Deviations (14 page)

Would this get me fired again? Almost certainly.
Would it get me killed? Quite possibly. Would it help me figure out what the
hell happened to Dolores Weston? Perhaps. In other words, a no-brainer. I
removed the paper clip holding the incriminating emails and slid them across
the table to Professor Fredericks.

He sighed, pulled his reading glasses out from his
inside jacket pocket, placed them low on his nose, and began to read. We watched
him carefully to get an idea of what was going through his mind. But he showed
us nothing. He read through one email and set it off to the side, then another,
then the third. He turned the pile back over, then pointed to the paper clip,
which I slid across the table. He clipped the sheets, rotated them one-eighty,
and slid them across the table to me. He traced his mustache with this index
finger and thumb, then, tenting his fingers beneath his chin, looked at me.

“Well?” I said.

He paused. “I’m sorry, Detective, is that a
question?”

I counted to five. “I guess my question would be,
since you said you haven’t corresponded with anyone from the patriot movement
about any unlawful operations, and since these emails show that you have—I’m
wondering if you have anything to say to us.”

“I have only one response: the emails are fake. I
did not receive those emails addressed to me, and I did not write the email sent
from my account. I do not know who that person is.”

“That person BC,” I said. “That’s not Benjamin
Connors?”

“Detective, give me your full attention and concentrate:
I did not write or receive those emails. I have no idea who that person BC is.
Therefore, I cannot tell you whether that person BC is Benjamin Connors. For
all I know, it could be Butch Cassidy.”

“You understand this puts us in a kind of
difficult position, Professor Fredericks, what with you telling us one thing
and these pieces of paper saying the opposite.”

“I do see that, Detective. But try to look at this
situation from my point of view. I know the truth. I know what I have done, and
what I have not done. You, on the other hand, do not. You are working from
fabricated evidence, which you appear to believe is legitimate. I do not know
how persuasive that evidence would be to a prosecutor. However, I suspect I will
soon find out. And if you choose to prosecute me or take any other action
against me, I will of course retain an attorney and fight vigorously to protect
my reputation and maintain my freedom.

“One thing I have learned,” Fredericks added, “in
my many years studying the Nazi era, is that evidence can be fabricated to
support any claim. Detective Miner, perhaps you can tell me the source of ‘A
lie told often enough becomes the truth’?”

“Lenin?”

“Very good, Detective. That quotation is variously
attributed to Lenin, to Goebbels, who was the Nazi minister of propaganda, and
to Hitler himself. I myself favor Goebbels; it has the rhythm, the lilt of his
speech. But regardless of the original author, the sentiment is certainly true.
If you act on the basis of these emails, two events will inevitably follow.
First, the allegation will become public, and I will be fired, my career destroyed.
Second, I will be murdered by the very people with whom you accuse me of
conspiring.”

“Who would those people be, Professor?” I said. “You
need to give us something to work with.”

“The names of the particular people are
irrelevant. I do not know, Detective, which person or persons will kill me. I
do know, however, that a breach of security of this magnitude would be viewed
by the patriot leaders as catastrophic. Even though they would know the charges
are false—because these emails are fabricated—they would be forced to eliminate
me.”

“Why exactly is that, Professor?” I said.

“For one thing, failing to eliminate me would be
seen as an unacceptable loss of face. The patriot movement, like any
paramilitary movement, is built on discipline and obedience; failing to take
appropriate action following a revelation like this would send precisely the
wrong message about the importance of loyalty. For another, certain patriot leaders
would need to eliminate me because, although I am innocent of those charges,
they would fear that I might seek to enhance my own legal position by revealing
information about them that might embarrass them or implicate them in other crimes—regardless
of whether that information is true.”

“In other words, Professor, you’re trying to bully
us here. If we act on this evidence, you’ll be ruined, then killed. Therefore,
we can’t act on this evidence. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I am not telling you anything, Detective. I am
making a simple statement of fact. If you use this bogus evidence against me,
it will destroy me and then kill me.”

“So what are you asking me to do?”

