Sally Ballew feels that black people — her people — in the state of Florida were disenfranchised in that election, but she has never mentioned this to her boss, whose role model is John Ashcroft. She is reporting to him now on the number of blue Chevrolet Impalas that were rented from Avis at the Fort Myers airport during the past two—
“I don’t understand,” Stone says. “Is this our case?”
“That depends,” Sally says.
“On what?”
“On do we want it.”
“Why would we?”
“Might become high-profile.”
“How?”
“Woman’s a widow. Pretty woman, two good-looking kids — the ones who got kidnapped, sir. Eight and ten years old, little boy and girl.”
Stone does not seem impressed.
He is pacing his office. In one corner of the room, an American flag rests furled in an ornate wrought-iron stand. The wall behind him is adorned with a big replica of the FBI seal with its thirteen stars and its laurel leaves, and its red-and-white-striped shield. On the upper rim of the predominately blue seal, the words DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE are lettered in white. On the lower rim, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, again in white. Just below the striped little shield with its engraved blue scales, there is a flowing white ribbon upon which the words Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity are lettered.
There was a time, Stone reflects, when those words meant something.
Now he’s standing here with a woman who can’t contain her tits, and they’re debating whether or not they should step into a case merely because it might become high-profile, in which event the Bureau will be able to bask in the cleansing light of some much-needed glory, if/when they ever arrest the sons of bitches who took two little kids from their mama.
“What’d be our justification for butting in here?” he asks.
“Reasonable presumption that the perps crossed a state line.”
“They’re already out of Florida?”
“We don’t know that, sir.”
“Then how’s a state line been crossed?”
“We think they may have come down from New York.”
“Oh dear, we’re dealing with big-city sharpies, eh?” Stone says, and almost grins in anticipation. There is nothing he likes better than to bust the ass of a city slicker. That ring of liberal rabble-rousing ruffians was based in Chicago. Came down here to raise a fuss and cause six kinds of trouble. He has not mentioned to Sally Balloons here that the leader of that little band was black as the ace of spades. Some of these people can get touchy, even if they work on the side of the law.
“You got proof of that?” he asks.
“No, sir. Not quite proof.”
“There’s no such thing as not quite proof,” Stone says. “There’s evidence, or there’s lack of evidence. Nobody can be just a little bit pregnant.”
“Well, sir, we think we may have found whoever rented the Impala described by the school guard,” Sally says. “And she’s from New York City. Which means a state line may have been crossed in anticipation of committing a future crime. At least, her driver’s license gives an address in New York City.”
“Anticipation of a future crime? What the hell is this, a Tom Cruise movie? Do you know for certain that this woman has in fact committed the crime of kidnapping?”
“No, sir, we do not. But, as I was about to say—”
“She the only person rented an Impala like the one this school guard described?”
“No, sir. Twenty-six blue Impalas were rented at the Fort Myers airport within the past two weeks, sir. Twenty of them have already been returned, and the renters long departed. Six of the cars are still out, we’ve got the license plate numbers for all of them, and in some instances local addresses for the renters.”
“Isn’t that obligatory? Giving a local address?”
“Some people just don’t know where they’ll be staying. They drive around the state, they stop here, they stop there…”
“Have you got a local address for this woman you say crossed a state line in anticipation of committing a future crime?”
“No, sir. She’s one of them who didn’t know where she’d be staying.”
“If I was about to kidnap some kids, I’d make damn sure I didn’t tell Avis where I’d be staying, either.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s her name, this woman?”
“Clara Washington.”
Stone almost asks, “Black?”
He doesn’t.
But a name like Washington?
Has to be black, doesn’t it?
“Avis rep who rented the car to her says she was black,” Sally says, beating him to the punch. “Woman in her thirties, about five-eight, five-nine, good-looking according to the Avis person. Showed a New York driver’s license as ID. Charged the lease to an American Express credit card.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“We checked with American Express; they do not have any card holder named Clara Washington in the city of New York. We checked with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles; they did not issue a driver’s license to anyone named Clara Washington in the city of New York. It would appear that both pieces of ID are false, sir.”
“Dime a dozen nowadays.”
“Dime a dozen, sir.”
“So you don’t really know if a state line has been crossed. If that driver’s license came in a Cracker Jack box…”
“That’s what I meant by ‘not quite proof,’ sir.”
“If the driver’s license is queer, the woman could have come from anywhere. Could’ve got off a bus from Jacksonville or Tallahassee, could’ve walked over to the airport from downtown Fort Myers, no state line crossed, no reason for the FBI to come into the case, end of story.”
“Except, sir—”
“Except what?”
“Except if we find her, and she really is from New York, and we nail her for the kidnapping, then we had good reason all along to assume the case fell within federal jurisdiction. And we become the heroes, sir.”
“Heroes,” Stone says.
“Yes, sir. And not the Cape October PD.”
“Heroes,” Stone repeats.
There was a time when a hero was someone who single-handedly charged a Vietcong machine-gun nest with a hand grenade in each hand and a bayonet clenched between his teeth. Now you were a hero if you tracked down a little colored girl — well, not so little, five-eight, five-nine — who may or may not have crossed a state line in anticipation of committing a crime that would get your name and your face all over television if you caught her.
“So what do you suggest, Ballew?”
He almost called her “Balloons.”
“We have the license plate number, sir. I suggest we do a sweep of all the area motels, hotels, B & B’s, what-have-you, see if we can’t find that car and that woman.”
“Declare ourselves officially in this thing?”
“Not until we’re sure we’ll be making an arrest, sir. Otherwise, we let the local cops take the heat.”
Stone is wondering how many of his people he will need for a sweep of all these area dwellings. But if he doesn’t grant Special Agent Ballew’s simple request, will she then file a report to division headquarters later on, claiming she went to her superior with information about a kidnapping, and he swept it under the carpet the way certain flight-school information was swept under the carpet prior to the 9/11 attacks?