Deadly Disclosures

by Julie Cave

  She wondered what it would be like to lie down in the snow and go to sleep. The thought of going to sleep knowing that she didn’t have to wake up the next morning and face another day was appealing. Dinah eyed the next bottle of wine. Her strength of resolve not to drink to excess was weak at best, and she knew it slipped away with each passing moment.

  Before she knew it, she’d uncorked the bottle and poured another glass. A tiny voice in her head begged her to stop, but the alcohol was too seductive. The pleasure she got from swallowing each mouthful was the greatest positive emotion she had experienced in some years. It numbed the despair she felt at even being alive.

  Dinah had almost finished the second bottle when she slipped into the heavy, dreamless slumber of a drinker on the couch.

  She was awakened suddenly by the shrill ringing of her cell phone. Dazed and disoriented, she sat up, and the memory of the evening’s drinking session flooded back to her. She dug around for her phone and finally answered it.

  “It’s me,” said Ferguson, his voice tight and terse. “We’ve got another body.”

  Dinah was still struggling to return to reality. “What? Who is it?”

  “Catherine Biscelli was found in her apartment by her sister. Can you meet me there?”

  “Uh . . . yeah, sure. What’s her address?” Dinah’s senses were dull, and she knew it was because she was still drunk.

  After she’d hung up, she tried to assess herself. She tried to walk to the door and knew that she was stumbling. She made her way to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face. Her eyes were bloodshot and heavy-lidded.

  I’ll be okay, she told herself, I’ll just concentrate on talking clearly and walking straight. No one will know.

  She decided to catch a cab to the scene, and she had the driver pull up a block away from the patrol cars. She didn’t want Ferguson to know that she couldn’t drive, because he would know exactly why.

  Ferguson was already inside the apartment, standing back while the white-suited crime scene technicians searched for evidence.

  “So what happened?” Dinah asked, standing slightly away from her partner in the pretense of staring into the bathroom.

  “It’s a similar story,” Ferguson reported. “She was taken into the bathroom, laid in the shower, and her throat was cut. There looks like a head injury that would have subdued her. It’s a very clean scene.” He looked resigned. “I’m guessing that we won’t find any evidence.”

  Dinah just nodded, not wanting to speak more than strictly necessary. Then a question occurred to her. “How did the killer get in?” She was pleased with her steady pronunciation of the sentence and didn’t notice the odd look Ferguson gave her.

  “No sign of break-in at all,” he said. “It would appear that she actually knew him and let him in.”

  “Do you think she was killed because she talked to us?” Dinah asked.

  “That’s my first guess,” agreed Ferguson. “Otherwise it’s an awful coincidence, and you know I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  The supervisor of the crime scene technicians appeared from the bathroom. “You guys can come in now.”

  Ferguson gestured for Dinah to head to the bathroom first. Dinah warned herself to concentrate on walking. She had done pretty well, she thought, until she stumbled at the doorway to the bathroom and grabbed the doorjamb to steady herself. She could almost feel Ferguson’s eyes burning a hole in her back.

  Dinah focused on the shower. Catherine Biscelli’s body lay in the shower cubicle, and it was clear that the killer had turned the faucets on above her. The majority of any blood and evidence had washed down the drain and had left a remarkably “clean” scene, as Ferguson had termed it. She tried to concentrate on the scene, but her brain was dull and slow.

  After a few moments, Ferguson suggested, “Let’s go outside for a bit.”

  Dinah complied, following him back downstairs and out into the freezing air. She was glad he hadn’t followed her because she knew she was swaying and stumbling despite her best efforts. Finally, when they were out of earshot of the uniformed cops, Ferguson hissed at her, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What do you mean?” Dinah played dumb.

  “Look at you!” Ferguson was clearly disgusted. “You’ve turned up here so drunk you can barely walk. You absolutely reek of alcohol. Are you so stupid to think that I wouldn’t notice?”

  “I . . . I …didn’t. . . .” Dinah was shocked by the vehemence of his tone.

  “You’re talking like you’re underwater,” continued Ferguson. “The poor crime scene techs inside the apartment nearly collapsed when you walked into the bathroom. I swear I think I’m getting drunk just smelling the fumes coming off you!”

  He paused for a moment and then widened his eyes in horror as a thought flashed into his mind. “Oh no, please please tell me you didn’t drive here tonight!”

  “Cab,” mumbled Dinah, her face flushed.

  Ferguson was somewhat relieved. “I told you when you fell asleep outside the medical examiner’s office and then proceeded to throw up in the middle of an autopsy that you had gone too far. Now you’ve gone even further and done this. This is an absolute joke. It’s a disgrace! You’re a disgrace!”

  “I . . . didn’t think . . .” Dinah tried again.

  “What?” demanded Ferguson, his face almost purple with anger. “You didn’t think that even though you are an FBI agent in the middle of an active investigation that you might be called to a crime scene in the middle of the night? Is that what you thought?”

  He glared at her, waiting for a response.

  As sad as it was, it was the truth. Dinah hadn’t thought about the fact that she might be called to a murder scene. And would it have mattered even if she did? The need to drink was powerfully strong. She nodded.

