Sweepers (12 page)

Headlights appeared in her mirror as Sherman showed up in a big Ford sedan. She got out of her car as von Rensel got out of the Suburban.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, locking his own car. “There was a last-minute flap.”

“At least we didn’t keep the detective waiting,” she said.

“Admiral, this is Mr. von Rensel of the NIS. You were introduced at the first meeting, I think.”

The two men shook hands, visibly sizing each other up.

“Mr. von Rensel, thank you for joining us,” Sherman said.

“If we’re going to need NIS, it’d be good for you to be in on this from the beginning.”

“Hope we can help, Admiral,” Train replied, but he left it at that.

Sherman nodded, looking around, and they walked across the street to the front steps of his house, which was a large and fairly elegant three-story affair. Once inside and settled in the living room, Sherman looked at his watch. “Mcnair should be here in just a few minutes. We’re agreed I should tell him about the SEAL, as little of the history as I can get away with, and what happened the other night, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Karen said. “And then I think we should try to find out what they’re really doing. Is this a homicide? Is there an investigation?

Like that. In the spirit of your telling them everything, Mcnair should be a little more forthcoming.’ “And you’ve briefed Mr. von Rensel here.

“Yes, sir. And I’ve called for the records on Galantz.”

“They’ll want to see those.”

“Yes. Another opportunity for a quid pro quo.”

He looked at her, nodding thoughtfully. But she could tell his mind was elsewhere, probably on what he was going to say to the detective. The doorbell chimed., “Action stations,” he said, then got up to let him in.

Mcnair came in, shucking a trench coat. He looked a little like a prizefighter in a three-piece suit, she thought, and she noticed that he frowned across the room when he saw Train.

The admiral was making introductions.

Mcnair looked at Train again, as if acknowledging the presence of a fed.

When they were finally all situated in the living room, the admiral kicked it off. “First, I should tell you that Commander Lawrence and I have talked about the nature and extent of my cooperation with you.”-

“Is Commander Lawrence acting in the capacity of your lawyer, Admiral?”

Mcnair asked immediately. Karen was amused by the way they talked as if she were not even in the room.

“No. Commander Lawrence is officially acting on behalf of the JAG. At the moment, I have not sought counsel. One of my main objectives for this meeting is to find out if I should seek counsel.”

Mcnair nodded, as if this was the most. reasonable position in the world.

Sherman leaned forward. I haven’t requested counsel because you have indicated that I am not suspected of any crimes. As I said, I’ve kicked this around with Commander Lawrence here, and she has advised me to cooperate fully with your, um, inquiries. I have a new development to bring to your attention, which is the other reason I wanted this meeting. But first I’d also like to get confirmation that nothing’s changed as to where I stand in this thing.”

Karen watched with interest. She was sure that Mcnair would have expected to conduct the meeting. It was interesting to watch the admiral turn the situation around.

“Admiral Sherman,” he said, “we’ve been over the pathologist’s report with respect to the estimated time of death.

We’ve verified where you were during the most likely window of opportunity. We’re satisfied that you were where you said you were, and that you could not have been in Ms. Walsh’s house at the presumed time of death. You are not a suspect, per se.”

“Has a crime been committed?” Karen asked.

“Perhaps we can let the admiral tell me what he wants to tell me, .

Counselor,” Mcnair suggested. “Then we can talk about a crime.”

Karen was about to argue when she saw the admiral nodding. She deferred.

Train stood by a window, remaining silent.

“Fair enough,” the admiral said. “As I believe you know, 1-we, actually, Commander Lawrence and myselfwent to Elizabeth’s house Tuesday night. I wanted to call on Dottie Klein. She and Elizabeth were very close. I also wanted to see the house. Somehow, this whole thing wouldn’t be real unless I could go there. That probably sounds pretty strange.”

Mcnair listened attentively, his notebook open.

“So, anyway, as Commander Lawrence has told you, I noticed something odd about the scene, or the scenario, perhaps. Beyond the business about the laundry basket. The slippers. I gave her those slippers as a present, but the fact was, she detested them. One of those awkward things, a present that didn’t work., But the key point is, she never wore them.”

