“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, and that seemed to surprise her. “I’m talking about Lieutenant Ballard. I’ve been to your home. Whoever set that trap wasn’t fooling around.”
She stared down at the table but said nothing. Swamp kept it going, as if this were nothing more than a casual conversation between friends after lunch. “I understand you’ve elected to remain silent until you get an attorney. That’s an intelligent thing to do. I’ve been told they’re waiting for a judge to make the appointment.”
She sighed but still didn’t say anything.
“I’m not here to question you, Ms. Wall. The District police, Detectives Cullen and Howell here, they have the primary jurisdiction over the incident at your home last night. There’ll be no questioning until your lawyer shows up. I’m just here to share my thinking with you. I’ll be frank: I hope to convince you to talk to these people. You remember what we talked about yesterday morning? The business about people talking under anesthesia?”
“Yes,” she said. Good, Swamp thought. She’s engaged.
“You told me then that it was implausible, for technical reasons, but in fact, I have what looks very much like a transcript that was recovered from the ashes of the clinic.”
She gave him a wary look but again said nothing. He paused for a few seconds before going on.
“The thing is, this transcript seems to be the record of someone whose mind was adrift, like, say, in the recovery room, as opposed to being on the operating table with all those tubes you talked about.”
No visible reaction. She’s listening, though, Swamp thought. “And this guy’s talking about bombs. And rambling away in German. Our problem is, the transcript doesn’t have a patient’s name on it, but it does have a code number on it. And we’ve found that same code number on the clinic schedule, which indicates that this guy was in the clinic the night of the fire. For some kind of lip procedure?”
She was paying very close attention now.
“As the detectives have told you, Ms. Wall,” he said, “I’m not here to question you, and you don’t have to say anything to me until your lawyer shows up. But let me tell you what I think. I think that Lieutenant Ballard was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time last night. I’m beginning to think that the guy talking about bombs had something to do with that fire, which the District police here think was of suspicious origin.”
He paused to let that sink in. “I believe you were the target last night, Ms. Wall,” he said, and saw her blink. “That’s right, you. Not Lieutenant Ballard. He was a…friend?”
No reaction.
“You called him after we came to see you yesterday, right?” He smiled as he slipped the question in, and after a second, she nodded.
“Perfectly understandable,” he said. “A visit from the Secret Service can be unsettling. But here’s the thing: Everyone in law enforcement in this city is nervous these days, what with all these terrorist threats, fanatical Arabs flapping around the world, plotting the destruction of our country, nine eleven. We all still remember nine eleven, right?”
Another nod. “Of course we do. I’m beginning to think that this guy who talked about bombs and the end of the world found out that the docs in that clinic were secretly taping their patients, not during anesthesia, but afterward, in the recovery room. And if that’s true, then that might explain a motive for that fire. And everybody dying that night. Except you.”
He was surprised at her reaction to the last words he’d just said. She put a hand to her mouth and was just staring at him. “What?” he asked gently.
She just shook her head, still staring at him, as if he knew something very important. He wished to hell he knew what it was, but he couldn’t stop now.
“The thing is,” he continued, “both the District police here and the Secret Service want to catch this guy. They want him for killing Lieutenant Ballard. We want him because we think he may be planning some kind of terrorist act. You’re the only one left alive from the clinic. You’re the only one who might be able to ID this guy, assuming we can break those codes somehow. That’s where we are with this thing. You with me so far?”
She was regaining her composure as she nodded again.
“Now, you’re worried you’re going to be swept up into some tangle with federal and municipal police authorities over what was going on at that clinic. Perfectly understandable. Let me be frank: There are going to be some hard questions asked, and for that, you definitely want an attorney.”
Swamp saw Cullen frown, but he pressed on. “So here’s my advice: You talk to your public defender. Lay out the corner you think you’re in. You were a surgical assistant at the clinic, correct? A surgical nurse?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m willing to bet that those doctors were making money hand over fist. Unlike the staff.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Point is, Ms. Wall, if the government wanted to nail somebody for doing improper things at that clinic, like secretly taping their own patients, they’d want to nail the doctors, the people who took home all the profit. Not the staff. In fact, they’d use the staff to nail the doctors. That’s how prosecutors do things these days. You know that, right? I mean, it’s in the papers, every day. Use the little fish to roll up the big fish?”
She started to say something but then stopped. Swamp anticipated what she was going to say. “I know. Neither you nor anyone else on staff at the clinic ever knew what the names were, did you, Ms. Wall?”
“No,” she said.
“That’s what it looked like to us when we went back through all the records that we could still read. All those coded patient files. No names. Look, the doctors are both dead. I’ve got search warrants being worked up that will allow me to search their homes, interview their survivors, their families, if they had families, and look at their bank records, their tax returns, their off-site storage, the whole deal. But even with all that, I’m not optimistic. What I really want is that code list. I know you don’t have it, right?”
She barely nodded, but he thought it was enough for the cameras. He leaned in closer, almost like a co-conspirator. You and me, Ms. Wall. Working together here.
