The Jury Master

by Robert Dugoni

  “In his briefcase.”

  “Who else knows about this?”

  “Difficult to say. The briefcase was in his office when we went in to . . . check for things. The office was still sealed, so possibly no one, but I can’t be sure.”

  “Be sure.”

  Jones nodded, taking back the letter. The sound of the air conditioner hummed above them. “Excuse me for saying so, General, but you don’t appear surprised.”

  Madsen smirked. “Very little surprises me anymore about men and their character, Rivers. I’ve spent my life evaluating men. Unfortunately I’ve become a cynic. Few men are as they appear. I told you when I briefed you on the situation that I suspected more. I’m sure this is another reason the president wants this matter handled delicately.” He turned and walked back behind his desk. “What are you going to do?”

  Jones thought for a moment. “I intend to talk with this woman, Terri Lane, find out what she knows about this, when she last saw or spoke to Mr. Branick.”

  Madsen rubbed a hand across his lips, appearing deep in thought.

  “Do you disagree?”

  Madsen shrugged and put a hand in the air. “It is your investigation, Rivers.”

  Jones looked troubled. “I respect your opinion.”

  Madsen took a breath. “If this woman is interviewed, Rivers, this matter will leak. We both know that. The more stones you throw in a pond of water, the more ripples you create. The more ripples, the better the chance some will reach the shore. If one does, who knows what stories this woman is liable to start telling.”

  “Sir?”

  “Given her chosen profession, Rivers, and the fact that these calls are to McLean, I have to assume she had a regular and well-paying clientele. Do you think the press would leave this with Joe Branick? They’d smell blood. They’d smell a scandal.”

  “You don’t think she’d be discreet?”

  Madsen found this amusing. “God knows how this woman recorded her clientele to protect herself, Rivers. If it is as I suspect, she’ll be on Oprah and every other talk show across America.” Madsen looked to his right, as if he could see Robert Peak sitting in the Oval Office. “You can imagine how something like this, if leaked to the press, would destroy Joe Branick’s family.” He circled behind his desk. “The president is clearly protecting a fallen comrade, Rivers. Unfortunately, I’m afraid others won’t see it that way. After Watergate and Ken Starr, everyone wants the chance to take down a president.”

  Jones cleared his throat. “I’ve thought about that, and I think I may have a solution.”

  Madsen turned back to him.

  “This information doesn’t change the fact that Mr. Branick killed himself.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t,” Madsen said.

  “The man committed suicide. We took this matter in-house to confirm that fact. Now we have. This is not a matter of national security or public interest.”

  Madsen nodded. “I agree. What’s your point?”

  “My point is, we can issue a statement to the press that the United States Department of Justice is satisfied that this was a horribly unfortunate, self-inflicted act, and direct that the matter be handled by the West Virginia park police to close.”

  “The press will want to know what convinced you.”

  “The autopsy.” Jones smiled, apparently seeing a light at the end of his dark tunnel. “We obtained it yesterday.” He pulled the report from his briefcase and handed it to Madsen. “The ballistics tests match. The powder burns are consistent with a self-inflicted wound. He shot himself.”

  Madsen looked up from the report. “What about the chemical analysis?”

  “It’s irrelevant,” Jones said. “It has nothing to do with the question of whether he did or did not kill himself. It doesn’t change the ultimate act. We’ll issue a short statement that the autopsy confirms Joe Branick took his own life. It will be left to the local authorities to close the investigation. Since they won’t find anything, it will end there.”

  Madsen shook his head as if unconvinced. “The press will still want to know why he did it, why he took his own life.”

  “Leave that to the family. If they want to besmirch his reputation, disclose that his marriage was in a shambles and he was drinking, let them.”

  Madsen nodded. “It sounds like a workable solution. But how do you intend to give this information to the family?”

  Jones grimaced as if feeling the onset of a sudden pain. “That could be difficult. Mr. Branick’s sister has been raising hell waiting for the autopsy results. She’s scheduled to come to Washington tomorrow to clean out Mr. Branick’s office, and she wants a status report.”

