by Mike Lawson
Foster excelled at the backroom deal. He developed the strategies that got people elected. He knew how to leak things to the press in such a way that they never came back to bite him on the ass. And he could twist arms as arms had never been twisted before. He was an outstanding presidential chief of staff.
When he told the director of the FBI that Emma was to be allowed inside the investigation into Canton’s murder, Foster listened for about two minutes to all the reasons the FBI wasn’t comfortable with that—then basically told the director what Emma had said: Tough shit.
16
“Who is this damn woman?” Peyton asked, when Director Erby told him that Emma was being assigned by the White House to look over Peyton’s shoulder.
Erby said, “All I know is that she’s ex-DIA. She worked for them for about thirty years. The president’s chief is also ex-DIA, and I’m guessing that’s how he knows her. I tried to get her personnel file and ran into a brick wall at the Pentagon. Since I figured we didn’t have time to get into a pissing contest with the Joint Chiefs over classified files, I asked friends at IRS and Homeland what they could tell me about her. My guy at the IRS said she’s quite wealthy—she inherited some money when her folks died—and the rest she earned through investments. She hasn’t been employed since leaving the DIA, but according to Homeland, her passport shows she’s traveled to places people don’t usually go on vacation, places like Iran, Palestine, and Syria. The thing is, she went to these places during periods when the State Department said Americans shouldn’t go there, and her travel history made me wonder if she could be moonlighting for the DIA even though she’s supposedly retired. Whatever the case, we’re stuck with her.”
“Well, I don’t like this at all,” Peyton said. “How do we know she won’t talk to the press?”
Peyton was really thinking that this was the sort of thing that happens when the FBI director was a political appointee who didn’t have the balls to tell the White House to blow its orders up its ass.
“Foster assures me she would never do that. I’ve also told Foster that if she leaks anything or impedes the investigation in any way, we’ll give her the boot.”
Yeah, right. “Does she know DeMarco? Did he work with her when she was at the Pentagon? Is he a friend?”
“I don’t know that she has any history with DeMarco. DeMarco was never in the military, and she travels in completely different social circles from him. Oh, she’s gay by the way, not that that’s relevant. Foster says the only reason he wants her involved is that he wants an independent, politically unbiased source following the investigation, particularly now that he knows that Mahoney might have some connection to DeMarco.”
“That’s an insult to the bureau,” Peyton said. “We are a politically unbiased source.”
“Hey, Russ, what can I tell you? The president’s hatchet man wants her in, so she’s in. And anyway, what harm can she do?”
Peyton was in his office in the Hoover Building when he met Foster’s watchdog. After DeMarco’s arrest, the FBI had cleared out of the Capitol, allowing Congress to get back to doing whatever it is it does. The two-day interruption caused by the FBI’s investigation unsurprisingly had no apparent impact on the smooth running of the nation.
Peyton’s first impression when she walked into his office was that she was a striking-looking woman and a woman who, he sensed immediately, was used to being in charge. He could also tell, before they exchanged more than a dozen words, that she wasn’t the type to be intimidated by a senior member of the most powerful law enforcement organization in the world. He noticed that she was wearing two badges on lanyards around her neck: One badge was similar to his, and gave her unlimited access to the Hoover Building and the FBI lab at Quantico. The other badge gave her unlimited access to the Capitol. How in the hell had she managed to get those credentials? Foster, he guessed.
Peyton said, “Please sit down Ms.—”
“Call me Emma,” she said. “And thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
“I wasn’t given a choice,” Peyton said.
“And I was just being polite,” Emma said.
Peyton couldn’t help smiling. “So, what can I do for you? The president’s chief indicated that you would be, I guess, overseeing my investigation. Would you like one of my agents to give you a briefing on where things stand?”
“No,” Emma said. “I want to see the raw evidence myself without anyone playing middleman. Based on what’s been reported in the paper, I know you have video footage of Canton’s killer, ballistic evidence, DNA evidence, and so forth. I want to see everything, and after I do, maybe we’ll sit down and talk some more.”
