Fatally Bound

by Roger Stelljes

  Mac closed the file and looked at the picture of all of the victims standing in front of the minivan again, thinking what impact that must have had on Johnson when he saw it, the date in the lower right-hand corner, knowing that within hours of that photo, his sister died. As he scanned the picture, he ran his hand through his short blond hair. He’d looked at the photo a hundred times now and still, after that many looks, he couldn’t help but think he was missing something.

  An hour later, now at the Hoover Building, Mac, Wire and Director Mitchell and another FBI senior agent named Dan Galloway sat at the large conference table in his spacious office, quietly sipping on coffee while the two of them briefed the director on Danica Brunner.

  “How close were we to getting him or saving her?”

  Mac held his thumb and index finger an inch apart, “A matter of minutes.”

  “I shouldn’t have been up in Pennsylvania with Gesch,” Mitchell muttered, shaking his head. “I was so anxious to catch him, to be a part of it, to see it, that I lost perspective on what the director’s job is. No one case should consume all of my time.”

  “Big case,” Wire stated. “Close by, political consequences, White House pressure. It was only natural to want to be there.”

  “I’m not allowed that emotion,” Mitchell answered with a dismissive wave. “If I’m here, we react quicker in getting Johnson’s picture out, Danica Brunner’s picture out. If I am here, at a minimum, she is still alive.”

  “Maybe,” Mac replied, studying the picture from Randall for what seemed like the thousandth time. “Who knows how things turn out if you’d have done this or that.”

  “And Danica Brunner isn’t without some political consequences,” the director stated.

  “How so?”

  “I’ve just learned,” the director added, “that our victim has some political ties. She’s the niece of a big K Street lobbyist by the name of Hubert Brunner. Brunner has a great many friends in this town, the best of which apparently is Jesse Richardson.”

  “The Senate minority leader? Good grief,” Wire muttered.

  “The one and only,” the director answered. “Brunner is a close friend. I’m sure we’ll hear from ole Jesse today. He’s a bit of a bomb thrower for a leader.”

  “Be nice if all he said was catch this bastard, and left the politics out of it,” Mac offered bitterly.

  “True,” the director answered. “But he won’t. That’s not his style. Not with Danica Brunner dying. Speaking of dying, is he done? Is the killing over?”

  “Everyone in the picture is dead,” Wire stated.

  Mac snapped a look at Wire, “Say that again.”

  Wire looked at him quizzically, “Everyone … in the picture … is dead.”

  “I wonder.”

  “What? You wonder what?” Wire and the director asked in unison.

  “Not everyone in the picture is dead,” Mac stated, pulling the picture close again and a small smile crept across his face. “I’ve been looking at this picture for hours now, thinking I’ve been missing something.”

  “And what are you missing?” Mitchell asked.

  “Who took it?” Mac answered. “Who took this picture?”

  “What makes you think whoever took it had anything to do with this?” Wire asked.

  “A couple of things,” Mac answered. “First, see how Goynes and Faye have arms locked behind the other, Donahue and Drew have their arms around each other’s shoulders, and Rena Johnson, Rebecca Randall and Janelle Wyland have their arms all locked together?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Yet Brunner is off by herself, why?”

  “She doesn’t know the other girls as well, I suppose,” Mitchell offered.

  “Or, it’s her buddy who is taking the picture.”

  “Rebecca Randall had the photo on her computer, though, so doesn’t it stand to reason that whoever took it was a friend of hers?”

  “Possibly, or she’s a friend of both Randall and Brunner. Look, all of these women are connected through each other, but they were not all friends together. Donahue, Goynes and Sandy Faye, who was then Helen Williams, went to the AAHC Camp together. Kelly Drew was a long time friend of Hannah Donahue’s who had a summer place up near Auburn. Wyland is connected to Rebecca Randall from Syracuse University. Rebecca Randall is connected to Rena Johnson from growing up together in Auburn. What’s the connection of Danica Brunner? How did she fit into this group?”

