“It wouldn’t be fair for me to share his identity without his permission. . . .”
The agent leaned forward an inch but no more. Yet an important inch. His face hardened and his eyes narrowed. “You used to be a lawyer, Mr. Black,” he said, his voice rising a notch. “So you know we can hold you in custody.”
“Perhaps, but not for very long,” I bulleted back. “Unless you have a warrant or probable cause. And we both know you don’t have either. There’s no reasonable suspicion to connect me to this terrible crime, because as for Mr. Pullmen—and I assume he’s the victim and that is why you brought up his name—at the moment he was being killed by the real murderer, I was giving a speech in front of an army of witnesses that included FBI agents from this office.”
The agent leaned back in his chair, his eyes never leaving mine. “Remember this: the place where a high-ranking Department of Justice lawyer was murdered was your hotel room. Not someone else’s, but yours.”
“Oh?” I replied. “Your forensic investigators have determined that? That he wasn’t murdered somewhere else and then moved to my room and staged in a way to deliberately implicate me?”
Maybe that sounded a little paranoid, but it was a possible scenario.
“Mr. Black, I don’t have to tell you what our forensics unit has determined. . . .”
“And, Special Agent Fainlock, I don’t have to tell you the name of my detective friend without his consent.”
A long pause. The FBI agent across from me had the age—maybe early fifties—and the calm demeanor of an experienced investigator in the Criminal Investigative Division of the New Orleans bureau. So I gauged that he had probably reached the GS-15 level, pulling six figures, and wasn’t about to make a rookie mistake, say or do something reckless, especially with the video camera rolling on the other side of the one-way mirror. That was my guess.
But it was time for somebody to blink. Hopefully him. The bad thing was, he wasn’t blinking. I wondered whether I had underestimated the trouble I was facing. Good heavens, did they really think I had anything to do with this?
The senior agent pulled out a remote control for the TV. “Mr. Black, I want you to see something.” Then he added, “By the way, do you have a strong stomach?”
The special agent didn’t wait for my answer. Instead, he clicked on the TV at the other end of the interrogation room and a video began running. Just images, no audio. I braced myself. It quickly became clear what I was watching: the FBI forensic guys documenting the crime scene. Meaning my hotel room.
As the camera slowly swept into the entrance, it caught the familiar opening to the bathroom on the left. I recognized my suitcase on the luggage rack on the right. But then an object that I did not recognize. A paper coffee cup, the kind with the plastic travel top that has a slit opening to drink from. Something you get at a coffee shop. However, I didn’t put that there. Someone else must have.
The video camera moved forward a few steps and then to the left, toward my bed. Something became visible: a pair of feet extending over the end of the bed. One shoe on, one shoe off.
They had to belong to the victim, Paul Pullmen. Movement of the camera farther into the room, taking in the full view of my bed. When I saw it, I couldn’t inhale. Or exhale. Or make sense of it. Not at first.
The camera was fixed on the scene. One second, two seconds. After maybe ten seconds staring at this grisly footage, I was finally able to figure out the carnage.
Pullmen was stretched out on the bed, one arm dangling off the side, his suit coat and white shirt soaked with blood. Blood everywhere.
Then I was able to see the truly horrifying aspect of the crime. His head had been slashed from his body and had been set to the side of the bed, facing upward to the ceiling. A large machete, with blood along its blade, had been carefully placed lengthwise just below the head.
The police camera zoomed in on Pullmen’s right arm. More blood. Of course there was. Because his right hand had been severed at the wrist and was nowhere to be seen.
9
The agent paused the video and waited at least a minute before he asked a question. And when he did, he pointed to the television screen, which had the frozen image of the murder victim stretched over my hotel bed.
“Do you know him?”
I said, “It looks like Paul Pullmen.”
“Did you do this to Paul Pullmen?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No. But I’d like to find out.”
“Why?”
“Just look at that video,” I shot back. “The monster who did that needs to be stopped. Call it my duty as a good citizen if you like.”
“What would you call it?”
“If I explained it to you, what really might be behind this, I don’t think you’d understand.”
He glanced at his watch. Then he sat for a while without saying anything, until there was a knock on the door of the interrogation room. The younger agent opened the door a crack and spoke in a whisper to someone outside, then walked over to the agent sitting across from me and whispered something in his ear.
Agent Fainlock’s face relaxed as he began to stand. The two agents slipped out, and in my peripheral vision I noticed a man strolling into the room.
An instant later, I was looking into the face of my old nemesis, Vance Zaduck.
Zaduck reached out, we shook hands, and he sat down. “It’s been a long time, Trevor.”
“Yes, it has,” I answered.
“How is that beautiful wife of yours? Courtney, that was her name, wasn’t it?”
I took a moment, noticing the difference between the grammatical tenses in his two sentences.
“Yes,” I replied. “Her name was Courtney. She died a few years ago. Shortly before I stopped practicing law.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I studied Zaduck. Was he really in the dark about her death?
I said, “I guess you wouldn’t have known. It happened after you left New York and took over as the United States attorney in DC.”
