“Like I said, Judge, whatever it was, Mac wasn’t talking.”
“Is that unusual?”
She thought about it for a minute, “There usually isn’t any reason for him to not tell me. He’s always shared his cases with me. From time to time I’ve helped and served as a sounding board.”
“Except, look where you work now?” the Judge answered, pulling out a cigar and running it under his nose, inhaling the aroma.
“Did you call the attorney general or the FBI director?”
“Yes.”
“And,” Sally replied, rolling her palms open waiting for a response.
“They both said there was nothing new to report other than they obviously had the newspaper reporter as victim number four and I guess Mac and Wire tracked down another image of our killer from a surveillance camera, again with a hat and sunglasses, but this time without a beard. That’s been on television and online all day.”
“Maybe that’s what they were briefing the attorney general and director about.”
“At midnight?” The man shook his head.
Sally had known the Judge for just a little over a year now but she could read the signs. The Judge smelled something. “You don’t buy it.”
“No. I’ve called around to some of my other sources over at Justice and they knew little other than there was the late night meeting. It’s very tight lipped over there.”
“So …”
“I came down here seeing as how you and that boyfriend of yours are so close.”
“Well, we do live together so I’d say yeah we’re close,” Sally answered, not picking up on the Judge’s drift.
“No,” the Judge said, shaking his head. “You’re
close
. You’re as close as any married couple I’ve ever seen, Sally. You should see yourself watch him and vice versa. You should see your face light up when he calls. You turn into an entirely different person.”
“I do not!”
“Hah,” the Judge laughed. “Most of the time around here, you are as serious and driven a person as there is in this building. Just like your boy, tunnel vision. People are intimated by you because you’re strong, smart, a creative thinker and they know the president and I trust you implicitly. Yet when Mac calls, you turn into this girl who blushes and smiles and gets all giddy.”
“I do not get giddy,” Sally protested defensively.
“Bullshit, you absolutely do,” the Judge answered, needling her now, having some fun. “And Mac? Same thing. He’s as wired and focused a person as I’ve ever seen. Complete tunnel vision when he’s on the hunt with a total edge. I mean, Mac can be an absolute prick sometimes. Yet when he sees you, this calm washes over him, he becomes totally at ease. The edge, that disappears.”
“What’s your point, Judge?”
“You’ve seen it all day. The media is going ape shit because one of their own was murdered here. In twenty-four hours, Sandy Faye will be a journalistic saint. The press secretary has been getting hammered all day with questions, people looking for updates, answers, information, it’s been relentless. I’ve had press people calling me because they got wind of some conference call yesterday where the FBI had some sort of breakthrough on the case but nobody is saying anything. Something is going on, they’ve got some sort of break and nobody is talking and I mean nobody. Even he didn’t tell you and there is only one reason he wouldn’t, and that’s to protect you.”
“Or the White House.”
The Judge shook his head, “No, no, no. Mac doesn’t give a damn about the White House, but he gives a big one about you.”
“And you want to know.”
The Judge nodded, “I don’t want to get blindsided. We put Mac and Wire on that investigation.”
“According to Director Mitchell, the FBI asked them in,” Sally demurred.
“He was fine with it, of course, eager for it, but you were at that meeting; hell, you pushed Mac that extra bit to get him in.
We,
” the Judge pointed to himself and Sally, “put them on this damn thing, so we are now invested in it.”
“I thought the other day you told me it was Thomas Mitchell’s job to deal with Mac and Wire questions. That the White House did nothing more than get two exceptional investigators to help with the investigation. If people had a problem with that, bring it on and all that.”
“I did.”
“What’s changed?”
“What if what they find becomes an issue for us?”
“Mac said he’d tell me if that happened.”
“Maybe, but he’s not going to compromise his investigation either and, no offense, but he’s not the most politically adroit. He may not see the issues the way we see the issues.”
