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

  “What’s a clove hitch used for in Sudlersville?” David asked. He watched the cop’s posture relax as he rode his memory back to his youth.

  “Lots of things,” Grove said. “They’re real simple to tie if you’re in a hurry, and strong as hell so long as one end of the line is kept pretty taut. But they’re not good for everything.” He bent down, bringing his face close to the knot. “Pretty good for this kind of job though. Real quick. But you’d want to hold the loose end while the weight dropped.” He looked toward the senator’s body and shook his head.

  David asked him, “If I were looking up knots and wanted to find the right one for this job, you think I’d choose a clove hitch?”

  Grove shrugged. “You could. Square knot would get the job done too, and you wouldn’t have to hold the end while the weight fell. But that would take longer to tie. Few more I could think of, but a clove hitch is probably the quickest.”

  David called to one of his team’s forensic techs. “Take special care with this section,” he said, indicating the part of the rope that, according to Officer Grove, someone would have held to keep the knot from coming undone while Deke Jacobsen passed from this life to the next. Then he took a picture of the knot. Stepping to the railing, he stared out at the bay and took a picture of that too.

  “What’re you shooting out there?” Grove asked him.

  “The last thing the victim saw before he died,” David answered.

  Before the cop could ask him any more questions, he turned toward the senator’s vehicle, where he caught Lauren glancing at him as she spoke with one of their team’s death investigators. He walked to her side and she handed him a pair of latex gloves.

  On the front seat of the car, behind the steering wheel, David could see a small white package. Underneath it he found a weathered scrap of paper. It was yellow and wrinkled, and irregular in shape as though torn away from some larger sheaf. Written on the scrap were the words:

  Don’t tread on me

  “This makes three,” she said.

  David slid two fingers under the package’s top flap. It felt heavy in his hands, and he knew what was inside before he lifted its lid.

  The soda can-sized mass looked firm and slick, and rested on a white handkerchief. The multicolored scales—shingles of tan and brown and black—were dull in the muted morning light.

  It was a section of a snake’s torso, sliced neatly and cauterized black on either open end.

  Chapter 3

  “A BIZARRE AND terrifying scene continues to unfold on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, just a short drive from our nation’s capitol. Dennis “Deke” Jacobsen, a first-term United States senator from Maryland, was found hanged . . .”

  Martin Yerxa was shuffling the stacked dishes around in his kitchen sink when the news report began. When he didn’t see his coffee mug, he turned to the small radio he kept on the counter below the liquor cabinet and listened for a few seconds, absorbing the details of the senator’s death. Then he resumed his search, moving from the dishwasher to the cupboard next to the refrigerator. Still unable to locate his coffee cup, he shouted out, “Ange! Where’s my mug?”

  His voice reverberated throughout his small home, but there was no reply. He was on the verge of shouting again when he remembered his wife was dead.

  Martin’s body suddenly felt very heavy, and he leaned for a moment against the kitchen counter, the voice from the radio seeming to fade away. But then he saw his coffee mug sitting where he’d left it on the small breakfast table next to the stack of programs from Angela’s funeral, which he hadn’t yet found the nerve to throw out. He grabbed the mug and brought it to the sink. After rinsing it and filling it with the coffee he’d just finished brewing, he walked to his front room and switched on the television. He watched the cable news reports in silence as he sipped his coffee.

  On the shelf next to the television sat two framed photographs. In the first, Martin, Angela, and their son David stood next to a scruffy looking baseball diamond. With his arm thrown over his son’s shoulder, Martin wore a lopsided grin and a red jersey with the words “The Fouled Balls” scrawled diagonally across the chest in cursive script. He looked stout but fit, with an aquiline nose and sharp blue eyes that retained enough of their edge to catch off-guard women three decades younger than his sixty-four years. His eyes looked even bluer wedged beneath his silver eyebrows and closely shaved cap of like-colored hair, which had crept back a few inches from his brow but was still full and handsome.