  Ferguson digested this for a few moments, then shook his head. “You need to go home, Harris. I’m sick of looking at you in this state. If you come into the office in the morning, there better not be any sight of a hangover or I’m going to recommend to Hanlon myself that you be fired on the spot.”

  He started to walk off, then wheeled around, his tirade not yet spent. “And another thing: I supported you and vouched for you when everybody else thought you were a lost cause. All I wanted was to help you do something you used to love. I wanted you to feel the old spark and thrill of the chase again. And you’ve let me down so badly that I wonder why I thought it would ever be a good idea. You know what? I think I was wrong; I think you are a lost cause.”

  His fury finally depleted, he turned and walked away from her. Dinah stared after him, an enormous lump rising in her throat.

  He was absolutely right, she realized, in calling her a lost cause. If she no longer believed in herself, why should anyone else?

  • • • •

  The story broke the next morning and it was front-page news.

  A photographic team had been following Dinah for days, it seemed, and two huge photos appeared beneath the headline that screamed: FBI Agent Drunk and Disorderly!

  The first photo was a headshot of Dinah, asleep in her car with her head resting on the wheel, her mouth slightly open. The caption underneath read: Agent Harris attends the autopsy of a high-profile murder. The second photo was from the previous night, stumbling down a curb as she flagged down a cab to leave the site of Catherine Biscelli’s murder. The caption beneath read: Agent Harris at the scene of last night’s murder.

  The ensuing article embellished the details. It began by explaining that Dinah Harris was currently working on the Smithsonian murders, despite the fact that she was regularly arriving at work in a drunken state. It wondered if FBI standards had sunk to such low levels as to let an agent with an obvious alcohol addiction work on active cases. It wondered whether the public realized that they were being “protected” by a drunk agent with a firearm. What if, in a drunken state, Agent Harris shot at the wrong person and your son or daughter died as a result? Should
n’t the public require more from its law enforcement personnel?

  It went on to helpfully point out that this was not the first time Agent Harris had been embroiled in controversy. In fact, Agent Harris had been reprimanded, demoted, and reassigned following a tragic incident. At the time, the article helpfully explained, she had been the Special Agent in Charge of a small, specialized, highly trained group of negotiators. Their primary focus was the extraction of high-ranking gang members from their respective gangs. They used words rather than force to encourage gang members to turn and inform on their gangs, and then they would set them up in the witness protection program. They had had an unusually high success rate due to Agent Dinah Harris’s uncanny ability to connect and negotiate with the gang members. Former gang members described how they trusted her completely in spite of their long-held suspicion and hatred of law enforcement. They were literally entrusting their lives to her, and she never let them down.

  There had just been the one time, where she had promised protection to an 18-year-old boy who had joined the gang as a 10-year-old child. He had upheld his part of the bargain, informed Harris’s team of all he knew of his gang. He had arrived at the designated safe meeting place ready to enter witness protection, his gang by now very suspicious of him, but the FBI had failed to appear. Several days later his body had been found in an industrial area, horribly mutilated and tortured. Harris had suddenly and spectacularly failed.

  The internal inquiry subsequently held by the FBI was a closely guarded secret. At the time, the press believed that the FBI had acted swiftly in trying to protect their star agent for reasons the media had never been able to unearth. Rumor had it that Harris had been drinking heavily on the night the gang member was supposed to be picked up by the FBI, and that she had entirely forgotten about him.

  Yet here she was, resurfacing as an active agent on a high-profile case. Surely, the article trumpeted, the public must have absolute faith in the personnel assigned with protecting them! Now look at her: passing out on the job, stumbling down the curb after being sent home from a murder scene. It was unacceptable. The FBI must take action now and weed out agents who were not living up to its lofty standards.

  In the midst of a thumping headache and frequent bouts of nausea, Dinah read the article in horror. After dashing to the bathroom to vomit, she re-read the article carefully. The horror dwindled away only to be replaced by dread. This was surely the final nail in her career coffin. There was no way George Hanlon and his superiors would let this article slide. The FBI had taken too much of a media battering over the past several years to allow a single agent to drag its name through the mud again. She would be sacrificed on the altar of law enforcement reputation.

  But didn’t she deserve it? As a new recruit ten years ago, if Dinah could have seen what she would eventually become, surely she would have been horrified. Back then, she would have been the first to agree that alcoholic agents had no place in the FBI.

  Is that what I am? Dinah reflected, shocked. An alcoholic? The word conjured images of homeless, unshaven, middle-aged men, clutching half-empty bottles of cheap booze, propped up on a park bench. She hadn’t considered that it would apply to her. She just needed a drink or two to relax after work! And who wouldn’t need a drink after everything she’d been through? She’d lost her family, her very heart and soul, and their space in her life had been replaced by a chasm of despair and hopelessness. The void yawned so deeply within her that even she knew not where it ended. It gruffly demanded her attention. Dinah had found that wine had fed the chasm reasonably well, but even she knew, deep down, that she had to drink more and more to achieve the same level of equilibrium.

