The Night Crew (31 page)

“So you’re saying this was all Elton’s fault?”

“Nobody’s talking fault.”

“I am.”

“Fault? What do you know about the men I put in that cellblock, the type of animal I was dealing with?”

“What I know is that the man who put them in that cellblock lost any claim to moral superiority.”

“If you’re arguing moral equivalency, wake up, Sean. These animals wrapped little children in bombs, filled their pockets with candy, then sent them into police stations to be blown to pieces. They cleansed neighborhoods by castrating and beheading human beings, then dumped their corpses in the streets for their neighbors to gawk at. When they occasionally captured American soldiers, they raped them, tortured them for days, then blew their brains out, making a video for the soldier’s family to see how pleasantly their final days passed. They are inhuman degenerates, completely amoral scum.”

“I do not believe the Geneva Convention makes that distinction. If they walk upright on two legs and comb their own hair, they are human beings, protected and covered by the dictates of international law.”

“None of those men ever gave a shit about the Geneva Convention. They aren’t even signatories. None of these animals ever cared about the law or showed any inkling of decency when they were out on the streets committing crimes that are too foul for a civilized mind to grasp. Oh, sure, once they are caught, then they care. And you know what? I enjoyed telling them I was playing by their own rules.”

Clearly, Ashad had persuaded himself that what he had done was righteous, moral, and just, that he was the hand of God. And, in a way, I could almost side with him. Almost. Certainly, I could see how a man shaped by his unique background, uprooted from his country by religious persecution, watching from afar as members of his family were butchered, and now, having to face the same men who had done that butchering, men who were, even now, doing far worse, could give himself a moral laxative and decide to make them atone for their sins. Perspective determines morality.

And further, I thought, had Ashad pursued this vendetta on his own, had he not suborned the efforts of five American soldiers, I might even be shaking his hand and thanking him for his service.

Well, maybe not.

Clearly, though, I was engaging in an exercise of mental masturbation trying to make him feel remorseful or even minutely guilty, so I changed topics and asked him, “Then, is it your belief that Danny Elton murdered Palchaci?”

“You know,” he answered, “I believe he did.”

“You must have a reason, or reasons, for that belief.”

He actually laughed. “In fact, Sean, for the very same reasons I imagine you once thought he did it.”

“Maybe I’m a little slow. Remind me what I used to think.”

“Because Danny Elton has a few loose bolts in his head. Because a man always trying to prove his masculinity, to be the king of the hill, would see it as the supreme validation of his manhood. Because, after doing all he’d done up to that point, he needed something fresh, something . . . shall we say, something more invigorating to get his kicks. Because Danny has absolutely no moral qualms, because he’s the type who could bash in a man’s head just to see how it feels.”

“That’s all you have to persuade me he’s a murderer?”

“If you’re asking me for evidence, or to say I witnessed Danny clubbing Palchaci to death, I have none, and the answer is no, I did not observe it.” He then asked, facetiously, “Do you have a better suspect in mind?”

“In fact, as you know, Ashad, that leaves you.”

“How utterly disappointing,” he replied, using an expression he must have picked up at some Ivy League soirée. He smiled, condescendingly. “Everybody has been telling me how clever and resourceful you are. Sean, I really expected more out of you.”

This insult was meant to piss me off, but I knew what he was doing, and I knew why. I’m good at judging people and this guy scared me. After spending more than a decade crawling inside people’s heads and mind-fucking them, it had become who he was. The man was certainly clever; or, on reflection, cunning was the better fit. I would not want to be on the other side of the interrogation table from him—though actually, I already was on the other side.

But this wasn’t my first rodeo either, so to piss him off, I smiled back.

He crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back, a faux posture of boredom, as if to say I still wasn’t measuring up to his mind-fucking standards. He observed, again in a sardonic, condescending tone, “I thought deductive logic was one of the tools you lawyers use.” He looked at me closely. “I make absolutely no sense as a suspect. Think about it.”

So I thought about it. “You’re too modest, Ashad.”

