Dead Watch

television, a den used as a library and office, and a half-bath; and on the second floor, a master bedroom suite, a guest bedroom, and a third bedroom where he hid all his junk—obsolete golf clubs, a never-used rowing machine, old computer terminals that were not good enough to use, but too good to throw away, three heavily used backpacks and two newer ones—he was a bag junkie. He also had a gun safe, a bow locker, and a pile of luggage.

The furnace, a washer and dryer, the telephone and electric service panels, and the master box for the alarm system were all tucked away in a small basement. A two-car garage had been added to the back of the house and occupied most of the backyard.

He kept the place neat with two hours of cleaning a week, usually done on Saturday morning. He wasn’t a freak about it, simply logical. Two hours a week was better than two straight days once a quarter.

By the time he got home, the workday was over. He went online with the Virginia State website, found a name for the governor’s chief of staff—Ralph Goines—and tracked him down through the FBI telephone database, then called him on his unlisted home phone. He identified himself and said, “I need to see Governor Goodman. Tomorrow if possible.”

“Could I tell the governor why you want to talk to him?”

“It’s about Lincoln Bowe. If you saw Randall James’s show . . .”

“We did see it. Absolutely irresponsible,” Goines said. “Mrs. Bowe has been carrying on a campaign of slander and innuendo.”

“So which one was the big guy in the videotape, the one with the leather jacket?” Jake asked. “Slander? Or Innuendo?”

Bitch-slapping bureaucrats was one way to wake them up. Pause, five seconds of silence: “We are looking into that. It’s possible that it was a setup.”

“Right,” Jake said. He let the skepticism show in his voice. “Maybe the governor could tell me about it.”

Back and forth, and eventually an appointment: “One o’clock, then. Be prompt. The governor’s a busy man.”

Jake nodded at the phone, said, “Sure,” and hung up, turned to his computer, and went back online.

Because of his work with Danzig, he had limited access to government reference files. He went into the FBI telephone database again. The Bowes had a place in Georgetown, not far from him, and were also listed at a place in the Blue Ridge, and in New York. He found an unlisted cell-phone number for Madison Bowe and called it.

She answered on the third ring.

3 

Madison Bowe lived in a four-story red-brick town house in Georgetown, up the hill from M Street. Jake paid the cabdriver, straightened his tie, climbed the front steps, and rang the bell. She met him at the door, barefoot, wearing black slacks and a hip- length green-silk Chinese dressing-gown. She didn’t smile, but looked up and asked, “You’re Jacob Winter?”

“Yes, I am.” Jake had only seen her on television, where everyone was cropped to fit the screen and gorgeous blondes were a dime a dozen, and you paid no attention. But Madison Bowe was real, and the reality of the woman was a slap in the face. She was smaller than he’d expected, had short blond hair, a sculpted nose, direct green eyes, and a touch of pinkish lipstick. She spoke with a soft Virginia country accent, in a voice that carried some bourbon gravel.

She still didn’t smile; looked up and down the block, then said, “I hate it when I have to trust a Democrat.”

“I apologize,” Jake said. “I’ll go home and kill myself.”

Small blondes were his personal head-turner. His ex-wife might have been airmailed to him directly from hell— but she, too, had been a small blonde, and right up to the end, even at the settlement conference, the sight of her had turned him around. As did Madison Bowe. And Madison smelled good, like lilacs, or vanilla.

“You better come in,” she said, ignoring the wisecrack. “We’re in the parlor.”

He limped after her. He noticed her noticing it.

The other half of the “we” was a lawyer named Johnson Black, who was sitting on a sofa facing a coffee table, a delicate china cup in his hand. Jake saw him a half-dozen times a year at different lobbyist dinners. He was balding, with merry, pink cheeks and half-moon glasses. In his late sixties, he was one of the classic Washington regulars who moved between private practice and federal appointments.

Black wore a dark suit, as always, but had taken off his brilliant tie, which was draped over a shoulder. He stood up, smiling, to shake hands: “Jake, goddamnit, I couldn’t believe it when Maddy said you were coming over. I told her you were a good guy.”

“I appreciate that,” Jake said. “How’ve you been, Johnnie? How’s the heart?”

“Ah, I’m eating nothing but bark and twigs. It’s either that, or they do the Roto-Rooter on me.”

Madison was watching Jake. “Johnnie says you’re teaching at Georgetown,” she said. “Why’s a professor . . . ?”

“I’m not a professor. I teach a seminar. I work for the government as a consultant,” Jake said. “I specialize in . . .” He paused, looked at Johnson Black, and said, “I don’t know. What do I specialize in, Johnnie?”

“Hard to tell,” Black said. “Maybe forensic bureaucracy?”

“That’s it,” Jake said, turning back to Madison. “Forensic bureaucracy. When something goes wrong, I try to find out what really happened.”

Madison sat on the couch next to Black. She didn’t smile back, hadn’t smiled yet, and he really wanted to see her smile. Jake took an easy chair, facing them across the coffee table, put his case on the floor by his feet, leaned forward.