I cleaned up the worst of the broken glass and then gave way to the super so he could cover the window. Once done, Nicole grabbed two sets of gloves and the disinfectant and shooed him out of the apartment. I went back to work on her office. But after a few minutes, she came in and started cleaning there. I left for the bathroom, just to be chased back to her office a minute later.
Then, the pattern repeated, and I thought I understood. The loss of control, the violation of her personal space was weighing heavily on her mind, perhaps not consciously but certainly in the background. I had experienced an extremely small dose of the same feeling when my apartment had been burglarized in graduate school. But in my case, there was no violence. It hadn’t even occurred in my presence. The violation of Nicole’s sanctuary had to be much, much worse for her.
I asked her to sit for a moment in the living room, collect her thoughts, and she did, reluctantly. But none of her body would be still. Her eyes tracked across the walls, though there was nothing new to see. She wrung her hands in her lap. Her foot tapped the floor. After a moment, she got up and I followed. She slowly walked the affected areas, listing aloud what needed to be done and together, we decided responsibility. Finally, that worked. She tackled her office and the hall with focused energy, while I scrubbed the bathroom and cleaned up the shattered bowl in the kitchen.
When I finished, I sat at the island and laid my head down. Fatigue was starting to overtake me. I heard Nicole and looked up just in time to see her cross the hall to the bathroom. I considered calling down that it was done but knew she’d want her finishing touches on everything. I wasn’t offended. Actually, I was pleased she’d let me stay to help, rather than chasing me out with the super. It felt like a small step toward sharing our lives, responsibility for her place now a tiny part of it.
After a few moments filled with the sounds and smells of more scrubbing, she joined me to inspect and finish cleaning the kitchen floor. When she was done, we moved to the living room and sat. “Are you going to be all right here by yourself?” I asked, her gaze coming to my face only after I spoke.
“No, I’m not,” she replied simply.
“Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”
Nicole looked around the room for a moment. “No. I don’t want to stay here at all tonight. Can I sleep at your place?”
“Of course,” I said.
Normally, her question would have taken my breath away and brought wild images to my mind, but the reality of the situation overruled even my male libido. Nicole was old-fashioned, and in our 18 months of dating, we had yet to make love. I suspected she’d made a commitment to wait for the “perfect moment.” And on a night when literally everything had gone wrong, this clearly wasn’t it.
Thursday, May 9
8:12 AM – The St. Louis FBI Field Office
Special Agent Rebecca Marte pushed back from her desk, letting her head hang as she stared sightlessly at the floor. She shook her head and looked up at the computer screen again. The facts in the St. Louis Police Department incident report on the shooting were a mixed bag. Sister Constance’s actions, if it was her, were all wrong. She preferred delivering her deadly packages in the middle of the night, often enabled by her athletic skills and facilitated by detailed planning. Taking a fire escape that could be negotiated by a 70-year-old grandmother in order to fire a rifle into a residence at sunset was totally out of character. But on the other hand, the target, a well-respected medical researcher, was spot on.
That last fact would have caught the FBI’s attention eventually. But the act that took the incident from a possibility to a nearly certain Crusader attack was the flood of new social-media posts. They’d hit the Internet at 8:30, just in time for the channels that ran the news at 9:00, just in time to ruin everyone’s evening. There was the possibility that Sister Constance saw the shot as an opportunity to take credit for someone else’s handiwork, but Rebecca doubted it. The posts had too many details.
“So, what do you think?”
Rebecca didn’t turn around; she’d recognize Clements’s voice anywhere. “Does it make any difference?” she asked. “It’s not my case.”
“It is until one o’clock,” replied Clements, coming into Rebecca’s cubicle and dropping into a chair. Rebecca swung around to look at him. As he had predicted, Agent Bradley Hawkins was taking over, with the after-lunch briefing being the official handoff. “Hawkins called. He wants us to follow up on the shooting. We’ll handle the coordination with the St. Louis PD and conduct the initial interviews.”
