Executive Privilege

by Phillip Margolin

  “Thank you, Dale.”

  “Hey, I like you, Cutler. You’re tough, and you’ve always done good work. You’ll come out of this okay, trust me.”

  It was the “trust me” that did it. Dana had almost bought Perry’s sudden change of heart until he said that. Something was going on, and Dana knew it wasn’t going to be good. While she smiled “trustingly” at Perry her eyes worked the room. No one seemed out of place so the people working with Perry had to be outside.

  “Why don’t you give me a number where I can get in touch when I have news for you?” Perry said.

  “It would be best if I called you.”

  “That’s fine. Give me a day to work on the problem. I should know something soon.”

  “Great, and thanks, Dale.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Perry said.

  “I have to hit the powder room first. You don’t have to wait.”

  “Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Dana watched Perry leave. She kicked herself for not frisking the lawyer. She bet he was wired and broadcasting their conversation. If so, there were probably men waiting for her to walk out of the door near the restroom, so Dana headed in that direction before ducking into the kitchen. The kitchen staff was comprised of two short order cooks, who gaped at her as she stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and pulled the change of clothes Charlie Foster had left her out of a plastic garbage bag. She slipped a hairnet over her hair and pulled on a pair of baggy pants and several sweatshirts that made her look dumpy and heavier than she’d ever been. An apron, glasses with plain glass for the lenses, and a.45 completed the ensemble. When she was dressed, Dana filled one garbage bag with refuse and another with her clothes before opening the back door wide enough to peek into the alley. No one was waiting in front of the door, but she saw a shadow at one end near the street. There was probably someone at the other end, too.

  She yelled as loud as she could in Spanish that they were bastards for making her haul this shit out all the time. “I’m a chef, I ain’t no garbage man.”

  Dana slammed open the lid of the Dumpster and tossed in one bag. Then she stomped down the alley, muttering to herself. When the man stepped out of the shadows to check her out she tightened her grip on her sidearm and looked at him.

  “What cho want, pendajo?” she asked belligerently.

  “Sorry,” the man said as he stepped back into the shadows.

  Dana sucked in air and walked quickly along the escape route she had paced off hours before. As she walked she imagined eyes boring into her back and she waited for the sound of a shot, but the disguise had worked. In a few moments, she was astride the Harley and racing away from The 911.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Christopher Farrington had been in Iowa campaigning when the police identified Charlotte Walsh as the Ripper’s latest victim. He ordered Charles Hawkins to fly to his next campaign stop then rushed back to the hotel from the fund-raiser he was attending as soon as he was notified that his aide was waiting for him.

  Farrington was seething when he entered his hotel suite. After telling everyone else to leave, he confronted his friend.

  “CNN reports that Charlotte was the Ripper’s latest victim. That’s some coincidence.”

  Hawkins shrugged. “You always were lucky, Chris.”

  Farrington glared at Hawkins. “What is wrong with you? The D.C. Ripper? What were you thinking? That’s the most high-profile case in Washington since those snipers. We needed to stay under the radar and you’ve put us on national television.”

  “We are under the radar. It’s the Ripper who’s on the hot seat. Who’s going to make a connection between a college sophomore and the president of the United States?”

  “That fucking PI, that’s who. Have you a line on her yet?”

  “No. She set up a meeting with Dale Perry and we put a wire on him, but she got away.”

  “Damn it, Chuck, how did that happen? She’s a low-rent snooper. You’ve got special ops and the latest technology. Why didn’t you track her with a satellite?”

  “We didn’t think we’d need to. We thought we had her trapped, but she’s very resourceful.”

  “Why was she meeting with Dale?”

  “She wants to sell the pictures for a million dollars and assurances that we’ll let her alone.”

  “Then buy them.”

  “It’s not that simple. She told Dale that she’s going to keep an insurance set in case we renege on our bargain.”

  “Well we won’t.”

  “Chris, if we pay her it will be in her best interest to sell another set to the media. We wouldn’t dare kill her once the pictures are public knowledge. You’d be the prime suspect if she dies, even if it’s from natural causes. There would be an uproar. Gaylord would claim you had the CIA take her out with some exotic, untraceable poison that mimics a heart attack. If we controlled Congress we could stop an investigation, but we don’t. Even if you’re eventually cleared, the investigation would last through the election and the bad publicity would kill you.”

  “What are you going to do about Cutler?”

  “Try to find her. Once we’ve got her I can assure you she’ll tell us anything we want to know.”

  “Then find her and do it quickly. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Well, don’t. Everything is under control.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it,” Farrington answered. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  Hawkins hesitated.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “There may be a few problems I didn’t anticipate, but they’re nothing you should worry about.”

  “What problems?”

  “One of our people in Gaylord’s camp says that she’s going to use the Ripper murders against you by suggesting that you can’t be trusted to protect America if you can’t protect the people of the D.C. area against one murderer.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I don’t have anything to do with finding the Ripper. That’s a local police matter.”

  “The FBI does have a task force that’s running the investigation,” Hawkins corrected.

