"I'm not sure I understand how you can do that," she said bluntly.
Betack gazed around uneasily at the others. "There was a letter delivered to one of the women who works in the kitchen here. Shirley Meyers."
Jane rose. "You will leave right now, Agent Betack. This instant."
Sean rose too. "What the hell is going on?"
"You will leave now!" snapped Jane.
"Aaron, what letter?" asked Michelle.
Before Betack could answer, Jane snatched up the phone. "One call, Betack. Either you leave now or your career is over."
"Maybe it already is," said Betack. "But what's a career compared to a little girl's life? Have you even thought about that?"
"How dare you speak to me that way!"
Tuck stood. "I dare. If it's got something to do with whether my daughter lives or dies, I sure as hell do dare."
Jane looked at him, and then at the others, one by one. Her confidence seemed to fall away under their gazes. She looked to Sean like a cornered animal desperately seeking a way out.
Sean said, "Jane, if you received a letter that has something to do with Willa, we need to know. The FBI needs to know."
"That is impossible."
Tuck grabbed her arm. "The hell it is."
Betack instinctively rushed forward to protect the First Lady. But Michelle had already snagged Tuck's arm and forcibly removed his grip. She pushed him down on the couch.
"Just chill, Tuck. You're not helping matters. She's still the First Lady."
"I don't give a shit what she is. She could be the president and I wouldn't give a damn. If she knows something that'll help get Willa back, I need to know what the hell it is."
Jane was looking steadily at Betack. "How do you know anything about this?"
"Nothing happens in this building without the Secret Service knowing, Mrs. Cox."
"Was the letter from the kidnappers?" asked Sean.
Jane finally looked away from Betack. "It might be. It's impossible for me to tell. For anyone to tell."
"Was it checked for prints?" asked Michelle.
"Since it wasn't sent here and passed through multiple hands before landing in mine, I think the answer to that is no," she said coldly.
"Where is it?" asked Sean.
"I destroyed it."
Sean looked uneasily at Betack. "Jane, this is a federal investigation. If you're found to have knowingly withheld and then destroyed evidence…"
"Now that could tank the election for your husband," added Michelle.
"But why would you withhold it?" Sean wanted to know.
Jane did not make eye contact with him. "It was a shock to receive it the way that I did. I was trying to evaluate things before I determined what to do with it."
Okay, now she's on full spin, thought Sean.
"I think the authorities need to evaluate it," said Betack. "Please, Mrs. Cox, you need to understand fully what you're doing here. You need to tell them what was in the letter."
"Fine, I'll tell you. The letter said that I would be getting another letter sent to a post office box. They also sent me the address for that box and the key for it."
Sean, Michelle, and Betack exchanged glances.
Jane noticed this because she added, "And it said if anyone who remotely looked like a police officer or a federal agent went anywhere near the box, we would never get Willa back."
"Is that why you kept the letter to yourself?" asked Tuck.
"Of course. Do you seriously think I want anything to happen to Willa? I love her like she's one of my own children."
How she said this struck Sean as a little odd. "When did it say the other letter would be coming?"
"It didn't. But that I should check regularly. As of today there was nothing there."
Betack said, "We have to tell the FBI about this."
Sean and Michelle nodded in agreement but Jane shook her head. "If you do then we will never see Willa again."
"Jane, the Feds are really good at this."
"Yes, they've been superb so far. Figured everything out, haven't they? I can't imagine why they'd screw it up now."
"That's hardly fair," began Michelle.
Jane Cox raised her voice. "What do you know about fair?"
"When you get the letter, you have to let us see what it says."
She glanced over at Sean. "I have to?"
"You retained us to investigate this case, Jane. So far, you've lied to us, withheld vital information, and caused us to waste time we didn't have. Yeah, you need to let us and the FBI see the letter when it comes. Or else we can just pack it in right now and be done with it."
Tuck spoke up. "Jane, for God's sake, this is Willa we're talking about. You have to let them help."
"I'll think about it."
Tuck looked dumbstruck by this, but Sean said, "Fine, you think about it and let us know." He rose and motioned Tuck and Michelle to join him in leaving.
"Tuck, why don't you stay here with the children?" said Jane.
He didn't even look at her. "No thanks."
Tuck stalked out of the room. Michelle and Sean followed him.
Betack had turned to join them when Jane said, "I'll never forget this betrayal, Agent Betack. Never."
Betack wet his lips, but whatever he was about to say back he seemed to think better of. He turned and left.
As they were leaving the White House, Sean pulled Betack aside. "Aaron, one thing."
"You need any freelance investigators? I see an involuntary career change coming in my future."
"I do need you to do a little sleuthing."
"Meaning what?"
"The letter the First Lady got."
"She said she destroyed it."
"Considering that just about everything that's come out of the lady's mouth has been a lie, chances are even money that she didn't."
"And you want me to find it?"
"I'd try. But I think someone might notice me snooping around here. I understand the security's pretty good."
"Do you realize what you're asking me to do?"
"Yeah. I'm asking you to help save a little girl's life."
"Where the hell do you get off hitting me with a guilt trip like that?"
