Capitol Murder

by Phillip Margolin

  Then there was the attack itself. The newspapers were reporting that ambulances loaded with explosives had been strategically placed around the stadium for maximum destruction. This indicated that the bombers were working with engineers and explosives experts.

  This operation was obviously not a spur-of-the-moment affair. Everything about it screamed advance planning. No aspect of the plot would have been left to chance, including the place where Tolliver and the suicide bombers were going to live. The Kendall & Marquoit real estate group had been chosen for a reason, but what was that reason?

  Dana parked on the side of the road and punched in Mary Ann David’s number.

  “This is Dana Cutler, Mrs. David. I’m sorry to bother you again, but I do have one more question. Did Mr. Tolliver tell you why he chose your firm to rent from?”

  “I did ask him. We always like to know who referred a client.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “If I recall correctly, he said we had come highly recommended.”

  “By who?”

  “He never said.”

  Dana opened her front door and picked up the mail from the floor, where it had fallen after the postman shoved it through the slot. She tossed her jacket on the sofa and shuffled through the mail as she walked into the kitchen, where she fixed a cup of coffee.

  Dana carried the mug downstairs to her office in the basement of Jake’s house. As soon as she logged on to her computer, she went on the Internet and Googled Kendall & Marquoit. The Bethesda office was an East Coast branch of a California company. Dana Googled the board of directors and got a shock. Jessica Koshani was a director. There were many other board members. Dana ran a check on all of them. Most of the directors did not raise a red flag, but one man did. Dana scolded herself for profiling and bigotry against people with Middle Eastern names, but she felt a little less guilty when Imran Afridi turned up in an article in a Karachi newspaper that detailed Afridi’s short detention and interrogation after a car bomb took thirty-six lives. The article contained a photograph. Dana decided that Afridi looked a little like Omar Sharif. After reading some more articles about Afridi, Dana called Patrick Gorman.

  “Pat,” Dana said as soon as the editor of Exposed answered his phone.

  “How’s the intrepid reporter?”

  “I’m in need of companionship.”

  “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  “In your dreams. No, I want you to fix me up with your friend; the one I met at the National Museum of the American Indian.”

  “Any special reason for the meeting?”

  “Imran Afridi. He’s a Pakistani businessman. I want to know everything your friend can dig up on him.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  To avoid the appearance of impropriety, Ginny had not talked to Dana after learning that they were working opposite sides of the Tolliver case. Then Ginny made up her mind about what to do with the transcript. As soon as she reached her decision, she set up a meeting at Vinny’s, a bar in a D.C. neighborhood with a high crime rate. The advantage of meeting in this dive was the certainty that no one they knew would ever come into it.

  Dana had discovered the bar while she was working undercover in narcotics, and Ginny had heard about Vinny’s from Brad, who had met Dana there when he had asked her to help him figure out why someone had attacked United States Supreme Court Justice Felicia Moss. Brad’s description of this den of iniquity had not done the place justice.

  Ginny had taken a cab to Vinny’s straight from the DOJ and was still dressed in a business suit. As soon as she walked into the dismally dark interior, she felt as out of place as a Hell’s Angel in a Michelin three-star restaurant. Vinny’s reeked of smoke, sweat, and stale beer, and Ginny guessed that the owner used the lowest-wattage bulbs he could find to hide the identities of the degenerates scattered around the place, all of whom looked like gang members, sex perverts, or drug dealers.

  Dana was sitting in a booth in the back, nursing a beer. Ginny slid onto the bench on the other side of the booth.

  “Order the cheeseburger and fries,” Dana said. “You won’t regret it.”

  “Brad raved about them, so I guess they’re safe, but I’d feel even safer in this place if I was packing.”

  Dana smiled. “Don’t worry, I am.” Then she sobered. “I got the feeling that you were upset when you saw me with Bobby Schatz at the DOJ. You haven’t spoken to me since the meeting.”

  “I was concerned that people would think we were talking about the case if anyone from Justice saw us together. And I wasn’t upset, but I was confused. You did lecture Brad at the China Clipper about working for Senator Carson, whom—if I remember correctly—you accused of being soft on terrorism.”

  Dana shrugged. “That’s the thing about criminal law; most of your clients are scumbags. If I worked only for lawyers who defended the innocent, I’d starve to death. So what made you change your mind about getting together?”

  Ginny looked at the tabletop. “I found something.” She hesitated. Dana watched her carefully but held her tongue. She could see that Ginny was struggling.

  “What was your impression of Terry Crawford?” Ginny asked.

  “I thought he acted like a guy who hasn’t gotten laid in years.”

  “I’ve asked around. The opinion is almost unanimous. He’ll do anything to win a case.” Ginny hesitated. Dana could almost feel her anguish. “I think he crossed the line with your client.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ginny opened her attaché case and took out a manila envelope.

  “I never met with you today, and I never gave you this. Understand?”

  Dana stared at her friend, confused. Ginny slid the envelope across the table and stood up.

  “Aren’t you staying?”

