From Potter's Field ks-6 Read online

  'Well, I'll have to check with the attorney general. She hates it when I call her at home.'

  'I'm on my way.'

  The Engineering Research Facility was three concrete-and-glass pods surrounded by trees, and one could not get into the parking lot without stopping at a guard booth that was no more than a hundred feet from the one at the Academy's entrance. ERF was the FBI's most classified division, its employees required to scan their fingerprints into biometric locks before Plexiglas doors would let them in. Lucy was waiting for me in front. It was almost eight p.m.

  'Hi,' she said.

  'There are at least a dozen cars in the parking lot,' I said. 'Do people usually work this late?'

  'They drift in and out at all hours. Most of the time I never see them.'

  We walked through a vast space of beige carpet and walls, passing shut doors leading into laboratories where scientists and engineers worked on projects they could not discuss. I had only vague notions of what went on here beyond Lucy's work with CAIN. But I knew the mission was to technically enhance whatever job a special agent might have, whether it was surveillance, or shooting or rappelling from a helicopter, or using a robot in a raid. For Gault to have gotten inside here was the equivalent of him wandering freely through NASA or a nuclear power plant. It was unthinkable.

  'Benton told me about the photograph that was in your desk,' I said to Lucy as we boarded an elevator.

  She keyed us up to the second floor. 'Gault already knows what you look like, if that's what you're worried about. He's seen you before - at least twice.'

  'I don't like that he might now know what you look like,' I said pointedly.

  'You're assuming he has the photograph.'

  We entered a gray rabbit warren of cubicles with workstations and printers and stacks of paper. CAIN himself was behind glass in an air-conditioned space filled with monitors, modems and miles of cable hidden beneath a raised floor.

  'I've got to check something,' she said, scanning her fingerprint to unlock CAIN's door.

  I followed her into chilled air tense with the static of invisible traffic moving at incredible speeds. Modem lights blinked red and green, and an eighteen-inch video display announced CAIN in bold bright letters that looped and whorled like the fingerprint of the person who was just scanned in.

  'The photograph was in the envelope with the American Express card he apparently now has,' I said. 'Logic would tell you that he may have both.'

  'Someone else could have it.' She was intensely watching the modems, then glancing at the time on her screen and making notes. 'It depends on who actually went through my desk.'

  We had always assumed it was Carrie alone who had broken in and taken whatever she wanted. Now I was not so sure.

  'Carrie may not have been by herself,' I said.

  Lucy did not reply.

  'In fact, I don't believe Gault could have resisted the opportunity to come in here. I think he was with her.'

  'That's awfully risky when you're wanted for murder.'

  'Lucy, it's awfully risky to break into here to begin with.'

  She continued making notes while CAIN's colors swirled on the screen and lights glowed on and off. CAIN was a space-age squid with tentacles connecting law enforcement entities here and abroad, his head an upright beige box with various buttons and slots. As cold air whirred, I almost wondered if he knew what we were saying.

  'What else might have disappeared from your office?' I then said. 'Is there anything else missing?'

  She was studying a modem's flashing light, her face perplexed. She glanced up at me. 'It's got to be coming in through one of these modems.'

  'What is?' I asked, puzzled.

  She sat before a keyboard, struck the space bar and the CAIN screen saver vanished. She logged on and began typing UNIX commands that made no sense to me. Next she pulled up the System Administrator Menu and got into the audit log.

  'I've been coming in here routinely and checking the traffic on the modems,' she said, scanning. 'Unless this person is physically located in this building and hardwired into the system, he's got to be dialing in by modem.'

  'There's no other way,' I said.

  'Well' - she took a deep breath - 'theoretically you could use a receiver to pick up keyboard input via Van Eck radiation. Some Soviet agents were doing that not so long ago.'

  'But that wouldn't actually get you inside the system,' I said.

  'It could get you passwords and other information that might get you in if you had the dial-in number.'

  'Were those changed after the break-in?'

