Terminal Secret Read online

  “But you don’t think he found the rifle that killed the EPA lawyer?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Next step?”

  “Let’s assume our cancer girl shot the lawyer. We’re still on square one. We still need a connection. And we still need a weapon.”

  “You think she dumped it somewhere?”

  “If she’s the shooter, that’s the next logical assumption. First, we need to call in the water search team and see if they can locate the weapon in the canal near the vehicle crash location. The good news is the canal has virtually no current. The weapon, if there is one, should still be in the vicinity of the crash. We also need to search Spring Valley Park again. We need people poking their heads into the sewers around the neighborhood. You and I can start knocking on doors so the neighbors know to keep their eyes peeled for a discarded weapon. If the minivan driver is our shooter, and the weapon isn’t in the vehicle, it has to be somewhere close by.”

  “And if all that doesn’t pan out?”

  “Do you have anything black to wear?”

  Chapter 6

  In the small bathroom just off the main room of his office, Dan Lord strained his neck to get a view of the still-unhealed wound on his shoulder blade in the mirror. He looked at the dried blood that surrounded the homemade patch job, reached over his shoulder with his opposite hand, and ripped the large piece of duct tape and bathroom tissue off his skin.

  Dan picked up the bottle of peroxide from the narrow counter, poured some onto a gauze pad, and pressed it into the wound with minimal efficacy. Struggling with the awkward location of the wound, he spent the next several minutes attaching a series of butterfly Band-Aids, most of which missed their mark.

  Unhappy with his self-administered attempt at medical care, he returned to the roll of duct tape and wad of toilet paper.

  He plucked his shirt from the small towel rack and cursed at the bloodstain. He opened the tiny bathroom closet where he kept extra clothes, and removed the last clean shirt from the shelf.

  Dan exited the bathroom, walked across the open expanse of his second-floor office, and turned off the computer on the lone desk in the middle of the room. The barren décor of the office served two purposes. First, it satiated his desire for simplicity. Somewhere in the midst of two formative adolescent years in Bangkok, he had first heard the Buddhist expression “everything you own, owns you.” For some reason the mantra had struck a chord with a lapsed Catholic teenager. Decades later, the expression still resonated. Embracing the motto was especially helpful late at night, with a drink or two in the system, when the power of QVC was at its peak.

  The second reason for the barren office was security. Minimal furniture meant fewer places for nefarious elements to plant eavesdropping devices. It was a worry few ordinary people could relate to. But most ordinary people hadn’t narrowly escaped an exploding bomb in their workplace within the last year. The explosion, which nearly killed both Dan and his tenant in the art gallery below, was a fresh reminder that being careful was a never-ending endeavor.

  Dan waited for the computer monitor to turn black and looked around the room at the exposed brick walls. He swiped his keys off the desk, checked the view from the windows on the front of the building, and headed for the exit. At the end of the office, still on the second floor, Dan pulled the steel-framed door closed, slipped a laser-cut key into the pick-resistant lock, and peered through the door’s thick ALON window. Satisfied his office was secure, he punched a code into the security console on the wall and waited for the two-tone beep to indicate the system was armed.

  With the first security hurdle activated, he turned and looked down the narrow staircase leading to the ground floor. He glanced up at the closed-circuit security cameras in the stairwell, one at the top of the flight of stairs and one at the bottom. The small red lights on both cameras were functioning. At the bottom of the stairs, Dan stepped through another security door capable of withstanding a direct hit from an RPG. He used another laser-cut key to twist the lock and pulled on the handle to confirm the door was in position. Now standing in the small but secure foyer at the foot of the staircase, Dan placed his palm on the biometric console to open the final obstacle between his office and the streets of Old Town Alexandria.

  Dan paused at the threshold, stepped onto the sidewalk, and passed in front of the art gallery that ran the length of the block—the entirety of which he owned thanks to a healthy inheritance that had since partially evaporated. The sign on the front door of the gallery indicated the art establishment was closed for the day, but would be open tomorrow for regular business hours.

