The President's Killers (14 page)

FIFTY-SEVEN

Greta Kolb peeked out the window as young Bayless crossed the street, notebook in hand, and got into the car with the Iowa license plates.

She was right. She had checked the form he filled out when he took the room. He had listed Scranton as his home. When she called the Scranton police, they told her the address he put down was nonexistent.

She waited a few minutes. When she was sure he wouldn’t suddenly reappear because he’d forgotten something, she unlocked his room and went inside.

On the nightstand beside the twin bed was a stack of newspapers. The bed was made. At least he was neat. Otherwise, the room looked just as it had when he moved in.

But Otto was right. There were no books. And students’ rooms were always filled with books. For twenty-five years she had taken students in as boarders. She knew what their rooms looked like. What kind of student was he?

The closet beside the bathroom was practically empty. Two sports shirts and a pair of jeans on a hanger. A pair of sneakers on the floor. No luggage anywhere. Good heavens, what does he wear?

She dreaded looking inside the medicine cabinet, convinced she would find drug paraphernalia. But there were only a few toiletries. Nothing that looked fishy.

She picked up a bottle and read the label. Hair dye! Can you imagine that? He dyed his hair. That’s why it was such a strange brown.

She went through the chest of drawers near the bed. The top two drawers were empty. The third drawer contained some underwear, a few handkerchiefs, some socks.

In the back, beneath the shorts, she felt a hard object. She picked up the shorts and gasped. Lying flat on its side was an ugly black handgun.

“Oh, dear!” Her hands trembled. “A gun! He’s got a gun.”

FIFTY-EIGHT

In New Jersey, Meesh’s boss picked up a stack of papers on his desk and moved them to a different spot. He was furious.

“I’m sorry, Jason,” she said.

“Your grandmother! Jesus Christ, Meesh. We’ve got grandmas expiring right and left around here! It’s practically an epidemic.”

Afraid others on the floor would hear his angry voice, she rose and closed his office door.

“There’s not a hell of a lot I can do about the secretaries taking off to see their dying grandmothers,” he said. “But we’re trying to run a business here, for Christ’s sake.” He moved another stack of papers. “You and I are responsible for a fifteen-million dollar advertising budget.”

“I wouldn’t ask, normally, Jason. But…”

He stood and leaned over the desk. She’d never seen him so agitated. “You know how often I see my grandmother?”

“Jason —.”

“You know how often I see my grandma? Once or twice every couple of years.”

“Well, it happens that my grandmother and I are very close. She practically raised me.”

It was not exactly the truth.

“Well, I’m sorry about that. I’m terribly sorry about that.”

She could see he didn’t mean it. He sat down again, his face flushed. It angered her. He didn’t give a damn about her feelings.

The fact her grandma had died six years ago was beside the point. He would have been just as boorish, just as self-centered, if her grandmother were on her deathbed right now.

“It can’t wait?”

“No,” she snapped, “it can’t.”

She knew why he was so upset. He was upset because he was going to be away the next few days himself, attending a ludicrous conference in Orlando, a mostly fun junket he could easily skip.

But he was going to attend, and he didn’t want both of them to be away at the same time, especially now when Mission Statements were being reviewed. A silly annual corporate ritual.

The real problem was Jason’s fear of Brownlee, their department head. He was afraid Brownlee might want something — it didn’t matter how trivial it might be — and discover neither he nor Meesh was available. A major corporate no-no.

“Everybody has a grandmother, Meesh. And you know something? They all die sooner or later. Whether you’re there at their bedside or not.”

She leapt to her feet. “Yeah, well you can shove it, Jason!”

She marched out of the room, ignoring his shouts behind her.

In her office, she tossed a pile of papers into her attaché case. “I’ll be away for a few days,” she told her secretary. “My grandmother is very sick.”

FIFTY-NINE

When she briefed her mother on what needed to be done, Meesh left out the part about the FBI.

Her mother’s help was crucial and she would be paralyzed with fear if she knew FBI agents were camped just outside Meesh’s apartment building.

“I’d really appreciate it, Mom, if you could come back here at dinner time and turn on a couple of lights.”

“You don’t have timers?”

“I’ve got two, but they’re not working right.”

“I can come back. That’s not a problem.”

“Great!”

When the FBI agents saw her mother moving around inside the apartment, they’d assume it was Meesh.

