Clean Hands

by Patrick Hoffman

  “What’s up?” she asked, joining him in the hall.

  He led her away from the door. “Liz, I’m sorry,” he said, looking down at his feet. “Chris committed suicide.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “He took pills. There was a note. I took pictures.”

  He seemed to be preparing to show her something on his iPhone, but Elizabeth took a step back from him. “My God,” she said, closing her eyes and putting her hands to her forehead. “When?” she asked.

  “I just found him.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “It said, ‘I’m sorry, I did my best,’ and he signed it.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Fuck.” She stepped back.

  Another lawyer, walking by in the hallway, seemed to sense what was happening. She made a concerned face and drifted toward them. Elizabeth waved her away.

  “I got the computer,” said D’Angelo.

  Elizabeth wanted to say, Who the fuck cares. All she could manage was, “Okay.” She moved away from him and headed for the elevator. Over her shoulder she said, “Thank you.”

  As she made her way down the hall, her heart raced so wildly in her chest that she worried she was suffering a heart attack. She put her hand above her breast and breathed deeply through her mouth.

  Oh fuck, she thought. This is where I’m going to die.

  By the time she reached the elevator, her heart rate had dropped back down to a safe level. She pressed the button and started compiling lists of tasks. They would need to call an office-wide meeting.

  First, she’d have to call all the partners in. She’d have to contact Chris’s parents, which might present some legal issues. She’d have to talk to Ed Oasa, who represented the firm in these types of situations, to sort through that mess.

  After the elevator dropped her one floor down, she walked straight to her office. Hearing her approach, her assistant Andy glanced up to see if she needed anything. “Hold my calls,” she told him.

  She went straight to her desk and checked her email. She simply didn’t want to deal with what needed doing. Instead, she went online and raced through the headlines on different news websites, as if the answer to her problems might be embedded there.

  I need a moment, she told herself. I just need a moment.

  A memory from Chris’s initial interview passed through her mind. Someone had questioned his feelings regarding long hours. His answer had been something to the effect of, “I’m not exaggerating, I love working all the time. I know exactly what I’m getting into, and I’m choosing to do it.” He’d stopped for a beat, looked at each of his interrogators. “I’m choosing to do this work.”

  The answer may have been out-and-out bullshit, but Elizabeth remembered being impressed by his composure. She remembered thinking at the time, Well, he’s a decent actor. Now, sitting at her desk, all she could do was shake her head.

  Interrupting her reverie, Andy knocked softly on the door and poked his head in.

  “I have Jimmy Hipps on the phone,” he said.

  “I said, hold my calls.”

  “He says, ‘Code red emergency.’”

  “Jesus Christ,” she said. She touched her hairline on her forehead. “Thank you, Andy.”

  She picked up the phone. “Code red?” she said. “What is code red?”

  “New story coming out,” said Jimmy. “I just got a call from a reporter at Bloomberg. More emails.”

  “What emails?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Hold on, we’re trying to match the quote to the exact document, but I believe they come from discovery group D28, or D30, whatever batch, it’s about the”—here, absurdly, he dropped his voice, as though that might shield it from a wiretap—“it’s about the bond-fixing stuff.”

  “Who’s writing it?”

  “Becca Greenfield. She says the emails were sent to her anonymously. For what it’s worth, I know her and I trust her.”

  “Meaning what?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Meaning I believe her when she says it was an anonymous tip.”

  “How long is she giving us to respond?”

  “End of the day, but the story’s running tomorrow with or without comment.”

  “And what’s Ted say?”

  “Ted and Leo are in D.C. We’re trying to have a meeting in our office in half an hour. We’re going to phone them in. Can you possibly come here and join?”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes, breathed in deeply. “Yes,” she said.

  “Can you bring your Scott, Sarah, and Vishal?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Jimmy, listen to me. When you talk to this reporter again, you have to try to make your voice sound like you’re not having a fucking nervous breakdown. Pretend you’re bored.”

  “That’s what I did.”

