by Mike Lawson
But did his ruthlessness as a businessman mean he’d actually kill another human being? There was no way for Peyton to know—and he wasn’t going to base his decisions on secondhand reports of someone’s character.
The character of Sebastian Spear, however, was about to become irrelevant.
The press conference went the way those things normally go. Peyton had realized a long time ago that members of the media—particularly the television media—weren’t really interested in simply reporting the facts. They wanted a story to entertain and titillate the viewers. The TV types also wanted to be part of the story—as if the news was a Broadway play in which they had strong supporting roles.
A female reporter from Fox—a woman who’d been the runner-up in a Miss America contest and who, Peyton suspected, had a brain the size of a cashew—asked Peyton whether Sebastian Spear was a suspect, as he’d threatened the congressman at his wife’s funeral.
Peyton said he was not.
When the same reporter asked if it was possible that Spear had hired a killer, Peyton pointed at another reporter whose hand was in the air. The Fox reporter gave the camera a pouty look with her perfect, pouty lips: Can you believe he just ignored me?
When asked whether Canton’s murder could have been politically motivated, perhaps having to do with the bill he was working on the night he died, Peyton said, “We have no idea what the motive was at this point. We’re exploring all possibilities.”
Another TV reporter, a man who was a walking advertisement for the benefits of plastic surgery, asked: “How could a person posing as a member of the U.S. Capitol Police gain access to the building?”
Peyton said, “Well, since he was dressed in the uniform of a Capitol cop, he could have simply walked in.” He didn’t add, you dummy.
At the end of the press conference, Peyton looked into the cameras and said that the bureau had established a hotline, and anyone with information related to the congressman’s death was encouraged to call. He said the FBI was also offering a half-million-dollar reward for information that would lead to a conviction.
The FBI hotline was flooded with calls.
One caller said that Barack Obama had formed a squad of Muslim assassins after leaving office and was bumping off Republicans he found particularly annoying. Another said she saw a man who went by the street name of Hammer lurking near the Capitol around the time Canton was killed. She said she knew Hammer to be a stone-cold killer. When asked how she knew Hammer, she said she used to be married to the asshole.
But not all the callers were crazy. One suggested that the FBI investigate a former Canton aide whom Canton had fired during his last campaign and then blacklisted from getting another job in politics. The FBI followed up on that call.
Another man, calling from a cell phone with a blocked number, said: “You need to take a hard look at a guy named Joe DeMarco. Check out who his father was and who he works for, and you’ll see what I mean.”
That call interested the FBI because a Joe DeMarco had been in the Capitol at the time Canton was killed.
6
At the time the call came into the FBI hotline, an FBI agent had already interviewed Joe DeMarco. He had been interviewed less than three hours after the congressman’s body had been found.
The agent who interviewed him was a young woman named Alice Berman, and she’d gone to DeMarco’s home to question him, because DeMarco had not come to work the morning Canton’s body was discovered. This didn’t surprise Berman. For one thing, it was Saturday. Plus, she figured that DeMarco had probably heard about Canton’s death on the news and learned that the Capitol was locked down.
DeMarco lived on P Street in Georgetown in a narrow two-story town house of white-painted brick. The grass needed mowing, and the shrubs needed trimming—but DeMarco didn’t appear to care. When Berman arrived at his place, the garage door was open, and DeMarco was placing a golf bag and golf shoes in the trunk of his car. He was wearing a faded red golf shirt, knee-length beige shorts, and flip-flops.
Berman introduced herself and said she’d come to interview him because he’d been in the Capitol at the time Congressman Canton was killed—and DeMarco had appeared genuinely surprised to hear this. He said, “I heard about Canton a couple of hours ago on the radio, but I had no idea it happened when I was in the building.”