“And water the philodendrons over there by the windows, will you?”

Her mother frowned. “You really should water them in the morning, dear.”

“I know. I’ve just gotten in the habit of watering them around dinner time.”

“It’s not good to water them at night.”

“I know, Mom. I know. But just do it, okay?”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “What time does your plane leave?”

Meesh looked at her watch. “Oh, I have to get going! There’s one other thing I’d like you to do.”

She peeked out her front window. The FBI agent was still there in his blue Chrysler. She couldn’t see the agents parked behind the building, but she was sure they were still there as well.

“He’s still there,” she said to her mother.

“Who is?”

“There’s some nut — a guy who exposes himself. He’s been hanging around the building.”

“You mean…”

“Yes.”

“It’s terrible what goes on these days. Your father would never believe it.”

“Look, I’ve got to get to the airport. As soon as you get home, call the police department, will you? Tell them there’s a flasher parked right in front of the building. In a blue car. A guy about forty.”

Her mother looked panic-stricken.

“All you have to do is tell them some guy flashed you.”

“Oh, dear!”
Meesh pulled on a wool cardigan, black stretch leggings, and boots, all carefully chosen to keep her warm at the football game. She’d stuffed extra clothing into a grocery bag and moved her bicycle to the entranceway at the front of the building.

She checked her pocket again to make sure she had the sawed-off blue pencil that Denny thought was so important. She had found it in the desk in his bedroom, right where he said it would probably be.

She tucked her hair under an old Mets baseball cap, then pulled on her gold, quilted-barn jacket.

On her way out the door, her mother assured her she’d take care of everything Meesh had asked her to do.

“Be careful, sweetheart. I don’t like the thought of you and Beth flying on all those airplanes.”

“Remember, Mom, call the police as soon as you get home.”

Fifteen minutes later, while Meesh was waiting in the lobby, a police car drew alongside the blue car.

She wheeled the bicycle outside and pedaled down the sidewalk. At the gas station at the next street corner, she called a cab.

From his apartment window, Groark watched Michelle Walker’s mother leave the building. He had listened to their conversation and already had an airline ticket.

Midwest Express had a 10:10 flight to Milwaukee, with a connecting flight to Madison. It would put him there more than an hour before the opening kickoff.

He flipped through the clothes in his bag. How cold was Wisconsin at this time of year? His football wardrobe was limited. He pulled on a navy mock turtleneck and gray corduroys, stuck a yellow pork-pie hat on his head, and tucked his binoculars and green nylon flight jacket under his arm.

When he arrived at the Midwest Express gate, the passengers had already begun to board the plane. He spotted Michelle Walker near the front of the line. When the airline attendant took her boarding pass and she started toward the plane, he stepped into the line.

SIXTY

Before calling the police, Greta Kolb gawked at young Bayless as he left the house and started up the sidewalk.

He was all decked out in red and white, even his face. One side was painted red, the other side white.

“Just look at that, will you!” she murmured.

There was no doubt where he was headed. Like everybody else, he was going to the football game. The whole town was football crazy.

She hadn’t known what to do about the young man. Should she call the police or not? In the end, she decided she had no choice: she had to report the matter. Who knew what young Bayless was up to? He might be dangerous, for heaven’s sake.

Now that he would be away from the house for a few hours it would be easier to talk to the police. She found the number and punched it.

“Hello. Yes…. I would like to report a suspicious young man with a gun.”

By the time the plane was lifting off the runway in Milwaukee, Meesh was euphoric. Her little ruse had worked. She’d put one over on the vaunted FBI.

After staring out the window at the green and tan squares of farmland below, she sat back and opened a magazine. When she looked up, she saw a dark eye peering at her between the seats in front of her.

Then a little brown head popped above the seats, the dark eyes staring at her.

He was a cutie, with fat cheeks. When they boarded the plane, Meesh had helped his young mother cram a carry-on bag into the overhead bin.

She wiggled her fingers at him and the brown head vanished.

When his eye reappeared between the seats, she thought of Denny. How many times had she been at his apartment when the kids in his building knocked at the door?

“Is Mr. Kinney home?”

“Can Mr. Kinney play ball with us?”

She stared out the window again. It was still hard to believe she and Denny were involved with each other again. They’d broken up twice in high school.