  “I can’t stay someplace I’ve never been,” she answered before turning her back on her friend and walking away.

  Dana waited until the front door closed behind Ginny before opening the envelope and pulling out a sheaf of papers. She read the first page and realized that it was a transcript of Terry Crawford’s interrogation of Ron Tolliver. A few pages later, Dana got to the part where Schatz ordered Crawford to turn off the cameras and the microphones so he could discuss the case with his client. Dana turned the page, read a few lines, and muttered, “Holy shit!” She was no lawyer, but she knew enough law to know that she was holding the judicial equivalent of a hydrogen bomb.

  As soon as she got over the shock of realizing that the transcript was Ron Tolliver’s Get Out of Jail Free card, Dana asked herself whether she wanted to be the instrument of Tolliver’s salvation. The man had tried to murder thousands of innocent people. How many children had been in the stands at FedEx Field?

  Dana had never been in a position like this. Sure, she’d helped attorneys gain acquittals for clients she knew were guilty, but she’d never worked for a criminal like Ron Tolliver. Crawford had brought clarity to the scope of her client’s crime when he pointed out that three thousand people had died on 9/11 but ninety thousand people could have lost their lives if the FedEx Field plot had succeeded.

  People committed murder for many reasons, some rational, some not, but there were usually very few victims. The worst serial killers never came close to killing thousands of people. That was the difference between the murders that the criminal justice system dealt with and the crimes of Hitler and Pol Pot. Dana did not think that Ron Tolliver was the mastermind behind the FedEx plot, but Tolliver was as culpable as the commandants of Hitler’s death camps, because he was the person who carried out the orders.

  Dana stared at the transcript. She was honor bound to give it to her employer. If she didn’t and that fact ever got out, she would never get another client. What she really wanted to do was burn it, and that thought brought images of burning children and innocent people screaming in the grip of unbearable pain as FedEx Field collapsed under them.

  Dana looked at her beer and wished with all her heart that
she had something far stronger in her glass, along with an easy answer to what she should do with Ginny Striker’s gift.

  Chapter Forty-two

  The rest of the staff had gone home, and the office, which normally hummed with activity, was eerily quiet at 9:45, when Senator Carson told Brad that he felt he had a handle on the bill they had been discussing. They continued to debate a minor point as the senator followed Brad past the empty, darkened offices to Brad’s office so Brad could get some papers he needed to go over at home.

  “Well, I think I finally get why you think that clause should be modified,” Carson said as Brad put on his coat. Brad started to answer when he heard a door open near the senator’s office. The lights were off at that end of the hall, but streetlamps cast dim rays of light through the windows in the senator’s office, allowing Brad to make out a silhouette in the hall.

  “Don’t say anything and follow me quickly,” Brad whispered as he grabbed Carson’s elbow.

  “What . . . ?” Carson started to ask.

  The intruder turned toward the sound.

  Brad slapped a hand across the senator’s mouth and pointed toward the senator’s office. Then he pulled Carson after him. As they headed toward the reception area, Brad racked his brain for somewhere they could hide. He was opening the door to the hall when he remembered a place he’d been taken by one of the other legislative assistants as part of a tour of the Capitol during his first week on the job.

  When the Senate was questioning nominees for director of the CIA, a seat on the Supreme Court, and other important positions that could only be filled with the consent of the Senate, the public hearings were held in the central hearing room in the Hart Office Building. His tour guide had taken Brad through an unmarked door in the Dirksen Building that led into a room where important witnesses who wanted to avoid the press could wait.

  Brad sped down the corridor with the senator in tow. He stopped in front of the unmarked door and heard footsteps running down the hall in their direction. Brad prayed that the door was unlocked. He turned the knob, and the door opened into a darkened waiting room. Brad pulled the senator inside and closed the door as quietly as he could. Then he edged past chairs and a side table and led the senator down a hall to a door that opened into a massive, high-ceilinged room filled with chairs for spectators. Between those chairs and a dais were a table and chairs for the witnesses and their advisers. Behind the dais were comfortable high-backed chairs for the senators, and behind the those were chairs for staff. Along the walls were long tables for the press.

  Brad raced past the press tables to the other end of the room. The walls were paneled with polished wood and looked solid. Brad stopped before one of the last panels and pushed. It swung inward into a concrete corridor. A stairway led up a floor to a landing where four doors faced a narrow hall. The first two were locked. Brad started to panic. Then the third door opened into a darkened room that resembled a smaller version of a skybox in a football stadium.

  Brad pulled the senator inside and locked the door. Brad motioned the senator to sit on the floor.

  “Do you have your cell phone with you?” Brad whispered. Carson nodded.

  “Call for help.”

  On the other side of the room was a large window through which the press could look down on the hearing room. Brad duckwalked across the floor, then rose up an inch and peeked through the window. A man was walking down the rows of chairs searching for them. When he reached the back of the room, he turned in a slow circle, pausing every few seconds to listen for movement. Then, without warning, he looked up at the windows in the press boxes and stared at Brad.

