Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

“What are you going to do about Cutler?”

“Try to find her. Once we’ve got her I can assure you she’ll tell us anything we want to know.”

“Then find her and do it quickly. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Well, don’t. Everything is under control.”

“It doesn’t sound like it,” Farrington answered. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Hawkins hesitated.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“There may be a few problems I didn’t anticipate, but they’re nothing you should worry about.”

“What problems?”

“One of our people in Gaylord’s camp says that she’s going to use the Ripper murders against you by suggesting that you can’t be trusted to protect America if you can’t protect the people of the D.C. area against one murderer.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t have anything to do with finding the Ripper. That’s a local police matter.”

“The FBI does have a task force that’s running the investigation,” Hawkins corrected.

“Right, but I have nothing to do with that. You get Hutchins to set the record straight,” he ordered, referring to Clem Hutchins, his press secretary.

“We’re working on it.”

“Good. You said ‘problems,’ plural. What else has gone wrong?”

“My source also tells me that Gaylord’s people suspect that Walsh was our spy.”

“Can they prove it?” Farrington asked, concerned.

“I don’t think so. They can prove she volunteered for us before she switched sides, but they can’t prove she gave us copies of Gaylord’s secret contributor list.”

“If it ever gets out that we asked Charlotte to steal from Gaylord’s campaign headquarters I’d be ruined. It would be Watergate all over again.”

“You don’t have to worry, Chris. Even if Gaylord could prove that Walsh was our spy, she can’t use the information without making the list public knowledge. They’d be exposing their secret slush fund.”

“That’s right,” Farrington answered with a smile of relief. Then he grew pensive.

“How close is the FBI to catching the Ripper?”

“My sources in the Bureau tell me that they have no idea who he is.”

“That’s good. Maybe they’ll never catch him. That would be the best scenario for us.”

“I agree. But if he is caught he’ll probably take credit for killing Walsh just to up his body count. And, if he says he didn’t kill Walsh, who’ll believe him?”

Farrington sighed. “You’re right. Okay, concentrate on the PI. I want her found and neutralized. Do whatever it takes. Once she’s dealt with we should be home free.”

Farrington was suddenly lost in thought. When he spoke he looked sad.

“She was a good kid,” he said softly.

Hawkins wanted to tell his friend that he should have thought of the consequences of his actions before he decided to bang the young volunteer, but he held his tongue.

Keith Evans had no social life, so spending the weekend at work required no sacrifice. Six months ago, when his last girlfriend broke up with him, she told the agent that she’d come to believe that the only way she’d get to see him was by committing a federal crime. Evans did like football, but the Super Bowl had been played months ago, he wasn’t into basketball or baseball, and he’d never developed an interest in golf. When he started to feel sorry for himself he just plunged more deeply into his work. Keeping a lid on his personal problems got harder when his workload was low or, as now, when he was spinning his wheels.

This weekend Evans had reread every piece of paper in the Ripper cases, hoping for a new insight, and all he’d gotten was eyestrain. Now it was late Monday morning and he couldn’t think of a thing to do, since he’d exhausted his efforts on the case Saturday and Sunday. It seemed that his only hope was that the Ripper would screw up at some point, which was not unlikely.

Sociopaths or psychopaths or antisocial personalities (or whatever the current term was) were able to kill so easily because they had no empathy for their victims. Evans thought that this was because they had never been fully socialized like normal people. He believed that all children were sociopaths who thought only of themselves and their needs. Parents were supposed to teach their children to think about the effect of their actions on others. Serial killers never successfully completed the course, so they never developed a conscience. The reason that Evans was certain that the Ripper would make a fatal mistake was because most serial killers, like most little children, saw themselves as the center of the universe and believed they were infallible. If they did screw up they usually blamed their failures on others-the victim, their lawyer, or any person or institution that was convenient. The big problem with this theory was that serial killers frequently had above average intelligence, so the big mistake might take a while to manifest itself. Meanwhile, more women would die.

Just before noon, while finishing a deli sandwich, Evans picked up a report on the first Ripper murder and realized that he’d read it an hour before. He couldn’t think of another way to occupy his time so he stood up and headed for the coffeepot. He was halfway there when his phone rang.

“Evans,” he answered.

“I’ve got a Dr. Standish on two,” the receptionist said.

Evans punched the button and was greeted by Standish’s cheery voice.

“I’ve completed Charlotte Walsh’s autopsy and we should talk.”

Standish had insisted on meeting Evans at an Italian restaurant a few blocks from the coroner’s office. The agent found the medical examiner sitting in the back of the restaurant. Standish had chosen to eat there out of consideration for the sensibilities of the other patrons, whose meals would be ruined if they overheard the graphic anatomical descriptions that often accompanied any discussion of an autopsy report. While Standish took for granted the blood and gore in which he waded each day, he was aware that the vast majority of Americans did not. That point had been brought home during one of the first trials in which he’d testified, when a thirty-two-year-old appliance salesman on the jury had fainted during his description of a death by chain saw in the trial of a mean-spirited drug dealer.

“Hey, Art,” Evans said, sliding into the booth just as the waiter walked up to their table.

“Try the veal scaloppini,” the medical examiner suggested as he dug into his side dish of spaghetti in marinara sauce.

“I ate already,” he told Standish. “Just coffee, please,” he said to the waiter.

“So, what have you got for me?” Evans asked as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.

“Some strange shit,” Standish replied when his mouth was empty.

“Oh?”

The medical examiner picked up a sheaf of papers that had been lying on the vinyl beside him and tossed it to Evans.

“First off, cause of death. The eyes were missing and there were many stab wounds identical to the type of wounds we’ve found in the other Ripper murders. The torso and genital area were a mess, and there were a large number of slashing wounds all around the neck. In fact, the whole neck was pretty hacked up.”

“That sounds like the other killings.”

“Right, except the other victims were mutilated before they died. Most of Walsh’s wounds were postmortem. I could tell that because I didn’t find the quantity of blood you’d expect when a person is stabbed and the heart is still beating.”

“So, what killed Walsh?”

“That’s interesting. When I took out the brain I found a wound that indicated to me that a sharp instrument had been thrust into the base of the back of the neck between the skull and the first cervical vertebra. This severed the spinal cord and caused instant death but hardly any bleeding.”