“Yes,” Mcnair said. “commander Lawrence mentioned them. But if she never wore them, why did she keep them?”

“I’m guessing because they had been a gift from me.

Who knows? Like I said, one of those awkward things. But I was very surprised to see them down there. Dottie said it looked as if she had been wearing them. Then, of course, there’s the problem of her taking a laundry basket of clothes to the basement level. I can’t think of a single reason for her to do that.”

“Yes, sir,” Mcnair said. Karen thought she heard a trace of impatience in his voice. I’ve heard all this. Cut to the chase, please: Sherman seemed to catch it.

“Okay. Before I went over there, I came home first to change. I found something in my mail that was pretty upsetting.” He went on to tell Mcnair about the letter, what it said, about later going over to see Galen Schmidt, only to come home and find that his front door was unlocked, and that when he had gone looking for the letter before going to bed, it was gone.

Mcnair made some notes. “The door was definitely locked when you left, Admiral?” , “Yes. It’s set to lock itself You can take a look if you’d like. I would have to make a special point of unlocking it, which of course I never do. This is Mclean, but hardly a crime-free area.”

“And you are positive the letter was gone when you got back?” Mcnair asked.

“Yes. Although I didn’t realize it until after I had gone up to bed. I did some paperwork upstairs, where I have a small study. Then I decided that I’d take the letter into the office, so Karen here could see it. I came back downstairs to look for it. It must have been after eleven. I’d left it on the kitchen counter, with the rest of the mail, before going to see Admiral Sherman. I’d put the envelope in the trash with the junk mail. I couldn’t find either one when I looked.”

“Anything else in the house missing?”

“No. I checked that as soon as I got into the house. As best I can tell, that’s all that was taken.”

Mcnair consulted his notebook. “So you think this guy has come back after all these years to get revenge for sorfiething that happened back in Vietnam, and that he’s started the game by mailing you a warning letter. Then he watched your house to make sure you got the letter, and then, when you left, broke into the house, retrieved the letter and the envelope, and left the door unlocked so you would know he’d been here?”

Karen saw a trace of embarrassment on the admiral’s face.

“I don’t know what else to think,” he said. “I’m very upset about what’s happened to Elizabeth,, and I’m beginning to conclude that her fall was no accident. I’m also worried that whatever happened to her might be my fault, at least indirectly. ” . Mcnair leaned forward. “This thing in Vietnam. You’re implying that something happened over there that would inspire a guy to come back after more than twenty years to do something to you, that soipething including maybe killing your girlfriend?”

Sherman studied his feet for a moment before replying.

Then he looked up. “I Suess I am,” he admitted.

“It would make your hypothesis a lot more credible if we knew what that incident in Vietnam was all about.”

“I’m sure it would. But it involved some highly classified operations. All I can say is that I can fully believe it,” Sherman looked down at the rug again for a moment. “I know.

That’s not much to go on.”

Mcnair gave him a look that made it quite clear he was in full agreement with Sherman’s last remark. “See, Admiral, it’s not just us,” he said.

“To open a homicide investigation, especially if there’s a new element, we have to convince our lieutenant-and maybe a judge-that we want to do some searching. Now if we just had that letter-“

“I know,” Sherman interrupted. “But it’s cane. Maybe? the postman might recall sorting it. I don’t know. But as to what happened in Vietnam, it’s classified. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

“Is there a homicide investigation in progress?” Train asked from his perch by the window.

There was a sudden silence in the room. Mcnair opened his mouth but closed it without saying anything. Karen decided to make her move.

“Detective Mcnair,” she said, “in our original meeting, you mentioned certain forensic ambiguities. The admiral here has been concerned that, over and above the slippers problem, if he told you about this letter, it would make Elizabeth Walsh’s death seem less like an accident and more like a possible homicide. The problem is, up to tonight, the only person you are talking to is him.

He’s told you as much as he can. What can you tell us about those forensic ambiguities?”

