“I never thought I might get you killed when I insisted we look into Little’s claim. I’m so glad this is over.”
“It is, and in more ways than one. I had a run-in with Susan Tuchman at the hospital.”
“What was she doing there?”
“Rickstein, the lawyer from the D.C. firm, sent her to represent Marsha Erickson, but the FBI wouldn’t let Tuchman see her. She was really pissed when she left.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I was the first person she saw when she walked out of the elevator. Tuchman may be a lot of things but dumb isn’t one of them. She knew right away that I’d disobeyed her order to stay away from the Little case, so she canned me.”
“Oh, Brad. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. It was inevitable. I’m actually happy I’m out of Reed, Briggs. I never fit in. I’m just worried that Tuchman will bad-mouth me and I won’t be able to find another job as a lawyer. I guess I can always hang out a shingle.”
“Don’t worry about a job. From what you told me on the phone, you saved Marsha Erickson’s life. You’re a hero. People will admire you for what you did. You proved you’ll go the distance for a client.”
Brad flashed a rueful smile. “I hope I don’t have to promise to shoot it out with opposing counsel to get a job. One gunfight is enough for a lifetime.”
Ginny touched his cheek. “You’re going to come out on top. You’ll see.”
“I’ll worry about employment tomorrow. Right now I’m famished.”
“I can take care of that. Let’s go into the kitchen.”
Brad watched her walk away from him, and he smiled. Ginny was sexy and nice and everything a man could want in a woman. He decided that this was a perfect time to tell her.
“You know, there was a moment there when I thought I was going to die. It made me very sad because that would mean not seeing you again, and I want to see a lot of you in the future.”
“That’s not a double entendre, is it?”
Brad laughed. “Have I ever told you you’re a pervert? Here I’m trying to be romantic and you’re making lewd jokes.”
“Sorry,” Ginny said, flashing a wicked smile. “I promise that I’ll never bring up the subject of sex again.”
“You don’t have to go that far, but I hope I won’t insult you if I say that my interests right now lie solely in the area of food and sleep.”
“I’ll get you some food, but you don’t get to sleep until you tell me everything that happened tonight.”
The sun was starting to come up, and Keith Evans’s energy level was way down. He was jet-lagged from his cross-country flight in the FBI jet and he had sustained himself on doughnuts, a wretched tuna fish sandwich, and foul coffee. Evans had insisted that Maggie go to their hotel for some much needed rest. He envied her. He was ready to trade all of his worldly possessions for a decent meal, a shower, and eight hours of sleep. Unfortunately, there was work to be done.
On balance, if he discounted his personal state of well-being, things had gone well. Marsha Erickson was cooperating, and Dana Cutler’s wound wasn’t serious. They had lost “John Doe,” but they had the man who’d killed him, a swap Evans hoped would work in their favor.
“What’s Aiello’s condition?” Evans asked the agent who was guarding the killer’s room.
“The last doctor I spoke to said he’d be coming out of the anesthesia soon. That was half an hour ago. The doctor said he was lucky. None of the bullets hit a major organ.”
We’re lucky, too, Evans thought ruefully. If I was any kind of shot we wouldn’t have a witness.
Evans opened the door. Aiello watched him with a pair of dull, blue eyes as he crossed the room and stood beside his bed. Evans guessed he would be a tough guy. How tough remained to be seen.
“I’m Keith Evans with the independent counsel’s office. How are you feeling?”
The man didn’t answer.
“I have good news and bad news, Joe.” Evans paused. “You don’t mind if I call you Joe or Aiello, do you? I’m certain they’re not your real names, but it’s the best I can do before we get a report on your prints.”
The prisoner still didn’t answer.
“Okay, have it your own way. So, what would you like to hear first, the good news or the bad news?”
Evans waited a beat. “Since you won’t make up your mind, I’ll give you the good news. The doctors say you’re going to pull through. That’s also the bad news, because you’ll be standing trial in federal court for murdering an FBI agent and in Oregon for murdering our witness. That means you’re a candidate for the death penalty. But there’s more good news. Now, you’re the witness. If you’re smart you can avoid a lethal injection.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you,” the man managed. His words were slurred from the residual effects of the anesthetic.
