Point in the Circle

By Bill Johnstone

Two bodies discovered in the center of Washington, one barely alive and the other definitely dead, spark an investigation by the DC homicide police, convinced from the outset that the incidents cannot be coincidence. Also, both victims provoke interest from the US security agencies which trigger further police suspicion. Investigative journalist Mike McCabe, who ‘discovers’ the corpse, unwittingly, is dragged into the saga. His appetite for a good news story fuels his desire to get to the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Johnstone
• Release date: Jun 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215464328

Bill Johnstone

The author has been a journalist for more than 30 years and has taught the subject in the USA and the UK.He was born in Glasgow, Scotland and lived in London and Washington where his novels are set.He is an avid animal lover and a trusteee of a cat sanctuary in Somerset, England.He travels frequently between the UK and the USA.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It wasn’t until McCabe reached the sidewalk that he spotted the figure about twenty feet away, face down on the grass. It was usual to see a few bodies strewn around this part of town shortly after midnight, sleeping off the indulgences and excesses of the previous few hours. There were other bodies too, mostly permanent fixtures, huddled on the benches dotted around this urban circle, each wrapped in tattered clothing and blankets. So, nobody paid much attention to the body on the grass.

However, anyone taking the trouble would have realized fairly quickly that this body was a corpse. There were no breathing reflexes, no limbering stretching, no bleary-eyed yawns from this sleeper. It was obvious too there was no colour in the face either, just a white cold mask, the chalk-white pallid colour of the dead.

McCabe studied the gaunt and drawn face below him, knelt down beside it and inspected its features at close range. The face was not dissimilar to many who, each evening, sought shelter here. At this time of year, their features were taut with cold in this raw Washington night, a chill which percolated its way into the body too. The temperature added another depressing dimension to the plight of those seeking sanctuary.

McCabe fumbled for his phone and dialled emergency. He wondered how long the body had been lying there, how many had not noticed it, how many had looked away, or how many didn’t care? This was urban Washington where life moved at a pace which many found too fast. Was this another casualty?

For some, in this affluent neighbourhood, such spectacles were uncomfortable. But for McCabe it was therapeutic, a reminder of the life he enjoyed and took for granted. He’d never been destitute, nor anything approaching it. Those faces and hollow eyes of the needy reminded him of some he’d seen during visits to refugee encampments, on many of his overseas reporting assignments in eastern Europe. It was a look of deprivation and despair, of a life living one day at a time without any security or guarantee of food or shelter. Sure, he’d had his share of bad luck, poor decisions, cancelled contracts but nothing that resulted being homeless or not knowing the source of his next meal. He cringed at the thought. It seemed out of place in the US. The cold wind, which blasted its way through his jacket, made him shiver. The face that looked back up at him made him shiver again.

It wasn’t long before a police patrol car stopped about fifty yards away, its flashing lights thrown across the circle and the makeshift dormitory.

‘Did you make the call, sir?’ asked a young patrolman who’d emerged from the police car and walked towards the body.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Your name, sir?’

‘My name is McCabe; Mike McCabe. I live a few blocks away,’ he said, nodding towards the opposite side of the road.

‘Do you know him, sir?’ asked the young cop formally, walking round the body.

McCabe shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I can’t see his face. I found him. I called the emergency, that’s all I can tell you. There’s a mobile foodbank a few blocks down there,’ he added, pointing in its direction. ‘He could be from there or he was just sleeping here for the night. It’s fairly common practice in this area.’

The patrolman, who’d now been joined by another, studied the body again, as his radio squawked waves of incoherent messages.

There was also a homeless shelter, not too far away; a basic church building with blankets and a few makeshift beds, assembled each night as needed, manned by volunteers. The warmth they provided matched the sanctuary it gave to those with nowhere else to go. But he didn’t want to complicate the picture for the cop. He’d keep it simple. ‘There’s a homeless shelter about two blocks away. Maybe he came from there?’ he said, flicking one hand in its general direction.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the cop graciously. ‘We’re pretty familiar with the area.’

‘You seem to know a lot about these people, Mr….’ the cop said hesitantly.

‘McCabe,’ he fired back quickly, finishing the patrolman’s sentence. ‘Mike McCabe,’ he repeated. ‘I’m a journalist. I know the area well and, as I told you, I live here. At least for the present.’

