Oath of Office (23 page)

“Thank you,” Stone said, looking satisfied. “We’re going to bring a K-9 unit out to the fields later this morning and start searching for their friend.”

“That sounds like a fine idea,” Chester replied. “Is there anything else you think we should be doing?”

“Well,” Lou said, “I do have a question about your corn.”

“Go on.”

“Your plants seem quite high for this time of year.”

“And one other thing,” Cap said.

“Go ahead, Mr. Duncan.”

“I thought each stalk produced one ear. One of the stalks I checked had four. The other had five.”

Chester chuckled. “I’m pleased to meet an amateur agrarian,” he said. “Some kinds of corn still make one ear per stalk, but many others are hybridized and produce two and even three. Still, our corn is special. I’ll show you why.” Chester led them over to a row of baskets filled with flowers of a stunningly iridescent blue. “We’ve been experimenting with a new type of fertilizer in our fields. It’s the same formula that I’ve used to help grow these magnificent blue
Phalaenopses.
This type of orchid is often extremely difficult to grow, especially with color this brilliant. But thanks to our breakthrough fertilizer, the task has been made remarkably easy. I’d tell you more about it sometime after our patent issues are dealt with, but for now, I must pay homage to a busy day ahead by getting some sleep.”

At that moment, the greenhouse door flew open, and in stepped a well-groomed, nattily dressed man of slight stature, perhaps five-foot-seven. In his early forties, he was quite handsome, with chiseled features, raven hair gelled straight back, and dark, piercing eyes.

“What’s going on here?” the new arrival asked sharply, moving so that he stood shoulder to shoulder next to Chester, and eyeing Lou, Cap, and George as if they had dropped in from Mars.

“Ah, Edwin,” Chester said. “It appears we have had a disturbance in one of our fields.”

“Then what are you doing even talking to these people without our attorney?”

Chester actually seemed somewhat cowed next to the man. “I just didn’t feel it was necessary,” he said.

“Sometimes I wonder how you’ve made it this far, Father.”

“Gentlemen,” William Chester said, “I’d like you to meet Edwin Chester, my son.”

CHAPTER 32

Edwin Chester stood motionless beside his father, at the center of the magnificent greenhouse. Lou introduced himself by name, but the scion made no attempt to shake his hand. Cap and George received the same chilly greeting.

Edwin’s gaze turned first to Stone, then back to Chester. “What sort of disturbance?” he asked, gesturing toward Lou and the other two. “What happened to these men?”

“We were attacked,” Cap said. “Ambushed. That’s what happened. And in your father’s cornfield.”

“What’s my father’s is mine,” Edwin said. “Ambushed by whom? What are you talking about?”

Lou paid close attention to Edwin’s reaction. His surprise appeared to be genuine, as did his indignation about having to deal with this situation at all.

“These three are from D.C.,” Chester said. “They say they followed two men out here whom they believed were following them. They claim there was an ambush and gunfire, and that at least two men were killed. One of them was their friend.”

“My cousin,” George corrected.

“Chief Stone is here to investigate, and I’ve offered our complete cooperation.”

“That makes no sense,” Edwin said. “Why would somebody attack these men in our cornfield? Have you contacted someone from Hensley’s? They’re on call to us twenty-four/seven. That’s why you pay them that ridiculous retainer.”

Lou took a step forward. “I believe I know
exactly
why we were attacked,” he said, addressing both Chester men.

“And who the hell are you?”

“Edwin, Dr. Welcome, here, is an emergency physician at Eisenhower Memorial,” Stone said.

Lou was unable to ignore the fact that William was concerned as to why the ambush could have happened, while his son seemed interested only in absolving them of any responsibility.

“Go on,” Edwin said, as if he expected Lou wouldn’t speak without his permission.

“I’ve noticed an unusual pattern of behavior among people in Kings Ridge,” Lou began. “It seems that my observations may have attracted the attention of the people who ambushed us—or else of the people who hired them.”

“What sort of behavior?” Edwin asked.

“For me, it all started with the John Meacham shootings,” Lou said.

“Meacham!” William exclaimed. “What in the hell could that crazy murderer have to do with your being ambushed in our field?”

