I, Sniper

9

They were adults and professionals, so it was ridiculous that on those very few occasions when the director, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, tie askew, entered a room, everyone tensed. Yet it happened, always.

So when the great man strode into the Major Case working room, instant silence fell upon the workaday chatter, where Chandler-now called “Starling” after the Jodie Foster character in Silence of the Lambs because she was young, blond, and extremely attractive-sat with Ron Fields and a couple of other senior special agents assigned to Task Force Sniper, grousing good-naturedly about the “situation.”

The “situation” was that nothing much was happening except re-checks, double checks, and then triple checks. It was Starling’s responsibility to maintain the time line, to chronicle the input of the investigation, to make certain every piece of evidence was logged, its source, chain of custody, and disposition kept pristine, all lab reports properly annotated and summarized, all physical evidence cataloged. She had written the first, rough draft of the report that, polished and expanded, would announce the end of Task Force Sniper and the closing of its case.

But of late, even the hyperbusy Starling was not overworked; she’d even taken a full half hour for lunch, not the usual twelve minutes, and got home to her fiancé, a star photo analyst at a notable but unnameable government entity located in Langley, Virginia, before ten.

“It’s eerie,” she was saying. “I keep checking and checking-”

“Now, Starling,” said Fields, “this is the rhythm of a major investigation. It goes and goes and goes and then, poof, it goes away. You just have to get used to it. And you have to understand that one of the things the Bureau pays you for is to wait until a genius consultant speaks his piece.”

“Say, who is this guy anyway?” asked Bob Martin, assigned to the case as the best investigator from the Shaker Heights Police Department.

“He’s supposedly some big gun guy. Not just in theory but in operational terms too. It’s whispered by I-don’t-know-who that Nick may have put him undercover in Bristol and that’s how he brought down the Grumley crew.”

“He looks like Buddy Ebsen as that old detective,” said Bob. “What was it, MacGyver?”

“No, that was the young guy. Barney Fife?”

“No,” said Starling, who’d watched every law and order show ever broadcast, as she was from a total police-culture family, with a father in command of and two brothers supervisors in the Arizona Highway Patrol, “Barnaby Jones.”

“Score one for Jodie,” said Martin.

“Come on, Bob, you can’t call her that. It’s Starling.”

“You guys,” she said, and then she went silent as His Eminence walked by.

The director knocked on the door of Nick’s office and opened when he got the “Yo,” from inside. He left the door open, presumably so the troops could hear and get the word before Nick himself put it out. He was known to be a guy very clever in managerial skills.

“Nick, hey, don’t get up.”

Nick, half rising, sat back down.

“Yes sir. Can I have someone get some coffee?”

“I heard your coffee down here sucked. I much prefer Organized Crime’s coffee. Now that’s coffee.”

“Yes, Mr. Director.”

“Nick, talk to me.” He hadn’t bothered to sit, which indicated in bureaucratic language that this was a quick chat type visit, a buck-up-the-troops initiative, rather than a serious policy discussion.

“I’m just passing by, I don’t want to be one of those asshole micromanagers, you know the type, but do we have an arrival time yet on your consultant?”

“Sir, I’ve told him over and over that time is not on our side. But he’s a cautious, deliberate guy. That’s how he’s stayed alive all these years.”

“I’m getting all kinds of crap on this one. I think the New York Times is working for Tom Constable, as well as his lobbyist and that congressman. I’m hearing from Chicago and New York, and I know Cleveland will be on me soon. They all want action and we’ve got people literally living downstairs in Public Information.”

“I see ’em every morning.”

“Okay, what I’m thinking, is there some kind of interim report we could put out? Something we haven’t given out before. Maybe it could be confirmed that we’ve matched Hitchcock’s movements to the shootings? We have, haven’t we?”

“That part’s real solid.”

“It doesn’t commit us, but it makes us look good. Leak it to the Times. Got anyone here who could make a creditable leaker?”

Nick stood, looked beyond the director’s shoulder.

“Starling, come here, will you?”

The young woman got up instantly, came in.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have called you that, Agent Chandler. Have you met the director? Sir, this is Special Agent Jean Chandler, whom I’ve appointed our case monitor. She’s very good, works like a dog.”

“Starling, eh? I get it. Well, I hope you’re as good as Starling, Starling.”

“So do I, sir,” said Starling, for whom the original Starling was a complete goddess and the primary reason she’d decided on the Bureau for a career.

“I think I know your dad. Arizona? Great cop.”

“He’s the best.”

“Starling, I’m sorry, Agent Chandler.”

“I’m used to it, Mr. Director.”

“Anyhow, any experience with the press?”

“My father and brothers were not disposed to share things with the press.”

“Well, that’s sound principle, most of the time. But sometimes it buys us some time if we can feed the dogs a little something so they fight among themselves and leave us alone for a bit. Hmm, I’m wondering if-”

The phone rang.

“Go ahead, Nick, answer it, this can wait.”

“Yes sir.”

Nick snatched the phone up, glad for the interruption. He knew that having a thing with the press was tricky; you could never outsmart them, and Starling, even if she was working under the director’s guidance, could get tagged as a snitch, never trusted, and it might hurt her career. He didn’t wish that on anybody so young, so bright, so hardworking.

“Memphis.”

“Swagger. I think I’ve got a little something. Should I come over? I don’t know how you want to play it.”

“My idea is, I’d bring the upper management of the investigative team over, plus some of the forensic and ATF loaners. Is that okay? You can talk to the group.”

“Sure, in for a penny, in for a pound.”

“And since he’s here, I might bring the director along.”

“Why not?” said Bob.

“Tell me you have good news.”

“I have news,” Bob said, “and it’s up to you whether it’s good or bad.”

“That doesn’t sound promising.”

“Your people did a great job. Amazing, really, in the time. They only got one little thing wrong.”

“And that is?”

“They got the wrong guy.”