“Almost saved them. Should have,” Armstrong said. “Car rolled over . . . We think that’s when Miz Whitehead was killed, at the very end of the incident. They were crashing down through those trees, some of them pretty big—it looks to me like she was deliberately trying to hit them, to slow the car down—and a branch or part of a tree come through the driver’s-side window and hit her in the temple, poked a hole right through her skull and into her brain. The medical examiner found pieces of bark inside her skull. His report is in the file.”
He went through the sequence as reported by Smalls, and he and Lucas walked down along the hillside through knee-high weeds and grass to the spot where the Cadillac rolled over. Lucas could still see black patches of dried oil on the pale grass. “According to Senator Smalls, he crawled out of the pickup, which was upside down, got a pistol out of the back, because he thought the people in the truck might be coming down after them, and then dragged Miz Whitehead out. Nobody came down the hill. If there was a truck, it kept going. Sheriff’s deputies took about eleven minutes to get here, from the first 911 call. The ambulance got here a minute later. First state police car got here ten minutes after that.”
“Is that fast or slow?” Lucas asked.
“Not real quick . . . probably average. The deputies got a lot of territory to cover out here.”
* * *
—
LUCAS WALKED SLOWLY back up the hill, along the scarred earth and brush left behind by the Escalade, and asked, “No sign of another vehicle’s tracks?”
“Not in the loose gravel,” Armstrong said. “If there were any, the responding deputies drove over them. Didn’t find any broken glass, either.”
“How far to the nearest highway from here?”
“Couldn’t tell you precisely. Maybe a few miles. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. We could do a Google Earth, if you want.”
“I can do that,” Lucas said, “if I need it.”
* * *
—
THEY WERE BOTH sweating heavily by the time they got back to the cars, and Armstrong asked Lucas if he’d be staying overnight at the cabin. Lucas shook his head: “I’ve got some interviews to do in Washington. I’ll give you my cell phone number in case you need to reach me.”
“Wouldn’t count on us coming up with anything new,” Armstrong said. “With the senator involved, we pulled out all the stops on this one.”
“I’d like to look at the Cadillac myself,” Lucas said. “I understand it’s still around.”
“Yeah, the truck was pulled up the hill by the local towing service. Hell of a job, too: took two trucks four hours. If you want to follow me, it’s probably twenty minutes from here.”
* * *
—
LUCAS FOLLOWED.
Bunson Towing was run out of a junkyard set in a patch of trees that butted up against a railroad right-of-way. The truck had been parked under a tin-roofed shed and wrapped in a blue plastic tarp. A man Armstrong introduced as Lawrie Bunson came out of the yard’s office and helped Armstrong pull the tarp off.
The truck hadn’t been cleaned up, and the blood on the front seat had gone seriously bad in the heat. Flies were crawling all over it, buzzing around them after the tarp was off. Lucas didn’t look, but he was sure that if he stuck his head inside, he’d find a mother lode of maggots.
“Stinks,” Bunson said. To Armstrong: “When you think they’re going to move it?”
“You seen an insurance agent yet?”
“Not yet. Some chick called from Washington and said State Farm would be out, but I ain’t seen hide nor hair of nobody from State Farm,” Bunson said.
“You will, I’m sure,” Armstrong said. “This machine is too pricey to let it go.”
“I’ll talk to somebody, get them out here,” Lucas said.
“Don’t make no nevermind to me,” Bunson said. “I get twenty dollars a day for storage.”
They walked around the Escalade, looking at the damage, which was worse than Lucas had imagined it. The truck had probably sustained fifteen or twenty separate impacts, both sides, the front and the back, even the roof, had taken a pounding. The left front wheel had folded under the truck, with the frame sitting on the side of the tire, and the driver’s-side window had been smashed entirely out of its frame. All the rest of the glass was cracked, including the glass in the mirrors, as well as the head-and taillights.
Lucas checked the side, where there were four wide marks that looked like they could have been made by trees. Armstrong said, pointing them out, “We took biological samples off here . . . and we matched them to the trees down the hill. The bark is right.”
Lucas walked to the Evoque, got the Sony camera, and took several shots of the Cadillac’s driver’s side.
“All right,” he said after a few more minutes, brushing a fly away from his face, “I’m done here. Thank you both. Carl, you see or hear anything more, or figure anything out, call me. About anything, no matter how small, anytime.”
Lucas gave Armstrong a card with his cell phone number on it, they shook hands, and Lucas headed back to Washington. He was sure he was imagining it, but the stink of the rotting blood seemed to cling to his clothing, maybe permanently. He pushed a few buttons until he found the one for the sunroof, opened it wide, and breathed in all the great weed-and flower-scented country air.
5
Lucas checked into the Watergate Hotel because Smalls owned a condo in one of the Watergate complex buildings and Kitten Carter had an apartment in another. The hotel was okay, if a little heavy on the sixties décor in the lobby. Lucas got a small suite, jumped in the shower, brushed his teeth, put on slacks, a pink golf shirt, and a blue jacket, and called Carter.
“Are you available?” he asked when she’d answered the phone and he’d identified himself.
“I am,” she said.
“You want to come to me or should I come to you?”
“I could meet you in the hotel restaurant in twenty minutes. Should be fairly quiet tonight.” Her contralto voice had a slight growl to it.
“That’ll work,” Lucas said.
“How will I know you?” she asked.
“I’ll be the guy in the blue jacket and pink golf shirt. Probably not too many of those.”
“Not with a gun under the jacket.”
* * *
—
LUCAS DID HAVE A GUN under his jacket, a new one, a Walther PPQ, the same .40 S&W caliber as the Glock pistols issued to most U.S. Marshals. Lucas had one of those, too, but didn’t like it and didn’t carry it. He’d begun to carry the new pistol on his left hip, in a cross-draw position, which made it easier to get at and less obvious than the .45 he’d carried for most of his career.
When he was checking into the hotel, he’d been eye-checked by a security man in a gray suit. Lucas nodded at him, and, after he got his keys, walked over with his badge and ID case. “Just so you know,” he said.
“I suspected, but thank you,” the security guy said. “You gonna be here long?”
“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “I’m working.”
“I’ll pass the word to our other security people. Nobody will bother you.”
Lucas patted his shoulder, and took the elevator up.
* * *
—
LATER, IN THE RESTAURANT, Lucas got a table for two, a beer and a bowl of nuts, and had been waiting for five minutes when Carter showed up. She was a short bottle-blond woman with arched thin black eyebrows who looked like she might work hard to avoid anything resembling a gym. She was in her mid-thirties, Lucas thought, and was wearing a jade-green dress with open-toed leather sandals. She spotted Lucas, twiddled her fingers at him, walked over, and took the chair opposite him.
“Beer guy, huh?” She had a soft Southern accent.
“Yeah . . . hot day.”
She ordered a dirty martini with three olives, and, when the waiter was gone, asked, “Well, do you believe Senator Smalls?”
“Yes. He has no reason to lie to me. I believe he’d be reluctant to see me investigating something he was lying about.”
“Ooo,” she said. “You do have a good opinion of yourself.”
Lucas shrugged, and said, “I get things done. That’s why the senator invited me in.”
“Well, the West Virginia investigator doesn’t believe him,” she said.