Marine One

'I'm going to break it open.' Bradley raised his hammer and cracked the chisel into the tip weight, breaking it in half.

I got no sleep that night. And contrary to what I had told Brightman, I wasn't going to go meet Bradley the next morning. He was coming to my house. I still couldn't take the chance that the office was bugged and that Hackett would know what I was doing before I pulled the trigger. Bradley had agreed to stay at the first hotel he encountered, pay cash, and come to my house for breakfast at eight o'clock the following morning. He was to keep the tip weights in his possession at all times, including inside the hotel room. He was not to leave them in his car, and he was to have a separate bag for the tip weights taken from the Marine One at the WorldCopter hangar.

I was up banging out a new outline on my computer before the sun even hinted at the horizon. I stayed there while Debbie prepared breakfast for the kids, got them ready for school, and they left.

He arrived at eight. I let him in, brought him to the den, and got him a cup of coffee. He looked confident and rested. I felt confident and unrested. We walked through his testimony. He understood. He was ready to go. One pocket held the tip weight from the crashed Marine One, the other pocket held the tip weights from the intact Marine One.

I heard the front door open, which was a surprise because Debbie always came in through the back after she parked her car. I glanced out through the den's French doors and saw Debbie. She looked concerned. I excused myself.

'What's up?' I asked.

Debbie looked at the front door and put her car keys in her purse. 'There's a woman standing in front of our house who said she needs to see you.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Reporter.'

'She looks very unsure of herself, very much out of her element. She kept looking around.'

I walked toward the front door. 'What does she look like?'

'Black, pretty; early fifties.'

I looked out the thin window next to the front door. I saw the woman Debbie had described. I'd never seen her before. I checked my watch. It was nine fifteen. The trial was back under way, any journalists would be there. 'I'll see what this is about. Did you talk to her?'

'She said she needed to talk to Mike Nolan. I told her I was your wife, and she said she could only talk to you.'

'Come with me.'

We walked out of the front of our house and went to the woman on the sidewalk. She looked uneasy as I approached her. 'Hi, I'm Mike Nolan. My wife says you need to see me.'

She nodded. She handed me an envelope. I looked into her eyes, but she wouldn't look at me.

'What is this?' I took the envelope and saw that my name was written on the outside, in what was probably a man's handwriting.

'He said to give this to you.'

'Who did?'

'My husband.'

I looked at Debbie, but neither of us had any idea what this woman was talking about. 'Who's your husband?'

'Tinny.'

I felt a shot of fear. 'You're Tinny Byrd's wife?'

'Yes.'

Debbie glanced at me and reached to her. 'Won't you please come in?'

Mrs. Byrd nodded her head.

As Debbie walked next to her, she asked, 'What's your first name?'

'Cherie.'

We went into the house and I signaled to Bradley that it would be a minute. He continued to study some documents that he had spread on his lap. We took Cherie Byrd to the kitchen, where she sat at our table. Debbie poured her a cup of coffee, which she took gladly. I asked her, 'Did you drive from D.C. this morning?'

'Yes.'

'How'd you find where I lived?'

'Tinny had your address on that envelope. I just used MapQuest.'

'Thanks for coming. What made you want to come find me?'

'Tinny was mur-'

'I know. I'm so sorry. It's so… horrible. Police have any leads?'

'Nothing. He was working on a lot of cases. It could be anything.' She clutched her purse to her chest, then looked into my eyes for the first time. 'It could have been this case. I always told him something like this was going to happen. He wouldn't listen to me. He just kept doing it, living his life, thinking he was bulletproof and smarter than everybody-'

'I'm really sorry. He was a good friend of mine. I can't believe I never met you.'

'I know. He spoke of you.'

'So why did you come see me?'

She nodded her head and relaxed slightly. 'I've been going through his things. One of them was our wall safe. He kept it in his closet, and I never went into it. I didn't even know what was in it. I'd forgotten the combination to it because I'd only done it once when he put it in. But I remembered he wrote the combination on the bottom of the drawer of my dresser with a black-ink pen so if I ever needed to get into that safe, all I ever needed to do was turn over my drawers. That's what he said, just turn over your drawers and you can get it. So I remembered that and found the combination and opened that wall safe yesterday. There were all kinds of things in there that I don't have any idea what they were. Some things I did know and didn't want to know. Like a gun and some bullets and some cash money. Then I found this envelope. He had a yellow sticky on it that looked pretty new. The sticky said-hold on, I've brought it with me.' She reached into her purse and pulled out a folded yellow sticky. She tried to unfold it, but the adhesion was too strong. I looked at it and read, 'If anything happens to me, give this to Mike Nolan.'