  “When are you meeting her?”

  “Noon. I intended to break the news to her then. I could cancel—”

  “No.” Madsen considered this for a moment. “Keep your appointment. Meet her at Mr. Branick’s office.” He handed the autopsy report back to the assistant United States attorney. “Then tell her there’s been a change of plans.”

  50

  AILEEN BLAIR STARED, mouth agape. The ash on her burning cigarette looked precariously close to snapping off and falling in her lap. “But if that child died, as you say, then . . .”

  “Then who am I?” Sloane was standing, hands in the pockets of his pants. “Right now I have no idea,” he said. The words, which he had only been thinking since opening the package, sounded foreign and unnerving.

  He had, in some respects, felt “different” all his life. Being raised in multiple foster families, some better than others, had separated him from his peers. His were not parents who sat on the PTA and volunteered their time in the classroom. So, despite how well he did in school academically, he remained branded as a result. He was the “foster” kid, which translated into the kid with “problems.” He was the kid without parents, without family by which other parents could judge his respectability, character, and values. Not knowing anything about his background, about his makeup, unnerved other people more than it had ever unnerved him. He was like the stray dog found walking down the sidewalk that by all appearances looked friendly, but no matter how well it behaved, suspicion about its background always lingered, with the fear that something dark within that background would eventually force it to lash out. So, although at school he was not shunned or ignored, those who did take the time to get to know him kept that relationship within the safe confines of the school walls. Sloane didn’t blame them or hold any resentment for it. There were always excuses why he could not be included in public functions, why he was not on the birthday party list, why girls chose other boys to take them to the school dance. As a result, he had turned inward, with a fierce desire to succeed and to find his own place in life. The marines had initially given him that opportunity, a sense of belonging, but in time he realized that it had been a false reality, a brotherhood created more from circumstance and the common bond of having nowhere else to go. He left the Corps because he would not accept then that he could not do better than that. Now he wondered whether he could.

  “And there appears no way to trace it,” he said. “Any paper trail ends before it ever starts.”

  The ash gave way, tumbling into her lap. Blair stood, brushed it from her pants, and stubbed out the cigarette. She started to look at her watch, then dismissed it. “To hell with the time; I need a drink and I don’t think there’s a person in the world who’d blame me. Join me, Mr. Sloane? If I know my brother, he has some good Scotch around here.”

  She found it in a cabinet beneath the mounted pool rack and poured them each a small glass over ice. “I don’t have an answer for you, David, but I can tell you one thing about my brother Joe. He always did the right thing. If he did what you say, forged these papers, then it was the right thing to do.”

  “Let me ask you something, Aileen. Have you ever considered the possibility that your brother—”

  “Didn’t kill himself?” She handed him his glass. “My brother did not kill himself,
David. That’s as good a bet as any I know, and I’ve wagered a few in my day.” She raised a finger as she made each point. “One, my brother was a Catholic. I know that sounds like a lot of religious crap to most people, but not to this family. Suicide is not acceptable. Two, my brother didn’t just love his wife and kids; he adored them. He would not do this to them. He would not leave them this way. Three, my mother. She’s Irish Catholic, David. She doesn’t need any more reason than that to take all the credit for her children’s accomplishments, and all the blame for their failures. Joe knew that. He was her favorite. I say that without bitterness. They had a special bond. He wouldn’t do this to her. He wouldn’t put this at her feet for the remainder of her life.” She fixed Sloane with steel-blue eyes. “God knows I love my faith and my sister-in-law, but I won’t have my mother blaming herself for Joe’s death. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. “I understand.”

  “Now, there’s something more you’re not telling me, David. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. You already knew these papers were forged. You didn’t need me to tell you that. There must be something else. You said you thought you didn’t know my brother. Did you know him?”

  “I’ve met your brother before, Aileen, though I don’t remember where or when. But what happened that day is haunting me.”

