by Wayne Batson
If the FBI was off the case, I was definitely on it.
Chapter 5
“This is different,” said Special Agent Deanna Rezvani, pacing in front of her partner’s cubicle.
“It really isn’t, Rez,” LePoast replied tersely. He didn’t look at her. He kept typing. Maybe she would go away.
“These are different women,” Rez explained. “No matches to the women killed during the original investigation. Six…new…victims.”
“So?”
Rez huffed incredulously. “So? So, Smiling Jack has gone active again. He’s taken more women. We’ve got to act on this.”
“Smiling Jack,” LePoast coughed out the words. “There is no ‘Smiling Jack.’ Just some nutball with a lot of video tech gear and a sick sense of humor.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know anything different. Plus, we’ve always had the pictures, Deanna! Where’d that get us?”
Rez ignored the question. “We’ve never had the camera before. The killer’s prints could be all over it.”
“Alleged killer, remember?” He sighed and thumped the delete key. Third time in a row he’d misspelled reconnaissance. Ignoring Deanna Rezvani wasn’t going to work. It seldom did.
He swiveled his chair, banging his knee smartly on the desk. He spoke through pain-clenched teeth. “We’ve never had a missing persons report. No one recognizes the alleged victims. We’ve never found a body—there’s no crime.”
“You’re a hypocrite, John,” Rez replied. “And lazy.”
He turned back to the keyboard and whined, “Oh, now I’m hurt. Mommy, make the bad woman go away.”
Rez ignored the deflection. “When you first saw those shots, you said yourself they were real, that detail like that couldn’t be faked.”
“That was before I saw what CGI could do,” LePoast replied. “That was before we mobilized almost the entire FBI and came up with zilch. Girls that hot, somebody would have missed them if they’d been killed. Can’t be real, Rez. CAN’T BE.”
“Girls that hot? You sexist, son of a—”
“Don’t bother trying to flatter me, Rez.”
“But these women—”
“Look, Rez,” LePoast interrupted, “I know this was your first big case back in the day. I know it burns you that you couldn’t solve it.”
“It’s not that!” Rez fired back. “We’re talking the murder of twelve—no thirteen, now—maybe more to come.”
“What’s your evidence?” LePoast asked. “’Cuz, that’s what this boils down to. Prove something.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she said. “We have new evidence now. We’ve got new pictures…and the digital camera that took them.”
“Or maybe we don’t,” LePoast said.
The corner of the office where LePoast’s cubicle was fell silent. He went back to typing.
“We could be missing an angle,” Rez said. “Maybe this is more than murder.”
LePoast stopped typing. “How do you mean?”
“It could be human trafficking,” she said.
“What?” he asked. “Like sex slaves? But why kill off the women? That’s his money train.”
“Maybe it’s something darker,” she replied. “Weird fetishes or that kind of thing. A couple ATF guys I know were telling me about some sick stuff being brought in from overseas, Eastern Europe, I think.”
“Overseas, huh?” he echoed. “Now, I’m confused. You think the sex slave kingpin from the Republic of Creep-istan is vacationing down in Miami—”
“Destin,” Rez corrected.
“Whatever. So this sick pup is catchin’ some rays in Florida and while he’s coolin’ off in the Gulf, he just happens to chuck his camera full of nasty pics into the water? Right.”
That stumped Rez for a few seconds. “I don’t have all the answers,” she said. “But the loose ends are too promising to let it go. I could be right. The ATF guys know what they’re talking about. It could be human trafficking. Maybe Smiling Jack’s operation is overseas.”
LePoast’s fingers flew back to the keys. “Then, my dear Sherlock, it’s not our concern.”
She stopped pacing and huffed, “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
“That’s me: John LePoast, a piece of work. Right you are. Speaking of work…”
“We should at least check out the camera.”
“I bet the camera didn’t even take the pictures. I’m tellin’ ya,’ Rez, it’s just some kook who downloaded the photos from the Net. I mean, what kinda stupid name is Regis Willoughby anyway? That’s totally made up.”
