We're no sooner in the house than she asks me, "How did you figure it out?"
I don't want to tell her the truth--that I wasn't even absolutely positive I was right until I saw her reaction to the news about Murdoch's death. So I simply say, "Dorsey's wife said he called someone 'Lieutenant' I assumed it was someone within the police department, until I realized Dorsey was a lieutenant himself, and people of the same rank don't talk that way."
I pause for a moment, preparing to drop the bomb. "It had to have been Dorsey's commanding officer in the army, the special unit he was in with Murdoch and Cahill. It turns out that your boss Hobbs was a lieutenant in Vietnam at the same time as Dorsey, which makes him the logical choice. Also, the 911 call referred to Garcia as the 'perpetrator.' It's a word you might use."
She doesn't react with any surprise at all; she's been living with this truth for a long time. "You can't prove it. Nobody can."
"I don't have to prove it," I say. "I just have to shine a light on it."
"I can't help you," she says.
"You're the only one that can help me. And you've already tried to. But now it has to be out in the open. No more phone calls, no more masking your voice."
She smiles at my naivete. "Do you have any idea what it would be like to come out publicly against a man like Damn Hobbs? Do you know what they would do to me?"
I nod. "Laurie Collins faced the same decision with Dorsey two years ago. She knew it would be bad, and it's been worse than she could have imagined. It may well ruin her life. But she'd do it again ten times over."
She speaks quietly, as if she's really talking to herself. I have a feeling this is a conversation she's had with herself quite a few times. "I've wanted to be an FBI agent my entire life."
I shake my head. "I don't know you, but I'd bet you didn't want it like this. I don't think you can live with it like this, knowing what you know ..."
"I'm telling you, I have no proof that your client is innocent. I have no information about her at all."
"I know that." I sense that she is weakening, and I am going to stay here and beg and plead and persuade until she caves. It is realistically the only chance Laurie has to stay out of prison. "I just want the information you have about Hobbs."
She nods. "I've got plenty of that."
I'm definitely making progress, and I want to be extra careful what I say so I don't blow it. "Would you tell me about it?"
She sighs her defeat. "Are you hungry? This is going to be a long night."
"The longer the better," I say. "Besides, I had four stakeout donuts in the car."
"What is a stakeout donut?"
This woman is an FBI agent? J. Edgar would snap his garters if he could hear this. "It's a technical term," I say. "You wouldn't understand."
The next three hours are the most exciting I've ever spent, with a woman with my clothes on. Cindy has made a study of Hobbs from her vantage point as his subordinate/punching bag, and she has the goods on him.
From his high-level perch in the FBI, he has essentially been providing protection for his elite army squad, which has come together for some domestic work. There were at least four men under Hobbs, probably more, though it will take investigatory work to find any others.
All were involved in different types of criminal activity, still under Hobbs's command. But his blanket of protection was not total. Dorsey, for instance, drew too much attention to himself, and Hobbs couldn't keep him out of trouble without exposing himself. Murdoch had the bad luck of having his counterfeit plates found by the fire department, and it became public so quickly that Hobbs was powerless to intervene.
For all intents and purposes, Cindy can prove what Hobbs has been up to, but with some glaring gaps, the main one being the Dorsey murder. She believes that Hobbs either murdered Dorsey himself or more likely sent Cahill to do it, but the evidence simply does not exist to get Laurie off the hook.
By the time I leave her house at eleven o'clock, I've got a plan formulated. I call Kevin and bring him up