CHAPTER TWO
The week after Lindsey Doyle’s arrest was the closest thing to normal that Ella had experienced in six months.
But now, sitting outside the Central Detention Facility, also known simply as the D.C. Jail, normal was disappearing again.
While forensics tore her apartment apart, Ella and Luca had stayed at Ripley’s house in McLean.
Ripley had put Ella and Luca up in one of her so-called spare rooms, which was about twice the size of Ella’s entire apartment.
Ripley’s son had dropped off Ripley’s grandson, Max, for the weekend, and the kid had taken to Luca like a moth to a bonfire.
By Saturday afternoon, Luca had the two-year-old on his knee with a half-size acoustic guitar, which he played better than Luca did.
Ripley had then told her and Luca to clean up after themselves if they planned on practicing making a child of their own, which they had.
Nobody mentioned Doyle for two days, nor did they mention the bullet holes in Ella’s ceiling or the fact Luca had come within inches of death.
Then the forensics team cleared the apartment, and Ella went home, and the world came back.
Vernon had asked her to stay away from Doyle while the Bureau cleared the tape, which was standard protocol.
When a federal agent was personally connected to an arrestee, there were lines you couldn’t immediately cross and boxes that needed ticking before anyone could sit down in a room together.
Ella hadn’t fought it. A month ago she’d have been climbing the walls, but things had changed when Luca called her from the kitchen floor with a gun in one hand and coffee on his shirt.
The urgency had drained out of her. Doyle was in custody.
Doyle was going nowhere. For the first time since this started, Ella could afford to be patient, and patience felt so unfamiliar that she almost didn’t recognize it.
But a week was long enough. Vernon had given the green light yesterday, and now Ella wanted answers.
The D.C. Jail was an ugly building made uglier by its inhabitants.
It housed pretrial detainees and sentenced misdemeanants, which meant it was a holding pen for people waiting to be moved somewhere worse.
It was also the Bureau’s jail of choice for any suspect they wanted within spitting distance of FBI headquarters, or any suspect too dangerous or too connected to send anywhere else.
Ella exited her car and made for the entrance. She signed in at the front desk and showed her credentials. The officer behind the glass checked her name against something on his screen, picked up a phone, spoke briefly, and then hung up.
‘Miss Dark, correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘Says here this visit has been authorized by Raymond Vernon of the FBI.’
‘Also correct.’
‘Just checking.’ He buzzed her through to a waiting area. ‘Someone will be with you shortly.’
‘Thank you.’
Shortly turned into twelve minutes. Ella sat in a plastic chair and stared at a poster about contraband prevention and tried not to think about what she was going to say to Doyle when she got in there.
She’d rehearsed it in the car. She’d rehearsed it in the shower this morning.
She’d rehearsed it lying next to Luca at three in the morning.
None of the rehearsals had produced anything that felt right, so she’d decided to improvise when the time came.
The door to her left opened.
A corrections officer stepped through first. He was mid-fifties and heavyset, and behind him came two people Ella hadn’t expected — a man and a woman, both in charcoal suits that were comically matching.
Lawyers. She could smell them a mile off.
‘Agent Dark?’ the corrections officer said.
‘That’s me.’
‘I’m afraid we’ve got a situation.’
The male lawyer stepped forward. He was tall, clean-shaven, and had the kind of tan that came from a lamp rather than the sun. He extended his hand and Ella took it reluctantly.
‘Agent Dark, my name is Phillip Stockley. This is my colleague, Sandra Vaughn. We represent the defendant currently being held in this facility.’
‘Lindsey Doyle.’
Stockley nodded. ‘That’s actually what we need to discuss. I’m afraid our client is off-limits for the time being.’
The words hit a wall inside Ella’s skull and bounced back. ‘Off-limits.’
‘Yes.’
‘Based on what?’
‘Based on the fact that our client has a right to counsel before being subjected to any interrogation by law enforcement, and that right has not yet been adequately exercised. We were only assigned two days ago. We haven’t had sufficient time to process everything.’
Assigned, not retained. So they were court-appointed.
That tracked. Doyle clearly hadn’t called anyone, and if she’d had a private attorney on speed dial, she’d have lawyered up within hours of being arrested.
‘This isn’t an interrogation. We already know she’s guilty. I’m just here to talk to her.’
‘With respect, Agent Dark, when an FBI agent sits down with a suspect, the distinction between talking and interrogating tends to blur. I’m sure you understand.’
Ella looked at the female lawyer. She hadn’t spoken yet.
‘I’ve waited a week,’ Ella said. ‘At the request of my own director. The Bureau has cleared me to be here.’
‘And we appreciate your patience. But there’s a more fundamental issue.’ Stockley paused. He spoke with a New York twang, and he had the cadence of someone who enjoyed the sound of his own sentences. ‘And I’m not at liberty to divulge exactly what.’
‘Come again? There’s a problem, but you won’t tell me what?’
The woman lawyer finally spoke up. ‘No, and we don’t believe the matter concerns you regardless.’
