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 fiancee’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?’
