Stinger

by Nancy Kress

  None of it really added up to anything.

  Cavanaugh sat and thought longer. Then he pulled out his drawing pad. Doodling helped him concentrate. He drew a teddy bear sitting on a shelf, then added a tin soldier, a doll, a beach ball, and a Frisbee. He gave the teddy bear a thought balloon saying, “I wish I were a real avocado.” By the time he labeled the drawing “STUPID TEDDY BEAR DEPRESSION,” he knew what he was going to do next.

  Seton wasn’t in their Leonardtown office, although he’d left behind plenty of spoor: Pepsi cans, Dorito bags, Snickers wrappers. Probably Seton was in a bar near the Pax River naval base “developing informants.” By now, Seton should have everybody in Patuxent turning each other in for federal crimes. Or at least have the navy well on the road to sharing Seton’s alcoholism.

  Seton was a terrible agent. But he was clever enough to have hoodwinked Dunbar, who hardly ever saw Seton, and who was overly impressed by the avalanche of correctly prepared paperwork that rolled into Baltimore every month. Moreover, Seton had a family, and he was very close to retirement. Those agents in the field office who did know how terrible he was would nonetheless protect him. Even Director Broylin had admitted that marginal agents were still tolerated more than they should be, although usually they were stuck someplace doing background checks on job applicants. Too bad Seton was so good at churning out 302s.

  Cavanaugh wanted a look at those 302s.

  He didn’t have the password to Seton’s computer. But he did have a key to the locked hard-copy cabinets. Most agents didn’t keep hard copies once the reports were turned in. Too much bother. But Seton, so careful to impress his superiors, probably had neatly filed hard copies of everything, just in case he ever had to impress. Dunbar the Book Man in person. Cavanaugh started on the last cabinet.

  Not only filed, but cross-filed. It took Cavanaugh all of ninety seconds to find the duplicate 302.

  On Tuesday; August 4, I met with informant Curtis P. McGraw, of 658 Crestview Avenue, Chevy Chase, Maryland, and 841 Beach Road, Town Creek, Maryland. Mr. McGraw is the owner and CEO of McGraw Contracting. Currently this company builds condominiums and apartment houses along the eastern shore.

  Mr. McGraw told me that four months earlier, on April 2, he had met Dr. Michael Sean Donohue, of College Park, Maryland. They met at an evening seminar held by Tuchings, James, & Costain of Bethesda, Maryland, a private investment firm. (See attached seminar enrollment statement from Tuchings et al.) This seminar was held at the investment firm offices in Bethesda. Mr. McGraw and Dr. Donohue sat next to each other during the seminar and chatted during the coffee break. At the conclusion of the seminar they agreed to have a drink together at a nearby bar, Ramona’s.

  According to Mr. McGraw, the discussion that evening was about Chinese art. Both men collect it. Mr. McGraw told me, “I thought his collection sounded interesting, although not as good as mine. I had the impression he wasn’t particularly well off. But he was very knowledgeable, and his taste sounded good.”

  Cavanaugh looked up from the. 302. Donohue buying the little painted vase for two thousand dollars at Camay House. The lighted display cabinet in his townhouse, filled with exquisite things.

  The following week, on April 7, Dr. Donohue visited Mr. McGraw at his residence during the evening, Mr. McGraw stated. No one else was present. On April 13, Mr. McGraw briefly visited Dr. Donohue at Dr. Donohue’s residence sometime during the afternoon. Business required Mr. McGraw to be in the area. Again no one else was present. Dr. Donohue showed Mr. McGraw his collection of Oriental art, which Mr. McGraw said consisted mostly of vases, bowls, and statues.

  According to Mr. McGraw, Mr. Donohue’s collection was “disappointing” and not as good as Mr. McGraw had expected. He expressed disappointment to Dr. Donohue. Mr. McGraw now says he can’t remember his exact words.

  But he does remember Dr. Donohue’s reply. Dr. Donohue allegedly said, “I have something that will impress you, Curt. Wait here.” Dr. Donohue then left the room. When he returned, he was carrying a small cardboard box with holes covered with cheesecloth. Inside, visible through the cheesecloth, were live mosquitoes, buzzing and flying. McGraw said that Donohue said, “These are instruments of death like the world has never seen. And like nobody else is smart enough to make.”

