House Standoff Read online

  DeMarco entered Burns’ small office. He was not a ranking member on any committee; hardly anyone in D.C. knew his name, and the size of his office reflected this. Sitting in a reception area that was barely big enough for her desk, was a plump, pleasant-looking woman with a curly gray perm. Cat-eye reading glasses hung from a lanyard around her neck. The plaque on her desk identified her as Executive Assistant, Ida Burns. She was the congressman’s wife.

  DeMarco said, “I’d like to speak to Congressman Burns about a woman who was killed in his district,”—Burns’ district being the entire state of Wyoming. “I was close to this person and I was hoping that he might be able to learn more than was reported in the papers about what happened to her.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Ida asked.

  “Shannon Doyle, the writer.”

  “Oh, my God. You knew Shannon personally?”

  “Yes.”

  “I met her once when she did a book signing here in D.C.,” Ida said. “I just loved her book and I loved her too. I thought, because of the book, she’d be all brooding and serious, maybe even a bit, oh, you know, other-worldly. But she wasn’t like that at all. She came across as this ordinary, fun-loving young woman. And she had a great sense of humor, which you’d never guess from her book. Like I said, I just loved her. When I heard on the news that she’d been killed I actually cried, and I told Wilbur that he needed to poke around and see what happened to her.”

  “So, do you think he’ll talk to me? As I said, she was a friend.”

  Ida studied his face for a moment and said, “I can see she was more than a friend. Wilbur’s not doing anything important right now, although he probably thinks he is. I’m sure he’ll see you.”

  DeMarco entered Burns’ office. It was a typical politician’s office with one wall devoted to photos of Burns posing with celebrities who probably didn’t know his name; there was a signed portrait of the Republican god, Ronald Reagan; in one corner was an American flag hanging limply on a pole stuck into a flag stand. His desk and the credenza behind his desk were piled with bills that were hundreds of pages long that Burns would vote on without ever reading.

  Burns was at his desk, on the phone, looking out a window and his back was to DeMarco. He finished the call, saying, “That’s great, Bob. I’ll meet you at the restaurant at one.” He spun his chair around and started to smile—then stopped.

  DeMarco couldn’t see Burns’ cowboy boots as they were hidden by his desk, but a white Stetson of the ten-gallon variety was prominently displayed, hanging on a coat rack. And DeMarco had to admit that Burns actually did look a bit like the cartoon character, Yosemite Sam: He was short, as plump as his wife, and had a shaggy brown mustache. The first words out of his mouth were: “Hell, I know you. You work for that jackass, Mahoney.”

  For two decades, hardly anyone knew who DeMarco was, much less that he worked for John Mahoney. He was just one of about twenty thousand mostly anonymous people employed by the legislative branch of the U.S. government—but then he had the misfortune to be arrested for murdering an unpopular Republican congressman. He was actually framed for the crime and eventually proven innocent, but when it came to his relationship with Mahoney, the cat was out of the proverbial bag. DeMarco’s picture was plastered on the front page of the Washington Post, perp walking toward the courthouse in an orange jail jumpsuit. And clever reporters, assisted by leakers working for the FBI, learned that he had some vague connection to John Mahoney. He’d been seen frequently in Mahoney’s office and phone records tied him to Mahoney.

  Mahoney, of course, vehemently denied that DeMarco, a man accused of murder, worked for him. He claimed that DeMarco was exactly what his civil service position description said he was: A freelance lawyer who worked for any member of the House who wished to use him. No one, however, believed Mahoney, a man who lied as often as he told the truth. The journalists all concluded, although without any actual evidence, that DeMarco was Mahoney’s “fixer”—the word fixer laden with implications of corruption and underhandedness. Nonetheless, Mahoney continued to deny that DeMarco was his guy, no matter what the papers said. And that’s where things currently stood: Nearly everyone in the Capitol knew who DeMarco was because the murder case had made him a celebrity, but both DeMarco and Mahoney maintained the fiction that Mahoney was not his boss. Wilbur Burns clearly wasn’t buying it.

  But rather than deny who employed him, DeMarco said, “Congressman, Mahoney didn’t send me. He doesn’t even know I’m here.”

  “Horse shit,” Burns said.

  “It’s like I told your wife: I was a friend of Shannon Doyle’s and all I want is to know more about how she died. I figured, being who you are, you might be able to get more information out of the cops in Wyoming. The article in the Post only said that she was killed in a motel room in what appeared to be a robbery, but that’s all it said. I’d just like to know what happened and if the police have any idea who might have done it.”

  “And what if the cops don’t know any more than what the papers said?” Burns responded. Before DeMarco could answer the question, Burns said, “Well, I know what Mahoney will do. He’ll piss all over the cops in Wyoming, just like he’s always pissing all over me, saying how they’re a bunch of yokels who can’t catch a killer.”

  “Congressman, I’m telling you that Mahoney isn’t involved in this.”

  “Horse shit,” Burns said for a second time. “This is just another one of that bastard’s dirty tricks. You get the hell on out of here.”

  DeMarco could see it was hopeless. The guy hated Mahoney so much that it didn’t matter what DeMarco said.

