Dead End (41 page)

Dingley said: ‘That's fortunate. Personnel told us Ms Lang's records had been destroyed before we asked for them …'

The field office bar was on 14th Street and it was tradition to celebrate the first potential break in any case. Benton touched glasses with Dingley and said: ‘You know what I think we've got enough evidence for? Stealing a bunch of towels and serviettes from his employers.'

‘Don't forget the salt and pepper shakers.'

‘And a set of salt and pepper shakers,' added Benton.

‘How's a bum like Johnson get over a quarter of a million bucks in the bank?' asked Dingley.

‘You think he's going to tell us?' asked Benton, cynically.

Dingley looked unnecessarily at his watch. ‘Ed Pullinger is making the wire-tap application about now. Maybe that's how we'll find out.'

‘Let's not forget
why
we're involved,' reminded Benton. ‘It's not so much the murder. It's suspected terrorism.'

‘Terrorism's well funded,' said Dingley. ‘It's a point Pullinger is arguing to support the tap. And he's trying for an order to get at Metro DC police records, too.'

‘Towels, serviettes and salt and pepper shakers,' insisted Benton, gesturing for the bartender's attention.

‘Don't you forget the paint in the locker drawer.'

Thirty

T
he interviews with the two suspended Metro DC police officers were, of course, conducted separately, again at the FBI field office, and from both there was immediate legal insistence upon, instead of objection to, tape recordings. Each was also individually accompanied by two demanding lawyers, one personal, the other representing the Metro DC police department. Despite their separation, each officer quickly appeared to follow a virtually identical script. Of course they knew Harry Johnson: they'd worked with him. But they hadn't been friends, acquaintances even – he was just a guy they'd seen around. No, Harry hadn't indicated that he knew Richard Parnell's car until the scientist himself led them to it. They had not recovered every item from Rebecca Lang's purse from the bottom of the gorge when they arrested him – the terrorist-alert flight number had been shown to them for the first time by a Metro DC forensic scientist, Professor Jacob Meadows, who'd produced the entire contents of the handbag after the recovery of the body and the vehicle. Neither had been present at that recovery. As far as they knew, the recovery had been carried out by police engineers who had also collected up material later handed over to Professor Meadows. Their involvement had begun, after a radio alert while they were on patrol, with the discovery, from the ID in her purse, that Rebecca Lang had worked at Dubette. At the time of their going to McLean, the death of Ms Lang had been considered a fatal traffic accident, not murder. Both believed it was Harry Johnson who had told them of the personal relationship between Ms Lang and Richard Parnell, although it might first have been suggested by Dwight Newton – neither could be absolutely sure. They had not attached any significance to the flight number when they found it among Rebecca Lang's belongings – it had been Parnell's attorney who had introduced that significance into the initial court hearing. They had believed there was bona fide justification to take Richard Parnell into custody, considering the circumstances of what they then believed to be a fatal accident and the damage to Parnell's car. Their arrest procedure had conformed to every legal regulation and guidance. There had been no intimidation, harassment or abuse, either verbal or physical – throughout they had acted fully within the legally established boundaries of suspect arrest, based upon preliminary forensic findings. Neither remembered Johnson specifically drawing their attention to the damage to Parnell's car – it had been obvious as they approached. They didn't look around the Toyota, for any paint-debris evidence of it being hit by a neighbouring car.

Helen Montgomery had been the first to be interviewed, in the morning. Towards the end of the encounter, Dingley said: ‘The only reason for your detaining Richard Parnell when you did was because of the damage to his car?'

‘We'd been told the dead woman's car had been in collision with a grey vehicle. The Toyota was grey.'

‘You'd also been told, according to what you're now telling us, that Richard Parnell and Rebecca Lang were into a relationship,' said Benton. ‘Wasn't it a very long jump to connect him to the death purely on the basis of the colour of his car?'

‘Is that a question for your specific enquiry?' immediately intruded the Metro DC lawyer, Phillip Brack, a man so obese he had to sit with his legs splayed, unable to bring them together.

‘It could very well be, if your client was curious about an inexplicable Air France flight number being on the body of the dead woman,' said Dingley.

