The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  He nodded to the officer and drove through the multitude of people.

  “Okay, you said you had some messages. Anything important?”

  “Nothing special, T.”

  “Thank God!”

  “Well, a man named Curtis wanted to get hold of you, but then we were cut off. I don’t know, I think his battery ran out. He sounded desperate.”

  The news was like a slap in the face. Poor bastard, thought T.

  “And then a woman called for you, too. She sounded like she knew you. A private matter, perhaps?” She gave a short laugh.

  “What was her name? Can you remember?”

  “Come on, chief! Why should I have to remember anything? They’ve invented something called the pencil, you know.”

  “And . . . ?”

  She exhaled demonstratively as she paged through her pad of paper. “She said her name was Doggie, but she wouldn’t leave a number, poor thing. I wonder why?” A giggle escaped.

  T ignored her. “That’s nice. But you have that number on your twenty-inch display, right?”

  “Just a moment, I have to check . . . Yes, here it is. The phone’s registered in the name of one Frank Lee in the Bronx, but it was this ‘Doggie’ who phoned. No doubt about that.”

  He scribbled that number down, too, as he turned off the road when he came to the sign at the entrance to Sussex. He’d read that sign so many times before, with its warning against bringing alcohol, poisons, firearms, or ammunition onto the prison grounds. Anyone who did so would be charged with violating Section 18.2-474.1, Code of Virginia. Yes, T knew warnings like these. They were erected all over his territory.

  He drove up past the power station and parked his car between two of the white delivery trucks that were always standing in front of the main entrance. He waved up at the closest watchtower, as usual, only this time no one waved back.

  What the hell’s going on here? he wondered, and looked in through the first perimeter fence. Even here, in the middle of the day, there were no signs of life. Not one single prisoner in his bright-colored jumpsuit poking around among the plants or playing basketball.

  All the hallways, from the main guard post to Bill Pagelow Falso’s office, were deserted, too.

  “Where is everybody?” he asked the only prison employee he ran into. “Isn’t it a little early for vacation time?”

  “Vacation? Are you kidding, Sheriff? How many of us do you think are left?”

  CHAPTER 29

  Warden Falso had always had an anemic secretary with a broad southern accent and a bosom of more impressive size than the piles of paperwork on her desk. Now the secretarial attraction was gone—along with all the paperwork and everything else in her office—and the gaping file cabinets were as empty as a politician’s campaign promise. T continued on to the prison’s inner sanctum, Bill Pagelow Falso’s windowless office. Here he expected to be greeted by a similar barren sight, but encountered the opposite. Warden Falso looked up at him with heavy eyelids over huge stacks of case files that lay like hopelessly stranded baby whales on his desk. Behind him were three more trolley tables laden with files. Then there was the floor, which served as a wastebasket for discarded papers and the countless Hershey’s bar wrappers that did their part in providing a new layer of insulation to Falso’s corpulent body.

  It was impossible not to notice Falso’s distress regarding the state of affairs. The dark circles under his eyes had always been legendary, but now they dominated his face to the point where they paradoxically seemed almost to disappear.

  “Mr. T. Perkins himself, I see,” came the tired greeting. “How’s it goin’?”

  T looked around. “How it’s going? You’re asking me?”

  Falso’s bulldog cheeks trembled. “Yeah, this is real life these days. Everything’s been stood on its head. Yesterday we released the last prisoners—except those on death row, of course. The rest of the trash is back on the street. Where, in God’s name, is it all going to end?”

  “I thought the cells would be teeming with militiamen.”

  “You did, did you? Nay, the military keep them for itself. Just drive up to Quantico Marine Base or Fort A.P. Hill—you’ll see what I mean. We only get the ones who are condemned to death—and far from all of them, you can be sure. And thank God for that. Civilian doctors are refusing to come out here anymore. If it weren’t for the military doctors, I’d have to stick those needles in the poor idiots myself.”

  T pointed at the files upon which Falso’s beefy arms rested. “If there are no prisoners left, then why all these files?”

