Dead Watch

conclusion. And he felt the pull of his loyalty to Danzig. He should tell Danzig.
    And he would, he decided: but just a little later. Maybe after he talked to Barber, after he’d looked into a few more things . . .

    Two phone calls, the first to Danzig, to bring him up-to-date on everything but the gay stuff. The second to Ralph Goines, Arlo Goodman’s assistant.
    Jake identified himself: “I need some information immediately, or as fast as you can put it together. I need to know when you first started putting out feelers about Schmidt and how you did that. Did anyone see or talk to him after you started putting out feelers? Is there any way to know whether or not Schmidt knew you were looking for him?”
    He expected Goines to get back. Instead, Goines said, “Hold on. I’m going to put this phone down, I could be a minute or two.”
    Jake held on, heard music in the background. Country-western, he thought. Then Goines picked up. “We began talking about him on the first, April Fools’ day. He was still around. We had a guy named Andy Duncan stop by and chat with him about Bowe’s disappearance. Duncan went as a Watchman, but he’s also an accident investigator for the highway patrol, and he knows what he’s doing. He got back to us and said Schmidt seemed to have missed the news stories that Bowe was gone. Remember, the stories weren’t that big, it was more like, ‘Where has the senator gone to?’ ”
    “Okay. The point being that somebody asked him specifically about Bowe after Bowe disappeared.”
    “Yes. Then he worked in a roadhouse down there, as a bartender. A couple of Watchmen talked to him the day after that, and probably the day after that, too, although we haven’t nailed that down. This was what, ten days ago. Anyway, when the newspaper stories started getting bigger, and we got a couple more guys wondering about Schmidt, we went down to see him again, and he was gone.”
    “So this would be a week ago.”
    “Don’t quote me, but it was about that. We can put a precise timeline together and e-mail it to you.”
    “Mmm. That’s okay. Listen, I can’t give you the precise information I have, because it’s classified. But—everybody will know this in a next few hours—the hunt for Carl Schmidt is about to go big-time.”
    “They found something.”
    “Yes. Tell your boss. Way the media works, they could be holding his feet to the fire.”

    Jake kicked back in the chair again, closed his eyes. Schmidt. He needed to know more about the guy. Because Schmidt had struck him as a loser, but not necessarily a moron.
    If he’d been warned that people were curious about Bowe’s disappearance and his possible involvement, would he still have hidden the gun in the house? If he really wanted to keep it that badly, he could have put it in a couple of Ziploc bags and ditched it out in the woods. He could recover it in two minutes, but nobody would have found it in a hundred years . . .
    And that scratched semicircle on the floor of the basement. He’d been pleased with himself for detecting the possibility that the bench had been moved so somebody could stand on it. But now that he thought about it, Schmidt might as well have painted an arrow pointing to the hiding place. Was he really that dumb?
    He dug around in his briefcase, found the note that had been given to him by Goodman’s treacherous intern, Cathy Ann Dorn. If he could catch her before she went to work, maybe he could get a little insight on the Goodman team’s reaction. He dialed the number on the paper, and a young woman answered: “Delta-Delta-Delta. How can I help you?”
    “What?”
    “TriDelts. How can I help you?”
    He was nonplussed. A sorority house? “Uh . . . do you have a Miss Cathy Ann Dorn?”
    There was a second of ominous silence, then, “Are you a friend of hers?” The voice had hushed.
    “I was supposed to call her back about a job,” Jake said.
    “Oh . . . God, I don’t know what to tell you.”
    Suddenly, bad vibrations, thick as syrup. “Is she there?”
    “Actually, let me have you talk to somebody else.”
    “Could you . . .” But the woman was gone, replaced fifteen seconds later by a sharper voice. “You’re looking for Cathy Ann?”
    “Yes.”
    “Could I ask who’s calling?”
    “My name is Chuck Webster. I’m calling her back about a political internship she’d applied for, a White House internship. Is there something wrong?”
    The woman hesitated and then