  There was the wording that had bothered Cavanaugh in the search warrant. And Seton had been the unnamed FBI agent responsible for supplying it.

  Mr. McGraw does not remember his reply to Dr. Donohue. He says he left shortly afterward and did not contact Dr. Donohue again. “I decided he was a nut,” Mr. McGraw said to me. Dr. Donohue didn’t call Mr. McGraw again either.

  When the suspicion of Dr. Donohue was made public on television, Mr. McGraw came to me with his information. Mr. McGraw is personally known to me as a citizen informant. At one time I was investigating him for illegal activities involving buildings constructed by his firm at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station (see Southern Maryland Resident Agency, 302 Report Nos. 896, 899, and 905). Since then, however, further investigation has cleared Mr. McGraw and established that reports of the alleged illegalities were engineered by a rival firm in the highly competitive contracting business (see Southern Maryland Resident Agency, 302 Report Nos. 1146 and 1147).

  Mr. McGraw is thus a citizen informant of good standing. His statement should be thoroughly investigated by the appropriate case agents.

  Special Agent Donald R. Seton

  Southern Maryland Resident Agency

  How long had it taken Seton to put this thing together? Because it was put together. Concocted. Assembled from bits of plausible fact into something that had never happened.

  Why was Cavanaugh so sure of that? He didn’t know. But it wasn’t just because he didn’t trust Seton, or just because Cavanaugh had been removed from the case. No. His former boss Marty Felders had taught his agents to always follow up on what Felders called “those old heebie-jeebies.” A hunch, a suspicion, an epiphany. Felders was the best agent Cavanaugh had ever seen, and before he was an outstanding agent he’d been an outstanding cop in New York. Felders was worth listening to. Seton’s report gave Cavanaugh a major dose of heebie-jeebies.

  Something was going on.

  This Curtis P. McGraw was being let off the hook for federal construction fraud in return for supplying “evidence” against Michael Donohue. McGraw even came off looking like a patriotic hero. Not hard to figure his motives. They went back to Brutus.

  Nor were Seton’s reasons obscure. Retire with a triumphant bang. Make up for all those “informant reports” that seldom led to any concrete action.

  But Dunbar had bought this charade. So had Bruce Maloney, from National Security Division. So, for all Cavanaugh knew, had Director Broylin himself. The search warrant for Donohue’s town house had been based mostly on Seton’s report. Although, Cavanaugh now remembered, it had been issued by an ordinary federal judge, not the attorney general. And the warrant had not claimed any special intervention due to national security.

  Besides, the whole scam somehow was just too grandiose for Seton. Seton stuck to the inconsequential lie, the small cover-up, the petty fraud. He was a petty man.

  This was not petty.

  So what was going on? Was the whole thing merely a ruse to get in to search Donohue’s apartment in hope that once the FBI got that far more leads would present themselves? Such things had certainly been known to happen in the Bureau. But not on this scale, this publicly. And was it just coincidence that Dr. Farlow was moving to Switzerland, and Melanie Anderson was off the malaria reading case, and ditto for Cavanaugh himself, and Dunbar was acting as if he bore the weight of civilization on his Hoover-uniformed, soldier-rigid shoulders?

  If not coincidence, then who was covering up what? And why?

  Cavanaugh had no answers. But his heebie-jeebies clamored loud and strong.

  He copied Seton’s report, returned the original to the filing cabinet, and pulled out Seton’s numerous 302s on Seton’s interactions with
Curtis P. McGraw. He started to read.

  Thirteen

  The FBI is a cruel organization in that it is highly bureaucratic, rule-oriented, rule bound. It’s cruel in the sense that it doesn’t treat its people very well sometimes.

