Hollingsworth

by Tom Bont

  Angela’s senses surged to high alert as soon as she passed the threshold. She’d spent numerous hours in scenarios where a simple invite into a witness’s house switched to a close-quarters combat scenario. With Clint four paces behind her, he kept an eye on Lilith while Angela surveyed their immediate surroundings. The FBI drilled this behavior into all its agents until it became instinctual.

  The front door led into a short foyer where a 1980s-style paneled living room unfolded into a breakfast nook at the end. An antiqued side table sat against the right-hand wall. To the left, a petite opening leading into the kitchen. As Angela noted available exits, Lilith turned on a giggle behind her.

  “Hi! I’m Lilith! It’s nice to meet you, Clint. What’s this about?”

  “It’s about Walter Hernandez. And it’s nice to meet you too, Lilith,” he said.

  He did not just use her first name!

  Angela spun around. They were shaking hands, and his attention centered on Lilith alone. Angela leaned against the wall as if making room for Lilith to walk past her and scrutinized the living room. “Ahem. Ms. Blank, are you here alone?”

  “Yes,” she responded, her gaze never leaving Clint. “Other than your handsome partner here.” She tore her eyes from him and stared at Angela as if it was the first time she’d laid eyes on her. “And you.”

  Lilith had usurped control of the interview and turned Angela into a third wheel. Clint’s expression told her in no uncertain terms, “Ask your questions so we can get to the good stuff.” She knew what constituted the “good stuff.”

  The three of them moved into the living room. Clint headed towards the end of the sofa where Lilith had sat. Angela beat him to it, though, plopping down in his intended spot and forcing him to pick the recliner across the room.

  He lowered himself into the seat, and his eyes devoured Lilith as she parted her lips and her knees at him.

  Angela knew she had to get a handle on this meeting soon, or they wouldn’t get anything useful out of Lilith. “Clint,” she said, patting her pockets, “I’ve left my phone in the car. Would you mind going out there with me while I get it?” Clint didn’t need to go with her, but you never left a male agent alone in the same room with a female interviewee, and vice versa.

  Clint’s face closed up in frustration, but he nonetheless followed her towards the front door. “We’ll be back in a few moments, Lilith.”

  As Angela opened the car door, she tipped her head to the side and gaped at Clint. “What the hell is going on in there? That’s the most unprofessional display I’ve ever seen. You want me to sit out here while you do her in the living room?”

  Clint caressed the back of his neck. “What are you talking about?” He gazed back at the house. “I’m being friendly. Trying to put her at ease.”

  “Yeah, well, you were trying to put something to her.” She slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone. “Ah! I had it with me the whole time. Listen, Clint. Why don’t I conduct the interview? You stay by the front door.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “I do,” she insisted. “You’re compromised.” Agents never slung ‘compromised’ at each other unless they witnessed something untoward…like sexual attraction between suspects and partners.

  Clint’s head snapped up, and he glared at her. “Fine.”

  He didn’t stand by the front door, but he did remain outside the living room, and out of sight of Lilith. He maintained the required line-of-sight to Angela, so she knew his big head had assumed control.

  “How long have you lived here, Ms. Blank?” Angela asked.

  “Call me Lilith.” She glanced towards the foyer. “Where’s Clint?”

  “He’s watching the door,” Angela answered. “Common procedure in certain situations. Now, how long have you lived here?”

  “About four months. I have a six-month lease.”

  “How did you meet Walter Hernandez?”

  “I’ve already answered these questions with the local police. Is this necessary?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Well, I had a flat tire, and he stopped and fixed it for me.”

  Angela went through the standard interrogation procedure, posing questions she already knew the answers to. She wasn’t digging for new information. She was trying to spot inconsistencies. People have a harder time remembering lies than they do the truth. Angela’s Interrogation Tome, Page 4, Addendum.

  “He died while you two were having sexual intercourse. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. He must have had a bad heart.”

  Lilith’s answers matched the police report.

  Dr. Fred Sherman, Tarrant County Chief Medical Examiner, leered over the rim of his glasses at Clint. “All men should die this way.” He handed the report across his desk.

  Clint chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose so, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer not to go at all.”

  He reached for the report, but Angela stepped in front of him and took it first. “Testosterone humor aside, we need to know what caused his death.” While the two men slipped into a chastised silence, she slid her finger down the report until she got to the summation. “Says here that he died from an acute myocardial infarction brought on by severe cardiorespiratory exertion. He exercised himself to death? This is what Doctor Monroe said Ambrose died from in Redstick. You plagiarizing, Doc?”

  “Nope. This time it’s true. Poor Walter screwed himself to death. The man even went with a smile on his face.” Fred showed a picture of an old man to Angela and Clint. Sure enough, the man had a broad grin frozen in time.

  “That’s not Walter,” she exclaimed.

  “Actually, it is,” he asserted.

  “Can’t be. I saw his picture at his house. Late twenties. This man—” she pointed at the picture “—is at least 80 years old.”

  “Walter suffered from Late-Onset Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria.”

  “Late-Onset what?”

