by Steven James
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s true.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“How did I manage to follow you this morning without being seen? Without letting an experienced FBI agent notice he was being tailed?”
Patrick had no reason to think he might have a tail. Duh!
“Prove it. Show me an ID or something.”
To her surprise, Paul reached into his pocket and produced a credentials case similar to Patrick’s.
Her stepfather had been so intense about her not dating older guys that he’d taught her how to spot fake IDs, and when she studied Paul’s creds, even though they were six years out of date, they looked legit.
He tried to protect you when that sculpture shattered at the museum… He knows people at the Capitol… Used to live in DC. .. Patrick couldn’t dig up any dirt on him at all; the Secret Service could have done that-erased his record…
She gave him back the ID. “If what you’re saying is true, my mom would have told me.”
“I was in the middle of the application process when I met her. She knew that having a family, having attachments-especially children-was not… Well, let’s just say, when the government is looking for people willing to lay down their lives, they don’t want you to have any reason to hesitate.”
“And children and girlfriends are good reasons to hesitate-is that the deal?”
“Yes. The Secret Service doesn’t give the highest priority to applicants with lots of attachments.”
The vasectomy? Is that why he got it?
“So you’re saying I was a liability to your career. How nice.”
He ignored that. “I’m not sure what your mother was thinking, but I’ve always believed that she left because she wanted to protect both of us.”
“Or maybe she just didn’t want to be anywhere near you. Have you ever considered that?”
“Yes. I have.”
She eyed him. “How would it protect me? If she left you?”
“Family members of Secret Service agents are often targeted by people who might want to compromise that agent.”
Though she hated to admit it, some of what he was saying actually seemed to make sense. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
“Really? Who is Julia?”
“There is no Julia. I visited the Hirshhorn the day I flew in, chose a sculpture, and decided that its creator would be my reason to be in the city.”
“When all the while the real reason you’re here is to try to get custody of me.” She didn’t offer that as a question.
“You turn eighteen this fall. I couldn’t wait until then or it would be too late to get to know you before you moved away to live on your own.”
“You lied to me.”
“If I would have told you the truth up front, would you have agreed to see me yesterday?”
“I don’t know. But at least I’d trust you more than I do now.” As she mentioned that, she felt a slight sting of hypocrisy-after all, she’d deceived Patrick in almost the same way. And it’d probably had the same effect on him.
Paul didn’t reply.
Despite herself, she was starting to believe him. “How did you get into sculpting then?”
“I took some classes at a community college.”
That would explain why he knows, like, nothing about art and had to read all the explanatory plaques at the museum.
“So how come you live in the middle of nowhere? Were you fired from the Secret Service-and I’m not saying I believe you were ever actually in it, but if you were-were you fired or did you quit?”
“It was a mutually agreeable arrangement that I leave.”
“Explain ‘mutually agreeable arrangement.’”
He glanced around the atrium for a moment, then leaned closer and lowered his voice even more than he’d been doing for the conversation up until then. “Six years ago I was protecting Vice President Fischer when there was an attempt on his life, here, at the Lincoln Towers Hotel.”
59
Tessa said nothing.
“You were only eleven, you probably don’t remember that.”
“No. I do.”
“Really?” He sounded doubtful.
“I have an above average memory.”
She thought about the shooting and recalled that the gunman had missed the VP and was killed by Oh.
“You shot the guy? Is that what you’re saying?”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t kill the assailant.”
“Well, then why was it mutually agreeable that you leave?”
He was quiet. Seconds passed. “Tessa, when Hadron Brady began shooting, I dove for cover. I didn’t return fire; I didn’t throw my body in the line of fire to protect the vice president. Rather than embarrass the service any further, I resigned, and they agreed to help me disappear so my actions wouldn’t reflect negatively on the agency.”
She processed everything. “You ran for cover?”
He nodded but said nothing.
He’s a coward. Your dad is a coward!
She told herself that obviously he’d been afraid when the shots were fired, but then she realized that if Patrick had been there, he might have been afraid, anyone would’ve been, but he wouldn’t have hidden, run away, backed down, dove for cover. He would have protected the person he was guarding. No matter what.
“What are you thinking?” Paul asked her.
“I’m thinking that if all this is true, you should have told me the first time we met, at your cabin.”
“I was trying to wait for the right time.”
“What makes this the right time?”
A small hesitation. “Apparently, it’s not.”
She felt a swarm of emotions. None of them good. “I think I’m done talking now.”
“Yes, well.” He rose. “I’ll see you later. I won’t meet with you without Patrick’s permission next time. I promise.”
She had the sense that she should say something about the custody case- So what’s happening with that? Are you still gonna go through with it? -or maybe she should tell him that she forgave him for not being up-front with her, but instead of any of that she just watched him walk away.
