Forgive Me(46)

“Different strokes for different folks,” Angie said, repeating a favorite phrase of Walt Odette’s. “Plenty of people would have differing opinions on your style of dress, for example.”

“What’s wrong with plaid and khaki? It never goes out of style.”

Angie had no patience for tangents. “Is this even relevant? Who cares what the kid’s name is. Read on.”

Mike continued. “‘The boys seemed to really enjoy the Ghost Mansion. What a hoot!’” Mike smiled at Angie. “It really is a spectacular bouncy house.”

“Will you please just get to the point?”

“Easy, easy.” Mike tossed his hands in the air. “I’m just reading his e-mail.”

“Fine. But read the important part, will you?”

“Okay—um. ‘The kids seemed to have a lot of fun. I’ll definitely pass your name around—blah blah blah. Okay, here we go.”

“Finally.”

Mike shot Angie a sidelong glance. “ ‘It is my best guess that the girl in the photograph has the classic Microtia. This is a congenital deformity where the external ear is underdeveloped. The condition occurs in one out of every ten thousand births. The right ear is most commonly affected, as is the case with this little girl. The angle makes it a bit difficult to make a determination with complete certainty, but the ear has a vertical skin appendage with a malformed lobule (that’s earlobe). If so, the firm tissue at the upper part of the ear is a disorganized cartilaginous vestige. If you do locate this girl, please let her know that we could reconstruct the earlobe using a piece of lobular tissue from the lower end. I hope this helps. Please e-mail or call if you have further questions. Good luck in your search. Best Regards, Dave Trumbull.’”

Angie mulled over this new information. “I never heard of that before.”

“Me neither,” Mike said. “But now we know. So, what now?”

The answer would have to wait. A black Cadillac Escalade exited the parking garage and rolled past Angie’s car. The license plate matched Markovich’s vehicle.

“Now, we follow,” she said.

She turned the key and the engine rumbled to life. Timing was critical. Pull out too fast and get burned, but waiting too long risked losing sight of Markovich. Angie let Markovich get down the block before she eased into the road.

They were on the move.





CHAPTER 24



Markovich was five cars ahead and easy enough to spot that Angie decided to pull over and let Mike out. He had returned to DC in his own car, a red Toyota Corolla, and it was best if they each had a vehicle on this tail. If one of them got caught in traffic or something, the other could relay location information by cell phone.

Mobile surveillance is a bit of an art form because every ‘how to do it right’ rule comes with an exception. The amount of traffic and the environment (road conditions, traffic lights, and such) dictated how far back Angie would follow. Because of congestion, she wanted to be close. She got to within three cars of Markovich’s vehicle and would try to close that gap to two or even one at the next light if possible. The basic rule was the more traffic, the closer she had to follow.

Mike was easy to spot in her rearview mirror. She got him on the phone, using hands-free calling.

“There’s a major choke point up ahead,” Mike said. “Intersection between H and Sixth.”

Angie thanked him. Knowing ahead of time where the choke points were—places like intersections, toll roads, construction areas, basically anywhere it was possible to get stuck—was the best way to avoid getting caught in one. She pushed on the gas and weaved between a couple cars to get two cars behind Markovich.

Mike got caught at a light, but no worries. Angie continuously relayed her position to him using her cell phone.

Markovich turned left onto Massachusetts Avenue NW. Angie sped up to the intersection, but quickly decreased her speed and made the turn without burning rubber. She didn’t want to give Markovich any cause to check his rearview mirror. She passed a slow moving Nissan as she crossed over 7th Street onto K Street. Other drivers didn’t care one iota if Angie was on a tail.

“Did you get your E-ZPass yet?” Angie asked.

“Um, I’m going to file an application. Definitely on the to-do list.”

Angie made a tsk-tsk sound. “Well, do you at least have your change handy?”

“You trained me, didn’t you?”

“And if I did it properly, you would have an E-ZPass.” Angie didn’t know if Mr. Markovich was going to take a toll road or not.

Toll roads were pretty far out of the city, mostly on the Virginia side. Either way, Angie had her E-ZPass and plenty of quarters on hand for either situation. She also had a full frame digital SLR camera from Nikon and a digital video camera from Sony. The Polaroid CUBE, which took stills and video was mounted to the dashboard of her car and recording the tail. One day, it could be evidence in a trial. Notes were fine, but for flawless recall, nothing beat a video recording.

When Markovich turned onto New York Avenue, heading uptown, the setting sun became a problem. The strong glare would wash out her video, and it made it difficult to keep him in sight. Things got a little better when he took a right onto 15th Street. A left would have taken her to the White House.

“I’m three cars behind him. How are you doing, Mike?”