by Steven James
She swung her legs out of the car. “Yeah, I get it.”
Cheyenne started toward the south end of the parking lot. “My car’s over here.”
“I’ll see you at the house, Tessa,” I said.
“Okay.”
The two of them were hurrying toward Cheyenne’s car. “Hey, thanks again,” I called to Cheyenne.
“No problem,” she hollered back with a wave of her hand.
I got into my car. Flipped on the radio to listen for any breaking news.
And headed to the scene of Mollie Fischer’s murder.
8
Brad stood anonymously in the crowd of people watching the television screens.
Despite the storm, fifteen people had gathered outside Williamson’s Electronics Store on Connecticut Avenue near Union Station in the heart of downtown DC.
The high-end television showroom featured Sony, LG, Samsung, and Bang & Olufsen’s next generation of organic light-emitting diode televisions. Razor-thin screens, sixty-five inch, seventy inch, and larger. The world’s most expensive home theater systems on display and facing the street.
From observing the store over the last few weeks, Brad knew it wasn’t unusual to find half a dozen people pausing by the window, coveting the TVs. In fact, the store’s popularity was one of the reasons he’d chosen it.
Now, the grainy images carried on each screen looked like a movie in the tradition of Blair Witch or Cloverfield, but each television contained six different camera angles, and the time marker at the bottom of each screen made it clear that the feed was live.
The videos showed the interior of an expansive building, a walkway between walled-in glass enclosures at least twenty feet tall. Speakers located beneath the storefront’s overhang projected the sound of the chattering monkeys, baboons, gorillas, and other primates as they swung from thick ropes and clambered over the stout limbs of artificial trees, obviously constructed to hold the apes’ immense weight.
A flurry of FBI agents and DC police, easily identifiable by the letters emblazoned on their jackets, moved into and out of the picture.
Because of the indistinct shadows and the glare off the glass, it was difficult to tell how many bodies lay inside the farthest primate cage on the left. At least one. Maybe as many as three.
No one else knew this, but the footage was only being transmitted to this one location.
Brad listened quietly as those around him tried to figure out what was going on: “It’s some kind of gorilla zoo or something,” somebody said.
“Is this live?” a man in a gray Valentino suit asked. “This is live, isn’t it?”
“They were talking about this on the news,” the woman beside him said. “I think it’s a senator’s kid who was killed.”
“Killed?”
“That’s the security cameras from inside the building.”
“No, it was a congressman,” someone said.
“Fischer’s daughter. That’s what I heard.”
Brad had snugged a Washington Nationals baseball cap over his head to shield his eyes from view and wore a fake, scraggly beard. Actually, disguises were one of his specialties.
He’d turned his collar up against the weather and was dressed in the reeking, tattered clothes he’d stolen from a homeless man he’d beaten senseless half an hour ago. Dressed as he was, Brad looked just like any other nameless, faceless vagrant.
Invisible.
In plain sight.
He wished he could stand here and watch for hours, but it was time to go.
He had a busy night—one more murder to commit, C-4 to pack into the metal tubes, a detonation sequence to set up.
And a few other chores.
He walked four blocks to the handicapped accessible van that he and Astrid were using; the van where he’d left the next two victims tied and gagged. Personally, he would have preferred leaving them unconscious, had planned to, but Astrid had told him it would be more fun if they were awake, anticipating what was to come.
Since they knew each other, if they hadn’t been blindfolded, they would have been comforted. As it was, in the end, the impact would be so much greater this way.
One would die tonight.
The other would spend the night with him and Astrid at the house.
9
The Gunderson Foundation Primate Research Center
1311 South Capital Street
Washington DC
8:26 p.m.
Raindrops slashed against the windshield. Tiny dark knives in the deepening twilight.
Yellow police tape surrounded the facility and twisted and snapped in the sharp wind. Fifteen patrol cars sat angled to the curb, lights still on. Colors lancing the rain.
The facility’s underground parking garage had been cordoned off, so I parked on the street behind one of the police cruisers. Already, half a dozen cable and network news crews were lining the neighboring streets.
Just what we needed.
Despite the media presence, the news coverage on the radio had been sketchy. The reporters couldn’t seem to agree on whether there was one body or two or maybe three, whether or not the police had a suspect in custody, and whether or not Congressman Fischer was actually in the city or overseas meeting with soldiers in Afghanistan.
Clusters of FBI agents, Metro Police officers (who have jurisdiction over the city), Capitol police officers (who protect Capitol Hill), and even US Marshals stood around the entrance to the building.
American law enforcement is set up like a plate of spaghetti, and the individual noodles overlap, wind together, and get entangled all the time. Depending on the type of crime and where it’s committed, you might have eight or nine state and federal law enforcement entities, intelligence agencies, military units, defense organizations, and justice department agencies all trying to investigate it.
And most likely not sharing information all that efficiently as they do.
Each of the armed forces has their own division of criminal forensic investigators; add in a helping of the ATF, DEA, CIA, FBI, NSA, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the US Marshals Service and Federal Air Marshals, the Secret Service, US Customs and Border Protection, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, even the Office of Inspector General for the United States Postal Service—as well as regional and state law enforcement, sheriff’s departments, and the six classified investigative agencies that don’t appear on any government books—
It’s mind-boggling.
