Neely Tucker - Only the Hunted Run

A deep breath now. Right, right. Tell them all he had no idea what the delusional Terry Waters was talking about. Skip the meeting at St. E’s. Write his story exposing George Harper that night for tomorrow’s paper. The resulting shit storm would so advance the story that the soap opera of today would be forgotten, lost in the confusion. That wasn’t bad.

But , he thought, coming up on Pennsylvania now, no, wait . Turning down an interview in the nuthouse with the Capitol Hill killer? That would be insane . He could still deny it all there. He could sell that. He could make that play. All he had to do was play it straight for, what, half an hour? So he’d go, okay, sure. But the party was over, like he’d told George-the exposé had to run tomorrow. He had to set it in motion now, before he went up to St. E’s for the sit-down.

There was one more voicemail, this one from Susan, in news research, saying to call her back as soon as he got this.

By now, he was making Pennsylvania and, there, the first taxi he saw, an old beat-up Chevrolet Caprice with a wobbling yellow TAXI sign on top and faded lettering on the side, pulled to the curb for him.

Ducking into the backseat, telling the driver, a disaffected Sikh in a turban, the guy’s eyes not even rising to look at him in the rearview, to head for the paper. Susan picked up on the fourth ring.

“So,” she said, “the name you gave me? This George Harper, his granddad, William Harper?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve run it fifteen ways to Sunday. You got something to get this down?”

“On the way in, but gimme the highlights now. I can scribble.”

“Okay. Look, he bounced around, but mostly he ran an oil drilling supply business out of Odessa, Texas. Made things called g-force hammers, drill bits, diverter boxes. The business editor from the American , the newspaper in Odessa-I called-remembered the company. Said the old man was a hard-ass.”

“I’m with you.”

“LexisNexis is showing he was a landowner, too. Not sure if it was mining, livestock, timber, what. The place you found in Oklahoma. Land in Arizona, outside Houston, and a good chunk of property, a couple hundred acres, in Wyoming. Two hundred acres in Georgia, an hour west of Athens. You’re going to rack up some frequent flier miles.”

“What happened to the business, the oil-drilling supplier?”

“Shuttered in 1991. Nine years ago. That’s the year after he died.”

“The family cashed out?”

“I would guess.”

“Who inherited the estate?”

“Not clear. He was a widower, you already got that. Appears to have had one child.”

“A daughter named Frances.” The taxi, making good time in the light August traffic. It was like the city had been turned upside down and emptied.

“Correct. Looks like she was born in Odessa. Grew up there, mostly. She also had one child, no father listed.”

“This is going to be our boy.”

“Yep. George Hudson Harper, born in Odessa, September 30, 1962. But look, Frances, she all but disappears after 1970. It’s like she fell off the Earth or-”

“I got that. She got committed to St. E’s that year. I been in the G.W. library all afternoon. Freeman, he lobotomized her, she got left in St. E’s, a vegetable, died in, what was it, 1993.”

She started off again, but then stopped. “Wait, ninety-three?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t be.”

“Why not?

“Because she’s shown here opening an electrical maintenance business in the District last year.”

“Not possible. Saw a picture of her on the ward. Trust me.”

“It’s right here, FKH Electrical. Down in Southeast. It’s her initials. Frances Kelly Harper.”

His phone started buzzing at his ear. He lowered his hand to look at it. The caller ID showed R.J.’s cell. His Bat Line, the no-bullshit-pick-this-up signal.

“Okay, look, quick,” he said back into the phone. “I gotta get this. Gimme the address of that electrical place. Then call Melissa and get her to tell Keith to get to that place right now, beat on the door.”

“FKH Electrical, 3964 Xenia SE, the District. That’s deep Southeast, off King, up on the bluffs, overlooking the river. Call it a mile from St. E’s.”

He repeated it back to her. R.J.’s waiting call stopped, then, ten seconds later, started right back. “Okay, look, what about good old George Hudson Harper? He show up in LexisNexis?”

“I pulled it, but it’s a common name. Lots of hits, all over the country.”

“That land his grandad owned,” Sully said. “He could have been living out there, with the money from the business. All but off the grid.”

“In D.C. and surrounding, there are four George Harpers between the ages of thirty-eight and forty, which would be in the range of our boy’s birthday. Two are African American. One of the Anglos lives in Chevy Chase, the other one in D.C. at…” she paused, “at 3964 Xenia.”

“Bingo,” Sully said. “Tell Keith I’ll meet him there in twenty minutes.”

He clicked off that line, then fumbled with the thing, trying to see how to click over to R.J. and tell the driver, at the same time, to switch directions, to bolt down to Southeast, for Xenia.

Into the phone, talking to R.J., he said, preemptively, “I got no idea, so don’t be asking me.”

“Sullivan? What?”

“I got no idea why the man wants me to show up tonight, what the hell this is about.”

“Bullshit,” R.J. said. “You leave here, saying you got a way to get in to see him, then, blam, he wants a meeting with you, PDS, what’s his name, the prosecutor.”

“Wesley.”

“Yeah, well, that guy’s an asshole. He was just on the phone, lighting up Eddie. Trying to light up Eddie.”

“About what?”

“Misconduct, your end, something. Says you’ll taint whatever it is the man wants to say, you’re there. So, what, did you get in to see him? You didn’t do anything stupid, did you?”

Sully thought about this for a second, the driver’s eyes now searching his, mutely asking which way to go, Sully repeating the address.

“I’m not taking you there,” the driver said.

“3964 Xenia,” Sully repeated. “Come on, man, go go go.” To R.J., he said, “No. Didn’t get in.”

“I thought you said you had a guy.”

“I did, but it didn’t work out right.”

The driver pulled the cab to the curb, put it in park, turned on his flashers. “No.”

“What?” Sully said. “What are you doing?”

“Who are you talking to?” R.J. said.

“Buy your own drugs,” the driver said.

R.J.: “Wait, drugs? What the hell is going on?”

Sully, ready to punch somebody: “Pipe down, R.J., hold on. You, look, drive, goddammit. This ain’t a drug run. I’m a fucking reporter.”

The driver, unmoved, motioning to the door.

Sully reached into his back pocket, tugged out the wallet. “Look. What, I got forty, fifty dollars, there’s seventy… okay. Seventy-three. That’s all I got.” He handed it over the seat. “I can’t be buying drugs with money I don’t have. You got it.” His ID was there, so he handed that over, too. “See? A reporter.”

The driver, hesitating now, looking at the rumpled clump of bills. “Reporters, you people do drugs, too.”

“Not this one,” Sully said, “I drink. Now would you please drive?”

Still not liking it, looking at the curb, the oncoming traffic, the driver clicked off the blinkers and pulled back into traffic, shaking his head.

Sully pulled the phone off his lap, talking into it now, “Okay, R.J. No, we didn’t get in. I’m guessing, what, I don’t know, maybe Waters heard I was trying and he spooked.”