The envelope that I held had my name and address on it. It was a letter-size, not thick. I asked, 'Did you open this?'

She shook her head. 'No. He told me to bring it to you and I have. It's out of my hands and into yours. So I think I'll go now.'

'Wait one minute. I want you to be here when I open it.'

She was hesitant, but said nothing.

I broke the seal of the Scotch tape on the back flap and opened the envelope. I pulled out a piece of paper and a key. On the piece of paper was written, If you're reading this, something has happened to me. I can't tell you what, 'cause I don't know. I also can't tell you if it was related to this case. I hope not. And I hope I didn't make a fool of myself, but I told you I'd take care of you so I'm going to. Then in large block letters he had written, J. Mark Grosvenor. Underneath was a home address, cell phone number, home telephone number, and pager. Taped to the bottom of the page was a key. I pulled the key off and looked at it. I wasn't sure what it was. I held it up. 'Do you recognize this?'

Cherie took her reading glasses out of her purse and examined the key. 'Well, I do. It's a key for a safety-deposit box at our bank.'

'Is this from your safety-deposit box?'

She shook her head. 'No, ours is a different number.'

'You think this is another safety-deposit box at your bank?'

'Looks like it to me.'

I looked at my watch and considered the implications of putting Bradley on the witness stand with no preparation. If anyone could do it, it was him. 'Take me there. Now. We don't have any time to lose.'

I stood up, put the key in my pocket, and said to Debbie, 'Would you watch Wayne? Don't let him out of your sight, except for the bathroom. Seriously. Literally. Do not let him out of your sight. If anybody comes to the door looking for me or him, or anybody else, nobody's home. I'll call you on your cell phone, otherwise don't talk to anybody. Don't answer the house phone. Understand?' She looked alarmed at my intensity.

'I understand, but explain this to me.'

'Later.' I turned to Cherie. 'Let's go. I'll drive.'

As I started my car, I pulled out my cell phone from my glove box and texted Rachel, who was sitting next to Brightman in trial. She was probably pulling her hair out. I told her to call me at her first break and I headed off to D.C.

It was an awkward drive. I was actually surprised I'd never met Tinny's wife. Tinny talked about her in glowing terms all the time, yet I'd never met her. I didn't know how to even start a conversation with her. I finally thanked her again for going out of her way to track me down and give me something that she didn't know was significant. But she knew her husband well enough to know that if he thought it important enough to put in a safe and ask her to do it after his death, it was important enough for her to actually do it. She related that it had actually done her good to get out of the house and get out of D.C. to see the rest of the world. She hadn't been outside the District in almost two years. Tinny was always going outside the District in his Corvette, jetting here and there in airplanes, but she preferred to stay home in their small house. I asked her to tell me about their life together, the fun they'd had together. She relaxed and told me stories of their courtship and marriage, their early days when he was work-obsessed and she was repeatedly pregnant. They'd been in love for thirty years, and she still was. When he was killed, her life had been gutted and she would never be the same.

As we drove along, I continued to look at the cars around me. I noticed one that had been behind me the entire way. A fairly new Dodge Caravan. It had stayed fairly far back most of the time. But once it had come close enough for me to get a look at the driver. I had seen young Asian men drive all sorts of cars, but never a Dodge Caravan.

By the time we got to D.C. and headed toward the Northeast section, near Mercedes' Grill, I had almost forgotten about the trial. That was refreshing. As we turned down Tennessee Avenue, she said, 'The bank is up there on the right.'

We turned into the parking lot, found a spot, and walked into the bank. I followed her straight to the back left corner of the lobby, where they had a light wooden wall with a glass door that separated the safety-deposit boxes from the rest of the bank. She pressed a buzzer next to the door. A young black man appeared on the other side of the glass, recognized her, and smiled. He pressed a button on his side of the glass that released the door, and he pulled it open. We stepped through. 'Hello, Ronald,' she said, shaking his hand gently. 'This is my friend Mike Nolan.'