Джеймс Паттерсон - Unsolved

No, it’s time to retire, once and for all, the duplicate wheelchair. He pulls it out of his downstairs closet and wheels it into the garage.

First, he puts on gloves and wipes down everything. He vacuums the leather seat. No reason to leave a stray print or fibers.

Next, disassembly. It will be much easier to dispose of this chair in parts instead of tossing the whole thing in a river or somewhere. The armrests, the shroud, the wheels, the footholds, the joystick, the motor—everything is unscrewed and separated.

Now it’s simply a matter of taking the parts to various different spots—garbage dumps, recycling centers, storm drains, municipal garbage cans, ponds and rivers, alley dumpsters.

He looks at the time. It’s 7:00 p.m.

Lose the wheelchair, he thinks, lose the makeup and wig, and there’s nothing tying any of this to you.

And then he can finalize his plans for the next target, which will make the bombing in Chicago look like amateur fireworks.

113

BOOKS PARKS his car on the street not far from the Payton Club. He doesn’t bother tracking Elizabeth from headquarters. He’s that sure she’ll come here tonight.

He waits across the street, a busy avenue with plenty of vehicle and pedestrian traffic, so he’s not worried about sticking out. His heart races as he sees Elizabeth, buttoned up as always, with the same self-assured stride as always, taking the steps up to the main door, ornately decorated in gold and framed by the flags of the nation, the District, and the club. The door opens as she approaches. Books sees a warm exchange between Elizabeth and the doorman before it closes.

Now it’s waiting time. He could badge his way in there, but he doesn’t know the layout of the multistoried club or where Elizabeth could be. He could lose the element of surprise. All he knows is that she tends to spend a few hours there. His best guess is that she has a cover for being there. She works out there or she eats dinner there or both, and then she somehow meets with her source. She might meet with the source first, right away; doubtful but possible. Or they might meet at the end of her time there.

No way to know, so he has to keep his eyes glued to the front door. It’s the only means of entry and departure in the evenings; he’s checked on that and confirmed it. Maybe the person Elizabeth is meeting has yet to arrive. Maybe that person beat her, and Books, here. But that mystery man or woman’s going to have to leave at some point. Books is prepared to wait until ten, when the place closes, if necessary.

He touches his face. The abrasions on his left cheek from where he hit the asphalt hurt more than the bump on the right side of his skull, where Petty struck him with the baton. The pain meds he got from the ER are helping, at least.

As stupid as he feels about letting someone like Petty get the better of him, he knows he’s lucky too. Petty could have killed him. If that woman and her granddaughter hadn’t arrived when they did…

A group of men in suits enter the Payton Club. Books snaps photos of each of them, zoomed in. It’s a Thursday night, a prime night for socializing. His camera will get a lot of use.

You’re in there somewhere, he thinks. And you’re going to have to show yourself sooner or later.

114

NINE O’CLOCK. It’s taken me two hours to reassemble the raw data that was sent to us by the various agencies and that Rabbit organized and collated for us so we could run our searches. It’s not the first time I’ve done this sort of thing, but it’s been a while, and I have a newfound appreciation for the work Rabbit does.

Somebody tampered with the raw data after it was put into an organized, usable format. But whoever it was couldn’t tamper with the original data delivered to us. That would be impossible.

“You didn’t think we’d re-input the original data, did you, Elizabeth?” I whisper.

Finally, it’s ready to run. I start with the basics, the first thing any analyst would run. A simple compatibility search to see if the same license plate was captured around all three of the bombing sites—Seymour, Connecticut; Pinellas Park, Florida; and Blount County, Alabama—during the relevant time periods. I run the search and press Enter.

And I get a hit. One hit. One license plate that was tagged at each bombing location.

I nearly jump out of my seat. I pull up the license plate and do a search for the vehicle registration.

When I get the results, I really do jump out of my seat. Then I back away from the computer like it’s suddenly radioactive.

“My God,” I say.

I’ve had this wrong. I’ve had this wrong all along.

115

ELIZABETH ASHLAND leaves the Payton Club at a quarter past nine. She walks out the door and down the steps with the same confident stride, the same put-together presentation, as she had when she entered.

Books waits. The place will close at ten. At most, he’ll have to wait another forty-five minutes for Elizabeth’s contact to leave too.

Will it be Shaindy Eckstein, the Post reporter?

Or Petty, who, up until yesterday, Books would not have thought capable of walking into an exclusive social club like the Payton?

Michelle Fontaine? He doesn’t know much about her, only that she happened to quit her job at the same time Lieutenant Wagner either left town or was murdered.

Maybe Lieutenant Wagner? Whatever Emmy thinks, there’s no way to be certain that Wagner was framed—set up as the patsy and murdered. Nothing is certain right now.

Wait—what if it is Wagner? Wagner’s in a wheelchair. He wouldn’t be walking up the steps.

“Shit.” Books breaks from his spot and jogs over to the intersection. There it is—the wheelchair-accessible entrance, on the east side of the building. He’d forgotten about that. So now Books has to cover both the front entrance and the side entrance? He’s standing right on the corner, not exactly hidden.

Did he already miss Wagner, or someone else, leaving from the wheelchair-accessible exit?

“Damn it,” he whispers. Did he make another mistake? First being jumped, then failing to cover what, in hindsight, should have been obvious—

Books freezes as the front door of the Payton Club opens and a man comes out and goes bounding down the stairs. Into a waiting town car.

No. No way.

Books remembers to breathe, his mind buzzing now. As the town car pulls away, Books hustles to his own car, jumps in, and follows.

He learned today, a lesson from Petty, that he’s rusty when it comes to vehicular surveillance. But it doesn’t matter. Not this time.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he whispers.

After the two vehicles break free of the traffic and head out onto an open road toward the interstate, Books draws his car up behind the town car. No use in pretending. Nobody’s pretending anymore.

The town car pulls over to the side of the road. Books does the same.

One of the back doors of the town car opens. An invitation.

Books kills the engine and gets out of the car. Walks over to the town car and gets in the back seat. There are two men in the front seat, only one in the back.

“Life can be complicated, Books, wouldn’t you agree?” says FBI director William Moriarty.

116

“COMPLICATED?” BOOKS ASKS. “It doesn’t have to be. Not that complicated, Bill.”

“But it is,” says Director Moriarty. “For example, a man can love his wife. He can be devoted to her. But he can still acknowledge that he has certain…needs.”

“So Betsy has a stroke and is confined to a wheelchair, and that gives you an excuse to acknowledge your needs? Which I assume means ‘fuck one of my agents.’”