by Sydney Bauer
Their eyes were locked on each other – as if the Professor was willing him to see what he had seen in that oh-so-opulent suite first hand; every living, breathing, dying second of it.
And in that moment, the surge of rage David had been holding on to since he entered the room, suddenly gave way to a new sense of realisation.
Now he saw it, and understood it all.
‘You didn’t make up that night,’ said David.
Montgomery said nothing, just gave him a look that urged him to continue.
‘Because Bradshaw was incapable of communicating. By the time you got to his suite, the Vice President was already dead. Am I right, Professor? The murderer had been and gone, and considering your recent falling out, and subsequent fear that the finger would be pointed at you, you failed to raise the alarm. You checked for a non-existent pulse and walked away, leaving him for someone else to . . .’
But David was interrupted by a new noise which echoed about the small room in a rhythmic thunder of clarity.
The Professor was clapping.
‘How clever of you, Mr Cavanaugh,’ said the Professor with a slight shake in his voice. ‘Yes, Tom was dead when I went to him. And sadly, we never got the chance to bury the hatchet. He was still warm, but there was no sign of any vitals. I suspected he had been drugged so I . . .’ Montgomery stopped there, as if automatically editing himself again. ‘I assessed him further and realised he had been without oxygen for some minutes – so I left, knowing that even if I had raised the alarm, there would have been no going back. Tom was gone. That, in the very least, I am sure of.’
David was speechless. He looked at Sara – the shock in her expression matching his own, counterbalanced by the look of satisfaction or, perhaps more accurately, relief on their client’s face.
David was furious Montgomery had lied to them earlier – but by the same token got the sense that the Professor was comforted that he had discovered this startling piece of information all on his very own. The question was, why would Montgomery play such games with his own defence? Why would he jeopardise his own future, his own life, for the sake of some macabre game of ‘Clue’. He suspected Sara was thinking the same thing – but her silence suggested she also knew the answer.
‘How is your head?’ asked the Professor, a question which at first seemed to come from left field. ‘Forgive me. I am yet to apologise for your playing “piggy in the middle” between myself and the bullet of a madman. Or was he – or she – mad? I suppose we may never know.’
‘You’re terrified,’ said David at last.
‘Why, of course. A fitting emotion under the circumstances wouldn’t you agree?’
‘No. I mean you’re terrified of them – the real killers, for what they might do to you. That is why you are playing this ridiculous game of drip feed the information. You know who they are, or at least you have your suspicions, and worse still you know that they know that you know.’
‘Confusing, isn’t it?’
‘Jesus Christ, Montgomery. If you know something you have to tell us. It may be the only way we can save your life.’
‘No, Mr Cavanaugh, I am afraid you are wrong. I am in no position to point the finger. Any accusations I make at this juncture will simply be seen as desperate attempts to save my life. My salvation will only come in the proof on two points; the first being the establishment of my innocence, and the second the verification of the true murderers’ guilt.’ The Professor took a breath, his body shaking ever so slightly on the exhale. ‘I know the task seems monstrous but it really isn’t, you know,’ Montgomery went on. ‘Not when you consider our list of suspects is conveniently low. Very few people visited Tom in his grandiose suite in those precious moments before death. You have access to the hotel video, I suggest you use it. And one more word of advice. If I were you, I would be looking for two separate crimes. The first enabling the other.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Sara.
‘It’s simple my dear. Medicine 101. The injection of the OxyContin was the second invasion on Tom Bradshaw’s physiology that evening.’
Montgomery looked at David as if willing him to see it. ‘Come on, Mr Cavanaugh. Think! It is really quite obvious. The answer lies with the victim, and the core of his very being. The answer lies with Tom Bradshaw – who he was, what he represented and the ultimate insult to a man of his consummate strength.’
David was tired – so tired and confused. His head was spinning, his stomach nauseous, and his ears still ringing from the gunfire that slid within inches of taking his life less than twenty-four hours ago. He could not, should not, have to cope with these ridiculous riddles and their catastrophic consequences. But something told him there was no other way. He either played by his client’s rules or the real killers walked – and there was no way on God’s earth he was going to let that happen.
