Page 28 of So Sinister
“Have you obtained a confession?”
“Are people safe?”
“Agent Bold, a comment, please!”
Once they were in the car, Faith started the motor.She spun the rear tires as she reversed out of the space, then spun them again as she weaved around the reporters flooding the street and sped off down the road.
“Fuck, man,” Craig whined.“I’m gonna lose my job.”
“We can offer protective custody if you—”
“Fuck you!This isyourfault!You damned assholes!I’m suing you.I’m suing theshitout of you.You just ruined my life.Happy?Fuck!”
He slammed his hand against Faith’s headrest when he said that, and Jessica snapped, “Hey!Calm down!”
Turk, in the front seat so Jessica could sit in the back with Craig, whined softly.Craig chuckled bitterly and rubbed his eyes.“Fuck.”
Faith couldn’t agree more.
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’rethe 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 onyourend 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, youbitch,” 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.Withoutour permission.”
Bridgette actuallyhadbeen 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.”
