The Death Trust

THIRTEEN

I followed the voices inside the house. The entry hall behind the front door was lined with polished wood panels the color and texture of desiccated cockroach. Portraits of old men and dreary landscapes painted in oils hung on the walls. If this was how the other half lived, they could have it. My one-room apartment back in Brandywine wasn’t much, but at least it had a pulse.

I caught up with the widow and Special Agent Masters in what I took to be General Scott’s study. The room was paneled in more dark wood, and books stocked the shelves from chest height to ceiling across three walls. Like most military pilots, General Scott also had mementos of his years flying — the ubiquitous helmet and oxygen mask, and a model of the aircraft in which he’d made his combat reputation, the Douglas Skyraider. His desk was a dark mahogany number, the color of molasses. There were several photos of Peyton, photos I was now familiar with, framed on the desk and on the bookshelves. I ran my eyes across the general’s library and noted the consistent theme.

Mrs. Scott wore a black dress shrink-wrapped onto her little chicken bones, and black shoes. Her blond hair had been worked into a tight coif on top of her head, with not a strand loose. The makeup was heavy, with dark liner circling her pale gray eyes, brown lipstick, and she smelled of foundation cream, perfume, whiskey, and stale cigarettes. The overall effect was grim. She appeared to be in a mood. This wasn’t something that could be interpreted from her features, for they were as empty and unruffled as a body of water in a vacuum. On the moon, say. But her tone betrayed her. “I was just telling your partner that I don’t appreciate the invasion of privacy,” she said, the powdered wattle of loose skin under her neck vibrating, reminding me of an aging turkey. “And who said you could just walk into my home?”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” I said. “The door was ajar and I thought you left it that way for me. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I didn’t. Now, what do you want? Your partner doesn’t seem able to get the hint. I have a funeral to prepare for.” She fixed me with those gray lidless eyes of hers: It was vaguely like being struck with an ice pick.

“Yes, Mrs. Scott. This is an awful day for you and I’m sorry we have to intrude on it,” I said in full reverse, beeping furiously. “But, as you know, your husband was a very important man. Washington wants to know why he was murdered, in case there are national security issues.”

“Don’t presume to tell me what Washington wants, Major,” said Harmony, alluding to her family’s position of power. “And my husband wasn’t murdered. He killed himself.”

“Killed himself? Why wou—”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about Abraham Scott. Did you know that he was having an affair, Special Agent? A tawdry affair with some slut he kept in a hotel room on the other side of town?”

She knows? “An affair—”

“If you’re going to keep repeating everything I say…”

My jacket covered my name tag. “Special Agent Vincent Cooper, ma’am.”

“…then this conversation will be even longer and more tedious than it otherwise would be. It’s obvious. Abraham killed himself because he couldn’t go on without our son, Peyton. The two were very close. We were all close. Until Peyton was killed in Iraq. You do know about that, at least?” she asked with a frigid smile of condescension.

“Yes.”

“Your assistant here — or are you her assistant…?”

“We’re a team.”

Masters nodded.

“How nice. Well, this other major informed me yesterday that Abraham’s glider had been sabotaged.”

“That’s right. We believe—”

“Well, I can’t tell you how many times Abraham told me he had no intention of dying of old age pushing around a walker. He wanted to end it in that glider. Said so many times. It’s obvious he fixed the plane himself to make that happen.”

“Are you sure, ma’am? Suicide?” Masters and I exchanged a glance.

“I knew my husband. That’s what happens after twenty-four years of marriage — you get to know someone. How well do you know him?”

Having met Harmony Scott twice now, what I couldn’t understand was why General Scott hadn’t killed himself sooner. “Not very well, ma’am.” The lady was a bully, just like her dear old dad, Vice President Toe Cutter. “Did your husband know you knew about his affair?”

“If he did, he never mentioned it,” replied Mrs. Scott. “It’s not the sort of thing a husband talks about with his wife. Not among people of my generation, at any rate.”

“Then if he didn’t tell you, how did you know about it?” asked Masters, tag-teaming.

“Because, as I said, after twenty-four years of marriage, you know.”

“And knowing about it, or sensing it — did that change your relationship with the general?” Masters continued fearlessly.

Harmony turned her ice picks on Masters and I could see my partner shift uneasily as they hacked into her. It was a tough question. It contained the hint that we were sniffing around for a motive for murder, and that the dead man’s wife might possibly be considered a suspect.

“What in hell’s name are you insinuating?” she asked, her voice going up in volume and pitch like a ripsaw biting into a nail hidden in the wood.

“Mrs. Scott, did your husband ever talk to you about a second autopsy performed on your son?” I intervened, changing tack and sparing Masters a mauling.

“What? No,” said Harmony, diverted.

“He never mentioned it?”

“Never.”

“Well, thank you for your time, Mrs. Scott,” I said. “We’re sorry to bother you.”

Her lips pursed and she walked out of the study and down the hallway toward the front door, which was framed by bloodred light streaming through stained-glass windows. We were expected to follow. Harmony Scott opened the door and became a black silhouette against the daylight pouring in, and, from the set of her body — one hand on the bone of her hip — an impatient one. I made my way quickly down the hall, overtaking Masters, not because I was keen to comply with Harmony Scott’s body language, but because of General Scott’s cell in my pocket. It was ringing, vibrating against my leg with an incoming call.

The door banged shut behind us as I fumbled with the phone. The number on its screen I recognized as the one previously captured by the cell, the number for a landline in Kaiserslautern. As I put it to my ear Masters raised her eyebrows at me as if to ask, “Is that Scott’s phone?”

I nodded. “Hello? Morgen? Ja?” I said, covering all the bases.

Silence.

“Hello?”

More silence.

“Hello!” I took the question out of my voice and replaced it with a demand. The caller was still there, trying to decide whether to hang up or answer. Mine was obviously not the voice the person on the other end of the line expected to hear. I decided to gamble. “This is Special Agent Cooper. Your phone number has been previously logged on this cell and a police car is right now on the way to your front door. It will be there within three minutes.”

I hoped the caller had seen enough police television shows to believe this bullshit.

More silence and then, suddenly, “Hello.” It was a woman’s voice, uncertain, reluctant.

“Who are you? What is your name?” I didn’t for a second think these questions would be answered, but then the woman said, “Varvara. My name is Varvara Kadyrov.”