The Mount of Megiddo

Copyright © 2013 James Luce

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-7708-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-7710-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-7709-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013902872

iUniverse rev. date: 2/26/2013

CONTENTS

Chapter 1: The Envelope

Chapter 2: The Dwarf

Chapter 3: The Message

Chapter 4: The File

Chapter 5: The Poem

Chapter 6: The Girl

Chapter 7: The Chinaman

Chapter 8: The Call

Chapter 9: The 38

Chapter 10: The Antecedents

Chapter 11: The Naked Truth

Chapter 12: The Operation

Chapter 13: The Preppie and the Politician

Chapter 14: The Buried Memory

Chapter 15: The Avenger

Chapter 16: The Dark and Stormy Knight

Chapter 17: The Cave Inn

Chapter 18: The Two Bells Tavern

Chapter 19: The Lo Life

Chapter 20: The Headstone and the Indian

Chapter 21: The Case Evidence Quandary

Chapter 22: The Pulaski Coincidence

Chapter 23: The Forest Run

Chapter 24: The Hearing Aide

Chapter 25: The Apartment

Map 1 – Disunited States

Map 2 – The Triangle

Map 3 – Israel and the Mount

Map 4 – USA/UKWA/FSTW – October 2017

Through a rippling window I stared with glazy eyes,

Wondering what it was I saw—

Brick and stone and a chimney top

All jumbled together blues and grays,

And then

There it was,

Waiting eagerly for a tiny touch

To transform a transient dawn into glorious day.

CHAPTER 1:

The Envelope

Hi! Really nice to meet you. Can’t stay for long, ’cause things are really busy at my end. Let me tell you how it all started just a few hectic days ago just as I remember it.

The slightly short-sighted, deep-blue eyes of the president of the United States opened slowly and blinked twice. At first they sleepily focused on an elaborately embroidered, matching deep-blue silk pillow. With some effort, just in view over the top, the president could blurrily make out the right profile of a beautiful woman lying very quietly, her body covered up to her neck with their shared deep-blue silk bedsheet.

The room was chilly, almost cold, in the always overly air-conditioned master bedroom of the White House living quarters. Recollections of the ecstasies of last night’s erotic excesses were mingled lovingly and more maturely with the joy of having so recently received this heavenly gift, now lying there so artfully, so calmly, so comfortably.

Almost reflexively the president’s hand reached across the pillow to stroke her slightly tanned forehead. Fingers touched her, only to be jerked away in fright. The forehead was cold. Colder than the room. Colder than a corpse.

Tearing off the sheet, the president cried out in a smothered scream, Sheryl! What’s the matter? Sheryl did not reply, but a blue envelope taped securely to her otherwise naked stomach mutely shouted back at the now fully awake president.

Grabbing the phone with one hand and ripping the envelope off with the other, the president started to punch in the code for White House security but hesitated, slowly replacing the phone into its charger. Better to investigate the contents of the envelope first. Might this be a suicide note?

The envelope contained a single page with two typed lines on one side and no signature. The president read the two obscure lines twice, in a panic, but couldn’t understand them—not because of the panic but because they made no sense at all.

Oops! Just got another call. Like I said, things are hopping. Have to fly now. I’ll be back later, but in the meantime, I’ll adjust the settings so you can follow the action in real time. Remember, this is all happening several days ago. Hold on just a sec … almost got it. Okay, here goes …

Stumbling out of bed, the president not quite blindly reaches the bedroom door, throwing it open to find Steve, the six-foot-five, ever-vigilant, nocturnal Secret Service agent, slumped awkwardly in a straight-backed antique chair placed discretely several yards down the hall.

Steve, wake up; get off your ass and get the Doc! Now!

Still somnolent, Steve starts and stutters, What? What was that, Mrs. President? The doctor? What’s the matter?

Just get the goddamn doctor … now!

The agent leaps from his seat and runs down the hall, not mentally visualizing until just before he bursts into the doctor’s bedroom that the president had been completely naked. Yup. Bare-ass naked … and really foxy for an old broad! as Steve would injudiciously recount to one of his new coworkers a few days later, now that he had been reassigned and was safely distanced from Her Majesty.

Fifty seconds after Steve burst into her bedroom shouting that something was wrong with the chief, Dr. Kristin Koo enters the president’s bedroom suite, a small medical bag in her left hand and a large question in the right side of her brain. What’s Meryl on about this time? Another nightmare?

