The Betrayed

by David Hosp

  The actual search would take some time, she knew. There was no way to search all the courts in the system at once; rather, she would have to go court by court, searching the records of each separately before moving on to the next. Given that there were over one hundred federal districts in the United States federal court system, it might take her hours to find anything.

  She decided to start with the districts in and around Virginia, where the Institute was located, as the most likely jurisdictions where a suit would have been filed. She identified one of the districts, entered the site for it, and started putting in search terms. Then, as the computer bucked and churned, she sat back and waited.

  z

  Cassian and Train sat in the reception room in the office suite of Senator Abe Venable, the senior senator from Virginia. An attractive twenty-something woman in a smart dark blue business suit sat at a receptionist’s table guarding the door to the inner offices. They’d called ahead, and while they’d originally been told that the senator’s schedule was full, they’d indicated that the visit involved an investigation into the Institute, and had received a callback a few minutes later indicating that Venable had freed up five or ten minutes to talk to them. They’d been waiting for more than a half hour in the reception area.

  The couch on which they’d been directed to wait was low and soft, and Train felt uncomfortable with his knees poking up into his chest, so he got up and walked over to examine some of the pictures at the far end of the room. The receptionist watched him suspiciously as she went about her business.

  The pictures hardly surprised Train. They showed the senator posing with statesmen and celebrities of every variety—an ego wall to be envious of, to be sure.

  “The privileges of power,” a deep bass voice sounded from over Train’s shoulder.

  Train turned and saw Venable standing in the doorway to his inner offices. His face was narrow, with a long, protruding nose and overhanging brow, but his frame carried the heft of age and rich food that seems to come so easily to those who spend any significant time in the endless governmental reception that is D.C. life. It occurred to Train that he looked very much like a caricature of how liberals envisioned conservative politicians. “Pardon me?” Train said, not having registered the senator’s comment.

  “Meeting with other powerful people,” Venable said, pointing to the pictures. “I may not make nearly as much money as those who chose to work for investment houses or go into business for themselves, but it helps to remind people that power still has its privileges, and those privileges include having the ear of other powerful people.”

  “Effective,” Train commented.

  Venable tilted his head. “Detectives, come with me.” He beckoned them through the doorway, and Train and Cassian followed him. They walked down a hallway, past several small offices, until they came to a set of large double doors that led into a huge, ornately decorated office of dark wood and leather. The surroundings seemed suited to their inhabitant; overbearing and clearly designed to intimidate any visitor. To the left, a large window looked out onto the Mall, running down from the Capitol out toward the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. As one of the most senior members of the Senate, Venable clearly had his pick of offices, and he’d chosen well.

  Venable walked around behind his desk and sat down, inviting Train and Cassian to take a seat in the two chairs that faced it. “Now, gentlemen,” he drawled in a smooth country accent, “what can I do for you today?”

  “First,” Train began, following standard Washington protocol, “we’d like to thank you for agreeing to see us today. We understand how busy you are, and we appreciate your time.”

  Venable waved Train off. “Please, Detective, you can skip the standard ritual of blowing sunshine up my ass. I got a message from you people indicating that you were investigating my father’s work at the Institute.” He looked carefully back and forth between the two detectives. “That’s a message that’s calculated to bring a response.”

  Train drew his eyebrows up noncommittally, and Venable’s gaze settled on him like a heavy burden. He held the stare, returning its intensity without aggression as they sat in silence for a long moment, neither one of them backing down. Finally Venable spoke again. “Well, congratulations, gentlemen, y’all have my attention. Now I think it’s only reasonable for me to ask you what the fuck y’all are doing here in my office.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  THE SEARCH TOOK Sydney less time than she’d anticipated. Within two hours she had located the electronic files on a case captioned William L. Murphy et al. v. Virginia Medical Association et al. She started looking through them, but quickly realized it was useless to navigate through everything on the computer—the files were just too large. It would be far more efficient to download the documents to the printer down the hall in Professor Fuller’s office, so that she could flip through the materials at a reasonable pace. She was only supposed to use her school password and printer for official law school business, but she decided to break the rules this one time. Besides, anyone seeing the legal printouts would simply assume that she was conducting research for some article Professor Fuller was writing, so there was little risk.

  Once the files had been downloaded, she saved the link on her computer and left her shoulder bag in the computer cubby so that no one would commandeer the terminal. This would save her time if there was a problem with the printer upstairs and she had to download the materials again.

  She headed down the hallway and around the corner to retrieve her documents from the printer, keeping her head down the entire way, acutely aware that the scratches on her face, while less pronounced, hadn’t fully faded. She’d tried to cover them with a scarf so they might escape the attention of a casual observer, but she was still eager to avoid anyone she knew at the school who might stop her to ask how she was doing.

  How was she doing? The thought was ludicrous enough to draw a bitter, ironic laugh. How could she ever explain to anyone what had been happening to her life in the past week? There was no point to trying, and so she resolved to duck anyone who might try to engage her in conversation.

