Words of Conviction

by Linda J White

  Kenzie noticed Beth didn’t use the nanny’s name. That registered as interesting. Nor did she accurately describe the “thing” on her head. Paramedics said they’d found the woman unconscious, with her head in a brown pillowcase containing a rag soaked with chloroform.

  “What did you do?” Scott asked softly.

  Beth sat down and shook her head slowly. “I ran up the stairs, screaming for Zoe. I felt terrified. And when I got to her room, I found . . . found . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “. . . she was gone! Gone!” The anguish welled up in Mrs. Grable again, and she convulsed in sobs, dropping the mangled tissue on the floor.

  Kenzie saw a tissue box across the room, got up, retrieved it, and handed it to her.

  “You have to find her. You have to find her!” Beth wailed, pulling multiple tissues out of the box.

  Scott and Kenzie exchanged glances. The woman’s turmoil seemed real. But then, Susan Smith had shed crocodile tears over her two “kidnapped” little boys. All along, she knew they lay at the bottom of a lake. She had drowned them.

  “We’re going to do everything we can, Mrs. Grable,” Scott said. “Let me ask you a few more questions.”

  Kenzie sat quietly while Scott continued to interview the senator’s wife. Had they been having any problems with anyone lately? Was there anyone to whom they owed money? Had they had any workers in the house recently? What about former spouses? Ex-lovers? Current lovers? Who might have known her schedule? How long had the nanny worked for them? Did she have any boyfriends?

  Mrs. Grable answered through her tears, trembling.

  “Agent Hansbrough?” An FBI technician appeared at the doorway and gestured toward Scott. Kenzie guessed Scott had called out a response team.

  “Yes, one second.” Scott turned back to Mrs. Grable. “I’ll be right back.”

  Kenzie tried to comfort Mrs. Grable. “All the resources of the FBI are being activated to help find Zoe, Mrs. Grable,” she said, but the woman simply responded with more sobs.

  Scott returned. “Mrs. Grable, we’ve got your phone tapped, but there’s a voice mail message. I need you to come listen to it.”

  The woman jumped up, nearly knocking the glass top off the wicker coffee table. “Could it be . . . ?”

  “We’ll know in a second.”

  But it was only a message from the pediatrician’s office asking the Grables to call. “Zoe hasn’t been well,” Mrs. Grable explained to Scott. “I thought she had the flu but it wasn’t clearing up. So I took her in for some tests yesterday.”

  Scott nodded. “We have agents canvassing your neighbors to see if they noticed anything tonight. We’ll be monitoring all your phone calls, including your cell. And your e-mails. I’ll set up a command center . . .”

  “Just do it,” she interrupted. “Do whatever you need!” She threw up her hands. “You’ve got to help me!”

  “It could be a long night,” Scott said. Quietly, other agents had been coming into the house. Through the kitchen window, Kenzie could see the Mobile Command Post, a huge RV-type vehicle taking a position in the alley behind the house. It would eventually serve as their headquarters, but for now, Scott said they’d meet in the house to strategize.

  After handing Mrs. Grable off to a female agent, Scott and Kenzie moved into the dining room. “What’s my role here?” Kenzie asked. Scott worked on a violent crime squad at the Washington Field Office. The Bureau had temporarily assigned Kenzie to the FBI Academy, teaching interviewing techniques and consulting in her specialty, forensic psycholinguistics. Anderson’s public corruption squad had borrowed her back to sting Senator Grable.

  “I told Shuler I wanted you assigned to the case,” Scott replied. Tom Shuler was the assistant director in charge of the Washington office.

  “And my classes?”

  “He’s calling the AD for the Academy.”

  Kenzie grimaced.

  “Hey, your boss thinks you lack street experience, isn’t that what you told me? This is your chance. If we don’t find the kid in the next few days, the chances of ever finding her are slim.”

  Poor Zoe. Kenzie had seen enough pictures of her to feel sympathy. She took a deep breath. “This isn’t my field. What do we know about kidnappings? Statistically?”

