“I don’t know what it is. A prescription?”
“For a steroid. That is our secretary. Her son is a college football player.”
He opened the third folder. It was a two-thousand-dollar car repair bill.
“That is our personnel manager’s wife. I casually asked him if he’d had any automobile problems lately, and he hadn’t.”
“So she wrecked her car and hid it from her husband. That’s hardly blackmail material.”
“Most of them aren’t. And there isn’t much need to blackmail your own secretary.”
Charles opened another folder.
“Oh, dear!” The page had a dozen credit card charges from a hamburger restaurant.
“I didn’t know that name,” John said. “So I looked it up. He is the owner of a vegetarian restaurant that Derek frequented.”
“That’s absurd,” Charles said.
“That is probably the most so. It’s quite a collection. Some are illegal, some immoral.”
“And some merely fattening.” Charles sighed. “What a strange collection.”
“The papers?”
“The people. You were right, John. He did collect people. Is this all the folders?” Charles asked.
“That’s all of them.”
“I need to look at each one.”
“Then go ahead.”
One by one he looked at the single pages, some for only a few seconds, some longer. John was silent, and the clock ticked. Fifteen minutes later he closed the last folder.
“Well,” he said.
“Not a pretty picture,” John said.
“Not at all. Of course, I don’t know what many of them mean.”
“Many of them, I did know. Most of the others I’ve found out what they mean. There are five that are still unclear.”
“John, are there any people in your office that you’ll have to take action about?”
“There may be. That will take a great deal of judgment.”
“Their careers are in your hands,” Charles said, pushing the stack of folders back toward John.
“They’ve made their own decisions. My judgment will have to be what is best for the Department. And now, Charles, did you find what you were looking for?”
Charles considered. “I think I did.”
“Then I would like to show you something else that was in the hidden drawer of the desk.” He took a small wrapped package from a desk drawer. He undid the tape and brown paper and held out an antique book.
“It’s a Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant,” he said. “But I’m sure you knew that.”
“Yes, I know the book.” Charles held the book closed.
“Which brings us to the subject of books. At first, when you came to me, I thought you might have been supplying Derek with some of his information, and you were offering to do the same for me. Then I went through the papers and I realized there were some missing. You’ve obviously noticed there is no mention among these of Karen Liu or Patrick White.”
“Or you.”
“Yes. Or me,” John said. “So I had to assume those papers were elsewhere. If you open that book, you’ll understand why I finally guessed that you had them.”
Charles kept the book closed. “I really had no inkling there was anything in the books when I bought them at the auction.”
“If I had known,” John said, “you can be sure that you would not have bought them. But please, open it.”
“I assume it’s hollow.”
“Yes, it is. But I want you to see what is in it.”
“It was a shock, John, seeing the first one. I’m perhaps sentimental, but I don’t want to see another antique ruined.”
John shrugged. “I guessed what a hollowed book might mean, and when Derek’s bookseller came calling, I felt my guess was confirmed. I knew the papers had to be somewhere-especially Patrick White’s. So, Charles, I would like to see the papers you have.”
“I don’t have them with me, of course. I can tell you that Patrick White’s is just a title page copied from the University of Virginia Honor Court proceedings, with an interior page number written on it. A person would have to get those proceedings and look at that inside page to make any sense of it.”
“Hardly incriminating at all if someone found it,” John said. “But if a newspaper reporter received a copy and knew it was important, he would quickly get all the details.”
“Which is what happened,” Charles said.
“With the consequences that everyone in Washington knows.”
“And that brings me to the other reason I wanted to talk to you. Patrick White came to me this morning.”
“More of the same, I suppose?”
“More than the same. John, I need to warn you. I think he might try to take justice into his own hands.”
An odd new look came into John’s eyes. It was mostly anger tinged with fear.
“So it has gone too far,” John said. “What did he say?”
“It was vague, but it was very threatening. Last week he told me that you killed Derek.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that.”
“Today he said you were planning to kill again. He said he would stop you. He also said he had someone who would help him.”
“In that case,” John said, “I insist that you look inside that book.” He handed it to Charles.
Charles held it for a moment, feeling its weight and balance. The lettering on the spine was still legible: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.
Charles opened the book.
The hole cut was smaller than the John Locke, but deeper into the thick volume. Resting in it was the black plastic object, a rounded rectangle, with the two buttons. It also had a speaker grill.
“A recorder?” Charles said.
“A small Dictaphone. A fairly common thing for an administrator to keep in his pocket.”
Charles lifted it out of the book and pushed the Play button.
“Tell me about him,” it rumbled.
Charles jerked in surprise, dropping the device.
“It’s Derek,” he said.
“Yes,” John said. “Derek recorded a conversation. Go ahead. Listen to it.”
He pushed the button again.
“Tell me about him.”
“He called me last week.” It was Patrick White’s voice. “He read about me in the newspaper and he knew it had to be Borchard behind the scandal. He said Borchard’s been after him for a couple months, too.”
“After him? For what?”
“Something in the Justice Department. They’re rivals. It’s the same game-he’s gotten the letters, too.”
“What is this man’s name?”
“He won’t tell me. Maybe you could guess. You know everyone that Borchard does.”
“I don’t know who it would be,” Derek’s voice said.
“He says if he and I work together, we can bring Borchard down.”
“How?”
“That’s all we’ve said. He’ll help us, Derek.”
“I have to know what he’s going to do. I have to know who he is.”
“I’ll find out,” Patrick White said. “But he’s scared. He doesn’t want me to know who he is. But he wants to be part of anything we do.”
