Murder at the FBI

by Margaret Truman

  “So do you, but you don’t use it enough,” she said.

  He appeared to be hurt at her comment, then broke into a wide grin. “Yeah, I suppose I don’t. It’s the Scandinavian in me.”

  He talked a little about his childhood in Seattle, about his father, who he characterized as humorless and unbending, in contrast to his mother, a nervous, giddy woman who he remembered as always laughing. “She had to placate the old man all the time,” he said. “She was good at it, which was good for me. It took the edge off.”

  Chris knew he’d been married once and that it had ended in divorce. She’d asked on a couple of occasions about it, but he offered little: “It didn’t work,” or, “We were too young,” or, “It was a mistake we caught in time.” When she asked where his former wife was now, he shrugged and said, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  Over coffee he brought up the question of where they’d stay that night. To Chris the question was not where to stay but whether to spend the night with him at all. Until dinner, she had been determined not to, but now… it was a tough decision.

  “Ross, would you mind terribly if we didn’t stay together tonight? I really need time at the apartment to catch up on some personal things.”

  She searched his face for a sign of anger or disappointment, but saw neither. Instead, he smiled, took her hand, and said, “Of course I don’t mind. We both need some time alone. I’m just glad we had a chance for dinner together. I miss you.”

  His words touched her. She squeezed his hand and said, “I miss you, too.”

  “You know what I’d like to do when this Pritchard mess is resolved?”

  “What?”

  “Go away together for a couple of weeks, maybe Mexico, Europe, just the two of us.”

  “Sounds wonderful. I’ve got lots of vacation time accrued.”

  “So do I. Let’s plan on it.”

  They returned to the Hoover Building to pick up her car. He took her in his arms and kissed her with an urgency to which she readily responded. “I love you,” he said.

  He’d said it before, very early in their relationship, but hadn’t for a while. The first time he’d said it she found it strange, unsettling. They’d only been out together twice, a concert and dinner, and a party for a friend who’d retired from the Interior Department. It was so premature, and it caused her to wonder at his stability. But those doubts quickly dissipated and she enjoyed hearing him speak those words to her. Now, after a period of time during which they’d not been said, she reveled in hearing them again, and returned the kiss with equal fervor.

  “See you in the office,” he said. “Have anything on for tomorrow night?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What?”

  She would question herself all the way home why she lied to him. She had her reasons—not wanting to break the pleasant mood of the evening, not wanting to upset him—but none of it served to justify her actions. She told him that she was getting together with a college friend.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Oh, you don’t know her. Her name is Laurie.”

  “Well, have fun. See you in the morning.”

  She didn’t see the hardness return to his face as she drove off. All she knew was that she’d been stupid to lie to—to a man with whom she’d fallen in love.

  She called him when she got home to tell him the truth, but there was no answer. She tried a few more times, the last call at one in the morning. He wasn’t home.

  By the time she arrived at the office the next day, the compulsion to correct the lie was gone. Maybe it was better to let it go, chalk it up as a prudent white lie that could be corrected later on, in the proper setting and when the mood was conducive. There was also a parallel resentment that had developed by the time she awoke that morning. The reason she’d lied was that he’d established an atmosphere in which the truth—that kind of truth—was unacceptable.

  They’d have to talk about that one day soon.

  12

  Saksis spent the morning analyzing the results of calls around the country to exchanges with the first three numbers listed next to R.K. in Pritchard’s phone book. It didn’t turn up much—most calls reached housewives or small businesses. There was one, however, that interested her, the Hotel Inter-Continental in New York City.

  She called, was put through to an assistant manager, and asked whether a Raymond Kane had recently been a guest. He had not. Saksis asked whether their computers could run a program in which all guests with the initials R.K. would be highlighted. “Of course,” she was told. “I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”

  The return call came in at four. The assistant manager expressed some concern at releasing guest information. Saksis said she understood but explained that this was a murder investigation and that a subpoena could be issued. The assistant manager said that they saw no need for that and were happy to cooperate with the FBI.

  The list contained about fifty names, with addresses, phone numbers, and the occupation or business affiliation that had been listed on the sign-in card. It covered all registrations over the past six months, but Saksis was assured that if it became necessary to go back farther, that could be accomplished, too.

  She had Barbara Twain run the names through the bureau’s central computer. As she waited for the results, she dwelled on one name that was familiar to her, Richard Kneeley, a best-selling author of nonfiction books, most of which dealt with esposés of government agencies. He’d written one a few years ago based on secret documents from the Defense Department that were extremely damaging to its secret program of arming rebel armies in Africa. Kneeley had made the talk-show rounds, and Saksis remembered seeing him on the Cable News Network’s “Sandy Freeman Reports.” She’d been impressed. Kneeley was a smooth, confident journalist, about sixty, with a full head of silver hair and a deep voice. There was no doubt in her mind after watching the interview that he knew what he was talking about and did, indeed, have the papers upon which he’d based his book.

