Head Shot

53

Skinner reached out and took the kitchen phone from its cradle on the wall. 'The Grace residence,' he answered.

'You sound like the fucking butler,' said Joe Doherty, tersely, with none of his usual dry humour sounding in his voice.

'Kosinski?'

'If only I knew for sure. I tried to cal him myself, on his issue cellphone; but it was unavailable for connection. So I sent two guys from the Chicago office to intercept him at Arthur Wilkins' office, but by the time they got there he'd already been and gone. They weren't briefed to interview Wilkins, so they left and reported back to me. I called the guy myself and had him cal the switchboard back to verify me. I spun him a story that I'd wanted to catch Troy at his office, and with more than my usual subtlety asked if their meeting had gone okay. He said that it had; that Kosinski had asked him about his father, whether he had done or said anything strange recently.

'He told him that last time he saw his father, before he died, he had given him an envelope. He knew from the feel of it that it had a computer disk inside, and he asked him what it was about. His father replied that it was a copy of something on a new laptop he had bought, a memoir of his time in the Secret Service. He asked Arthur if he would keep it in the office safe.

'Kosinski told him that the computer had been stolen when he was murdered, but that if the disk did contain material relating to the Service, that might make it a matter of national security. So he asked Wilkins to give it to him, and the guy, after some thought, did so. Troy thanked him and left.'

'Interesting,' said Skinner, 'but it sounds on the up-and-up.'

'I'd agree,' replied Doherty. 'Except for two things: Kosinski's cellphone is stil out and I can't locate him, plus this. Less than half an hour after I spoke to him, Arthur Wilkins left his office to go home for lunch. He was shot dead in its private parking garage, just as he was climbing into his Lexus. My Chicago guys heard the police department alert and called me.

'And you guess right: no, the police didn't catch anyone.' Suppressed fury exploded from the deputy director. 'Bob, I have a renegade; a fucking renegade within the Bureau. When I trace this bastard, he's as good as dead.'

'Hey, cool down, man. Who says you're going to have to trace him?' asked Skinner. 'You may be jumping to a big conclusion.'

'You kidding?'

'No, I'm not kidding. Whether it's Kosinski who's been taking these people out or not, the killer is a very clever guy. He also has access to files and information that I suspect are beyond even you. We suspected Kosinski because of the timing of the explosion, and the theory that it could have been set to kil us as well. But this guy has the resources to hack into sophisticated computer systems and delete records. Do you think he couldn't have bugged Jackson Wylie's office, or the Wilkins firm in Chicago?'

'So why can't I contact Kosinski now?'

'Maybe his cel phone battery's gone soft; maybe his pager's lying on the bathroom shelf. Maybe by now he's been taken out himself, if that envelope Wilkins handed over is significant. You see? Your man may be a suspect, but by now he may also be a victim. If he's either, the odds are that you'l never see him again.'

'Oh no, why not?'

'If Kosinski killed these people, then after Wilkins, he's blown, and he'll disappear back into whatever outfit planted him in the Bureau in the first place. If he didn't, and that envelope contained what I think it might have, it made him a target as soon as he left the Wilkins building.

If he has been killed, they'l make him disappear, so that you, being essential y a dumb copper like me, will assume that he was the bad guy al along.'

'I wish I was a dumb copper like you,' Doherty grunted. 'Any way we can tell which is which?'

'No, but if you find that Wilkins was killed by a bullet from Kosinski's Bureau-issue firearm, you'll know that he's gone, one way or another.

He either kil ed him, or they made it look as if he did.'

'They?'

'The same people who kil ed the president.'

'What!?' The word escaped as a cut-off scream. 'Bob, what the f…'

Skinner laughed. 'Okay, okay, okay. Calm down, Joe; I'm about seven steps ahead of myself. But here's what I know from Sarah. Wilkins, Garrett and Jack Wylie were all members of the Secret Service back in the early sixties, sharp kids straight out of law school looking for something extra on their curriculum vitae. Leo Grace wasn't, but he was one of their circle; they all knew him because they all played on the president's Sunday football team, and so did Leo. According to Sarah he was the only guy there who wasn't in the Service.

'When Leo left Washington, eventual y, they gave him a footbal, signed by the Man and al the guys. That's been stolen from the house up here. So have two photographs of the squad.'

'Shit!' Doherty squealed.

'Aye. Anyhow, he settles in Buffalo, and a few years later he invites Jackson Wylie into his firm. They all live happily ever after. There's no mention ofGarrett or Wilkins, and no contact we know of, either through the law, or through their shared political interests. Then last January, out of the blue, Wylie tells his secretary that he and Leo Grace… who hasn't shot anything since Korea… are going to kill deer in the Appalachians. This is peculiar also, since Leo doesn't own a rifle.

