Paramour (5 page)

Morgan turned to Sullivan. "You have your marching orders," he said. He left the room.

The others watched as Lyons took photos of the body and the room with a Kodak Instamatic camera he'd brought with him, made a rough pencil sketch of the room on a tablet, and recovered the spent bullet from the wall behind the curtain. He placed the round and the revolver in clear plastic evidence bags and dropped them in his briefcase.

Lyons shrugged. "You need me for anything else?"

"Thanks for coming over, Art."

Lyons said to call him if there was anything else he could do. He put on his jacket and left.

Landry shook his head slowly. "Hell, I still can't see Ray taking his own life. No way."

"We need to find out what Stryker meant in the note. Violating his oath could mean anything," Sullivan said. "You'd better go search Stryker's place. I'll notify the next of kin."

"What about the body?" Powers said.

"We take it to a funeral home. There's no way we can hide the fact that he committed suicide, but we can keep the location a secret."

"There's no way to cover a body being taken out of the White House."

"We wait until after dark and use a tactical van. No one in the Press Room will think anything of that. In the meantime, we'll have briefed all three shifts not to discuss the matter. "

"What exactly are you going to tell the press?" Powers said.

"That he committed suicide . . . We'll just leave out where it happened. If they press for more, we tell 'em he was on extended sick leave for depression and killed himself at home. A suicide in the White House is a story. The newsies won't go with a sick man eating his gun at home. If one of 'em decides to try, the Press Secretary can have it quashed as an embarrassment to the Secret Service ... and Stryker's next of kin." Sullivan ran his hands across his face and took a deep breath. "And even if one of the papers insists on writing the story, it would be nothing more than a one-inch column on the back page of the
Post
..." His voice trailed off. He made eye contact with Powers, then Landry, noting their reaction. "Look, I know Ray was a good man. I don't like this any more than you do. "

"We'll head for Stryker's place," Landry said.

"Keep me informed."

As Landry drove to Fairfax, Virginia, Powers kept reliving the sight of Ray's corpse. The effect of all that had happened seemed to sink in for the first time. He felt weary, and his vague foreboding reminded him of his first day in Vietnam.

Ray Stryker’s two-bedroom condominium was wedged into a colorless six-block tract of similar dwellings. The entire development was surrounded by a six-foot concrete-block wall, and young trees had been planted at acceptable intervals along the parkways. There were neatly trimmed squares of recently planted grass sod and wooden planter boxes with lines of drooping pansies in front of each residence. Powers had once considered purchasing a similar town house but preferred his uncomfortable Georgetown Arms apartment to paying on a huge mortgage and living in such a sterile, lusterless suburb.

Landry parked at the curb. They climbed out and walked along a curving walkway to the door of Stryker's place. Powers knocked. There was no answer. After trying a few keys on Stryker's key ring, Landry unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Anyone home?" Landry said.

They walked in cautiously and checked the bedroom and bath. No one was there. After a few words about how they should proceed with the search, Landry took the kitchen and Powers the bedroom.

In the bedroom, Powers not only searched the dresser drawers but methodically removed them from the cabinet and checked each bottom. He found nothing but socks and underwear. In the closet, he lifted each hangered piece of clothing and fingered every pocket. Finding a Santa Claus hat on one hanger he paused for a moment, remembering Stryker in the hat when tending bar at the White House Detail Christmas party. In a box of papers on the closet shelf were Stryker's U.S. Army discharge papers, a few Series E savings bonds all agents had to buy under the Secret Service payroll savings program, a Jimmy Carter tie clip, a few Ronald Reagan ballpoint pens, and some coupons for the Fairfax car wash.

In Stryker's nightstand Powers found a photo album with clear plastic pages. There were only a few photographs: Stryker at Yosemite with some other Secret Service agents...Stryker as a lanky child...Stryker as an army paratrooper...Stryker at the Secret Service firing range...an eight-by-ten of Stryker and some other agents and young women in Eastern European folk costumes. They were sitting around a long table in what Powers guessed was a beer tent. Powers remembered: the President's trip to Hungary. At the bottom of the box was a color shot of Stryker's ex-wife, Dora, a flight attendant, and his gangly, blue-eyed young daughter. The daughter, whose name he couldn't recall, looked to be about six years old and was wearing a dance leotard. Perhaps, thought Powers, the photo had been taken at a dance recital. He was suddenly thankful Sullivan hadn't assigned him to make the death notification to Stryker's family.

Under the bed was an Easy Glider fold-up walking exercise devise, three pairs of soccer shoes, a Scrabble game, and a box of photos in cheap frames: some autographed black-and-whites of Presidents and foreign heads of state like those all Secret Service agents owned. Powers imagined Stryker probably had had the photos hanging in a den or recreation room before his divorce. Though unaccustomed to introspection, it also occurred to Powers that Stryker had been much like himself. A man whose persona was formed almost solely by his job.

In the other drawer in the nightstand, among some paperback Charles Willeford and James Jones novels, was a black patent leather pocketbook. Powers picked it up and opened the clasp. As well as a lipstick, a compact, and a few hairpins, there was an outdated White House parking pass. The name on the pass was Marilyn Kasindorf.