  She put her head in her hands. The desolation bubbled inside her and it threatened to choke her. It was at these very moments that she began to crave relief from the relentlessness of it, and perhaps the reason she had thought about achieving final release.

  Just because it was too much for one person to withstand.

  • • • •

  Dinah arrived at the office the following morning, reasonably alert and refreshed. She had slept for most of the previous day, recovering from both the binge drinking and lack of sleep. Late in the afternoon, Ferguson had called, letting her know that she was required at Hanlon’s office at nine sharp the next morning. His tone was cool and distant, and Dinah knew that she had finally lost her greatest ally.

  An insidious thought had crossed her mind as she’d dressed in a black pants suit that was now a full size too big for her. What if she just had one or two drinks to settle her nerves before going in to face Hanlon? Dinah was dismayed at the depth of her dissoluteness. She was about to lose the final part of her life that had any meaning, and all she could think about was the next drink. Could the disgust and contempt for herself become any worse? She didn’t think so.

  George Hanlon, the Special Agent in Charge, was waiting for her with Ferguson. As soon as she exited the elevator, the two of them escorted her to her boss’s office. Dinah refused to make eye contact with either of them.

  When they were seated, Hanlon shook yesterday’s newspaper and glowered at her. “I suppose you’ve seen the article about yourself,” he began ominously.

  Dinah swallowed and nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Well, is it true?”

  Dinah stared at Hanlon’s hairy forearms. The hair extended all the way down his hands and fingers, and for some reason, they irritated her.

  “Yes, sir. It’s all true.” She lifted her chin and stared at a spot above Hanlon’s head.

  Hanlon nodded and pursed his lips. “I see. So you did pass out at the medical examiner’s office, throw up in the garden, and arrive at the most recent murder scene drunk?”

  “Yes, I did.” From the corner of her eye, she could see Ferguson standing at the side of the room, clearly not wanting to take sides. Dinah had never felt so lonely.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  Dinah felt her old resentment rise. “How long has what been going on? Arriving drunk at crime scenes? I can assure you, that’s only happened one time.”

  Hanlon stared at her. “Now is not the time for sarcasm, Agent Harris. I hold your future in my hands and I suggest you wrap your mind around that before you start with the comments.”

  Dinah resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

  “I want to know how long your drinking has been a problem.” Hanlon couldn’t take his eyes off the pictures in the newspaper of Dinah, and she could see the contempt in his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t know when it became a problem. All I know is that it started when . . . you know, when everything happened.”

  Hanlon nodded. “I suspected as much. Listen, Agent Harris, what would you do if you were in my position?”

  Dinah shrugged. “I really don’t know.”

  “Well, my superiors have made it pretty clear to me what I have to do. You must realize that the bureau can’t tolerate this sort of behavior and the exposure it creates.” Hanlon gestured at the newspaper.

  Dinah sat still, waiting for the torturous moment to be over.

  “Agent Harris, you’re relieved of all duties effective immediately. You will no longer take part in any active investigations and will hand over any relevant materials to Ferguson. You will hand in your firearm and badge to me.” Hanlon did a pretty impressive job of looking impassive while he delivered his speech. Inside, Dinah knew he must be gloating.

  Her humiliation complete, Dinah complied. She slid the gun and badge across his desk. She still didn’t dare look at Ferguson.

  “Harris, as a gesture of goodwill, the bureau would like to offer assistance with rehabilitation,” continued Hanlon, obviously feeling more confident the further he got into his soliloquy. “We’re happy to provide counseling, treatment programs, whatever you need.”

  Dinah found the idea so ludicrous she almost laughed out loud. Rehabilitation? What was the point of rehabilitati
ng a person who was determined to die?

  “Are you done?” she asked, standing, sick of the scene, but mostly sick of herself. “I want to go now.”

  Hanlon shrugged. “Okay, Harris. What about rehab?”

  “Don’t bother,” she snapped. “I don’t want to be a burden on the bureau for a moment longer.”

  “Harris, it’s a great idea,” chimed in Ferguson. “I think you should consider it.”

  “Oh, now you speak up,” retorted Dinah. “Thank you both for your touching concern, but I think it’s best if we just part ways for good.” Inside, she wanted to scream, Stop looking at me with those eyes full of pity!

  Hanlon and Ferguson seemed to sense her desperation, because they both fell silent. Dinah left as quickly as she could. While she waited for the elevator, which seemed to take several centuries, she could imagine the eyes of her former colleagues watching her. Look at the great Dinah Harris, they would say to each other. Look how far she’s fallen. She’s nothing but an unemployed, hopeless alcoholic. Who would have thought?

  When she arrived home to her small apartment, she sank down on the couch. She felt too numb to cry or feel angry. It was over, she knew. There were no threads remaining, however tenuous, linking her to this life. She had no husband, no child, and no job. There was no longer a solitary reason for her to get up in the morning. The time was finally right.

  It was time to end the aching hurt in her heart, her head, her soul.

  • • • •

  Now that she’d made up her mind, Dinah felt a strange calm descend upon her. She began to set the scene.