  “I can hear your heart in your throat. I can practically smell how scared you are. You have to calm down. Pretend it’s all boring.”

  “I will,” he said.

  When the call ended, Elizabeth sat at her desk for a moment and studied her nails. She felt a strange sense of calm. Her mind had become perfectly focused. Funny way to stop a panic attack, she thought.

  She dialed her assistant and asked him to come in. When he did, she told him to summon Scott, Sarah, and Vishal. She said to tell them they had an urgent meeting at Calcott in half an hour, and that they’d go there together in fifteen minutes.

  Then she looked at her clock and told Andy to gather all the partners for a meeting at 4:15 p.m. Andy nodded and jotted down her instructions. She thanked him, and he left.

  She picked up her desk phone and dialed Valencia.

  “Chris Cowley committed suicide,” she said when Valencia answered.

  “What?” asked Valencia, sounding alarmed. “How?”

  “We think pills. Michael went there this morning. He found him. He took pictures.”

  “Tell him to send me the pictures.”

  “For what?”

  “I want to see them.”

  “Okay,” said Elizabeth.

  “You all right?” asked Valencia.

  “Strangely, I am.”

  “Do you want me to come over?” asked Valencia.

  “You won’t believe this. That’s only part one,” said Elizabeth. “Part two is that another story is about to come out. A reporter at Bloomberg got some kind of anonymous tip email bullshit that apparently includes part of the material from Chris’s phone. This kid is everywhere. Who would have imagined—Chris Cowley.”

  “Jesus,” said Valencia. “Why would he do that?”

  “We’re headed to the Calcott office for an emergency meeting.”

  “Case is turning into a real doozy,” said Valencia.

  “It certainly is.”

  “You’ll let me know what you need,” said Valencia.

  “Of course,” said Elizabeth.

  “What a nightmare,” said Valencia. “If I were you, I’d tell the in-house over there to find a way out. Fucking settle this thing, drop it, withdraw it, whatever. It’s messy, it’s a reputation destroyer, and it’s going to spread. Nobody is going to win.”

  Elizabeth sat there for a moment with her mouth slightly open. Valencia’s speech seemed inappropriate, but at first she didn’t say anything; then she just agreed. “I know.”

  After they ended their call, Elizabeth sat staring at her desk. The case did need to go away. They needed to find a way to stand down. It was rotten to the core. It needed to be put out of its misery. It needed to be withdrawn.

  Right then Scott Driscoll came into her office. “What’s happening? Is Calcott going to fire us?”

  “Something like that,” said Liz. “There is a new story coming out. Bloomberg, bond-rigging emails.” She stepped to her mirror and fixed her hair.

  Then she put on a fresh coat of lipstick. “Where the hell are Vishal and Sarah?” she asked. “We gotta get this show on the road.”

  “They’re coming,” said Scott.

  When she finish
ed putting on her lipstick, she told him that Chris Cowley had killed himself.

  “What?” said Scott.

  * * *

  Later that night Valencia sat in her kitchen looking at the pictures that Michael D’Angelo had texted her. He only sent four images. One was of the note, one was the empty prescription bottle, and two showed the orientation of Chris’s body from about fifteen feet away.

  None of it looked right.

  The first thing she noticed was that the handwriting on the note looked too large. It took up almost 40 percent of the page. It wasn’t conclusive, it wasn’t evidence, it just looked off. She closed her eyes and tried to picture how a real note from Chris would be written. The handwriting would be measured. He would write carefully. He’d want to exhibit how in control he was. Look at the way he dressed. Look how he carried himself. The man was neat.

  This note had been scrawled, as though penned by a serial killer or a lovelorn teen. Or, thought Valencia, like a man under duress.

  The shoes caught her attention too. They were laid out at the end of the couch. It looked composed. It looked set up. Her gut told her it was wrong. She could picture Redgrave setting them there. Making a little art exhibit of his work.