  During the next forty-five minutes Sloane provided Aileen Blair the details of his nightmare and told her about seeing her brother standing in the room alongside a large African-American man. Blair sipped her Scotch, listened patiently, and asked few but pointed questions. When Sloane finished she had an empty glass and an ashtray of cigarette butts.

  “I’m not sure where all this is going to lead, but I would like to know more about your brother,” he said. “I thought maybe it might lead to this other man. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

  “I’d like to help you, David, but I haven’t got very far myself. There’s a wall up at the moment, and I haven’t been able to get over it. I’m sure part of that is related to Joe’s career.”

  “His career?”

  She sat silently for a moment, and he sensed she was considering what to tell him. “You won’t find it in any newspapers or on his résumé, David, but my brother worked for the CIA.”

  In his mind Sloane shuffled through the newspaper clippings he’d read earlier, his mind ticking off the facts. Branick had worked overseas in England, Germany, and Mexico. For some reason that had registered as significant, but he couldn’t figure out why. Now it came to him. Each was a country where Robert Peak had served as a CIA station chief.

  “He worked for Robert Peak. They were friends.”

  She nodded. “As I understand it, Joe was put on a company’s payroll to make his presence in the country legitimate. Of course, we weren’t supposed to know any of this, but secrets are hard to keep in this family. We were happy the day he quit and came back to Boston. None of us wanted him to go back to Washington.”

  “I don’t imagine you would have any records, any checks that might tell me the companies he worked for?”

  Blair shook her head as she looked around the room. “I’m sure we could dig up some of the names, but I haven’t seen any records, David, and I doubt Joe would have kept any here. The most logical . . .” She stopped, seeming to study him for a moment.

  “You could do it,” she said.

  “Do what?”

  “You’re a bit young, but not so much that I think anyone would notice. Jon has always been youthful in appearance.”

  Now Sloane was totally confused. “I’m sorry—Jon?”

  “My husband. I thought it when I saw you get out of the car. How tall are you, David? Six one? Six two?”

  “Six two.”

  “About a hundred and ninety pounds?”

  “About. Why?”

  Blair smiled. “You and he look very much alike, when he was a younger man and his hair dark. You’re also the same size. Same build. Same complexion. ”

  “You’ve lost me, Aileen.”

  “I’m supposed to clean out Joe’s office tomorrow. I can’t; a problem has developed getting his body home to Boston, and that takes priority. Before you arrived I was about to call and tell them I’d have to reschedule.”

  “And you think I could go.”

  “I can call and tell them I’m sending Jon in my place.”

  “I don’t know, Aileen.”

  “It would get you in the door, get you a chance to look through Joe’s office. That’s the most likely place you’d find his personal papers, Rolodex, contacts.”

  Sloane shook his head. “I don’t have any identification, Aileen.”

  “That’s what I meant about your build. You can borrow Jon’s license. He’s one of those drivers who never get a ticket; they renew his license in the mail. I think he was just about forty when he last had his picture taken. You two could be brothers. And I’ll get you a couple of his business cards just in case.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “You won’t need anything else. I’ve raised Cain the past week. The assistant U.S. attorney handling this is scared to death of me. When I call I’ll tell him I don’t want you hassled with the usual Washington red-tape crap, that I want it expedited beforehand. I’ve been to Joe’s office before. It’s in the Old Executive Office Building just across from the White House. You have to pass through security, but they can put you on a VIP list to make it easier. They’re mostly concerned about weapons.”

  “What about a secretary or somebody—”

  “Who knows Jon? Jon’s a homebody. He rarely ever leaves Boston.” She smiled. “What could go wrong?”

