Francine Desmond
Francine pulled the photo off the printer and grimaced even as Lee, who was peeking over her shoulder, made his own face.
“Wow,” he observed. “That’s ugly even for Manny.”
She whisked the photo around and pinned it onto the case board. There were still some operations and overnight staff in the bull pen, so they’d adjourned up here, to the Q-Bureau. “So you do recognize him, then.”
He sighed, the momentary gallows humor dropping from his face as he dropped into his desk chair. “Yeah. That’s Detective Manny Trudeau with Metro Police. Didn’t they send the ID over with him?”
“They did, about an hour ago when they first found him,” said Billy as he finished pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee. “Plus a list of his current cases. None of them matched up with being down by the Potomac. They called us because the last call from his car phone was to you, Scarecrow.” He gestured to see if anyone else wanted coffee, but no one took him up on the offer. “Twelve minutes and eighteen seconds.”
Although Lee’s shrug seemed nonchalant, Francine could see tension in his shoulders. “Yeah, but it was three days ago.”
“Which is about how long they think he was in the drink,” she countered. “Am I going to have to drag it out of you?”
“No.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Manny’s the one who went over Amanda’s car the second time around. But that was weeks ago!”
“What were you talking about Monday afternoon, then?” she asked him.
Lee hesitated, glancing over at Amanda, who was seated at her own desk. “He, ah, he’d noticed something.”
Francine felt her features pull into a frown, even as Billy broke into the conversation. “What kind of a ‘something’ would get him bashed over the head and dumped into the river, Scarecrow? And why didn’t you bring Francine into the loop? You know full well you should’ve just turned this over to her, damn it! Why didn’t you?”
“We weren’t positive it was related to the case,” he protested. “That’s why he called me. That, and he wanted to see if I’d heard the news.”
“What news?” A vein was throbbing in Billy’s forehead.
Lee sighed. “Mrs. Welch was found dead in her prison cell over Labor Day. The autopsy report said natural causes, but he…well, this wasn’t his jurisdiction, but he’d called in a favor to find that out, and he wanted to follow up. There was something about the exact cause of death that seemed suspicious to him.”
“Why didn’t Trudeau just hand it over to us, then?”
“I don’t know!” snapped Lee, pushing back onto his feet. “For all I know he was just being territorial. You know how he got sometimes. But he knew about…he knew about Amanda and me, so…” now the look on his face was miserable. “Francine, we should probably go find an empty interview room and record this.”
“We will in a second. First, you tell me why this man was investigating my case in the first place.”
“I just did! We didn’t know if it was related or not, but then Manny pulled a list of Mrs. Welch’s personal property.” His eyes met hers, and it occurred to Francine that it meant he wasn’t looking at Amanda. “There was…well, there was something in there.”
“What was in there?” she asked, testy. If he’d just told her what was going on, they all might have been able to finish up their evenings. She’d seen Jonathan slip something into his coat pocket as they’d left for Lee’s and Amanda’s. But he’d dropped it back in before she got a good look.
The fact that it was small enough to be concealed in one of his hands gave her a couple of ideas, though.
“Well?” asked Billy after Lee hesitated again. “Spit it out, man!”
He took a breath. “A list of names. Amanda’s was at the top of it.”
Amanda made a soft, inarticulate noise, but didn’t actually say anything.
“Who else was on it?” asked Francine.
“I don’t know.” Lee shook his head. “Manny said he’d get me a copy, and that was where we left off. Was there anything in his pockets when they found him? He might’ve had it on his notepad.”
“After three days in water?” asked Billy. “Even if he had, it wouldn’t have been legible. But why didn’t you just turn this over to Francine? Especially since the ballistics evidence also came from Trudeau, didn’t it? You know what this means!”
Lee closed his eyes. “Yeah. I do.”
“I don’t,” said Amanda, her voice quiet.
Francine half-turned to answer her. “Any evidence that comes from either Lee or you is questionable. A competent defense attorney would tear it apart, which is why we won’t use that kind of evidence unless we don’t have anything else.” She turned back to give Lee a glare. “You know that, Stetson! So why pull such a foolish stunt!”
