by Keith Yocum
Dennis sat at a small high-top table in the coffee bar and took a deep breath before calling. The phone rang three times until it went to voicemail.
“Simpson, this is Cunningham checking in. I’m heading to D.C. and should be back there in a day. Call me if you need to talk. Can fill you in later on some developments.”
The Air New Zealand flight to Los Angeles was twelve hours long but tolerable since he bought a business-class ticket. The non-American flight crews always seemed more solicitous, and he could not explain the difference. He prayed they would not run into turbulence over the vast Pacific Ocean, and except for a brief bump-and-run somewhere east of Hawaii, it was a smooth flight. He dozed off and on, nibbled at his meals and watched parts of three movies. When they were taxiing to the gate in Los Angeles, he turned on his phone and saw that he had a text from Simpson: call me.
After going through customs, he took a shuttle bus to another terminal, went back through security, and finally found a quiet area near his departure gate.
Simpson answered right away.
“What the hell are you doing coming to D.C.? Who said you could do that?”
“I need to check on a few things,” Dennis said.
“Forrester disappeared in New Zealand, not D.C., you dipshit. Work this out in Kiwi land, not D.C.”
“Maybe her disappearance had something to do with her work in D.C.”
“Do you have Alzheimer’s or something?” Simpson yelled. “You were asked to evaluate the assumption that the Iranians were behind her disappearance. The Ghorbanis are in New Zealand. The disappearance happened in New Zealand, not far from the Ghorbani’s home. There is DNA evidence that Forrester was in the backseat of the Ghorbani’s car, for chrissakes! What the hell are you going to D.C. for? Find out what happened to her in New Zealand!”
“Are you going to let me investigate this case, or are you going to investigate it? Because if the director wants me to do it, then you better let me do it my way. Either that, or I’ll resign from this stupid case and make sure the director knows it was you who drove me away.”
Dennis could feel his neck flush with blood as his anger crested quickly. He was feeling whipsawed between the director, Simpson, and Louise, and he had trouble getting his bearings on this case. Something was off, but he did not know what or who it was.
And when he was frustrated and confused, he would fall back to anger, a pattern that Dr. Forrester, of all people, had tried to break him of.
“Listen,” Dennis said, “this case is very difficult for me to get my arms around. I’m sorry if we’re getting off on the wrong foot. You’re going to have to trust me that I’m doing what I think is best to get to a speedy conclusion. I’ll keep you posted.”
Simpson hung up without saying a word.
Well, that went well, Dennis thought, putting the phone in his pocket.
The trip to D.C. took twenty hours, including a layover at LAX. He arrived at Dulles International Airport at 5:30 p.m. a day after leaving New Zealand. He rented a car and staggered into his hotel in Rosslyn, Virginia, at 7 p.m. He had two single malts in the hotel bar and collapsed in his hotel room.
He woke the next morning and briefly thought he was still in Blenheim. After a groggy start, he gradually collected himself until he thought the whites of his eyes were more pink than red.
Dennis asked Louise to meet him at a Starbucks in Crystal City, the concrete jungle of buildings across the Potomac in Virginia.
He spotted her right away, with her white-blond hair, faint limp, and creaseless face. Dennis had not seen Louise in more than a year and had forgotten how diminutive she was. No more than five feet, she was easily lost in the crowd of people in line to order coffee. Like a well-trained street agent—which he was not—he didn’t acknowledge her entrance into the bustling coffee shop. He browsed The Washington Post until she put her coffee on the table and sat down.
“Hey,” Dennis said.
“Hey,” she said.
Perhaps his negative interactions with Louise in the past had distracted him, but he was surprised how pretty she was. He had never considered her attractive, and it was a mild complication he was unprepared for.
“How’s business?” he said.
“Same shit, different day.”
He chuckled.
“I won’t take up your time on this, Louise, but I’m sure you know by now that Simpson was bullshit that we talked.”
“That’s affirmative,” she said, taking a sip of coffee.
“But I feel I can’t work through him, Louise. He keeps trying to point me to the Ghorbanis and New Zealand.”
“I can understand that.” She took another sip, her thin lips leaving a delicate smear of lipstick on the coffee cup.
“But I feel like Forrester’s death—well, I’m calling it a death though I guess she could be alive—is more related to her psychotherapy practice, and to people here, not in New Zealand.”
“And why is that?”
“I can’t say exactly, just a feeling. The DNA thing is just too specious. And I’ve got some new information that led me back here.”
Louise, who had barely acknowledged his presence, now stared so hard at him that he flinched.
“What information?”
“From her colleague Dr. Caldecott, the one she was traveling with in New Zealand.”
“What did Caldecott tell you?”
“That Forrester complained one night, over a couple of glasses of wine, that she had a pretty uncomplicated patient load, except for one patient.”
“And?”
