The Complicity Doctrine

by Matthew Frick

  “If I knew where my umbrella was,” Casey said, “we wouldn’t have found out who the deli bomber was.”

  Susan threw her arms up. “Of course not,” she said. She put a hand on her brow and shook her head before looking at Andie. “See what I have to deal with?”

  Andie laughed again and turned to Casey. “So...what exactly are you talking about?”

  Casey leaned on the short filing cabinet and recounted his entire morning in five minutes, omitting his meeting with Jim Shelton. When he finished, no one was laughing.

  “So the man you saw really was the bomber,” Andie said.

  “I know that, and Paul Giordano knows that, but we need something more if we hope to convince anybody else,” Casey said. “Giordano’s going to see the body for himself, and once he confirms it’s the same guy, he’s gonna start working on finding out who was calling the shots.”

  “How’s he going to do that?” Susan asked.

  Casey shrugged. “Not sure. I guess he’ll do some detective shit. He didn’t really go into detail on that part.”

  “Well, I hope he has more luck than we’ve had,” Susan said. “I didn’t get anywhere with the rest of the names on that list. Unless one Facebook comment from an eleven-year-old in Abu Dhabi professing her love for Sameer Attas counts.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry about specific names anymore,” Casey said. “But what still matters is finding out how Mari got that list in the first place.”

  “So we just go on the assumption that all of the other names are legitimate?” Susan asked.

  “As far as their relevance in the larger ‘blame the Houthi’ plan is concerned,” Casey said.

  Andie shifted to find a comfortable position in the un-ergonomic, but economical, chair that resembled all of the others in the IWG cubicles. “You’re saying it doesn’t matter whether the names are those of real people or not, as long as they are real enough within the rules of the Complicity Doctrine,” she said.

  “Exactly,” Casey said. “Those people are real enough in that the news is broadcasting the names and pictures of two accused bombers across the globe.” He was glad Andie was following his argument. He knew Susan would get it pretty quick because she was used to Casey’s logic by now, but Andie had just come aboard and.... “Wait, how did you hear about the Complicity Doctrine?”

  Andie casually pointed to Susan. “She showed me your blog.”

  “Really? I didn’t even know she read it,” Casey said, smiling at Susan.

  “I was telling her how we met, asshole,” Susan said.

  “It was very interesting, actually,” Andie said. “Definitely not your typical boy-meets-girl story.”

  Susan looked down at her shoes, and Casey could tell she was uncomfortable with Andie’s commentary, so he steered the conversation back on topic. “Thing about the Complicity Doctrine is, it’s an unwritten policy. You’ll never even hear anyone talk about it. I mean, why would they? That’d just be admitting to meddling in everyone else’s business like we’re already accused of doing anyway.”

  “Then why do you want to call attention to that policy?” Andie asked.

  Did Jim talk to this chick while I was out back with Giordano? Casey thought. “I just want to find the truth,” he said.

  “About the bombing being a set-up or about America paying other people to fight our wars for us?”

  “You sure you’re not still a reporter?” Casey asked Andie. “Look, I don’t think I can prove the war theory with any real evidence, but we have a good chance of showing that the Houthi had nothing to do with those bombs.”

  “If that detective finds anything out about the bomber,” Susan said.

  “That’s a big part of it,” Casey conceded, “but we can still work other parts from our end.” He turned to Andie and asked, “Were you able to find out who was at the Yemen hearing?”

  “No,” Andie said. “But I did find out that the CRS report was distributed to everyone who was there, which means it was most likely a part of the discussion.”

  “But if everyone had it, then we won’t be able to tell who introduced it even if we do get the transcripts, will we?” Susan asked.

  “Probably not,” Andie said.

  No one said anything as each tried to figure out how to overcome the new roadblock. Susan was the first to speak. “What if we just call the Congressional Research Service and ask them who requested the report in the first place?”

  “Would they give us that information?” Casey asked.

  “Doesn’t hurt to ask,” Andie said. “I can give them a call today and see what I can find out.”

  “Thanks, Andie,” Susan said.

  “I can’t promise anything,” Andie said, “but we’ll see. Then I have to work on that Cogburn-SR95 piece. It’s due to Dr. Borglund on Monday, and since I’m actually getting paid to do that job, I can’t just ignore it.”

  The mention of Senator Cogburn reminded Casey that he needed to call Joel Simpson. He stood up and said, “I gotta go find the number to Cogburn’s local office and see if I can schedule a meet somewhere while he’s still in New York.”

  “What for?” Andie asked.

  “I want to ask him about al Houthi,” Casey said as he was leaving. He paused at the entranceway and added, “Maybe I’ll get his opinion on the Complicity Doctrine, too.” With that, he left the room.

  * * * * *

  “That’s the earliest he’s available?” Casey asked. He wrote down the information on a yellow sticky note as he listened to the response. “No, it’s fine,” he said. “I’ll be there.” He hung up the phone and pocketed the piece of paper.

