U.S. Attorney’s Office

The U.S. Attorney’s Office enters the account through Scott Duncan’s professional ties and the federal prosecutor Linda Morgan, who later works with Captain Stuart Perlmutter. Duncan’s leave limits the investigative resources he can use, while Morgan and Perlmutter’s efforts produce a potential witness from Carl Vespa’s inner circle without resolving the difficulty of proving Jimmy X’s murder.

Duncan’s leave and private practice

At the police station, Captain Stuart Perlmutter confirms that Duncan is on leave from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Duncan says he is working in private practice, and explains that he hired Indira Khariwalla on behalf of a client. The exchange establishes that his current work is outside the office, even as his former federal role remains part of the investigation’s background.

That separation has practical consequences. Duncan tells Grace Lawson that because he was forced to take leave, he could not use the FBI for surveillance. Instead, he hired a private investigator, who in turn used Rocky Conwell. Duncan also arranged for a camera to be placed in the Lawson home so that he could observe how his suspect reacted as the investigation unsettled him. The account presents private investigation not as a different objective, but as the means Duncan adopted after losing access to federal surveillance resources.

Cooperation with Perlmutter

Later, Captain Stuart Perlmutter joins forces with Linda Morgan, Duncan’s former boss and the U.S. attorney. Together they turn one of the men from Carl Vespa’s inner circle. The account describes the man’s prospective arrest as a rumor at that point, rather than a completed prosecution; it also cautions that connecting him to Jimmy X’s murder will be difficult.

The office’s significance is therefore conveyed through individual relationships and investigative outcomes, not through a description of its internal structure or general procedures. Duncan’s departure constrains one strand of the inquiry, while Morgan’s later cooperation with Perlmutter advances another. Neither development guarantees a conviction: the converted insider offers a possible route toward the truth, but the murder remains hard to prove.