“I wanted to make sure it was solid first!” he protested, but Francine could hear a defensive tone underneath his bluster.
“That wasn’t your call!” roared Billy. “And now you’re the one who might have fouled up our entire case! Is that what you wanted, Scarecrow? For the whole thing to get tossed out on a technicality?”
“There’ve been no arrests yet,” said Amanda. Her voice was still quiet, which Francine found eerie. “We don’t even have suspects yet.”
Now it was Francine’s own turn to sigh. “That’s not entirely true.”
“Who?” demanded Lee.
“I’m not answering that!” she shot back at him. “Not until I can interview you first, and not unless you convince me you can be trusted! Which means telling me everything you and Amanda have been doing on this case behind my back!”
“Amanda hasn’t been doing anything!” he yelled. “She didn’t even know it was Trudeau who processed her car a second time, never mind that there was follow-up. Hell, until Monday afternoon, I didn’t know how much he was still chewing on it.”
Billy slammed his coffee cup down so hard on Amanda’s desk that it chipped, the white showing brightly against the original maroon color. “Well, we’re all about to learn. This time of night, Interview One should be open. Five minutes, Stetson, and you stay in sight the entire time between now and then! You hear me?”
“Billy,” said Francine. “It’s been a while since I did a hostile interview. I want to go back over my notes first, and it may take me a little longer than that.”
“A hostile interview?” Amanda’s too-quiet voice finally rose. “We’re not under investigation, and Lee and I have both been cooperating. Well, except for him not telling me about all this.”
Uh-oh, thought Francine. That didn’t sound good. She turned back toward Amanda, the explanation on her lips, but Billy waved her to silence.
“Go on,” he told her, his voice harsh but calmer. “I’ll explain.” Then his voice hardened again. “After I get the real explanation from you, Scarecrow, because right now I haven’t heard anything worth listening to.”
“Okay,” said Francine after she turned the recorder on. “You know how a hostile witness interview works. I have to do everything I can to pick your story apart.”
“Do your worst,” answered Lee.
Francine nodded. They were the only two people in the interview room, but she had no doubt that Amanda and Billy were watching through the one-way window. “Let’s start with Detective Manny Trudeau. How did you know him?”
“We rubbed together on a few cases,” answered Lee. “Not always well, but there was respect. He was the detective on the Rawlings assassination back in ’85, and that’s when he met Amanda. He did me a couple favors on that one, and I’ve done a few for him since then.”
“What kind of favors?” asked Francine.
“Strictly professional,” he insisted. “He’s the one who arranged for Elizabeth Sullivan to be released on her own recognizance. In return, I let him know which way the Kowalczyk brothers were headed after we released them. They weren’t spying like the Agency had suspected, but they definitely had a car theft ring going on and, if it hadn’t already turned deadly by then, it was going to.”
“We’re not talking about the Kowalczyk case,” said Francine, “or anything else unrelated to the West/King case. You said that Trudeau was the one who went over Amanda’s car a second time, after you asked him to?”
“Yeah.”
“And when he told you what he’d found, what did you do?”
Lee scowled. “You saw that report before I did, Francine. Which is a good thing because I don’t think I’d have recognized those Kurz-33s as quickly. It also meant I didn’t have to formally turn the report over to you, because you already had it.”
“How did Detective Trudeau send the report to the Q-Bureau?”
“I don’t know,” muttered Lee. “Inter-office, I guess.”
Francine made a note to have Zeta follow up on that in the morning. There were no known inter-office exchanges between local police and Federal agencies; that alone could be enough to get that entire report tossed out. “What reason did Detective Trudeau use for re-processing the vehicle?”
“Hell if I know. He didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask.”
“All right,” said Francine. “But tell me this, Agent Stetson. Why did you ask Detective Trudeau to take another look?”
“It was hinky,” he answered. “Dotty — Mrs. West — always drove below the speed limit and was super careful. I have a hard time believing she would flip Amanda’s Jeep in regular traffic. The cops wrote it off as a front left blowout, but we’d replaced those tires not too long before.”
