Divine Justice Read online

  Stone eyed a bruise on the side of the man’s face. “It was the other side that fellow nailed on the train, wasn’t it?”

  “Duke was too fast for me in the stall this morning. Clocked me in the face when I was trying to bridle him. Damn horse.”

  “But a beautiful one.”

  “You ride?”

  “Not if I can help it. You call this place a hellhole? Which part—the pool, the mansion or the cool car parked in front?”

  “I’m the exaggerating type.”

  “Seriously, why would you want to leave something like this?”

  “It’s hers, not mine.” Danny slung horse manure into a wheelbarrow.

  “You’re her son. You’ll inherit someday.”

  Danny stripped off his shirt, revealing a lean, muscled physique. “Who says I want it?”

  “Okay, fair enough. You an only child?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I saw your father’s grave coming up here.”

  “That’s why we got all this stuff.”

  “How so?”

  “Lawsuit against the damn coal company that killed my old man. See, coal companies almost always win those things, or else settle for pennies on the dollar ’cause they got all the good lawyers wrapped around their little finger. But Mom held on, proved her case. Coal company appealed but in the end she kicked their ass, they caved and she got her blood money. And the only thing it cost us was her husband and my dad.” Danny tipped another shovelful of horse manure into a large wheelbarrow and banged his tool against the metal side as if in exclamation.

  “And your mom still runs the restaurant?”

  “She likes to keep busy, and people need to eat.”

  “The whole town looks pretty prosperous.”

  “Coal prices highest in decades and there ain’t enough miners to do the job. When demand’s higher than supply, wages go up. About doubled in fact over the last five years. High wages, low cost of living equals prosperity for the common man. Simple.”

  “You sound like an economics major.”

  “Nah, just a dumb ex-jock, but I got eyes, ears and a little bit of common sense. Where you bunking tonight?”

  “Must be a motel or something around here?”

  “Back in town, couple blocks from my ma’s place and around the corner from the courthouse, there’s a place that has rooms to let. Cheap but clean. Bernie Sandusky runs it.” He laughed. “Tell old Bernie that Danny sent you.”

  “Why, that’ll get me a reduced rate?”

  “Nope, more likely get your butt kicked out the door.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Bernie has a real cute granddaughter named Dottie. Few years ago he caught me and Dottie in one of his rooms working on our biology homework.” He laughed and pitched a big load of manure into the wheelbarrow. “Okay, I’m done shoveling shit. You’re on your own, dude.”

  Stone watched until Danny and his ride disappeared from sight. He finished his work and later idly followed a path that wound around a small hill covered with scrub pines. Abby’s property seemed to have no end. He reached another gravel road that headed back out another way. As his eye followed its path he reckoned it would go back out to the main road at some point, on the other side from where he’d come to the farm.

  A few minutes later Stone followed a dirt path that was worn black and finally led to an old barn that looked close to falling down. Inside was an old gray pickup truck, bales of rotted hay, and rusted tractors and other farm equipment.

  He perched on the bumper of the pickup and counted his meager cash. An act of kindness on his part to help Danny had really cost him. The train ticket hadn’t been cheap and the bus ride just to the vicinity of Divine had cost him still more precious dollars. Danny had offered to pay but Stone had refused. And he still had to rent a room in town. He prayed that rich Abby would be generous with her payment for the day’s work so he could move on.

  Yet should he even still be thinking of escape? Maybe when he’d jumped off the damn cliff, he should have just sucked in a chest of water and ended it. What did he have to live for anyway?

  What do I have to live for?

  He heard a vehicle skid to a stop outside. He hopped off the bumper and walked outside in time to see Abby step from the truck cab.

  “Taking a stroll around the place?” she said, not smiling.

  “I finished up at the stables. Beautiful property you have here.”

  “Okay,” she said, her features unreadable.

  “Doesn’t look like this place gets much use anymore,” he said, looking toward the barn.