"Would you do it if I didn't hit you with it?"
Betack looked off for a moment. When he stared back at Sean he said, "I'll see what I can do."
After they dropped off Tuck back at Blair House, Sean's phone buzzed. He answered, listened, smiled, and clicked off. "I can feel the tide turning a little."
"Why? Who was that?" asked Michelle.
"My language department friend. They might have something to tell us about the marks on Pam's arms."
CHAPTER 51
WE'D EXHAUSTED just about everything we could think of," said Phil Jenkins, Sean's professor friend at Georgetown University. "Of course it wasn't the Chinese Yi as you initially suspected. Wrong alphabet. But college professors love a challenge like this, so I called in other faculty from some of our interdisciplinary studies. At least it beat grading fifty exams."
"I bet," said Michelle as she perched on the edge of Jenkins's desk in his cluttered office. She would have opted for a chair but the two in the room were piled with five-pound books.
"And you found what?" asked Sean impatiently.
"Ever heard of Muskogean?"
"Isn't that a town in Wisconsin, or maybe Oklahoma?"
"That's Muskogee. No, it's Indian. Native American Indian. Without getting too technical, it's a family of languages, actually."
"So the markings we gave you are Muskogean?" asked Michelle.
"The language is actually Koasati, or more typically known as Coushatta. But it is of Muskogean origin."
"So what does it say?" asked Sean. "What we gave you."
Jenkins looked down at a sheet of paper with scribbles all over it. "It was a bit difficult to figure out because none of the accent marks or other pronunciation points were included. For instance, there sho
uld have been a colon between Chaffa and kan. And, of course, the letters weren't separated into words. That made it far more difficult."
"Sounds like they didn't want to make our job easy," commented Sean.
"And they didn't," remarked Jenkins. "So what it says, as best we can figure, is this. Chaffakan means one. Hatka means white and Tayyi means woman."
"One white woman?" said Sean.
"One dead white woman," amended Michelle.
Jenkins glanced up sharply at her. "Dead?"
"It's a long story, Phil," said Sean. "What can you tell us about this Koasati stuff?"
"I consulted with a professor here who specializes in Native American languages. He's the one who really cracked this. The Koasati tribe was part of the Creek Confederacy in what is now Alabama. However, when the Europeans started immigrating there, and because they were also under attack from rival tribes, the Koasati and the Alibamu tribes moved to Louisiana and then on to Texas. There are apparently no members of the tribes still living in Alabama. The bulk of the people who still use the language, and they only number in the hundreds, reside in Allen Parish, which is a little north of Elton, Louisiana. Although there are apparently a few speakers living in Livingston, Texas."
Michelle and Sean stared at each other.
She said, "Texas and Louisiana. Pretty big places to search."
"But if it's narrowed down to towns, and to a few hundred people?" said Sean.
"But why put the words on Pam's arms to begin with? Sure, they made it hard, but not impossible," she commented.
Jenkins broke in. "These words were on a woman's arms? And you said something about dead?"
"Not just dead, murdered," said Michelle.
"Oh dear Lord," said Jenkins and he dropped the page on his desk.
"It's okay, Phil, I doubt these folks are going to come back for another language demonstration. Thanks for the assist."
As they walked from his office, Sean was shaking his head. "Why does this seem like a diversionary tactic?"
"And a knuckleheaded one at that, because they didn't have to do it at all."
"Agreed."
"So what now?"
"We need to talk to Waters. Tell him what we know."
"That jerk? Why?"
"Because we promised. And we need to find Willa just as fast as we can. So we're going to need the Feds' muscle behind us."
"Yeah, well, don't be surprised if that muscle comes down on us instead."
CHAPTER 52
SEAN CALLED WATERS and they arranged to meet at a bar a few blocks away from the FBI's Hoover Building.
"Didn't expect to get a call from you," Waters said as they sat at a table in the back.
"I told you if we had anything to report we'd be in touch."
"So report."
"The markings on Pam Dutton's arms are a Native American language known as Koasati."
Waters sat up straighter. "Do you know what it says?"
" 'One white woman,' " answered Michelle. "Something we obviously already knew."
"That makes no sense," said Waters.
"It was probably a clumsy attempt at a red herring because they'd messed up."
"Messed up how?"
Sean said, "Guy panicked, killed the lady when he didn't want to, and painted her arms to throw us off. I don't think anybody was supposed to die that night. Tuck would've been the most obvious threat and even then they just knocked him out when they could've easily just pumped a round into him."
"Okay, so tell me about this Koasati stuff."
Sean relayed what they'd learned from Phil Jenkins about the Indian tribe.
"Well, maybe that narrows it down some," Waters said doubtfully. "But some Indian tribe having a beef with the president to such an extent they grab his niece? Pretty far-fetched."
"Second point," said Sean. "Pam Dutton only gave birth to two kids. We think Willa's adopted."
"That one I know. ME gave us the heads-up after you two brought it to her attention."
"We've talked to Tuck and he won't say a word about it. Just says we're nuts. The First Lady claims ignorance. Says the Duttons were living in Italy when Willa was born. Or supposedly born."
