Free Jack Ryan 8 - Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy Page B

     Murray
    
    
    's first clue, and though the smile remained fixed on his face, his eyes focused in a little more sharply on his diminutive lunch guest.
    “I need some advice, Mr. Murray,” Golden replied, giving another signal. “Who has jurisdiction over a crime committed on federal property?”
    “The Bureau, always,” Dan answered, leaning back in his seat and checking his service pistol. Business to Murray was enforcing the law, and feeling his handgun in its accustomed place acted as a sort of personal touchstone, a reminder that, elevated and important as the sign on his office door said he was today, he had started out doing bank robberies in the Philadelphia Field Division, and his badge and gun still made him a sworn member of his country's finest police agency.
    “Even on Capitol Hill?” Clarice asked.
    “Even on Capitol Hill,”
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     repeated. Her subsequent silence surprised him. Golden was never reticent about much. You always knew what she was thinking—well,
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     amended, you knew what she wanted you to know. She played her little games, just as he did. “Talk to me, Dr. Golden.”
    “Rape.”
    Murray
    
    
     nodded, setting the menu down. “Okay, first of all, please tell me about your patient.”
    “Female, age thirty-five, single, never married. She was referred to me by her gynecologist, an old friend. She came to me clinically depressed. I've had three sessions with her.”
    Only three,
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     thought. Clarice was a witch at this stuff, so perceptive. Jesus, what an interrogator she would have made with her gentle smile and quiet motherly voice.
    “When did it happen?” Names could wait for the moment.
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     would start with the barest facts of the case.
    “Three years ago.”
    The FBI agent—he still preferred “Special Agent” to his official title of Deputy Assistant Director—frowned immediately. “Long time, Clarice. No forensics, I suppose.”
    “No, it's her word against his—except for one thing.” Golden reached into her purse and pulled out photocopies of the Beringer letter, blown up in the copying process.
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     read through the pages slowly while Dr. Golden watched his face for reaction.
    “Holy shit,” Dan breathed while the waiter hovered twenty feet away, thinking his guests were a reporter and a source, as was hardly uncommon in
    
    
     Washington
    
    
    . “Where's the original?”
    “In my office. I was very careful handling it,” Golden told him.
    That made
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     smile. The monogrammed paper was an immediate help. In addition, paper was especially good at holding fingerprints, especially if kept tucked away in a cool, dry place, as such letters usually were.
    The Senate aide in question would have been fingerprinted as part of her security-clearance process, which meant the likely author of this document could be positively identified. The papers gave time, place, events, and also announced her desire to die. Sad as it was, it made this document something akin to a dying declaration, therefore, arguably, admissible in federal district court as evidentiary material in a criminal case. The defense attorney would object—they always did—and the objection would be overruled—it always was—and the jury members would hear every word, leaning forward as they always did to catch the voice from the grave. Except in this case it wouldn't be a jury, at least not at first.
    Murray
    
    
     didn't like anything about rape cases. As a man and a cop, he viewed that class of criminal with special contempt. It was a smudge on his own manliness that someone could commit such a cowardly, foul act. More professionally disturbing was the troublesome fact that rape cases so often came down in one person's word against another's. Like most investigative cops,
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     distrusted all manner of eyewitness testimony. People were poor observers—it was that simple—and