Under Cover of Darkness

by James Grippando

  “We need to go on the offensive, try to develop some leads. You got media contacts?”

  “Sure.”

  “My advice is to use them.”

  Gus sipped his coffee, waved away the cloud of smoke. “I did already. Ended up with a very interesting piece on wife beating on the tube.”

  “Oh, yeah. I saw that. Screw those sneaky reporters, then. Go the advertising route. You can afford it.”

  “Advertising?”

  “Yeah. Just buy a big ad, put your wife’s picture on page three of the P-I. You know, the space those fancy department stores buy every other week for their once a year sale. Offer a reward for information that leads to her return. I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that’ll prompt some calls for me to follow up on.”

  “Can’t hurt.”

  “Here, I brought some samples for format.” He opened his briefcase and spread them across the table. A clump of ash fell from his cigar, which Dex brushed away.

  Gus thumbed through the samples. Nothing particularly creative, much like the side of the milk cartons he’d never really paid attention to.

  Dex said, “I got the template on my computer. We can plug in your wife’s picture and information and have it over to the paper in time for tomorrow afternoon’s Times, Wednesday morning’s P-I.”

  “Shouldn’t I run this by the FBI first?”

  “What for? So they can run it up their bureaucratic flagpole and come to the same decision we did, only three weeks later. That’s why you hired me, Gus. To do the right thing and to do it right now.”

  Gus hesitated, then figured what the hell. “Okay, let’s go with it.”

  “Great. I’ll need a little advance, of course.”

  Gus pulled out his checkbook. “How much?”

  “Just make it out to the Seattle Times and leave the amount blank. I’ll fill in whatever the ad costs. And by the way, while you’ve got the checkbook out…”

  Gus looked up suspiciously.

  “Now, don’t go looking at me like that,” said Dex. “I told you I was a full-service private investigator. I’m just throwing out ideas. This one’s a little off the wall, but I know this psychic.”

  “A psychic?”

  “Yeah. Someone who can hold a piece of jewelry or an article of clothing, pick up on some vibes or whatever, maybe help you find your wife. I think it’s a little hokey, but some police forces use them, so why shouldn’t you? If you’re serious about pulling out all the stops, that’s just an option I want to make available to you.”

  “I’ll think about that. Let’s see where the ads take us first.”

  “Sure. It’s your call.”

  Gus handed over the check, then took a closer look at the sample ads scattered on the table before him. A seventeen-year-old girl. A boy in kindergarten. A half dozen others. Wives, sons, and daughters. Just a bunch of names and faces on paper, the black-and-white legacy of families torn apart.

  “Were any of these people ever found?”

  Dex chomped nervously on his cigar. “Yeah, most of them.”

  “How many alive?”

  He answered in a quiet, serious tone. “A few.”

  Gus leaned back, his expression vague. Dex said, “There’s no guarantees in this business, Mr. Wheatley.”

  “You’re telling me,” Gus said with concern.

  Andie’s meeting lasted till almost five. They walked out together and separated in the hotel lobby. Victoria took a cab back to the airport, promising Isaac she’d probably have some revisions to her profile. Gould headed for the bar, mumbling something about the prospect of finding more of those tasty little goldfish crackers. Isaac walked Andie to her car.

  Andie enjoyed spending time with Isaac again. Since his promotion to ASAC, she hadn’t seen him nearly as often as when he was her direct supervisor. The more they were together, however, the more she realized it wasn’t his supervision she missed. It was his company.

  The rain had cleared, but the pavement was still wet. It was just beyond dusk, and the sun had disappeared without ever really appearing. Andie walked the brightest path to her car, beneath the center line of street lamps.

  “So, what’s up with Gould?” she asked.

  Isaac buried his hands in his coat pockets, walking at her side. “Like I said, I just wanted another perspective on this.”

  “That sounds like bull.”

  “I know. But it’s true. Gould has more profiling experience than anyone I know outside of Quantico. He’s a pain, but I think he helped us focus.”

  “I thought maybe you brought him in because you’re unhappy with me.”

  “Not at all.” They stopped at Andie’s car. “It’s Victoria I’m worried about.”

  “Victoria?”

  “She’s spread too thin. All the ISU profilers are.”

  “I have to admit I wasn’t all that impressed with the profile she prepared. Not as insightful as I had expected.”

  “You’re being kind, Andie. It was pure boilerplate, the usual stuff about serial killers that someone like Victoria can rattle off in her sleep.”

  “So you brought Gould in to help her?”

  “Heck, no. I brought Gould in to kick her in the ass.”

  “She’s not going to take orders from Gould.”

  “You’re missing the point. Gould is the last guy on earth she wants upstaging her. You think she wants it getting back to Quantico that it was a retired old fart like Gould, not her, who cracked this case? You can bet she’ll give our case top priority from here on out.”

  “So, is Gould on or off the case?”

  “He’s off,” Isaac said with a chuckle. “He served his purpose. You can rest easy.”

  “I can’t say I exactly took a liking to the old guy, but I almost feel a little sorry for him. You used him.”

