Long Road to Mercy

Chapter 27

Kurt Ferris had also left his two-year-old Kia Soul for Pine to use. She knew he’d owned a decked-out Dodge Ram pickup with double rear wheels before coming to DC from the wilds of Fort Bragg, Texas. However, he’d found the Ram was too big to drive and park in the traffic- and space-challenged Ballston area, so he’d traded it in for the Kia. Pine knew the man wasn’t happy about it, because he’d told her he wasn’t. He said he felt like a wimp on wheels.

She was parked at the curb about five townhomes down from Ben Priest’s nineteenth-century row house on Lee Street in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. It was an upscale, historic area located along the Potomac River.

She’d Googled real estate in the area and had calculated that Priest’s home was worth north of two million.

She wondered what sort of work he had done to afford that sort of residence.

Like allowing a man to take his place on a mule ride down to the floor of the Grand Canyon and then disappear? Priest had mentioned “laundering” people, but she hadn’t believed him. Yet maybe she needed to think about that some more.

Priest had told her that he’d worked for American intelligence before hanging out his own shingle. If Pine could have used normal Bureau resources, she might have been able to do a far deeper dig on the man, finding out perhaps what agency he worked at, and what sort of work he did there. Yet Pine was doing something she should not be doing, so those official resources were not available.

She had watched the home for a while, and was convinced that Priest’s home was not under surveillance by anyone else.

This gave Pine an opening.

She had seen the woman before when she had gone out earlier. She lived in the row house next to Priest. In fact, the homes were attached. Pine had checked the backs of the houses. The backyards were separated only by a low-level fence. There might have been some interaction there.

The woman looked to be in her sixties, with thinning white hair styled in a way that indicated she had money and wasn’t adverse to pampering herself. This was also shown by her designer clothes and shoes and sunglasses. She was also tanned and fit, and she carried herself with the air of someone who had had the pleasure of giving orders rather than following them. This had been confirmed by what Pine assumed was the woman’s uniformed maid or housekeeper, who had been handed a cluster of bags from a late model burgundy Jag convertible parked in front of the woman’s house. The woman had then carried them inside.

From her perch and using binoculars, Pine had seen the names on the shopping bags: Gucci, Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Hermes. The hall of fame of fashion.

Pine had never owned a single thing from those brands. She was more of an Under Armour girl. Yet even if she had wanted to, she doubted she could afford anything they sold. She doubted she could afford the bags the stuff came in. And her physical dimensions did not meet high-fashion standards. She was big where societal norms told women to be small, and small where the ladies were supposed to be big.

As the woman turned and walked down the street, carefully navigating the lumpy laid brick pavers in her stilettos as she checked her phone, Pine got out of the Kia and strode down the street, paralleling the woman. She timed it so that they would intersect at the next block.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” said Pine.

The woman, jolted from her digital bubble, looked askance at Pine in her jeans and windbreaker and boots.

“Whatever you’re selling I don’t need,” she said immediately, in a deep, well-cultured voice.

“It’s not that.”

“And I don’t have any cash if you need a handout. Bye-bye.”

The woman proceeded on her way. Pine followed.

The woman stopped and held up her phone, which had a gold cover. “I will call the police if you don’t leave me alone.”

“I am the police,” said Pine, holding up her FBI shield.

The woman slowly lowered her phone. “You’re with the FBI? No way.”

“I really am.”

The woman ran her severe gaze over Pine and said, “You don’t look like you are.”

“That’s sort of the point when you’re on a stakeout.”

“You’re watching someone?” The woman looked horrified and then blurted out, “What’s Jeffrey done?”

“Jeffrey?”

“My husband. He’s a money manager. They’re always doing something illegal. He’s my second husband,” she added, as though that exonerated her from any associated liability she might have. A hand fluttered to her bosom. “Thank God I kept my assets separate. The little sneak.”

“I’m not here about Jeffrey. I’m here about your neighbor.”

“My neighbor? Which one?”

“Ben Priest.”

The woman gazed at Pine in a new light and then gave her a knowing look. “He’s an interesting fellow, that one.”

“What’s your name?”

“Melanie Renfro.”

“Have you lived in your house a long time?”

“Yes. Twenty years. Jeffrey moved in with me after we got married. He lived in DC. Capitol Hill. You couldn’t pay me to live there. Taxes are twice Virginia’s. It was either he moved here or there wasn’t going to be a marriage.”

“You want to grab some coffee?”

“That’s where I was going, actually.”

Pine followed Renfro into a coffee shop on King Street, the main avenue that bisected Old Town and ended at the Potomac River. They ordered, got their coffees, and headed back outside to sit in an enclosed area of tables. They were the only ones there, though people were passing them on the street. Mostly moms with strollers and some men and women in suits and carrying briefcases.

Renfro took a sip of her coffee and patted her lips with a paper napkin. “What has Ben done?”

“You said he was an interesting fellow?”

Renfro nodded and looked around as though they were in a movie and she was checking on eavesdroppers. When she caught Pine staring, she grinned and said, “This is so thrilling. The most exciting part of my day today was supposed to be a hair coloring and a waxing. This is so much better. And far less painful than a waxing.”

“Glad I could do that for you. So, Priest?”

“Right. He moved in about, oh, seven years ago. I was still married to Parker, he was my first husband. He died of a heart attack four years ago. I married Jeffrey two years later. Some of my friends thought it was too soon. But at my age, hey, you don’t know how much time you have left. Burn the candle to the end, right?”

