Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
FBI Field Office
Tacoma, Washington
Allie arrived at the office before seven, having barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she was back in those woods, staring down the barrel of Pym's trembling pistol, waiting for the shot that would end her life.
She showered when she got home, standing under the water until it went cold, trying to wash the woods off her skin. It didn’t work. She could still feel the branches catching at her jacket, could still hear the loose stones scattering under Pym's feet as he ran.
She sat at her desk and checked her phone for the third time. The voice recording was there, timestamped from the night before. She pressed play just long enough to confirm the file was intact, then locked the screen and dropped the phone on her desk.
Hagan poked his head through the door. He stood there for a moment without speaking, which wasn’t unusual for the taciturn agent. When he finally looked at her, the permanent scowl had softened.
“Glad you're okay,” he said.
Allie nodded. “Thanks, Hagan.”
He gave a single, curt dip of his chin and walked away. For Hagan, that was practically a speech.
By eight o'clock, the team had assembled in the conference room.
Jason was already seated, a paper cup of coffee cradled between his hands.
He looked as tired as she felt, the creases around his eyes deeper than usual.
Marze stood at the head of the table with his arms folded, scanning the room as the last few agents settled in.
Jason leaned back in his chair, and Brandy sat across from him with her laptop open in front of her.
The mood was subdued but alert. Everyone looked wrung out.
“All right,” Marze said. He looked at Allie. “Let's hear it.”
Allie pulled out her phone and set it on the table. “When I went after Pym last night, I turned on my voice recorder. I wanted to capture whatever he might say if I caught up to him.” She paused and met the eyes around the table. “I got more than I expected.”
She tapped the screen and pressed play.
The recording opened with the sounds of her own footsteps crashing through brush, accompanied by sharp rasps of her own breath.
The rub of her jacket distorted parts of the audio, and there were stretches where nothing came through but the snap of branches and the uneven rhythm of her running hard over bad terrain.
Allie remembered the darkness, how completely the trees had closed out all light beyond the first few yards.
Then the footsteps stopped, and Pym's voice came through, thin and fractured, but clear enough to understand.
He told her she didn’t understand what they had done.
How Sterling had planted the gun, how Vance had signed off on warrants he knew were fraudulent, how Halloway had fabricated the financial records.
He named Reeves next, the marshal who had threatened the witnesses, who had physically delivered the tampered evidence into Pym's vault.
And then Thorne. The U.S. Attorney who had orchestrated everything from the top, who wanted the Torrino conviction at any cost.
Allie glanced around the table as the recording played, seeing her own anger reflected in the faces of those around her.
Pym's voice cracked as he spoke about the exhibit numbers, how they haunted him and how he couldn’t escape the ones that bore his signature.
He said she told him it had to be done. Allie's own voice came through then, barely audible, asking who. Pym didn’t answer the question directly. He said he had to shoot her now.
The first gunshot was deafening on the recording.
Several people at the table flinched. Jason’s hand jerked involuntarily toward his hip.
The second shot followed a beat later, and then there was a heavy, wet thud as Pym's body hit the ground.
In the stillness that followed, Reeves's voice came through.
“Bishop. You okay?”
Marze reached over and stopped the playback. Nobody moved.
“So we have Pym's confession on record,” Marze said. “He named Reeves and Thorne as co-conspirators in the original fabrication of evidence in the Torrino case.”
Jason was the first to speak. “This is unbelievable. Except it’s too believable.”
“It’s no wonder Thorne drove down from Seattle to offer us his full cooperation,” Allie said.
She remembered him sitting in this very room, shaking their hands and assuring them he would provide anything they needed.
“He got a lot of praise for putting Torrino away. Press conferences and commendations. His name was on every headline. Dismantling an organized crime empire made his career.”
“Maybe the risk was worth it to him,” Jason said, “if the alternative was another failed prosecution and Torrino walking free again.”
“That doesn't make it legal,” Marze said.
“No,” Jason agreed. “It doesn't.”
Brandy looked up from her screen. “So we're saying the Torrino conviction was built on fabricated evidence, and the people who fabricated it are the same people Pym was targeting.”
“Every one of them,” Allie said. “And Thorne signed off on the whole thing.”
Jason let out a long breath through his nose. “And Reeves, the man we put on protective detail for our witnesses. He was in the woods last night with a weapon. He insisted on being part of the operation.”
Allie had thanked Reeves for saving her life.
If his shot had come half a second later, Pym's next round might not have missed.
But Reeves had made sure he was at the Brick Works, had positioned himself where he could get to Pym first. “Pym was about to confess everything. Reeves put him down before he could say any more.”
“You think Reeves heard what Pym said?” Marze asked.
“No. I think he saw a chance to silence the one person who could expose him, and he took it as soon as he got close enough.”
Marze gave a thoughtful nod. “We need to move carefully. Reeves is a respected deputy marshal, and Thorne is a presidential appointee. This recording is powerful, but it came from a man who murdered four people. His credibility will be questioned by every defense attorney in the country.”
“The evidence will back him up,” Allie said. “The custody logs, the exhibit records, the chain of command, all of it. If we pull those threads now, with what we know, it'll hold.”
“It will have to,” Marze said. “Because the moment we open this, we're accusing a sitting U.S. Attorney and a decorated federal marshal of conspiracy and obstruction. There's no putting that back in the box.”
Allie's phone buzzed on the table. She didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was local. She held up a hand and answered.
“Agent Bishop? This is Linda Hayes. I'm returning your call.” The woman sounded slightly out of breath.
“I'm so sorry it took me so long to get back to you.
My boyfriend and I were camping up near the Olympic Peninsula, and there's no cell service up there at all. I just got back into range this morning and got your messages.”
Allie kept her expression neutral, aware that the entire table was watching her. “Ms. Hayes, thank you for calling me back. I appreciate it. I need to ask you about Arthur Pym.”
There was a brief silence on the other end. “Arthur.” Another pause. “Okay. What about him?”
“When was the last time you saw him or spoke with him?”
“Oh, let’s see. It has to be over two years,” Linda said. “I visited him at St. John’s for a while, trying to be supportive, but he eventually asked me to stop coming. That was…yeah, two years now. Maybe November, December. He said he didn't want me to see him like that. I respected his wishes.”
Allie's stomach dropped. “Ms. Hayes, have you visited Arthur at St. John's at any point this year?”
“This year? Absolutely not.” Linda did not hesitate. “I haven't been back to that hospital for two years, like I said. I moved on with my life. I have a boyfriend now, Chester Shone. We've been together about eight months.” She paused. “Why? What is this about?”
“I’m afraid I can't go into specifics right now, but I appreciate your time and your willingness to answer my questions. If I need to follow up, would you be available?”
“Of course.” Her voice sounded tenuous now. “Whatever you need.”
Finishing the call, Allie set the phone down and looked at the faces around the table. Jason's brow was knitted into a frown. Marze hadn’t moved.
“That was Pym's former girlfriend,” Allie said. “She says she hasn't seen him or spoken to him in years. She hasn’t set foot in St. John's at all this year.”
Jason puffed out a long, frustrated breath. “But what about the visitor logs?”
“I know we have to confirm everything she said, but my gut is telling me someone else has been visiting Pym using her name,” Allie said.
“All we really know is a woman with blonde hair signed in on multiple occasions this year. Whoever she is, she had access to Pym during the months he was planning these murders.” She looked at Marze.
“We need to find out who she really is.”
He rubbed his hand across his mustache. “So Pym is dead,” he said, “and we still don't know who was pulling his strings.”
“No,” Allie said. “We don't.”
The case wasn't closed yet.