Sally took the measure of the Judge. She could sense the Judge wasn’t telling her everything either. “Maybe Mac hasn’t told me everything, but what aren’t
you
telling me?”
“I got a question from a reporter asking me some background on Bill Donahue and his daughter. I could tell by the way he was asking questions that he was fishing, but he had something as well, something he wouldn’t disclose to me, but this guy is a pro and has worked the Justice Department beat for a long time.”
“Your radar is up?”
“It is.”
“What did the reporter tell you?”
• • • •
“There’s the BMW X5,” the reporter noted. “That’s the right plate. They are here. Yes!” she exclaimed happily. This tipster had paid off a few times before, but now this tip was leading to the White House and might have the chance to be salacious.
“How are you going to play it?” the cameraman asked.
“We jump him, camera in his face. No room to breathe.”
“You sure?” the cameraman asked warily. “He’s not someone to mess with.”
“You keep that camera running. It’s the ultimate protection.” Local news was boring and she wanted out. This was a national story and she wanted to get to a national stage. There was no way she was leaving empty-handed.
• • • •
Having finished with Kostas, Mac and Wire were walking down the back hallway of the clinic. “Given how Kostas described the change in Donahue, I’m starting to believe it, Mac. These girls might have been involved in that accident.”
“Donahue’s parents made a similar observation about their daughter, how she changed after that summer, so there is something to it,” Mac answered agreeably. “Whether it connects to this, who knows.”
“But let’s say they were involved,” Dara posited. “She didn’t call 911, she didn’t do anything for the victim. But she goes back to school, realizes what she did wrong and what? Decides to get her life in order?”
Mac nodded. “Possibly. She thinks she’s lived a careless life and now, as a result, someone is dead. I need to do something. I need to make a difference. I need to pay for what I’ve done. So she decides to become an elementary school teacher. A life that will not lead to the luxuries she’s had her entire life but a life that could potentially help and impact others. Maybe Leslie Felding can shed more light on that.”
“So is our new operating theory that these girls had a role in that accident and someone is punishing them for it?”
“Actions have consequences,” Mac replied nodding.
“You approve of the Reaper?”
“No. No, no, no. But I believe in karma, and she can be one angry, vindictive bitch,” Mac replied as he pushed out the back door and the camera and microphone was immediately in his face.
“Why are you investigating this clinic?” a short blond woman with a microphone asked. “Why are you here?”
“No comment,” Mac answered, at first surprised by the microphone and camera in his face, but now with his bearings, he walked by the reporter, Wire in tow, heading for his SUV. The reporter and cameraman maintained pursuit.
“Is it true that the Reaper is targeting women because they had abortions? Were the victims patients at this clinic?” the reporter pressed.
“No comment,” Mac answered flatly, looking over to Wire who had her head down as they split to get into the X5. He hit the key fob and the taillights flashed.
“You were going through medical records, right? Seeing what women had abortions, right? Is the Reaper targeting women on that basis?”
“No comment,” Mac answered again as he reached for the door handle. Another television news van pulled around the back of the building.
“You have to be here for some reason, Agent McRyan. You’re on the Reaper Task Force. There must be some investigative reason for you to be here at Fallway Medical Clinic?”
“No comment.”
The reporter was unsatisfied with Mac’s responses. She wasn’t getting the scoop she hoped for, apparently. He wasn’t saying a thing.
She needed to get him to talk.
Then the reporter crossed the line.
“Perhaps you’re here on personal business, Agent McRyan. Perhaps you and Agent Wire have something to hide you don’t want people to know about? You were inside for quite some time.”
“Whoa,” the cameraman muttered, but he didn’t stop filming.
Mac stopped in his tracks and turned, “Excuse me?” He glanced over to Wire who was equally stunned by the question.
“It’s a simple question. Are you here for personal reasons? Did you and Agent Wire have some ‘personal’ business to take care of? Something you wouldn’t want the White House’s deputy director of communications Sally Kennedy to know about?” the reporter persisted, a feisty young blond, looking for a big scoop.
