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  Men and women, fuzzy figures in the half-light, shuffled from machine to machine like acolytes covering the stations of the cross, and the metaphor wasn’t a bad one as I thought about it. Religion comes in all shapes and sizes. In here the faithful were every bit as vocal in their petitions to God, just as despairing when he failed to show, but it was counterproductive to think that way, and I warned myself to stop. I’d long ago made a deal with God. Stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of yours. So far we had made it work just fine.

  Suddenly, standing in that doorway, I felt myself inflate with confidence, as optimistic as an accordion player with a beeper as I strode toward the action. A hostess who used the name Melinda—a gorgeous brunette with legs and breasts and everything—hurried toward me. I stepped forward and offered my hand. Her teeth blazed white. The golden nugget on my pinky finger gleamed in the reflection of her smile.

  THREE

  Tuesday morning my head hurt. My pride hurt even worse, and my suddenly flattened wallet was really killing me. A handful of aspirin took care of the headache, but the damage to my ego and bank balance from the long night at Foxwoods was going to take a lot longer to mend. I felt like taking the day off, but there was one big reason I couldn’t.

  The clock on Kevin Finnerty’s deadline for the Brenda Thompson investigation was ticking, and Lisa Sands couldn’t finish her investigation until I’d talked with the judge again. I was tempted to let Lisa do the interview by herself, but I knew better. That business about the judge’s dead aunt still didn’t sound right. At the very least it represented an unusual mistake for a federal judge to make, at worst it could be a scandal big enough to ruin the president.

  What it meant for sure was that a brand-new agent couldn’t be allowed to handle it.

  I got a late start from home and didn’t bother stopping at the office first. It was after eleven as I mounted the steps of the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courts Building at the corner of Third Street and Constitution Avenue. I passed the statue of General George Meade outside the courthouse, pushed through the doors and used the elevator to ascend to United States District Judge Brenda Thompson’s courtroom on the sixth floor. The judge didn’t know I was coming, of course. In an interview like this you never want to let the other side get prepared. I’d already determined she was on the bench this morning, and I wanted to watch her in action before going after whatever she was trying to hide.

  I slipped through the courtroom door and took a seat in the back. It was a drug case—methamphetamines—and had been all over the papers and TV. The defendant was a notorious gangbanger, a coconspirator in a homegrown drug cartel that included most of the really bad guys in the District. Albert Scroggins’s street name was “Scum,” and from the looks of him it was an apt description. I glanced around. His street gang—the Blades—had packed the courtroom, not wearing their colors, but despite that every bit as ominous. With their long black braids and fierce beards, they looked more like Afghan terrorists than urban Americans.

  I watched Judge Thompson closely for her reaction to their unmistakable tactics, by now familiar in gang cases. Things went along fine for about ten minutes of questions and answers, until finally the judge had seen enough.

  The assistant United States attorney—a young black woman with a no-nonsense dark suit and matching glare—was interrogating a prosecution witness, another black woman with a short afro and heavy glasses. Midway through the examination, Judge Thompson slammed her gavel hard enough to make my ears ring.

  “That’s it!” she shouted. “That’s the end of this nonsense!” She pointed at a slouching figure in the second row. “You!” she snapped. “Out of here right now!” Her dark eyes blazed. “You will not sit in my courtroom and intimidate a witness! Get out before I have you thrown out!”

  Noise erupted. Judge Thompson raised her gavel, pounded the room back into silence. The defense attorney, a short white guy, leaped to his feet, used the thick-framed reading glasses in his hand to punctuate his words.

  “How can you do that, your honor? My client has every right to be supported by his friends and family. You have no business—”

  “Sit down, Counselor! Now! Sit down and keep your mouth shut or I’ll throw you out as well!”