  “These? With a little luck, a truck will soon be coming to cart all the archives and case files to someplace down in Florida where they’re all being stockpiled. So I just have to make sure there isn’t something in them we don’t want others to read. You understand, don’t you?”

  T nodded and looked at the papers that had landed on the floor. It looked like plenty of documents weren’t going to make the trip to Florida.

  As though anyone cared these days.

  “I’m going to get to the point, Bill.” He took the chair Falso used to cross-examine inmates, pulled it around behind the desk, cleared a space for his laptop, and sat down next to the big man.

  “Bud Curtis is still on death row, isn’t he?”

  “Curtis? Yes, he’s meeting God on Monday.” Falso didn’t seem concerned. In a little less than an hour, at six o’clock, he’d be going down to take charge of the day’s execution. Purely routine. Others couldn’t stand work like this in the long run, but T was sure Falso could. He believed in himself, and that he was carrying out God’s work.

  “Listen, Bill. I know you’ve heard stuff like what I’m about to say in hundreds of cases, but I’m actually convinced that Curtis is innocent.” He lay an arm on Falso’s shoulder to ward off the man’s reaction. “Lend me your ears and eyes for twenty minutes, Bill, and see if you don’t agree there’s reasonable doubt in this case.”

  Falso gave T a weary look. “He’s already a dead man, T. I can’t do anything for a dead man.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” He unfolded the laptop and clicked on the folder with the video files. “You’ve probably seen these video clips before—many times, maybe—but I still want you to hear what I have to say about them, okay?”

  “They’ll be calling me from down on death row in a moment, just so you know. In fifty minutes I have to start my part of the proceedings for today’s execution.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can.” T knew what he was up against. There was no way Falso was going to change his routine.

  “This is the sequence where Mimi Jansen is shot.” He lit a cigarette and offered one to Falso, who declined. The overflowing ashtray and the man’s labored breathing indicated he was reaching his quota. “Check out Thomas Sunderland. See his jacket? Everything’s in place.” He fast-forwarded.

  “Here! This is just a minute later, but now the jacket-pocket lining is inside out, see? His hand’s been in and out of his pocket.”

  Falso shrugged his shoulders.

  “And here’s another file. This is NBC’s cameraman, after he dropped the camera on the floor. The picture’s out of focus now, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Good, we agree. But look at this. Everything’s out of focus and suddenly there’s a little, indistinct spot up here in the corner of the lens. And then, look what happens. The spot stretches slowly downward. Not much, but a little.”

  “I don’t know what you think it’s supposed to mean. Where’d you get these files, by the way?” Falso looked at his watch.

  T shrugged his shoulders. That was nothing Falso needed to know. “Just wait another minute, Bill. I want to show just one more file, then I’ll explain what I think it means. . . . Okay, here you see Bud Curtis talking with Mimi Jansen, right? He’s clearly nodding at what she’s sayi
ng. She’s asking for a glass of water, and he’s agreeing to get it for her. And now he’s leaving to fetch the water; that’s what he claimed at the trial, so why not?” T clicked on another file. “And here he comes back in. True enough, there’s no glass of water in his hand, even though from the position of his hand it could easily have been there. But look what happens when he reenters: He sees all the people lying on the floor, screaming, and now he looks over to the spot where Mimi Jansen was shot. Look . . . there! There!”

  “I still don’t know what’s happening, T. What am I supposed to see?”

  “He gives a start the moment he comes in. He opens his hand a little bit, look!”

  “And so . . . ? Come on, T, of course he gives a start. That’s not so strange, with people suddenly all over the floor. Listen, I’m on my way to an execution, so this is a kind of awkward moment to plague me with these kinds of details. I know you’re good at your job, and I have the greatest respect for you—professionally and as a person—but what is it you’re trying to prove?”

  “Aw, hell, Bill, you won’t be late. That doomed soul won’t leave without you.”

  Falso gave T. Perkins a sharp glance. “You know I don’t like it when folks swear, T.”

  “Sorry, pardon me. Take a good look at this—it’s important. I’m convinced it’s here that Curtis drops the glass, Bill. Someone’s tampered with the video file, I’m sure of it.”

