Authors: Kate Wilhelm
“Why so many chairs?” she had asked.
“Psychology,” he had said. “When I'm over here with my clients or prospective witnesses, it's informal, information-gathering, getting-acquainted time, something like that. But when I'm behind that desk, it's all business and I establish who's boss, who's in charge.”
She had gone behind the desk and had seated herself in his chair, and from across the room Frank had regarded her for a long time, then had said, “Bobby, that's where you belong. You look good behind that desk.”
The memory faded as fast as it had formed, and she took the chair opposite Sokolosky and waited for him to assert his authority, establish who was boss.
She didn't have to wait long. “Ms. Holloway,” he said, in a brisk, businesslike way, “I fully understand your reluctance to produce Mrs. Owens at this time under these circumstances. We will postpone her appearance for a month, or even six weeks, if you prefer, during which time there will be a complete investigation of Mr. Linfield's activities, and criminal charges will be brought against him for assault of a federal marshal. I'll have Ms. Womack set up an appointment for you and your client for, let's say, six weeks from today.”
She smiled at him. “No, Mr. Sokolosky. Don't bother. Although I was prepared earlier to do so, I no longer have any intention of producing my client today, a month from now, or any other future date you could mention. We both know she's an American citizen and you have no authority to order her to do diddly.”
He stiffened and drew himself up straighter. His voice was icy when he said, “Ms. Holloway, she is in our files, and her file must be closed officially under the rules and regulations of this agency. You, as an attorney, are under the obligation to assist a federal officer in fulfilling his duties when asked to do so.”
She made a dismissive wave of her hand, brushing aside his rules and regulations with one motion. “I suppose you've been with your agency long enough to know those rules and regulations by heart,” she said. “But, Mr. Sokolosky, I don't work for your agency, or any other government agency. I work for my client. It's my duty to assist in the event that my aid is sought in a legal endeavor. Having a file for Mrs. Owens is not legal and assisting in the closing of an illegal file is not in my job description. I suggest you tell Womack to bring her file in here, the complete file. I am curious to see if the deportation of Mrs. Owens has already been ordered and processed. Do you know just how illegal it is to attempt to deport an American citizen? I confess that I don't at the moment, however, I will find out. I can assure you that I will find out. Depending on what I learn, I might be forced to sue your agency, Mr. Sokolosky.”
“It is against our policy to share our confidential files with any unauthorized person,” he said flatly. “I reject your suggestion.”
“Very well. I'll subpoena that file, which is within my rights as attorney for Mrs. Owens.”
He glared at her and she returned his gaze pleasantly. “Your move,” she said after a moment.
He picked up the phone and snapped, “Ms. Womack, bring in the Owens file, the complete file.”
“I imagine she's filed under the name Binnie Owens,” Barbara commented. “I doubt that Linfield-Nicholson even knew that Binnie is her nickname.”
His lips were tight and his jaw clenched as they waited for Ms. Womack. She was as timorous as before when she brought in the file, and she hurried out again as soon as she handed it to Sokolosky.
Barbara watched as he opened the file and got no further than the first document he saw. Although from across the desk she could not read anything on the paper that held his attention, she could see that it was an official government form, with blanks to be filled in, and that the blanks had been filled in. He kept his gaze on it for a long time, as if committing it to memory. She picked up her briefcase and began to search through various file folders and envelopes. After finding what she was after, she regarded him with something close to pity.
No doubt, she thought, he had devoted his adult life to this agency, that he thought of his job as an honorable mission and his dedication worthy. Probably he was not more than three or four years from retirement, and now he saw scandal, investigations, his career put in jeopardy, a cloud that he might or might not have deserved, but one that would shadow the rest of his years.
Finally he closed the file and folded his hands on top of it, as if to protect it from her. “What are you doing?” he asked in a deflated voice as she began to place photographs on the desk.
