The Innocent (35 page)

“Yes, but when cold, hard facts trump them, it’s a different story.”

Robie rose.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To find some cold, hard facts.”

R
OBIE KNEW A
quick way out of the WFO and was in his car and waiting out front when Michele Cohen pulled out of the parking garage and raced down the street in her BMW coupe. He slid into traffic behind her. She cleared three yellow lights and he narrowly avoided being trapped behind the last of them. Ten minutes later they were heading up Connecticut Avenue toward Maryland.

Robie was keeping his eye on the Beemer and thus failed to see the two police cars converging on his Volvo. The cops hit their rack lights and the officer in the cruiser on Robie’s left motioned him over. Robie watched the Beemer accelerate and pass through yet another yellow light. A few moments later it was out of sight.

Robie slowed his car and pulled to the curb. He wanted to jump out and start reaming the guys in blue, but knew that might get him shot. He sat there fuming as four cops cautiously approached, two on each side.

“Let me see your hands, sir,” called out one of them.

Robie held his left hand out the window, with his federal badge in it.

He heard one of the cops mutter, “Shit.”

A second later two cops appeared at his window.

Robie said, “I’m sure you guys have a terrific reason for pulling me over while I was tailing someone.”

The first cop pushed his hat back and stared down at Robie’s cred pack.

“Got a call from Dispatch that said a woman was being followed
in her car by some guy. She was scared and requested we roll on it. She gave us your car description and plate number.”

“Well, that’s a good way for a perp to evade the police,” said Robie. “Just call in more cops.”

“I’m sorry, sir, we didn’t know.”

“Can I go now?” asked Robie.

“Is she really a suspect? We can help you run her down,” offered the second cop.

“No, I’ll catch up to her later. But in the future, don’t be so quick to hit the panic button.”

“Yes, sir.”

Robie eased the Volvo away from the curb and pulled back into traffic. In his rearview mirror he watched the cops congregating around their cruisers, no doubt wondering if this screwup was going to cost them career-wise. Robie had no interest in derailing them professionally. It had actually been a clever, if ballsy move by Cohen. She could always claim she didn’t know who was in the car, only that someone was following her. And she could tack on the completely true facts that she had just been to visit the FBI and was a valuable witness in a horrific crime and was understandably afraid for her safety.

No, Robie would have to go after her another way. Fortunately, it would not be that difficult to track Cohen down. Her home address was in the file Vance had let him read.

He crossed over into Maryland and worked his way through a number of surface roads until he reached the one he wanted.

Michele Cohen didn’t live in a McMansion, but she did live in an upscale neighborhood. Yet according to Cohen she was unemployed. Her most recent job had been with a financial planning firm that had gone belly up. Robie didn’t know what her husband did. Vance had not mentioned it, if she even knew.

Cohen probably could use the money
, thought Robie. But he wondered if they had some other dirt on the woman. Money alone, he thought, would not get an otherwise innocent person to go along with lying to the FBI in a possible terrorist case.

Unless she isn’t otherwise innocent.

He wondered if Vance had run a criminal check on Cohen. Or her husband. Or her alleged boyfriend. Possibly not, since Vance clearly did not think she was lying. Like she had said, why would the woman have come forward? Robie could think of at least one reason.

To screw with me.

He pulled his car to the curb and phoned Blue Man.

“Anything on Michele Cohen yet?”

“No, but you’ll be the first to know.”

“I need everything you can find on her husband too.”

“Already doing it. So she lied to the FBI? Said it was two black people instead of you and Julie?”

“Yes.”

“Her motivation?”

“Hopefully we can find it.”

“Tricky move for the other side. They’ve exposed a pawn for us to exploit.”

“I was thinking the same thing. That’s why I’m nervous.”

Robie eyed the end of the street where Cohen’s Beemer was parked in the driveway of a two-story stone and siding home. “I’m going to check some things out. I’ll call back in later. How’s Julie?”

“Safe and sound and doing her homework. The calculus problem she was working on looked far beyond my pay grade.”

“That’s why we’re in the intelligence field,” said Robie. “We suck at math.”

He put his phone away and checked his watch. Cohen would know he had been following her and would also know that he had her home address. His sitting out here would produce nothing useful.

But he had a better idea anyway.

He wasn’t necessarily afraid of pawns. But nobody who knew what they were doing would leave one hanging out there without a good reason.

And now I need to find out what that reason is.

M
ICHELE
C
OHEN POURED
herself a cup of coffee and carried it into the family room where the TV was on. She was alone. She set her cup down, picked up the remote, and changed the channel.

“I preferred the other program, actually.”

She screamed.

Robie sat down in the chair opposite her.

“What the hell are you doing in my house? How did you get
in
my house?” she demanded.

“You should lock your doors, even while you’re home,” said Robie.

“I don’t know who you think you are. But I’m calling the police. You were very rude to me today at the FBI. And I think you were following me earlier. I don’t have to stand for this. It’s harassment, plain and simple.”

