Mistress

He sniffs a laugh. “Enough, Ben. I need your answer. Right here, right now. Do you spend the few remaining days you have left tilting at windmills, or do you get your life back as it was?”

I break away from him to think for a moment. I let my eyes wander over the west end of the National Mall. The Lincoln Memorial was the location of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Protests against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, marches for women’s and workers’ rights-all of them have taken place on the Mall. Every memorial here pays tribute to courageous souls who battled evil forces, some visible and some invisible, to make this country and this world a better place.

I’m no hero. I never have been. I’ve lived a safe and cautious life. Why should I change course now? Especially when Carney’s right-the only thing that pressing forward will do for me is land me in prison or get me killed.

“I need an answer right now,” says the deputy director. “Come on, Ben. You know there’s only one answer.”

“You can wait twenty-four hours,” I say. “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”

Chapter 64

The air tonight is mild, as if Mother Nature has given us a brief respite from the stifling heat for this occasion. Idaho Avenue has been closed to traffic from Macomb Street to Newark Street. The sun has set, and the darkness is broken by the light of hundreds of candles held by officers in full dress uniform, civilians, and even children-people who have gathered for the memorial honoring Detective Ellis Montgomery Burk.

There will be a private funeral service later this week. Those were the wishes of Ellis’s widow, Delores, and his daughters, Jody and Shannon. Tonight is the public memorial.

A podium has been set up just outside the police headquarters. A minister has spoken. The Second District commander has spoken. A church choir delivers a touching rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

And then it goes quiet, and we hear the voice of Delores Burk.

“Ellis loved this job,” she begins. “He loved everything about it. He loved solving problems. He loved helping people. But most of all, he loved all of you. He considered you part of his family, every one of you. He would be glad to see all of you tonight. As am I.

“My husband had a simple saying: ‘Have the strength to do it right.’ That was just like Ellis, if you knew him. He always broke it down to simple terms. ‘Do it right.’ There’s right and there’s wrong in this world, and Ellis always knew where that line was drawn. He never crossed it. He thought that was his duty as a member of the Metropolitan Police Department. He thought that was his duty as a father and husband. He thought that was his duty as a man.”

I’m standing on the other side of the barricade. It’s not a good idea for me to cut into that crowd. Not because I might be recognized and arrested-though that would be a distinct possibility-but because I might be a distraction on this occasion. And Ellis deserves this memorial.

I’m to blame for this man’s death. I reached out for him when I had no other options. And he helped me even though the case was beyond his jurisdiction. He helped me because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Delores Burk is correct. There is such a thing as right and wrong. There is black and white. Washington, DC, is a town that lives in the middle gray. But that doesn’t mean I have to.

I owe this to Ellis. I brought him into this fight, and I have to make sure I see it through. If he died in an ultimately noble cause, then his family should know it. If he died as a result of an evil cover-up, they should know that, too.

When the memorial is over, I steer the Triumph onto 39th Street and then head south on Massachusetts Avenue. It will be another long night, another hotel. For a little while there, I really thought my days of running were over.

“Mr. Carney,” I say into my cell phone. “I’m not making a deal with you. I’m going to find out what’s going on or die trying. So buckle up, Craig. It’s going to be a wild ride.”

Chapter 65

I need to kill some time before my next stop, so I find a bar on 15th Street and nurse a beer and watch CNN on the screen above the bartender. The sound is muted, but the closed-captioning is telling me that the Russians have detained a person they’re calling a spy from the neighboring republic of Georgia and are lodging an official protest. The Russians and Georgians had an armed conflict back in 2008, and the fear, apparently, is that fires are rekindling.

I generally favor peace over war as a rule, but if another armed conflict broke out over there, maybe the Russians would call back the guys who are chasing me with machine guns. A guy can dream.

At midnight, I make the short walk to the intersection of 15th Street and Caroline Street. Anne Brennan lives on the ground floor of the three-story brick condo building there, and the lights are on, so I assume she’s awake.