Dr. Koo sees the president, now in her bathrobe, head down as if in deep, isolated thought, pacing slowly between the Louis XIV dresser and the tall, elegant sixteenth-century Villefranche pendulum clock on the other side of the room. She’s holding a piece of letter paper in her left hand and a drink in the other. Probably straight Scotch is the doctor’s disapproving mental note.

This disapproving note vanishes when Dr. Koo sees a shape on the bed that looks very much like somebody hiding under the sheet. Who does she think she’s hiding from?, muses Dr. Koo.

The president takes a long, steady pull from her glass, then for the first time seems to notice Dr. Koo’s presence.

She’s dead, whispers the president, responding to Dr. Koo’s questioning nod toward the lump under the sheet.

Pardon me, Meryl, the doctor says. Then more loudly, Mrs. President. The doctor remembers she hadn’t closed the door to the bedroom in her haste. Mrs. President, is this another one of your nightmares?

With an uncharacteristically flat and slow delivery, President Meryl M. Montessori mummers, It’s my worst nightmare, Krissy. Somebody got through security and assassinated me. Only they killed the wrong woman. They killed the only woman I’ve ever loved.

While these last four sentences pour slowly out past the president’s wide, sensual lips, Dr. Kristin Koo’s pretty porcelain face glides smoothly from a look of clinical comprehension to surprise, to horror, and then at last to an expression of hatred and pain. The doctor’s face then immediately returns to its normal, professional blankness, mixed with caring concern for her patient.

For Christ’s sake, Krissy! Don’t just stand there. Tell me what happened.

Of course, Mrs. President. But aren’t you the one who’s supposed to tell me? Had I been in bed with you last night I might have something to say on the subject of what happened. As it is …

Don’t push that button, Doctor. Not now. You know damn well what I meant.

Indeed, Dr. Koo had known and was already moving toward the opposite side of the bed to examine Sheryl’s corpse. Now is not the time to analyze a dead affair. It’s time to examine a dead body. Dr. Koo keeps this grotesquely ironic thought very much to herself.

Dr. Koo closes her painful memories and opens her small medical bag. She has had a bit of forensic experience in her past, but she’s certainly not a qualified coroner. Regardless, before anyone else arrives, it is important that she at least try to find out what killed Sheryl Smith, recently resigned assistant national security advisor but currently, until this morning, performing very active services for the president.

Her first thoughts are not about the corpse, but rather about how truly gorgeous Sheryl had been in life and still is in death. Dr. Koo knows that Sheryl’s brilliant mind is already wasting, the synapses disconnecting as the billions of individual cells packed tightly inside her cranium start the slow process of dissolving into mush. But her body is just as Dr. Koo had imagined it would be when she had these last weeks thought of her and Meryl embracing in this same room, this same bed, these same sheets that not so long ago the president’s very personal physician had shared.

Shaking loose from this inappropriate reverie, Dr. Koo runs her hands dispassionately over the two short, rectangular contusions she observes on Sheryl’s abdomen. These are slightly bluish-red and are located where the tape must have firmly held the now torn envelope that Dr. Koo sees balanced on the edge of the bed, where Meryl must have tossed it after ripping it off of Sheryl’s stomach in what had surely been a moment of panic. The two strips of tape, still adhering to the envelope, are the approximate length and width of the bruises.

Dr. Koo surmises that the envelope had contained the letter Meryl was again staring at. Funny that she hadn’t said anything about it or where she’d obviously found it.

When did you two fall asleep last night?

I don’t know. After midnight. Why?

I’m trying to determine how long she’s been dead.

Oh, Meryl replies shortly, having heard the strained, emotional timber of her initial reply.

How do you know it was after midnight?

We went to bed right after dinner around nine, and we were … were talking for at least three hours.

Knowing Meryl’s youthful sex drive, Dr. Koo doubts whether there was much conversation but accepts the fact that the couple did not fall into an exhausted slumber for at least three hours, maybe longer.

Did you wake up at any time before you discovered … before you sent Steve to get me?

No.

Dr. Koo looks through her bag but can’t immediately find a rectal thermometer. That can wait a few minutes. Probably just as well that Meryl not see Sheryl’s body being messed with by the insertion of anything into her anus. Still, somehow she must get Meryl out of the room soon, because the loss of body temperature is useful in determining time of death.

Do you want to call anybody? Dr. Koo knows that the only secure external phone line is in Meryl’s private office, adjacent to the bedroom.

Not yet. Meryl knows her voice is still too revealing of her shock and grief for her to talk to anyone but Krissy for the moment. Besides, she needs to know the cause of death. What could make a body so cold?

