by Jean Heller
He nodded and smiled. “Actually, he was a very distant cousin. There’s a bay in Wyoming, up near Yellowstone, that’s named for him. He discovered the area.”
“I know the bay,” I said. “I love it there. I was just curious.”
“I’m curious, too, Ms. Mora. So I’ll see you tomorrow.”
19
The scene in my living room late the next morning was surreal and made all the weirder because I had barely slept the night before, adding exhaustion to my haze of shock and guilt.
I didn’t realize until after the detective left the night before that Mark had brought along his gun and his dog, and Murphy was waiting patiently in one of the back bedrooms to be allowed to join the party. He had jumped up on the sofa beside me, licked my face once, then curled up with his front paws on my thighs and his head in my lap as if to protect me. The cats joined him.
Mark and I talked for a while about the attack on me and Winona’s murder. He said they had to be related. I agreed to some extent. The possibility of a nexus couldn’t be ignored, but there was no evidence that it was a sure thing.
“I keep coming back to the question, if they killed her, why did they just give me a warning and chloroform me? Why didn’t they kill me, too?”
“I don’t know,” Mark said. “Maybe to confuse the issue, muddy the waters.”
“At first glance, it looks like Winona’s murder was a random terrorist attack,” I said. “A lone wolf like the guy who shot up the nightclub in Orlando.”
“Why,” he asked, “would a lone wolf single out an official of DCFS?”
“The husband-wife team in San Bernardino targeted social service workers, the husband’s colleagues.”
“Do you think the killer here worked at DCFS?”
I shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. And that would mean my assault probably wasn’t connected at all.”
On that note we’d gone to bed.
Mark held me for a while, then rolled over and dozed off. I lay awake all night thinking about Winona, wondering if she had died because of her involvement with me? The question wasn’t conducive to relaxing.
I felt better physically the next day despite the lack of sleep. I made breakfast for us while Mark walked the dog. We drank a pot of coffee between us then prepared another in case any of my visitors were so inclined. That done, Mark left for the Ravenswood neighborhood on the North Side where there had been a suspicious fire overnight in a mattress store.
Ryland was as good as his word, calling before he and Jonathan Bruckner left the Journal building to make sure I was up to seeing them. Before they showed up, Det. Ron Colter was back, this time with company.
The new guy was dressed immaculately in an elegant black trench coat that fell to mid-thigh. I could have sworn it was from Burberry of London. If true, it cost close to $3,000 unless he’d bought it on sale in Filene’s Basement, though he didn’t have that look. The coat covered much of the charcoal suit, the perfectly starched white shirt and the blue-and-indigo striped tie beneath. The shoes were black loafers with a silver buckle that had the Ferragamo look.
The face was rugged, lean, and hard, the skin so lacking in lines that I thought it possible this man never used his expression muscles. His eyes were dark gray, the color of ice plowed from a city street after a storm, the nose almost aquiline, and the mouth set in determination. The man’s hair was cut short and flecked with gray.
Quite simply, he scared the shit out of me.
“Who is this?” I asked Colter, who had not introduced his companion, nor had the companion introduced himself.
“He’s with me,” Colter replied.
“Is that supposed to be an answer?” I said.
“The only one you’re going to get,” he said.
“Well, would you or your nameless friend like some coffee?” Colter accepted, black, he said. The second man said nothing.
“You’re quite the conversationalist,” I said as I turned toward the kitchen.
Eric Ryland and Jonathan Bruckner showed up a short while later, and both of them accepted coffee. Introductions were made, insofar as I was able. The gray man stood ramrod straight by the front door and declined the offer of a seat. At least I think he declined. I got a vague shake of his head that could have meant no or been a signal that his collar was too tight.
When everyone was finally settled in, Ryland took center stage.
“As the metro editor of the Journal, I am Deuce Mora’s supervisor,” he said. “I know everything she’s working on and where each story stands. She has no legal obligation or authority to say anything to the police or,” and here he nodded toward the gray man, “any other government agency unless approved by our attorney. Are we clear so far?”
Detective Colter nodded ever so slightly. Gray man did nothing. I couldn’t tell for sure if he was breathing.
Ryland continued. “Deuce has filled me in completely during a telephone conference call this morning on where all her work stands. The Journal’s lead attorney, Jonathan Bruckner, was present for that briefing. He will speak to the legal ramifications of what Deuce knows.”
“It’s very simple, really,” Bruckner said, his voice calm and non-confrontational. I had never seen him ruffled, not even during the most difficult and contentious days of the Vinnie Colangelo investigation. “Deuce is working on an assignment that involves the deaths of an unknown number of children whose bodies have been found buried in a nature preserve on the South Side of the city. She doesn’t know how the children died, when they died, why they died, or who they were. She has been endeavoring to learn some of these facts to no avail, thus far.”
I was feeling uncomfortable telling the authorities even this much. But I understood that Bruckner was attempting to head off even greater problems for the paper and for me, such as a court order to cooperate backed by the threat of a contempt citation and jail.
