Seven Silent Men (56 page)

“Billy, this is Captain Frank Santi.” Strom made the introduction in the library of his grand house, where FBI families and friends were gathering after the funeral for their own commemorative dinner. With Santi and Strom and Yates in the room was Corticun. “Captain Santi will be helping us out with the homicide. I just wanted to go over a few points on the report you made out. You said that Brew called you from downstairs just before he was murdered, is that right?”

“Yes, from the phone booth in the lobby.”

“Why didn't he come upstairs to talk to you?”

“He said he was in a hurry. I had that in the report.”

“I know you did, Billy. And we're trying to get the whole matter in perspective for ourselves. Was it usual for Brew to use your car?”

“He was lazy about putting gas in his car.” Billy was stating a partial truth. “Sometimes when he didn't want to bother gassing up his own car he'd use mine … whether he was in a hurry or not.”

“In the phone conversation, did he say where he was going?”

“No, I told you he didn't.”

“Do you have any idea where he was going?”

“No, sir, I don't.”

“Do you have any idea if it was Romor 91 business?”

“Everything we did was Romor 91,” Yates said.

“And after the call you went to the window to watch Brew?”

“Yes.”

“For any particular reason?”

“To see if he found my car.”

“But you said he had used your car before.”

“He had, but there's five hundred cars in that parking lot and most of ours look the same.”

“Can you describe for us what happened in the lot?”

“I didn't tell Brew where my car was parked, but he knows I usually leave it in the same place, over near the west exit. He walked in that direction and found it. He opened the door, and the van came by and opened fire.”

“… You saw him walking into the lot.”

“And right on across it to my car. My car was parked on the opposite side from where he entered the lot.”

“While he was walking across the lot, were you able to see much of him? See his entire body or only part of him?”

“Most of the time I could see all of him.”

“Was he carrying anything, Billy?”

Yates reflected. “Not that I noticed.”

“No briefcase? No papers?”

“No.”

“Is it possible, when part of his body was obscured from your view, that he could have been carrying something and that he put it in another car before getting to your car?”

“I saw him cross the street before he went into the parking lot. He didn't have anything with him.”

“I don't know if you're aware of this or not, Billy, but files are missing from the office. We think maybe there's a connection with that and Brew's murder.”

“No, I didn't know.”

Strom looked at Frank Santi. “Chief, do you have any questions?”

“Mister Yates, first I want to tell you the police will do everything we can on this. I understand you were particularly close to Mister Brewmeister, and we won't let you down.”

Yates thanked him.

“You said in your report that you saw a door panel slide open in the truck and a submachine gun stick out and fire, is that right?”

“That's reverse order,” Billy replied. “I saw Brew open the door of my car. He was slightly bent over from leaning down for the handle. The next thing I know he'd spun around and was standing straight up with his back against the car and his hands semi-outstretched. It took me a moment to realize he was being hit by bullets. That's when I looked over and saw the panel truck … saw that a machine gun was poking out through a missing panel in the truck and firing.”

“You said the gun looked like a De Lisle silent carbine?”

“I don't know foreign-made weapons all that well. But from the illustrations we have in the office, the gun being fired at Brew looked like a De Lisle silent carbine.”

“That's a pretty esoteric kind of weapon to make a hit with, wouldn't you think? Sort of a collector's item? Last time I heard of the British Army using the De Lisle was in 1960.”

“I don't know much about the British Army.”

“They told me you're the man around here who knows everything.”

“Up to a point,” Billy said.

“Mister Yates, after the panel truck quit firing at Brewmeister, what happened?”

“Brew slid down the side of my car. Slid from view. The panel truck drove out the exit and on up the ramp to the superhighway.”

“How close was your car parked to that exit?”

“Four or five cars away.”

“Do you think the panel truck was waiting for you instead of Brewmeister?”

Yates shrugged.

“I mean, if Mister Brewmeister called and asked to use your car on the spur of the moment, how could the panel truck know where he was going? If the panel truck had been following him for some time and, let's say, followed him to the office building and waited for him to come out and saw him walk across the street into the parking lot, the truck could have entered the lot right there opposite the building. The truck could have shot him down anywhere along the way, instead of waiting until he was on the opposite side of the area and only five cars away from an exit. It seems more plausible that the truck was already parked inside the lot and was staking out your car … was waiting for someone to go to your car so they could shoot them down. Mister Yates, is there any reason you know of why someone would want to kill you?”

“No.”

Frank Santi told Strom and Corticun, “I have no more questions.”

“Could we have a few minutes alone with Yates?” asked Strom.

Santi complied, left the room to join the other guests.

“Billy, where were you just before Brew was killed?”

“Visiting a friend.”

“A sick friend?”

“Not feeling too well,” Yates said.

Corticun spoke for the first time. “What friend? Where?”

“You don't have to tell us if you don't want to, Billy,” Strom said.

“Of course he has to tell us,” Corticun insisted. “He was away without permission, he said so in his report. He'll tell us—”

“Only if he wants to.” Strom was firm. “Well, Billy, what about it?”

“I drove east to see what sort of shape a friend of mine was in. He was okay, but I'd rather not say who it was.”

“So be it,” Strom said. “Billy, were you and Brew up to anything that needed files?”

“I didn't need files. I can't speak for Brew.”

“But Brew and you still believed Mule and his crowd, not Otto Pinkny, were responsible for Mormon State?”

“Yes.”

“Is it possible, without your knowing it, Brew might have taken some files to check on something?”

“If he did, I didn't know about it.”

“All right, is it possible Brew took files for another reason?”

“Such as?”

“Possibly to give to someone?”

“Why?”

“For money?”

“Brew sell out? Come
on
.”

“Maybe to leak to the press,” Corticun suggested. “To try to discredit Otto Pinkny.”