  “Well, thank you for your time, sir.” DeMarco put one of his business cards on Burns’ desk and said, “If you change your mind or learn anything more about what happened, I’d appreciate you giving me a call if you’re so inclined.” DeMarco knew his business card would end up in the trash can.

  He left Burns’ office and as he walked by Mrs. Burns’ desk, she said, “You through already?”

  “Your husband wouldn’t talk to me. But thanks for getting me in to see him.”

  DeMarco left the Rayburn Building, thinking about what to do next when it came to Shannon. He was about halfway back to the Capitol when his phone rang. He answered, saying, “Hello. This is Joe.”

  “This is Ida Burns. My husband changed his mind about talking to you. Come on back.”

  Burns said, “I never met Shannon Doyle and I never read her book, but Ida did and she told me if I didn’t help you I’d be sleeping in the kennel with my beagles tonight. But I swear to God, if Mahoney—”

  “Mahoney is not ever going to know we talked. I give you my word.”

  Burns glared at him for a moment, then put the phone on his desk in speaker mode and started punching buttons.

  DeMarco said, “Who are you calling?”

  “The sheriff of Sweetwater County.”

  The phone in Wyoming was answered by a woman who said, “Sheriff’s office.”

  Burns said, “Darling, this is Congressman Wilbur Burns. Can you put that rascal, Clay, on the line?”

  “Oh, of course, Congressman. Just a minute.”

  A moment later, a man said, “How you doing, Wilbur?”

  “Just fine, Sheriff. And how’s your lovely wife?”

  “She wants me to retire next year and buy us a fifty-foot RV and travel all around the country. You know, go see national parks and relatives I’ve never met. I tell you, Wilbur, if I have to be around her all day, I’ll probably end up shooting her.”

  Burns laughed. “Tell me about it. Look, Clay, the reason I called is I wanted to hear what’s happening with the murder of that woman writer in Waverly. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, she was a big deal and a lot of folks are interested.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve been getting calls from the goddamn communists at the New York
Times. I’d never heard of her—I’m not a big reader—but my wife knew who she was.”

  Burns rolled his eyes. “Yeah, mine did too.”

  “Anyway, I’ve got one of my best guys in charge of the investigation, a deputy named Jim Turner. Jim actually lives in Waverly where the murder occurred. My forensic guys are still there but so far haven’t turned up anything useful.”

  “What do you think happened?” Burns asked. “About all the papers said was that she was shot in her motel room and her purse and her computer were stolen.”

  “That’s true. It appears that she was shot sometime between midnight and four a.m. It also appears as if whoever killed her knocked on the door and she let him in. She was shot right inside the doorway and there was no sign of a forced entry. Also, she was fully dressed, not wearing a nightgown or pajamas or anything like that. So whoever did it, didn’t wake her up. It looks as if she opened the door and was then shot once with a small-caliber weapon. Don’t have the slug yet as the autopsy hasn’t been completed.”

  DeMarco whispered, “Cameras?”

  “Does this motel where she was staying have security cameras?” Burns asked.

  “No. She was staying in a place that’s a motel combined with a trailer park. The motel was slapped up during the gas boom, has about twenty cheap rooms, and nobody wasted money on cameras.”

  “So you don’t have any idea who might have done it?”

  “No, but we have a theory. The motel is on I-80, and across the road from it is a café and a truck stop where long-haul drivers will sometimes spend the night. The Doyle woman was in one of the motel’s ground floor rooms, and you can see her room from the truck stop. We know she was alive at ten because she had dinner at a restaurant in town and stayed until the place closed at ten. So one possibility is that she drives back to the motel and some trucker sees her go into her room and he walks over, knocks on her door, and for some reason she opens it, which is when he shoots her and steals her things.”

  DeMarco shook his head.

  “What was she doing in Waverly?” Burns asked.

  “Researching some book she was writing. She’d been living in the motel for two months and everybody in town knew who she was. I was told she was real popular, especially with the women there, and didn’t have any enemies that my deputy could find. So right now it looks as if she was killed in a straight-up robbery and most likely by an outsider. As you surely know, Waverly isn’t one of those places with a big drug or crime problem because Hiram Bunt won’t tolerate junkies or lowlifes in his town.”

  “Who’s Hiram Bunt?” DeMarco whispered.

  Burns waved the question away.

  “Mainly what we’re doing now is getting the names of truckers who drove through that day to see if any of them have criminal records.”

  “How are you doing that?” Burns asked.

  “There are two weigh stations on the highway, one near Laramie for traffic going west and one near Rock Springs for the eastbound rigs. The trucks have to stop at the weigh stations and they record the license plate numbers. But we just started looking into that and so far don’t have anything that points to a trucker who might have killed her.”

  “Well, okay,” Burns said. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me, Clay. And say hi to Arlene for me.”

  “Will do. And you keep kicking those damn Democrats in the ass.”

  Burns hung up the phone.

  “You happy now?” he said to DeMarco.

  “Yeah, and thanks for making the call.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  DeMarco shook his head. “Nothing, I guess. There’s really nothing I can do.” DeMarco hesitated, then said, “I could tell the sheriff is a friend of yours, but would you say he’s competent?”

