Fate of the Union

Three

FBI Special Agent Patti Rogers hadn’t been in the Verdict Chophouse since task force days. Not that she’d spent nearly a year consciously avoiding the place — it was well out of her normal civil-servant price range — but this was where Joe Reeder suggested they meet tonight.

He had even gone so far as to say, “My turn to pick up the check,” which it wasn’t, but she knew he wanted her to feel comfortable.

Now, sitting at a table in the bar, not far from where Associate Justice Venter had died, she felt woefully underdressed in her navy business suit, white silk blouse, and sensible shoes. She felt like a Goodwill shopper who had wandered into a Brooks Brothers world, especially compared to the living wax museum around her of heavy hitters from political and financial arenas.

Though Joe had ultimately taken the lead in the Supreme Court investigation, he had gone out of his way to give her equal credit at its successful conclusion. That meant a nice promotion for her to head up the new Special Situations Task Force. Now if the hottest young investigator in the Bureau could just locate that MIA personal life of hers...

“I’m Joe,” said a resonant male voice above her. “I’ll be your server this evening.”

She looked up into Reeder’s unreadable brown eyes and that slight smile in which she’d finally learned to locate warmth.

“Won the age discrimination lawsuit,” she asked with a smirk, “did you, Joe?”

And to her it was always “Joe” — she’d learned that the “Peep” nickname was one colleagues had foisted on Reeder, and that he’d never really liked it.

“It was this,” he said, “or greeter at Walmart.”

He sat down across from her. His suit was well tailored and his tie probably two hundred bucks. But she knew he was a sweatshirt and jeans guy at heart.

“A past murder scene,” she said, “is your idea of memories, memories? There are cheaper ways to reminisce.”

His smile broadened. “I’m not a government worker anymore, remember? I’m a high-priced consultant. Let me show you how much an average citizen like me appreciates you hardworking G-gals and guys.”

“I smell an ulterior motive,” she said.

“Well, you’ve got a cop’s nose. Or maybe it’s my Clive Christian Number One.”

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

“Hell no. Aqua Velva. Don’t laugh. It’s a step up from Old Spice. Listen, Patti. Thanks for this.”

She toasted him with her empty martini glass. “Thank you. It’s overdue. Been almost a month.”

A real waiter arrived and raised an eyebrow at Reeder by way of a question.

“Arnold Palmer for me,” Reeder said, “and... another martini for the lady?”

She nodded, thinking how twentieth century her former partner always sounded, and the waiter left.

“Rough day at the office?” he asked, knowing she rarely had a first cocktail, let alone a second.

She shrugged. “Uneasy the head that wears the crown.”

“Fuckin’ A,” he said.

These dinner meetings, not really dates, occurred every couple of weeks. The two had an easy chemistry developed in a case that had finally gone somewhere very dark. At first, they had met to talk about that, their shared trauma so to speak, and their dinner chats had evolved into a casual frankness. Joe Reeder seemed to her much less the mystery man now and more a good friend.

“But you’re okay?” he asked, with understated but genuine concern.

In the low-key lighting of the bar, the planes of his rugged face had an undeniable attractiveness, emphasized by the whiteness of his hair, including those eyebrows, against a tanned complexion left over from a Florida trip.

The fresh martini came, she sipped it, the waiter disappeared, and she said to Reeder, “I’m going to ask you an embarrassing question.”

“Do my best not to wet myself.”

“Joe — in all this time... I’m just wondering... why is it you’ve never, you know...”

“Hit on you?”

She nodded.

He chuckled and a wave of embarrassment washed over her.

“You can ask that with a straight face?” he said. “I’m something like fifteen years older than you, easy.”

“Like that has ever stopped any man from hitting on a woman! Particularly with your kind of sugar daddy potential.”

A grin flashed. “I like that. Sugar daddy potential. But what’s the use, kid? I mean, after all, you’re gay.”

Red rushed to her cheeks. “What do you mean? I... I’ve had boyfriends.”

“Okay, then. Let’s say you’re bi. An old goat like me has two sexes to compete with? No thank you. Even if you are cute as lace pants.”

She laughed. “Maybe that should offend me.”

“No it shouldn’t. Potential sugar daddies get to say politically inexcusable things to nice-looking women in bars. Anyway, you should be flattered — I was quoting Raymond Chandler.”

“No you weren’t.”

He sipped his Arnold Palmer. “I certainly was.”

“You were quoting Philip Marlowe, and that’s a completely different thing.”

