Decency (9 page)

“Slowly, your energy begins to build. You can actually pass yourself off as normal and you do not mind having to do it. Then you get strong enough to look and act completely normal. What others see is the functional equivalent of you. Inside, you are an actor playing the role of what is expected of you, nothing more. All seems hollow and a sham.”

Abe wondered if she though of him as a sham. He believed he had done better by her.

“When you get to that point, somehow your body knows you can now afford anger. It coils and writhes inside threatening momentary strikes. At first you fight and deny the anger. But you know it is right. It feels good, not hollow. It gives you a core. It becomes you.

“Slowly, oh so slowly, the real you replaces the anger, grain by grain, as if forming a fossil. At some point you begin to feel separate from the anger. It comes on and subsides. And you realize this is the way anger used to feel.”

This was too painful for her. Uncomfortable, Abe shifted his weight.

“Then you begin to hope that the real you can remember happiness and pleasure. Then sometimes you do. Sometimes you can even take guilty pleasure in remembering.

“Once in a while you start to think the pleasure does not have to be guilty. Then, only then, do you begin to believe you can be real. You can be you. You know it will take longer than it really should.

“But you know that when friends ask how you are, like you did just now, and you answer, ‘I’m okay,’ it is not just a lie to avoid burdening them. It is true in some not yet understood sense and someday may mean to you what it means to them.”

She stopped and looked at him hard. “That’s about where I am, Abe.”

Both were silent a long moment.

“Kelly, I just don’t know what to say.”

“Believe me, I know the feeling. I didn’t mean to unload…”

Abe felt like he read her diary, embarrassed to have looked so deeply.

“You didn’t…well you did, but in a good way. I think I’ve learned a lot too from what you said.”

Abe stood and walked silently out the door. He went to Don MacIntyre’s office, the partner next most senior after himself and Kelly, and stuck his head in. “Still about the same.”

“Abe, you know we can’t carry her forever.”

“Yeah, but which of us is going to need the same help next?”

7

O
NE YEAR AND TEN MONTHS AFTER THE ACT.

Harlan and Kathy entered the office of Barkin & Bossleman in the Woodmen Tower in Omaha, Nebraska. The receptionist directed them to the secretary for Gabriel Bossleman, the now senior surviving member.

“Come right on in, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, please. He’s expecting you.”

She showed them in to the cavernous corner office.

“Harlan! Kathy! It’s great to see you.”

Bossleman rounded his desk and administered a hearty handshake to them both, token of the political operative. Pictures of Gabe and Governor so-and-so and the five governors after that lined the mantle. Gabe had twisted the arm of the mayor in Weeping Water to send community leaders to a fund raiser in 1985. Whether he really remembered or kept perfect, voluminous notes on fund-raiser attendees was not actually known.

“It’s good to see you too, Gabe.”

“It was what ‘85 or ‘86? Gosh you haven’t changed.”

“Thanks, but we have changed…and we feel it.”

“I know. I really do. When they told me that a Lincoln lawyer referred you to us I immediately got involved and that’s when I called you. Sit…Please.” They all sat around a marble covered coffee table. “What can we get you?”

Both Pierces declined.

“Now, over these what, six months, we’ve had a chance to look at it in some depth…sure you wouldn’t like some coffee while we talk?”

“Not just now.”

“Okay. Let me give you the bottom line and then we’ll go from there. It’s this. Mike Carson was right. There is no real likelihood you would be able to bring a successful court case. There has been one change in the law since he talked to you. The Congress gave the intelligence community employees a very tiny exception to the prohibition against even going to Congress with inside agency information. Now they can go if they go through the agency Inspector General first, in this instance the Department of Defense IG. I’m sure you can imagine what good that is going to do. They legislated a whitewash. So it’s basically the same as before. Intelligence agency employees can’t even effectively complain to their Congressman.”

Both Harlan and Kathy frowned at all of this.

“There are two more things I want to tell you before you hit me with questions.

“One. The statute of limitations. You have a drop dead date for any case you want to bring of three years from when she died. We could file one for you here in Nebraska, probably using the constitutional tort theory. The statute of limitations that would apply here is two years. But the Maryland statute, if you sue there, is three years. However, if you wait that long, you may have already lost potential claims related to the psychological evaluation, because those acts occurred earlier than three years prior.”