'I'd like to know who else went on that trip, and where exactly they went. I'd like to know also about the purchase by one of the four, somewhere, of three, possibly four, identical Apple Mac iBook laptop computers. Most of all, I'd like to see the Secret Service duty rosters for November 22, 1963; it would be interesting to know whether Wylie, Garrett and Wilkins were on duty that day.'

'Why, for God's sake?'

'The only time Leo ever talked to Sarah about those sixties years, he referred to "them" shooting the president. Sure, I know it's just a word, but Leo weighed every word he used. Joe, when all else fails, I go by hunches. In this case, my nose tells me that these three guys either knew who killed the president, or… they did it themselves.'

Doherty sighed. 'I don't know if I want to hear this, Bob. If you're crazy, I'm crazy for listening to you. And if you're right… I'm stil crazy for listening to you.' He paused. 'But what about Leo? How did he know?'

'My guess is that Jack Wylie told him at some point; maybe not that he'd done it, but that there had been a plot and he knew who was involved. I guess too that with old age looming, and al it brings with it, the three of them, Wylie, Garrett and Wilkins, may have decided that at the very least they had to make a record of the truth. But they needed someone else, someone from that time who could vouch for them al; so Wylie approached Leo.

'They met up, in the Appalachians or wherever… and from that point they were done. I'll bet you, Joe, that these guys have been watched, from the day they left the Service.'

'Watched? By who?'

'By whoever set up the assassination. The CIA, the Mafia, another agency, I don't know; but they've been keeping tabs on these guys for the last thirty years and more.'

'Why not kil them back then?'

'Then kil the guys who killed them? Where would it end? How long before the last gullible American died and there was no one left to believe that Oswald did it? No, you don't take that risk til you have to.

But when those three guys, plus Leo Grace, the president's friend, got together, that time had come.

'They must have realised the danger, though; or at least Leo must have. Straight after that trip in January, he went out and bought those two automatics.'

There was a long silence. Skinner let it run its course. 'Kosinski,' said Doherty, after ful y two minutes. 'If it was Kosinski, why him, why someone in the Bureau?'

'Deniability. The organisation that planned or commissioned the hit wouldn't, then or now, use someone who led back to its door. But like I said, it may not have been Kosinski. He may be dead himself. Wait till they dig the bullet out of Wilkins: see if it's FBI issue.'

'And if it isn't?'

'Then there's a fair chance it'll have come from a Glock 19. Leo's second gun is missing.'

'What will that tell us?'

'Fuck all, except that it'll mean Kosinski could still be in the game.'

'Jeez. So how dp we investigate all this?'

'You want to investigate it?'

'Sure as hell, I do. I guess I'd better brief the director, though.'

'Can you trust the director?'

'Bob!'

'Could you trust Kosinski?'

'Aw hell. Okay, what do I do?'

'Use Special Agent Brand. Have him go through the bank and credit card records of the other three guys. I have access to all Leo's stuff. See if they tell you where they were in January. See what they tell you about those laptops. That's al for now.'

'Okay, I'l do that, and I'l ask for a copy of the Wilkins autopsy report.'

'No. You do the Wilkins autopsy through your own people. You have the authority; father and son murdered in different states makes it your business, yes?'

'You're catching on. I'll get Chicago on to that; be back in touch.'

'What about the Secret Service rosters?'

'Now you are being crazy. That stuff's off limits.'

'Tell me, Joe, aren't all records in the US computerised by now?'

'Pretty much.'

'And is the Bureau the only law enforcement agency in the US that doesn't know how to hack into a computer?'

'Bob, you didn't say that. I could have you deported just for thinking it, never mind suggesting it to a federal civil servant. I'll call you.'

Skinner hung up. The coffee filter had completed its programme, and the jug lay steaming on the hotplate, but he had forgotten his task entirely.

'Honey?'

Sarah's voice from the kitchen doorway brought him back into contact with his surroundings. 'Yes, sorry.'

'Bob, are you al right? You didn't seem with it there, and it's not the first time it's happened since I've arrived. I'm getting worried about you.'

'I'm fine, honest. I just had a call from Joe, that's all; I got wrapped up in it. I'l bring the coffee through now.'

'Forget it,' she said, lightly. 'lan had to leave. We thought you'd gone to Colombia for the beans.' She walked across to the work surface and picked up a mug. 'I'l have one now, though. You?'