  “Like Paul Newman’s ugly brother,” his wife used to joke when someone commented on Martin’s good looks. He’d liked that.

  In the photograph, which a friend had snapped just a year earlier, Angela Yerxa wore a blue bandana to conceal her nearly bare head. Her smile was wide and bright and nothing like her son’s; David’s expression was somber, with just a touch of mirth detectable around the corners of his eyes and mouth. Instead of looking toward the camera, his eyes were on his mother.

  The second photograph showed two very old men standing in front of an iron gate that bore the words The Navy Yard. One of the men had Martin’s thick wrists and blue eyes, while the other had Angela Yerxa’s round Italian features.

  After watching the news reports for fifteen minutes, Martin set down his coffee mug and picked up the wireless phone next to his reading chair.

  “Frank Barrett,” he barked at the FBI operator. As he waited for his call to be transferred, he walked to his front door and stepped out onto his stoop. He looked down the row of two-story brick townhouses that comprised his block of South Philadelphia. He saw his neighbor, Burt Vitiglio, sitting in a folding chair on the sidewalk a couple doors down, reading the newspaper.

  Burt flapped the paper in greeting, and Martin said, “Morning, Burt”—his loud, sharp voice puncturing the street’s a.m. solitude.

  “You read this crap about the new subsidies?” Burt said. “This clown in the White House . . . ” He shook his head. “And those turkeys in Congress are no better. Farnsworth? The speaker? He calls himself a Republican, but he’s a fuckin’ enabler.”

  Martin nodded. “It’s out of control.”

  Still shaking his head, Burt said, “Anyway, Phillies have got the Brewers this afternoon. We playing chess, or are you gonna hide behind one of your fuckin’ books again?” He cracked a wide grin. “Who’s it now? Franklin? Washington?”

  Martin smiled and started to answer, but then he heard Frank Barrett’s voice in his ear. He gestured at Burt to let him know he’d be right back out, and then he returned to the front room of his house, closing the door behind him.

  “Frank,” he half shouted. “Marty Yerxa. How’s life in Northern Virginia?”

  “Since you left town? A lot classier.”

  Both men laughed, and Barrett said, “Let me guess. You’ve been watching the news this morning?”

  “Tell me about this senator.”

  Barrett exhaled audibly. “Shit, Marty. Eventually I’m going to get in trouble for this.”

  “And when that happens, I’ll feel sorry as hell about it.”

  Barrett laughed again. “David’s working the case, so I know you’ll hear all about it anyway. Apparently this senator—Jacobsen—was driving back to D.C. from his vacation place in Ocean City. Someone stopped him on the bridge, put one in his stomach, and then tossed him over the railing with a rope around his neck.”

  Martin whistled. “Suspects?”

  “Not that I’ve heard about. But there are rumors floating around that Jacobsen’s death is connected to a few others. I really don’t know much about it, but obviously David wouldn’t be working this unless there was more to it. I’m hearing about some pretty wild shit—messages and symbols left behind.”

  “Christ.”

  “I know. It’s giving me a hard-on too. The young agents have all the fun.”

  After hanging up with Frank Barrett, Martin retrieved a cigarette from the pack of American Spirits he kept fresh in a Ziploc bag in his freeze
r. He stepped back out onto the sidewalk in front of his house and walked to where Burt was still reading the newspaper.

  As Martin withdrew the brushed-metal lighter from his pocket and brought the flame to his cigarette, Burt said, “Pretty early in the day for you to have your smoke. You caving on your one-a-day rule?”

  “I smoke it when I want it, but I don’t cheat.” Martin patted Burt on the shoulder and then stood in the street, regarding the splotchy morning sky. He took a drag of his cigarette and then, using the same hand, scratched at his gray-stubbled cheek. “And to answer your question, I’m reading a new one on John Hay.”

  “Who the hell is John Hay?”