“All the same, if it is a hoax, it could net us the guy who started the hoax in the first place. That would be worth something, right?”
“Don’t pull that crap on me, Rez. I know how you feel about the Smiling Jack case. That’s not your angle and you know it.”
Agent Rezvani crossed her arms and glared. The buzz of the Hoover building, third floor, washed over them. Hushed conversations, phones ringing, keyboards, and old printers.
LePoast ran a finger under his collar and shrugged uncomfortably. He wasn’t intimidated by her status in the Bureau. He had six years on her. And he certainly wasn’t cowed by her size. She was 5’4” to his 6’2.” But Deanna Rezvani had a presence about her—a mix of grace, confidence, and moxy—that filled up the room and made her partner a little nervous.
It didn’t help that she was drop-dead gorgeous.
She had rich brown hair, burnished by the sun, curled naturally and tied back in a loose tail just above the nape of her neck. Big, brown, almond-shaped eyes under thin golden brows, cute nose, and full lips that curled impishly in the corners—and always iced with that dark plum lipstick. Her olive skin was smooth and lightly tanned, and she always rolled up the sleeves of her white blouse to the elbows. Even in FBI-acceptable attire, Dee Rezvani looked like a bronze statue of Venus. But LePoast was a married man, so he didn’t notice such things.
Still, he squirmed a little under her expectant gaze. He felt a little like a bug getting roasted by the sun under some cruel kid’s magnifying glass. “Whaddaya want, Dee?”
“I want to go to Destin,” she said.
“Don’t we all,” LePoast shot back. “Some of the sweetest beaches in the world.”
“You know what I mean. I want to meet this Regis, size him up. Something about this case…I don’t know. I just feel like something’s going to break. I want to be there when it does.”
“The case is closed, Dee. Sheesh, it’s not even an actual case. You wanna go to Florida, go to the Deputy Director.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“Absolutely not.” Deputy Director Ulysses Barnes looked like he’d been hewn from granite, or perhaps something harder. Fifty-nine years old, ex-Navy Seal, ex-Navy Seal Instructor, Barnes still exercised the equivalent of the Ironman Triathlon each and every month. At his desk, he sat with thick arms in front of him, knob-knuckled hands clasped. He was as rigid as could be, looking very much like the head of a sledge hammer. He just sat there, impassive and unyielding.
Deanna Rezvani waited, but she knew that game wouldn’t work on the Deputy Director like it did on LePoast. Barnes had the constitution to out-wait anyone. As Deputy to the most powerful officer in the FBI, Barnes acted as a kind of physical filter for his boss—nothing short of a state of emergency got past him to the Director.
Once, a junior agent gave Barnes a wooden replica of former President Truman’s “The Buck Stops Here” plaque. Deputy Director Barnes tossed it in the trash and said, “Truman was a wuss.”
“Deputy Director, Sir,” Rezvani said. “Please reconsider. The Smiling Jack case could be one of the worst serial murder strings in U.S. history. Twelve dead already, and now six more taken? If we can get something from this Willoughby, we might be able to rescue some of these women.”
“Do you hear yourself, Agent Rezvani?” Only his lips and square jaw moved. “You’re using phr
ases like ‘could be,’ ‘if,’ and ‘might be.’ That’s because that’s all Smiling Jack is. We never had anything besides those blasted pictures.”
“We had twelve pictures,” Rez said. “The same twelve, cycled through over and over again. This is a different set of victims. Smiling Jack is going active again.”
“Or maybe it’s not. I don’t need to tell you what people can do with photo editing software, right? It’s probably some Goth kid who’s good with a computer, trying to make it look like Smiling Jack has a new set of victims. If there ever were any victims, that is. I’m sorry. You’re a good agent and smarter than the Director and me put together. But you let your passions take you places you shouldn’t ought’a go.”
He went back to absolute stillness. Agent Rezvani waited a dozen heartbeats and said, “The answers are there, Sir. Destin, Florida. The killer screwed up and left something we can use. I feel it.”
