“The informant’s body was discovered the next morning in the rear of the hijacked trailer. The betrayer had to have been someone in the Bureau. No one outside the on-the-scene agents knew that location.”

“And you found him?”

“Yes. Ironically, through fingerprints. My father kept a file box in his desk drawer with active cases. He had some topographical aerial photos of the targeted stretch of the West Virginia highway in order to select the best interception site. He’d circled the exact spot. Access to those photos would have provided everything needed for a surprise attack. The mob didn’t just want to stay with the original hijack plan, they wanted to cripple the FBI’s investigation. I dusted that file box and the desk drawer handle. In addition to my father’s prints, I found those of an agent who worked bank robberies. I kept agent prints on file so that they could be ruled out if they happened to contaminate a crime scene.”

“Wouldn’t he claim your father had authorized him to review some other case in the file? The prints could have been left at any time.”

“Yes, but the agent had recently cut his thumb. There was a raised scab where it was healing. That showed up in the fresh prints and narrowed the time frame to a day or two before the ambush. And some of the prints were clearly laid over my father’s. I knew without a doubt the man had jimmied the locked drawer, reviewed the file, and passed the information along to the mob. And the worst of it was that the agent was my godfather. He not only betrayed the Bureau, he betrayed a friend.”

“Did you take your findings to Hoover?”

“A woman’s word against a man’s? Even Mr. Hoover might have viewed my theory as unfounded if the agent concocted some other explanation.”

“What did you do?”

“I confronted him one evening.”

“At the office?”

“No. Outside his home in Chevy Chase. I told him what I’d found, suggested he turn himself in and cooperate in building the case against the men who killed my father.”

“Did he?”

“No.” Ethel fixed Jesse with a hard stare. “He pulled a gun. So I shot him.”

Jesse took in a sharp breath. “You killed him?”

Ethel shrugged and concentrated on the road ahead. “Well, technically, the bullet killed him. It was from the gun I gave you yesterday. Mr. Hoover wasn’t happy, but when he found payoff funds in the dead man’s bank account with links back to the mob that led to arrests, he got over it.”

“And your status?”

“Let’s say shooting an agent doesn’t exactly win popularity contests, no matter how much the son of a bitch deserves it. But shortly afterward, I started renting rooms to new agents, and life went on. The suspicion faded away.”

“What suspicion?”

“That I shot the bastard in cold blood.”