The doctor continues her visual examination of the corpse. There are no other signs of trauma anywhere on the face, neck, breasts, legs, arms, or feet. No other discoloration of the skin that might indicate certain poisons or asphyxiation as the cause of death.

The already bluish tinge to the contusions are consistent with death having occurred over an hour ago, but the idiosyncratic timing of that process makes the shifting from red to blue an unreliable indicator.

Dr. Koo is surprised to find such markings on the abdomen. She knows that even the passing of a tire or wheel over this pliable area does not normally leave an external bruise, only bruising of the less compressible internal organs. Women, even flat-bellied, firm ones, have more subcutaneous fat than men and therefore greater susceptibility to contusions. But even considering this factor, Dr. Koo would not have expected to observe any trauma of the skin caused by the mere pressing of tape onto the abdominal area. The pressure applied must of been very high or the abdomen unusually firm, such as if the stomach were distended by gas or a large volume of food or liquid. There’s no swelling of the skin in the area of the contusions, indicating that the trauma was inflicted after death. The postmortem examination will reveal whether there is any subdural ecchymosis or discoloration under the skin in the area of the contusion caused by coagulated blood. If there is little or none, this will confirm that Sheryl was dead before the envelope was secured.

I assume you don’t want anybody else in here before I’ve completed my postmortem. Hate to ask, but could you help me turn Sheryl over?

Do you have to?

Yes.

Meryl hesitates but comes around to the other side of the bed.

How do we do this?

You hold her feet together at the ankles. I’ll take care of the rest. Just help me turn her over when I say, Now.

Dr. Koo leans over the body and places her hands face up underneath Sheryl’s left shoulder. Meryl reluctantly but firmly takes hold of the ankles.

Now.

Both women are amazed at how completely stiff Sheryl’s whole body is as it is turns over.

My God! How could rigor be present so soon?

What?

And she’s cold. I mean freezing.

What did you mean rigor?

Rigor mortis. After several hours a dead body stiffens like this. But not like this.

Quickly noting that there are no signs of trauma anywhere on the back of the head, neck, legs, arms, and torso, Dr. Koo repeatedly presses her thumb firmly along Sheryl’s back and legs. The flesh is unyielding, very cold, and frozen solid like a beef carcass hanging on a hook in cold storage.

Help me turn her onto her back.

Meryl stands motionless, staring at her hands.

Meryl!

Meryl takes hold of the ankles while Dr. Koo again grabs under the left shoulder and together they pull Sheryl onto her back. Dr. Koo again repeatedly applies pressure, this time starting from the vulva, then the abdomen, the breasts, and the neck.

This is impossible! She’s been frozen alive. She’s been frozen from the inside.

Meryl’s knees begin to buckle. She sways unsteadily for a moment and then rights herself.

There’s not a single white, red, or yellow patch of skin anywhere on her body. Dr. Koo softly says to herself in a perplexed tone.

What the hell does that mean?

Frostbite, even the first stage of frostbite, isn’t present, let alone any blisters. It’s just not possible to freeze flesh without some degradation of the skin. Impossible!

Meryl stands mute, pale and unsteady, her body swaying back and forth several degrees off center.

Meryl, what was in the envelope you ripped off of Sheryl’s abdomen?

This time when Meryl’s knees buckle she collapses into an awkward sitting position on the carpet, looking much like a newly born colt after failing on its first attempt to stand. Meryl’s mind mimics this posture … completely confused, bewildered.

Meryl’s thoughts tumble around … How did Krissy know where I’d found the envelope? How did she know I tore it off? Meryl, of course, has not been privy to Dr. Koo’s earlier, unexpressed forensic deductions. She did it! She killed her.

You bitch! You fucking bitch! You killed her! Oh God, you killed her!

Dr. Koo, looking down with astonishment at her former lover, now clearly temporarily insane former lover, reaches down to pick up the letter that Meryl has dropped on the floor before taking hold of Sheryl’s ankles the first time.

Knocking Dr. Koo’s hand out of the way with a vicious swipe of her clinched fist, Don’t touch me you bitch! Meryl shrieks, thinking Krissy is trying to help her up off the floor.

I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear. I just want to see what’s in that letter.

Like bloody hell you do. You damn well already know what’s in it. You just want to get rid of the evidence. Get the fuck out of here! Now, goddamn it.

All of Meryl’s shock and confusion has been replaced by fury and disgust.

