Collision Read online

  In the rape case, a judge ruled that the young woman had gone to the frat-house party voluntarily and had consumed liquor voluntarily and, according to witnesses, had entered the accused man’s bedroom voluntarily. “This can hardly be a case of rape, let alone aggravated rape,” the judge had ruled in dismissing the case. “Aggravated rape calls for the victim to ‘resist to the utmost’ and for the alleged rapist to ‘make threats of great and immediate bodily harm.’ The accused said he had made no threat, and his alleged victim does not have a clear memory of what had happened. The prosecution’s exhibit of torn clothing is irrelevant, given the lack of witnesses to what happened behind the closed bedroom door.”

  The vehicular homicide case had not even reached a judge. Just before the scheduled day of the trial, someone in the governor’s office had ordered that the case be handled by another prosecutor. The new prosecutor dropped the charge, because “the tragic accident had not involved a crime, namely no gross negligence, no drunk driving, no reckless driving, no speeding.” Not included in the explanation was the fact that the driver was a nephew of the lieutenant governor.

  After those cases, he had a kind of epiphany: He would stop thinking like a lawyer, stop thinking like a prosecutor, and start thinking like a criminal—a smart criminal who not only broke the law but also tried to outwit the law.

  *

  Now, as he passed Starbucks and a police car sped by on First Street, he found himself instinctively imagining himself as the gunman who tried to kill him. No car. I have to walk and hope to find the car. I’m a pro, but I’m feeling a little panicky. I am alone, and that was not in the plan. Cops all around. That guy I shot at, he’ll give the cops a description: young, black hair, usual stuff. And the coat, the bag. Hide them.

  Falcone turned right on E Street to Second Street. He was on the stretch of the street specially named Mitch Snyder Place after the homeless advocate who turned the block-long former federal building here into a massive shelter. Hide. A place to hide them. Look for cameras. Falcone looked around and then remembered. No cameras. Perfect.

  A few months ago, the police, reacting to the number of arrests made at or near the shelter, had installed surveillance cameras around the outside of the building. The Community for Creative Non-Violence, dedicated to protecting the rights of the homeless and poor, went to court and succeeded in getting the cameras removed. He guessed he remembered because the anticamera activists had argued that if the police put cameras on private premises where people gathered, then there should be cameras in front of private clubs like the Metropolitan.

  He was now opposite an alley next to the shelter. He saw a Dumpster and on a hunch started toward the alley. In the shadowed light, Falcone saw the silhouette of a man walking away from him. As he moved quickly to catch up to the retreating figure, he shouted out, “Hold on. Wait up, mister.”

  The man could be in his forties or his seventies—dank, gray hair curling over his ears, cheeks sunken beneath a sparse, gray-streaked beard. He wore an unzipped black leather coat over a faded-green T-shirt ringed with dirt and sweat. A computer bag was slung carelessly over his shoulder.

  “That’s a nice-looking coat,” Falcone said. “You want to tell me where you got it?”

  “Fuck you, buddy. I found it. That makes it mine.”

  “No,” Falcone said. “That coat belongs to a killer. So does that bag and whatever is in it. That makes you a criminal unless you hand it over to me now.”

  “Bullshit, mister. You don’t look like no cop to me,” the man said, trying to sound menacing, as he came closer to Falcone.

  He smelled of liquor. Cheap wine, Falcone guessed. “So you got the coat and the bag out of the Dumpster over there?”

  “None of your business where I got it.”

  Falcone reached out and grabbed the man’s arm. As he did so, he quickly concluded that the man’s appearance was deceiving. Beneath the sleeve of the leather coat that was ill-fitting and too small, Falcone felt a forearm that was thick and iron-hard.

  “Fuck off, mister! Get your hands off me!” he shouted, jerking his arm away with stunning speed and power, catching the corner of Falcone’s eye with a closed fist.

  Blood gushed out of a cut that had been sliced open along the scar tissue Falcone had acquired years ago as a collegiate boxing champ at Syracuse University.

