Cold Pursuit

Nineteen

“You’re playing with fire,” Moose said in that way he had-direct, sardonic, insightful. He stood next to Grit on a narrow, curving Georgetown side street. It was another warm, gloomy November afternoon inside the Beltway of the nation’s capital.

Grit nodded. “I know. My left shoe feels like it’s on too tight. The right one-the one with a real foot in it-feels fine. I fell in the shower this morning. I have 877 PT appointments coming up. Myrtle’s right. Life sucks.”

“One day at a time, my friend.”

“Scares me when you’re nice. It must mean I’m even more pathetic than I think I am.”

“Long day.”

“Yeah. And it’s only half over.”

Grit had been talking to people who didn’t necessarily like to be talked to. He’d gotten kicked out of a few offices and buildings, but he didn’t really care.

When he glanced to his left again, a compact, buff man with classic good looks had taken Moose’s place on the Georgetown street. Early forties, Grit decided. Fed of some kind. Just a question of which kind. Probably Secret Service, since one of the places Grit had been that morning was Jo Harper’s office. He’d been politely kicked out.

His cell phone trilled.

The fed gave a slight incline of his head. “Go ahead. Answer it.”

Grit did, and a kid’s voice said, “Ask Myrtle Smith about the Russian diplomat killed in London in August. He was poisoned.”

It had to be Charlie Neal. “How did-”

“I can’t talk. I have to take a calculus test in a few minutes. I know you and Ms. Smith are investigating Ambassador Bruni’s murder.”

“And you know this how?”

“Sergeant Cameron told me.”

“Bet he didn’t. And my cell-phone number? How did you get it?”

“My sister Marissa was almost killed two months ago,” Charlie said in a near whisper. “Jo saved her life. Special Agent Harper, I mean.”

Grit was very aware of the armed, ass-kicking federal agent standing next to him. “I haven’t heard about-”

“You wouldn’t,” Charlie said knowledgeably, then added, “Supposedly it was an accident. I don’t think so.”

“You’re not a detective, are you?”

“The Russian, though. That was flat-out murder.”

“Hang up. Go take your test and relax. Let people do their jobs. Got it?”

“Sure, sure. You’ll ask Myrtle?”

Charlie Neal hung up before Grit could answer. He flipped his cell phone shut and smiled innocently at the fed next to him. “All done.”

“I’m Deputy Special Agent in Charge Mark Francona,” the fed said. “Jo Harper’s boss. This is the building where she lives. Who are you?”

Grit could tell Francona already knew. “Her boyfriend.”

“Wrong.”

“I’m too cute for her?”

Francona waited.

“Ryan Taylor, sir.”

“You talked to some of my people earlier, Petty Officer Taylor.”

“I’ve been given an impossible mission.”

“You SEALs thrive on impossible missions.” Francona nodded to the ivy-covered brick building. “She has the ground-level apartment. She objects if anyone says it’s the basement. I guess there’s a difference. An old guy from her hometown stopped by to see her in the spring. They went and looked at the cherry blossoms together.”

“Must be something. The cherry blossoms.”

“You’ve never seen them?”

“No, sir. I arrived here after they’d bloomed.”

Francona’s expression tightened. “I’m sorry about your leg, Petty Officer Taylor. And I’m sorry about Petty Officer Ferrerra.” He spoke crisply, with sincerity but no pity. “I want to thank you for your service.”

“A privilege to serve, sir.” Grit had to work at keeping any sorrow and self-pity out of his voice. It’d be easier if his leg didn’t hurt. If Moose would quit bugging him. If Charlie Neal hadn’t called and Alexander Bruni hadn’t been killed and Myrtle was being straight with him. And if it wasn’t November in Washington. “Drew Cameron was the name of the old guy. But you know that, right?”

“He died two weeks later on a mountain in Vermont.”

“Ever been to Vermont?”

Irritation flickered across Francona’s face. “No.”

“Me, neither. I’m a Southern boy. My family makes the best tupelo honey-”

“Drew Cameron’s son Elijah is a decorated Green Beret. Master sergeant. He was almost killed in April.” A half beat’s pause for the fed’s eyes to narrow. “So were you.”

“He’s army. I’m navy.” Grit kept his voice even. “We did some stuff together. Went through a bad night together. That’s it. It’s got nothing to do with why you and I are standing here.”

“You, Elijah Cameron and Special Agent Harper want to know if there’s a connection between the death of Elijah’s father in April and the hit-and-run that killed Alexander Bruni yesterday.”

“Is there?”

Francona didn’t answer, instead nodded to Harper’s apartment. “You’d think a Vermonter would have greenery in her window, wouldn’t you?” He glanced at Grit. “What’s Jo to Elijah Cameron?”

Jo this time. Not Special Agent Harper. “The girl who got away. He has amends to make to her. He knows it, and so does she.”

“Does she have amends to make to anyone?”

“Herself.”

“For not following him into the army,” Francona said.

“That’s in her file, or are you guessing?”

“I don’t guess. I also don’t believe anything happens because it’s meant to. I believe in cause and effect.”

“You wouldn’t want to tell me what went on with Marissa Neal two months ago, would you?” Grit knew it was the sort of statement that could get him thrown behind bars somewhere, but he didn’t care.

Francona regarded him through half-closed eyes. “People tell you things, don’t they, Petty Officer Taylor?”

“You’re not. I checked out Marissa on the Internet after I saw Special Agent Harper’s video. Think she would go to a movie with a sailor?”

Francona didn’t seem to consider that funny. “Going to tell me who called you just now?”

Grit figured Charlie wouldn’t make it through calculus class if he ratted him out, and he had a test to take. “No.”

