A Slow Walk to Hell (17 page)

Enrique shook his head. “Mrs. Johnson didn’t know. Right about then, she figured she’d better not intrude. As she left, she heard Major Talbot’s response.”

His eyes again went to his notepad. This time he looked up before he related what he’d written down down.

“ ‘They’ll kill me, Father,’ ” he said. “She heard Major Talbot scream, ‘They’ll kill me, Father.’ ”

“Son of a bitch,” a voice said.

It was mine.

T
hat was it. That was all Mrs. Johnson heard. Just three short sentences. Still, it was enough.

We could cross off hate crime and put blackmail into the possible but unlikely category. More importantly, we had a source who could provide us the motive and possibly the killer’s identity. The question was whether Father Carlacci would tell us. Being a part-time Protestant, I had to ask.

“It depends,” Simon replied, “on whether Father Carlacci considered Talbot’s statements protected by the sanctity of the confessional.”

“Talbot’s dead,” Amanda said.

“Doesn’t matter.” He paused, thinking. “I only glanced at the address list briefly, but—Yes. I’m certain his name was there. There were two phone numbers listed beside it. Martin, did you leave the folder in the bedroom?”

“Give me a sec.” I stepped around him to go upstairs to retrieve it.

“That might not be necessary,” Simon said.

I pulled up. Simon was frowning, searching his mental hard drive for the image of the page. I told him I needed to get the folder anyway, so I could confront Sam with Talbot’s phone calls. When Simon didn’t reply, I continued up the stairs.

The folder was on the coffee table where I’d left it. I made a quick check for Father Carlacci’s name. It was there, along with the two phone numbers Simon had mentioned. The first was to the rectory where Carlacci resided, the second to his office. I searched for another name. Under Harris, five numbers were listed. Two were cellular, two were to their home, and one had no designation. Walking out, I plucked out the phone records and scanned the recent entries. The last call Talbot had made to the Harrises was two days ago, to one of the cell numbers—probably Mrs. Harris. It was a short call, under a minute.

Simon was right. From this, it appeared that Talbot couldn’t have told either Harris about the threatening message from Colonel Kelly.

However, he could have told a couple other people.

Talbot made several calls after receiving Colonel Kelly’s message; two last night and three today. One number I recognized. Talbot had called Sam’s home number last night and spoke for almost five minutes. Sam must have known about Kelly’s threat. He had to have known.

Shit.

Wedging the phone list in my jacket, I hustled down the stairs. By the time I rejoined everyone in the foyer, Simon was making a call. It’s a good thing, having a photographic memory.

Simon phoned the rectory first, got a machine. He left an urgent message for Carlacci, then tried his office. Another machine. After clicking off, Simon placed a third call.

As with Major Coller, Simon wasn’t taking any chances and ordered Arlington PD dispatch to send a patrol car to the church. Only this time, Simon wanted the officer to ring the doorbell of the rectory and make every attempt to awaken Father Carlacci, assuming he’d gone to bed.

“If he’s there, have the father call me immediately. If not, someone at the rectory should know where he is. Thank you, Dee Dee.”

Simon pocketed his phone, his expression troubled. I read his concerns and asked him why the killer would know about Carlacci. I added, “You think he could have been Talbot’s lover in the missing video?” This seemed pretty farfetched, but you never knew.

The Catholic in him appeared pained at his suggestion. “This has to do with the torture, Martin. From the beginning I’ve wondered about it. Why was it so prolonged and extensive?”

I hesitated, knowing this was too easy. “Obviously, Talbot resisted talking.”

“But why? What didn’t he want to reveal?”

Blank looks from Enrique and Amanda. I felt similarly puzzled. This was a question we’d already answered. Or thought we had.

I said, “The killer had to torture Talbot to obtain the security room combination and possibly the location of the videos—”

“Twenty-three,” Simon said.

I looked at him.

“Major Talbot was stabbed twenty-three times. Two of his fingers were crushed. Is it logical to believe he would have withstood such agony to protect the security room combination? Would you?”

“Well…probably not, but—”

I clammed up at Amanda’s sudden expression of horror. My eyes darted to Enrique. He’d gone pale.

At that instant, the realization hit me. “Oh, Christ…”

Simon nodded grimly.

An uneasy silence followed. None of us wanted to voice our acceptance of Simon’s premise and what it meant. But deep down, we knew it was true. It had to be true.

Talbot’s determination not to tell his killer what he wanted to know could only be described as heroic. His was in intense, unbearable pain. At some point, he realized he was going to die. Yet, cut after cut, he held out until his will was finally and inevitably broken.

No, it was ludicrous to believe Major Talbot suffered through such horror to keep from revealing the combination to the security room or even the location of the sex videos.

But if he was trying to protect friends…

Simon cleared his throat and we all focused on him. His expression was sad, almost mournful. “I pray I’m mistaken, but I don’t think I am. Depending on the number of people Talbot took into his confidence…”

“We’re talking about more bodies,” Amanda finished.

Simon took the folder from my hand and flipped through the address list, looking at the names. So many names.

Including one who was a friend.

While we realized Talbot would only have shared his secret with those whom he trusted, we had no idea who those people were. And with well over a hundred names on his address list, we couldn’t interview everyone in time. Certainly not before the killer acted.

We had a problem.

Simon closed the folder, looking at me. “We can’t wait for Major Coller and Father Carlacci. We need General Baldwin to tell us what he knows. Time is of the essence. Hours can be crucial in preventing more bloodshed, including his own. Unless he cooperates, we can’t guarantee his safety. Make sure he understands that.”

“I will.” His ominous tone scared me. I almost asked him to send a cop to watch Sam’s place, but realized that would be a waste of time. The building already had security and with all the people coming and going, a police officer would have no idea who posed a threat.

