James Patterson - Roses Are Red

Then she sobbed loudly into the phone, and though she was far away, I had never felt closer to her.

I didn't say what I was thinking. I held it inside and it chilled me a little. Maybe Betsey's gut reaction was right. Maybe James Walsh didn't kill himself.

I returned to New York City early on Monday morning. There was a nine o'clock briefing at FBI headquarters in Manhattan, and I made it just in time. I was holding a lot inside, holding it tight, trying not to look like anything was wrong.

I walked into a formal conference room wearing sunglasses. Betsey must have sensed I was there. She looked up from a mountain of paperwork, and she nodded solemnly. I could tell she'd spent a good part of the night thinking about Walsh. So had I. I took one of the empty seats, just as a lawyer from the Justice Department was beginning to address the group. He looked to be in his fifties, rigid and solemn, nearly without affect. He wore a shiny, charcoal-gray suit that had narrow lapels and looked at least twenty years old.

"An arrangement has been made with Brian Macdougall," he announced to the assembled group.

I looked over at Betsey, and she shook her head, rolled her eyes. She already knew.

I couldn't believe it. I listened closely to every word out of the Justice lawyer's mouth.

"You are not to speak about anything discussed in this room. We're releasing nothing to the press. Detective Macdougall has agreed to talk to investigators about the overall plan, and the execution of it in the Metro Hartford kidnapping. He has valuable information that could lead to the capture of an extremely important UN SUB the so-called Mastermind."

I was completely shell-shocked, undermined, and I felt totally fucked with. Goddamn Justice had made the deal over the weekend, and I would have bet anything that Macdougall got exactly what he had asked for. It made me physically sick, but that was the way Justice had been working ever since I became a cop.

Brian Macdougall had known exactly what kind of deal he could get from them. Now the only relevant question was, could he give us the Mastermind? How much did he know? Did he know a goddamn thing?

I would find out soon. I got to interview star-witness Detective Macdougall later that morning at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Detective Harry Weiss was there for the NYPD. Betsey Cavalierre would represent the FBI during the session.

Macdougall had two lawyers present. Neither of them wore twenty-year-old suits. They looked slick, very expensive, smart. The detective glanced up as we entered a small booking room where the meeting was to be held," ‘This stinks, right?’ he said. I happen to agree. But that's the system."

Macdougall the Philosopher sat down between his lawyers and the session began.

Betsey leaned into me. She whispered," This ought to be good. Now we get to see what Justice bought."

The meeting started out very badly. Detective Weiss from NYPD Internal Affairs took it upon himself to speak for the rest of us. Weiss found it necessary to start at the beginning and methodically go over Macdougall's previous statement sentence by sentence.

It was excruciating. I badly wanted to interrupt him, but I didn't. Every time Weiss asked another question or launched into a senseless diatribe criticizing Macdougall, I nudged Betsey's foot under the table. To punctuate a couple of embarrassing exchanges she kicked me in the shins.

Macdougall finally had enough of it too. "You fucking suck! "he blew up at Weiss. "You people are a joke. It's about your gut, Weiss, not covering your fat ass. You're wasting my time. Let somebody else ask the questions."

He glared at Weiss, who still seemed not to get it.

"You're asking all the wrong fucking questions, asshole." Macdougall finally stood up and shouted at the top of his voice," You're godawful at your job, you suck, you're wasting everybody's time!"

Macdougall then stomped over to a grimy window that was covered by a heavy metal screen and bars. His lawyers trailed after him. He said something, and they all laughed. Ho, ho, ho. What a crack-up Brian Macdougall was.

The rest of us sat at the conference table and watched them. Betsey consoled Weiss, tried to keep up a united front.

"Fuck him, "Weiss said with unusual clarity and brevity," I can ask him anything I want to. We bought that son of a bitch."

Betsey nodded at Weiss. "You're right, Harry. He's arrogant and he's wrong. Typical detective, "she said," Maybe he would respond to Detective Cross. He doesn't seem to like IAD."

Weiss shook his head at first, but then he relented. "Fine, whatever it takes. Whatever works with this asshole. I'm a team player."

"We're all team players," she said and lightly patted Weiss's arm. She was good. "Thanks for being open to the suggestion."

Macdougall came back to the table, and he seemed calmer. He even apologized to Weiss. "I'm sorry. Nerves are a little frayed, you know."

I waited a couple of seconds for his apology to be accepted by Weiss, but the IAD man never said a word. I finally began. "Detective Macdougall, why don't you tell us what you have that's important. You know what you have to tell. You also know what we want to hear."

Macdougall looked at both of his lawyers. He finally smiled.

"All right, let's try that approach. Simple questions and simple answers. I met with the so-called Mastermind three times. Always down in Washington. Each time I saw him, he gave us what he called' traveling expenses," That was fifty grand a trip, which made it well worth our while, and also caught our attention, piqued our interest.

"He was very, very buttoned-up. Thought everything through. Knew all the angles. Knew what he was talking about. And he told us right off that our cut of the action would be fifteen million dollars. He was very credible when he talked about Metro Hartford He had a concept and a plan that was extremely detailed. We felt it was workable, and it was."

"How did he know about you?" I asked. "How did he contact you?" Macdougall liked the question, or made it seem as if he did. "There's a lawyer we use sometimes. "He looked at the lawyers on either side of him. "Not these two gentlemen. He contacted our other lawyer. We don't know exactly how he knew about us, but he knew what we did, how we worked. That's useful information, Detective Weiss. Make yourself a note. Who would know about us? Somebody in law enforcement? A cop? One of ours, Detective Weiss? An agent with the FBI? A cop from DC? Maybe somebody in this room? It could be anybody."

Weiss couldn't control himself. His face was red. The collar of his button-down white shirt looked a couple of sizes too small. "But you already know who it is, Macdougall? Isn't that right?"

Macdougall looked at Betsey and me. He shook his head. He couldn't believe Weiss either. "I'm coming to that, to what I know, and what I don't know. Don't underestimate the information that he knew about us. He knew about Detective Cross. And about Agent Cavalierre. He knew everything. That's important."

"I agree with you," I said. "Go on, please."

"All right. Before we agreed to the second meeting, we were doing our best to find out who the hell this so-called Mastermind was. We even talked to the FBI about him. We made whatever contacts we could make. We found out nothing. He left no trail.

"So we get to meet number two. Bobby Shaw tries to follow him after he leaves the hotel. Shaw loses him."

"Which makes you think he might be some kind of cop?" I asked.

Macdougall shrugged. "It definitely crosses our minds. Meeting number three is about whether we are in or out. Half of thirty million dollars we already know we're in. He knows we're in. We try to negotiate a better cut. He laughs, says absolutely not. We agree to his terms. It's his way or we're out.