  “He was Lincoln’s personal assistant, and secretary of state under McKinley and Roosevelt.”

  Burt flapped his newspaper dismissively. “So Phillies and chess, or some dead guy no one gives a shit about?”

  Martin smiled and brushed a mosquito away from his forearm, which bore a faded tattoo of the American Flag above the word Tuebor. “You should spend a little time learning about the men who built this country,” he said. “Show some appreciation for your forefathers.”

  “Oh, get lost,” Burt said. “I watch the History Channel, and I appreciate you, don’t I? I let you win at chess anyway.”

  Martin chuckled. “I don’t know about this afternoon. There’s a chance I might be going down to Washington.”

  “Visiting David?”

  He shrugged. “He may need his old man’s help.”

  Burt nodded. “You seen him since Ange passed?”

  “No,” Martin said. “Not for four months. Only spoke with him on the phone.” He took another drag on his cigarette and added, “I’m worried about him.”

  Chapter 4

  DAVID SET DOWN the package and repeated the message written on the scrap of paper.

  “ ‘Don’t tread on me,’ ” he said out loud.

  His mind called up the image of the Gadsden Flag—the iconographic, Revolutionary War-era banner depicting a rattlesnake coiled on a background of yellow. He also thought of Benjamin Franklin’s older but similar “Join, or Die” emblem showing a serpent broken into segments, each representing one or several of the original colonies.

  Lauren shook her head in disgust. “I plan to tread all over this asshole if I get the chance.” She shot him a defiant, yes-I-meant-that stare, and added, “I live right over the bridge in Bowie, and I voted for Jacobsen. He seemed like such a nice guy. Beautiful wife, beautiful kids. This makes me sick.”

  David’s only comment was, “Bowie. That makes sense. I was wondering how you beat me here.”

  As she made a face at him, he stepped away from the senator’s car and looked down the length of the bridge. He saw forensic technicians working twenty yards away in the middle of the road near a large patch of rain-diluted blood. More techs were working at the railing, where prominent smears of crimson were still visible despite the weather. He stared at the blood on the railing for a few seconds without speaking.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked him.

  He pointed and said, “The blood on the rail is almost as heavy as the spot in the road where Jacobsen was shot.”

  She followed his eyes to the patches of red. “So?”

  He couldn’t explain it to her, but something about the stain on the railing stood out to him as peculiar. He took a photograph of it with his phone. He looked down the road in either direction and said, “At this point on the bridge, our subject would’ve been able to see the headlights of any approaching traffic coming with a lot of time to spare.”

  “You never take pictures of the bodies,” Lauren said to his back. He turned to face her and she added, “Or the messages he leaves behind, or the snake.”

  “Why would I?”

  She looked a little incredulous, and he said, “Our photographers will take plenty of those shots.” He nodded toward Jacobson’s body. “And besides, would you ever forget that?”

  “Okay,” she said, pursing her lips. “So what are your pictures for?”

  He didn’t respond right away. There were few things in life he disliked more than answering questions, especially when those questions pertained to how or why he operated the way he did. People were almost never satisfied with his answers; usually they had more questions.

  “Atmosphere,” he said finally. “The sense of this place. Anything that will remind me later what today felt like and what it might have felt like to our victim and our subject.” He gestured around him. “And anything else that stands out to me for reasons I can’t explain.”

  She stared at him a little more intensely than he appreciated. He saw more questions forming in her head, and to change the subject he said, “Witnesses?”

  After a short pause, she nodded and said, “A nineteen-year-old GMU student came up just in time to see a green older-model Mercedes pull away. He stopped and called 9-1-1 when he saw blood on the pavement in the senator’s headlights, but by the time police notified the toll booth personnel, the Mercedes was long gone.”

  “Did he see the driver?”

  “Nope.”

  He looked around. “Do we still have him here?”

