, my friend. There an inmate there, name’s—” He read from a piece of paper. “Name’s Ginell Johnson, doing thirty to life for a homicide. Looks like he’s coming to the end of his sentence, the life portion. The Big C, terminal. Anyway, I hear from an old buddy who works there that this Johnson found God a few years back, turned into a born-again something or other. Looks like he wants to copper his bet when he gets to the Pearly Gates by confessing to other murders he committed but was never accused of.”

Sayers started to say something but Brixton waved him off as he listened to what Cleland had to say next. “Johnson claims that he was hired to kill a young gal whose name happens to be Louise Watkins.”

Brixton sat back and exhaled a stream of air. Sayers’s raised eyebrows asked what was going on. Brixton raised an index finger. “What else?” he asked Cleland.

“Johnson says he was given the contract for the hit on Ms. Watkins by none other than Mr. Jack Felker.”

“Whew!”

“I thought that would grab your attention.”

“It sure as hell does, Joe. Felker worked for Ward Cardell.”

“I’m well aware of that, Robert, only I wouldn’t necessarily go overboard in linking Cardell to this.”

“Is this guy Johnson credible?”

“According to my buddy. He’s got nothing to gain by claiming it, no plea deal in the works unless it’s to put in a good word upstairs—
way
upstairs.”

They ended the call and Brixton clicked off his phone.

“You look like you just won the lottery,” Sayers said.

Brixton recounted the conversation for the reporter.

“That’s intriguing,” Sayers said after Brixton had finished.

“Yeah, it sure is.”

“Felker, who just happens to be one of Ward Cardell’s close associates, puts out a contract for a hit on the girl who he paid off to falsely confess to a crime that Cardell’s daughter actually did.”

“That may be going too far at this point,” Brixton said.

“Maybe, but it’s delicious to contemplate.”

“Know what I think, Will?”

“What?”

“I think I
will
take a shot at reaching Mitzi Cardell.”

CHAPTER   38

Emile Silva received two calls in quick succession.

The first was from Dr. Rahmi, the physician in charge of his mother’s care at the hospital. “We’ll be sending your mother home today. She’s made a remarkable recovery.”

“I know. It’s—it’s wonderful.” The words stuck in his throat. He knew that she’d rallied to the point of being released. “That’s good news,” he said.

“She’s a feisty lady, Mr. Silva. Frankly, I didn’t think that she’d make it when she was brought in.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to put you on with one of our social workers. Some decisions about her care will have to be made.”

“All right.”

The social worker came on the line. “Your mother will need continuing care,” she said. “It’s my recommendation—and the doctors agree—that she be placed in a nursing facility.”

“That sounds fine,” he said.

“But she refuses to go,” said the social worker. “She insists upon being in her own home. That will mean arranging for consistent nursing care, perhaps not round-the-clock but close to it.”

“She wants to go home?”

The social worker laughed. “She certainly does, Mr. Silva. Your mother has a mind of her own. She says that you’re a wonderful son and will do everything you can to make her transition from the hospital to home as smooth as possible.”

“Of course, whatever is necessary.” He began to shake and fought to keep it from his voice.

“I need to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss permanent care at home for her. Can you come in this afternoon, say, at three?”

“Yes. No, I have business meetings. I’ll call you when it’s convenient for me.”

Her silence told him that she wasn’t pleased with his reply. “I’ll make it soon,” he added, and the conversation ended.

He sat at his desk, stunned by the news. Anger overwhelmed him and he repeatedly brought his fist down on the desk. He had counted on her dying.

The ringing phone snapped him out of his despair. It was Dexter.

“Hello, Emile.”

“Hello.”

“How are you?”

“What do you want?”

“You sound angry.”

“What do you want?”

“I have an assignment for you. It must be done quickly. I assume that you’re available.”

Silva didn’t respond.

“Meet me at Number Two at noon,” Dexter said, and hung up.

Silva was tempted to decline the job. The plans he’d put into effect had begun to jell in his mind—bury his mother, sell both her house and his, and leave the country, go to that warm, idyllic island where he’d hidden the money he’d accumulated. He’d had enough of Dexter and his assignments. Dexter had been right: everyone’s usefulness came to an end at some point. That time had come, and he wanted to leave on his own terms.

But the side of him that took pleasure in ridding society of its scum butted heads with his other intentions. He would do this final job.