“Why the hell did he call you?” Rebecca asked, mouthing the word “ass” before her question.
Clements held out a hand in a you-know-why gesture. “You really need a new pet name for Agent Hawkins. And the call itself is just good management. Better to make sure we have it covered than to assume we would.”
“I guess,” said Rebecca without any enthusiasm, although she knew he was right. She tapped a couple of fingers on her lips. “Coordination with the locals will take time. You want that or shall I?”
“I know the detective in charge,” said Clements. “Good guy. I’ll get that rolling. And I can swing by and talk to Veles, too, if you want. It’s pretty much on my way.”
“Sure. I’ll take ….” She glanced at the computer screen, “Greenwood and Price. I saw an interview with Greenwood online—nice lady, well spoken. All I’ve found on Price so far is his resume on the Ruger-Phillips website. Or is that a curriculum vitae or whatever the academics call it?”
“In business, don’t they call it a resume?” asked Clements.
“Beats me. And he may be in business, but he’s an academic. His resume is loaded with papers that sound completely irrelevant to the real world. Get this.” She picked up a notebook and flipped back a couple of pages. “How about ‘The Spatial Visualization Aptitude as a Mediator of Learning from Immersive Environments.’ I can’t wait for that to be made into a movie.”
Clements smiled. “I’m sure he’d be happy to explain the importance of his research if you ask.”
“And I’m sure he’d either bore the crap out of me using nothing less than five-syllable words or he’d mumble while staring at his hands through coke-bottle glasses.”
Clements grin became a laugh. “That’s pretty harsh, but I guess you’ll find out. Anyway, if either interview doesn’t fit in this morning, you’ll need to push it till tomorrow. Hawkins thinks Sister Constance won’t be able to ignore the Conroy rally tonight. We’re on the detail to check the security of the building after the one o’clock. But on the positive side, Hawkins said he has a full crew and won’t need us tonight.”
“Well, that’s something,” replied Rebecca. The security check, while not as glamorous in the public’s eye as a protection detail, was no less crucial. And somehow, Rebecca liked the challenge of putting herself in a criminal’s shoes. “At least Hawkins and I agree on one thing. Constance would love to make a statement at that rally. Hey, can I get the video feed from tonight’s ops in here?”
“You can,” said Clements. “In the Communications room. You’re not coming in to watch, are you?”
“Why not? It’s not like I have a life.”
8:37 AM – The Offices of Ruger-Phillips
I closed my office door and did something I rarely do—I put my head down on my desk. I hadn’t gotten much sleep and the three cups of coffee I had drunk weren’t putting a dent in my fatigue. But still, I’d gotten a lot more rest than Nicole.
When we got to my place, I had told her to take the bedroom. She protested briefly but was so undone by the evening that I won that debate rather easily. But only an hour later, she came into the living room where I was sleeping on the couch. She wanted to talk, and we did until about 3:00. After that, she went back to the bedroom, but I don’t think she slept even then. Every time I woke up, I heard her moving around. Even so, she was up at 6:00 so she could go home and get ready for work. My suggestion that she take the day off fell on deaf ea
rs.
The sound of my phone broke into my thoughts, and I checked the display. It was Nicole.
“Hi. Is everything OK?”
“Yeah, fine,” she said. “I was just wondering if the FBI has called you yet?”
“The FBI? No. They called you?”
“Yeah. About twenty minutes ago. Sister Constance is taking credit for trying to kill Laura. The person I talked to, Senior Special Agent Gus Clements, is coming by here. He said his partner would be calling you.”
“He may be calling right now. The other line is ringing. Can I call you back?”
I heard Nicole’s “sure” and disconnected. “Sam Price, Ruger-Phillips. How may I help you?”
“Hello,” came a voice over the line, but it wasn’t a “he” that was calling. “I’m Special Agent Rebecca Marte in the local FBI field office. I’d like to talk to you about the incident at the apartment of Ms. Nicole Veles last night. I believe you were there?”