“I am asking you to do one thing. Think about what
I am saying. Understand the implications of your actions. Act mindfully.”

Chapter 13

Nick said, “What’d you get
from him?”

Apparently, he hadn’t watched the interview on the
CCTV. “He admitted to receiving spam email from the patriot groups,” I said,
“but the three emails about operations—you know, the ones you highlighted in
red?—they’re phony.”

“Damn,” Nick said. “I was hoping we could get away
without showing him those emails.” We were standing in his office. He didn’t
invite us to sit.

“Yeah, I know that,” I said. “But he was real
obnoxious about receiving the spam email from the patriot groups. I wanted to
see his reaction to the incriminating emails.”

Ryan said, “We agreed we needed to see his
reaction because he was almost bragging about how he was on their mailing
lists. Like that made him a real player. Plus, we could see he thought that’s
all we had on him—he was acting like we were going to terminate the interview
then and thank him.”

“Interesting.” Nick flashed his bright but very
brief smile. “So the incriminating ones were phony?” He shook his head, like that
was one he hadn’t heard before.

“Phony,” Ryan said, “as in, we made them up. They
never happened.”

“Wow,” Nick said. “Could you get a read on him as
he was talking?”

“It surprised me,” I said. “I was expecting some
kind of a reaction. But he just read them, like he was reading a newspaper or
an article or something. He read one sheet, turned the page, read the next one.
I didn’t see an expression on his face. Did you, Ryan?”

“No, I thought he’d either flip out or give us one
of his little smiles.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s got a little smile that he
uses right before he tells you something that shows he’s smarter than you. Then
there’s this Mona Lisa he uses without saying anything. He does that one when
he wants you to know he’s deliberately withholding information you want.”

“What was his demeanor during the rest of the
interview?”

“He started out pissed when we brought him in” I
said. “The interview room spooked him, but once we started talking he calmed
down a little. When he was talking about his own writing he was fine, you know,
in command, which he likes. That was why we were a little confused when he
didn’t react while he was looking at the emails.”

“Did he say anything after he read them?”

“Yeah, like I said, he just read them, so then I
asked him ‘Well?’ You know, so he can comment, and he gives me some attitude
how that’s not really a question—”

“Which probably shows he’s a little scared,” Nick
said.

“I guess. But when he starts talking, he’s under
control, like he’s telling a kid what he has to do to get a B in the course, or
whatever. He says if we try to force him to divulge the name of this guy BC, that
will get out to the university and they’ll fire him, and then the patriots will
kill him.”

“He does sound a little scared.” Nick paused, just
sitting there, looking down at his desk, resting his chin on his tented
fingers.

I gave him a few seconds. “We wanted to get your
thinking on this. I assume you and the chief are gonna bring the emails to the prosecutor
to force him to give up BC?”

Nick didn’t say anything right away. “Did you get
the sense that he knew we were going to get those emails and he’d already had a
chance to think about what the implications would be?”

Ryan said, “I couldn’t really tell. Like I said, he
seemed like he thought we were done after telling him that we knew he was
getting spammed by the patriots. But—maybe it’s just me—I sensed he was
surprised when we showed him the emails, even though he didn’t seem to react.
And his imagination started to get away from him, with how he’d be fired and
then killed.”

“This isn’t making any sense,” I said. “He knows
we’ve got the spam emails from his university account. How can he not know we’re
gonna find the incriminating emails, too?”

Nick said, “If criminals thought everything out
and acted logically all the time, they wouldn’t get caught. You never know: he
might have thought those emails were on a different account, or he could have
forgotten about them because he’d erased them. It could be anything.”

I wanted an answer to my question about what we’re
going to do next. “So, Nick, we gonna tell the university that we’re bringing
the emails to the prosecutor?”

“I think we have to. As a courtesy. Not right
away, when we talk informally with the federal prosecutor. But as soon as he tells
us he’s going to authorize it, yes, I think we have to tell them. At that
point, it’ll become a matter of public record. If we don’t tell the university,
word can get out, and that would put the university in a bad spot, being
ambushed like that.”

