Triggers

Chapter 23

The DC police had been given copies of the security-camera photos of Bessie Stilwell, but so far they’d failed to turn her up. And Darryl Hudkins kept trying to recall her activities today, to figure out where she’d gone, and—

And memories came to him, of Richard Nixon, of all people. Although Nixon had resigned the presidency before Darryl had been born, he’d seen film of him declaring, “I am not a crook,” and him flashing a pair of V-for-victory finger signs at the crowd as he left the White House for the last time, but…

But he’d never felt sympathy for Nixon; Darryl’s dad, whenever he spoke of him, referred to him as “Tricky Dick.” And in all Darryl’s years working at the White House, he practically never heard Nixon’s name; in an almost Soviet-style rewriting of history, the thirty-seventh president had seemingly been expunged from memory.

But, suddenly, he was thinking about Nixon, recalling things he’d never known about him—like him speaking to the first astronauts on the moon…Buzz something, and that other guy. Back when we’d been proud of him. And him going to China, and meeting Mao. Such a smart move!

But then it had all come tumbling down. First his vice president—Agnew, the name came to Darryl, although he didn’t think he’d known it before—had had to resign although over unrelated matters, and then Nixon himself had stepped down.

Unrelated matters.

That was the thought that had popped into Darryl’s head, and as he considered it, more details came to him: the “unrelated matters” were charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy either when Agnew had been governor of Maryland or Baltimore County Executive.

And those were unrelated to…

To Watergate, and—

And—

Yes, yes, yes! That’s where she was staying! Not at her son Mike’s place, but at the Watergate Hotel, which had recently reopened after major renovations. It came to Darryl now: she’d told Mike she was staying in his apartment, and indeed had gone by it once now, but she preferred a hotel, where housekeeping would find her no later than the next morning if she slipped and fell. She hadn’t told Mike that, though; she didn’t want him to be worrying about her running up expenses.

The Watergate was a great choice for someone who was visiting Luther Terry; it was only three blocks away, straight down New Hampshire Avenue, the diagonal street that constrained the LT building into a triangular shape. The Watergate complex was on the shore of the Potomac, opposite Theodore Roosevelt Island and just north of the Kennedy Center.

And—yes!—Bessie was looking around the grounds, as much as she could look at anything with her dim vision, and thinking this is where it all began, and—

And her thoughts were interrupted by a siren, and Darryl had heard a siren himself not five minutes ago. Normally, he’d expect to hear ambulance sirens in the vicinity of a hospital, but LT was under lockdown, and so Darryl had looked out the window and he’d seen a fire truck barreling north, and—

And Bessie had seen—or at least heard!—the same fire truck; this was a very recent memory.

Darryl spoke into his sleeve even as he broke into a run. “Hudkins to Dawson. I know where Bessie Stilwell is; I’m leaving the building to retrieve her.”

“Copy,” said Susan’s voice in his ear. “I’ll make sure hospital security knows; go out the ambulance bay, not through the lobby.”

Darryl could have commandeered a car to drive to the Watergate, but it was less than a thousand yards away. He made it down to the first floor and found himself retracing the path by which they’d brought in the president this morning, going past the staff sleep room, past Trauma, turning right, and heading out through the sliding doors that led to the ambulance driveway. A uniformed hospital security guard was indeed there. He checked Darryl’s ID, then unlocked the door for him; Darryl nodded thanks at the man and ran out into the chilly evening.

He hadn’t bothered to get his coat—that would have cost him a couple of minutes. He ran past the news crews, and one camera guy tried to follow him, shouting questions—Darryl was, after all, the first person to emerge from the building in hours—but the man, carrying a large camera, wasn’t able to keep up with Darryl as he ran along the building’s longest side, heading toward Eye Street, then—his heart pounding a bit—H Street, and then—sweating now—under the Potomac River Freeway, emerging at the Watergate complex. The hotel, he knew, was off to his right along Virginia Avenue, and he continued to run until he got there, making his way into the swanky lobby.

The aristocratic white man behind the front desk looked askance at Darryl, who was breathing hard, but Darryl whipped out his ID and said, his voice ragged, “Secret Service. What room is Bessie Stilwell in?” but then it came to him before the man answered: room 534. “Give me a passkey.”

The desk clerk hesitated for a second, but then programmed a keycard and handed it to Darryl, saying, “She just got back, actually.”

Darryl took the plastic card and dashed to the bank of elevators. He stabbed the up button and caught his breath as he waited. Then he rode up to the fifth floor, and—

—and that must be her, down near the end of the corridor, moving slowly away from him; there was no one else in the carpeted hallway.

“Wait!” he called.

She slowly turned around, and Darryl came bounding down the corridor, and she was fumbling to open her purse, and—

—and suddenly he realized how it must look to her: late in the evening, all alone in a long corridor, a large, sweaty black man, huffing and puffing, running right at her.

She soon had a tiny pistol in her hand. Darryl stopped dead in his tracks; he could have easily drawn his own gun and blown her away—he had no doubt his reflexes and aim were better than hers—but instead he raised his hands a little.

“Mrs. Stilwell,” he said, hoping the fact that he knew her name would calm her a bit. She peered at him; there were maybe twenty feet between them. Darryl noted the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door next to him. “I’m a Secret Service agent. Maybe you saw me today at the hospital?”

And saying that triggered him to recall her seeing him for the first time. She had indeed noticed him at the hospital, and—

What’s that—

Darryl was stunned as the rest of the thought tumbled into his consciousness: What’s that nigger doing over there?

And: Up to no good, I suppose.

And: My God, is that blood on his sleeve? Well, there you have it! Been in a knife fight or something. Probably over drugs…

He found his head shaking, and he felt furious. He wanted to say that it was the president’s blood, that he’d gotten it on him trying to save the man’s life, that she was so totally full of shit.

Bessie still had the gun aimed at him, and still looked terrified because…

…because he was black. Because he was colored. Because he was a—

That fucking word again.

Jesus!

She looked back over her shoulder now, but of course there was no way she could outrun him; he was a third her age.

“Mrs. Stilwell,” he said, “please lower the gun.”

She looked down, as if surprised that the little pistol was in her hands. Darryl actually hadn’t put away his ID since showing it to the desk clerk; it was still in his left hand, and he flipped it open and held it out in front of him as he slowly started closing the distance. “I just need to ask you a few questions.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought you were…I thought…”

“Well, I’m not,” said Darryl. He considered suggesting they go into her room to talk, but he realized she’d freak if he did that, so instead he said, “Would you mind coming back to the hospital with me? There’s a small matter we need to clear up…”

“You really are a Secret Service agent?”

“Yes, ma’am. And I think you should give me that gun.”

She thought about it for a moment, then handed it to him. He escorted her down to the lobby and brought her back to the hospital in a cab; the cabbie was not thrilled about such a short trip, but Darryl tried to make up for it by telling him to keep the change from the twenty-dollar bill he handed him. He and Bessie re-entered the hospital through the ambulance-bay doors, and then he walked her to the conference room on one, told her to have a seat in there, called Susan Dawson to come do the questioning, and went off to wash his hands.

Fortunately, he thought, there was lots of disinfectant in a hospital.