Terrorbyte

by Cat Connor

  I had a hard job imagining what their lives would be like. It’s not that those people are immune to crime; they just seem to not notice it. I suspected I was being somewhat unfair. Few people saw the side of crime I dealt with, and it was my choice to work violent serial crime. I could’ve chosen a less gory job, with more congenial hours, but I hadn’t. My choice.

  Several times during the evening, I thought I saw the singer Rowan Grange. I didn’t recall him being on the guest list but, then again, I didn’t see the final list. I considered that we should’ve had him and his band, Grange, perform. What a coup that would have been: one of the biggest bands (next to Bon Jovi) to come from New Jersey. That sure would’ve made the night more fun.

  My mind wandered off to the last Grange concert I attended. Normal things like attending rock concerts were rare gems in my life. I tended to hold those memories tightly. Another Rowan Grange memory edged to the forefront. He was gorgeous and smiling in the lobby of the Marriott, while I, the recipient of the smile, was shoeless and disheveled. Such is my life. One day it would be nice to run into him when I’m behaving normally. I’m not entirely sure I ever do, so it could be a long shot. I realized I had Googled him while daydreaming. Cringing, I closed the browser.

  Dad’s smile floated into view and evoked more amusing thoughts. We’d finally met the famed former President, GW. I’d noticed the presence of the Secret Service immediately. I’d also noted that the security was about as low key as those guys get; bit of a giveaway that someone important was around and it wasn’t the current President. I shouldn’t have been surprised at who it was. Our fathers had known him for years but would neither confirm nor deny the identity of the mysterious friend they’d told us about before my father’s heart surgery. GW seemed to enjoy the evening; I doubt he understood any of the poetry. It’s not that we write flowery prose, or even particularly intellectual prose for that matter, it’s just that he was once photographed reading a book upside down and he can’t say nuclear.

  Enough said.

  My brother survived the evening without me feeding him to the sharks; I allowed myself to dip a toe into a shiny puddle of my earlier fantasy. Watching him twitch in a tank of electric eels would’ve been most therapeutic. My mind conjured up a delightful image of Aidan struggling to swim to the surface in a deep glass tank, his plight exacerbated by deadly Sea Wasps and Portuguese Man of War jelly fish. A stingray or two appeared, moving ever closer; other sea creatures were attracted by his fearful flailing. Oxygen bubbled out of his mouth as his last remaining breath escaped.

  I blinked and imagined Aidan sinking to the bottom of the tank, eyes bulging, mouth open, one small bubble floating to the surface.

  Back to reality. We hadn’t fed him to the sharks or even dropped him in the tank with the electric eels. I felt a smile creep across my face. Tossing someone into a tank of sea creatures is not something one should attempt in evening finery. But I knew that had a suitable moment presented itself, I would’ve succumbed to temptation.

  “Ellie!”

  I dragged myself from the email screen I was staring at. There were no emails from Rowan Grange. I was mildly disappointed.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Phone, sweets.”

  “Thank you.” I leaned over and kissed Mac as he passed me the phone.

  He whispered, “It’s Caine.” He grinned as I rolled my eyes. Mac’s boss never called him in the middle of the night. He had taken a position in the FBI’s Cyber Division. I never thought he’d join up but he said he found stock trading a little too tame after running around the countryside with me, scared half to death and avoiding a bad poet. Now he spent his days dealing with email scams, viruses and Internet threats. Guess that floated his boat, although I can’t say I found his field terribly exciting. Part of his job was monitoring certain chat rooms and chat formats, especially if complaints were received about the conduct of patrons and such. He was also an expert in social network sites. His Twitter page had more followers than Oprah and he’d garnered quite a following on MySpace and Facebook. They don’t have emergency midnight callouts in Mac’s part of the Cyber Division.

  “Problem?” I used my most pleasant telephone voice. I knew Caine wouldn’t call this late if it wasn’t urgent.