  Mac opened the file that Galloway brought in on Brunner. “Danica went to college at Washington and Lee. None of our group did. She was born and raised here in Virginia. None of our other victims were. She doesn’t fit, unless she fits …”

  “With whoever took the picture,” Wire finished. “So there’s possibly …”

  “One more victim out there,” Mac looked to the director. “Look, we need to get people all over this picture. We need to go through Randall’s computer again and see if we can determine how she received this picture. Wire and I need to go through Brunner’s life with a fine-tooth comb and figure out the connection. We may even need to simply go public with the picture to see if our person comes forward.”

  “Okay, Mac,” the director replied. “We’ll do that. Agent Galloway, see to it.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Wait a minute …” Mac began to protest.

  Director Mitchell held up his hand. “Dara, do you mind if I have a word with Mac alone?”

  “No sir,” Wire answered, looking at Mac, asking with her eyes, ‘what’s up?’

  Mac shrugged his shoulders in response; he had no idea.

  Once Wire closed the door to the director’s office, Mitchell got up out of his chair and walked around to Mac’s side of the table, bringing the coffee pot with him. He poured Mac a new cup. “Mac, I need a favor.”

  “What is it, sir?” Mac asked, taking a sip of coffee.

  “There is a press conference at 9:00 A.M.,” the director replied, and then dropped one on Mac. “I need you to handle it with me.”

  Mac looked up from his coffee cup, surprised. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  “Why?” The thought of addressing the media was not one he relished. Dead bodies didn’t bother him, the media did.

  “Because Aubry Gesch’s scorched body is lying in the morgue. Grace Delmonico is too junior for the assignment and too traumatized from last night, she’s just not up to it. Nobody in the bureau, including your extremely capable partner out in the hall, knows the case better than you do. On top of that, you have a better understanding of the Reaper, of Drake Johnson, than anyone else. We’re as close as we are to catching this asshole because of you.”

  “But sir, with all due respect, I’ve spent my whole career trying to avoid the media. I hate the media and, frankly, they hate me.”

  “I know,” Mitchell replied. “And you’re probably nervous about facing them.”

  “Well yeah,” Mac answered. “You saw how swimmingly my last brush with them went.”

  Mitchell laughed, trying to lighten the mood, “That was a cluster, no doubt, but trust me on this, she wasn’t a legitimate reporter. No legitimate reporter goes where she went. She’ll end up on some two-bit cable channel doing D-List celebrity news soon enough. And between you, me and these four walls, I kind of loved how you went off on her. But listen,” the FBI director said, turning serious, “I’m really quite certain that you are the man I want up there with me.”

  “Why?”

  “A couple of reasons. First, after last night I need to project confidence and determination. Your blunt manner, your direct approach, your intensity and even arrogance is what I need up there with me,” Mitchell stated. “We were hit hard last night. I want to present someone who is a fighter and someone who knows the case inside and out. You check both of those boxes. Mac, you’re exactly what I need right now.”

  “Who’s running the investigation now?” Mac asked. “Shouldn’t they be up there as well?”

&n
bsp; “He will be, because it’s you,” Mitchell answered, stunning him for the second time.

  “Sir, I’m temporary FBI, an out-of-work homicide cop from St. Paul.”

  “Who’s out of work by choice.”

  “Yes, that’s true, I suppose. You offered me a job, sir,” Mac answered exasperated, “but you can’t put me in charge. People will have your head, not to mention mine.”

  “Look,” the director answered nonplussed, “Senior Special Agent Galloway will, by title, run the investigation and do all the bureaucratic bullshit for you. He’s efficient and can get and arrange for you anything you need. He excels at that kind of work. But when it comes to the actual running the investigation, that will be you, and until this thing is done, until we have this bastard, you report directly to me on it. He killed four of my men last night and two sheriff’s deputies. Whether he is done killing or not, we are never going to stop looking for this asshole.”

