“I am tired of this,” he said. “I am finished.”
“We’re all tired,” an agent responded. “Bear with us. When you came in through the rear door, did you lock it behind you?”
“It shuts on its own. I am nearly through speaking with you today.”
“Did the surveillance camera record you entering?”
“I don’t think it was on.”
He stopped again, and the agent asked, “Why wouldn’t the camera be working?”
“There was an electrician doing work on July 3. The alarm goes off if they’re not careful how they shut it down, so usually it gets disarmed. I wasn’t home to rearm it, so it was probably off. Do you know if it was off?”
“We don’t. It’s why we’re asking.”
“Please describe in as much detail as you can why you’re lying to me.”
“We’re not lying, Mr. Smith.”
Smith’s response to that was a very detailed accounting of what he did in his office once inside the Alagara, starting with sorting the mail that had arrived while he was gone. Junk mail, everything, a remarkable memory for each piece, if accurate. He ticked through everything that had to do with the party, which was scheduled to start in less than half an hour. He checked the back bar and recounted the bottles on it row by row. He recalled the new wine refrigerator and described the face of it, plastic not yet removed, and the deal he made with Melissa Kern allowing the pilots to bring their own alcohol.
Hearing Melissa’s name was like a hot stone dropped in my gut, but I listened as he described the children’s party table with a red, white, and blue paper tablecloth. He had checked the air conditioning and lowered it one degree, then readied to leave.
“I wanted to see Melissa Kern. I liked her very much. I assumed she would come early with her family.”
“Why did you assume that?”
He stared in disbelief at the agent who was asking why Melissa would arrive before guests to her party.
“When you were in your office, did you open your safe?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Surely, Mr. Smith, after all the detail you have remembered . . .”
“I don’t trust you. Is that better? I have no reason to trust the FBI and many reasons not to.”
Smith turned to his lawyer who lifted a briefcase onto the table, opened it, removed a file, shut the briefcase, and set it back down on the floor. The lawyer looked to Smith for approval before sliding the thin file across the table. In it was a list of scheduled repair work, including the wine refrigerator.
“Here is another copy of the work done. Most of it was in June. There was only a little left, and it was not the time to check everything. I was tired from traveling and only there to make sure the building was ready, and to make sure the children were not forgotten and the table was ready for them.”
“Did you turn the alarm on when you left?”
“No, it was too close to the time of the party.”
“Could somebody have come in after you?”
“They would need a key.”
“There was a man waiting for you earlier. Did you meet with him when you were there?”
“He was a salesman peddling trash. I sent him away and forgot about him.”
The agents didn’t answer that. Instead, one asked, “Would you mind sharing the code to the alarm with us?”
“With your prejudices, that is a bad idea,” Smith said. “The code will frighten you. It will frighten you, and you’ll keep holding my money.”
“Why would an alarm code frighten us?”
“Through your prejudices.”
“Giving us your alarm code won’t affect the release of the money.”
“You think not?” Smith looked from one interrogator to the other. “The code is a very simple code. The code is ‘God is great.’”
He tapped with his right index finger into his left palm as if tapping on the alarm keypad.
“All capitals. G-O-D-I-S-G-R-E-A-T. God is great. I say this to myself many, many times every day so I always remember. It is short and I never forget. On our money it says ‘In God We Trust,’ but that is not the same. Even as you ask questions here, I say inside, ‘God is great.’”
To the left of me, an agent said, “There you go. Right in our face, this is our guy. He just told us. Come on! Get it out of him! He’s on the edge. Get him to talk.”
The agent was still coaching the interrogators when I concluded nothing was going to happen here today and walked out.
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