“You understand that if you leak anything to the media—”
“I won’t be speaking to the media at all. I never have and never will.”
The way she said this, Peyton had the distinct impression that she had as much disdain for the jackals as he did.
Peyton called Agent Berman and told her to come to his office. While they were waiting for her, Peyton explained that Alice Berman was the agent who had discovered the clothes and the murder weapon in DeMarco’s office.
Two minutes later, Berman arrived and Peyton said to her, “This is Emma. She’s an independent observer assigned by the White House, and she’s to be allowed to see whatever we have on the Canton case. Evidence, field reports, information obtained by warrants, the whole nine yards. You’re her escort.”
“Excuse me, sir?” Berman said, clearly shocked that an outsider would be granted such access into an ongoing investigation.
“You heard me, Berman. Show her everything. Nothing, of course, is to leave the building, and she’s not allowed to make copies of anything. And you will stay with her at all times.”
Peyton thought Emma might push back on the directive not to make copies or to having Berman bird-dogging her, but she didn’t. She stood and said to Berman, “Lead the way, Agent.”
For the next six hours, Emma examined the mountain of information collected by the FBI. It was astounding what fifty field agents and technicians could accumulate in a forty-eight-hour period.
She looked at the video footage of the man in the Capitol Police uniform walking toward Canton’s office. She read through more than three hundred interviews agents conducted with people in the Capitol, including a number of interviews in which FBI agents asked people what they knew about DeMarco. She looked at photos of the uniform worn by the killer and close-ups of the fake Capitol Police insignia patch on the uniform. She examined the records related to the text message John Mahoney had sent to DeMarco, phone records proving DeMarco had called Mahoney, and the banking transaction sending a hundred thousand dollars to DeMarco’s savings account. She smiled slightly when she learned that the bureau had obtained DeMarco’s DNA from a hot dog he’d half-eaten at a golf course. Where else would he be on a Sunday but at a golf course? For that matter, if it had been a Monday he might have been there just as well.
She reviewed a memo that Peyton had prepared in which he summarized a meeting with the Richmond reporter who’d exposed Sebastian Spear’s affair with Canton’s wife. Another memo, prepared by an FBI profiler, concluded that the killer was intelligent, well organized, familiar with the Capitol’s security systems, and most likely not a terrorist or some nut who had acted impulsively. One thick file identified people who had sent threatening-sounding e-mails to Canton but also contained the reasons the Secret Service did not think these people should be added to a watch list or further investigated. In other words, the hate e-mails appeared to be from people just blowing off steam, ranting about Canton’s politics. The FBI had reviewed about half the e-mail senders and crossed them off its likely suspect list but hadn’t looked at the others after DeMarco was arrested.
She asked to see the photographs of DeMarco’s office taken at the time the bureau searched it. In one photo she saw what she was looking for: on the coatrack in DeMarco’s office were a trench coat and a flat woolen cap, th
e cap DeMarco would wear when it rained. DeMarco had stopped using umbrellas years ago because he always lost them. The hat was important.
The whole time Emma was reviewing the evidence, Berman sat there, clearly bored to death. At one point Emma said to Berman, “Agent, would you mind getting me a bottle of water and a sandwich, preferably one not containing meat. A tuna or egg salad sandwich would be perfect.”
Berman hesitated.
Emma said, “Agent, there is no copy machine in this room. And if you want, before I leave today, you can search me to make sure I haven’t taken anything.”
Berman said, “I’ll go get your sandwich, ma’am, as long as you agree not to leave the room while I’m gone.”
“I agree,” Emma said, smiling slightly. She liked that Berman was a young woman who took her job seriously.
As soon as Berman left the room, Emma pulled an object from the inside pocket of her jacket, an object that appeared to be a ballpoint pen—and that functioned as a ballpoint pen—and took photos of several documents, primarily those related to Mahoney’s text message and the banking transactions and the fake Capitol Police patch. She had an excellent memory but didn’t want to rely on it.