“You’re right. I can be a wiseguy at times. I should cut the humor and get serious. So, seriously, Joe, I would love to watch you die for killing a decent young man whose shoes you aren’t fit to shine, but I have to ignore my personal desires and do my job. Professionally, I’m much more interested in the people who sent you to kill our witness than I am in sending you away. Tell me everything you know and we’ll deal. Clam up and you die.”
“We’ll see,” the man said. His dry lips cracked into a smile that told the agent Aiello thought Evans was incredibly naive.
“You think your friends will protect you but they won’t,” Evans said. “Facing a death sentence is a big motivation to talk, so you’ve become a problem. Think about the way your boss has been solving problems. Cutler was a witness who could hurt him. What did he do? He sent you and the man you just murdered to kill Cutler.”
Aiello’s eyes shifted, and Evans noticed.
“Yeah, Joe, we showed Dana Cutler your photo and she says you’re definitely the guy she shot in her apartment and one of the people who attacked her in West Virginia from the speedboat. The doctors say you have a recent scar on your thigh that’s consistent with a bullet wound. Coincidentally, it’s right where Cutler says she shot you.”
Aiello remained quiet.
“You can clam up, but do some thinking, too. Think about what happened when your buddy was arrested. You were sent to kill him because your boss can’t afford to leave witnesses alive. Now, you’re the witness, which means you’ve become a huge liability. As soon as he learns you’re alive, he’ll send more men to silence you. He has to. He can’t afford to let you talk.”
The smile stayed on the killer’s lips but it shrunk in size as Evans’s words registered.
“There are only two ways you can go, lawyer up or cooperate. If you choose door number one, you die. If you aren’t killed awaiting trial, they’ll take you out in prison after a conviction or you’ll be murdered in the free world if you’re acquitted. Cooperate and we’ll try to put away the men who want you dead, and we’ll work very hard to keep you alive. What do you say?”
“Fuck you.”
“Hey, Joe, I’m way too exhausted to fuck right now. What I do plan to do is take a shower, get some rest, then eat a hearty breakfast. After that, I’ll be back to talk some more. While I’m gone, I suggest you think about what I said.”
Chapter Forty
A week after the West Coast shoot-outs at the hospital and Marsha Erickson’s house, Erickson and Dana Cutler were tucked away in separate safe houses near Washington, D.C., and Keith Evans was swimming, once again, in the humid, ninety-degree heat of the nation’s capital. At nine o’clock Friday morning, fortified by a breakfast of bacon, eggs, biscuits, grits, and black coffee, Evans seated himself across from Charles Hawkins and his attorney, Gary Bischoff, in a conference room at the office of the independent counsel. With Evans were a court reporter, Maggie Sparks, and Gordon Buss, an assistant United States attorney.
Bischoff was a lanky man with curly, salt-and-pepper hair. He ran marathons for a hobby, and his cheeks were as hollow and his eye sockets as deep s
et as the victim of an African famine. Bischoff was dressed in an expensive suit that was tailor made to fit his skeletal frame, but Hawkins, true to form, was attired in a cheap mismatched jacket and slacks. Evans thought the president’s advisor looked less self-confident than he had when they’d spoken at his boss’s press conference.
“Would you like to tell us why you’ve summoned my client to this meeting?” Bischoff asked when the introductions were completed.
“Sure,” Evans replied. “We think he’s responsible for a couple of murders and attempted murders in Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, West Virginia, and Oregon.”
Evans paused and counted on his fingers. When he was satisfied, he nodded.
“Yeah, those are the jurisdictions to which he can expect to be extradited. I don’t think I missed any. If I did, they’ll come after him, so you’ll find out where they are.
“Now, there are also some assaults in there and a burglary or two, and I’m certain I’ve forgotten a few more charges. Mr. Buss is the criminal lawyer. He can tell you all of the possible crimes Mr. Hawkins will be charged with committing, or you can talk to the DAs who’ll be filing the indictments.”
