CHAPTER TWELVE
Lieutenant Suresh stepped into the small conference room at the Baltimore Police Department’s Southern District Headquarters. He closed the door softly behind him and regarded the three FBI agents with a look of sympathy seasoned with mild annoyance.
“He lawyered up.”
Faith nodded. “Figured he would.”
Suresh pulled a chair out and dropped into it with a heavy sigh. He looked through the window at the late-morning overcast for a long moment. Without turning away, he asked, “What happened?”
“That reporter bitch showed up out of nowhere,” Jessica snapped. “Followed by a bunch of other news vans. She completely obstructed our interview and one of the other vans damaged property and almost hit one of the workers.” She turned to Faith. “We’re pressing charges, right?”
Faith didn't answer. Suresh switched on the television hanging in one corner of the room and navigated to Washington Channel Six News, The Truth, Even When It Hurts.
The story, of course, was the confrontational encounter between Bridgette Thurston and two very angry FBI agents, who appeared to be interrogating one Craig Daniels.
An "expert" whose title—some adjunct professor from Baltimore City Community College—was made too small for people to read unless they stared, probably intentional since the kid was probably still in the middle of his master's thesis in criminal justice, was asked why the FBI would feel a need to protect the prime suspect in two vicious murders from honest questions asked by a member of the press.
The expert replied that the FBI was constrained by procedures that forced them to act in favor of murderers until official charges were filed, but assured the news anchor that those charges must be coming soon.
“See?” Jessica said. “That’s just bullshit. They can’t use his name because he hasn’t been officially charged. They’re the ones who should be sued. And that ‘expert’ doesn’t know shit.”
“They never do,” Suresh agreed. “They’re not there to know shit.
They’re there to corroborate the narrative the network wants to push to earn ratings.
As for the lawsuit, Channel Six will definitely receive one, and they’ll settle for a fraction of the revenue they’ll earn from the ratings boost they’ll get from running this story.
Craig will likely also file one against the FBI and you two specifically for defamation and abuse of power. ”
“But we didn’t bring her over there!”
“How did that news get to Bridgette in the first place?” Faith asked. “I want to know who on your end shared details of an active investigation with the press?”
Suresh reddened, but before he could reply, Bridgette’s smiling face appeared on the tv.
The news anchor asked how she was holding up after the vicious encounter, and Bridgette laughed and said, “I’m so glad you brought that up, Ryan.
There was nothing vicious about that encounter.
Faith and Jessica are friends of mine. I’ve assisted them on cases before, and they’ve always been very forthcoming with information about those cases. ”
“Oh, you bitch,” Jessica breathed.
Faith’s heart sank. Suresh stared at her, not quite sympathetically. “Is she telling the truth?”
“We’re not friends,” Jessica snapped. “She followed up on a lead at an art school whose director wouldn’t give us access to a class roster that we believed would reveal the name of our suspect. Without our permission.”
Bridgette actually had been helpful in that case. She’d gotten the name of the man who turned out to be the killer and given the two of them the lead they needed to save the lives of innocent chaplains from a former medic’s wrath.
Faith didn’t bring that up now, though. The damage Bridgette was doing to this case was probably catastrophic. Worse, because there was a kernel of truth to Bridgette’s claim, it would be very difficult to convince people that they hadn’t been leaking details to the media.
Suresh sighed. “Well, that’s going to be a problem.
You guys conducted an interview in broad daylight in full view of a public road.
A reporter you two have associated with in the past was first on scene to harass a man who isn’t even a named suspect at this point in the investigation, and unless you find a tape of him committing the murder, isn’t likely to become one. ”
“What?” Jessica interrupted. “But he could be the killer!”
“Then I hope to Christ you find indisputable proof of that,” Suresh said. “Because otherwise, the only way Baltimore PD avoids a lawsuit of its own is by distancing itself from the Bureau’s handling of this case and refusing to come near it with a forty-foot pole.”
Faith perked up. “So Baltimore PD isn’t taking the case from us.”
“We’re not taking it from the FBI. Frankly, I’ll be very surprised if it remains in your hands much longer.”
Faith’s jaw clenched. She was about to remind Suresh that one of his officers leaked details to Bridgette when Jessica’s phone rang.
When Jessica saw the number, she paled. “Shit. It’s Hozier.”
Markham Hozier was the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Washington, D.C. field office and Jessica’s direct superior. Assuming he was watching the same news story they were, he was calling about that, and he was extremely upset.
“I’ll take full responsibility,” Faith said. “Tell him it was my idea.”
Jessica shot Faith a look that would have melted her in her chair if there was any mercy in the world. She got to her feet, stepped to a corner of the room, and answered. Suresh continued to look at Faith with his not-quite-sympathetic gaze.
Faith’s phone rang a moment later. She sighed, looked at the number, sighed again. She looked at Suresh and decided now was a good time for the reminder. “Don’t forget, Suresh, it was your officer who leaked details to the press.”
Suresh’s lip curled. “I’m sure you’ll remind everyone of that fact if this blows up in our faces.” He got to his feet. “I’ll see if I can salvage anything on my end. I suggest you do the same.”
His tone betrayed his belief that such a stroke of luck was impossible.
