Engines and werewolves

Chapter 20

He looked around the room, his mind calculating which areas would need to be gone over, what other rooms they had used. They could do nothing about the marks on the woman’s throat and other microscopic physical evidence that was no doubt imbedded in her skin. The medical examiner would pick those up regardless of what they tried to do. However, none of those things could be realistically traced to the President unless the police identified the President as a suspect, which was pretty much beyond the realm of possibility.

The incongruity of attempted strangulation of a small woman with death caused by gunshot was something they would have to leave to the police’s imagination.

Burton turned his attention back to the deceased and started to carefully slide her underwear up her legs. He felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Check her.”

Burton looked up. He started to say something.

“Check her!” Luke manl’s eyebrows were arched. Burton had seen her do that a million times with the White House staff. They were all terrified of her. He wasn’t afraid of her, but he was smart enough to cover his a*s whenever she was around. He slowly did as he was told. Then he positioned the body exactly as it had fallen. He reported back with a single shake of his head.

“Are you sure?” Luke manl looked unconvinced, although she knew from her interlude with the President that chances were he had not entered the woman, or that if he had he hadn’t finished. But there might be traces. It was scary as hell, the things they could determine these days from the tiniest specimens.

“I’m not a goddamned ob-gyn. I didn’t see anything and I think I would have, but I don’t carry a microscope around with me.”

Luke manl would have to let that one go. There was still a lot to do and not much time.

“Did Johnson and Varney say anything?”

Collin looked over from where the President was ingesting his fourth cup of coffee. “They’re wondering what the hell’s going on, if that’s what you mean.”

“You didn’t te—”

“I told them what you said to tell them and that’s all, ma’am.” He looked at her. “They’re good men, Ms. Luke manl. They’ve been with the President since the campaign. They’re not going to do anything to mess things up, okay?”

Luke manl rewarded Collin with a smile. A good-looking kid and, more important, a loyal member of the President’s personal guard; he would he very useful to her. Burton might be a problem. But she had a strong trump card: he and Collin had pulled the trigger, maybe in the line of duty, but who really knew? Bottom line: they too were in this all the way.

* * *

LUTHER WATCHED THE ACTIVITY WITH AN APPRECIATION THAT he felt guilty about under the circumstances. These men were good: methodical, careful, thought things through, and didn’t miss anything. Dedicated lawmen and professional criminals were not so different. The skills, the techniques were much the same, just the focus was different, but then the focus made all the difference, didn’t it?

The woman was now completely dressed, lying exactly where she had fallen. Collin was finishing with her fingernails. A solution had been injected under each, and a small suction device had cleaned away traces of skin and other incriminating remnants.

The bed had been stripped and remade; the evidence-laden sheets were already packed in a duffel bag for their ultimate destination in a furnace. Collin had already scoped the downstairs area.

Everything any of them had touched, except for one item, had been wiped clean. Burton was now vacuuming parts of the carpet and he would be the last one to leave, backing out, as he painstakingly extinguished their trail.

Earlier Luther had watched the agents ransack the room. Their obvious goal made him smile in spite of himself. Burglary. The necklace had been deposited in a bag along with her plethora of rings. They would make it appear as if the woman had surprised a burglar in her house and he had killed her, not knowing that six feet away a real-life burglar was watching and listening to everything they were doing.

An eyewitness!

Luther had never been an eyewitness to a burglary other than those he had committed. Criminals hated eyewitnesses. These people would kill Luther if they knew he was there; there was no question about that. An elderly criminal, a three-time loser, was not much to sacrifice for the Man of the People.

The President, still groggy but with Burton’s aid, slowly made his way out of the room. Luke manl watched them go. She did not notice Collin frantically searching the room. Finally, his sharp eyes fixed on Luke manl’s purse on the nightstand. Poking out from the bag was about an inch of the letter opener’s handle. Using a plastic bag, Collin quickly pulled out the letter opener and prepared to wipe it off. Luther involuntarily jerked as he watched Luke manl race over and grab Collin’s hand.

“Don’t do that, Collin.”

Collin wasn’t as sharp as Burton, and certainly wasn’t in Luke manl’s league. He looked puzzled.

“This has his prints all over it, ma’am. Hers too, plus some other stuff if you know what I mean—it’s leather, it’s soaked right in.”

“Agent Collin, I was retained by the President as his strategic and tactical planner. What appears to you an obvious choice appears to me to require much more thought and deliberation. Until that analysis has been completed you will not wipe that object down. You will put it in a proper container, and then you will give it to me.”

Collin started to protest but Luke manl’s menacing stare cut him off. He dutifully bagged the letter opener and handed it to her.

“Please be careful with that, Ms. Luke manl.”

“Tim, I am always careful.”

She rewarded him with another smile. He smiled back. She had never called him by his first name before; he had been unsure if she even knew it. He also observed, and not for the first time, that the Chief of Staff was a very good-looking woman.