  Dan walked down two-hundred-year-old cobblestone sidewalks, passing bookstores and law offices sandwiched between restaurants and dessert shops. At the end of King Street he headed for the Old Torpedo Factory on the banks of the Potomac, the brown water of the river swirling in the shadow of the Wilson Bridge.

  Dan weaved his way through a group of departing sightseers and entered the old munitions plant turned artisans’ lair and tourist trap. He nodded to the potters in the corner and the glass blowers down the hall before stepping into the partitioned floor of the main exhibit hall—a cavernous room that was dissected into a field of semi-permanent booths and stalls.

  Dan stuck his head into the first booth on the right and disrupted a young man with wild hair wrestling with a large easel.

  Three booths away, Lucia, Dan’s lone neighbor and only tenant, popped out from her assigned real estate on the perimeter of the main exhibit hall. Dan smiled as Lucia greeted him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  “You’re late.”

  “Sorry,” Dan replied. “I had to deal with a small urgent matter,” he added, his mind turning to the soreness in his shoulder blade.

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “What do you need help with?”

  “Hanging pictures,” Lucia responded. She reached over to the top of a table and swiped a handful of shiny hooks. She pointed to the wall. “There are wires hanging from the wall. The hooks go on the wires. The pictures go on the hooks.”

  “Any particular order with the pictures?”

  “Smaller ones on top. Larger ones at eye level. Black-and-white on the far side. I may move them around later.”

  Dan picked up the first framed piece of art and commented, “These are a little different from your usual paintings.”

  “Yeah, I’m expanding my repertoire. Today’s exhibit is for portrait art. The guy I’m dating teaches the subject. He got me interested. The subject matter is a little more concrete than some of my other art.”

  You could say that again, Dan thought. Most of your drawings are visual gibberish to me. “How are things going with your boyfriend?”

  “Good. But I don’t know if I would call him a boyfriend just yet.”

  “How many times have you slept with him?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Then he’s your boyfriend.”

  “At this point I’m only looking for nice and normal. I’ll worry about the title later. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Has your father met him?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Did you do a background check on him?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll check him out for you, if you want.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to check him out even if I don’t want you to?”

  “Because that’s what I do. I can’t have someone hanging out in my proximity without knowing who they are.”

  “Are you saying someone would date me just to get to you? I’m not sure I can deal with that. Dating in this town is hard enough.”

  “I’ll just do a cursory background inquiry.”

  Lucia fell silent before responding, “I don’t need to know everything about him. Just let me know if he’s a felon.”

  “I can do that,” Dan replied.

  Lucia changed the subject. “You know, you should get a portrait do
ne. There are a lot of talented people in the building today.”

  “I’d let you take a shot at a portrait some other time. It won’t be today.”

  Lucia finished setting up her booth as Dan hung artwork on the hooks as directed. As Dan placed the last piece of art on the highest hook on the wall, he heard Lucia gasp. He immediately turned, hands rising, as an automatic defensive reaction. Lucia motioned towards Dan’s shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”

  Dan strained to look over his shoulder. “How bad is it?”

  “You’re going to need another shirt.”

  “Damn it. I liked this one. And it was the last one I had at work.”

  “Stay here. I’ll grab something from the souvenir shop.”

  *

  Lucia returned with a black T-shirt and a travel first aid kit. She set the first aid kit and the shirt on the small table and pulled the curtain across the front of her art booth for privacy.

  “Let’s have a look,” Lucia said.

  Dan reached under the back of his shirt and removed his Glock pistol from its holster. He placed the weapon on the table next to the first aid kit. Then he pulled his shirt over his head.

  Lucia took an audible breath as she stole her first glance of her landlord’s unclothed physique.

