Abandon

Twenty-Five

Mackenzie had her own key to Bernadette’s house off Embassy Row. She’d had it since college, when Bernadette had given it to her before setting off on a six-week trip to Asia. “Come when you want. Just no wild parties.” As if bookish Mackenzie were known for wild parties.

When no one answered the door, she let herself in, announcing her presence. “Hello – anyone home? It’s Mackenzie.”

Thunder rumbled, and with the darkened sky, the light in the house was more like dusk than late morning. Before she’d left for the lake, Bernadette had obviously turned down the air-conditioning. Never mind Cal, Mackenzie thought. Of course, he could always turn it up, but he’d notice the gesture – the reminder that it wasn’t his house and he was no longer welcome there.

As generous as Bernadette was, she was not a pushover.

Mackenzie made her way to the guest suite on the first floor. The door was unlocked and the drapes were still shut. “Cal?” she called, just in case.

The covers were pulled back and half on the floor, as if he’d passed a bad night. She checked the bathroom. Towels on the floor, shaving materials scattered around the sink. The mirror was splattered with dried soap. Would he clean up before he moved out? Or just leave the place a mess as a final thumb-in-the-eye for Bernadette?

The two of them, Mackenzie thought. Bernadette was a role model in so many ways, but not so much when it came to relationships. She volleyed between being too forgiving and too unforgiving, confusing herself and the men in her life. She’d never found anyone who really understood her – her keen intelligence, her drive, her generosity, her contradictory nature. But she never expected to, either.

Mackenzie saw nothing in Cal’s room that suggested he was the victim or perpetrator of blackmail, or knew where Harris Mayer or her attacker were. Nothing that suggested he was in any trouble at all. From his living quarters, Mackenzie could see a man in a hurry, perhaps. And agitated. He was a busy attorney in the midst of moving, and he had her on his case about his brunette at the lake.

She ventured into Bernadette’s study. Forbidden territory. Bernadette hated anyone trespassing in her space, but not so much that she kept the door locked. Files, yes. Her computer was password protected, but Mackenzie checked just to be sure. No sensitive files related to Bernadette’s work as a U.S. district court judge were out in the open.

Was she a victim of blackmail?

Not a perpetrator, Mackenzie thought. That was beyond the realm of possibility. Bernadette was in the position to know other people’s secrets, but she didn’t have the temperament – or the skill – to act on them for her own profit.

And what would she have to hide?

Her friendship with Harris was out in the open. She’d had little to do with him in the five years since his public disgrace, but she hadn’t abandoned him entirely. Since he’d gone to the FBI, the blackmail, extortion, fraud and whatever else he’d been whispering about to Rook had a federal interest. Harris was a former judge. He would know. He wouldn’t need Bernadette’s advice. But he would want it anyway.

“Breaking and entering, Mac?”

She spun around at Rook’s voice. He was leaning in the study door, as if he’d been there awhile, his dark eyes leveled on her. She shrugged. “I’m here to feed the cat.”

“There is no cat.”

“I could have sworn Bernadette said she’d gotten a cat. I have a key.” She held it up for him to see. “We seem to be on the same wavelength this morning.”

“I stopped to see if Cal was here.”

“He’s not. Did you check his office?”

“He didn’t go in. He told his assistant he had a client emergency. He doesn’t answer his cell phone.”

“Is T.J. with you?”

“No.”

Rook’s mood was difficult to read. Mackenzie glanced around the study, which was dominated by Bernadette’s surprisingly simple desk. She had an ergonomically correct chair and glass-front bookcases that ran along an entire wall. Law texts and art history picture books were shoved in among paperback Regency romances she read for relaxation, and bird books, hiking books.

Several photo albums were scattered on the floor in front of one of the bookcases. Mackenzie squatted down and opened one to pictures of Bernadette and Harris at the lake.

“Those were taken awhile ago,” Rook said, standing over Mackenzie.

She looked up at him. “You FBI types must get more training in being stealthy.”

“It’s not that difficult when someone’s preoccupied.”

“I remember this visit,” she said, pointing to the pictures. “It was the summer between my junior and senior years in college. I had a part-time internship at a local museum and a job cleaning rooms at one of the inns in town. Bernadette had my parents and me over for dinner, and I remember how fascinated I was listening to her and Harris talk. He’s a smart man.”

“Judge Peacham must have been devastated when he let it all get away from him.”

“She was.” Mackenzie shut the album and rose, feeling the stiffness of the healing cut in her side. So many questions would be answered by now if she’d been able to hang on to her attacker. “She worried he’d commit suicide in the beginning. I was here once when he called her. It was right after the scandal broke. I was in graduate school – I was down here for research, Harris was drunk, angry at himself at having been exposed. He couldn’t see that he’d done anything wrong, legally or ethically. Beanie convinced him to tell her where he was.”

“Where?”