“She easily could have run over a nail,” said Francine. “That’s not probable cause for suspicion.”
“I know. That’s why I asked for the favor.”
“Why did you need a favor?” She needed it on the record.
“Because I suspected something, damn it!” he said roughly, but then he took a breath, visibly settling down. “Arlington PD wanted to close that case quick and easy and move on to the next one, and that didn’t sit well with me.”
“That’s not good enough, Agent Stetson.”
“If I’d had probable cause I would have done it through official channels!” he retorted. “I just wanted some answers.”
“Yes, well, you ‘just wanting some answers’ could very well have torpedoed this case,” she argued. “You’re sworn law enforcement. You know the rules of evidence, which means you knew better than to ask Trudeau to do an off-the-record reprocess!” She shook her head. “That’s not the only thing you did off the record, even when you were ordered to let me lead the investigation. Why didn’t you let us do that?”
“Because it wasn’t getting anywhere.”
Francine slammed her legal pad down onto the table. “Thanks so much for the vote of confidence in our abilities, Scarecrow.”
Chagrin appeared on his face. “Oh, damn it. You’re right. I didn’t think how that sounded. I’m sorry, Francine. That wasn’t a comment about yours or Zeta’s work. It was…” he trailed off. “Well, it’s a comment about investigative procedures in general. I just wanted some answers,” he repeated, “and I wanted them sooner instead of later.”
“Major lapse in judgment, Stetson. Major.”
“Yeah.” He sighed, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “I know. But this is my family, Francine, and I knew that Amanda —” he cut himself off.
“Amanda what?” she asked after a long, silent moment.
He glanced meaningfully at the window.
“Let the record show the witness is apparently concerned about one of the interview’s observers,” she said, irritation creeping into her tone. “Damn it, she’s going to hear all of this again at trial anyway. Amanda’s a professional,” she continued, aware of, but ignoring, the irony behind that statement coming from her. “She should be able to handle it. Hell, she’s probably going to handle it better than you.”
His eyes flashed, but he kept his voice steady. “Fine. I knew that Amanda wasn’t going to have anything to add, and she’s a first-degree relative of both murder victims.”
“So are you.”
“Only by marriage. A marriage which hadn’t been acknowledged before the accident.”
“You know as well as I do that that doesn’t make any difference! You and Amanda were already partners on the record.” Francine took a long breath, reaching for calm. “We’re getting off-track here. Did you speak with Detective Trudeau between the time he forwarded the re-process and this past Monday night?”
He hesitated.
“We’re on the record here, Lee. And you’re effectively under oath.”
He sighed and closed his eyes. “Yes. Twice. The first was when I called to thank him for doing the investigation. That was right after we got back from our time off. The second was maybe a week later, when he called me about releasing the Jeep to Amanda’s insurance carrier. I asked him not to. The last…” he swallowed. “The last time I spoke to him was Monday afternoon, about three o’clock. He called me to tell me he’d been brought into the case on Mrs. Welch’s death, once they’d realized it was a homicide, and wanted to know if I wanted him to peek on this while he was investigating that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do I need to repeat myself how bad that judgment call was?”
“You just did. But this time, Francine, I swear it was at least semi-official. You can probably check with Metro for Trudeau’s notes, and they might give you a new lead.”
“I know how to do my job, Stetson,” she said frostily. “I’ll decide what leads are and aren’t worth a follow-up. From here, I’m going to have to put in a request that you be sequestered from this case, and Amanda too.”
“No!” he protested. “Don’t leave us out in the cold, wondering what the hell is going on. Especially since you’ve already told us you’ve found something else.”
“I wasn’t going to lock you out, until you pulled this.” She inhaled, held it for a two-count, and then let it out. “Lee, you haven’t given me any other choice.”
The miserable look came back onto his face. “I guess I haven’t, have I?”
She sighed, reaching over to turn off the recorder and then facing the window. “Billy, if you can find a reason for denying my request, I won’t file it a second time.” She looked back at Lee. “That’s the best I can offer.” Even going that far would be a stretch.
He backed down with a nod. “All right. And thank you.”