Insatiable Appetites

31

Stone had just gotten into bed when his phone rang. He picked up the bedside handset. “Hello?”

“Mr. Barrington? You don’t know me. My name is Bruce Willard. Evan Hills gave me your number this afternoon.”

“I know who you are, Mr. Willard. Evan mentioned you.”

“I called the New York police and tried to find out what happened to him, but they wouldn’t talk to me, because I wasn’t a family member. Can you tell me what happened?”

Stone brought Willard up to date on the hit-and-run and subsequent events.

“Do you know what’s on the recording?”

“I haven’t listened to it yet, but I believe it was made at the meeting that Evan has been talking to Carla Fontana about.”

“Nothing else?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What will be done with the recording?”

“It will go to Carla, at the Times.”

“I’m supposed to have lunch with her tomorrow.”

“She’ll have the recording by that time.”

“I suppose Evan told you he was worried about those people coming after him.”

“He did tell me that, and I tried to ease his mind. That kind of thing happens only in the movies. American politicians don’t actually kill each other, though I’m sure there are times when they’d like to.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Willard said.

“Did Evan give you any details of exactly whom he was afraid of?”

“No, he was vague, he just referred to ‘them.’”

“A witness said on TV that Evan was jaywalking, so it could be an accident, and the driver just panicked. Often in these cases the driver will talk to the police later.”

“There was one name that Evan mentioned. He works at some lobbying firm in Washington, for several right-wing groups. His name is Creed Harker...” He spelled the name. “Evan said his specialty was dirty work.”

“Did he say what kind of dirty work?”

“Tampering with elections, character smears, taking pictures in bedrooms — creepy stuff. Evan thought he’d do anything he was paid to do.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“Evan once pointed him out to me in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown: very tall, wiry, bald as an egg, no eyebrows. He looks like a space alien in a bad movie.”

“Did Evan say anything else about him?”

“Just that he wouldn’t like to meet him in a dark alley.”

“Well, Mr. Willard, talk to Carla and keep reading the Times. They’re going to be writing a lot about this.”

“All right, Mr. Barrington. Thank you for your time.”

“And, Mr. Willard, I’m very sorry for your loss. He was a nice man.”

“He was a lot more than that, Mr. Barrington, but thank you for the sentiment.” Willard hung up.

Stone felt sorry for the man.

The following morning when Stone went down to his office, he found a thick envelope on his desk. Joan came in with some phone messages.

“Where’d this come from?” he asked, holding up the envelope.

“It was on the hall table in the waiting area,” she said. “Maybe Mr. Hills left it.”

Stone slit open the envelope and took out several pages. There was a letter on fine stationery, handwritten.

There was a mini-cassette enclosed and a check for $25,000, drawn on a Georgetown bank.

Stone read the will and the attached financial statement. He had left a dozen or so bequests to employees, congressional staff members, and arts organizations, and the remainder of his assets were left to Bruce Willard, of a Pennsylvania Avenue address in Georgetown.

Hills’s property included a house in Philadelphia, another in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a house in Georgetown, and three investment accounts showing cash and securities in excess of twenty million dollars. He had no debts older than thirty days, and the will was dated two days before.

Joan was still standing in the door. “Anything?”

“We have a new client,” he said, handing her everything but the mini-cassette. “He died yesterday, so start a file.” He held up the mini-cassette. “Duplicate this, and FedEx one of the copies to Carla Fontana, at the New York Times Washington bureau.”

“Got it,” Joan said, and left his office.