Whispers of the Dead_A Special Tracking Unit Novel

by Spencer Kope

  “IBK?” he whispers near my ear.

  “The victim.” I barely breathe the words.

  Jimmy just nods.

  Mocha’s cell isn’t on our list, so I bluff my way through it. “Oh-eleven, oh-thirteen, and oh-seventeen,” I say, calling out the numbers as I point to each cell individually.

  Corey doesn’t even grunt, he just walks to each cell in turn, raps on the doorframe, and says, “Cell check. Clear the room.” Most of the inmates are already in the common area and the few that remain in the cells make a hasty exit, planting themselves at one of the tables.

  They’re all watching us, one way or another.

  It was the same on the other floors. Most have the good sense to do it on the sly, but one slack-jawed mouth-breather is seated at the end of the nearest table just staring blankly at us like a fat kid with his face pressed to the candy store window. There might even be a little drool at the corner of his mouth.

  It’s a creepy look, a Hannibal Lecter look.

  After clearing the cells and double-checking for stragglers, Corey gives the all-clear and waves us forward. He’s chuckling to himself as we approach, but tries to hide it behind his hand, pretending he’s stroking his mustache.

  “What’s so funny?” I ask.

  We’re in a crowded jail where anything can and does happen, so I’m not sure I even want to know, but in a straight-up race, my mouth frequently outruns my common sense.

  Corey hesitates, and it looks for a moment as if he’s not going to share. He tries to swallow the laugh, which goes about as well as giving a gremlin a bath. The laugh just multiplies in his mouth and spills out from behind his mustache-massaging hand. Corey gives up; his demeanor relaxes and he grins. “You have the whole jail buzzing from top to bottom,” he says. “They’re wondering what the FBI is doing checking cells on every floor. The best theory so far is that you’re checking for Al-Qaeda terrorists.”

  “What’s the worst theory?”

  He chuckles a bit louder. “Well, let’s just say some of these guys watched too many episodes of The X-Files.” He pauses, and then leans in close to Tony. “And I’m not telling which one is Mulder and which one is Scully.”

  Jimmy’s trying not to smile. “How do they know we’re checking cells on every floor?” he asks, sounding a lot like Scully.

  “Remember the inmate in the second cellblock,” he asks, “the bald banger who asked who you were, and you told him FBI?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you only have to tell one. Information moves quickly around here.”

  “How’s that even possible?” Jimmy Scully says. “They’re locked up on different floors and in different cellblocks. There’s no internal phones, no cell phones, no texting, no email, right?”

  The big guard just nods and walks into cell 013, where he taps the stainless steel bowl of the sink, and then the rim of the toilet. “It’s all low-tech, old-school jailhouse communications,” he says. “It’s kind of like sound-powered phones. They can talk from cellblock to cellblock and from floor to floor using the plumbing. They’ve been tracking your movements since you got here.”

  “Tracking?” I say. “Okay, that’s a little unsettling.”

  “Why would they even care?” Jimmy asks.

  “It’s nothing sinister,” Corey says with a shake of his head. “When you’re locked up, you have nothing but time. Any kind of diversion is embraced, and if they kill an hour or two talking to each other about the FBI agents wandering about, and pass updates as you move from cellblock to cellblock, well, that’s an hour or two less that they have to deal with the reality of incarceration.”

  Jimmy shakes his head. “Still creepy.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it is,” Corey says with a grin. “You’re good to go,” he adds, thumbing toward the open doors.

  “Three cells, three of us,” I say. “How about we split up; I’ll take oh-eleven, Jimmy can have oh-thirteen, and Tony can take oh-seventeen?” The suggestion is accepted without comment and everyone moves slowly toward their assigned cell. We’ve been here an hour already and our initial vigor is gone, sucked from us by the concrete floors, the concrete walls, and the ever-present mass of inmates sizing us up.

  Jimmy plays it perfectly, and just as he’s about to step into 013, he pauses and asks Corey if he’s a Cowboys fan. It’s almost a no-brainer, big guy like Corey who’s a native of Texas. Odds are he at least played high school ball, if not college. Of course he’s a Cowboys fan. That’s more of Jimmy’s psychology degree being put to good use.

  The ploy works.

  Corey follows Jimmy into the cell and a healthy comparison between the Dallas Cowboys and the Seattle Seahawks ensues. I’ve never been much of a sports fan, but Jimmy eats it up. Though he rarely gets to go to a game anymore, he’s got more paraphernalia than most season ticket holders.

  With Corey safely out of the way, I pop into cell 011 and find a nice spot on the inside wall where the army of surveillance cameras can’t see me. Retrieving Jimmy’s prize pen from my shirt pocket, I scratch 187 and Erlich into the wall, intentionally misspelling the judge’s name the way an inmate might.

  The 187 is just icing on the cake.

  It’s the penal code in California for homicide, and it’s widely used by gang members all over the country as a death threat against an individual or a rival gang. In this case it’s a clear death threat against Judge Ehrlich.

  Yes, I just defaced government property.

  Yes, it’s a bit juvenile.

  No, I don’t feel bad.

  These two lines scratched into the wall of an already graffiti-rich cell will get me a list of every inmate who occupied this cell in the last year and I won’t have to explain a thing; the 187 will do the talking for me.

