NOVEL NEXT Chapter 111: Where Did Hoover Find It?
Bernie and Theodore arrived at the apartment within minutes of each other, both carrying the weight of their respective days.
Bernie's house-hunting expedition had yielded mixed results. While Arlington's public schools couldn't match Bethesda's prestigious reputation, the community atmosphere appealed to him considerably more.
FBI families formed a tight-knit network here; children played together while their parents shared the unspoken understanding that came with federal law enforcement careers.
Most importantly, comparable properties cost over five thousand dollars less than their Bethesda counterparts.
Bernie had identified several promising options and was eager to discuss them with Hilda during their evening phone call.
Theodore wanted to share details about Hoover's gathering, but found himself struggling to articulate the experience. The entire evening had been a blur of handshakes and brief introductions orchestrated by his uncle.
Theodore's role had been purely ceremonial: smile, acknowledge his presence when mentioned, then fade into the background while more important men discussed more important matters.
After several false starts, he decided the gathering wasn't worth discussing.
Instead, he picked up the manila folder Hoover had given him.
"He said if we solve this case independently, we can form our own investigation team. And we might be able to skip the selection training entirely."
Theodore recounted his negotiation with Hoover, emphasizing what he considered a significant victory.
Bernie, who had been reaching for the telephone to call his wife, paused mid-motion. He didn't know whether to laugh or despair at his partner's political naivety.
"Theodore, your uncle runs the entire Bureau. He could simply order the Investigation Department supervisor not to assign us any cases until training concludes."
Theodore shrugged with characteristic confidence. "He promised us independent authority. We can find our own cases if necessary."
Bernie stared at Theodore with the kind of fascination normally reserved for exotic animals in zoos. After a moment, he shook his head in bewildered admiration.
"What?" Theodore asked, noticing the scrutiny.
"Nothing," Bernie replied, raising the phone receiver. "Let me talk to Hilda first, then we'll examine this case together."
Theodore glanced at his watch, nearly ten o'clock. Based on Bernie's previous conversations with his wife, this call would consume at least an hour.
When Bernie spent the first five minutes coaxing little Sullivan to bed without even mentioning the house-hunting results, Theodore decided not to wait.
He tore open the file folder and spilled its contents across the coffee table.
The first items to catch his attention were crime scene photographs, twenty black and white images that had clearly been taken by someone with minimal forensic photography training.
The angles were haphazard, many shots duplicated the same evidence from slightly different perspectives, and the overall composition suggested an amateur's uncertain hand behind the camera.
Theodore spent considerable time arranging and rearranging the photographs, trying to construct a coherent picture of the crime scene while Bernie progressed through domestic small talk with his family in Texas.
Gradually, a tragic tableau emerged from the scattered images.
Three bodies: two adults and a young woman. The adults lay sprawled in front of a living room sofa, their blood pooling together on worn wooden floorboards.
The younger victim had fallen behind the sofa, as if trying to hide or escape.
The front door hung open, revealing a house ransacked with methodical thoroughness.
Every drawer had been yanked out and overturned, cabinet contents scattered across multiple rooms. The destruction suggested either a burglary gone wrong or someone searching desperately for something specific.
Twenty photographs conveyed this much information and little more.
Theodore found himself genuinely curious about whoever had taken these images; it required remarkable incompetence to capture so much redundant content while revealing so few useful details.
When the photos yielded no additional insights, he turned to the accompanying documents.
At least there was basic victim identification; without it, even determining the victims' race would have been impossible given the photograph quality.
The family consisted of Clarence Earl, a construction worker; his wife, Mabel Earl, who worked as a laundress; and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Hattie Earl, who worked alongside her mother.
All three were colored and lived in Southeast Washington.
Clarence had a criminal history, theft and robbery convictions, with corresponding prison time. Mabel and Hattie had clean records.
Beyond these bare facts, the file contained nothing.
Theodore stared at the meager evidence spread across his table, a growing suspicion that his uncle was testing him in some deliberately obtuse fashion.
Across the room, Bernie had progressed to discussing nursery arrangements for their theoretical third backup house, fantasizing with Hilda about converting a spare bedroom for the baby brother their daughter desperately wanted.
Ten minutes later, Bernie concluded his call with the ritual exchange of kisses transmitted over long-distance telephone lines. Still glowing with domestic happiness, he pulled up a chair beside Theodore.
"So what kind of case are we dealing with?" he asked expectantly.
Theodore had been reorganizing the materials while Bernie talked, arranging the photographs and documents in what he hoped was logical order.
"Family massacre. Three victims. Happened in Southeast."
Bernie examined the photographs with growing bewilderment. After several minutes, he looked up with obvious confusion. "That's everything?"
Theodore was already heading toward the bedroom. "That's everything."
Bernie incredulously flipped through the three brief documents, watching Theodore's retreating figure with unspoken questions.
He genuinely wanted to ask: Are you absolutely certain you're J. Edgar Hoover's nephew?
Monday arrived with plummeting temperatures and the first snowfall of winter. Traffic moved at a glacial pace through the icy streets, nearly making Theodore and Bernie late for work despite leaving their apartment early.
At headquarters, Bernie approached an agent he'd befriended during their brief tenure.
Theodore couldn't remember when or how Bernie had cultivated these relationships to inquire about their mysterious case.
