Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(36)

“How long did that take?”

“I don’t know, fifteen minutes?” He looked disappointed. “You didn’t try to get an after-dinner drink out of her? A woman like that?”

Some things are worth lying about, and I wanted this guy off the story of the photograph. “I did not ask for an after-dinner drink. Would I have liked to? Sure. Kay Willingham was beautiful, smart, and a little out there — in a good way. But I have a rule about imposing on women who have had too much to drink.”

“How sensitive-male of you,” Sparkman sniffed.

I shrugged. “You’ve been asking all the questions, Sparkman. I’d like a few of my own answered.”

“Okay?”

“Where’d you get the photograph?”

He stiffened. “You know I can’t reveal my sources.”

“Who took the photograph?”

“I have no idea.”

“It just came to you.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. I am known. People in power do send me things.”

I paused, seeing his obvious hunger to be thought significant. I decided to feed that, change my whole attitude and approach. I sat back, showed him my open palms. “Mr. Sparkman, I don’t doubt it. I’ve been unfair to you. I came in here with a set idea about you, but I have to say, you’ve impressed me with your intelligence and your willingness to be fair and impartial in listening to my side of the story behind that photograph.”

The blogger sat up taller, nodded. “Okay, well, I appreciate that.”

Then I leaned across the table and in a low threatening voice said, “But don’t think for a second I won’t use the full force of the FBI against you if you do not tell me where the hell you got that photograph and right now.”

Sparkman retreated, pressing his head against the back of the booth. “You can’t do that.”

“Watch me,” I said. “I’m an investigative consultant to the FBI. I’m working with the FBI on the deaths of Kay Willingham and Randall Christopher. And I want to know who wants me off the investigation.”

“Well, you are compromised, don’t you think?”

“By a broken shoe? I don’t think so. Listen hard, Mr. Sparkman. If I tell Special Agent in Charge Mahoney that you have evidence concerning the killing of the vice president’s ex-wife and that you’re not cooperating, he will seize everything you’ve got and shut you down until you’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars to hire lawyers to get your stuff back. By then you’ll be bankrupt.”

He looked sickened. “He can’t do that.”

“Actually, he can.”

The blogger lost some of his confidence then. I could see the growing confusion in his expression. His brain was spinning, trying to find a way out.

I gave him one. “So maybe we can help each other, Mr. Sparkman. You sit on that photograph, you do not publish, and you wait while we do our work. When we are done, we will grant you an exclusive on the story, and you can use the picture or not. I won’t care at that point because I’ll have found Mrs. Willingham’s killer, and you can print whatever you’d like, although I’d prefer you to base it wholly on facts.”

I’d had his entire attention at the word exclusive, but he said nothing.

I said, “This is one of those rare moments, Mr. Sparkman, where the decision you make might just determine the course of the rest of your life. Do you want to be arrested for obstructing justice in a high-profile federal investigation? Or do you want to patiently lay the foundation for a blockbuster story of real journalism that’s all your own?”

Sparkman’s eyes darted left and right as if he were looking at lists of pros and cons. Then his shoulders relaxed. “I’ll take the story,” he said at last. “Put the exclusive in writing.”

“As long as we get what you know. Deal?”

“Deal.”

I smiled and reached over to shake his hand.

He grinned now. “We’re like partners, me and you.”

“No,” I said firmly. “But we both benefit here. Now tell me where that picture came from.”





CHAPTER 40





CHARLIE PALMER’S STEAK ON Constitution Avenue is as close to an off-site congressional dining hall as you can get in the nation’s capital. The restaurant is a few minutes’ walk from the U.S. Senate office buildings, the food’s excellent, and politicians and power brokers of all persuasions are drawn to the eatery.

According to Clive Sparkman, the politicians and the power brokers were why I might find a woman named Kelli Ann Higgins eating lunch there. Probably alone. Sure enough, when I arrived at the restaurant, showed the ma?tre d’ my identification, and asked after Ms. Higgins, I was told she had just been seated.

“She’s at a table for two, I imagine.”

He looked down at his seating chart. “No, just her.”

“She’s an old friend,” I said. “I’ll join her.”

Before he could reply, I dodged around his station and strode through the main room to the back, where Higgins liked to sit so she could track the comings and goings in the room. Or at least, that’s what Sparkman had said.

I spotted her almost immediately, mid-forties, rail-thin, stylish dark hair, pale, almost translucent skin, and wearing her signature red dress and pearls. She was entranced by something on her cell phone and didn’t glance my way until I sat down opposite her.