  'Of course. I changed everything I could think of, and in fact, the dial-in numbers have been changed again since. Plus we have callback modems. You call CAIN and he calls you back to make certain you're legit.' She looked discouraged and angry.

  'If you attached a virus to a program,' I said, trying to help, 'wouldn't it change the size of the file? Couldn't that be a way to find out where the virus is?'

  'Yes, it would change the file size,' she said. 'But the problem is that the UNIX program used to scan files for something like that is called checksum, and it's not cryptographically secure. I'm sure who ever did this included a balancing checksum to cause the bytes in the virus program to disappear.'

  'So the virus is invisible.'

  She nodded, distracted, and I knew she was thinking about Carrie. Then Lucy typed a who command to see what law enforcement agencies were logged on, if any. New York was. So were Charlotte and Richmond, and Lucy pointed out their modems to me. Lights danced across the front of them as data was transmitted over telephone lines.

  'We should go eat dinner,' I said gently to my niece.

  She typed more commands. 'I'm not hungry now.'

  'Lucy, you can't let this take over your life.'

  'You're one to talk.'

  She was right.

  'War has been declared,' she added. 'This is war.'

  'This is not Carrie,' I said of the woman who, I suspected, had been more than Lucy's friend.

  'It doesn't matter who it is.' She continued typing.

  But it did. Carrie Grethen did not murder people and mutilate their bodies. Temple Gault did.

  'Was anything else of yours taken during the break-in?' I tried again.

  She stopped what she was doing and looked at me, her eyes glinting. 'Yes, if you must know,' she said. 'I had a big manilla envelope that I didn't want to leave in my dorm rooms at UVA or here because of roommates and other people in and out. It was personal. I thought it was safer in my desk up here.'

  'What was in this envelope?'

  'Letters, notes, different things. Some of them were from you, including the letter with the photograph and charge card. Most were from her.' Her face colored. 'There were a few notes from Grans.'

  'Letters from Carrie?' I did not understand. 'Why would she write you? Both of you were here at Quantico and you didn't know each other before last fall.'

  'We sort of did,' she said, her face turning a brighter red.

  'How?' I asked, baffled.

  'We met through a computer bulletin board, through Prodigy over the summer. I saved all the printouts of the notes we sent.'

  'Did you deliberately try to arrange it so you could be at ERF together?' I said as my disbelief grew.

  'She was already in the process of getting hired by the Bureau,' Lucy answered. 'She encouraged me to try to get an internship here.'

  My silence was heavy.

  'Look,' she demanded. 'How could I have known?'

  'I guess you couldn't have,' I said. 'But she set you up, Lucy. She wanted you here. This was planned long before she met you through Prodigy. She probably had already met Gault in that northern Virginia spy shop, then they decided she should meet you.'

  She angrily stared off.

  'God,'1 said with a loud sigh. 'You were lured right into it.' I stared off, almost sick. 'It's not just because of how good you are at what you do. It's also because of me.'


  'Don't try to turn this into your fault. I hate it when you do that.'

  'You are my niece. Gault has probably known that for a while.'

  'I am also well known in the computer world.' She looked defiantly at me. 'Other people in the computer world have heard of me. Everything doesn't have to be because of you.'

  'Does Benton know how you met Carrie?'

  'I told him a long time ago.'

  'Why didn't you tell me?'

  'I didn't want to. I feel bad enough. It's personal.' She wouldn't look at me. 'It was between Mr. Wesley and me. And more to the point, I didn't do anything wrong.'

  'Are you telling me that this large manilla envelope was missing after the break-in?'

  'Yes.'

  'Why would someone want it?'

  'She would,' she said bitterly. 'It had things in it that she'd written to me.'

  'Has she tried to contact you since then?'

  'No,' she said as if she hated Carrie Grethen.

  'Come on,'1 said in the firm tone of a mother. 'Let's go find Marino.'

  He was in the Boardroom, where I tried a Zima and he ordered another beer. Lucy was off to find Janet, and this gave Marino and me a few minutes to talk.

  'I don't know how you stand that stuff,' he said, disdainfully eyeing my drink.