“I've thought of doing that, but I doubt if Brew would,” Yates told them.

“Billy,” Strom began, “we haven't told you this before, but someone raided the twelfth-floor files. Hundreds of pages are missing. Brew was seen at those files not long before you received that call from him. I ask you again, do you have any idea what he was up to? Where he was going?”

“He didn't tell me.”

“Is there anything you have to say?”

“There is something, but it's not what you want to hear.”

“Speak up.”

“I feel foolish having bodyguards. I don't need them.”

Strom looked at Corticun, who frowned. “As you wish, Billy, no bodyguards. Thank you for your time.”

Yates left. Chief Frank Santi came back in. Corticun went to the door and ushered in Jessup.

“I think you know Chief Santi, Jez,” Strom said. “The chief is helping us with Brew's murder. We'd like to go over your statement, informally of course.”

Jake Hagland was the senior supervising engineer at the telephone company. A native Prairie Portian, he had gone to high school with Brewmeister and remained a close friend. In the past Hagland had usually resisted Brew's rare requests for illegal telephone taps. On the one or two occasions he had complied, it was with the greatest reluctance. After listening to Billy Yates tell him Brew's final words, Hagland wasted little time in driving to the outdoor phone booth near Mule's ranch in a company truck. The eavesdropping system he installed was ingenious. Not only would tape recorders pick up everything said and heard in the booth, and a slowdown counter indicate just what numbers were being dialed by Mule, but Hagland also rigged it so the tap could be monitored at both his home and Yates's.

Yates's prime concern was the whereabouts of the missing files. Determining this meant tracing Brew's movements the last day of his life. Some things pointed to what these were … Yates knew from his long-distance phone call to Brew immediately after leaving Barrett Amory's home in Virginia that Brew was planning to check the files the next morning, when most of the agents would be away at the grand jury hearing. He was aware from the same call that after that Brew planned to go to Sparta, Illinois, and check on the interview Teddy Anglaterra's nephew Fred had given an FBI agent in September.

Yates, as a result of the phone call Brew made to him just before he was shot to death, knew that Brew believed he'd discovered the existence of the Silent Men, had stated, “You were right, they do exist. At least six of them. Probably a seventh. They were sitting right in front of us all the time …” The very last thing Brew had said in that conversation, the very last words Brew ever spoke, for that matter, was that he was going to “Emoryville … to put the last nail in the coffin.” Clearly, Yates decided, Brew had discovered something regarding the Silent Men in the files.

Brew, of course, never did make it to Emoryville, but Yates knew Emoryville was where eleven people had provided alibis for Mule, Rat Ragotsy and Wiggles Loftus. Billy had no doubt that Brew was certain he could discredit those witnesses. Billy was equally sure Brew had raided the files to some degree the morning of his death and then gone to see Fred Anglaterra. This was confirmed by Yates's phone call to Sparta, Illinois. A surly Fred Anglaterra said that yes, Brew had been to see him that day. That yes, he seemed to have some sort of file folder with him, or at least he knew pretty well everything Fred had told another FBI agent. Fred Anglaterra recalled that Brew had arrived at his home at about ten forty-five and had left within half an hour. Since the drive from Prairie Port to Sparta took just under forty minutes, Yates concluded that Brew had left Prairie Port to talk to Anglaterra at approximately 10
A
.
M
. and was back in the city at least by noon. But Brew hadn't called him until shortly after 5
P
.
M
.

Where Brew had been between noon and five gnawed at Billy, generated an endless series of scenarios. He doubted that Brew had yet discovered the existence and number of the Silent Men immediately on his return from Sparta. If he had he wouldn't have waited until five o'clock to drive to Emoryville “to put the last nail in the coffin.” Other steps must have occurred … possibly another interview or recheck. Maybe several. And something must have been discovered at these that made Brew hurry back to the office and loot the file … loot it just before he phoned Billy from the lobby … just before he was gunned down. Strom had said that immediately before his death Brew had been seen at the twelfth-floor files. Most probably, Yates decided, Brew had visited the files twice … early in the morning to take out the few pages relating to the interview with Teddy Anglaterra's nephew … then later, after a discovery he made in rechecks or interviews.

There were two questions for Yates. First, what sort of Linkage had Brew established that would make him go back to the files and remove, as Strom had said, “hundreds of pages”? Second, what became of those hundreds of pages? Where could Brew have put them in the short period between being seen leaving the twelfth-floor file room and appearing on the street in front of the parking lot carrying nothing?

He was certain Strom and Corticun had searched the twelfth-and eleventh-floor offices and found nothing. Searched the lobby and whole building and Brew's car as well. Yates tried to think it out but couldn't.

Alice drove through the wide metal gate and up the dirt road. It was the third time in as many days she had returned to the site of her rape and degradation. She had no real choice. Obligation and terror had overcome her reason and pain. She had sworn to Edgar to do as he ordered. Edgar had sworn he'd protect Strom. She forgot from what.

Alice parked and entered the lodge without knocking. “You must let me go home earlier today.” She was already weeping. “My husband may start asking why I'm getting home so late. He'll find out if—”

Mule slapped her.

She stifled a cry and began undressing.

Chiming persisted. Tina Beth Yates, with choice southern epithets, wrapped her wet hair in a towel, threw on a terry-cloth robe and bounded downstairs, shouting out to hold on, she was coming. Still shouting, she pulled open the door.

J. Edgar Hoover, standing in the bright morning sunshine, removed his hat and introduced himself and asked if he might come in for tea. No car could be seen in the driveway or street beyond. No aides or other persons visible.

“Tea?” Tina Beth numbly repeated.

“If not tea, good woman, then coffee or beer or nothing at all except fine company and crisp conversation. I am told you are crisply conversational?”