by Bobby Nash
“So, why tell us? If you hadn’t gotten this guy’s confession there handed to you, we wouldn’t know there was anybody else involved with the Washington case or that it and the Hutchinson was were connected.”
Jacks tapped a finger against her chin, a tell-tale sign that she was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Bragging rights, maybe?”
“Why brag to us?”
“Maybe we’re not the only one’s watching,” Jacks said.
“How’s that?”
“Think about it, Mel. If this guy can do what he claims, can turn anyone into a killer, then that’s going to be worth a lot of money.”
“Are you serious? You thinking this guy has found a way to turn anyone into an assassin?”
“Why not?” She started ticking off on her fingers. “No ties to the Controller. No evidence that leads anywhere but to a murder/suicide. Hard to prosecute.”
“You’re talking science fiction, Jacks.”
“Yeah. Twenty years ago, you would have said the same thing about people using drones to kill. Welcome to the Twenty-First Century, partner.”
Mel leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair.
“Suddenly, I miss the good old days,” he said.
###
Jacks was happy to be back in the office.
Knowing what was waiting for her back at her apartment, coming back to the squad room was preferable to going home. A steaming cup of coffee, black with three sugars, firmly in hand and a small bag of potato chips from the vending machine tucked unceremoniously under her arm, Jacks was ready to dive back into work.
Jacks loved the hustle and bustle of a busy squad room, but Sundays were generally slow, which was one of the reasons she and her partner were usually off duty on the weekend. As usual, Detective Donatti was already at her desk. No matter what time of the day Jacks came into the room, it seemed as thought she was always ahead of her. “Don’t you ever go home, Sheron?” Jacks asked playfully.
“Oh, you know how it is, Jacks. Too much to do and not enough hours in the day to do it.”
“I hear ya. Have fun.”
“Yeah,” Donatti chuckled. “You too.”
“You know, sometimes I wonder if you live here,” Jacks said with a tired laugh.
“Well, the cots upstairs are mighty comfortable.”
That stopped Jacks short. She did an about face and walked back to Donatti’s desk.
“Excuse me? What did you say?”
Sheron burst out laughing.
“Oh, come on, Detective. I’m kidding! Do you honestly think I could live in the squad room and no one would notice? I mean, seriously, we are all trained observers, Jacks. If it were that easy, I would give up the eleven-fifty a month on my apartment.”
“Oh,” Jacks felt herself deflate. “For a second there I thought… I thought you were serious.”
“Nah!”
“Okay then,” Jacks said as she motioned toward her own desk. “I’ll just get to it then. I’ll talk to you later, Sheron.”
“Later.”
As she walked away, Jacks could swear she heard Donatti sigh. Nah. Probably just my imagination, she thought but decided to keep a discreet eye on the situation anyway. Something about the way Donatti had answered tickled her Spidey Sense. It was probably nothing and it wasn’t something she was prepared to dive into head first, but she decided to keep a discreet eye on her fellow officer just in case.
Jacks plopped down at her desk and woke up her laptop. Over the last few years, the thin, portable nature of laptops had made her life a little easier in terms of paperwork and filing reports. It was easy to type up an investigation report while in the field and everything was fresh in your mind.
Unlike her partner, Jacks loved computers. She wasn’t a whiz at them by any stretch, but she found them to be useful tools. She had even begun taking some extension classes in her spare time to learn Power Point, Excel, Word, and assorted Office functions. She found the subject intriguing and was curious to learn more programs. Her current homework assignment had her building a website.
She was thinking maybe something relating to digital photography and design would be her next course. She had always been intrigued by photography, but had never taken the time to learn anything about it. Oh, sure, she knew how to take a photo, but she wanted to learn how to do a better job of it, perhaps spend time photographing something other than crime scenes. Maybe it was the right time to learn.
While her partner helped Agent Patterson set up a desk near theirs and collected some paper files from the record’s room, Jacks tried to catch up on some work. She typed up a report on their late night/early morning crime scene, checked and returned six phone messages, answered about twenty emails, and checked her personal email account, CNN.com, the Washington Post's website, and her daily horoscope. There was a small stack of physical mail in her in-box, but she decided to leave those for later.
She had been on the go since Mel’s call that she hadn’t checked any of her daily haunts before then. With what should have been her morning routine behind her, she reviewed the case file she had written for the Washington murders the day before. With their call out to the crime scene near Langley, she hadn’t had time to put down all of her thoughts on this case before jumping to the next one.
Jacks replayed the Washington family’s murder in her mind again. There was something a little odd there, but it was nothing she could put a finger on. The autopsy confirmed that Malcolm Washington was the last member of his family killed. That meant that the murderer would have had to restrain him before moving on to kill the rest of the family.
That’s where things got sticky.
Dr. Martin’s report made no mention of any ligatures to imply that Malcolm Washington had been tied up. The ME found no hair or rope fibers on the body. There was no bruising around the wrists, ankles, or any other place where he would have been tied to keep him from trying to save his family. Nothing to indicate that he had been bound at all.