  It was quiet up in the suite of offices Professor Fuller shared with two other professors and their assistants. Sydney wasn’t surprised. With classes over, the professors’ lair was most often deserted. Only on occasion would one of them venture in to get some work done on an article or a case.

  She went quickly to the printer, and was dismayed to see that there was no stack of documents waiting for her where they should have been. She examined the machine and saw the blinking yellow light indicating that it was out of paper, and she grumbled to herself as she found a fresh ream and loaded it into the paper port.

  It started printing at once, and Sydney pulled the first few sheets off the top of the printer to examine them. The first page contained the entire caption of the case, including the names of all of the defendants—there were more than twenty in all, comprised of various individuals, government agencies, and companies. She scanned them quickly to see if Venable’s name was among them, but it was not.

  After the case caption, there was a docket sheet listing all of the pleadings and motions and briefs that had been filed. While the documents were long, there were relatively few of them. There was the complaint and summons filed by the plaintiffs, and a motion to dismiss the lawsuit that had been filed in reply. These were followed by a series of complicated motions dealing with the appropriateness of treating all of the alleged plaintiffs as a class, and then there was a notice of voluntary dismissal based on a settlement reached between the parties. Any specific mention of Venable’s father would most likely be found in the substantive pleadings, but Sydney had no interest in staying in the office to review them.

  She checked the docket sheet against the documents that had printed out to make sure she had everything. Once she was sure, she looked around for an empty folder she could use to keep the papers together. Suddenly, she felt a hand
on her shoulder.

  “Sydney? What are you doing in here?”

  She jumped at the sound of the voice, and at the feeling of the hand on her shoulder. “Oh my God, you startled me!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t think anyone was here, Professor.”

  “I didn’t either,” Professor Barneton replied. “I’m sorry that I scared you. I thought Professor Fuller told me that you were still at home dealing with . . .” He paused. “. . . Taking care of your family,” he offered finally.

  “I was,” Sydney lied. “I just had to get a little bit of work done.”

  He looked at her quizzically. “You shouldn’t worry about anything with respect to your work,” he said. “You should just focus on your family and yourself at this point.” His eyes narrowed and he looked more closely at her face. “Oh my,” he said. “What happened?”

  She realized that he’d seen the scratches on her face, and her mind spun. She hadn’t even thought to come up with a plausible story. “Oh, these,” she said with a flip of her head, trying to give the impression that they were inconsequential. “My cat,” she offered, hoping that would end the inquiry.

  After a moment he said, “Your cat what?”

  “Scratched me.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t seem convinced, and the way he was looking at her made her uneasy. She changed the subject.

  “Thank you for all your understanding,” she said. “I was just leaving anyway, but I’ll be back in sometime next week to start getting back to work fully. I don’t want to let anyone down.” There was some truth in that.

  “Well, as I said, there’s no hurry.” He waved her off, his gaze still focused on the scratches on her face. “I’m sure Professor Fuller will feel the same way.”

  The two of them stood there, and it seemed to Sydney as though Barneton had something else to say. After enduring a long, pregnant moment, she gathered her papers. “Thank you again,” she said. “I’ll see you when I get back to work.” She started to walk past him, but his hand shot out and grabbed her arm.

  “Sydney,” he began.

  She looked at him, and something in his eyes alarmed her. He had an intense, almost wild look. “Yes, Professor?” she asked nervously.

  “We all need people,” he said, the grip on her arm staying firm.

  She looked down at his hand on her arm. His grip was strong enough to be uncomfortable. “Please, Professor,” she said, her voice adamant. “You’re hurting me.”

  He let go of her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that the world can be a cold, dangerous place. I could help you. I could—”

  “Thank you, Professor,” she cut him off. “I’ll see you when I get back to work, I’m sure.” She spun on her heels and walked quickly out of the office suite. Over her shoulder she could hear him calling to her.

  “I hope so, Sydney! I certainly hope so!”

  z

  Venable was angry; Cassian could see that. He made it plain in his every aspect, from his posture to his facial expressions. And there was no question that there was something intimidating about a man of his power and position willing to display such open hostility. Jack was sure that kind of intimidation was useful to the senator in his rough-and-tumble world of politics. It wouldn’t help him now, though, Jack thought, when confronted by two police officers who would not be cowed by the man; in fact, it was clear that Train was trying to provoke him—to see what would reveal itself when he was under pressure.

  “And so,” Train was finishing his explanation of why they were there, “given your father’s connection to the Institute, we were hoping that you might be able to shed a little light on what might be going on there.”

  Venable fumed, his chest expanding as he sucked in air aggressively. “Let me get this straight, Detective,” he said, his southern accent dripping with disdain. “Some lifetime mental patient with a history of drug abuse takes an overdose, and because my father—who passed away over a decade ago—worked at the same mental facility fifty years ago, you think it’s appropriate to interrupt the schedule of one of the most senior members of Congress. Is that about it?”

