“Any indication what she found?”
“She just said you should pick her up at the airport around six p.m.”
“So . . . she found something.”
“Sorry, boss.”
“It’s why I sent her. Where are you at?”
“Victim nine. You have to admire the work they did.” Sam held up a receipt. “The official schedule has the chief of staff in Chicago. They found a receipt signed by the chief of staff for a restaurant in Ashville, Ohio, the day of the disappearance.”
“He wanted the proof to stick around, otherwise he wouldn’t have kept his receipts.”
“Oh, the chief of staff wanted them to be able to prove he was the killer, that’s clear. He kept paper on everything. There were six hundred forty-two disorganized boxes of it in his basement. They worked it down to this organized assortment of facts. They put it together as if they were going to have to take the case to trial. And they did the job without a dozen people to help them do it. I have to admire the fact they knew this was going to come public one day, and they were willing to make as organized a presentation as they could. Those six hundred forty-two boxes of paper—less what is in this room—are over in what Reece called the long-term secure storage room. You want me to go over and start looking through what is there?”
“After you get through victim eighteen.”
“I’ll be there by tomorrow.” Sam shifted in his chair. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a run later. I’ve been sitting way too many hours.”
“I’ll join you and be glad for it.”
“You’re interviewing the VP today?”
“I’ll sit down with him in an hour. Any other questions come to mind?”
“Your list seems complete.”
“Want to come along?”
Sam leaned over to pull open a file drawer and rifle a stack of folders. “My excuse for why I’m busy, and you should accept a no-thanks.”
Paul laughed. “I’ll have a tape of the interview for you to listen to.”
“Thanks. It can’t be easy, trying to figure out how to ask the questions when it’s the VP on the other side of the conversation.”
“He’s only going to tell me what he’s decided to say, and he’s had years to think about his answers. I’m not expecting much; I’m just curious to see what he’s going to want to say.”
“I wonder sometimes if he misses the spotlight. He could have released this information after his death, rather than do it now, knowing he’s going to have months of media interest. He’s setting himself up to be the center of attention again.”
Paul nodded. “I believe part of it is clearing his conscience—he wants to take responsibility for what he did rather than leave it for others. And part of it is the media. He’s going to be in the spotlight, and he thinks he can handle it. He’s trying to unfold this according to a script he’s written so he can control events. It won’t last past first contact with the news media of today, but that appears to be his goal.”
Sam reached over to the file cabinet and got out a second recorder. “It’s going to be a famous tape. You should sound as professional as you can. And you should have a backup recorder.”
Paul smiled. “Thanks for the reminder.”
Paul had several pages of questions for the interview, and he worked down the list systematically, occasionally jotting down the time to remind himself when they had reached various topics. They were in the library where they had first met. The VP seemed relieved to be having the conversation, and he was trying to be helpful, answering the questions in an expansive way. Paul let Gannett talk, making a point not to interrupt him, guiding the conversation with his questions. He had changed the tapes at the two-hour mark.
“Did you ever suspect the chief of staff was lying to you?”
“It’s hard to separate what I know of the man now from what I knew then. He was my chief of staff, he was a man who got things done, and in government and politics that often meant he played hardball and even played dirty at times. He would use whatever information he had to get the obstacle in front of him to move aside. So I knew even during the early years that he was often not telling me things for my sake—better that I didn’t know. He would get done what had to be done. Back then I trusted him not to cross the line, even if I knew he would press that line hard. I knew him to be loyal, committed to the task we were focused on. He was a goal-driven man, and we shared common objectives. I rose through government because he was my chief of staff, and I trusted him.
“I never had a moment where I thought, He just lied to me. I never had that sense of outrage. I want to believe I would have seen what was going on, but he killed eighteen people while he was working for me. I look back and can’t understand why I didn’t sense at least something off about him. I’m ashamed of that. There had to be signs I missed, and I don’t understand how I overlooked them over so many years.”
“Do you know of any incident where he got in trouble with the law or had personal legal troubles, where he used his position to get out of the trouble, or where someone decided to look the other way because of the fact he was your chief of staff?”
“It’s a very good question. No, I know of no such situation that ever arose. But I don’t know either that I would have caught wind of it if he was covering something up. I haven’t looked, and I realize I should have.”
They had been talking for over three hours now, and the questions were prompting more color about the chief of staff, but not more facts. Paul was comfortable the VP had put into the chapter what he intended to say.
Paul turned a page in his notes and settled into the next area of questions he had. “Tell me about the other individuals on your staff who were with you for several years. Who else would you say knew the chief of staff well?”
Paul drove to the airport to meet Rita, exhausted after the four-hour conversation with the VP. On its surface this wasn’t a hard case to review, but it was difficult to look back so far in time and catch the nuances, the emotions, the unspoken. Gannett was a smart man. Was it loyalty to a friend that had blinded him to what was going on? Had the VP ever suspected something else was there? Paul knew what the VP had said, and still he couldn’t settle that core question in his mind.
