Dead Watch

“The president has ordered me to find Senator Bowe. I’m going to start kicking bureaucrats, I’m going to raise hell over at Justice, with the FBI, with Homeland Security, and I’m going to talk to Governor Goodman.”

“In other words, you’re going to make a big public relations show, because the president is feeling the heat,” Madison said.

Jake shook his head: “No. No show. That’s an explicit part of my deal—I don’t do public stuff. But I will find your husband. There’s a reason he’s gone.”

“Because he spoke out. Because he was critical of Arlo Goodman and his thugs, and was tying them to this administration,” Madison said.

Jake held both hands up, palms toward Madison: “Mrs. Bowe: I heard you on television. I will keep that possibility in mind. But there are other possibilities, and I’m not going to let any of them go.”

“What other possibilities?”

“That your husband disappeared for reasons of his own,” Jake said.

“You can’t believe that,” she said, her back rigid. Her hands twisted in her lap, and he was happy that his neck wasn’t between them.

“I don’t believe anything in particular, Mrs. Bowe,” Jake said. “But there’s been speculation to that effect. That this is an effort to embarrass Arlo Goodman. That you’re jerking him around. There are radio talk show people saying that your appearance on TV was part of that effort.”

Her face was intent, earnest: “It was not . . .”

Jake overrode her: “I’m outlining the possibilities, as I see them. I didn’t come over here to argue with you, or to comfort you. I need to ask some questions and to make a request.”

She settled back on the couch and crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you want?”

“Your husband is too important a public figure to disappear on his own,” Jake said. “If he disappeared of his own volition, then either you, or some close friend, knows where he is. I want you to call all of his close friends. Tell them that if they know anything about Lincoln Bowe, I want them to get in touch with me. We are now at the point where somebody’s going to jail, to prison, for involvement with this disappearance. That if this started as a joke, nobody’s laughing anymore.”

Now Madison leaned forward, her eyes locked on his: “That’s what I want! I want somebody to say that in public. The president. The attorney general. That we’re talking about prison. Or the death penalty. Or something. Finally get some pressure on whoever’s got him. They’ve just been out there playing around . . .”

“So you’ll make the calls?”

“Yes—but that won’t help,” she said. “He did not disappear on his own. He is not with a friend. He would have told me. Even more . . .”

She hesitated, and Jake said, “What?”

“He spends most of his time at our New York apartment,” she said. “He had two cats there. When he disappeared, probably that Friday afternoon, nobody realized that he was gone until Monday, when he missed appointments. When we called the apartment, the maid answered. She said he wasn’t there, but not only that: nobody had fed the cats over the weekend. They had no food or water, they were drinking from a toilet. Linc would never have done that, let the cats go like that. Even if he was planning to disappear, he would have made up some excuse to see that they were taken care of.”

Jake looked down at his lap and touched his forehead with his middle finger, unconsciously rubbing. In any hunt, any interrogation, there were key moments, when somebody said something that might seem obscure, that looked like a minor point but was, in fact, critical.

Madison misinterpreted his reaction: “What? You don’t believe me?”

“No, no,” Jake said, looking up again. “It’s the single piece of information I’ve gotten so far that makes me think you’re right. That he didn’t go away voluntarily.”

For the first time, her attitude softened. “I’ve been trying to tell everybody that. He’d never abandon the cats.”

He watched her for a few seconds, then said, “You say he spent most of his time in New York. Did you spend that time with him?”

“No, I . . .” She stopped, looked at Black, and then said, “We’re not exactly estranged. We’re friendly. But we don’t live together much anymore. He spends most of his time in New York, I spend most of mine at our farm. We mostly intersect here, in Washington . . . when we do.”

Jake took that as a complex of evasions suggesting that they no longer were in bed together.

“Do you think . . . if you’re only friendly, that he might have another friend? Somebody that he might have gone off with for a while?”

She was exasperated: “No, I do not. Frankly, if he was going to do that, he would have told me. And he would have fed the cats.”

Okay. Enough of that.

Jake looked at Black, then Madison: “There’s a concept, in the bureaucracy, called The Rule. Have you heard of it?”

Madison shook her head, but Black nodded. “From Winter’s Guide: You ask, Who benefits?”

Jake said, “Exactly—though I didn’t think of it. I just picked it up.” He held Madison’s eyes: “In any analysis of a confusing political problem, the rule is to ask, ‘Who benefits?’ You will find the answer to any political or bureaucratic question, if you can answer that one correctly. Now, Senator Bowe vanishes under suspicious circumstances, and you ask, ‘Who benefits?’ ”