Murder at the FBI (29 page)

Helen Pritchard said calmly, “You should know, Richard, you were there.”

He seemed to ignore what she’d said. “Come on, Helen, tell me what it’s like to murder a loved one. I can use it in the novel I intend to write.”

She started to reply, then pulled up short and quickly looked around the room. “What the hell are you doing,” she asked, “getting me to talk for the camera?”

Kneeley’s laugh was forced.

“You bastard,” she said, getting up and walking from Saksis’s view. When she returned, she stood toe-to-toe with Kneeley and said, “You’d better not ever think about selling me out, Richard. Remember, I—”

He held a finger up to her face. “Are you about to say something like, ‘I killed for you’? Careful. Remember the camera.”

She brought her half-filled glass up from her waist and tossed its contents into Kneeley’s face. He sputtered, wiped it away with his hand, and pushed her out of Saksis’s line of vision. Saksis was tempted to open the door further but was afraid of being seen. She listened as they argued about the book and Pritchard’s contention that Kneeley had tried to extract a payment from the FBI in return for not writing it. Their voices became muffled, and lower, until Saksis could only hear the sound, not the words. She surmised they’d settled on a couch in a far corner of the study.

She backed away from the door until she reached the window twelve feet away. Until then she’d been totally absorbed with what was being said in the study. Now, all she could think of was Ross
Lizenby and Pritchard’s allegation that he’d killed the Indian girl. Allegation! Police talk. “The perpetrator was alleged to have…” She thought of his former wife who’d disappeared and had never been found. She thought of many things about Lizenby and their relationship.

A sound in the study brought her back to the present. She looked through the gap in the door. Kneeley had returned to his desk, where he slammed his glass down on its top, then stormed across the room, opened the door, and slammed it behind him.

Helen Pritchard came to the desk, looked back at the door through which Kneeley had departed, came around behind, and opened a bottom drawer. She pulled out a sheath of papers, placed them on the desk, and then opened her purse. Her hand went into it and came out holding a .22 caliber revolver.

Helen Pritchard placed the weapon in the drawer, covered it with the papers, and closed it. Seconds later Kneeley returned.

“I meant it,” Pritchard said, pointing a finger at him.

“You don’t frighten me, Mrs. Pritchard,” he said, drawing out her name. “You entered into a business deal that’s gone sour, no matter what steps you took to keep it alive.
Murder!
Drastic step to take for money. Passion is a much more attractive motive.
Money!
Shabby, Helen, tacky.”

Pritchard seemed to be shifting gears as Saksis watched. She managed a smile and placed her hand on Kneeley’s forearm. “Richard,
we
killed George. That the gun happened to be in my hand is irrelevant.
Let’s sit and talk. I think that if we act like reasonable people we can work this out for both our benefits.”

Kneeley cast a fast glance at the room in which Saksis hid. “All right,” he said, “sit down.”

“Over there on the couch, where it’s comfortable.”

“I’d rather stay here.”

Pritchard got up and walked away. Kneeley reluctantly followed her.

Saksis tried to hear what they were saying but could make out only an occasional word. She thought she heard the doorbell, then the sound of a car door slamming. She went to the window and pushed aside the curtains. A dark blue sedan had stopped on the beach side of the house and two men wearing raincoats and hats had gotten out. One of them carried an M-16 rifle. Saksis watched as they stood next to the car, their eyes trained on Kneeley’s house.

She returned to the crack in the door and listened. Kneeley and Helen Pritchard were still talking. Then, the door to the study opened and Jubel came in, followed by four men. Saksis stood frozen; she recognized two of them. One was Paul, the bartender who’d befriended her. The other was Ross Lizenby.

Kneeley shouted, “What the hell is going on? How did—? Jubel, why did you—?”

“Relax, Mr. Kneeley,” Lizenby said. “We’re FBI.”

Kneeley spun around and yelled at Saksis, “You set this up!”

Everyone looked as Saksis pushed open the door
and stepped into the study. Lizenby smiled. “I figured you’d be here,” he said.

Saksis looked over to the couch where Helen Pritchard sat, legs crossed, a sneer on her face. “Even Pocahontas is here,” Pritchard said. “Should be some party.”

Lizenby turned to the two men Saksis hadn’t recognized and said, “Go ahead.” They went behind Kneeley’s desk and started opening drawers.

“Get out of there,” Kneeley said, making a move toward them.

