Murder at the FBI by Margaret Truman

Let’s have a meeting and shake up the troops.”
    “I don’t think that’s necessary. Everyone’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”
    “Are they? I’m not sure about that.”
    He turned and walked away. He hadn’t bothered to close the door behind her, to kiss her on the cheek, to display anything that might have smacked of caring. She watched him walk, erect and sure, eyes straight ahead. She hoped he’d look back, wave, do something to acknowledge her. He didn’t.
    She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, willedthem away, and started the car. It doesn’t matter, she told herself as she joined the flow of traffic on Wisconsin. But then she had to admit that it did. She was in love with him. “Damn it all,” she said as she cut off a cab and made a right turn.

10
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    An autopsy performed by FBI forensic specialists on the body of deceased Special Agent George L. Pritchard has confirmed that the cause of death was a .22 caliber bullet wound to the heart.
    Numerous other bullet wounds found in the body had been inflicted accidentally after the initial fatal wound.
    Special Agent Pritchard’s assailant has not, as yet, been determined. At the time of death, a number of individuals not employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation were present in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Strict security measures insure that each of these individuals had some valid and official reason for having been admitted. However, because theyare not under direct bureau control, the background of at least one was of a nature to provide a motive for killing Special Agent Pritchard.
    A full-scale investigation is under way to determine the perpetrator and to bring him to justice. The investigation is headed by Special Agent Ross Lizenby, a ten-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a former attorney, who has been directly involved with numerous difficult investigations in the past.
    All inquiries should be directed to the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs. Progress reports will be issued on a regular basis.
    Chris Saksis scanned the release when she arrived at Ranger, tossed it aside, and concentrated on the name Raymond Kane. The phone number next to the initials R.K. in Pritchard’s phone book did not include an area code.
    She asked Barbara Twain to pull up from the bureau’s central computer a list of cities where the first three digits of the number were used as an exchange. Once she had it she instructed Melissa Edwards, the tour guide and fledgling special agent, to start calling, and to tape-record each call.
    Lizenby spent the morning in his office with the door closed. He emerged at noon, casually mentioned to those within earshot that he was going to lunch, and started to leave.
    “Can I have a contact?” one of the secretaries asked.
    Lizenby shook his head. “I’m not sure yet where I’ll be. I’ll call in.”
    Fifteen minutes later Saksis told the secretary,“I have an appointment at the academy at Quantico.” She laid a neatly typed itinerary on the desk and left.
    As she drove the forty miles south on I–95 she thought about the confusion she’d been experiencing since breakfast. Her instincts about not working so closely with Ross had been right. She should have insisted on being removed from Ranger. She knew, of course, that Gormley would not have changed his mind unless she had admitted the personal relationship with Lizenby. That probably would have done it, but it would also have tainted her in Gormley’s eyes. The bureau was not a place for romance. A lecturer had made that point during her training. “Keep the boy-girl games out of the office,” he’d said. “Keep them far away from the bureau. It can cause potential embarrassment.” To say nothing of personal anguish.
    She drove through rolling woodlands until reaching the entrance to the United States Marine Corps base at Quantico, a sprawling facility that had been the center of all FBI