‘You’re British?’ said the cop responding to McCabe’s accent.

‘Yes. I report for a London newspaper.’ He flashed his Press Card. ‘The London Daily Herald,’ he said, moving it nearer to the cop who glanced at it.

McCabe knew several of the volunteers who manned the foodbank and the church hall. He’d written a feature or two on their work. The articles had provoked mixed reactions. On the good side, volunteers and donations increased, but not surprisingly, so too did the complaints from those who considered a church’s mission, whatever the denomination, to be strictly spiritual. The physical needs of the poor were best left to government, preferably a considerable distance from there.

He'd written stories about the victims too. Their tales were heart-breaking. Many hadn’t been born into poverty but circumstances, bad luck, poor judgement and freak occurrences had taken their toll. The lucky ones had some help when things got rough. Too many however stood alone, abandoned by employers, family and friends who had troubles of their own and could shoulder no more. The fall of these victims, and they were victims, after the last of the support had disappeared, was predictably swift. He was a hack. His job was to report facts and keep any views he had to himself. It wasn’t easy.

McCabe studied the corpse in the flashing lights of the newly arrived ambulance. The multicoloured strobes added to the drama and the atmosphere of alarm.

The young cop spoke into his squawk-box, reporting the situation. Two more police-cars arrived.

The body and the vehicles had now attracted some attention. Crowds gathered behind a quickly erected crime tape, gawking over the barrier and speculating on the identity of the corpse and the behaviour of the police.

McCabe had only moved into the area for a few weeks from the houseboat he’d been renting which was undergoing much needed repairs. The previous harsh Washington winters had tested the infrastructure of the boat to the extreme. It challenged him too with many cold nights supplemented by a failing heating system. A frozen water tank added to the misery. In the end he was forced to rent a small flat from a friend who’d gone overseas on an extended business trip. He loved this area too, a civilised and almost eccentric mixture of artists, and literati; a community with a slice of bohemian thrown in for good measure. It had a large gay population too which brought style and good taste with it and an obvious improvement in the shops and restaurants.

The inquisitive crowd had now dispersed and the body had been removed. There was barely a time in the day when the traffic didn’t go round this urban roundabout, called Dupont Circle, like a constant moving wheel. This was the time when the night and early morning worlds, shift-workers and partygoers, would blend.

‘We would like you to come downtown and make a statement, sir.’

McCabe nodded. ‘I’ll be there tomorrow.’ He left the cops at the scene and walked the two blocks home.

Chapter 2

The room was as humid and stale as the last time he’d been there. It seemed devoid of anything breathable. McCabe could see the DC Homicide Lieutenant, directing the play and issuing orders behind the glass panel that divided the detective’s office from the rest of the melee around him. The partition defined his territory, his fiefdom where he was master. It allowed the cop a smattering of privacy. But primarily it gave him space and room to think, away from the ubiquitous cacophony that defined the rest of the precinct. People came and went, crossing each other’s paths constantly like some shambolic ballet.

The head cop was Kovarik, ringmaster of this law enforcement circus. He beckoned with a wave and an apology of a smile. They’d known each other for a few years now, McCabe on assignment to Washington for his London newspaper, and Kovarik the tenacious homicide watchdog in the US capital. Covering the same patch, their paths invariably crossed.

McCabe pushed the glass partition door open and waited, as if to be seated in a restaurant.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ said Kovarik. ‘After the story, as usual.’ This time there was no ambiguity in his expression. It was deadly serious. He sifted through a pile of photos taken from a file on his desk, stopped at one, studied it then looked at McCabe again. He threw a snap across the desk towards McCabe. The detective stared at him. ‘He takes a good photo. I mean the likeness is fair. Must have been one of his better days.’ The cop chuckled. He was pleased with the comment.

McCabe looked puzzled. ‘I don’t follow you. What are you talking about?’

The detective grinned, another forced one, unclear in its meaning. ‘There’s another one here of him in front of some church,’ he said sifting through his file again. ‘It’s amazing what is held in the police databanks.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about?’

‘It’s all here,’ Kovarik added waving the file.

McCabe looked even more puzzled.