Besides, if gray man was an agent, he probably already knew what I knew.
Bruckner continued. “In the course of attempting to interview as many as a dozen public and police officials about these deaths, Deuce has been met with closed doors at every turn. She made her last attempt yesterday to learn what, if anything, Winona Jackson had learned of the mass murders. Ms. Jackson told her nothing.”
That much was true. Technically. There was no information passed to me verbally at Starbuck’s, and since I had yet to look at the contents of the envelope Winona left behind for me, I could swear under oath that I had received no information from her. For all I knew the envelope contained a flyer for Yoga classes.
So call it a fine line. I had drawn it in the dust—or in the snow, perhaps—and I wouldn’t cross it.
“If you have any questions now, Detective,” Bruckner said, “you may ask them. I will instruct Deuce as to those she may answer and those she will not.”
“Had Ms. Jackson given you any information prior to your meeting yesterday?” Colter said. “Any information at all?”
Bruckner nodded. I thought carefully about how to phrase my answer.
“It was my theory,” I said, “that these children might have been the victims of traffickers. I asked her about that. She acknowledged that it was possible, though she had no certain knowledge. She didn’t even know how many children had been found dead. She was being kept completely out of the loop. She provided me with some information and statistics on human trafficking all over the world, some of it specific to Chicago—nothing I couldn’t have found myself on the Internet. All the papers she copied for me were reports in the public domain. She made it easier for me to background myself on the problem without disclosing anything about the case because she didn’t know anything about the case. Or so she said.”
Colter looked up from his notes.
“What did she tell you yesterday?”
I looked at Bruckner. He nodded again.
“She told me she was nervous, and she seemed nervous. Maybe even scared. She said she felt as though she was be
ing watched. And she said she didn’t want to meet with me any more on this subject.”
“But she didn’t rule out taking phone calls from you on your burner phones?”
“Not specifically, no.”
“Which is why, when you collected your wits after the assault on you, you were so anxious to reach her, to warn her she might be in danger?”
“Exactly.”
There was momentary silence in the room.
“You’re lying.”
The husky baritone voice cut through the silence, startling everyone. The gray man had a voice after all.
“What?” I said.
“You’re lying,” he repeated.
I started to respond, but Bruckner put out his hand to stop me. He turned to the gray man. “Who the hell are you?”
“Mason Cross, National Security Agency,” he said.
“NSA?” Ryland blurted out. “What possible interest could NSA have in this? There’s no national security issue with the deaths of these children.”
I winced and hoped it didn’t give me away. There was, of course, that key element of the story I hadn’t yet relayed to Ryland and Bruckner. But perhaps Ryland’s honest astonishment would work in my favor.
Colter turned back to me. “How about that, Ms. Mora? Is that true?”
I turned to Bruckner for help, but he was staring at me with a look that said he was as dumbfounded as my editor.
“Is what true?” I asked.
“That there’s no national security aspect to this?”
“I-I-I don’t know,” I said. “How would I know? The CIA doesn’t call me much.” I grabbed a deep breath. ”I was wondering last night if Winona might have been killed by a lone-wolf terrorist, given the style of her execution. Maybe her death had nothing to do with the assault on me. But I have no certain knowledge of anything relative to national security, Detective.”
The detective and the spook ignored my lone-wolf theory, which either meant I was way out in left field or right on the money.
“I repeat the question I asked yesterday,” Colter said. “Why did you fly to Washington to have dinner with your old friend, Carl Cribben, late of the FBI?”
I had to be very careful how I phrased my answer so I couldn’t later be accused of making a false statement to the police. But I also had to protect Carl.
“Because he’s involved in an investigation of organized crime in the United States,” I said. “These trafficking rings should be included. They make millions off modern slavery, and they’re well organized. They’re gangs. They’re mobs. Every bit as much as the Mafia ever was, or is. I asked him if the trafficking rings were part of his investigation.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said the committee was aware of these groups, but there was no investigation at this time. He didn’t say whether anything was planned. He wouldn’t tell me anything about his work. So I came home.”
“You’re lying,” Cross said again, still posed by the front door. But this time he leaned back against the door and crossed his left foot over his right. And that’s when I saw it. A deep scuff in the otherwise perfect leather of his black left shoe.
When I raised my eyes to his, the force of his glare told me I had stared at the shoe a beat too long, telegraphing exactly what I had seen and exactly what it told me. To his credit, he had enough equilibrium to stifle any urge to react.
To try to cover myself, I shot to my feet.
“Is that all you know how to say?” I snapped at him. “Why are you so damned sure I’m lying? And if you are so sure, why don’t you prove it?”
“I shall, Ms. Mora,” Cross replied. “Don’t ever doubt that.”
20
Colter and Cross left. Ryland and Bruckner hung back.
“That was rough,” Ryland said. “How’re you feeling?”
I had refilled all our coffee mugs and slumped back onto the couch.
“Drained,” I said. “Part of it’s the incident yesterday. A lot of it is Winona. And a lot of it is being really pissed at that NSA asshole. In addition to being a jerk, I know now he’s the one who chloroformed me.”