  “This was my momma and daddy’s place for fifty years. They ran it as a farm, but we haven’t done any farming here for thirty years. Their house was just down there,” she said, pointing to the left. “Burned down a long time ago. Only thing left is the chimneystack. I oughta just knock it down, but I can’t do it. I mean, it’s really the only thing I have left of them.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “You can, huh?”

  “The past is hard to let go of, particularly when the future is a little uncertain.”

  “You’re wasting your talents mucking stalls, Ben. You ought to be a philosophy teacher.”

  “I was just heading back to town.”

  “I need to pay you. Why don’t you ride with me back to the house? You can get some supper and your money.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know I don’t.” Her tone did not seem to invite dissent.

  A few minutes later they pulled into the driveway.

  “Beautiful house.”

  “Came at a damn steep price.”

  “Danny told me a little about that.”

  “Expect you want to take a shower and change your clothes. Mucking stalls isn’t the cleanest job in the world.”

  “Thanks. I’m sorry about your husband.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  She slammed the truck door behind her and headed up the steps.

  Stone slowly got out and trudged after her.

  He could have landed in any town in the country. And it had to be Divine, Virginia.

  Damn, I can really pick ’em.

  CHAPTER 19

  KNOX COLLARED Annabelle Conroy as she was leaving her hotel. He flashed his creds and asked her to go with him.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Those creds could be faked and you could be a rapist. Go call a cop and I’ll go with both of you if he’s satisfied you are who you say you are. But until then, get the hell away from me.”

  “How about a cup of coffee in the restaurant over there? If I put my hand up your skirt, you can start screaming and kick me in the balls.”

  “Just so you know, I kick really hard.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  “Will this take long? I’m sort of busy.”

  “As long or as short as you want to make it.”

  Over two cups of strong coffee Knox explained what he wanted.

  “I don’t know where Oliver is,” she said truthfully. “We became friends, and I stayed at his cottage, but now he’s gone and he didn’t tell anybody where he was going.”

  “How did you become friends and why were you staying at his cottage?”

  “Simple enough. He helped me with a problem I had and after he left I wanted to keep his home going for him in case he came back.”

  “So your problem was with Jerry Bagger, now deceased?”

  “I see you do your homework.”

  “Wasn’t that hard actually. What exactly was your beef with Bagger, Ms. Hunter?” Knox didn’t believe for a moment that that was her name but he was willing to play along, for now.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Humor me.”

  “Why the hell should I?”

  He pointed to the cup she was holding. “How about I take the prints off that and run them through a database. Would
I pull up the name Susan Hunter?”

  “There’s no law against changing your name.”

  “Right, but the reason for changing your name, now that might be illegal.”

  “Bagger hurt someone I cared about and I wanted to nail him for it and I did.”

  “With Alex Ford and Oliver Stone’s help?”

  “Yeah. Bagger was a crook and a sociopath. The FBI and Justice Department had been after him for a long time. He got what he deserved. So what’s wrong with that?”

  “I don’t really give a crap about Jerry Bagger. I want Oliver Stone. Or John Carr. I don’t know which name you refer to him as.”

  “I only know him as Oliver Stone. I have no idea who John Carr is.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “About six months ago.”

  “You heard about Carter Gray’s and Senator Simpson’s murders?”

  “I watch the news.”

  “Stone had a relationship with Gray.”

  “Didn’t know that.”

  “Alex Ford never bothered to tell you? Because he knew all about it.”

  “We’re just friends, and friends don’t share everything.”

  “Why’d you leave the cottage?”

  “Got tired of living with dead people.”

  “You wouldn’t have happened to have heard from Stone? Maybe he told you to take it underground?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “You tell me.”

  “How can I tell you about something that didn’t happen?”

  “I think your buddy’s on the run.”

  “From what?”

  Knox stood. “Okay, my BS alarm is clanging so hard it’s hurting my ears. So like I told your friend, Ford, I’ll be in touch. And don’t try to leave the city. That would not make me happy.” He walked off.

  CHAPTER 20

  MACKLIN HAYES did not seem particularly pleased. He and Knox were sitting in front of a fire in the library of a luxurious late-nineteenth-century brownstone in the heart of D.C. that Hayes had access to 24/7. Spy kings, it seemed, had gold-plated perks.