  “Someone has been working out,” she said, distracted from the gun and the bloodied shirt by his well-defined shoulders. Dan turned and Lucia’s eyes dropped to his abdomen. “A lot,” she added.

  “It depends on your definition of working out,” Dan replied. He cranked his neck in a failed attempt to see over his shoulder.

  Lucia moved in for a close-up of the wound and Dan turned to provide her with a clear view.

  “You mind telling me what happened?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “I was invited to a party the other night for the Deputy Chief of Mission for the Indian Embassy.”

  “Easy for you to say. Who is the Indian deputy whatever… ?”

  “The Deputy Chief of Mission is the number two guy at an Indian embassy. He lives in Northwest DC. I was investigating a report of illegal workers at his residence.”

  “There are a million illegal workers in this town. Who cares?”

  “This is different. These are citizens of India who are reportedly working under house arrest and without pay.”

  “How would you know this?”

  Dan twisted to look Lucia in the eyes. “Because I do.”

  “And what happened?

  “My exit plan didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped.”

  Lucia looked closer at the wound. “It’s deep. What did you cut it on?”

  “Glass from a small window I crawled through.”

  “Ouch. When did you do this? It looks like it’s getting infected.”

  “Over the weekend, but I reopened it at the dojo last night. I bled on the mats before I noticed. Sensei wasn’t happy.”

  “You will never make it to fifty.”

  “I just turned forty. Fifty is a long way off.”

  “And you’ll never make it at the rate you’re going.”

  “It could have been worse.”

  “Did you get what you were looking for at the Indian residence?”

  Dan smiled and winked. “It was in the news the other morning, but you had to look quick to catch it. The story was pulled within a couple of hours.”

  “Does that mean you injured yourself for nothing?”

  “Not exactly. The women who were enslaved in the house were on a plane back to India that morning. That is all they wanted.”

  “Well, good for you.”

  “Good for them.”

  “Do you mind me asking who the client was? I’m just curious.”

  “Enslavement at the Deputy Chief of Mission for India was a pro bono case.”

  “Of course it was.”

  “I can afford some pro bono work, as long as I slip a few paying customers in the mix. And as long as my tenants pay their rent on time.”

  Lucia pulled some gauze from the first aid kit and applied pressure to the open wounds. “You might want to see a doctor.”

  “I thought I had it under control.”

  “With duct tape, toilet paper, and butterfly Band-Aids that look like Ray Charles put them on?”

  “I’ll go to a doctor later.”

  Lucia applied a thick layer of Neosporin and covered the wound with a series of Band-Aids. “This may not hold very long. But the black T-shirt I picked up should cover the blood until you get home.”

  “Black shirt? Good idea.”

  “Family secret,” Lucia said straight-faced, making Dan laugh. Her family’s ties to organized crime were a running private joke.

  A male voice called out for Lucia and the curtain on front of the booth slid open. A man in jeans and a button up cotton shirt paused at the scene in front of him. His eyes fell to the weapon on the table and the bloodstained shirt.

  Lucia performed introductions. “Dan, this is my boyfriend, Buddy. Buddy, this is my neighbor and landlord, Dan.”

  The two men shook hands.

  “We’re also friends,” Dan added.

  “I hope so,” Buddy said, looking at Dan’s exposed upper body.

  “Lucia was just helping me with a small medical issue,” Dan said.

  “I hope it wasn’t caused by another bomb,” Buddy said.

  “You heard about that?”

  “I think everyone who watches the news knows about the bomb in Alexandria last year. I wouldn’t have made the connection to you, of course, unless I knew Lucia.”

  “See what I mean?” Dan said, looking at Lucia. “He’s working you to get to me.”

  Buddy responded. “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

  “Ignore him. Dan is just being difficult,” Lucia said.

  An odd silence fell over the trio and Dan reset the conversation.

  “It wasn’t a bomb this time. Just a flesh wound received in the line of duty,” he said.

  “Is that from your job as an attorney or a detective?”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two,” Dan admitted.

