Edge

Chapter 32

FRANK LOVING LOOKED younger than the age duBois had recited. He was crewcut, tall and in the fit shape that most medicos of his age seem to be.

He was also very nervous. Understandable, considering his murderous cousin had just paid him a visit-and a half dozen armed FBI agents had just searched every nook of his residence.

He lived in a luxury town house in Arlington, one of those four-thousand-square-foot places with columns and arches and rococo trim, all of it prefabricated and bolted into place efficiently over the course of a busy few weeks. The walls, where you’d expect prints-on-canvas of shot pheasants or Venice or medieval still lifes, were incongruously covered with sports posters. The Redskins mostly; what else?

Glancing into the kitchen, I could see bloody towels and discarded white and orange sterile packets from dressings or disposable instruments and syringes. A bottle of Betadine sat on the counter, an orange ring from the disinfectant staining the pale marble. Frank had been trying to scrub it away.

“I don’t know where he is, really,” Frank said. “Honestly.”

Freddy’s tactical team had cleared the house and was outside, talking to neighbors who might have seen Loving or his car.

I asked the doctor to join me in the sparse den and held his eye as I said, “Let me tell you something, Doctor, an hour or so ago, your cousin was about ten minutes away from kidnapping and torturing a sixteen-year-old girl to force her father to give him some information.”

Eyes widening, he seemed genuinely horrified at this. He whispered, “We knew he was a fugitive. I mean, I was mostly shocked to see him alive. I should have called somebody as soon as he left but… I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“He scares me.”

I said, “Doctor…” Respecting the title goes a long way if it’s an M.D. you’re talking to, I’d learned from protecting a few of them. “Doctor, we really need some help here.”

The man grimaced and played with his watch. “Honestly, I don’t know where he is. Please. You have to believe me.”

“A sixteen-year-old girl,” I said slowly. And stared into his evasive eyes.

He slumped. “What can I tell you?”

“First, how badly was he hurt?”

“Bullet wound to his abdomen, six inches above the left hip bone. In and out. I cauterized some small veins, cleaned and stitched. Oh, also a small splinter of rock was lodged in his thigh. I removed it, cauterized the vessels and stitched that too. Did you shoot him?”

“Yes.”

“To save the girl.”

I nodded.

“She’s okay?”

“Physically.” I let that sit for a moment. “I need to find him. Can you tell us anything that’ll help? Car?”

“He didn’t park in front, I know that. He’d walked from someplace else. Look, Officer, I saw the news about the shootouts. I didn’t know it was him. He said he’d been robbed and this guy from South East shot him. If I’d known…”

He was lying, I could see, but it sounded like typical improvised backpedalling when speaking to law enforcement, not co-conspirator deception. All I wanted was for him to focus on the visit. “What else did he say? Think back. Anything at all.”

The doctor frowned. “Well, you know, there was one thing. He wanted nitrous oxide for the procedure-he didn’t want to be out. But I didn’t have any gas. I had some Propofol. Very short-acting-the sort of thing they use for colonoscopies. He didn’t go out completely but he went into that zone, you know? I was doing what I always do with patients, just chatting away, distracting them. He said something I didn’t think about at the time. He said he wasn’t happy that they were doing all that development out in Loudoun County. That made me think he’d been to his parents’ house. Near Ashburn. Maybe he’s staying there.”

I knew of the place. When Loving killed Abe, we’d learned about the house where he’d grown up. But it had been sold years ago. We never followed up on it. I told the doctor this but he said, “Well, it wasn’t exactly sold.”

I frowned and told him to go on.

“Technically, yes. The deal was that Henry and his sister-the heirs-sold it on the cheap to the man who owns it now. But he agreed to lease it back to them for… I think it was twenty years or something. Henry’s sister was sick-it was terminal-and I assumed he wanted to get the property out of his name but make sure Marjorie had some place to live until she passed.”

Henry Loving’s only close family connection was this sister, a few years older. She’d suffered from cancer but her death a few years ago had been in a boating accident. Her boyfriend, the one driving the powerboat drunk in the Occoquan River, had died not long after. I’d assumed Loving had been behind the death; the young man had also drowned, but in his bathtub-exhibiting the same symptoms of someone who had been water boarded for two to three hours.

I couldn’t recall where the family house was. Frank Loving found the address and I wrote it down.

I then asked, “Is he on painkillers now?”

“He wouldn’t take any Demerol or Vicodin with him.”

No, Loving would endure agony to keep a clear head.

“I gave him some preloaded lidocaine syringes for the pain. Topical.” Frank looked down at his large hands. “I remember him from when we were kids. It wasn’t like he was beating people up or getting into fights. Just the opposite. He was quiet, polite. I remember he was always watching.”

“Watching what?”

“Everything. Not saying anything, just looking. He was smart. Really smart. His best subject was history.”

One of my degrees. I hadn’t known that about Loving.

I called, “Freddy?”

The agent appeared in the doorway.

“Got a lead. Let’s get the teams to Ashburn.” From my notebook I tore a slip of paper containing the address Frank had given me. I handed it to the FBI agent. I’d already memorized it.