“Well, the patient was a male, and Forrester felt there was something odd about him. Caldecott said it was a vague feeling Forrester had, but that after so many years as a therapist, she said, you could often tell when you were dealing with a strange one.”
“Strange one?”
“Yeah, like a sociopath. Or worse. Again, Caldecott wasn’t saying this patient was dangerous; it was just that I asked her to tell me anything that might be helpful, anything at all.”
“Let me get this right: you’re saying that Forrester’s friend told you that Forrester complained about a male patient that bothered her?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re suggesting, I gather, that Forrester’s bothersome or dangerous patient figured out that she was going to New Zealand, followed her, kidnapped, and killed her?”
“Well, yes, that’s a possibility.”
“I’ve read the file, Cunningham, and it appears that she had nineteen active patients, only five of which were agency clients. We don’t know who the other fourteen clients were. That information is not available to the agency, and it would take some heavy lifting from government sources to get that information. You’ve got only eight days to figure this out—according to my calendar— and you want to look into all her patients for males that could be sociopaths?”
“No, hang on. First, I have nine days, not eight.”
“On my calendar, you have eight counting today; somewhere east of Fiji, if you remember, your plane flew past the International Date Line when you came here. You lost a day.”
“Shit, you’re right.”
“So, what’s your second point, if you have one?”
“Forrester’s colleague said the male was a CIA employee.”
Dennis did not think it was possible for Louise to sit motionless for so long, but she did. Leaning slightly into the table, with her small, child-like fingers around the Starbucks cup, her straight blond hair falling around her shoulders, Louise remained perfectly still. Her eyes seemed to focus on his chin.
“Say that again?” she said finally.
“Forrester said she was concerned about an agency male client.”
“There’s only one agency male client,” she said.
“Yes, Kyle Keating.”
Louise took a deep breath, swallowed, and shook her head slightly while leaning back, sending her hair swirling briefly. She looked idly around the coffee shop.
“Keating,” she said.
“Did you bring the five agency patients’ travel and vacation schedules covering the period of her disappearance?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Can I see them please?”
Louise reached into her purse, pulled out an envelope, and put it on the table.
Dennis opened it and removed a sheet of paper that listed four names with vacation and absence schedules.
“Before you get your britches in an uproar, you can see that Keating was out of the office for two weeks during Forrester’s disappearance. I checked, and he never left the country. He was at a religious retreat in Maryland with his church group.”
“People in the agency still go to church?” Dennis said.
“Apparently one does.”
“Have you ever met Keating?”
“Long time ago. He presented to a Mideast group. My recollection was that he was uptight and nervous, but competent. Knows an awful lot about Iran. Fluent in Farsi.”
“Sounds like you’re already alibiing for him.”
“I just don’t want you to go down a rabbit hole with eight days to go. He was in Maryland with his wife at a retreat.”
“I’m still going to talk to him.”
“Your choice. Just remember I recommended you for this job because I thought you were the right person. The director’s getting impatient, and Simpson’s boss in operations is getting impatient, and Simpson is getting impatient. And I’m feeling a little exposed because you’re sitting here in Crystal City when you should be in New Zealand.”
“Feels like everyone’s trying to keep me out of D.C.”
“Maybe they’re trying to help.”
“Maybe they’re trying to mislead me.”
“So much for my great instinct to tag you for this project.”
“Relax, Louise. I’m going to get this done on time. It may not seem that way, but I appreciate your help and the difficult position you’re in. And I have some other leads I’m following.”
“I think I see a single crocodile tear being shed.”
“Well, I’ve never been compared to a reptile before. That’s a first.”
“Just get the job done, OK?”
“Sure. And by the way, where’s your schedule?” he said.
“My schedule?”
“Yes, you were one of the five agency employees seeing Forrester.”
“Don’t be an idiot, my schedule’s not important. Besides, you just said it was a male that was Forrester’s concern.”
“I need your schedule, Louise.”
“You’re crazy. I’m not going to give you that. You already know I was seeing her in therapy, which is humiliating enough.”
“I need your absence and travel schedule, Louise. Don’t make me ask Simpson for it.”
“You’re such a prick, do you know that, Cunningham?”
“You could start by calling me Dennis; I call you by your first name, you could do the same to me.”
“Fat chance on that, CUNNINGHAM,” she said standing up, leaving her lipstick-stained coffee cup tottering on the table.
There were several machines hooked up to her father, and each had a different beeping sound.
“How are you feeling?” Judy asked.
“Fine, but they won’t let me out. Swear I’ll just get up and leave in me jocks.”
“Dad, don’t be silly. Mum says they’re taking good care of you. They’re just deciding when to schedule the procedure. They think you’ll need a stent. Then you’ll be right as rain.”
“Well, I just don’t like it here. Too many machines, all beepin’ at me. Can’t sleep.”
Judy laughed. “They’re for your own good. Just try to relax. Watch the telly, or read one of the magazines Mum brought you.”
“Can’t. Those bloody machines are driving me batty.”