“What do you think about what he said—that he’d be
fired, then he’d be killed?”

Nick said, “I see that like Ryan does. He was
getting scared, just talking.”

“You don’t see him getting fired? You don’t see
the patriots taking him out?”

“Let me talk it over with the chief. My hunch is
that the university isn’t going to take any action until they’ve got more to go
on. They don’t want to be seen as panicking and infringing on his rights, you
know, academic freedom and all that. If he turns around one day and admits he’s
working with the patriots, then the university has to cut him loose. But that
the police or the feds are leaning on him to give up BC? No, I don’t see the
university acting on that. He’ll claim he’s protecting his sources, and the
university will go along with that. The prosecutor doesn’t need to reveal the
exact nature of those emails. I think Fredericks will be fine—assuming, of
course, he’s innocent.”

“And when he says he thinks one of the patriot
groups will try to hit him?”

“They might find out we’re trying to lean on him
to get some kind of information, but I think they understand that if they hit
him there’s going be two dozen FBI guys and a special-ops team down here the
next day. That’s a hornet’s nest I don’t think they want to disturb.”

“Fredericks argued that the patriots would be
afraid he had some incriminating information on them that he’d try to use in
dealing down on a sentence.”

“Well,” Nick said, “if he’s got anything to deal,
then he should be afraid. If he doesn’t, they’ll know that and just lay low
until it blows over.”

“Can the feds offer him some protection?” I said.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “I think we could offer him
protective custody if he asks for it or if he gives up some intel that puts him
at risk. But he can’t have it both ways. If he wants help staying alive, he’s
got to give us something in return. He can’t say he’s a misunderstood professor
and, by the way, these bad people are going to kill him.”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I don’t like
it.”

“What don’t you like?” Nick said.

“I buy everything you say about how the university’s
gonna sit tight until us or the feds are done leaning on him, assuming the
prosecutor agrees to lean on him in the first place—”

“That’s right: this whole thing might never
materialize. The prosecutor might decide not to pursue it. After all, there’s
no actionable evidence in those emails that Fredericks was involved in any
crime, and they might see him as having free-speech rights or journalistic
protection. Fredericks’ lawyer might argue that Fredericks is just a wannabe
who gets off on pretending to be buddies with these guys.”

“Still,” I said, “let’s say the prosecutor decides
to pursue it, and we tell the university—then we’ve lost control of the story.
You can never predict what’s gonna happen. For all we know, the university
might be pressured by some legislators who are all hot to show how much they
loved Dolores Weston, and we have a responsibility to track down her killer, and
we won’t tolerate hate, blah blah. Or some students could get wind of it—hell,
Fredericks himself is the faculty adviser to the gay organization on
campus—they could want to spin it that the university or the police or the feds
or somebody is persecuting Fredericks because he’s gay, so they publicize it.
Then, the legislature gets into it with the university. Shit, there’s a dozen
ways this thing could blow up and cost Fredericks his job, and then he’s gotta
worry about a bunch of pissed-off patriots who’ve got more guns than brains.”

“What are you proposing we do, Karen?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just saying I don’t
like it.”

“You know what I don’t like?” Nick said. I looked at
him, inviting his answer. “I don’t like what someone did to Dolores Weston.”

* * * *

“How about a different
strategy?” I said.

“Such as?” Ryan was tapping out a rhythm on his
desk with his pencil.

“Well, we could fart around for a while trying to
get Fredericks to tell us who this BC guy is, but I’m not sure we’re gonna get
anyplace with that.”

“Why not?” Ryan said. “Fredericks is scared, he
wants to protect himself.”

“Yeah, but he’s probably meeting with an attorney
right now, going over what the emails said. The attorney is telling him just
what Nick said: you didn’t implicate yourself. You were just playing along with
BC, trying to get his trust, making him think you’re powerful in the movement.
It’s all part of your research, etc.”