  Now the bangers were all on their feet, shouting and pointing fingers. The judge turned to her bailiff. He touched a button on his desk. The doors behind us opened and U.S. marshals flooded in, grabbing arms, shoving gangstas toward the door. Thirty seconds later the courtroom was pretty damned empty. I glanced around at the wide eyes of those allowed to stay, felt my own eyes widen as well. Whatever else she was, Brenda Thompson knew how to keep order in her courtroom. Seeing her like this—watching her fearless disregard for some truly dangerous people—I reminded myself to tread lightly.

  The sound of Judge Thompson’s voice interrupted my thoughts as she announced the early recess and ordered the jury to come back at one-thirty. I slipped out of the courtroom and headed for the judge’s chambers around the corner.

  The judge’s clerk, a red-haired young man who looked like he hadn’t smiled for a long time, glanced up from his desk as I approached. I flipped open my creds and asked to see his boss.

  “Got an appointment?” he wanted to know.

  “A couple of minutes,” I told him. “That’s all I need.”

  “Her book’s full, I’m afraid. She’s not even taking phone calls today.”

  “Busy or not, I’ve got to see her.”

  “She left orders, Agent Monk. No one, she said, not until after court this afternoon.”

  “Call her.”

  He shook his head. “I told you I can’t do—”

  His voice died as I lifted the phone from his desk and handed it to him.

  “Call her,” I repeated. “I’ll make sure she knows it wasn’t your idea.”

  His narrow shoulders sagged. He took the phone, pushed a button, mumbled into the receiver, and hung up. He stared at me as the chamber door opened and Judge Thompson came through, her hand stretched out to me.

  “Special Agent Monk,” she said. Her handshake was firm, but it was a little moist at the same time. Could mean a couple of things, too soon to know for sure what.

  “Please come in,” she told me.

  I followed her and couldn’t help admiring her light gray suit, the perfect tailoring that concealed the spreading that comes with age.

  “Have a seat,” she said when we got to her desk.

  I did so, in the closest of the matching crimson leather chairs facing the desk, then waited for her to walk around to her own chair behind the desk. On the way she stopped near the floor-standing American flag to her right, turned toward me for a moment before sitting. Clever woman, I thought. Bill Clinton couldn’t have done it any better. Without saying a word, she’d reminded me exactly who she was and what she represented.

  Behind her dark cherry desk with its inlaid leather top and intricate detailing, Judge Thompson stared at me for a moment, then smiled. Her teeth contrasted with her light chocolate complexion, her brown eyes and slightly darker hair, which was cut short and styled perfectly for her triangular face.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “Before we begin, I have to say I’m impressed. I was in the courtroom. I saw what you just did in there.”

  She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Those guys? I was dealing with worse garbage than that before I was ten years old.”

  I nodded. She was right about that. Her file had all the details. Born in the worst part of Washington’s black ghetto, a heroin-dealing father who died in prison before she was three. Gangbanging stepbrothers she hasn’t seen since she started school. Raised by her grandmother after her mother had OD’d once too often. A dreadful story, even by D.C. standards.

  I looked up to see that she was waiting for me to get down to business.

  “You spoke with Special Agent Lisa Sands yesterday morning,” I said.

  Her eyes flic
kered but stayed directly on mine. “Of course. The mixup over my mistake on the personal security questionnaire—isn’t that what you people call it?”

  “Yes, your honor. The PSQ. I’m afraid we have a problem with it.”

  She leaned forward and her eyes did fall this time, but only for an instant before she brought them back up. “A problem? I don’t understand. I explained to Agent Sands what happened. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “She said you stopped in Brookston to care for a dying aunt, that after the funeral you went on to law school at Yale.”

  Her hand went to her throat, massaging gently before she dropped it back out of my sight.

  “Funeral?” she said. “No, there was no funeral. Aunt Sarah didn’t die, that was the point. We were told she’d never make it, but she did.” The judge cleared her throat. “I was determined to stay for the funeral, but, bless her heart, she refused to die. I hated to leave her, but I just didn’t have any other choice. Law school was going to start with me or without me, so I finally drove up to New Haven. I got there …” She stared upward, as though she were reading her itinerary off the ceiling. “Must have been a day or two before school started.” She looked at me again. “I can’t think why I left this off your questionnaire.”

