Founders' Keeper (A David and Martin Yerxa Thriller - Book 1) Read online

  She dipped a quill pen in the blood and pressed its tip into the dried shard. The pen moved smoothly as she wrote.

  For you, my love, she thought. My partner.

  Chapter 22

  DAVID STOOD A few feet in front of the conference room’s television, watching a replay of the Anne Arundel County Sheriff’s press conference on CNN.

  At the bottom of the screen were the words, “BREAKING: SENATOR’S DEATH LINKED TO MORE MURDERS.”

  He heard the Examiner reporter ask her question. Before Tarkanian answered, David saw the sheriff’s eyes dart to the man standing at his left: County Executive Chris Schrade.

  “Goddammit,” Martin said.

  Lauren looked disgusted. “Why would he put that out there?”

  David turned away from the television. “Schrade put him up to it.”

  “Schrade? The county executive?” she said. “How do you know?”

  David didn’t answer her. He walked to the speakerphone on the conference table and dialed the Bureau’s switchboard. He asked to be connected with the Anne Arundel County Sheriff’s department.

  When an officer answered, David identified himself and asked to be transferred to Sheriff Tarkanian’s cell phone. Immediately. “Tell the sheriff exactly who I am, and tell him it’s in his best interest to take my call,” he said calmly.

  Lauren and Martin stood on opposite sides of the conference table, watching him.

  When Tarkanian answered, David introduced himself. “I’m the agent in charge of the federal investigation into Senator Jacobsen’s murder,” he said.

  The sheriff started to speak, but David cut him off.

  “Please don’t talk,” he said, not raising his voice. “I don’t want to hear you lie about why you just divulged information outlining the scope of our joint investigation. We both know you could have stonewalled that reporter without confirming or denying the accuracy of her source. I understand that broadening the scope of the public’s knowledge redirects heat away from you, your office, and Anne Arundel County. I also recognize you were being pressured by County Executive Schrade, and that he likely provided the reporter with her intel.”

  “Agent Yerxa,” Tarkanian said. “I was only—”

  Again, David didn’t let him finish. “The damage is done, so there’s no point in our discussing it. I’m calling to inform you that if you or Chris Schrade releases any more information about this investigation to members of the press, the FBI will issue a statement blaming your department’s incompetence for the murderer’s escape. Please don’t doubt me on that, Sheriff. Also, tell Chris Schrade the county executive’s office will come under intense media scrutiny if this happens again. Are we clear on all of this?”

  “We’re clear,” Tarkanian said, his voice dry.

  David pressed a button on the conference phone, ending the call.

  “I’m impressed with your self-control,” Lauren said to him. “I would have told Tarkanian to fuck himself.”

  Martin smiled. “I like you, Butch. But that’s not David’s style. He takes after his mother—walks softly and carries a big stick.”

  “Tarkanian knows what he did,” David said, his eyes lost somewhere on the top of the conference table. “And I could tell from his face he wasn’t happy to do it. But I wanted him to know there would be repercussions if it happened again.”

  Martin stood and walked to the dry erase board. He looked at his hand-drawn map of the East Coast and re-read the messages left at each of the murder sites. “Something like this . . . it was never going to stay quiet.”

  “It’s like you told me yesterday,” Lauren said, looking at David. “Whoever’s doing this wants attention.” She gestured toward the television. “Now he’s got it.”

  Chapter 23

  ALTHOUGH SMOKING HAD been banned in D.C. for almost a decade, the air in the bar smelled like an ashtray that had been wiped clean but not washed.

  Antiqued mirrors bearing the words “Yuengling” and “Schlitz” covered the wood-paneled walls and reflected the brown upholstery of the booths David and his father passed as they navigated the narrow aisle separating the pub’s formal seating from its bar stools.

  David looked at one of the televisions mounted behind the bar and saw that Sheriff Tarkanian’s press conference was still being replayed on CNN. Below the TV, a perm-coiffed woman well into her golden years stood behind a row of beer taps, staring up at the screen and shaking her head.

  Martin shouted out a greeting to her as he and David slid onto opposite sides of the last booth. She came around to take their drink order, preceded by a cloud of flowery perfume. The smell flooded David’s mind with memories.

  When he was a boy, David was invited to accompany his father to work one day each year, which was invariably his favorite day of the year. He would spend the morning and afternoon watching Martin work, not really understanding anything he was witnessing apart from the way other men obviously admired and feared his father. Knowing Martin loved him and wanted to spend time with him had made David feel very special.

  And at the end of that day, Martin always took him to Peterson’s Public House in the heart of downtown Washington, where they would share a meal and a “man-to-man.” Later, after David had joined the FBI, the two of them had spent at least one evening a month having drinks and dinner at “Pete’s,” as Martin had always called it.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” the waitress said. She directed a well-creased smirk at them. “What can I get for you two rascals?”

  David knew what his father would order, and exactly how he would order it.

  “George Dickel on the rocks,” Martin said. “And don’t put out the fire, Whitney.”

  The way he said her name sounded like “Winnie.”