All too often, conducting an investigation is like sticking your fork into the mess and twirling. Sometimes I’m amazed any crime gets solved or any terrorist attack gets thwarted.
Now, as I looked around at the variety of agencies already onsite, I could feel it happening again: The spaghetti was beginning to spill off the plate.
It struck me that Congressman Fischer might be right about wanting to cut down on bureaucratic redundancy.
A Metro police officer was approaching my car.
I picked up a pair of latex gloves from the crime scene kit I keep in the glove compartment, made sure I had my lock-pick set, my Mini MagLite, my 3-D hologram projection phone, then grabbed my FBI windbreaker and stepped into the storm.
The officer held up his hand. “Excuse me, sir, but—”
I already had my creds out. “Patrick Bowers. I’m with the FBI.” I slipped the windbreaker on.
Rain boiled across the pavement, black grease frying in a dark, concrete pan.
He shifted his gaze from me to the facility. “The others are already inside.” The wind tried to swallow his words, and he raised his voice. “Did you hear? The perp, he set the chimpanzees on her—they chewed off her face.”
The news sickened me.
I pocketed my wallet.
Approached the building.
Stepped inside.
An expansive viewing area wound between eighteen enormous glass-enclosed areas, nine on each side. All of them were at least six meters high.
I shook o
ff the rain, brushing my hand for a moment against the holster of my .357 SIG P229. Most of the Bureau has switched to Glock 23s to make it easier for the gunsmiths and for interchangeability of ammunition in the field, but some of the senior agents had been allowed to keep their SIGs. I loved that gun, so I was thankful I was one of them.
Most of the law enforcement officers were clustered at the far end of the cavernous room, and I began walking toward them, taking in as much as I could along the way.
Three exit doors, including a stairwell that presumably led to the parking garage.
An elevator just to the left of the stairs.
Six video cameras, all non-panning, tucked into the shadowy nooks and crannies of the ceiling high above me. A few moments ago as I’d entered the building, I’d noticed two additional cameras covering the entrance to the parking garage, and I expected that there would be coverage above the emergency exits as well.
And of course, on both sides of me, behind the glass, the primates.
It didn’t seem like “cages” was the right word to describe the structures holding them. Habitats, maybe. Glass-enclosed habitats.
Each was nearly as wide and long as it was tall, and could be accessed through a door at the back of the ape-sized steel sliding doors that connected the habitats.
The constant chatter and shrieks of the primates filled the air.
Each habitat had a unique combination of rope swings and large canvas hammocks for the animals to lounge in. Some had tire swings or bars to hang from, others had blankets to hide beneath. All were lined with straw.
Agents Ralph Hawkins and Lien-hua Jiang stood conferring near a hallway that led to another wing of the center. Ralph’s densely muscled bulk stood in stark contrast to Lien-hua’s slim, willowy figure.
So.
The last I’d heard, she was working a case in Miami, and I hadn’t expected to see her here tonight.
Ralph saw me. “Pat.” His voice was low and gravelly, more of a growl than anything else. “Over here.”
Lien-hua and I hadn’t run into each other since our breakup. We gave each other a somewhat strained nod of greeting, then she averted her eyes to a nearby habitat. It appeared to be the one that contained Mollie’s body, but my view was obstructed by the Crime Scene Investigative Unit officers inside.
Even though Lien-hua wore jeans and had on a T-shirt and windbreaker, she looked as orientally elegant as ever. Thoughtful. Beautiful. Intelligent. Two strands of sable hair framed her face.
It wasn’t easy, but I shifted my gaze to Ralph. “Talk to me.” I slipped on the latex gloves. “What do we know?”
“One victim: Mollie Fischer, Caucasian, twenty-two. Attacked by two chimps. The keeper who found her put ’em both down.” His voice was steeped with thick anger. “The killer strapped the girl’s wrists to the tree limb. She didn’t have a chance. Still unclear why the crime occurred here. Mollie doesn’t have any ties to this place. That we know of.”
Lien-hua said, “The animals were injected with 1-phenyl-2-aminopropane.” There was anger in her voice too, but tempered with deep sympathy. “Basically, they were drugged to make them as aggressive as possible.”
“All right,” I said, bracing myself. “Let’s have a look.”
10
We entered the maze of hallways that meandered behind the habitats and past a series of glass-walled research rooms equipped with wire mesh partitions to keep the researchers safely separated from the primates. The back door in each habitat opened to one of the rooms.
Lien-hua walked beside me. Graceful. A gazelle.
I could feel the weight of the unsaid stretching between us, and I tried to think of a way to clear the air, but before I could land on the right words, she broke the silence. “Pat, our past needs to stay in the past.” She spoke softly, her voice rich with her Asian heritage, and though she tried to sound objective and detached, I could tell the topic was difficult for her to bring up. “This case, this is where we are. This is where we need to be.”
She was right, of course, but that wasn’t going to make things any easier.
