Full Disclosure

  “We’ll meet you there. We’ll use the secure conference room for the interview.”

  Paul considered the lady at the table and how the next several days of conversation were going to unfold. “Sam,” he said quietly, “I want ten to twenty minutes of conversation here first. Tell folks to settle in where they are at.”

  He crossed over to the table and rested his hand on the back of the chair the VP had used. “May I ask you a question, Linda?”

  She nodded.

  “How close did I ever get?”

  She gave a small smile. “We shook hands once, when you were investigating Brett Larson’s murder. I’d heard rumors you were looking for a woman, and I was curious how much you knew about me. I was afraid I had been seen and you might have a good sketch, but you only had a general description. I was introduced as a witness who had seen someone coming down the outside stairs and getting into a dark blue or black sedan parked at the corner. I gave you good information, pointed out the shooting perch, pointed out where I had parked, gave a general description that was accurate as far as it went. You said thank you, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t in cuffs right then. That was the day I began to think about retiring.”

  He pulled the chair toward the table and sat down. He tried to get accustomed to looking at her face, so damaged and yet put back together. In the end, he simply held her gaze. “Why did you come in?”

  “It was time for the truth to come out. The murders are done, I can’t change that. But some of the secrets I carry around need to be told.”

  “Will you help with the trials and testify to what you did?”

  “Yes. There are file boxes in my car for you. I followed the person who I had been hired to kill, I took photos, and I made sketches of my plans. And I took photos of the person who had hired me. I wanted to know the true motive for the murder, not just what they said on the tape. So I would watch, and follow, and in most cases I would see what they were really hiding. People with power kill for a lot of reasons, but money and sex and eliminating business competitors were common grounds.”

  “Thank you for keeping that evidence.”

  “It was my protection and insurance, just like the tapes.”

  “Your weapon?”

  “Destroyed, in pieces in several different rivers.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “This final tape, this final request, convinced me to retire.”

  “Is there any medication you take regularly that I can arrange for you?”

  “Thank you for asking. Tylenol. I could use a couple in another hour. I tried very hard to kill myself. I flinched.”

  “I’m glad you lived.”

  “I didn’t plan to.” She straightened up in the chair, just a bit. “I have a daughter now, and a husband—the surgeon who put my face back together. I would like to be able to speak with them every few months, to see them once or twice a year.”

  “If the tape is what you’ve described, you’ll find witness protection and house arrest is tight but not a prison. They’ll be able to visit you.”

  “That was the hardest part of the decision. Knowing I might never see them again.”

  “Do they know you are here?”

  “No. I told him who I was before we were married. I told him I would turn myself in when I found the courage to do so. And I told him last Christmas this was the year I would find the courage to do so. We’ve spent the year saying goodbye. The death of Gordon Whitcliff, your interviews, was simply a reason to begin seeing what might be possible in a deal, and the arrests you made provided a reason to conclude it. I know people want me dead before I can testify. I didn’t want to put my daughter, my husband, at risk. I left them before I sent you the first tapes.”

  “When we get to the FBI office,” Paul told her, “we will talk about this last tape. Then you’ll be taken to a secure house within the city to settle in. You’ll be fitted with an ankle bracelet and allowed to move around the house as you like. We’ll talk for a few hours every day and go through the material you have, that I have, until the record for these murders is complete.”

  “My memory was not affected by this trauma,” she said, motioning toward her face. “As much as I wish the memories were no longer in my mind, they are sharp and clear. I’ll take you through what I know. I’m aware I’m getting what I don’t deserve in exchange for the truth. I know justice would be life in prison or death row.”

  “We were prepared to have you remain a shadow out there, never caught. We accept that the deal you arranged was a necessary fact, and we’ll honor it. The trials for the thirty people arrested will begin in roughly six months and likely stretch out over five to seven years, depending on the appeals. You’ll be moved to a new safe house every six months or so, depending on the risks observed. Tonight we are going to walk out of here, take the elevator to the lower level, and leave the hospital in an ambulance.”

  “My rental car is in lot B, slot thirty-nine. The boxes for you are in the trunk.”

  “I’ll have them brought in.” Paul rose. “Sam.”

  He gave word they were moving.

  “This way, Linda.”

  They gathered in the secure conference room.

  Paul removed the cuffs once Linda was seated at the center table and brought over a bottle of water, along with a couple of Tylenol. He pulled out a chair across from her.

  The VP took a chair at the table.

  Arthur, the director, Tori, Sam, Rita, and Ann took seats behind them, with Reece standing to one side. Paul wanted the people who knew the case to be present. He wanted the decision-makers to get their own perspectives firsthand.

  Paul turned on a recorder, gave the place and time and names of those present. “This interview with Linda Smythe is regarding tape thirty-one. Sir, you have the floor.”

  “The legal matters are in order,” the VP began. “If there is a confession and a guilty plea from the person on the tape, or a successful prosecution, Linda receives witness protection for life and house arrest for thirty years. I have a signed copy of the agreement, plus the tape in question. For the record, it’s labeled thirty-one and I am giving it to Agent Falcon.”