  Lauren led him to a police van where the student was answering biographical questions for one of the county’s officers. The kid’s arms were crossed tightly over his chest and his chin was tucked in.

  David could tell he was tired of talking and wanted to get on with his life. He introduced himself and asked the student, whose name was Jeremy, to tell him what he’d seen.

  The student looked at David’s clothing and his Bureau ID, and he sighed. He told him exactly what Lauren had said—that he drove up in time to see the green Mercedes pulling away. He saw blood in the road and the empty car, and he called the police.

  “Did you see the person driving the Mercedes?” David asked.

  Jeremy shook his head.

  “What were you listening to in your car?”

  The kid looked confused. “What?” David repeated his question, and he answered, “NPR, I think.” He paused. “Definitely NPR. I remember because the BBC was on.”

  “Were you drinking coffee?”

  “No. Red Bull.”

  “So you’re drinking Red Bull and listening to the BBC,” David said. “Try to remember the last news item you heard as your drove onto the bridge. Replay everything in your head leading up to the moment you saw the Mercedes drive away.”

  After a long pause, Jeremy said, “I remember a story about American drone strikes. Then something about Euro League soccer. I remember that because it made me think about sports, and I thought to check the score of the Orioles game from last night. I’m from Baltimore.” He looked away for a moment and added, “I know I shouldn’t use my phone while I’m driving, but the road was pretty empty and I held it up by the steering wheel so I could keep an eye on it and the road, and I was waiting for ESPN to load when I saw the two cars.”

  Jeremy stopped and his eyes narrowed.

  David could sense that Lauren was going to ask him a question, and, without looking at her, he reached to his side and put a hand on her wrist to silence her. He felt her arm tense, but she didn’t pull away from him.

  “At first I thought someone had a flat,” Jeremy went on. “The Mercedes’s tail lights were on—its white lights—so I thought it was backing up to help with the flat. But then I saw the blood in the road, and when I looked back at the Mercedes its white lights were off and it was pulling away. I remember the driver’s head looked really big through the back window.”

  “Really big,” David repeated.

  Jeremy looked at him. “Yeah. Like, a lot of hair maybe. Or a hood pulled up. I don’t know. I just remember the head looked big.” He turned to the county police officer and added, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was leaving anything out before. I just remembered that.”

  “Anything else?” David asked. “Replay it all again.”

  Jeremy did as he was told, then shook
his head. “No. That’s it.”

  David thanked him and he and Lauren stepped away.

  “A big head,” she said, grinning. “I’ll put out an APB.” She eyed David and said, “The way you had him replay everything—that was a neat little trick.”

  “People remember more than they realize. Sometimes you have to help them access it—fire up the pathways that lead to the memories.”

  “Where’d you pick that up?”

  Without answering her, he looked down the length of the bridge. “Any security cameras?”

  She sighed and shook her head at him. “Nothing of the driver, but the bridge authority used them to get a plate number. Maryland tags. County police conducted a hot search that turned up the car almost immediately. It was dumped five exits west of the bridge.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  She said, “The car was stolen off a residential street a quarter mile from where we found it. The owner parked it around seven last night and didn’t realize it was gone until this morning when the police called.” She squinted as though she could visualize the chain of events. “I think our subject parked his own vehicle, then walked a few blocks and lifted the Benz very early this morning.”

  He finished her thought. “That way he could make the switch and slip away while we hunted for a green Mercedes. I agree with you.”

  “We’ve got Forensics examining the car now, and county police are questioning the neighbors. So far no one in the area remembers seeing a suspicious vehicle parked overnight or early this morning.”

  “How about the toll booth operators?” he asked. “If the car was stolen on the Annapolis side, our subject would’ve had to cross over the bridge and then back again in order to reach this spot. It can’t have been busy that early in the morning.”

  She shook her head. “The stolen car had an E-ZPass, so he didn’t have to stop. Records show the car passed through heading east at 4:45. There’s no toll if you’re heading west.”