The Inside Ring (16 page)

“No,” DeMarco said, “but maybe the Service’s IT people can tell what he was using the computers for. Maybe there’s a hard-drive record of his queries.”

When he looked over at Donnelly to confirm this was possible, he realized he had made another mistake. If DeMarco was right, Donnelly’s computer nerds would wipe out any trace of Billy Mattis’s search.

“For the sake of argument,” Collier said to DeMarco, “let’s follow your logic, if we can call it that, all the way through. Let’s assume that Billy Mattis, for whatever reason, was—”

“I think he was being blackmailed or coerced in some way by Estep and Taylor,” DeMarco said.

“—was trying to locate somebody like Harold Edwards in the Secret Service’s files. How did the assassination weapon end up in Edwards’s house—a weapon stolen, by the way, from the same Army Reserve unit that Edwards belonged to?”

“Estep could have stolen the rifle from the armory. Billy Mattis being in the Reserve could have helped him or briefed him on the security procedures at Fort Meade.”

“But you have no proof of this, is that right?” Collier said.

“That’s right,” DeMarco said. He was getting damn tired of saying that.

“Okay,” Collier said, as if speaking to a mental defective, “we’ll just forget the lack of proof for a moment and proceed anyway. Estep steals the weapons from the armory, uses one of the stolen weapons to take a few shots at the President, then places the weapons in Edwards’s house. Now have I got that right, Mr. DeMarco?”

DeMarco nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Then tell me something, DeMarco: Where was Harold Edwards while all this was going on? Where was he when the shooting blind was being dug and during the time the President was at Chattooga River? None of his neighbors saw him during this period.”

“I’ve thought about that,” DeMarco said. “I may be wrong but it’s possible that Estep, probably with Palmeri’s help, kidnapped him and stashed him someplace while Estep was carrying out the assassination attempt.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Donnelly said.

“This is absolutely fascinating,” Collier said. “And then what, DeMarco? He makes Edwards write a suicide note, and then kills Edwards in such a manner that it looks like suicide? Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s right,” DeMarco said. “That’s exactly the way it could have happened.” He just wished he had one damn thing to back up what he was saying.

“So how do you explain the physical evidence, Mr. DeMarco?” Collier said. “Such as the receipt in Edwards’s car that puts him near Chattooga River just prior to the assassination attempt?”

“Anyone could have put that receipt in his car.”

“And the suicide note written—conclusively, I might add—in Edwards’s handwriting?”

“Estep held a gun to his head to make him write the note,” DeMarco said.

“And the gunshot residue on Edwards’s hands, consistent with a self-inflicted wound?”

“I don’t know,” DeMarco said. “Maybe—”

“That’s right,” Collier shouted. “You don’t know! You don’t know a goddamn thing and you don’t have proof for one thing you’ve said!”

“For God’s sake, Collier!” DeMarco shouted back. “Doesn’t it strike you that your case against Edwards is just a little
too
perfect? Oswald at least hid in a damn theater. Somebody actually had to chase the man! Edwards was
gift wrapped
for you people.”

“At least our opinions are based on
evidence
, DeMarco, and not the firm conviction that someone
looked
guilty,” Collier said.

Shit
, DeMarco thought, completely frustrated. Maybe he should have practiced telling his story in front of a mirror. Before he could think of something else to say, Banks stood up.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Banks said. “Wall, I recognize that you guys have a strong case against Harold Edwards. It looks open-and-shut. And when the press asks you about Mattis’s death, you’re going to give them all the glib answers that Collier here has been spouting. But let me tell you something: I’m no fool and I’d suggest you damn well take me seriously when I say that you need to look harder at Billy Mattis and Dale Estep. I didn’t do what I should have when this thing started, but don’t you make the same mistake.”

“Wait a minute, General,” Simon Wall said. “Of course I take you—”

But Banks wasn’t finished.

“And one other thing,” he said as he pointed a finger at Patrick Donnelly. “I think this little son of a bitch is deliberately obstructing this investigation.”