Meeting place Number Two on the list was a Wendy’s on Twenty-first Street, not far from the campus of George Washington University and the Foggy Bottom Metro stop. There would be many college students there, which annoyed him. He detested their immature chatter, their bravado, their smell.

Silva had already secured a table as far from the others as possible before Dexter arrived. His prediction was correct—most customers were from the university—and he sat with gritted teeth as their inane conversations and odors drifted his way. He took solace in the thought that they had no idea that the man seated among them could snuff out their useless lives at any moment. He was deep into this pleasant reverie when the little bald man entered, took the second seat at the table, and apologized for being late—something to do with a last-minute loose end to resolve—and slid an envelope to Silva. “You’ll find everything in there that you need,” Dexter said. “He’s staying at the Hotel Rouge. Go get something to eat. I’ll wait until you have.”

“I’m not hungry,” Silva retorted.

Dexter glared at him, left the table, and returned minutes later with his meal. “I don’t appreciate your attitude,” he said as he removed the wrapper from his sandwich.

“How do you want it done?” Silva asked, ignoring the comment.

“A mugging, a robbery,” Dexter said, leaning close to Silva and lowering his voice. “Take his wallet, empty it of cash and credit cards, and drop it a block away.”

“When?”

“As soon as possible. When you report success, the fee will be deposited as usual.”

“All right.”

Silva started to get up but Dexter stopped him with, “Perhaps we should talk when this assignment is over.”

Silva straightened and looked down at him. “Yeah, maybe we should.”

He sat in his car and opened the envelope. Inside was the dossier on Robert Brixton, two photos of him, and some additional notes. Dexter said that it was to look like a mugging gone bad, and Silva decided to use a knife. He had a collection of them in various sizes. His favorite was a nine-inch black tactical stiletto switchblade with a black Teflon-coated blade and dark horn handle. But he took note that Brixton was a private detective, which meant that he might possibly be armed. That posed a dilemma. Never bring a knife to a gunfight, as Sean Connery sagely counseled in
The Untouchables.
Still, the use of a knife would more appropriately point to a street assault. He’d take a knife
and
a handgun.

He drove home and sat in his office, studying the materials and photos until he’d committed them to memory. Satisfied that he had, he followed the rules by taking the materials and photos to the garage and burning them over a metal trash can.

His anger at Dexter, and at his mother’s bounce back from death, had now dissipated. Having a definite assignment caused a rush of adrenaline, a sense of purpose. Brixton’s face was displayed before him as though on a screen and would remain there until it was over.

•  •  •

When Brixton left his breakfast with Will Sayers he went back to his hotel, where he reviewed what he would say should he actually reach Mitzi Cardell. Calling her was a long shot, but the message from Joe Cleland had regenerated his optimistic side. He reached for the phone a few times but didn’t pick it up.
This is silly,
he told himself as he finally grabbed it and dialed the number he’d been given. It rang a number of times until a woman answered.

“Ms. Cardell, please,” Brixton said.

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Robert Brixton.”

“What is it in reference to?”

“She’ll know. Just tell her that it’s important that we speak.”

There were muffled female voices in the background. Finally, the same woman came on the line. “Ms. Cardell is occupied at the moment.”

“Look,” Brixton said, “you tell Ms. Cardell that if she doesn’t talk to me she can read about what I have to say in tomorrow’s paper.”

He heard the phone being put down on a hard surface and chewed his cheek as he waited, drumming his fingertips on the desktop.

“Mr. Brixton?” It was a different female voice.

“Ms. Cardell?”

“Yes. I want you to know how much I resent this intrusion.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t mean to intrude but I have some questions I need answered.”

“I’m sure I don’t have the answers to any questions you might have.”

“You’re wrong, Ms. Cardell. Look, I’m here in D.C. to get the answers I need and I’m not leaving until I do. I’m not out to hurt anybody, including you. I just need to find out what happened twenty years ago in Savannah when a guy was stabbed to death in a parking lot and a young black girl was paid to take the rap. That ring any bells?”

Her silence was thick.

“I also want to find out why a guy who worked for your father, Jack Felker, paid a hit man to kill that young black girl when she got out of prison.”

Her silence morphed into an audible gasp.

“Am I getting through to you, Ms. Cardell?”

Her voice quavered as she said, “I know nothing about any of this. How dare you—?”

“Have it your way, Ms. Cardell. But you’d be doing yourself a big favor by talking to me. Maybe you’d rather have the press camp at your door.”