‘My client has already told you that, at the moment of the arrest, she was unaware of that flight number. Or its apparent significance.'

‘So, it was what?' questioned Benton. ‘Taking Richard Parnell into police custody for further questioning into what was nothing more than a possible coincidence?'

‘We're in danger of straying into wrong territory,' warned Brack.

‘I think we're on the right side of the dividing line,' insisted Dingley.

‘That's what it was,' said the woman. ‘Further questioning.'

‘For which he had to be manacled?' demanded Benton.

‘That's it!' stopped Brack, just ahead of Helen Montgomery's personal attorney, a heavily bespectacled, Ivy-League-suited black lawyer named Donald Sinclair.

‘That's too much,' said Sinclair, rewording his protest.

‘It wouldn't have been, for a suspected terrorist,' said Benton.

‘We've already covered that ground,' reminded Sinclair.

‘I'm not sure we have, to our satisfaction – to satisfy an FBI involvement,' disputed Dingley. ‘Unless you knew of the terrorist implications, I can't see why you had to take Richard Parnell into custody in chains. Take us through the conversation you had with Harry Johnson, as best you can remember it.'

For the first time, Helen Montgomery showed a hesitation. ‘I've told you. We got a dispatcher's message that there'd been a fatality in Rock Creek Park, Rebecca Lang, whose ID gave Dubette as her workplace …'

‘Do Metro DC automatically record their communications?' broke in Benton.

There was another pause. ‘Yes.'

‘So, there'll be a tape of that exchange?'

‘I guess so. Anyway, we get to Dubette, ask to see Harry in security, who takes us up to Ms Lang's division and calls in the vice president as well as the personnel director …'

‘Whoa!' stopped Benton. ‘Let's take it all a lot slower. You knew Harry Johnson was head of Dubette security. You call him from the car? Tell him you were on your way?'

‘I may have done. I'm not sure.'

‘You arrive at Dubette, you tell Harry what?'

The woman shrugged. ‘I can't remember, precisely. Something like someone who works for Dubette, Rebecca Lang, looks to have been killed in a motor accident … forced over the edge of a drop in Rock Creek Park and …'

‘That's what the dispatcher said, was it?' intruded Benton once more. ‘That it wasn't just an accident … that Rebecca Lang's vehicle had been forced over the edge of a drop …? That's what the tape will show?'

‘I'm not sure … I mean, I think so, but I can't recall the precise words,' stumbled the woman.

‘Guess that might just have been a reason for cuffing Parnell,' offered Dingley.

‘What did Harry say to that?' picked up Benton.

‘Maybe “how terrible” or something like that. And that we'd better tell people in authority. Which is what we did.'

‘So that's when you first heard the name Richard Parnell, when you got to someone in authority?' said Dingley.

‘No, before that,' said the woman. ‘As we were going through the building, I told Harry we needed to find out what Ms Lang had been doing, to be in Rock Creek Park. Harry said Parnell would be the person to tell us. That he and the girl were involved and that Parnell would be the person to know.'

‘Know what? Tell you what?' asked Dingley.

‘Whatever we wanted to know, I suppose.'

‘Did you talk about Parnell's car?'

‘Not that I remember.'

‘How did Parnell take it, when you told him?' asked Benton.

‘All right, I guess.'

‘All right, you guess!' exclaimed Benton. ‘You tell a man his fiancée's been killed in a car crash and he takes it all right!'

‘No. He was shocked, I suppose. But he didn't break down or anything like that.'

‘How did Parnell's car come into the conversation?' suddenly asked Dingley. ‘And why? You go to Dubette to tell them an employee has died. You discover she's into a relationship with someone there, you go into the car park to find his car damaged, so you manacle him and take him into custody. Wasn't that all a bit too quick … too circumstantial …?'

‘I'm coming in here again …!' Brack began to object, but Dingley overrode him.

‘Come in as much as you want, for the benefit of the tape and to protest later. But we're talking terrorism and it seems to me, to my partner and I, that decisions were made either prematurely …' The halting hand came up again. ‘… or on the basis of evidence which isn't being disclosed to us. Which is very much part of our investigation. So, we'd appreciate an answer.'