The white eyebrows went up. “I stand corrected. And impressed by your investigator’s eye for accuracy.”

The waiter returned and took their order.

“Okay,” she said. “So much for repartee. Why are we here? I mean, we’ve established we’re not going to be an item.”

His face turned serious — not grave, not somber. But decidedly serious. He tilted his head as if he were looking over the tops of glasses he wasn’t wearing. “I need to ask a favor.”

“The steak that’s on its way to me,” she said, with a touch of lightness, “will buy you a pretty good favor. Not to invoke unpleasant memories, Joe — but shoot.”

“Not so fast, kid. Even for filet béarnaise, this might not be worth the risk.”

She leaned forward and almost whispered. “You saved my life, Joe. Gay, straight, bisexual, it’s a life I don’t mind living. What do you need?”

His shrug was barely perceptible. “I’m looking into a suicide.”

She arched a brow. “The president of ABC Security is looking into—”

“Supposed suicide of a friend,” he said. “Retired Secret Service agent. Worked with him back in the day.”

“‘Supposed suicide’ says you think it’s murder.”

“I do. And his wife thinks the same. I’d like to say the man saved my life...”

As he had saved hers.

“... but that’s not the case. He wasn’t best man at my wedding. He was no Gabe Sloan. Just a guy I occasionally worked with. But, Patti — he was one of us. He deserves better.”

She set her martini to one side. “Spell it out.”

He did.

Then she said, “And the cops are buying this? They think a guy with a Glock in a shoulder holster chose to hang himself? Ridiculous.”

“My read exactly. Of course, they formed their theory before I let Carl Bishop know I’d received that phone message from Chris. Bish thinks I can get the detective in charge to listen, but I’d like to have something more to show the guy.”

She flicked him a smile. “Sounds like this is where the favor comes in.”

“Almost certainly Bryson called me from a burner phone. But the police are not about to let me get into his records.”

She shrugged. “Play the hero card. You’re Joe frickin’ Reeder, for Pete’s sake.”

“Is that your third martini? Fourth maybe? In what world do cops adore ex-feds who get a lot of play in the media?”

She nodded; he was right again. “And you want to know if he called anybody else on that phone?”

“Could be a good jumping-off point — see if the police are missing anything.”

Nodding again, she said, “Give me both numbers, normal cell and burner one. It wasn’t a blocked number, was it?”

“No. I have that for you. Both of them.”

“Good. I’m in. Hey, I’m the boss of a task force, remember?”

“It’s good to be king,” Reeder said, and handed her a slip of paper with both numbers.

She held it up by thumb and middle finger, like evidence she didn’t want to spoil. “You knew I’d say yes.”

“No. High probability. Particularly after I said you were nice looking.”

She grunted a laugh. “Sugar daddy.”

They went silent as their food arrived. When the waiter left, they ate slowly, enjoying their steaks, which was a skill cops like Rogers and Reeder had to develop, in a life filled with so many on-the-fly meals.

When they had finished, and a busboy had cleared the table, she noticed him staring at her.

“What, broccoli in my teeth?”

He glanced around them, then said quietly, “If this really was a suicide, and I suppose it could be, well... it’s no big thing. Just another guy the job caught up with. But if it’s murder...?”

“Yeah?”

He leaned in. “Patti, Chris Bryson was good, really good. He made presidential detail in the Service. He was successful as a one-man operation in this corporate world.”

“Okay...”

He gave her the over-the-invisible-glasses look again. “If somebody took him out, and managed to get the better of him? So much the better of him that they could make his murder look like it was his idea...?”

“Then they’re good, too,” she said. “Really goddamn good.”

“Yeah. You know how people say ‘Take care’ instead of good-bye?”

“Sure.”

“Well, Patti — take care.”

The next morning, in her office at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Patti Rogers sat sipping coffee at her desk, looking at the slip of paper with two phone numbers written in Reeder’s concise hand. Nothing to it, feeding them into the computer to call up the records.

Even though President Devlin Harrison had replaced the two assassinated Supreme Court justices with jurists closer to his own Democratic politics, the legacy of a gutted Fourth Amendment and expanded Patriot Act remained. Rogers, who did not wear her slightly right-of-center politics on her sleeve, approved. That Reeder was an old-school JFK-style liberal made for ironic amusement here, since those conservative-bred changes allowed her to do his dirty work — specifically, Rogers had the right to look into the phone records of any citizen.