  “If we’re talking a child predator, in nearly 100 percent of the cases, the kid is dead in twenty-four hours. But if the kidnapper is doing this for money, we have a chance. He’ll make his demands in twelve to twenty-four hours. He’ll let the senator and his wife sweat for a bit first.” Scott ran his hand through his hair. “Evaluating any messages we get will be crucial. And our responses must be carefully worded. I don’t want to mess this up. There’s too much at stake. I need someone good with words, Kenzie. I need you.”

  She took a deep breath. “OK. Let me go home, see Jack, and grab some clothes.”

  “You don’t have a ready bag in the car?” he said, frowning.

  “I don’t get calls like this!” She glanced at her watch. Just after 11:00 p.m. “Three hours. I’ll be back in three hours.”

  “Make it two.”

  3

  The Academy lay forty miles south of Washington, straight down Interstate 95, not far from Kenzie’s townhouse. She knew that Jack would probably have been better off in a place with a big backyard, but realistically, she had no time to mow grass.

  Guilt dogged her as she cut through the night. She should have prepared for an emergency with work clothes and a toothbrush in the trunk. She’d gotten complacent, working at the Academy. Scott wouldn’t say anything because he was Scott.

  She’d known him for eight years, had met him when she was an assistant professor of linguistics and he was working on a threat case and needed her expertise. Impressed with her knowledge, Scott had recruited her for the Bureau. Kenzie was intrigued by the application of her specialty, linguistics, to law enforcement, and her visit to the FBI Academy cemented her decision. Eighteen months later, PhD in hand, Kenzie found herself a new agent in training. That was just three years ago.

  Jack was waiting for her when she came through the garage door into the kitchen, a silly grin on his face, his stub of a tail wagging furiously. “Jack, I am so sorry! Did Corey take you for a run?” Kenzie patted the black and white springer spaniel. “I know he did. But you’re ready for more, aren’t you? And guess what? I have bad news. I have to go back. It’s a little girl, Jack, a little five-year-old. I have to help her.”

  She threw her keys down on the kitchen countertop and kicked off her high heels. “I’ve got to change, Jack.”

  He followed her with not one, but two tennis balls in his mouth. As she pulled off her dress, her slip, and her stockings, Jack dropped the balls at her feet and waited expectantly. “I don’t have time to play right now. I promise, when this is over . . .”

  But he kept following her around. She went into her closet where she grabbed a clean pair of khaki pants and a golf shirt with an “FBI Academy—Behavioral Science Unit” patch. Then she moved back out into her bedroom, where she put them on. She threaded a holster onto her belt, and filled it with her Bureau-issued Glock. It felt heavy. She wasn’t used to wearing it every day. Not at the Academy.

  “Of course, I feel guilty, Jack, but then, this is my job! I’ll make it up to you. I swear I will.” Grabbing a duffle bag, she threw in two more pairs of pants, three shirts, underwear, more socks, her travel kit, a brush, some elastics to hold her hair back, and a toothbrush. “What am I missing?” she said out loud. Her navy blazer. She retrieved it from the closet.

  Jack barked at her, a solitary, sharp bark. “OK, OK.” Kenzie kicked the balls out into the hallway, and then down the stairs. Jack went bounding after them and Kenzie followed him, her duffle bag in her hand. She grabbed her personally owned weapon, a small pistol, and put it in her bag.

  There were four new messages on the answering machine in the kitchen. All four were from her mother. Clarice Graham lived in northwest D.C. in the house whe
re Kenzie had grown up. At sixty-six, she was still beautiful, still trim, and still the most difficult person in Kenzie’s life. Her messages demanded that Kenzie call her, tonight. It was a matter of utmost urgency. The last one, recorded at ten fifty-five, sharply accused Kenzie of ignoring her again. “Oh, good grief,” Kenzie muttered. Being an only child definitely had disadvantages.

  Jack barked again, his one sharp, insistent bark. Kenzie looked at him. He’d laid the two tennis balls, side by side, right in front of her, begging her to play.

  “OK!” Kenzie said. “Five minutes. That’s all. Then I have to go.”