‘Nothing whatsoever has been withheld,' insisted the woman.

‘Why do you think Johnson couldn't remember you or Officer Bellamy?'

‘My client has already answered that question,' said Sinclair. ‘If you want it repeated, I'll repeat it: she has no idea.'

‘Was he involved in the internal Metro DC police department enquiries into corruption and evidence-planting in 1996?' demanded Benton.

Brack said: ‘Stop!' just slightly ahead of the black lawyer.

Sinclair said: ‘Upon my advice, my client refuses to answer that question.'

Brack added: ‘A question that is grossly improper.'

‘I don't consider it is,' said Dingley, mildly. ‘But there would be records of those internal enquiries, wouldn't there, Mr Brack?'

The obese lawyer shifted in his inadequate chair. ‘I have no way of knowing that.'

‘We hope to be able to,' said Benton.

‘She wasn't spooked,' complained Benton. They'd just finished listening to the tape replay, reloading the machine for Peter Bellamy's afternoon arrival, their sandwiches still uneaten on Dingley's desk.

‘She came close,' argued Dingley.

‘Close wasn't close enough. We're still looking at towels and salt and pepper shakers.'

‘The taps will be on Johnson's phones by now …' started Dingley, stopping to pick up the telephone, which was nearer to where he was by the desk. In quick succession he said: ‘OK … good … shit … OK … that's what we do to restore faith in the Bureau.'

‘What?' asked Benton, when his partner replaced the receiver.

‘We got our access order, against Metro DC police,' said Dingley.

Looks between Dingley and Benton were sufficient within an hour of their afternoon interview unspeakingly to agree that there had been careful rehearsal between Peter Bellamy and Helen Montgomery. The waddling Phillip Brack again represented Metro DC police department. Bellamy's personal attorney was a woman, Hilda Jeffries. She wore a trouser suit, a short hair-style and no make-up.

It was within that hour that the FBI agents took Bellamy through the echoed preliminaries they'd earlier recorded with Helen Montgomery, this time with Benton leading the hard-cop/soft-cop routine, although with a sudden, hopefully confusing, twist. Bellamy was at the end of a denial of any prior conversation about damage to Parnell's Toyota when Dingley said: ‘What sort of guy do you think Harry is?'

‘Good. Lucky …' began the police officer, before being halted by Brack.

The Metro DC lawyer said: ‘Where's this questioning getting us?'

‘An inch at a time, because of so many interruptions,' said Benton. ‘Why do you consider Harry Johnson a lucky guy?'

‘That was a hell of a job he landed himself at Dubette, right out of the department,' improvised Bellamy.

‘I thought it was a shoo-in,' said Dingley. ‘Joe Blanchard opened the door for him.'

‘It wasn't that guaranteed,' said the man, believing there was firm ground underfoot.

‘How do you know that?' persisted Benton.

‘What bearing has this upon your investigation?' demanded the female lawyer.

‘I won't know until I hear the answer,' said Benton. To Bellamy he said: ‘Why wasn't it guaranteed that Harry would get the Dubette job, with Blanchard's backing?'

‘It couldn't have been, could it?' floundered Bellamy. ‘There must have been other applicants.'

‘What about you?' said Benton. ‘You ever think you could slot into a Dubette job, knowing Harry like you did?'

‘Could have been an ace in the hole.'

‘We hear Dubette pay well,' invited Dingley.

‘Top dollar,' smiled Bellamy.

‘How much time you got, before you can leave?' queried Benton, tuned to his partner's approach.

‘Coupla years … three maybe.'

‘Is Dubette your ace in the hole?' asked Benton.

‘Where's this going?' lumbered Brack.

‘In a direction,' replied Benton, intentionally dismissive. ‘You got it in mind that you can get a job with Dubette if you choose to leave Metro DC police, right?'

‘It's always a thought,' conceded Bellamy.

‘You ever get caught up in all those troubles in the Metro DC police department in 1996?' abruptly demanded Benton.