‘‘Jesus, dear,’’ said Hester. ‘‘You don’t have to sleep with him.’’
‘‘The hell,’’ said Nancy. ‘‘That son of a bitch thinks he’s God’s gift to women… always tries to talk his way into your pants, grabs a feel whenever he thinks nobody’ll notice… and he’s a creepy asshole to boot.’’
We didn’t say anything.
‘‘He’s a real nutzoid, always trying to come on to you with some bullshit about taking over the country, about killing the Zionists.. .’’ She began to slow. ‘‘Wouldn’t put it past him to get somebody.. . killed…’’
Silence. We just looked at her.
‘‘You’re kidding,’’ she whispered.
I shook my head.
‘‘How could he be involved?’’
‘‘That’s where it begins to get a little more than Confidential,’’ I said. ‘‘Up past Restricted, and all the way to Secret.’’
‘‘Is there a story in this?’’ she asked.
‘‘Oh, absolutely,’’ I said. ‘‘Probably one of the bigger ones.’’
‘‘Exclusively?’’
‘‘That,’’ said Hester, ‘‘remains to be seen.’’
‘‘Right. But if I do what I have to do with Borcherding? Other than screw him?’’
‘‘Probably.’’ Hester grinned.
Nancy unbuttoned her vest. ‘‘It’s getting a little warm in here,’’ she said. She pulled out a small tape recorder from the pocket, and showed it to us, making sure we could see it wasn’t turned on. ‘‘Can I tape this?’’
‘‘We’ll just give you access to ours later,’’ I said.
She gave me a questioning look.
‘‘The alarm clock radio on the cabinet,’’ said Hester, who knew all about it. ‘‘Picks up everything in the room.’’
‘‘And the video camera,’’ I said, gesturing at the little box in the corner of the ceiling that was smaller than half a cigarette pack, ‘‘catches most of the action.’’
‘‘Oh.’’
‘‘You could take notes,’’ said Hester, ‘‘but we don’t want them leaving the room.’’
‘‘Right.’’ She eased back in her chair. ‘‘If you want me to get close to this geekhead, I assume you have a good reason.’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ I said.
‘‘Well, fill me in…’’
‘‘What we want,’’ I said, ‘‘is to know who he hangs around with. Who he talks to. That sort of thing.’’
‘‘Oh, no,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s a Freedom of the Press issue, I’m sorry.’’
I glanced at Hester; she nodded.
I reached into a drawer under the desk and took out a black marker. I unfolded a copy of the crucial Bravo6 e-mail, and crossed off the FROM line. I pushed it over to Nancy. ‘‘Look at this…’’
She did, and her eyes narrowed, and her face got noticeably pale for a second.
‘‘Your basic kill order, in the flesh,’’ said Hester.
‘‘Who sent this?’’ asked Nancy.
Neither Hester nor I said a word.
‘‘You crossed that off…’’ She hesitated. ‘‘You’re sure?’’
We still said nothing.
‘‘You are, aren’t you?’’ She stared at the sheet. ‘‘You know, and that’s why you want…’’
She looked at the sheet again. ‘‘But,’’ she said, her voice getting louder, ‘‘that motherfucker is just outside in the parking lot!’’
‘‘Slow down,’’ I said. ‘‘We know he is.’’
‘‘Then go get his ass!’’
‘‘Not yet,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Calm down. That’s where you come in.’’
Nancy took a deep breath, then another. ‘‘Okay, so why not? Why’s he still loose? Why not get him now?’’
‘‘The way we got the message,’’ I said, ‘‘might give us a little admissibility problem.’’ Not true, of course. At least, not in the strict sense of criminal procedures. The admissibility came from not wanting to admit what we’d done to the FBI. But Nancy sure didn’t have to know that. At least, not to help us get the information from another source.
Nancy looked at both of us in turn. ‘‘You’re kidding…’’
‘‘Had to be done,’’ said Hester. ‘‘No other way to get timely data.’’
‘‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’’ said Nancy, ‘‘because they got Phil. I don’t want anybody getting off here.’’
I thought it was pretty clearly implied that, if whoever shot Phil got off, Nancy’s paper would kill us. That was fair enough.
