Dead Watch

windows. There are four gun safes in one of the bedrooms, their doors are open, they all look empty. Doesn’t look like there’s been anybody home for a while. There’s a note on the door from the Watchmen, asking him to check in. He apparently hasn’t.”
    “All right.” Novatny nodded. “You didn’t go inside?”
    “Of course not. But I was thinking, you might want to have some of your people take a look at it.”
    “I’ll do that,” Novatny said.
    “I mean right now. Because I’m gonna call the governor and tell him about the body. He’s gonna find out pretty quick anyway, and I want to be on his good side. Just in case that might be useful. If we have to approach the Watchmen . . . Anyway, you might want to have a couple of your guys on the scene before the Watchmen have a chance to go over the place.”
    Novatny nodded again. “We’ve got two Richmond guys at a Holiday Inn in Charlottesville, they’ve been working the case from there,” he said, as they pulled up to the chopper. “Give me Schmidt’s address and a ten-minute head start.”

    When Jake was back on the road, he called Goines again, told Goines to find the governor and to have him call back.
    “I don’t know how fast I can find him,” Goines said.
    “Make it as quick as you can. Make it an urgent priority,” Jake said.
    Goodman was back in ten minutes, as Jake was coming into Buckingham, this time at the speed limit. “Mr. Winter? This is Arlo Goodman.” A little less friendly than he had been; more formal, as if he were expecting trouble.
    “We found Lincoln Bowe’s body,” Jake said.
    Long pause, the airwaves twittering through the cell phone. Then, “Here, in Virginia?”
    “Down by Appomattox, between Buckingham and Appomattox.”
    “Ah, no.” He sounded genuinely surprised.
    “I thought you’d want to know,” Jake said.
    “I appreciate it.” A little warmer now. Goodman could turn it on and off, even over the phone. “Who else knows?”
    “Some cops. The FBI. The president. We’re moving to tell Mrs. Bowe. The FBI has taken over the scene, a full crime-scene crew is on the way in. Your BCI guys are already on the scene.”
    “They didn’t call me,” Goodman said.
    “The sheriff was discouraging calls, knowing that the FBI was on the way,” Jake said. “Everybody is walking on lightbulbs.”
    “They should have called me,” Goodman said. His voice was quiet, but suffused with rage. Somebody was in trouble.
    Jake asked, “You know anything about this, Governor?”
    A pause—a shocked pause?—then, “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m talking about a panic-stricken bunch of Watchmen looking for a gun guy named Carl V. Schmidt. I’m talking about the search being run from your office. Your Watchman even left a note hanging on Schmidt’s front door. The feds are closing in on Schmidt’s house now. If you guys know anything . . . I mean, it’ll all come out in the investigation.”
    “What’s the name again?”
    “Carl V. Schmidt.”
    “I don’t know it. The Watchmen are looking for him?”
    Jake ignored the lie; it was routine politics. “Yes.”
    “I’ll talk to John Patricia. Right now,” Goodman said. “Will you be on this phone?”
    “I will.”
    “I’ll get back to you.”
    Out through Buckingham, at Sprouse’s Corner, Jake stopped, looked left. He could take Highway 20 back through Charlottesville, and then north. He could be home in two and a half or three hours. Or he could go straight down Highway 60, back into Richmond. If he went north, he could stop at Schmidt’s place and see what the feds were doing. On the other hand, Danzig would want him doing political assessment, not crime-scene work, about which he knew nothing.
    He thought about it for a few seconds, then went straight through the intersection, down 60, back toward Richmond.
    Back toward Goodman.

6 

    Howard Barber arrived late, cursing the traffic, the cops who wanted ID, who might have doubted that he could be both a friend and a Republican, who suspected he might be a media interloper of some kind
    Barber disabused them quickly enough. He had an officer’s voice, a CEO’s voice, the voice of a man who ran one of the hottest high-tech start-ups. They waved him through when he used the voice, pointed him at a parking spot next to a stand of azaleas. Before he got out of the car, he got on his cell phone, checked in with his office: “Hold everything for me, don’t put anything through.