  Brad wanted to duck out of sight, but he was paralyzed. Clarence Little smiled and started toward the entrance to the press boxes. He was halfway there when he froze and looked over his shoulder. Seconds later, he bolted out of the room through the door to the witness waiting area. A moment after Little disappeared, two members of the Capitol Police with their guns drawn burst into the room through the door the public used.

  “He’s gone,” Brad said as he turned on the lights and stood in the window waving at the police.

  “Who was following us?” Senator Carson asked.

  “Clarence Little.”

  “So he is after you.”

  “Actually, he may have been looking for you.”

  “Why would he be after me?”

  “The press has been all over you about Dorothy Crispin’s murder. Well, I learned something they don’t know. Crispin was a law student, but she also worked for Executive Escorts, a high-end call girl operation that Jessica Koshani owned.”

  Even in the dark, Brad could see the senator turn pale. “How do you know this?” he said.

  “I can’t tell you, and please don’t pressure me, because I promised I wouldn’t reveal my source. What you need to know is that the man who murdered Crispin cut off her pinkie.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “It’s beginning to look like Clarence Little killed Dorothy Crispin and Jessica Koshani. At first, I thought that Clarence saw me drive Jessica Koshani from the airport and killed her to send a message to me, but I never met Dorothy Crispin and both women have ties to you. If Clarence isn’t after me, then he’s probably after you. I think it’s time for you to talk to the FBI. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, but your life may depend on the FBI knowing about your links to these victims.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Terrence Crawford didn’t get up when his secretary ushered Bobby Schatz and Dana Cutler into his office. Schatz sat opposite the AAG while Dana planted herself on a sofa that stood against the wall.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure, Bobby?” Crawford asked. “My secretary says you were mysterious about the purpose of your visit.”

  Instead of answering, Schatz tossed a copy of the transcript of his attorney-client conference with Ron Tolliver onto Crawford’s blotter. Dana watched Crawford lose color as he leafed through the pages.

  “Where did you get this?” Crawford asked.

  “That’s not important.” Schatz dropped a Motion to Dismiss for Prosecutorial Misconduct and a brief in support of the motion onto the desk. “What is important is the fact that you violated a court order and my client’s Sixth Amendment rights by continuing to listen in on our conference after I specifically told you to cease taping.”

  “You have no legal right to this document, Schatz. It’s stolen government property.”

  “Then why don’t you have me arrested? The transcript will be the key evidence in your case. I want to hear you explain to the judge how this transcript came into existence. You may also be interested in knowing that I have an associate looking into whether this taping is a violation of the federal criminal code.”

  Crawford ignored Schatz and picked up the motion and the brief. Schatz sat perfectly still as Crawford thumbed through the citations to the cases that required dismissal of the charges against Ron Tolliver.

  “So?” Schatz said when Crawford put down the brief.

  “How did you get the transcript?” Crawford demanded.

  Schatz stood up. “See you in court, Terry, where I believe the judge will be much more interested in your explanation of why you eavesdropped than how I discovered your unethical and possibly illegal activity.”

  Bobby Schatz waited until he and Dana had left the DOJ before breaking into a grin.

  “Terry looked like he had a serious case of indigestion,” Schatz said.

  “What do you think he’ll do?” Dana asked.

  “Cave. He’s got no choice,” Schatz said just as Dana’s cell phone rang.

  Dana held up a finger and stepped into a doorway to take the call.

  “I’m thinking of publishing an article about angels,” Pat Gorman said.

  “I haven’t come across too many of them in my line of work,” Dana answered.

  “Well, it’s about time you acquainted yourself with some of the more famous ones, like Simone Martini’s Ange
l of the Annunciation.”

  “And where might I find her?”

  “This angel is named Gabriel and he hangs out—quite literally—in the West Building of the National Gallery.”

  The National Gallery of Art, located on the National Mall, was established in 1937 by a joint resolution of Congress with funds for construction and a substantial collection donated by Andrew Mellon. The collection is housed in two buildings, the neoclassical West Building and the modern East Building, which are connected by an underground passage.

  Dana located The Angel of the Annunciation in Gallery 3 on the main floor of the West Building. A school group had just moved on, leaving Dana in the gallery with two Japanese tourists. As soon as they finished looking at the painting, Dana walked over to the panel that presented a side view of the angel Gabriel kneeling, clothed in an ornate robe rich with textured gold.

  Dana didn’t know the name of the man she was going to meet, so she thought of him as Gorman’s Spook. He hadn’t told her his name or anything about his background the first time they had met at the National Museum of the American Indian during her investigation into the assassination attempt on Justice Moss. The only thing she knew about the Spook was that he had deep knowledge of the intelligence community.

  A minute after the Japanese tourists walked away, Dana sensed someone stand beside her. The man had a pale complexion. He was wearing a ski jacket over a sweatshirt with a hood. The hood was up and Dana could just see his brown eyes and thin lips.

  “Martini was one of the most influential artists in the Sienese school,” said the Spook in a voice so low that Dana had to strain to hear him.