Gideon's Corpse

52

Fordyce consulted the GPS built into his pool vehicle. The house was in a cul-de-sac, with pine forest and mountains rising up behind. It was well after midnight but the lights were on, the blue flicker of a TV seen through the gauzy curtains. The Novaks were still up.

This was clearly one of the prime lots of the suburban neighborhood: the last house on a dead-end lane, bigger than the others. Not to mention the Mercedes in the driveway.

He drove in, blocking the Mercedes, then got out and rang the bell. A moment later a woman’s voice asked who it was.

“FBI,” said Fordyce. He unfolded his shield, showed it through the narrow side window.

The woman opened the door immediately, almost breathlessly. “Yes? What is it? Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” said Fordyce, stepping inside. “Sorry to be bothering you at such a late hour.” She was a fine-looking woman, very fit, trim little waist and a shapely butt, great skin, wearing white slacks and a cashmere sweater with pearls. Funny outfit for midnight television.

“Who is it?” came an irritated voice from what appeared to be the living room.

“FBI,” the woman called back.

The TV went off immediately and Bill Novak, the head of security in Crew’s department, emerged.

“What is it?” he asked matter-of-factly.

Fordyce smiled. “I was just apologizing to your wife for the late hour. I have a few questions of a routine nature. It won’t take long.”

“No problem,” said Novak. “Come in, please, sit down.”

They went into the dining room. Mrs. Novak turned on the lights. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”

“Nothing, thanks.” They all sat down at the table and Fordyce looked around. Very tasteful. Expensive. Some old silver on the dining table, a few oil paintings that looked like the real thing, handmade Persian rugs. Nothing outrageous—just expensive.

Fordyce took out a notebook, flipped over the pages.

“Do you need my wife?” Novak asked.

“Oh yes,” said Fordyce. “If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

They seemed eager to please, not nervous. Maybe they didn’t have anything to be nervous about.

“What is your annual salary, Dr. Novak?” Fordyce asked as he looked up from his notebook.

A sudden silence. “Is this really necessary?” the security head asked.

“Well,” said Fordyce. “This is strictly voluntary. You’re under no obligation to answer my questions. Please feel free to call your attorney if you desire legal advice or wish him or her to be present.” He smiled. “One way or another, however, we would like your answers to these questions.”

After a pause, Novak said, “I think we can proceed. I make a hundred and ten thousand dollars a year.”

“Any other source of income? Investments? Inheritance?”

“Not to speak of.”

“Any overseas accounts?”

“No.”

Fordyce glanced at the wife. “And you, Mrs. Novak?”

“I don’t work. Our finances are mingled.”

Fordyce made a note. “Let’s start with the house. When did you buy it?”

“Two years ago,” said Novak.

“How much did it cost, what was your down payment, and how much did you finance?”

Another long hesitation. “It was six hundred and twenty-five thousand, and we put down a hundred and financed the rest.”

“Your monthly payments?”

“About thirty-five hundred dollars.”

“Which comes to, what, about forty-two thousand per year.” Fordyce made another note. “Do you have any children?”

“No.”

“Now let’s talk about your cars. How many?”

“Two,” Novak said.

“The Mercedes and—?”

“A Range Rover.”

“Their cost?”

“The Mercedes was fifty, the Range Rover about sixty-five.”

“Did you finance them?”

A long silence. “No.”

Fordyce went on. “When you bought your house, how much did you spend on new furnishings?”

“I’m not really sure,” said Novak.

“For example, these rugs? Did you bring them from your previous residence or purchase them?”

Novak looked at him. “Just what are you driving at?”

Fordyce allowed him a warm, friendly smile. “These are nothing more than routine questions, Dr. Novak. This is how the FBI starts almost any interview—with financials. You’d be amazed how quickly one can smoke out someone living beyond their means with just a few simple questions. Which is alarm number one in our business.” Another smile.

Fordyce could see signs of tension in Novak’s face for the first time.

“So…the rugs?”

“We bought them for the new house,” Novak said.

“How much?”

“I don’t remember.”

“And the other furnishings? The silver collection? The wide-screen TV?”

“Mostly bought when we purchased the house.”

“Did you finance any of these purchases?”

“No.”

Another notation. “You seem to have had a lot of cash on hand. Was there a legacy involved, lottery or gambling winnings, an investment coup? Or perhaps family help?”

“Nothing significant to speak of.”

Fordyce would have to plug the figures into a spreadsheet, but already they were at the outer limits of what was readily explainable. A man making a hundred grand a year would be hard-pressed to buy the cars he had around the same time he was making a down payment on his house, and paying cash on top of everything else. Unless he’d made a real estate killing on his previous house.