Mac was stunned by the absolute brazenness of the question. It was completely out of bounds, “Are you for real?” His anger was starting to show. “I’d be very
very
careful if I were you.”
“What business did you have inside then? In the absence of any comment, I can only assume it was for personal reasons, for both you and Agent Wire. Maybe you two are hiding something? Wouldn’t be the first time someone wondered that. You two seem
awfully
close and you spend a lot of time together.”
“
Mac, don’t
!” Wire warned, seeing his face redden but it was too late.
Mac stormed towards the reporter, angry now. The cameraman stayed close, too close for Mac’s comfort. He put his left hand up to the lens and forcefully shoved the camera out of way, which caused the cameraman to fall backwards and onto the ground. All of which was caught by the other television station, now out filming. Mac got into the reporter’s face, an inch from her nose, “I’d suggest you stop right now.”
“Why’s that?”
“You
really
don’t want me angry with you,” Mac answered through clenched teeth. It was a threat, one he looked very ready to follow through on.
“Oh, really, what happens when you get angry?” the reporter goaded, an evil smile on her face, the cameras still rolling, the microphone picking up his threat. In that moment, no matter how out-of-bounds the reporter was, he knew he’d gone too far.
She’d gotten the best of him.
Wire grabbed at his arm, “Mac, let’s go.” She pulled him away from the reporter. Dr. Kostas stood at the back door in horror at what she’d just witnessed. “Get in the truck.
Get in the truck!
”
Mac backed away from the reporter, glaring at her. Once in the X5, he quickly backed out and pulled out of the lot before any more damage was done. His phone was ringing. It was Sally. How would he explain this?
• • • •
“He won’t pick up for some reason,” Sally reported to the Judge.
“Let me know when he does,” he answered, picking up the phone, continuing to work his sources.
Sally walked back to her office and started working on the speech again and contemplated the fact that it was getting late in the day and she was getting hungry, the carrots simply not doing it for her. What she was really in need of, more than anything else, was a beer and a burger. Were Mac not so involved in the case, she would have called to have him pick her up to go to one of the dive bars they’d found. Maybe listen to some live music, even dance a little, although for an excellent athlete Mac had very little rhythm on the dance floor.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Sally’s assistant screamed as she came into the office and grabbed the remote off her desk. “You have to see this. It’s Mac.”
“What?”
“Just watch.”
Sally watched the encounter outside the back of Fallway Medical Clinic with the small blond reporter. “Abortion? That’s what’s motivating the killer?” Sally questioned. “That doesn’t seem right.”
The confrontation continued with Mac issuing no comments. Then the tenor of things changed.
“She didn’t just ask that!” Sally squawked in reaction.
“
Oh yes she did
,” the Judge answered from the doorway.
Sally saw the change in her boyfriend’s expression. The violence appeared in his eyes and the anger in his face as he stormed towards the reporter. “That’s not good.” Then Mac pushed the cameraman down and made the threat. “That’s really not good.” Then she heard the verbal exchange. “Oh Mac, that’s really
really
not good.”
The optics of the whole encounter were horrible. Sally grabbed the remote and started flipping around to the other news channels. On every one she caught some portion of the confrontation. She sat back in her office chair, exhaled and shook her head. “Nice job, Mac,” she muttered and immediately grabbed for her cell phone.
“But that question, that would set anyone off,” Sally’s assistant suggested.
“He’s not allowed to be just anyone in that situation,” Sally answered. “Cripes. What a mess.”
“Well, now we know why he’s not taking your calls,” the Judge offered, smiling, but wearily shaking his head.
M
ac was fuming with himself. He’d never lost it with a reporter. Of course, when rule number one is to never talk to reporters, you generally don’t have any problems losing it with them. In this case, he’d been Pearl Harbored without any preparation or chance to see it coming and on top of that, he was accused of having an affair with Wire, having her get an abortion no less, and the whole confrontation would show up on national television in no time and would be run continuously.