The new court had also overturned Roe v. Wade, after President Harrison selected one liberal judge and one conservative to fill the two vacancies. Arguably the court was more balanced than before, but it still leaned clearly right.

The President’s stated intention had been to exercise bipartisan fairness to bring the country together. Instead, the assassinations of two justices and their replacement appointments had only pushed the two sides further apart. The only unity between right and left today was a shared anger at Harrison.

Even with the new Supreme Court’s blessing, however, running Bryson’s phone numbers wouldn’t be enough.

With Reeder’s advice to “take care” foremost in her mind, Rogers went to see Miguel Altuve, her colleague and friend from the Supreme Court task force. A computer expert who could coax the most obscure information out of the net, Miggie played his keyboard with the skill and artistry of a great jazz musician.

In an office of his own now — roomy enough to include a small conference table with chairs — Miggie looked up from a trio of fanned-out monitors to answer Rogers’s knock at the frame of his open door.

“Patti Rogers,” he said with an instant smile, rising to welcome her. “Let me lie to myself that this is a social call before you tell me what you want.”

“Well, you are looking sharp, Miggie.”

Now that he was heading up a unit hunting cyberterrorists, a slimmed-down Altuve evidenced undergoing a considerable makeover — center-parted black hair exchanged for swept-back razor-cut, wireframe glasses supplanted by contacts, red-and-black power tie in place of his former-trademark clip-on bow tie.

And that charcoal suit had clearly set him back.

They shook hands and shared the awkward smiles of two former coworkers with mutual affection but little to say to each other. When your respective jobs were shrouded in secrecy, small talk was a problem.

“Got a second?” she asked, her smile starting to feel frozen.

“A second? I might even scrounge up a minute.”

He gestured to the small conference table and she took a seat there while he came over and sat across from her. He folded his hands in a saying-grace fashion and leaned forward, eyes bright with curiosity.

“So what can I do for you, Patti?”

“Not for me exactly. Actually... for Joe Reeder.”

Miggie’s eyebrows rose; frankly the contacts gave him something of a glazed look. Nerds die hard. “He working for the Bureau again?”

“No. That’s what makes this a little sticky. Let’s say I’m keeping an eye on something he’s looking into.”

There was nothing negative in Miggie’s frown. “Are we on the down-low here?”

Slowly, Rogers nodded. “Yes. So far it’s nothing even vaguely work-related. Law enforcement — related, but not Bureau.”

“You haven’t scared me off yet. Keep going.”

“It concerns a friend of Joe’s from his Secret Service days. Another retired agent... who committed suicide under what Joe considers suspicious circumstances.”

“Who am I to argue with Reeder’s instincts? Few computers can compete with that mind. Lay it all out.”

She did.

Then she said, “If this wasn’t suicide, the killer or more likely killers took out a very capable agent. Retired but hardly over the hill. I guess we know better than most that if an agent from any government law enforcement agency dies, under even vaguely suspicious circumstances, something bad may have happened. And that could mean somebody in government covering up.”

“I’ll stop you when you get to something I don’t know.”

She nodded. “Good. On the same page, then?”

“Same page.”

She clapped once. “So... take precautions, cover your newly slender ass, and don’t get cocky.”

“You’re talking to somebody who can look at three monitors and over his shoulder, all at the same time.”

She smiled a little. “Then you’re just the guy.” Handing him Reeder’s slip of paper, she said, “Let know what you find.”

He glanced at the two numbers and said, “Be on the safe side — give me a couple hours.”

She left him to it and returned to her office. The Special Situations Task Force was investigating a string of four homicides in the DC area that might or might not be related. Of the 109 murders in the District over the course of this year, these four stuck out as something different. The team was getting together for a briefing this morning.

The bullpen housed a cozy half a dozen desks with Rogers’s office in back. She stood looking out at her busy crew — four agents and a behaviorist that made up the task force.

Behavioral expert Trevor Ivanek was a skeletal six-footer with a talking-skull head home to a fuzzy cap of hair, broad forehead, and dark deep-set eyes. The latter were bright and inquisitive, and he smiled readily, for a man who spent so much time inside the heads of monsters.

The other four agents were divided into two teams. The more senior duo, Jerry Bohannon and Reggie Wade, had over thirty years experience between them.

Handsome Bohannon — whose hair had become mysteriously darker since his divorce, even as his wardrobe got sharper — had become something of a mentor to Rogers. When the unit was assembled, she had expected some pushback from the more veteran agents. The most senior of these, Bohannon, had set a respectful example.

