Checkmate (10 page)

I tried to get out of this gracefully. “Motive isn't my specialty.”

“I see. So what is your specialty?”

“Environmental criminology.”

He consulted his notes. “That's what you have your Ph.D. in?”

“Yes.”

“And this book that was found at Cole's house, you wrote it?” He made it sound like an accusation.

“I did.”

“And?”

“And?”

“And,” he said testily, “is that what this book is about?”

I wondered once again why he seemed so contemptuous, but he lived in a different world than I did—reporting to the NSC and having the ear of the president. I couldn't begin to understand his . . . well, motives.

“Yes,” I replied. “As well as the theory and practice of the related field of geospatial investigation.”

“Talk me through that.”

Go on, Mr. Tact.

Okay, let's see . . . How to do this as expeditiously as possible?

I slid the water pitcher closer to me, dug out an ice cube, and set it on the table. “Let's say this is a location related to a crime—it could be the site of an abduction or where the victim encountered the offender, or perhaps where the body was dumped or the homicide occurred. Now . . .” I fished out another ice cube. “This is another location in the same crime series.”

I continued until I had five ice cubes. “According to routine activity theory, people travel along relatively set paths and have their activities in regular nodes—for example, where they might shop, or work, or recreate.”

Dipping my finger into the water I drew lines from one ice cube to another. “By studying the relationship of the crime locations to each other, analyzing the timing and progression of the crimes, as well as the road layout, weather conditions, demographics, and traffic flow, and taking into account the way people form cognitive maps of their surroundings, we can extrapolate backward to identify the most likely location of the offender's home base. I look at target and spatial attractiveness, awareness space, distance decay, buffer zones, and journey to crime research.”

I looked up. Everyone was staring at the ice cubes that were now melting on the conference-room table. “So, there you go.”

“I see.”

“Thank you,” Margaret said, “for that . . . illuminating visual representation.”

“You're welcome.”

My thoughts carried me away:
Could the numbers in
the book that we found in Jerome Cole's bedroom have something to do with a GPS coordinate? An address? The Catawba reservation?

“So, where do we go from here, Agent Powers?” Jennings asked me.

The question jarred me back to the meeting. “I'm sorry?”

“I said. Where. Do we go. From here.”

“Well, there is a line of inquiry we're pursuing.” I shared some of the mnemonic words and phrases that could be produced using the numbers that were found written in the book that was left on Jerome Cole's body.

The group seemed to think that the phrase “oh-he-bled-too” was the one we needed to take the closest look at.

“Oh, that's just great,” Jennings mumbled. “This thing is a public relations nightmare. And now we've got this psycho leaving coded messages for us.”

“No, sir,” I said. “It is not.”

“It's not what?”

“A public relations nightmare. Public relations has nothing to do with this. It's a nightmare for families who've lost loved ones. It doesn't matter what the public thinks of any of this. The only things that matter are protecting innocent lives and catching the offender or offenders as quickly as possible.”

Everyone stared at me.

I saw Ralph shaking his head at me:
Don't do this, Pat. Just let it be.

Jennings narrowed his eyes. “How long have you been with the Bureau, Agent Powers?”

I tipped my nameplate face forward onto the table. “Actually, it's Bowers. Ten years. Sir.”

He pursed his lips. “I have a conference call with the
president at noon and I need something to tell him other than that we have no motive, no suspects, and no trace evidence.”

It didn't seem like he was speaking to anyone in particular and I was about to answer for the group when Margaret beat me to it. “Tell him that we are pursuing all available leads,” she said tersely.

“Yes. You can be sure that I will.” It sounded vaguely like a threat.

He gathered his things, rose, and before leaving, announced that he needed to get back to his job—as if this meeting had been an annoying detour from anything meaningful or productive about his day.

Margaret set her jaw and I had a feeling she was going to have a follow-up discussion with our new National Security Council friend here.

Good for her.

She announced that we were going to take a short break and meet back promptly in ten minutes. However, instead of tracking down Jennings to speak with him, as everyone was filtering off to the restrooms or the break room down the hall, she asked Ralph and me to stay behind for a moment.

I felt like a student being called to the principal's office. When we were alone with her, I said, “Listen, Margaret, I'm sorry, but I wasn't about to let Jennings make this out to be just a public affairs—”

“That's not why I asked you two to stay.”

“Oh.”

“René Gonzalez and the Joint Terrorism Task Force will be point on this thing, but I want you two working closely with them.”

“Of course,” Ralph said. I echoed the sentiment.

“If you have any problems getting what you need
when you need it from any of these agencies here, you come straight to me.” She took the surprising step of confirming that we had her personal cell number, then addressed Ralph. “I understand your wife is past her due date.”

“We're expecting our little girl any day now.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“So, will you be alright working this case?”

“I'm sorry?”

“You won't be distracted from the investigation? I mean, by the pressing needs of your family?”

