Betsy thought it was appropriate that she would have her session with the inspector general on the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. As long as she had been in government work, the two most awesome words in tandem were “inspector” and “general.” These people had, depending on one’s point of view, the power of God at the minimum, or, at the maximum, of the IRS. IGs could be Torquemadas—who delighted in giving pain—or Thomases—who falsely embodied tiresome principles—or, perhaps worst, Siricas, who would nibble you to death. They wrote their own charges, and it was alleged that in the Agency there were no procedural niceties like habeas corpus to get in their way.
Betsy had hardly been surprised when her supervisors at the Agency had informed her that her polygraph with the redoubtable Kim McMurtry hadn’t gone very well. It had, in fact, gone so badly that it had set into motion a new investigation of which little was revealed to her. But from its very slowness she inferred that it must be a gigantic, multiagency engine of destruction. Now, a month and a half later, it had come to this: be in such-and-such an office on the tenth floor of the New Executive Office Building at nine-thirty A.M. on 21 December, to have a little chat with the inspector general.
No formal statement of the charges against her had been made. She knew she was in trouble, but she could not tell how serious it might be. She knew only that there was one way out of Washington, and it passed through a certain doorway in the NEOB.
She took the metro over to Farragut West and checked through security at nine-fifteen. She took the elevator to the tenth floor and went to the ladies’ room to wash her face and get ready for what was to come.
She was shocked by the face in the mirror. In the last year new lines had creased her forehead. The beginnings of a permanent frown could be seen. She had never been the kind of girl who dotted her i’s with smiley faces. But she didn’t think of herself as a sad or tragic person and was disturbed to see that she now wore the mask of a victim, of one who had undergone great pain.
The door was a solid unmarked slab of wood that could have led to a janitor’s closet. There was no answer to her knock, so she tried the knob and found that it was unlocked. She entered a dimly lit anteroom with a desk, a chair, no telephone, and the standard picture of George Bush on the wall. She thought back to that day in August when he’d taken her out on his Cigarette boat and told her to hang in there. She could take some satisfaction in knowing that she’d done that.
It was nine thirty-three and no one seemed to be around, so she went to the next door and knocked. A thin, rather high-pitched voice said, “Come in, please.”
She opened the door and entered a conference room, much more brightly lit. One person was in there, seated at the end of a table that could have handled twelve people. She was struck by how large he was, for a man with a high-pitched voice. He had a high forehead, emphasized by advanced baldness, and wore rimless glasses. On the table in front of him was a blotter with a yellow legal pad on it, three government-issue Skilcraft pens, and an archaic reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Betsy looked around reflexively. He said, “There are no cameras, no one-way mirrors, none of that. You’ll be dealing with just me. And our government in its wisdom appointed me to find the truth, which is a pretty simple job description by local standards.” He stopped for a moment, then mused, “Probably the next generation will have no need for human beings in this job—just chemical tests and voice-stress analysis. Hmm, hmm.” Then he stood up. He must have been six-seven or six-eight. “My name is Richard Holmes. I always tell people that’s no relation to Sherlock. I’m actually a shirttail descendant of Oliver Wendell. He used up six or seven generations’ worth of brains, so the rest of us have labored in obscurity as bureaucrats or tax lawyers. Though I do have a granddaughter who shows promise.”
Betsy shook his hand and said, “Pleased to meet you. Betsy Vandeventer.” She’d been around long enough not to fall too quickly for this kind of folksy, self-deprecating chatter. But Holmes did not seem blatantly insincere.
“That’s a relief,” Holmes joked. “Well, shall we get on with this?”
He sat down and motioned for Betsy to sit to his left, near the tape recorder. “You’ll like the view,” he said, and she did. A little snow squall was coming down, and it looked glorious—for those who weren’t driving. “Before I get started asking questions of you, do you have any for me?”
“Is this it? Just you and me?”
“Yes.” And then, leaning toward her, sotto voce: “I hope people won’t talk.” He delivered his jokes ponderously and almost apologetically, like a professor.