“Right. So you knew Priest?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve had him over for dinners, cocktail parties, barbeques, that sort of thing. I have a wonderful caterer, if you ever need someone.”

“What was your impression of him?”

“Oh, that he’d been everywhere, done everything. Could talk eloquently about any number of subjects. He knew several languages. And he was tall and very handsome. I used to invite him because I knew he would be fascinating for the other guests and eye candy for some of my girlfriends. He would flirt with them, nothing serious, but they loved it. He seemed to know how to play a role, work a room.”

“Did he tell you what he did for a living?”

“He told me he’d taught over in England, Cambridge or Oxford, anyway, one of them. Then he’d made money in investments and traveled the world. I thought he was independently wealthy. He kept odd hours. Gone for long periods of time and then I’d see a cab dropping him off at two in the morning.”

“He never mentioned working for the government?”

“Look, if you are with the FBI, I want to help you. But, I really don’t know you at all. And these days fake badges and stuff can look really genuine.”

“Okay, I understand that. I’m looking for Ben Priest because he disappeared when he was in Arizona. That’s where I’m assigned.”

“Oh my God. Do you have any idea what happened to him?”

Pine pulled back her hair to reveal the wound she’d suffered when the Explorer had hit the tree.

“I was with him when he was abducted. I was almost killed, too. I don’t like it when people abduct other people. I like it even less when people try to kill me.”

The blood drained from Renfro’s face. “Oh my God, you poor thing.”

“So any help you can give me would be much appreciated.”

“Absolutely. With Ben my thought was, is he some sort of spy? I mean he’s obviously brilliant and knows all these languages. And he looks sort of like James Bond, right? I’ve seen him in a tux. God, if I were twenty years younger, I might make a run at him. Hell, ten years younger. Jeffery’s brilliant and makes a ton of money, but he’s the spitting image of Don Rickles.”

“Okay. Did he ever invite you to his place?”

Renfro looked puzzled. “Now that you mention it, no. Wait, I take that back. I’ve had drinks in his backyard.”

“But never in the house?”

“No. I guess I never thought about that. I mean, he was a guy. And I always liked to do the parties at my place. And maybe his house was a mess. He was a bachelor, after all.” She paused. “He was, wasn’t he? I never saw any women over there. Wait, is he gay? That would really depress four of my girlfriends. And me too, quite frankly.”

“Not that we know of. Anything he ever said that struck you as odd?”

Renfro drank her coffee and mulled over this query. “Odd how?”

“No particular way. Just your impression.”

“Well, there was something. I was having a dinner party outside. This was not that long ago.”

“Okay, what happened?”

“Well, Ben was his charming self, regaling the guests with some story about traveling overseas.”

“Did you catch where?”

“Not exactly. Let me think. He said something about inadvertently crossing a border and that he was lucky to get back unscathed.”

“Go on.”

“Now I remember. He said one of the Stans. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Stan who?”

“One of the Stans. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan. Used to be part of the Soviet Union. Central Asia.”

“Oh, right. I guess that does make sense. Hey, what can I say? I went to college to find a husband. Well, he said that the world really was unpredictable and you just never knew what was going to happen. I asked him if he was talking about anything specifically.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘I would have to wait and see.’ ”

“How did you take that?”

“Well, then he laughed and drank down his wine, pinched my arm in a playful way, and told me not to listen to him. That he was just kidding around. Too much booze. But the thing was the party hadn’t been going on that long. That was only his second glass.”

“Did you ever know him to do that before?”

“No, not really. I mean not in that way. He seemed, well, anxious. I remember catching a glimpse of him just staring off into space. He never did that before at my parties. He was always right in the center of things regaling people. It was odd.”

Pine next took out her phone and showed her the digital sketch that Jennifer Yazzie had done.

“Have you seen this man around before? With Priest?”

Renfro studied the picture. “You know, he does looks familiar.”

“How?”

Renfro leaned back in her chair and let the sunlight hit her face. “I’m not a good sleeper, never have been. My mother was an insomniac, and I’m convinced I got that from her.” She leaned forward and cupped her hands around her coffee.

“It was, oh, maybe one in the morning. I was upstairs. I’d just gotten back from the kitchen with a cup of tea. I was looking out the window onto the street. The moon was out and it was really as clear as day. A car pulled down the street and stopped in front of Ben’s house.”

“What kind of car? A cab?”

“No. It was a regular car. I guess these days it could have been an Uber or something like that. Anyway, a guy gets out. He goes around to the rear of the car. The driver had popped the trunk. He pulled out his bag. And when he did that, he sort of reflexively gazed up, and I got a real good look at him.” She tapped Pine’s phone. “And he looked a lot like that guy.”

“Did he go into Priest’s home?”

“The door opened. Someone was there. The man passed through and the door closed.”

“You think it was Priest?”

“I couldn’t see the person, really. But who else would it have been?”

“Did you ever see the man again?”

“No.”

“And when was this?”

“I can tell you exactly, because Jeffery was gone on a business trip. It was ten days ago.”

The woman glanced up at Pine, who was staring off.

“Does that help you?” asked Renfro.

“Yeah, it does.”

“If he is a spy, maybe, I don’t know, our enemies have him,” she said breathlessly.

Or we might have him, thought Pine.