In fact, reading the ME’s report left Jacks with the distinct feeling that there was no evidence that the man struggled at all. No lacerations or bruises of any kind except for the fatal blow to the skull that killed him.
Could The Controller truly have done what his letter suggested? Had he sent Malcolm Washington on a murder spree that had him kill his wife and children before taking his own life? If so, how? Making someone kill was no easy feat, especially forcing them to kill their loved ones as Malcolm Washington had. Then, there was the matter of why? Why were these people targeted?
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she whispered as she reread the file for a second time, this time with knowledge of someone claiming to pull the strings.
“What’s up, partner?”
“Oh, hey, Mel. What’s shaking?”
He dropped a box of files on the desk. “About fifty extra pounds, I’d say.”
“Ha. Ha,” Jacks said without laughing.
Her partner had always been a little sensitive about his weight. Somehow, despite his best efforts, diet and exercise worked only so much. Or so little, according to him. Tall and broad shouldered, Mel handled the extra weight well most of the time. He wore it well, but after being wounded in the line of duty he had been relegated to temporary bed rest and the weight quickly piled on. Since his return to active duty he has been working over time to rid himself of the extra, unwanted pounds. It was an uphill battle and was not going as well as he liked.
“So, shall we do this?” Agent Patterson asked as she dropped a second box of files on the desk.
“If there’s a connection between these victims, we should find it in here.”
Jacks sighed, but dived right in.
Twenty-three
“Okay, I give up.”
“Already? You're slowing down in your old age, Mel,” Catherine Jackson teased.
Melvin Walker let his head hit the desk.
“Jacks, we've been at thi
s for a few hours already and what do we have? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. You know, bupkus.”
“He always like this?” their new friend from the Secret Service asked.
Jacks chuckled. “No, Sam. Sometimes he gets pretty whiney.”
The women laughed, but Jacks grouchy partner did not share their good humor. A tired Mel was a cranky Mel, after all.
“We've spent the last three hours reviewing and comparing notes from the crime scene. Notes that I wrote, might I add.”
“Okay,” Jacks surrendered. “You win, partner. Let's take a little break, what do you say?”
After obtaining a new soda for Jacks, fresh cups of coffee for Walker and Patterson, and stale bagels left over from that morning’s briefing, they were once more staring at a mountain of official reports.
“Let’s look at this from a fresh perspective,” Jacks said as she pointed at the dry erase board on the wall of the conference room at the precinct they had commandeered.
“You mean there’s a way we haven’t tried yet?” Mel asked as he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
“You’ll have to excuse my partner, Sam. He gets cranky when he doesn’t get enough sleep. It’s a guy thing.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” she said with a smile and a wink at Mel.
“Promises, promises,” he said, trying to hide his blushing cheeks. “What’s your thoughts, Jacks?”
“Okay, we’ve dug deep into Malcolm Washington, Calvin Hutchinson, and Alexander Bradley.”
She pointed to pictures of each man taped to the board with their respective name written underneath in green dry-erase ink.
“As far as we can tell, these gents had never met or had any contact with one another whatsoever.”
“Bradley was a courier,” Patterson added.
“Yes, he was.”
“Could he have been making deliveries for the CIA?”
“Possible, but there’s been no confirmation of that.”
“This may come as a surprise to you,” Detective Walker added. “But the CIA is being less than forthcoming with information.”
“Probably because you wouldn’t let them trample all over the crime scene last night, Mel.”
Walker shrugged with feigned indifference.
“They should have asked nicely,” he said.
“What’s Hutchinson’s story?” Patterson asked, coming to Walker's rescue by changing the subject.
Jacks picked up the file and flipped over a couple pages.
“He was with the Agency for forty years. The man had quite a distinguished record as near as we can tell from what little information we could pull together. His current post was at Langley, but it looks like he was due for retirement soon. He was Deputy Director of the Electronic Espionage Desk. I’m guessing that’s hackers, cyber terrorism, that sort of thing.”
“They should add spammers to that list,” Mel quipped.
Jacks ignored him and kept reading.
“He was liaison with the NSA so his clearance level was pretty high. He handled sensitive materials as a matter of course, but I can’t see what he might have been into that would have gotten him killed.”
“Maybe the Agency will be willing to shed some light on the subject. If we can find out what he was working on, maybe that will lead us somewhere.”
“Maybe. It can’t hurt to ask, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.”
Jacks flipped the page.
“Uh, let’s see. Ah, here we go. He’s been at the same desk for fifteen years.”
“Long time to be in one spot,” Patterson mumbled.
Bot Jacks and Mel stopped and looked at her.
“What? I’m just saying that’s a long time in one job.”
“Uh huh.”
“Okay, so I like to move around. I get bored doing the same thing for long periods.”
The detectives traded a silent glance.
“Sam’s Adult ADD aside, it appears Mr. Hutchinson was a lifer,” Jacks continued. "Before transferring to Electronic Espionage, the vic’s history is a little sketchy, which tells me he was in the field for a time. Could have been into black bag stuff.”