Paul, the bartender, brought up a shotgun and pressed it into Kneeley’s belly.

Saksis said, “What’s going on?”

“You tell me,” he said.

“Do you have a warrant?” Kneeley asked Lizenby.

“Sure.” He handed Kneeley a piece of paper.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Kneeley snarled. He said to Saksis in the same voice, “You’re good, Miss Saksis, coming in here like a little lost lamb and getting me to talk.”

“I didn’t know anything about them,” Saksis said.

They continued to empty Kneeley’s desk, piling papers on one side, floppy disks on the other. One of the men tried to open a locked disk box on the credenza. “Key?” Lizenby asked Kneeley.

“Go to hell.”

“Break it.”

Each of the seven disk storage boxes was broken open and the disks tossed in a pile on the desk. Saksis looked at the computer screen. It was blank; the machine had automatically removed all text
and lines in order to avoid burn-in. The disk containing Pritchard’s story about Ross Lizenby was still in the disk drive. Please, don’t touch
that
one, she thought.

“You’ll hang for this,” Kneeley said to Lizenby.

Lizenby laughed. “Not before you hang for George Pritchard’s murder.”

The bottom drawer containing the .22 was emptied, and one of the agents picked up the weapon with a handkerchief. “Look at that,” Lizenby said.

“That’s not mine,” said Kneeley.

“We’ll see,” Lizenby said.

“It doesn’t belong to him,” Saksis said. “She put it there.” She pointed to Helen Pritchard.

“Stay out of it,” Lizenby said.

“No, I won’t,” Saksis said. “I was here and saw her take the gun from her purse and put it in that drawer.”

“You’re a liar,” Pritchard said.

Kneeley, who was becoming increasingly agitated, said, “She’s right, damn it. I never saw that gun before.”

“Not even on the firing range the night Pritchard got it?” Lizenby asked.

“No, not even—”

Saksis turned to Kneeley. “You
were
there, weren’t you?”

“No, I… Yeah, I was there, but I didn’t shoot him. She did.”

Helen Pritchard got off the couch, and joined the group near the desk. She said to Lizenby, “Is there any reason why I must stay here?”

He shook his head. “No, you’re free to go.”

“Wait a minute,” Kneeley screamed. “She shot him, for Christ’s sake. I was there and saw it.”

“Why?” Saksis asked.

Pritchard fixed Saksis in an icy stare, then smiled and started for the door. Saksis reached into her purse and pulled out her .357 magnum. “You stay, Mrs. Pritchard,” she said.

Paul, the bogus bartender, swiftly turned his shotgun on Saksis. “Take it easy,” she said, “I’m a special agent, too.”

“Without passport,” Lizenby said. “Put it away. Go on, Mrs. Pritchard, get out.”

Saksis kept her revolver on Helen Pritchard. She said to Lizenby, “I don’t know what’s behind all this, Ross, but it smells. I’m telling you as a special agent of the FBI that this woman placed that .22 in his desk no more than a half hour ago.”

“Butt out, Chris. It doesn’t matter.”

Saksis looked at everyone in the room. Paul’s shotgun was still leveled at her. She quickly went to the door, backed up against it and said, “I’m fed up with this charade, and I’m not moving until somebody starts acting responsibly.”

Lizenby knew the others were looking to him for a resolution to the impasse. He said to Helen Pritchard, “Sit down.”

“You said I was—”

“I said sit down!”

She muttered and went to the couch.

“Satisfied?” Lizenby asked Saksis.

“Not at all.”

“Fine, I’ll get to you in a minute.” He said to the other agents, “Do it.”

One of the men had carried into the study a large
leather catalogue case, the sort used by airline pilots to carry flight charts and manuals. He opened it and took out an electromagnet attached to a battery pack. There was a strap on the magnet that he slung over his shoulder.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Kneeley said.

The agent carrying the magnet ignored him as he flipped a switch and held the magnet inches above the pile of computer floppy disks on the desk.

“Goddamn it, that’ll—”

“Erase everything,” Lizenby said, smiling. He told another agent to pack up every scrap of paper in the room and to remove it for immediate destruction.

The magnet was passed over every inch of the study—desk, credenza, cabinets, walls, and floor—while Paul and the other agent packed Kneeley’s papers, including Pritchard’s original notes and the Hoover files, into boxes. Saksis watched with a deepening sense of dismay, especially when the powerful electromagnet was held over and around the computer in which the disk containing George Pritchard’s accusation about Lizenby was still in its drive.