“We can’t pretend that nothing happened between us,” I said, more for my sake than for hers. “That we weren’t . . .”
In love, I thought.
“Close,” I said.
A small pause. “I’m not suggesting we pretend, just saying we need to move on.” A thin thread of pain ran through every word, but I couldn’t help recall that she was the one who’d ended things, not me. “People do that, you know,” she said. “People see each other, they break up, they find a way to work together again.”
Yes. You’re right. People do that.
She looked my way. “We need to do that too.”
“I know,” I replied.
“Okay.” She took a breath, then added, “I’m glad you’re back in town, though.”
“It’s good to see you too.”
Lien-hua.
Cheyenne.
This was going to be a hard summer.
As we passed through the hallway, I noticed computerized testing stations, fMRI and CAT scan machines in the adjoining rooms. From a case I’d worked in San Diego last winter, I even recognized two MEG, or magnetoencephalography, machines used to study the magnetic fields that are caused by neurological activity.
There was definitely some big money behind this facility.
Lien-hua noticed me surveying the rooms. “We had a briefing before you got here.” Her tone was professional, that of a co-worker, and it hurt to hear her use it on me. “Mostly the research here focuses on primate cognition, but in this wing, they’re also studying primate aggression. The keeper arrived at 7:00 to check on the animals, found the security guard drugged, Mollie dead, and the chimps mutilating her body. She called it in. That’s about all we know. Metro police are interviewing her now.”
“Any indication she might be involved?” I guessed that Lien-hua would want me to mirror her cool, detached tone, and I tried to but failed pitifully.
“Not so far.”
“How was the drug identified so quickly?”
“They use it in their research.”
After a few more steps she said, “A personal question. Is that all right?”
“Sure.”
“How are you and Tessa doing?”
Although I hadn’t told Lien-hua about Paul Lansing, she was aware of my struggles connecting with my stepdaughter. At the moment I avoided the whole topic of Tessa’s father. “She’s good. Thanks for asking. Actually, she mentioned she was looking forward to seeing you this summer. Wants to talk to you about something called .”
A small moment. “Yes. That would be nice.”
I kept my curiosity to myself.
We arrived at the doorway to the ape habitat where Mollie had been killed. The door was wide, but low, and at six-foot-three I had to crouch to get through.
As I entered, I was struck by the stark smell of straw and feces and the rusty scent of blood.
Death in the air.
To get to Mollie, I had to walk past the two dead chimpanzees.
Both had blood-stained teeth and streaks of blood smeared across their faces and hands. The larger of the two had a single gunshot wound to the chest. The other had been shot two or three times, it was hard to tell, and lay closer to the door. An officer was interviewing a distraught-looking female civilian, possibly the keeper, but I tried to avoid making assumptions.
Ralph was having a word with the three CSIU officers beside Mollie’s body. By the time Lien-hua and I arrived, they had stepped aside.
And so, Mollie.
Lying at my feet.
I knew that chimpanzees are many times stronger than humans and can turn violent, but I had no idea they could be this vicious. Most of Mollie’s face was missing, the deep, bloody bite marks trailing down what was left of her cheeks and gouging deeply into her neck.
With so much skin and meat missing from her face, her jaw jutted out grotesquely toward me.
One of her eyes was pulverized, the other missing.
I felt myself grow both sickened and enraged.
She had a single piercing and earring in what was left of each ear and wore a silver chain necklace that was tucked beneath her Georgetown sweatshirt. Once light gray, the sweatshirt was now darkened with splattered blood. Using a gloved hand, I eased out the necklace and found a locket with two engraved initials: R.M.
Mollie had a small build, weighed perhaps 110 pounds, wore blue jeans and black pumps and had blonde hair, now matted with blood and several thin, grisly strips of flesh that had been torn from her face. Her right leg was obviously broken, the foot turned sideways, perpendicular to the rest of the leg.
A savage and brutal and terrible death.
The contents of her purse lay scattered around me in the straw.
Apart from the blood on her sweatshirt, her clothes were dry.
The leather straps the killer had used were still snugged tightly around each wrist, and the skin surrounding the straps was red and raw from what must have been her desperate attempts to get free. I noticed that two of her fingernails were chipped, and caught on the corner of one of them were several threads of blue cloth.
From the killer’s clothing?
Carpeting?
Bedsheets? A blanket?
The guys at the lab would find out.
I mentioned the fibers to the CSIU, and they told me they’d already taken note of them. I glanced up and saw two strips of leather hanging from the branch of the tree she’d been secured to. I assumed the responding officers had needed to slit the straps to lower her to the ground. “When was she last seen alive?”
“We’re not sure,” Ralph answered. “Someone saw her at the Clarendon Metro stop at about 4:00 this afternoon. That’s the last we know of.”
I considered that.
4:00 p.m.
It was now 8:31.
I looked at the black soles of her shoes. Scuffed.
Felt the cuff of her jeans.
Dry.
I ran through the seven steps law enforcement officers take: secure the scene, secure the subject, assist the injured, call for responders, detain witnesses, identify the body, pursue all leads.