He arrived at the airport, parked, and went to meet Rita’s flight. She was fifth off the plane. She crossed to join him. “Hey, boss. How did the interview go?”
“Sam told you.”
“He said you looked nervous.” She laughed at the face he made.
“It was four hours of conversation that you’re welcome to listen to. It’s done, that’s the best thing I can say for it, although there will probably be another conversation once we’re further along. I didn’t hear anything new in what he said, but there were impressions of people that you might find useful.”
He carried the bag she had packed for him back to the car and stored it in the trunk. Paul held out the keys. “Drive while I read, Rita.” He opened the door and got in the passenger seat. She handed him a thick file from her briefcase.
“The articles are from Ann’s local newspaper archives. I used my phone to take photos of the pages that applied to Ann, and I printed articles that matched what I was officially there to research. I signed in under a false name. No one is going to put together I was looking.”
“Bottom line?”
“Ann wrote the diary, boss.”
Paul felt a sudden chill. He had been hoping he was wrong. “You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
“Talk me through it.”
“Ann disappeared on August five, 2003. Police were conducting an aggressive search to find her. A confidential informant who was seen with her the day she disappeared was their top suspect. He was a known schizophrenic who could get violent. He was found six states over on a rural road, dead in his car of a self-inflicted gunshot. The ME put his death at August twelve. There was evidence Ann had been in the passenger seat of the car, but she was nowhe
re to be found. She reappeared on August fourteen when she called her boss. She was on medical leave for sixteen weeks before returning to work. She spent that medical leave somewhere else, and didn’t return to her home until just before she returned to work.
“The official story: the confidential informant had been suicidal, had a passenger with him, had a gun, and she had entered his car in order to convince him to let the passenger out. She eventually succeeded. The CI wanted to go home, meaning his parents’ farm. He drove into the country but was lost in his mind, thinking they were in a foreign country. She stopped him. They got out of the car. He panicked, it turned into a violent fight, and during the struggle she was struck in the face. She woke to find herself tied up and locked in an abandoned farmhouse cellar. She had to break out, and when she finally did so, she found she was in the middle of nowhere. She was fighting a concussion and stayed put for the first couple of days until her vision cleared. She hopped a train to the nearest town to make a call. Not a bad cover story. She used what the police already thought. She eliminated their ability to find the farmhouse and check her story. Sixteen weeks of medical leave suggests she was in pretty bad shape. Someone paid those medical bills. There will be records if you want to go deeper.”
“That she was the diary writer, rather than the one called to help after the fact, tells me enough for now. We’re going to have to work out something regarding the cabin and the coffin photos. I don’t want to walk her back through them.”
“If you cut her out of the investigation, she’ll know something’s up. She’ll know we know.”
“I don’t mind keeping her in the loop. The VP was part of it, along with Reece, and we’re keeping them informed of our progress. I just don’t want to be causing her more harm by refreshing the details of what happened—letting her see the photos or taking her to the cabin location. You read the diary. You can imagine as well as I can what those days between August five and twelve were like for her.”
“The memories alone would explain the nightmares,” Rita agreed. “I’d rather let her tell us if she wants to than reveal the fact we know. It’s minor, boss, but I like her. It would be ripping the scab off a nasty wound when she wants to keep it private.”
“Even if we never say a word, she’ll know we’ve figured it out. Ann doesn’t miss the obvious. She’ll wonder why we aren’t looking for who wrote the diary.”
“Then maybe you should tell her now, if only to let her know we’re not going to pursue it.”
“I’m thinking about it. Thanks for making the trip and finding out the facts.”
“If I could find them out this easily, reporters are going to figure it out when the book is released. Every newspaper in the country will be going back to look at their archives for the week of August 2003. How many people went missing during that week? Ann will stand out like a sore thumb, given her connection to the book about the victims.”
“I know. Ann has to know that too. And yet she’s keeping this quiet. That’s what bothers me. I understand a victim not wanting to go public about what happened. But this is beginning to feel like more than that. She’s staying quiet for a reason, and I don’t think we know the full reason why.”
20
This way, Black.” The dog came back from a tangent to check out a rose bush, then followed Paul through the gap in the evergreens. They both needed a long walk tonight, and Paul took them toward the back of the estate grounds. He needed the time to sort out his thoughts.
Ann had accepted she would live with whatever came as a result of her decision to remain silent and keep the VP’s secret. She was prepared to deal with the press scrutiny, the legal costs, and the legal risks. Paul worried about what was going to unfold. He wondered if she was prepared for it to cost her job, and he feared, in the worst outcome, she might face that possibility.
She needed to state on the record that she was the writer of the diary. Her legal risk ended with the statement she was the writer and a victim of this crime. But if she couldn’t come forward, if she maintained her silence because she couldn’t speak of what had happened, he would do everything he could to protect her. But he didn’t know if he could save her job.