  Casey’s reason for wanting to meet with Senator Bill Cogburn was not the same as it was the day before. After the memorial service, Casey was sure that Cogburn was behind the mischaracterization of the Houthi struggle, and he wanted to confront the senator to gauge his response to that accusation. After the events of the intervening hours since the service, he wanted to see how much the man actually knew about the report’s origin, if at all. Casey was willing to give “innocent until proven guilty” a chance in this case—until he talked to Cogburn in person.

  Casey swiveled his chair back to his computer and was startled by Susan’s presence. “You’re like a damn ninja,” he said, smiling.

  “Sorry,” Susan said. She sat in an empty chair and asked, “How did they know Mari was coming to New York?”

  “What?” Casey asked.

  “Your blog. You said Mari was the reason Soren’s was bombed after they found out she was going to be there that morning. How did they know that?”

  Casey wasn’t sure how to answer.

  “Mari and I made those plans over the phone,” Susan said. “Unless her phone was tapped, I don’t see how they could have known.”

  After what Jim told him that morning, Casey thought Mari’s phone call to Susan was most likely intercepted, whether through a physical tap or by some other means. But all he could offer was his opinion. “It probably was tapped,” he said, “but these folks, whoever they are, could have found out about Mari’s travel plans any number of ways.”

  “Like tapping my phone,” Susan said.

  “Why the hell would they do that? Nobody knew Mari would call you for help,” Casey said.

  “But she did,” Susan said. “Who’s to say they won’t try to find out if Mari told me anything? Maybe they’ll be coming for me next.”

  Casey hadn’t thought that his friend might be in danger from the same people who killed Mariam Fahda. He scolded himself for being self-centered and not even considering that obvious scenario. Suddenly, Casey realized he couldn’t take down his Complicity Doctrine post if he wanted to, despite Jim’s adamant request. “I think you’re safe,” he told Susan.

  She gave Casey a puzzled look and said, “How can you be sure?”

  “They might know that Mari called you, and that you met her at the deli, but I’m the only one they know who has the information she
brought with her,” Casey said.

  “You don’t know that,” Susan said.

  “Unless you also posted on the internet that you have a copy of the list of names Mari had on her, I think the bad guys might be looking for me instead,” Casey said. While the idea of someone possibly targeting him next wasn’t pleasant, Casey was more comfortable thinking he was running interference to keep Susan out of harm’s way.

  Susan stood up. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now, anyway—even if my phone actually is tapped. Thanks, Casey.”

  “No problem,” Casey said as he watched Susan leave. He hoped he was right—for Susan’s sake.

  Chapter 25

  The attendant tapped the keys on the wall-mounted computer terminal. “There,” he said, pointing to the screen to prove he wasn’t lying. “He was cremated yesterday and handed over to DOC.”

  “So nobody claimed him, but you already burned him and sent him to Potter’s Field?” Giordano asked. He tried to move past his anger at being told the body was still at the morgue when that clearly wasn’t the case.

  “I said nobody wanted him. I never said no one claimed him. This shit’s all automatic,” the attendant explained. “Names don’t pop on my list until all the information is approved.”

  “Then who claimed him? Corrections wouldn’t take him out to Hart Island after just four days on ice unless somebody paid the tab,” Giordano said.

  “Hey, man, all I know is the order was in my queue when I came in yesterday. So I cooked him, bagged him, and handed Mr. Prince over to the badge who came to pick him up.”

  Giordano tried to remain calm. He hated when he had to tell other people how to do their jobs, but the morgue attendant seemed to be capable of little else than following a checklist—and Giordano was already in a bad mood. “Okay...Colton,” Giordano said, reading the embroidered name on the man’s white lab coat, “why don’t you go back to that computer of yours and pull up Mr. Prince’s processing record, and see if you can find a point of contact in the ‘release authorization’ block.”

  Colton wasn’t used to being bossed around on the job. He chose his current profession primarily because the only people he regularly dealt with were dead, and they definitely didn’t tell him what to do. But Giordano’s tone gave Colton the impression that the cop was used to people following his orders, and the young morgue employee thought the best way to make the man go away was to humor him. He moved the computer mouse and clicked on Jared Prince’s name in the second column of the open spreadsheet. He paused for a second and said, “Uh, there might be a problem.”

  Giordano moved closer to the screen. “Where’s the rest of it?” The page on the screen contained a header with Prince’s name and the assigned mortuary file number, but nothing else.

  “Like I said, the order was in when I got here,” Colton said. “I don’t ever look at the paperwork on anybody, I just mark the job complete in the workflow when I’m done.”

  “Do you know who did do the paperwork?” Giordano asked.

  “I don’t know,” Colton said. “I think the ladies who work upstairs do that stuff. They never come down here on account of being grossed out by all the stiffs, so they just answer the phones and do shit on their computers.”

  Giordano jotted down the file number in his pocket notepad. What the hell is going on? he thought, flipping the notepad closed. “Thanks for your help, Colton. Enjoy the rest of your day,” Giordano said as he left the mortuary and headed for the staircase.