It was the first crack in the man’s composure. Continuing to select each word with care, Lou reviewed his job with the PWO, his relationship with Meacham, and the reason for his trip to the hospital in Kings Ridge.

“I don’t think John knew what he was doing when he shot those people,” Lou summarized. “His judgment was impaired and—”

“Of course his judgment was impaired!” Edwin cut in. “He was deranged. He had proven that before, but apparently you weren’t paying attention then. Now you’re consumed with guilt and willing to pin the blame on anyone and anything except your bad evaluation of the man.”

“Up until the day he killed those people, Meacham had been doing fine?” Stone asked, as if he expected Edwin to jump down his throat.

“Perfect, from all I can tell,” Lou replied.

“Then what happened?”

“That’s what I’d like to find out,” Lou said. “You see, I think Meacham is the tip of an iceberg.”

“Explain,” Edwin said curtly.

“From what I can tell, he wasn’t deranged in the sense that he had gone crazy,” Lou replied. “It seems more as if he was profoundly confused—as if his logic and reasoning deserted him.”

Lou went on to review the police report of the woman who survived long enough to describe Meacham’s repeated muttering of the phrase
no witnesses
during his rampage, even though the most important witness of all, Roberta Jennings, had long since departed the office.

“That does sound strange,” Edwin said.

Lou sensed that he had now lost the older Chester completely, and knew that he had never made a dent in Gilbert Stone. But there seemed to be at least a glimmer of interest from Edwin. Lou decided it was worth pushing his theories.

“And there’s more,” he said.

He recounted the baffling and at times risky medicine being practiced by several of the staff at DeLand Regional, Carolyn Meacham’s dangerous car chase, and finally, his observations surrounding Joey Alderson’s near amputation, and the young chef’s admission that he had no idea why he chose to reach beneath the deadly blade when he did.

“In each instance,” he concluded, “it appeared that there was a temporary loss of judgment—a gap in thinking or, if you will, a lapse of reason.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Edwin muttered when Lou had finished. “This is absolute rubbish. It is preposterous to think that you’d be the target of a deadly ambush, like you claim happened, just because of your theories, which are utterly baseless.”

Lou’s patience with the man was wearing thin. “Baseless? Chief Stone, how many residents are there in Kings Ridge? Seven thousand?

“Ten,” Stone grumbled, clearly wishing they could all call it quits.

“Ten,” Lou echoed. “Even allowing for the fact that not everyone working at the hospital is from Kings Ridge, I’ve just identified roughly ten people who have exhibited these symptoms, and that was without even searching for them. Now, I was never a biostatistics whiz in med school, but I did pass. I imagine that someone who knew what they were doing and crunched the numbers would tell us there is no coincidence at work here.”

“Ridiculous,” Edwin said. “Please, Gilbert, tell me you’re not buying in to this nonsense?”

“We’re investigating all possibilities, Edwin,” Stone said.

“We’ll cooperate in the morning when our attorneys are present. But for now, I ask that you all leave these premises immediately so that my father and I might attempt to get some sleep.”

“Of course,” Stone said.

Without reaction, William stalked from the greenhouse, and Gilbert Stone led the others through a door leading to the front lawn.

Lou was the last of the group to leave.

Edwin was standing by the door, and as Lou passed, Edwin seized him tightly by the arm. “What in the hell is really going on, Welcome?” the man whispered harshly. Despite the difference in their height, he fixed Lou with an icy glare.

“I thought I just told you,” Lou said, pulling his arm free and not backing off a step. “There is something deadly wrong going on in Kings Ridge.”

CHAPTER 33

Darlene wore a brunet wig in addition to the same white-framed tinted glasses she had on the evening she met with Double M. The disguise worked well. In her tight-fitting jeans and studded leather jacket, Darlene blended in perfectly with the other nighthawks enjoying an early-morning meal at Chef Chen’s. No one in the eatery seemed to recognize the First Lady of the United States, seated alone in a back booth, not far from the kitchen.

Victor Ochoa, on high alert, was at a lacquered table directly across from her. He sipped absently at his tea while constantly scanning the room—especially the main entrance.

The girls weren’t going to show.