  Paul took it and saw it was different than the thirty tapes he had received from her so far. The middleman hadn’t made this one. He set it beside the tape recorder he had brought in, keeping his attention on Linda. She was trying hard to keep her courage together. “Why don’t you tell me, Linda, what I’m going to hear on this tape.”

  She met his gaze, and held it. “The vice president hired me to kill his chief of staff.”

  Paul heard a chair crash behind him but ignored the chaos that erupted in the room. He kept his gaze on Linda. She had been carrying a secret so heavy it made her risk capture just to be free of it. The VP had hired her to kill his chief of staff. Paul felt a muscle in his jaw spasm. Ann’s heart must be breaking right now.

  Paul looked over at the VP. Gannett laid another piece of paper on the table, took out his pen, and signed it. “Her deal requires a confession and a guilty plea from the person on the tape. I offer that signed confession. I hired Linda Smythe to kill my chief of staff.”

  “Sam, throw out anyone in this room that can’t shut up, then get me a couple of those Tylenol.” Paul felt the tick start around his left eye. “You need legal counsel, sir. Before I take your statement, and before this proceeds.”

  “I waive legal counsel. I wish to put a statement on the record at this time.”

  Paul leaned back in his chair, considering the man, the office he had held, and made a decision. “Ann?”

  “The only two people who know what happened are sitting at the table. From his view of a greater good, he could probably kill if it was necessary. Based on what I see, he’s not lying.” Ann had found her composure, but he’d never heard that kind of ice in her voice before.

  “I’ll take your statement for the record, sir.”

  “I discovered while writing my autobiograph
y that people associated with my campaign were dead, and I traced their deaths to my chief of staff. He was my friend, working for and with me, while he was murdering eighteen people. I saw him on the days before and after his murders, and I did not put it together in time to save their lives. I figured it out on July twenty-second, 2003. I couldn’t prove he was the murderer in a court of law, but I knew it.

  “I decided to confront him with what I knew and what I suspected while we were boating together out at sea. If he was a serial killer, I was not going to return to land with him. I was going to kill him myself and dump him at sea. But I knew it would be too easy for it to go wrong. So I hired someone with a solid reputation for killing their target. I hired Linda. I’ll tell you later how I found her.

  “I would take the chief of staff boating with me. I would confront him. If he was the killer, I would sail for the open sea. If we went past the break wall, she would kill him and it would look like an attempted assassination of me that had hit the wrong person. If I confronted him, and he convinced me it wasn’t him, I would stay in the cove and return to land, and she would walk away and retire.

  “I had followed the lady shooter case, and I knew someone was arranging the murders. The middleman was one of the possible connections to her. I sent a note for him to deliver, and the lady shooter called me back. I met with Linda and laid out what I wanted her to do and why. I paid her in full in advance. Whatever happened that day, whichever way it came out, she would walk away and retire. I arranged my security so I would be boating with the chief of staff alone. I arranged for security to be occupied so Linda could come and go after the shot was fired without being seen.

  “My chief of staff had his own plans, and he used the change in security as an opportunity to abduct me. Before I could sail past the break wall and have him shot, he had pulled a gun, turned us back to shore, and abducted me. He drove me to the cabin. He would kill me, then kill himself, and become the most famous serial killer in the world.

  “The chapter in the autobiography on the abduction is accurate in every detail from the point he pulled a gun on me in the boat. What you do not have is the chapter I’m now prepared to give you for my decision and arrangements made before that to kill the chief of staff.

  “The chapter regarding hiring Linda is my full confession and detailed account of what I did. I kept the evidence—the bank account withdrawals for the money I paid her, my tape of our meeting, for we agreed to both tape the conversation—another three tapes I made at the time, recording what I was going to do and why. All of it is in my second office safe, the one in the floor under my desk.”

  “Why didn’t you turn him in?”

  “I was too infuriated at him not to kill him myself. I felt both duped as well as complicit in the deaths, because I hadn’t put together the pieces and seen who he was. He had murdered people, and I had called him my friend. I was guilty of being stupid. Pride and anger and fury were enough to decide I was going to kill him myself. I never had a second thought about that decision.”

  “Did you kill him, at the cabin?”

  “No. I wanted to. But his hand was on the gun, and he was trying to shoot the diary writer off his back. She caught his elbow, and he shot himself in the head. I was at the bottom of the pile with one hand on his throat and another gripping his hair, and the shot drove a piece of his skull bone into my hand.” He held up his hand to show the scar on his palm. “That’s my statement at this time.”

  “Who else knows what you did?”

  “No one. I told no one what I had discovered, what I suspected, what I was going to do. These were solely my actions, my decision.”

  “Linda, what do you have to add?”

  “I have it on videotape. The abduction at least.”

  The VP turned to her, surprised.