And then – just as he accepted he had no choice but to ‘play’ – it hit him. Just like that.
‘Wait a minute,’ he began. ‘The victim – the Vice President – was a recovering drug addict.’
‘Yes,’ smiled Montgomery.
‘And recovering addicts cannot take any form of drugs – no alcohol, no headache pills, nothing.’
‘Correct,’ said the Professor, now perched on the edge of his chair.
‘Then why in the hell would he allow someone to inject him with anything – I mean, even if he didn’t know it was OxyContin . . . why would he . . . ?’
‘He wouldn’t, of course. No way on earth.’
‘So how the hell could they have pulled it off? Bradshaw was a big man, fit, strong. One person would have difficulty holding him down.’
‘Definitely,’ agreed his client.
‘And there was no sign of a struggle. And they couldn’t make any noise considering the place was littered with secret service whose sole responsibility was to protect him,’ continued David. ‘The bed covers were pristine, his shirt sleeve neatly folded and . . .’
‘Wait,’ said Sara. ‘What if Adams claims Bradshaw was taking some sort of pick-me-up on the side, and that the Professor took advantage of this weakness and swapped the relatively harmless “upper” with a lethal drug without his knowledge?’
‘No,’ said David. ‘They can’t have it both ways. Their entire case is based upon Bradshaw’s purity. They expose him as a user they ruin his credibility – and that of the Latham administration along with it. This is an election year and something tells me the Department of Justice Trial Attorney and his FBI friend are not about to jeopardise the success of their government by implicating their hero as a relapsed junkie. No, there is only one way they could have done it, just like he says.’ David gestured towards their client. ‘Two crimes – one enabling the other.’
‘Go on, Mr Cavanaugh . . .’ urged Montgomery.
‘He was sedated – without his knowledge. Someone gave him a sedative in his food, his drink . . . I . . . but no, that can’t be. There was no record of sedatives in the ME’s report.’
‘No,’ said Montgomery. ‘Don’t let that small detail interrupt your thought process, Mr Cavanaugh. There are plenty of sedatives that go undetected – anaesthetics, herbal alternatives, natural tranquillisers.’
‘Then, if we’re right,’ said David, ‘the injection of the OxyContin was easy – all the killer had to do was administer it to an unconscious man. Which also means . . .’
‘I couldn’t have done it,’ finished the Professor, ‘for I only visited my dear friend once and only for a matter of minutes. You need to have another look at the Medical Examiner’s report, Mr Cavanaugh, and lobby for another go with that blood sample. We need to re-test for those so-called undetectable sedatives and that, my friends, may lead us to the truth.’
But David was already a step ahead of him, handing Sara her coat and knocking on the interview room door. ‘I’ll get that blood re-tested – and tear the hotel video tape apart second by second. Just sit tight, Professor. Letter or no letter, this isn’t
over yet.’
50
‘Seven whole years’, thought Leo King as he put down his dark brown leather briefcase and sat behind his cherry wood desk. Seven years and four months he had been coming into this same room, taking comfort in its familiarity; the home away from home-ness that came with the thousands of hours he had spent here doing work he was genuinely proud of.
The comfort was in the small things – the neatly sharpened government issue pencils kept just to his right, the rainbow coloured post-its (a present from his daughter Michela) sitting neatly under his computer to his left, the photo of his wife and two kids in a hand-painted frame on the far right hand corner of his desk, and the tidy-as-they-could-be ‘in’ and ‘out’ trays which sat directly in front of him. Even the outlook from the north-facing window, above the constant seemingly snail-like progress of one city construction or another across the Bunker Hill Bridge and beyond gave him comfort.