  “Now how did I know you were going to order that?” she said, smiling.

  David asked for a beer, and they both ordered food.

  “You’ve been back in Philly too long,” he said to his father when the waitress had gone. “You’re dropping your T’s.”

  “Am I? Well maybe my good-for-nothing son should invite me down more often.” He smiled, and his eyes moved from David to the familiar walls of the bar. “I have been gone a while. This place is the same, but I can’t believe how much this town’s changed since I moved away.”

  “You say that every time you come down here.”

  “Every time I come down here it’s truer. And the Bureau’s changing too, and not for the better if you ask me. I didn’t like what I heard today about that stamp-fingerprint bullshit. I don’t agree with that kind of blanket invasion of privacy. It’s not constitutional, and it’s un-American.”

  “We don’t look at any of the print data unless it ties someone to a major crime,” David said. “It’s not like we’re keeping tabs on everyone.”

  Martin scowled. “Come on, boy. You’re smarter than that. This is how it starts—small and innocent. But as time passes it’ll grow into some monster no one ever intended. Government power only expands. It never contracts. Mark my words.”

  “You’re getting paranoid.”

  “It’s not paranoia. It’s wisdom.”

  When the drinks arrived, Martin took a sip of his whisky and leaned back in the booth, regarding his son. “Well. It’s a hell of a thing we’ve got on our hands here. Hell of a thing, jumping from state to state like this. I’ve never seen anything like it—not in thirty-five years of chasing people who hurt people.”

  Chasing people who hurt people, David thought. The expression was one his father often used to describe their work, and David had always considered it a comforting simplification; it rubbed away all the rough realities of their profession.

  “But I won’t lie,” Martin continued. “I had some fun today.” He took a sip of his whisky and eyeballed his son. “So. You seeing anyone?”

  David had expected this question. In fact he was surprised his father had held off as long as he had. “No,” he said.

  Marti
n shook his head. “Until you find the right girl, you’ll never know how sweet life can taste.”

  This mention of the “right girl” immediately raised David’s hackles. “There aren’t many like mom out there,” he said. When his father didn’t answer right away, he added, “Maybe you took her for granted.”

  Martin’s expression darkened and he started to speak, but then the food arrived and Whitney stayed and chatted with them for a few seconds. When she left, Martin took a large bite out of his skirt steak on rye. He washed it down with a drink of his whisky. “I see the way women look at you. I wouldn’t think you’d have trouble finding a girl to spend time with.”

  “I don’t have trouble finding women to spend time with.”

  Martin took another bite of his sandwich and seemed to chew on this statement along with his food. He swallowed and said, “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Anything.” He put down his food and wiped his hands on his napkin. Busying his eyes on the tabletop, he added, “Like why you’ve never gotten hitched—or even had a serious girlfriend that I can remember. I mean, not since the one you were seeing in college, poor girl.”

  “Christina,” David said. He felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten.

  “Yeah, not since Tina. At least, not one you ever introduced to your mom and me.” He paused again, his eyes still down somewhere around his plate.

  It was strange for David to see his father look so diffident. He said, “Are you trying to ask if I’m gay?”

  Martin pursed his lips. “I’m not asking about anything you don’t want to talk about. A guy’s personal life is his own business, even if the guy’s my son.”

  “I’m not gay, Pop.”

  Martin looked both exasperated and relieved. “Well then what’s the problem? I know you could have your pick. You just like being a bachelor? Or did what happened back then to Tina really screw you up?” He paused. “You’ve always marched to your own beat, David. Even before that mess. But your mom and I never expected this for you—this isolation.”

  David didn’t answer. There were two reasons why he wouldn’t pursue a serious relationship. One of them—the one he’d briefly considered telling his father now—was that he never wanted to put a woman through what his mom had dealt with being married to a guy like Martin Yerxa. Agents in their capacity at the Bureau made shitty boyfriends and worse husbands, and David didn’t want to be either. The second reason was something darker he held inside—something that was never far from his thoughts. He didn’t plan to tell his father or anyone else about that. Not ever. Still, Martin’s questions brought to mind what his mother had said to him shortly before her death.

  “So that’s it?” Martin persisted. “Thirty-six and you’re just not interested in a wife? In a family?”

  “Let’s change the subject,” David said.

  “Fine. Keep it to yourself.”

  They sat eating and drinking in silence until Martin said, “I like Butch. She’s got a head on her shoulders. And some spunk.”

  “Butch is solid,” David agreed.

  “I like that she busted your chops a little too. I’ve noticed most of the people back at Quantico half shit their pants when you’re in the room, but not her. Having that around might be good for you—drag you out of that big brain of yours.” He paused. “And you know, her eyes got stuck on you a few times.”

  David sat back in the booth and spread his hands in a gesture that said, “Really?”

  “Just an observation, that’s all,” Martin said. “She’s a good-looking woman, and I think she’s got a little thing for you.”

  Whitney came then and cleared the plates away. When she’d gone, Martin asked the question that had been hanging over both of them all day long. “So how’ve you been getting along?”