  “Right, but I have nothing to do with that. You get Hutchins to set the record straight,” he ordered, referring to Clem Hutchins, his press secretary.

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Good. You said ‘problems,’ plural. What else has gone wrong?”

  “My source also tells me that Gaylord’s people suspect that Walsh was our spy.”

  “Can they prove it?” Farrington asked, concerned.

  “I don’t think so. They can prove she volunteered for us before she switched sides, but they can’t prove she gave us copies of Gaylord’s secret contributor list.”

  “If it ever gets out that we asked Charlotte to steal from Gaylord’s campaign headquarters I’d be ruined. It would be Watergate all over again.”

  “You don’t have to worry, Chris. Even if Gaylord could prove that Walsh was our spy, she can’t use the information without making the list public knowledge. They’d be exposing their secret slush fund.”

  “That’s right,” Farrington answered with a smile of relief. Then he grew pensive.

  “How close is the FBI to catching the Ripper?”

  “My sources in the Bureau tell me that they have no idea who he is.”

  “That’s good. Maybe they’ll never catch him. That would be the best scenario for us.”

  “I agree. But if he is caught he’ll probably take credit for killing Walsh just to up his body count. And, if he says he didn’t kill Walsh, who’ll believe him?”

  Farrington sighed. “You’re right. Okay, concentrate on the PI. I want her found and neutralized. Do whatever it takes. Once she’s dealt with we should be home free.”

  Farrington was suddenly lost in thought. When he spoke he looked sad.

  “She was a good kid,” he said softly.

  Hawkins wanted to tell his friend that he should have thought of the co
nsequences of his actions before he decided to bang the young volunteer, but he held his tongue.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Keith Evans had no social life, so spending the weekend at work required no sacrifice. Six months ago, when his last girlfriend broke up with him, she told the agent that she’d come to believe that the only way she’d get to see him was by committing a federal crime. Evans did like football, but the Super Bowl had been played months ago, he wasn’t into basketball or baseball, and he’d never developed an interest in golf. When he started to feel sorry for himself he just plunged more deeply into his work. Keeping a lid on his personal problems got harder when his workload was low or, as now, when he was spinning his wheels.

  This weekend Evans had reread every piece of paper in the Ripper cases, hoping for a new insight, and all he’d gotten was eyestrain. Now it was late Monday morning and he couldn’t think of a thing to do, since he’d exhausted his efforts on the case Saturday and Sunday. It seemed that his only hope was that the Ripper would screw up at some point, which was not unlikely.

  Sociopaths or psychopaths or antisocial personalities (or whatever the current term was) were able to kill so easily because they had no empathy for their victims. Evans thought that this was because they had never been fully socialized like normal people. He believed that all children were sociopaths who thought only of themselves and their needs. Parents were supposed to teach their children to think about the effect of their actions on others. Serial killers never successfully completed the course, so they never developed a conscience. The reason that Evans was certain that the Ripper would make a fatal mistake was because most serial killers, like most little children, saw themselves as the center of the universe and believed they were infallible. If they did screw up they usually blamed their failures on others-the victim, their lawyer, or any person or institution that was convenient. The big problem with this theory was that serial killers frequently had above average intelligence, so the big mistake might take a while to manifest itself. Meanwhile, more women would die.

  Just before noon, while finishing a deli sandwich, Evans picked up a report on the first Ripper murder and realized that he’d read it an hour before. He couldn’t think of another way to occupy his time so he stood up and headed for the coffeepot. He was halfway there when his phone rang.

  “Evans,” he answered.

  “I’ve got a Dr. Standish on two,” the receptionist said.

  Evans punched the button and was greeted by Standish’s cheery voice.

  “I’ve completed Charlotte Walsh’s autopsy and we should talk.”

  Standish had insisted on meeting Evans at an Italian restaurant a few blocks from the coroner’s office. The agent found the medical examiner sitting in the back of the restaurant. Standish had chosen to eat there out of consideration for the sensibilities of the other patrons, whose meals would be ruined if they overheard the graphic anatomical descriptions that often accompanied any discussion of an autopsy report. While Standish took for granted the blood and gore in which he waded each day, he was aware that the vast majority of Americans did not. That point had been brought home during one of the first trials in which he’d testified, when a thirty-two-year-old appliance salesman on the jury had fainted during his description of a death by chain saw in the trial of a mean-spirited drug dealer.

  “Hey, Art,” Evans said, sliding into the booth just as the waiter walked up to their table.

  “Try the veal scaloppini,” the medical examiner suggested as he dug into his side dish of spaghetti in marinara sauce.

  “I ate already,” he told Standish. “Just coffee, please,” he said to the waiter.

  “So, what have you got for me?” Evans asked as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.

  “Some strange shit,” Standish replied when his mouth was empty.

  “Oh?”

  The medical examiner picked up a sheaf of papers that had been lying on the vinyl beside him and tossed it to Evans.