As a law-enforcement officer, she had a legal obligation to report a crime. If all Ann admitted to in public was helping the VP write his autobiography, she was in legal trouble. She had known about the VP abduction, the chief of staff’s death, the cover-up at the cabin, and had not reported it. The best she could hope for before a police disciplinary panel was a long suspension. The duty to report a crime was a legal obligation of her job, not one on her as an individual, so her legal risk would end with the disciplinary panel. But losing her job would be a devastating price for her to pay.
As a victim she had a right to privacy. That right was enshrined both in legal statute and in the police code of conduct. She could report, or not report, the crime against herself and the law would support her decision. To report she knew a crime had been covered up, she would have to report she had been present and been a victim of the crime. Her silence about the cover-up at the cabin stemmed directly from her own right to privacy as a victim. Her right to privacy trumped any legal obligation she had to report. She was a victim first, and a law-enforcement officer second.
But Ann couldn’t assert that right to privacy unless she went public that she had been a victim. There would be no way to quietly inform the police disciplinary board she was in fact the victim of the chief of staff, that a failure-to-report charge should not be brought against her, and expect it to not be leaked to the press. This was too high-profile a case.
She could stay silent and hope the police disciplinary board suspended her rather than fired her. Or she could make public what happened, mitigate all her legal risks, but give up her privacy.
Paul didn’t know if she could take that step. She was staying quiet for a reason. She knew the law as well as he did. She knew the possible outcomes. And she was choosing to stay quiet. She wouldn’t have made that decision unless she saw no other way to survive.
He could force her hand, send Rita back to do the investigation on the record, and make Ann’s name public in the FBI report as the writer of the diary. He could save her job at the cost of their relationship. Even thinking of that path left him certain he would never take it. This was Ann’s decision. He’d support and help her however he could, but he wouldn’t force her hand.
Based on what Rita had told him, Ann had also given false statements regarding her injuries. She had misled the investigating officers by confirming the confidential informant who had died had caused her injuries. That would have to be handled as a separate matter between Ann and her boss at the time who investigated her disappearance. She was speaking as a victim, not as a law-enforcement officer, when she gave her statement, and Paul doubted a complaint would be brought by the investigating officers.
Reece Lion was the one with the most legal exposure. This was, at a minimum, going to cost him his job and his pension. A good lawyer would argue mitigating facts in the case. The death itself had been investigated the day it occurred. An autopsy had been performed, and it confirmed the man died of a self-inflicted gunshot. The cover-up’s only legal ramification had been that the case file didn’t have a name to record for the body, and a false death certificate had been issued for the chief of staff. The actions at the cabin were taken to protect the privacy rights of the two victims, for the VP had a right to privacy as well as the writer of the diary. The facts would be enough for a good lawyer to get a negotiated plea on the charges of tampering with a crime scene and making false statements.
The VP had put those around him in legal jeopardy in order to keep quiet what his chief of staff had done. His motives were more complex than that, but that was the bottom line. And of the people facing legal jeopardy, the one person Paul didn’t know how the law would treat was the VP himself. He too was a victim of the crime. He had a reputation that would forever be tainted by the fact a serial
killer had worked for him for decades. He put in motion what occurred with the cover-up. If charges were ever brought related to the cover-up, which seemed doubtful at best, the VP would die of old age before the matter was ever settled in the courts.
Paul returned to his core problem. Ann. He didn’t know if she would find the courage to tell him she had written the diary. He could pray she did. If she could trust him enough to tell him she wrote it, he could help her through the legal options. But if she couldn’t tell him, if her only way of surviving this was silence, then he had to figure out a way to prepare her for what it would mean if she faced a failure-to-report disciplinary charge.
He had time. That was the only good thing he could see. Until the FBI investigation concluded, until the VP’s autobiography became public, there was time to prepare. But he had to somehow get Ann to trust him enough to tell him she had written the diary.
She’d been dealing with this for years. He had been dealing with this for days. Paul forced himself to mentally step back from the worry. If there was one thing he knew about high-profile public cases, it was that the outcome always had unexpected turns. For all Paul knew, the VP had quietly arranged a pardon for the actions of everyone who had helped him keep quiet about what had happened. There was no way to know which way this would play out legally for those involved.
Ann would have a good lawyer, and if events unfolded so she might lose her job, Paul would somehow talk her into stating she was the writer of the diary. That was the one bright spot to all of this. The truth would defend Ann against any legal concern. She just had to have the strength to say it on the record if it came down to that outcome—her job or her privacy.
He hoped he didn’t make things worse for her by how he handled this. She’d agreed with the VP’s decision to ask him to investigate what happened. She wanted him to be the agent in this position. But it was playing havoc with his ability to decide how to handle matters with her, both on the legal side and the personal.
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