Within the office, either standing or perched upon chairs, were Ramsey, Detective Chandler, Perkins and Agent McKenna. Seated behind her antique desk, Elizabeth Knight was nervously fiddling with a letter opener when she saw Sara.
“Please come in and sit down.” Her tone was barely cordial, Sara thought.
She sat in an upholstered wing chair that had been, she thought, carefully positioned because it allowed everyone in the room to directly face her. Or confront her, perhaps?
She looked at Knight. “You wanted to see me?”
Ramsey stepped forward. “We all wanted to see you, and, more to the point, hear you, Ms. Evans. However, I will let Detective Chandler do the honors.” Ramsey was as stern as Sara had ever seen him. He leaned back against the fireplace mantel and continued to stare at her, his large hands clasping and unclasping nervously.
Chandler sat down across from her, his knees almost touching hers. “I’ve got some questions I need to ask you, and I want the truth in return,” he said quietly.
Sara looked around the room. Only half joking, she said, “Do I need a lawyer?”
“Not unless you’ve done something wrong, Sara,” Knight quickly pointed out. “However, I think you should make the determination whether to have legal counsel present or not.”
Sara swallowed with difficulty and then looked back at Chandler. “What do you want to know?”
“Have you ever heard the name Rufus Harms?”
Sara closed her eyes for a moment. Oh, shit. “Let me explain — ”
“Yes or no, please, Ms. Evans,” Chandler said. “Explanations can come later.”
She nodded, then said, “Yes.”
“Exactly how are you familiar with that name?”
She fidgeted in her chair. “I know that he’s a military prisoner who escaped. I read that in the papers.”
“Was that the first you’d heard of him?” When she didn’t answer, Chandler continued, “You’ve been asking questions at the clerks’ office about an appeal presumably filed by Rufus Harms. In fact, you did that before he escaped from prison, didn’t you? What were you looking for?”
“I thought . . . I mean — ”
“Did John Fiske put you up to it?” Knight asked sharply. She looked searchingly at Sara, the disappointment on her features making Sara feel even more guilty.
“No. I did it on my own.”
“Why?” Chandler asked. From his vague conversation with Fiske in the Court’s cafeteria, he already had a notion as to what the truth was. But he needed to hear it from her.
Sara let out a deep breath and looked once more at the army aligned against her. She wished that Fiske would suddenly appear to help her, but that was not going to happen. “One day I happened to see what looked like an appeal with Rufus Harms’s name on it. I checked at the clerks’ office, because I didn’t recall seeing it on the docket. The clerks’ office had no record of it.”
“Where did you see this appeal?” Ramsey interjected, before Chandler could get the same question out.
“Just somewhere,” Sara said, looking miserable.
“Sara,” Knight said harshly, “it’s no use covering up for somebody. Just tell us the truth. Don’t throw your career away for this.”
“I don’t remember where I saw it, I just saw it. For maybe two seconds. And I only saw Rufus Harms’s name, not what was in the filing,” Sara said stubbornly.
“But if you suspected it was an appeal that was not logged into the system,” Perkins said, “then why didn’t you take it down to the clerks’ office and have it logged in?”
How was she supposed to answer that? “It really wasn’t convenient at the moment, and I didn’t get another chance.”
“Wasn’t convenient?” Ramsey looked ready to erupt. “It’s my understanding that you just recently inquired at the clerks’ office about this ‘missing’ appeal. Was it still not convenient for you to have it logged in then?”
“At that point I didn’t know where it was.”
McKenna spoke up forcefully. “Listen, Ms. Evans, either you tell us or we find out from another source.”
Sara stood up. “I resent your tone and I don’t appreciate being treated this way.”
“I think it’s in your interests to cooperate,” McKenna said, “and stop trying to protect the Fiske brothers.”