  Mac leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling, contemplating this turn of events. His quick assessment was he really didn’t have a choice. If the director of the FBI asks you for your help, you give it. “Okay, sir, but I can’t promise you won’t regret this. I tend to … speak my mind.”

  “Good, do that, within reason of course,” Director Mitchell cautioned.

  “You said a couple of reasons you wanted me to do this. What’s the other?”

  “He’s calling you.”

  In that moment, Mac understood another of the director’s motivations and immediately liked it, “And this is my chance to speak to him.”

  “Correct.”

  With that an idea started forming in Mac’s head based on his review of the FBI file on Drake Johnson, how close he was to his sister, how her death obviously haunted him, the impact seeing the photo he found at Randall’s had on him and what he must have learned from interrogating Rebecca Randall. There were buttons that could be pushed. However, before he got too far with that idea in his mind, he looked at his appearance, rumpled clothes, two days of razor stubble and his short hair sticking in various directions. “Director, I’m not exactly presentable at the moment.”

  “That’s why that beautiful girlfriend of yours dropped some things off for you. You’ll find them in my personal washroom. She brought fresh clothing options and your toiletries so you can clean up.”

  “Sir, if Sally knows about this, the White House does as well then,” Mac warned. “I know you make your own decisions, but how do you think they’ll feel about this?”

  “Well, they do know Mac, so if I might quote the president: Tell Mac to give them hell,” Director Mitchell answered with a smile. “Listen, reporters are like any other group of people you run into. Some are straight shooters, asking straight questions, looking for straight answers.”

  “And others?”

  “Others are pricks who will have a different agenda.”

  “Well, funny thing is, Director, I have an agenda too, and if what I have planned works, we’ll need to set a couple of things up.”

  • • • •

  Sally sipped nervously from her coffee. Sitting on the couch in the Judge’s office, aware of what Mac was trying to accomplish, she was nevertheless terrified, both for Mac and for political reasons. William Donahue would undoubtedly be watching and the Judge forewarned the man he wouldn’t like everything he heard and that Hannah may have been caught up in a vehicular homicide seven years ago. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation. “It is what it is, he asked for our involvement. I put two of the best there are on his daughter’s murder. He’ll have to live with the results.”

  “The law of unintended consequences, I guess,” Sally suggested.

  “Exactly,” the Judge answered as he twirled a cigar in his fingers, his own nervous tick. The press conference was moments from beginning. Few people knew just how much Mac hated the television media. Newspaper reporters he was okay with, and he wasn’t afraid to occasionally speak to them off the record. Television news media he avoided. He hated and had little time or regard for most of them, save a few, and even them he wouldn’t talk to. “I don’t speak in sound bites,” Mac would often say.

  “That’s the only way they talk in this town,” was Sally’s teasing reply. “You better learn.”

  “That’s not going to happen, I’m not changing. I’m here because I love you, but I’m not going to love what you do and have to do.”

  She never wanted him to, but then again she never figured he’d be handling a press conference on an investigation that suddenly was gripping the nation. “I don’t think he’s ever done this, Judge,” Sally warned for the tenth time. “I’ve never seen him do a press conference. He thinks of most of the news media as fools and he won’t suffer them gladly.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “How can you know? I know him better than anyone and I don’t know that he’ll be fine.”

  “Sally, some people are born to rise to the moment. Mac’s one of those guys, he’s done it his whole life. Plus he has a strategy here and that will keep him focused. It’ll cause him to shelve just enough of his attitude and disdain to get the job done. Just take the measure of him when he walks on the podium with Thomas. You’ll know if he’s up to it. You’ll know if his frame of mind is good.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I hope I’m right too,” the Judge replied ruefully. “By the way, how did your off-the-record call with Ms. Foxx go?”