Bischoff had been practicing criminal law at the highest levels for thirty years, so he’d been around the block. Evans amused him and he laughed.
“You obviously haven’t seen Mr. Hawkins’s schedule. I don’t think he’s got time to brush his teeth, let alone run around the country killing people.”
“I didn’t say he committed all of these crimes himself.” Evans shifted his gaze to Hawkins. “He had help. For instance, he sent a fellow who posed as a lawyer and used the alias ‘Joseph Aiello’ to St. Francis Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, to murder one of his hit men, who we were lucky enough to capture. ‘Aiello’ killed our witness, but he didn’t get away. Now he’s spilling his guts, and he has a lot of interesting things to say about Mr. Hawkins.”
“A man facing the death penalty will say a lot of things,” Bischoff offered.
“True, but here’s something for your client to think about. Aiello’s real name is Oscar Tierney. Oscar’s prints aren’t on file. If he hadn’t given us his real name we wouldn’t have been able to figure it out, so you know he’s talking to us. He also says that he and the fellow he killed at the hospital are part of a black ops squad that operates out of the CIA. One of his assignments was to kill Dana Cutler, who he’d been led to believe was a spy for the Chinese. He claims that your client told him that Cutler was going to use the photos of Farrington and Walsh to blackmail the president into making decisions that would not have been in the national interest. I’ll give you Tierney’s statement by and by and you can learn how your client is able to commit mass murder while helping run the country.”
Bischoff smiled patiently. “That sounds like the type of story someone would concoct if they were caught in the act and had no defense.”
“Yeah, it would be far-fetched if Dana Cutler, the first person Tierney was sent to kill, hadn’t told us that Tierney wanted her to give him the photos she’d taken of the president in flagrante delicto. This was less than three hours after Cutler took the pictures, and it was around two in the morning. The only people who knew about those photos at that time were Cutler, who took them, the president, the Secret Service agents who were guarding the president, and your client. Cutler doesn’t have a suicide wish, so she didn’t send Tierney to her apartment. That sort of narrows the suspects, don’t you think?”
“I hope you didn’t ask Mr. Hawkins here expecting him to confess to these outrageous accusations.”
“That would save me a lot of time and effort. It might also help Mr. Hawkins avoid the death penalty if he confesses and clarifies President Farrington’s role in his criminal enterprises.”
“Do you have any other evidence that leads you to believe that Mr. Hawkins is a modern-day Al Capone?”
“You bet, and I’ll give him a preview of our case so he can make a reasoned decision about cooperating. Of course, the investigation is ongoing, so we’ll get more evidence soon, but here’s some of what we have right now.”
“We’re all ears.”
Evans directed his words at Hawkins, who listened without expression.
“When Mr. Hawkins got out of the army, President Farrington was practicing law and having sex with a high school girl named Rhonda Pulaski. Pulaski was not only underage, she was also a client. If any of that ever came out you can imagine what would have happened to our commander in chief. He’d face prison and disbarment, not to mention a big fat civil suit. And those possibilities were looming on the horizon because Farrington had screwed Miss Pulaski in the back of a limousine driven by Tim Houston, a man who was so appalled by the president’s behavior that he went to the police.
“Mr. Hawkins owed the Farringtons a lot and he was extremely loyal. We think he made the problem go away by buying off the Pulaski family and killing Rhonda Pulaski and Houston.”
“Can you prove any of this?” Bischoff asked.
“We’re working on it.”
The lawyer returned the smile. “Why don’t you tell us about something you can prove?”
Evans ignored the taunt. “When Farrington was practicing law he had a secretary named Marsha Erickson, who had a daughter named Laurie. Farrington brought Marsha with him to the governor’s mansion when he was elected governor of Oregon. Laurie was in high school and was about the same age as Rhonda Pulaski. Farrington started noticing her, and not in a good way. Soon, he was coming on to her. Are you starting to see a pattern, Gary?”
“Go on,” Bischoff answered blandly.
“My pleasure. Eventually, Farrington had sex with Laurie. That’s when she became a threat to Farrington’s political future. One evening, the governor was scheduled to attend a fund-raiser at the Salem Library. Laurie was babysitting the governor’s son. Your client returned to the governor’s mansion on the pretext of getting some notes for the governor’s speech and murdered Laurie Erickson.
