Lost Lake

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Ami was drinking a cup of coffee when Walsh and Kirkpatrick burst into the interrogation room where she had been waiting for the past half hour. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and looked like hell.

“Is Ryan safe?” she asked before they could say anything.

“He’s fine,” Walsh assured her. “I sent an extra car over there to be sure. Tell us what happened at your house.”

“The policemen who were guarding me are dead. I would be dead too if Carl hadn’t saved me.”

“Who is Carl?” Walsh asked.

“My client’s real name is Carl Rice, not Daniel Morelli. The woman who helped him escape is Vanessa Wingate. She’s the daughter of General Morris Wingate.”

“The Wingate who’s running for president of the United States?” Walsh asked.

Ami nodded.

“Holy shit.”

Brendan Kirkpatrick imagined the consequences to his career of issuing an APB for the daughter of a man who was the front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination.

“Okay, Ami,” he said. “Let’s start at the beginning. What does the daughter of a presidential candidate have to do with an itinerant carpenter who got into a fight at a Little League game?”

For the next half hour Ami told the prosecutor and the detective the stories Carl and Vanessa had told her. They both listened intently, and Walsh took notes. When Ami was almost finished an officer came into the interrogation room and started to speak to Walsh. The detective stopped him and they left the room. Moments later Walsh reentered the room. He looked concerned.

“The men I sent to your house just reported in. They found the officers. They’re dead. But there aren’t any other bodies at your house.”

Ami was stunned. “That’s impossible.”

“Did you see the men who murdered the officers?” Walsh asked.

“Weren’t you listening? One of them attacked me with a knife!”

“Calm down,” Kirkpatrick said.

“Do you think I’m lying? Do you think I made this up?”

“No one is accusing you of lying,” Kirkpatrick said. “It’s just that…Well, the whole story sounds…”

“Unbelievable?” Ami finished for him. “Don’t you think I know that?”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Ami used the moment to think.

“Vanessa was parked on a logging road behind my house when Carl saved me. After we got out of the house, Carl and Vanessa drove me here. While we were still on the logging road, men in another car attacked us. Carl shot the driver and they crashed. The car must not have been too badly damaged and they must have driven to my house and taken the bodies away.”

Before Kirkpatrick could respond, the door to the interrogation room opened and a large man with granite features walked in followed by two other men in crisp blue pinstripe suits.

“Who are you?” Kirkpatrick snapped.

“I’m Victor Hobson, the executive assistant director for law enforcement services at the FBI. These are agents McCollum and Haggard. I understand that you had Carl Rice in your custody and you let him escape. I’m here to help you get him back.”

Walsh and Kirkpatrick exchanged glances.

“How did you know our prisoner’s name was Carl Rice?” the DA asked.

“I’ve been hunting Rice since 1985. He’s wanted for the murders of United States Congressman Eric Glass and General Peter Rivera. The woman who helped him escape is probably Vanessa Kohler, General Morris Wingate’s daughter.”

“Mr. Hobson,” Kirkpatrick said, “I’ve got a question to ask you, but I’d like to hear what you can tell us about Rice and Vanessa Wingate first. Will you fill us in on what you know?”

“In 1985, Congressman Eric Glass was tortured and murdered in his summer home on Lost Lake, California. A deputy sheriff found Vanessa Wingate wandering around the grounds in a daze. She identified Carl Rice as the killer, but there was nothing beyond her statement connecting Rice to the crime. I was sent to investigate because the victim was a member of Congress. By the time I got to Lost Lake, General Wingate had taken his daughter out of the local hospital and had committed her to a private mental hospital. She was there for a year and the medical staff prevented me from talking to her during her stay.

“I learned that Rice had dated Ms. Wingate when they were in high school and had bumped into her again in Washington, D.C., a month or so before the congressman was killed. I also learned that Rice had recently been discharged from the military for psychiatric reasons. The prevailing theory is that if Rice murdered Glass, he did it out of jealousy.

“Several months after Eric Glass was murdered, General Peter Rivera was tortured and murdered in Maryland. The MO was identical to the method used in the Glass killing. Physical evidence at the scene of the Rivera murder linked Rice to the crime.

“I interviewed Ms. Wingate after her release from the hospital. She was estranged from her father and calling herself Vanessa Kohler. Kohler was her mother’s maiden name. Ms. Kohler confirmed that she saw Rice kill the congressman. She denied that she and Glass were lovers but refused to tell me why she was at Glass’s house.” He paused for a minute, then shrugged. “And that’s the sum total of my knowledge about the case. You said you had a question for me.”

“Mr. Hobson, did you ever hear that Carl Rice was a member of a secret army unit run by General Wingate?” Kirkpatrick asked.

“That’s what Vanessa claimed in an unpublished book she’s written, but Rice’s army records don’t support her accusations. From what I’ve learned Vanessa hates her father. She believes that he murdered her mother. She also believes that he killed John F. Kennedy.”

Kirkpatrick and Walsh stared at each other in disbelief.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” the prosecutor said.

“Then she’s nuts?” the detective added.

“Vanessa is a very troubled woman with a lot of odd ideas. She works for one of those supermarket tabloids that run stories on alien abductions and Elvis sightings.”

“We’ve just learned that Carl Rice claims that the Unit is real and that he worked in it for the General,” Walsh said.

“Yes, well, I’m inclined to think that we’re dealing with two mentally disturbed individuals who are feeding off each other’s fantasy. It’s even possible that Vanessa murdered the congressman and framed Rice for it.”

“Then why would he help Vanessa?” Ami asked.

“And you are?” Hobson asked.

“Ami Vergano. Carl was renting an apartment over my garage. He was helping out at my son’s Little League game when he hurt Barney Lutz and that officer.”

“Ms. Vergano is Rice’s lawyer,” Kirkpatrick added.

“I see,” Hobson said. “Well, Ms. Vergano, if Rice is crazy, and he’s in love with Vanessa Wingate, he might do anything.”

“Mr. Hobson,” Ami said, “a man broke into my house tonight. He murdered two policemen and tried to kill me. Carl saved me. Doesn’t that make you think that Carl and Vanessa might be telling the truth about the General and the Unit?”

“Morris Wingate’s company has its own security force. If the General thought that Rice was a danger to his daughter, he might have sent them after him.”

“But they killed the policemen.”

“Did you see them do that?” Walsh asked.

Ami paused. When she answered she was less sure of herself. “I saw Carl kill the man who broke into my room. He told me that the men had murdered my guards.”

“There you have it,” Hobson said. “Isn’t it possible that Rice killed the policemen and Wingate’s men arrived at your house shortly afterward? Rice could have ambushed them and told you that he saved you.”

“Look,” Walsh interrupted, “this speculation is getting us nowhere. It doesn’t matter whether or not this Unit exists. Rice broke out of jail and Vanessa Wingate helped him. They’re fugitives and they’re armed and dangerous. We need to arrest them. We can sort out these big issues once they’re locked up.”