“You really want to go?”
“Very much, Sir.”
“Then go.”
Rezvani shifted weight from one foot to the other. “Sir?”
“…on vacation.”
“Wha—?”
“You want to go to Destin, take vacation time and go.”
“But, Sir, this is FBI business. Surely—”
“No, Agent Rezvani, this is not FBI business. Not for years now. This is a private hunch of your own. If it means that much to you, follow it on your own time. We spent years on this—YEARS—that and enough manpower to invade China on…this ‘Smiling Jack.’ We won’t waste any more of the FBI’s resources. My final word.”
A bank vault’s door slamming shut.
An avalanche of boulders thundering into the middle of the road.
A wrought iron portcullis crashing down to seal off the castle gatehouse.
Rez figured she could take her pick of the images. It was all the same when Director Barnes gave his final word. “Yes, Sir,” she said. She spun on one heel and marched away.
“Agent Rezvani?”
She stopped, turned. “Sir?”
“If this turns into more than a hunch, call me.”
Chapter 6
State of the art.
Technology the way he liked it.
The computer flickered to life with a melodic chime and, as the drives and fans kicked in, the room seemed to thrum with possibility.
The encryption program launched at once. He typed in a long series of numbers, entered once, typed a three letter code, entered again, and then…typed his name.
Jack, he thought, rubbing the tip of his sharp nose. Maybe not that ironic. After all, the killings were reminiscent of another Jack who used a blade. Still, a kind of irony. They know my name and yet they do not know it.
He smiled. There was a singularly unique pleasure from understanding the details that others might never guess.
Jack glanced at the myriad of application icons, his eyes landing as they often did on Tournament Chess. Business first, he reminded himself. He clicked the Mixer icon. His custom coded browser went to work, and close to a dozen websites snapped open in orderly rows across the vast monitor. Beneath each homepage dropped a long scroll bar. Jack bounced from site to site, reading every visitor’s comments and growing more and more convinced.
When he’d read them all, he rocked back in his chair and released a deep, huffing laugh. The comments ranged from sarcastic to sadistic, comical to creative. But none of the comments—not even one—captured the kind of passion required to violate Jack’s theory. And none of the responses came from the proper audience either. Hypocrites, Jack thought. Daring to condemn and then doing nothing.
Jack closed the window and opened another. A dozen new articles appeared, and the headlines were not promising. He browsed several of his favorite sources and discovered that there had been no change in the recent legislation push. If something didn’t happen soon, the law would likely be overturned.
“Blasted Justice Kearn!” Jack muttered. “Old man bowing to trends in the polls? Disgusting.”
Jack thought about Molly. Surely the FBI could be more clever now. Surely the nation could be more clever…now. They would all make the connection, wouldn’t they? But thus far, the evidence pointed to the contrary. Not a peep from the FBI, or any law enforcement for that matter. And the polls, the reports from Washington, the rumors suggested that, if anything, the opposition was gaining ground.
Chaos, Jack thought. Bunch of Nazis. What will it take to get through to you? To get through to everyone? Jack wondered, pressing the sharp nail of his index finger into the soft pad of his thumb. Any harder and it would bleed. He sighed. He’d always thought blood would make the difference. That people would come out of their collective stupor. It had worked the first time…and the second, hadn’t it?
But the third time pays for all. The Supreme Court decision that loomed now threatened to change things more violently than anything before. And the change would last a very long time. Senator Esperanzo was almost a shoe-in to win the election in November, and he’d sure as heck make sure the court stayed conservative. This could not go forward. This could not be allowed to be. It was absolutely imperative that they got the message this time.
But maybe with all the blood and gore in the movies and even now on TV, people had become desensitized. They wouldn’t care. Blood in pictures would no longer move them. Jack wondered again about Molly. Would she be wasted? Would her big moment come and go without so much as a ripple in the public consciousness?
Jack closed Mixer. He needed something else to tax his mind.