Berman thought DeMarco was a good-looking man: muscular build, thick dark hair combed straight back, blue eyes, a prominent nose, a cleft in a big square chin. He seemed relaxed and friendly when he spoke to her, but she sensed something hard about the guy—an edge that was difficult to define—and she imagined he could be intimidating when he chose to be. It didn’t occur to Berman until later, after she’d been subconsciously influenced by what she subsequently learned about DeMarco’s father, that DeMarco looked like someone who could have played the part of a Mafia hood in a movie, like one of the guys Tony Soprano sent to break the legs of a deadbeat who owed him money.
“Did you know Congressman Canton?” Berman asked.
“No,” DeMarco said. “I knew who he was, of course, but I never met the man or ever spoke to him.”
“Did you see anything unusual last night?”
“Like what?” DeMarco said.
Berman almost said, Like a guy with a gun walking around—but didn’t. She said, “Did you see anyone in the building who struck you as odd in any way? Someone you didn’t recognize, someone who seemed out of place. Did you hear anything unusual?”
At the time Berman asked this question, she wasn’t aware that FBI agents examining video footage had concluded that the killer was dressed as a Capitol cop.
“No,” DeMarco said. “My office is in the basement. Well, actually, the subbasement, and I was in it the whole time I was there last night. Canton’s office is up on the third floor, and I never went near there.”
Berman said, “Why did you go to your office last night? Logs maintained by the Capitol police show you arrived at nine forty-five and left approximately fifty minutes later.”
Berman noticed that DeMarco hesitated briefly before he answered. He said, “I had dinner last night on Capitol Hill. Afterward—”
“Where did you have dinner?”
“At 701.”
This was a restaurant at 701 Pennsylvania Avenue, close to the Capitol.
“After dinner, I decided to stop by my office and pick up a novel I’d been reading. Also a gym bag full of clothes that were overdue for washing, but mostly I went to get the novel, which I wanted to finish.”
“It took you almost an hour to pick up a book?” Berman said.
Another brief hesitation. “No. When I got to my office I decided to review something I’d been working on, and, you know, time passed.”
Berman had the sense that DeMarco was making up the story as he was going along. But why would the guy lie?
“Did you have dinner alone?” she asked.
DeMarco said, “No. I had a date.”
“And you interrupted your date to go pick up a book?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was a first date. We had dinner, and afterward I caught a cab for her, and she went home.” He smiled and said, “You know how first dates go.”
Berman did. She’d had a lot of first dates that hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped.
DeMarco said, “So since I was near my office and had nothing better to do for the rest of the night, I went to pick up the novel. Then, like I told you, I got caught up in some work stuff and lost track of the time.”
“What was your date’s name?” Berman said.
“Do you really need to know that?” DeMarco said.
“Yes. This is a murder investigation. We need to know everything. Is there some reason you’re reluctant to tell me the woman’s name?”
“Her name is Carol Hansen.”
“What’s Carol’s phone number?”
DeMarco shook his head—as if Berman were being silly—but pulled out his cell phone and read off a number.
Berman concluded the interview not long after that. DeMarco bothered her because she’d sensed that he wasn’t being completely truthful or was holding something back. On the other hand, when he’d said that he didn’t know Canton and had never spoken to the man, it had sounded as if he was telling the truth.
It wasn’t long before Berman learned that DeMarco had lied his ass off.
Because she’d interviewed DeMarco the day before, Peyton assigned Alice Berman to follow up on the hotline call. Four hours later, Berman knocked on the door to Peyton’s temporary office and said, “Boss, I need to have a word with you.”
Peyton liked Berman. She was a bright young woman, twenty-nine years old, who’d been an Arlington County cop before being hired by the bureau. She had a degree in criminal justice, a good record as a cop, and had made a name for herself with Arlington County when she went undercover to bust a guy selling illegally modified AR-15s to yokels. She was tall and athletic—she’d played volleyball in college—and good-looking in a wholesome, healthy, girl-next-door sort of way. She was also able to deflect sexual advances from male agents without getting all bent out of shape, which Peyton really appreciated.
