David Baldacci - True Blue

“Everybody deserves a good defense. Least I heard that somewhere.”

“I’ll meet with him, go from there.”

She pulled the key out. “Do you want me to let you know what I find?”

“Like I said, I’m going with you.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I’ll probably lose my license to practice before this is all over.”

Mace looked confused. “But you still want to come with me? Why?”

“I have no rational basis for answering that question.”

“Meaning you have an irrational basis?”

Roy put some cash down for the meal.

“So how are you going to find out which box was Diane’s?”

“When I think of it you’ll be the first to know. By the way, how much do I have left on my buck retainer?”

“After last night, ten cents. Use it wisely.”

When Mace and Roy came out of the diner, Karl Reiger picked them up from his observation post tucked inside the mouth of an alley. Farther down the block Don Hope sat in a pale blue Chevy van, his glass on the same target. When Roy and Mace climbed on her bike and drove down the street, Hope eased the van forward and followed. Reiger backed down the alley, came out on the next street over, and ran a parallel course on their tail. They radioed back and forth on a secure communication line and switched out the surveillance every three blocks to knock down the odds of Mace picking up the tail.

Reiger settled back in his seat. It should have been over last night. And it would have been if the punk lawyer hadn’t screwed his shot. That would not happen again. Reiger didn’t like killing people, especially fellow Americans, but above all, he was going to survive this, even if no one else did.

THERE WAS ONLY one person working behind the counter at A-1 when Roy and Mace walked in. He was young with ear buds and lines dangling to an iPod hung on his belt. His head was swaying to the music as he sorted the mail on the counter. Mace led Roy over to the wall of mailboxes. A quick check showed that while they were numbered, none of the digits on the boxes matched the one Mace had written down from the original key.

“Plan B,” she whispered to Roy.

Mace walked over to the guy at the counter. “Hey, dude, got a question.”

The kid took one ear bud out but his head kept swinging. “Yeah?”

Mace held up the key. “My aunt fell down the stairs and broke her tailbone. That’s the good news.”

“That she broke her tailbone?” said the kid, perplexed.

“Yeah, because but for that she wouldn’t have gone to the hospital and they wouldn’t have checked her out and discovered she had like this weird form of leprosy she contracted in Africa or some crazy place. That stuff’ll eat your skin right off. And it’s like so contagious that if she like breathes on you, your eyeballs fall out. I’ve never seen anything like this crap. It’s got some long-ass medical name.”

“Damn, that sucks,” said the kid, his head still swinging to the rhythm.

“Anyway, this is her key and she asked me to get her mail. Only she can’t remember which box was hers.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So I can’t get the mail. And she has some checks and medical bills she needs. It’s a hassle but I’m the only relative she has.”

“What’s her name?”

“Diane Tolliver.” Mace crossed her fingers, hoping that the kid had not read of the woman’s murder.

He clicked some keys on the computer. “Yeah, she’s got a box here.”

“So what’s the number?”

The kid took out the other bud from his ear and his expression hardened. “I’m not really supposed to give out that info. Mail regs or something. You know, like terrorist stuff.”

“Damn, never thought of that.” She looked at Roy. “Well, hell, you better go get Auntie and bring her in here then so she can show some ID.” She turned back to the kid. “They couldn’t keep her in that hospital anymore because they’re not set up for contagious crap like that. So we’re driving her to Johns Hopkins. We just got going and then she started screaming about her mail. Between you and me I think this stuff messes with your mind too. You know, like forgetting your mailbox number? I know it screws up your sex drive. Docs say it kills the libido like dead, especially in younger people. Anyway, she’s out in the car with boils popping all over the place. And her face? It’s like tar sliding off. Now, we got inoculated against this shit so we’re good, but if I were you, I’d go hide out in the back or something. And anything she touches in here make sure you clean it up with like Clorox or something. The bacteria can live for like weeks on pretty much anything. An orderly at the hospital found that out the hard way.” She looked at Roy again. “Go on and get her. Make it fast. I don’t want to get caught in traffic going to Baltimore.”

Roy turned to head out the door but the kid blurted out, “It’s Box 716. Second to the left on the top row over there.”

“You sure?” asked Mace. “I don’t want you getting in trouble. And Auntie’s right outside. She can walk but she falls a lot because of the boils bursting and her feet slipping in the juice. You ought to see the backseat of my car. It’s beyond gross.”

The wide-eyed kid took a step back. “No, it’s cool. Go on ahead and open it up. Your auntie ain’t got to come in here.”

“Hey, thanks, man.” Roy put out a hand for him to shake. The kid took another step back and picked up a large tub of mail. “Yeah, dude, you’re welcome.”

Roy and Mace headed to Box 716.

BETH WAS in the front seat of a patrol car heading to a meeting when she finished reading over the e-mail from Lowell Cassell. The medical examiner was comparing the DNA on the sperm left inside Diane Tolliver with the sample they’d taken from the residue of a cup of coffee they’d given to Lou Dockery. It was an old police trick. They had enough to hold Dockery until the test results were back. And even if this DNA sample was suppressed by defense counsel motion they could easily get a search warrant. It wasn’t like Dockery could change his DNA in the interim. Beth had ordered the coffee cup tactic because she didn’t want to waste time with him unless he was the guy who’d raped and murdered Diane Tolliver.

Her multitasking mind shifted gears for a moment. She was monitoring the radio calls in the Fifth District and did not like the paucity of responses from the scout cars to the dispatcher’s calls. She picked up the radio.

“Cruiser One rolling in Five D. Cruiser One rolling Five D. Chief out.”

Within seconds the chatter picked up and at least five scout cars were responding to each dispatch. Her driver glanced at her.

“Pays off working your way up from the pavement, Chief.”

“You think?” she answered absently. Beth punched in the number. The ME answered on the second ring.

“How long?” she said.

Cassell said, “Beth, you asked me that not ten minutes ago. If it had been before the new lab opened, I’d say two to four weeks. We had to send it out back then.”

“But not now. Now you have that fancy lab with all those fancy machines.”

“We went back over the chain of custody on the sample found in the deceased and confirmed there was no tampering or alteration. We received the sample from Dockery.” He paused and Beth could almost see his grin across the phone line. “You haven’t used the coffee ploy in a while.”

“I’m getting more impatient in my old age.”

“It’s not that easy pulling DNA off a sperm sample. The sperm heads are hard.”

“As hard as the heads of the guys shooting them into women who don’t want them to.”