CHAPTER FIVE

 

KATE WHITNEY PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT OF HER building. The grocery bag clunked against one leg, her overflowing briefcase against the other as she jogged up the four flights of stairs. Buildings in her price range had elevators, just not ones that worked on a consistent basis.

She changed quickly into her running outfit, checked her messages, and headed back out. She stretched the cramps and kinks out of her long limbs in front of the Ulysses S. Grant statue and started her run.

She headed west, past the Air and Space Museum, and then by the Smithsonian castle that, with its towers and battlements and twelfth-century-style Italian architecture, looked more like a mad scientist’s home than anything else. Her easy, methodical strides took her across the Mall at its widest point and she circled the Washington Monument twice.

Her breath was coming a little quicker now; the sweat began to seep through her T-shirt and blot the Georgetown Law sweatshirt she was wearing. As she made her way along the fringes of the Tidal Basin, the crowds of people grew thicker. The early fall brought plane-, bus- and carloads of people from across the country hoping to miss the summer crush of tourists and the infamous Washington heat.

As she swerved to avoid one errant child she collided with another runner coming the other way. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Shit.” The man rolled over quickly and then sprang back up. She started to get up, looked at him, an apology on her lips, and then abruptly sat back down. A long moment went by as camera-toting clans of Arkansans and Iowans danced around them.

“Hello, Kate.” Jack gave her a hand up and helped her to a spot under one of the now bare cherry blossom trees that encircled the Tidal Basin. The Jefferson Memorial sat big and imposing across the calm water, the tall silhouette of the country’s third President clearly visible inside the rotunda.

Kate’s ankle was starting to swell. She took off her shoe and sock and began to rub it out.

“I didn’t think you’d have time to run anymore, Jack.”

She looked over at him: no receding hairline, no paunch, no lines on the face. Time had stood still for Jack Graham. She had to admit it, he looked great. She, on the other hand, was an absolute and total disaster.

She silently cursed herself for not getting that haircut and then cursed herself again for even thinking that. A drop of sweat plunged down her nose, and she brushed it away with an irritable swipe of her hand.

“I was wondering the same thing about you. I didn’t think they let prosecutors go home before midnight. Slacking off?”

“Right.” She rubbed her ankle, which really hurt. He saw the pain, leaned over and took her foot in his hands. She flinched back. He looked at her.

“Remember I used to almost do this for a living and you were my best and only client. I have never seen a woman with such fragile ankles, and the rest of you looks so healthy.”

She relaxed and let him work the ankle and then the foot, and she soon realized he had not lost his touch. Did he mean that about looking healthy? She frowned. After all, she had dumped him. And she had been absolutely right in doing so. Hadn’t she?

“I heard about Patton, Shaw. Congratulations.”

“Aw shucks. Any lawyer with millions in legal business could’ve done the same thing.” He smiled.

“Yeah, I read about the engagement in the paper too. Congratulations twice.” He didn’t smile at that one. She wondered why not.

He quietly put her sock and shoe back on. He looked at her. “You’re not going to be able to run for a day or two, it’s pretty swollen. My car’s right over there. I’ll give you a lift.”

“I’ll just take a cab.”

“You trust a D.C. cabbie over me?” He feigned offense. “Besides, I don’t see any pockets. You going to negotiate a free ride? Good luck.”

She looked down at her shorts. Her key was in her sock. He had already eyed the bulge. He smiled at her dilemma. Her lips pressed together, her tongue slid along the bottom one. He remembered that habit from long ago. Although he hadn’t seen it for years, it suddenly seemed like he had never been away.

He stretched out his legs and stood up. “I’d float you a loan, but I’m busted too.”

She got up, put an arm against his shoulder as she tested the ankle.

“I thought private practice paid better than that.”

“It does, I’ve just never been able to handle money. You know that.” That was true enough; she had always balanced the checkbook. Not that there was much to balance back then.

He held on to one of her arms as she limped to his car, a ten-year-old Subaru wagon. She looked at it amazed.

“You never got rid of this thing?”

“Hey, there’s a lot of miles left on it. Besides, it’s full of history. See that stain right over there? Your Dairy Queen butterscotch-dipped ice cream cone, 1986, the night before my tax final. You couldn’t sleep, and I wouldn’t study anymore. You remember? You took that curve too fast.”

“You have a bad case of selective memory. As I recall you poured your milkshake down my back because I was complaining about the heat.”

“Oh, that too.” They laughed and got in the car.

She examined the stain more closely, looked around the interior. So much coming back to her in big, lumpy waves. She glanced at the back seat. Her eyebrows went up. If that space could only talk. She turned back to see him looking at her, and found herself blushing.

They pulled off into the light traffic and headed east. Kate felt nervous, but not uncomfortable, as if it were four years ago and they had merely jumped in the car to get some coffee or the paper or have breakfast at the Corner in Charlottesville or at one of the cafés sprinkled around Capitol Hill. But that was years ago she had to remind herself. That was not the present. The present was very different. She rolled the window down slightly.

Jack kept one eye on traffic, and one eye on her. Their meeting hadn’t been accidental. She had run on the Mall, that very route in fact, since they had moved to D.C. and lived in that little walk-up in Southeast near Eastern Market.

That morning Jack had woken up with a desperation he had not felt since Kate had left him four years ago when it dawned on him about a week after she had gone that she wasn’t coming back. Now with his wedding looming ahead, he had decided that he had to see Kate, somehow. He would not, could not, let that light die out, not yet. It was quite likely that he was the only one of the two who sensed any illumination left. And while he might not have the courage to leave a message on her answering machine, he had decided that if he was meant to find her out here on the Mall amidst all the tourists and locals, then he would. He had let it go at that.