He was tired. He, Mannix, McKay and Leigh had arrived home from Washington late last night having spent the whole day with CIA Director Ryan who had finally agreed to allow him into his ‘circle’ after Mannix’s persistent reassurances and a quickly established bond with the CIA Chief in the form of their mutual disrespect for ADIC Antonio Ramirez. Luckily his wife had been sound asleep, his mother-in-law snoring softly in the guest bedroom next door, and his girls away and ‘safe’ at tennis camp, for he had not felt like talking last night. His brain was overloaded with the scope of the two remaining Gospel members’ crimes, and he wondered how in the hell they could build the proof to condemn them.
There were so many reasons to be angry at Ramirez – drug dealer, blackmailer, perverter of justice, murderer. But right now, as he took his seat behind his desk, facing the normally comforting plethora of what he knew to be ‘his’, he hated him more than ever – for making him feel so uncomfortable in his own ‘home’, for spitting in the face of every FBI agent who took pride in their work, for abusing his role as ‘protector’ and, with greed and ambition as his motivation, choosing the role of killer instead.
He was here now – a mere twenty feet to his left. He could hear him through the thin fibrous walls, barking out orders to his equally as pompous PA, ‘owning’ a space he had no right to own, and making a mockery of everything the Bureau represented.
‘Welcome back, Special Agent,’ said King’s assistant, Agent Carlos Perez, jolting King from his thoughts. Perez was a smart young agent who King knew was on the fast track to promotion – a progression King, despite the loss of a good apprentice, would be the first one to support.
‘Are you feeling any better?’ asked Perez with genuine concern, reminding Leo he had called in ‘sick’ yesterday. ‘My girlfriend has been in bed all weekend. Headaches, sweats – it’s going around.’
‘Much better, thanks Carlos. Hope your girlfriend can say the same thing soon,’ smiled King.
‘Coffee’s hot, so I took the liberty of getting you one,’ said Carlos, placing the dark blue mug on the table in front of him. ‘And your messages are on your desk.’ Perez pointed to the neat pile of yellow message notes in King’s ‘in’ box. ‘I think there’s something there you may want to see.’
While King didn’t have a secretary as such, Perez was one of three assistant special agents he worked with on a daily basis. Carlos had obviously taken care of all of his boss’ messages yesterday and, as usual, King was grateful for both his loyalty and efficiency.
King picked up the pile of notes, turning them over one by one with Perez patiently making comments as he went through them.
‘The first few are internal – none of them super urgent. Except for the calls from Agent Cunningham, who has called at least six times.’ Mylee Cunningham ran the Boston Field Offices’ Public Affairs Division. ‘She’s been snowed under with enquiries from the press. They want an official FBI comment on the latest in the Montgomery case – including what went down at Suffolk County Jail yesterday morning.’
‘Do me a favour, Carlos,’ said King, handing Cunningham’s messages back to his assistant. ‘Give them to ADIC Ramirez. He’s the self-appointed spokesman on this one.’ He knew he shouldn’t talk ill of his boss in front of his staff, but this morning he just couldn’t seem to help it. Carlos in turn gave King a knowing nod as if to say: ‘Tell me about it!’
‘Speaking of whom,’ said Perez with a slight furrow in his brow. ‘That one there is the one I thought you might want to get to first,’ he said, pointing to the message. King turned the note over in his hands. All it contained was a number – international by the looks of things – but no name.
‘It came in just after seven this morning,’ Perez went on. ‘ADIC Ramirez happened to walk in just as I picked up the phone. He heard me mention the name and stopped short – just stood there in front of my desk like . . .’
‘Like what, Carlos?’
‘Well, like he was bursting out of his skin to snatch the phone from my grasp. But I took the lady’s message and then I hung up before he could interrupt. He asked me what she said, and I gave the edited version. The lady had asked for you, after all. Anyway, Assistant Director Ramirez took the note from my hand and said he would take care of it. He even told me not to bother you with it – that you were working on other aspects of the Montgomery case.’
‘Then how did you take this down?’ said King holding up the note.