  “Late-Onset Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria. It’s rare. Typically only affects the internal organs, and then over several years. In this case, it spread like wildfire in a short time.”

  “English, Doc.” Angela crammed a stick of gum into her mouth. “I just hunt bad guys.”

  “He had a rare disease that caused him to age up to five times faster than normal. But what happened here is the disease decided to ravage his system over a short time. Vigorous interactions with a younger woman? It’s no surprise his 100-year-old heart gave out.”

  Clint speculated, “So, it wasn’t murder after all?”

  “Nope,” Fred said. “Afraid not. DNA test confirms it.”

  “Case closed then.” Clint headed for the door with a new-found hunger in his eyes. “I’m taking a few days of vacation while my desk is empty.”

  Angela licked a large dollop of mustard from her lip as a forward body-checked the center. The hockey puck scattered to the left and a Blues wing shot it back towards the Stars’ goal. With a mouthful of hot dog, she yelled, “Defense, Big-D, defense!”

  Heather yelled, “Yah, Blues!” Though from a traveling, military family, she claimed St. Louis as home.

  The players passed and intercepted the puck a dozen times before the clock ran out. The Stars won the match, two goals to one.

  Heather taunted everyone within earshot as she sent off a text. “Pure luck! No Skill!”

  Angela pointed to Heather’s phone. “Do I need to drop you off at the hospital?”

  “No,” she answered, sliding it into her back pocket. “The new resident’s a little shy when it comes to narcotics. Likes to check with me on everything.” They didn’t get much chance to talk to one another as they jostled for position amongst the rest of the audience on their way to the parking lot, but once there, Heather asked, “When’s the last time you visited Chris?”

  “Last weekend.”

  Heather paused for a few heartbeats. “How’s he doing?”

  “Better from what the shrink�
��s saying. Mostly still giving me the silent treatment though. And doesn’t call Mom as often as he should.”

  “He’ll come around.”

  “Maybe.” She pulled onto 35E and headed north. “Mom and Dad? I don’t think they ever will.”

  Her mom’s words echoed in her head. “You’re supposed to be the responsible one! How could you let this happen?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled warmly at her friend.

  “At least he’s still going to group,” Heather offered.

  Angela snorted. “No choice. He’s a captive audience. No pun intended.” She honked her horn at a moron shifting four lanes at once. A loud rumble roared past her, a jacked-up four-wheel-drive pickup truck. “Rednecks,” she muttered.

  A smirk lit up Heather’s face. “Speaking of rednecks,” she teased, “heard from Karl lately?”

  “No, and I don’t care to.” She grew up in Hicksville, USA. She may have loved the slow lifestyle, the friendly neighbors, and the wildlife, but Karl epitomized everything bad about it—no ambition, no imagination, no future. And that’s why she hated it, too.

  Heather picked at her fingernail. “He still texts me to see how you’re doing.”

  “What do you tell him? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “I told him exactly what you told me to. ‘Never seen her happier!’”

  “Maybe he should text that high school cheerleader I caught him in bed with.” She wasn’t really in high school, not by two months anyway. “I’ve given up trying to figure out what a 35-year-old man wants with an 18-year-old girl.”

  “If you don’t know the answer to that,” Heather taunted, “it’s time for your physical. I need to make sure that certain parts of your anatomy haven’t dried up and blown away.” She keyed in another text and stared back at her friend. “Sister, you need to put yourself out there!”

  “I’ve tried. All the men I run into are either four-wheel-drive rednecks who party at the lake every night or Lexus-driving salesmen who lay around my apartment on the weekends watching golf.” She knew deep down that was just an excuse, though. She didn’t have the time to devote to a relationship. They were over long before she caught him in bed with the cheerleader. Maybe the breakup wouldn’t have been so bitter if the girl hadn’t been a teenager. Nah. She also knew deep down that was something she told herself to calm her mind before bed.

  Heather snorted. “I’ll take either one of those compared to the god-complex-doctors I work with.”

  “You’re a doctor. Are you saying you’re the only one without a god-complex?”

  “It’s not a complex. I’m convinced. Besides, I’m tired of dating myself. Or my hands are anyway.”

  Angela dropped her forehead onto the steering wheel and gawked over at her friend. “Oh, my God! I can’t believe you just told me that!”

  “Damn, girl, it wasn’t that funny! New job must be boring to get that kind of reaction.”

  “No, work’s fine. In fact, I closed my first case today.”

  “Can you talk about it?”

  “Yeah. Case of Progeria.”

  Heather’s happy face switched to serious mode. “Progeria? Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria?”

  “Yeah, the late-onset kind. Guy was cheating on his wife. Disease came on quick, and he died in his lover’s bed. Wife’s tore up.”

  “Progeria’s rare, but late-onset is practically unheard of.”

  “That’s what the coroner said.”

  “Did he say that’s the second case in the metroplex this year?”

  The first thing the next morning, Angela drove across town to the FBI’s main office to visit Archives. Either Task Force W didn’t warrant an office there, or someone decided it should be apart from the normal investigation teams. On the one hand, it made sense. On the other, it was a pain in the ass because all the records were elsewhere. A contractor was close to getting the data connection tied in, but the timetable changed each day.