“That tracks,” Mel added as he picked up a file from the desk and flipped over a few pages.
“Yeah. Okay. It says here that he was a Marine. Enlisted at eighteen, right out of high school. I imagine his home life wasn’t very Norman Rockwell. That’s why I signed up for my four years. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of my old man’s house.”
“You were military, huh? What branch?”
“Army. I went in on the college plan. Learned a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Primarily, I learned that I like being a civilian a whole lot more than I liked being a grunt, Miss Patterson.”
She laughed at that.
“I didn’t mean any offense," she said apologetically. "You just don’t strike me as the ‘Be All You Can Be’ type.”
“Oh, I’m not, believe me. My four years couldn’t end fast enough. I respect the hell out of people that can make a go out of it, but it just wasn’t for me. I was a little too independent. Got me in trouble a lot.”
“Same thing happens to me all the time,” Patterson deadpanned.
“Hey, look at this,” Jacks interrupted.
“What have you got?”
“Calvin Hutchinson spent time as an analyst before he was promoted to Electronic Espionage.”
“Okay,” Patterson said. “I think I’m missing something.”
“We had an unusual death yesterday that we’re also investigating. The husband was an analyst also. Worked for the government as well. He’s mentioned in The Controller’s letter.”
“This is Washington DC, Jacks. Almost everybody works for the government in some facility or another. I work for the government, remember? It could just be a coincidence.”
“Maybe.”
Jacks pointed toward her desk.
“Hey, Mel, toss me the Washington file.”
“Here ya go.”
“Thanks.”
“Malcolm Washington worked for an outfit called Pearce Analysis.”
“Pearce?”
“You know it, Agent Patterson?” Mel asked, leaning forward.
“Sort of. I mean, I’ve heard of it.”
That got the detectives’ collective attention.
“And exactly how have you heard of it?” Mel prompted.
“My ex works there. He’s… oh, God…” her voice trailed off.
“What, Sam?”
“I don’t know why it didn’t register with me before. My ex... He’s an analyst there.”
“This day just keeps getting better and better,” Mel muttered.
“Can you give your ex a call?”
“Uh, sure,” Agent Patterson said, but the expression on her face told her that it was not a phone call she was looking forward to making, but she flipped open her cell phone and scrolled through the contact list anyway. She held the phone to her ear for several moments to the point that the detectives began to wonder if he was going to take her call.
She was about to hang up when someone answered.
It was not her ex-husband’s voice that greeted her, however, which put her on alert. She tensed and the detectives noticed.
“This is Agent Samantha Patterson with the Secret Service. Who is this?” she asked, concern tinting her voice. She listened carefully to the voice before asking her second question. “Is he alright? No, I don’t understand why you can’t give me any details over the phone. I… can you hold on for just a second?”
Agent Patterson covered the phone with her free hand and passed it toward Detective Jackson.
“What’s happened?”
“A police officer answered. There’s been some kind of incident with Ted, but they won’t give me any details. Can you…?”
She didn’t have to finish asking. Jacks took the phone from her.
“Hello,” she prompt
ed. “This is Detective Catherine Jackson with DC Metro Homicide. To whom am I speaking? Oh, hi, Fitz. It’s Jacks. How are you?” The detectives exchanged a few more pleasantries before they got down to the details of whatever was going on with Agent Patterson’s ex-husband.
“Thanks, Fitz. We’re on our way. Let the unies know there will be three of us,” Jacks said before hanging up the phone and passing it back to Samantha.
“And…?”
“He’s fine. He’s not injured.”
“Thank God,” Patterson said, deflating a bit. “So why was a cop answering his cell?”
“He’s not hurt, but he is in a bit of trouble.”
“Trouble? I don’t understand.”
Jacks turned to her partner.
“Can you bring the car around and meet us out front?” she asked him.
“Sure.”
“Come on,” Jacks told the agent.
“We’ll talk on the way.”
Twenty-four
Atlanta, Georgia
Sunday
John Kilgallon was all smiles.
When he wrote his first novel, he had looked upon things like book signings as a necessary evil. He wasn’t really looking forward to spending hours talking to strangers about his work. Although he knew he could handle whatever was thrown at him, he didn’t really know what to expect. During his research into marketing and promotion, he had talked with other authors to get their perspective on things.
Oh, the horror stories he heard.
Granted, they each reiterated how much they loved writing and liked their fans, but it seemed like there was always one in every crowd. There was the overzealous fan that wanted to be your best friend. The realization that there were people like that out there reading his books worried him a little, but only a little. The last thing he needed was a stalker, but with his training he doubted that anyone could truly get close enough to harm him.
Then there were the writers looking for advice. That one wasn’t so scary, but he wondered what advice he would honestly be able to impart. It’s not like he had planned to write a bestseller, much less five of them. Telling people how to do it seemed odd considering he wasn’t entirely sure exactly how he did it and the idea of telling others that it was so easy for him sounded like a bad idea.