“Pictures. Binnie's grandmother, her mother and aunt, and one of Binnie herself. Have a look. You'll see them again, of course, in newspapers, on television, probably on national television since two different federal agencies will be involved. It will be a big story, a lovely young, voiceless woman being terrorized by the immigration service of her own country. The life of slavery, prostitution, and humiliation she witnessed being endured by the woman she loved as her mother. The knowledge that immigration officials were condemning her to the same sort of life. I imagine that the attempt to keep the Belize Breeze blowing will become a fairly large part of the story. A drug connection always sensationalizes any story, doesn't it?”
“What do you want?” Sokolosky demanded.
“A copy of her file, and that order clearly stamped closed or resolved, or whatever term you use, signed and dated by you. I want her file placed in a dead file, or resolved, or closed, whatever procedure you use. When she applies for a driver's license, a passport, or a Social Security card, I don't want any vestige of that file to interfere with her right to do so. If you tell me you can't do that, then I want that file to be destroyed altogether.”
He made an involuntary motion with both hands, as if to pull the file to his chest, to safeguard it. “You know I can't destroy a government file!”
“I can,” she said. “Those are the only two options, Mr. Sokolosky. My client has lived in absolute terror these past weeks, and it is not over for her, as you also know. The same men who were staking out her house were here in your own building this morning, and the man who was determined to send her to her death was behind that chair you're now in. They are all still at large. It isn't over for her, but this particular chapter is finished. Done. Choose one of the two options, or as soon as I leave I'll have a press conference, and I'll share those pictures with the media and let the circus begin today.”
“That file is confidential,” he said. “It's illegal to give an unauthorized person confidential files. You want too much. I can mark it case closed, and I will do that, but I can't let you have copies.”
“You don't get it, do you?” she said coldly. “Was Linfield-Nicholson alone in his scheme? Are others involved? Is someone in the DEA involved? How many in this agency, how high up? Perhaps Womack is in on it. I want that file. I'll put it in a safe-deposit box where it will remain unless someone else steps in to finish the job Linfield-Nicholson started. If you don't want Womack to know anything about it, tell her to take a walk and I'll make the copies on the Xerox machine in the outer office. Or you can make them yourself. The two options haven't changed.”
“You're threatening me,” he said in a harsh whisper. “This is extortion!”
“So have me arrested, and we'll both testify under oath, as will Warrenton and Womack.”
He lowered his gaze to the pictures again.
“She'll testify also,” Barbara said. “She's adept at ASL and through an interpreter she will tell the story of Shala Santos, and what she would have faced if deportation had succeeded.”
“What assurance do I have that you won't go public even if I agree?” he said after a moment.
He did not look at her. She suspected that he was looking inward, trying to assess which was worse, involving his agency in a scandal that would assume national notoriety and force his early retirement, or breaking a rule, committing what he perceived to be an illegal act in giving an unauthorized person confidential files.
“You have no more than my word,” she said. “I told you I work for my client, and with that file stamped closed and signed by you, I am done with this agency. How you conduct your internal investigation will be none of my business. Mr. and Mrs. Owens want nothing more than to return to the quiet life they led before this started, and once those gunmen are rounded up and put away, that's what they will do. I told you that file will be in a safe-deposit box as long as there's no threat to Binnie Owens regarding her status as a citizen. That's all the assurance I can give you. Whatever we say and do in this room I consider absolutely confidential, exactly the same way that any conversation I have with any client is confidential.”
She picked up the photographs, replaced them in the envelope, and put it back in the briefcase. When she looked at Sokolosky again, he was regarding her with a bleak expression.
With a heavy sigh he rose. “I'll tell Ms. Womack to go to lunch now,” he said. He walked stiffly to the door, leaving the file folder on the desk. At the open door, he said, “Ms. Womack, it's past lunchtime. It's been a hectic morning and the office will close for the rest of the day. I'll lock up in a few minutes. Tomorrow come in as usual and do whatever routine work you can manage. I'll have a temporary replacement for Mr. Linfield as soon as possible since he won't be coming back. I'll take the Owens file with me to the Salem office and handle it from there.”