The agent explained that the Earl family murders represented a request for assistance from the Fifth Precinct. However, because all three victims were colored residents of Southeast Washington, no agent had volunteered to take the investigation.
Further checking revealed that the case had been submitted five months earlier, with the actual murders occurring six months ago in early June. The agent helped Bernie obtain contact information for the lead detective.
When Bernie dialed the number, he reached Detective Ross rather than the expected Detective Coleman.
Ross explained that Coleman had been killed in the line of duty the previous month, and he had only recently inherited Coleman's caseload while trying to familiarize himself with ongoing investigations.
Ross claimed no knowledge of any family massacre case, but offered to search the precinct files and agreed to meet Bernie and Theodore at the Fifth Precinct that afternoon.
The drive to the Fifth Precinct consumed nearly an hour through congested winter streets. Detective Ross proved to be a thin, enthusiastic young man who eagerly invited the FBI agents to join him in the archives.
The sight of yet another chaotic records storage facility sent familiar shivers down Bernie and Theodore's spines, traumatic memories of their experience in Felton's detective bureau archives.
Fortunately, the D.C. police department maintained somewhat better organizational standards. While the files were numerous and haphazardly arranged, at least nothing appeared to be missing entirely.
The three men spent the entire morning searching through dusty file boxes before finally locating the Earl case materials just before lunch break.
The police file contained only marginally more information than Hoover's folder: a single witness statement and three autopsy reports.
The witness was a neighbor who had heard shouting and gunshots from the Earl residence, waiting until silence returned before telephoning the police.
His statement claimed he had seen nothing and knew nothing about the circumstances surrounding the violence.
Theodore examined the autopsy reports with growing frustration.
The content was even more rudimentary than the work he'd encountered in Felton's East District, and he had genuinely begun to miss that medical examiner's relative competence.
Beyond establishing causes of death, the reports contained vast blank sections where crucial details should have appeared.
Clarence and Mabel Earl had been shot with .38 caliber bullets. Hattie Earl had been strangled. No autopsy photographs, no detailed wound descriptions, no analysis of defensive injuries or assault patterns.
Theodore asked Detective Ross about examining the bodies for a more thorough post-mortem analysis.
Ross led them to the morgue, where records revealed that all three bodies had been transferred three months earlier.
Clarence Earl had been cremated immediately.
Mabel Earl's body had been designated "available for medical research" and transferred to George Washington University's Anatomy Department after the police chief's authorization.
Hattie Earl had been sent to Saint Elizabeth's Hospital for unspecified purposes.
After parting ways with Detective Ross, Theodore and Bernie contacted George Washington University's Anatomy Department.
They learned that Mabel Earl's body had indeed been cremated after serving its educational purpose, but the supervising professor had retained comprehensive autopsy records.
Upon learning that these records might relate to an active murder investigation, the professor enthusiastically agreed to contribute them to FBI efforts.
The university's autopsy documentation proved extensive and meticulously detailed, everything the original police report should have contained. Theodore extracted the crucial findings:
The victim showed mucosal defects on the inner surface of her lower lip, consistent with being struck in the mouth. Complete fracture of the right ulnar shaft indicated her arm had been twisted with sufficient force to snap the bone.
A circular wound below the left clavicle displayed stellate lacerations at the edges, the distinctive pattern of a close-contact gunshot.
The bullet had penetrated the upper lobe of her left lung before lodging in the T4 vertebra, creating a defect in the anterior wall of the aortic arch that would have caused rapid blood loss.
The sequence of injuries suggested Mabel Earl had been tortured before being executed, her arm deliberately broken, then shot at point-blank range.
Encouraged by this breakthrough, Theodore and Bernie contacted Saint Elizabeth's Hospital regarding Hattie Earl's remains.
They received a curt response: "You do not have access authorization."
After an entire day of investigation, they had obtained meaningful autopsy results for only one of the three victims.
Following lunch, Theodore suggested examining the crime scene itself.
Bernie contacted Detective Ross, and the three men met at the address where the Earl family had died.
The single-story wooden row house faced the street like dozens of identical structures in Southeast Washington's working-class neighborhoods. Six months after the murders, the property had already changed hands.
The current residents weren't home, and their front door was securely locked.
Detective Ross knocked on several neighboring doors before finding someone who could provide information about the new occupants.
The family consisted of five people: a construction worker father, a laundress mother, and three children. Coincidentally, both parents worked in the same occupations as their murdered predecessors.
The husband worked at a construction site in Southwest Washington; the wife worked in Northeast Washington. Based on the distances involved, the three men drove to the Northeast District to locate the female homeowner.
They found her at a commercial laundry facility, a plump, middle-aged, colored woman who immediately displayed obvious wariness when approached by two white men and a young detective.
When they requested permission to inspect her home, her resistance was unmistakable despite their official credentials.
She attempted to use her work schedule as an excuse to refuse their request.
When Detective Ross informed her that a murder had occurred in her house, a family massacre, specifically, the woman released a piercing scream followed by a string of profanity that would have impressed longshoremen.
Her reaction suggested that either the previous homeowner or the rental agent had failed to disclose the property's violent history.
Theodore realized they were dealing with more than just an unsolved murder case.
Someone had gone to considerable lengths to obscure the investigation, scatter the evidence, and bury the truth about what had happened to the Earl family.
The question was why and who had the authority to orchestrate such a comprehensive cover-up.
[End of Chapter]
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