  “And is she still living, your aunt? Can she verify your stay with her?”

  Judge Thompson frowned, reached for a piece of paper on her desk, stared at it for a moment, then grabbed a pen and made a quick note on it.

  “Sorry,” she said. “This writ should have gone out yesterday.” She laid the pen aside. “Did my aunt die, is that what you asked?” I nodded. “Yes, Agent Monk”—she cleared her throat—“yes, she did, a number of years ago.”

  “What year would that have been? Just for the record, your honor.”

  “I don’t remember. A long time ago, but I’d have to search my files to tell you exactly when.”

  “Your conversation with Lisa Sands was over the telephone. Perhaps that’s why she misunderstood you … why we avoid the phone for important interviews.”

  She nodded. “I told her I waited for a funeral, not went to one. I thought I was pretty clear about it, but it’s been a madhouse around here since my nomination. The truth is I could have said anything.” She cleared her throat again. “I hope I haven’t caused a problem for you, but isn’t this overkill? We’re only talking about a few days, thirty years ago. What difference can it possibly make now?”

  I stared at her. Surely the judge knew better than to ask such a ridiculous question. I wanted to tell her that, but now wasn’t the time. Not while I still needed her help.

  “You know the bureau,” I told her instead. “A few days, a few years, its all the same to my masters. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why.”

  “Of course not, not after Josephine Grady.” She smiled. “What you really want to know is whether I was in jail, or in Moscow training with the KGB.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid my life’s depressingly normal. I was just a college kid blown away by the thought of going to Yale Law School. I did my duty with my aunt, but as soon as I could leave I was on my way again. End of story.”

  Which left me with nowhere to go with that line of questioning, so I changed directions.

  “I have a second problem, your honor. We need to interview your last college roommate, Dalia Hernandez, but we can’t find her. You told us you lived off-campus with her for almost nine months, but our agents in Berkeley can’t find any way to verify that. Or any records to indicate where she might be now.”

  “She’d be in student records at Cal, for starters, and pretty easy to track down after that I would imagine.”

  “Can’t get into student records, not for Dalia anyway.”

  Judge Thompson nodded. “Right. I forgot about the waiver. You’ve got twenty releases from me, but none from her.”

  “That’s why I’m asking. Maybe you can put your memory to the test.”

  “That won’t be easy, I’m afraid.”

  The judge cleared her throat again, and when she continued, the timbre of her voice was just the slightest bit higher.

  “We didn’t part on very good terms, Agent Monk. Both our names were on the apartment lease and I had to leave before the end of the month, the end of the lease. Dalia thought I was trying to skip out on rent, on cleaning up the place. You know the problem.”

  “Have you had any contact with her since then?”

  “None, I’m sorry to say. I sent her a note with enough money to make sure she didn’t get hurt on the lease, but she never replied. The months turned into years.” She shrugged. “What can I tell you?” She laid her hands on the desktop, palms down. “I have to ask you again. What could you hope to get from finding Dalia Hernandez now? She didn’t like me at the end, probably still doesn’t, but so what?”

  “You’re a Supreme Court nominee. Surely the president warned you about the depth of our investigation.”

  “Of course he did, Agent Monk, and I don’t mean to be so difficult. It’s just that my confirmation hearings are coming up soon and even to think about them makes me cranky. I saw the Bork fiasco, what Clarence Thomas went through. Mother Teresa herself would have a tough time, and I’m beginning to understand why.”

  “If you had to find Dalia Hernandez, really had to find her, where would you start?”

  “She was in pre-law with me at Cal. Her home was in Philadelphia.” The judge shook her head. “Not much to go on, but I guess I’d check out the law schools in Pennsylvania.”