When Barbara and Sokolosky left the inner office a few minutes later, there was no sign of Ms. Womack, but a young man in a business suit was seated near the outer door. He jumped to his feet and said, “FBI, Special Agent Dwight Zimmer. Ms. Holloway, we would like a statement from you early next week. Please call this number to arrange a time that's convenient.” He handed her a card, then said to Sokolosky, “Will you be available at your office next week, sir?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Someone will call you there to get a statement from you also, sir.”
Barbara put the card in her purse. The agent nodded to her and Sokolosky and left. Silently Sokolosky went to the Xerox machine and made copies of the file he had stamped
CLOSED
, signed, and dated. Just as silently Barbara put her copy in her briefcase, nodded to him, and walked out into the near-mob scene still in the lobby.
“Done,” she said to Bailey when he drifted over. “Is the coast clear?”
“Dunno,” he said. “No one out front, far's I can tell. And the guy at the sky bridge entrance is gone. Let's go that way.” It was so noisy in the lobby she could barely hear him.
“I'm parked in the lot across Seventh,” she said. “Where's Martin?”
“I'll drive,” Bailey said. “I'll get Alan to pick up your heap later and take it to the motel.”
The noise level decreased as they left most of the people worrying about taxes and headed for the sky bridge. “Did he take Binnie out to the Gresham house?” she asked.
“Yeah, and he'll hang out with her until we get there.” He was talking to her, but he was scanning faces, keeping watch on everyone around them, and his slouching walk was covering the ground fast without giving an appearance of hurrying. She didn't know how he did that.
They crossed the sky bridge, went down the stairs to the lower floor of the courthouse, and toward the tunnel. He steered her around to the front of the building.
“Wait inside,” he said. “I'll get my car and bring it around.”
Rain was still pouring steadily, and she was happy not to have to go out in it any longer than necessary. She realized that she had left her umbrella someplace, the way she always did, the reason she always had to buy a new one when she felt she needed one.
A few minutes later, in the passenger seat of his car, she said, “I have to go by my bank. First National.”
“Jeez, Barbara, now?”
“Now. It won't take long. I have to put something in my safe-deposit box. Don't bother parking, just drive around the block.”
He gave her a look. “Oh. You robbed him? Swiped his watch while he wasn't looking? Stole a whole box of paper clips?”
“Something like that,” she said.
It was a surprise to feel so relieved, she thought when she finished at the bank and watched again for Bailey to drive up. She had not wanted that file in her possession over the weekend, or any other time. She had wanted it in a safe place and now it was. Bailey double-parked in front of the bank and she dashed out.
“Now for Martin,” she said. “Did you give the feds everything they wanted?”
“Sure. Three license plate numbers, and they asked me for the key to the restaurant. They'll get that bug. They wanted to know if I handled it,” he said with disgust. “Rondell's in for a shock when they get around to asking why Nicholson was driving his car.”
“Who's Rondell?”
“Rondell Emerson of Emerson Property Management, partner in the Marcos Import business. Good old Ronny, happy to lend his car to a DEA officer.”
“Good,” she said softly. “Let them make the drug connection. So far not a word about anything bigger than the Santos marijuana scam. They might make that other connection as well eventually, but not because of us.”
“The two parked cars were gone,” he said. “Don't know when they took off, but they're gone. Maybe the feds rounded them up, maybe not. I saw them grab the guy keeping an eye on Martin. Slick as a whistle. One FBI, one marshal, one for each arm. Just walked up, said something or other, and next thing three guys walked down the steps in the rain. I think the guy in the middle might have had a hurt finger.”
“One out of six or seven isn't enough,” she said. “They didn't want to cause a panic. Kept it quiet. Okay, so that's what we've got to work with. The immigration trouble is over, now all we have to worry about is staying out of the firing range.”