They walked around the Escalade, looking at the damage, which was worse than Lucas had imagined it. The truck had probably sustained fifteen or twenty separate impacts, both sides, the front and the back, even the roof, had taken a pounding. The left front wheel had folded under the truck, with the frame sitting on the side of the tire, and the driver’s-side window had been smashed entirely out of its frame. All the rest of the glass was cracked, including the glass in the mirrors, as well as the head- and taillights.
Lucas checked the side, where there were four wide marks that looked like they could have been made by trees. Armstrong said, pointing them out, “We took biological samples off here... and we matched them to the trees down the hill. The bark is right.”
Lucas walked to the Evoque, got the Sony camera, and took several shots of the Cadillac’s driver’s side.
“All right,” he said after a few more minutes, brushing a fly away from his face, “I’m done here. Thank you both. Carl, you see or hear anything more, or figure anything out, call me. About anything, no matter how small, anytime.”
Lucas gave Armstrong a card with his cell phone number on it, they shook hands, and Lucas headed back to Washington. He was sure he was imagining it, but the stink of the rotting blood seemed to cling to his clothing, maybe permanently. He pushed a few buttons until he found the one for the sunroof, opened it wide, and breathed in all the great weed- and flower-scented country air.
5
Lucas checked into the Watergate Hotel because Smalls owned a condo in one of the Watergate complex buildings and Kitten Carter had an apartment in another. The hotel was okay, if a little heavy on the sixties décor in the lobby. Lucas got a small suite, jumped in the shower, brushed his teeth, put on slacks, a pink golf shirt, and a blue jacket, and called Carter.
“Are you available?” he asked when she’d answered the phone and he’d identified himself.
“I am,” she said.
“You want to come to me or should I come to you?”
“I could meet you in the hotel restaurant in twenty minutes. Should be fairly quiet tonight.” Her contralto voice had a slight growl to it.
“That’ll work,” Lucas said.
“How will I know you?” she asked.
“I’ll be the guy in the blue jacket and pink golf shirt. Probably not too many of those.”
“Not with a gun under the jacket.”
—
LUCAS DID HAVE A GUNunder his jacket, a new one, a Walther PPQ, the same .40 S&W caliber as the Glock pistols issued to most U.S.Marshals. Lucas had one of those, too, but didn’t like it and didn’t carry it. He’d begun to carry the new pistol on his left hip, in a cross-draw position, which made it easier to get at and less obvious than the .45 he’d carried for most of his career.
When he was checking into the hotel, he’d been eye-checked by a security man in a gray suit. Lucas nodded at him, and, after he got his keys, walked over with his badge and ID case. “Just so you know,” he said.
“I suspected, but thank you,” the security guy said. “You gonna be here long?”
“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “I’m working.”
“I’ll pass the word to our other security people. Nobody will bother you.”
Lucas patted his shoulder, and took the elevator up.
—
LATER, IN THE RESTAURANT,Lucas got a table for two, a beer and a bowl of nuts, and had been waiting for five minutes when Carter showed up. She was a short bottle-blond woman with arched thin black eyebrows who looked like she might work hard to avoid anything resembling a gym. She was in her mid-thirties, Lucas thought, and was wearing a jade-green dress with open-toed leather sandals. She spotted Lucas, twiddled her fingers at him, walked over, and took the chair opposite him.
“Beer guy, huh?” She had a soft Southern accent.
“Yeah... hot day.”
She ordered a dirty martini with three olives, and, when the waiter was gone, asked, “Well, do you believe Senator Smalls?”
“Yes. He has no reason to lie to me. I believe he’d be reluctant to see me investigating something he was lying about.”
“Ooo,” she said. “Youdohave a good opinion of yourself.”
Lucas shrugged, and said, “I get things done. That’s why the senator invited me in.”