  —Lee Colwell, former Associate Director of the FBI, 1992

  * * *

  “I see on 60 Minutes that there’s doubt about whether Donohue’s arrest will hold up legally,” Tess Muratore said to Judy Kozinski over lunch at a coffee shop. The two women sat in a booth at the back, surrounded by a comfortable lunchtime bustle. Tess, who only had an hour off duty, was in her state trooper uniform. “The show said Donohue’s lawyer is going to challenge on probable cause. Although, of course, 60 Minutes always goes for the hysteria.”

  “I didn’t see the show,” Judy said airily.

  “Really,” Tess said.

  “No. I’ve been so busy with my new apartment. Curtains, some new furniture … I want you to come see it soon.”

  “Sure,” Tess said. “Has Robert called you?”

  “You know, this salad is really pretty good. Especially for a coffee shop. I think the dressing’s fresh.”

  “Stop trying to change the subject, Judy.”

  “The salad is the subject”

  “No, you’re the subject,” Tess said. “Do you think I’d give up a chance for a pepperoni sub in the patrol car with my Neanderthal partner if I wasn’t concerned about how you’re doing?”

  “I’m doing fine.” She speared an olive.

  “Okay, you’re fine. What about Robert? How’s he? Has he called?”

  “No. And I don’t expect him to.” Judy ate the olive, which stuck in her throat. Tess watched her as she forced it down with an entire glass of water.

  “Uh, huh,” Tess said. “Did you see him on TV at the warranted search of Donohue’s premises?”

  “Yes, it just so happened that I caught it. ‘Warranted search of Donohue’s premises.’ You sound like a cop, Tessie.”

  “I am a cop.”

  “Well, stop investigating me.”

  “I thought we were talking about Robert,” Tess said innocently. “He didn’t look good on TV. Sort of pasty. And now this new allegation that he disclosed unauthorized information to an outsider. Did you just so happen to catch that news, too?”

  “Hard not to,” Judy said lightly. “The papers are full of it.”

  “It’s bullshit. Robert was just working the woman, getting her with him so she’d talk. If all law-enforcement personnel who did that were charged with misconduct there’d be no cops left on the streets. You see Arnfeld’s column about it in the Post?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see where Robert’s boss, Dunbar, is going to the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest? He’s been named to head of the FBI detail that’s there to train international police.”

  “Yes.”

  “Pretty nice. You see that announcement by Donohue’s lawyer that Donohue had a private polygraph test and it came out ‘no deception’? That’s the highest rating. And now he’s agreed to let the FBI give him a polygraph of their own. You know about that?”

  “I know about it.”

  “Ah,” Tess said. “But you aren’t paying any attention to Robert’s case. Oh, no.”

  “It’s not just ‘Robert’s case’; it’s public news involving a genuine tragedy!” Judy flared. “And whose side are you on, anyway—mine or Robert’s?”

  “I’m on your side. Always will be. But you aren’t handling this as well as you think, Jude. Look at you. You’re losing too much weight, you hardly touched that salad you raved about, you cram your days with busywork, you look terrible.”

  “Thanks a bunch!”

  Tess pushed away her sandwich and leaned forward. She dropped her voice, which meant that to hear her in the noisy lunch-hour rush of dropped forks and human babble, Judy had to lean forward, too.

  “You can’t run away from pain, Judy. It took me two marriages to learn that. You gotta go through it. It won’t help, in the long run, for you to pretend Robert’s leaving doesn’t matter to you and you don’t still love him. It does, and you do.”

  Judy said nothing. She gazed down at her uneaten salad. Then, very low, “I feel like he reached into my chest and tore my heart out.”

  “I know. I know you do. Just let yourself feel that, just face it, and you’ll get through it. And maybe he’ll call.”

  “No,” Judy said clearly. “I don’t want him to call. I’m not clinging to somebody who treats me like that. I clung and clung to Ben, and it only meant I ended up putting up with shit nobody should put up with.”

  “All right,” Tess said, “then let’s hope he doesn’t call. I don’t care about him anyway—you’re my friend. Oh, shit, look at the time. I gotta go.”

  “Take care, Tessie. And thanks.”

  “You take care, buddy. I’ll call you later in the week.”

