As far as murder went, she didn’t think about that long rainy night in July anymore. She’d been frightened for a few days, but then not. No cops came calling, no FBI. None of those people—the dead people—amounted to much, scratching around for their petty little retirements, playing with their guns. And the woman she shot? Well, she was just plain old.
There was nothing left of that night: the weapons, the ammo, the clothing, the witnesses, the victims—all gone forever.
She drifted toward the bay window that looked out over the garden. She could smell herself, the delicate scent of sweat and a hint of that morning’s Black Orchid. At the window, she looked over at the neighbor’s house. Only the peak of a gable was visible, with its single window, always, before tonight, totally dark. An attic, she’d thought. Tonight, there was a very faint light glowing in the window.
She was wondering about that when the 300-grain .338 slug ripped through her heart.
Grant felt no impact, no pain. She did feel herself falling, wondering for the seconds of the life remaining to her why that was. Then she was on the floor, her shoulder and head landing on a very fine Iranian carpet. The champagne flute landed on the same fine carpet, bounced once.
The last thing Grant registered was the flute, sparkling in the overhead lights, unbroken, elegant... innocent.
And she was gone.
—
LUCAS WAS IN HIS GARAGE,working with Sam, his son. It was time, he’d told Weather, to start teaching his kid some shit. He had two immediate projects in mind. One was cleaning up the engine on an elderly twenty-five-horsepower outboard motor, including the installation of new spark plugs. The other was the construction of a simple wooden box, which involved the use of a tape measure, a compact table saw, an electric drill, screws, a sander, and varnish. They’d decided to start with the box and had gone to a specialty lumber store, where they picked out some nice one-inch walnut planks.
When finished, the box would be given to Weather as storage for her piano sheet music. They’d measured and cut the first planks when she came to the door, and said, “Porter Smalls is calling. He said it’s important.”
Lucas took Sam inside with him, didn’t want him out there alone, maybe thinking about using the table saw to cut the planks himself.
He’d left his cell phone inside specifically to avoid calls. Weather handed it to him, and when he said, “Hello?” Smalls asked, “Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Somebody shot Taryn Grant last night. She’s dead as a doornail.”
“Hang on a second,” Lucas said. He turned to Weather, asked, “Could you get me a Diet Coke? This is gonna take a few minutes.”
“What happened?”
“Porter says somebody shot and killed Taryn Grant last night.”
“Oh my God,” she said, her voice hushed, and she went to get the Coke.
Lucas sat down, and said, “Tell me.”
—
SMALLS DIDN’T KNOWall the details, but he had friends in the Justice Department who’d leaked a few of them. At about eight-fifteen the night before, an elderly couple had been watching Anderson Cooper on CNN when a woman dressed all in black, wearing a black balaclava, sunglasses, and gloves, had appeared in their media room and pointed a gun at them. Because of the total body coverage, they couldn’t even tell the FBI what race she was. She’d told them that she didn’t want to rob them, or hurt them, but simply wanted to look out a window.
She’d marched them into a bathroom that faced the street, made them sit down on either side of the toilet, and had handcuffed them together with their arms wrapped around the toilet. She’d searched them for cell phones, found some newspapers and magazines, taken some bottles of water and a bottle opener, and a couple of pillows, and left them.
Some long time later, they’d heard a single rifle shot. The old man had been a hunter and knew a rifle shot when he heard one. The woman had come running down the stairs, opened the bathroom window, and told them, “If you yell for help in the morning, somebody will hear you.”
Nobody actually did, but they had a housekeeper who arrived at nine o’clock. She found them, called the cops. They told the cops about the single rifle shot; the cops were horrified to learn that Senator Taryn Grant lived next door.
“They went over and pounded on the door,” Smalls said, “theygot her chief of staff to come over with a key. They found her dead, on a very expensive Iranian carpet, shot once in the heart. That’s all I know.”
“Wonder if it was somebody from Heracles?” Lucas asked.
“No idea. But it was a professional hit, no doubt about that.”
—
LUCAS HAD PUTthe cell phone in his pocket, he and Sam were back in the garage, with Weather closely watching Sam operate the table saw, when he felt the phone vibrating.
Jane Chase: “Have you heard?”