It would require an explanation.
Mac wasn’t sure what would be worse, explaining it to Sally or the rest of the country.
He’d lost it with others before, the mayor of St. Paul a few times, the now incarcerated president of a company another time, the occasional suspect or witness he was exasperated with. However, never like this. He completely lost his composure. There were times he thought it was helpful to lose it, if you lost it strategically and were in control of it. That was not the case with this reporter. In this case, he came momentarily unglued.
“Man, I so stepped in it there,” he said as he sipped coffee with Wire trying to get things back under control. They were at a small out of the way diner that did not have a television anywhere on the premises.
“Did you ever!” Wire seemed only too happy to point out.
“Whose side are you on here?”
“Yours, but I had no idea we were an item.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“No, it’s not,” Wire answered bitterly. “It’s a shit show and you weren’t the only who drew fire in this fiasco. Apparently, you and I have been having an affair.”
“Man,” Mac groaned. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“Yeah, for people to think I’d have actually slept with someone like you,” Wire mocked. “I do have standards.”
“I know, it must be soooo embarrassing for you,” Mac answered, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “Unbelievable.”
“I’d like a half hour with that reporter in a cinder block room, no cameras, no nothing.”
Mac looked at his cell buzzing for the fourth time in the last hour, “I know someone else that would like that same shot,” he moaned, staring at the display, his elbows on the table, his face resting in his hands, rubbing his temples, trying to make the headache go away.
“As your friend,” Wire suggested, “answer it. Guaranteed she’s seen it. Answer the phone and get it over with.”
He nodded, exhaled and answered: “Hey, Sal.”
“Are you okay?”
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, “Yeah.”
“You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I just saw you do the stupidest thing.”
He was wrong. This would be bad.
“Look, that reporter …”
“Was a raging fucking bitch, Mac,” Sally barked. “But you can’t let her or anyone get to you like that. This is fucking Washington, DC, not St. Paul. You can’t do that!”
“Look, I’m sorry, babe.”
“Don’t you babe me. Don’t you dare right now,” she replied heatedly. “You’ve been avoiding me for hours.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you.” He had been. “I’ve been working …”
“Don’t bullshit me like that, Mac. You can’t pull it off.”
He could rarely get anything by her. She was in complete prosecutor cross-examination mode and he was a hostile witness. The verbal beating continued, “Oh, by the way, you and Dara looked so lovely coming out the back door of a family planning clinic, by the way. Nice visual there, sneaking out the back door. You two
actually
looked like you had something to hide.”
“Seriously, that’s the card you’re going to play here?” Mac asked in disbelief, his thermostat starting to rise again. “You know better than that.”
Sally did and quickly changed gears, “How about taking a call then? You almost always take my calls and certainly don’t make me call five or six times to get a hold of you and I needed to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About what? Seriously, that’s what you’re going with?
Hello
. I needed to talk to you about the case, the big break you wouldn’t tell me about last night. You know, the break in your case that involves a really important person to my boss.”
“Oh, jeez, for a minute there I thought you might be concerned about me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Apparently this isn’t about me, it’s about you.”
“Now you wait a minute …”
“I don’t think so, Sally,” Mac answered, his irritation no longer suppressed. “You’re pissed I didn’t tell you, the White House, about our case. Well, the last time I checked I don’t work for you and if you think that’s the case, then one of us seriously has misunderstood this working relationship. Last time I checked, my credential reads Federal Bureau of Investigation, not West Wing or White House or Judge Dixon’s Bitch. If that’s what Wire and I are supposed to be, well then I’m done.”
“Careful, Mac,” Wire whispered, reaching for his hand and warned. “Don’t say something you can’t take back.”
