Lucinda barked out a cold, brief laugh. “My, my, Mr. FBI. Jettisoning a rule already? Maybe our partnership does show some promise after all.”
Twenty-Seven
The next morning, Lucinda set out from her hotel on foot and walked the seven blocks to the field office of the FBI. She started out thinking about the Fleming case and the Agnew case but in less than two blocks, she was thinking about Jake. By three blocks, she was arguing with herself about Jake.
What is wrong with you? He is just a kid. No, Lucinda, he is not a kid. He’s very much a man.
But he’s ten, twelve years younger than I am.
And he sure looks good.
Stop it. He’s FBI. He even looks FBI. Shoot, he looks so FBI, he could play one on TV.
Stop lying to yourself. He could be a TV FBI just because he doesn’t look exactly like the cookie-cutter version the bureau prefers.
But it’s not just the way he looks; it’s the way he looks at me. All through dinner, he looked straight at me. He never flinched. He never grimaced. Except for that one almost-question about the injury, he never mentioned it. It’s as if when he looked at me, he was blind to every flaw.
Snap out of it, girl, that good-looking virile young male is not interested in an older, scarred cop.
So why can’t I stop thinking about him?
Lucinda tried to force Jake’s image out of her mind but became so focused on that task that she walked half a block past the entrance to the office before realizing what she had done. She doubled back and went inside.
Jake had not yet arrived when she entered his work area. He wanted to know a lot about me but he sure didn’t volunteer any information about himself. Let’s see what I can find out before he arrives. She looked around for snapshots. There were a few pics hanging on the wall from his training days at Quantico. The similarity in backgrounds and activities to her ex-husband’s old photos made her wince.
She spotted a pedestal trophy with a yo-yo on top. There’s got to be a story behind that. That thought made her smile. It dropped from her face when she saw a picture of Jake with a woman. An older woman. Older like me? No. Older than I am. Must be his mother. I hope it’s his mother. She picked up the frame as if holding it in her hands would answer the question. She was staring into the woman’s eyes when Jake entered the room.
“That’s my mother,” Jake said, startling her so badly she nearly dropped it.
“Oh, I’m sorry for being so nosy,” a blushing Lucinda said as she fumbled with the photograph, nearly dropping it to the floor. With shaky fingers, she set it back on the shelf.
“No need to be sorry. You’re a detective. It comes with the territory. If you weren’t curious, you wouldn’t be worth a damn in this line of work,” Jake said. “My mom was a wonderful, courageous woman.”
“Was?”
“Yeah. I lost her about a year and a half ago. Breast cancer. Fifty-two years old. No known risk factors. And she’s gone. Seemed like it was overnight but really it was a couple of years of struggle against a particularly aggressive type.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
Jake shrugged and pushed his hands in his pants pocket. They stood in awkward silence. Lucinda changed the subject. “So what’s the deal with the yo-yo trophy?”
It was Jake’s turn to blush red. “Don’t we have a case to work on?” he asked, picking up a pile of faxed pages from his in-box.
They dug into files sent in to them from homicides in other jurisdictions that had the potential for being connected to theirs and soon fell into a rhythm of comfort in one another’s company. Lucinda slid off the jacket of her pantsuit and hung it on the back of a chair. In minutes, Jake’s was draped over the chair beside it. Jake leaned back and threw his feet up on the work table, causing Lucinda to snicker.
“What?” Jake said in a hurt voice.
“Lime-green shoes, Jake?”
“Hey, they’re not pink.”
“No, they’re not,” she said with a chuckle.
They shifted immediately back into work mode, asking questions, making comments, exchanging files. When Jake’s cell rang, Lucinda barely noticed. But when he reached for his jacket, thrust in an arm, switched his cell to the other ear in order to slip in the other arm, Lucinda got to her feet and reached for hers. She didn’t know what was going on but she knew they were on the move.
As soon as Jake disconnected, he said, “They found the car.”
“Agnew’s car?”
“Yeah. About thirty-five miles out of town by a falling down, abandoned farm house.”
“Any sign of Agnew?”
“Don’t know. They spotted the car from the chopper. No one is on the ground yet.” They went down into the parking garage. To Lucinda’s surprise, Jake approached a silvery blue older model convertible and slid a key into the door. He climbed in and leaned across the seat to unlock the passenger door.
“Close your mouth and hop in,” he said. “I’ll tell you about this baby while we drive.” Jake pulled into traffic and continued, “Isn’t she a beauty? Uses a bit more gas than is politically correct but she was my Dad’s car and I can’t bring myself to part with her. She’s a 1966 Impala Super Sport and, man, can she rock and roll. She’s got a 396 under the hood with 325 horses and a ride as smooth as glass.”
Lucinda leaned back in the spacious leather seats and luxuriated in the comfort of having enough room to stretch her long legs all the way out. She had to admit, it was a cool car but it took next to no time for her to regret the ride. In her opinion, Jake was a typical male driver – impetuous, impulsive and erratic. Tomorrow, I’ll drive to the office and walk back to the hotel. That way, my car will be at the office and available so I can do the driving the next time.
