The Camel Club (Camel Club 1)

CHAPTER

20

AS SOON AS TYLER REINKE AND Warren Peters left Roosevelt Island, they headed directly back to NIC. They dropped the “suicide” note off to have it compared against samples of Patrick Johnson’s handwriting and to have it checked for fingerprints. They instructed the labs that there might be useful latent fingerprints on the paper that would rule out suicide. That’s what they said, but not, of course, what the NIC men intended. If any of the witnesses last night had touched the note and they were on a database somewhere, Peters and Reinke would have a golden opportunity to tie up the loose ends.

After that, they drove to Georgetown, parked their car and began walking toward the riverbank.

“They haven’t come forward,” Peters said. “We’d know if they had.”

“Which might give us some breathing room,” Reinke replied.

“How much do you think they saw?”

“Let’s just go with worst-case scenario and assume they saw enough to pick us out of a police lineup.”

Peters thought for a bit. “All right, let’s also go with the theory that they haven’t told the police what they saw because they were on the island doing something illegal, or else they’re scared to for some other reason.”

“You were in the bow of the inflatable; how good a look did you get?”

“It was so damn foggy I didn’t see much of them. If I had, they wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Boat they were in?”

“Old and wooden and long enough to accommodate at least four.”

“Is that how many you saw?”

“Only two, maybe three. I’m not really certain. I might have winged one of them. I thought I heard somebody cry out. One was an old guy. I remember seeing a whitish beard. Pretty crappy clothes.”

“Homeless?”

“Maybe. Yeah, that could be it.”

“Now we’ve got the police, FBI and Secret Service to worry about.”

“We knew that going in,” Peters replied. “A homicide gets investigated.”

“But the original plan didn’t take into account eyewitnesses. What’s your take on this Ford character?”

“He’s no kid, so he probably knows how to hedge with the best of them. We’ll find out more on him and his partner later. I’m more worried about the Bureau.”

When they reached the riverbank, Reinke said, “We know they were headed this way. I made a preliminary recon of the riverbank earlier this morning and didn’t find it, but the boat has to be here. I’ll go north, you go south. Call if you spot anything.”

The two men headed off in opposite directions.

Patrick Johnson’s fiancée had finally stopped sobbing long enough to answer a few standard questions posed to her by Alex and Simpson, who sat across from the devastated woman in her living room. The FBI had already been by to interrogate her, and Alex doubted that Agent Lloyd had exhibited the greatest bedside manner. He decided to try a gentler approach.

Anne Jeffries lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Springfield, Virginia, where eighteen hundred a month in rent bought you considerably less than a thousand square feet, a single bedroom and one toilet. She was medium height and a little on the plump side, with a puffy face engraved with small features. She wore her brunet hair long, and her teeth had been bleached to a startling white.

“Our wedding was to be on May first of next year,” Jeffries said. She sat dressed in a rumpled sweat suit with her hair unkempt, her face unmade and a pile of used Kleenex next to her feet.

“And there were no problems that you were aware of?” Alex asked.

“None,” she answered. “We were very happy together. My job was going great.” However, she made each of these statements as though they were questions.

“What is it that you do?” Simpson asked.

“I’m director of development for a nonprofit health care group based in Old Town Alexandria. I’ve been there about two years. It’s a great position. And Pat loved his job.”

“So he spoke about it to you?” Alex asked.

Jeffries lowered her tissue. “No, not really. I mean I knew he worked for the Secret Service, or something like that. I knew he wasn’t an agent, like you two. But he never spoke about what he did or even where he did it. It used to be that old joke between us, you know, the ‘if he told me, he’d have to kill me’ thing. God, what a stupid line.” The tissue went back up, and the eyes filled with fresh tears.

“Yeah, it is a stupid line,” Alex agreed. “As I’m sure you know, your fiancé was found on Roosevelt Island.”

Jeffries took a deep breath. “That was where we had our first date. It was a picnic. I still remember exactly the food that I brought and the wine we had.”

“So he maybe committed suicide at the site of your first date?” Simpson asked. “That might be symbolic.” She and Alex exchanged glances.

“We weren’t having problems!” exclaimed the woman, who’d sensed their suspicion.

“Maybe from your perspective you weren’t,” Simpson said in a blunt tone. “Sometimes the people we think we know best we don’t really know at all. But the fact is a bottle of Scotch and a gun were found with his prints on them.”

Jeffries stood and paced the small room. “Look, it’s not like Pat was leading some secret double life.”

“Everyone has secrets,” Simpson persisted. “And killing himself at the place where you had your first date, well . . . ? It may not be a coincidence.”

Jeffries whirled around to look at Simpson. “Not Pat. He didn’t have secrets that would cause him to take his own life.”

“If you knew about them, they wouldn’t be secrets, would they?” Simpson said.

“His suicide note said that he was sorry,” Alex interjected, shooting Simpson an angry look. “Any idea what he was sorry about?”

Jeffries dropped back onto her chair. “The FBI didn’t tell me about that.”

“They were under no obligation to tell you, but I thought you would want to know. Any idea what he might have meant?”

“No.”

“Was he depressed about anything? Any change in emotions?” Alex asked.

“Nothing like that.”

“The gun he used was a Smith & Wesson .22 caliber revolver. It was registered to him. You ever see it around?”

“No, but I knew he’d purchased a gun. There’d been a couple of break-ins in his neighborhood. He got it for protection. I hate guns personally. After we were married, I was going to make him get rid of it.”

“When was the last time you spoke with him?” Alex asked.

“Yesterday afternoon. He said he’d call me later if he got the chance. But he never did.”

She looked like she might start bawling again, so Alex spoke quickly. “No idea what he was working on lately? Anything he might have mentioned, even just in passing?”

“I told you, he didn’t talk about work to me.”

“No money problems, ex-girlfriend, things like that?”

She shook her head.

“And what were you doing last night between the hours of eleven and two?” Simpson asked.

Jeffries looked stonily at her. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“I think the question is pretty straightforward.”

“You said Pat killed himself, so why does it matter where I was?”

Alex cut in. He was finding his partner’s interrogation technique very annoying. “Technically, it’s a homicide, which can include anything from suicide to murder. We’re just trying to establish the whereabouts of everyone involved. We’ll be asking lots of people that same question. Don’t read anything more than that into it.”