He double clicked the Tournament Chess icon. The program was a beast and took almost a full ten seconds to load. Jack had reverse engineered several of the market’s most challenging chess software packages to create a personal Frankenstein program that harnessed only the best features of all the others. He searched through a listing of games in progress and eventually decided on Garry Kasparov. It had been over a year since Jack made a move against the computer simulated Russian Grandmaster, but he remembered the board as if they had been playing all morning and only paused for lunch. Cyber-Kasparov had offered an intriguing gambit, one Jack thought he just might accept. But, as with all such risks, there would come a time when payment would be demanded.
Jack shrugged and, as soon as the board materialized on screen, he moved his queen’s pawn against his opponent’s seemingly exposed bishop. Then the alarm on Jack’s watch beeped. Though rather shocked that 4:30 had arrived already, Jack stood up so fast that he didn’t even see Cyber-Kasparov’s answering move. Time was everything to Jack, both a precious resource not to be squandered and a brilliant but rigid taskmaster not to be defied.
Jack went to the massive chrome refrigerator, withdrew one of a dozen meals he had prepared in the morning, and carried it to the elevator door near the study. He stepped inside. The doors closed. Jack didn’t press the button for the loft or the basement. Instead, he inserted his key, twisted it a half turn left and a half turn right. The car descended smoothly, past the basement, and came to a halt on a very special floor.
The elevator opened to a spherical chamber ribbed with curving steel girders. Six yards away from the elevator, recessed into the wall, was a brushed aluminum door. Jack typed in a key code on the wall panel. The airlock separated with a hiss, and Jack entered.
He had barely closed the door when he noticed two very unfortunate things: a most unsavory smell and…whispers.
“Hurry up,” one voice said. “Get back in.”
“Shhh,” a second voice warned, “he’s coming.”
Jack shook his head and sighed. He placed the meal on a shelf next to an assortment of black plastic canisters and then walked to the room he called the kennel. “I am terribly disappointed,” he said, removing something from his pocket. “Pets are not permitted to speak until play time. Pets are not permitted to leave their homes until play time. And yet…I heard voices.”
Jack paced in front of the pet houses and tap
ped each roof with a baton-like instrument. “Who was it?” Jack asked. “Lucinda?” Jack bent at the waist near the first house. “No, no, not Lucinda. Not kind, trustworthy Lucinda.”
He came to the second house. “You know my discipline is just. You also know it will be more severe if you do not come forward right away—”
A pale hand emerged from the doorway of the third house. “Ah, Pamela, I thought that was you,” Jack said. “You’ve always been so social, so curious. Come out now. And who were you with? Midge?”
“No, no!” came an urgent whisper from the second house.
A hand slithered out of the fourth house. Jack sighed again. “Oh, Erica…and you were doing so well too. Come out, then. You and Pamela know better.”
Pamela came out first, a lithe young woman with a shock of silk-fine, very dark auburn hair. Her skin was pale, and she wore nothing but a sheer white top and gray shorts that reached midway down her thighs. Erica emerged slowly and padded over to stand beside Pamela. Erica’s skin was ivory white, and she wore the same scant outfit. But her sable hair was braided, drawn back, and tied at the base of her neck. Her blue eyes glimmered with tears.
“So that’s what you were doing, was it?” Jack asked. “Braiding hair? It is beautiful.” Jack caressed Erica’s skin and let his fingers slide down one of the braids, off to her shoulder, and along the contour of her hip. There was a telling bulge in Erica’s abdomen. Then, Jack understood the smell. “Erica, did you vomit?”
She nodded and blinked more tears. It gave her eyes the appearance of the purest ice, melting. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve felt ill all morning, and I dirtied my home. That’s why I wanted the braids…to feel beautiful again.”
“Pity you didn’t wait until play time. Who came out first?”
“I did,” Erica whispered.
“Very well,” Jack said. “Hold out your hand.” He grasped the end of the baton and pulled. It telescoped out until it about eighteen inches long. It ended in a small noose made of bent wire, looking something like a light bulb’s filament.