Wade — six four, African American, trimly bearded, a former college basketball player — always managed to just skirt Bureau’s apparel regs with his GQ wardrobe. Rogers suspected Wade was serving as his recently unmarried partner’s sartorial adviser. Wade, too, had shown her nothing but support, despite having logged more years.

Lucas Hardesy, lead agent of the other pair, was less than impressed with Rogers, though never outright insubordinate. Head shaved, clothes immaculate, shoes spit-shined, he was gung-ho ex-military and clearly resented taking orders from someone with less time in.

Rogers sensed no sexism in Hardesy’s attitude — his trust and respect for his partner, Anne Nichols, making that unlikely.

Younger than Rogers, African American Nichols managed to balance badass with beauty. Patti’s own default setting was to underplay her appearance, even going for an asexual vibe with her short hair and neutral wardrobe. She could only admire Nichols for pulling off the tough but feminine gambit. That blue suit with suede navy collar and cuffs, and the simple touch of lace at Anne’s throat, were beyond Rogers’s confidence and imagination.

Even if Reeder had said she was cute as lace pants...

“So,” Rogers said, putting enough into it to raise everyone’s eyes from their reports, monitors, and coffee to her direct gaze. “Anybody come up with anything new this morning?”

Ivanek said, “This still doesn’t feel like a serial killer to me. Victimology doesn’t match — three men, one an African American, and one Latina female. Serial killers don’t usually break racial lines. Plus, these are impersonal kills. They could be hits, with nothing to tie the victims together. Beyond that, boss — I just don’t know.”

At his desk nearby, Hardesy was nodding. “Seems to me we’re treading water here. Feels like the Sharpshooter Fallacy.”

The Sharpshooter Fallacy was the psychologist’s example of a cowboy shooting random holes on the side of a barn and then painting a bull’s-eye target around the biggest cluster.

“It does,” Ivanek said, just faintly cranky, “if by that you mean superimposing your target over my words.”

A frowning Anne Nichols held up four fingers. “Four victims, different walks of life, all seemingly killed for no reason. No robbery, no enemies.”

“Coincidence,” Hardesy said.

Wade said, “Luke — did I just hear a law enforcement professional use the word ‘coincidence,’ as if there were such a thing?”

Shrugging, the ex-Army sergeant said, “Shit does happen.”

Rogers said, “Let’s key off Anne’s view here. The murders were clean, no mess. Professional.”

Bohannon said, “Double-taps don’t really sound like serial killer ritual.”

All the victims had died by twin bullets to the back of the head.

“Jerry,” Ivanek said, straining for patience, “there’s no template for serial killer ritual.”

“Could be he’s just one smart son of a bitch,” Wade offered. “Nobody’s looking into these murders as possibly related, except the people in this room.” He grinned. “Experts all, of course.”

“Experts,” Nichols said, “who can’t find a single damn thread that connects these victims.”

“Doesn’t have to be one,” Rogers said. “The killer may see some vague connection that seems significant to him or her. Look at eye color, hair color, age, hobbies, shared job aspects. What do we have? An accountant, a librarian, a congressional aide, and a factory supervisor—”

“Go into a bar,” Hardesy interrupted.

There were a couple of chuckles. And Rogers hid her irritation under a mild smile.

“Okay,” Rogers said. “So it sounds like a bad joke... but Deputy Director Fisk and I think that, somehow, these killings may well be connected. So... let’s keep digging. We’ll meet up at the end of the day and see if we’re anywhere closer.”

But when they met in the afternoon, they’d made zero progress tying in the four victims, finding a motive for the murders, or even identifying a possible killer from security footage from around the victims’ lives.

Rogers sat at her desk, a headache trying to win her attention and starting to succeed. She ran a hand over her face, lied to herself that the headache had gone away, then sat straight up and said “Shit,” remembering she hadn’t checked back with Miggie Altuve all day.

Quickly she found two e-mails, two text messages, and a voice mail, all from Miggie, all saying they needed to talk.

Finding him (no surprise) transfixed before his trio of monitors, she was about to knock at his open door when — without looking at her — Miggie said, “Should I have tried semaphores?”

“Sorry,” she said with a chagrined grin, still poised in the doorway. “Busy day... So, you found something?”

He turned to her and raised eyebrows that had been trimmed into submission, then took a sip of his latest cup of coffee. Free-trade Sumatran, most likely — that was how Miggie rolled these days.

“Quite a lot,” he said. “Also, nothing.”