He’s a coward. That’s all he is.
Your father is a coward.
She waited until he’d left the hotel before she tapped the keyboard to pause her computer’s video chat program that she’d been using to tape their entire conversation.
Then she scrolled down.
And clicked “save.”
I might have found something.
In the footage, in addition to mentioning room 809, the room in which we’d found the wheelchair, there were several references to room 814. It wasn’t clear if Hadron Brady, the shooter, had stayed in it or simply used it temporarily to snap his rifle together, but when I cross-referenced that room number against the maid’s records detailing which rooms were made up yesterday afternoon, the timing worked. The maids had cleaned it.
Timing and location.
The two rooms the killers chose were the same ones Brady had used.
Before telling Marianne what I’d noticed, I thanked Nick and Chelsea for their help, excused them, and they grudgingly collected their things and left the room.
“What is it?” Marianne asked.
I pointed at the screen. “Is anybody staying in that room?”
She looked it up. Shook her head. “No. Not since Tuesday.”
So if the killers used it; evidence might still be present.
But then why would the maids have serviced it?
This whole case was beginning to remind me of a cave system-a series of subterranean passageways that you can’t identify by looking only at the surface-you only find the connections when you actually climb down and start picking your way through the tunnels.
And the next tunnel I needed to explore was above me, on the eighth floor.
; Tessa knew that she could wait here of course, wait for Patrick-however long that might be.
Or she could call him, but this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you tell someone over the phone: “By the way, my dad stopped by to let me know he’s a cowardly ex-Secret Service agent. Oh yeah, and he’s been following us all morning. Talk to you soon. Ciao.”
And if she phoned Patrick and said she wanted to talk to him about something later, he’d just worry.
No, she needed to tell him in person.
Earlier, when he’d left to look around, he’d walked down the hallway that led behind the guest reception counter.
She grabbed her things and headed toward it.
60
I exited the elevator and started down the hallway.
There were only two possibilities-either Mollie was still inside the hotel or she was not. That much was obvious.
I passed room 804.
An axiom came to mind, one I’d taught in my seminars a hundred times over the years: what is obvious is not always what is true.
809.
Either Mollie was alive or dead.
Either she was here or she was not.
812.
What other options were there?
I arrived at the room.
For a moment I thought about the ways the Academy students had come up with on Wednesday for committing the perfect murder: take precautions to avoid leaving physical evidence… contaminate the scene with other people’s DNA… dispose of the body outside, don’t allow the body to be found at all…
Don’t allow the body to be found at all.
I snapped on the latex gloves that I’d brought along.
Pulled out my lock-pick set.
Despite what hotel managers might tell you, keycard locks are some of the easiest ones to pick. Hotels use them because they’re cheap, not because they’re secure. It’s one of the best-kept secrets in the hotel industry.
Most people feel safe in their hotel rooms.
If only they knew.
So, although in my haste to get up here I’d forgotten to get a keycard, it only took me a few seconds to get the door open.
The curtains had been drawn across the windows at the far side of the room, and the muted sunlight that had managed to slip through gave everything a yellowish, pasty glow.
I knew that Doehring and his team had looked for Mollie Fischer in every room of the hotel, that the ERT had processed room 809, that Margaret had sent agents to recheck all the eighth floor rooms the maids had serviced, but as far as I knew, no forensics unit had been in this room.
But the maids had.
Unwittingly vacuuming up the evidence.
Wiping it from the countertops.
Scrubbing it from the sink.
When you’re looking for something in a room that’s already been searched, you need to consider the conditions under which that initial search occurred, and then alter those conditions so that your attention isn’t drawn to the same objects or areas the previous searchers would have focused on.
And since room lights always throw shadows in the same places, they’re one of the main determinative factors to alter.
So now I left the lights off and clicked on my Mini MagLite.
The flashlight beam cut a slim crease through the pale, jaundiced light of the room.
I slipped off my shoes to avoid leaving dirt particles on the carpet. Then I stepped inside, closed the door, and began my search for something that might lead us to Mollie Fischer.
61
I knelt and shone my light across the carpeting and, as I’d expected, saw neat rows of tilted fibers that told me the room had recently been vacuumed.
No visible footprints, so apparently the maid had vacuumed the room as she backed toward the door.
I checked the closet, the desk, the chairs. Nothing.
Then the drawers, under the bed, behind the curtains.
Nothing.
I went though the entire room, carefully, methodically, searching each area from different vantage points and various angles until I was satisfied.
And so.
Only one place left to search.
I walked to the bathroom door.
We were looking for Mollie’s body, for a corpse.
