Stuart Woods: D.C. Dead

Stone navigated them along Pennsylvania Avenue toward Georgetown, and they began driving down tree-lined streets of town houses. “Two down on the left,” Stone said, pointing to a house.

Dino invented a parking place and turned down his visor, which had a government business notice on it. They got out of the car and approached the front door. There was a discreet FOR SALE sign attached to the wrought-iron fence enclosing the small front garden, bearing the name and number of a realtor. Stone pulled away a couple of inches of yellow crime-scene tape from the front door, then unlocked it and led the way in.

“Pretty nice,” Dino said, looking around.

Stone walked into the living room and stopped. There seemed to be some pieces of furniture missing, and there were outlines on the walls where pictures had hung. “Burglary, you think?” Stone asked.

“Pretty picky burglars,” Dino said, looking up. “There,” he said, pointing at one of the beams across the room. “There’s a mark where the rope was.”

“That’s, what, twelve feet up?” Stone asked.

“About. There must have been a ladder here. Maybe the burglars took that, too.”

They walked around the house, checking the kitchen, which seemed to have been remodeled recently, and a comfortable study, where the bookcases were more than half empty and there were more missing-picture marks.

Stone opened a few drawers. “Pencils, paper clips, that sort of stuff. No paper, no files in the file drawers.”

“Burglars wouldn’t bother with that stuff,” Dino said. “The family must have come into the house and lifted whatever they wanted.”

A voice suddenly came from the doorway behind them. “Why not?” a man asked. “It was all ours.”

Stone and Dino turned to find a young man of medium height and slim build, wearing surgeon’s scrubs, standing behind them. “Are you FBI?” he asked.

Stone and Dino produced their White House IDs.

The young man looked closely at them. “Anybody I can call to verify you are who these say you are?”

“Tim Coleman, chief of staff,” Stone said. “Or Charleston Bostwick, his deputy.”

“Yeah, I know them,” he replied, handing back the IDs.

“You have us at a disadvantage,” Stone said.

“Oh, sorry, I’m Tom Kendrick. They were my parents.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Stone said.

“Losses,” Tom replied. “The whole thing was screwy.”

Stone pointed at a leather sofa. “Why don’t you sit down and tell us about it?”

Tom didn’t mov F>

“Some people at the White House were not satisfied with the investigation into your parents’ deaths,” Stone replied. “They asked us to look into it.”

Tom went to the sofa and sat down, while Stone and Dino took chairs. “And what are your qualifications for that work?”

Dino spoke up. “I’m a detective lieutenant on the NYPD,” he said. “Stone is a retired homicide detective.”

“Then I guess you’re qualified. Actually, I’m glad you, or somebody like you, is looking into the situation, because it’s completely crazy.”

“Tell us about it,” Dino said.

“First of all, who would want to kill my mother? No sweeter human being ever existed. She had no enemies, not even in politics. And my father was just not the type to kill either my mother or himself. He’s the type who would have been all over the cops until they caught the killer. He met with the FBI and Secret Service people and answered every question, broken up as he was.”

“Being broken up is enough to cause some people to take their own lives,” Stone pointed out. “And being a suspect in the murder of a loved one could push a lot of people over the edge.”

“I guess all that is right, in theory,” Tom replied. “But it doesn’t jibe with who they were.”

“Well,” Dino said, “that’s enough of a reason for us to be here. Tell me, what happened to all the things that have obviously been removed?”

“My wife and I removed them and took them to our apartment,” Tom replied. “I’m a last-year resident at Washington Metro Hospital, and my wife works in a government office, so we couldn’t afford to keep this house. I doubt we could pay the taxes. We took the things we could use, or that were of sentimental value to us, and put the house on the market.”

“How long ago?” Stone asked.

“Ten months,” Tom replied. “The market is moribund for all the usual reasons, and it probably won’t come back until the change in administrations. That always causes a huge upswing in Georgetown house sales, what with people leaving Washington and others moving in.”

“May I ask what the value of the house is?” Stone asked.

“We were told it would bring four and a half, five million in better times, and maybe three and a half, four million if we can hang on until the change of administrations, which is another year and a half. Or we could take a lowball offer now. We’ve had a couple of those.”

“What’s upstairs?” Stone asked.

“Four bedrooms and baths, a smaller study for my mother, and a kitchenette.”

Stone nodded. “I’m not all that familiar with the market here,” Stone said, “but it sounds like you got good advice from your realtor. What was the estate worth in toto?”

“Six and a half million,” Tom said. “More than half of that is this house, which they owned for more than thirty years. There was no estate tax last year, some legislative quirk.”

“I’m familiar with that,” Stone said. “Did you consider moving into the house until it sold? At least you wouldn’t be paying rent.”

“I pointed that out to Kath, but she’s spooked by the fact that my father hanged hims Kr h/font>

Stone nodded. “By the way, how did he get a rope tied to that beam?”

“He used an eight-foot stepladder. It’s in the garden shed.”

Stone nodded.

Dino spoke again. “Was there anything going on in the life of either of your parents that might have been a factor in what happened?”

Tom looked puzzled. “What sort of thing are you talking about?”

“Anything unusual, out of the ordinary. Could either of them have been having an affair?”

Tom emitted a short laugh. “They had been married for nearly forty years,” he said. “Since college. Doesn’t seem likely at this stage of the game, does it?”

“I guess not,” Dino said.

“What really gets me about this,” Tom said, “is that they both died within a day of each other, both violently. I just can’t come up with a scenario that would account for that. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.” He got to his feet. “I have to go to work.” He handed Dino a card. “My cell number is there,” he said. “Please call me if there’s anything else I can tell you, and please, please call me if you start to make any sense of this.”

Stone and Dino shook his hand and walked him to the front door.

“Well,” Dino said when he had gone, “forty years of marriage doesn’t mean a lot if one partner gets the love bug up his ass, does it?”

“You’re right,” Stone said, “but I don’t think we should explain that to Tom, unless we can prove it.”

Stone and Dino had a four o’clock appointment with the deputy director of the FBI, a man named Kerry Smith, who, they had been told, was the Bureau’s supervising agent for the investigation into the deaths of Brixton and Mimi Kendrick. They presented themselves in his reception room on time and were kept waiting for ten minutes. As they were shown into Smith’s office, Stone saw a door closing on the other side of the room.

“Good afternoon,” Smith said. “I’ve been expecting a visit from you gentlemen.” He indicated a seating area away from his desk. “Please sit down and be comfortable.”