‘I just waited until he went into his office and re-wrote the number. Luckily I press hard on my pencil, so I just went over the impressions left from the original note. I’m pretty sure it’s right,’ he pointed. ‘If not I can check the phone logs and . . .’
‘Hold on, Carlos, the number’s great but who was the caller – you didn’t write down the name.’
‘No. Sorry. This sounds crazy but at the time I felt it better that I didn’t. The caller was Eleanor Caspian – from Brussels.’
‘Jesus,’ said King. ‘Mrs Caspian. What did she . . . ?’
‘She said it was pretty important she spoke to you. Said she found something that confused her and that she may have been hasty in her early judgements of Montgomery.’
‘What? Carlos, did you ask her what she found?’
‘No, sir. I was trying not to say anything given ADIC Ramirez was hanging off my every word. Luckily,’ Perez went on, ‘the conversation was pretty much one way on Mrs Caspian’s part. She was kind of distressed and very keen to tell you the information herself.’
‘What was it, Carlos?’ said an anxious King, looking at his watch. It was now just after nine. ‘What did she say?’
‘She said she found a repeat – for the prescription.’
‘Jesus,’ said King, now up from his desk. ‘Tell me something, Carlos, I don’t fill many prescriptions, but you only get a repeat when you fill the original, right?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Which means Caspian did fill the OxyContin script after all. He may not have taken the pills, but he definitely filled the script.’
Dear God, thought King to himself. The existence of the repeat proves Montgomery didn’t fill the original script in the first place, which removes his access to the ‘murder weapon’, which pretty much shoots Ramirez’s case against the Professor to hell, and if Ramirez knows this then . . .
King stood and moved around his desk before lowering his voice to a whisper, now paranoid Ramirez could hear through the wall. ‘Carlos, did you tell Ramirez any of this? Did you tell him about the repeat?’
‘No, sir. He asked plenty of questions but I’m pretty good at saying nothing when I want to. I just gave him the phone number, and that was it.’
King looked at his assistant and smiled, giving him a quick slap on the shoulder. ‘Well done, Carlos. But do you think Ramirez called her, did you hear him return the call?’
‘I’m afraid so. As soon as he walked in to his office he shut the door and dialled international – I could tell by the number of dial out beeps on his phone. He spoke for about three minutes, gi
ve or take. After that he made another call – long distance by the sound of it – most likely DC. Anyway,’ Carlos went on, obviously anxious to be of help, ‘that call only lasted a minute at most. He did all the talking, sounded like he was giving someone instructions. Then someone else calls his direct line and he says one word into the telephone. “Good.” And then he hangs up.’
‘Shit,’ said King, moving back around his desk and picking up the phone. That was over two hours ago. ‘Shut the door, Carlos.’
King dialled the ten digit number, hoping, praying, willing Eleanor Caspian to pick up on the other end.
‘Hello,’ King heard at last.
‘Mrs Caspian?’
‘This is Kate Caspian Cole. Can I help you?’
‘Forgive me, Ma’am, but this is FBI Special Agent Leo King calling from Boston. I was actually after your mother, Mrs Eleanor Caspian. Is she . . .’
‘Well, it’s lucky you called when you did Special Agent King, we were just about to head into the city for our rendezvous with your representative. She has the repeat with her.’
‘Damn it,’ thought King. The daughter knows as well. Ramirez will have to get rid of them both.
‘Mrs Caspian Cole,’ said King, knowing there was no way of saying what he had to say, without scaring the hell out of her. ‘Did your mother tell anyone else about the repeat – your husband perhaps? Any friends, other relatives?’
‘No, Special Agent. We did as Assistant Director Ramirez requested and told no one, and I can assure you we will keep our promise and continue to keep this information quiet. Mother told me Assistant Director Ramirez stressed how important this was, although I must admit, I was a little confused as to why his representative could not come here to collect the repeat.’
King knew exactly why. Taking control of the two women in their home would be risky, considering neighbours and so forth, whereas picking them up off a busy city street would be . . . ‘Mrs Caspian Cole.’