  At 1:20 a.m., she arrived back at the Grables’ house in Georgetown. She parked in the back, near the Mobile Command Center, and showed credentials to the agent at the back gate. Driving down the alley, she’d seen an agent walking the neighborhood. He belonged, no doubt, to the Special Operations Group, called out to scan the streets around the Grables’ house.

  The cooler night air, a perfect seventy degrees, felt refreshing. Overhead, the stars shimmered in the velvet sky. Kenzie grabbed her briefcase and made her way into the house.

  “I’m back,” she said. Scott stood over the dining room table, making notes. His deep brown eyes, set in a broad face, creased at the edges with tension.

  “The senator should be here shortly,” he said.

  “No calls?”

  “Nothing, not even . . .”

  An agent appearing at the dining room door interrupted him. “Heads up!” he said, and motioned for them to follow.

  “Showtime,” Scott said quietly.

  They walked to the front hall, and seconds later, Senator Bruce Grable, along with a man in an expensive suit who Kenzie figured must be his lawyer, and two additional FBI agents strode through the front door.

  “Where’s my wife?” the senator demanded, fixing his cold gaze on Scott.

  “In the family room, sir,” Scott said. He motioned with his head to Kenzie and they followed the senator to the rear of the house.

  “Bruce, do something!” Beth cried out and she half rose from the couch. He took her in his arms, then sat down next to her.

  “It’ll be all right; we’ll find her,” he said, but a catch in his voice told a very different story. He held his wife for a moment, their grief framed by the large picture of Zoe hanging behind the couch on the pale green wall; then he stood up and squared off with Scott. “Who are you?”

  “FBI Special Agent Scott Hansbrough. I’m the case agent.”

  The senator looked past him, straight at Kenzie. “You! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “She’s an expert in psycholinguistics,” Scott said calmly. “She’ll be invaluable if we get any communication from the kidnappers. I’ve asked her to join the case.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t like people who deceive me.” He turned to the well-dressed man who’d come in with him. “Get her out of here!”

  The man, the presumed lawyer, took a deep breath. “The director told me he specifically allowed it,” he said. “She’s supposedly an expert.”

  “You get that son of a . . . get him on the phone. Now!”

  It only takes being a senator, Kenzie thought, to gain immediate access to the FBI’s top dog. She could picture Director Joseph D. Lundquist now, patiently listening as he got an earful from Grable, who paced while he yelled into the cell phone his lawyer had handed him. Calming the senator down seemed to take forever. Eventually, the diplomatic talents of the director must have won out. The senator snapped the phone off and strode back toward the two agents. “Just what are you doing to find my daughter? Or is your job just to harass me?”

  Scott took a big breath. “We have agents working hard on this already, Senator, canvassing the neighborhood, getting security tapes from local businesses, going over possible suspects, and reviewing similar cases. We have a tap on your phones and we’re monitoring e-mail. Now we need information from you.”

  The senator tightened his lips into a straight line. “How long is it going to take you to find Zoe?”

  “There’s no way to know that,” Scott replied.

  “That’s not an answer!” Grable stood with his hands on his hips, his jaw thrust forward.

  “I need to ask you some questions, sir. Could we go into your office?”

  The senator’s home office, a one-story wing, stood off to the right side of the house, balancing the sunroom on the opposite side. A huge walnut desk dominated the room. The walls were a medium brown. “Mocha latte” is what Kenzie figured the designers would call it. Flanking the front window, framed by thick brown and cream curtains, were two brown leather chairs and a love seat covered in a dark green, brown, and cream plaid fabric. Very masculine. Very rich.

  The senator walked right past the couch and chairs and stood behind his desk. He motioned for Kenzie and Scott to sit down. The lawyer pulled up another chair. “Now, what do you want?” Grable asked as he sagged into his high-back, leather desk chair.

  Scott shifted in his seat, but did not respond to the senator’s gruff prompt. Kenzie sensed he was asserting control, letting the silence grow between them until he was ready to initiate. She looked at the two of them, the senator with his polished good looks, and Scott, a brown-haired, thick-necked former football player. In a standoff, Kenzie would put money on Scott.

