I settled back against the wall again.
"The rumors," I said. "Always much more interesting."
"OK, the rumors say young Ms. Shaw felt very unhappy about being discarded in the way she was. She felt used and cheap. Like a Kleenex. She felt like a hooker leaving a hotel suite. She began to look like the kind of intern that could cause serious trouble. That was the FBI's opinion, anyway. They keep track of that stuff too, for different reasons."
"So what happened?"
"In the end nothing happened. The parties must have reached some kind of mutual accommodation. Everything went quiet. The senator was duly reelected and Audrey Shaw was never heard from again."
"Where is she now?"
"This is where you ask me what the hard facts say."
"What do the hard facts say?"
"The hard facts say Audrey Shaw isn't anywhere anymore. The databases are completely blank. No records of anything. No transactions, no taxes, no purchases, no cars or houses or boats or trailers, no snowmobiles, no loans or liens or warrants or judgments or arrests or convictions. It's like she ceased to exist three years ago."
"Three years ago?"
"Even the bank agrees."
"How old was she then?"
"She was twenty-four then. She'd be twenty-seven now."
"Did you check the other name for me? Janice May Chapman?"
"You just spoiled my surprise. You just ruined my story."
"Let me guess," I said. "Chapman is the exact reverse. There's nothing there more than three years old."
"Correct."
"They were the same person," I said. "Shaw changed her identity. Part of the deal, presumably. A big bag of cash and a stack of new paperwork. Like a witness protection program. Maybe the real witness protection program. Those guys would help a senator out. It would give them an IOU to put in their back pocket."
"And now she's dead. End of story. Anything else?"
"Of course there's something else," I said. There was one last question. Big and obvious. But I hardly needed to ask it. I was sure I knew the answer. I felt it coming right at me, hissing through the air like an incoming mortar round. Like an artillery shell, aimed and ranged and fused for an air burst right next to my head.
I asked, "Who was the senator?"
"Carlton Riley," Lowrey said. "Mr. Riley of Missouri. The man himself. The chairman of the Armed Services Committee."
56
I got back to the table just as the waitress was putting down two slices of peach pie and two cups of coffee. Deveraux started eating immediately. She was a whole chicken pie ahead of me, and she was still hungry. I gave her a lightly edited recap of Lowrey's information. Everything, really, except for the words Missouri, Carlton, and Riley.
She asked, "What made you give him Audrey Shaw's name in the first place?"
"Flip of a coin," I said. "A fifty-fifty chance. Either Butler's buddy screwed up her case numbers or she didn't. I didn't want to assume one way or the other."
"Does this stuff help us?"
Small words, but big concepts. Help, and us. It didn't help me. Not with Janice May Chapman, anyway. With Rosemary McClatchy and Shawna Lindsay, I wasn't so sure anymore. Lowrey's news cast a strange new light on them. But Lowrey's news helped Deveraux, that was for damn sure. With Chapman, at least. It decreased the chances about a billionfold that her local population was involved with her in any way at all. Because it increased the chances about a billionfold that mine was.
I said, "It might help us. It might narrow things down a little. I mean, if a senator has a problem, which of the five or six chains of command is going to react?"
"Senate Liaison," she said.
"That's where I'm going. The day after tomorrow."
"How did you know?"
"I didn't."
"You must have."
"It was just a random choice. I needed a reason to be there, that's all."
"Wait," she said. "This makes no sense. Why would the army get involved if a senator had a problem with a girl? That's a civilian matter. I mean, Senate Liaison doesn't get involved every time a politician loses his car keys. There would have to be a military connection. And there's no military connection between a civilian senator and his civilian ex-girlfriend, no matter where she lives."
I didn't answer.
She looked at me. "Are you saying there is a connection?"
I said, "I'm not saying anything. Literally. Watch my lips. They aren't moving."
"There can't be a connection. Chapman wasn't in the army, and there certainly aren't any senators in the army."
I said nothing.
"Did Chapman have a brother in the army? Is that it? A cousin? A relative of some kind? Jesus, is her father in the army? What would he be now, mid-fifties? The only reason to stay in at that age is if you're having fun, and the only way to have fun at that age is to be a very senior officer. Is that what we're saying here? Chapman was a general's daughter? Or Shaw, or whatever her real name was?"
I said nothing.
She said, "Lowrey told you she got the intern job because of family connections, right? So what else can that mean? We're talking about having an actual senator who owes you favors here. That's a big deal. Her father must be a two-star at least."
I said nothing.
She looked straight at me.
"I can tell what you're thinking," she said.
I said nothing.
"I didn't get it right," she said. "That's what you're thinking. I'm on the wrong track. Chapman had no relatives in uniform. It's something else."
I said nothing.
She said, "Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe the senator is the one with a relative in uniform."
"You're missing the point," I said. "If Janice May Chapman was a sudden short-term problem who required a sudden short-term solution, why was she killed in exactly the same way as two other unconnected women four and nine months previously?"
"Are you saying it's a coincidence? Nothing to do with the senator connection?"
"It could be that way," I said.
"Then why the big panic?"
"Because they're worried about blowback. In general. They don't want any kind of taint coming near a particular unit."
"The one with the senator's relative in it?"
"Let's not go there."
"But they weren't worried about blowback before? Four and nine months ago?"
"They didn't know about four and nine months ago. Why would they? But Chapman jumped out at them. She had two kinds of extra visibility. Her name was in the files, and she was white."
"Suppose it wasn't a coincidence?"
"Then someone was very smart," I said. "They took care of a sudden short-term problem by copycatting an MO that had been used before in two unconnected cases. Excellent camouflage."
"So you're saying there could be two killers here?"
"Possible," I said. "Maybe McClatchy and Lindsay were regular everyday homicides, and Chapman was made to look like them. By someone else."
* * *
We finished our desserts and drank our cups of coffee. Deveraux told me she had work to do. I asked her if she would mind if I went to see Emmeline McClatchy one more time.
"Why?" she asked.
"Boyfriends," I said. "Apparently both Lindsay and Chapman were stepping out with a soldier who owned a blue car. I'm wondering if McClatchy is going to make it a trifecta."