  Mac turned to leave but I grabbed his sleeve. He sat down.

  Caine’s raspy voice came back at me, “Yes, there is a problem.”

  His tone bothered me. I’d become accustomed to grumpy but this time, there was something else, an edge I hadn’t heard in a long time. Fear?

  My stomach twisted.

  We’d only been home an hour and a half, so he couldn’t have been home much before us. Trouble comes quickly. In my experience it’s usually stomping a blood trail across a pristine floor.

  “What?”

  “Been called back to the office. We have a possible new case.”

  If he was calling me from the office, he hadn’t been home at all. He must’ve gone in to do something when the call came through.

  “Since when?” And since when does he say a ‘possible’ new case? If we received a call, that alone meant there was enough concern to make it a probable case.

  “I got the call thirty minutes ago. It’s an unusual one, Ellie.”

  “How unusual?”

  “You might find elements of this case familiar.” Caine stopped speaking, leaving a hollow sound on the line.

  A groan sounded in my head. This was hard work. He wasn’t giving me a lot to go on.

  “Okay … What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to run the investigation.” He paused. His words idled in space, then he said, “Lee says there’s a poem.”

  My blood suddenly felt cold. Thoughts swirled in my head. A poem: we hadn’t encountered a poem in a crime scene since The Son of Shakespeare case.

  Coincidence?

  I’d been thinking about him earlier.

  Coincidence?

  Focus, Ellie, focus. I tried. I really did but something else surfaced, triggered by the thought of a crime scene poem – or maybe the Valium had worn off.

  ***

  “We found this on the body in your trunk.” He removed a yellow Post-it note with the tweezers and showed it to me. The writing was smeared with blood but still legible.

  “ ‘Cream of the crop, he’s missing his top, no more meals à la gourmet. Breakfast of champions is not Special K.’ ” I read it aloud. “I don’t even want to ask if that means his head was hacked off.”

  “It was removed from the body. We found it under his legs,” Caine said. “Now get out of here,” He dropped the Post-it back into the bag. “Stay in touch. Stay safe.”

  ***

  “Ellie?”

  “Right here,” I replied. “Where and when?”

  I listened to a long stretch of quiet before he spoke again.

  “I want you in Alexandria A-sap. Lee and Sam are on scene. Lee called this to our attention. He took a call from the local police asking for assistance.”

  “You coming?”

  The entire conversation seemed punctuated by Caine’s silences. I didn’t like it.

  “Caine?”

  “This is yours, Ellie. You’re Supervising Special Agent on this one. I’ll be with the Director for a while.” He paused and before he spoke again, I heard paper moving on his desk and knew from experience he was pulling an all-nighter on something for the Director. “I’ll meet up with you as soon as I can.”

  Part of me wanted him to walk me through this. Another part knew I could do it and there was no way Caine would let me loose if he didn’t have faith in me. He’d promoted me over the phone. Now that’s bizarre.

  “Take care, Ellie.”

  “We’ll see you soon, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  The line went dead. Mac took the phone from my hand.

  “How bad?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know yet; it’s my case, that’s all I know. Well, that and Caine just
told me I was a Supervising Special Agent, not an acting SSA.”

  I could see no sense in worrying Mac with the poem thing until I’d viewed it for myself and had a handle on what was happening, so I tried diverting us both with the Supervising Special Agent thing. Was I ready to go up a pay scale?

  I watched his face. He was concerned. But then: “SSA,” he said, with a grin that wiped away all remnants of concern.

  “There’s a crime scene in Alexandria; Lee and Sam are there.”

  Mac’s brow creased and his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as he said, “You want me to come?”

  “It’s late.” I glanced at my watch. It was already past two in the morning. “I may not be home for hours. I’m sure your mom has plans for your day off and I’d hate to interrupt!”