  She called the hotel again and asked how recently Kneeley had been a guest. A few minutes later she was told, “Mr. Kneeley is a regular here, Miss Saksis. He’s been in and out a lot over the past few months.”

  “Does he live in New York?” Saksis asked.

  “No. Well, actually he does, but not the city. He lists Fire Island as home.”

  “I would assume that’s a summer address,” Saksis said.

  “I would, too, but I don’t have anything else.”

  “That’s not a problem. Mr. Kneeley is certainly well known. I can check on it.”

  “Again, Miss Saksis, just call if there’s anything else we can do for you.”

  “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

  Jacob Stein stopped in a few minutes later, closed Saksis’s door, and handed her a file with Background—Foreign Nationals In-Training—Confidential stamped in red across the folder.

  “Where’d you get this?” Chris asked.

  “A friend. Just skim. I have to get it back.”

  What she read caused her heart to pump a little faster. The material was obviously not meant for casual perusal, or even for official bureau dissemination. It contained highly sensitive and personal information about the backgrounds of Hans Loeffler, Walter Teng, and Sergio Nariz that had been provided by the Central Intelligence Agency.

  “Nice crowd, huh?” Stein said.

  “Not very,” said Saksis.

  Loeffler, according to the report, was a neo-Nazi with strong ties to an organization known as Stammesbruder, an anti-Semitic group dedicated to the precept of rule by “racial brethren.” Although it was not considered by the German government to be large enough to warrant active concern (the CIA likened it to America’s Ku Klux Klan), there was interest in the fact that a disproportionate percentage of its members were from German law enforcement agencies. Hans Loeffler, the report said, was one of Stammesbruder’s most effective recruiters.

  Sergio Nariz was characterize
d as a “strong man” within Paraguay’s military and law enforcement structure. The Washington-based Council on Hemisphere Affairs had branded him one of the most flagrant violators of human rights in Latin America. The military and police actually ruled, and thousands of Paraguayans were thought to be in prison because of their political beliefs. Nariz, claimed the report, was directly responsible for the program of identification and detention of political dissidents.

  Walter Teng was considered by the CIA to hold a powerful position within the law enforcement arm of mainland China’s People’s Liberation Army. The “revolutionary committee” from which he’d gained his initial power was one of the strongest in the People’s Republic of China. (Saksis had to smile as she read that Teng had received one of the nation’s highest awards for spearheading a program to provide flyswatters to every citizen to rid the country of flies and mosquitoes. It had worked; China boasted of a fly- and mosquito-free society.) He’d also helped stamp out political dissent in the large cities. The blood of thousands of Chinese was on his hands, according to the CIA.

  All three men had previously attended the CIA’s Office of Public Safety school, which, according to insiders, had little to do with public safety, focusing more on teaching the latest torture and interrogation techniques.

  “Fascinating,” Saksis said as she handed the file back to Stein.

  “Yeah, I thought so. Hey, whatever came out of questioning Bert Doering?”

  “I don’t know. Ross was taking care of that personally.”

  “Did he talk to him?”

  “I have no idea, but I’ll ask.”

  She was going through a list of George Pritchard’s personal effects when Bill Tse-ay called. They arranged to meet for dinner at the Market Inn, an eclectic seafood restaurant on E Street, beneath a highway. It offered two distinctly different rooms, a busy one with jazz music and a quiet one with dimly lit booths. She opted for the latter when she made the reservation.

  Ross Lizenby had been away from Ranger for most of the day, for which Chris was grateful. She didn’t want the question of where she was going that night to come up again. She knew he was in the building; she’d seen him getting into an elevator an hour ago. She packed her briefcase with papers pertaining to the Pritchard case, locked her desk drawer, and went out to where Ranger’s secretaries sat. “I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m going to New York Monday. I’ll be back here the next morning.”

  “Contact?” the secretary asked, poising a pencil over a sheet of paper.

  “The Hotel Inter-Continental in Manhattan for lunch and early afternoon. The Garden City field office on Long Island in the morning.”

  “Right. By the way, who’s in charge when you and Mr. Lizenby are away?”

  Saksis shrugged. “You’d better check with Mr. Lizenby.”

  “He’s gone, too.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s been at a SPOVAC meeting most of the day, out of the building. No contact tonight, Quantico tomorrow.”

  “I just saw him a little while ago.”

  “That’s all I know, Miss Saksis.”

  “Well, if you can’t reach him, Mr. Stein will be in charge, unless Mr. Lizenby has another suggestion.”

  ***

  “God, it’s good to see you.” Bill Tse-ay sat across the booth from Chris and held her hands. “You look wonderful.”

  “So do you,” she said, “better than ever.”

  They’d first met at a rally in Denver sponsored by the American Indian Movement (AIM), an organization founded to build public awareness of the American Indian’s plight. Chris had been a speaker at the rally, and Bill was covering it for his father’s newspaper, Native American Times. She’d noticed him in the crowd, tall and slender, a warm and understanding expression on a face with fine features and liquid brown eyes. He was of American Indian parentage, no question about that, but there was an absence of typical Indian features that she found interesting. She assumed that one of his parents had been white, but found out otherwise later. They’d both been Apache.