  “As I said,” Train explained calmly, “we’re not convinced this was a simple overdose. Mr. Murphy hadn’t used drugs in years. Add to that the vicious attack on Ms. Chapin after she visited with him, and her sister’s murder a couple of weeks earlier, and it starts to look like this could be some sort of a conspiracy to conceal something.”

  “You still haven’t explained to me what this has to do with my father—or with me, for that matter,” Venable growled.

  Train looked at Cassian, and Jack could see that his partner was deciding how far to push the issue. “Well,” Train started, “it’s true that your father was in charge of the Institute for many years, correct?”

  “A half century ago, yes, you’re correct.”

  “And, tell me if I’ve got this wrong, but when your father was in charge, he instituted a number of policies that would probably raise some eyebrows in these more enlightened times.”

  “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Detective.”

  Cassian interrupted. “Perhaps we have our information wrong, Senator, but it was our understanding that your father was one of the leading proponents of eugenics in his day. It seems that thousands of his patients were sterilized over the years, and it also appears that numerous experiments were carried out on the people he was supposed to be caring for.”

  Venable’s face went scarlet with rage. “My father was a scientist. Science, by definition, sometimes leads even the best men down the wrong path. By the time my father passed on, he had renounced all elements of eugenics.”

  “Still,” Train pressed, “by that time a significant amount of harm had already been inflicted. It seems to me that if the full truth about what went on at the Institute ever came to light, a lot of people’s reputations would suffer.”

  “Your point, Detective?”

  “Are you aware of anyone who might have an interest in keeping the past buried?” Train asked the question pointedly, and it hung in the air, increasing the tension in the room.

  Venable stared at Train, his shoulders hunched forward over his desk as though he might leap across the mahogany surface at any moment and attack, his eyes burning his hatred into the other man. “No, Detective,” he said at last. “I am not.”

  There was a long pause as the two men faced each other down, neither of them flinching, neither of them willing to give any ground.

  It was Jack who finally broke the spell. “How about you, Senator?”

  Venable’s eyes remained on Train for a moment before he turned to face Cassian, like a jackal shifting its attention from one zebra to another. “How about me, what?” he asked.

  “Wouldn’t you be hurt by a full disclosure about what went on at the Institute while your father was in charge?”

  “I don’t follow you,” the senator said in a low, challenging voice.

  “Well, Senator—and I’m just spitballing here—but you’re a prominent conservative politician making a run at the White House, right? Isn’t it possible that you could be hurt by public revelations about what your father did to his patients at the Institute? I mean, isn’t it at least conceivable that the fact that you’re the son of a famous eugenicist would probably scare away a lot of moderate voters; and that if someone had real

  concrete information about what your father did while he was there, it could pretty much end your chances of being elected?”

  Venable rose and leaned over the desk. For a brief moment, Cassian actually thought there might be a physical altercation in the offing. Then, after a pause, the senator hit the intercom button on his telephone. He stared at Cassian as he spoke into the phone. “Beverly?” he said. “You can come in and escort these gentlemen out of the office. This meeting is over.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  SYDNEY HURRIED BACK to the computer terminal where she’d left her belongings, stuffing the papers she’d
printed out into her bag and throwing it over her shoulder. Her encounter with Barneton had left her unsettled; what had he meant when he’d pointed out that the world was a dangerous place?

  Her mind wandered over her experiences with the well-known professor, and she began to wonder about him. As far as she knew, he was the last person to see her sister alive, and he’d admitted that she’d asked him about the Institute. Was it possible that there was some connection she wasn’t aware of? The notion seemed crazy, but then the look in his eyes had been just that—crazy.

  She shook loose her suspicions as she walked toward the main stairway that led down to the main level of McDonough Hall. Better, she thought, to concentrate on whatever hard evidence she might find in the materials she’d printed out. Once she was back with Jack and Sergeant Train, they’d be able to sort all this out from whatever they found in the lawsuit. She had to hurry back to meet them at the police station.

  First, though, she had to pee.

  She ducked into the ladies’ room and went into a stall, hanging her bag on a hook by the sink. After relieving herself, she stood in front of the mirror, running cold water over her hands. The stress was wearing her down, and the icy flow seemed to relax her. She cupped her hands and bent down, closing her eyes as she splashed water on her face and rubbed her hand around to the back of her neck. This was all insane, she knew, and she resolved to fight her growing paranoia.

  She threw her bag back over her shoulder and headed out of the ladies’ room, but as she opened the door out into the hallway, she froze.

  He was standing there, not more than twenty feet away, his back to her as he scanned the area near the stairway. She recognized him instantly, his thinning blond hair unmistakable even from behind, and she thought for a moment that she might actually vomit right then and there. It took all the control she had to keep from screaming, or collapsing, or both.