Mcnair thought about that, and then he nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Our first take was accident. Lady fell down the stairs, landed wrong, broke her neck. Medical examiner’s preliminary report said the same thing. We caught the fact that the laundry room down there didn’t appear to be used very-often, if at all. But she could have been carrying that stuff down to store it, and using a laundry basket to carry it. Who knows? There was no apparent forced entry, no physical evidence of personal violence, other than that which could have reasonably been caused by the fall. Abrasions where you would expect them. And later, postautopsy, nothing in the pathology reports indicating assault, poison, drugs, rape, or anything like that.”

“You did an autopsy?” Sherman asked. Karen had seen him wince at the word., “Yes, sir. Standard procedure in an unexplained death.

Unless the victim’s doctor can come in and give us a reasonable explanation, an autopsy will normally be performed.

But, like I said, that didn’t give us any indication of homicide.”

“So what were the ambiguities?” Train asked.

“Well, it’s like this. When there’s no obvious cause of death, we assume misadventure, or accident. But we also look at it from the other perspective: If this had been a homicide, what kind of evidence should be there? Well, first of all, some physical evidence of someone else being in that house. So just to make very sure, we had our crime-scene unit come in and do a standard sweep.” He leaned back in his chair for a moment before going on.

“Let’s put aside fingerprints for a minute. Let’s postulate, for instance, that someone who knew what he was doing broke in waited for her, and, surprised her, say, and then pushed er down the stairs. He probably wouldn’t have come in the front door-too exposed. More likely, he’d use the back door or a back window, say from that garden. Either way, there should have been some physical traces of that garden in the house-grass, dirt. And the back porch paint is old and dried out. There should have been some tiny flakes of that paint in the carpets. None of the windows had been kicked in, right? The back door lock is a Baringer.

They use a peculiar steel alloy for their keys. If somebody had picked the lock, there should have been physical evidence of foreign metal-alloy particles in that lock, or in any of the locks. Stuff like that.”

“But there wasn’t?” Train asked.

“That’s right.”

“This sounds like a pretty thorough examination,” the admiral said. “But I don’t understand the premise. If this was an accident, none of this evidence would be there in any event.”

“Ah, yes,” Mcnair said, leaning forward. “But from a forensic perspective, that place was hinky.

Like’fingerprints?

Well, we did find fingerprints-hers, Mrs. Klein’s, and, incidentally, even some of yours, Admiral-but only upstairs.

Remember what I said about physical evidence a mirfute ago? That there wasn’t any? We didn’t get a single fingerprint lift downstairs. None.

Zero. Zip. And you know what else? Mrs. Klein, the nice old lady who says she goes over there all the time to have coffee, shoot the breeze, whatever?

Mrs. Klein says she always comes over via the back porch.

They’re connected. She even has a key. Her porch paint is like Miss. understand,” Sherman said. “Except for the very obvious trail she left when she found the body, there were no other signs of that paint in the Walsh kitchen, or in any of the rugs on the main floor. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything in those rugs. Very little dirt. And no sand or bits of moss from those bricks in her front walk. Assuming Miss. Walsh came home via her own front door that afternoon, there should have been something, see?”

Karen twisted anxiously in her chair. This was beginning to sound like something far different from the cut-and-dried accident they had been talking about all along.

“Admiral,” Mcnair continued, “this may be painful to hear, but there was something wrong with Miss. Walsh’s clothes, too, besides what you told us about the slippers.”

“Her clothes?” he asked, obviously baffled now.

“Yes, sir. We found none of the things on her clothes that should have been there after a working day in the office-no dandruff, no loose hairs, no foreign fibers on the seat of her slacks from an office chair, no ink smudges on her fingers, no residue of toner from a copy machine or a laser printer on her hands or sleeves. Now you know most Washington people can’t spend a day in the office without touching a Xerox copy of something, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And in. addition to all the stuff that collects after a day in the office, there’s the ride home on the Metro. She took the Metro, didn’t she? There was a fare card in her purse.”

“Yes, she did. Park and Ride from the West Falls Church station. “