“Yes, must have. But that’s bad news about Courtney.”
“How is your wife?” I responded. “I’m sorry I don’t remember her name. . . .”
“Virginia. We separated.” Then he added, “We’re divorced.”
“So, still single?” I asked, though I don’t know why.
“Yes. You know how it is. Demands of lawyering in Washington. Sometimes it interferes with your personal life.”
I nodded while I studied his face. Up close, I could see the dark, baggy circles under his eyes. Age and the trials of life take their toll. I asked, “You’re here for the ABA?”
“Right.”
“I know you caught my speech. I saw you in the front.”
“Yes, I was there.”
But this wasn’t about exchanging pleasantries. In the next moment, the probing began.
Zaduck asked, “I was wondering, what’s your interest in Jason Forester’s death?”
“I would think that anytime an assistant US attorney is killed, it would be a big deal.”
“You make it sound like an intentional killing. We looked into it. He died of complications of a preexisting heart condition. Nothing more. It was a sad loss. But that was it. So I wonder, Trevor, was there something else behind this? And why did you hit on it in your speech today?”
“I’m assuming you were behind the one-way glass a little while ago. You heard what I said about my friend in law enforcement getting a tip from a federal insider who said that voodoo was involved in his death.”
“Yes,” he answered. Then, after a moment, he repeated that word again, “Voodoo,” and shook his head like I had been talking about abductions by outer-space aliens.
I nodded. “Yes, voodoo.”
There was a momentary smile, but it vanished instantly. “So it’s really true? Trevor Black, demon hunter?”
“You heard about that?”
“Yes. And I do agree: there are demons out there.”
I was taken aback. I waited for more.
“People have personal demons. Mental illness. Broken lives. Maybe being brutalized in the past. Drug addiction. Then they commit horrible crimes. But the thing is, I live in the real world, Trevor. You were a superbly talented lawyer once. What happened to you, your professional decline, was very sad.”
He told me that he had to catch a flight back to DC and so he needed to jump right to the point. “Speaking of terrible crimes. Do you have any idea why the assistant attorney general for our Criminal Division would have been murdered in your hotel room?”
“No, I don’t. I only know that I wrote to Mr. Pullmen in an e-mail about wanting to discuss the Jason Forester death. He didn’t reply.”
“The way he was murdered,” Vance Zaduck said, “was horrific. As you can see.”
He was waiting for me to respond. On the other side of the glass, the interrogation video camera was catching it all, I was sure. But I had nothing to hide. I had some thoughts, and they needed to be said.
I answered, “In other words, you mean to say that his head and his hand were both cut off like a ritual sacrifice?”
Zaduck’s chin tightened and his lips pursed before he spoke. “You really think that’s what this is about?”
“I know nothing about this homicide except what I saw on that video and what you’ve just told me. But two federal attorneys are dead and both under circumstances that implicate occult practices. Seems obvious, doesn’t it?”
Vance Zaduck glanced at his watch, then rose quickly. “I have to go. Here’s the good news. I have already talked to the FBI here in New Orleans, and to the local US attorney and the Louisiana authorities too. Trevor, just so you know, I’ve vouched for you. You’re welcome, by the way. Sorry about the interrogation, but I’m sure you can see why. The bottom line is that you’re free to go. But you obviously know that they may be in contact with you again, about the Pullmen homicide. And the Department of Justice may want to talk to you as well.”
He gave me a warm handshake. “Take care of yourself, Trevor. I’m sorry we had to meet this way. And it’s sad about Courtney.”
Compared to the nasty tone of our last conversation together, years before, and how it had ended with his nihilistic quote from Nietzsche and his brusquely showing me the door, Vance seemed different now. Perhaps the years had softened him.
It felt good to leave the building and hit the street.
I suddenly remembered that my daughter had been left at the convention center. I hailed a cab and made it back to the ABA conclave. It was filled with milling crowds of lawyers, and the place was abuzz with gossip about Pullmen’s death. But Heather was nowhere to be found. I headed to the Hyatt.
When I checked with the front desk at the hotel, I learned, not surprisingly, that her room had also been cordoned off because of the murder investigation. They assigned a new suite of rooms for Heather and me.
“Have you seen her?” I asked the hotel clerk at the front desk.
He said he had, and he handed me a note that Heather had left for me. When I read its brief contents, I turned back to the clerk and asked if she had been alone when she gave him the note, or was there someone else with her? He couldn’t recall.
All I had was that little piece of notepaper, and I kept reading and rereading the message Heather had left. In her recognizable handwriting, she had written only three bewildering and troubling sentences—
I met a woman during your session at the ABA. Traveling to Bayou Bon Coeur to do some research. I’ll be in touch.
10
This was a new kind of pain for me. I had experienced life as a parent for less than a year and, even then, only as the father of an adult daughter. But Heather’s unexplained disappearance, coinciding with a murder having taken place in my hotel room, rocked my world. Of course there were logical explanations for the note. I started to spin several rational scenarios to ease my mind. But none were sufficiently convincing. Heather’s cryptic note didn’t give me much to go on, not nearly enough to justify the nice, tidy, safe hypotheticals I tried to conjure up.
