“Elliott Gutman’s being interviewed over at the police station.”

“What?” Barrett shot out of his seat. “When?”

“Right now. He’s been in there thirty minutes.”

“Christ! How’d you miss this?”

“They sent a patrol car out to get him. So we didn’t pick up anything on the phone tap or the vehicle tracker.”

“You didn’t have anybody watching the house?” he shouted.

Culligan was silent a moment. “We discussed this,” he said. “You agreed on the electronics.”

“Well, obviously that’s not good enough. Jack, I don’t need to remind you that you stand to lose as much as I do.”

This wasn’t precisely true. Culligan’s comp package was only a sliver of Barrett’s. Still, it was ten times what he made as a GS-13 at the Bureau. “No,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to remind me.”

“Get somebody on the house. ASAP. And get somebody to grab Gutman when he comes out. Tell him we have some papers for him to sign, or Lucy’s belongings to collect. Whatever. I don’t care. Just bring him straight to me.”

“Got it.”

“Oh, Jack. One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Send somebody out to my house. Melanie’s recycling maids again.”

Chapter 14

January 14, 2014

Ingram Barrett was back from Kuala Lumpur—KL, I reminded myself to call it—and he’d put a ten o’clock meeting on my electronic calendar for today. He’d also sent me an email. It was the first one I’d received that wasn’t a company-wide blast, and it gave me a little thrill to see the To: [email protected] at the top of the message. I want to bring you up to speed on Palmer, he wrote.

Up to speed? By then I was already cruising at about ninety miles an hour. I’d read through the Palmer pleadings so many times I could recite key passages by heart. I’d boned up on the law on shareholder derivative actions and executive compensation and the business judgment rule, and I’d learned everything I could about the companies’ factories in Southeast Asia. I’d even spotted grounds for dismissal of one of the plaintiffs’ claims—something outside counsel had missed—and I took it upon myself to draft a motion to dismiss.

I arrived at Barrett’s office suite at the stroke of ten with my shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow to show how ready I was to dive into work. Marcia Post was manning the sentry station in the antechamber to Barrett’s corner office. “I’m afraid he’s in a meeting just now,” she said as I came in.

“Oh.” I tried to hide my disappointment. This ten o’clock slot was mine; I had electronic evidence to that effect. “Do you want to ring me when he’s free?”

She pursed her lips, and instantly I knew I must have committed some kind of office faux pas. “He’ll expect you to be waiting here when he’s free,” she said.

“Oh. Of course.”

“Please have a seat.”

I perched on the white leather chesterfield and waited. The door to Barrett’s inner sanctum was closed, but I could hear a low rumbling voice within, punctuated now and then by a sharp-pitched interjection. Their words were indistinguishable until a single exclamation burst out. “They were never supposed to come here!” That was a woman’s voice. A deeper, gruffer voice replied: “It’s too late now.” That was Barrett.