“The government needs your help, Ms. Wall. If you ran from the police, hijacked that truck, took the driver’s money, all because you were in fear for your life, then that changes things. A lot. But you’ll have to tell the police here that, and also tell them the details of what happened last night that resulted in Lieutenant Ballard getting killed. Details they can corroborate with forensics. Details that will absolutely clear you of any suspicion regarding this homicide. You come from a police family. You know how this works, right?”
Another nod.
“Good. And then the Secret Service is going to try to put some things together, using what’s been retrieved from the clinic records, that will lead to a name.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared straight ahead, as if she knew something that made what he was saying meaningless. Then a thought occurred to him, and now he knew what had been bothering him about getting all those search warrants. Gary had found a surgical schedule that put the transcript guy at the clinic the night of the fire. Which, of course, meant he’d been getting some work done. So even if they did break the code, got a name, ran it, got a description, would that description still fit their guy? Holy shit!
“Mr. Morgan?” Detective Cullen prompted.
Swamp blinked and then went on. “Right. So there it is, Ms. Wall. I know you’re scared. I’m sure you’re shocked by what happened to Lieutenant Ballard. We all are. But please, help the police out here. I don’t think you caused Lieutenant Ballard’s death last night, other than that you may have been the real target. If that’s true, those other things you did will be cast in a totally different light. Okay?”
A nod.
“Now, you wait for your lawyer, take all the time you need with him, and tell him what I said. Tell him that the government isn’t after
you for anything except your help. And then you do what you think is right, okay?”
She swallowed and nodded again. Swamp got up and they all went out into the hallway, where the matron was waiting to go back in. Once she closed the door, Cullen confirmed that they had videotaped the entire session.
“This all sounds like you guys are way ahead of us on this deal,” Cullen said.
“Not on the Ballard killing,” Swamp said. “I meant what I said—Ballard was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we might know what’s behind it. Emphasis on the word might. Problem is, she really doesn’t know who this guy is, either.”
“She probably saw him,” Howell said. “Something happened down there in that park.”
“Maybe. But it was dark, right? In the woods, in the park, with no streetlights?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Okay. But I meant what I said in there. The G’s not interested in prosecuting her for anything. That transcript is what has our attention. Was this some guy with a midlife crisis fantasizing, or is there a real badass out there with bombs and a mission? You know what I’d do, I was you?”
“What’s that?” Howell asked skeptically.
“Get what you can from her once she gets her lawyer. Focus on the incident, she’ll probably talk to you. Forget the UPS truck and all that. Stay off the clinic. Then cut her loose.”
“Bullshit,” Howell said immediately.
“No, not bullshit. Neither you nor we have any idea of who this guy is, or what he looks like. Nothing. But if he’s after her, you cut her loose and keep her under surveillance? He’ll be back.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s serious. He’s so serious, he was willing to kill a cop. And probably all those people at that clinic fire. For some reason, he needs her dead. So he’ll be back. You be there, and you’ll get your shot. Your only shot, as best I see it.”
“If you’re going to use a civilian as bait for a killer, you’d better get her permission,” Gary pointed out.
Nobody had a reply for that comment, and then Detective Cullen thanked Swamp for the little session back there with Connie Wall. “That was smooth,” he said. “You questioned her without really doing it. Where’d you go there, right at the end?”
Swamp hesitated, but then he realized the District cops had been more than accommodating. “We’d been focusing on breaking that code list, getting a name, then a description, then doing our federal manhunt thing. But if he was at that clinic as a patient…”
Cullen got it. “He may not look like that anymore. Right. That’s why you wanted to do this little show this afternoon, wasn’t it? You need us to cut her loose.”
Swamp grinned. Would that he had been so prescient. “Just so, Sergeant,” he said, tipping an imaginary hat. “They said you were smart.”
“Now that,” Cullen said, “is bullshit.” But he was grinning anyway.
“Is anything she said in there admissible?” Gary asked as they headed back to the office. Swamp had decided to walk back to OEOB, to let the brisk January air clear his brain.
“I guess a judge would have to decide,” Swamp said. “Part of the Miranda is that anything you do say can be held against you. But she’d also requested to remain silent, wait for her lawyer, so my guess is no. Doesn’t matter, though—those guys don’t want her for the murder of their lieutenant.”
Gary had to hustle to stay up with Swamp as he strode down the sidewalks along Constitution Avenue. There weren’t that many pedestrians out, even as rush hour approached, but those who saw Swamp coming managed to step aside. “So what do we do next?” Gary asked.
“I’m thinking of giving up on the code list. What we need to do now is go back through those frigging record fragments again. Only this time, see if we can find that code number and tie it to specific surgical procedures. See how much work this guy had done. If it was just that one procedure, then finding the code list can still help us.”
“Just because that code number was scheduled for the night of the fire doesn’t prove he set the fire,” Gary pointed out. “Remember, the body count didn’t include a patient. Guy could have come and gone, and then the torch shows up.”