Darlene made the briefest eye contact with the man committed to protecting her at all costs, and shrugged. Her pulse had been racing since she met him by the exit in the basement below the White House pantry. Ochoa was driving his private car, and his composure kept her reasonably grounded.

“I need your help finding this girl,” she had said to him on the ride from the movie theater back to the White House. She handed him the stack of photographs that Double M had given to her.

Ochoa studied the images and set them facedown on his lap. “Is she a prostitute?” he asked.

Darlene was stunned. “How did you—?”

“Just a lucky guess. Secret Service agents like to think we’re a special breed of law enforcement, but underneath the dark suits and shades, we’re really all just cops at heart. This her fingerprint?”

“Yes. And that’s a sample of her voice. Her name may be Margo. That’s all I have.”

“That’s a lot. I’ve got a few friends working with D.C. vice. If it’s all right with you, I’ll let them look these over, and see what they come up with.”

What they came up with was the name Margo Spencer, a doe-eyed sixteen-year-old, seasoned call girl, who disappeared shortly after Russ Evans resigned, but before his case was prosecuted. In fact, without access to their star witness, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. opted not to bring the case to trial at all. Evans’s disgrace, the head of the office begrudgingly decided, would have to be punishment enough. The police and FBI could not explain why Margo had disappeared. Because of her age, she’d been spared the limelight that had shone on other women who played a part in the downfall of other well-known public figures.

“I would imagine she’s laying low until the noise surrounding Evans dies down,” Ochoa said.

“I don’t think so, Victor,” Darlene replied. “I think she’s afraid of the people who hired her.”

Ochoa’s contacts gave him the names and photographs of three women who they believed might have been friends with Margo. The three, known to vice as Jewel, MonicaBelle, and Debbi, were still holding on to their looks, and worked for various high-end escort services. They also periodically fed information to vice in exchange for being left alone. Ochoa had been tipped that they often met at Chef Chen’s after finishing an evening of work. The best he could do was to get a message to the one named Jewel that there would be easy money to be made should the three of them stop by Chen’s at two.

Darlene did not sip her wonton soup, so much as she kept stirring it with her plastic ladle. The meetings, first with Evans at the Bar None, then with Double M in the alley, had her on edge, and she had been eating very little.

Victor might be able to sneak her out of the White House once, he told her, perhaps twice more, should the girls be no-shows this morning, but each such departure carried with it increasing risks, most notably with Martin. His tension, as he stepped more and more out onto a rocky campaign trail, was becoming almost palpable, and Darlene felt increasingly uneasy around him. Kim had actually and earnestly suggested they find a way to get some counseling, but Darlene laughed off the notion, replying that trying to do so would be like asking her husband to deal with his fear of heights through a set of skydiving lessons.

She was settling herself down by playing through a number of the more wonderful memories of the early years of their marriage when, at 2:15, the front door swung open and three striking women strode into the restaurant. Darlene looked over at Ochoa, and he confirmed her suspicions with a nod.

The women did not look exactly as they did in their photographs. MonicaBelle, a redhead, was now a platinum blonde with her hair tied back. Jewel wore glasses, and Debbi had morphed from a pixie-cut brunette to shoulder length. They wore elegant stiletto-heeled boots and skintight designer jeans that Darlene put at three hundred a pair, minimum. Their gold jewelry jangled like wind chimes, and she caught the aroma of perfume mixed with the odor of cigarettes as they passed. A closer look, and she upped her initial estimate of their ages to thirty or even somewhere north of that. MonicaBelle and Debbi slid in across from Jewel two booths away. Before too much longer, Darlene found herself thinking, life was going to start getting harder for the trio.

Ochoa waited for the women to place their orders before he approached.

“Oh, handsome,” Debbi said, curling her lower lip in a pout, “I’m afraid our meters stopped running a while ago.”

The three burst out laughing. Ochoa joined in at a reduced level.

“This is easy money,” he said. “You don’t even have to get up.”

“Oooh, kinky,” Jewel said, and the trio exploded again.

Ochoa waited until their mirth had drifted off. Then he swung a chair over from the table behind him, made sure no one was watching, and slid three hundreds in front of each of them. “I’m not here for that,” he said. “I just want to talk.”