Banks walked out of Simon Wall’s office, leaving DeMarco standing alone, staring into the hooded eyes of Patrick Donnelly.

DEMARCO CAUGHT UP with Banks just as his limo was about to pull away from the curb. Banks’s eyes, still blazing with rage and embarrassment, looked over at DeMarco as he entered the car. He may have been angrier at Simon Wall than Joe DeMarco, but DeMarco was a closer target.

Banks stared at DeMarco a few seconds longer, shook his head in a gesture of disgust, then said, “Fuckin’ D.C. politicians. I had fewer enemies in ’Nam.” Tapping on the window which separated him from his driver, he said, “Jimmy, I know you got a flask in the glove compartment. Give it to me.”

“Sure, boss,” Jimmy said, his voice twanging like a twelve-string guitar.

Banks took a long swig from the flask then said to DeMarco, “And that’s the last time I’m taking any damn advice from you, buster. Those bastards just cleaned my clock.”

“They cleaned both our clocks, General. Donnelly outflanked us.”

“I know he did and I swear before I leave this town I’m gonna get that little shit fired. I haven’t figured out how yet, but goddamnit, I swear I will.”

He took another long swallow from the flask, hesitated, and reluctantly handed it to DeMarco. DeMarco tipped back the flask. Cheap bourbon singed his throat and he enjoyed it thoroughly.

“So now what, hotshot,” Banks said, contradicting himself. “Any more bright ideas?”

“I don’t know. Maybe . . .” DeMarco started to say, then stopped and simply shook his head.

“That’s what I thought,” Banks said. “Jimmy, stop the damn car.” To DeMarco he said, “Get the hell out of my limo. I should have known this was the kind of help I’d get from anyone associated with that boozer Mahoney.”

30

The Speaker stood next to DeMarco, looking into the stone eyes of Robert Taft. They were once again at the Taft Memorial, the midway point in Mahoney’s lunchtime walk. Today Mahoney’s exercise togs were white, making DeMarco think of Melville’s whale.

DeMarco told Mahoney the whole story of the investigation, everything that had happened since the last time they had talked. He thought Mahoney was listening but it was difficult to tell. He had suspected for some time that the Speaker was like a damn horse—a big, broad-assed one, like a Percheron or Clydesdale—capable of sleeping while standing up with his eyes wide open.

When he spoke of how he’d had to kill John Palmeri, he’d expected some sort of reaction from Mahoney, but Mahoney had just nodded his head. It was as if Mahoney had always known the hard-looking man he employed was capable of such mayhem. This bothered DeMarco.

Of the meeting in Simon Wall’s office, Mahoney grunted: “Those pricks.” DeMarco couldn’t tell if this sentiment had to do with the way that Wall, Collier, and Donnelly had treated him and Banks or if it was just Mahoney’s opinion of the trio in general.

DeMarco drew his story to a close by saying, “Sir, I’m pretty sure Mattis and Estep were involved in the shooting, I’m almost positive Estep hired Palmeri to kill Mattis, and I think Edwards is a red herring.”

Mahoney said nothing for a minute, then he sighed. “Jesus, Joe. You’re
pretty
sure, you’re
almost
positive, and you
think
.”

Ignoring the Speaker’s sarcasm, DeMarco said, “Yes, sir, and that’s why the FBI has to be made to do their job. They need to question Taylor and Estep, get search warrants for their damn houses, check out where Estep was at the time of the—”

“But even if they did find something, with that agent getting killed, there’s no hard connection to Donnelly.”

“I suppose so,” DeMarco said. Mahoney was fixated on Patrick Donnelly and he seemed to think that Mattis was the link to Donnelly. What the hell did Donnelly have on him?

“What do you think Banks is gonna do?” Mahoney asked, tugging at the crotch of his running pants.

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing he’ll do nothing at this point. He was pissed when we left that meeting but I think that was mostly because of the way Wall treated him. But now he’s done his part: he’s turned over what he knows to the FBI and it’s in their hands.”