The detective put the file down and directed his attention to the photo he’d thrown across the desk. ‘That’s the guy you found dead in Dupont Circle,’ he said without any elaboration, pointing at the picture. His name is Carlton Lomax.’

The name didn’t mean a thing to McCabe. His face said so. He looked annoyed. ‘So that’s what you’re talking about? The dead body? I didn’t find him, as you so eloquently put it. He wasn’t lost and I almost fell over him. Everyone else, from what I could gather, was walking round him or stepping over the poor soul. But you’ve still lost me.’

Kovarik listened but made no comment. He ploughed on with his questioning in his usual focused manner. He was not a man easily side-tracked. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

McCabe responded, sounding a little bemused but clearly getting irritated ‘Are you listening to me? Why do you ask questions, when you don’t listen to the answers. I can tell you nothing, absolutely nothing. Nor does the name mean a bloody thing to me.’ He shook his head then sighed. ‘Are you listening to me?’ he repeated. ‘I nearly fell over the body, then phoned the cops. They were there in minutes. I was nudged aside fairly quickly by the arriving emergency team; cops, paramedics and all. They didn’t seem particularly interested in me or what I said. How the hell can I add to that? I don’t know any more. I was asked to come here and make a statement. So here I am.’ It was his turn to force a smile.

The detective lifted up another photo he’d been studying from the file, eyed it again then threw it across the desk towards McCabe. The photo spun across the surface. ‘It’s him again, the dead man,’ said Kovarik pointing at the new picture. ‘It looks as if it was taken outside some church,’ he said, sticking a forefinger into the middle of the photo. He moved closer to the picture then stared at McCabe again. The detective had a number of techniques meant to harass or bully, depending on what was required. This was straight from his repertoire.

The group in the picture seemed to be posed in front of a small building, in a square behind the main block of Georgetown University. McCabe remembered the place and also being impressed by a listing on an adjacent wall. It was a boastful selection from the university’s alumni. It read like a litany of the famous and wealthy who’d ever been associated with government in Washington. It could have been a brief ‘Who’s Who’ of DC politics; only Presidents and Congressmen need apply. ‘Some church; what kind of statement is that?’ asked McCabe disparagingly as he lifted the photo. ‘That is not just some church, it’s in Georgetown University, and almost as old as this country. Your grasp of local history, Kovarik, is breathtaking.’

The detective ignored the jibe. ‘I didn’t take you for a religious man, McCabe.’

‘And what type of person would that be then? What characteristics does your religious man have, Lieutenant? How would you recognize him in a witness lineup?’ He was intentionally trying to be obtuse.

‘Which question from that barrage would you like me to answer?’ fired Kovarik. ‘Any wonder you guys get so much wrong. You ask a whole load of questions and don’t know which answer is which’. The flash of humour in the detective’s face soon disappeared, as he rummaged through his pile of photos again and extracted another. He threw it across the desk too. ‘Do you recognize anything there?’

McCabe stepped towards the desk again. The new picture of a contorted face, bruised and covered in mud, offered no details which could easily be identified. McCabe looked uncomfortable. He recoiled slightly, a little pale and nauseous.

Kovarik didn’t say anything.

‘Who is he?’ asked McCabe. ‘Looks like he’s been dragged from the river?’

Kovarik nodded. ‘Not quite. But a good guess. Although, it’s not a he it’s a she.’

McCabe stepped forward again, lifted the picture and studied it in greater detail. He could see that the figure had hair longer than he’d expect on a man but the rest of the features were caked in a mass of debris, the face almost cocooned in grass. ‘Why are you asking me this?’

Kovarik retrieved the picture. ‘It was a long shot, given your unhelpful evidence so far,’ he said sounding resigned rather than disappointed.

McCabe knew the detective loved playing games. It was part of his psyche that said he was in charge.

Kovarik threw another photo across the desk. ‘It takes a bit of imagination but our forensic geniuses magnified a section from the group photo I showed you. It tells me that the girl in that picture with the dead man could be her. Hence my question.’ The detective had been blunt in laying out the issues. ‘This girl, the one in both photos, was found on the riverbank two nights ago and is lucky to be alive. That is, if you can describe her current condition as such. She was dumped, left to die.’ As usual, his rhetoric was stark and to the point.

‘Where is she now?’

