by Jeff Gunhus
“Who was paying her?” Harris asked.
“Don’t know,” Libby said, although he had a pretty good idea he was related to the guy writing the checks.
“What about the second camera?”
Libby tensed. “I didn’t say there was a second camera.”
“Jesus, Libby. Leave the paranoia to me,” Harris said. “I’m better at it. You said one camera for whoever was paying her, the other…”
Libby relaxed a little. He had said that. Maybe he was a little too on edge. “The second camera was hooked to an internet connection. We don’t know where the data went or who has it.”
“And that’s what you want me to find out?” Harris asked.
“Yes, but when you find the person, you report it to me. You don’t do anything, got it?”
“Who else is in on this?” Harris asked.
“DCPD. The FBI has some photos, but they’re not great,” Libby said. “But I’m sure Mason wants his hands on the videos so bad he can taste it.”
“Your old man? So, this is personal,” Harris said. “I don’t like when it gets personal. Causes irrational thinking. Things get sloppy. And, like I said, you already have that problem.”
“So you keep saying.” Libby pulled out a thick envelope. “Fifteen grand now. Another fifteen when you deliver the location.”
“Fifty.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t know what I’m getting into on this one. It could be a foreign government. Or the Russian mob.”
“Or a server at her parents’ house,” Libby said.
“If that was it, you wouldn’t need me. No, there’s something bigger going on here and we both know it.” Harris licked his lips. “Fifteen now. Fifty when I deliver the location. Like the man said, price is no object on this one.”
Libby made a show of thinking it over. Truth was it wasn’t his money. Besides, Summerhays had millions to burn and sixty-five thousand was a bargain to make this particular problem go away.
“OK, but if you take matters into your own hands, if anyone gets hurt, then the fifty grand is forfeit.”
“Deal. What was the call girl’s name?”
Libby watched closely, figuring this was his best chance to determine whether Harris was lying to him. Or rather, the extent of his lies. When it came to veracity, Harris was like a politician: your best indication that he was lying was that his lips were moving. But in Libby’s nightmare scenario, Summerhays had panicked weeks earlier and been stupid enough to tell Harris to “take care” of his problem. That would be one dead prostitute too many for a President to have in his past. Libby figured if that was the case and Harris was playing him, then he would be expecting to hear Catherine Fews’s name.
“I need a name, place of residence, everything you have,” Harris said.
Libby pulled a thumb drive from his pocket. “Here you go. Her name was Beth Kinoch.”
He watched for any kind of surprise in Harris’s face. He didn’t expect much, the man was a professional, but at least something if he already had the real name. Nothing.
“Irish girl, huh?” Harris said without skipping a beat. “Pity, I like the Irish.”
He pocketed the thumb drive and walked past Libby. “I’ll be in touch.”
Libby thought about telling him the real name, but decided he’d figure it out once he opened the file. He turned to walk back to his car, passing back beneath the McClellan gate, the one-time presidential candidate’s name proclaimed in bold letters and Meigs’s name so small and inconsequential below.
Libby knew he was playing Meigs to Summerhays’s McClellan and wondered if he would, in the end, even warrant that much of a footnote in history.
<><><>
Harris patted the wad of money in his pocket as he walked. Fifteen grand had a comforting weight to it and he knew another hundred grand would feel all that much better. Sure, he’d made the deal for fifty, but Libby hadn’t even bargained. Once he had the information in his possession, the price would double and Summerhays would pay it without thinking twice. He felt the thumb drive in his other pocket, eager to get back to his hotel room and load up the information. He hoped the job would only take a day or two, but he’d force himself to take some added precautions. There were too many variables in play, too many blind spots. It felt like there was a game of musical chairs going on and he wanted to make damn sure he was taken care of when the music stopped. If the shit hit the fan, someone had to be without a chair at the end. If he was a betting man, and he was, his money was that it was going to be Libby.
But Harris reminded himself not to underestimate the man. Somehow Libby had wedged himself into the confidence of the man most likely to be the next President of the United States. Not only that, but his father was the legendary Clarence Mason.
No, there was more to Libby than met the eye. Like the way he’d given him the wrong name as a test to see how much he really knew. It was brilliant, actually. Not good enough to catch him, but almost. Libby obviously suspected he still had a direct line to Summerhays, probably even thought that he had something to do with Catherine Fews’s death.
He would have to step carefully on this one. But then again, he always did.
9
“This doesn’t sound like you’re firing me,” Allison said. “It sounds more like a job offer.”
Mason folded his hands on his lap. “And is it a job offer you’re interested in?”
Allison met Mason’s stare. Her nerves had given way to a cold anger once Mason had explained his proposal to her. “No.”
Mason didn’t flinch. He simply lifted a hand, indicating that she should continue.
Allison cleared her throat. Choosing her words carefully wasn’t something she did very often but she knew she was about to tread through dangerous waters. Mason was not a man who was often told no. Especially by a lowly Special Agent.
“Suzanne Greenville,” she said, letting the name hang in the air, searching Mason’s face for hints of recognition.
