The Canton Connection by Fritz Galt

one of us? The police must have allowed the weapons to be contaminated.”
    “Not possible.”
    “Someone at the lab, then?”
    “No, Jake.”
    “So whose fingerprints are on the bat and knife?”
    “He works in the Witness Protection Program.”
    Jake was confused. The Witness Protection Program was run by the U.S. Marshals Service in the Department of Justice. How could a U.S. marshal have committed the crime? “You mean a witness or someone protecting a witness?”
    “A deputy U.S. marshal working for the Witness Protection Program.”
    That was odd. Why would a deputy marshal kill Chu? “Got a name?”
    “The prints match those of a Simon Wu.”
    “Wu? As in a Chinese name?”
    “That’s what it looks like.”
    A truck rushed past with a loud rumble. “Has anybody called Wu in for questioning?”
    “Nobody knows about this but you, me and the lab.”
    Jake stared at the long, straight road. Assuming that was Wu using the bat and knife at the crime scene, there were two Chinese men involved, one killing the other in the presence of Stacy Stefansson. Why? To protect her? To prevent the other from passing secrets to her? In competition with each other for her?
    He thought back to Stacy at their interview. She had described the assailant in great detail, but why did she say that he was “American-looking” and not mention that he was Asian?
    Finally Jake had a name. Once he interrogated Simon Wu, he might have the killer and learn if he was behind hacking the A root server.
    After fifteen years at the FBI, Jake knew many special agents, but only met a handful of deputy U.S. marshals.
    “Who is this Simon Wu, anyway?” Jake said over the phone. “What was he doing with the Witness Protection Program?”
    “Tread carefully,” Bob said. “You will need to go to the DOJ’s Inspector General if you turn this into an internal investigation.”
    Jake knew the procedure if the Department of Justice needed to investigate their own. The only fallback for the nation’s premier investigating bureau was the IG office within the Justice Department that could look into illegal activities of DOJ employees.
    “I hear you,” Jake said.
    “Good luck, and keep Hoffkeit in the loop.”
    Jake disconnected, and tried to imagine the perpetrator’s motive.
    Was he part of a larger plot to take down the members of Quantum? If Wu did it, on whose orders was he acting?
    Jake headed to his office to find out more about Simon Wu.
    The Witness Protection Program was an important branch of the U.S. Marshals Service, the oldest law enforcement arm of the federal government. The program had various methods at their disposal to change people’s identities and set them up with new lives. Why would a deputy marshal kill someone? Who would he be protecting?
    After arriving at his office, he nodded at Maria at the front desk.
    “Don’t see you much these days,” she said.
    “On the road, mostly. Oh.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out Stacy’s business card. He needed Stacy to identify the suspect. “Please call this person and tell her to be here for another interview this afternoon at five o’clock.”
    “Sure thing.”
    A quick computer search of the DOJ’s personnel files got Jake straight to an ID photo and bio of Simon Wu. Just as he suspected, he was looking at an Asian fellow.
    Then he looked at the vital statistics. Simon Wu was lean and dark haired as Stacy described, but she had said that the assailant was tall, and Wu was not.
    Wu was five feet five inches.
    Jake switched programs to review the autopsy from the crime lab. The baseball bat had struck the victim’s forehead in a downward motion. Since Chu wasn’t a tall man, the assailant had to be short or on his knees to only reach the front of the victim’s skull with a bat. Simon Wu’s short stature fit the facts.
    “Simon, Simon,” he muttered at the picture of the suspect. “Why did you do it?”
    He clicked the Print button and printed out