  The man seemed as surprised as Falcone when he saw the blood dripping onto Falcone’s white shirt.

  “Sorry, but I told you…”

  “Son of a bitch,” Falcone cursed, and lashed out quickly, grabbing the man by the throat in a vise grip and squeezing hard.

  Unable to breathe, the man started to gag and sank to his knees.

  “Yeah, and I told you to give me the goddamn coat and bag. Give them up or I’ll break—”

  “Okay, okay,” the man rasped, choking on his words. “I didn’t get the coat and bag from inside the Dumpster, but behind it.” Getting back to his feet, he dropped the tough-guy pretense. “Young guy hid it. Like he was going to have someone pick them up. Maybe someone like you.”

  “I’d appreciate it very much if you give them to me. There’s a reward,” Falcone said, trying to remember how much money he was carrying.

  “Well, maybe I want to keep them.”

  “Look, Mr.…”

  “Mr. Jones.”

  “Okay, Mr. Jones. I’m Mr. Smith. I don’t want to report stolen goods and get cops involved. I’m going to give you one hundred dollars cash, and you’re going to give me the coat and the computer.”

  “Just the computer,” the man said. “I need the coat.”

  Falcone moved swiftly. He slammed the man against the Dumpster, stuck his hand into the pocket of the coat, and felt the handle of a gun. He pulled the gun out, stepped back, pushing the gun into the man’s stomach.

  “Look, Mr. Jones, I don’t have time to fuck around. What’s your real name?”

  “Crawford. Thomas Crawford,” the man said, sputtering. “I’m a vet, like a lot of guys here. Two tours in Iraq. One in Afghanistan. I don’t want any trouble, mister. I—”

  “Just take off that coat and give it to me, along with the computer bag,” Falcone said, speaking softly, embarrassed that he had lost control so quickly and had been about to hurt a complete stranger. A stranger who had worn the same uniform he once had. “I can’t tell you why I know, but there just might be a detective here soon, and he’s going to ask you how you got these. Just tell him the truth about finding them. And tell your buddies that there’s going to be a VA person here soon.”

  The alley was deep in shadow. A chill wind stirred, sending a cluster of paper and dead leaves across the man’s ragged sneakers. In slow motion, as if coming out of a trance, Crawford handed over the computer bag, which Falcone slipped over his shoulder with his bandaged left hand. Then he slowly removed the coat, which Falcone grabbed with his free hand.

  “Turn around,” Falcone said.

  Crawford instantly obeyed. Falcone took out his money roll and slipped the gun inside his belt under his suit jacket. He pulled out five twenty-dollar bills and stuffed them into a back pocket of stained and worn jeans.

  “Count to fifty before you even think of moving,” Falcone ordered. He pressed a white handkerchief on the cut that had been opened over his eye and walked rapidly down the alley to the street.

  *

  Ten minutes later, Falcone was in his apartment. He had managed to stop the flow of blood and had sealed the cut with a thin Band-Aid. Next, he placed a bag of frozen beans over the cut to keep the swelling down, as he pondered exactly what to do.

  He could call Chief Mobley or he could call Sprague. He had not actually charmed Mobley, and Sprague was his lawyer. He chose Sprague. But first he opened the laptop.

  Suddenly, a flashing black-and-yellow frame appeared around white words on a black background:

  WARNING

  YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED ACCESS TO THIS LAPTOP. DISCONNECT NOW.

  All attempt
s to access and use this laptop are subject to keystroke monitoring and recording that can reveal evidence of criminal activity. Unauthorized use may subject you to criminal prosecution or other adverse action.

  Falcone closed the laptop and called Sprague’s private line. Sprague answered on the first ring.

  “I’m home,” Falcone said. “Please come here right away.”

  “What now?” Sprague asked.

  “Just come here. We need to talk.”