Faith answered her phone. “Good morning, Director Smythe.”
“I disagree with that, Special Agent,” Smythe replied, his calm, articulate voice a trifle more clipped than usual, a sign that he was indeed very angry.
Turk nudged Faith. She smiled wanly down at his empathetic brown eyes and began stroking his fur. “I understand, sir. We didn’t expect Miss Thurston to interrupt our interview.”
“I can see that. The utterly incompetent way in which you and Special Agent Torres handled that encounter makes it clear that you weren’t prepared for it.”
Faith swallowed. “I’m sorry that things didn’t go our way, sir.”
“That’s putting it mildly. Mr. Daniels’ lawyer has filed a formal complaint with the Bureau that will almost certainly develop into a full-blown lawsuit within the week. Channel Six News intended to file a complaint, but fortunately for you, Miss Thurston requested that no complaint be filed.”
You mean, fortunately for her, Faith thought, lips thinning. Bridgette was about to win a Nobel Prize for Journalism and a six-figure bonus courtesy of making Channel Six the most popular news channel in the country.
“When you and Torres involved Miss Thurston in your previous investigation, I was initially mortified.”
“Sir, we didn’t—”
“However,” Smythe continued, “her involvement turned out to be precisely the key to preventing further murders, and the way you both spun it to make the FBI look as good as it did was, frankly, brilliant. What could have been one of the greatest PR disasters in our history was instead one of our greatest victories.”
“We didn’t spin anything, sir. We never agreed to let Bridgette investigate that art school. Any claims she makes about acting on our behalf are false.”
“I strongly encourage you to forget that you said that. You need goodwill, Special Agent, and considering your history when it comes to your relationship with the media, you have precious little to give. Miss Thurston claims that you two are friends—”
“We’re not,” Faith interrupted. “Not even close.”
“Of course not,” Smythe scoffed. “Give me credit for a modicum of intelligence, Special Agent. But you do know her, and you do have the ability to control her, yes? Think carefully.”
Faith swallowed. She couldn’t control Bridgette any more than Bridgette could control Turk.
Her presence in Baltimore was proof of that.
Faith had warned her repeatedly to back off or she would suffer consequences.
Instead, she’d done the opposite, and now Faith was the one whose career was in danger.
On the other hand, Smythe clearly wanted Faith to say she could control her. This was a volcanic eruption speeding toward the FBI, and Smythe wanted Faith to be the shield. Or, if she failed, the scapegoat.
And Jessica… “Sir, I want you to know that my partner had nothing to do with this.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Smythe said bluntly. “She’s involved. You have great potential, Faith, but if you’re ever to be a leader in this Bureau, you must understand that your actions affect those around you whether they choose to allow it or not.”
Faith wasn’t sure she wanted a leadership position, but she wasn’t sure she didn’t want it.
And she definitely didn’t want her name dragged through the mud after so many years of effectively putting bad guys in jail and protecting the innocent.
She didn’t want a medal, but it would be nice for people not to hate her. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be Frank, Special Agent: your future as a field agent in the Bureau depends on a successful resolution to this situation. Torres’s future as an employee in any capacity depends on the same. If you’ll forgive me for being crass, you made this bed, now lie in it.”
He hung up, leaving Faith staring at the wall. Turk whined and nuzzled her. She continued to stroke his fur and stare straight ahead.
“Shit,” Jessica said.
She stormed over to Faith and sat next to her, also staring at the wall. Faith opened her mouth to apologize, but that seemed stupid at the moment.
“You get torn a new asshole too?” Jessica asked.
“You could say that,” Faith confirmed.
Jessica nodded. “Yeah. Markham spent the entire call pretending not to gloat that he was right about you.”
Faith frowned. “About me?”
“Yep. When I was first assigned to you, he suggested that I refuse the assignment and ignore every threat levied against me for refusing it. He said you were poison and if I worked with you, I would ruin my career.”
That hurt Faith more than she cared to admit. The hint—slight but present—of belief in Jessica’s tone hurt more. She resisted the urge to run a shaking hand over her face and instead said, “If you want to step back, you can step back. You don’t need to risk yourself.”
Jessica chuckled bitterly. “It’s a little too late for that, Faith.
” Then, maybe realizing what she’d just said, she added, “And I don’t want to back off.
We’re partners, and we’re doing the right thing.
It’s not our fault that Bridgette’s a mosquito who’s decided our veins are the juiciest around.
” She took a deep breath, formed a pert O with her mouth, and blew it out in a rush. “So what do we do now?”
Faith took a moment to think about that.
She needed to get ahead of the situation with Bridgette, but she didn’t know a way to do that right now that wouldn’t backfire horribly.
They needed to move on with the case, but with Craig lawyered up and in possession of a very robust defamation case, it was going to be impossible to move forward with him unless some sort of evidence popped up out of the blue that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the one who had killed Jackson Entwhistle and Raelynn Hayes.
Well, if he was their killer, at least he wasn’t going to kill anyone else.
Not with the eyes of the world on him. On the other hand, if he wasn’t their killer, then Faith and Jessica had just cast an enormous umbrella over the real killer.
No matter which way she looked at it, they were in a bad spot.
And for all the suffering they might endure, any future targets the killer might have would suffer more.