  “First off, cause of death. The eyes were missing and there were many stab wounds identical to the type of wounds we’ve found in the other Ripper murders. The torso and genital area were a mess, and there were a large number of slashing wounds all around the neck. In fact, the whole neck was pretty hacked up.”

  “That sounds like the other killings.”

  “Right, except the other victims were mutilated before they died. Most of Walsh’s wounds were postmortem. I could tell that because I didn’t find the quantity of blood you’d expect when a person is stabbed and the heart is still beating.”

  “So, what killed Walsh?”

  “That’s interesting. When I took out the brain I found a wound that indicated to me that a sharp instrument had been thrust into the base of the back of the neck between the skull and the first cervical vertebra. This severed the spinal cord and caused instant death but hardly any bleeding.”

  “So the stab wound to the spine killed Walsh, but the Ripper still went after her as if she was alive.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “Maybe he was upset that the first thrust killed her and he inflicted the other damage in a rage.”

  “That’s possible, too,” Standish agreed before shoveling some more veal into his mouth. Evans sipped some coffee and thought while he waited for the medical examiner to swallow.

  “We’ve got some other anomalies,” Standish said, pointing his red-stained fork at the FBI agent. “I didn’t find evidence of forced intercourse as I found with the other victim I examined. The autopsies you sent me on the other women listed bruising around the genitals and other indications of rape, but there was no indication of this with Walsh.”

  Evans spread his hands and shrugged. “He may not have been in the mood if she was dead.”

  “True.”

  “And the other anomalies?”

  “You know the substance that’s been found in the victims’ mouths?”

  “The one we can’t identify?”

  “Right. You found it in every victim’s mouth, right?”

  Evans nodded.

  “Well, it wasn’t present in Walsh’s mouth.”

  Evans frowned. “Are you suggesting that we’re dealing with a copycat?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just the sawbones. You’re the detective.”

  “How similar to the wounds in the other cases are the wounds in this one?”

  “Oh, the MO is almost identical except for the extensive damage to the neck.”

  “Is it possible that the postmortem neck wounds were inflicted to draw attention away from the real cause of death?”

  Standish shrugged. “Anything’s possible. I will say that creating that much carnage was effective. I wouldn’t have stumbled across the fatal wound if I hadn’t decided to remove the brain myself.”

  Evans was quiet for a while, and Standish took the opportunity to finish off his lunch.

  “If we have a copycat who is able to duplicate the MO so closely, he’d have to have seen the other bodies at the crime scenes, or crime scene and autopsy photos, or he’d have to have read the autopsy or crime scene reports,” Evans mused.

  “I’d say so,” the doctor agreed. “Unless the newspapers gave a very detailed description of the injuries that each victim suffered.”

  “No, there was nothing like that in the press or on TV. Tell me, Art, could the Ripper have killed Walsh by accident? That would support the idea that he mutilated her postmortem in a rage. You know, he’s all set to work on her then she has the audacity to die on him. That could have set him off.”

  “As I said, anything is possible, but I don’t really see the killing being committed by mistake. It’s like a rapist who claims he slipped and his dick accidentally penetrated the victim. This was a pretty precise thrust.”

  Evans scowled then shook his head. “Thanks for ruining my day.”

  “Hey, don’t blame me. I just work here.”

  “As if I didn’t have enough t
o do, now I may have to find two killers.”

  “You’ll solve the case, Keith. Remember, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these…Oh, wait, that’s the postmen. What do you boys do when it snows and rains?”

  “We go after the bad guys. Some days, though, are easier than others.”

  Part Four.Rotting Corpses and Severed Digits

  Oregon

  Chapter Seventeen

  On Saturday morning, Brad Miller drove to Salem for his second meeting with Clarence Little. Ginny Striker was riding shotgun, and he was grateful for the company. He usually didn’t have any on a weekend. He also enjoyed discussing strategy with the attractive associate. In fact, he liked everything about Ginny. The only good thing to come out of Tuchman’s assignment was the opportunity it gave Brad to spend time with her. When he was with Ginny he felt none of the anxiety and sexual tension he always felt when he’d been dating Bridget Malloy, who seemed to go out of her way to keep him on edge. Ginny seemed genuinely nice, and the only friction between them arose when he refused to let her meet Clarence Little.

  “Are you nuts?” Brad had replied when Ginny broached the subject. “I don’t want you within a mile of Little.”

  “I’ll be perfectly safe,” Ginny insisted. “You told me there was concrete and shatterproof glass between you. How is he going to get to me?”

  “That’s not the point. I don’t want him knowing you exist. What if he gets out somehow?”

  “I don’t think freedom is in Mr. Little’s future, Brad. He’s serving three death sentences.”

  “I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “That’s sweet,” Ginny answered in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “but your chivalrous attitude is a bit outdated. I helped subdue paranoid bikers on speed when I was working the emergency room. I know how to take care of myself. If Clarence busts through the glass I’ll protect you.”

  Out of desperation, Brad played his trump card. “Look, Ginny, I know you’re tough. You’re probably a lot tougher than me. But the truth is, you’d be a distraction.”