Chapter 4

  Mindy phoned him later that day but did it from her computer.  Philman took a second to remember the appropriate keys on his to turn the phone feature on and another second to remember to turn on his microphone.  Mindy was nice enough not to comment.

            “Couple of things.  Sam interviewed Sabrina again, I’ll send you his stuff.  Nothing new there.  We decided to switch off assignments and I took a run at a couple of neighbors to get some ideas on researching DuBois’ life.”

            And you’re so glad you work for a boss who doesn’t even comment at changes you don’t check with him about.

            “OK.”

            “So, I did get a couple of neighbors to talk about Carl DuBois, or am I required to call him the ‘deceased’?”

            “Excessive personalizing of investigatively relevant persons risks the detective forming emotions concerning said relevant person which presents a significant risk of clouding the sterility of the detective’s judgement,” Philman quoted from some manual.

            “’Cloud the objectivity,’ is what it said.  But anyway, I’ve picked up a few tidbits.  DuBois was out a lot at night – a neighbor saw him come back late, so that person has him visiting bars just based on that.”

“Any specific bars?”

“No, not even a false accusation.  Another neighbor saw him lying on the ground outside his trailer at night.”

            Just like me. “Did he like baseball?”

            “What?  How did you get there?  No, apparently DuBois claimed he was viewing the stars, but the neighbor is suspicious.”

            “Suspicious of what?”

            “That DuBois was being suspicious – and yes, I remember your speech about suspicion requiring an object.”

            “You can be suspicious about something, but not just have free-floating suspicion.”

            “You know what people mean by it.”

            “If you say a person is suspicious, then they are having a general attitude of skepticism about everything, but they can’t direct that attitude in one direction without naming the object of the suspicion.”

            “I KNOW this.”

            “Is lying on the ground at night a Circle stunt?  Was he communicating with Circle leaders on Mars?  No one has ever proved that they don’t have a base there.”

            “The POINT is that the neighbor was watching him, and yet didn’t really know his habits or really know much about him.”

            “Well, this really narrows down the suspects.”

            “I know, I know.  But, you know, these neighbors didn’t even know his e-mail address, and given all the community promoting activities of the government, that means he actively blocked it.”

            “Proof he is an anti-social member of the criminal Circle Conspiracy.”

            “Robert, please.  Some of us actually work here.”

            Philman stopped for a second, somewhat stunned by the implications of that.  I guess I’ve been making too many snide remarks.  But I thought you liked the banter.  If only thinking were visible then it would count as work.  “As we work through these protocols, we’re not discovering much in the way of motive,” he said by way of ignoring Mindy. 

            “Perhaps the absence of motive is the real clue.”

            “I suppose I deserved that.”

            “Yes.”

            “The neighbor told you what DuBois had told her, so she did at least talk to him.”

            “Just to say hello, it was clear that they were not really friends.”

            “That trailer court, you’d think it would be a small town, and they’d all be in each others business all the time.”

            “Maybe it is just more of DuBois’ attitude of being different, I mean, a writer?  He is a different kind of people than the typical sort who live there.”

            “We’re not getting a lot of traction with this.  You didn’t get any arguments between DuBois and anyone?”

            “Not a thing.”

            Philman’s terminal was beeping.  It took him a minute to locate the reason why. 

            “Just a second, are you getting this media flash?”

            “Yes -- my goodness!”

            Philman looked in sick fascination as the headline scrolled across his screen.  It was obvious which key word had caused the news to make its way to his computer. “Circle Gang claims responsibility for DuBois murder,” it read.  An anonymous phone call to a station had the caller identifying himself as Circle and ‘giving details likely to be known only to the police.’  The story concluded with the station manager bragging that people who had a message to give society were more likely to pick his station because of its superior ratings.

            “Mindy, do you...” Robert began.

            “I’m on it,” she said forcefully and hung up.  She’d contact the station, see if they could get a tape of the call, and she’d contact whatever company carried the signal to the station and get them to trace it.  

            Robert Philman sat in his office and was silent.  Silent so long the ticking of the old fashioned mechanical clock he’d spent a lot of time and money to find registered with him.  One thing he actually hadn’t done was scan the movements of Circle leaders.  He’d considered the chance of their involvement to just be too remote to make that worthwhile.  Regardless of what this claim of responsibility actually meant, that opinion would never do now, either politically or as police work. 

            He went to his computer and began to work.  As a pre-certified suspicious group for its long-standing history of being regarded as suspicious, he could instantly start surveillance and tracking on known local Circle leaders.  A quick review didn’t turn up anything.  By now, most of them had organized alibis established.  They deliberately walked in front of surveillance cameras near their homes and sent e-mails with identify verification just so it would be difficult to place them near a crime.  It wasn’t but a few minutes to establish that most of them were nowhere in the vicinity of Mr. DuBois’s trailer on the night in question.  Of course, to some, this would just be proof of their cunning.