Mac exhaled and closed his eyes. His partner was right. He was stepping close to that line. “Look, Sally. You’re right, I didn’t tell you about the break because we were trying to keep it under wraps. We didn’t tell anyone and I’m trying to protect you because if we are right where this is going, Hannah Donahue is going to look bad, which by extension will make her father look bad and maybe even the White House since you got us on the case to begin with. I think it would be better for you to know less.”
“Actually that’s even more of a reason for you to tell me about it.”
“Why?”
“So if it is bad, we could be prepared. Mac, it is not your job to determine what I need to know politically. That’s mine. I needed to know this might be an issue for us. So I could have …”
“Leaked it, perhaps,” Mac finished. “Because that’s what you’d have done, right?” Mac retorted. “Leak it, control it, minimize the damage to the White House, maybe actually distance yourselves from Bill Donahue, at least until you need him for his money, yet still spin it that the White House appointees to the investigation have developed an important lead that may have broke the case. Hey, political points for us, woo hoo,” he mocked.
“Yeah, well you pretty much screwed the pooch on that idea an hour ago,” Sally retorted, sarcasm oozing from her voice.
He was tempted to say something else but heeding Wire’s advice, he didn’t. “That idea is exactly why I didn’t tell you. This is a murder investigation, and if something leaks, that could set us back just when we might be making some headway. This is murder, not politics, Sally. There isn’t a cloture vote on this damn thing.”
“Well duh,” was her snooty reply, “but here’s a newsflash, superstar. You and Wire being on the case makes it political, Mac. We put you there. That means we’ve got serious skin in the game. So what do you do? You go ahead and find a way to wrap abortion into this. That’s a brilliant maneuver, that’s so helpful. I mean, couldn’t you have at least addressed that? Couldn’t you have said the investigation had nothing to do with that?”
“I’d rather have people thinking that, the Reaper thinking that’s where we’re going, as opposed to him and the public having an idea what this thing is really all about.”
“Sweet, so now we can deal with the political fallout. You should see my in-box, all of our in-boxes and voice mails, thanks to your little brainstorm.”
“Not my concern.”
“Not your concern? You’re supposed to be helping us. I mean, for someone as smart as you are, you are borderline brilliant, how could you meltdown like that? How? How is that possible? The way you left it the country thinks your investigation is either about abortion or that you had Wire get one. Had you given me a call earlier in the day, we could have discussed this. I would have suggested to you that if the media shows up when you’re at the Fallway Clinic, here is what you should say. This is what I do, Mac, communications, messaging, anticipating trouble and preparing for it. So given all that, I would have thought that even a political Neanderthal such as you would have taken a couple of minutes and given me a call and a little heads-up.”
“Well I didn’t.” He didn’t really have anything more to say. At this point he just wanted to eject.
“That’s all you got? I just didn’t?”
“At this point Sally, the way my day is going, it’s probably best that’s all I say. And you know what? You might just want to consider pulling a punch or two as well.” He’d pretty much had enough. They rarely fought, but when they did, there were usually fireworks. Neither of them had a lot of back down in them.
“I think we’re done here,” Sally said, fuming on the other end.
“Hey, for once we agree,” and he hung up and tossed the cell phone onto the table.
“Well that went well,” Wire said, rolling her eyes, shaking her head at Mac. “Is there anyone else left you want to piss off today?”
“Nope,” Mac answered. “Pretty much filled out my Yahtzee Card.”
“Good news for you is she loves you so damn much, she’ll get over it and forgive you.”
“Forgive me? And what about me? Don’t I get to get over it? Don’t I get to forgive her?”
“Nope. You just have to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For being a pigheaded, prideful, dumbass arrogant male,” Dara answered, looking at him like he was an idiot. “Listen, partner,
we do
represent the White House. Like it or not, they put us on this case. Sure we said yes, and the FBI director was totally on board with it, but the White House made this happen. They do have skin in the game. We can’t and won’t take orders from them, but at the same time we can’t …”
“Make them look bad.” Mac shook his head. Then the realization really hit him where it hurt. “I made Sally look bad.”