  “Tampered with it? Why would anyone take the trouble?” He looked doubtful. Doubtful enough to shake a man’s convictions. “I tell you, with God as my witness: Your argument’s awful shaky, T. It’s not like you.”

  “Dammit, Bill, help me now! Just a couple more clips. Keep your eye on the Secret Service agent and Sunderland and the killer and their relative positions, okay?”

  He gave a deep sigh. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t swear, T. You know how I feel about it.” His face turned into a fierce frown. “I’ll look at what you brought—though I doubt it’ll help Bud Curtis—but only if you watch your language. The Lord hears all! Remember that!”

  T sat back in his chair and studied Falso through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “I’m going to tell you what I think happened, Bill. Are you ready now?”

  “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  “Okay. I can’t say why, but our vice president, Thomas Sunderland, is behind this assassination—that’s what I think. He wants all this to happen, which is why he’s happy to accept Bud Curtis’s offer to hold election night at his hotel in Virginia Beach. He finds out that Curtis has said bad things about Jansen and that Curtis has a handyman, Toby O’Neill, who is both easy to manipulate and has an ingrown hatred for Jansen and his wife. Is that plausible—all in all?”

  Falso looked at his watch again.

  “If you agree that it’s plausible so far, then it’s not impossible that Sunderland gets a security agent—under a false name—to ask Curtis to have O’Neill unveil the painting. Is it? Next, Sunderland’s people lure O’Neill into doing the killing by offering him lots of money. They tell him everything will be okay if he just keeps his mouth shut. You know it from the Bible. They just call him Judas there.”

  “It’s a theory, all right, but it sounds crazy. You can hear that, can’t you, T?”

  T cast a sidelong glance at the bulging ashtray and ground his cigarette butt into a plate bearing a dry rind of Mrs. Falso’s home cooking. “Nevertheless, I think that’s what happened. On election evening they have a gun ready that Sunderland’s men have stolen from the drawer in Curtis’s office. Security had access to all the rooms, so nothing could have been easier. Then they load the weapon with shells already equipped with Curtis’s fingerprints that they applied by using some kind of rubber stamp method. After that, the plan was for O’Neill to wait by the painting and shoot Mimi Jansen or the president or both of them. I’m not sure which, and it really doesn’t matter now. Then O’Neill was to be immediately dispatched to the next world, too.”

  T knew Bill Falso hated long explanations. Plus, as prison warden, he’d spent most of his life around people who’d rather lose an arm than tell the truth. His body size had mushroomed in keeping with his growing loathing of other people and all the bullshit he’d heard, and even now T could see how Falso’s eyes were darting around the room for something to sink his teeth into while T made his case.

  These were extremely bad odds, even for a seasoned sheriff from Highland County.

  “I think we should assume that it was Sunderland’s men who hacked into Bud Curtis’s computer and online bank account and transferred a nice sum of money to O’Neill’s account.” He was relieved to see that Falso had stopped thinking about food and started listening again. “Slowly, and in all kinds of ways, the masterminds of this plan prepare and plant evidence that can make Curtis the scapegoat. But then several things go wrong that change events and foul up the execution of their conspiracy.”

  “Yes, mistakes are always one of the aspects of crime,” said Falso, and turned his attention to a Hershey’s bar on the windowsill.

  “Listen, Bill, my theory is that the Secret Service agent who was waiting in the corridor with O’Neill wasn’t the guy it originally was supposed to be, that the Secret Service moved in on Jansen’s own security people’s territory. Yeah, I know I’m on thin ice here . . .”

  Falso nodded his agreement as he considered reaching for the Hershey’s bar.

  “It’d been more logical if O’Neill had had the gun on him from the beginning, and that the Secret Service agent next to him knew the assassination was going to take place. But for some reason it wasn’t like that, and here’s what I think happened instead:

  “The group comes into the corridor. It’s likely most of the agents present aren’t in on the plot. But Ben Kane is. He’s head of Jansen’s security corps. That big fellow from the trial with the gold bracelets. He’s an old buddy of Sunderland’s from their military days, and he’s Sunderland’s man. Even though it’s never been mentioned—let alone proven—he’s the one who shoots O’Neill. Of course it had always been the plan to have O’Neill shot, just not by Ben Kane, and I’ll explain why in a minute.”