  16

  Barely fifteen minutes had passed before Sprague was dropped off in his chauffeured limousine in front of Falcone’s residence The tall building and its adjacent twin were marvels of Greco-Roman architecture. They wrapped the Navy Memorial fountain and the statue of the Lone Sailor in a graceful stone embrace.

  As Sprague entered the building, he was greeted by a large uniformed man standing behind a concierge’s mahogany desk.

  “I’m Paul Sprague and I’m here to see—”

  “Mr. Falcone is expecting you. He’s on the penthouse floor. Turn left off the elevators and proceed to the end of the hall.”

  Sprague was a bit surprised when he realized that he had never been to Falcone’s place before. They saw each other on the squash court and at a reception now and then. But, as far as Sprague knew, Falcone did not entertain very often.

  The elevator whisked him quickly to the top floor and opened to a long hallway. Sprague’s heels clicked loudly on the polished marble floor. At the end of the hall, Sprague saw Falcone standing in the open doorway of his apartment, waiting to greet him.

  As Falcone extended his right hand and thanked Sprague for coming, he noticed that Sprague’s eyes had drifted to a place above the doorway.

  “Jesus, Sean. What happened here? Those look like bullet holes.”

  “Nothing nearly so dramatic, Paul,” Falcone said. “The Secret Service pulled the security cameras off the day I left office.”

  “Well, it would have been real nice of the Secret Service to patch it up.”

  “Uncle Sam is quicker digging holes than filling them up. They will eventually. Probably bill me for the work, too.”

  “And what in hell happened to your eye? I didn’t see that at the office. Did—”

  “I ran into a little problem on the way home. Nothing serious,” Falcone said, not wanting to discuss how he had nearly choked a homeless veteran.

  Falcone escorted Sprague into his expansive living room. A glass wall offered a view through that encompassed the majestic dome of the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the National Archives, and the large gray building that housed the Justice Department.

  “Nice place, Sean.”

  “It’s not the Ritz,” Falcone said lightly.

  “Great view, though. Besides, the Ritz isn’t what it’s always cracked up to be.”

  Falcone took Sprague’s retort as a weak attempt at modesty. He’d read a Post gossip item that said Sprague had recently paid $8 million for an apartment at the Ritz in Georgetown. And that was just Sprague’s city home. He also owned a huge estate in Middleburg, Virginia, and a place in Palm Springs that had been featured in Architectural Digest last year. Falcone had been around this town for a long time, but he’d never realized that a Washington law practice could possibly be so lucrative.

  “Paul,” Falcone said, pointing to the sofa, “why don’t you take a seat over there,” Falcone moved to a well-stocked bar situated in a corner next to a faux fireplace.

  “How about a drink?”

  “Pretty early in the day, isn’t it?”

  “Today is a little different.”

  “Sure. I’ll have what you’re having.”

  “Vodka okay?”

  Sprague nodded. Falcone poured vodka into two glasses filled with ice. He handed one to Sprague and then slipped into an Eames Lounge chair. Both men raised their glasses in a silent toast and drank deeply.

  “What’s so urgent, Sean? Why couldn’t you have just told me over the phone?”

  “I needed to clarify a few things about what happened today and what you said about the need to protect the firm.”

  “I thought I was pretty clear that, depending on how we handle this mess, we have a lot to lose,” Sprague said with a hint of impatience.

  “Paul, a serious crime, no, a horrific crime, was committed and we have an obligation to fully cooperate and share whatever information we can with the police.”

  “Of course. But I don’t understand. What’s the problem?”

  “This was no random act of violence. Our friend Hal Davidson was a target of an assassination. The others were killed just to make it look like an act of terrorism.”

  “And how did you come to this conclusion?”

  Falcone took a sip before he said, “If it was intended as a massacre, the men would have started the killing spree as soon as they got off the elevators. Hal would have been the last person hit, not the first. Remember the sequence: Hal, then back down the corridor to kill Ellen and the two victims on the couch. The killers were clearly targeting Hal. They were on a mission.”