He gestured her to a chair in front of his desk.
“This guy, DeMarco, is interesting,” Berman said.
“Why’s that?” Peyton said.
“Well, to start with, he looks like the killer.” By now Berman had seen the video footage of the primary suspect. “He’s five eleven, has dark hair, and weighs one eighty according to his driver’s license. Second, he works down in the subbasement, and from the cameras that tracked the killer, the killer might have come from the subbasement. DeMarco’s worked in this building for a long time, and he’d know where all the cameras are if he made the effort to locate them. But the interesting thing, and like the guy said who called the hotline, is his father and who DeMarco works for, although that’s not exactly clear.”
“It’s not clear who he works for? How could it not be clear?”
“Boss, I’ve spent the last four hours trying to get a handle on DeMarco. According to his personnel file he’s an independent counsel who serves members of Congress on an ad hoc basis.”
“An ad hoc basis? What does that mean?”
“I have no idea. And on his office door it says he’s ‘Counsel Pro Tem for Liaison Affairs,’ and I don’t know what that means either. So I started talking to people. I began with the House Office of General Counsel, figuring if he was a lawyer they’d know him, but they’ve never heard of the guy and don’t have a clue what he does. I looked at the congressional staff directory. He’s not on anyone’s staff. I went back to his personnel file and saw a note in the file that said any questions regarding his position should be directed to a Beverly Rawlins over at the Office of Personnel Management. The note was dated and over a decade old.
“Rawlins is now retired but I tracked her down in Florida, and when I mentioned DeMarco’s name, she said, ‘Oh, yeah, that guy. I always knew there was something fishy about him.’ When I asked what she meant, she told me that years ago she’d been assigned to do a personnel review, looking for positions that could be trimmed to reduce the budget, and she came across DeMarco. Just like me, she couldn’t figure out what he did or whom he worked for. Well, she started poking around and gets a call from John Mahoney, who was Speaker of the House at the time. It blew her away that Mahoney would call her personally. Anyway, Mahoney told her to back off on DeMarco and not to screw with his position. He said DeMarco was on a special assignment for him and he didn’t want anything to interfere with what he was doing. When Rawlins complained to her boss about Mahoney, her boss told her to back off too, saying that he wasn’t about to get into a wrestling match with the Speaker of the House over a single GS-13 position.”
“Huh. That is a bit strange,” Peyton said. “Although I’ll bet you there are all kinds of people employed by Congress that have special relationships with somebody. Nepotism is alive and well, Berman. Is DeMarco related to Mahoney?”
“No, sir. I’ll get to DeMarco’s relatives later. Anyway, after talking to Rawlins, I headed up to Mahoney’s office and—”
“You talked to John Mahoney?”
“No, sir. I figured talking to the minority leader of the House was above my pay grade.”
“Good decision, Berman.”
“I showed DeMarco’s picture to a couple of people on Mahoney’s staff, including Mahoney’s head secretary. The secretary turned all frosty on me and said any questions regarding personnel who were not members of Mahoney’s staff should be directed to OPM. But this other woman, she said, ‘Oh, yeah, I know Joe. He’s a hunk. I tried to hook him up with my sister but he never called her.’ I asked her, ‘What does he do?’ and she said she didn’t know, that he was sort of mysterious—those were her words, sort of mysterious—but she’d seen him several times going in and out of Mahoney’s office.”
Berman leaned back in her chair and said, “So, boss, I don’t know what this guy does. All I know is that he has some connection to Mahoney. I also don’t understand why the hotline caller would say to check out who DeMarco works for. I mean, since I can’t figure out who he works for and since nobody else seems to know, how would the caller know who he works for?”
Peyton glanced at his watch—he needed to give the director an update in half an hour—and Berman wasn’t telling him anything that appeared to be useful. He said, “What’s the story on his father?”
