Stuart Woods - D.C. Dead

“Have you any reason to believe it wasn’t a suicide?”

“My people had a look around, but there was no evidence of foul play. One odd thing, though: they found a sniper’s rifle in a briefcase in Todd’s car that he had checked out of the weapons vault yesterday. I’ve no idea why.”

Holly did not comment on that. “Have you called the local police?”

“I’m about to do that right now. I wanted to tell you first.”

“Play it by the book,” she said, “except for the sniper’s rifle. You can put that back where it belongs and deal with the written record.”

“I have already done so.”

“We’ll want our own pathologist at the autopsy.”

“Of course. We’ll track the investigation every step of the way and keep the Agency out of the papers.”

“Let me know the results,” Holly said. “And thanks, Tank.” She hung up and went into Lance’s office.

He looked up from his desk. “Heard anything?”

“Tank Wheeler just called. When Todd didn’t show up for work, he sent some people out there. They found him in the bathtub, bled out. There was an Agency sniper’s rifle in his car.”

“I see.”

“I told Tank to call the police and go by our playbook for such an event. We’ll be represented at the autopsy, and of course we’ll see the police report. Tank has returned the rifle to the vault and adjusted the record.”

“And the Agency will be kept out of it?”

“Of course.”

“I guess I’d better start thinking of a replacement for Todd in Tech Services.”

“I might be interested,” Holly said.

“Not going to happen,” Lance said. “Your future at the Agency will depend on how my plans for me work out,” he said. “But don’t worry, whatever happens, you’re thought of as valuable around here.”

“Thank you,” Holly sai?”d, then went back to her office and put Todd Bacon and Teddy Fay out of her mind.

Dino parked the car at the Manassas FBO, and he and Stone carried their luggage to the airplane. While Dino stowed the bags, Stone walked around the airplane and did his preflight inspection. He had already gotten a weather forecast-good all the way-from Flight Services and filed his flight plan.

Then Stone remembered a call he had not made. He checked his notebook for the number and the hospital answered. “Dr. Tom Kendrick,” Stone said.

After a short wait, Tom Kendrick came on the line. “Dr. Kendrick.”

“Dr. Kendrick, this is Stone Barrington. We met at your parents’ house.”

“I remember,” Kendrick said.

“We’ve concluded our investigation, and I wanted you to know the results.”

“I’d like to hear it,” Kendrick replied.

“We have concluded that your father did not kill your mother. The note he left was misinterpreted.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” Kendrick replied, “but who did kill her?”

“She was killed by a woman named Shelley Bach, who was having an affair with your father. We believe that your father took his own life because he felt that his affair with Ms. Bach was the root cause of her death. This will all be in the papers by tomorrow, so you’d better prepare yourself for a lot of phone calls from the media.”

“Thank you, I’ll try to handle that. And thank you for letting me know the outcome.” Kendrick hung up.

Stone got aboard, then buttoned up the airplane, started the engines, and ran through his checklist. Finally, he called ground control for his clearance. The controller read him the clearance, and Stone repeated it.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen an airplane cleared across the Washington TFR,” he said, referring to central Washington, including the White House. “And at low altitude. You must know somebody.”

Stone laughed. “No, just the luck of the draw,” he replied, and requested permission to taxi. When they had lifted off, Stone said to Dino, “You’re going to be impressed with our routing.”

“Yeah, why?”

“I think Holly used her influence with Air Traffic Control to see that we got the scenic route.”

Moments later they crossed the Potomac at three thousand feet and saw the Washington Monument and the White House ahead.

“Man, what a view!” Dino said. “I’m going to send Holly some flowers!”

Shortly after they had passed the White House, Stone was told to climb directly to his filed cruising altitude and to fly direct to New Haven. Normally, he would have ascended in stages and been told to fly an airway.

They landed at Tweed Field, New Haven, and Dino’s son, Ben, drove out onto the ramp to meet them and unload their luggage.

Dino embraced his son, and Stone shook his hand. “We could have taken a cab,” Stone said.

“I’m glad to have a break from the theater,” Ben said. “Peter will be embroiled with details until curtain ?cab,”time, since he’s the director, but I wasn’t needed. I’m only the producer.”

He drove them to the building where Peter had bought an apartment that housed himself, Ben, and Peter’s girlfriend, and Stone and Dino made themselves comfortable in the guest room, while Ben went back to the theater.

“They’ve done some more fixing up since we were here last,” Dino said.

“Yes, they’ve got curtains and a nice Oriental rug, now,” Stone agreed. They found the makings of sandwiches in the fridge and made lunch.

As the final curtain came down, the audience rose as one, applauding, whistling, and shouting. The cast took multiple curtain calls, then, to shouts of “Author! Author!” Peter joined them for the final bow.

“That was really something,” Stone said.

“I hadn’t expected it to be so funny,” Dino replied. “That was terrific writing.”

“It certainly was,” Stone said. “They’re meeting us at the restaurant.”

The opening night party was nearly as much of a triumph as the opening night performance. Stone and Dino were treated with deference by the student crowd, but stayed out of the way and let Peter and Ben have their moment of glory.

Finally, Peter joined them at their table.

“It was brilliant, Peter,” Stone said.

Dino praised him, as well.

“I’ve got some news,” Peter said. “There was someone from the Shubert Organization in New York in the audience, and it looks like we’re going to get an offer to open our play in one of their theaters after Christmas.”

“Will you direct?” Stone asked.

“I doubt it,” Peter replied. “They’ll recast it with New York actors and get a pro to direct. We’re just a bunch of students, after all.”

“Some bunch of students!” Stone said. “Every one of them was perfection.”

“They were, weren’t they?” Peter said. “I’ll get you guys another drink, and then I have to circulate some more.” He left, found a waiter, then blended into the crowd again.

“You know,” Stone said to Dino, “I much prefer seeing that play to seeing Peter quarterback Yale to a victory over Harvard.”

“I know how you feel,” Dino said, “and this way, he doesn’t get a concussion.”

Shelley Bach rinsed under the shower, then got into a robe and toweled her hair. She checked the mirror and approved of what she saw. The new auburn color worked very well for her, or would soon.

She dried her hair and dressed, then went to the basement of the apartment building in Arlington and got into the Honda Civic she had bought earlier, under her new name, using ID she had manufactured using FBI equipment. She drove a couple of blocks down the street, parked at a strip mall, and went into a shop.

“I’m Carly Shaker,” she said to the receptionist. “I have an appointment.”