But this room has already been searched…
If Mollie had been killed in this hotel, and the killers didn’t have time to transport the body to another location, it was obvious that her corpse had to still be here somewhere.
What is obvious is not always what is true.
I pressed the bathroom door open, and it angled away from me into the dark.
Because of the bathroom’s orientation to the window, almost no light filtered into it, just shadows of different depth, different intensity.
I dialed my MagLite’s lens, widened the beam, and targeted it inside.
The bathroom appeared empty, but I noted that the shower curtain had been pulled all the way across the curved, silver shower rod, thereby hiding the tub from view.
Unconsciously, I found myself sniffing the air, but I didn’t smell the odor that I feared I might find.
I went to the tub.
Holding the flashlight in one hand, I grasped the edge of the shower curtain with the other.
Images from past crime scenes flickered like an old movie reel through my mind. Images of death and terror and gore Slowly, I slid the curtain along the rod while shining the light toward the tub.
Empty.
I let out a small breath of relief, but it was tainted with frustration. I wanted so badly to find something. There were just too many passages in this cave that I hadn’t been able to connect.
You might have been wrong about this room. About all of this.
I took a breath.
All right.
I’d finish looking around, then get going.
Evaluate the scene systematically, start at the sink.
The flawlessly shiny faucet and clean counter told me that the surfaces had recently been wiped down-the shampoo bottle, soap, lotion, were all new.
Towels folded.
Mirror, spotless.
The maid had done a thorough job.
I turned my attention to the commode. The spotless handle shimmered. No smudges.
No prints.
The bowl held nothing but clear water, but when I knelt and looked behind the base of the commode, I did find one thing.
A small, balled-up facial tissue.
It might have been left behind by the killers, but when I narrowed my flashlight beam and inspected it more closely I saw that it was covered by a thin layer of undisturbed dust, so it had almost certainly been in the room for more than the last twenty-four hours.
The killers might have planted it. They’re into that kind of thing.
We would check it for DNA, but whether or not the tissue had been left by the killers, its presence did indicate one thing: there were areas of the bathroom that were easy to miss even for a meticulous maid.
I turned again to the tub.
A little soap scum near the faucet, a few hairs caught in the drain. Hair itself doesn’t contain DNA, but hair follicles do, so if we had roots of the Mollie was unconscious in the wheelchair…
It takes a few hours for drugs to get into the root of someone’s hair, and if Mollie had been drugged for more than an hour and this was her hair, it was possible we might find traces of the drug.
And if so, the guys at the lab could test it, identify it, match it.
Mollie is either inside the hotel or she is not.
I stepped into the tub and tugged the shower curtain across the rod again.
Using the MagLite, I carefully investigated the shower curtain itself. A small amount of soap scum. A few water spots. Nothing else.
Only when I knelt and peered at the far end of the curtain, in between two of the curtain folds, did I see it.
A tiny speck.
Dark.
I leaned closer.
Dried blood.
The only way to notice it was from inside the tub, an unlikely place from which to clean, even for an experienced maid.
It might be nothing. Might not be related. Maybe. Maybe.
I phoned Doehring, told him what I’d found, and he said he’d send the CSIU guys over here immediately. We hung up.
Sure, it might be nothing, but at the moment it seemed like too many tunnels were converging in this room for me to believe that.
The blood.
The lack of DNA in 809.
The proximity of the two rooms.
I closed my eyes and pictured what I’d seen when I arrived on the eighth floor yesterday: two security guards… two maids… three children in swimming suits…
A thought, out of nowhere: Could they have been the Rainey children?
No, the children in the hotel were older.
But I’d seen one other thing.
A bellhop pulling a luggage cart.
62
A slow chill crawled down my back.
I called Marianne and asked where the bellhops store the luggage for guests who arrive early, or who need the hotel to hold their bags until a later checkout time.
She told me the location-a room on the lower level near the storage room where I’d been shot. I didn’t tell Marianne what I suspected, just asked her to meet me there, then I ended the call.
And, trying to convince myself that I was wrong to suspect what I did, I left for the basement.
“Here we are,” Mr. Lees declared as he and Tessa arrived at the hotel’s control center.
It’d taken her longer than she’d thought it would to convince him to take her to Patrick, but finally she’d told him how upset Special Agent Bowers FROM THE FBI would be if he found out the hotel’s president wasn’t allowing his daughter to see him, and Mr. Lees had asked her to kindly follow him.
“I believe our head of security is meeting with him right now.” He knocked on the door, and a moment later, a slim, sharp-dressed woman in her late twenties appeared.
Mr. Lees said, “Marianne, this is Tessa Ellis, Agent Bowers’s stepdaughter.”
“I need to talk to him right away,” Tessa said.
“Well, I’m on my way to meet him now. Why don’t you come along?”