“What?” Ryland said in disbelief. “He’s with the NSA. What makes you think he had any role last night?”
“His left shoe,” I said. “When they had me pinned face-down on the floor, all I could see of the guy in front of my face was a dark leather shoe, a bit of dark sock, and a cuffed pant leg. He was down on his right knee with his left foot flat on the floor a foot from my nose. I saw a deep scuff along the side of the shoe from the toe back maybe two inches.”
“And you saw it again now?” Bruckner said.
“Yep. When he leaned against the door and crossed his feet. I saw it, and I’m pretty sure he knew I saw it. I think he also knew I recognized it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Colter was the second guy. I thought last night there was something familiar about his voice.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Ryland asked.
“I think that’s what I’m doing right now.”
“No, I meant while they were here?”
“To what end?” I said. “They’re working together. I’m not eager to have them coming back on me. But if anything happens to me, be sure you look at Cross first.”
“I can’t figure what his interest is,” Bruckner said.
“I can,” I said. “At least I think I know some of it.” I turned to my editor. “Eric, I told you before I went to Washington that the FBI was part of the Ryan Woods investigation. I didn’t tell you the State Department might be as well. I didn’t say anything because it was largely speculation based on some things Winona heard. This whole mess might have international diplomatic implications. Maybe even an impact on national security.”
“Damn it, Deuce, that’s sort of a big thing to leave out,” Ryland said. His words were measured, but his tone was angry.
I understood how he felt. “I know. But I didn’t have any details then, and I don’t have any more now.”
“What else did you leave out,” the lawyer asked.
“I told the cops Winona didn’t tell me anything while we were at Starbuck’s yesterday. And that was the truth. But she put an envelope on the table when she left. I think it’s a list of the foster and group homes in Chicago with the worst records for abusing children. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.”
“How’s that list going to help you?” Bruckner asked.
“I don’t know. But I hope it will. Winona Jackson gave her life to get it to me.”
When I was alone in the house again, Mark called to find out how my morning had gone and how I was feeling. I gave him a shorthand version because I had to get off the phone. I promised a full report later.
I realized I had to get word to Carl Cribben about what happened the previous night, and I had to do it fast. He, too, could be in danger. My burner phone was compromised. The NSA and the police had the number. So I drove to the nearest Walgreen’s and replaced it.
Once I had it set up, I called Cribben’s personal cell and hoped he hadn’t changed the number. I hoped he would answer even though my call wasn’t from a number in his contact list. I hoped the NSA hadn’t set it up to listen to his calls yet.
He answered on the fourth ring. I identified myself immediately.
“Can’t talk right now,” he said in a tone more official than friendly.
“I don’t want you to talk,” I said. “Can you just listen?”
“Okay.”
I recounted events of the day before, leaving out nothing. I emphasized the fact that when a detective returned to interview me this morning, he had been accompanied by an unpleasant robot from the NSA who in one key respect matched the description of one of my assailants. I also told him they were aware that I had been in Washington to see him.
“I think you should forget I was there, forget what I asked of you,” I said. “This deal has gotten too weird, too dangerous. I don’t want you sticking your neck out.�
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Through the phone I heard footfalls coming fast off a hard surface.
“Hold on a minute,” Cribben said. When the footfalls stopped, he explained. “I had to get away from the office, to someplace a little more private. Which is not to say any cell phone call is private. The NSA is always listening.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I want you out of this. And I’m sorry I got you involved in the first place.”
He ignored me. “I had a visitor, too, Deuce. He gave me the same advice.”
“I hope you told him you’d take it.”
“Let’s say I was noncommittal. I don’t like being strong-armed. I don’t respond well. I might have f-bombed him a little bit.”
I smiled. That was not in keeping with my straight-arrow image of Cribben. I wished I’d been a fly on the wall.
“How’d he take it?” I asked.
“With stoicism at first. Then he got a little pissy.”
“Do what he said, Carl, please. I don’t want you to wind up with your throat cut in the middle of Constitution Avenue.”
“If that happens,” he said, “it won’t be the NSA’s work. It’s not their style. It honestly sounds more like home-grown terrorism to me.”
“I had the same thought. I even suggested the possibility this morning. I didn’t get a rise out of the police or the NSA. But you need to drop this, Carl. Get out.”
“I don’t think I can, Deuce. I signed on. NSA knows I signed on. So I’m in for the run. To tell you the truth, I want to be. The story you’re chasing makes me sick.”
“You’ve got my new burner number in your phone now,” I said. “Buy your own burner, program this number into it, but not into your personal cell.”
“Will do,” he said. “What’s your next move?”
I thought of the envelope in my messenger bag.
“I have some reading to do,” I said.
I could have gone up to my little home office on the second floor, but instead I curled up on the sofa where my bag already rested with the flap thrown back. I kicked off my shoes and unfurled an afghan my mother had crocheted for me thirty years earlier to occupy her hands as she waged her losing battle against breast cancer. Resting under it always soothed me, bringing me close again to the parent I barely knew when she died.