Sweet land stories - E. L. Doctorow [51]
Felsheimer, on his second beer, recalled the conversation:
So you’re saying there was nothing in the Rose Garden?
No, I didn’t say that, Commander Felsheimer. What it was, was an animal.
An animal?
Yes. A raccoon. FBI did the tests. It died of rabies. It just came in there to die.
We don’t see much rabies in Federal City.
Well, you live and learn. Just to be safe, we had the First Dog tested, checked the kids of staff, and so on. Negativo problems. It just wandered in and died. End of story.
So, Brian, Felsheimer said to Agent Molloy after a pause. Am I wrong to put two and two together? Is that why the FBI is into missing-persons work now? You’re looking to make an I.D. on a dead kid?
Molloy thought awhile. Then he nodded yes.
And the kid was found where the letter said?
Molloy said: John, for both our sakes, I have to ask for your word. This is a classified matter.
Felsheimer drew another letter from his pocket. Of course you have my word, Brian. But you may be glad you leveled with me. Here’s a letter that came this morning addressed to the district commander, meaning me. When I heard you were running the show, I knew better than to go back to the White House.
This letter text was exactly the same as the first. Computer-printed, Times Roman, fourteen-point. And unsigned. But unlike the first letter, it had come through the mail. And the envelope had a Houston postmark.
MOLLOY DID NOT blame himself for assuming, from the lab report of time of death—forty-eight to sixty hours before the body was examined—that the child had lived and been treated in D.C. or Virginia or Maryland. He put in a call to the chief of the FBI field office in Houston, whom he had known since their days as agent trainees, and asked for the complete paid obituary notices in all the Texas papers for the month of May. And throw in Louisiana, Molloy said.
Naturally, knowing you, the chief said, I’m to put this at the top of my things-to-do list.
You got that right, Molloy said.
He called his secretary into his office and told her to run the National Arts and Humanities Awards guest roster through the computer to tag all names with Texas addresses. The names as of today? she said. It’s down to under a hundred. The original list, Molloy told her.
He sat back in his chair and considered the mind of the person or persons he was dealing with. They had wanted it made public. Why then had the press not been tipped off? Why wasn’t it now a rumor flying all over the Internet? Only a note delivered to a district station and, upon a lack of response, a note mailed, this time almost as a reminder to the district commander? How peculiar to rely on authority when authority is what had been subverted. But there was something else, something else . . . a presumption that a line could be drawn between those powers who might be trustworthy, like local police, and those who were thought not to be, like himself. It did not square with the boldness of this bizarre act that the person who committed it had a hopeful regard for the law. Molloy had from the beginning theorized that he was dealing with eco-terrorists. But he had now the scintillating sense of a presiding amateurism in the affair.
IT WAS TIME for a meeting with the White House liaison, Peter Herrick. Molloy found a balding blond young man who wore Turnbull & Asser shirts with french cuffs. Herrick had been a hotshot regional director in the last campaign, a President’s man. Molloy had seen his like over the years. They came and went but, as if it were a genetic thing, always managed a degree of condescension for federal employees putting in their time.
You heard from John Felsheimer, Molloy said.
Who?
D.C. police. You took a piece of evidence from him.
I suppose so.
I’ll have it now, Molloy said.
Just sit down, Agent Molloy. There are things you don’t know.
Withholding evidence is a chargeable offense,