“A rooming house. It was some kind of secret hideout for him. He’d go there and indulge his dark side, I guess. I went with Beanie to collect him. She dropped him off at his house in Georgetown and gave him an ultimatum – never again.”

Rook glanced down at the shut album. “Did she keep that promise?”

“As far as I know.” Mackenzie stepped past him, but turned as she reached the door. “Would you like to check out the rooming house? I hadn’t thought of it until now. I don’t know if Harris still uses it.”

“Can you find it?”

“I think so. If I can’t, I can call Beanie. She’ll remember where it is.”

Rook considered a moment. Outside, Bernadette’s tall shade trees swayed in the wind, and rain lashed the windows. Finally, he said, “We’ll take my car.”

Mackenzie nodded. “All right.” As she started out of the study, she smiled back at him. “Try not to let the cat out when we leave.”

She thought he might have cracked a smile, but she wasn’t sure, which, she realized, was part of the fun of being around him. But she couldn’t think in those terms right now. She had to focus on the job at hand.

“He took the place for a month.” The superintendent, a wiry, middle-aged man with sparse tufts of close-cropped hair, had led Rook and Mackenzie to an ell off the rundown building. “That’s the most he ever takes it for. He comes and goes. He don’t call himself Harris Mayer, though. Harry Morrison. Pays in cash.”

Rook stood on the sidewalk behind the super. The rain had stopped, but thunder still rumbled in the distance. “When did you see him last?”

“A week ago. Maybe more.” He stuck the key in the door, shook his head. “Hear that? Air-conditioning. He keeps it going full blast. His choice – he pays the bills.” He unlocked the door, pushed it open, then jumped back. “Oh. My goodness, my goodness.”

Rook drew his weapon and saw that Mackenzie had done the same. He instructed the superintendent to move back onto the sidewalk and gave the door a kick to open it wider.

The worn wood floor of a small entry was splattered with dried blood. It was plainly blood. Careful of where he stepped, Rook entered the studio, immediately recognizing a smell that air-conditioning couldn’t suppress.

He glanced at Mackenzie, right behind him. “Mac, this isn’t going to be good. You’ve never -”

“I’m okay, Rook.”

“You know Harris.”

A tightness around her eyes betrayed her emotion, but she gave a curt nod. “So do you. Let’s just do this.”

They moved into the adjoining room, the furnishings threadbare and cheap but serviceable. Ancient air conditioners in a front window and a window in the kitchenette clunked and groaned.

“There,” Mackenzie said, nodding to the floor in front of a shut door. “More blood.”

She stood to the side, and Rook pushed open the door.

The smell was worse. There was blood everywhere.

Harris Mayer was sprawled in the old bathtub, his body partially covered with a flowered shower curtain that had been ripped from the rod.

“Knife wounds,” Mackenzie said from the doorway.

Rook looked back at her. “They’re not self-inflicted. He’s been here awhile. Days, not hours.” He shook his head and grimaced. “Hell.”

She didn’t respond, just spun around without a word and bolted. Rook didn’t follow her and he couldn’t do anything for Harris. Whatever his flaws he hadn’t deserved this. Rook returned to the main room and checked the rear exit next to the kitchenette, but it was secure. He got out his cell phone and made the calls he needed to. The D.C. police. His superiors. T. J. Kowalski.

T.J. was to the point. “Mackenzie led you to him?”

“Just get here.”

“On my way.”

When Rook returned to the street, Mackenzie was talking to the superintendent. Her skin was grayish, but she was rallying after the shock of finding Harris. Already, he could hear a siren. Cruisers would arrive first, with D.C. detectives not far behind. Harris’s murder fell under their jurisdiction.

Rook stood close to Mackenzie. “Anyone you need to call?”

She nodded. He still had his phone out and handed it to her. Her hands shook slightly. “I got sick to my stomach,” she said as she dialed. “Bet I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been on antibiotics.” She cleared her throat. “Chief? Yeah, it’s me. It’s not a good scene here.” She’d called him on the way to the rooming house and now gave him the facts of what she and Rook had found. She spoke crisply, without emotion. But when she disconnected, she tilted her head back and exhaled at the sky. “I should have thought of this place sooner.”

A fresh breeze stirred, the storm quickly blowing out the heat and humidity – the stink of exhaust fumes, garbage and dog excrement. That no one had smelled the body in the studio wasn’t a huge surprise. And if someone had and not reported it? Again, no big surprise.

“I didn’t know,” the superintendent said, repeating his mantra about minding his own business.

“Did you see anyone with Mr. Mayer?” Rook asked.

“No, sir. I mind my own business.”

The first cruiser stopped in front of the building, with T.J. right behind it, his grim expression underlining the stark reality of the scene in the seedy studio. Rook had quickly adjusted his thinking. J. Harris Mayer, his would-be informant, wasn’t hiding at the beach. He was dead.