Murder Inside the Beltway - Margaret Truman [92]
“About the kidnapping?”
“Yeah. Not directly, something about the president wanting to help. Listen and tell me what you think. We brought the tape over from his office.”
“Can you make yourself free for lunch? It is important, Jerry. I realize that everything pales in comparison to your personal tragedy that’s taking place, but there may be something we can do to help in that regard.”
Kloss looked to Jackson for a reaction. His blank expression said he didn’t have one.
“Then this,” Kloss said.
“Jerry, the president is deeply concerned about what’s happened to you and your daughter. He wants to do everything in his power to get that little girl home safe and sound, and will pull out all the stops to accomplish that. We can discuss the role he might play, along with other things I need to run by you.”
“What ‘other things’ to run by him?” Kloss said. “And there’s something he, Ziegler, can maybe do to help?”
“He’s referring to the president,” Jackson said.
“Or is he?” Kloss asked. “I mean, what can the president do to bring this to a happy conclusion? Make a speech? Set up some phony photo-op? I don’t know, Matt, I just get the feeling that there was maybe more to them getting together than just an empty promise about the president, or politics in general.”
They listened to the tape again. This time, Jackson bought in to what Kloss was saying. “Are you suggesting that Ziegler or his people could be involved?” he asked, reluctant to state the unspeakable.
Kloss said nothing.
“Can’t be,” Jackson offered.
“I agree,” said Kloss. “Can’t be. But I keep playing this what-if game over in my mind. No one’s called, no ransom demands, no further instructions. What did they take the kid for? What’s the payoff? Doesn’t look like it’s money. So, then, what?”
“Something Rollins knows—or has?”
“That’s where my mind’s going. Look, you and Rollins have gotten pretty close, right?”
“Yeah, he seems to like me. He’s been asking a lot about me, you know, why I became a cop, things about my family. We get along okay.”
“Good. Stay close to him, see if he gives off any vibes that something’s happening we don’t know about.” Kloss grinned and slapped Jackson on the shoulder. “Put that sociology degree of yours to good use.”
“Funny you should say that. Hatcher considers my degree a negative.”
Kloss’s wince said it all as Mary Hall arrived and joined them. She’d been dispatched to Metro to deliver paperwork from Kloss, and to bring back an assortment of items for the team assigned to the house.
“Interrupting something?” she asked.
“Just talking about your partner’s college degree,” Kloss said.
“Hatch not appreciating it,” Jackson said.
“Oh,” she said. “Speaking of that, guess what, Matt?”
His extended hands said Tell me more.
“Hatcher has put in for retirement,” she said, disguising any sign of glee in her voice.
“You’re kidding.”
“Would I kid about something like that?” she said. “He filed the papers this afternoon. Oh, and that creep from Beltway Escorts, Billy McMahon? Gunned down this morning in a drive-by in Southeast.”
Kloss’s eyes looked for an explanation.
“A case we were working on,” Jackson said. “The call girl murder in Adams Morgan. The guy was a suspect.”
“Not anymore,” Kloss said, standing, stretching against a pain somewhere in his lean body, and walking from the dining room to where Sue Rollins was now out of her chair and speaking with a Bureau special agent.
Jackson and Hall huddled in the dining room discussing Hatcher’s retirement and what it might mean for them. Once they’d exhausted that topic, Mary asked about Matt’s day and his assignment to follow Rollins to his meeting with Kevin Ziegler. He told her what Kloss had said, and paraphrased what had been on the tape the senior detective had played. “It makes sense,” Jackson summed up. “They took the girl on Saturday and here it is, the end of Monday. Nothing, just that one call Saturday night saying she was safe and wouldn’t be harmed. What do they want? If it were a pedophile,