  'I don't know how I'll stand it either since I've never had one before.' I took a sip. It was actually quite good, and I said so.

  'Maybe you should try something before you judge it,' I added.

  'I don't drink queer beer. And I don't have to try a lot of things to know they ain't for me.'

  'I guess one of the major differences between us, Marino, is I am not constantly worried about whether people think I'm gay.'

  'Some people think you are,' he said.

  I was amused. 'Well, rest assured nobody thinks you are,' I said. 'The only thing most people assume about you is that you are a bigot.'

  Marino yawned without covering his mouth. He was smoking and drinking Budweiser from the bottle. He had dark circles under his eyes, and though he had yet to divulge intimate details about his relationship with Molly, I recognized the symptoms of someone in lust. There were times when he looked as if he had been up and athletic for weeks on end.

  'Are you all right?' I inquired.

  He set down his bottle and looked around. The Boardroom was busy with new agents and cops drinking beer and eating popcorn while a television blared.

  'I'm beat,' he said, and he seemed very distracted.

  'I appreciate your coming to get me.'

  'Just poke me if I start falling asleep at the wheel,' he said. 'Or you can drive. Those things you're drinking probably don't have any booze in them anyway.'

  'They have enough. I won't be driving, and if you're that tired, perhaps we should stay here.'

  He got up to get another beer. I followed him with my eyes. Marino was going to be difficult tonight. I could sense his storm fronts better than any meteorologist.

  'We got a lab report back from New York that you might find interesting,' he said as he sat back down. 'It's got to do with Gault's hair.'

  'The hair found in the fountain?' I asked with interest.

  'Yeah. And I don't got the sort of scientific detail I know you want, okay? So you'll have to call up there yourself for that. But the bottom line is they found drugs in his hair. They said he had to be drinking and doing coke for this stuff to have shown up in his hair.'

  'They found cocaethylene,' I said.

  'I think that's the name. It was all through his hair, from the roots to the ends, meaning he's been drinking and drugging for a while.'

  'Actually, we can't be certain how long he's been doing it,' I said.

  'The guy I talked to said we're looking at five months of growth,' Marino said.

  'Testing hair for drugs is controversial,'1 explained. 'It's not certain that some positive results for cocaine in hair aren't due to external contamination. Say, smoke in crack houses that gets absorbed by the hair just like cigarette smoke does. It's not always easy to distinguish between what has been absorbed and what has been ingested.'

  'You mean he could be contaminated.' Marino pondered this.

  'Yes, he could be. But that doesn't mean he isn't drinking and drugging, too. In fact, he has to be. Cocaethylene is produced in the liver.'

  Marino thoughtfully lit another cigarette. 'What about him dyeing his hair all the time?'

  'That can affect test results, too,' I said. 'Some oxidizing agents might destroy some of the drug.'

  'Oxidizing?'

  'As in peroxides, for example.'

  'Then it's possible some of this cocaethylene's been destroyed,' Marino reasoned. 'Meaning it's also possible his drug level was really higher than it looks.'

  'It could be.'

  'He has to be getting drugs somewhere.' Marino stared off.

  'In New York that certainly wouldn't be hard,' I said.

  'Hell, it's not hard anywhere.' The expression on his face was getting more tense.

  'What are you thinking?' I asked.

  'I'll tell you what I'm thinking,' he started in. 'This drug connection ain't working out so hot for Jimmy Davila.'

  'Why? Do we know his toxicology results?' I asked.

  'They're negative.' He paused. 'Benny's started singing. He's saying Davila dealt.'

  'I should think people might consider the source on that one,' I said. 'Benny doesn't exactly strike me as a reliable narrator.'

  'I agree with you,' Marino said. 'But some people are trying to paint Davila as a bad cop. There's a rumor they want to pin Jane's murder on him.'

  'That's crazy,' I said, surprised. That makes absolutely no sense.'

  'You remember the stuff on Jane's hand that glowed in the Luma-Lite?'

  'Yes.'

  'Cocaine,' he said.

  'And her toxicology?'

