Duty and Honor

2

Jack woke before dawn the next day, having slept fitfully. Even dozing, his mind had played and replayed the incident, half dream, half reality, but always ending the same way: the mugger dying and Jack feeling, what? Like he’d done something wrong?

He took another shower, mostly to reclean his wounds, stood under the cold water as long as he could stand it, then got dressed, put his previous night’s clothes in the washer, dumped in some bleach, and turned it on.

In the kitchen, he made a double espresso, downed it, set the machine back to standard coffee, then went to the sink, where he’d placed the mugger’s knife. He put it in the dishwasher, started a hot cycle, then walked into the living room and turned on the TV. He changed the channel to the local news. This early in the morning, hours before the morning shows, they were repeating stories frequently, so it didn’t take long:

“Police say a man was struck and killed by a vehicle on North Kings Highway near Telegraph Road last night shortly after eight p.m. He is yet to be identified. If you have any information, the police ask that you—”

Jack muted the television. “Unidentified,” Jack said. No mention of witnesses, which could mean something or nothing. If the figure at the guardrail had made a report, the police were just as likely to withhold the information until they could come at him with something solid. Especially someone named Jack Ryan.

For twenty minutes he paced and drank coffee, occasionally leaning over his laptop to scan online news sites for more information. There was nothing. He wanted to call someone, to confide in someone, but he resisted the impulse. He needed to think. Better still, he needed to do something.

With his mind only partially registering the pre-rush-hour traffic, Jack drove back to the Supermercado. The rain had stopped falling, but overhead, the clouds were still dark and swollen. Sidewalks and lawns were still wet, and potholes brimmed with water. Overhanging tree branches showing the first hint of green buds drooped under the weight of the moisture.

It was past seven, the sun just coming up, and an hour before the Supermercado opened. The parking lot appeared empty. Jack made a second pass, scanning for police cars. Seeing none, he made a U-turn, pulled into the lot, and parked in a stall close to the front doors. He climbed out.

With his breath steaming in the morning air, he walked to the spot beside the guardrail where he’d parked the previous night. He stopped and looked down the embankment.

Aside from a string of yellow police tape looped along the line of Jersey barriers at the bottom of the embankment, the scene seemed unremarkable. In his mind’s eye he’d imagined his fight with the mugger had churned the slope into a jumble of mud, grass, and shredded cedar brush. Beyond the barriers, cars on the Kings Highway streamed past at a steady pace.

Jack glanced around. The parking lot was still empty. He climbed over the guardrail and picked his way down the embankment until he reached the flat area alongside the barriers. It was a goulash of mud and patchy, green-yellow grass. On the other side of the barriers the passing cars’ tires sent up billowing mist.

Following his mental map, Jack found the barrier against which his attacker had fallen. He knelt before it. There was no trace of blood on the gray concrete. Either the rain or a first-responder fire truck had washed it away. Jack stood up and walked along the barriers, looking for any trace of what had happened the night before. There was nothing.

He headed back up the slope. Ten feet from the top, a flash of something caught the corner of his eye. He stopped, scanned the ground. Jutting from under a scrub brush beside his foot was the corner of a business card. Jack stooped over and picked it up. Not a business card, but a hotel key card.

“Hey, what’re you doing down there?” a voice barked.

Jack looked up and saw a man in a dark blue suit standing at the guardrail, one foot resting on the post. “What’s that?”

“I said, what’re you doing? Come here.” The man removed a wallet from his suit pocket and flopped it open, displaying what Jack guessed was an Alexandria Police Department investigator’s badge. “Come on, get up here.”

Shit. Jack took a breath, trying to slow his heart.

With the hotel key card palmed, Jack climbed the remaining distance, then stepped over the guardrail. He stuffed his hands into his anorak’s pockets. Under his right forearm he felt the reassuring bulge of his Glock 26 in its hip paddle holster.

“Take your hands out of your pockets,” the cop growled. He was in his mid-forties, stocky like a wrestler, with wavy red hair.

Jack did so and the cop gave Jack a practiced head-to-toe scan.

“What’s your name?”

“Jack Ryan.”

“ID.”

Jack pulled out his wallet and handed over his driver’s license. The cop studied it for five seconds, glancing from it to Jack’s face several times before nodding slowly. “Huh. Are you—”

“Yep,” Jack replied.

“Aren’t you supposed to have a Secret Service detail or something?”

“Officially, maybe, but I complained to their boss, so they gave me a pass.” Jack smiled.

The cop didn’t reciprocate. “What were you doing down there?”

Jack had been mulling this over in his mind. The odds were decent that sooner or later he was going to come into contact with the police over this. He wasn’t expecting it to be this soon, however. Had the witness come forward?

Jack hesitated, partially because he thought it would look right and partially because he’d started second-guessing his decision, then replied, “I was here last night.”

You’re committed now, Jack. Whether the lie he was about to tell was going to save him trouble or buy him more was yet to be seen.

The cop’s brows furrowed. He gave Jack the kind of hard-eyed stare that seemed to come standard-issue to all cops. “When it happened?”

“I think so.”

“Tell me. From the start.”

“I went to the gym—”

“Which one?”