“Shit,” Mahoney muttered.

“Sir, you need to wade in on this thing,” DeMarco said. “Talk to Wall and Collier yourself. If that doesn’t work, talk to the President. He’s the one at risk here.”

Mahoney’s eyes widened in mock amazement. “I’m not involved in this. Why would I talk to anyone?”

Christ
, DeMarco thought. Harold Edwards’s suicide note and the evidence found in his house had given Donnelly the advantage—and Mahoney had already factored this into the political calculus.

“Then let me leak the warning letter to the
Post
,” DeMarco suggested. “The press will love it, the FBI will be forced to investigate, and Donnelly will get a black eye for trying to cover it up.”

The Speaker shook his head again. “You leak this to the press now and Andy Banks and the whole Secret Service gets a black eye too. It’d be one thing if you could prove what you’re sayin’, but you can’t. All you’ve got, Joe, is a gutful of conjecture. And like it or not, that jackass Collier might be right: Edwards could have done this thing all on his own and Mattis didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Yeah, but we have to do something,” DeMarco said. “If I am right, these guys—Estep and Taylor—tried to kill the President and they may try again.”

Mahoney sighed. “Joe,” he said, “the fact that someone tried to kill the President isn’t the problem.”

“What?” DeMarco said.

“Someone’s tried to kill every president since Lincoln went to the show. Hell, they even tried to kill Gerry Ford, that Squeaky woman, remember? What the hell did Gerry Ford ever do?”

He pardoned Nixon
, DeMarco thought.

“No, the assassination attempt isn’t the issue, not the main one anyway,” Mahoney said, warming to his own rhetoric. “The real problem is that the guy that’s supposed to
protect
the President is a corrupt little shit who may have helped the assassins.
That’s
the fucking problem.”

“So get the FBI—”

“The FBI isn’t going to go after Pat Donnelly, not based on anything you’ve found.”

DeMarco was stymied. He was trying desperately to think of something that would persuade Mahoney to use his influence to get the FBI to investigate Estep and Taylor, when the Speaker said, “Maybe you oughta head on down to Georgia and check out this guy Taylor yourself. And that forest ranger fella too. There’s gotta be a link to Donnelly.”

DeMarco wanted to scream:
Are you fucking nuts!
Instead he said, trying to sound calm, “I really don’t know what good that would do, sir.”

“Me either,” Mahoney admitted reasonably. “But it’s better than doin’ nothing, and it’s not like you got anything more pressin’ to do. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” DeMarco said, “but—”

“Good,” the Speaker said, and turned to leave.

“Wait a minute!” DeMarco said. “I’m in over my head on this thing and I think you know it. I’m not a cop and these guys could be killers.”

The Speaker looked at DeMarco seriously and gravely nodded his magnificent head. DeMarco knew what was coming next. He’d seen this scene before: he was cannon fodder and the Speaker was the ol’ general regretting the need to send his faithful trooper into harm’s way. His face registering false concern for DeMarco’s well-being, Mahoney put a meaty paw on DeMarco’s shoulder and said, “You be real careful down there, son.”

31

DeMarco pulled off Route 23 and looked out at the Okefenokee Swamp, at the alien vegetation, at the gnarled cypress trees dripping with curtains of blue Spanish moss. He didn’t like what he saw and some latent sixth sense, usually dormant in a city dweller like himself, screamed in warning of things with claws and fangs lurking in the slow-moving black waters.

That morning he had reluctantly packed a bag and caught a flight to Jacksonville, Florida. At the Jacksonville airport he rented a Mustang convertible, put the top down, and drove the forty miles through an almost impenetrable curtain of heat to Folkston. Once there he located a Days Inn, where he was checked in by a bright-eyed girl with a nose ring and purple-tinted hair who contradicted DeMarco’s preconceived stereotype of southern youth.