“A serial killer named Clarence Little was killing women in the Salem area at this time. Your client had access to police reports that detailed Little’s MO, and he made the murder look like Little’s work. Little was convicted of murdering Laurie and sentenced to death. We now have forensic and other evidence that strongly suggests that Little did not kill Laurie Erickson.
“Mr. Hawkins testified at Little’s trial that he was with Laurie around the time she went missing. By his own admission, he’s the last person who saw her alive. No one else was seen entering the grounds of the mansion after Mr. Hawkins left.”
“Is this man Little still on death row because of the Erickson case?” Bischoff asked.
“He is.”
“So, you have no proof that my client murdered Pulaski, and a jury found Little guilty of killing Erickson,” the attorney summed up.
“Yup.”
“You know, this would make a great movie-Mission Impossible XII say-but I’m more interested in hearing the type of evidence that would be admissible at a trial.”
“Okay, I’ll talk about a case I’m sure you’re familiar with. It’s the reason an independent counsel was created. Charlotte Walsh was a student at American University who was very attractive and about the same age as Laurie Erickson and Rhonda Pulaski were when Farrington was involved with them. Walsh was majoring in poli-sci, and she went to work at Farrington’s campaign headquarters. We think Farrington had your client bring Walsh to Chicago to convince her to become a spy in Senator Maureen Gaylord’s campaign. We think that the president had sex with Walsh in Chicago, but we know she quit the Farrington campaign when she came back to D.C. and promptly volunteered at Maureen Gaylord’s headquarters.
“On the night she was murdered, Walsh stole documents from Gaylord’s campaign headquarters and arranged to give them to the president at a farm in Virginia that the CIA uses as a safe house. Walsh was instructed to park in the lot at the Dulles Towne Center mall. A Secret Service agen
t picked her up and took her to the farm.
“Farrington was supposed to appear at a campaign fund-raiser in the Theodore Roosevelt Hotel, but he talked his wife into going in his place. Just before he was leaving the White House, the first lady told him she was pregnant. Farrington told Mr. Hawkins to go to the event with Dr. Farrington.”
Evans looked directly at Hawkins, who met his eye without flinching.
“You know Dale Perry, don’t you, Mr. Hawkins?”
Bischoff held up his hand and addressed his client. “Don’t answer that, Chuck.
“Mr. Evans, I instruct you to desist from asking Charles Hawkins, my client, any questions,” the lawyer said, making certain that the stenographer got the prohibition on the record. “If you want him to answer a question, please direct it to me first and I’ll advise him whether he should answer it.”
“That’s okay with me,” Evans answered, “but it doesn’t matter what your client says about his relationship with Perry. They were in the same class at Oregon State University. We have several witnesses who’ll confirm that Perry, Christopher Farrington, and your client were friends. After college, Mr. Hawkins went into the army and President Farrington went to law school in Oregon. Mr. Perry went to law school at the University of Chicago. After law school, he went to work for the Kendall, Barrett law firm.
“A client hired Dale Perry to make arrangements to have Miss Walsh followed. By hiring a lawyer, the client could use the attorney-client privilege to shield his identity. Perry hired Dana Cutler, who is a PI, to tail Walsh but didn’t tell her who she was working for. The client wanted pictures of everyone Walsh met, and he wanted Cutler to give him a running report when Walsh went somewhere or did something. To facilitate the reporting Perry bought two cell phones. He gave one to the client and one to Cutler. Cutler was ordered to leave voice messages when she had something to report.
“On the evening that Walsh was murdered, Cutler followed her to the Dulles Towne Center parking lot and reported the position of Walsh’s car in the lot. That means that the client was one of a small group of people who knew the exact location where Walsh would be after she left the farm. Cutler followed the Secret Service agent and Walsh to the farm where she met President Farrington. Cutler reported to the client when Walsh left the farm to return to the mall, but a guard spotted Cutler, and she couldn’t continue following Walsh.
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