Stuart Woods - Below the Belt

“I don’t believe he is.”

“I’ve got somebody checking on the two birth certificates.”

“Checking what?”

“Checking to see if there are corresponding death certificates.”

“In Virginia?”

“No, in New York. I had someone run them down, and both the mothers now live in the city. Hang on a minute.” Dino put him on hold. “You remember our conversation last night at Clarke’s?”

“I do.”

“You asked me if I thought Christian St. Clair was capable of murder?”

“I remember.”

“I’ve just had it confirmed that the older child and her mother are deceased — a traffic accident nearly two years ago.”

“And the other?”

“No record of a death on the twelve-year-old or his mother, but they have moved from the address we had, and we haven’t been able to find a new one.”

“What kind of a traffic accident happened to the seventeen-year-old?”

“They ran off the road on the New Jersey Turnpike and slammed into a bridge abutment. The state cops thought she probably fell asleep at the wheel.”

“Anything that made anyone doubt that?”

“Not until now,” Dino replied.

“Let me call you back,” Stone said.

“I’ll be here.”

Stone asked Joan to find a number in Virginia for Ed Rawls and waited while she made the call.

“No answer,” she said. “I left a message on his answering machine to call you.”

“Thanks.” He hung up and dialed the law offices of Rutledge & Rutledge again. This time he got an answering machine and left a message.

He called Dino again. “Do you have anything further on the second mother?”

“No, but I saw something on the birth certificate I hadn’t noticed at first.”

Stone picked up the original copies of the two certificates. “I’ve got the originals. What did you see?”

“Well, first of all, the father on both of them is listed as one N. R. Knott.”

“I see that.”

Joan buzzed him. “Hang on, Dino. Yes, Joan?”

“A Carson Rutledge Junior for you on one.”

“Dino’s on two, tell him I’ll call him back.” He pushed the button. “Yes, Mr. Rutledge?”

This time, his voice sounded younger and a little shaky. “Mr. Barrington, I’ve just heard from the police that my father died in a car crash on the interstate an hour and a half ago.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Stone said.

“His driver was killed, too. The police think he fell asleep, then crashed into a bridge abutment.”

Stone was stunned into momentary silence. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Rutledge. When your father was here this morning he told me that he had recently begun to fear for his life. Do you have any idea why?”

“I think it may have had something to do with a client’s business.”

“And who was the client?”

“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that.”

“Might it have been Edward Rawls?”

The young man paused. “I believe so.”

“Mr. Rutledge, I’m sorry to bring it up at this time, but I think it might be a good idea if you asked the police to run a tox screen on your father’s driver.”

“You think he might have been drugged?”

“I don’t know, but the circumstances are very much like another accident that I’m aware of.”

“All right, I’ll do that.”

“Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. I’ll call you if I have any further information.” He hung up.

Stone called Dino. “Anything new?”

“We’ve learned that the mother of the twelve-year-old left her apartment shortly after the deaths of the other mother and her daughter.”

“So when she heard, she ran.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I’ve got something, too. The lawyer who delivered the books and birth certificates to my office this morning was very glad to be rid of them and pretty nervous. He told me he feared for his life. I’ve just spoken to his son, and the man and his driver were killed in a crash on the interstate earlier this afternoon. The police think the driver fell asleep, and they hit a bridge abutment.”

“Tell the son to ask the police to run a tox screen on the driver,” Dino said.

“I have already done so.”

“Somebody just handed me a note,” Dino said. “The Virginia state documents office has no record of either of the two birth certificates having ever been registered.”

“They’re numbered.”

“Neither number exists. Apparently, they screw one up now and then and list the certificate as destroyed. Both certificates with those numbers are listed as having been destroyed.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. It’s a good thing nobody knows you have those documents.”

Stone thought about the “trouble” Rutledge & Rutledge were having with their phone lines. “I’m not sure that’s true,” he said.

Stone had Joan call Ed Rawls’s number every half hour, until she was done for the day. He was beginning to think that he was going to have to go to Virginia and check his house, but then he had a thought.

Holly had thought that Lance Cabot might be a candidate to run with Kate as her vice president. If so, that would explain why Lance was so interested in Rawls and the strong case. He called Lance and got him as he was about to leave his office at Langley.

“What is it, Stone?”

“There have been serious developments,” Stone said.

“Developments with what?”

“The contents of the strong case.”

“What developments?”

“For one, Ed Rawls, after living openly in his old house for a few days, is unreachable. He’s not answering his phone or responding to messages left, and I don’t have a cell phone number for him. He’s been using throwaways.”

“When did you last call him?”

“I’ve been calling him every half hour since midafternoon. The last time was ten minutes ago.”

“His place is sort of on my way home from work,” Lance said. “I’ll go by and check on him.”

“He has a car, an old Mercedes station wagon. Check his garage, too, will you?”

“All right.” Lance hung up.

Dino called again. “Any news on Rawls?”

“None. I just spoke to Lance Cabot, who has taken a great interest in the contents of the strong case. He’s going to drive by Ed’s house on his way home from work.”

“Why is Lance so interested? Does he want Kate to be reelected so much?”

“Kate gave Lance his job as director of central intelligence,” Stone pointed out, “and if loyalty weren’t enough to get him involved, there’s something else — Holly told me she thinks Kate might be considering him as a running mate.”

“Well, that would certainly get Lance interested. What’s your next move, if Ed Rawls can’t be found?”

“Ed printed two hundred copies of his manuscript and had them stored at a pack-and-ship place in D.C. He told me that if anything happened to him, to call them and tell them to mail the books. He said he has a mailing list of two hundred opinion makers. I guess that means newspapers and TV news people, columnists, and like that.”

“Have you done that?”

“I had them trucked up to me this afternoon. They’re locked in my wine cellar.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have those books so close at hand,” Dino said.

“I know. If Ed can’t be located by morning, I’m going to see that the books are mailed.”

“You want me to send a couple of cops up there to sit on them until you can get them out of the house?”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“Did you discuss the books with anybody on the phone?”

“I called the pack-and-ship place and arranged to have them brought here.”