  This is when Sally knew Mac was at his operating and manipulative best. How else would she explain him calling forty-five minutes ago asking her, of all people, to call Heather Foxx on his behalf. Mac knew that Sally recognized that Foxx had the hots for him, always had, and Sally’s existence, and his clear devotion to her, hadn’t stopped her from pursuing him. It was a mildly uncomfortable conversation and Sally could have sworn she could hear Heather Foxx smiling on the other end of the phone. When she called to tell Mac she’d delivered his request, she said, “You need to find a new reporter you can trust. I don’t trust her, I don’t like her, and if you ever ever ask me to do that again, I’ll break both your legs.”

  The director approached the podium with Mac standing behind him to his right. The director started with a statement about the case and the events in Pennsylvania. Sally didn’t even really listen to Director Mitchell. She knew all of that anyway.

  Instead, she focused in on Mac. He picked the black suit with the light pinstripe, white dress shirt and sharp sky blue tie. He looked really good, she thought, handsome, sharp, smart and serious. Then she looked at his face, his icy blue eyes in particular, taking stock of his demeanor. He was stoic but his eyes reflected a cool intensity and a purpose. Mac was operating. When he was doing that, he was dangerous—in a good way. A wave of relief washed over Sally before Mac ever spoke. She could tell Mac was plenty ready.

  “Mac looks like he’s loaded for bear,” the Judge mused, having been sizing up Mac just as she was.

  “I know the look, Judge,” Sally answered, looking to the Judge with a devilish look, the confidence back in her face. “This should be interesting.”

  • • • •

  “Director Mitchell, when did you determine that the Reaper was Drake Johnson?”

  “Yesterday, and we put forward every effort to determine his whereabouts before going public with his name.”

  The CBS reporter followed up: “And how were you able to identify the Reaper?”

  “Through DNA from blood found on a bullet we recovered in Frederick. Agent McRyan, who will speak shortly, wounded him in the chase from the home of Kelly Drew.”

  “Was the DNA a match to Drake Johnson?”

  “It was a familial match to a woman named Rena Johnson, his younger sister who was killed seven years ago in a hit-and-run car accident in upstate New York.”

  “Does her death have something to do with the present case?”

  “I think the best person to answer that question and the others you may have is Spec
ial Agent Michael McRyan. So at this point, I’m going to turn the press conference over to him. Agent McRyan joined our investigation a number of weeks ago and has been integral to the progress that we have made. I think he’s the best man to answer many of the questions you have.”

  Mac stepped to the podium, cupping the edge of the podium with his right hand. He pointed to a woman from FOX News with his casted left hand.

  “Agent McRyan, was it you who shot the Reaper, or should I say Drake Johnson, in Frederick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have anything additional to add about shooting the Reaper?”

  “Such as?”

  “A description of how he was shot?”

  “No, just that I shot him.” Mac pointed to the reporter from ABC News.

  “Was the explosion in Wrightsdale, Pennsylvania, last evening in which Senior Special Agent Gesch and five others were killed, related to the hunt for Drake Johnson?”

  “Yes. The cabin belonged to Drake Johnson. It was passed down through his family.”

  “Just a follow-up,” the ABC reporter asked. “A property search by ABC News revealed the property belonged to a Richard Tanner, is that an alias?”

  “No,” Mac answered easily. “That is Drake Johnson’s grandfather on his mother’s side. Mr. Tanner died five years ago but the property title was never changed over to the Johnson family.” Mac pointed to a reporter from CNN.

  “Agent McRyan. Do you know what caused the explosion last night?”

  “Beyond the fact that the explosion was detonated remotely, the answer is no. That is being investigated as we speak. There is an FBI forensic team, as well as a crime scene unit from Lancaster County on site, sifting through the wreckage, trying to determine exactly how the explosion occurred.”

  “Were explosives involved?”

  “Like I said, that is being investigated, although I think it is safe to say an explosive of some kind was used.”

  “What can you tell us about the victim last night in Springfield, Virginia?”

  “A twenty-seven-year-old woman named Danica Brunner,” Mac answered crisply, moving along, getting some questions out of the way. However, it was time to get to what he wanted to talk about. He pointed to a friendly face.