  51

  CLAY BALDWIN SAT on a stool balancing his weight on his right leg while reading the front-page article in the Spirit of Jefferson, the local weekly. Late in the afternoon, the prolonged sitting aggravated his sciatic nerve, but that wasn’t what, at the moment, was making him think of just calling it quits. Three months earlier he had begged his brother-in-law to rescue him from the “honey-do” list his wife had saved for Baldwin’s retirement. J. Rayburn Franklin had given him a part-time job answering the phones and manning the front counter, and it had gotten him out of the house. But with the news of Bert Cooperman’s death, Baldwin was thinking more and more about going home and spending time with his wife and grandchildren.

  Cooperman’s funeral had been that morning. The department remained subdued and would likely be that way for a while. They started a memorial fund, hoping to raise enough money to help with the baby’s expenses and future education. It was a poor substitute for a father. Baldwin lifted the newspaper and considered the picture of Cooperman’s battered patrol car hanging suspended from a crane. It made him think about how Coop had always wanted to see his picture and name in the paper.

  “Christ,” Baldwin said.

  The glass door opened behind him, but Baldwin didn’t bother to turn. He’d seen Tom Molia’s emerald-green 1969 Chevy drive into the parking lot. “Board,” he said.

  Molia stopped in midstride, fighting the urge to tear the piece of cardboard from the wall and break it into tiny pieces. For the first time in his twenty years he hated being a cop. He hated the feeling that someone was getting the better of him, that someone had killed Coop and there would be no retribution. His inquiry into Cooperman’s murder had led to a dead end. Ho couldn’t do anything with the body. There was no way to determine the content of the telephone conversation Molia was convinced Cooperman overheard that had led him to drive to the bluff. The Branick investigation was out of his hands.

  Dead end after dead end after dead end.

  Molia slid the designated magnet from the “Out” to the “In” column as the telephone on the counter rang. Baldwin answered it.

  “We’re not handling that matter any longer; that’s being handled by the Justice Department,” Baldwin said. “I can’t tell you that. You’ll have to talk with the chief of police.”

  Molia looked back to the board and quic
kly slid the green magnet next to the name at the top. Baldwin turned and looked over his shoulder. “He’s not in. I’ll have to take a message and have him call you back.” Baldwin wrote the message and a telephone number on a pad of paper, hung up the phone, and started off the stool. He grimaced and sat back down with a hand at the small of his back.

  “Back hurtin’ you, Clay?”

  “Huh?” Baldwin turned, surprised to find Molia still standing there. “Just stiff. The wife had me pruning trees yesterday.”

  “Yard work’s a bitch.” Molia pointed to the note in Baldwin’s hand. “I can drop that off for you. Where’s it need to go?”

  “Ray.” Baldwin turned and looked again at the board. “I didn’t see him leave.”

  “Must have snuck out while you were taking calls. Good thing you have the board.”

  Baldwin gave him a look. “Yeah, well, that’s what it’s there for.”

  Molia held out his hand. “I’ll drop it off.”

  Baldwin hesitated, but what suspicion he had of Molia’s motives faded with the increased pain in his back. He handed Molia the note. “Just leave it on his chair.”

  “No problem.”

  SLOANE HUNG UP the telephone, kicked off his shoes, and lay back on the motel bed. He had slept little in the past week, and his body and mind were both giving out. The Charles Town Police Department would not provide him any information on the Joe Branick investigation, though he understood from a newspaper account that they had taken initial jurisdiction before the DOJ pulled the plug. He wasn’t holding his breath that the chief of police would bother to call him back. If he did, it would undoubtedly be to refer him to the Department of Justice, which is where the Jefferson County coroner, a Dr. Peter Ho, had referred him when Sloane called to find out about the autopsy Aileen Blair had demanded.

  He picked up the phone and called Aileen Blair. She confirmed his appointment at Joe Branick’s office for noon the next day.

  “There will be a pass waiting for you at the front desk,” she said. “You’re to meet a Beth Saroyan. She’s some minion from the Justice Department I’ve been assured will get you through the security crap and take you to Joe’s office. I’m leaving for Boston tomorrow. If they give you any trouble, call me on my cell phone.” She gave Sloane the number. Then she hung up.