  “So you’ve run around interviewing all the usual suspects today and have no progress to show for it.”

  “I’m not just going through the motions, General. I did my little dog-and-pony show with all of them except for the Reuben Rhodes character, and I’ll catch up to him at some point. They’re all lying. They all know more than they’ll admit. That’s progress right there as far as I’m concerned. At some point they’ll make a slip and then we move in.”

  “I seriously doubt the man left them a copy of his travel itinerary.”

  “I doubt that too, but Carr is a loyal guy. If we can nail his friends on something, put them at risk for prison time, then that may flush him out.”

  “Meaning he’ll come running back here to save his friends? You really believe that will happen, Knox?”

  “I’ve studied the man, gone over his career, talked to his friends. Yeah, I think that might happen. And what’s the downside if it doesn’t work?”

  Hayes finished off his glass of wine and stared into the fire. “Let me speak frankly, Knox. Hopefully it will be instructive and won’t bore you too much.”

  “I doubt anything you have to say would bore me, sir. And you know I’m a sucker for truthful information.”

  Hayes ignored the barb. “Carr is a killer, clearly. He was at the Capitol Visitor Center that night. We know he murdered Gray and Simpson. That part is simple, the rest is not.”

  “And do I finally get to hear the rest?”

  Hayes rose and poured himself another glass, this time of scotch, and sipped it while standing in front of the fire. Gazing at this tall patrician figure dressed in a three-piece suit with his beautiful snowy hair, square jaw and twinkling eyes and holding his cut-crystal snifter made Knox fantasize he was in a Hollywood spy film.

  Let’s see, how does that story go again? Oh, yeah, bright, refined, patriotic people recruited from Ivy League schools doing their noble best to keep their country safe while nattily attired in their Brooks Brothers suits, bedding all the beautiful women, sucking thoughtfully on their sweet-smelling pipes and remaining high above the riff and the raff. Like me. And John Carr. The riff and the raff.

  Knox had quickly found that that notion was indeed a fantasy. Intelligence was a nasty, dirty business and necessitated each side to get as filthy as the other. The only rule was there never had been any rules at all. No, actually he was wrong. There was one rule. People like Macklin Hayes did remain above it all. Untouchable. And yet that rule was not absolute. Look at Carter Gray. John Carr had pulled him right down into the trench shit with him.

  You go, John.

  Hayes said, “Unfortunately, Carr is also probably in possession of certain information, perhaps even proofs of actions taken by this country at sensitive times, that might, in unforgiving hindsight, mind you, place us in an awkward situation. I’m sure Gray was aware of that as well. I believe he attempted to get to Carr, but as we know, Carr got him first.”

  “So in other words he has the goods on us so this is not a case for the law courts?”

  Hayes smiled. “I’ve always loved your perspicacity, Knox. Saves so much time.”

  “I’m not a hired killer, sir. You ordered me to find him. I will do my best to do so. But that’s it.”

  “And that’s all you need do. Others will take over from there.”

  “If Carr is as smart as I think he is, he knows all this. He might have devised a way that his violent death will trigger the very disclosure you don’t want. A packet of information to the New York Times perhaps in the event a bullet slams into his brain?”

  “Find him, Knox, and I believe we can persuade him that such action would not be advisable.”

  “What leverage would you have over him at that point?”

  “As you said, he’s a very loyal man.”

  Knox considered this for a moment. “So his friends are his Achilles’ heel? Only in your version instead of coming back and going to jail he takes the bullet, he falls on the sword silently so his friends can what, live?”

  “That’s certainly one scenario.”

  “One or the only one?”

  “Just find him, Knox, that’s all you have to do. Any leads of interest?”

  “The friends have given me squat, and if we have to do this outside the law now it comes back to following the physical evidence as far as it takes me.”

  “Back out to the crime scenes then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Time is not on our side.”

  “It never is. This information would have been helpful earlier, sir, in all candor.”