  She looked at the pictures of Chris’s body. He was still wearing his tie. Would he come home after being fired and not take off his tie? Would he choose to commit suicide in the uniform he’d been wearing when he’d been fired? She didn’t think so. He’d probably put on that leather jacket he wore in the video. Something that he’d want to be remembered in.

  Hanging over all these speculations, shaping them, of course, was Redgrave. He’d just told Valencia that Chris was not a worry anymore. What did he say? Not a worry anymore? Debriefed him earlier? He’s free and clear? The message he was sending couldn’t have been more clear.

  She put her hands over her eyes and thought about it. She could see the whole thing. The pickpocketing had been a smoke screen. The stolen documents, the park, the Chinese guy, the Africans, Avi Lessing, Chris Cowley, the Rabinowitz family—even she, herself—all of it had been arranged to provide cover for Colonel Pollock’s group.

  Eventually someone—whether it was the FBI, the SEC, or Congress—would look into this. What they would find would be stolen documents, an untraceable Chinese man, Russian gangsters, bribery, and a payout of $750,000.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine what Colonel Pollock wanted. He wanted the case to go away. He wanted, as Redgrave put it, “for everyone to just stand down.” Valencia almost had to smile. It was exactly what Elizabeth wanted too.

  Right then, her phone rang. She felt sure it would be Elizabeth. Instead, the caller ID showed Utah Sandemose’s name. She hadn’t been expecting a call from him. She took a second to get into character and answered. “You calling to ask me out on that dinner date?”

  “Not quite, although that does sound more tantalizing than what I’ve got planned,” said Utah. “How busy are you?”

  Valencia looked at her wine, wondered what he was going to ask her. “That depends,” she said.

  “Well, I tell you—you made quite the impression on our little Russian friend.”

  “Is that right?”

  “He liked you.”

  “Well it always feels good to hear something like that,” said Valencia, intentionally mimicking Utah’s speech pattern. She closed her eyes and pretended to be him. She adjusted her body to stand like him. “I was impressed with him, too, he was a fine fella.” She had considered adding a bless his heart, at the end of the sentence, but that seemed like too much.

  “He wants to see you.”

  “Oh, my,” said Valencia, moving from her kitchen toward the living room. “I’ve already taken off my dinner dress and put on my house slippers,” she lied. “I was just settling in.”

  “Says he wants to give something back to you. I have no idea what the hell you two are up to, and I don’t want to know, but he says all this is good news, whatever the hell that means. Same place—Uzbekistan,” said Utah. “You got the stuffed cabbage last time?”

  “I did,” she lied. “It was, quite simply, the best I’ve ever had.”

  “I told you.”

  “You did, indeed,” said Valencia, stepping back to the kitchen. Pinning the phone to her ear with her shoulder, she carefully poured her glass of wine back into the bottle. “What time does he want to meet?”

  “He’s already there,” said Utah. “Says whatever time works for you.”

  She pictured Utah standing there with Mr. Rabinowitz right then. “You sure you don’t want to join us?”

  “Shit, I’m gonna have to sit this one out, but I will take a rain check on our one-on-one.”

  After hanging up, Valencia texted Milton Frazier: Our friend just asked for another meeting. I’m going back to that same place, just FYI. She was perfectly aware that Redgrave would have someone monitoring her phone calls and texts. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t doing anything out of line.

  A moment later, Milton texted back: I’ll take you.

  She responded: Sit tight, it’s a friendly call.

  In the bathroom, she looked in the mirror, brushed her hair, and searched her face for any imperfections. After peeing, she changed into a different pantsuit, a black one, soft and velvety. Then she dotted a tiny bit of perfume on her finger, touched the finger to her wrist, rubbed her wrists together, smelled them, and then touched the wrists, one at a time, to the sides of her neck.

  Riding down in the elevator, she thought about all the times she’d been called out for emergency night meetings. It made her feel strangely gleeful. On the street, she waited for a taxi. When it came, she got in, gave the driver the cross streets, closed her eyes, and started getting herself in the right headspace.

  She pictured Yakov Rabinowitz. I want to help you, she thought. She’d found that approaching these meetings with a desire to help rather than a desire to win got better results. I really want to help you.

