Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

“He didn’t take a report?” Evans asked, surprised.

“When I tried to talk to him he said that everything was under control and he ordered me to shut my door. He said this was police business and I could get arrested for obstruction of justice if I continued to ‘butt in.’ Those were his exact words, ‘butt in.’”

“So you didn’t see or hear anything else?” Evans asked.

“Oh, no, I heard plenty. Like I told you, these walls are very thin.”

“What did you hear?” Sparks asked.

“I heard screams before Miss Cutler ran out. That was after the shot.”

“Go ahead,” Evans urged.

“The police went into the apartment. They had their guns out. A man yelled out, ‘Don’t shoot, we’re federal agents.’ Then the policemen went inside and shut the door.”

“Did you see anything else?”

“I certainly did. About fifteen minutes after the policemen came, two men left the apartment. One of the men was supporting the other man. He looked like he was in pain. Ten minutes later, the police left. Fifteen minutes after that three other men went into the apartment.”

“Were they with the police?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t have uniforms.”

“How long were these men in the apartment?”

“An hour or so. When they left they were carrying black trash bags.”

“Did Miss Cutler ever come back to her apartment after the excitement died down?” Sparks asked.

“I never heard anyone go in or out, but I guess she could have come back while I was sleeping or out shopping.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Goetz. You’ve been a big help.” Evans handed her his card. “If you think of anything else, please call me.”

“I will. And you’re much nicer than those policemen.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I guess they teach you manners in the FBI.”

“Can you tell me where the super lives? We’d like to get inside Miss Cutler’s apartment.”

Miss Goetz gave them the apartment number and Sparks talked with Cutler’s neighbor while Evans went downstairs. He returned ten minutes later with the key.

Cutler’s bedroom was so messy it was hard to tell if it had been searched or not, and the tiny living room had the same lived-in feel, but someone had scrubbed down every surface in the hall and the kitchen.

“What do you think?” Evans asked.

“If you believe Miss Goetz, Cutler shot someone who may be a federal agent.”

“There’s no evidence anyone was shot.”

“There’s plenty of evidence that someone cleaned up. Just compare the hall and kitchen to the bedroom and living room. And you said that your informant ran plates that belonged to the Secret Service. If we’re talking about people in this town with enough clout to shut down a police investigation they’d be near the top of my list.”

“We don’t know that the investigation was shut down. There may be a police report, 911 tapes, medical records. We should check. This could just be a domestic dispute. Maybe Cutler was dating someone who works for a federal agency and she went off.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?” Sparks asked

“Not really.”

“What do we know? We’ve got a PI who writes down some license numbers. Why would she do that?”

“She’s on a case; we’re talking about car licenses, so she’s tailing someone,” Evans answered.

“Charlotte Walsh?”

“That’s my guess. She asked my informant to run Walsh’s plate and she was surprised when he told her that another plate was registered to the Secret Service. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was tailing a Secret Service agent.”

“So, somewhere, Walsh crosses paths with the Secret Service,” Sparks said.

Evans walked to the door to the bedroom and looked it over again.

“They were searching the apartment. Cutler came back and caught them,” he said.

“She shoots a federal agent then runs,” Sparks said. “Either she shot him thinking she’d surprised an intruder or she shot in self-defense.”

“She’s an ex-cop. If she found a burglar she’d hold him for the police whether she shot him or not.”

“She shot a person she thought was a burglar, learned she’d shot a Fed, and ran because she was scared,” Sparks said.

“What if it was self-defense? What if they were searching for something they thought Cutler had? She comes home and they try to force her to tell where it is and somehow she gets the drop on them.”

“What were they looking for?”

“If the intruders were Secret Service, it has to be something that connects Walsh to…Jesus, Maggie, Walsh worked for Farrington’s campaign, and the Secret Service guards the president.”

“PIs take pictures of people they’re following,” Sparks said.

Evans was quiet for a moment. “If Cutler was hiding pictures in this place they’d have found them. It’s too small.”

“Unless Cutler interrupted the search before they got them.”

“Or Cutler has them someplace else.”

Evans’s cell phone rang and he snapped it open. While he was talking, Sparks looked around more carefully than she had the first time they’d gone through the apartment. She noticed that all of the trash baskets had been emptied and there were no scraps of paper with writing on them anywhere in sight. She pulled open the drawers of a desk in the living room and found them empty. And she didn’t see a computer. Whoever had gone through the apartment after the police left had been very thorough.

“I had someone run Cutler’s phone records for her cell and home phones,” Evans said when he finished the call. “Fredricks looked them over and came up with something interesting. Does the name Dale Perry ring a bell?”

Sparks thought for a moment before shaking her head.

“He’s an attorney with a lot of political contacts, including several in the White House.”

“There’s the Secret Service connection again,” Sparks said.

“Cutler’s called him a few times this year and twice the week before Walsh was murdered. Some of the calls were to Perry’s private line at his office or his cell phone.”

“Why would a small-time PI be calling a big shot lawyer with ties to the White House?”

“Let’s ask him.”

“One other interesting thing,” Evans said. “I asked Fredricks to get me Cutler’s file from the cops.”

“What’s it say?”

“That’s what I’d like to know; it’s classified.”

“I bet this place is bigger than my apartment,” Maggie Sparks said as she looked around the reception area of Kendall, Barrett and Van Kirk.

“I bet they pay more rent than you do, too,” Evans said.

“I bet I could retire on what they pay in rent for a year.”

Their ruminations on the reception area of Dale Perry’s law firm ended abruptly when a stunning blonde with a deep tan walked into reception dressed in a fire-engine red dress and sporting a lot of gold jewelry.

“Agents Sparks and Evans?” she asked, flashing a radiant smile that would have lit up the room in a blackout.

“I’m Keith Evans, and this is Margaret Sparks.”

“I’m Irene Miles, Mr. Perry’s personal secretary.”

I’ll bet you are, Maggie Sparks thought. Out loud she said, “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Miles. We’d like to speak with Mr. Perry.”

“He’s waiting for you,” Miles said. “Would you like some coffee or tea? I can also bring you a caffe latte or a cappuccino.”

The agents passed on the refreshments then followed Miles down a carpeted hallway where they found Dale Perry waiting in a large corner office decorated tastefully with antiques. Before leaving, Miles motioned the agents to a place on a couch under an exquisite oil painting of a French country village that looked a lot like a Cezanne Evans had seen in the National Gallery. The window behind Perry’s desk had a view of the White House. Evans wondered if Perry and the president flashed coded messages back and forth when the lawyer was lobbying for one of his clients.