“Well,” he replied, in a rare moment of candor, “that’s the first time I’ve ever been accused of that.”

“You know the first line of defense employed by every murderer?” I paused then answered my own question. “They all try to pin it on somebody else.”

“Do they really?” He shrugged. “You need to be careful of circuitous logic, Sean. They tell you somebody else did it, so you assume they are lying; but what if somebody else actually did do it?”

“This is where the process of elimination comes into play. If it wasn’t the girls, as you say, and it wasn’t Mike Tiller, as you also say, and it wasn’t Danny Elton, as I say . . . that leaves you.”

“What about motive? What possible reason would I have to kill Palchaci?”

“Well . . . let’s see. He was Sunni, he was one of Saddam’s bloodiest henchmen, he slaughtered and buried at least three Shiite villages, and he wouldn’t squeal, so you looked bad to your bosses. On a more personal level, he was a more obnoxious asshole than you, and you didn’t enjoy the competition. Have I overlooked anything?”

“Nothing I can think of . . .” he said, as though these were all valid points. “Well, except . . .”

“Except . . . ?”

“Yazid Palchaci wasn’t one of my cases. I wasn’t responsible for his interrogation. He didn’t make me look like a failure because he wasn’t on my docket.”

“I find that hard to believe. You were deliberately picking prisoners tied to the Sunni insurgency. Every report I’ve seen says Palchaci was a big honcho, an organizer, a recruiter. He checked every block of your profile.”

“Except one.”

I looked at him.

“I deliberately arranged for him
not
to be assigned to me. Captain Willborn can corroborate that if you care to ask him.”

“Then why did Elton tell me that on several occasions you talked about taking a baseball bat and bashing Palchaci’s brains out?”

“Is that what he said?” he replied. “I don’t recall using those specific words.”

“The quote may not be exact, but he definitely told me you dreamed of killing Palchaci.”

He smiled. “Now that does sound like something I said.”

“The legal term for this is intent, Ashad. I have at least one witness who heard you express the manifest desire to murder a man in the fashion in which he died.”

“I believe that brings us around to modus operandi. Isn’t that another element from your criminal procedure manuals?”

“What’s your point?”

“Not only did I
not
kill anybody, no actual physical damage was inflicted on any of my other cases. Sexual humiliation and abuse were my weapons . . . at worst, their pride, their manhood, their egos were mangled. But my orders to Elton were quite limiting and specific. Violence was banned. No beatings. Nobody was to be permanently damaged, and nobody was.”

“So you’re a great guy after all.”

He shrugged. “I even did my best to keep a close eye on the night crew.”

“Obviously not a close enough eye, Ashad. Palchaci was murdered and you’re telling me Danny Elton is your top suspect. He was the head of your night crew, was he not?”

“I cannot be held accountable for the actions of one stupid man. All those insipid photos . . . now you know why I had them record their activities. I even found a hiding place where I removed the lighting, so I could occasionally slip in without being noticed. One night, I even gave them a video camera.”

“And to think I thought you were just a garden-variety peeping Tom.”

This insult did piss him off, and he shot back, “You also viewed that video, did you not? Margaret told me she showed it to you.” He leered at me. “Did you enjoy it? Was it a turn-on?”

“I found it sickening. You can infer from that something about my feelings toward the man who wanted it filmed.”

He seemed to realize that I had gotten under his skin and he drew a deep breath and brought his emotions under control. “Yes, well, after I watched it, I counseled Danny about Lydia and that ridiculous riding crop.” He added, “You know, she scared the shit out of me. Near the end there, especially. She was spinning out of control.”

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

“A defense attorney with a guilty client is no piece of cake either.”

He smiled at his own witticism. I did not smile back, though I did find it funny.

He then said, “I could easily have arranged for Palchaci to be my case . . . but you know what? I
would
have killed him. Does this sound strange to you?”

“No stranger than arranging for five soldiers to sexually molest your cases.”

“Maybe, except I would never have used a bat. I would’ve found it so much more gratifying to snap his neck with my own hands.”

