Capitol Murder Page 21

  Twenty minutes later, Ginny was finished with her sandwich and one of the bags of chips. She tossed her trash in the can under her desk and opened the next banker’s box. It contained transcripts of the interrogations of the suicide bombers. Ginny was surprised at how little most of the bombers knew. They were all from small villages and were educated in madrassas where they studied the Koran and little else. Their only exposure to a wider world had been in a training camp in Somalia, a day or two in a safe house in Karachi while they waited to be smuggled out of Pakistan, and their work in FedEx Field.

  One prisoner, AB, was the only bomber who appeared to be of above-average intelligence. While reading the transcript of his interrogation, Ginny found out how the FBI had learned Ron Tolliver’s license plate number. An autopsy report let Ginny know that AB had committed suicide.

  The next set of 302s dealt with the way Ron Tolliver had been tracked down, the raid on his house, and his transportation to the Department of Justice. Ginny sat up straight. That’s what had bothered her before. The suicide bombers had been captured at FedEx Field and immediately transported to a secret prison. Why was Ron Tolliver taken to the DOJ? If he’d been imprisoned in the secure facility where the other members of the cell were being held, Bobby Schatz would never have been able to find him. Ginny puzzled over this problem for a while, then gave up.

  By eleven, Ginny had developed a dull headache and her vision was blurred. She decided that she would finish reading the last pile of paper in the banker’s box on her desk, then call it a night. She was halfway through her last stack when she found a typed transcript that looked out of place among all the 302s. After finishing the first page, she realized that she was reading the transcript of Terrence Crawford’s interrogation of Ron Tolliver.

  Crawford started off by insulting and threatening the prisoner. Ginny wasn’t surprised. If she studied a genome of Crawford’s DNA, she was certain she wouldn’t find the gene for subtlety. From the one-sided nature of the conversation, Ginny concluded that Tolliver had not been intimidated.

  Ginny turned the page and smiled when Schatz appeared on the scene, brandishing his court order and demanding that the cameras and microphones be turned off. She could imagine what Crawford looked like when he was forced to leave the room.

  By the time she had flipped to the next page, Ginny’s smile had morphed into a frown. The transcript should have ended when Crawford left the interrogation room, but it went on for many more pages. It was clear that the microphones had been off for a while, because the conversation between Schatz and Crawford ended abruptly as soon as Schatz made his demand that his attorney-client conference not be recorded. But the transcript continued in the middle of one of Schatz’s sentences. Someone had turned on the microphones again, and Ginny bet that it was her boss.

  Was it legal for Crawford to listen in on a conversation between an attorney and his client? It had been made crystal clear in law school that the attorney-client privilege was a sacred cornerstone of the judicial system. Competent representation of a client was almost impossible if a client didn’t feel she could speak freely to her lawyer. Ginny could not imagine that there was an exception to the rule that would permit Crawford to eavesdrop on the discussion between Schatz and Tolliver.

  Ginny turned to her computer and logged on to Westlaw, a tool for legal research. It didn’t take long to find cases that held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provided a right to counsel for defendants in criminal cases and that a defendant’s rights under that amendment were violated if a prosecutor eavesdropped on an attorney-client meeting.

  In Coplon v. United States, the defendant was convicted of giving United States intelligence reports to a Russian agent. The D.C. Court of Appeals reversed the conviction presuming prejudice when the defendant’s telephone conversations with her lawyer were monitored after her arrest.

  In Caldwell v. United States, a government agent managed to get himself employed by the defendant’s lawyer. The agent learned confidential attorney-client communications, which he revealed to the United States attorney. The appellate court held that this intrusion was so serious that the defendant didn’t have to show actual prejudice to get the case reversed.

  By the time Ginny logged off, she was convinced that taping an attorney-client conference was an act of prosecutorial misconduct so serious that a defendant didn’t even have to show that the taping prejudiced his case to win a dismissal.

  Ginny was no longer tired. Her mind was racing. She finished reading the transcript, then she set it aside and read the rest of the documents in the box. Most of the reports she had reviewed in this box and the other boxes had some relationship to each other, but none of the other documents in the box with the transcript had anything to do with the interrogation of Tolliver or the attorney-client conference between Tolliver and his lawyer. So what was this ticking time bomb doing in the banker’s box? The only conclusion Ginny could draw was that the transcript had been included with the other documents by mistake.

  Ginny’s heart was pounding. What should she do? If she made the violation public, she could lose her job. At minimum, it would destroy any chance of advancement she might have in the DOJ. But she couldn’t just put the transcript in a binder and let someone else worry about it. She was certain that would be a violation of her ethical responsibilities. She would have to tell someone about it, but whom?

  Crawford was her boss, but he was probably the person who had intentionally violated Tolliver’s rights. Crawford would not want the transcript read by anyone. He might even destroy it. Then it would be her word against his, and she knew who would come out on top in that scenario if she didn’t have proof that the transcript existed.

  Proof! If she made a copy of the transcript, she would have proof that Crawford had violated Tolliver’s constitutional rights. Crawford could argue that Ginny had faked the transcript but Schatz, and maybe even Tolliver, could tell a judge that the transcript was, word for word, what they had said in the interrogation room.

