Reprisal (20 page)

“I enjoy it, and I want to help these young people understand the importance and excitement of science.” He glanced at his watch. “I should get into the lab now.”

“Yeah, of course. Well, thanks again, Doc.”

Michael left and hurried across the high school complex to the lab room on the far west end. Jim Miller, the head engineer who ran the physical plant, almost collided with Michael as they both rounded a corner.

“Hey, Doc, what’s the rush?”

“I’m late for the class.”

“I s’pose with the fair coming up, you’re all working overtime.”

“Right. Well, I have to run.” They liked him and appreciated his work, but he didn’t want to get too friendly with any of them. Besides, he had lots of work to get done before he left tonight—for the science fair and the other, final preparations.

When he reached the lab, the usual teacher, Ms. Hall, was wrapping up her class. She brightened when Michael entered the back of the room. Hall stopped talking. “Here he is now.”

All twenty-two students turned and applauded for Michael. He half raised his hand and felt slightly embarrassed.

Ms. Hall said, “So, I want the last four chapters finished by next Monday. I’ll give you extra time because I know so many of you are presenting for the fair. Dr. Ammar,” she looked up at him, “are you ready to handle this crew?” She laughed.

“I’ll take them all on,” Michael said.

After she left, he assigned each student who was participating in the fair to show him their progress. The students scraped out of their desks, pushed and shoved each other in fun, and went to the lockers on the side of the room. They started to remove their projects.

One of the most intense kids, Sergio, came up to Michael. “Do you want to see the heart sections I’ve displayed?”

“Sure. Where is it?”

Sergio pulled him to a table in the far corner. Lifting a box off the floor, Sergio removed a remarkably life-like model of the human heart. “It’s plastic material I can mold by hand. When it sets, it looks pretty real, doesn’t it?”

Michael marveled at the model. All the chambers, muscled walls, and arteries looked accurate.

“See,” Sergio explained, “this first model shows the heart with the arteries blocked.” He pointed to an area in the upper chamber. Turning around, Sergio lifted another model out of the box. “This one here’s been surgically repaired. And in between each model, I’m gonna put up the videos I got off the web that show the actual surgery. Lots of blood and guts,” he laughed.

“That should cause people to stop smoking,” Michael said. He pulled back his cuff to see the time. There was so much work to do down stairs, he couldn’t spend a lot of time with the students today.

One by one, Michael hurried around the room to check each project. He offered advice to many, congratulated others, and pointed out problems in projects that didn’t look complete.

He had come to like the young people to a degree, but they all had been corrupted by the materialistic culture around them. None of them understood how privileged they were. Although he suspected they professed a number of different religions, none of them took any of that seriously. They were spoiled and selfish.

“I have something to do myself,” he announced. “I’ll be back in a while. In the meantime, continue working or cleaning up if you’re done.” He left them in the room while he hurried down the hall, found the door to the basement, and stepped down into the dark stairway.

Twenty-Three

Paul Schmidt punched the button on the elevator in the Government Center repeatedly, as if that would make it move faster. He’d just come from a meeting with Steve Harmon, who told him of the testing Zehra Hassan had done on the DNA sample.

Paul knew of the new test and thought it was reliable. That proved what he’d told Conway, but it also scared him.

If El-Amin wasn’t the killer, who was? It also proved the network was larger and more sophisticated than he’d imagined. What were they planning? Questions and problems churned in his mind like the beginning of a tornado. Why’d they want El-Amin to take the fall? Paul felt he’d been right all along.

At some point, he had to tell Conway but wasn’t sure what reaction he’d get. Especially after the stormy meeting earlier this morning.

Conway called him into his office. He shut the door, something very unusual.

Before Paul could sit, Conway launched into him. “God damn it, Paul. I warned you.”

Paul remained quiet, waiting to see how much Conway actually knew.

“I told you to cease and desist.” A red tinge came up from Conway’s neck and spread across his wrinkled face. “And what the hell do you do? You fuckin’ disobey an order from me. I’m mad as hell about this, boy. I stuck my neck out for you after your fuck-up in Milwaukee and this is how you re-pay me?”

“But—”

“Shut up for now. You got nothing to say, as far as I can tell. I know what you’re doing behind my back and I am about one inch from firing your ass.”

Paul knew him well enough to just let the storm pass.

“I told you in front of all the other agents, at the meeting, to stop your investigation. Don’t ‘bogart’ this thing by yourself. I got witnesses. If what you’ve done blows up in my face, not only will I fire your ass, I’ll get you charged criminally.” His breath came in short gasps. “You got the picture clear this time?”

“Yes, sir.” He slinked out of the office.

He stepped into the open elevator at the Government Center. Before he told anything more to his boss, Paul had other actions to be taken. He’d have to make damn sure his information was tight before he risked a firing from Conway. And he didn’t have much time left.

After riding the elevator to the second floor, he looked up. Outside, across the plaza, he could see the old, hulking pile of stones called City Hall. It reminded him of a castle topped with a bell tower. Rain splattered over the ornamental stones, giving the building a fuzzy edge.

Paul decided to take the underground tunnel through City Hall, to come out closer to his office. Down two floors, he hurried past the cafeteria and turned into the basement of City Hall, underneath the Minneapolis Police Department offices.

As he rounded the last corner, he bumped into Lieutenant Patrick O’Brien of the Minneapolis police.

“Hey, Father O’Brien,” Paul said. He worked with O’Brien on the kidnapping cases and knew the old cop had a reputation for getting more confessions out of suspects than anyone else. The name fit.

“Schmitty. How’re the feds treatin’ ya?”

“Busy. The killer of the Ahmed boy goes on trial in a week.”