  Judy watched Tess swing down the aisle and out the door. The olives in Judy’s salad still glistened, but she couldn’t eat any more. Still, she’d do what Tess said: face the fact that she missed Robert terribly. Although she couldn’t let herself think too much about him. About him reading the newspaper and telling her how everybody should have done everything differently. About his quotations of nineteenth-century poetry and his quirky drawings. About his dogged, graceless persistence in any task he decided he was absolutely going to do. About him in bed, doing …

  But she especially wouldn’t let herself think about that. If she thought about sweet and hot lovemaking with Robert, it would paralyze her for the whole rest of the day, she’d miss him so much.

  Sex. It always did women in, one way or another. Always.

  As soon as Cavanaugh finished reading Seton’s 302s, he left their office. He didn’t want to see Seton. He went back to the Weather Vane Motel, packed up his things, and moved them to another motel, registering under one of the FBI alternate identities so no reporters could locate him. This motel, called for no visible reason “The Pines,” was worse than the Weather Vane. Much worse: sagging bed and torn shower curtain and cigarette-scarred dresser. Also, the floor tilted at a definite angle. But, then, the FBI wasn’t paying for this motel, and he was suspended without pay. Besides, the place allowed dogs.

  Abigail took this move with the same equanimity she’d taken the last one. She sniffed the decrepit furniture, lapped from the toilet, and settled with a happy groan across the doorway to the bathroom. Evidently, Abigail didn’t care where she lived as long as Cavanaugh was there. She was happy.

  Cavanaugh, on the other hand, was getting tired of living out of suitcases. Whatever he needed was always in a different packing box in the car, even if he thought he’d lugged it inside. With repeated rummaging, Marcy’s neat boxes were becoming a slovenly mess. And he missed his furniture, which was in storage. He’d half hoped to see Judy the Saturday he’d had it moved from the Rivermount house, but she hadn’t been there. Eventually he’d have to rent another apartment, probably in Leonardtown, near his office. If he got to stay on as an agent after the OPR made its final report.

  He dumped his suitcases in this new temporary home, grabbed a bowl of stew (or so it called itself) at the motel restaurant, and spent the rest of the day on-line, the radio going at the same time. At 6:30, when the work day of the unsuspended was over, he could finally make the phone call to Felders at Felders’s home. Which, of course, unlike Cavanaugh, he had one of.

  “Marty? Robert Cavanaugh.”

  He heard Felders draw a sharp breath. “Bob.”

  Despite everything, Cavanaugh smiled. Felders was the only person allowed to call him “Bob.” This liberty, which Felders had taken without asking, suddenly seemed a good thing. Someone felt comfortable with him.

  “Bob, what the fuck did you screw up?”

  Ah, Felders. Straight to the point. “I talked to an interviewee. Joked, really. About the FBI covering its ass.”

  “That’s it? There’s
not more to it than the news said?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, there’s a lot more, but it’s not about me.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  Cavanaugh explained. He told Felders all of it: Seton’s 302s about Curtis McGraw. The so-called “probable cause” in the search warrant. Donohue’s diction patterns, habitual versus as reported in the 302, and the search warrant. Dunbar’s tense behavior. Melanie Anderson’s stubborn insistence that genocide was occurring, and her removal from the malaria reading team. His own suspension. Farlow’s promotion to Switzerland. And now Dunbar’s promotion to Budapest, which he’d just heard about on the radio hews. Cavanaugh was scrupulous; he also explained the evidence for each of these events happening independently.

  When he finally finished, Felders said, “Pretty thin.”

  “I know.”

  “If you know, why are you calling me?”

  Cavanaugh said, “Heebie-jeebies.”

  Felders laughed. To Cavanaugh it sounded like the most unwilling laugh he’d ever heard. But, still, it was a laugh, and Cavanaugh took advantage of its presumed good will, however tenuous.

  “Marty, I need you to do something for me.”

  “Oh? And what’s that?” Felders’s voice prickled with wariness.

  “I need you to find out everything you can about Fort Detrick.”

  “Fort Detrick? You mean because USAMRIID was the CDC’s partner in the epidemic squashing.”

  “No. That’s not why.”

  Cavanaugh waited. It took Felders a minute to put it together. When he did, he said, “My God, Bob.”