            Three local members of the Circle had been listed with a flag indicating they were considered to be of a higher risk of committing terrorist acts.  Considered by who?  Philman knew that would be classified. Philman looked for associated information that would identify why they had been so listed, but that evidence was classified.  He sent an email to the support address for the federal agency listed on the web page, but even though it claimed it was a priority channel for law enforcement inquiries, he didn’t expect to hear anything back.  He tried to find out what sort of terrorist acts they were suspected of being likely to commit, but when he clicked on that link a popup window came back to tell him that he didn’t have the proper security clearance to find out. 

He was about to get angry about this, when he decided to check into their movements.  If he could rule them out, the terrorist rating wouldn’t matter.  Not that killing DuBois could qualify as a terrorist act.

Like many other Circle leaders, they had their alibis ready to go.  Two were out of town on speaking engagements, one offered verified email transmissions from his home during the time of the murder.  The replies had come back so fast, Philman could only shake his head.  If someone asked him for an alibi for some night last week, he doubted he’d ever be able to come up with one.

            As the afternoon wore on and he continued to work the databases and logs, he realized his urgency was motivated to have something to tell Katrina, whom he expected to call with some demand at any moment.  But she didn’t call.

            It was past six when he was ready to go home, and he sent her a voice mail.

            “Katrina, this is Philman.  We noticed the Circle claim, of course, we’ve investigated the call.  We’re not finished yet, it’s only been a few hours, but we have been able to establish a probably origin point which does relate to a known Circle location, at least physically.  Not so sure in terms of computer networks just yet.  I’d prefer we not share that yet, we haven’t gotten surveillance from that area processed, and we need to nail down the origin point.  We have reviewed known Circle leaders and nothing suspicious is immediately apparent.  We are also pursuing the original phone call altering us to the murder and I have hopes we can develop a significant lead from that.”  What else?  I don’t want to hang up. 

            “Oh, we’re digging deeper into the activities of the deceased, and are getting a picture of his habits.  But we do not have a prime suspect yet.”  It has only been a day or so.  He hung up and went home, nodding at the evening staff on his way out.

*          *            *

            Philman had been summoned to Cassidy’s office.  Despite all the technology, Frank still understood the value of a subordinate standing in front of the big desk while he sat.

            “Ms. Johnson, is rather upset with you.”

            The words hung there.  “What does she say I did?”

            “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to violate her confidence.”

            “How can I respond to that?”

            “Do you deny you’ve done things to upset her?”

            “Deny what, exactly?  What did she say?”

            “I will not share a confidence.  She didn’t want to complain, but I could read what she really meant.”

            “What did she mean?”

            “I think you would know that, there’s no reason to be coy.”

            Philman stopped himself.  He had to remember that this wasn’t actually a conversation about something he’d done that someone didn’t like.  He’d read a book about dealing with difficult people, but he could never remember any of the advice. 

            “What would you like me to do?”

            Cassidy was thrown off a bit, and Philman smiled to himself.  That was one of the questions the book had suggested to ask.

“You’re not getting out of this that easy.  I have some damage control to do with media relations.”

            “How are things damaged?”

            “It’s going to take some work on my part.”

            “What work are you going to have to do?”

            “I think I can save things, if you’d just occasionally be a bit more cooperative.”

            “What would you like me to do?”

            “I’m telling you, this isn’t easy.  Katerina has a lot to handle here.  The public wants a solution now - you should see the opinion polls! and here you are telling her you cannot make a commitment to solving the case at all!”

            Philman relaxed. By getting specific, Cassidy had made a mistake. 

            “Is that what she complained about?”

            “Let’s not revisit the past, you should be focusing on the future.”

            “You’re saying that we should make a promise to solve a crime by a certain time?”

            “The public demands that we get serious about these crimes, and the Circle gang is causing upset, making people ask questions that destabilize things.  We need this put to bed right away.”

            “How long do you think would be reasonable to solve it?”

            “A week.”

            Philman paused, cursing himself for putting himself in a box.  Now he’d have to argue about this, ask for more time, which would prove he was behind a schedule he’d never known existed, and shouldn’t have existed.  What was this argument really about?  It certainly wasn’t about taking too long to solve this crime.  And he couldn’t imagine that Katerina had complained about anything he’d said to her.

            He said slowly, “a week.”

            “Hell, you’ve said yourself that these crimes solve themselves.”

            “Would you like to take over the investigation?”

            Cassidy stood up and came around the desk.  He put his arm around Philman, who tried not to wince. 

            “Look, don’t get defensive.  We all know you’ve solved some really tough ones.  But you need to make more of an effort here to understand that communicating with the public is part of the job.”

            “I thought I wasn’t allowed to talk to the media.”

            “That’s my point! You don’t think of this as a team.  We’ve got Katerina to handle that, but you’ve got to communicate with her.  You do understand that, don’t you?”

            “What has been deficient in how I communicated with her?”

            Cassidy waved his hands. 

            “It’s all in the details, in the attitude.”  He walked back around his desk and sat down.

            “What did she actually complain about?”

            Cassidy smiled the smile of those being charitable with a naughty, but harmless student. 

            “Communicate.  Communicate.  That’s all.”  And he put his head down and began studying a paper.  Philman left, seething.