Premeditated Murder (25 page)

And then, just as Zack reached the bedroom on the right, Terry said from the other one, “Hey, boys and girls, here's some nifty things.”

Aside from a twin bed and a dresser, the room contained a workstation, with a computer, a printer, a scanner, and a large flat metal box with a glass top. Small pieces of electrical tape had been stuck to the glass, outlining several rectangles and squares of different sizes on its surface. Some razor blades, X-Acto knives, pens, pencils, a glue stick, a bottle of rubber cement, another of nail polish remover, and a booklet from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles were sitting on the desk to the right of the box. Zack turned on the computer while Terry went over to the glass-topped box.

“It's a light board,” he explained, reaching around behind it to flip a switch. The glass top became a very bright, white surface. “I used to use one when I worked on the school newspaper in college.” He pulled open the top drawer of the desk. “I bet we find something fun in here.”

Sure enough, there were about fifteen or twenty driver's licenses, from many different states, held together by a rubber band. In another part of the drawer was a stack of passports. Two were from Egypt, three from the United States, and two from France. One of those was clearly in the process of being altered—the photo had been stripped off.

The monitor to the computer flickered on. Zack took a look at some of the more recently used files, while Terry rummaged through the rest of the desk. The contents of the computer confirmed that whoever was using this stuff was doing some pretty sophisticated artwork. On documents that looked very official.

Terry had found strips of photographs of a young man that had been taken at some photo booth in a mall somewhere. Terry laid one of the strips on top of one of the squares that had been created by the electrical tape, and the outline of the light square showed clearly through one of the photos. “Let's say you needed a picture of a face that was, oh, I don't know, exactly two inches by two inches, because Uncle Waldo got you that Little Suzy Passport-Maker kit you always wanted for your birthday. You'd just take your trusty X-Acto knife here”—Terry picked up one of the knives—“and presto.” He cut the photo along the line created by the tape, picked it up, and placed it exactly into the space on the passport where the photo had been removed. “Congratulations, you are the newest citizen of France.”

The computer made a noise. Zack looked over at the monitor. “Holy shit,” he said. The computer was systematically deleting all of its files.

“What the fuck?” Terry said, reaching over and hitting some keys on the keyboard, as if that were going to do anything. Zack flipped the switch on the computer itself. There was no change. The files kept disappearing. He lunged for the power cord and yanked it out of the wall. But the computer was on battery backup by now. The evidence was disappearing.

“Would you mind telling me what the hell you guys think you're doing?” the manager asked. His game face was back on.

Terry had had enough. “What we're trying to do is preserve evidence that would be admissible in a murder trial, but unfortunately, this computer's been rigged to wipe itself clean if anyone turns it on wrong. So I guess that means you'll need to be a witness this summer at the trial. We'll be in touch.”

“Listen, fellas, I had no problem with these girls,” the manager said, backing away from the desk, and Terry. “I had no idea what they were up to. If we gotta call the cops, that's fine with me. But I got nothing to do with this. We need to get going.”
Since it's time for me to run and hide under my bed. Cuz I said so.

“Yeah, okay.” Zack was pulling open the dresser drawers. Nothing but clothes. Whoever was using the setup in this room was obviously in the business of creating false identities. That much was clear. Did that prove that they were terrorists? No. Did it justify blowing them away? No.

Did it make Cal's story start to look even more credible? Yeah. A lot.

After they left the apartment, the manager nearly broke into a sprint to get back to his office. “We really might need him to testify to what he saw on the monitor before the computer erased itself,” Terry said, as he and Zack left the apartment grounds.

“I know,” Zack said. “And he's going to be the world's shittiest witness, too.”

“Maybe,” Terry said, “but we better stand next to each other when we question him, because if he makes his scary face in court, one of us might faint.”

EIGHTEEN

Dear Kev—

     The people I shot weren't that old, you know. Most of them were in their twenties. That's how old your mother and I were when we had you. I think about that sometimes. And sometimes I think about their parents.

(Letter #45 from Calvin Thompkins to deceased son, Kevin)

DIST. ATTY. O'NEILL:
Directing your attention to January 14, at approximately 3:30 that afternoon, did you respond to a call at 214 Main Street?

OFFICER MARANOWSKI:
Yes, sir. Me and Officer Tommy Clarke were the first officers on the scene.

Q:
What did you observe when you arrived at the apartment?

A:
Well, when we got there, we drew our service revolvers and ran upstairs. As soon as I saw the defendant lying on his back in the hallway, bleeding, I called for an ambulance.

Q:
When he saw you, did he say anything?

MR. WILSON:
Objection.

THE COURT:
Overruled. You may answer.

A:
He kind of laughed and said, “I can't believe they didn't kill me.”

(Trial Volume VII, Page 112)

May 8—Austin, Texas

MATT WAS BEAT. HE HAD JUST SPENT MUCH OF the afternoon and evening in discussions regarding education reform. It was ridiculous. Surgeons could perform heart operations in utero, astronauts could live for months on a space station orbiting the earth, but nobody on the planet could figure out how to teach kids to read as well as they could thirty years ago.

The limo pulled into the private drive of the Texas governor's mansion, where he and Sammy were staying for two days before returning to Washington. Secret Service agents waited for the motorcade at the entrance to the guest suite. Matt wondered if Alvin wished he hadn't invited them to stay, now that he saw what the Secret Service did to a place before the President got within ten miles of it.