“We all have lives outside the Bureau,” he said somewhat evasively.

“Yes, we do.”

I was reminded of a time last summer when she'd offhandedly remarked to me that she volunteered on weekends at a shelter for abused women, helping to watch their children for them. The revelation had been somewhat eye-opening. Before that I hadn't really pictured her doing anything other than working for the Bureau.

“So.” She eyed Ralph. “I can count on you, then?”

“Are you seriously asking me that question? After all the years we've worked together?”

She hesitated, then said, “You're fine to give this case your full attention?”

“I'm fine. Director.”

“I can assign another person to—”

“I said I'm fine, Margaret.”

“Well, then.” She punctiliously straightened her papers into a flawless stack. “I'm glad to hear that we understand each other.”

“Yes. I think we do.”

*   *   *

In the hallway, I waited for him to comment about the exchange with Margaret, and when he didn't say anything I finally asked him if he was cool.

“Oh, I'm peachy.”

We grabbed a drink at the water fountain. I expected some colorful comments about Margaret, but Ralph said nothing more. Finally, just to get it out in the open, I stated what I guessed we were both thinking. “I can't believe she said that.”

“It's Margaret,” he muttered, as if that explained everything.

What he said next took a moment to register; at first I thought I might have misheard him. “I just hope I can.”

“You can?”

“Avoid being distracted.”

“From the case?”

“Or from my family. I mean, how can I really give either one my full attention? It's impossible, you know. We're always torn. We always feel like we need to do more.”

I could empathize with that, but I wanted to encourage him. “You're a good dad. A good husband. And probably the most dedicated agent I've ever met.”

“How are we supposed to balance it out—wife, kids, all that—in a case when there's this much at stake?” He didn't usually open up like this, and I really didn't know how to respond. He continued, “I mean, how do you do it? With Lien-hua and Tessa?”

“I guess I just do the best I can.”

“Yeah. But it's never quite enough, is it?”

No, it's not,
I thought.

“It's all we can do,” I said.

After the break, the team spent the next two hours going through the case files in depth.

Ralph seemed preoccupied, probably still distracted by thinking about how to balance out his work obligations this week with his commitment to be there for Brin.

I tried not to let our conversation distract me, but it wasn't easy. I never wanted to sell Lien-hua or Tessa short on my affection or attention, but right now, if you included Jerome, we had six bodies—six dead coworkers—and we needed to find whoever was behind it before more people were killed.

The truth is, I have no idea how to balance work and family, not when I throw myself headfirst into things like I tend to do.

Uncomfortable thoughts.

I slid them aside.

It was nearly twelve thirty before we finally broke for lunch. I offered to grab a bite with Ralph, but he declined, so I walked outside to stretch my legs, get some fresh air, and find a place where I could slip in for a quick meal.

At home, with Tessa looking over my shoulder, I didn't get burgers very often so I found a popular hole-in-the wall restaurant two blocks from the Capitol and ordered my favorite: a medium-rare cheeseburger sans mustard and pickles.

When I tried Lien-hua's number she didn't pick up and
I figured she was probably in a meeting. I left a message for her to call me back when she had a chance.

At my table, I texted Tessa that I was expecting to be home around six. Seconds later she texted back that she was packing and that she'd ordered lunch for the two people in the car watching the house.
Burritos. Delivered. I used your credit card. The one in your desk drawer, the one I'm not supposed to know about. See you tonight.

Ah.

Well.

Our inevitable discussion about that was certainly one to look forward to.

*   *   *

After returning to HQ, I worked the first part of the afternoon in a cramped office, poring over the case files with JTTF Director Gonzalez, evaluating the photos, watching the NCAVC footage, analyzing every detail that we could to try to determine the identity of the truck driver.

Nothing.

The man who bagged groceries had been questioned and released.

The investigation into the Catawba Reservation and the number sequence didn't bring up anything, but we did discover that two arrows and a tomahawk had disappeared from an exhibit at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, last week.

There's no such thing as a criminal who leaves no trace behind. As some of the authors in my field have pointed out, offenders always leave a trail as they move through the geospatial universe, just as we all do, being at specific places at specific times.

So now.

Timing: seven days ago.

Location: Charlotte.

Agents from the Field Office down there were reviewing the museum's security-camera footage from the day the artifacts were stolen. Apparently, there were two exterior cameras and several interior ones, so it was taking some time.

Since Debra Guirret, the agent who'd acted as the NCAVC receptionist, was the person most familiar with everyone's schedules and personnel files, she'd volunteered to look for evidence that anyone might have been noting the locations of the security cameras in the loading-bay area.

A step in the right direction.

Ralph was stuck in a series of meetings with the Counterterrorism and DOJ guys, and I received a text from Lien-hua that I should give her a call at three, so I went back to work.

As I did, her question from last night came to mind, the one about what haunted me the most, the pain I've seen or the pain I will see.