Now it is Dr. Koo’s turn to be emotional and confused. She runs to the door, slams it open without pausing, and collides forcefully into White House chief of staff, Bob Marquis. At six foot four and 320 pounds, it’s an uneven match. Stunned, Dr. Koo continues her rush through the door and down the hall to somewhere.

What’s the hurry? Bob yells over his shoulder and then turns his attention back to where he was going, thinking, These dames are gonna drive me nuts someday.

What’s her … Jesus Christ, what’s that! Bob’s eyes focus on the naked body lying stiffly on the bed.

Sit down and shut up, Bob. Meryl’s Koo-directed anger has not yet dissipated and is now directed at whoever is in the room.

Bob sits down immediately in the chair by the window, the one farthest away from the body, averts his eyes, and focuses instead on the bath-robed president, his newest boss. This sure as hell isn’t one of her damn nightmares this time.

The president walks briskly to the door and closes it after checking to see if Steve is still there. He’s looking down the hall in the direction Dr. Koo has just fled.

Bob. Sheryl is dead. I just accused Dr. Koo of killing her, but now I don’t think so. Meryl’s agile brain has in the few moments since Dr. Koo ran into Bob concluded that Krissy had probably deduced the placement and removal of the envelope simply by what she’d seen on the bed and body. Meryl puts off any thought about what to say to Krissy. There are too many other urgent matters to deal with.

First, you are not to say anything to anybody about this without my orders.

Second, you aren’t to ask anybody any questions about this, including me.

Third, call Dr. María Piedra over at OCME. Tell her to drop her scalpels and get ready for a body to arrive from the White House. Tell her no excuses about being too busy. All her patients are dead, so they can wait a little longer in the DC morgue.

Bob interrupts the president with a quizzical look.

No. I don’t want anything Federal involved just yet—that includes Bethesda Naval Hospital, the Bureau, nobody. OCME is District. It’s got no lines of communication or authority leading anywhere but to the DC mayor’s office. That jerk will do as he’s told and shut up.

Why not Bethesda? Aren’t they supposed to be the best?

Bob, you’re too young to remember and you never read anything, so you probably don’t know that it was the boys at Bethesda who botched the autopsy of JFK. I have got to know the truth about Sheryl, not some bullshit scenario cooked up by the ASS.

Bob nods his understanding, if not agreement. The president does not think highly of the FBI, CIA, DEA, ATF, and the rest of the Federal law enforcement goons she refers to as the Alphabet Soup Squad or ASS for short.

Can we trust this Dr. Peedra? She sounds foreign to me.

Bob, Dr. Piedra was born in Boston and was a classmate and very, very good friend of mine at Wellesley. So you can trust her with this. She’s been the boss at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for, what, ten years, and has examined more dead bodies than Dr. Cyril Wecht, another guy you probably never heard of.

When you call Dr. Piedra, that’s Pee-A-drah, tell her that a Secret Service agent named Steve will be at the OCME receiving bay in half an hour. You and Steve wrap the body in that sheet and take it out the tunnel to his car. Not a Service car, his car. I want him locked in as an accessory to all this, not just a witness. Right?

Right, Boss.

Tell him to use his GPS for directions to OCME. There’ll be a record of that download if we need it. Tell him to talk to no one except Dr. Piedra. Tell him to remind the doctor to call me when she’s finished her preliminary autopsy. Then tell him to come straight back here and report to you in your office in person, not on the phone. I want his movements known by staff. Right?

Right, Boss.

Where was I? Yah. Fourth, Sheryl is going to disappear for a while until I find out whether somebody was trying to kill me or her. No police. Get a story to the press that Sheryl left the White House last night at 9:00 and didn’t arrive home. You fill in the details and let me see ’em before the release. Right?

Right, Boss.

The only people besides us who know she was here all last night are Steve and Dr. Koo. I’ll take care of her. You do one of your famous heavy jobs on Steve when he gets back from OCME; tell him he won’t ever have any children or grandchildren if he talks, and then get him the hell out of here. Transfer him to Bismarck or Thule, someplace like that. Monitor all his calls and bug his office and apartment, wherever the hell he ends up. Right?

Right again, Boss.

And fifth, call Tom. Tell him to come here to my room immediately.

Tom Yager?

Who else, for Christ’s sake!