  The driver made his way down the west side of the park. Valencia stared at the dark trees on her left. She looked at the joggers running by, and she brushed her eyebrows with her fingertips. When the driver turned toward Columbus Avenue, he put the radio on and hummed along to a pop song.

  A few weeks earlier she’d received an odd phone call from an ex-colleague from the Agency, Spencer Newman. She thought about that call now.

  Spencer, like Valencia, had left the CIA about eight years ago and joined a law practice in D.C. They remained friendly, and occasionally had turned to each other for advice. During the call, he asked if they could meet in two days. At the time, her brain and body had offered no misgivings. Simply put, her intuitions failed her. She said yes.

  Spencer told her to meet him in Central Park at the Heckscher softball field. He told her to sit behind home plate at field number five, that he’d find her there.

  At the time, Valencia wondered why—if he was taking all these precautions—would he even talk about it on the phone? But she didn’t say anything.

  When the time came, she went to the field. It had been raining that day, which added to the sensationalism of it all. It felt like the good old days. She sat behind home plate, hiding under her umbrella, checking her email on her phone, and tried not to become grumpy at the rain.

  When Spencer arrived, she knew almost immediately that something was off. He greeted her in a friendly way, but he seemed jittery. He scanned the area while he spoke, kept his shoulders tense, and avoided her eyes. It didn’t take him long to get to the point. “Remember Colonel Pollock?”

  “From”—she wracked her memory—“Soft Music?”

  “That’s right.”

  Colonel Pollock had run a joint task force between the CIA and the Department of Defense that used Pentagon money to fund and arm Sunni Awakening Councils in Iraq. It was a highly sensitive operation. Valencia hadn’t been involved, but she remembered Colonel Pollock gaining a reputation at the time as something of a wild card. Since then, Valen
cia had heard rumors here and there. Her understanding was that Pollock was still deployed in the Arabian Peninsula.

  “He’s in charge of a new group,” said Spencer.

  “Pollock?”

  “N14, officially DOD—totally off the books.”

  Valencia studied Spencer’s face. He was nervous, but there was something vacant in his affect, like a man who hadn’t slept in days. “Never heard of it,” she said, confused where this could possibly be going.

  “They want to meet,” said Spencer. “They have a job for you.”

  “I don’t think they can afford me,” Valencia said in earnest.

  Spencer’s eyes appeared to moisten. “They can afford you,” he said. “It’s a simple job, but they want you.”

  “What is it?”

  “They didn’t tell me. They asked for an introduction. I said, you know”—he sounded like he was reading from a script—“I wanted to check with you.”

  Valencia watched his face while he spoke. She noticed a slight tic in the muscle above his eye. The man was definitely lying. She should have refused right then. In retrospect, it was a staggering lapse of judgment. Instead, she asked when they wanted to meet.

  “Right now,” he said.

  Curious about what they could want with her, and slightly flattered that the army would think of her, she agreed to meet. Spencer walked her deeper into the park.

  After a few minutes, he pointed at a man, seated on a bench with his back to them. “That’s him,” he said. “He goes by Redgrave.”

  “Redgrave?”

  Spencer whispered, “The guy is weird.

  You’ll see. Not typical Army.”

  “You’re not going to come with me?”

  “They want to talk to you alone.”

  Valencia grabbed his arm, pulled him toward the bench. “Come on, this is ridiculous,” she said, trying to lighten the mood by smiling—as if he were being silly.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t,” said Spencer, twisting his arm free. “Call me next time you’re in D.C.” With that, he walked away.

  Valencia turned her attention to the man on the bench. His back was to her, and she assumed she was unobserved. She began walking toward him. When she got within twenty feet, he stood and stepped to the side, so the bench wasn’t between them. He wore a navy blue ski jacket: a boring thing to be wearing, she thought. He dressed like an Upper West Side dad. His pants appeared to be soaked. He lowered his hood and waved shyly, like a man on a blind date.