Patrick Bowers 08 - Every Crooked Path

by Steven James

“Penises stand for male dominance or suppression; breasts for fertility and femininity; and open eyes for seeing things in a new way—new opportunities, doorways, insights. Closed eyes equals blindness, naïveté, repression. It’s tiresome. The art world needs an injection of creativity.”

  “Huh. Looking for those three body parts isn’t exactly something I’m guessing they typically teach you in art appreciation class.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know. But I do know that anytime you have to be taught to appreciate something, it’s either lame to begin with or you can be pretty sure they’re actually doing the opposite.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Are there any classes on superhero movie appreciation? Or stand-up comedian appreciation? Or video game appreciation? No. And I’ll tell you why.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they don’t need it. They’re art forms that stand or fall on their own. Just like all art should. They don’t need to be analyzed or interpreted. They entertain hundreds of millions of people and they’re popular because they connect with the audience. If your art form doesn’t do that, what’s the point of it anyway?”

  I’d never thought of superhero movies, stand-up comedy, or video games as art forms, but when I considered what she had to say, I could certainly see where she was coming from.

  “Oh, or what about literature?” She obviously wasn’t finished with her rant yet. “Go ahead, interpret the crap out of this novel. Dissect this short story. Imagery. Symbolism. Spit out the themes. Whatever. It’s sickening. And it always works backward. When you overanalyze something you end up hating the very thing you’re supposed to be learning to love.”

  I had the sense that there might be a deeper meaning to what she was saying, but I couldn’t quite decipher if she was trying to tell me something beyond the obvious or not.

  I put the notepad away. “So, what would you like to do?”

  “I don’t know. Take me to where you work.”

  “The FBI Field Office?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s a government building, Tessa. By definition, it’s a boring and uninteresting place.”

  She shrugged. “I’m interested in it. How many times have you ever heard me say I’m interested in anything?”

  “You do have a point.”

  “Look, as long as we never go into any restricted areas and you escort me the whole time, we can at least walk through the Field Office’s museum on the twenty-eighth floor of 26 Federal Plaza.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “There’s this crazy thing they invented called Google. You can look stuff up on it. You should check it out sometime.”

  “Ah. Now, that was sarcasm, right?”

  “Um. No.”

  “But that was?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Wait—was that?”

  She looked at me disparagingly.

  “Alright, I’ll take you to the museum.”

  She finished her carrot. “Excellent.”

  “You’re sure Central Park is out of the running?”

  “Fresh air makes me break out in hives.”

  “And here I thought you were Miss Nature-Lover Girl.”

  “You pretty much suck at this, don’t you?”

  “At what?”

  “Communicating with a teenager.”

  “I admit I’m still on my training wheels.”

  She slung the messenger bag she used as a purse over her shoulder. “Alright, I promise to hold on to the handlebars for you the whole time.”

  +++

  A flood of colors and scents from fruit stands and street vendors circled around Francis, along with the sound of people bustling past, talking into phones, leaving snippets of their conversations trailing behind them in the air.

  Sights. Smells. Sounds.

  It was overwhelming.

  No, it’s healthy. All this is healthy for you.

  I know but it’s also a little overwhelming.

  Don’t argue, Francis. It doesn’t become you.

  Last week he’d told Dr. Perrior that he was going for a walk every other day and, even if he wasn’t going to be able to see his psychologist anymore, he wanted to keep his word and do what he’d said he was going to do.

  So ten minutes ago he’d left his apartment and walked to an open market at a park near his home to get his exercise in.

  He enjoyed the cool/warm/cool touch of air on his skin as he passed from shadows into sunlight, and back into shadows again.

  Darkness.

  To light.

  To darkness again.

  He kept his walk brisk and his mind occupied.

  Last night he’d heard about what happened in Princeton: the missing boy and the prostitute being found alive, the fire, everything. Someone had leaked the name of the FBI agent who’d saved them and it was the same man who’d come by the ICSC office in the morning, Agent Bowers.

  I helped him.

  Not really. All you did was show him the video.

  But that was something. Something right, something good.

  Because of that, albeit minor, contribution—even though Francis hadn’t had anything to do with the events there in New Jersey—he felt like he was a part of it, like he’d provided at least a small hand in helping them piece together the bigger puzzle.

  Shadow and sunlight.

  Shadow.

  And light.

  But he could do more.

  He could really make a difference if he could find the Final Territory.

  To do that he would need to use the Dark Web.

  He couldn’t search it at work, so then he would do it at his apartment.

  You shouldn’t go on there. You might see something illicit or illegal.

  But what could be worse than what I have to look at every day at work? No, I’ll be alright.

  He could at least get started before his three o’clock meeting with Skylar at the Mystorium.

  He turned back toward home, skirting through the shadows thrown down around him by the buildings that owned that part of the day.