  'Negative. And that's weird.' Marino looked frustrated. 'But the other thing Benny's saying now is that it was Davila who gave the knapsack to him.'

  'Oh come on,' I said with irritation.

  'I'm just telling you.'

  'It wasn't Davila's hair found in the fountain.'

  'We can't prove how long that had been there. And we don't know it's Gault's,' he said.

  'DNA will verify it's Gault's,' I said with conviction. 'And Davila carried a.380 and a.38. Jane was shot with a Clock.'

  'Look' - Marino leaned forward, resting his arms on the table - 'I'm not here to argue with you, Doc. I'm just telling you that things aren't looking good. New York politicians want this case cleared, and a good way to do that is to pin the crime on a dead man. So what do you do? You turn Davila into a dirtbag and nobody feels sorry for him. Nobody cares.'

  'And what about what happened to Davila?'

  'That dumbshit medical examiner who went to the scene still thinks it's possible he committed suicide.'

  I looked at Marino as if he'd lost his mind. 'He kicked himself in the head?' I said. 'Then shot himself between the eyes?'

  'He was standing up when he shot himself with his own gun, and when he fell he hit concrete or something.'

  'His vital reaction to his injuries shows he received the blow to his head first,' I said, getting angrier. 'And please explain how his revolver ended up so neatly on his chest.'

  'It's not your case, Doc.' Marino looked me in the eye. 'That's the bottom line. You and me are both guests. We got invited.'

  'Davila did not commit suicide,' I said. 'And Dr. Horowitz is not going to allow such a thing to come out of his office.'

  'Maybe he won't. Maybe they'll just say that Davila was a dirtbag who got whacked by another drug dealer. Jane ends up in a pine box in Potter's Field. End of story. Central Park and the subway are safe again.'

  I thought of Commander Penn and felt uneasy. I asked Marino about her.

  'I don't know what she's got to do with any of this,' he said. 'I've just been talking to some of the guys. But she's jammed. On the one hand, she would
n't want anyone to think she had a bad cop. On the other, she don't want the public to think there's a crazed serial killer running through the subway.'

  'I see,' I said as I thought of the enormous pressure she must be under, for it was her department's mandate to take the subway back from the criminals. New York City had allocated the Transit Police tens of millions of dollars to do that.

  'Plus,' he added, 'it was a friggin' reporter who found Jane's body in Central Park. And this guy's relentless as a jackhammer from what I've heard. He wants to win a Nobel Prize.'

  'Not likely,' I said irritably.

  'You never know,' said Marino, who often made predictions about who would win a Nobel Prize. By now, according to him, I had won several.

  'I wish we knew whether Gault is still in New York,' I said.

  Marino drained his second beer and looked at his watch. 'Where's Lucy?' he asked.

  'Looking for Janet, last I heard.'

  'What's she like?'

  I knew what he was wondering. 'She's a lovely young woman,' I said. 'Bright but very quiet.'

  He was silent.

  'Marino, they've put my niece on the security floor.'

  He turned toward the counter as if he were thinking about another beer. 'Who did? Benton?'

  'Yes.'

  'Because of the computer mess?'

  'Yes.'

  'You want another Zima?'

  'No, thank you. And you shouldn't have another beer, since you're driving. In fact, you're probably driving a police car and shouldn't have had the first one.'

  I've got my truck tonight.'

  I was not at all happy to hear that, and he could tell.

  'Look, so it don't have a damn air bag. I'm sorry, okay? But a taxi or limo service wouldn't have had an air bag, either.'

  'Marino

  'I'm just going to buy you this huge air bag. And you can drag it around with you everywhere you go like your own personal hot-air balloon.'

  'A file was stolen from Lucy's desk when ERF was broken into last fall,' I said.

  'What sort of file?' he asked.

  'A manilla envelope containing personal correspondence,' I told him about Prodigy and how Lucy and Carrie had met.

  'They knew each other before Quantico?' he said.

  'Yes. And I think Lucy believes it was Carrie who went into her desk drawer.'