D.C. Dead (Stone Barrington 22)

“You tell us,” Dino said.

Fair looked at her wristwatch. “You’ve got one more question. Make it a good one.”

Stone looked at Dino. “Yeah, make it a good one. I’m on tenterhooks.”

“All right,” Dino said. “Who do you think killed the Kendricks?”

Fair sighed. “I think Brix killed them both,” she said, then stood up. “Now get out of here. I’m not talking to either of you anymore.” She looked at Stone. “Unless there’s a drink and dinner involved.”

Stone and Dino shuffled out of her office, and the door slammed behind them.

“That was pretty lame,” Stone said.

“Yeah, and you were such a great help,” Dino replied.

“It was your party. I didn’t want to talk to her in the first place.”

“You mentioned that.”

They walked down the hall and out to the car.

“You still think she’s the March Hare?” Stone asked.

“Who else is there?” Dino asked.

“There must be seven or eight hundred people working in there,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the West Wing. “We didn’t talk to all of them.”

“Are you proposing that we talk to just the women?” Dino asked.

“Suppose the Marchose the Hare is a man? Suppose Brix swung both ways?”

“Of all the people we’ve talked to,” Dino said, starting the car, “did any one of them say a single word to indicate that Brix had the slightest interest in fucking anything but every female who got in his way?”

“Now that you mention it, no. Are we going back to the Hay-Adams?” Stone asked as they drove out the White House gate.

“That’s where my stuff is,” Dino said. “The stuff I’ve got to pack before I can go home.”

“You’re giving up?”

“Give me one really good reason to continue, and I’ll stay.”

Stone was quiet.

“Well?”

“We know the March Hare exists.”

“We know that Charlotte Kirby told us the March Hare exists,” Dino said. “That’s it.”

“You think she was lying?”

“Everything we know about her so far indicates to me that she was crazy enough to make it up.”

Stone shrugged. “Certainly her behavior was, to say the least, eccentric.”

“Eccentric? That’s all you got?” Dino asked. “The woman was a self-operating nymphomaniac. She was a thick slice of fruitcake, chock-full o’ nuts.”

“All right,” Stone said, “I’ll give you all of that. But if you’re right, here’s my theory.”