  41

  I parked in the underground garage, and Tessa and I headed up to the Field Office’s entrance.

  “So tell me more about what you do,” she said. “I mean, I know you work for the FBI—obviously. And I know you help track down serial killers and stuff, but that’s about all. Nutshell it for me.”

  “I didn’t know ‘nutshell’ was a verb.”

  “Training wheels, Patrick.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Well, basically, when there’s a series of linked crimes, I help law enforcement agencies analyze the data points related to the crime spree to narrow down the search parameters by identifying the most likely home base for the offender.”

  “What do you mean by data points?”

  “For example, the victims’ residences or places of work or any applicable primary or secondary crime scenes. By taking into consideration the timing, location and progression of the crimes I—”

  “So, math, basically. Algorithms.”

  “Yes. And logic.”

  “I like logic. Maybe I can help you.”

  “Um, I’m afraid you’d need to graduate from the FBI Academy first.”

  “How about this: I give you a logic problem. If you can solve it, you have to let me help you. If you can’t, I’ll shut up and forget about it.”

  “If I can’t . . . ?” I tried to process her request. It seemed backward to me. “It doesn’t quite work like that, Tessa. But go ahead, give me your logic problem. I’ll see if I can solve it.”

  “I need to make it up first.”

  She dug a small journal out of her bag and as we walked up the stairs, she jotted down some ideas.

  I chec
ked my texts as we waited to get through security. In following up on my request from earlier, an officer texted me that Jamaal Stewart had recently purchased a video game called Exo-Skel IV.

  After we’d made it past the checkpoint, we rode the elevator to the twenty-eighth floor, then exited it and entered the Field Office’s museum.

  For the time being Tessa put the notebook away.

  To say it was a museum was accurate but also misleading. It was really only one large room, but the plaques and artifacts from past investigations, the materials recovered from the 9/11 site, and the history of the Bureau was detailed and specific and informative.

  But it wasn’t something I would have typically thought a teenager would be interested in.

  “Okay.” I gestured toward the walls. “You obviously did your research or you wouldn’t even have found out this place was here, but what do you know about it already?”

  “Just basic stuff mostly. Names, dates, numbers, stats: this is the Bureau’s largest Field Office, each of its six divisions are the size of a typical FBI Field Office in other major cities, they cover the thirteen million people in the New York metro area. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. I want the inside scoop. What they don’t tell you online.”

  “Well, there’s a reason those things aren’t posted online, Tessa.”

  “Oh, lemme guess: it’s inside information.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Please don’t say ‘bingo.’ It makes you sound even older than you are.”

  “Oh.”

  “And trust me, you don’t really wanna go there.”

  “Gotcha.”

  She was studying the plaque that told the history of the FBI here in New York City. In 1910 the original New York Office was in the old post office in what is now City Hall Park.

  “Okay, some hidden gems, then,” I said. “Let’s see. There’s an old saying in the Bureau, ‘As New York goes, so the FBI goes.’”

  “Okay, good. Give me more of that. Any other sayings?”

  “Well . . . Let’s see . . . ‘We specialize in utilizing yesterday’s technology tomorrow.’”

  “Ha-ha.” It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it wasn’t quite derision either. “What else?”

  I tried to think of things that a teen might find interesting. “Did you know that we have to qualify on the gun range four times a year, or that at the Academy we all get pepper-sprayed in the face so we know what it’s like?”

  “Oh, that would seriously suck.”

  “Yeah. It did. Oh, and in real life we talk about ‘actors’ or ‘offenders’ rather than ‘subjects’ or ‘UNSUBS’ or ‘perps’ like they do on TV crime shows. There’s also a dress code.”

  “What’s that? Look as lame as possible in a ten-year-old suit?”

  “Well, that’s the unofficial version. It’s basically to dress professionally, although we need to fit in too. I mean, you wouldn’t go down to South Central wearing a suit. That would not be a good call.”

  “Understood.”

  She turned her attention to the detailed history of the Evidence Response Team, which was established after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing with the mission to “identify, document, collect, and preserve evidence pertaining to FBI cases.”

  There was a mannequin dressed in one of the thick protective full-body suits—it almost looked like a space suit—that ERT members wore when recovering evidence from the 9/11 site.

  “Or, how about this,” I said, “when developing sources we look at the acronym CRIME—Compromise, Revenge, Ideology, Money, and Ego. Normally, it’s a combination of factors.”

  “Sources? You mean like informants?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cool.”

  “And of course the Bureau loves acronyms: AOR: Area of Responsibility. HVE: Homegrown Violent Extremists. OCONUS: Outside Continental United States. I think someone just sits around coming up with these things.”

  “An IUOTM.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Idiotic Use of Taxpayer Money.”

  “I’ll remember that one.”

  “You can use it. You don’t even have to credit the source. You have my permission.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you let me help you.”

  “Nice try.”