CHAPTER 2:

The Dwarf

Hello again. It occurred to me just now that we need to go back in time a bit in order to visit New York City and meet some people there. The following events take place starting about a year before Sheryl’s murder and will take us up to just a few days before the president’s rude awakening…

Officer Robert J. Clarke wasn’t drunk the evening it happened. That is to say, he hadn’t been drinking for more than three hours just before it happened. In fact, Bobby J, as he was known around the precinct, had been feeling great all afternoon, ever since he’d left the Internal Affairs hearing. He’d been totally exonerated from the charges brought against him for his alleged use of excessive force, mayhem, and racial discrimination. He had pointed out sarcastically to the Hearing Board that the only independent witness against him had not even bothered to show up. It was his word against the victim’s. He knew his rights perfectly, having been up before Internal Affairs frequently. In the absence of independent testimony corroborating the charges, the hearing was closed and all charges formally dismissed due to good ol’ insufficient evidence.

Officer Robert J. Clarke was a very big man. That is to say, he’d been an All Conference center in high school, had tolerated the nickname of Tiny until he’d joined the Marines, and nowadays had to have his uniforms specially made to accommodate his still youthful, powerful shoulders and his middle-age-acquired Sumo waistline.

The first place he’d gone with his freshly pressed uniform and renewed sense of invulnerability had been to his favorite bar, the Black & White. This is where he always went after beating an Internal Affairs Division attempt to grab his badge. Come to think of it, this was the first place he always went whenever he went off watch.

Yes, Officer Clarke had been in a great mood—until the new bartender at the Black & White had required an attitude adjustment. The little jerk had actually wanted Bobby J to pay for his drinks!

Officer Robert J. Clarke was a most unusual New York City police officer for reasons other than his bulk. That is, he’d been born and raised in Middle America of middle-class parents, who belonged to a middle-of-the-road Protestant church, whose pastor had simply adored Dwight David Eisenhower. He’d been raised in a middle-sized farming town, and the first time Bobby J had seen, at age ten, what he was told was a Negro, he had told his father that he thought the man had a great tan.

His father had laughed long and loud at that one and told all of his buddies about how stupid his son was.

Bobby J had been terribly embarrassed by this incident. An exorbitantly paid Freudian psychiatrist might have concluded after a sufficient number of sessions that it was this emotional trauma that had caused Officer Clarke to develop a seething hatred for all non-Protestant, nonwhite persons. Other less trained, less highly educated persons might have thought otherwise. After all, bigotry is a popular state of mind and is not subject to treatment by psychoanalysis.

Until Bobby J became a police officer, he’d considered himself to be a law abiding citizen, but only because date rape didn’t yet count as a crime (boys will be boys) and drunk driving was not illegal in his hometown for members of the Hubert Humphrey High School Varsity football team (can’t lock up a winning team). And later on, murdering ragheads who might possibly also be terrorists had not been considered criminal activity during his two years in the United States Marine Corps.

In short, Officer Robert J. Clarke was a typical All American boy, who had learned to ignore the Law in his youth and yet had become the Law as a police officer in New York City.

Bobby J had moved as far from home as he could after being honorably discharged from the Marines twelve years ago. He had laughed when his commanding officer at Camp Rhino in the middle of that fucking desert had offered him a general discharge in return for a confession or else face a general court martial. After all, he had thought it unlikely that they would ever want him to testify about how eagerly the base commander’s daughter had assisted him in recruiting some of the local girls for his extremely lucrative weekend chicken feeds for the officers and senior NCOs. He had been right. They hadn’t wanted him to so testify.

And so he had spent the last eight years on the police force, using all the skills he’d picked up on various football and battle fields, protecting and serving and procuring and pounding the unwashed public that he allowed to operate in his precinct. He had kept the streets clean, and the few white people who still lived in the neighborhood felt safe to walk those streets at night. How dare they accuse him of violating that black bitch’s civil rights just because he’d broken her arm when she had refused to tell him where her boy friend was hiding out.

She had told him then, all right, and even now George Washington Jones was on his way to choir practice at Sing Sing with a well-deserved life sentence for killing a white man who had refused to pay the agreed price for some crack.

Yes, in spite of having to explain to that new bartender that Officer Clarke didn’t have to pay for drinks in any bar in the precinct, Bobby J felt great that early evening as he walked through the perpetual grayness of the underground garage where he kept his spiffy 1975 Cobra, bought with donations given to him by the local merchants who feared him more than the niggers, spicks, greasers, and other scum that frequented their stores and from whose robberies and shoplifting Officer Robert J. Clarke protected these occasionally ungrateful japs, wogs, and kikes. Did they think that their tax dollars alone entitled them to the personal services he provided?