Judy sighed. “Dad, just relax, please. You’ll be home soon.”
“You headin’ back to work?”
“Yes, later today.”
“How’s your Yank boyfriend doing? Your mum says he took a job in New Zealand.”
“He’s fine, and you should call him by his name, Dad, not my ‘Yank boyfriend.’”
“He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s a Yank, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then he’s your Yank boyfriend.”
Judy shook her head. “I thought you liked Dennis?”
“I do like him, but I don’t like the idea of my daughter moving to America.”
“I’ve told you and Mum over and over, I’m not moving to America. Dennis said he’s going to stay here.”
“Then what’s he doing in New Zealand?”
“Actually, he’s in the states right now,” she said.
“See, that’s my point. He’s a Yank and he intends to get you to go there. I like Yanks. But I like Yanks here, not over there.”
“Oh, Dad. Please stop worrying about that.”
“You look nice and rested,” Daniel said, sitting on the corner of Judy’s desk. “You must be thrilled to be back to work.”
“Not likely,” she said. “I feel a little conflicted about being here. Not sure I like this copper stuff anymore.”
“What the hell? What has that Yank been doing to you?”
“It’s not Dennis, it was that dust-up around the shooting in Golden Bay. Didn’t like the way we were treated by that fellow back east.”
“Forget about that wanker. I’m just glad you’re back so I can rid myself of that new bloke Wilson. Thinks he’s the smartest copper on the planet. You’re my partner now.”
“Calvin wants to see me at half-past three today,” Judy said. “I can hardly wait.”
“Don’t worry about him. Let’s just get back to being a team again. You’ll get in the swing of things before you know it.”
“You’ll like working with Craig Wilson,” Calvin Miller said, smiling broadly. “Just ask Daniel. He’s a bright young man.”
Judy fought to control her anger; the last thing she wanted to show her boss was an out-of-control woman.
“But Daniel and I have worked as a team for years,” she said. “Why would you break up a good team? What’s the purpose of doing that?”
“Judy, you know that we’ve mixed and matched teams over the years. It leads to solid police work, new ideas, fresh approaches.”
“What was wrong with our approach?”
“Nothing was wrong; it’s just time for a change. I’m sure you’ll like it. This young man Wilson is good.”
“Have you told Daniel about this arrangement?”
“No, not yet. I felt I should tell you first.”
“Mum, Grandad said you’re moving to the United States. You didn’t tell me. Don’t you think you should tell me these things?”
Judy laughed and threw her head back. “Trevor, for heaven’s sake, I told you I’m not moving to the states. Your grandfather is a little confused these days. Regardless, he’s wrong. I live here and intend to stay here.”
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t mind visiting the states, but you should tell me what’s going on. I feel disconnected sometimes. Brenda’s family is not like this; they tell each other everything.”
Trevor was in his second year at uni and had a steady girlfriend Brenda Finn. Judy liked Brenda and thought she had a calming effect on her son, who despite his age, was still impulsive and emotional at times.
But then, being the child of divorced parents, whose lawyer father was serving time in prison for helping a narcotics ring in Western Australia, pe
rhaps he was allowed some leeway.
They sat at the kitchen table in Judy’s house. Trevor shared an apartment with another student in Claremont.
“You said you like Dennis,” she said. “Has that changed?”
“No, I like him. He’s got a dry sense of humor. He’s gruff in a funny way. I just don’t want you to move away.”
“No worries about me moving to the states, Trevor. I’m not saying I won’t visit there, but I’m not moving. Dennis is going to stay here.”
“But isn’t he there now?”
“Yes, but he’ll be back soon. You’ll see.”
“Hello, Judy, I’m Craig Wilson. The new bloke here.”
Judy stood up from her desk and shook his hand, and then sat down. She was determined to put a good face on the decision to switch partners, though it pained her to part with Daniel. They worked so well together and had settled into a harmonious relationship. The dynamics of police partners was historically fraught with tension because of differing styles and personalities. Invariably, regardless of seniority, one of the partners sought dominance.
Judy was not certain where this partnership was going and dreaded more tension in her life.
He sat down across from her and smiled. He was perhaps five foot ten inches tall, weighed about one hundred and eighty-five pounds, had a shock of short, light-brown hair and hazel eyes. She guessed he was about thirty-five years old and was not wearing a wedding ring. Rumor was that he was divorced with two children, but Daniel’s intel was notoriously inaccurate in matters like this.
Unfortunately, Craig was quite handsome, and Judy was aware that many of the women in the office—single or not—were swooning after him. One of the women in the records department had already sent her an email with the simple subject line: “lucky bastard!”
“So, Judy—it’s alright to call you Judy isn’t it?—you know that I was just transferred to the WA office after training. I’m new to AFP and was a patrolman in Queensland before joining the AFP. I worked with Daniel briefly. And I’m looking forward to working with you. You have a bonza reputation and I have much to learn from you.”