Guilty Minds

27

I wandered through the maze of hallways until I found Gideon Parnell’s office. His door was closed. His admin, Rose, sat at a desk right outside. She was on the phone. She nodded, smiled at me, held up an index finger.

When she hung up I said, “Rose, I need five minutes of Gideon’s time.”

She looked at his closed door, then back at me. “His phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Can it wait till things slow down?”

“I don’t think they’re going to slow down any time soon,” I said.

“He’s on the phone with the chief justice. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

She tapped at her keyboard. I sat down in one of the visitor chairs lined up outside his office.

After a moment, I remembered about the bald man who’d been following Kayla, Curtis Schmidt. I had a source within the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police who I’d worked with on a previous case, involving my brother, Roger. The last I knew, Detective-Lieutenant Arthur Garvin was with the Violent Crime branch, on a retirement waiver. When I worked with him, a few years back, he was just past the department’s mandatory retirement age of sixty, though they made exceptions in certain cases. But only up to sixty-four. He had to be retired by now.

I called him on his personal cell number. He answered right away, crisp like the cop he was for so long. “Garvin.”

“Art, it’s Nick Heller,” I said.

A pause. “Heller!” he said. “Uh-oh. You in some kind of trouble?”

I laughed and got right to it. “Do you happen to know a retired police sergeant named Curtis Schmidt?”

There was a pause. “Not that I can recall.”

“I need to find out what I can about the guy. What he’s up to, who he’s working for, whatever you can get.”

“I can make some calls, maybe dig around. What’s this about?”

Gideon’s office door opened and he emerged.

“I gotta go, Art. I’ll fill you in next time we talk. I owe you.” I ended the call and stood up. “You got two minutes?” I asked Gideon.

“Of course. Come on.” He led me into his office and closed the door behind him. “You have something?”

I nodded. “How’s the chief justice holding up?”

“He’s despondent, as you can well imagine. His office is directing people to the court’s public affairs office, and they’re giving out a statement that I crafted. What do you have?”

“Enough to go to Slander Sheet and demand a retraction,” I said. I told him what we had.

“Do we know she actually took those flights?”

I smiled. The same question I’d asked. And I wasn’t even a lawyer. “Not without getting the flight manifest from US Airways, and that’s something only law enforcement can do.”

“That seems like a hole, don’t you think? She might have bought tickets and not flown.”

“It’s a hole, but a minor one. We have less than six hours, and I think the smart play is to go to Slander Sheet with what we have. It’s enough.”

“Not yet,” Gideon said. “We need proof she was in Mississippi and not in DC at the time.”

“I think we’re in a strong enough position now.”

He shook his head. “I want that accusation discredited once and for all, no ambiguity about it, no games, no waffling.”

“I understand, but I think we can work with what we have.” I found myself in an unusual position. Normally I’m on the other side, pushing for more evidence, a more conclusive case. “They’d be idiots not to issue a retraction.”

“I’m the client,” Gideon said firmly. “And I’m asking you for more.”

“The problem is, for me to get anything more definitive could take a few days, and by then it’s too late. We have less than six—”

My phone rang. I glanced at it: Frank Montello. “Excuse me,” I said, and I answered the call. “Frank.”

“You’re not answering your e-mail.”

“You have something?”

“Check your in-box,” he said. “You owe me a chunk of change.”

When I explained to Gideon what call-detail records were, he broke out in a broad grin.