  Lucia turned Dan around again to look at the wound. Blood had already begun to soak through the patchwork of bandages.

  “I’m no doctor, but you may want to find one,” Buddy said.

  “We’ll see,” Dan replied, pulling the black T-shirt over his head and sliding it slowly over the dressing. “Lucia tells me you’re a teacher.”

  “Indeed. Art professor at the University of Maryland. Spent the first fifteen years of my adult life as a starving artist before deciding that teaching might pay the bills a little more consistently.”

  “Lucia says you do portraits.”

  “Portraits and still life. But I’ve done a bit of everything at one time or another. Portraits for politicians and athletes. Some murals. Some courtroom sketching. Spent a year doing caricatures at various county fairs and shopping malls.”

  “Well, there sure are a lot of artists here in the building today.”

  “I know most of them. Most of the locals anyway. We’re a pretty close-knit group.”

  Lucia interrupted. “I was telling Dan he should sit for a portrait. Maybe even a caricature.”

  Buddy nodded. “You should. You can give it as a gift to someone.”

  “I don’t know if there’s anyone left alive who would want it,” Dan replied, bringing the conversation to a screeching halt. He picked his pistol off the table and holstered it.

  Buddy changed topics. “Maybe we can all go out for a few drinks sometime. I get the feeling that someone who dodges bombs for a living must have some good stories to tell.”

  “I would love to,” Dan replied turning towards Lucia. “See if you can’t get something on my schedule.”

  “What am I? Your nurse and your secretary? Because if that’s what you think, I’m going to need a break in the cost of rent.
”

  “You already get a break on rent.”

  “Not much of one.”

  Dan’s phone mercifully started to ring and he excused himself from the booth to take the call. A moment later he returned and grabbed his bloodied shirt off the small table. “Lucia, if you no longer need my help, I have someone to see about a job.” Dan leaned in and gave Lucia an air kiss on the left side. He turned and shook hands with Lucia’s boyfriend. “It was nice to meet you.”

  “You know it wouldn’t hurt to have real stitches put in,” Lucia said.

  “Actually, it might.”

  “Funny.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Dan replied.

  “No, you won’t,” Lucia said as Dan disappeared into the crowd forming outside the booth.

  Chapter 7

  Marcus Losh pulled out the Metro section of The Washington Post and opened the last few pages. He twisted the top off the Stoli, the bottle still sweating condensation as it adjusted from the freezer to room temperature. Marcus poured the vodka into a large tumbler, added tomato juice, and stirred it with a celery stalk. He sucked on the end of the celery and when he was done mixing his breakfast, took a crisp bite off the end of the only healthy food he had consumed in the last two days. Unless you counted the tomato juice. Or the barley and hops in the nine beers he drank yesterday during daylight hours. Or the rice in the sake he sipped as a bedtime snack.

  *

  Most people didn’t know the true meaning of the word bender. Marcus flirted with a constant one. His first real bender had been a celebration of his new crutches. The fancy type with the wraparound wrist attachments so he wouldn’t drop them when the gyroscope in his head malfunctioned and threw him from the gravitational pull of the planet located between his ears. The crutches were a step up from the walker, and evidence he was on the mend. Eighteen months on the mend. The embarrassment of the walker had kept him close to home, snuggled safely in the all-brick one-bedroom apartment in South Arlington. The new crutches gave him hope. Confidence. The ability to slip onto a bar stool and stash the crutches out of sight. There was no hiding a walker.

  His introductory bender had started on a Friday. He had walked out the door of his apartment with his new crutches, a thousand dollars cash, and two credit cards. A couple of beers at the local hole-in-the-wall with old-timers and aging cougars had helped him to regain dormant social skills and given him back some swagger. With false courage in his blood, he called for a taxi and headed into the Ballston-Clarendon corridor—one of the most bar-rich stretches of real estate on the East Coast. A Friday night pub crawl.