Harlan broke in, “The time limit is one reason we’re here.”

“Understand. Now, two. Everything in Washington is political, even the Intelligence agencies. You need to get that perspective put on this. I have an old friend who is a lawyer there. He used to be the general counsel of the CIA. I’ve already talked to him. He will take a look at this if you want me to ask him. There may be something that can be done politically or through the Congress. If there is, he can tell you.”

Harlan and Kathy glanced at each other. This news was strange.

“We have written this whole thing up in a memo that’s about twenty five pages long. Here’s the original…” Bossleman handed them an envelope thick with documents.

“And we attached a complete set of the police report and autopsy documents in case you don’t already have them. But again, Mike Carson is a good lawyer. He was right. We have good lawyers here. Everyone agrees that a legal case is a no-win, expensive proposition that we do not recommend you pursue.”

“Gabe, we were afraid you were going to say that.”

“I wish I could say something else. Believe me.”

Harlan and Kathy exchanged looks. They seemed not to need to vocalize what they were thinking. Harlan turned back to the lawyer.

“We appreciate your suggesting we have a Washington lawyer with inside contacts look at it. We’d like to pursue it.”

“Fair enough. Let me get him on the phone right now.”

Gabe fingered his Rolodex, which he still used because it had more numbers than he bothered to put in his electronic devices, pulled out a number, and dialed.

“Gabe Bossleman for Cord Anderson.”

“Cord, Gabe…”

“Yessir, I’m calling back on that same matter. I’m going to send you a copy of the memo we wrote for them. They do want to speak to you…”

“All right fine. Now, one favor. Don’t charge them anything unless you actually do something. We’re not. If you just talk to them I don’t want to hear you charged them an arm and a leg the way you do me…”

The lawyer laughed, then said, “Fair enough. I’ll have them call.”

He hung up and faced the Pierces. “Well, as you heard, he’ll take a look, which is more than you could get him to do on your own. I’m very sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But I’m sure you would want the real bottom line.”

“Gabe, we do appreciate it.”

“Now. Do you have any questions about this or anything at all?”

“Well I don’t think so. If you’d give our thanks to the folks here who worked on this…” Harlan hefted the envelope with the memo. “That will probably be all for us today.”

“Let me know how it turns out, or if there is anything I can do at all.”

“We’ll do it.”

Khalil Amar was the newest clerk in the Baltimore Police Department’s Central Repository. The police reports, all of them, eventually found their way here. Or were supposed to. It was an ocean of paper. Khalil handled requests for copies of reports.

When the request for the Pierce report came in from the lawyer in Omaha it took a while to find it. When he did, something did not make sense. He would ordinarily find evidence receipts attached as part of the report. This one had only one with an unreadable signature. So he kept a copy handy, just to see if it made some sense after he had been on the job a little longer.

The Omaha lawyer had called back and asked about the receipts. She had asked whether they were supposed to be in the file. At the time, he did not know. So he told her they were probably misfiled. That was absolutely true. He saw plenty of misfiled stuff.

But now, he was pretty sure there was something else wrong. This report did not even mention receipts. It did not mention any evidence collected at the scene. No hair. No fingernails. No fabric. No fingerprints. No fiber.

It said the officers looked at the areas where you would take those kinds of samples. It did not say they took any. That might be logical for a ninety year old deceased. But someone so young?

Khalil was not sure what, if anything, he was supposed to do. So he sent his copy to his supervisor with a sticky note.

“Boss,

No evidence receipts. No mention of samples in the report. Do I need to do anything?

-Khalil”

The air conditioning was not keeping up with July in Baltimore. In the police headquarters it rarely did.

The Orioles weren’t providing any distraction either. Ever since they let all of those veterans go, Charles Johnson, B. J. Surhoff, Mike Bordick, Will Clark, Harold Baines, and Mike Timlin, they probably had no intention of seriously challenging the Yankees. Not that they would have challenged, but since they were already sub .500 again, with nearly the largest payroll in the history of professional sports, something had to change.

“Captain Yancey?”

“Yeah.”

“We need to talk.”

George Yancey, eighteen year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, looked up and saw the pesky Internal Investigations people standing in front of his desk.

“What can I do for you Good Samaritans?”