He shook his head; unusual y, he found that he had no taste for coffee.

'Did Joe speak to his agent?' asked Sarah.

Bob looked down at her. When they had been reconciled after their split, part of their deal had been that there were to be no secrets between them, none of any sort. Yet something held him back from answering, held him back from telling her the whole story of Arthur Wilkins' murder, on the heels of Kosinski's visit and Doherty's phone call. Instinct told him to protect her from that knowledge, to protect her from it all… yet he did not know why.

'Not yet,' he answered, and left it at that; better to be economical with the truth than to bend it.

Even as he spoke, he saw something on her face that told him that she had a preoccupation of her own. He said nothing, leaving her to spit it out in her own time. He had to wait for little more than a minute, 222 watching her as she sipped her coffee, holding the mug in both hands.

'Bob,' she began. 'Remember when I was over here with Jazz…'

'How could I forget?' he chuckled. 'Much as I'd like to.'

'Yeah, me too; but that won't happen. I'd just hoped that it would al stay in the past.'

His smile turned into a frown. 'Yes?'

'The guy,' she said quietly, 'the man I had an affair with when we were apart.'

'The guy you worked beside in the hospital?'

'I didn't work beside him, exactly. He was a visiting consultant in another department; one that had nothing to do with me. But yes, the guy you mean, the guy I told you about; Terry. The thing is, he wants to meet me.'

'Does he now,' Bob murmured, his face unreadable.

'He cal ed Ian when he read about the murders. He knew that he and Babs are the best friends I have in Buffalo, and he asked Ian to pass on his condolences. He said also that he'd like to express them in person, if I'd be prepared to meet him.'

'And do you want to?'

'No, I don't; I hoped I'd never see him again. But…'

He held up a hand. 'Listen, Sarah,' he said, firmly. 'You told me about you and him; you hit me over the head with it, in fact. Yes, you told me why you let it happen: you did it to put us on an equal footing in the infidelity stakes, you said, and I've always forced myself to see it that way. Yet when you boil it al down, that's just an elegant way of saying that you did it to get even with me. To be dead honest, I wish you'd put it that way from the start.'

She looked away from him. 'If that's the way you want to see it, fine,' she snapped.

'Okay, let's cut away the soft words and tell the truth of it. You wrecked our marriage because you were wrapped up in your job and your obsessions, and eventual y, wrapped up in screwing your lady detective sergeant. You didn't have the guts to tel me that at the time though; you just froze me out of your life.

'So I came over here; I missed you every moment, waking and sleeping, and worse, my self-esteem was in pieces. Then someone took an interest in me. He wasn't pushy, he wasn't devious, he saw me as an attractive, unattached woman and he told me so. Better than that, he made me feel attractive again. When I slept with him, I had decided, more or less, to go back to Scotland, but yes, you're right, I did feel that it evened the score between us, whether you want to put it bluntly, or gently, as I tried to.

'But if you want it straight, here it is. I also felt that I owed him, for being there when you weren't, and for picking me up after you had knocked me down. I felt that it was right to give him something of me, and, truth be told, I wanted to. I hadn't had any for a while, since way before I left you, as you'll recall, and I was missing it, so why the hell not!'

'Just the once, you said,' Bob murmured.

'Just the once, I said, last time I saw him. The fact is, I thought about spending the whole night with him, but I'd have had to cal and tell my mom where I was. I felt guilty when I left him, knowing that I wasn't going to see him again, and knowing that I'd used him for mostly the wrong reasons. I've always felt sorry that I didn't say goodbye properly.'

He gave a short fierce laugh. 'Seems to me you couldn't have said it better!'

Sarah shot him a quick glance. 'Why? Do you feel the same about Leona McGrath?' She bit her lip almost as soon as she had said the words. 'Sorry. Cheap shot.'

'Yes, but so was mine.' He reached out, put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. 'Anyway, so what? Al that's in our past and we've owned up to it, both of us. Look, love, I'm not going to jeopardise what we've rebuilt by getting uptight over this. ..' He grinned at her.

'… Even if I've got double standards, just like most blokes, and regardless of what I've done myself, my natural instincts are to kick the shit out of anyone I catch screwing my wife.

'If you feel you need to see this guy Terry to sign off, so to speak, that's up to you. I don't want to know, and I sure as hell don't want to see him.

'Don't call him direct; contact him through lan, and arrange to meet him. Just don't do it anywhere that could compromise you, and don't do it in too public a place either; nowhere you could be seen and talked about.' He grinned, grudgingly, but to her enormous relief. 'Oh yes, and don't go kissing him goodbye again, either.'