“Ten years, wow,” said Mace. “Long time to keep the little fellows swimming around.”

“Without a preservative and proper storage the sperm contained in the semen will have diminished motility after two or three days and the sample will be no good to us after, say, five days. And our clients would not be very happy with that, would they?”

“So, shooting blanks, in other words?” said Mace.

The nurse sniffed. “Crudely put, but accurate. When we send semen out to our clients the specimens are cryopreserved in screw-top vials. The vials come inside a refrigerated tank or dry shipper since it is actually a metal vacuum bottle refrigerated with liquid nitrogen. The semen is sent with detailed instructions on thawing and utilization.”

Sort of takes all the romance out of it, thought Mace.

“So to answer your question directly, we use a TEST yolk buffer solution as a preservative. Many other sperm banks do the same.”

“Yolk? As in egg?” said Mace with a trace of disgust.

“Not exactly, no, and it’s a perfectly accepted method of preservation.”

Roy said, “So if it’s not a semen donation?”

“Then there will be no preservative. And I can assure you that there won’t be with the person you described. He would never have gotten past the initial round of medical forms. And if he’s a Vietnam veteran as you mentioned he would’ve been disqualified right away.”

“You disqualify Vietnam vets?” said Roy sharply.

“No, of course not, it’s based on age. We, along with most sperm banks, don’t accept specimens from anyone over the age of forty. Indeed, most of our donors are under the age of thirty, many of them college students.”

“Looking for beer money,” commented Mace.

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Are you open every day?” asked Mace.

“We’re closed on Wednesdays and Sundays.”

“So the building is empty then?”

The woman looked at her and said in a contemptuous tone, “That would usually be the case when we’re closed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

“Lots of eggs to crack today?” said Mace.

The woman led them out without saying another word.

When they were outside Roy said, “Wow, I really dig your interrogation technique. First, piss the person off, and then see what she won’t tell us.”

“That woman was not going to knowingly help us from the getgo, but she did tell us at least one thing of importance other than the yolk thing.”

“What?”

“That they’re closed on Wednesdays and Sundays. Now we need to get the sperm sample they found in Tolliver checked out. Lowell Cassell can do it.”

“And if there’s no yolk?”

“Then maybe the Captain is lying.”

“I don’t think he’s mentally capable of coming up with something like this.”

“I don’t think so either, but nothing would surprise me anymore. If it does come back without the preservative, the Captain is probably going down for this.”

“But what if he came here and they took sperm from him but didn’t inject the preservative in it?”

“And why would they do that, Roy? Because they were planning to kill Diane Tolliver and blame it on the Captain? You think the petite sperm expert back there crushed your partner’s brain stem and then injected her with sperm taken under false pretenses?”

“No, but maybe one of the doctors? The Captain said a white building. And he said some guy helped him. He obviously came here.”

Mace considered this. “We’ll have to get a roster of who works here and check out any viable suspects.”

“In the meantime can you call Cassell to run the test?”

“No, but I’ll phone my sister. I’ll do it tomorrow morning.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I have to work up the nerve, that’s why!”

“Why not just bypass her?”

“How? I can’t exactly order the ME to run the damn test.”

Roy’s phone buzzed.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Kingman? It’s Gary, the waiter from Simpsons.”

“Oh, right. Gary from Simpsons,” he said so Mace would know. Roy hit the speakerphone button and held the phone up.

“Did you remember something else, Gary?”

“Well, it wasn’t what I remembered. It’s what I just saw.”

“What you just saw? I don’t understand.”

“The guy Ms. Tolliver was having dinner with? I just saw him.”

“What? Where? We’re close to the restaurant. Is that where you saw him? We can be there in a few minutes. Can you stall him?”

“No, I’m not at work. I’m at my apartment near Adams Morgan. I meant I just saw his photo in the newspaper.”

“Saw him in the newspaper.”

“Yeah. He’s dead.”

“What? Who was he?”

“That attorney guy they found in a Dumpster? Jamie Meldon? He was the guy with Ms. Tolliver Friday night.”

CHAPTER 83

HELLO, Beth.”

Beth looked up to see Sam Donnelly and Jarvis Burns coming toward her. It was the next morning and they were in an auditorium at the FBI’s Washington Field Office where Beth was to give out some awards to local teenagers enrolled in the Bureau’s Junior Agent Program.

“Sam, Jarvis, I didn’t expect to see you two here.”

Burns’s eyes crinkled. “Why not? Some of these young people will be the intelligence operatives of the future.”

Donnelly added, “And one can never start too early looking for talent and molding personalities.”

“By the way, I spoke with your guys. I appreciate the effort you made.”

“Well, they’re not technically my guys,” Donnelly said quickly. “But I value your professional friendship highly. Indeed, Beth, if you hadn’t pursued a career in law enforcement you would’ve made a hell of an intelligence agent.”

“High praise coming from you. So Reiger and Hope don’t report to you?”

Donnelly and Burns exchanged a quick glance. Donnelly said, “Not even the same intelligence platform. Quite frankly, I made a few phone calls, did the Potomac two-step, and ended up with that pair. They seem quite capable. And their superiors obviously gave the okay to brief you.”

“Well, it wasn’t much of a briefing. National security tagline basically.”

“That, unfortunately, is often the case. You know how these things work. No one wants to read anybody else into anything. The old cold war adage still applies as much today: Don’t trust anyone.”

“Do Reiger and Hope have any military connections?”

Burns shot her a penetrating stare. “Not that we know of. Why do you ask?”

“Just an observation. They had DHS creds but told me they’d once worked at the Bureau. And I checked into their backgrounds and quickly found that my security clearances weren’t high enough to even have a peek into where they really came from.”

Donnelly said, “With DHS, the FBI, and sixteen intelligence agencies floating around, it’s nearly impossible keeping any of it straight. I know the goal when creating the Director of National Intelligence position was to orchestrate better oversight and coordination among all these unwieldy alliances, but-and you didn’t hear this from me-it is a herculean task. Some might say impossible.”

“I’m sure. I just have one city and four thousand cops to keep track of. You have the entire world.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. That one city is the nation’s capital. And one of your constituents just happens to be the president.”

“Who went for a pizza run yesterday, which cost me two hundred officers off the street for the motorcade deployment.”

“The world’s most powerful man can do what he wants when he wants.” Burns drew closer. “As an aside, I heard you made an arrest in the murder of that female lawyer in Georgetown. Congratulations. The director actually mentioned it at our morning briefing.”

Donnelly said, “That’s right, Beth. Good work.”

“Well, let’s hope the case sticks.”

“A homeless vet I understand?” said Burns.