  They both knew he meant since your mother died, and David felt a part of himself go cold.

  “I’m fine,” he said quickly. “How are you?”

  Martin watched him for a moment and then cleared his throat. He finished off the last of his whisky. “You know your mother was an angel, and the love of my life. She was too good for me.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I had it great for a long time—the perfect girl, the perfect son, and a job I loved. But now I’ve lost the girl. What else is there to say?”

  An awful lot, David thought. He looked away from his father. He’d heard Martin say these words or words like them so many times in the days following his mother’s death that they sounded hollow to him—a meaningless script Martin recited without really considering what he was saying.

  David thought of his mother, and the first memory that came to him was the sound of his own shoes on the floor tiles of the hospital corridor that led to her room. He remembered the way all the rubber tubes running into her arms and nose and throat seemed to be drawing the spirit out of her, but that her eyes still brightened when she saw him. He also remembered the way his father had been gone from the room much of the time, shouting at his wife’s doctors or nurses about her care—her food or her bed, or the way the drugs they were pumping into her weren’t making her better. And even when he was in the room, Martin’s eyes were usually buried in a book or gazing at the room’s small television set, never meeting his dying wife’s.

  It was like a part of Martin was still gone, David had thought—out on the road somewhere, working on the problem of somebody else’s death.

  David was angry now. He recognized his anger, and he knew the timing was wrong; they had more urgent matters to deal with. But there were things he needed to say that he’d been holding inside since his mother’s death.

  He brought his eyes back to his father’s. “Now that she’s gone,” he said, “you wish you’d been around more all those years?”

  Martin had been lifting his whisky to his lips, but he lowered it without drinking. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That means you left us on our own a lot of the time—maybe more than the job required.”

  Martin sat back in the booth. He looked at his son for a long time without answering. Finally he said, “Your mother understood why I was gone.”

  “She understood it, but she didn’t like it.”

  “Neither of us liked it.”

  “I don’t remember it ever bothering you.”

  Martin’s eyes hardened. “That hurts me, boy. I love my work, and I’ve never tried to hide it. But I hated to leave you and your mother.”

  David heard himself speak the words almost before he’d had time to consider them. He knew the effect they would have: “Even at the end, you weren’t really there for her.”

  Martin’s mouth fell open. He jabbed a finger at his son and started to speak, but then he stopped himself. He slammed his fist down on the tabletop and was quiet for a few seconds, slowly opening and closing his hand as the people sitting around them at the bar cast worried glances in his direction.

  When he finally spoke, it was clear he was struggling to suppress his anger. “This is what I do, David. This is who I am. I know it was tough on her and on you when I was gone, but it was tough on me too. You’ll never know how tough. But that’s life. Losing this job would devastate me. Your mom understood that about me, and so should you.” He paused and looked at the palm of his hand. He was calmer now. “Your mother was happy that I could keep doing the thing I love—that you and I could do it together. It made her proud. She had a good life too—one that made her happy.”

  “She had a good life,” David repeated. “What about her death?”

  “There aren’t any good deaths,” Martin said. As he spoke, his eyes never met his son’s.

  The two sat in silence for a time, not looking at each other, until Whitney brought the bill. David reached for it, but Martin put his hand on his son’s and shoved it away. He handed the waitress two bills, told her the change was hers, and they both stood to leave.

  As they started to file out between t
he bar and the booths, David felt his father’s hands on his shoulders.

  “I know you miss her,” Martin said to his son’s back. “I miss her too.” He loosened his grip, and without another word they started toward the exit.

  As they did, David glanced at one of the television sets behind the bar. CNN was airing an old video of Deke Jacobsen. The senator, standing at a podium a few yards in front of his smiling wife and daughters, looked healthy and energized as he addressed a large crowd. The news caption read, “SLAIN SEN. SPEAKING AFTER ’10 ELECTION.” At the bottom of the screen were photographs of Harmon Hill and Rebecca Aronson next to the words, “THE OTHER VICTIMS.”

  David felt the weight of the investigation resettle on his chest like a lead weight.

  Eleven days, he said to himself.

  Thursday, September 7

  Chapter 24

  THE GRANITE PILLARS of the James Madison Memorial Building pooled the early morning sunlight into twenty-five wells of shadow.

  David and Martin stood side-by-side in one of those wells at the top of the building’s stone staircase, watching as Lauren Carnicero made her way toward them across Independence Avenue, a laptop carrying case slung over one of her shoulders.

  She waved to them as she ascended the stairs.

  “Morning, Butch,” Martin shouted to her. As he took a sip from his coffee mug, he grinned and shot his son a look.

  David had called Lauren earlier that morning while standing in his kitchen, preparing coffee and listening to the sounds of his father rustling around in the guest bedroom overhead. He’d asked her to meet them in downtown D.C. “I feel like we all need to take a few steps closer to our subject,” he’d said.

  As Lauren joined them near the library’s entrance, she smiled and swiped a few strands of dark hair away from her eyes. “You were pretty cryptic on the phone this morning,” she said to David. “What are we doing here?”