We sat and looked at each for a moment, he with his stone-cold eyes, and me, with a skeptical expression. I finally asked him, “Who do you think forwarded the file of photographs to Melvin Cramer and brought your house crashing down?”

“To be honest, I’ve thought about that quite a lot.”

“You should be happy to know that, in this instance, at least, I do not consider you a suspect.”

“Well . . . that’s reassuring.” He paused then informed me, “I haven’t got a clue.”

“I’m not asking for clues, I’m asking for your best guess.”

“Fair enough. It’s my belief that your client, Lydia, did it. I think her fury at Danny became so consuming that she didn’t care how much trouble it caused, or who it hurt, including herself. She wanted to hurt him, and she wanted revenge on June as well. Making sure those photos went public was the best way to accomplish both goals, was it not?”

I nodded at this logic. “How was your relationship with Captain Willborn?”

“Fine. Why do you ask?”

“Well . . . just that Willborn has expressed some negative feelings toward you.”

“Really? What did Nate say about me?”

“He called you an arrogant asshole with an inflated sense of his own intelligence and self-worth. He said you kissed your Cornell ring every night before you went to bed, and that everybody in that prison thought you were a buffoon, a putz who was trying to hide his own well-founded insecurities and inadequacies, when all the American-born officers knew you were just a raghead who caught a lucky break.” Willborn hadn’t actually said that last part, of course, but a little artistic license wouldn’t hurt anything. I added, more accurately, “He also said you were a selfish, stingy prick who stole all the credit for his work.”

This barrage of negative comments appeared to surprise him.

I continued, “I think it’s fair to say he hated your guts. He believes you are dead and though, ordinarily, people speak only fondly of the dead, his only fond memory of you is that you are dead.”

He stared at me and stated, “He always was jealous of me and my success.”

“Why didn’t he share in that success? Weren’t you a team?” “No, that was just a necessary facade. Naturally he was well aware of the success I was enjoying with the night crew and he begged me to include him. I said no. Why should I say yes? He brought nothing to the party. No language skills, which I did not need, in any regard. Nor did I find him particularly adept as an interrogator. He was too clumsy, not psychologically astute, too impatient . . . frankly he was not tough enough . . . certainly, not for the type of men I was handling.”

I took a shot in the dark and asked Ashad, “Is that why you arranged for Palchaci to be assigned to him? To make amends by giving Willborn a shot at the big time?”

“You figured that out, did you?”

Not until now. But I nodded anyway.

“Yes,” Ashad informed me. “That was very much in my mind. The bigwigs in the Green Zone were desperate to know what Palchaci knew. The man went back nearly thirty years with Saddam. There were a lot of blanks he could fill in. Also we knew he helped organize the Sunni insurgency, particularly the recruitment of former military members who were angry at being disbanded. I did Willborn a big favor. I gave him a chance to shine. He could make a big name for himself.”

Ashad had now given me answers to everything I wanted to know, and I said to him, “I’m through with you.”

He looked at his watch. “But there’s still thirty minutes left.”

“I said I’m through with you.”

He actually looked crestfallen and a little annoyed that he wasn’t important enough to merit a full hour of my time. But then he smiled. “You dog. You’re more skillful than I thought. You really put one over on me.”

“Is that right?”

“You never suspected me of killing Palchaci, did you? Misdirection, right? It was a red herring to get what you really wanted out of me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He did not believe this, nor should he believe it, and he looked a little put-off that I had put one over on him, and now wouldn’t admit it. He took a deep breath, then said to me, “Tell me something. I’m dying to know and I have a sense you have it figured out. Who did kill Palchaci, and who leaked the pictures?”

I stood up. “Fuck off, Ashad.”

I then walked toward the door and left, closing it gently behind me.

Waiting about thirty yards away, sipping from a thermos of coffee, and standing beside Mark Helner, Margaret watched me come out. She appeared surprised that I had finished early and approached me. With an expression of concern, she asked, “Was everything okay? We told Amal to be open and to answer all your questions to his fullest ability.”