Now that he thought of it, explaining the rules to that new bartender hadn’t really been irritating, nor had it really spoiled his mood of smug satisfaction with the justice he had received that afternoon at the hearing. Now that he thought of it, what had actually spoiled his mood was the news that the witness, the one who had failed to show up for the hearing, had just been found to be very dead from a vicious knife attack.

How the hell did they find and identify that nigger’s body? he had wondered to himself after his partner had slipped him the word as he slid onto the stool next to Bobby J. This news had caused Bobby J to let go of the bartender’s nose just as the little shit was beginning to gasp for breath during Officer Clarke’s explanation about cost-free drinking.

Not that Officer Clarke was worried that anyone would think he was the one who had slit the witness’s throat and dumped him in the immense garbage heap on Ricker’s Island, after removing what passed for identification with these people.

But then, Officer Clarke almost had a self-critical thought when he realized that, of course that lazy nigger had a prior arrest record; didn’t they all? I should ’ov cut off the guy’s hands so those eager beavers down at Forensics couldn’t run a fingerprint check. Next time, next time … mused Officer Clarke as he drained his glass and heaved himself up and out. It was time to go collecting, even though he wasn’t getting a fair cut of the proceeds in his view.

As he walked down the ramp of the garage, Officer Clarke checked to be sure the safety strap on his holster was unhitched. Some slob had been mugged here last week, right next to the station.

"Stop! Stop or I’ll kill you, you bastard!" a woman’s hysterical voice echoed off the low ceiling.

Officer Robert J. Clarke stopped and swung his head back and forth, looking for the source of this extraordinary command. To his right he could just make out in the grayness the head and shoulders of a black woman, staring at him intently from about twenty feet and three car roofs away. He couldn’t see anything else because of the damn cars.

Bobby J thought, "Is she really threatening me? If so, she must be drunk or crazy or both."

Stop, you fucking shit! she cursed, still staring steadily at Bobby J.

Go fuck yourself, bitch! was Bobby J’s professional retort. "What the fuck do you think you’re doing threatening me?" pointing his finger in the general direction of his newly shined badge, displayed prominently on his freshly pressed, IAD-ready, uniform.

The woman kept staring at him and suddenly she jerked back, raised her right arm, exposing over the car tops the fact that she was apparently armed as well as crazy. In her hand was what looked like a sawed-off rifle, at least to Bobby J’s slightly beer-’n-whisky-impaired eyes.

Before she could level whatever it was at him, Officer Clarke drew his not quite standard automatic and pointed it pointedly in her direction.

Drop it, bitch! She didn’t drop it. She didn’t even flinch.

If you have ever heard a .357 magnum cartridge explode in a confined area, then you may understand why Officer Robert J. Clarke winced in pain as he put a round right through the woman’s forehead.

You would also understand why Officer Robert J. Clarke, war hero and veteran officer, failed to immediately get off another round as a dwarf, whose diminutive presence had gone unobserved, ran out from between the two cars where the woman had fallen without a sound. The dwarf, dressed up like a circus clown, was carrying a woman’s purse in his right hand and the woman’s weapon, whatever it was, in his left. Officer Clarke could still not make it out in the darkness.

In three seconds the short-legged little bastard had run up the ramp and disappeared, apparently untouched by the two rounds Officer Clarke managed to get off too late. Bobby J thought about running after him, his law enforcement instincts on full alert (after all, he had just witnessed a robbery and the suspect was on the loose). But the thought of running at the moment did not seem pleasant, and besides, he had to be sure that the bitch was dead or she might tell her version of the incident.

Officer Robert J. Clarke walked slowly over to where he supposed she had fallen, checking carefully all around him for any other pain-in-the-ass witnesses. There were none.

She was definitely dead. Bobby J was proud that even after six beers and four shots of Old Grand-Dad he could still put the ordinance right where it was needed.

There was no need to bend down and check for a pulse.

As a result, Officer Clarke did not see what was underneath the car next to the woman’s body.

Bobby J walked unsteadily up the ramp in search of a callbox, until he remembered that the station was right next door. Up the stairs, make his report, return to the scene with the investigating officers, routine.

He, of course, was not worried. His story of shooting the woman in perceived self-defense was skeptically accepted; the part about the invisible dwarf robber was so bizarre as to make the rest of the tale seem plausible. The investigating officers figured that even Bobby J wouldn’t make up a story that strange.