  Ginny picked up the transcript. She felt sick to her stomach. She knew what she had to do, but she was paralyzed. After a few moments, she took a deep breath and forced herself to her feet. There was a copier down the hall. She walked toward it feeling a little like a death-row inmate on the way to her execution. She looked around nervously, ears alert for any sound, but it was so late that the only people on the floor would most likely be members of a cleaning crew or security guards. Even so, she couldn’t risk being seen by a witness.

  Ginny ducked into the room with the copier. She thought about turning on the lights but decided against it. The machine was close enough to the door so she could read the controls in the light from the corridor. The copier had been turned off for the night. Ginny flipped a switch and waited for the copier to warm up. She had just put the transcript in the copier and pressed the button to activate it when she heard footsteps. Her heart rocketed into her throat.

  “I thought I heard a noise.”

  A security guard was standing in the doorway.

  Ginny forced a smile. “Hi, Ray,” she said to Ray Boyle, a heavyset man in his midfifties with whom Ginny had exchanged pleasantries on a few of the occasions when she had worked late.

  “You’re putting in the hours.”

  “Crime never sleeps, so someone has to protect the likes of you,” Ginny said.

  Boyle laughed. “I can take care of myself. You should head home and get some rest.”

  “I’m out of here as soon as I make these copies.”

  “Well, good night,” Boyle said as he walked off. Ginny’s knees buckled, and she took a deep breath to calm herself. When she looked at the copier, she saw that the job had been completed. She took the original and the two copies she had made and returned to her office. She put the copies in separate envelopes and put the original at the bottom of the pile she had made out of the materials in the banker box. She would put the 302s in a binder in the morning. That would gi
ve her the night to think about what she would do with the original.

  Ginny let herself in the apartment as quietly as possible and tiptoed into the bedroom so she wouldn’t wake up Brad. It didn’t work. When she was halfway to the closet, he mumbled, “Hi.”

  “Did I wake you?” Ginny asked as she stripped off her clothes.

  “Not really. I can never get comfortable if you’re not in bed.”

  Ginny washed up in the bathroom; then she slipped under the covers.

  “You’re burning the midnight oil,” Brad said. “What have they got you working on?”

  “Crawford has me organizing reports for the FedEx trial team.”

  “That sounds interesting.”

  “It’s not. It’s scut work. A secretary should be doing it, but I have the privilege because I have a Top Secret clearance.”

  “Congratulations. Say, can you find out if the government is really keeping aliens in area fifty-one?”

  “Yes, but I can’t tell you because you do not have a Top Secret clearance.”

  “So that’s the way it’s going to be, huh?”

  “I can’t help it if you’re unimportant.”

  Brad slapped Ginny playfully on her rump. “This marriage is definitely on the rocks,” he said. Then he rolled over and snuggled with Ginny. They held each other quietly for a while. Then Ginny took her head off Brad’s shoulder and looked at him.

  “There’s something I want to ask you,” she said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Let’s say you were working on a case at Reed, Briggs and you discovered some information that would win the case for the other side.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “Something illegal that the firm had done. Maybe you found proof that a partner had falsified evidence. What would you do?”

  “If it was really serious, I guess I’d call the bar and ask for an ethics opinion.”

  “What if they told you that you had an ethical duty to make the violation known but you knew that going public would probably lose the case for a client and get you fired?”

  “Whoa, that’s a tough one, but I guess the bottom line is that you have to do the right thing. My folks call it the mirror test. You always have to live with the consequences of your actions, so you have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror. If you think about doing something and you know that the end result is that you won’t be able to hold your head up and look yourself in the eye, then you don’t do it. It’s pretty simple.”

  “In theory, but not so simple sometimes in real life.”

  “I made the choice to pursue the Little case even after Susan Tuchman told me I’d be fired if I did.”

  “But you didn’t care if she fired you. You hated working at Reed, Briggs.”

  “That’s true.”

  “What if you loved that job? What if it was the only job you ever wanted and you knew you’d lose it if you kept investigating Little’s case?”

  Brad went quiet. Ginny had just asked a really hard question, but he thought he knew the right answer.

  “Maybe I thought I’d love the job, and maybe I did love it up until I had to make my choice, but I don’t think I would love a job if I had to do something illegal or unethical to keep it.

  “Now, what prompted these questions?” Brad asked. “Are you in some kind of trouble at work?”

  “Not yet, but I could be.”

  “Talk to me. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “I wish I could, but this is a problem I’m going to have to solve on my own. Now I’ve got to get to sleep or my eyes will fall out of my head.”

  Ginny kissed Brad and rolled over. She was dead tired, but she was too wound up to sleep. The job at the Department of Justice was not her dream job. She had taken it because she was fed up with corporate law and prosecuting criminals sounded interesting. So far, the job had been a mixed bag. Some of the things she’d done were challenging, while other tasks were sheer drudgery, like the task Crawford had assigned her. To be honest, working for Crawford, an overbearing egotist, was as bad as working for Susan Tuchman at Reed, Briggs and almost as bad as working for Dennis Masterson at Rankin, Lusk. Still, she wanted to keep her job at Justice, but she wouldn’t be able to if she told Bobby Schatz about the transcript and Crawford discovered that she was responsible for the leak. Ginny was still undecided about what she should do when exhaustion finally dragged her into a troubled sleep.