Matt went right to the kitchenette, to find a beer. Sammy was already there, sitting at the table, reading a computer printout and writing something on a legal pad. “You know what?” she said, as Matt came in. “I'm really glad I married you, but this thing is driving me crazy.”

She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. It was good to see her. “Hang on one second,” Matt said, as he got a couple of bottles out of the refrigerator, gave one to Sammy, kissed her, sat down next to her at the table, and said, “I'm glad I married you, too.” He took a swig of the beer and closed his eyes as the cold liquid ran down his throat. As soon as they had a chance, he was going to take Sammy to some Caribbean island for a vacation. No, first he'd take her bathing suit shopping, then they'd go on vacation. She'd look good in something blue. An image came to mind. Maybe a little less of the blue, a little more of Sammy. A better image. He smiled, opened his eyes, looked at his wife, and said, “Okay. Now what were you saying?”

Sammy closed the printout, looked briefly at the legal pad and then up at Matt. “All right. Carlos got me all this background information about the judges who were on that list,” she said. “I was sure that if we could find something linking them, we could figure out why Graham wanted Charley Cullhane to dig up all of this dirt on them.” She looked back to the pad. “Most of them seemed to be in New York and Michigan, but I figured I'd start with the judges from North Carolina.”

“That's funny. You're from North Carolina.”

She just gave him a look. “Ha ha,” she deadpanned. “I just wanted to see … you know.”

“Whether you knew anyone that might have been on the list.”

“Yes,” Sammy said. “But I didn't.” She looked down at the pad. “There were only three: Gary Mills, Claire Cath, and John Wynott.”

“Where'd they go to law school?”

“Stanford, Boston University, and Duke. Yuck.”

Sammy went to the University of North Carolina. Everything about Duke was a problem for her. “Does the University of North Carolina even have a law school?”

“Of course it does. It's very highly respected by judges and lawyers across the country.”

Continued discussion on that topic promised disaster. Matt shifted back. “Who appointed them?”

“Mills and Cath were appointed by Reagan, and Wynott by Bush. The father.”

“Is it a Republican thing?”

“No,” she replied. “When I checked the judges in the other states, I found lots on the list appointed by Clinton. There were even a couple who were appointed by Carter.”

“What about undergrad?”

“They went all over the place.”

There had to be a common thread running between these judges. They didn't just accidentally end up on that list. “Did you get a chance to look at what they were doing before they were appointed?” Matt asked.

“That's the one thing that I was sure was it.” Sammy flipped open the legal pad. “The first six people I checked all worked as Assistant U.S. Attorneys or for the Attorney General's office before they were appointed. But then I found others who didn't. There wasn't any pattern.”

That was no surprise. Matt had read somewhere that more than half of the judges in the country had worked as prosecutors of one kind or another. He took another swig of beer. “What about their jobs? Are they all the same kind of judges?”

Sammy turned to another page. “That's the only one that seemed not completely and totally hopeless,” she said. “But that might just be wishful thinking.” She read from the pad. “Of the fifty-nine judges on the list, fifty-five were magistrate judges. They do the unimportant stuff, like pretrial motions and scheduling conferences. Except these four: Aubrey Seaver, Craig McDonald, Bonnie Wescott, and Francis Constantino. They're District Court judges.”

Fifty-nine judges, all magistrate or district court judges? “No Bankruptcy Court judges?”

“No.”

“How about judges on the Circuit Courts?”

“Nope,” she said. “And no one on the Supreme Court, either, thank God.”

“Wait a minute,” Matt said. “Did you say Aubrey Seaver is on the list?”

“He was one of the District Court judges.”

“He retired late last year,” Matt said, “very unexpectedly. He was a young guy, seemed to like what he was doing, and then, poof. Quits. Just like that.”

“Just like that,” Sammy repeated, looking through some of her papers. “Let's see. Right here. Seaver retired into private practice, in Los Angeles, last November. And I just happened to have looked up his phone number,” she said, reaching over and taking Matt's hand. “Can I assume that I'm authorized to make an unofficial phone call to Attorney Seaver?”

He kissed her. “I'm glad you use your powers for the forces of good,” he said with a smile.

She smiled back. “I'll call him tomorrow.” She kissed him, hard. “Let's go to bed, Mr. President,” she said. “I'm tired of saving the world.”

Worcester, Massachusetts

“BY NOW, YOU ALL KNOW THAT DRINKING AND doing drugs is a very dangerous way to live your life.”

Pete was bombing. He never should have agreed to do this. He wasn't good at speaking to strange teenagers. He wasn't good at speaking to his own daughter. Hell, he wasn't good at speaking to anybody. “Not only is it illegal, it's a good way to get yourself killed.”

Pastor Reid had talked him into addressing the young people's meeting that Natalie Reggio had been leading for the last few years. What a dumb idea. The kids were squirming in their seats. A boy with really greasy hair was staring at something out the window. Julie, the girl that Natalie had asked Pete to look out for, was writing something on another boy's hand. Pete might as well have been speaking in Chinese for all they cared. Oh, well. He tried. It was time to finish up and get home.

“I was with Natalie Reggio on the night she went into the hospital.”

And just like that, everything went quiet. It was eerie, like the sound of her name had some kind of magical power. Was this what they wanted to hear? Didn't they already know about this?

“You saw what happened? You saw her get hurt?” asked one of the girls.

“Well, I wasn't there, but we finally learned what happened,” Pete said. “Natalie had been drinking. A lot. When she reached the hospital, her blood alcohol level was over point two-oh.”