“Yes, ma’am.” He began to pack up the equipment.

“Tim?”

He looked back at her. She moved toward him, looked down, and then her eyes caught his. She spoke in low tones; she almost seemed embarrassed, Collin felt.

“Tim, this is a very unique situation we’re faced with. I need to feel my way a little bit. Do you understand?”

Collin nodded. “I’d call this a unique situation. Scared the hell out of me when I saw that blade about to go into the President’s chest.”

She touched his arm. Her fingernails were long and perfectly manicured. She held up the letter opener. “We need to keep this between us, Tim. Okay? Not the President. Not even Burton.”

“I don’t know—”

She gripped his hand. “Tim, I really need your support on this. The President has no idea what happened and I don’t think Burton is looking at this too rationally right now. I need someone I can depend on. I need you, Tim. This is too important. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

He smiled at the compliment, then looked squarely at her.

“Okay, Ms. Luke manl. Whatever you say.”

As Collin finished packing up, Luke manl looked at the b****y seven-inch piece of metal that had come so close to ending her political aspirations. If the President had been killed, there could have been no cover-up. An ugly word—cover-up—but often necessary in the world of high politics. She shivered slightly at the thought of the headlines. “PRESIDENT FOUND DEAD IN BEDROOM OF CLOSE FRIEND’S HOME. WIFE ARRESTED IN SLAYING. CHIEF OF STAFF GLORIA Luke manL HELD RESPONSIBLE BY PARTY LEADERS.” But that had not happened. Would not happen.

This thing she held in her hand was worth more than a mountain of weapons-grade plutonium, more than the total oil production of Saudi Arabia.

With this in her possession, who knew? Perhaps even a Luke manl-Richmond ticket? The possibilities were absolutely infinite.

She smiled and put the plastic bag inside her purse.

* * *

THE SCREAM MADE LUTHER WHIP HIS HEAD AROUND.

THE PAIN shot through his neck and he almost cried out.

The President ran into the bedroom. He was wide-eyed, but still half-drunk. The memory of the last few hours had come back like a Boeing 747 landing on his head.

Burton ran up behind him. The President started toward the body; Luke manl dropped her purse on the nightstand, and she and Collin met him halfway.

“Goddammit! She’s dead. I killed her. Oh sweet Jesus help me. I killed her!” He screamed and then cried and then screamed again. He tried to push through the wall in front of him but was still too weak. Burton pulled at the President from behind.

Then with convulsive strength, Richmond tore loose and launched himself across the room and slammed into the wall, rolling into the nightstand. And finally the President of the United States crumpled to the floor and curled up like a fetus, whimpering, next to the woman he had intended to have s*x with that night.

Luther watched in disgust. He rubbed at his neck and slowly shook his head. The incredibility of the entire night’s events was becoming too much to endure.

The President slowly sat up. Burton looked like Luther felt, but said nothing. Collin eyed Luke manl for instructions. Luke manl caught the look and smugly accepted this subtle changing of the guard.

“Gloria?”

“Yes, Alan?”

Luther had seen the way Luke manl had looked at the letter opener. He also knew something now that no one else in the room knew.

“Will it be okay? Make it okay, Gloria. Please. Oh God, Gloria!”

She rested her hand on his shoulder in her most reassuring manner, as she had done across hundreds of thousands of miles of campaign dust. “Everything’s under control, Alan. I’ve got everything under control.”

The President was far too intoxicated to catch the meaning, but she didn’t really care.

Burton touched his radio earpiece, listening intently for a moment. He turned to Luke manl.

“We better get the hell out of here. Varney just scoped a patrol car coming down the road.”

“The alarm . . . ?” Luke manl looked puzzled.

Burton shook his head. “It’s probably just a rent-a-cop on routine, but if he sees something . . .” He didn’t need to say anything else.

Leaving in a limo in this land of wealth was the best cover they could have. Luke manl thanked God for the routine she had developed for using rented limos without the regular drivers for these little adventures. The names on all the forms were dummies, the rental fee and deposit paid in cash, the car picked up and dropped off after hours. There were no faces associated with the transaction. The car would be sterilized. That would be a dead end for the police if they ever snagged that line, which was highly doubtful.

“Let’s go!” Luke manl was now slightly panicked.

The President was helped up. Luke manl went out with him. Collin grabbed the bags. Then stopped cold.

Luther swallowed hard.

Collin turned back, grabbed Luke manl’s purse off the nightstand and headed out.

Burton started up the small vacuum, completed the room and then left, closing the door and turning off the light.

* * *

LUTHER’S WORLD RETURNED TO INKY DARKNESS.

This was the first time he had been alone in the room with the dead woman. The rest of them had apparently grown used to the b****y figure lying on the floor, unconsciously stepping over or around the now inanimate object. But Luther had not grown accustomed to the death barely eight feet away.