The Inner Circle

62

"So you’ve never heard of this guy Griffin?” Tot asks, stealing a glance at me as the Mustang zips through Rock Creek Park and we make our way to Constitution Avenue.

“Why would I’ve heard of him?”

“And there’s no one you know who has an eight-ball tattoo?”

“Is this you testing me now?” I ask.

“Beecher, I’m seventy-one years old.”

“You’re actually seventy-two.”

He thinks on this a moment. “I’m seventy-two years old. I have plenty of patience. I just don’t like having my time wasted-and right now, since you’re treating me like the enemy, you seem to be wasting it,” he explains without any bitterness.

“I know you’re not the enemy, Tot.”

“Actually, you know nothing about me. For all you know, this is just another attempt to reel you in and grab you with the net. Do what you’re doing, Beecher-keep asking the tough questions. And as for the toughest one so far: Every neighborhood in the country has a guy like Griffin.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning according to the police report, Griffin’s first arrest came when he was in high school-selling fake marijuana to a bunch of ninth graders. Then he got smart and started selling the real thing. His dad was a pharmacist, so he quickly graduated to selling pills. During one arrest-and remember, this is still in high school-Griffin spit in a cop’s face, at which point he became the kid that even the tough high school kids knew you didn’t mess with.”

I see where he’s going. “So when Griffin was kidnapped-”

“Not kidnapped,” Tot corrects, approaching the end of Rock Creek Park. “They never use the word kidnapped. Or abducted. In the report, they don’t even call it a crime scene. But you’re painting the picture: When this guy Griffin finally disappeared, neighbors weren’t exactly tripping over themselves to form a search party.”

“It’s still a missing kid.”

“You sure? Griffin was twenty years old, no longer a minor. He got in a car-voluntarily-with two guys from his gang. And then he drives off into the sunset,” Tot says as we make a left on Constitution Avenue and momentum presses me against the passenger door. “A crime? Where do you see a crime?”

“Okay,” I say. “So where’s the crime?”

“That’s the point, Beecher. There isn’t one. Griffin’s dad goes to the newspaper. He begs the cops to find his son. But the cops see it as a young man exercising his independence. And they shut the case, I’m guessing secretly thrilled that Griffin and his eight-ball friends are someone else’s problem.”

“And now, all these years later, the case is back. So for the second time-where’s the crime?”

Tot points his beard at the famous landmark all the way up on our left: the breathtaking home of President Orson Wallace. The White House.

“Don’t tell me Wallace has an eight-ball tattoo,” I say.

“Nope. Near as I can tell, Wallace was nowhere near this one.”

“So what makes you think he’s involved?”

As we pass the White House and weave down Pennsylvania Avenue and toward our building, Tot’s smile finally pokes through his beard. “Now you’re seeing the real value of an archive. History isn’t written by the winners-it’s written by everyone-it’s a jigsaw of facts from contradictory sources. But every once in a while, you unearth that one original document that no one can argue with, like an old police report filed by two beat cops twenty-six years ago.”

“Tot…”

“He was the one who gave them the info-the one eyewitness who told the cops everything he saw.”

“The President was?”

“No. I told you, Wallace was nowhere near there.” As we make a sharp right onto 7th Street and pull toward the garage, Tot picks up his photocopied sheet of paper and tosses it in my lap. It’s the first time I notice the name he’s handwritten across the bottom. “Him! He was there!”

I read the name and read it again. “Stewart Palmiotti?”

“Wallace’s personal doctor,” Tot says, hitting the brakes at the yellow antiram barrier outside the garage, just as the security guard looks up at us. “That’s who we want: the President’s oldest friend.”