But then she remembered what was in her purse. She’d brought the disk from her own machine that she’d used during Kneeley’s transmission to his publisher. Although it didn’t contain the material about Lizenby and Sue White Cloud, Lizenby didn’t know that. Maybe, just maybe.

When Lizenby was satisfied that everything had been magnetized and erased, he instructed the others to cuff Kneeley and to take him to the car.
Kneeley protested all the way out the door, especially to Saksis, whom he cursed out vehemently.

“Okay,” Lizenby said to Helen Pritchard, “you’re free to go.” Saksis again started to protest, but Lizenby spun around and said, “This time I mean it. Butt out!”

Saksis slowly lowered her magnum and sat on the couch as the electromagnet was packed in its case and everyone prepared to leave. “The ferry captain knows you’re bringing the cars back,” Lizenby said to Paul. “Thank him for the cooperation.”

Paul said to Saksis, “No cars on Fire Island. We had to work it out. Sorry for not playing straight with you, but that was the assignment.”

She shook her head and looked down.

“I’ll catch up with everyone later,” Lizenby said. “Agent Saksis and I have some talking to do.”

Saksis’s head snapped up. “Talking?”

“Yes. Just sit still. I’ll explain everything if you give me a chance.”

When they were alone in Kneeley’s study, Lizenby asked whether she wanted a drink. She declined, and he poured himself one from the bottle” Kneeley had left. “Sure?” he asked.

“I don’t want a drink. I want answers.”

“Back off, Chris,” he said as he sat beside her on the couch. He raised his glass: “To us.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“Believe what, that I care about you even after my nasty note?”

“It has nothing to do with that note, Ross. It has nothing to do with us, with caring. That’s out the
window. I want to know what’s going on here with Kneeley and Helen Pritchard—the whole mess.”

He tasted his drink and positioned himself so that he was directly facing her. “Chris, you got in over your head. This turned out to be a lot bigger than Pritchard’s murder.”

“I gathered that. Please explain.”

“Sure. Helen Pritchard was there that night with Kneeley. They intended to put the pressure on Pritchard about the files and notes he’d sold to Kneeley.”

“She sold them.”

“Yeah, and he went along for a while. He evidently had a pang of conscience about the whole thing and had told them he was about to spill to Gormley and Shelton what had happened. They argued. Frankly, I think
he
intended to kill
them
, but that’s beside the point, too. The bottom line was that Helen used the .22 he’d bought her to shoot him. She and Kneeley shoved the target hook into his coat to keep him from falling and then they got out.”

Saksis looked across the room at the pile of papers and disks on the floor and tried to think rationally about what he’d just said. He’d presented it so calmly and matter-of-factly, as though there wasn’t a doubt in the world. But that didn’t explain why he let Helen Pritchard walk free.

“If Pritchard killed her husband, why was Kneeley accused?” she asked.

Lizenby laughed and shook his head. “Gormley cut a deal with Helen Pritchard. If she’d help us lay it on Kneeley, she’d walk.”

“Why? What was to be gained by that?”

“It neutralizes Kneeley. If he makes any further moves to write his goddamn book about the bureau, he’s nailed with a murder conviction. He’ll see the wisdom of sticking to poetry once it’s explained to him. Do you know what the bastard tried to do? When he saw trouble brewing over the book because of Pritchard’s murder, he went directly to Shelton and tried to cut his own deal. He’d drop the book in return for a half million. He’s a swine, and when Helen Pritchard found out about it, she decided to protect her own interests by playing with us.”

“What does she get out of it besides immunity for murdering her own husband?”

“I don’t know the details, Chris. I don’t want to know. My job was to put it together and bring it to this point.”

“You instructed her to put the gun in his drawer?”

“Yeah. He’s a dead man on the Pritchard murder unless he agrees to get his nose out of bureau business. You remember: ‘Don’t embarrass the bureau.’ Those files and notes would have done just that.”

“It’s sick. They’ll both walk free so that the bureau isn’t tainted.”

“Don’t question it, Chris, it makes sense. There’s more at stake than one agent’s death. We’re covered. Pritchard was murdered by a terrorist who’s fled the country. Just another terrorist act.” He smiled. “It took a lot of thinking to put this together. You think about it a little and you’ll see the wisdom of it.”