Executive Privilege

“Do you think someone broke in, last night?” Sparks asked as they rode down in the elevator.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think happened to the laptop?”

“If she had it with her, the Ripper might have kept it as a souvenir or he could have left it with the body and someone took it.”

They walked side by side for a few moments then Sparks turned to Evans.

“We should have someone in the Kansas City office break the news to Walsh’s folks.”

Evans shuddered. He always felt so sorry for the parents. He could not imagine what it felt like to learn that your child was dead and then to learn that she’d died in pain and terror. He felt guilty that some other poor bastard would have the responsibility of visiting Charlotte ’s parents.

“When is this son of a bitch going to screw up?” he muttered angrily.

“He will, Keith. They always do.”

Evans frowned. “This business with the campaigns is strange. I wish I knew what happened in Chicago.”

“You can ask someone in Farrington’s campaign headquarters. There’s probably a simple explanation.”

“I don’t think so. You don’t just switch sides like that. Something must have happened.” Evans thought for a moment. “Maybe the Ripper works on Farrington’s campaign. Maybe he hit on her and freaked her out.”

“That would explain Walsh quitting Farrington’s campaign, but it wouldn’t explain why she went to work for Gaylord.”

“True. I don’t remember. Have we found any co

“Not that I recall, but I’ll have someone check it out. But I’m betting that whatever made Walsh switch her allegiance to Gaylord had nothing to do with our case.”

Chapter Twelve

Dana drove random routes until she found the type of run-down motel that sits on the outskirts of small towns that have seen better days. The accommodations at the Traveler’s Rest consisted of rustic cabins whose peeling paint had not been touched up since around the time we were fighting World War II. The only hints that the motel existed in the twenty-first century were the signs advertising FREE HBO AND INTERNET ACCESS. A little after five in the morning, Dana paid the clerk cash for a few days’ lodging then drove Jake’s Harley behind the fourth cabin from the office so it couldn’t be seen from the road. About the only advantage she had was that no one knew what she was using for transportation, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Dana had used cash to pay for a toothbrush, toothpaste, and other basic toiletries plus a few days’ supply of prepackaged sandwiches, taco chips, and bottled water in a gas station minimart hours away from the motel. She’d also made a stop at a Wal-Mart where she’d purchased a few changes of clothes and a duffle bag. After taking a quick shower and brushing her teeth, she caught a few hours of fitful sleep. When she woke up, she sat around in her T-shirt and panties, watching CNN while she ate half of a ham and cheese sandwich and drank a bottle of water.

The lead news story was about the D.C. Ripper, who had claimed a new victim. The police were withholding the name of the deceased until her parents were notified. There was nothing about the shooting at her apartment, but she wasn’t expecting a story. The people who’d attacked her wouldn’t want any publicity. They had probably sanitized the place and had someone with authority that could not be questioned silence the cops. If she could hide for a few days they might conclude she’d hightailed it for someplace far from Washington, D.C. That would give her a little breathing room. With no place to go and nothing to do, Dana killed the day watching old movies and periodically checking out the news.

A river flowed behind the motel. Sometime in the distant past, one of the owners had set up a picnic area with three tables in a copse of cottonwoods that grew near the bank. The sun was close to setting when Dana grew claustrophobic and left her room. It had been a warm day, and she went outside in a T-shirt that covered the gun she’d shoved into the waistband at the back of her jeans. Dana brought a sandwich and a bag of chips to one of the tables and washed them down with swigs from a water bottle. While she ate she thought over her options. There weren’t many. She couldn’t run forever without money, and the pictures of Walsh and Farrington were the only things of value she possessed. How to cash in, though? She couldn’t drive up to the White House and demand to meet with the president.

The sun went down and a chill wind pushed away the warmth. Dana decided to go inside and research Christopher Farrington in the hopes that she would spot a way to get her demands to him. It turned out that the motel’s boast of Internet access was a bit overblown. There wasn’t a way to access the Internet from Dana’s room but there was an old computer in a corner of the motel office that a guest could use. To do so, Dana had to pay for the use of the motel’s password. This was fine with her, since her inquiries would show up as the motel’s inquiry if she was on an agency hot list.

The owner’s teenage daughter was ma

Dana had lost her interest in current affairs during her stay in the mental hospital and had not rekindled it when she became an outpatient. She hadn’t voted in any election for some time, so a lot of the information that was common knowledge to the average voter was news to her. Dana read about Farrington’s rags-to-riches story and a biography of the first lady. After learning that Charles Hawkins had been with the president since his early days in Oregon politics she read his biography, too. The article about Hawkins contained a paragraph about his role as a witness in the trial of Clarence Little, who was accused of murdering the Farringtons’ teenage babysitter when the president was the governor of Oregon. She was just starting to read an account of the case when she heard the name of another teenager on the television.

“Miss Walsh is believed to be the latest victim of the D.C. Ripper, who has been terrorizing women in the D.C. area for over a year,” a newscaster was saying as the picture on the screen showed an alley filled with police perso

Dana was too stu

When she was in the hospital, some of her fellow cops who visited had told her that they couldn’t imagine what she’d been through. Dana didn’t have to imagine what Charlotte Walsh had gone through. She’d been to the far side of terror and despair herself. The only difference between Walsh and herself was that Dana had survived the journey.

Another thought occurred to her, and she felt a chill. What if Walsh wasn’t a victim of the D.C. Ripper? Dana trembled, and she sat on the bed. She thought about everything that had happened to her and to Walsh and decided that there was no way this was a simple coincidence. Dana wasn’t buying Walsh as the random victim of a serial killer. Not when Dana had just escaped being the victim of a random burglary-rape-murder. Maybe the men in her apartment had been federal agents following orders from Farrington to get rid of anyone who knew about his affair. Not only did Dana know that the president had been with Walsh, but she also had photos that could prove it.