  She strolled into the main entrance and passed her ID card over the reader as she always did. The guard, Tony Santos, gasped and stared at her with surprise. “You’ve been promoted, Agent Hollingsworth. Congratulations!”

  Angela studied the screen. She not only had been promoted, she now had W1 clearance. She had access to any case the FBI was investigating.

  W1, Task Force W.

  Only the Agent in Charge of the case could deny her access. Besides the AIC, someone of higher rank could technically deny her, but only by special request. This kind of access was not lost on her. It was big. Mind zinging like a pinball machine, she resolved to look into her missing papers concerning Redstick. “Thank you, Tony.” She connected her ID to her lanyard and let it drop against her shirt.

  Stepping off the elevator at Archives, she stood at the end of the hall staring at the main doors. The last time she’d stepped through them, she’d had to pull her weapon and shoot someone. Her boss. A friend. Or at least someone she believed to be a friend until he transformed into a werewolf and tried to eat her.

  I wonder if they got all the blood cleaned up. Of course, they have. It’s been nearly two months.

  She straightened her badge and leaned into a forward march towards the doors. She wasn’t sure what she expected as they swallowed her and spit her out the other side, but things were quieter than usual.

  Bill Olson, the Head Archivist, lazed behind the front desk reading a book. He was a young man, younger than she was, but his stooped posture and thin, messy hair made him look older. He perked up when Angela came through the doors, peering at her over the top of his glasses. “Senior Special Agent Hollingsworth. What brings you to my little cubby hole? And during the day when I’m around?”

  “Hi, Bill. Need to do a search.” She glanced around at the empty room. “Where is everyone?”

  “System’s down. Contractors cut a line while they were hooking up some satellite office.”

  “How long before they get it back up?”

  “Don’t know. What are you looking for?”

  “I need a list of all reported cases of—” she pulled out the autopsy report for Walter Hernandez and slid it across the counter “—Late-Onset Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria or any deaths with related symptoms.”

  Bill took the report and flipped through the pages with a practiced hand. “I’ll have to tap into the Centers for Disease Control archives to scan their reports. Don’t have the data here. And I can’t do that until they get my data link back up.”

  Angela shoved her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of gum. “When?”

  “How far back you wanna go?”

  “Not sure.” If this case fell under Task Force W jurisdiction, she’d require more than a few years to connect all the dots. “Let’s start with the last ten. If we see anything suspicious, clustering maybe, take it back as far as you can.”

  Bill straightened his neck and whistled lowly. “Monday maybe. Maybe longer. I have to learn what the symptoms are before I can search for them in the older style reports.”

  She crammed her stick of gum into her mouth. “Thanks. Call as soon as you have something.”

  “Will do.”

  The steel cage door clanked and a loud buzzer drilled into her ears as she waited for the guard to let her through. It was a familiar sight, the yellow and red lines, the gray chipped paint on the walls and bars, the Lexan windows at all the guard stations.

  “Happy Saturday, Agent Hollingsworth!” the last guard in the gauntlet shouted.

  “Happy Saturday to you too, Morris. Turn any screws this week?”

  “Nope!” He took her Glock and two spare magazines from under the window and handed her back a receipt. “They keep promising me I’ll get to soon, though.”

  This had become their usual banter over the last three months.

  One of these days, I’m going to change the question and see how he reacts.

  “Let me know how it goes!”

  “Opening Five!�
�� he yelled out.

  Another loud clank and buzzer signaled her entry into a private visitation room where her twin brother sat, secured to the table.

  “Hello, Chris,” she said as she leaned over to give him a hug.

  He sat there, stiff as a mannequin. “Hey,” he finally answered back, refusing to move his lips.

  That was more than she usually got from him. Her first few visits, he refused to see her at all. She finally bribed him with a care package of cigarettes. He showed up with bruises decorating his face, some new, some old. Cops not only had a rough time in prison, but the immediate family of FBI agents did too it turned out. She’d called in a few favors and had him transferred to a block for “at risk” prisoners. He still had a rough time, but it was better than solitary.

  She looked at the track marks on his arms. Mostly healed, they were more scar tissue than skin. “How are things going?”

  “Okay.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  And that’s how they jump-started her visits. Today though, she had some different news. “I got a new job.”

  He perked up. “You not a pig anymore?”

  Take ten deep breaths…One. Two. Aw, fuck the breathing exercises.

  She pulled a stick of gum from her pocket. “I’ll let you go on that one because I know life in here is rough. But you call me that again—” she put the gum in her mouth “—I’ll kick your ass while you’re still handcuffed to that fuckin’ table.”

  “Sorry I let you down!” he spit at her. It was not an apology. She spent the rest of her time staring at the walls while he gave her the Look.

  Way to go, Angela. One. I want one conversation with him that doesn’t end in an argument.

  When her time came to an end, she met their parents in the waiting room. “You could have come in,” she told them. “We weren’t talking much.”

  “Well, I suspect not,” her mother snapped, “since you’re the one who put him there. You’re supposed to be the responsible one! How could you let this happen?”