“All right,” he said. “Thank you, Dr. Wong.”
On the way out, he stopped at the table where the ME’s assistant was midway through Congressman Hubbard’s autopsy. He touched Garth’s shoulder and looked up at Meg; she needed to do the same. But he felt nothing except the coldness of death. Meg reached out, letting one hand rest briefly on the same shoulder, then shook her head. As they stepped into the hallway, Matt felt his phone ringing. It was Jackson.
“Meet me at the Walker house. We’ve had a strange development,” Jackson said.
“What is it?”
“A delivery was made to Congressman Walker.”
“Delivery of what?”
“A human tongue, Matt. A human tongue.”
12
Despite the fact that no law enforcement personnel other than the FBI had been called in, it seemed like mass confusion at the Walker house.
The congressman’s wife was lying on the sofa in the living room, having been sedated already. Ginger was sitting nearby, holding Kendra’s cup of tea. Walker was pacing and his aides—Joe Brighton, Ellery Manheim and the very tall, brick-solid Nathan Oliver—moved throughout the house, trying to keep everyone calm.
“There was talk,” Walker was saying. “There’s always talk. But when I heard that Maddie Hubbard had her husband dug up—I knew! There’s a suspicion that someone killed him and now, whoever did it, they’re after me. This is insane! The political parties don’t get along, the independents don’t get along, we all fight among ourselves, but this is ridiculous. But they’re not going to get me down!”
“Agent Sokolov just came and took the tongue. We don’t know for sure that it was human,” Ellery Manheim offered.
“Agent Sokolov isn’t a liar!” Walker stopped his pacing for a moment. “She said ‘judging by its appearance, it is, but there’s a degree of decomposition and degradation.’ She was pretty damned sure it was human.”
“You have to drop out. You have to! It’s as simple as that!” Kendra Walker wailed from the sofa.
Nathan Oliver slammed one giant fist into his palm.
“I will not give them that satisfaction. I will not!” Walker swore. He’d resumed his pacing. He stopped again, staring from Jackson to Matt and then Meg. He pointed a finger at her. “You! You and your friend Lara. Is this her? Is this her way of hurting me for some supposed slight of mine?”
She was in a congressman’s house. She was a public servant. But that was too much. “Lara Mayhew may well be dead, Congressman Walker. And if she’s alive, she’s staying as far from this...this mess as possible. How dare you accuse an innocent woman who isn’t here to defend herself?”
“There was a human tongue on my doorstep!” Kendra snapped.
“You have cameras and a gated yard. Have you checked your security footage?” Matt asked.
Walker paused; obviously, the idea hadn’t occurred to him, odd as that was. “Nathan!” he yelled at the big man. “Get on that. Get on it immediately.”
The big man abruptly left the room.
“My home. It showed up at my home!” Congressman Walker said. He turned to Jackson. “And what the hell are you people doing about it?”
Meg noted that when the congressman spoke to Jackson, he had the look of a man who wished he hadn’t said those words. But Jackson didn’t respond with anger; he just stood there, towering over the man, his features perfectly controlled.
“Everything that’s humanly possible, Congressman. That’s what we’re doing. Perhaps the mystery will be solved when we see your home security tapes.”
“A tongue,” Kendra moaned. “A human tongue.” She managed to sit up, struggling a bit, and gestured at Meg. “You’ll be with us, right? In Gettysburg? If Ian insists on going through with the speech, you’ll be there? I mean, in the same house, on the same floor? Maddie Hubbard said you would. I don’t care what police and agents they put around the house, but I want someone who’s a known factor with me.”
“Yes, Mrs. Walker, I’ll be there,” Meg said. She was surprised that this seemed to calm the woman. Maybe Kendra had heard that she’d been an officer in Richmond before applying to the academy. Or maybe she simply wanted someone she’d met before.
But wouldn’t her own people be there, as well? Meg wondered.
As if in answer to her silent question, Ellery Manheim cleared his throat. “Kendra, you realize that Joe, Nathan and I will be there, too.”