I immediately checked out Google Maps, but that didn’t help. A church in Paris; a city in Idaho. But nothing in the bayous of Louisiana.
Despite my repeated attempts to call Heather on her cell, she wasn’t answering. My mind was engaged in a cruel tennis match. Alternating shots across the net.
On one hand, maybe she had simply decided to do some research for her master’s thesis. Bonk.
But if that was true, why such a short, cryptic note, and why wasn’t she picking up when I called? Bonk.
Of course, Heather did have an eccentric and very independent side. Bonk.
But how did I know for sure that she wasn’t in danger? Bonk. Match.
My troubled mind was fixating on the many things I didn’t yet know, and that filled me with dread. Had someone lured her into a bad situation? I was the one who had brought her to New Orleans. This was happening on my watch.
In my new hotel room, I uttered a hasty, clumsily constructed prayer and then opened up the state map I bought at the sundries shop in the hotel and scanned the bayous surrounding New Orleans, looking for something called Bayou Bon Coeur. Nothing.
I wanted to contact the local police and file a missing person’s report, but given my recent brush with the FBI, and the news about the Pullmen murder and the connection to my hotel room, I had to be realistic about how that might play out. Worse still, it had been only a few scant hours that Heather had been unaccounted for. In addition, she was an adult, and there was absolutely no evidence of foul play. I knew too much about the process and how, down at the station, I would be summarily dismissed as an overcontrolling parent.
So I would have to wait. Staying up late. Pacing. Calling her cell, which rang but went to voice mail each time. Sending her text messages. Sending a few e-mails. No response. Finally around 3 a.m. I fell asleep.
I awoke with a start at five o’clock in the morning. I dropped to my knees and petitioned God to give me some indication of what was going on with my daughter.
I plunged onto the bed with my cell and went through the ritual of dialing Heather’s cell again, and again getting no answer except her voice mail. But I listened to it studiously. At least it was good to hear her voice. I prayed and continued praying in bed, too tired to slip under the covers, until I began to drift into sleep.
I had forgotten to set an alarm or ask for a wake-up, so it was almost midmorning on Sunday when I was awakened by a persistent tapping on my door. I headed to the door and opened it a crack. The housekeeper asked if I wanted my room cleaned. “Not today,” I replied. I wouldn’t take any chances with strangers coming into my room.
Then panic set in. No call from Heather had come through.
A bad way to start the day. I should have planned a day of prayer and fasting. Instead I started with cold-sweat anxiety and defeat.
I knew that New Orleans must have plenty of fine houses of worship, but I didn’t know of any personally. I would conduct church in my hotel room before heading off to find Heather. It was time to set things on a better course.
I knelt at the edge of the bed. Asking for insight about finding Heather. For the power of the resurrected Jesus to fight my battles for me—after all, the combat I was engaged in wasn’t just a matter of flesh and blood. It was a struggle against a dark, invisible empire.
Scripture reading for the day: I took a bypass out of Deuteronomy, which I had been studying, and went to Luke 4:5-13 instead. The devil’s temptation of Jesus in the hot, dry, unforgiving desert, showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and offering him dominion over all of them if he would simply worship him. But Jesus answered: “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” Then the devil unsuccessfully tempted Jesus by trying to entice him to jump off the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem to prove his divinity. Jesus shut him down again, citin
g the Scripture about not putting God to the test.
Lesson? Even when he fails, the devil doesn’t give up. For the story goes on: “When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.”
The dark lord and his agents don’t surrender; they just regroup. Until the opportune time. Offering power as the incitement. But delivering slavery.
Morning was waning and I had run out of patience. I drove my rental down to the police station and filed a formal missing person’s report. I begged them not to follow the usual routine. I told them, “I have a bad feeling about this.” The interviewing officer had me sit in the chair next to his desk while he disappeared into the office of the police captain. I saw the two talking for a long while before the officer strolled back to me.
“You’re the one from the ABA lawyers’ meeting? Taken in for questioning by the FBI? Dead government lawyer found in your hotel room?”
I nodded.
“We’ll follow up on this in due course.” I dreaded those last two words. Then he added, “And, Mr. Black, don’t leave the area without letting us know first.” He handed me his card with his direct line on it.
My car was parked two blocks away. When I had trudged there, I would have ducked into my rental, except I saw something. A little jazz café, right there at the spot where I had parked, called the Blue Key. The front window was littered with small posters of music groups, and one of them struck a personal chord with me, so I strolled in. Having no answers about Heather was vexing me severely. I wanted a momentary diversion.
The place was dimly lit with a dozen tables scattered around. At one end was a bar with stools and a backlit glass case with bottles full of colored booze. At the other end, a black man was at the keyboard of a baby grand piano. I recognized the tune he was playing, an obsolete jazz number—“Some of These Days”—that said, “Some of these days you’ll miss me, honey.”
He must have heard me come in but didn’t turn at first, just kept playing. When I took a few steps closer, he spoke without looking over. “We’re closed today.”
The Empowered Page 5