by Steven James
“And the more we study animals,” she said, “the more we find this to be true—emotions, intention, language use, inquisitiveness, use of tools. Dolphins communicate with each other by using different pitches to mean different things and understand the importance of word order syntax. Some types of birds experience REM sleep, cows mourn the loss of their young, ants and wolves form cooperative communities with a complex social order.”
Tessa had become withdrawn, and I noticed that not even Dr. Risel’s litany of animal accomplishments seemed to perk her up. I caught her eye, smiled at her, and she gave me a forced half-smile in reply. Something was up.
“Chimps can be taught to use fractions,” Dr. Risel went on enthusiastically. “Sea lions understand equivalence relationships and basic logic. Many species of primates live in complex societies and compete, cooperate, deceive, and manipulate each other—just like humans do. They have power struggles, privileged classes, form alliances, use bargaining and networking to get ahead. Most of my colleagues believe that because of this, there is, at least in a primitive form, politics in the animal kingdom.”
From my research in environmental criminology, I already knew that some species of primates in western Africa form cognitive maps to remember the location of large rocks to crack nuts, understanding their awareness space similarly to the way humans do.
And of course, recent studies have shown that human serial killers follow predatory movement patterns similar to those of great white sharks and lions, but Dr. Risel didn’t pause long enough for me to add any of this to the conversation. She seemed to have completely forgotten about her journal article deadline.
According to her, animal behavior had been studied for centuries, but the questions of whether or not apes and other higher primates were self-aware, had the ability to think in abstract terms, or had free will were still relatively unexplored fields.
“The neuroscience and primate metacognition research is still in its infancy.” She was beaming, obviously proud to be a pioneer in this field. “Imagine how well we’ll understand the workings of the brain in Homo sapiens and in other animals in fifty years. A hundred. A hundred thousand.”
Even though I was only marginally familiar with the advances in neuroscience over the last twenty years, I knew they’d been exponential, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine the knowledge we might have unearthed in hundreds or thousands of years.
At last Dr. Risel glanced at the time, frowned, and quickly excused herself and went back to finish writing her article. When she was gone I asked Tessa if something was the matter, but she brushed off my concern.
For the better part of an hour I investigated the facility, looking for any evidence of controversial biotech or medical research or anything else that might be highly politically charged, but found nothing. I also inspected the entrances and exits again and the sight-lines from the sealed-off habitat in which Twana had died to see if I could find any clue that might lead us to Mollie’s whereabouts, but came up empty there as well.
While I looked around, Tessa tagged along, sometimes jotting notes on her clipboard, mostly staring introspectively at the apes.
By the time I was ready to leave, I’d scrutinized every room, briefly interviewed three other researchers, even reviewed some of the computer files detailing research procedures and results, but apart from being wary of scientific inquiry, I couldn’t see any good reasons why other congressmen might find Fischer’s involvement here politically advantageous to them.
Neither did I find any procedures that seemed overly invasive, cruel, or tendentious.
The closest thing to animal cruelty might have been the use of the drug 1-phenyl-2-aminopropane, but the records showed that it was only administered in miniscule amounts to the primates in the course of the typical research.
Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe the congressman’s connection to this facility was insignificant to the case.
On the way out, I asked Olan if I could see the facility’s financial records, and, as I suspected, he told me that I would need a warrant. Of all the federal law enforcement agencies, the FBI has some of the quickest access to warrants, but still, at this point we didn’t have any good reason to get one. Olan was polite enough about denying my request, but not being able to look them over was discouraging.
It struck me that rather than finding answers here, I was leaving with more questions than I’d had when I arrived two hours ago. As Tessa and I headed toward the elevator to the parking garage, a sense of frustration ate away at me.
Think in a different direction, Pat. Don’t get caught on a one track—
The elevator doors opened at almost the same time my phone rang. The ringtone was Cheyenne’s, and I convinced Tessa to go ahead of me to the car, then answered, “Hey.”
“It’s me.”
“Out of the briefing already?”
“Pat, it’s already past 3:00.”
“Oh.”
“How’s your arm?”
“It’s all right. I told you to stop worrying about that. How was class?”
“When I heard that Vanderveld was teaching, I bowed out.” Jake had worked the Giovanni case with Cheyenne and me last month, and she’d come to respect him as much as I did, so I wasn’t surprised she’d found another way to spend her morning.
“Lien-hua mentioned the suspects may have used another room at the hotel,” I said. “Any more on that?”
“Nothing solid. A couple things: WXTN has been scooping. We might have a leak. And oh yeah, Margaret thinks there might be a connection between these crimes and the assassination attempt on Vice President Fischer six years ago at the Lincoln Towers.”
Hmm.
The former vice president had stayed mostly out of the limelight since leaving office, and I hadn’t even thought of that assassination attempt in years.