‘‘Now,’’ I said, ‘‘we have less than an hour here, so let’s get down to it…’’
After refreshing her memory a little, which certainly didn’t take much, we asked Nancy what Phil could have said or done that would give the impression that he had a bomb. At first she couldn’t think of anything, but then she remembered Phil’s bottled mineral water. He always drank it, when he could get it, and liked it cold. He had a habit of wrapping it in two of those beer can insulators, and just sticking the neck of the bottle through the little hole in the ‘‘bottom’’ of the upper insulator. He had obtained his insulators from an implement dealer during a photo session, so the two insulators were black, with a yellow rectangle with black printing on the side. In effect, a black cylinder about ten inches long, as big around as a beer can, with a small, white cap on one end.
‘‘He left it at my car,’’ said Nancy. ‘‘When we were going to go in together, he realized he didn’t have it. One of your reserve guys went to the car and got it for him.’’
No shit.
‘‘Borcherding was set up near the car,’’ said Nancy.
‘‘I know,’’ I said. ‘‘You pointed him out, sort of.’’
‘‘He could have seen that. When the cop brought it to him. Phil probably just stuck it in his bag. He wouldn’t have tried to hide it or anything.’’ She thought a second. ‘‘He had a cell phone modem thingy on his laptop.’’
‘‘Borcherding? Are you sure?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Yeah. I told Phil that I’d have to get one like that.’’
‘‘So Borcherding probably wasn’t really inventing the part about the ‘bomb,’ then, was he?’’
‘‘Probably not, Carl.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘Probably not.’’ She looked up. ‘‘That fucker.’’ She thought again for a few seconds. ‘‘You’re absolutely sure it was him?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ I said, looking her straight in the eye. ‘‘We know the message came straight from his e-mail address, and could have been sent only by somebody at the scene.’’ I hesitated for a second. ‘‘None of the networks had a live feed going.’’
‘‘No,’’ she said. ‘‘No, they never went live until after Phil was shot. I know that.’’
Hmm. Well, by that time our dispatch center would have been so busy they probably turned the TV off.
‘‘We don’t have any reason to believe he gave his laptop to anybody else,’’ said Hester. ‘‘His password had to be used to log on to the server. If he’d loaned it to somebody else, they’d have used their password, most likely. And his seems to be one of those little local companies…’’
‘‘He runs his own server,’’ said Nancy. ‘‘He brags about it.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘He’s one of those people who think they can get in your pants by telling you all the techno drivel they have in their entire head. Supposed to make us horny, or something.’’ She snorted. ‘‘Likely.’’
‘‘Really?’’ That surprised me.
‘‘Oh, yeah. They think it’s erotic.’’
‘‘No, no,’’ I said, grinning. ‘‘Just surprised he has his own server. What do they call it?’’ I asked.
‘‘Oh, shit,’’ she said, ‘‘I don’t remember that. God. But something like the common man net, or some such thing. Maybe free white net, or common free?’’
‘‘Thanks,’’ said Hester. ‘‘We’ll check that out.’’ She pushed her chair back, making a screeching sound on the old hardwood flooring. ‘‘In the meantime, how do you intend to go about getting your information? You can’t be too obvious or quick…’’
‘‘Hell, I know that.’’
‘‘I mean,’’ said Hester, ‘‘I know it’s a little soon, but I’d like to know what you intend…’’
We went over what we wanted, again. We expanded the list, not to give her more work, but more leeway. We were very clear that she was under no obligation to obtain all the information. Just suggestions and hints. We’d take the rest.
‘‘Right,’’ said Nancy. ‘‘Look, I just want to thank you for letting me have something to do with getting this bastard…’’
I made sure she was still sitting there when the two reserve officers came through with Nola Stritch. Our guys had given Nola a bulletproof vest to wear, which looked a little silly on her. It was for someone much larger, was white, and had the long tails on it so you could tuck it into your uniform pants and not have it pull your shirt out when you moved. Kind of looked more like a bulletproof apron, as a matter of fact. I pretended to be a bit upset when Nancy introduced herself, so Nola gave a little statement to the press.