It was within that hour that the FBI agents took Bellamy through the echoed preliminaries they’d earlier recorded with Helen Montgomery, this time with Benton leading the hard-cop/soft-cop routine, although with a sudden, hopefully confusing, twist. Bellamy was at the end of a denial of any prior conversation about damage to Parnell’s Toyota when Dingley said: ‘What sort of guy do you think Harry is?’
‘Good. Lucky…’ began the police officer, before being halted by Brack.
The Metro DC lawyer said: ‘Where’s this questioning getting us?’
‘An inch at a time, because of so many interruptions,’ said Benton. ‘Why do you consider Harry Johnson a lucky guy?’
‘That was a hell of a job he landed himself at Dubette, right out of the department,’ improvised Bellamy.
‘I thought it was a shoo-in,’ said Dingley. ‘Joe Blanchard opened the door for him.’
‘It wasn’t that guaranteed,’ said the man, believing there was firm ground underfoot.
‘How do you know that?’ persisted Benton.
‘What bearing has this upon your investigation?’ demanded the female lawyer.
‘I won’t know until I hear the answer,’ said Benton. To Bellamy he said: ‘Why wasn’t it guaranteed that Harry would get the Dubette job, with Blanchard’s backing?’
‘It couldn’t have been, could it?’ floundered Bellamy. ‘There must have been other applicants.’
‘What about you?’ said Benton. ‘You ever think you could slot into a Dubette job, knowing Harry like you did?’
‘Could have been an ace in the hole.’
‘We hear Dubette pay well,’ invited Dingley.
‘Top dollar,’ smiled Bellamy.
‘How much time you got, before you can leave?’ queried Benton, tuned to his partner’s approach.
‘Coupla years… three maybe.’
‘Is Dubette your ace in the hole?’ asked Benton.
‘Where’s this going?’ lumbered Brack.
‘In a direction,’ replied Benton, intentionally dismissive. ‘You got it in mind that you can get a job with Dubette if you choose to leave Metro DC police, right?’
‘It’s always a thought,’ conceded Bellamy.
‘You ever get caught up in all those troubles in the Metro DC police department in 1996?’ abruptly demanded Benton.
‘My client declines to answer that question,’ interrupted Hilda Jeffries, at once.
‘I think you should know that the FBI has obtained a court order enforcing full disclosure not just of the conclusions of internal hearings of that time, but also of inconclusive investigations,’ announced Benton.
‘I wasn’t advised of this application,’ protested Brack, at once.
‘We were only advised ourselves of the application by counsel at the J. Edgar Hoover building a few minutes before this interview began,’ said Dingley, easily.
‘This is something I need to discuss with my client,’ said Hilda Jeffries. ‘Something Phil and I should definitely have been told earlier.’
‘This was the earliest opportunity,’ insisted Dingley, un-repentantly.
‘Before this recorded interview began was an earlier opportunity,’ insisted Hilda Jeffries, in return. ‘This could well become a court protest. Certainly this meeting will progress no further.’
‘They’re dirty,’ insisted Benton, an hour later in the 14th Street bar. ‘I got five bucks that says Harry and Pete Bellamy and maybe Helen Montgomery got investigated in 1996 but that there was insufficient proof to prosecute. Harry just got asked to leave. How’s that sound?’
‘Sounds like a very feasible local police corruption deal,’ agreed Dingley. ‘Which isn’t an FBI problem or investigation.’
‘I know we’re missing our terrorism link,’ conceded Benton. ‘But a local police corruption deal is an FBI investigation if Metro DC police computers have been going beyond State borders and looking at things they shouldn’t be looking at.’
‘That’s a wild guess that gets us nowhere,’ refused Dingley.
‘I think we’ve taken a step forward,’ argued Benton.
‘Half a step,’ cautioned Dingley. ‘All we’ve got in addition to lies is a lot of conjecture.’
‘I’m encouraged beyond towels and salt and pepper shakers,’ said Benton. ‘And we shouldn’t forget Dwight Newton had a look-see at Parnell’s file, according to the log.’
‘No reason to leave him out,’ accepted Dingley. ‘Let’s give it the weekend for him to stop worrying – think we’re not interested. We’ve got a lot of reading to do.’
‘You know what I’d like, just once?’ said Benton.
‘What?’
‘To have an interview without a goddamned lawyer in the way.’
‘Law enforcement would be a hell of a lot easier without lawyers,’ agreed Benton.
They ate at the Kennedy Centre before the concert. Inevitably they talked about Johnson’s headline-grabbing arrest and previous day’s bail release, and Parnell said there hadn’t been an opportunity to ask the FBI agents if it was a break in the case – he’d hoped they would have called him if it were, which they hadn’t. He had planned to contact them at the beginning of the following week, but as he and Beverley talked, Parnell remembered Dingley’s assurance always to be reachable at the numbers they’d given him – surprised he’d forgotten – and decided to try the cellphone listings the next day. Work had started on the controlled toxicity-reduction of the newly arrived avian flu viruses but it was necessarily slow. No safe level had been established, which left nothing more to say which hadn’t already been said during their customary and so far inconclusive end-of-the-day discussions. Beverley judged Ted Lapidus a good research-team leader, but thought Sean Sato would be the one most likely to make a discovery, and finished by saying: ‘And now I want to know about you.’
‘I’ll get involved the moment we get to a controllable virus level,’ promised Parnell, deciding against telling her of the most recent confrontation with Dwight Newton.
‘That wasn’t the question,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t have thought there’s anything left to know about me,’ said Parnell. ‘Let’s hear about Beverley Jackson.’
‘Dull story,’ she insisted. ‘Dad was an industrial chemist, so I guess I inherited the interest. Found I was good at it. Got caught up in the new science of genetics and wanted to prove I could be good at that too, which is why I came after the Dubette job. Didn’t think you were particularly impressed by me at the job interview, incidentally. Didn’t believe I stood a chance. Not sure how I feel about the company itself – I’ve got to see Wayne Denny next week, by the way, about this psychology nonsense. Sean’s decided to go ahead and take it. Thinks to refuse will screw him up with the company. That’s about it.’
‘You missed out marriage and Barry.’ Would she tell him about the one time they’d lied to each other? he wondered.
‘College romance, stars in our eyes,’ she said. ‘Didn’t live together long enough to get to know each other. Turned out we were both more interested in work and our careers than we were in each other. We talked about it and decided it was a mistake for which neither of us were to blame. Just one of those things that didn’t work, so instead of ending up miserable and disliking each other, we’d call it a day…’ She giggled. ‘Barry did the divorce for free and I abandoned any claim for alimony.’
‘Just like that!’ said Parnell.
‘It was a good deal. We end up friends, even go out together sometimes. His folks are dead, like mine are now, and we spent last Christmas together at Aspen. Barry paid.’
‘All very grown-up and civilized,’ said Parnell. He wasn’t going to discover the great unsaid – maybe there was nothing to learn.
‘Waste of time being any other way.’ She looked around her, at an obvious exodus. ‘About time we made a move, don’t you think?’
They didn’t bother to go to the bar at the intermission, and afterwards Parnell declared himself a fan of big band. ‘Do you feel like a drink now?’