I considered the possible implications.
The gunman, a pro-death penalty activist named Hadron Brady, had tried to kill Vice President Fischer as he was entering the hotel to give a speech at a constitutional law symposium being held there. I remembered that Brady was fatally wounded when the Secret Service returned fire. Other than that, the details were fuzzy.
So maybe it wasn’t Mollie Fischer’s father who had ties to these killers. Maybe it was her uncle.
“Cheyenne, get a couple officers to find out more about the shooter and the exact topic of Vice President Fischer’s speech that day. I want to find out if it had anything at all to do with the metacognition of primates.”
A pause. “I’ll talk to Margaret about it,” she answered. “What about you?”
By faking Mollie’s death at the primate center and then taking her to the hotel, the killers had tied the two locations together. I had no idea what the assassination attempt might have to do with this case, but it appeared that there was a connection worth exploring—
“Pat?” She jolted me out of my thoughts.
“I’m going to stop by the hotel,” I said. “Take another look around.”
“All right. I’ll talk with you soon.”
“Okay.”
My thoughts jumped to Paul Lansing’s friendship with the former VP. I wasn’t sure if it would be relevant to the custody case, but since Tessa had gone to the car and I still had some privacy, I gave our lawyer, Missy Schuel, a call and told her what I knew. She took note of it and explained that she was still reading through the diary and that she’d left two more messages for Lansing’s lawyers. “I’m still hoping to convince them to meet with us next week.”
Finally, before catching up with Tessa, I took a moment to check in with Ralph. He told me that Lebreau went through boyfriends “amazingly fast for a law professor,” so it wasn’t easy eliminating potential suspects. Also, there was still no sign of Lebreau or Basque, but he was following up on two possible eyewitnesses: one who claimed to have seen Basque’s car in the parking lot where Lebreau’s SUV was found, the other who said she saw a man fitting Basque’s description
leave a gas station in Lansing, Michigan, an hour after Lebreau failed to show up for class. “Says there was a woman in the car with him. But you know how reliable eyewitnesses are.”
“Keep me posted.”
“I will.”
I debated whether or not to tell him that Angela Knight was working this from another angle; but for the time being, I decided not to mention it.
I ended the call, met Tessa at the car, and we drove to the Lincoln Towers Hotel.
Brad checked the girl’s email.
Last month when he’d contacted Dr. Calvin Werjonic, when he’d asked Astrid to research the federal agent’s presence at the assassination attempt, he hadn’t had any idea how neatly his plan would come together.
But fate seemed to be on his side. Everyone who mattered was in the Metro area now this week.
Just a little tweak in the agenda for today to make the climax as exciting as possible: the special gift for EAD Wellington would have to wait until tomorrow night. But the delay would only serve to make the game better, more complete.
No doubt the task force’s command level staff were busy trying to connect the Lincoln Towers Hotel with the primate center, diving into the possible implications, the importance each location might hold in the mind of the killers. But there were so many layers to Brad’s plan that the authorities would never unpeel them all in time.
Astrid had asked him to call and check in every hour, and this was not the time to displease her.
He punched in her number.
“Do you have the car?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And the plates?”
“I’ll be leaving to get them in a few minutes.”
“Don’t wait too long.”
“All right.”
“We’ll talk soon.”
“Yes.”
The call ended, and he pulled up the video he’d taken of Mollie Fischer yesterday in the van and watched it in one corner of his screen while he scanned the email program in the other.
After reading the most recent emails, he googled the FBI Academy. It was amazing what you could find online, and last week he’d located a page on their official site that showed a map of the Academy grounds. Now, he confirmed that there were no changes, then printed the helpful little map that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had posted for all the world to see.
54
3:18 p.m.
After I’d grabbed a pair of latex gloves from the car, I led Tessa into the hotel.
She watched me slip the gloves into my pocket. “What are those for?”
“Examining stuff.”
“Wow. Never would have guessed.” Her sarcasm felt friendly and familiar, but under her words I could tell there was something deeply troubling her.
“Stick with me long enough and you’ll learn all kinds of cool things.”
She was quiet.
“You all right?” I said.
“Yeah.”
We stepped into the expansive atrium. “So you’ll be okay hanging out here for a few minutes?”
She nodded as she glanced at the hanging gardens, waterfall, and streams, and I realized I’d never brought her to this hotel before. She was obviously impressed.
“I just need to see if I can slide a few pieces of the puzzle together,” I said. “I won’t be long.”
She didn’t reply or complain, and I almost wished she would have argued with me; at least then I would have known she was feeling okay.
“So we’re cool? You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.”
As she took a seat, I suggested she might want to touch base with her friends in Denver, give Pandora or Jessie a call.
That seemed agreeable to her; she pulled out her computer and clicked to her video chat program.
I was turning toward the front desk when she said, “Do you think she’s dead?”
