While Justice Sleeps(33)
The operator hesitated. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“I work for Justice Wynn. I really need to find her.”
“I’m sorry, miss, but Jamie resigned. We got a message this morning. Can I help you?”
“No, thank you.” Disappointed, Avery ended the call and turned toward the steps to leave, then stopped.
Jamie Lewis had called and left her a strange message, and now she wasn’t at work or answering her phone or her door. She could leave, or she could find answers. Checking around, but seeing no one, Avery tried the knob to the apartment. The door was locked. She looked around again, then, making a quick decision, knelt low.
Rummaging in her bag, she found a manicure kit. One of Rita’s ex-boyfriends had entertained a ten-year-old Avery with lock-picking tricks. He’d also taught her about fingerprints and how they could land you in jail on a B-and-E charge. With a few practiced motions, the lock on the door gave way. She removed a tissue and hand sanitizer from her bag, spritzed the metal, wiped, and turned the knob.
Avery waited for the sound of an alarm, and, hearing nothing, she eased inside. A blast of frigid air hit her in a solid wall, and she shivered in the doorway. Stepping fully into the apartment, she noted the boxes leaning against the wall and the muted murmur of the television. “Nurse Lewis?”
She moved into the living room slowly, calling out a second time: “Hello? Nurse Lewis?” Rounding the couch, she saw a low table and a mug sitting on top. Her gaze slipped over the top and toward the wall leading to the open kitchen. A single hole stood in stark relief. Then she saw the blood.
“Oh, God.” Avery dashed around the table toward the kitchen. On the flowered carpet, a woman sprawled facedown. Dropping to her knees, Avery knew instantly that the woman was dead from the blood that haloed her prone form. Bile rose and lodged in Avery’s throat, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. She braced her free hand on the carpet. The wet, sticky surface had her recoiling, and she scrabbled back along the carpet, streaking blood across faded yellow flowers.
Terror drove Avery to her feet, and she stumbled out the open door. She dragged the tail of her shirt out to jerk the door closed behind her. Avery hurried to her car, and her wet fingers slipped against the metal handle. She snatched it back, cursing. With her other hand, she managed to unlock the door and scramble inside. She plucked the hand sanitizer from her purse, saw a discarded napkin on the floor. Quickly, she doused the napkin and wiped at the blood.
Avery forced herself to calm. She pushed the key into the ignition and stared out the car window at the apartment building. She needed to report that she’d found Jamie Lewis’s body.
In the next instant, she balked. What would Major Vance make of her discovery? What would the Chief think? First Wynn goes into a coma, and then the last person to speak with him is dead.
She had to leave. Now. Once she was away, she’d go to a pay phone, call the police, and report the body, anonymously. The murder. Because she’d seen gunshot victims before.
“Oh, God. Justice Wynn.” He could be next, she realized.
Avery revved the engine and headed for Bethesda, never noticing the dark blue sedan that followed her onto the street.
THIRTEEN
The hospital ward housing Justice Wynn had been cordoned off years before for the high-profile clientele whom Bethesda served. Gone were the impersonal bays of nurses who ignored the distraught families who wandered through, checking for their loved one’s name on a dry-erase board beyond the room. Instead, a single attendant monitored the elevator that opened onto the ninth floor. Before being allowed beyond the sentinel, a guest was required to provide identification, a thumbprint, and have a photo taken.
The man checked his phone, noting that he still had no signal in this blacked-out area of the hospital, which had left him dark for nearly thirty minutes as he waited for the attendants to return Wynn to his room. The woman he had assigned to track Avery had last reported her heading out to lunch from the Court. Sufficient time to accomplish his task.
He approached the desk and folded his hands behind his back. If asked to describe him later, the nurse would recall a man with dark brown hair, muddy brown eyes, a ruddy, almost sunburned complexion, a tick in his upper lip, and a paunch that belied the military insignia on his jacket.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Corporal Randall?” he read from the placard on the desk. “I am here to see Senator Wayne Stafford, please.”
“I’ll need to scan your identification and verify that you are an authorized visitor.”
“Of course,” he said. He reached inside his jacket and proffered a billfold with a photo and the appropriate credentials. The name on this badge read Ethan James, and if pressed, he could produce a matching passport and credit cards. As well as a handful of other fully vetted identities.
“Thank you, sir.” She returned the billfold. “Now I’ll need to take your photo and thumbprint.”
He gave a slight frown. “I believe I have been cleared.”
She typed his assumed name into the database. A green stripe indicated that he’d been given permission to bypass their security protocols. Looking up, she said, “Yes, sir. Room 9112.”
“Thank you.”
He entered Stafford’s room, where the U.S. senator lay sedated. He’d been diagnosed with a rabid strain of venereal disease contracted on a trade mission to Thailand that required routine hospitalization and intensive treatments. The male prostitute who had transmitted the disease had died a year earlier, unable to access the care available to the legislator. Stafford would remain hospitalized for another week before discharge.