Berman laughed. “You won’t believe this. His father was a guy named Gino DeMarco. He died right after Joe DeMarco graduated from law school. Anyway, Gino was an honest-to-God hit man for the old Italian mob up in New York.”
“Really,” Peyton said.
“Yes, sir. I talked to our organized crime guys and the OC guys in NYPD, and as far as anyone knows, Joe DeMarco has never had anything to do with the mob up there. He has a cousin in Queens who’s a fence, but other than that, he has no known connection to the mob.” Berman laughed again. “His cousin, by the way, married DeMarco’s one and only ex-wife after she and DeMarco got divorced. I have no idea what the story behind that is.”
“Is there any reason to believe that the Mafia had anything to do with Canton’s death?” Peyton asked. “For example, was he working on legislation that might have affected organized crime in some way?”
“I talked to Norton—”
Norton was the agent that Peyton had assigned to look at pending legislation that might provide some motive for killing Canton.
“—and he said there was nothing organized crime– or Mafia-related on Canton’s agenda and hadn’t been for the last four years. I mean, no speeches on the subject, no bills he was sponsoring, nothing like that.”
“Do you have a suggestion as to how we should proceed with Mr. DeMarco, Berman?”
“Yes, sir. But just one more thing. I interviewed DeMarco yesterday, and I think he lied to me.”
“About what?”
“When I asked him why he was in the Capitol at ten on a Friday night, he gave me this story about stopping by to pick up a book he was reading. The story just sounded off to me. Anyway, to answer your question, I want to search his office. He’s not here today, which isn’t surprising since it’s Sunday, but people I talked to who work on his floor said he doesn’t spend much time in his office anyway. Which again makes you wonder what he really does. So I want to search his office mainly because I think he may have lied to me, but I don’t think I have enough for a warrant.”
“You don’t need a warrant,” Peyton said. “This is a public building and the owner of the building, namely the U.S. Government, has given us permission to search it.”
“Good. I’d also like to take a look at his phone records and bank accounts. If his phone records show a connection to Sebastian Spear, then—”
“That will require a warrant, Berman, and it doesn’t sound to me like you have enough for one. But go see what the lawyers say. Maybe the hotline call plus DeMa
rco’s physical similarity to the killer will be enough. While you’re waiting to hear back from the lawyers, do the office search. It can’t hurt.”
7
An hour later, Berman walked back into Peyton’s office. The front of her white blouse was streaked with dirt.
“Sir, you need to come with me. I found something.”
Berman’s smart brown eyes were shining like spotlights.
Peyton followed Berman to the subbasement, passing a workroom the maintenance people used and a room containing an emergency diesel generator. The heavy hitters were clearly not housed on this floor. As Berman had told him, on the frosted glass of DeMarco’s office door were the words Counsel Pro Tem for Liaison Affairs. Peyton still had no idea what they could possibly mean.
DeMarco’s office was unimpressive. Peyton had a toolshed in his backyard that was larger. There were a desk that had probably been purchased when Jimmy Carter was president, two old wooden chairs, and a single gray metal, four-drawer file cabinet. All the file drawers were open and the only thing in the cabinet was a lone bottle of Hennessy cognac.
“Did you take anything out of the file cabinet?” Peyton asked.
“No, sir,” Berman said. “That bottle was the only thing in it. You’ll also notice there is no paperwork in here related to congressional business. No bills currently working their way through the House, no legal briefings on laws being proposed, no reports from organizations like the Congressional Budget Office. The only paperwork in here is two copies of the Washington Post and five copies of Golf Digest, which makes me wonder what DeMarco was supposedly working on for fifty minutes the night Canton was killed.”
Peyton gestured at the computer. “Maybe he was using the computer.”
“Maybe,” Berman said. “It’s password-protected, so I don’t know. I’m going to need tech help to get into it and, I’m guessing, a warrant. And after you’ve seen what I found, a warrant won’t be a problem.”