“You believe someone took him there and killed him?”
“More to the point, someone took him from inside the Court to the park and killed him.”
Sara gaped. “Meaning the killer was here?”
Fiske nodded. “I don’t know if the person works here, but I believe he was physically present here last night.”
“What could Steven have seen that cost him his life?”
“I think he saw someone go into Mike’s office. Yesterday, Wright heard Chandler tell everyone that the office was off limits to everyone. Whoever went into Mike’s office might not have known that Wright was in his office. I assume you don’t broadcast when you’re working late.”
“Like last night, often we don’t even know until the last minute.”
“Right. So somebody goes into the office looking for something — ”
“Like what?”
“Who knows? Copies of the appeal that Mike took. Telephone messages, something on his computer.”
“But that’s an awfully big risk. There’s security here twenty-four hours a day.”
“Well, if the person knew the police were going to search the office thoroughly the next morning, he’d only have a limited amount of time to do it.”
“That makes sense.”
“So Wright hears something, or he’s finished his memo, he comes out, and runs right into whoever.”
“If your theory is correct, do you think Steven knew the person who killed him?”
Fiske took a deep breath and sat back. “I think he had to. Otherwise he would’ve raised the alarm right away. And I saw Dellasandro lock the door to Mike’s office. There’s no sign of forced entry. The person had a key.”
“But someone must have seen something, then.”
“Not necessarily. If the killer is familiar with the layout of the Court, then he’d know ways to avoid being seen with Wright until they got out of the building.”
“So it might be somebody he trusted.”
Fiske looked at her. “Like one of the justices?”
Sara stared back, horrified. “I’ll accept a lot, but I can’t accept that.” She had a sudden thought. “Maybe it was McKenna? Steven would have trusted him, FBI and all.”
“How could McKenna be involved in this?”
“I don’t know. He’s the first one who occurred to me.”
“Because he’s not with the Court and he slugged me?”
Sara sighed. “Probably.” Then she remembered something and tore through the papers on her desk until she found it. “I can tell you about what time Steven left.” She picked up the memo Wright had left for her. Across the top of the memo was a date and time stamp. She flipped the papers around so Fiske could see it.
“The word-processing system automatically puts the date and time stamp on documents because we go through so many drafts. That way we can quickly tell what’s current or not.”
Fiske looked at the time stamp. “This was printed out at one-fifteen this morning.”
“That’s right. Steven finished the memo, printed it out, put it on my desk and then presumably left.”
“And saw whatever he saw.”
Sara suddenly looked puzzled. “Wait a minute. Something doesn’t make sense here. When a clerk works late, ordinarily what happens is one of the Court police officers will give the clerk a ride home, if you live nearby.” She looked at Fiske. “The police here are really good to us.”
“And at one-fifteen the metro’s not running, is it?”
“No. Besides that, Steven lived barely a five-minute car ride from here. He’s gotten rides home before.”
“So the chances are very good that Wright got a ride home from somebody at the Court?”
“Leaving here at one-fifteen in the morning, I’d say it was a really safe bet.”
“How about a cab, though? Maybe at that hour there weren’t enough guards to spare to take him home.”
Sara looked doubtful. “I guess it’s possible.”
“If a police officer did take him home, that should be easy enough to check. I’ll tell Chandler.”
“So where does that leave us?”
Fiske shrugged. “We need to see Harms’s military file. I’ve got an old friend with the Army JAG. I’m going to call and see if he can help expedite the process. Until we know who’s involved in all this, I want as few people as possible to know we’re looking around.”