“What about her?” Mason asked.
“The call girl who was murdered while I was tracking Arnie Milhouse down.”
“I know who she is,” Mason said.
Allison felt chastised. Mason’s memory was legendary in the Bureau; dredging up facts from cold cases decades old enabled him to make connections that no computer ever could. Of course he knew who Suzanne Greenville was. His look sent her a message: I may look old, but I haven’t missed a step. Not yet, anyway.
“The cases are too similar,” Allison said. “When you gave me permission to follow my gut about Arnie Milhouse, you were hoping he had videos from Suzanne Greenville. Also a call girl taking video of highly placed clientele.”
“But he didn’t,” Mason said. “And we never conclusively proved he committed that murder. But none of this is what’s bothering you, is it? And here I thought you were a straight shooter.”
“It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Unless…”
“Unless Suzanne Greenville and Catherine Fews were being coached by the same person.” Allison’s mind took her down a dark path as she considered the possibilities, but she pulled back from it, shaking her head. “But sex scandals are the oldest currency in Washington. Clinton got a blowjob in the Oval Office and he survived.”
“But what if there had been a video of it?” Mason said. “Such a thing would go viral in a matter of seconds. A politician with a future would do anything to stop that from happening.” Mason leaned forward. “But ask the question you want to ask, Allison.”
“I don’t know if you’ll tell me the truth.” Her stomach turned over as she said the words, essentially calling the Director of the FBI, her ultimate boss, a liar straight to his face. Stupid at best. Career suicide at the worst.
Mason smiled. “Ahh, that’s the Allison McNeil I thought I knew.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
She steeled herself. She was already
in over her head, so why not go all the way? “Were these two women working for you?”
“No, they were not,” Mason said coolly. He may have anticipated her line of questioning but he obviously didn’t like the way the accusation sounded out loud.
Allison sat back in her chair. Even if Mason had been running the women as an operation, she didn’t expect him to come clean with her. The suspicion was ugly, and she hated doubting Mason, but the cases were too similar. She realized she didn’t believe him.
“Did you have them killed?” she asked, her voice coming out a whisper.
“No,” Mason said, his voice flat.
Silence. Allison searched his face for clues but knew Mason had been in the business of lying for more years than she’d been alive. Most people would elaborate, go through the logic argument for their innocence, try to persuade. Mason did none of that. He simply stared at her, unreadable. For someone who prided herself on being able to get into other people’s heads, she felt like Mason might as well be carved from granite, an impenetrable wall of training and experience.
“If not you, then who?” Allison asked, deciding to play along.
“That’s what I need to know,” Mason replied.
“But you don’t want a full investigation because it might lead back to you.”
“It would never lead back to me,” Mason said. “But to the Bureau, maybe. That’s part of the solution set I’ve considered. Was this a blackmail operation inspired by the Suzanne Greenville case conducted by some overzealous group in our organization? Perhaps in some other part of the intelligence community? All possible. The Greenville videos were all low-level people, but it might have gotten the wrong type of people thinking about the possibilities. Frankly, I hope that proves to be the case.”
“Why?”
“The people on the videos Fews claimed to have were on a different level. Congressmen. Senators. Powerful businessmen. What if it was a foreign government who set this up? Or a terrorist group seeking leverage? Let’s hope it was us.”
“Because the FBI can be trusted, right?” Allison said. When this had happened with Suzanne Greenville, she’d felt like the videos falling into Mason’s hands actually would be for the greater good. Give him some relief from the near-constant witch-hunt by a few members of congress who had an ax to grind with the director. But if he’d gone out and set this up and a woman had died because of it, she couldn’t accept that.
“Why me? DCPD can work this. And there must be dozens of agents you know better. Whose discretion you can trust more,” Allison said.
“The regular investigation will continue as is. They will have no knowledge that you are also working the case. Maybe they will beat you to the punch. Nothing but dead-ends so far, so I doubt it.”
“Still doesn’t explain why you want me.”
“You’re not the only one who is adept at reading people,” Mason said. “You’re exactly the right person for this. Your work on the Kraw case proved your ability to put pieces of a complex puzzle together and the Milhouse case showed that you can work alone. Shooting poor Garret in the leg gives me a reason to put you on administrative leave pending a full investigation, carving out time for you to dig in. And, most importantly, you’ll do it for the right reasons.”
Mason grabbed a folder from the table next to him and tossed it onto the coffee table in front of Allison. It landed open. One side had an eight-by-ten photo of Catherine Fews, a bright smile, hair down over her shoulders, wearing a conservative black dress. On the other side was a shot of the crime scene.
It was a bedroom with a four-postered bed. The sheets were drenched in blood with a dismembered torso in the center. Each bedpost had a bondage rope tied to it. At the end of each rope was one of Catherine’s legs or arms. Allison took a deep breath. Photos like these were her profession but she still felt an initial wave of nausea each time she saw a new crime scene. She supposed the day she stopped feeling that would be a good time to start thinking about a new line of work. As she scanned the brutality on display, she noticed something missing.