“But if the prosecutor goes to the university,
they’re going to be more motivated to find out whether they’ve got some kind of
neo-Nazi sympathizer on their faculty. They’re motivated to lean on Fredericks,
right?”

“The way I read that attorney,” I said, “the main
thing that motivates her is to make sure nothing hurts the university. Hard to
say how that’s gonna make her act. If we’re coming after a professor, her
instinct will be to protect him—which is how she acted when we first brought up
a possible link between Fredericks and a crime. Besides, she’s a lawyer, the
prosecutor’s a lawyer. You never know what kind of shit’s gonna ooze out under
the door when you put the two of them in a room together. All we know, they
both might decide to go slow, hope something else turns up—some forensics or a
new suspect or something—so they don’t have to get into a fight about a
professor.”

“Okay,” Ryan said. “So what’s your idea?”

“A Hail Mary pass. The emails talked about how
Fredericks has a bunch of guys available in case BC needs some muscle. Chances
are BC is associated with the Montana Patriot Front, right?”

“A definite maybe on that.”

“I don’t see Fredericks chartering a bus to
transport a bunch of morons across country. He’s sending them out to Lake
Hollow in their pickups.”

“So we look at Lake Hollow, you’re saying?”

“Sure, why not?” I said.

“Well, main thing is, it’s out of our
jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, I know, and we don’t have any evidence that
anyone from Lake Hollow is tied in with Dolores Weston. But who says we have to
go out there like they’re suspects? We just go up to—what’s his name,
Christopher Barry?—”

“The Reverend Christopher Barry, please.”

“Yeah, sorry. We go up to the shithead and give
him a heads-up we’re looking at a crime took place here in Rawlings. We don’t
mention Dolores Weston, just that someone’s been putting racist flyers with
1488 on them on cars at the mall, and we’re interested in getting his views on
what that might mean. We look at his reaction.”

“He’s not going to believe the department’s
sending two detectives out for a day to talk about flyers.”

“I know that,” I said. “But it’ll give us a chance
to look around, see if anything jumps out at us, and send him a signal we’re
thinking about his organization.”

“If BC is part of his group, Christopher Barry
might reach out to him, and he might contact Fredericks.”

“Sure. We spend all our time trying to work
through the university to get to a professor,” I said, “who knows what other
shit this BC guy could be up to right now? If BC hits someone else here in
Rawlings, and all we’ve got to show is that we’ve been interviewing the
professor, could look like we’re not really being all that proactive.”

“Want to run it by Nick?”

* * * *

“Chief, we’re trying to
reach Nick about the Weston case. I can’t get him on his cell. He tell you
where he is?”

The chief looked up from his desk, then checked
his watch. “Nick’s out on an assignment.”

“Any way we can reach him? We wanted to get his
okay on another way to get to this guy BC while we think about bringing it to
the prosecutor.”

“Nick could be gone for a day or two. Maybe I can
help you with it?”

“Okay,” I said. The chief was into Almost Answers.
You’d ask him a direct question, he’d almost answer it. You ask, You ever go fishing,
Chief? He’d say, I enjoy many sports. “I don’t know how close you’re following
the Weston case, but we’ve got some emails between this Willson Fredericks and
somebody named BC, who appears to be a low-level patriot thug. They’re talking
about operations.”

“Yes, Nick’s kept me apprised.”

“Okay. Fredericks is denying that he wrote those emails,
so one option is to get the federal prosecutor to force him to tell us who this
BC is.”

“I’m working on setting up a meeting with the
prosecutor. What’s your other way to get to BC that you want to talk to Nick
about?”

Ryan said, “We’re thinking that whoever BC is,
he’s probably nearby. We thought we’d go out to Lake Hollow and talk with the
guy who runs the Montana Patriot Front.”

The chief shifted in his chair. “You have anything
points to Christopher Barry being involved in the Weston case?”

I was surprised that he knew Barry’s name. Nick really
was keeping the chief up-to-date. “No,” I said. “But if we just went out there
to talk with Barry, shake his tree a little, who knows what might fall off?”

The chief frowned, shaking his head. “No, too
risky.”