When I faced her again, I saw that her eyes were on a WXTN News cameraman filming a reporter who was interviewing Mr. Lees, the hotel manager. They stood at the other end of the atrium.
“Do you mean—”
“The congressman’s daughter.”
Careful, Pat.
“I don’t think we should jump to conclusions,” I said. “Stay here and wait for me, okay? Just give me maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Then we’ll take off.” I thought for a second. “And I’ll get you home.”
She was repositioning herself so that her back was to the news crew. “Okay.”
I wanted to see if the former NSA analyst Marianne Keye-Wallace and her “facial, audio, video” recognition computer system would be able to help me find a connection between the would-be assassin at this hotel six years ago and the killers who brought Mollie Fischer here yesterday.
Leaving Tessa behind, I walked toward the hallway that led to the control center.
55
Ten minutes later
I was striking out.
Marianne had started out by telling me she didn’t have records from that far back. “When the hotel went through its renovations last year, we switched to a new computer system—by the way, are you okay? Weren’t you shot yesterday?”
I patted my left arm gently. “It’s just a scratch. So, you’re telling me the computer records didn’t transfer?”
“No, they transferred, it’s just that the management decided to only keep records for the last five years—and I’m not just talking about video footage. All the guest room records.” She shook her head. “I beat my head against the wall trying to convince them to archive everything, but they wouldn’t listen to me.”
Working with so many disparate agencies over the years, I knew all too well that arbitrary and ill-informed decisions happen all the time. Often we don’t even know why we ourselves do what we do, let alone understand the motivations of others—still another reason why probing for motives is so unreliable.
I explored a few other ideas with Marianne, seeing if either the congressman or former vice president had stayed at the hotel recently or if there’d been any other constitutional law conferences in the last few years related to the one that the vice president had been scheduled to speak at when Hadron Brady tried to kill him.
Nothing.
Okay, so where does that leave us?
“Lien-hua mentioned the maids,” I said. “Did she and Margaret talk to you about that?”
“Already looked into it. Housekeeping made up more than twenty rooms on the eighth floor between 2:00 and 4:00, not in any particular order, just as they received word from their superiors. As far as I know, EAD Wellington had agents look through all the rooms on the floor again—some were already occupied—nothing suspicious.”
“What about when the hotel was remodeled—could there be a dumb waiter? Some kind of panic room, something like that put in to room 809?”
“The renovations were mostly cosmetic.” She brought up a floor plan of the building prior to and after the renovations, overlaid them. Nothing of note.
I tried to think of what else I could do here and came up blank.
Maybe you should just get going, find out what’s bugging Tessa. See if Rodale and Fischer forwarded the files to you.
I flicked my eyes across the computer monitors one last time and saw that the cameraman and reporter had finished interviewing Mr. Lees and were packing up their things. He was standing just a few feet away from them. Watching them.
Hang on.
The hotel might not have footage concerning the assassination attempt, but every news network in the country would have covered the story, and I was willing to bet that the producers at WXTN didn’t trash their footage after six years.
I jogged back to the atrium to catch the news team before they left the hotel.
56
The cameraman was a twentysomething guy with wild, black hair and thick sideburns who introduced himself simply as Nick, which seemed to be exactly the right name for him. Chelsea Traye, the investigative journalist, was graceful,
movie-star beautiful, and moved as if every step she took set a trend. I recognized them both as being present at the press conference I’d given yesterday.
After I’d introduced myself I said, “What would it take for you to access your station’s video archives of the coverage following the assassination attempt on Vice President Fischer six years ago?”
They exchanged glances.
“You’re the agent who was shot,” Chelsea observed. “This is for the Mollie Fischer case, isn’t it?”
“It’s for an ongoing investigation.”
“I see.” She gave me a once-over, then asked Nick to give us a minute, and after a small pause, he set his camera on a nearby bench and stepped away.
“If we help you—” she began.
“No deals.” I cut her off. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find a station from another network that will—but that’ll just waste time and that’s not something either of us would want.” I could see that she was mentally trying to fill in the blanks from what I’d left unsaid, undoubtedly calculating costs versus benefits of helping me out.
After a moment she said, “Sure. We can get you the footage.”
“Through the web?”
She nodded. “If you have a fast enough connection—otherwise it would take forever. There might be hundreds of hours of unedited footage.”
I knew that Angela Knight in the Bureau’s cybercrime division could do a metasearch on the computer she affectionately called Lacey, but if Marianne’s system was as advanced as she’d indicated to me yesterday, I could take care of this right now.
“Go get Nick,” I said. “And follow me.”
Tessa had ended her video chat with her friend Pandora and was people-watching, pretending to listen to her iPod. She gazed around the atrium at the skylight, the terraces, the rows of hundreds of doors the guests locked themselves behind every night.