Until their collision, he had been running for an hour, scanning the crowds, looking for the face in that framed photo. He had spotted her about five minutes before their abrupt meeting. If his heart rate hadn’t already doubled because of the exercise, it would’ve hit that mark as soon as he saw her moving effortlessly along. He hadn’t meant to sprain her ankle, but then that was why she was sitting in his car; it was the reason he was driving her home.

Kate pulled her hair back and tied it in a ponytail, using a braid that had been on her wrist. “So how’s work going?”

“Okay.” He did not want to talk about work. “How’s your old man?”

“You’d know better than me.” She did not want to talk about her father.

“I haven’t seen him since . . .”

“Lucky you.” She lapsed into silence.

Jack shook his head at the stupidity of bringing up Luther. He had hoped for a reconciliation between father and daughter over the years. That obviously had not happened.

“I hear great things about you over at the Commonwealth’s Attorney.”

“Right.”

“I’m serious.”

“Since when.”

“Everyone grows up, Kate.”

“Not Jack Graham. Please, God, no.”

He turned right onto Constitution, and made his way toward Union Station. Then he caught himself. He knew which direction to go, a fact he did not want to share with her. “I’m kind of rambling here, Kate. Which way?”

“I’m sorry. Around the Capitol, over to Maryland and left on 3rd Street.”

“You like that area?”

“On my salary, I like it just fine. Let me guess. You’re probably in Georgetown, right, one of those big federal townhouses with maid’s quarters, right?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t moved. I’m in the same place.”

She stared at him. “Jack, what do you do with all of your money?”

“I buy what I want; I just don’t want that much.” He stared back. “Hey, how about a Dairy Queen butterscotch-dipped ice cream cone?”

“There’s none to be had in this town, I’ve tried.”

He did a U-turn, grinned at the honkers, and roared off.

“Apparently, counselor, you didn’t try hard enough.”

*   *   *

THIRTY MINUTES LATER HE PULLED INTO HER PARKING LOT. HE ran around to help her out. The ankle had stiffened a little more. The butterscotch cone was almost gone.

“I’ll help you up.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I busted your ankle. Help me relieve some of my guilt.”

“I’ve got it, Jack.” That tone was very familiar to him, even after four years. He smiled wearily and stepped back. She was halfway up the stairs, moving slowly. He was getting back in his car when she turned around.

“Jack?” He looked up. “Thanks for the ice cream.” She went into the building.

Driving off, Jack did not see the man standing near the little cluster of trees at the entrance to the parking lot.

Luther emerged from the shadows of the trees and looked up at the apartment building.

His appearance from two days ago had drastically changed. It was lucky his beard grew fast. His hair had been cut very short, and a hat covered what was left. Sunglasses obscured his intense eyes and a bulky overcoat concealed the lean body.

He had hoped to see her one more time before he left. He had been shocked to see Jack, but that was all right. He liked Jack.

He huddled in his coat. The wind was picking up, and the chill was more than Washington usually carried at this time of year. He stared up at his daughter’s apartment window.

Apartment number fourteen. He knew it well; had even been inside it on a number of occasions, unbeknownst to his daughter, of course. The standard front-door lock was child’s play for him. It would’ve taken longer for someone with a key to open it. He would sit in the chair in her living room and look around at a hundred different things, all of them carrying years of memories, some good times, but mostly disappointments.

Sometimes he would just close his eyes and examine all the different scents in the air. He knew what perfume she wore—very little and very nondescript. Her furniture was big, solid and well-worn. Her refrigerator was routinely empty. He cringed when he viewed the meager and unhealthy contents of her cabinets. She kept things neat, but not perfect; the place looked lived in as it should have.

And she got a lot of calls. He would listen to some of them leaving messages. They made him wish she had picked a different line of work. Being a criminal himself, he was well aware of the number of real crazy bastards out there. But it was too late for him to recommend a career change to his only child.

He knew that it was a strange relationship to have with one’s offspring, but Luther figured that was about all he deserved. A vision of his wife entered his mind; a woman who had loved him and stood by him all those years and for what? For pain and misery. And then an early death after she had arrived at her senses and divorced him. He wondered again, for the hundredth time, why he had continued his criminal activities. It certainly wasn’t the money. He had always lived simply; much of the proceeds of his burglaries had been simply given away. His choice in life had driven his wife mad with worry and forced his daughter from his life. And for the hundredth time he came away with no compelling answer to the question of why he continued to steal from the well-protected wealthy. Perhaps it was only to show that he could.

He looked up once again at his daughter’s apartment. He hadn’t been there for her, why should she be there for him? But he could not sever the bond entirely, even if she had. He would be there for her if she so desired, but he knew that she never would.

Luther moved quickly down the street, finally running to catch a Metro bus heading toward the subway at Union Station. He had always been the most independent of people never relying to any significant degree on anyone else. He was a loner and had liked that. Now, Luther felt very alone, and the feeling this time was not so comforting.

The rain started and he stared out the back window of the bus as it meandered its way to the great rail terminus, which had been saved from extinction by an ambitious railway–shopping mall renovation. The water bubbled up on the smooth surface of the window and clouded his view of where he had just been. He wished he could, but he couldn’t go back there now.

He turned back in his seat, pulled his hat down tighter, blew into his handkerchief. He picked up a discarded newspaper, glancing down its old headlines. He wondered when they would find her. When they did, he would know about it immediately; everyone in this town would know that Christine Sullivan was dead. When rich people got themselves killed, it was front-page news. Poor people and Joe Average were stuck in the Metro section. Christy Sullivan would most certainly be on page one, front and center.

He dropped the paper on the floor, hunched down in his seat. He needed to see a lawyer, and then he would be gone. The bus droned on, and his eyes finally closed, but he wasn’t sleeping. He was, for the moment, sitting in his daughter’s living room, and this time, she was there with him.