She frowned. “Why don’t you connect those two dots for me.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a shot.”

They returned to the small conference table and sat.

The computer expert said, “Start with the burner phone. Once upon a time it was stolen from a brick-and-mortar. Day he died, Bryson probably bought it black market.”

“Any way to know who he bought it from?”

He shook his head. “On the street or from some dealer in such items. Maybe Bryson had somebody regular he used. No partner or coworker or even secretary to check with. Still, maybe there’s someone out there who might know who his contacts were. That would be a nice break.”

“Did he call anyone besides Reeder?”

“No. My guess? He bought it to call Reeder.”

“We got nothing from that phone?”

Miggie smiled, just a little. “Not exactly. That’s why I said a lot and nothing. Someone was tracking it.”

Rogers sat forward. “Who?”

“No idea, but they’re good. Someone remotely turned on that burner’s GPS without Bryson knowing. Tracking him the whole time he had it.”

She stared at her own clenched fists. “So they know who he bought it from. Or maybe who he bought it from turned the GPS on...?”

“Maybe. Or they could have been following him and saw him buy the burner and turned it on remotely.”

“How would they do that?”

He just looked at her.

She smirked. “Okay, so you smart computer guys can do anything.”

“Not anything, but... I saw a couple of footprints they left behind. They were careful, but few of us are ever careful enough.”

“Does that mean you have an idea of who they are, or might be?”

Another head shake. “No, but I can tell you this — they’re as good as I am... maybe better, hard as that might be to believe. Whoever this is has had extensive training in concealing themselves.”

“Training from where? By whom?”

He shrugged. “Maybe us, maybe Homeland, or NSA... could be anyone really. Wouldn’t have to be American, foreign government even... but this is no ordinary hacker.”

She waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, she said, “Is that it?”

“That’s it for the burner phone. His personal phone, that’s off-line. Bryson probably smashed it to bits in some trash can, after an attack of righteous paranoia. It went off-line late the night before Bryson died... and never came back on.”

“Can you tell me anything about it?”

Miggie flipped a hand. “Normally, I could give you the cell’s search history, websites visited, all kinds of information.”

“But because it’s off-line you can’t?”

He gave her the sadly patronizing gaze of the computer geek. “No, Patti — it’s because Bryson only used the device as a phone. Like a lot of older guys, he didn’t use ten percent of the device’s capabilities. You gotta understand — this guy grew up in landline days.”

“Great — so there’s nothing there?”

“Just the call log.”

That was something at least. “Anything interesting?”

“Not really. Well... one item of possible interest — starting a couple of weeks before he died, Bryson got some calls from CSI.”

“From what CSI? Local cops?”

This amused him. “No, and not the old TV show, either — Common Sense Investments. Actually, it’s called CSII, if you add the ‘Incorporated’ on.”

She frowned. “Adam Benjamin’s investment company?”

“Right on the money. Literally.”

Benjamin was her generation’s Warren Buffett, just a regular guy who had parlayed his savings account into a billion-dollar investment firm by staying smart and keeping it simple. He had never fallen prey to the self-indulgences that usually come with wealth.

A childless widower for the last twenty-five of his nearly seventy years, all Benjamin did was make money, teach others how to make money, and donate money through several charities. Money, money, money. Yet he still lived in the same Defiance, Ohio, house that he and his late wife had bought almost fifty years ago.

What possible connection could there be between a dead small-time security consultant and the richest man in America?

She said, “Chris Bryson worked his whole life — he probably had something put away.”

“Probably. Might have been moving money around. I didn’t check his financials.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Miggie shrugged. “Hey, I ran with what you asked me to. I did confirm a PI license. As a security consultant, Bryson could’ve been doing an investigation for CSI.”

She noted that mentally. “Any other corporate calls?”

“A few, but nothing that added up to more than one or two.”

She patted the table with both hands. “So, then — that’s it?”

A crisp nod. “Afraid so. Can you get me Bryson’s computer? If I had that, I could tell you anything you want to know about the guy.”

“I’ll have Reeder check with Mrs. Bryson.”

“I’m not talking about his home computer so much, though I’d be happy to take a look. A guy who travels, in the security business? Get me his tablet or even laptop... dinosaur like Bryson, a laptop wouldn’t surprise me. That’s his safe — that’s where we’ll find all his secrets.”

Reeder hadn’t mentioned any computer of Bryson’s. She wondered where the hell any computer of his might be, and more important...

... was there something on it that got the man killed?