"Ken," Powers said.

Landry entered the bedroom.

"Ever heard of a woman named Marilyn Kasindorf?" Powers handed him the pass.

Landry studied it and shook his head. "A Y pass," Landry said. "A civilian. Y usually means CIA."

Powers picked up the telephone on the nightstand and dialed Sullivan's direct number. "This is Jack Powers. We're inside. We found a White House pass."

Sullivan asked for the name.

"Marilyn Kasindorf."

"Hold the line. I'll check with pass section." A couple of minutes later the phone clicked. "It's a Y pass . . . current and in good standing. She works in the Special Projects Office. There's no supervisor listed, so she's probably CIA."

"Thanks," Powers said.

"Keep me informed," Sullivan said.

Powers set the receiver down. "She works in the basement ... Special Projects."

"Spooks. I wonder what he's doing with her parking pass?"

"Maybe they were dating."

"Could be."

"Maybe they had an argument and she killed him in her office, then put the gun in his hand to make it look like a suicide," Landry said.

Powers shrugged. The condo was giving him the creeps. He felt he was violating Ray Stryker's privacy. Even the dead should have privacy.

"There's nothing in the other rooms of any interest. Let's get out of here," Landry said.

****

FOUR

When Powers and Landry returned to the White House, a copy of a Secret Service log entry recording Ray Stryker's death had already been posted on the bulletin board in W-16. Realizing there was no discreet way to move Stryker's body from the White House to a funeral home until after midnight, when the members of the White House press corps had gone home, Powers and Landry remained in W-16 filling out reports and enduring the expected questions about the death from shift agents coming on duty. Though naturally concerned and interested in further details, nearly everyone already knew of the suicide. With a telephone at every Secret Service post in the White House, news traveled fast. Powers assumed that within minutes of Sullivan's notification of Stryker's death, every Secret Service office in the world and every special agent, whether on or off duty, had been told of the suicide ... or at least had a message concerning the incident left on his answering machine. Agents on every detail, from those assigned to the Vice President or one of a number of foreign dignitaries visiting the United States, or to ex-Presidents, would have something to hash over during off-hours or between pushes. There would be theories and pronouncements of all kinds. With great relish, the usual Secret Service bullshitters would claim to have been Stryker's pals and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Union representatives would jump on a chance to claim that job stress drove Stryker to take his own life. In the incestuous world of the Secret Service, the carrion of death-as well as disciplinary proceedings, divorce, and other general gossip-was talked over, dissected, used, and consumed until nothing was left.

At three the next morning, having been notified by the agent posted nearest the White House newsroom that it was vacant, Powers pulled a large Secret Service tactical van up to the loading area at the rear of the Executive Office Building. He and Landry carried Stryker's body from the Special Projects Office down the hallway, through a passage leading past the White House bomb shelter, and out a maintenance door and loaded it into the cargo compartment of the van.

Driving the van out the east entrance, Powers felt begrimed by everything that had happened. Landry was in the passenger seat staring blankly at the road ahead. The ordeal was obviously beginning to wear on him too.

The funeral home, on the corner of a residential street two blocks south of the Washington Hilton, was a white, wood-shingled, two-story building with a veranda and portico designed, Powers figured, to look homey for mourners. As Sullivan had instructed him earlier by phone, he swerved the van into the wide driveway and cruised slowly to the rear of the building. Waiting outside dimly lit double doors, looking nervous, was a wiry man in his fifties dressed in a red cardigan sweater and Levi's. His gray crew cut and tanned features gave him the appearance of a tennis coach rather than a mortician.

Powers and Landry climbed out of the van.

"Agent Landry?"

Landry introduced Powers. The mortician said his name was Kimball.

"David Morgan phoned. He told me what to do. Please bring him inside."

Powers and Landry slid the body from the bed of the station wagon and carried it through the double doors. Inside a bare room reeking of mortuary chemicals, they lifted Stryker onto a metal table. The mortician searched his pockets and dumped the contents into a small brown paper bag.

"I'll handle everything from here, fellas," he said. "I've already been in touch with the next of kin. Your Mr. Sullivan located them."

He handed the bag to Powers, who left with Landry without another word.

For the rest of the night Powers slept fitfully, reliving finding the body. He woke the next morning with an unexplainable sense of guilt, which persisted as he climbed out of bed, showered, shaved, and headed for the White House.

On the bulletin board at W-16, a notice from Secret Service Chaplain Clint Howard announced a memorial service for Stryker to be held at Our Lady Of Perpetual Help. By midmorning, the agents would be tired of rehashing the Stryker incident and would return to the usual Secret Service topics of discussion during post-standing breaks: overtime pay and women. Powers was glancing at a
Runner's World
magazine before leaving to start his shift when a telephone call came for him. It was the Chief of Staff. Morgan, understanding full well the speculation that would be caused among the other agents if anyone saw him talking to Powers, asked Powers to meet him immediately at the nearby Sheraton Hotel.

At the Sheraton, following Morgan's instructions, Powers moved through an ornate lobby to the registration desk. As Morgan had instructed him, he gave his name and asked for a key to Room 1302. He stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for 13. At room 1302, he used the key to unlock the door.