“Of course,” Simon said, eyeing me, “the crucial question is whether General Baldwin will cooperate?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t mention the call Talbot made to Sam last night. So what if Sam knew about Kelly’s threat to Talbot?

“Even if he realizes what’s at stake, Martin? That he himself could be in danger?”

“It would still be hard for him, Simon. If he confessed to being a confidante of Talbot’s, he’d essentially be confirming they were lovers. He knows that admission would eventually become public. In a trial, it would have to become public. That’s a humiliation he’d couldn’t accept.”

He said bluntly, “He’d rather die than admit his homosexuality?”

“I think so, yes.”

“I’ll get him to admit it,” Amanda said.

She wasn’t boasting so much as voicing a confidence based on fact. Amanda had a brutally confrontational interrogation style that regularly got results. While her odds of succeeding with Sam were somewhere between slim and none, one thing was certain; she wouldn’t back off because he was a two-star.

Simon seemed to smile at her response. “Continue,” he said to Enrique.

Referring to his notepad, he finally addressed the white sheets.

I
t was back in November, some six months earlier, when Major Talbot had changed to white bedding and sheets and had his bedroom and its furnishings painted blood red. No, Mrs. Johnson had no idea what possessed him to do this, or why. One morning, she arrived at work and found workmen renovating the room. Later that day, Major Talbot sent her out to shop for white bedding and sheets.

“Major Talbot,” Enrique went on, “insisted the bedding and sheets had to be pure white and remain that way. If they became soiled in any way, they were immediately thrown out. Once, when Talbot was having coffee in bed, he spilled a drop on a pillow case. A single drop. Bleach would have taken the stain out. Still, the pillow case got tossed. He also had the maids throw out perfectly clean sheets several times. Ones without any stains that the maids could detect. Talk about compulsive, huh?”

Amanda’s eyes crept toward Simon. She realized his purity theory might not be so crazy after all.

“And the color of the previous sheets Major Talbot used?” Simon said to Enrique.

“Beige and off-whites. He liked the lighter earth tones.”

Simon nodded as if he knew this.

My cue. I said, “I take it the sheets in the videos
weren’t
white?”

“They were actually a beige,” he answered. “Quite light. One set even had a faint flower pattern. It was difficult to tell and I had to study the tapes to be certain.”

I cut Amanda a look.

She dismissed it with a shrug. “I noticed the color disparity right off. Probably a girl thing.”

“With your eyes closed?”

“Hysterical. Ha, ha. Remind me to laugh.”

I almost said, you just did. But if I had, the room temperature probably would have dropped twenty degrees and we would have mixed it up again. One thing about Amanda, she could dish it out but couldn’t take it. I asked Simon why we cared about the color of the sheets.

“Timing,” he said. “Beige sheets tells us the videos were made prior to November. If Talbot hasn’t had a lover since then, that further indicates he wasn’t promiscuous.”

“You’re assuming he videotaped all his lovers?”

“If not, why bother to install the camera? Enrique, how many times were these unsoiled sheets thrown out? Four?”

He consulted his notepad. “Two.”

“Oh?” Simon’s slow blink followed.

By now, I’d had a pretty good idea of the point he’d been hoping to make. It was an offshoot of his purity theory. I said to him, “You were thinking that every time Talbot had sex in the bed, he tossed out the sheets.”

“To him, they would be soiled both physically and spiritually. It’s the only logical explanation. There is simply no other reason why…” He drifted off with an unfocused look.

I said sharply, “Simon.”

Too late. He was gone. Trying to understand how he could be mistaken.

No one said anything. We’d been through this drill countless times and knew he wouldn’t come back until he worked this through. The fun part was guessing when.

Amanda held up a single finger and I responded with two. Enrique didn’t bet; Simon rarely took longer than two minutes.

Amanda won since we rounded down.

After less than thirty seconds, Simon began murmuring to himself, a sign his synapses were firing. “No, no. That wouldn’t make sense because…yes, perhaps, but only if…” He fell silent for several more seconds. Abruptly, he said, “The sheets. Why? Why throw out them out? He wouldn’t unless…”

His eyes suddenly widened. “Of course.
Of course.
That would explain—” He broke off with an angry grimace. “I’ve been a fool. I should have realized. But now I know.
I know
.”

“Know what?” Amanda immediately shot back.

But he’d spun away from her and began barking out instructions to Enrique. “Get Billy Cromartie. We need to determine how long the camera has been in the bedroom. We also need to make copies of the tapes. The maids should be able to tell us about the sheets. Particularly the one with the pattern. Go.
Go.”

Enrique pivoted and dashed across the foyer. By then, Simon was hurrying toward the staircase. He looked both tense and excited. Amanda called to him twice before he acknowledged her.

“The video tapes,” he said. “Your suspicion was correct. They were meant to confuse the motive.”

“And you know this because…”

That was all we were going to get because he was rushing up the stairs. Within seconds, he’d ducked into the hallway, leading to the bedrooms.

Amanda and I were alone in the foyer. She sighed. “He did say
tapes,
right?”

“Yes.”

“So he’s not talking about the
missing
tape? He’s saying that the three we found were meant to confuse the motive?”

“Apparently.”

She thought, then made face. “I got nothing.”

“That makes two of us. C’mon. Let’s see if we can sweet-talk Sam into telling us why Talbot was killed.”

“Assuming he’s not the killer,” she said.

I let it go.

As we clicked our way across the tiled foyer, she said, “Uh, Marty, you do realize your watch is beeping.”

Actually, I hadn’t. I punched off the alarm and removed my phone to make a call. An important one.