“SHE WAS VERY good. Quiet, but everyone respected her. And she was an excellent teacher.”
Decker and Jamison were sitting across from Virginia Cole, the principal of the Catholic school where Berkshire had been a substitute teacher. It was in Fairfax County, in an old brick building. But Decker had noted the new-looking surveillance cameras as they pulled into the parking lot.
They had signed in at the front office, gotten visitor badges, and been escorted to the principal’s office.
Cole was in her fifties, with glasses on a chain and bleached blonde hair. She sat back and looked out the window of her office. “I really can’t believe she’s dead.”
“And Berkshire had worked here four years?” asked Jamison.
“Yes, that’s right,” replied Cole.
“I assume she needed to have a background check and possess a teacher’s certificate,” said Decker.
“Of course. The Diocese is very strict on that. We ran a background check. That’s standard. And she had a teacher’s certificate. Her résumé was all in order. She had excellent credentials. We were lucky to have her.”
“So her résumé went back farther than ten years?” asked Decker.
Cole looked at him confusedly. “What? Well, of course, we needed to see that she had graduated from college. And had the requisite teaching experience.”
Decker glanced at Jamison. “We’ll need to see all that,” he said.
“I’ll get you a copy of the file.”
“Did you know Berkshire well?”
“I wouldn’t say well. I never saw her outside of school. But I’ve talked to her a number of times within these walls.”
“Did you know that she was rich?” asked Decker.
“Rich?” Cole once more looked confused.
“She lived in a penthouse in Reston worth two million dollars.”
Cole looked stunned. “No, I never knew that. I’ve never been to her home. I saw her drive into work one day. I think it was a rather beat-up Honda.”
“Did she ever talk about her past? Where she came from? What she did?”
“No. But as I said, her background checked out fine. Nothing of interest, no red flags.”
“Did she have any friends here? Someone she might have confided in?”
“I’m not sure. I can check. She might have socialized with some of the other teachers.”
Jamison said, “That would be great. Here’s a number you can reach us at.” She handed across a card.
Cole took it and glanced at Decker. “If you had asked me before all this happened, I would have said that Anne Berkshire was the last person on earth to be involved in something like this.”
“Well, maybe that was intentional on her part,” said Decker.
“You mean it was all a fa?ade?” asked Cole.
“I mean if she had a secret past, she would have every incentive to keep it secret. But then again, she might have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately, that happens far too often.”
They were given a copy of Berkshire’s employment file before they left. Decker tucked it under his arm. On their way back to their car his phone buzzed. It was Faye Thompson, Walter Dabney’s partner.
“Our travel department did not schedule that trip for him,” said Thompson. “And he didn’t use the corporate card for any travel. He might have used his personal card.”
“We’ll check that,” said Decker. “And did you find out what happens to the firm now that Dabney is dead?”
“Yes. I spoke with our in-house counsel. Walter’s partnership interest goes half to Mrs. Dabney and half to the four children, in equal amounts.”
“So together they control the company?”
“Yes.”
“We have a video of a woman with Dabney at his bank. I’ll send it to you. I want you and the people at your office to look at it and tell us if you recognize her.”
“At Walter’s bank?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Does this have to do with what happened?”
“I can’t tell you. I’m just in collecting-stuff mode.”
“Agent Decker, do you know if a memorial service has been planned for Walter?”
“No, I don’t know. You might want to check with his wife for that.”
“It’s just that I wasn’t sure if they would want to do one, what with the circumstances of his…You know, the papers are going to have a field day as it is. We’ve already gotten calls from the Post, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and a slew of others. I don’t know what to tell them.”
“Then don’t return their calls.”
“But then they’ll write the story anyway, and without our input it might be pretty bad. We have tons of government contracts. With Walter doing what he did, there’s the possibility the Feds might terminate some or all of them.”
“Sorry, that’s not my department.” He clicked off and looked at Jamison.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Other than her worrying far more about the firm’s ass than her really good friend shooting someone and then killing himself, not really. Dabney booked this mysterious trip on his own. And his wife and kids share his partnership interest. So they control the company.”
“That would be a good motive to kill him, if he hadn’t killed himself,” said Jamison.
“What would drive a seemingly rock-solid guy like Dabney to murder someone and then shoot himself? I get that he was terminal, but that’s a little much.”
“Someone must have been holding a sword over his head. The woman on the video probably indicates that.”
“Maybe,” said Decker, though he didn’t look convinced.
“What are we going to do now?”
He held up the file. “You’re going to drive to someplace we can get some food, and I’m going to read.”
*
Decker wedged himself into the front seat of Jamison’s subcompact; he had to push the seat as far back as it would go, but his knees were still uncomfortably close to the dash.
As she drove off, he opened the file and started to read. Every word he took in was permanently imprinted onto his memory. The file wasn’t long, but it was instructive.
“She had passed a background check, which meant there was no criminal history for the woman.” He shuffled through some pages. “Okay, we couldn’t find anything for her from over ten years ago, but the file says she has her teacher’s certificate. And it also showed that she held undergraduate and master’s degrees from Virginia Tech.”
“So we know she has a past, then.”
“Well, yeah. But why couldn’t Bogart find it when he did his search? I have to believe the FBI has a few more resources than a Catholic high scho—Wait a minute.”
“What?”
He held up a page. “The file lists her name as Ann Berkshire.”
“Okay.”
“Her driver’s license, which was used to run her background check, lists her as Anne with an e on the end.”