He shook his head. “We don’t really know what we’re looking for, but whatever it is, we haven’t found it yet.”
She nodded. She had given this team a vague task, but she could not help that. They had to look for something out of the ordinary. A lot depended on the intuition of the individual agent. Some people could smell deceit even in a computer.
“Are we sure we have
Carl shrugged. “We should.”
“Check whether they kept any paper records.”
“They’re not supposed to.…”
“But people do.”
“Okay.”
Rosa called her back to the head shed for a phone call. It was Michael. She smiled as she picked up. “Hi.”
“Hi. I’ve got a problem tonight. I can’t make it.”
She was shocked by his tone. He sounded curt and unfriendly. For the last few days he had been warm and affectionate. But this was the original Michael, the one who had turned her away from his door and told her to make an appointment. “What is it?” she said.
“Something came up. I’m sorry to cancel on you.”
“Michael, what the hell is wrong?”
“I’m in kind of a rush. I’ll call you.”
“Okay,” she said.
He hung up.
She cradled the phone, feeling hurt. “Now, what was all that about?” she said to herself.
Carl Theobald interrupted her thoughts. He looked troubled. “Marvin Hayes is giving me a hard time,” he said. “They do have some paper records, but when I said I needed to see them, he pretty much told me to shove it.”
“Don’t worry, Carl,” Judy said. “These things are sent by heaven to teach us patience and tolerance. I’ll just go and tear his balls off.”
The agents nearby heard her and laughed.
“Is that what patience and tolerance means?” Carl said with a grin. “I must remember that.”
“Come with me, I’ll show you,” she said.
They went outside and jumped in her car. It took fifteen minutes to reach the Federal Building on Golden Gate Avenue. As they went up in the elevator, Judy wondered how to deal with Marvin. Should she tear his balls off or be conciliatory? The cooperative approach worked only if the other party was willing. With Marvin she had probably gone past that point forever.
She hesitated outside the door to the Organized Crime squad room.
She went in, and Carl followed.
Marvin was on the phone, grinning broadly, telling a joke. “So the barman says to the guy, there’s a badger in the back room that gives the best blow job—”
Judy leaned on his desk and said loudly: “What’s this crap you’re giving Carl?”
“Someone’s interrupting me, Joe,” he said. “I’ll call you right back.” He hung up. “What can I do for you, Judy?”
She leaned closer, putting herself in his face. “Stop dicking around.”
“What is it with you?” he said, sounding aggrieved. “What do you mean by going over my records as if I must have made some goddamn mistake?”
He had not necessarily made a mistake. When the perpetrator presented himself to the investigating team in the guise of a bystander or witness, he generally tried to make sure that they did not suspect him. It was not the fault of the investigators, but it was bound to make them feel foolish.
“I think you may have talked to the perpetrator,” she said. “Where are these paper records?”
He smoothed his yellow tie. “All we have are some notes from the press conference that never got keyed into the computer.”
“Show me.”
He pointed to a box file on a side table against the wall. “Help yourself.”
She opened the file. On top was an invoice for the rental of a small public address system with microphones.
“You won’t find a damn thing,” Marvin said.
He might be right, but she had to try, and it was dumb of him to obstruct her. A smarter man would have said, “Hey, if I overlooked something, I sure hope you find it.” Everyone made mistakes. But Marvin was now too defensive to be gracious. He just had to prove Judy wrong.
It would be embarrassing if she
She rifled through the papers. There were some faxes from newspapers asking for details of the press conference, a note about how many chairs would be needed, and a guest list, a form on which the journalists attending the press conference had been asked to put their names and the publications or broadcasters they represented. Judy ran her eye down the list.
“What the hell is this?” she said suddenly. “Florence Shoebury, Eisenhower Junior High?”
“She wanted to cover the press conference for the school newspaper,” Marvin said. “What should we do, tell her to fuck off?”
“Did you check her out?”
“She’s a kid!”
“Was she alone?”
“Her father brought her.”
There was a business card stapled to the form. “Peter Shoebury, from Watkins, Colefax and Brown. Did you check
Marvin hesitated for a long moment, realizing he had made a mistake. “No,” he said finally. “Brian decided to let them into the press conference, and afterward I never followed up.”
Judy handed the form with the business card to Carl. “Call this guy right away,” she said.
Carl sat at the nearest desk and picked up the phone.
Marvin said: “Anyway, what makes you so sure we talked to the subject?”
“My father thinks so.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized she had made a mistake.
Marvin sneered. “Oh, so your
“Knock it off, Marvin. My father was putting bad guys in jail when you were still wetting your bed.”
“Where are you going with this, anyway? Are you trying to set me up? You looking for someone to blame when you fail?”
“What a great idea,” she said. “Why didn’t I think of it?”
Carl hung up the phone and said: “Judy.”
“Yeah.”
“Peter Shoebury has never been inside this building, and he has no daughter. But he was mugged on Saturday morning two blocks from here, and his wallet was stolen. It contained his business cards.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Marvin said: “Fuck it.”
Judy ignored his embarrassment. She was too excited by the news. This could be a whole new source of information. “I guess he didn’t look like the E-fit picture we got from Texas.”
“Not a bit,” Marvin said. “No beard, no hat. He had big glasses and long hair in a ponytail.”
“That’s probably another disguise. What about his build, and like that?”
“Tall, slim.”