  “You’re in the realm of speculation, Sean. You … we don’t know that.”

  “I know what I know. And I know what I saw. If, as the DC police detective—Emmetts—believed, the shooters were crazies planning to wipe out the tenth floor, they would have started with Ellen and the man and woman across from her. Then they would’ve gone down the west corridor, office by office. In fact, they passed two offices, walking directly from the elevator to Hal’s office. They opened his door, killed him, grabbed his laptop, walked back to the express elevator, and then shot Ellen and the others on their way out.”

  “And if you hadn’t seen them, hadn’t attacked them, they probably would have gotten away.”

  “And if I hadn’t seen what had happened, the sequence of the shootings would not have been known. The assumption would be that Hal Davidson, like the others, was a random victim of an all-too-typical mass killing in a workplace.”

  “Okay,” Sprague said. “You may have something there.”

  “There’s something more, Paul. I still don’t know why you were so concerned when I started telling the police that the bag looked like it might have carried a laptop computer.”

  “The answer is pretty simple, Sean. If in fact a computer was in the bag, the police would have started searching through all of Hal’s computerized records centrally filed in the office. And then the search would be broadened to all of the internal correspondence that Harold had with his clients and with all of the other members of our firm. Of course we’re going to give the investigators everything we can. I just want to proceed carefully.”

  Remaining silent, Falcone stood and finished off his drink. He turned away from Sprague and abruptly moved to a small study that was lined with books. He reached behind a desk and lifted up a black coat that was wrapped about something inside the coat. Falcone carefully pulled away the coat and placed a laptop and the Glock on the cocktail table in front of Sprague.

  “These belong to the killer.”

  “Sean, how in hell…”

  “A hunch. The killer must’ve panicked when he ran from the building and saw the police setting up the roadblocks. He tried to hide everything in an alley. I just got them,” Falcone said, without mentioning that he held a homeless man at gunpoint.

  Staring at the computer, Sprague said, “It doesn’t look like anything that we authorize for the firm. It might be Hal’s personal one.”

  “It can’t be opened without special knowledge. Not just a password. Some kind of sophisticated protection.”

  “I’m sure the police have experts that can get into it. Let me check with some of the attorneys in the firm. Joe Kelly was closest to Hal. He may recognize this or know how to get in.”

  “Okay,” Falcone said. “That makes sense. But you need to get everything over to Detective Emmetts right away. Tell him that a guy in the homeless shelter—the name is Thomas Crawford—found the computer and the
coat—with a gun in the pocket—and gave them to me. He’s a drunk and he didn’t want to give up what he found until I … persuaded him. I think he saw the guy trying to hide this stuff.”

  “Got it, Sean. Absolutely. I’ll take care of everything. Emmetts will want to talk to you about this again. But I’ll do my best to handle as much as possible this afternoon.”

  Sprague wrapped the coat around the laptop and gun and headed for the door.

  17

  As soon as Sprague left, Falcone felt empty in an empty place. His apartment was not cold, but it lacked the softening touches of a woman’s hand. The decor, in home-designer parlance, was “midcentury,” an affected way of saying it was a throwback to the fifties. The living room’s large gray sofa with brass nail-head buttons decorated a curved wooden base that paralleled a flat undecorated wall, against which rested a faux fireplace.

  The fake logs contained a small blower that, when turned on, caused thin red and yellow ribbons to dance behind an unadorned metal screen. The eyes lied. The effect of burning logs was so real that Falcone, forgetting this deceit on more than one occasion, would pull his favorite chair closer to the fireplace and start to rub his hands to gather a warmth that it could not yield.

  A classic Eames black leather chair that Falcone had acquired upon his return from Vietnam sat near a low, perfectly cylindrical brushed-steel table upon which lay a few copies of the Economist and Bloomberg newsmagazines. Near the floor-to-ceiling doors that opened to a sweeping terrace was a waist-high planter brimming with a cluster of orchids, his dead wife’s favorite flowers.