  His father had had little formal education. He’d found work with a newspaper that was published in a town adjacent to his reservation, starting as a handyman and messenger, carrying materials to and from the printer, cleaning offices, and acting as a part-time chauffeur. The publisher took a liking to him and suggested he report news from the reservation in the paper. Bill’s father was amused at the notion that he could report anything, but the publisher encouraged him to try, and he started a monthly column, with considerable editorial help from the newspaper’s staff. He was bright and soon needed little help preparing the column.

  One day the publisher took him aside and announced that the readers weren’t happy having a column on Indian affairs in the paper. A few advertisers had threatened to pull their advertising unless the column was dropped. “I have to listen to them,” the publisher said. “I’m sorry, but I have an idea. Why not start your own newspaper devoted strictly to American Indian news and issues?” He offered to bankroll Tse-ay in return for a percentage of revenues. Tse-ay agreed and founded the paper that his son inherited upon his death.

  Native American Times had never been a financial success, although it always managed to break even. It had few advertisers; its major income came from foundations and from funds the younger Bill Tse-ay could “steal” from federal grants to other American Indian programs. The publication was not popular with federal officials. Under Bill’s leadership, it had become a strident and dedicated champion of the Indian’s place in American society, and its editorials were often scathing attacks on the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Congress, the White House, and any other bureaucracy that worked against what he considered fair treatment for his people.

  Bill Tse-ay’s personality belied his fervent dedication to his cause. He was quiet, soft-spoken, even shy with most people. He’d attended Northwestern University, where he majored in journalism, and had received a master’s degree from Columbia in the same field. He lived modestly on the Apache reservation outside of Phoenix, Arizona, and drove a battered Mercury station wagon. His wardrobe consisted of a dozen pairs of chino pants, drip-dry blue chambray shirts, and a couple of sports jackets, all purchased with his only department store credit card—Sears, Roebuck. He carried a gold American Express card issued to American Indian Times, Inc.

  “So, tell me everything that’s happened to you for the past six months,” he said, laughing.

  “It’s not funny,” Chris said. “I can sum up.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Overworked, hate the summer heat, tennis game continues to improve and—”

  “And? Who’s the guy?”

  “Oh”—she smiled and shook her head—“it’s nothing, just a fleeting infatuation.”

  “It didn’t sound that way on the phone.”

  “Well, maybe there was more to it then, but things change.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ross. Ross Lizenby.”

  “The guy from SPOVAC.”

  “How do you—?”

  “I’m a journalist, my dear. I know everything.”

  Her laugh was easy and genuine. “Come on, Bill, how do you know about Ross Lizenby?”

  He sipped his Perrier water and leaned back, which removed his face from the circle of light shining from a red globe above them. “Chris,” he said, “you know about SPOVAC’s think tank in Phoenix, don’t you?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

  He came into the light again. “Yeah, they set it up about a year ago. It’s inside that technological institute that opened up in ’77. They’ve got a brain trust operating there that rents itself out for top-secret government projects.”

  “Fascinating, but that still doesn’t explain why—”

  “Your friend has been out there a lot. In fact, I tried to interview him about the murder of a teenager from the reservation. Remember? Six months ago?”

  “Sure. You called when it happene
d. You were very upset.”

  “I knew her, a nice kid, typical Indian situation—an alcoholic father who beat her up for recreation, mother dead from drinking and one beating too many from whoever she was living with. Run-of-the-mill, the American Indian sit-com.”

  There was an edge to his voice. The plight of his people—their people—invariably caused it. He would either become angry as he discussed it, or would cry. Chris reached out for his hand across the table and squeezed it. “You tried to interview Ross?” she said, wondering why Ross hadn’t seemed to recognize Bill’s name when she’d mentioned it earlier.

  Bill said, “I know that SPOVAC is running its major operation out of Phoenix and I wanted to talk to somebody about what light they might shed on her murder. It sure fit the pattern of a serial murder, all the trappings. There’d been at least six others in the area, but this was the first from the reservation. There was some deviation in the M.O.—she hadn’t been as brutally beaten as the others. Christ, whoever’s doing it ends up carving weird symbols on their bodies. That didn’t happen with Sue.”

  “That was her name?”

  “Yeah, Sue White Cloud. Pretty thing. Anyway, I kept calling and they eventually decided I wasn’t going to disappear, so they put on this FBI agent named Lizenby, Ross Lizenby.”

  He stopped talking and sipped his drink. She said, “And?”

  “Oh, he was pleasant enough I guess, but he basically told me to get lost. Everything’s ‘top secret’ was the message. That’s about it. I just think it’s ironic that I happen to know who he is.”

  “I get the feeling that you’d like to say more but—”

  “Nothing more to be said. You say it’s not going well.”

  “I—I have very mixed feelings these days, Bill. I like him and… well, maybe that’s an understatement but—”