When they hit the highway, Jake’s driving, in Lucinda’s opinion, was even worse. She gritted her teeth and kept her mouth shut. Before long, they exited Loop 495 and headed away from the city. The sudden transition from crowded urban sprawl to bucolic countryside was jarring. Without warning, the congestion dissolved as one vehicle after another peeled off, leaving an empty roadway. The only noise was the hum of their tires on the asphalt.
Jake turned into a small blacktop lane and slowed his speed and the hum became nearly inaudible. After a few miles, they spotted police presence around a dirt drive off to the right. They turned in and Lucinda looked down the rocky, uneven surface and braced herself for a rough ride. But Jake was right, as they drove toward the farmhouse, she didn’t feel a single bump. Jake stopped and parked outside the ribbon of yellow tape. As they stepped out of the vehicle, a uniform approached Jake and asked, “Special Agent Lovett?”
“Yes,” Jake answered. “And this is Lieutenant Pierce.”
“Sir, we cordoned off the area. Went in to check for a live hostage. When that search was negative, we retreated and have remained outside the perimeter as instructed.”
“Thank you, Officer,” Jake said as he lifted the tape and gestured for Lucinda to step inside.
Twenty yards ahead a farmhouse slumped in the middle of an overgrown yard. The white clapboards shed chips of paint. The Kelly green trim on the window frames was caked with road dirt. The once bright-red roof was faded and streaky as if a giant’s tears had run down its slanted surface. The building was surrounded on three sides by a large porch with crooked banisters and broken steps. On one end, a porch swing hung drunkenly by one chain.
Lucinda squinted her eye and imagined the welcoming, wholesome image that once stood on that spot. She could almost see the smoke curling from the chimney. She nearly smelled the scent of fresh baked bread and could almost hear the thunk of the wood and the ring of the metal as an axe split wood. Then she opened her eye wide and the magic was gone; only a sorrowful and neglected façade remained.
They followed the path of flattened over-tall grass and weeds through the front yard and behind the house. Underfoot they heard the crunch and felt the sponginess of years of fallen, partially decomposed veget
ation. They looked hard for any signs of another car moving out, away from the farmhouse, but the trampled undergrowth all pointed in one direction. It appeared as if whoever left the car must have departed from the immediate area on foot. They saw the vague indication of the kind of path a body would make through the tall weeds but although it could have been a person, it also could have been a wild animal or someone’s dog.
The victim’s SUV was parked on a bare patch of dirt at the back of the house. Jake and Lucinda circled around it watching where they stepped and taking care not to touch the sides. “I’ve got a forensic team on the way out here. They should catch up with us soon,” Jake said.
Must be a woman who doesn’t drive like a lunatic. Lucinda kept that thought to herself and just nodded at Jake.
In a few minutes, the techs tramped up through the weeds, hauling their gear. Lucinda and Jake stood back and watched them work. The team made a cursory survey of the car’s interior – a more thorough job would happen back at the auto lab. The outside received an intense examination to capture any evidence that could possibly be lost in transport. A tech slid under the vehicle to take samples of any dirt, plant life or anything else caught up on the axles, struts or any other protrusion. When he finished with that, he took samples of the weeds and dirt from around the car. Then he headed down the dirt drive to pick up samples from there for comparison. If they could identify any material alien to this place when they were back in the lab, they could then extrapolate any other location the vehicle visited before coming to rest here.
Another tech focused on finding prints on the exterior of the car. After a few minutes, she turned to Jake and shook her head. “None?” Jake hollered over to her.
“Looks like it’s been wiped clean,” she shouted back.
What about the inside of the door handle? Lucinda thought but before she could say a word, the tech bent backwards in a seemingly impossible arc as she looked up at that spot. Lucinda couldn’t imagine how she held that awkward position, let alone actually worked that way, but she did. When she finished she held up a fingerprint card and shot them both a big grin. “Got one!” she said.
“How did she do that?” Lucinda asked.
“She’s pretty amazing,” Jake said. “Awesome, actually. I’ve never seen anyone that flexible. But, damn it, she’s happily married.”
“Oh, please,” Lucinda said.
“It was a joke. Just a joke. Honest. In fact, I’m not sure if she’s even married. I never asked.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Really. I did ask about how she manages all those gyrations when I’ve seen her do similar acrobatics. She says that it’s genetics and yoga. If it were just yoga, I’d probably try it myself but there isn’t much I can do about the klutzy genes I got.
Hours later, with the area searched for any possibility of evidence, a truck pulled the vehicle on to a tow platform and they all headed back to the city. On the ride back, Lucinda asked, “Why don’t you fill me in on those klutzy genes?”
“Really? You really want to know?”
“Yeah, of course I do – unless it was just a throw-away line. If it was you don’t have to make anything up to amuse me.”
“Well, the silly side of the klutzy gene pool is my mom,” Jake said. “When she was six years old, she wanted to be a ballerina. My grandmother signed her up for ballet class. A couple of months later, the teacher approached my grandmother and said, “Elsa, I’ve never said this to a parent before, but save your money. Your daughter has the grace of an overweight elephant.” A couple of years later, my grandmother realized how true that was and enrolled my mom in a special class so she could learn how to fall without hurting herself.”
