Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop

But then the Digger arrived… murdering with impunity, escaping from crowded crime scenes, striking again. And who got blamed? Not the faceless FBI. But everyone's favorite target: Jerry Kennedy. If the madman killed any more citizens, he believed, Project 2000-the hope for his city's future-would likely become just a sour footnote in Kennedy's memoirs.

And this was the reason that Jefferies was on the phone at the moment. The aide put his hand over the receiver.

"He's here," Jefferies said.

"Where?" Kennedy asked sourly.

"Right outside. In the hallway." Then he examined the mayor. "You're having doubts again?"

How trim the man was, Kennedy thought, how perfect he looks in his imported suit, with his shaved head, his silk tie frothing at his throat.

"Sure, I'm having doubts."

The mayor looked out of another window-one that didn't offer a view of the Capitol. He could see, in the distance, the logotype tower of Georgetown University. His undergrad alma mater. He and Claire lived not far away from the school. He remembered, last fall, the two of them walking up the steep stairway the priest had tumbled down at the end of The Exorcist.

The priest who sacrificed himself to save the girl possessed by a demon.

Now, there's an omen for you.

He nodded. "All right. Go talk to him."

Jefferies nodded. "We'll get through this, Jerry. We will." Into the phone he said, "I'll be right out."

In the hallway outside of the mayor's office a handsome man in a double-breasted suit leaned against the wall, right below a portrait of some nineteenth-century politician.

Wendell Jefferies walked up to him.

"Hey, Wendy."

"Slade." This was the mans first name, his real given name, believe it or not, and-with the surname Phillips-you'd think his parents had foreseen that their handsome infant would one day be a handsome anchorman for a TV station. Which in fact he was.

"Got the story on the scanner. Dude lit up two agents, did a Phantom of the Opera on a dozen poor bastards in the bleachers."

On the air, with an earplug wire curling down his razor-cleaned neck, Phillips talked differently. In public he talked differently. With white people he talked differently. But Jefferies was black and Slade wanted him to think he talked the talk.

Phillips continued. "Capped one, I think."

Jefferies didn't point out to the newscaster that in gangsta slang the verb "cap" meant "shoot to death" not "chandelier to death."

"Nearly got the perp but he booked."

"That's what I heard," Jefferies said.

"So the man's gonna rub our uglies and make us feel better?" This was a reference to Kennedy's impending press conference.

Jefferies had no patience today to coddle the likes of Slade Phillips. He didn't smile. "Here it is. This quote dude's gonna keep going. Nobody knows how dangerous he is."

"How dangerous is-"

Jefferies waved him quiet. "This is as bad as it gets."

"I know that."

"Everybody's going to be looking at him."

Him. Uppercase H. Jerry Kennedy. Phillips would understand this.

"Sure."

"So, we need some help," Jefferies said, lowering his voice to a pitch that resonated with the sound of money changing hands.

"Help."

"We can go twenty-five on this one."

"Twenty-five."

"You bargaining?" Jefferies asked.

"No, no. Just… that's a lot. What do you want me to do?"

"I want him-"

"Kennedy."

Jefferies sighed. "Yes. Him. To get through this like he's a hero. I mean, the hero. People're dead and more people're probably gonna die. Get the focus on him for visiting vics and standing up to terrorists and, I don't know, coming up with some brilliant shit about catching the killer. And get the focus off him for fuckups."

"Off-?"

"The mayor," Jefferies said. "Kennedys not the one-"

"No, he's not the one running the case." Phillips cleared his baritone voice. "Is that what you were going to say?"

"Right," Jefferies said. "If there's any glitch make sure he wasn't informed and that he did his best to make it right."

"Well, it's a Feebie operation, right? So we can just-"

"That's true, Slade, but we don't want to go blaming the Bureau for anything." Jefferies talked to his ten-year-old nephew in just this tone.

"We don't? Why exactly?"

"We just don't."

Finally Slade Phillips, used to reading off of a TelePrompTer, had had it. "I don't get it, Wendy. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to play real reporter for a change."

"Sure." Phillips began writing copy in his head. "So Kennedy's taking a tough line. He's marshaling cops. He's going to the hospitals… Wait, without his wife?"

"With his wife," Jefferies said patiently.

Phillips nodded toward the press room. "But wait-they were saying… I mean, the guy from the Post said Kennedy didn't visit anybody. They were going to op-ed him on it."

"No, no, he went to the families who wanted to remain anonymous. He's been doing it all day."

"Oh, he has?"

It was amazing what $25,000 could buy you, Jefferies thought.

Phillips added, "That was good of him. Real good."

"Don't overdo it," Jefferies warned.

"But what do I do for footage? I mean, if the story's about him at the hospitals-"

Jefferies snapped, "Just show the same five seconds of tape over and over again like you guys always do. I don't know, show the ambulances at the Metro."

"Oh. Okay. What about the fuckup part? Why do you think there'll be a fuckup?"

"Because in situations like this there's always a fuckup."

"Okay, you need somebody to point a finger at. But not-"

"Not the feds."

"Okay," said Phillips. "But how exactly do I do that?"

"That's your job. Remember: who, what, when, where and why. You're the reporter." He took Phillips by the arm and escorted him down the hallway. "Go report."

"You don't look good, Agent Lukas."

"It's been a long day."

Gary Moss was in his late forties, heavy-set, with short-cropped kinky hair, just going gray. His skin was very dark. He was sitting on the bed in Facility Two, a small apartment on the first floor of headquarters. There were several apartments here, used mostly for visiting heads of law enforcement agencies and for the nights when the director or dep director needed to camp out during major operations. He was here because it was felt that, given what Moss knew and whom he was soon to testify against, he would survive about two hours if placed in District custody.

The place wasn't bad. Government issue but with a comfortable double bed, desk, armchair, tables, kitchen, TV with basic cable.

"Where's that young detective? I like him."

"Hardy? He's in the war room."

"He's mad at you."

"Why? Because I won't let him play cop?"

"Yeah."

"He's not investigative."

"Sure, he told me. He's a desk driver, like me. But he just wants a piece of the action. You're trying to catch that killer, aren't you? I saw about it on TV. That's why y'all've forgotten me."

"Nobody's forgotten about you, Mr. Moss."

The man gave a smile but he looked forlorn and she felt bad for him. But Lukas wasn't here just to hold hands. Witnesses who feel unhappy or unsafe sometimes forget things they've heard and seen. The U.S. attorney running the kickback case wanted to make sure that Gary Moss was a very happy witness.

"How're you doing?"

"Miss my family. Miss my girls. Doesn't seem right, when they've had a scare like that, I can't be there for them. My wife'll do a good job. But a man should be with his family, times like this."

Lukas remembered the girls, twins, about five. Tiny plastic toys braided into their hair. Moss's wife was a thin woman, with the wary eyes you'd expect of someone who's just watched her house burn to the ground.