the time but did now. Rodgers took his black coffee and went back to the corner of the empty gate. He sat down, sipped the coffee for a moment, then took out his own cell phone.
He called Darrell.
There was something Rodgers needed him to check.
Fast.
FORTY-ONE
Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 1:29 p.m.
Darrell McCaskey was in the car with his wife. They were about to get onto 395 when McCaskey's phone beeped. It was Mike Rodgers. The general asked if anything was new.
'Maria and I just did a UPS on the reporter,' McCaskey told him. 'Her apartment, her car, and the radio station were clean.' A UPS was an unsanctioned prescreen, meaning the two Op-Center agents had a look around without the benefit of a search warrant. That was necessary when law enforcement did not want an individual or group to know that new evidence had surfaced. Op-Center wanted time to get agents on her trail. Until then they wanted to make sure she continued talking to the same people as before. 'We've got the Metro cops picking through the dump right now, looking for signs of the dress. We were about to join them.'
'I don't think they'll find it,' Rodgers said.
'Talk to me,' McCaskey said.
'The night after the murder, I had dinner with my traveling companion,'
Rodgers told him. He was being nonspecific because of the un secure line. 'When I got there, she was talking with your target. My companion had a shopping bag. She told me it contained comfortable shoes, Nikes, which she never put on. She is wearing high heels now as well. I'm thinking '
'She may have given her the dress for disposal after I exposed the crime,' McCaskey said.
'Correct.'
'That was the night of the second crime,' McCaskey said.
'Also right.'
'Got a name on that shopping bag?' McCaskey asked.
'Groveburn' Rodgers said. 'Yellow plastic, red rope handles.'
'We'll look into it at once,' McCaskey said. 'Maybe we'll get lucky and find the hypodermic there as well.' He turned the car around and headed toward Kat's apartment on the corner of New Hampshire and N Street. 'One more thing. What is her attitude about all of this, Mike?'
'She is acting more offended than guilty,' Rodgers said. 'If she is worried, she's being very cool about it.'
'An operation like this would not hitch its wagon to a bunch of Jittery Janes,' McCaskey said. 'Mike, thanks for this. I'll leave a message if we find anything. Meanwhile, watch your back.'
'Never been good at that, Darrell,' Rodgers said. 'Good or bad, the future's in front of you.'
Rodgers hung up, and McCaskey handed the phone to Maria. 'Mike is getting philosophical,' McCaskey said. 'That means he's worried.'
'Mike is always worried,' Maria said.
'True,' her husband replied. 'But most of that is usually on the surface. This is coming from inside.'
McCaskey briefed his wife, who asked what he thought Rodgers might be worried about.
'That Kat could be guilty,' McCaskey told her.
'Of what? Does he think she could have masterminded it?'
