In a few seconds the screen flashed a prompt at him. He was in.
He fished out his copy of the Case ID for Lionel's shooting. It took him about ten minutes, typing with the wrong hand, to enter the fifteen digit ID number and get Lionel's file up. The computer thought about it for a few minutes, then the screen showed the first page of Lionel's file.
Kareem Rashad Williams had quite a rap sheet tagged onto his ass. Gideon didn't care much about that, he knew most of it anyway. He paged into the active case file on the Metro shoot-out.
The autopsy records were on file. The cause of death was no surprise; what did surprise Gideon was the fact that the toxicology scan showed enough PCP in Lionel's system to send the Mormon Tabernacle Choir into orbit. That was enough of a surprise for Gideon to back up to the guy's rap sheet.
Dealing heroin, dealing coke, dealing speed. No Angel Dust. Not much in itself, but that combined with the odd fact that Lionel had decided to go flying right before he was supposed to meet with a cop that had no reason to like him made the whole thing seem somewhat fishy.
Back to the autopsy.
The cause of death was no big surprise. A bullet had severed his spinal column. The neck wound had finished him off.
It was the ballistics that really made Gideon wonder. The police, collectively, had fired twelve shots. Lionel was hit by five shots. Seven bullets were dug out of the walls of the Metro station. That meant that at least one bullet had passed through Lionel and had lodged in the wall. That was possible, only two- slugs were dug out of Lionel's body.
What bothered Gideon was the fact that all the bullets, except the fatal shot, could be tied to a specific police gun. The one in Lionel's neck had fragmented explosively, as if someone was firing hollow points. More disturbing, the neck shot had hit him in the front, in his throat. From Gideon's memory, that meant that the shot had come from in front of Lionel, from behind where Gideon had been standing.
But the only thing behind Gideon at that point was a mass of panicked civilians.
But someone had shot first, starting that firefight, and it wasn't Lionel. There had been another shooter on the platform. There was little sign that anyone was investigating that, and—at this point—Gideon doubted he would be welcomed if he brought it to the department's attention.
Shit.
He spent the rest of the evening getting himself acquainted with Lionel, the guy who was responsible for Rafe's death.
Gideon only stopped his computer research to hobble downstairs and watch the television. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Three-thirty PM, the press conference announcing the Senate investigation into the Daedalus incident.
By three he was sitting on his couch in the living room, his foot propped up on the table in front of him. On his lap was a copy of the opening statement that Mayor Harris' speech writer had drafted for him.
On the screen, Senator Daniel Tenroyan, Republican from Maine, was talking to reporters. He looked like an
English professor, standing in front of a podium as if giving a lecture to a bored classroom. ". . . the first hearings will be held on April second, and should last for two weeks. Because of some sensitive testimony we'll be hearing about the Daedalus computer, these hearings will be in closed session—"
Gideon sat up, spilling Mayor Harris' statement from his lap. He wasn't the only one that Tenroyan had caught by surprise. The entire press corps had erupted in a flurry of overlapping questions. For a moment Tenroyan was stuck, unable to be heard over the reporters' questions, his stillness highlighted by camera flashes.
The anchorman cut in, saying, "There you have it. There will be a House-Senate investigation of the shooting of two law enforcement officers by the Secret Service, but the hearings will be in closed session. That means that there'll be no press coverage of the hearings themselves. There's no word yet on whether there'll be any offers of immunity in exchange for testimony . . ."
"I don't believe it," Gideon muttered. He looked down at the canned speech—an emotional plea for the financial salvation of the D.C. police department.
The statement was pretty much irrelevant now. It was one thing when an opening statement was in public view on CNN, it was another when only a few Congressmen and Senators would hear it—the people responsible for perpetuating the problem in the first place.
They had to know something was wrong here. There was something more than a simple fuckup that had gotten his brother killed. But the people who were supposedly investigating were turning away from it. First the DA and the grand jury avoiding the subject, and now Congress wanting to hide the whole process from prying eyes— bargaining with immunity at the same time.
"Fucking politics," Gideon muttered.
Gideon knew what it was. Some bastard stood to be embarrassed, someone powerful enough to put the brakes on the investigation. It infuriated Gideon.
He reached over and picked up the phone. With the Administration bearing down on this, there was no one left on the force he could turn to. But there was at least one ex-cop he knew who might be able to help him.
Gideon called the number for the man who had been his first partner as a detective. He muted the television as a deep voice answered, "Kendal Associates Consulting."
"You still answer your own phone, Morris?"
"That who I think it is?"
"Yes, it is," Gideon said. "You up for meeting me for dinner?"
"Five to one they never even return an indictment," Gideon said, stabbing a piece of lamb stir-fry with his fork. His aim was a little off; he was still wasn't completely used to eating with his left hand.
Morris Kendal looked across the table at him and shook his head. "You're being pessimistic." Kendal was a large man, nearly three hundred pounds. He was bald, black, and built like a pro wrestler.
They were sitting in a Mongolian barbecue restaurant a block east of the garish Chinatown Friendship Arch spanning H Street. They sat a few tables away from a circular dais where a quartet of chefs were grilling the patrons' meals.
Kendal had been a ten-year veteran of the detective bureau when they paired Gideon with him. Kendal had spent two years as his partner, teaching him, keeping him from screwing up too badly. Gideon had had no idea how lucky he had been to have been assigned to Kendal, not until Kendal announced that he was retiring and going into business for himself.
At the time, his mentor's decision had surprised him. Kendal had seemed every inch a cop and it was impossible to envision him as anything else. Now Kendal was making about six times as much as a private security consultant as he'd ever made as a detective. He drove a Mercedes and wore thousand-dollar suits. Now the only thing that surprised Gideon about Kendal's move was the fact that he hadn't made it a lot sooner.
Somehow, Kendal's skepticism about what was happening with the investigation seemed too reminiscent of Rafe's skepticism about Lionel. "Look," Gideon said, "this kind of crap worries me. It's not like he didn't know what he wasn't asking." Gideon finally speared the strip of lamb.
"So what does this have to do with you asking me to dinner?"
"I need someone to get to the bottom of this thing."
Kendal grinned. "There isn't anything here to get to the bottom of—"
"I know you've got contacts in the CIA—"
"—and even if there was, you couldn't afford me."
"I'm asking this as a favor."
Kendal laughed. "A favor? I'll say this, they didn't shoot off your balls."
"Come on. This isn't just cop pride—they killed Rafe, Morris. I saw the top of his skull peel away, and his wife just about believes I shot him myself." Gideon shook his head. "I've spent hours with IA. If someone big's behind it, who you think will get tagged with the blame?"