  I stared directly into her eyes. “I’m obligated to remind you of something, Judge. If there’s something in your personal history that I should know about, now’s the time to tell me. It would be a mistake to let me find it first.”

  “I have never done anything I’m ashamed of.”

  “With all respect, your honor, that’s not responsive to my question.”

  Her smile died. “Then let me make it clear enough that you and your headquarters can’t possibly misunderstand. There is nothing in my history that disqualifies me from sitting on the Supreme Court.” She lifted her reading glasses from the desk. “And if that’s all, I need to get back to work.”

  On the way back to my office I considered the two things I’d just learned. One, Judge Thompson never did answer my question—not the way it needed to be answered anyway—and two, she was the most incompetent liar I’d ever interviewed.

  Talk about tells, Brenda Thompson had been awash in them.

  Overexplaining at the start, repeating far too many times her assertion about her aunt’s miraculous survival, clearing her throat repeatedly, then using her hand to massage her throat, as though she could physically squeeze out words she didn’t really want to say. Hands in her lap out of sight, and when they weren’t, flat on her desk with the palms down. Then that ridiculous business of attending to a piece of unrelated paperwork in the midst of my questioning. And half a dozen other clear indications she was not telling the truth. My stride lengthened as I neared the front doors into WMFO. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to find out why.

  Back at Squad 17, Lisa was frowning as I approached her desk in the surprisingly quiet bullpen. Most of the desks were unoccupied, and I wondered why until I remembered that most of my squad was scheduled for firearms training this morning.

  “Thanks a heap,” Lisa said before I could speak.

  I stopped at the corner of her desk.

  “Kevin Finnerty stopped by,” she continued.

  I frowned back at her. “The ADIC was down here?” I wondered if I’d heard her right. Assistant FBI directors didn’t come to middle management, not ever. “What did he want?”

  “To know where the hell you were, for starters. Then he tore into me because you were gone.” She seemed to read the question on my lips. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t tell him anything … but I feel a little used, Puller. Like you hung me out to dry.”

  “I had no choice,” I said, and it might have been true. At least one per
son had accused me of that very thing, that my overnight casino runs were no longer under my control.

  A stab of pain behind my eyeballs reminded me of my ordeal in Connecticut the night before. I hadn’t had a drop to drink in the casino, but the trip had been a disaster, enough disappointment and pain to keep me from my usual nap on the plane coming home. Now it felt like a small cabinetmaker was working inside my skull, sandpapering my eyeballs from the other side. Suddenly I wanted to sit down. I looked around for a chair to drag over, then decided to prop myself against the edge of Lisa’s desk instead. She smelled good, I couldn’t help noticing, and somehow it made me feel better.

  “How’s the Thompson report going?” I asked her. “How far along is it?”

  “I’m assembling the stuff from the other offices—three hundred and some pages so far—and I should have a rough draft by the end of the week.” She stared over my shoulder for a moment before her troubled eyes swung back to me. “But there’s still the missing college roommate … the unaccounted-for three weeks … the not-quite-dead aunt.”

  I told her what the judge had said, that the aunt had in fact not died while Thompson was in Brookston. “Could you have misunderstood, Lisa? Misread your interview notes?”

  “Not a chance.”

  She opened the file on her desk, then the 1-A section of the file, a manila envelope attached to the inside back cover, used to store documentary evidence too small to be maintained in the vast bulky-exhibit vault on the second floor, as well as original interview notes from the case agent. Lisa pulled out a sheet of lined yellow paper and handed it to me.

  “Here they are,” she said, “my notes from our conversation. Look for yourself.”

  I took the paper. Her handwriting was as meticulous as the rest of her work. I didn’t expect to find a mistake and I didn’t. Halfway down the sheet, the words couldn’t have been more clear. B.T. waited till after S.K. funeral, then left for New Haven. Then, a bit further down, Lisa’s record of her call to the county clerk in Brookston. Date of death S.K, April 17, 1991. I read the notes again just to make sure, handed the page back to her.