“They have classes like that?”
“Oh yeah, for the truly, hopelessly clumsy.”
“That is funny. What about your dad’s contribution to the gene pool?”
“Well, that isn’t exactly funny. My dad tripped and fell in front of a city bus. He was dead before anyone realized what had happened. I was nine years old.”
“Wow! That explains your attachment to this car – it belonged to your dad,” Lucinda said.
“My mom kept it in a garage for me until I was old enough to drive. First time out, I crumpled a fender on a phone pole and it went back into the garage until I was old enough to appreciate it. I had to save up the money to restore the fender and get it fixed before she signed the title over to me. I’ve been driving it ever since. My only major expense was when I had to replace the convertible top a couple of years back – but still it’s a lot cheaper than a monthly car payment.”
“And you have a piece of your dad with you everywhere you go.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh and a nod. A soft smile turned up his lips and his eyes filmed with moisture. “Can’t put a price tag on that.”
A mile further down the road, Lucinda said, “Both of my parents are dead, too.”
“So we’re both orphans,” Jake said.
“Yeah.”
“You wanna talk about it, Lucinda?”
“No. Not now.”
Twenty-Eight
It was one of those mornings designed to test an investigator’s patience. A day of waiting for results from the search of the vehicle, for the processing of the fingerprint through the national database and living with the diminishing hope of finding the victim alive and the growing anticipation of recovering a body.
Teams of law enforcement, boy scouts and other volunteers spread out over the countryside in pursuit of the victim Michael Agnew. The dog search team with their handlers concentrated on finding the perpetrator starting at the spot of bare dirt where the vehicle was found and following scent from there. It led to the narrow path the investigators had spotted the day before, they plunged through the weeds following the canines’ lead.
Jake and Lucinda chose to stay in town, close to the labs, while they reviewed the data and called around to other jurisdictions looking for information on the connected homicides. They focused on what they had in hand in a vain attempt to forget that they were waiting for others to provide a new puzzle piece they could use.
It was nearly lunchtime when a tech called up. “We ran the door latch print through AFIS but didn’t get a match.”
Jake and Lucinda slumped and stared into space. The intense disappointment over this news seemed to fill the air with a negativity they could taste with every inhalation.
“Maybe they’ve had better luck down in the auto lab,” Lucinda suggested.
Jake called down to where techs were still processing the victim’s SUV. “But it doesn’t look good,” they were told. “We’ve fumed the whole thing with superglue. This vehicle’s been wiped down cleaner than any I’ve ever seen. And we haven’t found any indications that it ever transported a body.”
Next they called the communications liaison in the field. The news he delivered was even worse. “The victim search team has had no luck so far. The canines are still running, though. They’ve got the scent of something. But clouds are forming and getting thick. We’re not sure they’ll get where they want to go before the rain starts. If the weather forecasts are right about the intensity of the expected downpour, there won’t be a scent trail left for them to follow any longer.”
“How about lunch?” Jake suggested.
“Let’s go out there right now,” Lucinda urged.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“We can grab something along the way.”
“But it looks like rain.”
“Exactly. That’s why we need to get out there. See exactly where the dogs are, see how far they’ve gotten, know first hand where they left off,” Lucinda said.
“Instead of reading about it in a report.”
“You got it.”
“Let’s go,” Jake said, grabbing his keys off of his desk.
“You won’t need those. I’m driving,” Lucinda said.
“I can drive.”
“I know but you�
��re not. I am.”
“Just ’cause I drove out there yesterday doesn’t mean you need to drive out today.”
“I know. I’m driving,” Lucinda insisted.
“Why?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Is there something wrong with my driving?”
“Yeah, but it’s genetic, don’t worry about it.”
“Genetic? What are you talking about?” he said, stopping and facing her with his arms on his hips.
“Keep moving, Jake. You really don’t want to get into this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m right and you won’t be able to acknowledge it and it’ll screw up our working relationship. Stop lagging behind, Jake. Let’s go.”
“Okay. I’m coming but I still don’t get it.”
“You don’t need to,” Lucinda said.
They got into Lucinda’s car and pulled out of the parking garage. Once they hit the highway, Jake said, “No offense but your car is boring compared to mine.”
“You’re right, Jake. You’ll get no argument from me on that point. This is nothing but a box on wheels.”
“So why are we in this boring piece of crap that feels every little bump in the road instead of riding in comfort in my cool Chevy?”
“Jake, would you let me drive your car?”
“No. Absolutely not. I mean, no offense, Lucinda, but nobody drives my car but me.”
“Exactly. That is why we are in my car.”
“You like to drive that much?”
“Not really. It’s just that I don’t want to ride in any car with you driving.”
“What’s wrong with my driving?”
“You drive like a man.”
“I am a man.”
“Exactly. And although there are a lot of things about men I simply love, the way you all drive is not one of them.”
“Then why are all the jokes about women drivers?”
“Two reasons, Jake. For one, men made up the jokes as a cover-up for their inadequacies. Secondly, there is nothing funny about how men drive – it’s a scary, impulsive, roller-coaster kind of experience.”
Punish the Deed (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery) Page 12