After describing the robbery suspect, the weapon, and the purse, filling out the usual, tiresome incident report forms, and other bullshit, he went home to bed. Only to be rudely awakened and arrested at six o’clock the next morning by four cops from a different precinct for the murder of Mrs. George Washington Jones’s sister.

The coroner had determined that the dead woman was blind. Her purse was found underneath the car, disclosing her identity, but the cane she always carried with her was missing. The investigating officers also determined that she had been at the hearing that afternoon, sitting quietly in the back, but had not testified. She had later been seen leaving the precinct station and had apparently gotten disoriented in the unfamiliar neighborhood, wandering unwittingly into the garage.

One veteran crime scene investigator had remarked darkly that she sure as hell wasn’t trying to steal a car!

Almost twelve months later, at Officer Robert J. Clarke’s trial for the murder of Mrs. George Washington Jones’s sister, the Prosecutor pointed out that Officer Clarke could not possibly have genuinely felt threatened by a blind woman, could not as a policeman and former combat soldier have mistaken a metal tube cane for a rifle, sawed off or not, and by the way, Why was no cane found at the scene of the crime? he had asked the jury. The Accused must have thrown it away somewhere before going to the precinct station to file his false report. Obviously, Officer Clarke had not wanted you, the jury, to see it and realize that a police officer could not possibly have mistaken it for a rifle. Here, members of the jury, is Exhibit 23, the identical spare cane the victim kept at home. Does this look anything like a rifle to you? The story about the dwarf taking the purse was clearly false, because the victim’s purse was found at the scene of the crime. It follows that the nonexistent dwarf hadn’t taken the cane either. Officer Clarke must have made up the whole bizarre story to cover up the brutal, premeditated murder of the sister of Mrs. George Washington Jones. Motive? He had been concerned that she had somehow found the courage to testify against him about the brutal battery of her brother’s girlfriend and was going to the station to reopen the case. The jury followed the prosecutor’s arguments perfectly. Officer Clarke was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

At his sentencing hearing, Officer Clarke’s attorney argued that his client should not be sent to Sing Sing because so many of the inmates had been previously sent there through his client’s valiant policing. The judge was not impressed. However, she did order that the Department of Corrections should receive a printout of the names of all inmates who had been sent there courtesy of Clarke and to not assign Clarke to any cell with any such persons who were on the prison’s roster of residents.

Officer Clarke’s attorney was confident that his attempts to locate the missing dwarf would soon prove successful and that a motion for new trial would result in Clarke being released on bail. The attorney declined to reveal to Clarke any details, since he was concerned that the holding jail conference room was bugged. Thus, Officer Clarke felt a certain confidence as he arrived by barred bus at Hell on the Hudson.

Due to an apparent administrative error by the intake officer, George Washington Jones had been booked into Sing Sing under the surname Washington. Therefore, Officer Robert J. Clarke was momentarily surprised when he was placed in a cell with George Washington Jones and George’s good buddy, Clarence The Hacker Boudray. His surprise was only momentary, for the simple reason that Bobby J didn’t live long enough to get over his surprise.

Result: Officer Robert J. Clarke set a penitentiary record for the shortest life sentence ever served at Sing Sing.

The dwarf never was caught for the attempted robbery of George’s sister. After all, as far as the police were concerned he didn’t exist. No. The dwarf never served time for that one. However, he was given twenty years for the robbery of the other blind woman, whose purse he had stolen earlier that night and was still carrying with him as he ran out of the garage, running for his life from some crazy shooter.

He had been arrested in another precinct when he broke his leg many blocks from the garage after stumbling over the cane he had managed to wrest from the hand of the blind lady he was trying to rob, the lady who had suddenly fallen on him in the garage, covered in blood. The paramedics had become suspicious and called the police when his leg wasn’t bleeding but there was blood all over his shirt.

The officers investigating the sister’s death had put out a request to all precincts to send any reports of midget arrests to Bobby J’s station. Unfortunately for Bobby J, the crossover report on the dwarf with the broken leg and stolen purse had apparently been sent for filing but was later removed from Clarke’s arrest file before the file was copied to the prosecutor in charge of the case. Naturally, this meant that Clarke’s defense counsel also never received a copy.

The report, which would have corroborated Clarke’s story, did not reappear in his file until after Clarke had made the brief acquaintance of Jones and the Hacker. Needless to say, its disappearance and reappearance caused quite a flap within the NYPD, especially when Officer Clarke’s attorney claimed he’d received an anonymous tip that such a report existed but that it had been intentionally removed. Things really got nasty when it was discovered that there was no record at all at the other precinct about any dwarf having been arrested that night.