“Malone’s, on Foundry, near the DMV.”

“Keep going,” the cop said.

“Then I came here for groceries. Must have been around eight.”

The cop held up his finger and glanced down at Jack’s driver’s license. “This address… that’s the Oronoco, right? Supermercado’s not exactly in your neighborhood, is it?”

“They have the best fruits and vegetables. So I paid and came out. It was raining.”

“About what time?”

“Eight-fifteen or so. I walked to my car and then heard—”

“Before or after you got in your car?” asked the cop.

“Before,” replied Jack. “There was a flyer or something stuck to my windshield. I grabbed it, then heard honking coming from down there. It sounded like a truck, an eighteen-wheeler.”

A flyer, Jack thought. The word caught in his head. Before he could think about it, the cop said, “Then what?”

“I put my grocery bag down—”

“Where?”

“On the hood of my car,” Jack said.

“Peppers and tomatoes?”

“What?”

“The responding officer found some peppers and tomatoes on the ground right about here.”

“Oh. Yeah, I was making chili. Anyway, I walked to the guardrail and looked down. I heard skidding, saw headlights, then heard a crash — I think.”

“You think?” the cop asked. “What’s that mean?”

“I mean it was raining and dark and I’m not sure what it was. It didn’t sound like your standard car crash. When I got up this morning I saw the news, about the guy that was hit, and put two and two together.”

“And then drove down here to… what? Render aid?”

Jack didn’t take the bait. For cops, biting sarcasm was often an effective interview tool, a way to put people on the defensive: Find an inconsistency, the scab of a guilty conscience, then pick at it and see what happens. It wasn’t personal.

Jack replied, “I don’t know why. Wish I did. Guilt, maybe. If what I saw was—”

“It probably was. Why didn’t you call it in?”

Jack shrugged. “I wish I had.”

The cop took this in, then nodded slowly. “Well, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He was dead on scene. Just parts. Did you know him?”

“I don’t know. Who was he?”

“We’re trying to figure that out.”

“What’d he look like?”

“You mean before?” the cop said with a grim smile.

“Yeah, before.”

“Tall, thin, white, mid-thirties.”

Jack shook his head. “Don’t think so. He didn’t have any ID? Nobody’s come forward?”

“Nope. So, tell me: What’s it like? The Oval Office, I mean.”

The question caught Jack off guard. Perhaps as planned. “Like you see in the pictures. I’m not there much anymore. Dinner once a week, parties here and there.”

“You don’t like being First Son?”

“It’s okay,” Jack replied. “I prefer my privacy. Luckily, I don’t go to bars, don’t forget to put on underwear, then get out of cabs in front of the paparazzi…”

The cop let out a belly laugh. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be a good look for you. Your mom as nice as she seems on TV?”

“Every bit of it,” Jack replied with a smile.

“So, tell me the truth. What were you really doing there? If it’s nothing too bad I can try to keep it under wraps.”

“I already told you. You think I’m lying?”

“I’ve been a cop for twelve years. I think everyone’s lying. Except for my dog. He never lies.”

Jack smiled. “Dogs are good like that. What’s your name?”

“Doug Butler.” He stuck out his hand.

Jack shook it. The motion set off a flash of pain in his shoulder blade.

Butler saw the wince: “You okay there?”

Jack nodded. “Weighted pull-ups. I’m starting to think I should give them up.”

“What, you’re into that CrossFit stuff?”

“No, just fighting the ticking clock. Listen, Officer Butler, I know it’s odd, me coming here. Even if I couldn’t have done anything for the guy, I should have called it in. I don’t know how to explain it.” This was the unvarnished truth.

“Nah, I get it. It’s a form of survivor’s guilt. You might not have actually seen it, but, in essence, you saw a guy die last night. That’s a hard thing.”

Jack resisted asking if there were any other witnesses. Cops had many different kinds of radar, including one for people who were too curious — or too helpful.

Butler said, “You know I’m going to need a statement, Jack.”

“I understand. Will it end up in the media? If so, I should probably let my dad’s press guy know.”

“Not likely. Just between us, the truck driver said the guy just stepped out of nowhere. Didn’t even look up. Probably never knew what happened. It’s not a bad way to go, all things considered.” Jack detected no facetiousness in the statement. Consciously or subconsciously, Butler had given a lot of thought to how people died. A cop thing.

“No idea who he was?”

“My guess is he was homeless, maybe high. It happens. Why he was walking around in the rain… who the hell knows.”

“Why are you out here? Investigating, I mean.”

“Standard practice for an unexplained death. We have to tick the boxes, make sure we don’t miss anything. Plus, we’re about five miles from the White House.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Nothing, forget it.”

Butler pulled a business card from his wallet. “Write your number on that.” Jack did so, then Butler handed him a second card along with his driver’s license. “I’ll call you this afternoon for that statement. Over the phone should be good enough.”

Jack was pulling into the Oronoco’s garage when his mind again looped back to the word flyer. He pulled into his parking spot, climbed out, then stood, hands in pockets, thinking.

“What is it?” he muttered.

It had been blank.

The flyer on his windshield had been a blank piece of copier paper.