Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [113]
“But you can do me harm, Jess.”
“How? What would I do? Why would I do it?”
“You and that stupid bird-watching.”
She reached across the seat and touched his right arm. “Skip, I didn’t take that picture. I wasn’t there. Are you concerned I might take the photo to someone, some law enforcement agency? That would never cross my mind. What would be the purpose, to show that my ex-husband…”
He slowly turned his head and fixed her in the sort of stare that froze her when they were married. “Go on,” he said, allowing a trace of a smile to touch his lips. “You were about to say that your ex-husband was photographed with a bunch of rednecks up on the Canadian border, right-wing, government-hating, white supremacists who don’t mind shooting down civilian planes to get the country’s attention. Right, Jess? Was that what you were about to say?”
“No.”
His right hand came off the wheel and shot across the seat, gripping her wrist and squeezing. She backed against the passenger door. “You’re… hurting me,” she said, trying to pull free.
He relaxed his grip and leaned forward, squinting, to see through the sheets of water on the windshield. She rubbed her wrist. As she did, a rage welled up in her of an intensity she couldn’t recall ever feeling before.
“What did you do, Skip, get involved with those rednecks in upstate New York, forget who you were and become one of them?” She had no idea whether that was what had happened, but her anger now dictated.
“What I did,” he said, “was to get a piece of what’s owed me.”
“Owed you? What were you owed?”
“Money. For years of sticking my neck out, getting paid off with a slap on the back by some fat-cat bureaucrat and a nice letter in the file. I learned a lot from hanging around with the lowlifes, Jess. The FBI. Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity,” he said scornfully. “Put the mobsters behind bars. Get the drug dealers off the street. You know what, Jess, this country’s on one fast slide to oblivion. In the sewer. The politicians steal us blind, the cops in every city are on the take, we blame Mexico and Colombia for the drug problem but the problem’s right here, the users, the market those countries feed. You have any idea how much money from drugs some of the right-wing groups, left-wing groups, no-wing groups make? Millions.” He snickered. “Those guys up in Plattsburgh have been bringing drugs into this country for a couple of years now, right across the Canadian border, waltz it in like loaves of bread. That’s how they finance their crazy schemes. They praise the Lord while they’re selling crack out the back door.”
“And you?”
“And me what?”
“You’re praising the Lord, or in this case law and order, while you’re taking some of that dirty money? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You hear what Templeton said before, Jess?”
“Yes, I heard. That group you were with in Plattsburgh was involved, too, in the missile attacks.”
“Of course.”
His cold admission of it—more important, that he knew—was like a blow to her chest. She said nothing for a moment, the countryside flashing by her window distorted by the rain, her mind distorted by him. Finally, she said, “The people out in Washington, the Jasper people. Were they involved too, or was that the ‘mistake’ you mentioned.”
Anger visibly flared in his face, then sagged into an expression of frustration, annoyance at her lack of understanding. “None of it matters,” he mumbled, barely audible above the sound of the car’s engine and the swoosh of water beneath the tires. “Who cares who did what, or who gets it? I’m through. I did what I said I’d do, got my money and I’m out of it.”
“Who cares?” she repeated loudly, incredulous. “ Who cares? What about the people on those planes? You could have stopped it, couldn’t you?”
“No, I couldn’t,” he said, exiting the highway and taking a two-lane road leading to Gauley Bridge. “I didn’t know the Freedom