“The pain I won't be able to stop,” I'd told her.

In my life I've found that pain has two blades. One is sharp and slices fast and deep, right to the heart.

The other is dull and mangles as it wounds.

I've felt both of them over the years—sometimes from the same event. When my wife died, even though she'd
been in a coma and her death wasn't a surprise, the first thing I felt was disbelief, that it couldn't actually be real.

Then the pain came.

Piercing and scissorlike, a pain that stabbed through my hope for her recovery, of the miracle I had secretly prayed for but that had not come.

God mocking me.

A blade slicing right through me.

And then, after the funeral, the mangling pain arrived. It grabbed hold of me, climbing into me as if it were looking for a new and permanent home.

It rooted itself there, in my heart, for months, driving me further from the things I cared about, positioning itself between me and Tessa, the person who needed me the most and the person I was the most unsure how to love.

And it wasn't until the day in North Carolina when Tessa reached out to me, the day she'd been attacked and might very well have bled to death if I hadn't been able to get to her when I did. It wasn't until then that I was able to start healing.

With her.

Together.

And we made it by etching out a new family unit from the ruins of the one that had been torn apart by Christie's death.

Tragedy can either send us spiraling off into our own private oblivion or it can draw us closer to other people. Either way, we rarely heal on our own. We
Homo
sapiens
are a strange breed. Almost no one learns the lessons that matter the easy way. It's almost always the hard way.

Distracted by my thoughts, I didn't notice that it was already nearly three fifteen when my phone rang—Lien-hua's ringtone.

I picked up. “Sorry. Time got away from me.”

“No problem. So, tell me—how did your meeting go, Agent Powers?”

“Powers. Great. So you've been talking to Ralph.”

“It's possible.” There was the hint of a smile in her voice. “Actually, he called a few minutes ago asking if I knew where Brin was. I guess he's been trying to reach her. She must have her phone turned off.”

“You know how she is, always leaving it somewhere.”

“Yeah. So, at the meeting, any tussles?”

“Not with Margaret.”

“But?”

“But this guy named Pierce Jennings,” I said, “he's with the National Security Council. Let's just say I doubt he's going to invite me out with his buddies to grab drinks after work tonight.”

“Ralph mentioned the ice cubes on the table.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. Hey, did he tell you about our little conversation with Margaret afterward?”

“No.”

I summed it up.

“So,” Lien-hua said, “she actually called his commitment to the Bureau into question?”

“It sounded like it to me. He was not a happy camper.”

“I would guess not.”

It seemed like mentioning our exchange about the dilemma of giving a hundred percent to both your family and the Bureau when there was something as serious as this case at stake wouldn't be a good idea, so I kept it to myself.

“Did your team come up with anything?” I asked her.

“Not so much. Now they're looking into hate groups against Native Americans, antigovernment movements
and militias . . . None of that really fits, though. From what I've heard, neither of the Islamist groups who've claimed responsibility were involved. They make claims like this all the time to try to recruit supporters.”

I told her about the Catawba tribe's weaponry and the connection to the museum in Charlotte, and she considered that carefully.

“So, where does that leave us?”

“Well, we still need to find the connection between all of that and the numbers scribbled in the column of the book left at Cole's house.”

“He's taunting you, Pat.”

“Yeah.”

Typically killers fall into three camps: some simply run, some taunt, others do all they can to cover their tracks.

In order to hamper authorities in discovering the identity of victims, some killers will cut off the head, hands, and sometimes even the feet of their victims. Some murderers prefer to remove the teeth. That way, forensic odontologists can't match dental records.

Once I apprehended a killer in New York who'd kept the teeth of his victims in a jar in his bedroom. All of them had tool indentations that matched a pair of pliers in his toolbox.

He later admitted to pulling his victims' teeth, one every hour, while he kept the people restrained in his basement. He liked to hear their screams while he sat upstairs and wrote his science fiction novels. “They were my muse,” he said at the trial. “I did my best work during those hours.”

But our guy here, he wasn't trying to hide anything.

He was laying it all out there for us.

Basque?

That didn't seem to fit.

But if the book at the crime scene meant anything, we were looking for someone with a connection to me or my work.

Someone else from your past?

I didn't know.

It would make sense, but no one popped to mind.

“He didn't want me dead,” I told Lien-hua.

“What?”

“At the NCAVC, Ralph's text, and the texts to the other people working there at the time, asked them to meet Jerome in the loading bay, but I received a text to go to the lobby.”

“Where the explosion wouldn't have harmed you.”

“That's right.”

“So that, taken into account with the book at the site of Jerome Cole's homicide—you're at the center of this, Pat.”

“Good,” I said. “Then it'll make it easier for me to catch whoever's behind it.”

She didn't reply.

“Lien-hua?”

“I'll see you tonight,” she said at last.

“Yes. I'll see you
then.”