“Where’s her head?” Allison asked.
Mason tapped the crime scene photo and Allison leaned forward to look more closely. There was a fireplace in the bedroom with a wide mantle across its length. In the middle of it, perched like a souvenir brought back from a vacation, eyes wide open, was a dismembered head.
Allison leaned closer. She heard the screams of the victim. She pictured the killer standing in the center of the carnage, imagining what could possibly drive someone to do something so depraved.
“He’s forcing her to watch,” she whispered. “Were the eyes fixed in that position? Adhesive? Stitching?”
Mason nodded. “The eyelids were pinned open. Five needles in each eye.”
Allison touched her finger to the photo, slowly working her way back and forth over the image as if it were a braille document. She absorbed every detail. Placing herself in the scene. Imaging the feel of the room. Putting herself into the mind of the killer as he positioned the head perfectly so that it faced the bed. She felt the tension coiled inside of him as he turned to do his work on the rest of the body. The grip of the knife. The smell of the blood in the air.
Mason rapped a knuckle on the coffee table and Allison jerked back from the photo, blinking hard to clear her senses.
Mason studied her for a few seconds, then covered the crime scene photo with the image of Catherine Fews when she was alive. “I want to find out who has the videos and what they intend to do with them,” Mason said. “But you don’t care about that, do you?”
Allison shook her head. She held up the photo. “If what you’re saying is true, then if I find the videos, I find the killer.”
“That is the assumption. The last video transmitted from the camera to the unknown location would be of the murder itself. Do your job as I know you are capable, and I will make sure the videos are not in the wrong hands and you will get your killer.”
Allison had interacted with Mason outside the normal chain of command on the Milhouse case, but she’d still walked into the meeting nervous and overwhelmed by the trappings of power surrounding her boss. But now she felt more like herself. The aura of legend she’d ascribed to Mason had lost some of its glow in this meeting. He was just a man, flawed like everyone else. And she still wasn’t sure that she trusted his motives for choosing her for this assignment.
“And if I refuse?”
Mason shrugged. “Administrative leave makes sense. Garret pounded the table pretty hard today that you didn’t have to shoot him in the leg. That you had other options. He wants a full investigation and hearing.”
Allison was surprised at the directness of the threat. She expected him to be more nuanced in his approach, but it appeared he was ready for this discussion to be over, one way or the other. She considered administrative leave and that it would give her time to be with her dad. But it was the investigation that had her worried. Garret was a powerful force in the Bureau. Without Mason looking out for her interests, he might just have the clout to get her reassigned to a field office in Omaha or Cleveland.
Mason stood and extended his hand. “Do we have an understanding?”
She stood, feeling a slow burning anger at his manipulation of the situation to his advantage. Still, the bottom line was that she wanted to find whoever killed Catherine Fews so there really was no decision to make. She shook his hand. “I’ll work with you to find this killer, but if the trail leads back to you in any way, I won’t stop.”
Mason nodded, keeping his face unreadable. “I’d expect nothing less.” He crossed the room to his desk and retrieved a small, flat box. He handed it to Allison. “Inside is the complete file on Suzanne Greenville and Catherine Fews along with database access codes.”
“Won’t people see what I’m looking into if I access the database?”
“These are special codes,” Mason said. “No log will be made of your access.”
“I have a guy, a
tech guy. I want to use him on this.”
“You’re talking about Jordi Pines,” Mason said, frowning. “I know of his involvement with the Kraw case. The man’s not much better than the criminals we chase.”
“He’s a big reason we got Kraw,” Allison said.
“I can give you access to someone who can do anything you need,” Mason said.
She didn’t like the idea of someone reporting on her to Mason, not until she had a better idea what his real involvement had been. “I’d like to use Jordi. He has the clearances.”
“Which are constantly up for review for violations,” Mason muttered. Then he nodded, giving in a little too easily for Allison’s taste. It either meant he was desperate or he didn’t really think she was going to be able to find anything. Either way, there was something Mason wasn’t telling her. And it made her nervous.
Mason nodded at the box in Allison’s hands. “Inside the box you’ll also find a phone preprogrammed with a number to reach me, not to be used for anything else, and a pre-paid credit card with all the funds you need. If you need me to run interference with the locals, use the cell phone. You tell people that you’re on administrative leave pending the review of the Sam Kraw shooting. You decided to spend your time researching the call girl murders for a technical paper you’re preparing.”
“Instead of using the break to go to the Bahamas?” Allison asked.
“Anyone who knows you would find the research project more believable.”
“Looks like you thought of everything,” Allison said, poking through the box. “Did you ever consider that I might say no?”
Mason grinned. “The thought never crossed my mind.”
10
Scott Harris took out a Corona from the mini-fridge, cracked it open and took a long drink. He closed his eyes and imagined himself on his favorite beach in Playa Del Carmen. Powder white sand. A pleasant breeze against his tan skin warmed by the sun. Senoritas in skimpy bathing suits giving him looks as they walked by. No worries. Not a care in the world.
