Брэд Мельтцер - The Fifth Assassin

“Can I bring my book?” Nico asked, eyeing the book in Rupert’s hands. The book the Knight had sent him.

“Of course,” Rupert said, handing it to him. “Bring whatever you want.”

34

Still pinching the slip of paper from the fortune cookie between his fingertips, Dr. Stewart Palmiotti used his free hand to redial the President’s phone number. Again.

And again.

“We’re sorry. The number you dialed is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.”

He crumpled the fortune like a spitball but didn’t throw it away. He stuffed it in his pocket, not even noticing he was grinding his teeth.

On his left, a few blocks from Wok ’n Roll, a passing woman in a ratty red scarf seemed to be staring at him.

Dropping his head, Palmiotti walked in the opposite direction. With his head down.

The woman with the scarf definitely was no longer looking. No one’s looking , he told himself.

And that was the problem. No one was looking. No one was watching. Despite everything he’d been promised—all the reassurances that the President… that the Secret Service… that everyone would be looking out for him…

Stewart Palmiotti really was out here alone.

Or.

Maybe it was just a mistake.

At the thought of it, Palmiotti’s fists unclenched.

It wasn’t the craziest explanation. For over three years, President Wallace hadn’t cooked for himself… placed a call for himself… he didn’t even carry his own wallet anymore. So was it possible that maybe, just maybe, when Wallace wrote down the number, he wrote it down wrong ?

Certainly possible .

Wasn’t it?

Besides, if it were a real emergency, he still knew how to get in touch with A.J. and the Secret Service. He did. It didn’t matter whether the number was right or wrong.

Palmiotti and the President had gone to elementary school together. They had traded snacks in the lunchroom together. They had buried Wallace’s mother. And Palmiotti’s father.

No question, the President would always look out for him. Always love him. But as his thumb skated across the keypad of the cheap disposable cell phone, Palmiotti knew there was one other person who loved him too.

Lydia. The woman he’d been seeing before all this.

She loved Palmiotti as well.

His cheeks lifted as he began dialing her number. He didn’t want to actually talk to her. No. Even he wasn’t that stupid. And even if he was, what would he say? Hey, hon! I’m not dead. I’m alive!

No. All Palmiotti wanted was to hear her voice on her answering machine. The little singsongy way she said Lydi-a , like it belonged in a musical. He knew she wouldn’t be there. It was a workday.

The phone rang once… twice… As it picked up, there was that hollow pause that tells you the answering machine message is about to begin.

For Palmiotti, that’s all he needed. Just to hear her voice.

“This is Lydia ,” the message announced as the singsong made his heart balloon, pressing against his sternum. “You called. Leave a message.”

He hung up before the beep even sounded, soaking in the irrational rush of emotions that comes from any mention of an old lover.

Stuffing the phone back into his pocket, Palmiotti told himself that that was all he needed. Just to hear her voice. That was enough.

And as he felt that lump in his throat and that rise in his pants…

It was enough.

But then… it wasn’t.

35

I knew who ?” I ask, still lost.

“Riis,” Marshall says.

“ Pastor Riis? From our hometown? Pastor Riis is dead?”

“Three weeks ago. Shot in the chest by an old obscure gun.”

He says something else, but I don’t hear it. My mind’s already tumbling back to Sunday school… to Riis’s sermons at church… to the fact that he always smelled like peppermint Tic Tacs and suntan lotion… and of course to that night in the basement when Pastor Riis and Marshall’s mom—

“Don’t look at me like that, Beecher. I didn’t kill him.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“You think I don’t know that look? Get it out of your head, Beecher. When Pastor Riis left town—”

“He didn’t leave town. They ran him out of town! What he did with you… and your mom—”

“Don’t say those words,” he warns as I feel the rage rising off him. He keeps staring across the street, gripping the pole of the awning like he’s about to rip it from its mooring. Behind us, two patrons leave the restaurant and steer wide around us, sensing Marshall’s anger.

“You don’t know what happened back then, Beecher. To me… or my mom. You don’t know anything about what happened that night.”

“Your mom died, Marshall! She put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger! What else do we need to—?”

He whips my way, his fist cocked.

I jump back, holding my hands up to protect my face. But he drops his hands to his sides.

“You think I’d hit you?” he asks, annoyed.

“You did choke me.” When he doesn’t respond, I add, “I’m sorry for bringing up your mom like that.”

He forces a grin, but his skin is stiff and unpliable. Like he’s wearing a plastic mask of himself. Still, there’s something real in his eyes.

“And I’m sorry for saying that about Pastor Riis,” I add.

“I brought him up,” he points out. “But Beecher, would I have told you about Pastor Riis if I was the one who killed him?”

“I’m just saying, I know he’s not just some guy who means nothing to you.”

“That’s why I started looking. First at Riis, and then at the other two.”

“Two? What two? There’s Riis—and there’s the rector who was killed at St. John’s…”

“And then there’s the one from this morning,” he says, watching me carefully. He was testing me, to see if I knew that one. The thing is, I’m not sure if I passed or failed. Was I supposed to know or not?

“Someone else was killed this morning?” I ask.

“Pastor Kenneth Frick. They found him shot in the back at Foundry Church… up on 16th Street. But from what the paramedics said, he’s gonna survive—”

“Hold on. Back up. You said shot in the back ?”

“Yeah. Why? What’s special about the back?” Marsh asks. Unlike before, there’s no calculus in his question.

I stay silent, replaying the facts.

“Say what you’re thinking, Beecher.”

“I’m not sure,” I tell him, though I have a pretty good hunch. In 1881, President James Garfield became the second sitting President to be killed in office when he was assassinated by a bullet wound… in his back.

Last night it was Abraham Lincoln… now James Garfield… two lethal attacks that have now been re-created within twenty-four hours. I knew we had a copycat killer. But whoever’s doing this isn’t just trying to imitate John Wilkes Booth—he’s imitating, in intricate detail, the worst murderers in U.S. history. The only thing that doesn’t make sense…

“How does this tie back to Pastor Riis?” I demand.

“Three murders. All three of them clergy.”

I nod. Of course that’s how he sees it. He doesn’t spot the copycat assassin part. He just sees dead pastors. But as I replay the facts, St. John’s is known as the Church of the Presidents. Foundry Church, I’m pretty sure, is where FDR used to take Winston Churchill for services, and where Lincoln was also a member. That means both churches have ties to the commander in chief. “How about Riis?” I ask, trying to fill in my own sketch. “Where did he die?”

Marshall cocks his head at that, his sparse eyebrows fighting to knot together. “You see something in those two recent deaths, don’t you?” he says.