Swamp was waiting for a pedestrian crossing signal, well aware that anyone who jaywalked across Constitution Avenue at rush hour had a death wish. “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “We just assumed that the guy in the transcript would have a motive to whack everybody there. But maybe not.”
“Or, there’re two of them,” Gary said. The light turned and they hurried to cross the street before the impatient phalanx of commuters executed a Le Mans start on their heels.
“Now that’s helpful,” Swamp said, and they both grinned. “Let’s go see where we are on the warrants, and then we’ll go toss that clinic one more time.”
“It’ll be dark,” Gary said hopefully.
“That’s why God invented Mag-Lites,” Swamp said. “You can actually see things better in the beam of a good flashlight.”
“We’re looking for one file? A list of the codes and names?” Gary’s skepticism was evident.
“Yup.” Three cars got into a horn-honking match abreast of them, causing Swamp to hold his ears. “I got Malone’s permission to go back in there.”
“I would think that if those docs did keep it there, it wouldn’t just be lying around in some file cabinet,” Gary said. “That had to be some precious information.”
“There was that connecting stairway between the night clinic and the day clinic, remember? I wanted to hide something like that, I’d stash it upstairs in the day doctors’ area, without their knowledge. In plain sight, if possible. Let’s roll.”
Forty-five minutes later, they stood in the upstairs clinic, flashlights on, both trying to pretend they couldn’t smell the hideous vapors that were still seeping up from the ruins of the operating room below. The upstairs offices were intact but coated in soot, and there was evidence of the intense heat of the fire in the furniture, electronics, and file cabinets. The floor felt uneven, and the carpets had been reduced to carbonized Brillo pads. Swamp swung his flashlight around the walls and realized that what was missing was color. Everything was gray or black. Gary waited patiently for Swamp to start the search, but Swamp was quickly coming to the conclusion that this was hopeless. Finding one piece of paper?
“Okay,” he announced. “This was a dumb idea. This won’t work. Not for one piece of paper. Let’s get out of here.”
“Fine by me,” Gary said quietly.
They found a wine bar three blocks down Connecticut Avenue and Swamp suggested they stop in for a drink. Gary stopped just inside the door and looked around at the half dozen or so all-male couples in the bar.
“Uh,” he began, but Swamp chuckled and slapped him lightly on the back.
“C’mon now, where’s your sense of adventure, Special Agent?” he asked, and headed for a table. Gary followed reluctantly, trying not to look at the other patrons, who were all looking at them. A middle-aged waiter, dressed in an 1890s costume, complete with an elaborate mustache, came over to take their order.
“I don’t spend a lot of time in gay bars,” Swamp said quietly. “If that’s what you’re wondering. But I gotta tell you: I’ve never had to dodge a bar fight in one of these places, and they’re usually a lot cleaner than most straight bars.”
“I don’t mind being in one,” Gary said. “I just don’t want to be seen in one.”
“Tell me this,” Swamp said. “If you were working this case as a homicide investigation back in Fairfax County, what would you do right now?”
The waiter brought their drinks, and Gary waited until he was gone before he answered. “Hand it over to the Bureau?” he said promptly. But then he grew more serious. “Our original tasking was to see if this transcript thing was a firefly. Was it something the Service needed to get into, as a matter of urgency?”
“Correct.”
“Based on the transcript alone, I’d say dump it.
But with what’s happened out at that nurse’s house, a cop getting killed, the nurse obviously holding back something? We’ve got an arson fire where almost the whole night crew was killed, and then this deal at the lone survivor’s house? I think somebody’s cleaning up after himself.”
Swamp nodded. “So what do we do next?”
Swamp knew that Gary understood that he was being tested, and he liked the fact that the younger man was thinking about the questions instead of just popping up with the first thing that came to mind.
“We need help,” Gary said. “To really go through all those evidence boxes Malone sent us. To get everything out of that upstairs office, go through all that, too. I was serious about the Bureau: I’d get a team of Bureau forensics people into it. They give terrific fine-toothed comb.”
“Looking for?”
“The code list would be nice,” Gary said. “A name, address, and phone number would be nice. If we could somehow get a basic physical description of the guy who corresponds to the code number on that transcript, there are people who could reconstruct what he ought to look like now, based on the operations performed.”
“Yeah,” Swamp said. “Plastic surgeons who can generate a three-D picture model of what your new nose is gonna look like—only in reverse this time.”
“But the key is the start point, and for that, we need to lean on that nurse. Maybe fold her into the process.”
Swamp was nodding. “She’s scared, though. She didn’t ice the lieutenant, but she ran anyway.”
“Do we give a shit about prosecuting her, or do we want what’s inside her head?”
“Right. Maybe I’d better call the District Homicide office before they take me up on my other bright idea.”
Gary was nodding. “If it was me, I’d get an assistant deputy AG from Main Justice in a thousand-dollar suit to go talk to the District cops, set up some kind of immunity deal. Then get her together with the Bureau people, let her inform the search. Put together a composite—whatever we can get—get the best description we can, and then go hunt this bad boy down. We have a month, right?”
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