Capitol murder

Chapter Forty-one

To avoid the appearance of impropriety, Ginny had not talked to Dana after learning that they were working opposite sides of the Tolliver case. Then Ginny made up her mind about what to do with the transcript. As soon as she reached her decision, she set up a meeting at Vinny’s, a bar in a D.C. neighborhood with a high crime rate. The advantage of meeting in this dive was the certainty that no one they knew would ever come into it.

Dana had discovered the bar while she was working undercover in narcotics, and Ginny had heard about Vinny’s from Brad, who had met Dana there when he had asked her to help him figure out why someone had attacked United States Supreme Court Justice Felicia Moss. Brad’s description of this den of iniquity had not done the place justice.

Ginny had taken a cab to Vinny’s straight from the DOJ and was still dressed in a business suit. As soon as she walked into the dismally dark interior, she felt as out of place as a Hell’s Angel in a Michelin three-star restaurant. Vinny’s reeked of smoke, sweat, and stale beer, and Ginny guessed that the owner used the lowest-wattage bulbs he could find to hide the identities of the degenerates scattered around the place, all of whom looked like gang members, sex perverts, or drug dealers.

Dana was sitting in a booth in the back, nursing a beer. Ginny slid onto the bench on the other side of the booth.

“Order the cheeseburger and fries,” Dana said. “You won’t regret it.”

“Brad raved about them, so I guess they’re safe, but I’d feel even safer in this place if I was packing.”

Dana smiled. “Don’t worry, I am.” Then she sobered. “I got the feeling that you were upset when you saw me with Bobby Schatz at the DOJ. You haven’t spoken to me since the meeting.”

“I was concerned that people would think we were talking about the case if anyone from Justice saw us together. And I wasn’t upset, but I was confused. You did lecture Brad at the China Clipper about working for Senator Carson, whom-if I remember correctly-you accused of being soft on terrorism.”

Dana shrugged. “That’s the thing about criminal law; most of your clients are scumbags. If I worked only for lawyers who defended the innocent, I’d starve to death. So what made you change your mind about getting together?”

Ginny looked at the tabletop. “I found something.” She hesitated. Dana watched her carefully but held her tongue. She could see that Ginny was struggling.

“What was your impression of Terry Crawford?” Ginny asked.

“I thought he acted like a guy who hasn’t gotten laid in years.”

“I’ve asked around. The opinion is almost unanimous. He’ll do anything to win a case.” Ginny hesitated. Dana could almost feel her anguish. “I think he crossed the line with your client.”

“What do you mean?”

Ginny opened her attache case and took out a manila envelope.

“I never met with you today, and I never gave you this. Understand?”

Dana stared at her friend, confused. Ginny slid the envelope across the table and stood up.

“Aren’t you staying?”

“I can’t stay someplace I’ve never been,” she answered before turning her back on her friend and walking away.

Dana waited until the front door closed behind Ginny before opening the envelope and pulling out a sheaf of papers. She read the first page and realized that it was a transcript of Terry Crawford’s interrogation of Ron Tolliver. A few pages later, Dana got to the part where Schatz ordered Crawford to turn off the cameras and the microphones so he could discuss the case with his client. Dana turned the page, read a few lines, and muttered, “Holy shit!” She was no lawyer, but she knew enough law to know that she was holding the judicial equivalent of a hydrogen bomb.

As soon as she got over the shock of realizing that the transcript was Ron Tolliver’s Get Out of Jail Free card, Dana asked herself whether she wanted to be the instrument of Tolliver’s salvation. The man had tried to murder thousands of innocent people. How many children had been in the stands at FedEx Field?

Dana had never been in a position like this. Sure, she’d helped attorneys gain acquittals for clients she knew were guilty, but she’d never worked for a criminal like Ron Tolliver. Crawford had brought clarity to the scope of her client’s crime when he pointed out that three thousand people had died on 9/11 but ninety thousand people could have lost their lives if the FedEx Field plot had succeeded.

People committed murder for many reasons, some rational, some not, but there were usually very few victims. The worst serial killers never came close to killing thousands of people. That was the difference between the murders that the criminal justice system dealt with and the crimes of Hitler and Pol Pot. Dana did not think that Ron Tolliver was the mastermind behind the FedEx plot, but Tolliver was as culpable as the commandants of Hitler’s death camps, because he was the person who carried out the orders.

Dana stared at the transcript. She was honor bound to give it to her employer. If she didn’t and that fact ever got out, she would never get another client. What she really wanted to do was burn it, and that thought brought images of burning children and innocent people screaming in the grip of unbearable pain as FedEx Field collapsed under them.

Dana looked at her beer and wished with all her heart that she had something far stronger in her glass, along with an easy answer to what she should do with Ginny Striker’s gift.