  On the wall behind the senator hung pictures of him with two presidents, with the prime ministers of Israel and Great Britain, with the secretary of defense, and with his little girl. Zoe was about two years old and wore pink corduroy Oshkosh overalls. Grable was throwing her in the air, and Zoe appeared to be squealing with delight. A diploma from the University of Illinois, his home state, hung next to the pictures. That explained the broad A Kenzie had heard in his speech.

  Scott turned to the man on the senator’s left. “First, who are you?”

  “J. Barton Thompson. Senator Grable’s lawyer. And I want to point out he doesn’t have to answer anything.”

  “No, of course not,” Scott interrupted, “if he doesn’t care about finding his daughter.” He returned his gaze to Grable. “Senator, we’re covering all the bases as we search for Zoe. It’s possible it was a random act, but my hunch is, and it’s just a hunch, the kidnapper is someone who knows you or your wife, someone with a grudge. Someone who wants to strike directly at your heart.”

  Well put, Kenzie thought.

  The senator glared at Scott. But as the agent’s words sank in, Kenzie saw Grable swallow hard, his expression softening. “So who are we looking at? Political enemies? The gardener? The guy I cussed out last week at the parking garage?”

  “All of the above,” Scott said. “Let’s start with people who might be angry with you.”

  Grable picked up a paper clip, straightened it, and threw it on his desk. “That could be a long list.” He began by naming political enemies, two activists in the opposite party, a man he’d soundly defeated to win and keep his Senate seat, another senator who’d felt double-crossed when Grable changed his vote on a bill, a couple of people jealous of his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the way he wielded power, some people on the White House staff. “But these are all professional politicians. They’re not the kind to steal a little girl,” he said.

  “What exactly is that kind, Senator?” Scott asked. “Because we’ve seen them all.”

  Grable sighed with exasperation. “All right,” he said, leaning forward, “that’s all I can think of right now.”

  “OK. Now, Senator, who do you owe money to?”

  Grable went over the list, ticking them off on his fingers—the mortgage company, an auto loan, an investment broker, a bank . . . no, two banks. He kept hunching his shoulders, the tension playing out in his body. “What else?”

  “Senator, how’s your marriage?”

  The man visibly stiffened. He straightened up in his chair. “What are you insinuating?”

  “I’m not insinuating anything. I just asked a simple question.”
Scott’s eyes were fixed on Grable’s face.

  Grable blustered and fumed. He stood up and turned his back on Scott and Kenzie. When he finally turned around, his face looked red. “My marriage is like every other Washington marriage I know. Difficult. Struggling. Infuriating at times. But do I think my wife had anything to do with Zoe’s disappearance? No. No way.”

  “That isn’t what I asked, Senator.”

  Grable tightened his jaw. “What exactly are you getting at?”

  “Any affairs going on?”

  “No!”

  “Has there been talk of divorce? Separation?”

  “No, of course not.” Grable sat back down in his chair. “We have our problems but look, I do the best I can as a husband, a father. And Beth, she . . . she tries, too. I’ve been there, done that when it comes to divorce. I don’t intend to do it again.”

  “You’re pretty close to Zoe.”

  “So what? So that’s illegal now? Being close to your daughter?”

  Scott switched gears, asking questions about the people who had access to the house, the neighbors, any workmen who’d been around lately. They’d recently had the house reroofed and repainted. They had a lawn-care company and they’d used a caterer for a party recently. The senator added that Scott would have to get the names of the contractors from his wife.

  “Would any of the people who know you have any reason to believe you or your wife had a part in Zoe’s disappearance?” Scott asked.

  “Absolutely not!” the senator said, fuming.

  “It’s a standard question, sir. One more thing. You’ve accepted some money . . .”

  “Don’t respond to that!” Thompson said firmly. He looked at Scott. “He will not answer any questions along those lines.”

  Scott refocused on the senator. “What I wanted to know, Senator, is have there been any potentially illegal transactions that might have put you in the company of unscrupulous people, people who now believe they can recoup some of their, uh, investments? Or people who may feel they didn’t get their money’s worth?”