  I could ask Mac to join the team if we needed him. I was sure Caine could wrestle him out of the Cyber Division to help. He’d done so numerous times before but not at my request. Mac had worked on cases with Lee and Sam and the other Delta teams, but not with one led by me. The request would depend on what was waiting for me in Alexandria and whether or not I felt we needed a cybercrime specialist on board.

  Did I want that? Did I want us working that closely as well as living together? A quiet voice in my head reminded me they were bridges to cross in due course. I just bet trolls lived under those bridges: evil, fat, drooling trolls, ready to cause all manner of trouble. It didn’t matter right now; the trolls and bridges would wait.

  I pushed away thoughts of us working together and focused.

  Mac tapped my arm and said, “That’s not an acceptable answer.”

  I saw the spark in his eyes; I knew he’d come if I asked. Good to know. It was possible that he didn’t want to find out what his mother had in store for him, and that was why he was keen to help out.

  I told myself the new case couldn’t possibly be the Son of Shakespeare/Jack Griffin/Charles Boyd, so there’s nothing to worry about; nothing at all. I’d worked at least nine cases since the Shakespeare thing. This was just another case. No reason to expect anything as bad. No reason to expect that anyone was targeting me or leaving bodies for me to find. No reason whatsoever.

  Just another case.

  “I might not be back until tonight,” I replied with a smile. “You know how unpredictable my job can be. Until I get there and view the scene, I have no way of knowing how this investigation is going to go, or what I’m going to find. Could be a long day. No sense you wasting your day off.”

  “Sure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The truth was I did not want this case. I wanted nothing to do with poems. I could have happily lived my life without ever seeing another poem at a crime scene.

  I tried my trusty ‘I’m okay.’ The results were less than convincing; nothing felt okay.

  Dang!

  Chapter Five

  Social Disease

  The early hours of Sunday morning found me standing on the pavement looking up at a building, the exterior lit by the rolling lights of five police cars parked out front.

  From the second I stepped through the outer door and into the foyer of the apartment building, I could feel it.

  We stood in the atrium of what used to be a high-rent, architect-designed apartment complex. Diffused red and orange light spilled from a grubby stained-glass window high above us. Odd. It was dark outside, yet I saw colored light falling inwards. The colors did nothing to brighten the drab interior. I peered past the colors and glimpsed spotlights on the roof beyond. The building had fallen into disrepair over the years; it was as if no one cared or remembered the architect’s intentions. I didn’t think he intended his dream to end in this sorry state. Yet someone cared enough to make sure the spotlights still worked.

  Oppression hung heavy in the air. Terror seeped from the walls: years of abuse cradled by the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-absorbing building. It had the makings of a great haunted house.

  I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, then opened them fast, making the atrium blur; an old habit. Reality blurred into a functioning calmness.

  “Supervising Special Agent Conway?”

  The voice belonged to a tall, broad-shouldered, brown-haired police officer not much older than me. He stood about four feet from the external doors, bathed in an eerie, orange light.

  “Yes.”

  He stepped forward. “I’m Officer Josh Konstram, your escort,” he said and offered his hand.

  We shook briefly.

  “Pleased to meet you, Officer Konstram.”

  “Likewise, Agent Conway. Call me Josh.” He offered his hand again.

  I smiled. We shook. I replied. “I’m Ellie.”

  Five doors opened off the atrium. Police officers stood on either side of one open door indicating where we should go. Josh stepped forward and led the way.

  A fluorescent light down the hall flickered, flashed and went out. The absence of the light created an even creepier atmosphere. We walked down the wide hallway and past several other apartment doors as we went, eventually stopping next to another police officer. He handed us protective shoe coverings and latex gloves. I pulled on the shoe coverings, then the gloves, as did Josh.

  Josh held the door open and said, “This way, Ellie.”

  The officer by the door cleared his throat.

  Josh corrected himself, “This way, Agent Conway.”

  I glanced at him. “Ellie.”

  He grinned and the more senior officer on the door nodded.