She ate the egg salad sandwich Berman brought her—it was awful—and continued to look at the evidence for two more hours. She then asked Berman to escort her back to Peyton’s office.
Peyton was sitting behind his desk, talking on the phone with someone. Emma concluded it was his wife when he said, “I have to go now, honey, but I should be home early tonight, no later than seven.”
He hung up the phone and said to Emma, “Well?”
She said, “You have an impressive circumstantial case against DeMarco.”
“I’m delighted you think so,” Peyton said, making no attempt to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “And I wouldn’t call it circumstantial.”
Emma couldn’t tell Peyton that she knew DeMarco wasn’t the killer because she knew DeMarco. If she admitted knowing DeMarco, Peyton would think she was biased and would certainly insist that James Foster remove her from the case. Instead of saying why she knew DeMarco was innocent, she said, “Yes, the evidence is circumstantial. The fact that the gun and the clothes the killer used were found in his office doesn’t mean that DeMarco hid them there.”
“The hair found in the ball cap proves DeMarco wore the cap,” Peyton countered.
“No, it doesn’t,” Emma said. “There’s a rain hat in DeMarco’s office clearly visible in the photos your people took. Hypothetically, and as I’m sure DeMarco’s attorney will argue, the killer could have taken hairs from DeMarco’s rain hat and placed them in the baseball cap.”
“What about the money transferred into DeMarco’s bank account?” Peyton said.
As Emma had no answer to Peyton’s question, she asked a question of her own: “Agent Peyton, have you considered the possibility that someone may be trying to frame DeMarco for Canton’s murder?”
“You know, John Mahoney said the same thing, and I’ll tell you what I told him. In my twenty-five years in the bureau, I’ve never heard of a single person being framed for a crime.”
“Well, how would you have heard?” Emma said. “If the frame was perfect, an innocent man would be sent to jail and no one would ever know.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never even heard of a botched frame. Nor can I remember a defense attorney ever making a plausible argument in court that a client was framed. Mistaken identity, yes. Framed, no. People are framed in movies.”
When Emma didn’t immediately respond, Peyton said, “Let me ask you something, Emma. If a smart, rich person like you wanted someone dead, why would you do something as complicated as framing someone for the murder? Killing the guy yourself in some clever way would be simpler. Or if you couldn’t do it yourself, why not just hire a sniper to shoot the guy?”
“I’ll tell you why,” Emma said, “and the reason is you.”
“Me?” Peyton said.
“Yes. If the person I wanted to kill was a U.S. congressman, I would know that the FBI would assign a man like you to the case, along with a hundred other agents, and you wouldn’t give up until you caught me. But if I framed someone and if you caught the person I framed immediately—which you did in the case of DeMarco—then I might get away with the murder because you’d no longer be hunting for me.”
Peyton frowned. “Does that mean you’re going to tell Foster that I should be hunting for someone other than DeMarco?”
“No. I’m going to tell Mr. Foster that you’ve done an outstanding job proving that DeMarco is guilty. But I have one question and one request.”
“Okay,” Peyton said, relieved that Emma didn’t intend to go running to Foster with a complaint.
“Early in your investigation, consideration was being given to polygraph-testing the Capitol cops. Were any polygraph tests ever administered?”
“No. After we arrested DeMarco, there didn’t appear to be any reason to do that. And at this point, I don’t want to ask the Capitol Police to polygraph thirteen hundred people, as it will cause them a lot of employee aggravation, and they’ll spend hundreds of man-hours doing something that distracts them from their mission. Are you saying that we should polygraph them?”
“No. I just wondered if any testing had been done.”
“What was the second thing?” Peyton said. “The request?”
“I saw that you asked for and received an electronic copy of the personnel files of everyone working for the Capitol Police. I’d like a copy of that information, and I want to take it with me so I can go through it at my leisure.”