  Chapter Forty

  Dana was frustrated. Bobby Schatz wouldn’t let her talk to their client, and Terry Crawford wouldn’t give Schatz any discovery. Every time she asked Schatz what he wanted her to do, he would tell her to relax. But relaxing was not in Dana’s repertoire.

  Dana did have other cases, and she spent time on them, but business was still slow, and she found herself with a lot of spare time. Finally, out of boredom, Dana made a list of the things she knew about Ron Tolliver’s case. It was a very short list, but there was one item on it she thought she could pursue, although she had no idea whether her investigation would be of any benefit to the defense.

  Dana knew where Tolliver had been arrested, and she rode Jake’s Harley to the place. A FOR RENT sign had been hooked onto the chain-link fence that surrounded a weed-choked yard. Dana doubted anyone would be renting until the yellow crime-scene tape disappeared. She parked at the curb and made her way to the front door. Because the house was still officially a crime scene, all she could do was circle the house, looking in the windows. The only thing she learned from that exercise was that the interior of the house looked like hell. Dana wasn’t surprised. She knew from her experiences with the D.C. police that SWAT teams didn’t tidy up after a raid.

  Dana canvassed the neighbors, but that didn’t turn up anything useful. Tolliver and a woman had moved in a few months before his arrest, but they’d kept to themselves to the point where the neighbors didn’t even know their names. The neighbor across the street had seen Tolliver go and come on a number of occasions, but he’d only seen the woman in Tolliver’s company. The neighbor on Tolliver’s right had seen him leave and return but had never exchanged words with him or the woman. Before she left, Dana checked the FOR RENT sign and wrote down the name, address, and number of the real estate agent who was handling the property.

  The real estate offices of Kendall & Marquoit were on a corner in a commercial area of Bethesda, Maryland. A receptionist guided Dana to the office of Mary Ann David, a handsome blonde in her midforties. David greeted Dana with a smile and offered her a seat.

  “Myra said you’re interested in our rental on Pendleton Place, Miss Cutler.”

  “Yes, but not in the way you think. I’m an investigator, and I’d like to talk to you about the man who rented the property.”

  David looked concerned. “I’ve already told the FBI agents everything I know.”

  “I’m working for Bobby Schatz,” Dana said, handing the agent one of the business cards Schatz had printed for her. “He’s Mr. Tolliver’s attorney.”

  “Who?”

  “Ron Tolliver is the man who rented from you.”

  “I rented that house to Stephen Reynolds.”

  Dana nodded. “Reynolds is an alias. His real name is Ronald Tolliver.”

  “I don’t know if I should discuss anything with you without asking the agents if it’s all right.”

  Dana flashed her warmest smile. “Mrs. David, you don’t have to get the FBI’s permission to talk to me, and I’d hate to inconvenience you by having to subpoena you to court.

  “Look, I’ll level with you. My boss can be a bit of a prick at times. I’m only interested in background material. I’ll probably never see you again. But Mr. Schatz will go nuts if I tell him you wouldn’t talk to me. You look like you’re pretty busy. I’m sure you don’t want to get subpoenaed to court and have to sit in the hall outside a courtroom all day only to answer a few innocuous questions under oath that you could have answered for me today.”

  David looked
alarmed. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Hell, no. I believe in live and let live. I know that the stuff you tell me won’t be important enough to make you a witness. It’s Mr. Schatz. If I tell him you wouldn’t talk to me, he’ll assume you know something important, and the next thing you know, a process server will ambush you outside your house, and Mr. Schatz will make you sit in the corridor all day out of spite. I’ve seen him do this before. So, what do you say? I’ve got a few harmless questions, then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  David sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “How many times did you meet Mr. Tolliver?”

  “The first time was when he came to this office and told me he wanted to rent two properties.”

  “Two?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he have specific places in mind?”

  “Yes, the house on Pendleton and the one that burned down.”

  “Tell me about the house that burned down.”

  “It’s out in the country on Saffron Lane. The FBI told me that they thought your client torched it.”

  “Can you give me the address?”

  David ran her fingers over her computer keyboard and found the address.

  “Did Tolliver tell you why he needed two places?”

  “He said he had a construction business and he needed a place for some of his workers to live.”

  Dana was sure she knew exactly what “work” the men who lived on Saffron Lane did.

  Finding the house on Saffron Lane was easy once the wind shifted. Even after all this time, the smell of burning wood lingered in the crisp fall air. Dana wandered around the immolated skeleton, sifting through the ashes with the toe of her boot and finding nothing of value. If there was evidence linking the inhabitants of the rental to FedEx Field, it had been carried off by FBI forensic experts.

  A thought occurred to Dana as she rode home. The suicide bombers had worked as hawkers for four different concession stands. The newspapers had reported that all of the concessions were owned by Lawrence Cooper, who had been murdered on the Sunday of the failed suicide mission. Cooper had to have been approached before the football season in order to place the men in the concessions.