“No, it was
we
. I was there too.”
“But I’m the one …”
“Yeah, you’re the one who stepped in it big time, but it’s on me too. You’re my partner. I’m in for a penny …”
“In for a pound. Just know, if you step in it, I’ll feel the same way.”
Wire nodded and for the first time in a while, smiled. “Look, next time, tell Sally. She and the Judge understand an investigation like this. They would have known how to handle this.”
Mac was about to object but she stopped him. “Mac, you’d have told Sally about our break, but Gesch gave you so much shit last night about your White House girlfriend that you got your back up about it. Your pride got in the way. You could have told her. You
should
have told her. Would they have done something with it? Maybe, but come on, she and the Judge would have known how to handle it, they wouldn’t have screwed us.”
“No, they probably wouldn’t have.”
“That’s right. Face it, okay, you fucked up. I would suggest that when you apologize to Sally,
and you will apologize
, you just fall on the sword, it’ll be the least painful option for you.”
He took a long sip of his coffee, sat back in the booth and shook his head. “Okay, so we’ve established I’m a royal screw up and I have some amends to make. Can we
please
move on?”
“Sure, as long as you’re cooled down now. You’ve been running pretty hot the last hour or two.”
“Maybe I’m just exhausted.”
“Me too,” Wire answered. “Want to call it a day?”
“No. As you can imagine, I really don’t want to go home at the moment.”
• • • •
“Remind me to never piss
you
off,” the Judge said ruefully, sitting on Sally’s couch. “Did you treat hostile witnesses this way when you were a prosecutor?”
“He can be such an arrogant … ass sometimes,” she said, still furious with him.
“Yeah, but it’s that arrogance, that stubbornness, that edge, that ‘I’m the smartest guy in the room’ mentality, that makes him good.”
“Any more days like this and Director Mitchell will have him working the FBI motor pool.”
“I seriously doubt that,” the Judge answered, chortling. “Sure, Mac screwed up today, but the only reason he was in a position to screw up in the first place was because he and Wire are the ones who keep making things happen on that investigation. That task force was nowhere before those two got involved. Now they’re somewhere. They’re going to find this guy and soon.”
“Really?” Sally asked skeptically, perhaps because she was still so pissed at Mac.
“Yeah, Mac discovered some connection between three of the victims yesterday. It’s tied to a summer camp they attended seven years ago in upstate New York. I suspect he was at the clinic to interview someone who was at the camp and knew Donahue or one of the other victims. He and Wire have created every break on that case, Sally, every single one. They’re working their asses off and you said it yourself earlier, Mac’s operating on fumes, he’s exhausted. That’s when shit like this happens. It’s one of the differences between St. Paul and working here and he just learned that lesson the hard way.”
Sally snorted and shook her head.
“Listen, it’s up to you, but I’d cut your boy a
little
slack.”
“That damn reporter,” Sally wanted a piece of her, going after Mac that way. She would never admit it to him but she’d have shoved the microphone down the woman’s throat.
“Oh, I think we’ll figure out a way to deal with her. That was more than just a little out of bounds.”
Sally grimaced, “Does the president know about this?”
The Judge nodded. “You know what he said?”
“What?”
“Shit happens.”
“That’s what he said?” Sally asked skeptically.
“Yup.”
“Maybe, but Mac’s shit left the FBI and us a hole to dig out of if my e-mail is any indication.” Her in-box had exploded in the last hour, as had her voice mail box.
“Ahh, we’ll be fine,” the Judge replied with a dismissive wave and a rueful laugh. “I’ve seen worse, and if Mac brings this thing home eventually, nobody will give a rip about today or at least not much of a rip. Look, I’ve already talked to Thomas Mitchell, within the hour the FBI will be out with a statement indicating that the investigation has nothing to do with abortion. That will take care of the in-box and voice mails. That won’t be an issue.”