  Josh stayed on my right, guiding me away from bloodied footprints and possible trace evidence as we walked down the dingy hallway to find Lee or Sam.

  The home was in disarray but the impression I gleaned was one of permanent turmoil and disorder. Nothing I saw indicated the mess was attributable to the current situation: clutter piled high; junk stacked on every flat surface and piled on chairs in the rooms we passed. Possessions lay heaped along the entire length of the interior hallway: books, clothing and newspapers. Stuff. This was the home of a hoarder. Josh stopped at the end of the junk-filled and untidy hallway.

  I felt a rising desperation brought on by a pervasive feeling of menace that seeped from the apartment walls. I felt suddenly claustrophobic. I took some slow deep breaths and wished I hadn’t – the air was none too fresh.

  Stemming my own panic as best I could, I called into the rooms beyond, “Lee?”

  His deep voice filtered through my defenses, leaving warm security in its wake. “Ellie, check this out.”

  I’m okay.

  I glanced at Josh. He said, “I’ll be right here.”

  “Thanks.”

  I stepped over strewn garbage as I made my way to his position, somewhere on my right. The clutter spilled everywhere but became overshadowed by garbage and general filth. As tempting as it was to cover my mouth and nose with my hand, I resisted.

  The smell of death permeated the room that may once have been a dining room.

  I found Lee in the kitchen.

  “I’m here.” I flicked my eyes quickly around the room, getting a sense of the scene.

  Lee pointed to the cabinets and something written in marker pen. Writing extended all the way around the kitchen, putting the body in the center of a bizarre circle of words. It took me a few moments to discover the beginning.

  “A poem?” Lee’s manner was tentative.

  I knew by his tone he didn’t want to go there again either.

  I read it twice, forcing down bile and swallowing as hard as I dared. It wasn’t just a poem. Not a whole one anyway: just the first two lines of a poem I knew well. I surveyed the scene. I could feel there was something else here, something that may hold a clue or two. The more I looked, the more the feeling began to seem like wishful thinking.

  Lee was waiting for an answer.

  I bent over the body of the woman. Around her neck was a gold ribbon, the sort used on gifts; a ribbon tied in a pretty bow. There was no obvious blood smeared on the bow or the ribbon. I le
aned closer to her face. I could smell chlorine.

  I felt Lee’s eyes on me and answered his question.

  “It’s not a whole poem.”

  “What then?”

  I smiled. I knew he was so going to love this as much as he loved middle-of-the-night crime scenes.

  “They’re the first two lines of a poem I wrote to Mac.”

  “Get out of town!”

  I flashed him a damn-I-love-this-job smile. “Yep.”

  Lee rocked back on his haunches. Disbelief flashed across his face, then a more thoughtful look took over. “There’s something else. I found a Post-it note addressed to you.”

  I heard his words but no meaning filtered through; my brain had switched off.

  “Ellie, did you hear me? I found a Post-it note.”

  It flicked back on. “Where is it?”

  “Bagged and tagged by the crime scene investigators.”

  “Do we have a copy?”

  “Yeah, I copied it and sent a copy to Caine.”

  “Great.” That explained why we were involved. A note addressed to a special agent is enough to get us an invitation to what is usually police jurisdiction. I really didn’t want to get into the whole Post-it thing. “I hate Post-its. I haven’t used one since we arrested Jack Griffin.”

  Right after I arrested the so-called invisible man I switched to memo cubes and magnetic whiteboards.

  Lee stood up, slowly stretching his legs. “What do you think? Copycat or whole new situation?”

  “He’s not copying anyone that I know of, even with the Post-it, Lee. This is not a repeat of the Son of Shakespeare.”

  Something else worried the hell out of me and trying not to think about it was not a happening thing. The ribbon was familiar.

  “Didn’t we have an unsolved rape a few months back where the assailant tied the victim with gold ribbon?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think we got trouble.”

  Lee nodded. His already dark eyes seemed darker and his face held a grimness I didn’t often see.