"Maybe Willa's not the adopted one," said Waters.
"The other two look a lot like their parents," Michelle pointed out.
"But the ME said only two, so, regardless of which kid it is, Tuck is lying," said Sean. "You may have to lean on him to get to the truth."
"Leaning on the president's brother-in-law isn't that easy," noted Waters nervously.
"There must be some records somewhere that would definitively state that Willa is adopted. Either here or in Italy. The FBI can surely find that out."
"You think if she was adopted it had something to do with her kidnapping?"
"How could it not?"
"But back up a minute," said Michelle. "So what if Willa is adopted? Why would Tuck not want to admit that? It's not like adoption is illegal."
"It might make a difference if the mother's identity is an issue somehow," said Sean slowly.
"Or maybe the father's," pointed out Michelle.
The three stewed on that for a few silent moments.
Waters finally spoke up. "And the First Lady didn't know anything about this? Her own brother?"
"So she claims," answered Sean.
Waters gave him a sharp glance. "But you don't believe her?"
"I didn't say that."
"So you do believe her?"
"I didn't say that either." Sean sat back and stared at the FBI agent. "So anything on your end?"
Water's face went slack. "I'm sorry, I didn't know this was a two-way conversation."
"If we work together the odds of getting Willa Dutton back alive might go up a little bit."
Waters still didn't seem convinced.
"Look, I told you, I don't care who gets the credit or the glory. We just want the girl back."
"You can't possibly have a problem with that deal," said Michelle.
Waters finished his beer and eyed her curiously. "Was your mother really murdered?"
"Yes."
"Any leads?"
"The chief suspect is my dad."
"Jesus!"
"No, his name's Frank."
"Shouldn't you be focused on that?"
"I'm a woman."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning, unlike men, I can handle more than one thing at a time."
Sean tapped his arm. "So what's it gonna be, Chuck?"
Waters motioned to the waiter for another round, then said, "We found a hair on Pam Dutton that didn't belong to her or anyone else in her family."
"I thought the trace DNA didn't produce a criminal database hit," said Michelle.
"It didn't. So we ran a different test on the hair. An isotopic exam looking for geographic clues."
Sean and Michelle exchanged glances.
"What'd you find?" asked Sean.
"That the person whose hair it was has eaten a diet high in animal fats for years but also one with plenty of vegetables."
"What can you deduce from that?" asked Michelle.
"Not a lot, although the typical American diet doesn't include a lot of veggies anymore."
"Were the fats or vegetables processed?" asked Michelle.
"Don't think so, no. But the sodium levels were high too."
Sean looked at Waters. "Maybe a farm? They slaughter and eat their own meat? Cure it with salt, maybe. Harvest crops. Preserve and can them, again with salt."
"Maybe," said Waters. "They also found something else in the exam." He hesitated.
"Don't keep us in suspense," joked Sean.
"The water the person drank. That's reflected in the hair isotope too. The lab narrowed it down to a three-state area."
"Which three?"
"Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi."
"That dovetails with the mail triangulation," noted Michelle.
"Three across," said Sean softly, st
aring at his drink. "Three states right in a row."
"Apparently both the rain and drinking water down there has some pretty distinctive markers," said Waters. "And it's been mapped pretty comprehensively over the years. That's why the lab feels very confident about the findings."
"Could they tell if it was well or city water?"
"Well," said Waters. "No commercial chlorine or other purifiers like that."
"So that means rural?"
"Possibly, although there're certainly some subdivisions on well water down there. I used to live in one of them before I got assigned here."
"And with diets high in unprocessed animal fat and veggies?" exclaimed Sean.
"Okay, quite possibly rural. But with all that, it's still a big area to focus on."
"But those states don't square with the Koasati piece," said Michelle. "Texas or Louisiana."
"But the Koasati are from Alabama originally," pointed out Sean.
"Originally, yeah, but not now."
"Can you still run down the Koasati angle?" he asked Waters.
Waters nodded. "I'll have agents down there get started immediately on it." He studied them both. "So is that all you know?"
Sean finished his drink and rose. "It's all we know that's worth sharing."
They left Waters to his second beer and walked back to the SUV. Along the way Michelle's phone buzzed. She looked at the screen.
"Who is it?" asked Sean.
"My caller ID says a Tammy Fitzgerald."
"Who's she?"
"Somebody I don't know."
She put the phone away and said, "You didn't mention the letter the First Lady received to our little FBI chum."
"That's right, I didn't."
"But why not?"
"Because I'm willing to let her come to her senses before I throw her to the Feds on an obstruction charge. That'll probably screw the election for the president too. And he's done a good job."
"Are you kidding me? Who the hell cares what it does politically to the First Couple? What if it costs Willa her life? Isn't that what you care about, getting Willa back? Or was that a load of shit you were shoveling Waters back there?"
Sean stopped walking and turned on her. "Michelle, I'm doing the best I can here, okay? It's complicated. It's damn complicated."
"It's only complicated if you make it so. I like to keep things simple. Find Willa, any way I can."
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