‘Ricin? Sarin? Stuff like that?’ pressed Dingley.
‘They’re chemical-weapons agents, with no therapeutic value. I doubt anything like that would be there.’
‘Let me tell you how my mind’s working,’ invited Dingley. ‘A terrorist group discover there’s an aeroplane shipping route, between Paris and Washington. They make a contact, get tipped off in advance when there’s a shipment of something toxic – something that could have the same effect as a chemical weapon if it got loose. They put a bomb on the plane, timed to go off just before landing here in Washington DC. Bang! We got another nine- eleven, but this time we got a chemical fallout, as well as maybe four hundred people blown out the sky. How’s that sound?’
‘It sounds horrifying. It also sounds like you’re suggesting that Rebecca was the source, which is absolute and utter nonsense. She never had any terrorist associations.’
‘How do you know?’ said Benton. ‘You never met a single one of her friends, according to what you’ve told us.’
‘What I’ve told you is the truth. I’m also telling you you’re going about things the wrong way to try to link Rebecca into any sort of terrorist association.’
‘Ms Lang gets rammed into a gorge and is killed. You come pretty damned close to getting charged with it. What had you, the two of you, done to make someone want to fit you up like that?’ asked Benton.
‘Nothing!’ insisted Parnell. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous but I can’t think of anything sufficient for someone to want to kill Rebecca and get me accused of doing it.’
‘You’re right, Mr Parnell,’ agreed Dingley. ‘It does sound ridiculous.’
They didn’t believe him: thought he was holding something back, decided Parnell. Less hurriedly than he’d recounted his realization of how they must have been watched, Parnell told the two doubting agents about Rebecca’s Sunday confession of her previous relationship and the pregnancy termination, almost without pause continuing with her persistent curiosity at being bypassed with something involving Dubette’s French ancillaries, with Dwight Newton’s odd misunderstanding in mind as he talked.
The two men facing him remained expressionless. Benton said: ‘You think there’s a significance there somewhere?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Parnell, regretting the exasperation the moment he spoke. ‘You asked me to tell you anything that might help, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I know how empty, how unhelpful, it all sounds.’
‘We know you’re under a lot of strain, Mr Parnell,’ said Dingley. ‘And that you’ve lost someone very close. We’re just trying to build a picture.’
‘And I know I’m not doing a lot to help,’ apologized Parnell.
‘You got any lead to the man with whom Ms Lang had the previous relationship?’ asked Dingley.
Parnell shook his head. ‘Her uncle thinks his name was Alan and that he lived in the DC area. It was about two years ago.’ He hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t imagine her uncle knows anything about the termination.’
‘We know how to be discreet,’ said Benton.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You asked the uncle about this man then?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘After the court discharged me.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m trying to find out what’s going on, just as you are!’
‘It’s our job to find out what’s going on: that’s what we’re trained for,’ said Benton. ‘We don’t want you playing amateur detective, Mr Parnell. Apart from that being dangerous, you might foul things up for us, which would mean no one will ever find out what’s going on.’
‘Dangerous?’ isolated Parnell.
‘Someone’s already been killed!’ said Dingley, letting his exasperation show now. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that, having failed to put you in the frame for it, whoever murdered Ms Lang might make a move on you?’
‘No. No, it hadn’t,’ admitted Parnell, incredulously. ‘My lawyer… no, it doesn’t matter…’
‘Everything matters,’ said Benton. ‘What about your lawyer?’
‘He told me to be careful not to give the Metro police any excuse to come at me again… driving, stuff like that. But I never thought beyond that, to there being some physical danger from anywhere else.’
‘Think about it now. And take your lawyer’s advice,’ said Benton.
‘But most of all take ours,’ added Dingley. ‘Let us do the investigating.’
‘That’s all I did, tried to find out about the other man.’
‘Which we’ll now do,’ said Dingley.
‘If someone did make a move against me, it could help, couldn’t it? If they made mistakes, I mean.’
The silence seemed to last a long time before Dingley said: ‘And if they didn’t make a mistake and managed to kill you, it maybe wouldn’t help us at all and certainly wouldn’t help you.’
‘You weren’t thinking like a bad movie script, setting yourself up as an intentional target, were you, Mr Parnell?’ said the other FBI man.
‘No!’ denied the scientist, honestly. ‘I was thinking that if something happened… if I thought something happened… something occurred I thought was odd… I could tell you.’
‘You do that,’ pressed Dingley. ‘You tell us, don’t go off on your own.’
‘I’ve already given that undertaking,’ insisted Parnell. ‘So, I need numbers where I can reach you?’
It was Dingley who offered the cards, Benton’s as well as his own. Parnell saw there were cellphone listings as well as the field office land lines. ‘Day or night,’ said Benton.
‘I’d like to keep in touch, hear how things are going,’ said Parnell.
‘You got the numbers,’ said Dingley. ‘We’ll probably need to get back to you when things come up we haven’t covered.’
‘What’s come up so far?’ demanded Parnell.
The two agents exchanged looks. Dingley said: ‘Anything we tell you, we’re telling you. Only you. If it turns up in a newspaper or on television it could wreck the investigation, you understand?’
‘Of course I understand.’
‘We’re concentrating on forensics at the moment,’ said Dingley.
‘And you found what?’ pressed Parnell.
There was a further hesitation from the two men. Parnell said: ‘I told you I understood!’
‘There are some marks, dents, on the rear fender of Ms Lang’s car that our people don’t think were caused by it going over the edge of the gorge,’ disclosed Benton. ‘They think she was hit, shunted, in the back several times…’
‘Being chased, hit and hit again, not knowing who or what it was
…’ imagined Parnell.
‘Something like that,’ agreed Benton.
‘Seat belts!’ broke in Parnell. ‘The police officers told me Rebecca was outside the car when she was found – that she hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. But seat belts were a thing with her. She always wore one: that’s how her parents died, not fastening theirs. Was Rebecca’s broken?’
‘We haven’t been told it was,’ said Dingley. ‘Our forensics guys aren’t helped by everything being moved and collected from the scene
…’ He paused before saying: ‘There’s going to be another autopsy, too. By our pathologists.’
‘The seat belt’s another mystery, to add to all the rest,’ said Benton.
‘Could it be significant?’ asked Parnell.
‘It’s something to flag,’ accepted Benton.
‘I interrupted you,’ apologized the scientist.
‘They’re not happy about the damage to your car, either,’ continued Benton. ‘They don’t think the dents and the paint loss was caused by your car being hit by another vehicle. The damage is too regular. They think it was more likely caused by being hit and scratched by some sort of implement or tool. If another car had been involved, it’s almost inevitable that some of its paint would have been left on yours. There’s absolutely no trace.’
‘Something else,’ remembered Parnell. ‘I got the impression that the police already knew about the damage