‘Her name is Krystal Shelly and she’s under police guard at George Washington Hospital.’

‘Why?’

Kovarik didn’t say anything. The look he gave said it all.

McCabe nodded. It was a stupid question. The answer was obvious. The cops considered she was still in danger. Whatever the menace, it was clearly criminal.

‘I don’t know if they actually meant to kill her, whoever they are. They could have finished the job before they dumped her. But they didn’t. It has all the signs that they panicked, something went badly wrong. The girl was shot. Perhaps they thought she was dead.’ Kovarik stopped talking, as if savouring the silence and expecting a response.

‘Why are you telling me this?’

Kovarik grinned. There was a slight conceit in the look. ‘You’re a hack not a detective, McCabe. There are definite differences on how you see things. To the professional cop, there are signs. I thought you’d like an explanation.’

McCabe looked miffed.

Kovarik couldn’t suppress a laugh. ‘Only teasing. But it suggests to me that they were either amateurish or not sure what to do. Whatever happened, they panicked.’

‘Is that an official statement?’

Kovarik ignored the question. ‘What was this gathering, the one in the photo, a club of some description? Since you’re so knowledgeable about the location what’s your guess?’

McCabe leaned forward again and studied the faces in the picture. He honestly couldn’t decide why the photo had been taken and who the personalities were in the group. The faces weren’t too clear. His eyes jumped from one face to another but nothing came to mind; no major news story. He studied the picture again. ‘It’s not a group photo, anyway.’

‘It isn’t?’ queried Kovarik, obviously waiting for an explanation.

McCabe lifted the picture from the desk then handed it back to Kovarik. ‘It’s a photo of a group, not a group photo. There is a difference.’

Kovarik looked puzzled. ‘You’ll need to explain that to me.’

‘Look closely at how it’s composed. The people look as if they’re moving, and at random. They’re not posing. As I said, it’s a group in a photo, not a photo of a group. To me, there is not a common purpose.’

The detective studied the picture again. ‘They’re under the same roof at the same time. That’s a common purpose for me. Two victims of violence, captured in the same photo is too much. And you know I don’t buy into coincidences. Also, they’ve created too much interest for my liking.’

‘From whom?’

Kovarik waved away the question. ‘One murdered, the other not yet.’

McCabe had heard the detective often enough spout his views on coincidence. Somehow, he could sense the detective was fishing. He also guessed that the cop knew much more than he was prepared to disclose.

McCabe guessed this was one of those occasions when the cop’s political masters had got the upper-hand. This was Washington, the world political capital, and a quagmire of duplicity, horse-trading and double-dealing. It always reminded him of President Truman’s famous observation about Washington, ‘If you want a friend buy a dog.’

There was an air of resignation in Kovarik’s delivery now. ‘The girl,’ he said then stopped to focus on her in the group picture. ‘Her employers are our security overlords, and not prepared to share much about her. We only found her pedigree by chance but, as expected, details are restricted. He played with the photo for a while, lifting it up, studying it, then dropping it back on the desk. He then produced a brown paper bag and emptied the contents. ‘There was only one item on her. She had a phone, concealed in the lining of her jacket,’ Kovarik said quietly, as the item dropped heavily onto the desk. ‘It should have told us something but, like her, it was in pretty poor shape. Our clever forensics managed to salvage something. At first sight I didn’t think it possible, but they were up for the challenge. We record our own history in these things,’ he added studying the battered device.

‘How very philosophical,’ said McCabe. He couldn’t resist the comment.

Kovarik didn’t smile at the remark. In fact, he didn’t acknowledge it at all. ‘The forensics restored the remnants of a few images on her cell-phone but nothing we can use at this stage.’

‘You seem to have got this case between your teeth. Why?’ McCabe didn’t really need an answer to the question. He knew Kovarik could be obsessive for the simplest reason; he hated interference. This was his patch and it was his job, plain and simple. No other intellectual justification was needed.

The determination showed on the cop’s face. ‘Both victims and incidents have generated a great deal of heat. I’ve already had phone calls, enquiring about the girl and the circumstances surrounding her attack in DC; one from the CIA.’

McCabe was surprised at the disclosure. How much further he could push it and how much latitude would be given him, he didn’t know. The