Inside his room, DeMarco had plopped down on the bed and browsed listlessly through a stack of pamphlets that told him more than he had ever wanted to know about southeast Georgia. The motel’s brochures informed him that ten thousand luckless souls made their home in Charlton County and that the per capita income was about eleven grand. A major source of this financial bounty was lumber. Throughout the county were small lumber mills, paper plants, turpentine vendors, and every other endeavor which could eke a meager profit from a tree. DeMarco recalled that Maxwell Taylor reported to the IRS an annual income of more than three hundred grand, thirty times what his county cousins made.

He spent the afternoon taking a slow tour of the region surrounding Folkston, including Uptonville, Billy Mattis’s hometown. While driving he was forced to conclude that Charlton County was not a completely unattractive locale. This begrudging admission on his part was supported by the fact that the other major industry in the region was tourism. One of the motel’s pamphlets said that in excess of four hundred thousand people visited the great swamp each year to gaze at its birds and enjoy its alligator-infested waters.

He told himself as he drove about the county that he was getting the lay of the land, reconnoitering the enemy’s turf, but the reality was that he was stalling. He eventually ended up on the rim of the swamp where he was now parked, pondering his fate and cursing the Speaker: he was in an area he knew nothing about, where he had no contacts or authority, and he was supposed to investigate two people who may have tried to kill the President of the United States. And one of those people was a military-trained sniper and possible psycho.

DeMarco’s options were limited. There was no way he was going to obtain physical evidence linking Estep or Taylor to the assassination attempt, so that was out. He might be able to prove that during the time of the shooting Estep was not where he was supposed to be, but that also seemed unlikely. Mostly what he would try to do is find the link between Taylor, Estep, Mattis, and Donnelly. Something connected these four men; finding the connection was the problem. Emma’s man Neil, with all his computers and magic black boxes, hadn’t been able to find a link, so what chance would DeMarco have? The best he could do was talk to people and search public records.

And then there was motive. To date he had discovered no reason why Taylor or Estep would want to kill the President. Maybe he’d stumble over a motive here in Georgia—if Estep didn’t kill him first. He vividly recalled Colonel Moore’s story of the army soldier rising up out of the earth, his camouflaged faced mottled with insect bites.

DeMarco jerked in alarm when a flock of birds that had been roosting in a nearby tree suddenly erupted into flight, shrieking in terror, startled by some invisible predator.

AFTER A POOR night’s sleep in his overly warm motel room, DeMarco made his way to a quaint country diner for breakfast. Most of the other patrons in the place wore blue jeans, work shirts, and baseball caps. One dapper gent, however, sported a white straw boater with a red, white, and blue hatband. Matching his skimmer, Folkston’s only fashion plate wore a white linen suit, a white shirt with an open collar, and red suspenders. Probably the mayor, DeMarco thought. He hadn’t seen a man in a straw boater since a revival of
The Music Man
at the Kennedy Center three years ago.

DeMarco was dressed casually himself, not only because of the heat but because he sensed this was not an area where his dark Brooks Brothers suits and button-down collars would fit in. He was clad in a white Izod polo shirt, khaki Dockers, and Top-Siders without socks—the kind of outfit he might wear in Georgetown on a sunny Saturday morn. Looking around the room at the John Deere and Caterpillar baseball hats he wished he had worn socks. These were the kind of people, he suspected, who left their socks on when they made love; they certainly did not take them off when they wore shoes.

A cheery waitress—a lass in her late twenties with a stack of blond hair piled atop dark roots and wearing a pink uniform short enough to show off good country legs—came over to where he was seated at the counter and said, “Good mornin’, shugga. Y’all want some coffee?”

Shugga? Ah, sugar. He liked that. Yes, that’s what he wanted: a woman who called him shugga. And when he was old and fat and impotent, she’d call him big daddy and cheat on him with a greasy-haired, lanky type who wore a John Deere cap.

“Please,” he said, smiling back at the waitress.

“Well ain’t that cute,” she said, wiggling an index finger at his chest as she poured his coffee.

