Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“George Washington University Hospital.”

“Who’s waiting to see me?”

“A wide assortment of cops, two lovely, worried ladies named Kathy and Melissa, and some guy named Schaeffer, who’s paying for your private accommodations. Most people’s insurance only pays for semiprivate.”

“Can you send them all in at once so I only have to go through the story one time?”

“Only if they’re all out in thirty minutes,” Boudreaux said. “I’m leaving orders with Alice the Wonder Dog, the head night nurse on this floor, to give you my special knockout elixir in precisely half an hour so you can get some rest. The more you sleep, the faster you’ll heal and the less you’ll feel how bad you hurt. I’ll be back again tomorrow.”

“Maybe tomorrow you can teach me to cook Cajun,” Pace suggested.

“Sure,” Boudreaux said, “but only if you teach me to play the accordion.”

The ensuing reunion went as Pace imagined it would. Kathy and Melissa were loving and hugely concerned, Avery Schaeffer tried to be a comfort, telling his reporter he should concentrate on mending and not worry about his work. Glenn Brennan had been assigned to pick up the Sexton story until Pace could get back. Also, all doctor and hospital bills were paid; what the Chronicle’s insurance didn’t pick up, the paper would.

The assortment of cops included Detective Lieutenant Martin Lanier from the District of Columbia Police and Clay Helm from the Virginia State Police—although Helm hung back and said nothing until the others departed—and a regular D.C. detective named Willard Brown, who would take Pace’s statement.

The police officers who responded to Howard the custodian’s frantic call to 9-1-1 found Pace unconscious beside his car. They assumed then, as Lanier and Brown assumed now, that Pace had been mugged, given the missing wallet, watch, and ring.

“It wasn’t a mugging,” Pace insisted. “These were the same guys who killed Mark Antravanian and Mike McGill. They took my stuff to make it look like a mugging.”

He started to say something about the blue van. But since Clay Helm told him about it off the record, he must pretend he didn’t know of the vehicle’s special significance. He would mention it in the course of giving his statement. He wished they would get to that.

“Avery, would you see that Kathy and Melissa get home all right?” he asked. He tried to convey through his expression that it was more than a casual request, and he saw Schaeffer catch the inflection, if not the reason for it.

“I’ll be happy to,” the editor replied. “In fact, we probably ought to be going now. Your doctor made it obvious he didn’t want anyone staying longer than necessary.”

The women kissed and hugged him, and he tried not to let it show that the attention was painful. They promised to return in the morning.

When they were gone, Pace turned to Brown. “You ready to hear what happened?”

“Ready,” Brown said, opening his notebook.

Pace told the story, finishing with the details of his assailants’ escape in a light-blue van with a damaged right front.

Standing behind the other cops, Clay Helm pursed his lips and shook his head slightly. Lanier looked startled. “You sure about the van?” he asked.

Pace opened his mouth, but Helm pushed himself away from where he’d been leaning against the door frame and spoke first. “He’s sure,” he said.

“How do you know?” Lanier asked.

“Because I told him about it earlier,” the police captain said. Before Lanier could protest, Helm added, “It was off the record. I told him because I wanted him to know what to look out for, for his own safety. I thought he was in danger. Obviously, I was right.”

Lanier grunted and turned back to the bed. “So what’s the whole story, Pace?”

“I told you. They were going to kill me,” the reporter said. “They wanted it to look like a mugging so you wouldn’t suspect my murder was tied to the other two. One of them was kneeling beside me with a switchblade when Howard showed up. His timely arrival prevented my untimely departure. The two men knocked Howard down, got into their van, and took off. I was still conscious, and I saw them drive away. I recognized the vehicle from Clay’s description. It had the damage to the right front and scrapes of a lighter-colored paint around the damaged area.”

“What was the second color?” Lanier asked.

“Light. I don’t know exactly.”

“What was the make and model?”

Pace bristled. “How the hell should I know?” he snapped, raising his head and shoulders from the pillow, then quickly falling back as pain slapped him down. “I’m sorry,” he said when he caught his breath. “I wasn’t seeing anything very well. I couldn’t read the nameplate on the truck.”

“Did you get a color on the plate?” Brown asked.

“I got an impression. Dark letters and numbers on a white field. Maryland plates.”

“What makes you think so?”

“There was an emblem, a crest, in the center of the plate. I don’t remember a lot of details, but Maryland plates have the state crest on them.”

“There was a commemorative Virginia plate a few years ago that had an emblem in the middle, too,” Brown said.

“No,” Pace replied firmly. “Those colors aren’t right. And that emblem was circular. This one was more square.”

“A lot of states put emblems on their plates. It didn’t have to be Maryland.”

“No. This one was from Maryland.”

“You sure?”

“Hell, I’m not absolutely sure of anything, Detective, except the blue van.”

“Is there anything you left out?” Lanier asked.

Pace rolled his head on the pillow.

“Well, if you think of anything, I’m leaving my card on the table by your bed,” Brown said. “If something comes up, give me a call. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have any news.”

The two District of Columbia police officers departed, leaving Pace alone with Helm.

“Why’d you tell ’em you told me about the van?” Pace asked.

“I didn’t see any reason not to,” Helm replied, moving to the chair beside Pace’s bed. “We’re all on the same side.” He paused before he asked, “Are you sure about the van?”

“Positive,” Pace said. “It was the light-blue van, damaged on the right side, and I saw streaks of a light paint, like yellow, or maybe white, around the damage. Remember I got a glimpse of it the night of Mark Antravanian’s accident. Same van.”

Pace saw Helm study him closely.

“Why do I sense you don’t believe me?” he asked.

“I don’t have any reason to doubt you,” Helm said. “What I was thinking is that none of your testimony would hold up in court.”

“Why not?” Pace asked incredulously.

“The nature of your injuries, especially since you were hit a couple of times in the head. You said yourself your vision was fuzzy. Who’s to say it wasn’t a green van that looked blue to you? Under oath, you’d have to give up the fact you’d been warned by the police to watch out for a damaged light-blue Ford van. You’d also have to admit you knew Mark Antravanian’s rental car was yellow. That would give the defense a chance to make a pretty good case that you saw what you wanted or expected to see. And even if your identification is correct, how the hell many light-blue vans are there in the metropolitan area? Since you can’t say positively it was a Ford or a Chevy, or for that matter, a Toyota, I’d say the field of choice is pretty big. And given our traffic, the chances are pretty good more than one light-blue van would have damage on the right side.”

“Shit!” Pace objected.