Stuart Woods: D.C. Dead

Teddy went to the bedroom, grabbed his ready bag, then took a roll of duct tape and wrapped it around Lauren’s body in the blanket. He lifted her onto his shoulder and took her downstairs to the hangar, where he set her gently down, then removed the passenger door from the airplane and stowed it in the rear seat.

Feeling no time pressure, Teddy went back upstairs, cleaned up the gore in the kitchen, then tidied up. He sat down and ate some of the risotto, since he didn’t want to run out of steam later, then he put the rest down the garbage disposal and the dishes into the dishwasher and started it.

He found a bottle of window cleaner and a dishcloth, and he went around the entire apartment, wiping down every surface that either he or Lauren might have touched. He went to his safe and removed his weapons and tools and took them down to the airplane, then he turned off the lights and went down to the hangar.

He found a pair of aircraft jacks that, he reckoned, weighed forty pounds together, and a length of chain. He lifted Lauren’s body into the passenger seat and wrapped the chain around her waist, then, using shackles from his tool kit, fastened the jacks to the chain, setting them on the floor of the passenger side. Finally, he fastened the passenger seat belt around Lauren. He stowed his tools in the luggage compartment, then he did a walk-around of the airplane, checked the fuel, got into the pilot’s seat, and started the engine.

A moment later, he used the remote control to open the rear bifold door, and he taxied the airplane out of the hangar, down the taxiway to the airfield’s single runway. He looked for traffic on final approach, saw none, heard none on the radio, and, without slowing or announcing his intentions on the air, taxied onto the runway and shoved the throttle forward.

He took off and climbed to seven hundred feet and headed for the Potomac River, then he flew down the river to the bay, then turned and headed for open water. He descended to a hundred feet, turned on the autopilot, and set the altitude hold, then he flew a good ten miles offshore. When he had reached that distance, he undid the passenger seat belt, dropped the two jacks overboard, and let them pull Lauren’s body out of the airplane and down into the sea. Then he reversed his course and, finally, turned toward Manassas Airport.

TODD BACON DROVE ERRATICALLY away from Clinton Field, panting for breath and sweating profusely, his car weaving along the roadway. He prayed that there was no cop in the neighborhood, for he would surely be stopped for drunk driving.

As he put distance between himself and the airport, his breathing and pulse returned to something like normal, but he reckoned his blood pressure was still high. The feeling of panic was somewhere in his chest, just deep enough to allow him to drive the car normally.

He reached his home in Virginia, a new town house development, and got the car into the garage, where he sat for snormallyeveral minutes, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. Finally, he dragged himself into the house, got out of his clothes, and fell, naked and exhausted, onto the bed.

Images of Lauren Cade’s exploding head still fired in his brain, but gradually they went away, and he fell into a deep sleep.

While Stone and Holly stood and stared at Shelley’s handbag, Dino walked over to it and began rummaging inside. Finally, exasperated, he took hold of the bag, turned it upside down, and emptied the contents onto the desktop.

Stone and Holly walked over and gazed at the jumbled heap of the bag’s contents. Holly poked around with a finger and came up with a lighted cell phone, the source of the music. “This was missing from the scene of Fair Sutherlin’s murder, remember?”

“I remember,” Stone said, “but look at this.” He picked up a second cell phone, then, rummaging through the pile, came up with four others. “One of these is Shelley’s,” he said, “and I’d be willing to bet a large sum that the others belong to Mimi Kendrick, Milly Hart, Charlotte Kirby, and Muffy Brandon.”

“Souvenirs,” Dino said. “Serial killers often take souvenirs from their victims.”

“So I made a mistake,” Shelley said from the bedroom doorway.

The others turned to look and found her pointing a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at them, FBI combat-style.

“One little mistake,” Shelley repeated. She seemed to tighten her grip on the weapon.

“Shelley, are you going to kill us all to cover yourself?” Stone asked. “That won’t work. People saw you enter the hotel. You’re well known by now to the staff. You can’t kill everybody.”

Shelley thought about it. “Dino,” she said, “I want you to do exactly as I say.”

“That depends on what you say, Shelley,” Dino replied.

“I want you to pick up my bag and hold it open, and, Stone, I want you to rake everything on the desktop into the bag. And don’t either of you try to use a weapon or I will have to kill you all.”

Dino shrugged, picked up the bag, and held it open. Stone raked the pile of junk, including all the cell phones, into the bag.

“Now what?” Dino asked.

“Bring it over here and set it on the floor three feet in front of me,” Shelley said.

Dino did as she directed.

Shelley, keeping her pistol pointed at them, picked up her handbag and backed over to the door. She set it down, opened the door, then picked up the bag and backed out of the suite, letting the door slam behind her.

Dino produced his own weapon and started for the door.

“Let her go, Dino,” Stone said. “We can’t have a gunfight in the hotel.” He got out his cell phone, looked up a number in his frequently called list, and pressed it. He waited for a moment. “This is Stone Barrington. I met with Deputy Director Smith this morning. I want to speak to him immediately. This is an extreme emergency. I’ll hold while you find him.” Stone covered the phone with his hand. “Let’s let the FBI deal with this,” he said.

“We should call the DCPD, too,” Dino r Seminded him.

“Let Kerry do that. His word will carry more weight.”

Dino walked to the terrace door and opened it. Hot D.C. air flooded into the room, as did noise from the traffic below.

“Stone? It’s Kerry Smith. What’s wrong?”

“Listen to me carefully, Kerry: it’s not over. Charlotte Kirby was not the March Hare. The March Hare is Shelley Bach.”

There was a brief silence. “Tell me this is a joke.”

“It is not a joke. We’ve just found the cell phones of the five murdered women in Shelley’s handbag. She pointed a gun at us, then took her bag and left our suite at the Hay-Adams.”

“She’s headed down Sixteenth Street,” Dino called from the terrace. “Her car is a silver SUV, a BMW, I think.”

Stone repeated that information to Kerry Smith. “She’s armed and dangerous, Kerry, and we have no idea where she’s headed.”

“Can you back this up with evidence, Stone?” Kerry asked.

“The evidence is in her handbag,” Stone replied, “and Dino Bacchetti, Holly Barker, and I can testify to that.”

“How many phones were in the bag?”

“Six, in all. One must have been Shelley’s. We called Fair Sutherlin’s phone, and Shelley’s bag began to ring.”

“How about the other four? Can you swear that they belong to the other victims?”

“No, that’s just our assumption. You’d do well to capture that bag, as well as Shelley.”

“All right, I’ll issue the orders immediately. You three stay there. I’m going to send some agents to talk to you.”

“We’ll be right here,” Stone said, and hung up. He put the phone into its holster, went to the bar, and poured himself a stiff bourbon. “Anybody else?”