  The temperature of the ground floor was easily fifteen degrees warmer than the basement morgue he just left. That didn’t mean this floor wasn’t cold, though, and the old woman behind the desk was wrapped in a crocheted shawl to prove the point. She looked up from her work and lowered her reading glasses as Giordano approached. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Giordano said, holding his badge up for the silver-haired woman. “I’m trying to find information on a man who was cremated here yesterday and turned over to Department of Corrections for internment at Hart Island. I have the file number assigned to him, but the file itself is empty.”

  “Empty?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And he was cremated and transferred already?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, now that’s just not possible,” the woman said. “Nobody leaves this building unless the file is complete.” She put her glasses back on and asked, “What was the name?”

  “Jared Prince.”

  The woman keyed her computer, leaned closer to the screen, typed some more, and sat back. “Well isn’t that something,” she said.

  “Nothing?” Giordano asked.

  The woman peered at Giordano over the top of her glasses. “Nothing,” she confirmed. “And I input this young man’s information myself, so I know it was done.”

  “Would there ever be a reason that a file would be deleted?” Giordano asked.

  “No,” the woman answered quickly. “Every tenant’s record is a permanent part of the city database. No one gets erased.” She removed her glasses again and said, “The people who come to us have suffered enough. The world is content to forget they even ever existed. But if their names are recorded in these files, we can make sure they aren’t completely forgotten.”

  “That’s a nice way to think of it,” Giordano said. He’d seen the bad side of people too many times to share the woman’s sentiments, but it was comforting to know there were individuals who still believed in the innate goodness of humanity.

  “Jared Prince was one of those people who lost his way, and in the end, his people disowned him,” the woman said.

  Giordano felt a chill run through his arms at the woman’s words. “What do you know about him?” he asked.

  The woman pushed away from the desk and crossed her legs. “He was the same age as my oldest grandchild, that’s how come I remember,” she said. “Jared Prince was from a small town in West Virginia. The officer who came with the ambulance the morning they dropped him off contacted the state police there. Ends up Jared sort of disappeared about eight months ago. At least that’s when his family last heard from him.”

  “Was he married?”

  “No. The officer gave his father as the next of kin, address Mount Olive Correctional Complex. Apparently he killed Jared’s mother when Jared was nine years old,” the woman said.

  “When he was placed in state care,” she continued, “he fell in with the wrong crowd, like so many of them do. Ku Klux Klan—only it wasn’t the Klan, but something like it. Apparently that’s how he left West Virginia, according to the police. When the group he was with was being investigated for some hate crimes across the state, most of the members who weren’t directly implicated left the state before they were implicated. That’s what they think happened in Jared’s case.”

  Giordano couldn’t believe his luck. The old woman was a font of information that he would have had to spend weeks trying to find—if he could have found anything at all. He discretely took notes while she talked, not wanting to interrupt her narrative by being a distraction. “Did the police mention who they thought Jared might have been hooked up with here in New York?” Giordano asked, knowing he was pushing his luck, but hoping for the best.

  “They didn’t say,” the woman answered. “But I think that’s because they didn’t know, not because they wouldn’t tell me. See, not everything I learn about the people I create files for actually ends up in the files themselves. But I ask the questions because I want to really know them as much as I can before they go to their final resting places. And generally people oblige me.”

  Giordano smiled to let the woman know that he appreciated everything she was telling him. “So I assume the State of West Virginia paid for Jared’s cremation, since his father’s in prison and probably couldn’t afford the fee if he wanted?”

  “That was the odd part of Jared’s story,” the woman said.
“Nobody from West Virginia offered to take him home. Truthfully, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jared’s father didn’t even know his son was found dead in New York City. It would have been fairly simple to get his consent, but that didn’t happen.”

  “Well, who authorized his disposal?” Giordano asked, back to the question that brought him to this woman in the first place.

  “A gentleman from Maryland,” the woman said. “He claimed to be a close friend of Jared’s, and he presented a valid ‘At-Need Written Statement.’ Because there was no one else to claim poor Jared, there was no reason to question the man.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere, Giordano thought. “Do you happen to remember his name?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately I don’t. I’m sorry,” the woman said. “Five years ago, I could have given you a copy of the statement, but now we scan all of the documents into the computer as soon as we get them and then shred the paper. And you saw the empty computer file.”

  Damnit, Giordano thought, keeping his frustration internal to avoid offending the woman.

  “But I do remember that he worked at a place called Penrose-Klein,” the woman said. “I asked because it didn’t seem to me that Jared Prince, from what little I knew of him, would be close friends with someone dressed in an expensive-looking suit and tie. He said the name Penrose-Klein as if I knew what it was. I assume he was a lawyer who had helped Jared at some point in the past. Maybe he was a public defender in West Virginia at one time.”

  “Or maybe he was a lawyer for the group Jared belonged to,” Giordano said.

  “Maybe,” the woman said.

  After five seconds of silence, Giordano surmised that the woman had told him everything she knew. The detective was happy to leave the conversation there, and he thanked the woman for her help.

  * * * * *

  The rain had stopped by the time Giordano emerged from the bowels of the Chief Medical Examiner’s headquarters building. Students and faculty from the adjacent NYU School of Medicine started to crowd the street as the sun called them from hiding, just in time for lunch. Giordano began processing what he learned from his visit to the morgue as he headed for his car.