I did a mental double take. It wasn’t so much the gender of the caller, although I suspected women field agents in the FBI were still underrepresented. It was the energy in her voice. Or maybe she sounded full of life only because I wasn’t. I was too tired to be sure of anything. “That’s correct,” I said. “I was there. How can I help you?”
“I’d like to talk to you about what happened. Sooner is better. I’m meeting with Dr. Greenwood shortly, but I should be done by 11:00 if that’s acceptable.”
It was, so I gave her my address and asked her to talk to the receptionist when she arrived. After we disconnected, I called Nicole back. It rolled through to her group’s administrator, who said she was meeting with Agent Clements. The FBI wasn’t wasting any time.
In the process of accepting the meeting with Agent Marte, I had noticed my calendar was open for the rest of the morning. And since we flexed our time, I set the alarm on my watch and laid my head back on the desk. I’d be of little use to anyone without a nap.
8:56 AM – A Hotel in Clayton, MO
FBI Special Agent Marte pulled to the far end of the hotel’s circle drive. Looking up, she saw row after row of window, balcony, window in a simple elegance that repeated until the top two floors; on the last two, it was all balcony. A young valet hurried out to greet her, grinning as he approached.
“I’ll be about an hour,” said Rebecca, holding her FBI identification out through the open window. “I’d like to leave my car here if that’s OK.”
The grin disappeared. The man barely glanced at her badge before backing away as if it were radioactive. “Sure, no problem.”
The morning was cool, and Rebecca closed the car window. She had a few minutes until her meeting with Greenwood, so she leaned back and released a long breath. The spring sun still hung somewhat low in the southern sky, and light flooded in from the side. She could feel its warmth soaking through her dark jacket, warming her shoulder and part of an arm.
Rebecca reached across the front seat and picked up a file folder on Dr. Laura Greenwood, then replaced it without looking. She knew what it said. The scientist was wealthy and well respected in her field. The former was the result of birth, the latter apparently due to years of dedication and a long track record of groundbreaking research.
Rebecca was as ready as she could be. She pulled a small notebook and pen from the file folder, opened the car door, walked across the drive, and entered the hotel’s lobby.
“Bigger than my whole friggin’ apartment,” Rebecca muttered under her breath. Scattered around the space were several sets of overstuffed chairs and loveseats. One grouping even included a baby grand piano. A massive, marble reception counter sat to one side as if registering for the night was too pedestrian to be the focus of such a grand entryway.
Even though she was in profile, Rebecca recognized Greenwood standing across the lobby. The agent started forward, the click-clack of her shoes echoing in the nearly empty space. The woman turned, the corner of a bandage peeking out from under the hair combed down onto her forehead. “Dr. Greenwood?”
“Yes. You must be Special Agent Marte,” replied Greenwood, a tired smile coming to her features.
“I am. Shall we have a seat?” Rebecca led the way to two armchairs sitting in a small, isolated alcove. A large, picture window overlooked a small garden. They sat and Rebecca opened her notebook. “How are you?” she asked when she looked up.
“I’ve been better,” said Greenwood.
Wanting Greenwood to speak freely and knowing that these opening remarks were the best place to set that tone, Rebecca waited.
“Have you ever been shot at, Agent Marte?” Greenwood asked.
“Thankfully, no.”
“It’s terrifying,” said Greenwood. “I didn’t sleep at all last night. I can’t remember hearing the gun go off, but the image of that window exploding in my face”—she squeezed her eyes closed, her head slowly shaking—“and the thud of the bullet hitting the wall behind me. It keeps running in loops in my head.”
“Do you have someone you can talk to?”
Greenwood released a long breath. “I have no immediate family. Just a couple of cousins I never see. But one good thing about a career in medicine is that a few of my colleagues went on to careers in psychiatry. Two of them have already called offering their support. Long term, I’ll be fine.”