The first time Denny got angry when he saw her sitting in the lunchroom with Scott Darby, a former boyfriend. At that point Denny hadn’t even asked her to go steady with him. But that never occurred to him. He was upset anyway. He stopped coming to her locker, stopped phoning her.

The other breakup occurred when her French class went to France for a semester. Denny didn’t want her to go, although he would never say so. He knew how long she’d saved her pennies to be able to spend a semester abroad. But he sulked and she finally suggested they stop seeing each other for awhile.

In college, when the University of Delaware gave her financial aid and Denny enrolled at Rutgers on a baseball scholarship, they saw each other a couple of times a month. They were only a hundred miles apart. She would drive up to New Brunswick or he would zip down to Newark, Delaware.

In time their visits grew less frequent. He had obligations. Weekend workouts, practices, ball games. She had obligations, too. She worked in the dormitory dining room and sometimes went home weekends to see her parents.

Their relationship didn’t survive their sophomore year. One Sunday, on a fine October weekend when she and Denny had no plans to get together, she and her roommate agreed to go joy riding to Princeton with two fraternity guys with motorcycles. While they were gone, Denny showed up at her sorority house.

For a month after that, she made repeated calls to his dormitory, but never reached him. Her calls were never returned. And a few months later, Denny dropped out of school to go off and play baseball.

She wondered if he’d have finished college had it not been for that silly motorcycle ride. By pure chance, they had run into each other a summer ago at the shore. No matter how many breakups they’d had, they always seemed to wind up in each other’s arms.

What if they’d gone their separate ways once and for all? What would she think now when she saw his picture on TV as a suspected assassin?

The plane was beginning to descend already. It had barely gotten into the air and already they were approaching Madison.

When they were on the ground, she hurried through the small crowd in the Madison terminal. Outside, the only cab in sight drew up to the curb in front of her.

SIXTY-ONE

The ride to the football stadium was terrifying.

With the paper bag of clothing in her hands, Meesh slipped into the rear of the cab. “I’m going to the football game.”

“Camp Randall, fine.”

Outside the cab, a man tapped on her window, startling her. She rolled down the glass.

He was smiling, holding his arms out in a gesture of futility. “No more cabs. Can I hitch a ride?”

He was wearing a jaunty yellow hat and a pair of binoculars dangled from his neck. He didn’t look like an FBI agent.

“Sure.”

She picked up her bag, slid across the seat, and he got into the cab beside her.

“Sorry to barge in like this. I’m trying to get to the game before the kickoff.”

She grinned. “That’s where we’re going.”

Ever since she’d left her apartment, she had been afraid someone might be following her. But she finally convinced herself that was silly. There wasn’t an FBI agent behind every tree. She was in Madison now, far from New Jersey.

“You’re a life saver,” the man said.

He was a pleasant, voluble guy. An alumnus, he explained. “I come to games whenever I can. Are you a student?”

“No,” she said. “My fiancé is.”

“Should be a fantastic game today. Do you have decent seats?”

She laughed. “I have no idea. This is my first game here.”

“Do you have your ticket? I know Randall Field inside and out.”

She found the ticket in her wallet and was about to hand it to him, then thought better of it. No matter how nice he was, she didn’t know him.

“Section B,” she said.

“Oh, B. That’s a good location.”

“It is? Great!”

She looked at the ticket again. The fine print at the bottom said “Camp Randall.” He had called it Randall Field. He said he knew the place inside and out, and yet he called it Randall Field.

She tucked the ticket back into her wallet, her hand trembling.

With the stadium still a block away, she caught glimpses of it. The streets were clogged with cars and buses, the sidewalks filled with people streaming toward the massive structure.

Everyone was wearing something red. A red sweater or windbreaker. A red baseball cap. Red boots or sneakers.

As they drew closer, she saw a huge sign: “Welcome to Camp Randall Stadium.”

Camp Randall!

When the cab driver let them out, her guest insisted on paying the fare.

She broke away as quickly as she could, the crowd sweeping her along the sidewalk. When she glanced back over her shoulder, she saw the yellow hat heading in the opposite direction. Thank God!

She entered a turnstile and followed the gigantic red claw prints on the sidewalk leading everybody into the stadium.

The attendant glanced at her ticket.

“Over there,” he said. “You’re way down by the end zone.”