“Please,” she said weakly, “it’s shocking that you would think that I had anything to do with these—these—these horrible things you’re talking about.” He detected a sniffle on her end. “Please don’t involve the press. I have a reputation to uphold and—”

“I know that, Ms. Cardell, and like I said I’m not out to hurt you or your reputation. But I have a client back in Savannah, a very nice lady who needs to know that her daughter didn’t stab anybody. That’s all she wants, to clear up that lousy memory she has of her kid. Her name was Louise Watkins. You knew her when you spent time together at a weekend retreat at the Christian Vision Academy. Your girlfriend back then, Jeanine Montgomery, was questioned about the stabbing and cleared. The way I figure it, she was at the club the night the guy was stabbed to death—why else question her?—and so were you. Who paid off Louise Watkins to confess to the killing? You? Your father? Ms. Montgomery’s father? Jack Felker using your father’s money?
Somebody did!
”

He realized that he was sounding increasingly strident and took a breath to bring his voice down a few notches. “Ms. Cardell, this whole thing went down more than twenty years ago. Why don’t we get together so that I can leave the city, go home, put my client’s mind at rest, and get on with our lives?”

“This all comes to me as a terrible shock, Mr. Brixton.” It was obvious to him that she’d forced herself to calm down and to respond more reasonably. “I’m sure you can understand that.”

“Sure. When can we get together and talk?”

“I don’t know. My schedule is so busy and—”

“So’s mine, Ms. Cardell. I don’t enjoy laying out my client’s money for the hotel while I’m here. Why don’t we meet there?”

“No, no, the Rouge is too public a place.” She paused. “Mackensie Smith knows about this. He called me.”

“That’s right. He did me a favor.”

“How many other people have you told?”

“Not many. Well?”

“I need to think,” she said. “I’ll call you back.”

“No, I’ll call
you
back, Ms. Cardell. In an hour.”

•  •  •

Jeanine Jamison’s private line rang a minute after Mitzi had concluded her conversation with Brixton.

“It’s Mitzi,” she said to Lance Millius. “I need to speak with the first lady.”

“She’s not here, Ms. Cardell.”

“Where is she?” Mitzi snapped.

“On her way to Savannah.”

“Oh, right. I forgot. Thank you.”

•  •  •

The second call Mitzi made was to her father in Savannah.

“He’s in a business meeting,” his long-suffering and loyal secretary told Mitzi when she took the call at Ward Cardell’s office.

“Please tell him it’s urgent,” Mitzi said.

“Mitzi, darling,” he said a minute later, “what’s so important that I had to leave my meeting?”

She told him, including Brixton’s charge that Jack Felker had paid to have Louise Watkins murdered.

“Is it true, Daddy?” she asked as she fought against tears.

“Dumbest damn thing I ever heard,” he said. “Now look, Mitzi honey, you just put this out of your mind, you hear me?”

The tears won.

“Stop cryin’, Mitzi. This’ll all blow itself out, amount to nothing but a hill a’ beans. I’ve got to get back to my meeting now. You take care.”

Cardell returned to his meeting with his firm’s comptroller. They’d been discussing how to transfer funds in order to make an off-the-books payment to the organization to which Cardell had belonged for many years, established in Oklahoma in the 1960s by a small group of wealthy oilmen, and now funded by other men of means around the country. Cardell’s yearly tithe was two hundred thousand dollars, which he happily and proudly paid.

•  •  •

Mackensie Smith’s phone sounded in his apartment.

“Mac, it’s Mitzi Cardell.”

“Good morning, Mitzi. How are you?”

“Dreadful. I just got off the phone with that private detective, Mr. Brixton.”

“You spoke with him.”

“Yes. Mac, I’m frantic. You can’t believe the things he’s accusing me of.”

“I didn’t get the impression from him that he was interested in accusing anyone of anything. He’s just looking for answers to provide a client back in Savannah. Can I be of help in any way?”

“I don’t know. I’m afraid that I’ll end up needing a lawyer and—”

Smith gave forth with a reassuring laugh. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Mitzi. Tell you what. We can find some time tonight after Annabel’s exhibit.” He was referring to a cocktail party at her gallery to introduce four drawings from the esteemed Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero Angulo. They’d been given to Annabel on consignment and she was thrilled to have them in her gallery. Mitzi Cardell was on the limited invitation list and had accepted.