Page 41

She hesitated a moment, uncertain whether to knock. She was uncomfortably aware of her heart thumping in her chest. She knocked, and ten seconds later, a woman in a blue blazer and matching skirt opened the door.
“I’m Corinne Swanson,” Corrie told her. “I have an eleven o’clock appointment.”
Wordlessly, the woman let her in, then waved toward a tiny alcove with a handful of chairs that reminded Corrie of the place in pharmacies where you wait your turn for a vaccine. The woman returned to a front desk and consulted her computer.
“Yes, you’re logged for eleven,” the woman told Corrie almost before she’d taken a seat. “Please come with me, Agent Swanson.”
Corrie rose again and followed the woman out of the vestibule, past some workstations, then down a short corridor. There were only two doors on each side, with a frosted-glass window set high in each. The décor, such as it was, had the beige neutrality of an interrogation unit. Which, Corrie realized, wasn’t necessarily far from the truth.
Horace Driver hadn’t wasted any time. She must have still been on her way back to the FO from Bernalillo when he began preparing an official complaint about her conduct. He’d known just how to go about it, too, no doubt from long experience filing earlier complaints with the police and sheriff’s department: he’d contacted the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Like Internal Affairs in police stations, the OPR was a feared and often hated unit: those who spied on their own, enforcing laws on those whose duty it was to enforce the law. Corrie had heard the department mentioned numerous times, usually in low tones, but she hadn’t paid much attention. Its staff members didn’t fraternize with other agents. Corrie hadn’t recognized the woman who opened the door, nor any of those sitting at the workstations. By now, she knew most people in the FO by sight, passing them on the way in or out of the building or in one of the cafeterias. But this—this felt like a foreign country.
Yet in another way it was depressingly familiar. She could not help but be reminded of her high school years, when she’d been hauled a number of times into the holding cell of the Medicine Creek police station for some minor infraction or disturbance.
Because Driver had submitted an official complaint, it had to be dealt with in the official FBI way. And that meant a formaldebriefing—a gentler-sounding word thaninterrogation—by the OPR.
She’d worked so hard, kept her head down and shoulder to the wheel, getting straight As through John Jay and doing her best afterward to keep her impulsivity and temper in check. Had shereallyscrewed up so badly with Driver?
Her flow of thought was interrupted when the woman opened the last door on the right. Agent Sharp stood just inside a small room almost entirely filled by a table: four chairs on one side, two on the other.
“Agent Swanson,” Sharp said, nodding at the woman, leading Corrie inside, and directing her toward the two chairs. “Take a seat.”
She walked around the table and sat down. The wall was not painted, but covered in some kind of cloth or felt that made her wonder if the room was soundproofed. A large condenser microphone hung from the ceiling, encased by a shock mount. Sharp took a chair on the far side of the table, which she noticed had an array of knobs and buttons set into it, along with a portable microcassette recorder. Her side of the table had nothing. It was all she could do not to examine its wooden surface for grooves left by scraped fingernails.
Another man was sitting across the table. He, too, was a stranger, dressed in the standard FBI uniform, perhaps thirty, with very blond hair cut short but carefully layered. For whatever reason, he and Sharp sat apart, two empty seats between them. The man nodded silently to Corrie.
“Before we start,” Sharp said, glancing down at a lone folder in front of him, “would you like a glass of water?”
Corrie shook her head. She was determined to say as little as possible—and to betray a similar neutrality of emotion.
There’d been nobody at the office she knew well enough to ask how to handle this kind of situation. She wasn’t that close to the other young agents, and in any case she’d never heard of anybody except the former forensic examiner, Lathrop, getting entangled with OPR.
Sharp snapped a button on the desk. “Checking for sound,” he said, glancing at the other man. He nodded in return. Only now did Corrie notice he had an earpiece, its wire running unobtrusively back down the nape of his neck.
There was another brief pause, during which Sharp pressed a few more buttons on the desk. There was a small square of dark glass set high up in the opposite wall: Corrie wondered if a camera was concealed behind it.
She watched as Sharp took a deep breath. He opened the folder, spread out a few pages, then gave the time and date for the benefit of the recorder, as well as the names of those present.
“Agent Swanson,” he said, “as you are aware, Horace Driver has filed a formal complaint against you.” He glanced down at the papers spread before him. “Specifically, he attests that you treated him in a cavalier manner, were highly disrespectful, showed a lack of empathy in your questioning, and in general handled the interview with an attitude that demeaned not only him, but his daughter.” He paused. “The Department of Justice requires us to investigate all allegations of misconduct against law enforcement officials of any type, so long as they were acting in an official capacity at the time. Our conduct is governed by statute 18 U.S.C. § 242, which protects the civil rights of any defendant or potential defendant.” He paused to look at her, eyes as sleepy as always. “Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Based on our preliminary review, nothing about your actions or the recording of your interview would indicate that you violated Mr. Driver’s civil rights, engaged in fabrication of any sort, or otherwise conducted yourself unlawfully. We do not believe you committed a federal crime. However, we must nevertheless review the substance of Mr. Driver’s complaint for two reasons: so we can show due diligence, and so that, for your protection, we can provide proof we have examined the matter beyond the point of reasonable doubt.”
Jesus God. Just listening to this recitation had made Corrie’s throat go dry. It sounded like the opening statement of a court-martial. She wished she’d accepted the offer of water.
“We are fortunate that you taped the entire exchange. That allows us to evaluate it in light of his allegations. Shall we begin?” Without waiting for a reply, Sharp reached for the recorder, checked the counter, then snapped it on.
The three of them listened in silence as Corrie offered her condolences to Mr. Driver; affirmed that she was the one who’d found the body; then, in response to Driver’s pointed questions, gave him details about the manner of his daughter’s death and the particular importance of gaining any information he might have—because, among other reasons, Mandy had not been the first woman to die this way. This in turn led to Driver’s sudden rant about Oskarbi, accusing the long-gone professor of sleeping with students. Then they reached the part when Corrie had inquired about Mandy’s work. Sharp played this, then stopped, rewound, and played it a second time.
“Geo. We both worked for Geo.”
“And what kind of work was that?”
“Fracking.”
“Geo Solutions is an oil company involved in… fracking?”
Corrie looked down at her hands. There was no denying it—her voice had clearly betrayed her private feelings—and Driver, his antennae already tuned to a sensitive degree, had picked up on it—and immediately transferred his anger to her.