Internal Affairs is even now investigating the theft of the arrest report, the expungement of the dwarf’s arrest record, and its sudden reappearance in the file—so far with no success whatsoever.

CHAPTER 3:

The Message

After Bob Marquis closes the bedroom door behind him, the president of the United States sits down exhausted on her side of the bed, only to immediately spring up and move over to the chair Bob has just vacated.

She notices that her mind is surprisingly blank, not drifting but empty. That thought brings on others in no rational order.

Christ! Was I the intended target and not Sheryl? She was such a beautiful lover. Why don’t I feel any pain? When the hell is Tom going to get here? Hope Bob remembers. Jesus, I must get dressed before Steve and Bob get here. What day is it? Bob didn’t mention anything urgent on calendar. Not even a DoDD briefing. Better check.

She stands up to go to the phone to ring her personal assistant then sits back down.

Sheryl was the solution to so many problems. Now she’s become a really big one. Who would want to kill her? George, possibly. Krissy, sure, but not her. She couldn’t fake an emotion or tell a lie on a bet. Guess that’s why she became a doctor instead of a politician. The president’s mouth almost forms a smile at that thought. I’ll just have to wait to hear back from María. What did Krissy say? Sheryl was frozen from the inside? That’s crazy.

The president rises and walks swiftly into her bathroom, combs her long black hair, and puts on the pretense of makeup. Dumping her robe on the tile floor next to the sink, she crosses the bedroom to her armoire of staying in dresses. She picks out a matching skirt and jacket that are suitably dark, but not official mourning black, and mechanically puts on her panties and bra, then slips on the skirt. She can’t find the right blouse but puts one on that doesn’t jar too badly. Then the jacket and some flat shoes. She doesn’t need stockings as her legs still look fine without them and she had shaved last night, not wanting to have Sheryl feel unappreciated. All this in five minutes and none too soon as she hears a knock on her door.

Come in, Bob, Steve, and close the door.

Apparently Bob has briefed Steve as to the situation and the task. Steve has removed his jacket and tie and pulled on a sweater that reads Redskins that hangs just low enough to hide his Smith and Wesson. Bob hasn’t changed, but then he’s not going anywhere except down the tunnel.

Did your reach the doctor?

Yes, Mrs. President. She said there’d be no problem and that she’ll be waiting for Steve on the dock. She’s there now.

Any questions?

No. I understand perfectly.

No, Bob. Did the doctor have any questions?

Oh. No. She did ask that you give Steve a codeword so that she knows he’s yours. She suggested the phrase hazard squad. That okay?

The president smiles to herself at María’s irrepressible need to make jokes even at times of tragedy. "Hazard Quad" was the name of the residential quadrangle at Wellesley where they had lived together, discretely, in adjoining rooms of course.

That’s fine. Steve, you got that?

Yes, Mrs. President. Should I wait at the OCME?

No. Come straight back and report to Bob personally. No phones.

Mrs. President?

Yes, Steve.

I know how to get to the OCME. Been there several times to get reports of … of Treasury matters.

Use your GPS, Steve. You haven’t been there in over two years since you came to work here. I don’t want you making a wrong turn and ending up in hostile territory. You don’t exactly blend in that neighborhood. Got me?

Yes, Mrs. President.

Did you get a hold of Tom?

Yes, Mrs. President. He should be here by now.

Another knock on the door.

Who is it? all three of them ask simultaneously.

It’s Tom Yager, as ordered.

Come in, Tom, and close the door behind you, the president responds, this time without accompaniment.

A medium-tall, medium-sized, medium-middle-aged man in a conservative suit and tie named Tom Yager walks into the president’s bedroom for the first time in his life. It’s an event never to be forgotten. Not often do you walk in on a president, two giants, and the corpse of a woman you slept with only a few months ago.

Sit down, Tom. Bob and Steve were just leaving.

Rather than walking out the bedroom door as Tom expects, Bob and Steve walk over to the bed, wrap Sheryl up loosely in the large sheet, and pick her up, Bob at the shoulder end, Steve at the leg end. They proceed toward the sort-of-secret exit door between the bathroom and the bed, only to come to a halt.

The president walks around the bed, thumbs open the security box door, punches in the unlocking code, shuts off the alarm system, and opens the steel door, whose hinges are recessed on the inside.

There won’t be a next time, but next time you carry a body out of here be sure that