Philip Margolin: Capitol murder

“I need my stuff and a disposable cell phone,” Tolliver said.

“Are you crazy? You should have called. I’ll have every fed in D.C. in here as soon as you leave.”

“I need my stuff, now.”

The proprietor hesitated, then went into the back. When he came out, he was carrying a gym bag. He shoved it across the counter.

“Now get out,” he said.

Tolliver unzipped the bag and checked the contents. Then he left without another word and took evasive action until he arrived at a cheap hotel ten blocks from the pawnshop, where whores rented by the hour and winos occupied the lobby. On the way, he picked up two sandwiches, several bags of chips, and a few bottles of water at a convenience store.

Tolliver registered under a false name and paid in cash for two days. Then he paid the desk clerk $100 to forget he’d registered. When he opened the door to his room, the odors left behind by the previous occupant made him gag. Tolliver didn’t bother to unpack. He threw his gym bag on a bed with a stained sheet that covered a mattress with sagging springs that had conceded the fight with gravity a long time ago.

Tolliver pulled a chair over to the room’s only window and looked at the brick wall of the building across the way. The sun set. Tolliver ate one of the tasteless sandwiches. He felt completely lost for a while. Then his spirits rose. This was the way he’d felt in Afghanistan when his team had been wiped out. His head wound looked ghastly, and he’d faked death by lying perfectly still until night fell and the last of the Taliban fighters left the battlefield. When he was finally alone and had time to think, he’d been overwhelmed by depression. He’d doubted the possibility of surviving in this hostile wasteland without food or water. But he had survived. His situation was different now. He was surrounded by enemies, as he had been in the mountains of Afghanistan, but he had a way out. Tolliver took the cell phone out of the gym bag and called Imran Afridi.

I mran Afridi was planning to return to Pakistan as soon as Mustapha told him what he had learned from Senator Carson. He was telling the pilot of his private jet to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice when another cell phone rang. It was the phone with the number he had given Ronald Tolliver to call in an emergency, but Tolliver was in jail. How would he get a cell phone? Could this be a trap?

The phone rang twice more, and Afridi’s curiosity overcame his sense of caution.

“Yes?” he said.

“It’s me.” Afridi recognized the voice instantly. “The prosecutor screwed up so they had to release me. You have to get me out of the country.”

“You must have a wrong number,” Afridi said, certain now that he was being set up.

“I know you’re worried that someone is listening in, but I haven’t been turned, and I am out. Meet me in two hours at the last place we met, and I’ll explain.”

Tolliver cut the connection. Afridi sank onto a chair. His stomach was churning. Tolliver was not in jail. A man arrested for attempted mass murder was walking the streets, a free man. How did such a thing happen? The answer was simple: it didn’t. Prosecutors did not screw up in a situation like this unless the screwup was intentional, unless the prosecutor wanted an informant on the street as part of a setup. This was how the heads of drug cartels were brought low. A little fish was arrested and promised a deal that would lead to dismissal of his case. Then the little fish hooked a bigger fish, and so on.

A great weight fell from Afridi’s shoulders. He smiled. The mystery had been solved. Ron Tolliver was the traitor, and he would pay.

Afridi summoned his head of security and told him to take some men to the C and O Canal.

“Kill them,” Mustapha said.

Brad was surprised that he was resigned and sad but not terrified. In seconds, he would be dead, and that meant he would never see Ginny again or have kids or take any of the trips they had planned. This was it. The last moment of his life-and the last thing he would see was the smirk on a terrorist’s face.

Brad waited for the shot. There was an explosion, and Brad was showered with blood and brains. At first, he assumed the gore belonged to Lucas Sharp or the senator. Then Mustapha dived for his weapon and there was another shot. Mustapha’s left kneecap shattered. He collapsed, screaming.

“How are you doing, Brad?” Clarence Little asked.

Brad’s mouth gaped open, but he couldn’t speak. Carson and Sharp stared wide-eyed at the most wanted man in America. Little walked over to Brad and used a handkerchief to wipe the gore off his face.

“Sorry about that. I’ll get you a wet towel in a bit. And before you start worrying, I’d have to be a complete ingrate to harm even one tiny hair on your head after you saved my life. And don’t worry about Ginny, either. She’s certainly delectable, but she’s off limits as far as I’m concerned.”

Little turned to Carson then Lucas Sharp. “These two are another story. I don’t like them. Especially you, Mr. Sharp. Imagine my surprise when I learned that I had been in Washington, D.C., killing Jessica Koshani. I do tend to be forgetful at times, but you’d think I’d remember traveling cross-country and playing with someone that tasty.

“Then I heard Senator Carson admit to shacking up with Dorothy Crispin on the day Koshani was murdered. I decided that things were not as they seemed, so I drove from Seattle to Portland and had a chat with Miss Crispin. In between screams, she told me that the senator had been stabbed and needed a place to hide out and recuperate.

“Like Sherlock Holmes, I have considered all of the evidence and deduced that I did not murder Miss Koshani and that the real killer is someone in this room. Unfortunately, the senator ruined my dramatic unveiling of the killer’s identity by confessing before I had the opportunity to reveal my startling deductions, but you’ll have to take it on faith that I really did figure out that you and your boss committed the dastardly deed.”

Clarence placed the barrel of his gun under Lucas Sharp’s chin and pressed his head up.

“Tell me, Luke, do you have any idea how inconsiderate it is to frame someone for murder? Gosh, there are so many consequences, I have trouble keeping count of them. But the biggie is that people who are successfully framed for murders they don’t commit have to spend years in teensy, weensy cells living like animals until they are taken out to be slaughtered like a Thanksgiving turkey. Did you think about my feelings when you decided to frame me to save your pathetic boss?”

Little turned his head toward Carson. “And for the record, Jack, I agree with the raghead. You are pathetic.”

While Little was talking, Mustapha had been dragging himself toward his gun. Little watched for a moment, then stood over the terrorist.

“I happen to be a big pro football fan, Osama, and your plan to disrupt the season pisses me off.”

Little shot Mustapha between the eyes. Then he walked over to Lucas and pulled a hunting knife with a serrated blade out of a scabbard he had fixed to his belt at the small of his back.

“You are the second person who has framed me for a murder I did not commit. Enough is enough.”

Little slashed the knife into Sharp’s crotch. Brad had never heard anyone scream like that.

“Please, Clarence, don’t do this,” he begged.

Little considered Brad’s plea. Then he nodded.

“I owe you big time, so I’ll make this quicker than I would have liked. He’s a murderer anyway, so I’m just carrying out his inevitable sentence.”

Little walked behind Sharp, pulled up his chin and slit his throat. Brad turned away, unable to watch.