‘Listen, lady, that woman in that cell killed three people close to me. She tried to kill my partner in the field, and she tried to kill my boyfriend last week. If it wasn’t for my boyfriend disarming her, she’d still be out there with another body to her list. She’s been stalking me for months all because I put a serial killer to death, and you’re saying it doesn’t concern me? ’
The female lawyer glanced at her partner, who was chewing his bottom lip. The male lawyer sighed through his nose. They exchanged a lawyer-to-lawyer glance. Ella didn’t speak legalese, but she recognized hesitation when she saw it.
‘Sandra, do me a favor and wait in the car, please.’
She gave Ella one last glance and then disappeared out of the door, back into the lobby. The door shut behind her.
‘Sorry,’ Phillip continued, ‘she’s second chair on this. Great lawyer, but sensitive discussions are best handled by me alone.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, Miss Dark, the problem we have is quite strange. You see, that woman who was in your apartment last week? We don’t actually know who she is.’
Ella blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Our client has not confirmed her identity. She hasn’t spoken to us, she hasn’t spoken to corrections staff, and she hasn’t spoken to anyone from your Bureau either. She has been entirely non-verbal since her arrival.’
‘Her name is Lindsey Doyle.’
‘You believe her name is Lindsey Doyle.’
Ella felt heat prickle the back of her neck. ‘What are you talking about? There are pictures of her online. She had a job, a life, an address, a social security number. What more do you need?’
‘Yes, a Lindsey Doyle does indeed have all of those things. However, the woman who was arrested has no identifying possessions on her. We couldn’t find a wallet or ID card or even a cell phone.
I know it sounds odd, but we’re struggling to say with absolute certainty that our client is Lindsey Doyle. ’
Ella felt like she’d stepped into a world where all logic and common sense had gone out of the window. ‘Are you being serious? The woman worked in a prison. She must be on some database. Pluck a hair from her head and match it!’
‘Well, we actually did something similar.’ Stockley scratched his temple. ‘And it wasn’t a match.’
‘Not a match? What are you talking about?’
‘The DNA on our client did not match DNA samples recovered from Lindsey Doyle’s known residence in Louisiana. Her fingerprints didn’t match the ones she submitted when she joined Louisiana State Penitentiary.’
‘Because she’s a master of disguise. She probably wore prosthetic fingers when she joined the prison. What about her employment photo? She must have had an ID badge.’
‘There’s a resemblance, sure. But it’s not definitive.
The woman in that photo has different hair, different bone structure around the jaw.
It could be the same person with a good disguise, or it could be two different people entirely.
That’s the problem/ Everything about this woman is almost a match but never quite.
’ The lawyer raised his hands and continued, ‘Look, this isn’t our responsibility.
I’m just reporting the facts, and yes, there could be some trickery at play, but until this little detail is ironed out, our client is completely off limits.
We don’t want to make things more difficult than they need to be, and we’re about to call your office right now and explain everything. ’
Ella began to feel sick. There were three doors between her and the author of her pain and she couldn’t reach her because certain people couldn’t look up a picture online and match it to the person sitting in front of them.
What could she do? She could fight it. She could call Vernon right now and have him lean on the warden. She could invoke the severity of the case, the body count, and the fact that this woman had walked into her home and pointed a gun at the man she loved. She could make noise.
But noise wouldn’t get her into that room today. Stockley – and Doyle – had the law on their side, and they knew it, and Ella knew they knew it. She couldn’t get through this wall yet.
‘Fine. Talk to your client. Establish whatever you need to establish. But I want access the moment you’re done, and I don’t want to wait another week for it.’
‘We’ll be in touch. You have my word. Sorry you had a wasted journey.’
Ella didn’t know how much a lawyer’s word was worth, but she had to accept it regardless, unless she wanted to muddy the waters more than they were already muddied.
‘Thanks. You know, you could always just let me get her name out of her. I’m the one she’s been after all this time.’
‘The law is the law, Agent Dark. Like I said, this is messy, and if I were you…’
Stockley let the comment hang in mid-air. Ella read between the lines. If they couldn’t prove Doyle was who they thought she was, then charging her for three murders would be near impossible.
‘This must be great news for you,’ Ella said.
‘Not really. If the woman in there did do the things she’s believed to have done, then I’m not foolish enough to think she isn’t going to prison for a long time.
If I manage to get her off the death penalty then I’ll consider it a success.
If I can’t prove who she is, then I’m dealing with a home invasion and attempted murder, which could be less than ten years.
‘Wouldn’t that be easier for you?’
‘Yes, but…’ Stockley looked back towards the door that led to the cells, then back at Ella.
‘I’ve been talking to that woman – well, talking at that woman – for two days, and I can tell she’s hiding something.
My job is to ensure fair representation, not to put a killer back on the streets.
If she walks and hurts someone else, that’s on me.
Nobody wants to be the lawyer who got a serial killer acquitted. ’
Ella saw it from Stockley’s point of view, but she didn’t have to like it. She was convinced that within two minutes of being in that room she could make Doyle spill her guts, but she had her reasons to stay back. She wanted Doyle the serial killer, not Doyle the home invader.
‘Fair enough.’
‘I’m sure we’ll see each other again. Have a good day, Agent Dark.’
‘You too.’
Stockley left, and Ella was alone in the waiting room. Doyle was in the same building, probably about fifty feet away, behind concrete and steel, but within spitting distance.
Silent. Not even confirming her own name.
Why?
Ella needed to speak to Director Vernon and Agent Dever right away.