“What?” DeMarco said. Cute was not a word normally applied to him.

“That little green gator there on your shirt. Did you buy that at one of them tourist shops over at the swamp?”

“Ah, no,” DeMarco said.

“Damn, that’s cute,” she repeated. She turned and yelled to a waitress on the other side of the restaurant, “Hey, Patty May, come over here an’ look at the cute little gator this fella’s got sewed on his shirt.”

DeMarco felt his face redden in embarrassment as people turned to look at him. So much for maintaining a low profile. He looked across the U-shaped counter and saw Emma and the man wearing the straw boater smile at each other, partners in enjoyment of DeMarco’s humiliation.

Emma was dressed in a white sundress, white pumps, and a strand of pearls. The only things missing from her Southern-belle ensemble were a frilly, flowered hat and a matching parasol. Emma enjoyed getting into costume when the job required it, and DeMarco could tell that the man with the red suspenders was quite taken with her.

Since coming to Georgia was dangerous, DeMarco had decided not to come alone. Emma owned a gun and actually knew how to use it; DeMarco took great comfort in that. They had flown down together but agreed from the time they landed at Jacksonville that they would act like strangers, as there might be an advantage to having someone unknown to the opposition covering his back—an operational concept Emma had explained to him

The young waitress finally brought DeMarco his breakfast. Friendly was part of the service—speed was not. He had ordered bacon and eggs, and bacon and eggs were indeed on his plate—along with something white and runny that looked like Cream of Wheat with a glob of butter on top.

“What’s that?” DeMarco said, pointing at the white, yucky stuff.

The waitress flashed her teeth at him. “Why them’s grits, you Yankee devil.”

Grits. He should have guessed. He wasn’t going to eat them.

The waitress lowered long false eyelashes over smoky-gray bedroom eyes. “Y’all gonna be in town long, darlin’?” she asked.

DeMarco liked darlin’ almost as much as shugga. “For a little while,” he said.

“And whatcha doin’ down thisaway?”

It was time to go to work.

DeMarco had to have some reason for asking questions and poking about. He considered telling the truth, that he was a congressional investigator, but he didn’t think that was the best way to get folks to open up. His cover story, albeit flimsy as gossamer wings, was that he was a freelance writer doing research on Billy Mattis, hometown boy, soldier, and Secret Service hero. He wished he had taken the time to obtain credentials to match his cover.

He told the waitress about his bogus mission. After she oohed how cool that was, he asked if she knew Billy.

“Yeah,” she said, “but not real well, him bein’ a few years older than me.”

She said Billy must have been a real fine man, bein’ in the Secret Service and all. Shame about him dyin’. And how ’bout Billy’s mother, did she know her? Yeah, sorta. Knew she lived up Uptonville way, was a waitress there. What about Billy’s father? For the first time DeMarco’s leggy new friend became evasive. She asked to be excused to check on an order but DeMarco thought it was to give herself time to think.

DeMarco watched the waitress walk away, enjoying the view, then glanced over at Emma. She was still talking to the natty guy in the straw boater. DeMarco started to look away but at just that moment a man seated alone at a window table behind Emma turned and stared at DeMarco.

DeMarco couldn’t exactly define the nature of the man’s stare. It was intimidating while simultaneously being coldly indifferent. Then DeMarco realized it was like the look a pro boxer gives his opponent when they tap gloves before the bout starts: an unflinching look that promises a violent yet unemotional beating.

The man’s skin was the color of burnished mahogany and he had a hatchet blade of a nose that dominated his face. His thick black hair was pulled back into a short ponytail. Maybe Hispanic, DeMarco thought, but more likely Native American. On his face, on the left side, was a thin white scar that zigzagged from his left eyebrow to the corner of his mouth.

The man stared impassively at DeMarco a few more seconds then his black eyes blinked slowly, a single time, and he turned his head away and raised a coffee cup to his lips. The forearm and wrist of the arm holding the cup were corded with muscle.