“Stay in touch,” Francona said, and walked away.

Thirty minutes later, Grit met Myrtle at a popular restaurant near the White House. He sat across from her in a dark wood booth with comfortable red-cushioned seats. She’d called right after Francona had left saying she had a hankering for crab cakes. She already had a glass of iced tea in front of her and had put in her order, but she clearly wasn’t in a good mood. “I’ve been turning over rocks all over town. You didn’t tell me Bruni’s stepdaughter is in the same town where Jo Harper is from,” she said. “Harper’s there now. Did you see her video?”

“Kid’s lucky she didn’t shoot him for real.”

“Is she in Vermont because of Bruni’s murder?”

“He was killed after she arrived.”

“If she’s undercover-”

“She’d have found an easier way to get sent home besides getting shot in the ass by a hundred airsoft pellets, never mind what she said about the veep’s kid.” He wasn’t getting into his or Elijah’s conversations with Charlie Neal. Myrtle was still a reporter, and Grit figured she was on a need-to-know basis.

She picked up her tea. It didn’t look as if it had alcohol in it, but Grit couldn’t know for sure. “Fair point,” she said, “but if there’s anything going on in Black Falls, Harper will run into it. She’s the type. She’s the one who got you involved in this?”

“I’ve never met her.”

There was a moment’s silence as Myrtle drank some of her tea and set the glass down as a waiter appeared. “What do you want to eat?” she asked Grit.

“Nothing.”

She looked at the waiter. “Bring him some crab cakes.” He retreated, obviously wanting to please Myrtle more than Grit, and she tapped two fingers on the table. “I can waste time scratching the itch, Grit, or you can just tell me. Who has you looking into the death of a prominent ambassador?”

He thought of about twenty things he could to do shut her up, then said, “A friend of mine. You’re going to want a name, aren’t you?”

“Not ‘going to.’ Do.”

Grit debated. He didn’t need Myrtle spinning her wheels figuring out Elijah’s name. “Elijah Cameron. This is off the record.”

“What’ll he do if I print his name, hunt me down?”

It was Grit’s turn to be silent.

Myrtle sighed. “You guys. Harper and Cameron?”

“Love-hate thing since preschool.”

“Yin-yang. Okay. Anything going on up there?”

“Alex Bruni’s stepdaughter took off into the mountains after she learned about her stepfather’s death.”

“I don’t like that,” Myrtle said.

“You got kids?”

“Why are you asking, Grit?”

“I just wondered if you and the dead Russian in London got it on-”

“You bastard.” She didn’t raise her voice. “I’m a split second from throwing my drink in your face.”

“Question asked and answered. Want to tell me about him?”

“No.”

“He had enemies?”

Her crab cakes arrived. Grit’s would be a minute. Myrtle dug in, ignoring him.

He settled back against the comfortable booth. “We all have enemies, Myrtle, but not all of us have enemies willing to hire assassins to poison our soup.”

“It was his toothpaste,” she said. “The poison was in his toothpaste.”

“He didn’t notice?”

“He didn’t have a chance. It was a fast death.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. I don’t know what kind of poison. Getting anything out of the Brits is next to impossible.”

Grit considered a half-dozen options for a fast death by poisoned toothpaste. Most were ones Myrtle probably had considered herself by now. “So your interest in Bruni’s murder isn’t professional.”

“No, Grit. It’s not. I don’t give a flying rip if I ever write this story or get paid for uncovering whoever these assassins are. I’m freelancing these days. I don’t answer to anyone but myself. If there are paid killers out there, I want them found. That’s it. Then I’m done.”

The waiter brought Grit’s crab cakes. He wasn’t hungry, but Myrtle stuck her fork out at him and told him to eat up.

He saw that she’d cleaned her plate. “Like those crab cakes, do you?”

“I didn’t even taste them.”

“You can have mine.”

She shook her head. “No. Eat. Your pants hang on your ass. You need to put on some weight.”

Grit knew he wasn’t getting out of there alive if he didn’t eat. He picked up his fork and had a bite. “Ever have tupelo honey, Myrtle?”

“Honey’s honey.”

“No, it isn’t. True tupelo honey is the only honey that doesn’t crystallize. It’s produced from the tupelo gum tree that grows in the river swamps of northwest Florida.” He set down his fork. Half a crab cake would have to satisfy her. “Come on. Walk with me to the White House. Tell me what it was like when it was being built. You remember, right?”

“You’re a jerk, Grit.”

Moose materialized next to him and laughed. “Old Myrtle’s got your number.”

Grit ignored him and walked out into the late-autumn gloom of Washington. He wanted to take off his fake leg and climb into bed with a fifth of scotch, but Myrtle paid their tab and joined him.

“Let’s go,” she said without looking at him.

Moose blew out a breath. “She’s hurting in ways you don’t understand and don’t want to know.”

“Aren’t we all?”

Grit walked easily, his prosthetic giving him no trouble. Not that walking was the same as before that bad night in April. Not that anything was the same.

He stood with Myrtle at the tall, black-iron fence on Pennsylvania Avenue and looked out at the White House and its still lush green lawn. He thought about assassins and high-profile targets like Ambassador Alexander Bruni, and he remembered Elijah, covered in blood, those piercing blue eyes of his connecting with Grit’s just for an instant as he’d said, “If I don’t make it, tell Jo it wasn’t her fault.” He’d tied on his tourniquet. “Tell her I loved her.”

Jo Harper.

Definitely the girl who got away.

“The girl Cameron let get away,” Moose said.

“Yeah,” Grit said. “Well. Those things happen.”

Myrtle looked at him, the lashes of her lavender eyes glistening with tears, but she said nothing.