“Good.” Rebecca looked at Greenwood a moment, considering whether there was any other small talk appropriate to the setting. She found none. She turned to her notebook and the questions she had prepared in advance. Over the next several minutes she had Greenwood recreate the evening from her arrival at Veles’s apartment through dinner and ending with the attack. As she had expected, there was nothing new in the woman’s account.
“Thanks,” said Rebecca. “That couldn’t have been easy, reliving last night.” Greenwood gave an almost imperceptible nod in response.
“For a moment, I’d like to focus on the text message you received during dinner.” It was of interest primarily due to its timing and possible criminal purpose—to lure Greenwood into an exposed area of the apartment. “You said you received it just before going into Ms. Veles’s office, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“And it was from a neighbor, Mr. Joseph Holyfield, who was checking on your … I guess you call it a farm?”
Greenwood smiled. “A very small and citified one, but yes, it’s a farm to me.”
“How did he happen to be at your farm?”
“He wasn’t,” Greenwood said. “I’m not even sure he drives at night.”
Greenwood responded to the look of confusion on Rebecca’s face without being asked. “Joe’s old. In his 80s, I’d guess. But his house is the only one close enough to see my drive. He calls if he notices anyone hanging around there. That’s not uncommon out in the country. We tend to look out for each other.”
“Sounds like a nice guy. What was it this time?”
Greenwood massaged an eyebrow with the fingertips of one hand for a moment. “Truthfully, after the shot, I totally forgot about his text. I only talked to him this morning. It was just someone honking at my front gate.”
Rebecca never liked it when someone started a sentence with “truthfully.” Perhaps it was superstition, but it seemed that what followed was often pure fabrication. “Did anyone check your home, see if anyone got past the gate?”
“No one got in,” replied Greenwood.
Rebecca was puzzled by the certainty in her tone, and although she didn’t think her face showed the perplexity, Greenwood volunteered an explanation. “I guess I should say, no one did anything as blatant as driving or walking up my drive. I have several motion sensors and a couple of cameras on it. More in the house, plus an alarm system. While the medical equipment I have there is too specialized for nearly anyone else, I still have a lot of money invested in it.”
“Seems a reasonable precaution,” replied Rebecca. “So, Mr. Holyfield knew you were at dinner at Ms. Veles’s apartment? That’s why
he called when he heard the honking?”
Greenwood’s brow wrinkled in a frown. “If you’re thinking Joe might be involved, I can’t believe that. He’s about the kindest, gentlest man you’ll ever meet … not to mention his age. But to answer your question, no, he didn’t know my plans. He knew I was in the city this week but something like dinner? He wouldn’t be interested unless I was dining with a Cardinals baseball player.”
“Did you tell anyone about your plans?” asked Rebecca. “Maybe a co-worker?”
Greenwood paused, looking out the window onto the garden for a moment. “No, at this stage of my research, I’m pretty much a one-woman show. When I’m running clinical trials, I have an answering service that usually knows where I am. In case of emergencies, things like that. But I’m between studies now, so I’m not even using them.”
Rebecca checked her notebook. The next questions dealt with the Crusaders. But for some reason she couldn’t quite explain, she decided to go off-script for a moment.
“Immediately after the text from Mr. Holyfield, you went into Ms. Veles’s office to call, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“And the shot came before you finished dialing?” Greenwood confirmed the timing. “Did you happen to move suddenly just before the shot? Maybe sneezed? Dropped something on the floor and stooped to pick it up?”
Rebecca was giving the doctor a chance to hatch some far-fetched miracle that had saved her life. Of course, on occasion, such things were true. But an individual who was being a bit too helpful might have something to hide.
“No, I can’t say I remember anything like that.”
No miracles here, thought Rebecca, although in this case, she would have been more prone to believe one. Exactly how Constance had missed from such a short distance was puzzling. Then again, they knew nothing about her prowess with a rifle.
Mind in Chains Page 10