The Rose Conspiracy (33 page)

“You didn't want the Langley note going public if you could help it because you had been told by Hartz—I am assuming it was him, he probably had his own expert try to decipher that note—that the ‘AP' in the first line of the note could well have referred to Albert Pike, your Confederate hero. And if that was right, then Pike might be implicated in the Lincoln assassination because his initials had appeared in the diary pages of John Wilkes Booth. Am I getting warmer now?”

“You spin a nice story.”

“Here's the sequel,” Blackstone said. “Senate Resolution 217, filed by several members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Asking that the statue of Albert Pike which now sits in Judiciary Square be immediately removed, on the grounds that Pike was a ‘founding member of the Ku Klux Klan.' ”

“Those allegations are spurious,” Collings sputtered. “They come up every now and then. No one has ever proven that connection between Pike and the KKK.”

“Perhaps,” Blackstone said. “But considering your position as the head of the nonprofit foundation vested with protecting Albert Pike's memory and reputation, you have a lot to lose if that resolution gets passed and the current administration and the Department of the Interior are pressured into removing his statue. After all, your home state of Arkansas has treated the guy like a nineteenth-century rock star for years. So, when the case of Vinnie Archmont threatened to expose the possibility that Pike might not only be a racist, but also a potential conspirator in the assassination of Lincoln—well, in this town, the fact that you've been Albert Pike's biggest cheerleader would not exactly guarantee that you'd get a street named after you.”

Senator Collings glanced over at the idling limo, and then he cast his eyes over the city of Washington DC.

After a moment he turned back to Blackstone and asked a question.

“What is it that you want?”

“Let's start with what
you
want,” Blackstone said. “You want to keep a lid on the fact that the ‘AP' in the Langley note might have been Albert Pike.”

“How can you guarantee it won't surface in the trial?”

“I don't think Hartz intends to go into that,” Blackstone replied. “It doesn't fit into his theory of the case. You ought to know that.”

“And you? Are you willing to jeopardize your own client's defense by staying away from that part of the evidence?” Collings retorted, his voice dripping with cynicism.

“I don't see any advantage to my client's case for us to postulate about who the ‘AP' was or wasn't—from the standpoint of the defense, dragging Pike into the case would be a mistake. It creates too many red herrings. Too much possibility of a jury backlash.”

“But why would I be interested in keeping that out of the Vinnie Archmont trial,” Collings said, “when, after the trial is over, the evidence would eventually be made public anyway?”

“Because,” Blackstone said confidently, “the Booth diary is now missing again since Langley's murder. And the diary was the best evidence of whether there really was an ‘AP' mentioned by Booth. All we have now is a dead man's note, written as he was reading the Booth diary pages—a note now buried in a prosecutor's file. Eventually, a reporter is going to make a Freedom of Information request. Maybe the note would get released. But that would be long after Senate Resolution 217 blows over and the political heat on you cools off. And as for me, Senator, remember, the Court of Appeals didn't give me permission to share the Langley note with the public at large.”

“But, Professor Blackstone,” Collings said with a sly grin. “You shared part of the first line of the Langley note with me right here—right now. That violates the court order, doesn't it?”

“Not if you already knew what the first line of that note said—and I am betting that Henry Hartz, deferring to your leadership in the Senate Judiciary Committee and your position on the Smithsonian Board of Regents, had let you read the note back at the beginning of this case. Isn't that right, Senator?”

Collings took a deep breath, then exhaled.

“You still haven't told me what you want,” Senator Collings asked.

“I need information,” Blackstone said. There was nothing sarcastic or flippant in his voice now. Only a sense of urgency. “You know something about this case. I know you do. You need to let me in. Into what you know. Anything.”

Collings glanced at his watch. Then he announced, “Gotta go.”

The senator turned to stroll back to the limo. But after he took a few steps, he stopped and turned to face Blackstone.

“Funny thing,” Senator Collings said. “About Henry Hartz's choice of his lead investigator in the Smithsonian murder case. By all accounts it should have been FBI agent Johnson. Highly decorated federal agent. Top of his class. Most promising African-American FBI field agent in the country. Plus, the Smithsonian is a federal institution. But Hartz chose a District of Columbia detective to lead the investigation instead. Something about who was, or was not, responsible for a certain piece of evidence at the scene of the crime…a
drinking glass,
as I recall.”

Then, as Senator Bo Collings strode back to the limo, he paused at the open door. Over his shoulder he called back to Blackstone.

“I'm so sorry that you and I couldn't meet, and that I didn't have this conversation with you. Good day, Professor Blackstone.”

CHAPTER 44

T
he following day, Vinnie Archmont came in to the law office for her mock cross-examination. Blackstone buried himself in his own office with the door closed while it was going on.

Julia had Vinnie sequestered in the conference room for nearly six hours, interrogating her the way that Henry Hartz was likely to do at the trial. Jason ran the video camera.