  “I saw the chief of staff pull a gun and turn the boat back to shore. I saw the VP get hit with something that put him on the ground. I saw the car they left in. There was a search for the VP and news there had been a boating accident. There was a tip line. I called in on the tip hotline to state I had seen the VP forced into a car, and I gave a partial license plate number. I don’t know if it was ever checked out. When the VP returned after the ‘boating accident,’ and the chief of staff was buried having died of a heart attack, I thought the VP had been able to overwhelm and kill him. We never spoke about it, never saw each other. My only contact with the VP was the one meeting when he hired me, and you will hear it on that tape.”

  “Why the video?”

  “I was using a wide-angle lens to capture the cove and the break wall. I wouldn’t be able to tell if I hit my target when it was bobbing around at sea. I’d practiced and it was simply impossible to be a hundred percent sure of a shot when I couldn’t predict the waves. The wide-angle video solved that. I would take the best shot I could, then run the tape back and look at what I’d actually hit, see if I needed to take a second shot. If necessary I was prepared to sabotage the boat and sink it and pick the chief of staff off in the water. I’d never taken a contract and not finished it, and it was a point of pride that the last job wouldn’t be my first failure.”

  “Where is the videotape?”

  “I mailed it to you today. It will arrive by courier in the morning.”

  “Did you plan your surrender with the VP?”

  “The VP contacted me six weeks after the middleman died. He said there was an opportunity if I would like to come in and stop running, and he would do what he could to help me get some kind of deal. We had arranged a contact method years before. He placed a different ad in three newspapers, I combined the numbers, and I had a phone number to call. We spoke only once. He laid out how it could be done, laid out the steps to turn in the tapes, what my letters should offer. He told me the date the book would be released and that I was not part of it, but he had written the chapter about hiring me, and it would be found at his death. He left it up to me if I wished to come in. If I was going to do so, I should email him a copy of one of the letters I sent you, and he would do what he could to help me. That was my sole contact with the VP—the phone call, and emailing him a copy of the letter. The decision to come in and when to do so was mine.”

  “Director?”

  “It’s your case.”

  “Sir,” Paul said, turning to the VP, “I am going to listen to the tape, and then I am going to place you under arrest for conspiracy to murder. I will retrieve the chapter and the evidence you have in your safe. We will have another conversation after I see those materials. For numerous security reasons, you are going to be held at your home tonight. In the morning you will inform your staff of your plans to take a vacation for a week, have them clear your schedule. You will then call an attorney and tell him everything.”

  “I waive legal counsel.”

  “Call an attorney. If there is a deal to be found for what you have done, it will not be negotiated by you.”

  “I wish no deal. This goes before a judge for sentencing.”

  “For the sake of the office you once held, the ending is not going to be your decision. It’s heading for a judge, but the route it takes is going to be decided by others.”

  “Then a compromise. I will ask Michael Yates to act as my attorney. I will cooperate on whatever you wish, in return for one agreement. You permit this final chapter to be published. Let me accept public guilt for what I’ve done. No matter how else this ends, that truth needs to be known.”

  “Cooperate on everything I need, at every step along the way, and it can be published when I give you clearance for it to be released.”

  “Agreed.” The VP looked past him. “Ann, I am sorry for letting you down. I emailed you an encrypted copy of this chapter before I left the hospital tonight. The encryption key is the first ten-digit code we used. Add a chapter of your own, write the end of my autobiography in your own words. When Paul gives you the clearance, give the chapters to the publisher. Do it because it needs to be done. I trust you to get i
t right.”

  “I will, sir.”

  Paul listened to the tape, the room deathly silent as it played. Then he rose and formally placed the vice president under arrest.

  “We keep what the VP has confessed to the people in this room,” the director said, pacing the small war room. “We get a deal worked out. Tori, that’s your headache. We put him before a judge to accept the guilty plea and schedule sentencing. We time it to coordinate with release of the autobiography. We put him under house arrest while we work this out with his lawyer, and we keep this out of the news until we’re ready for it to break.”

  Arthur nodded. “We can announce the capture of the lady shooter and her upcoming testimony at the various murder trials without making any reference to the VP’s confession. It will buy us time. We can keep this contained.”

  The director looked to Paul, then Ann. “I can’t imagine how much a punch in the gut this is. But I need to ask you, Ann. Can you write that final chapter? We publish the chapter on the abduction, the chapter of him hiring the lady shooter, and you write a final chapter. We need his confession out there and public, so we release that confession he just signed, and a transcript of this interview.”

  “Give me ten days. I can have his chapter and mine ready for the printer.”

  “Will the embargo with the publisher hold?”

  “If we raise the bonus for everyone at the plant, I think it will.”

  “Get it arranged.” The director looked into the other room at the table, where the VP and the lady shooter were having a quiet conversation. “This is going to be a nightmare. We get ready for it. We put copies of the book out the night before to prep what is coming. The VP is arraigned, then a press conference, then we have the VP sit down for interviews if he’s still willing to accept responsibility for what he did. Once this is public, the VP reassigns royalties for the third volume of the autobiography to the families of the victims, as he cannot profit from this.