“Hope they nail that son-of-a-bitch.” O’Brien slouched against the wall. Unlike the younger cops, who all shaved their heads or had short hair, he wore his gray hair longer than usual.

“Ah …” Paul didn’t know how much to reveal about the DNA sample.

“Only problem left is the jury. Worst damn thing we ever invented. They can take a perfectly good case and turn it into a failed wet-dream. I don’t know how, but I’ve seen it enough.”

“I know what you mean. I remember a case in federal court. We all knew the sucker was guilty as hell, even the judge knew it, but the jury found him not guilty. The judge was so pissed-off, he wouldn’t even talk to them. Just left the courtroom in a huff.” He peered at O’Brien. “But don’t worry. We’ve got ‘advanced techniques’ of investigation we’re going to use on this case.”

O’Brien frowned and shifted his weight to the other leg. “Say, Schmitty, running into ya, makes me think of something I wanted to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“You know I was one of the first cops at the crime scene on the Ahmed case?”

“I remember.”

“Now, I don’t do the forensic investigation, but I gotta protect the scene, keep people outta there, and generally run the show.” He looked to the side and back to Paul. “There was something strange. A guy was there.”

“Who?”

“Damned if I know, for sure. He showed up soon after the Minneapolis coppers did. Older guy, dark-blue windbreaker that said USAMRD, or something like that, on the back in yellow letters. Might have been with some woman, too. Of course, I stopped him, asked for ID. He said you guys gave him the okay.”

“What’d we give?”

“I mean, the FBI gave him the okay to be there. He even showed me some kinda ID, looks like yours but not the same. Some federal ID.”

“Did you get the name? Or where he was from?”

“Naw. You know how crazy a crime scene is, especially that one with all the press and gawkers. I had my hands full just keeping the civilians out. You wouldn’t believe some of ’em. You put the tape up, plain as day, and they fuckin’ crawl under it! Right in fronta me.”

“Who do you think this guy was?”

“Don’t know. That’s why I thought to ask you now. See if you knew something.” He used a fingernail to pick something from between his teeth.

Paul shook his head. “What’d he do?”

“Well … let’s see.” O’Brien looked at the floor while he thought. “Walked around but didn’t wander. Know what I mean? Like he knew what he was doing, was familiar with a crime scene. Didn’t seem to disturb anything—that was my main worry.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. Kinda weird. He did pick up something. Some gloves, I think. Off to the side, near the sidewalk away from the fence and the parking lot. Know where I mean?”

“Think so. To the south of where the body was found?”

“Right.”

“That’s the way the killer left, according to the witness on the porch.”

O’Brien pursed his lips. “At the time, I didn’t think much about it. There’s lots of junk laying around that neighborhood anyway. Kinda trashy.”

“How’d you let him get away with evidence like that?” Paul felt his face flush hot.

“Outside the tape. He picked ’em up outside the tape. I was plenty busy with trying to maintain the integrity of the scene
inside
the tape.”

“Sure. Where’d he go?”

“Don’t know. Until I saw you, I’d forgotten about it. Maybe it’s nothing, anyway.”

“Remember what kind of gloves? Winter gloves?”

“Naw. These looked like latex gloves. Like you’d use in a hospital or something.”

“Wait a minute. The mask … do you think the killer wore both as a disguise?”

O’Brien smiled and showed crooked teeth. He coughed with a smoker’s bark. “Well, the glasses and the mask, yeah. The ID from the guy on the porch wasn’t great. If it hadn’t been for the snitch who heard the killer braggin’ about it, I don’t know …”

Paul started to move toward the door. “But gloves as part of a disguise? Sounds odd.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

Paul shrugged. “The gloves and mask, maybe we got someone who works in a hospital or a medical facility.”

“But Schmitty, we got the killer already.”

Back at his office, Paul paced around his desk, wondering what to do next. He felt like time was running out. Should he go to Conway with the DNA and glove information? Paul worried he would be fired if Conway found out he was investigating the murder. No, he’d wait a little longer. Put together a tighter case before presenting it to Conway. Paul took a deep breath. One more screw-up and he knew he’d end up doing security work at power plants for a living—if he didn’t go to prison.

His cell phone rang.

“Hey, it’s Zehra.”

“I just heard about the DNA test. Quite a knock-out punch, Counselor.”

“We haven’t knocked out anything yet. The prosecutor won’t bail on the case until he’s checked it out completely. Can’t blame him for that. At least I can trust Harmon to be honest about things.” Her words came out in a jerky fashion.

“Then, you’ve got the alibi witness. Where’d you say he was?”

“Oh, the imam at the mosque on the West Bank, Mr. Moalim. Yeah, he’s cool. I think the combination of his testimony and the faked DNA, should give us a great defense.”

“Zehra, remember I told you to be careful? The real killer’s still out there, and someone is protecting him.”

Twenty-Four

Carolyn Bechter watched with growing horror. She had just mixed a third Mojito in her tenth floor condo overlooking the Mississippi River and the Stone Arch Bridge. High white clouds puffed up on the northern horizon. Shoes off, air conditioning on high, chilled glass sweating in her hand, she clicked on the Channel Six news.

After following Ben Mohammad, she’d kept searching but hit stone walls. No matter which source or friend she contacted, Carolyn couldn’t shake anything loose. She knew she was on the trail of something big, which caused even more frustration.

She understood the Somali community was hard to crack, that they didn’t trust many people outside their individual clans. But Carolyn had pushed on her contacts in the police department, FBI, snitches, and even a few seedy, self-appointed “spokesmen” from the Somali community who were always willing to talk to the press. Not a damn thing.