Dead Watch

he thought.

    Sarah Levine was home. She came to the door in a housecoat, a short, square woman with a square face, blue-green eyes, pearly white hair, and worry lines on her forehead. Jake thought she was in her early sixties. She pushed open the glass storm door, peered at him nearsightedly, and said, “Yes?”
    Jake held up his White House ID. “Mrs. Levine, I’m a researcher with the White House. I’m here to talk to you about a package of evidence about possible corruption involving a state highway project. I’m very serious. There have been some terrible things happening, possibly because of the package.”
    Her mouth worked a few times, and she looked up and down the street, as if for help, and then she said, “What kind of terrible things?”
    “Did you hear about the murders in Madison?”
    “Omigod,” she said. “Who?”
    “Al Green and his secretary. They were shot to death, yesterday, possibly by men looking for this package. There’s no way to know for sure, but you might be in danger yourself. We need to talk. And I need to establish my identification with you. That I really do work with the White House.”
    He tried to look helpless. He saw her hesitate, then look at his walking stick. He leaned on it a little more heavily.
    She said, “Al was shot? I just talked to him yesterday.”
    “Yes, he was shot. The FBI is working the case now.”
    “Are they coming here?” she asked.
    “You’ll eventually have to talk to them, if they determine this package is relevant. But . . . Mrs. Levine, I really need to look at it, and talk to my superiors in Washington.”

    Alone inside the house, she seemed more nervous about him. Jake took out his cell phone, called Danzig’s office. Gina answered: “This is Jake. I need to talk to the guy.”
    “I thought you were all done?”
    “I am. But something came up, and this is pretty urgent.”

    Danzig came on the phone a minute later, his voice cautious. “Jake? I’ve been hearing some rumors about Madison . . .”
    “The city, or the woman?”
    “The city . . .”
    “Yeah. I was there. Things are rough. But: I’ve made contact with the package in question. I need you to establish my bona fides with a woman here . . . It’s important.” He glanced at Levine and smiled. “She doesn’t necessarily trust me, given the circumstances. I would like to have her call the White House, and have her switched up to your office so she could talk to you for a second.”
    “Is this absolutely necessary?” He didn’t want to do it.
    “I think so, sir. We’ll have to talk to the FBI, though. There’s another copy, somewhere in Madison.”
    Silence, then, “Tell her to call.”

    “You can call the White House?” Levine asked doubtfully.
    “Sure. It’s basically an office building with a big lawn,” Jake said. “This is the only way I could think to prove that I’m okay.”
    She called Washington directory assistance, got the main number for the White House, and at Jake’s instruction gave her full name: “This is Sarah MacLaughlin Levine, calling for Mr. Danzig.”
    She had to wait a minute, then said, “Yes . . . yes.” Another few seconds, then, “Yes. Yes I do.” She looked at Jake. “Okay, thank you. I’ll talk to him. Okay. Thank you.”

    “They said you’re official.” She was more confident now. “They said you were coordinating with the FBI.”
    “I am—but before we get too far down that road, we have to assess the contents of the package. We don’t want to get caught up in a fraud; we have to make sure that everything is legitimate; that they’re for real.”
    “One thing, though,” she said. “This is about your . . . vice president. How do I know you just won’t throw them in the river?”
    Jake tried to look as pious as he could: “Mrs. Levine, this package is going to come out, sooner or later. There are copies. Once I have it, there’s no way I can bury it. If I did, I’d go to prison. But we have to make sure that it’s real.”
    “It’s real,” she grunted. “Landers is crookeder than a hound dog’s leg. The whole bunch of them are crooked.”

    The package was almost exactly that: a cardboard box that said Xerox on the side, and that had once held ten reams of 92-bright white printer paper. Inside the box was a stack of notebooks, some files, and three DVD disks in a Ziploc freezer bag.
    “We hoped . . . ,” Levine said tentatively, as Jake began thumbing through the