  “The guy had a ball. You think he would have been brushing cracker crumbs all over you if he’d thought this was a long-term relationship?”

  “What does that say about me? I brushed them right back.”

  They laughed as they recalled the moment, both of them leaning against her car. The laughter was over, but their eyes met and held. They were sharing a smile, but it didn’t feel like their usual kidding around. This seemed more serious.

  “What?” said Andie.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, Isaac. What’s that look for? What are you thinking?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay. You can tell me.”

  He chuckled nervously. “Tell you what?”

  “Where do we go from here?”

  It was a wide-open question at an ambiguous moment. It could have roped in anything from “What’s my next assignment?” to “What are you doing Saturday night?” Maybe it was the age difference. Maybe it was just Isaac’s sensitivity to his new position of authority. He whiffed.

  “That phone call from Oregon changed the entire complexion of the case.”

  Andie had to refocus. Back to work. “How so?”

  “This is no longer just a matter of providing support and expertise to the local police in their homicide investigations. We got a possible kidnapping across state lines. It’s a category seven. This is our jurisdiction. The FBI is taking the lead.”

  “Does that mean you’re reassigning it?”

  “You’ve done three kidnapping cases, counting that First Federal bank robbery that turned into a hostage situation. You did a bang-up job on all of them. Why would I reassign?”

  “This is pretty high-profile.”

  “Extremely high-profile. This could be a career maker.”

  “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You want it or don’t you?”

  “’Course I want it.”

  “Then you can have it. Just one condition.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t fuck it up.”

  His words seemed harsh, but she understood the message. No matter what their friendship might someday become, sh
e had to make the grade. “You got nothing to worry about.”

  Gus drove straight home from his meeting. The Magnolia district could be quite dark on a moonless evening, especially near the waterfront estates on the western edge, what little light from the heavens being blocked by the trees. Trees were in abundance, none of them magnolias. Surveyors back in the nineteenth century had mistaken the madronas for magnolias. One expansive estate after another, dressed with madronas, oaks, elms, huge Douglas firs. Cherry hedges galore. Even a stand of bamboo. But no magnolias. It was fitting, thought Gus. A magnificent bluff with everything a homeowner could conceivably want, named for the one thing it didn’t actually have.

  The Mercedes slowed as Gus turned into his driveway. He stopped at the iron gate. Two huge lanterns glowed atop the imposing stone pillars on either side of the drive. The gate was an antique, a true work of art. Only on very close inspection of the elaborately curved design was the letter C discernible, the family initial of the original owners. This particular estate had been in the same family forever. Gus had admired it since he was a kid, thinking it was the most amazing house ever built.

  He remembered the night he had first shown it to Beth. It looked much the same then as now, at least from this vantage point, right outside the gate. The night was very similar, too, cloudy and cool with a fine mist in the air. But things between them were beginning to change. Morgan was still in diapers. Gus was an eager young partner at Preston & Coolidge. They were on their way home from dinner, celebrating the fact that Gus had just been elected to the firm’s executive committee. Gus was on the right track—the fast track. He took a detour through Magnolia driving from the restaurant and stopped right before the gate.

  “Why are you stopping?” asked Beth.

  Gus glanced toward the estate, then back at Beth. “We’re here.”

  “Where?”

  “Home.”

  “Whose home?”

  “Ours.”

  She laughed. “What bank did you rob?”

  “You like it?”

  She gazed across the manicured lawn in the moonlight, toward the huge Tudor-style house on the hill. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. An expensive fairy tale. “What’s not to like?”

  “Someday soon I’m going to buy it for you.”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t as wide as he’d expected.

  “I mean it,” said Gus. “I’m going to buy this house.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a minute.”

  “You don’t sound all that sure.”

  “I’m completely sure.” She looked away, toward the house again. “It just scares me a little.”

  “What scares you?”

  “You. And this job. This new position.”

  “It’s a great opportunity. I’m the youngest lawyer ever elected to the executive committee. I swear, I’m going to run this damn law firm. Next step, managing partner. And then I’m going to buy this house.”

  She looked out the passenger-side window. “Let’s go, okay?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No. Something’s wrong. Tell me.”

  She looked at him coolly. “Have you noticed lately how often you talk about what you are going to do?”

  “I’m sharing with you. These are my plans. My dreams.”

  “It just seems they used to be more about us.”

  “They are about us.”

  “What? Because you plan to buy me things, that makes it about us?”

  He nearly groaned. “I just took a huge step up at the firm. Can’t you be happy about it? Share it with me?”

  She blinked, lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should be happy for you.”

  “But you’re not.”

  Her eyes were moist, glistening in the flickering light from the lanterns. “Do you ever look back on our days in that one-bedroom apartment and think those were our happiest times together?”

  “It wasn’t the apartment that made us happy.”

  “Exactly. So why should I be happy about moving into a house so big my husband has to work seventy hours a week to pay for it? A house so damn big that when you close the front door you actually hear an echo. It’s like a constant reminder of how alone you really are. I don’t want that. I don’t want to hear the echoes.”