She stopped talking when Robie held the item up.

“Know what this is, Michele?”

She stared at the flat square box.

“Should I?”

“I don’t know, should you?”

“I’m not going to sit here and play stupid mind games with you.”

“It’s a DVD. From a security camera.”

“So?”

“It was pointed right at the spot where the bus exploded.”

“If that was the case, why didn’t the police know about it?”

“Because it was from a webcam a guy had set up in his apartment overlooking the street. I found it because I went door-to-door
before the cops did. This guy had had some problems with burglars. Wanted to catch them in the act. It was on a rotation program. Clean sweep of the street. And it has a time and date stamp. Would you like me to tell you what it didn’t see?”

She said nothing.

“It didn’t see you, Michele, or your boyfriend, at the spot you said you were.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would we lie about something like that? And the motel clerk backed up our story.”

“I’m not saying you weren’t at the motel. I’m just saying you’re lying about what you saw. In fact, you saw nothing.”

“You’re wrong!”

“You said you saw the bus explode.”

“I did.”

“And you also said you saw the guy’s gun fly off and land under a car?”

“That’s right.”

“That bus explosion would have blown thousands of pieces of debris all over the air. It would’ve been a shitstorm of stuff. And you, all whacked out from seeing a bus explode and lots of people die, you saw one little gun fly through the air, and you were able to follow its path, with all the other stuff going on, until it landed under a car?” He paused. “That is total and complete bullshit.”

She jumped up and raced to the phone on the table next to the doorway into the kitchen. “I want you out of here. Now. Or I will call the police and have you arrested.”

Robie held the DVD up higher. “And we both know that you didn’t see two black people get off that bus, Michele. And the DVD will confirm that. So you lied to the FBI. That will get you at least five years in a federal prison on about three different felonies. No more working in the financial industry for you. And you’ll be early forties when you get out. And prison is not easy on the body or the psyche. You’ll come out looking closer to fifty. Maybe sixty if they’re rough on you in there. And it’s not just the guys who have the bitches inside, Michele. The ladies get lonely too in there.
You’ll be easy fresh meat. You’re small and soft. You won’t stand a chance.”

“You’re just trying to scare me.”

“No, I’m trying to enlighten you on just how serious your situation is.”

Robie set the DVD down on the coffee table. “Two people did get off the bus. But they weren’t black.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I saw it on here, Michele. Now why don’t you sit down and we can talk about this and maybe come up with a way out of it for you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m a nice guy, that’s why.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

“Believe what you want to believe. If I believed for one second that you weren’t just a patsy in this whole thing I would’ve already arrested you. But if I can use you to get to the people I really want, then that’s valuable. That’s something you can negotiate with, Michele. Don’t walk away from this deal, because you won’t get another one.”

He inclined his head to the spot she had occupied on the sofa.

Cohen sat, her gaze downcast.

“Drink your coffee,” said Robie. “It’ll help calm your nerves.”

She took a sip and set the cup back down, her hand shaking.

Robie sat back, studied her. “Who told you to lie?”

“I can’t talk to you about this.”

“You’ll either have to talk to me or the FBI. Which do you prefer?”

“I can’t talk to the FBI.”

“Why?”

She exclaimed, “Because they’ll kill him, that’s why.”

“Kill who?”

“My husband.”

“What’s he got to do with this?”

“Gambling debts. He’s way over his head. But someone
approached him and told us there was a way out. All debts forgiven if we did this.”

“Lie to the FBI?”

“Yes.”

“Big risk.”

“Prison over death?” she said incredulously.

“What does your husband do?”

“He’s a partner in a law firm. He’s a good man. A pillar in the community. But he has a little problem with betting. And he used some client trust funds to make up a shortfall. He’ll be ruined if it comes out.”

“Who were the people who got you to do this?”

“I never met them. My husband did. He said he was taken to a room, sat in the dark, and given an ultimatum. They told us everything we needed to do.”

“Why were you chosen to do it instead of your husband?”

“I guess I’m cooler under pressure than he is. We didn’t think he would be able to lie to the FBI.”

Robie thought about this. Respectable couple, believable witness. No motivation to tell an untruth. Made sense.

“Who was the guy you were supposed to be having an affair with?”

“They supplied him. We just sat in the motel bedroom staring at the floor. Then we left at the time we’d been given. I didn’t actually see the bus explode. I was told to say it was a black man and black teenager who got off the bus. And then the rest that you heard today.”

“Where is your husband now?”

“Confirming that his gambling debts have been taken care of.”

“You really think it will be that easy?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a liability to these folks, Michele. Do you think they were going to let you and your husband live?”

Her face flushed. “But we don’t know anything.”

“What you just told me disproves that.”

“You think they’ll try to kill us?”

“What time is your husband supposed to be back?”

She looked at her watch and her face turned whiter. “About twenty minutes ago.”

“Call him.”

She grabbed the phone and punched in the number. She waited, the phone pressed to her ear.