  Falso finally grabbed the candy bar, only to find out it was an empty wrapper. T could imagine how he felt.

  “Are you with me, Bill?”

  “Yes, I’m with you.”

  “Okay: They come into the corridor. Kane’s walking just in front of Sunderland, and behind them come Jansen and his wife. Here comes a Secret Service agent to search O’Neill for the second time that day. You can see that on the video, but can you see something else, too?”

  He clicked on a clip that he’d flagged the night before. “People are very close together here,” he continued. “You can see Kane and then Sunderland. And now . . . Now the agent has body-searched O’Neill, with Kane coming up behind them. Take a look at Sunderland’s expression while O’Neill’s unveiling the painting. Look at Sunderland’s face right there. See how he looks around and crowds in right behind Kane. He’s standing on tiptoes like he’s trying to see what’s happening over Kane’s shoulder. In reality, there was enough room for him to go around Kane, yet he didn’t. That’s where I think he passes the gun to Kane. And now look how Kane starts forcing his way forward with his right arm concealed behind his back, and the arm stays there until he’s behind O’Neill. This is where I believe Kane sticks the weapon in O’Neill’s pocket. You can’t see it, but I guarantee that’s what’s happening.”

  The corners of Falso’s mouth turned demonstratively downward. Was it skepticism, or was he still thinking about that Hershey’s bar? “That’s some theory, I must say. Why in the world wasn’t Kane holding the weapon to begin with?” he rumbled.

  “Why? That’s very simple, Bill. Where would he have kept it?”

  “In his jacket or pants pocket—where else?”

  “Let me freeze this picture. Se
e his jacket? How would you describe it? It’s short, isn’t it? It doesn’t completely cover his pants pocket, so he couldn’t have something that big in his pants pocket without it being partly visible. Now take a look at Kane’s jacket pocket. See anything unusual?”

  “They’re cut at an angle, and there are no flaps. I have a sports jacket like that, too. What does that prove?”

  “Now look at Sunderland’s jacket. How would you describe it?”

  “It’s a tweed jacket, a discreet tweed jacket. The pockets have no flaps, either. You see?”

  “No, but they’re deep and they’re open—that’s the difference. Ben Kane’s jacket pockets are still sewn shut, I promise. Show me ten of Ben Kane’s black-suited bodyguards, and I’ll show you ten pairs of jacket pockets that are sewn shut so they don’t catch on anything at a critical moment. Most of these guys are former elite soldiers. They don’t take chances, believe me. And if Kane’s pockets aren’t sewn, they sure as hell aren’t deep enough to hold a weapon of the caliber used to kill Toby O’Neill, anyway.”

  He excused his profanity and clicked the tape forward again. “Now we come to the shooting—see for yourself. Look how everyone gives a start while they’re looking up at the painting. Next we hear someone scream indistinctly; then we hear the second shot and there’s O’Neill—dead. Happens pretty fast, doesn’t it? How can it go so fast, Bill, can you tell me that? Who’d be able to identify the perpetrator so quickly in a crowd of panicking people?”

  “Someone who was standing right next to him, I presume.”

  “But none of the security men are standing close enough at that moment. The senators’ spouses have all crowded together up by the painting, see? But one of the people in that crowd already knows O’Neill is going to shoot, and that’s Ben Kane. And he’s ready to kill instantly, with a precise, open shot through all those people. . . . There it is! At the same time, the other agents are each firing at who they think is the culprit. They’re shooting to neutralize, not to kill. But some of the bullets ricochet into the crowd—that’s what happens in situations like this. One person’s hit in the shoulder, another in the arm, a third in the leg, and so on. All those shots are fired by professionals who know what to aim for in a situation like that. None of this sequence of events was dwelt upon very much at the trial, but a lot was made of the fact that Bud Curtis had left the scene and returned only after everything had happened, and that he claimed to have fetched a glass of water that no one could find. Doesn’t it seem strange: the court’s priorities regarding all the incidents that took place in those moments?”