  The iron gate started to open, rousing Gus from his memories. Carla must have seen him on the security camera and opened it from inside the house. The gate was fully extended, inviting him home. But he didn’t pull forward. He was still thinking of Beth’s words, so clear in his memory. His response was just as clear, chiseled in his mind. He had leaned across the console, brushed her cheek, and kissed her. Then he looked her straight in the eye and spoke softly, “I promise you, Beth. I will never let that happen.”

  Only now, years later, did it finally occur to him. Yet again he had been telling her what he was going to do.

  Thirty-two

  Half of Andie’s brain was still fried from the meeting at the hotel; the other half was swirling from the confusing exchange with Isaac. He had been right to nip things in the bud. Isaac was rising fast in the bureau and didn’t need a reputation for hitting on female agents. She considered taking the onus off him and asking him out on a real date, but that wouldn’t be fair either. If he was going to be put in the position of dating a subordinate, it should be on his own initiative. Why tempt a friend to go somewhere he really didn’t want to go?

  She picked up a pizza on her way home, flopped on the couch, and caught the tail end of a Sonics basketball game on television. They were winning by eight, but she would have bet her last two slices that they’d blow another fourth-quarter lead.

  The phone rang with less than a minute to play. The score was tied. The bad guys were closing. With the game in the balance she was tempted to ignore the phone, but she had watched this unhappy ending unfold too many times this season anyway. She rolled from the couch and answered. Good thing. It was the crime lab.

  “Got a read on those fingerprints,” he said.

  She sat up immediately. “Which set?”

  “The thumb and index finger from the phone. It took a while to isolate something readable. That’s just the nature of a public phone.”

  “What did you pull up?”

  “The buttons were too smudged, but we got a read and a match from the mouthpiece.”

  “Who is it?”

  “You’re gonna be surprised. Beth Wheatley.”

  Andie was stunned into silence. She thanked him for the quick work and hung up, confused. Little over an hour ago, she had convinced Isaac and everyone else at the meeting that the killer was a mind-control expert who had crawled inside Beth’s head, gotten the secret code she and Morgan used to communicate, and dialed the number himself. Now this. She wracked her brain, but her theory and the facts were irreconcilable. Fingerprints generally don’t lie. Beth had held the phone in her hand. One way or another, she had been there.

  And then disappeared. Again.

  Andie phoned Gus with the news that same night. He had scores of questions, none of which she was prepared to answer. She left him frustrated but grateful for the call.

  She spent most of Tuesday in the office just getting organized. Isaac had told her to make the Wheatley kidnapping—they were calling it a kidnapping—her top priority. Fortunately, most of her thirty-three other cases were relatively dormant, but she knew that could change at any moment. She got commitments from other agents to cover the ones most likely to blow, which her supervisor approved.

  Her supervisor was Kent Lundquist, who had taken over as the violent crimes squad supervisor upon Isaac’s promotion to the number two position in the office, assistant special agent in charge. Lundquist reported to Isaac, and he rather frequently reminded Andie that she didn’t. It wasn’t unusual for an agent to appeal a supervisor’s decision to the ASAC, but Andie and Isaac’s unusually close relationship made Lundquist quite defensive whenever sh
e went over his head. He seemed fearful that Isaac had more confidence in her than him. On technical or procedural matters that required an experienced eye, that wasn’t the case. For decisions that drew on interpersonal skills and raw intelligence, his fears were justified.

  There was no kidnapping squad as such in the office. Like Andie, plenty of other agents in the violent crimes squad had relevant experience. Andie met with three other agents assigned to the Wheatley case, briefing them on each of the known homicides, the Wheatley family, the peculiarities behind Beth and her disappearance. By the end of the day they had carved out specific areas of responsibility. Everyone had plenty to do. Andie’s first task, however, was a direct order from Lundquist himself. He had been in his office reading the afternoon edition of the Seattle Times. He had seen the huge ad with Beth’s picture and the offer of a reward.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked.

  Andie sat across the desk from him, staring at the page. “This is the first I’ve seen of it.”

  “Damn it, Henning. You can’t let the family haul off and do things like this without coordinating through you. Now get control of your case. Or you’re going to lose it before you get started.”

  “I’ll meet with Gus Wheatley tonight.”

  “And another thing,” he said, grousing. “Make damn sure Gus Wheatley plans to make good on two hundred fifty thousand dollars. It’s his private reward, but I know how these things play out in the press. If he reneges after we make the arrest, it’ll reflect badly on the FBI.”

  “I understand your concerns.”

  “You better. Because I’ll hold you responsible.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She answered in a tone that made it impossible to tell if she was gung-ho or a smartass.

  He glared for a moment, then returned to his newspaper, dismissing her. Andie went straight to her car, speaking to no one on the way out.

  Andie stopped by the Wheatley residence on her way home from work at the height of dinner hour. Gus greeted her at the door and took her to the dining room, where Morgan was slouched in her chair and poking her peas.