  She pointed to the exhibit on USERT—the Underwater Search Evidence Response Team, which uses sonar, metal detectors, and lift bags that can bring up a two-ton vehicle from the depths. There are four USERTs—one here at the NYFO, then ones in Miami, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. “There you go again,” she muttered. “More acronyms.”

  Then she went from exhibit to exhibit, reading, processing, and asking questions, which I fielded as best I could.

  Her curiosity was insatiable.

  When she was done, I gestured down the hall, where a small store with FBI paraphernalia was located. “Do you want to swing by and pick anything up? An FBI hat, water bottle, T-shirt?”

  “Naw, the whole reason I’m with you is that I hate shopping, remember? Oh, wait, that’s not the whole reason. It’s also because my mom wants us to get to know each other better, right?”

  “That is true,” I admitted. “Hey, listen, you wanted to help me?”

  “Yeah?” she said hopefully.

  She might know. She’s a teen, a digital native. She might even have experimented with it.

  “Well, speaking of acronyms, have you ever heard of the Tor?”

  She groaned.

  “What?”

  “It’s ‘The onion router.’”

  “That’s right. So?”

  “So don’t call it ‘the The onion router.’ It’s like when people talk about ATM machines: Automatic Teller Machine machines. Really? Are you that stupid? Or they say they’re gonna type in their ‘PIN number.’ Personal Identification Number number. Or SAT test—”

  “Scholastic Aptitude Test test.”

  “Precisely. Pleonasms.”

  “Pleonasms?”

  “It pretty much just means redundant phrases.”

  “Or, what about ‘The La Brea Tar Pits’?”

  “The the tar tar pits,” she said reflectively.

  “Yes. It should just be La Brea Pits.”

  “Huh, I hadn’t thought of that one. I like it.”

  +++

  When we were back at the car she scribbled a few more notes to herself, then crossed them out and rewrote them, connecting them to each other with arrows, and said, “Okay. I’ve got it. You like geospatial stuff, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “So here’s your puzzle: John, Amy, George, and Linda all arrive at a crime scene. They work as the fingerprint analyst, detective, paramedic, and undercover officer—but not necessarily in that order.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your job is to figure out the name and job of the person who got there first.”

  “Alright, give me the clues. Lay it on me.”

  “‘Lay it on me’ falls in the ‘Bingo’ category. Avoid at all costs.”

  “Right.”

  “Anyway, here you go. You get two clues. First, the detective arrived after the undercover officer, but before John and Linda arrived. Second, the paramedic left before his wife arrived, after talking with the female detective.”

  “Hmm. That’s nice. It’s clever, simple, elegant.”

  “Nice? What does that mean—nice? Did you solve it?”

  “Yes. But you made that up?”

  “You’re stalling.”

  “I’m not stalling, I’m just—”

  “You are so stalling.”

  “George, the undercover officer, arrived first,” I said. “But it’s really impressive that you—”

  “Man, I knew it was way too easy,” she grumbled. But then a light seem
ed to go on. “It might have been luck. Tell me how you figured it out.”

  “Well, since, according to the first clue, the detective arrived after the undercover officer but before Linda and John—and there were only four people—we know the undercover officer had to have arrived first—and also that this person couldn’t be Linda or John. Consequently, George has to be either the detective or the undercover officer. But, as you said, the detective was female. George is a man’s name, so—as I said, he arrived first. Then, Amy the detective got there, followed by John the paramedic and Linda the fingerprint analyst.”

  “Yeah, way too easy. I’ll think of a better one.”

  “You want some ice cream or anything?”

  “Ice cream? Seriously?”

  “Sure. Everyone likes ice cream.”

  “Not vegans.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry. Italian ice?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “And that means yes, right, in teen-speak?”

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  As long as the car was already parked, we walked to a little Italian ice spot nearby, then returned to the parking garage and took off.

  “Well.” She took a substantial bite of her dessert. “You solved it, so I guess I get to help you.”

  “Hang on . . .”

  “That was the deal.” She smiled slyly.

  “So you made it easy on purpose,” I concluded. “You were only pretending just a couple minutes ago about how you should have made it harder.”

  “C’mon,” she implored, “let me help you solve something. I know it’s probably illegal and everything, but I won’t tell.”

  “Hmm. You know, now that I think about it, there might be something you can help me with after all.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I have an idea, but first we need to do a little shopping.”

  “For what?” she groaned.

  “An Xbox.”

  42

  Francis was early at the Mystorium.

  But he didn’t have to wait long for Skylar.

  She got there early too.

  Since she was buying, Francis ordered a small coffee so she wouldn’t have to spend so much on him.

  She ordered the same.

  Rebekah wasn’t working today. Francis didn’t usually come in on weekends, so he didn’t know the man who was filling orders behind the counter, but he wondered what he might be thinking about them, about this woman buying his coffee for him.