him. And she’s the one who’s been pushing the investigation. She got me started in this direction. She gave me Green’s name. She gave me the key to her apartment, pointed me at the doctor. I think that Lincoln Bowe deliberately kept her in the dark. Maybe because she wouldn’t have gone along; or maybe to protect her.”
Novatny was skeptical. “You have no idea who the killers might be.”
“Bowe’s gay friends. You could ask around, you’ll turn them up. Madison still thinks that Goodman is involved. She thinks the idea of a bunch of Bowe’s friends getting together to kill him is ludicrous. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Assuming that you’re telling us the truth—and I think you are, even if we’re not getting all of it—then the killer’s somebody from here in Madison,” Parker said. “Got to Green inside of an hour.”
Jake scrubbed at his hair with the palms of his hands, then said, “That doesn’t seem right. That just doesn’t seem right. But that’s what happened.”
“Have you figured out how it went down in Green’s office?” Jake asked.
Novatny frowned. “We think the killers were professional—nobody heard any shots, but the shots were probably fired from a .22. Those are not so quiet, so it must have been silenced.”
“How do you know it was a .22?”
“Took a slug out of a wall,” Parker said. “The base was intact, looks like a .22.”
“Could be a .22 mag. The damage was pretty big,” Novatny said.
“They were executed, then,” Jake said.
Novatny brightened: “Not exactly. We think that the secretary tried to resist, tried to fight them off, went after somebody with her nails. She got some skin and a little blood, so we’ve got DNA. If we can find the guy, we can nail him.”
“And Green . . .”
“He took it right in the back of the head. He was executed. We think the secretary tried to resist, that’s when she lost her shoes, got her hands on someone, and Green just stood there and
“What now?” Jake asked.
Novatny got a tape recorder, read Jake his rights, and got him to repeat the statement. Jake did, but insisted that most of what he said, other than the basics about Bowe’s sexuality and the cancer revelation, was speculation. “I just want out of this,” he said. “I’m a research guy, not a cop. I just want out.”
Novatny talked to the Madison chief, but didn’t tell Jake the outcome. They did cut Jake loose, at seven o’clock. “Are you going back to D.C.?” Novatny asked.
“Yes. But first, I’m going to check into a hotel and get some sleep,” Jake said. “I’m really screwed up.”
“One thing,” Novatny said. “Do not go back to Madison Bowe. She’s going to be a critical witness. Don’t mess with her.”
“Believe me. All I want is out,” Jake said.
Jake walked down to State Street, through a couple of alleys, in and out the back of a pizza place, and found a phone near the restrooms in a sports bar and called Johnson Black, Madison’s lawyer. He got lucky, made the connection, talked to Black for a moment, then ordered a beer at the bar and stood next to the phone. Madison called him back twenty minutes later from a phone in an M Street lounge. “Listen to me,” he said. “There’s been a disaster.”
He told her about it, then said, “So the feds are going to come to you. You confirm the homosexual angle and you tell them why you didn’t want that made public—that you were pushing the investigation into Goodman, and were afraid the homosexual angle would end it. You tell them that sexuality is a private matter, and you had no reason to think that it was involved in Lincoln’s death. You tell them that you had no idea that there was a setup . . .”
“I didn’t,” she said. “But now you’re telling me . . . I caused this girl’s death somehow. If I hadn’t sent you there . . .”
“You didn’t cause her death,” Jake said. “Somebody else did. You can’t anticipate the outcome of everything you do; you can go crazy trying. Somebody else killed them, not you.”
“But if I hadn’t sent you . . .”
“Madison, get a grip. It’s really critical right now. If you’re going to feel guilty, feel guilty about something you actually did.”
“But you don’t know . . .”
“Tell me later,” Jake said. “Not on the phone . . . Has anything happened there that I should know about? Is anybody pushing you?”
“One thing, but . . . ah, jeez, I can’t keep the girl out of my head.”
“Focus, goddamnit. What happened?”
“I talked to Howard, I confronted him. He killed Linc, but it was essentially a suicide. Linc had already taken an overdose. He claims that Schmidt is in Thailand, working as a bartender. That Schmidt is obsessed by brown hookers. Those are Howard’s words. He says that they can bring him back anytime they need to.”
