Free Friends at Homeland Security by Carl Douglass Page A

it.”
    Nancy is happy to be a part of the solution. She walks to the ladies room where she spends five minutes then slips out the side door while the four agents and six forensic assistants rifle through our records, throwing papers all over the floor in an effort to create as much chaos as they can.
    I walk up to Hinckley’s side.
    “Not to disturb you during your important government work, Special Agent Hinckley; but if there is something specific you want besides just scattering papers around, why not just ask me; and I can be of assistance. That would shorten your work day, and you nice government people can go out and have fresh doughnuts—or whatever—for the rest of the day and get credit for a full day’s work. How about that?”
    I think he wants to deck me, but he surprises me.
    “Tell you what, McGee. We pretty much know what you have been up to and something of what you’ve found. I’ll take you up on your offer. Box up all your records related to the Decklin Marcus case. Our people will come back tomorrow and pick them all up and include them into our files. Don’t horse with me, McGee. Hold back and we’ll be back with arrest warrants for you, your partners, and everybody who works for you. We’ve lost patience. Maybe this little exercise will convince you to leave the case alone. It is ours and ours alone.”
    “We’ll get right on it,” I say obediently.
    Five minutes later the federal government vacates the premises, and I get the office personnel to work. Two secretaries gather up every paper off the floor and place them in their hopeless disarray into neat new unmarked manila folders. Carter Hinckley, our CPA, and Carolyn Zumbrowski, the chief administrative assistant, catch on quickly and get the troops to work. Two girls head off to buy boxes; Carter’s assistant, Justin Rose, is sent to the attic store room with two of the secretaries who don’t yet have an assignment to fetch down boxes of stored files. They prove to be very diligent workers. By four in the afternoon, they have three dollies which can carry four boxes each, and they each make ten trips. That is one hundred twenty boxes of files that date back as far as fifteen years ago—including old insurance forms, payroll records, business records related to trash collection, janitorial service, and rent, and a few outdated case records. The girls sent to get boxes are equally efficient and creative. They gather their coworkers who mix and mingle file folders and their contents to ensure that no folder is accurately labeled, and no human being could ever rearrange the contents into a coherent record. We are absolutely in compliance with the law as demanded in the warrant and the subpoena duces tecum—“produce any and all records related to the above captioned case [the Decklin Marcus investigation].” Nothing in that document says anything about including boocoup additional material. After all, the subpoena did require delivery of “all records, documents, books, photographs, and electronic data.” We are just trying to be fully compliant and helpful.
    By six that evening, our resourceful—and now giddy—staff members have accumulated another seventy-two boxes—all unlabeled—of papers, some of which contain files labeled as “Decklin Marcus, suspicious death” case and some contain actual papers related to the case but not necessarily in accurately identified file folders. Although it has been a great deal of work, we include a letter absolving Homeland Security of any responsibility for creating an “undue burden or expense” that would entail sanctions on the federal government—just being good citizens. In addition—as required by the subpoena—we have included fifteen USB flash drives of electronic data, some of which relates to the case in question. The flash drives are in a clear baggie and are waiting near the back of the outer office for the officers who will want to remove all of the large boxes before