“Your previous house—was it nearby?”

“It was over in White Rock.”

“How much did you sell it for?”

“About three hundred.”

“How much equity did you have in that house?”

“About fifty, sixty.”

Only fifty or sixty. That answered that question. There was unexplained wealth.

Fordyce gave Novak another reassuring smile. He flipped the pages of his notebook. “Now, getting to these emails that were found in Crew’s account.”

Novak looked relieved to see the change in subject. “What about them?”

“I know you’ve answered a lot of questions already about this.”

“Always ready to help.”

“Good. Could those emails have been planted?”

The question hung in the air for a moment.

“No,” said Novak at last. “Our security is foolproof. Crew’s computer was part of a physically isolated network. There’s no contact with the outside world, no Internet connection. It’s impossible.”

“No contact with the outside. How about by somebody inside the network. A co-worker, say?”

“Again, impossible. We work with highly classified material. Nobody has access to anyone else’s files. There are layers and layers of security, passwords, encryption. Trust me, there’s no way, none, that those emails could have been planted.”

Fordyce made a notation. “And this is what you’ve been telling investigators?”

“Certainly.”

Fordyce looked at the man. “But you have access, don’t you?”

“Well, yes. As the security officer I have access to everyone’s files. After all, we have to be able to track what everyone is doing—standard operating procedure.”

“So what you just told me is false. There is a way those emails could have been planted. You could have done it.” In asking this question, Fordyce shifted his entire tone of voice, pitching it low and accusatory, emphasizing the word you in an openly disbelieving manner.

The air froze. But Novak didn’t blink. After a moment, he said, “Yes, I could have planted them. But I didn’t. Why would I?”

“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.” Again Fordyce employed his most skeptical tone of voice. “You just admitted you told a falsehood to me and all the other investigators.” He glanced at his notebook. “You said, and I quote: ‘There’s no way, none, that those emails could have been planted.’ That’s false.”

Novak kept a steady eye on him. “Look, I misspoke. I wasn’t considering myself in that statement because I know I didn’t do it. Don’t try to entrap me here.”

“Could anyone else in your department have planted those emails?”

Another hesitation. “The three other security officers in my department might have been able to do it, but it would have taken two of them in cooperation, since they don’t have the highest level of clearance.”

“And are there others above you who could have done it?”

“There are those who have the authorization, but they would have had to go through me. At least, I think they would have. There are levels of security even I don’t know about. The higher-ups might have installed a back door. I really don’t know.”

Fordyce felt a little frustrated. So far, Novak hadn’t actually said anything incriminating, hadn’t shown any cracks. His misstatement wasn’t out of the ordinary—he had seen far worse from innocent people under questioning.

But the house, the cars, the rugs…

“May I ask you, Agent Fordyce, what makes you think those emails were planted?”

Fordyce decided to tip his hand a little. He fixed him with a glaring eye. “You know Dr. Crew. Would you call him stupid?”

“No.”

“Would you call leaving incriminating emails on your work account a smart thing to do? Without even erasing them?”

A silence. Then Novak cleared his throat. “But he did erase them.”

This brought Fordyce up a bit short. “Yet you recovered them. How?”

“Through one of our many backup systems.”

“Can anything really be erased from one of your computers?”

“No.”

“Does everyone know that?”

Another hesitation. “I believe most do.”

“So we’re back to my original question. Was Dr. Gideon Crew a stupid man?”

Now he saw Novak’s façade just begin to crack. He had finally succeeded in raising the man’s ire. “Look, I find the entire thrust of your questioning to be offensive, all these questions about my personal finances, these insinuations about planted emails, this late-night surprise visit. I want to help the investigation, but I will not sit here and be victimized.”

Fordyce, with his long experience in questioning suspects, knew when he had reached the probable end of what had been a very useful interview. No point in provoking Novak further. He slapped his notebook shut and rose, turning back on his warm, chummy voice.

“Fortunately, I’m done. Thank you kindly for your time. It was all routine, no need to be concerned.”

“I am concerned,” said Novak. “I don’t think it’s right, and I’m going to file a complaint.”

“Naturally, you’re welcome to do so.”

As he retreated to his car, he hoped to hell Novak wouldn’t complain about him, or would at least wait a few days. A complaint would be most inconvenient. Because he was now halfway convinced that Novak was dirty in some way. That didn’t exonerate Crew, of course, and Novak hardly looked like a terrorist.

But still… Was it possible Gideon had been framed?