“Why?” Peyton said.
“Why not?” Emma said. “I can ask the president’s chief of staff to obtain the information for me directly from the Capitol Police, but since you already have it, it’d be simpler if you cooperated and provided it. It would be a shame if I had to bother someone as busy as Mr. Foster.”
She could tell that Peyton didn’t want to give her anything, but she could also imagine what he was thinking: if she was wasting her time looking at the personnel records of thirteen hundred people, she wouldn’t be bugging him or meddling in his investigation.
“Fine. I’ll have Berman make you a copy of the file we got from the Capitol cops.”
As she was leaving the Hoover Building, Emma called a man named Neil.
17
Considering some of the things he had done for Mahoney over the years, it was surprising that up till now DeMarco had spent only one day in jail. He’d been tossed into a cell by a corrupt redneck sheriff in some southern backwater, but Mahoney had landed on state politicians like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla and managed to get him sprung in a day. And in the southern jail, he’d been the only occupant, spent his time bullshitting pleasantly with the Barney Fife deputy on duty, and caught up on his sleep. The experience hadn’t been much different from spending the day in a not-so-comfortable motel room, and his primary emotion had been boredom—as opposed to abject fear.
By comparison, the Alexandria city jail was like the waiting room to hell—hell being the federal prison where he would end up if convicted. The jail was crowded; it had been designed to hold x number of occupants and was now holding three or four times x. There was a monkey-house odor to the place; it was noisy with men talking loudly and constantly, and it seemed as if someone was always screaming. Jails are a convenient place to park the mentally ill, and DeMarco suspected the screamers were nuts off their meds.
Since his arrival, the only thing DeMarco could think about—other than the fact that he might be convicted of Lyle Canton’s murder—was every prison movie he’d ever seen, and Hollywood directors seemed to be fairly consistent in their portrayal of prison life. He knew, therefore, that prisons were filled with violent, frustrated people with little to zero impulse control—thus the odds of being beaten to a pulp were fairly high. All it took was inadvertently crossing some invisible line in the sand or looking for too long into the eyes of a p
sychopath, and some guy who had spent most of his adult life lifting jailhouse weights would use his head for a punching bag.
Then there was the possibility of sexual assault, and DeMarco couldn’t get out of his head the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where an innocent Tim Robbins finds himself in a storeroom, backed into a corner by three sadistic deviants, and the next thing you hear is Morgan Freeman’s mellow voice saying, “I’d like to tell you that Andy fought them off but …”
After a sleepless night, thanks to anxiety and the screaming maniac down the hall, DeMarco was led to the cafeteria by a silent guard. He wondered if today he’d be put into a cell with other inmates. He suspected not. He knew, even if most of the other inmates probably didn’t, that he was a celebrity—the man who’d killed Lyle Canton—and he doubted the head jailer wanted the publicity he’d get if DeMarco was mauled or molested before his trial.
He shuffled forward in the serving line. He didn’t feel like eating but knew it would be unwise to pass up a meal. He needed to keep his strength up—back to the storeroom scene in The Shawshank Redemption. He observed that the men sitting in the cafeteria were, most likely of their own volition, racially segregated. Blacks sat with blacks, Hispanics with Hispanics; white guys with too many tattoos ate with other tattooed white guys. He knew his chances of surviving in prison would increase if he joined a gang. He wasn’t yet ready, however, to join the Aryan Brotherhood and get a swastika tattooed on his forehead—but it was early days.
He collected his breakfast from servers who never looked at him as they slapped food onto his tray: something yellow and runny that might have been scrambled eggs, burned bacon, two dry pieces of toast, and a little cup of fruit. (It was the fruit cup that some guy built like a Redskins linebacker would pluck off his tray to see if DeMarco was willing to fight to the death for sliced peaches—and, of course, he’d have to fight. According to Spielberg, Scorsese, and others of their ilk, he couldn’t show weakness or he’d end up being someone’s boy toy for the remainder of his stay.)