  “He’s been the sheriff of Sweetwater County for twenty-five years. They wouldn’t keep electing him if he didn’t do his job.”

  DeMarco thought for a moment about asking again who Hiram Bunt was, the man who wouldn’t tolerate junkies in his town, but didn’t see the point. He thanked Burns again for his assistance, although he was no closer than he’d been before to knowing what had actually happened to Shannon.

  As he was walking out the door, Burns said, “Hey, I saw Anderson Cooper talking about how Mahoney stepped on his crank. Ask Mahoney who’s dumber than a mule now.”

  4

  The story broken by CNN’s Anderson Cooper was that Mahoney had met secretly with the billionaire CEOs of two telecommunications companies that wanted to merge. To make matters optically even worse for Mahoney, the meeting was held five miles off shore in Chesapeake Bay on a two-hundred-foot yacht owned by one of the CEOs, and Mahoney was transported by helicopter to the yacht. The yacht’s owner, a man named James Morton, was a celebrated playboy and his yacht had an all-female crew whose uniforms of choice were typically very small bikinis, although no one knew how the crew had been attired the day of the meeting. Cooper did, however, display a photo of the yacht pulling into Fort Lauderdale the previous summer in which the anatomy of the “sailors” had to be partially obscured, as they were all topless.

  According to what Mahoney had told DeMarco, only five people were on the yacht that day: Mahoney, the two CEOs, the lady who piloted the yacht, and another stunning young creature who served appetizers and drinks. The rest of the crew had been given shore leave to better ensure that whatever was discussed remained private.

  The reason for the scandal was that the Democrats, including their fearless leader Speaker John Mahoney, claimed that they were adamantly opposed to the merger of the two companies, making the usual noises that these companies, if combined, would control too large a percentage of the media market and competition would be stifled. The fact that both CEOs tended to lean conservative exacerbated the matter as far as the Democrats were concerned. Well, what Anderson Cooper learned from his unnamed source was that Mahoney had been persuaded by the CEOs to support the merger, and if he did so, he would be able to ensure that the merger wouldn’t be blocked by the FCC.

  After the story broke, Mahoney loudly and vehemently denied that he was in favor of the merger—and he demanded that Cooper name his source, the despicable coward who had propagated this horrible lie. Mahoney said that he simply met with the CEOs to hear what they had to say—he had an obligation to be open-minded, for Christ’s sake—but no way did he agree to their demands. And the fact that the meeting had taken place on a yacht staffed by women who looked like Victoria’s Secret models was irrelevant. When the two CEOs were asked about the meeting, they both refused to comment. A few days later, the merger was effectively squashed with Mahoney leading the charge to assure that outcome. He made it clear, however, that he was still determined to prove that Anderson Cooper’s anonymous source was a lying scoundrel.

  The one thing that had surprised DeMarco was that when Mahoney gave him the assignment, he did so in a room filled with people, two of those people being senior Democrats who chaired committees in the House. Normally when Mahoney gave DeMarco a task he did so privately and often in some dimly lighted watering hole far from the Capitol. DeMarco figured that Mahoney had wanted his political brethren to be witnesses to his sincerity about finding the leaker and proving the allegations false.

  The most likely culprit, according to Mahoney, was the young lady who had served drinks to him and the CEOs. She was standing nearby the whole time and would have easily been able to hear the discussion. The two CEOs certainly wouldn’t have leaked the story and the lady who had piloted the yacht had been on the bridge the whole time the meeting occurred.

  The drink server was one Candy Ross, Candy actually being the name on her birth certificate. She was a stunning blonde, six feet tall, only twenty-one years old. She had cornflower blue eyes and a slight overbite, which DeMarco found appealing. He had seen pictures of her in a Maxim magazine photo spread where she and her crew
mates were nude but artfully posed to cover strategic body parts. DeMarco had rationalized looking at the online photos as something that any thorough investigator would do to learn more about a viable suspect. Before he’d learned that Shannon had been killed, he’d been looking forward to meeting Candy.

  CEO Morton’s yacht was moored at a marina in Annapolis, but as the yacht wasn’t constantly at sea—it wasn’t an oil tanker—the female sailors all had other jobs at businesses owned by Morton. Candy was currently employed as a hostess in a restaurant in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

  DeMarco walked into the restaurant and the first person he saw was Candy. She was wearing a short black skirt, a low-cut top, and high heels. With the high heels she was two inches taller than he was. The word statuesque came to mind. She was standing at a lectern, talking on the phone, taking down a reservation. As it was only eleven a.m., the restaurant had only a couple of customers in it and waiters were still putting silverware on the tables for the expected lunch crowd.

  DeMarco waited until she finished recording the reservation then said, “Candy, my name’s Joe DeMarco. I’m—”

  “Hello,” Candy said, treating DeMarco to a brilliant smile. “Would you like a table?”

  “No. Ms. Ross, I’m a congressional investigator.”

  “A what?”

  “I’m a lawyer who investigates things for congress. Legal things. Serious things.”

  DeMarco took out his wallet, flipped it open to his congressional ID, showed it to her as if he were flashing a badge, then flipped the wallet shut and put it back into his pocket.