The waitress returned to the counter and leaned close to DeMarco, close enough for him to smell floral shampoo and bacon grease in her hair. She said coyly that she had heard a few rumors about who Billy’s daddy was, but she wasn’t the type to go spreadin’ gossip.
My ass
, thought DeMarco. He didn’t press her but he was puzzled by her reticence. He recalled how he’d hit a similar brick wall when he had asked the high-school vice principal questions about Billy’s sire.

DeMarco chatted with the waitress a bit longer, left an oversize tip, and started to leave when she said, “Hey, shugga. You forgot your receipt.”

“I don’t need a receipt,” he said.

“Yeah ya do,” she said, and winked as she pressed a slip of paper into his hand.

DeMarco glanced over to the table where the man with the ponytail had been seated and saw he was gone. He looked down at the receipt in his hand, read the name Cindy, the “i” dotted with a heart, and a phone number—and the words “If a man answers, hang up.”

This was a dangerous, dangerous place. He wanted to go home.

DEMARCO PARKED HIS car where he had a clear view of the Okefenokee Swamp’s ranger station. At five p.m., three rangers came out the building. DeMarco had received a description of Estep from Emma’s man Mike, and none of the rangers matched that description. Two of the rangers entered a mud-splattered Ford Explorer, the other a midsize Japanese sedan. The sedan followed the SUV out of the parking lot and DeMarco followed the sedan. Five minutes later their small caravan stopped, as he had hoped, at a local watering hole.

All three men were in their fifties with beer guts and broad butts. DeMarco had been to Yellowstone once, and these guys didn’t look like the rangers he’d seen there. They didn’t look as though they spent hours hiking through woods, blazing trails, and cutting firebreaks. They weren’t clean-cut and outdoorsy; they chain-smoked Marlboros, drank beer at an alarming rate, and made lewd remarks about the shape of the barmaid’s ass. These guys matched DeMarco’s stereotype of corrupt New York City cops: sly-eyed, apple-stealing, on-the-take beat cops like those he remembered strolling the streets of Queens casually swinging their nightsticks. Hiring criteria for swamp tenders, he concluded, didn’t match Yellowstone’s standards.

DeMarco ordered a beer and took a seat at the bar where he was close enough to eavesdrop on the rangers’ conversation. He was hoping to find an opportunity to talk to them so he could eventually turn the discussion to Dale Estep and find out what Estep had been doing in Washington. While he sat there, he thought back on the day he had just wasted.

After breakfast he’d visited the building housing Charlton County’s records and checked Billy Mattis’s birth certificate for information about his father. No daddy was listed. From there he went to property and business records, and searched for links between Taylor, Estep, Donnelly, and Mattis. After three hours he confirmed that Taylor owned just about everything in the region as Senator Maddox had told him, but the other three men were not listed as partners, lenders, or tenants.

He’d spent the afternoon at the
Charlton County Herald
. To his surprise, he discovered that the man with the straw boater he had seen talking to Emma was the editor. He fed the gentleman the same lie he’d told the waitress, about writing an article on Billy Mattis, and he kindly allowed DeMarco to use his ancient microfiche machine to look at back issues of the paper. The major revelation produced by his research was that Maxwell Taylor rarely made the news. Prior to 1970 there was an occasional mention of Taylor purchasing some piece of land or taking over a business, but after 1970 his name wasn’t mentioned again. This seemed unusual considering the man’s wealth and acquisitiveness. DeMarco noticed the editor of the paper had changed in 1969 and he couldn’t help but wonder if the First Amendment had not been further amended in Charlton County. Regarding Dale Estep, all he learned was that Estep had historically won every contest involving a firearm and was the current county record holder for largemouth bass.

DeMarco turned his attention back to the three beer-swilling rangers. They were now bitching about their wives, all having apparently married local harpies with sharp, nagging tongues. He was about to leave his bar stool to ask the rangers some inane question—Gee, do you guys work at that big swamp over there?—but before he could, another man in a ranger’s uniform entered the bar.