When Vinnie finally emerged from the conference room at the end of the day she had a shell-shocked look on her face.

Frieda, under instructions from Blackstone, intercepted her.

“Professor Blackstone would like to meet with you for a few moments in his office.”

Then the office secretary led her back to Blackstone's office.

Vinnie plunked down on the chair across from his desk.

“You look frazzled,” he said.

“That's an understatement,” she said.

Then she added, “I was just thinking, coming into your office just now…how I came in and sat in this very same chair in the very beginning of all of this—when the prosecutor sent me that target letter.”

“You didn't plan on this going this far, did you?”

“Well,” she said. “Neither did you, as I recall.”

Blackstone winced a bit.

“Point taken. Well, it is what it is,” Blackstone said. “So, let's deal with it.”

Then he picked up the hard copy of an e-mail that Henry Hartz had sent him that day, complying with one of Judge Templeton's directives.

“I received an e-mail,” he said in a serious tone, “from the prosecution, about one of the witnesses they are going to call at your trial. Woman named Shelly Hollsaker. Does that ring a bell?”

Vinnie shook her head, but she could tell that Blackstone was concerned about this particular witness.

“She's the woman who shared a cell with you in the detention center right after you were arrested,” Blackstone said.

Then the lights went on.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I didn't click with her name.”

“Did you make a telephone call when you were with her?”

“We were in this huge room, they called it a ‘holding cell.' This woman, Shelly, was there, too.”

“What'd she look like?” he asked.

“Middle-aged. Tall.”

“Race?”

“White. She had glasses. Frizzy hair.”

“Do you know why she was there?” Blackstone asked.

“I don't know what she was being charged with, no. There was a telephone at the far end of the room. They said I could make a call out.”

“So you did.”

“Right. I did,” she said. She saw Blackstone's brow furrowed. Then she added, “Was that wrong for me to do that?”

But Blackstone didn't answer. Instead, he kept following the fox hunt he had started. He glanced down at the e-mail, then asked Vinnie the next question.

“Exactly how many phone calls did they let you make?”

“They said I could make several if I wanted. Which surprised me. I had already heard, you know, on TV and stuff, that you get one phone call when you're arrested. I'd never been arrested before, so I really didn't know.”

“It is unusual for the feds to give you that kind of accommodation,” he said. “They usually go by the book. Which makes me wonder.”

“What?”

“Whether this was a setup,” Blackstone said. “After all, they put you
in the cell with a repeat offender. Shelly Hollsaker had a prior record. The government just provided me with a copy of her conviction record in their e-mail as part of their discovery disclosure. So, she had something to gain by being a snitch. And the government had a lot to gain by encouraging you to talk in front of her. And Vinnie, you had a lot to lose by making your phone calls under those circumstances.”

Vinnie buried her face in her hands for a few seconds, then took her hands away and looked up at Blackstone.

“So, what now?”

“You have to be absolutely clear and honest with me,” Blackstone said.

“Of course I will.”

“How many phone calls did you make?”

She thought for a moment.

“Two. I made two calls.”

“One was to me, to my private, unlisted number at my condo,” Blackstone said. “It went to voice mail.”

“Right. I was very upset.”

“I have always wondered,” he said. “How did you get my unlisted number?”

“Well,” she said with a smile, “Magister gave it to me.”

“How did he get it?”

“Oh, I'm not sure. He says his security people have all kinds of access to information that regular people can't get. And I know he has channels with the British government too, being in the House of Lords, so he can get private information that way. He gave it to me after you and I had our first office conference. He thought I might need it.”

“So,” Blackstone said, “one call was to my voice mail. Who was the other call to?”

“It was…a call to Magister.”

“They let you make an international call to Lord Dee?” Blackstone said incredulously.

“It was an international collect call. But yes, they let me make it.”

“Anyone else?” he said.

“No. That's it.”

“Are you sure?” Blackstone said. His voice was harsh.

“J.D., darling, yes. I'm telling you the truth. Why?”

“Shelly Hollsaker is telling the government that you made three calls. Not two. But three.”

“That's a lie,” Vinnie said with a shocked look on her face.

“Shelly is telling the government that one call was when you were crying about being arrested, and she said it sounded like it was a call to your lawyer.”

“That's the one I left on your voice mail.”

“Hollsaker then says that there was another call that was very involved, that you asked for an international operator, and then you were talking about getting a lawyer, and being arrested, and needing some money, and saying you really appreciated his friendship.”

“That was my call to Magister Dee.”

“Then there was this call,” Blackstone said, pausing and looking down at the e-mail he had received from Henry Hartz.

“This call,” Blackstone said, now speaking very slowly and deliberately, “according to Shelly Hollsaker, was made by you first, before the other calls. In that telephone conversation, this is what Hollsaker says in her statement to the feds: