Every Crooked Path

by Steven James

  “The email I got is what brought me here. I didn’t expect to have to meet with someone in person. It’s highly unusual.”

  “Well, certainly, you can understand how, with you being a federal agent, and me being an entrepreneur who does business with people who prefer to work in anonymity—well, you can see how I might be reticent to carry this conversation any further. Confidentiality is one thing my clients value quite highly.”

  “I can help you.”

  “And how can you help me, Agent Bowers?”

  “Through my contacts at the Bureau.”

  “You’re on administrative leave.”

  “My contacts aren’t.”

  “Maybe that’s not something I’m in need of.”

  Alright, so he’d basically just told me that he had a contact at the Bureau, which could explain his access to the Federal Digital Database.

  He might be bluffing.

  At this point I doubted it.

  Unsure what he did know and what he didn’t, I went with the truth. “There’s an NYPD detective who has your name on his radar screen. He’s on the joint task force. I can take care of him, point him in a different direction. He’s good. He’s persistent. He will be coming for you. I can do more than find information for you, I can make it go away for good.”

  He took another sip, then rested the glass in the outstretched hand of one of the mannequins beside him. “People who enter into partnership with each other need to be able to trust each other, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Of course.”

  “You have to admit that the timing of your suspension and the shooting, your uploading the files, all of it does raise some red flags.”

  “I’d think it would do the opposite. You know that Randy McReynolds was looking into things. He told me a lot when we were there in Stewart’s apartment alone.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Let’s just say it was enough to get me interested in meeting you.” I drained the glass. “I did my due diligence on you, I posted the link to the photos, and here I am.”

  He rubbed two fingers together as if that would help him sift through my words and find any lies lurking within them. “I would like some reassurance of our mutual dependence on each other. A good-faith gesture.”

  “Go on.”

  “The woman you’re seeing. She has a daughter.”

  “What?”

  “Christie Ellis. Her daughter is what? Fifteen? A little footage is all I ask. I’ll provide you with the camera. It’ll be discreet. Just hide it in her room before she changes clothes. She’ll never know it was even there. After I have the footage we’ll talk again.”

  “How do you know about Christie?”

  “Your phone records, Agent Bowers. I ran them while you were waiting for Rodriguez to return to the bar. It was all right there: a man doesn’t call a woman that often and at those hours unless he’s more than friends with her.”

  That’s something I would have looked into.

  This man approached things the way I did.

  That was an unsettling thought.

  Maybe he was ex–law enforcement.

  Or ex-FBI.

  “Her daughter’s name and phone number are on her account,” he explained. “Running the girl’s name through the school district’s database gave me her age and their address. Simple.”

  Okay, this guy knew his stuff.

  You can fake the footage somehow. You can make this work. There’s too much at stake here. Three children, maybe more. This is your best chance to break into the Final Territory.

  “When do you need this?”

  He opened his desk drawer and took out a button-size camera. “Let’s say by five.”

  “I can’t get it by then. She doesn’t even get home from school until four or so. She wouldn’t be getting ready for bed until at least ten.”

  “Just ask her to try on a different outfit. Use your imagination. You’re a clever man. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  He showed me how to use the camera, then asked if I knew why Randy McReynolds had been in Jamaal Stewart’s apartment Wednesday night.

  “I believe he was looking for the video of Aurora’s birthday,” I said.

  He was quiet. “Be careful who you trust, Agent Bowers. The truth that’s right in front of you is often the hardest to see.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  I retrieved my phone from the hulk in the hallway, and then, back in the bar, I nodded toward the bartender, who was apparently named Rodriguez.

  “Next time, then,” he muttered. I had the sense that he was talking about the money, that he’d hoped I wouldn’t return from my visit with Blake and his silent ladies.

  I caught up with Tobin two blocks away in his undercover car. “We might have a problem,” I said.

  65

  Tobin stared at me incredulously when I told him about Blake. “He had access to your and Christie’s phone records and to the Federal Digital Database?”

  “Yes.”

  “So he might very well have someone at the Bureau or the NYPD in his pocket.”

  I nodded. “Obviously, I’m not going to film Tessa changing clothes, but if we’re going to move forward on this we need to figure out something that’ll fool him.”

  My first inclination was to call Christie, to tell her what we needed to do—just use Tessa’s room and get an undercover agent to impersonate Tessa, but Blake had access to my phone records and might be suspicious if he saw I’d called her, so I used Tobin’s phone.

  She didn’t answer.

  I knew that she had meetings this afternoon, but I figured she would be checking her messages in between them, so I left a voicemail for her to call me, then texted her the same.

  There was a lot at stake here—this was our first real shot at getting into the Final Territory, at piecing together where those three missing children might be.

  “Could we fake it?” Tobin asked. “Use another room? Stage things with a female officer or agent?”

  “That’s what I was thinking, but Blake knows I’m seeing Christie, knows where she lives, and that she has a daughter. He intimated to me that he had a source in the Bureau. With those kinds of connections, I’m guessing that he and his people might find out about the agent we were using, or if we weren’t actually in Tessa’s room.”

  “I might have an idea. Tell me a little about Tessa. Height, weight, race. That sort of thing.”

  “Caucasian. Five foot five. A hundred and fifteen, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds. Shoulder-length black hair.”

  “Do you have a picture of her?”

  I pulled out my cell and found a photo of Tessa and Christie taken a couple of weeks ago. Christie was smiling warmly. Tessa looked bored in her endearingly sullen way.

  I wasn’t quite sure how she did that.

  “There’s an officer from the Port Authority whom we’ve used before,” Tobin said. “She’s twenty, but looks a lot younger. She’s helped Hinchcliffe and me in a number of undercover and sting operations. I’d say she’s a little taller than Tessa and she’s blond, but I think with a wig and the right clothes we might be able to make it work. Since she’s not with the Bureau or the NYPD, I think we can do it without alerting anyone who might be compromised.”

  Even though a person needs to be twenty-one to be an NYPD officer, the age is lower in New Jersey and for the Port Authority, so sometimes for undercover assignments when they need young-looking officers, the NYPD uses officers from other jurisdictions.

  “You think she can pass for a fifteen-year-old?”

  “She has in the past.”

  “And she’s good?”

  “She’s good.” He had his phone out. “Let me see if she’s available.”

  +++

  Rather tha
n going through Shane at this point, the Piper contacted the Associates in Russia directly, the ones in charge of finishing up the code.

  The Russians were some of the best in the world at getting around Western security protocols. Really, it was the ideal place to base operations out of.

  “Is it finished?” the Piper asked.

  “Finished and waiting to be downloaded.”

  “I want it tested. I made that clear earlier.”

  “It has been. It’ll do what you want. All you need to do is have him download the file.”

  “Is it traceable?”

  “What do you think? It’s rerouted through more than a dozen servers around the world, each with its own level of encryption. No one will track it back to us and no one will track it back to you.”

  “We move on this tomorrow. Cocktails are served at six. The dinner begins at seven. Gomez will be speaking at eight or so. That’s when I want it to happen.”

  “I’ll make sure the timing is set. If it’s not downloaded until after that, it’ll automatically initiate its protocols as soon as it’s opened. Just let me know the email address, and when you want me to send the link, and it’ll be on its way.”

  “And what about uploading the files when it’s finished?”

  “That’ll be up to you. There are hundreds of millions of files. Give it fifteen minutes. I’ll email you the password.”

  66

  Officer Naomi Morgan met us at a wig shop three blocks from Central Park.

  Tobin had been right, she did look remarkably young for her age.

  I still didn’t have Christie’s permission to use her daughter’s room for all this, but I was moving forward for the time being as if I did.

  I figured she would call back any minute and we could set up the details to make this work.

  To do this without attracting attention, and because we thought that Blake might have contacts in the Bureau or the NYPD, we didn’t officially call this in, but I did notify DeYoung to keep him in the loop.

  The shelves along each wall of the shop were lined with dozens of mannequin heads each wearing a wig of a different color, style, or length.

  It didn’t take me long to find one that satisfactorily matched Tessa’s hair.

  As Naomi made sure it fit, she asked, “Is there anything I should know about her? Music? Friends? Clothes? What’s she into?”

  “She likes death metal bands,” I said, “doesn’t really have too many friends. She tends toward black fingernail polish. Sometimes black lipstick. But she doesn’t really go full goth.”

  “Steampunk? Emo?”

  “I’m not exactly sure what those are.”

  “Okay. What about scars? Piercings? Distinguishing marks?”

  “She has pierced ears. I’m not aware of any scars or anything.”

  “That’ll work. Does she wear hats?”

  “Not usually, no.”

  “Glasses?”

  “Not prescription, but she does go with sunglasses sometimes—although she’s not one for fresh air, sunlight, that sort of thing. Though she is a pretty committed neoliberal environmentalist.”

  She detoured to a sunglasses rack in the corner before checking out. Tobin and I followed her and we all spoke in hushed voices. “Hmm.” She scrolled her finger across the sunglasses, came up with a pair, and tried them on. I shook my head and she stuck them back on the rack, then chose a different pair.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” I was starting to have second thoughts about this whole thing. “I’m not sure about this, Naomi.”

  “Trust me. I can pull off a teenage girl.” She went for another pair. “These?”

  “I think so, but you don’t really look like her.”

  “Forgive me for putting it so bluntly, Agent Bowers, but knowing what kind of people you’re dealing with here, once I start changing clothes they’re not going to be looking at my face.”

  That was true enough.

  After we’d purchased the wig and sunglasses and left the store, Naomi asked, “How are we going to get in?”

  “I have a key to the place.”

  “And you have permission from the girl and her mother?”

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

  I checked for any texts from Christie on Tobin’s phone or my own.

  Nothing.

  “Can we wait, then?” Naomi said. “Put this into play later? Maybe tonight or tomorrow when we have the green light from her mom?”

  Tobin, who’d been quiet up until now, spoke up. “Blake gave Patrick a time frame. It needs to happen this afternoon.”

  “What time?”

  “By five,” I answered. “And you’re willing to be filmed changing clothes?”

  “I’ll keep on my bra and panties,” she said matter-of-factly. “Listen, I’ve worked undercover as a prostitute, passed as a high school sophomore to investigate a teacher who was bedding his algebra students, and been involved with four stings to catch online sexual predators who’d been setting up meetings with underage girls. I think I can change clothes in front of a camera.”

  “Okay. Point taken.”

  I tried Christie again to get permission to use her apartment, but again the call went to voicemail. Not really wanting to leave a message about what we were hoping to do, I simply left another request for her to call me.

  I didn’t like this.

  It was a bad idea on any number of fronts, but the deadline of five o’clock didn’t give us much wiggle room. Christie wouldn’t be getting home from work until five thirty or six, and if I couldn’t get in touch with her first, we would need to pull this off before Tessa came home.

  But then there would be explaining it all after the fact, a prospect that did not at all thrill me.

  There are three other children out there. This is your best chance to get into the Final Territory, your best chance to find them.

  Naomi sensed my hesitation. “It’s your call, Agent Bowers. What do you want me to do? Are we a go on this or not?”

  Wait, Pat. Talk it over with Christie, with Tessa. Clear it with them first.

  But then I reminded myself of what was at stake. I could resolve everything with Christie later. Right now we needed to make a decision. Just getting across town, getting the camera set and Naomi in place was going to be cutting it tightly enough.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re a go.”

  +++

  Tessa Ellis finished her last exam of the day in twenty-two minutes, not that she was counting, or that she even cared, it was just that she happened to glance at the clock and since she was the first one done, she went over her answers again just so it wouldn’t look weird with her handing it in so early.

  But there wasn’t really any need to. She was pretty sure she’d aced it, except for one question about Willa Cather that she wasn’t quite sure about.

  Finally, she’d had enough sitting around waiting, and she turned it in and took off for the subway entrance.

  Maybe, if she was lucky, she could catch a train without too much waiting and make it back to the apartment by three forty-five or so.

  Ever since her mom had dropped the bomb on her Saturday night that they were most likely going to be moving to the middle of nowhere, she’d felt like she had the wind knocked out of her.

  Unbelievable.

  Nebraska? Seriously?

  New York City was her home. She could be anonymous here. She could be herself and no one cared. She could fit in by not fitting in and that was okay.

  And it was like her mom had made the decision without even talking to her first, which was maybe what bothered her the most.

  Plus, it seemed like this move would probably make three people miserable—her, her mom, and Patrick. And what was the point of that?

  Sure, okay, she could understand
how they needed money. But there had to be another way. What was the point of screwing up three people’s lives when the only thing you needed was a little extra cash?

  Maybe you could get a job? It might help, at least a little.

  Yeah, right. As if, at fifteen, she would be able to find a job in New York City that would make enough money to help keep her and her mom afloat.

  MetroCard in hand, she descended the steps into the subway tunnel to catch the train that would take her to the stop two blocks from home.

  67

  Just in case Blake had people watching the apartment, I went in alone to set up the camera while Naomi and Tobin waited down the street in an unmarked car.

  Although I’d been in Christie’s apartment by myself before, I’d never yet been in Tessa’s room, and now as I entered it, I had the sense that I was betraying the trust Christie had placed in me when she gave me a key to her place. But, honestly, I wasn’t sure what else to do.

  It’s going to be okay. Just get this over with. You can talk it through and sort things out later. Right now you’re just doing what needs to be done.

  Tessa’s walls were covered with posters of the bands I’d heard her mention: House of Blood, Boomerang Puppy, Trevor Asylum, and Death by Susie. All such positive influences. No posters of boy bands, pop stars, or teen idols, but she did have one of a somber-looking Edgar Allan Poe.

  The room smelled faintly of bubble gum and perfume, which surprised me since I’d never really noticed Tessa wearing perfume before. And I hadn’t seen her chewing gum either.

  A pile of well-worn leather-bound journals sat on her desk. A coffee mug half-filled with coffee beans served as a pencil holder and contained a highlighter, pens, pencils, and an X-ACTO knife.

  To my surprise, her bed was scrupulously made. A teddy bear sat beside her pillow, reminding me that even though she was fifteen, she was still, in many ways, just a child.

  That realization made this even harder.

  “Pat?” Naomi’s voice came through the radio patch I was wearing behind my ear. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah.”