Phillip Margolin: Executive Privilege

It wasn’t unusual for Jake to be away for weeks at a time in some exotic locale or war zone. When he was in D.C. and they both felt like it, Dana stayed at Jake’s house, which was roomier than the small apartment she called home. They’d been friends and off-and-on lovers for years, but neither of them wanted anything permanent and the relationship was convenient for both of them. Jake was the only person to whom she’d opened up about what had happened at the farm, though she hadn’t come close to telling him the whole story. She couldn’t risk losing him, something that could very well happen if he learned everything she’d done.

When Walsh turned onto the E Street expressway Dana knew that her quarry wasn’t headed back to her apartment. Her dream of an early night disappeared and she turned on the radio. A newscast was just ending with a story about the latest victim of the D.C. Ripper, a serial killer who’d been murdering women in the D.C. area. The announcer was explaining that the police appeared to be stymied when Dana turned the dial to DC101. After she left the hospital, Dana found that she had trouble listening to stories about violence to women. When she’d been a cop, she’d dealt with victims’ tales of rape, wife beating, and the like with a professional detachment she could no longer summon up.

“Highway to Hell” by AC/DC started playing just as the city gave way to a tree-lined roadway when she merged onto 66-west. Walsh took the exit for the Dulles Toll Road and drove along VA-267, exiting fifteen miles later onto Sully Road. After they passed a few illuminated construction sites and half-built subdivisions the Dulles Towne Center suddenly appeared in the distance. Dana groaned when she realized that the mall was Walsh’s destination.

It was late, so most of the sprawling lot was free of cars. Dana expected Walsh to park near the well-lit mall entrance where the vehicles of those still shopping congregated, but she surprised Dana by driving past JCPenney and Old Navy to a remote section of the lot where the glow from the Sears and Nordstrom signs did not reach. Dana drove away from Walsh, turned off her lights, and circled back to a spot many rows away that gave her an unobstructed view of the driver’s side of the student’s car.

As soon as she parked, Dana checked her watch. It was seven-forty-five, so it had taken almost forty-five minutes to drive to the mall from K Street. She took a few shots of the car before phoning her client to report where they were and where Walsh had parked in the lot. Then she took a drink of coffee from her thermos to help her stay awake and grabbed the doughnut she’d started outside the Thai restaurant. She finished the doughnut and perked up when she noticed that Walsh was still sitting in her car. This was the first interesting thing that had happened during her surveillance. If Walsh wasn’t at the mall to shop she was probably waiting for someone. If she was meeting this someone in a dark and remote part of the mall parking lot instead of the interior of the mall she didn’t want anyone to see the meeting. Maybe there was a reason to watch the coed after all.

Dana focused Teeny’s camera on Walsh’s car and was about to take a few more shots when movement in her peripheral vision caused her to look right. A dark blue Ford drove into Walsh’s row and parked a space away from her. Teeny’s camera lens had a 3.4 f-stop so Dana could see the license plate. From farther away, she wouldn’t have been able to read the license, but she could take a picture of it and blow up the picture on her laptop. Dana jotted down the Ford’s license plate number. A moment later, Walsh got out of her car, looked around nervously, and got into the Ford’s backseat. The Ford drove off with Dana in pursuit, far enough back so, hopefully, her lights wouldn’t give her away.

In almost no time, Dana found herself heading into Virginia on a two-lane highway. It became harder to stay close enough to see the Ford, but luckily there were a few other cars on the road to screen her. Trees soon began to outnumber man-made structures. She made a note of the route on a pad she’d placed on the passenger seat then fiddled with the dial until she found an oldies station playing a Springsteen classic.

Dana cruised along about a mile farther when the Ford’s brake lights went on. She slowed to a crawl. The Ford turned onto a narrow country road, crossed a railroad track, and drove by the darkened storefronts that lined the main street of a sleepy village. Dana jotted down the name of the town. A few miles past the city limits the Ford took a right onto a dirt road that was barely wide enough for two cars. Dana noted the distance she’d traveled from the village to the turnoff before cutting her lights and following the other car’s taillights.

After a quarter mile, the Ford’s headlights illuminated a white slat fence and a quarter mile after that the car stopped at a gate. Dana was surprised to see an armed guard. While the guard was concentrating on the occupants of the Ford, she put the Toyota in reverse and backed into a side road. If she had to run she didn’t want to waste time turning around. Dana stuffed the cell phone in her jacket pocket and grabbed a heavy flashlight and the camera. She crouched down, crossed the road, hopped the fence, and ducked into the woods, pushing through the foliage with the flashlight beam held low so it wouldn’t attract attention. After a short hike, she found herself on top of a small hill looking down on a white clapboard house that was about a football field away. The Ford was parked next to the front door but no one was in it. Dana had been surprised that there was an armed guard at the gate and more surprised to find other guards patrolling the grounds.

It was chilly, and Dana turned up her collar before settling in with her back against a tree. The ground was rocky and she had to shift around before she was comfortable. Nothing happened for several minutes. Dana drew up her knees, balanced the camera lens on them, and passed the time studying the house. The building looked like something from colonial times that had been updated with additions that were almost indistinguishable from the original. The bottom floor was illuminated, but that was all she could tell because the thick curtains on the front windows shielded the interior from view while letting only a little light escape.

To kill more time, Dana phoned in a whispered report to the client then snapped a few shots of the house, the guards, and the license plate of a dark blue Lincoln sedan that was parked at the side of the house. She jotted down the number of the plate on the sheet where she’d written the number of the car that had taken Walsh to the house. Dana was about to take another shot when a light went on in an upstairs room. She framed the window in her lens. A man stood in it briefly with his back to her, but he moved away before she could snap a shot. Dana peered into the room, but all she could make out from her angle were two shifting shadows on the wall. The shadows separated then came together until there was one flat black mass flowing across it. Moments later, the shadows dropped below the level of the sill and the room went dark.

Dana leaned back against the tree. She wished she’d had the foresight to bring the thermos along. She also hoped that Walsh wasn’t going to spend the night because camping out wasn’t her thing. She was getting bored so she watched the guards patrol the grounds and tried to figure out their routine. One of the armed men was a redhead with a crew cut. When he reached the point in his patrol that brought him closest to Dana she checked out his arsenal. He appeared to have a Sig Sauer 9-mm handgun in his holster and he was carrying a Heckler and Koch MP5 semiautomatic machine gun. She was trying to get a better look at the guns through the telephoto lens when the lights in the upstairs room came on again. A shadow appeared on the wall seconds before Charlotte Walsh walked in front of the window. Dana couldn’t hear what she was saying but she was waving her arms rapidly and she looked like she was yelling.