  “Hey, Jimmy?” The words come out high-pitched, with a questioning tone. The combination instills the call with a sense of urgency. It’s a bit dramatic, but it gets the job done.

  Jimmy pops his head into the cell a moment later, with Corey trailing behind. I don’t say a word; I just draw an air-circle around the fresh graffiti. Moving close, Jimmy rubs his fingers over the graffiti and his eyes dart to the pen in my breast pocket. “Well, someone has it out for him,” he says, playing along perfectly.

  Corey crowds in to get a better look.

  He studies the markings intently before giving a knowing nod. “Guess this is what you’re looking for, isn’t it?”

  “It’s exactly what we’re looking for,” Jimmy says, snapping a photo of the graffiti with his smartphone. “How long do you think it’s been here?” he asks me. What he really means is, How long has the shine been here?

  I shrug for effect and scrunch up my mouth like I’m taking a wild guess. “Less than a year, I’d say; maybe less than six months.”

  Jimmy turns to Corey. “How hard would it be to get a printout of everyone who’s been housed in this cell in the last year, including DOB and LKA?”

  “Not hard at all; it’s all computerized. I can give you name, date of birth, last known address. I can also get you photos.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Can you also include what bunk they were in?” I ask.

  “Whatever you want,” the corrections deputy replies.

  Fifteen minutes later we’re walking out the front door of the downtown detention facility with four pages of possible matches. While we struck out on the suspect, the mocha shine in cell 011 may help us at least identify the victim.

  It’s a step in the right direction.

  Plus, I got a cool new pen; Jimmy didn’t want it back after I, as he put it, “carved up the wall.” He’s funny that way.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Over Utah—September 3, 6:47 P.M.

  Betsy’s at thirty-eight thousand feet—flight level three-eight-zero—northbound to Bellingham. It’s been just twenty-four hours since we landed in El Paso. In some ways the time has flown by, but as we make our way home, yesterday seems so far away.

  We have
n’t seen the last of El Paso; we’re just regrouping and letting the RFI do its work. With luck we’ll find the rest of Mocha’s body sitting in a morgue in a neighboring county. And with it, another chance to collect evidence, identify the remains, or even identify the scene of the crime. Right now all we have is two feet in a box.

  Jimmy is stretched out on one of the Gulfstream’s leather chairs in the fully reclined position. He looks like he’s sleeping, but I’m pretty sure he’s faking it, so I poke him in the arm.

  “Go away.” His voice is groggy; maybe he was sleeping after all.

  “I’m bored.”

  “I’m tired,” he replies.

  “I’m persistent.”

  “I’m annoyed.” He opens an eye—just one—and glares at me from his reclined position. After a moment the eye closes again and he begins to drift away.

  “Did you know there’s a tree in Florida that can kill a grown man?” I say.

  He groans and tries to roll onto his side with his back to me. “I don’t want to do Plane Talk right now, Steps. I just want to sleep. It’s been a long two days.”

  “We’ll be home in a couple hours; how much sleep can you really get?”

  “Enough. Why don’t you watch a movie or something?”

  “I’ve already seen them all; besides, I invoked Plane Talk.”

  The rules of Plane Talk are threefold: it can only be invoked while on the plane; once invoked, the other party is obligated to participate; and, most importantly, the subjects of Plane Talk should be as bizarre or unusual as possible.

  This final rule isn’t hard and fast, since we often find ourselves talking about relatively ordinary topics such as life after death, the origin of the waffle cone, and the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island.

  Jimmy’s silent, and for a moment I would swear that he’s slowly curling into a fetal position. With a loud, extended sigh, he rolls roughly onto his back and brings the chair to its full upright position. His eyes are on me, flaccid and tired.

  I give him a big smile; what he returns looks less like a smile and more like the snarl of some wild beast sizing me up for supper. “Tell me about the tree,” he growls.

  “It’s the manchineel tree,” I begin. “It’s native to parts of Florida, the Caribbean, and the Bahamas, and everything about it is poisonous.”

  “Fascinating.” The word comes out monotone, a flat rail that carries Jimmy’s voice from the end of his mouth to the tip of my ear.

  “It is,” I agree enthusiastically. “According to legend, after Juan Ponce de León returned to Florida in search of gold, he was shot in the leg with an arrow dipped in manchineel sap during a battle with the Calusa tribe. Obviously his death was long and painful.”

  “Obviously,” Jimmy says.

  Flipping to the back of my folder, I find my notes on the tree and continue. “It was also used as an early form of torture and even execution. If you stripped the shirt off someone and tied them to a manchineel tree, the physical contact was enough to cause severe burns and blisters—and eventually it would kill. That’s not even factoring in what would happen if sap fell on the poor guy’s head, especially if it rained. The whole thing’s a recipe for slow and excruciating death.”

  Jimmy’s eyes look less groggy—still irritated, but less groggy.

  “Do you want to know the worst part?”

  Jimmy just stares at me.

  “The worst part is the fruit. Supposedly, it was Christopher Columbus who named it manzanita de la muerte, or little apple of death. It actually looks like a small green apple and has a deceptively sweet smell, but if you bite into it the burning in your mouth, throat, eyes, and nose is excruciating and can last for up to eight hours. Cool, huh?”

  “Cool.” Again with the monotone.

  “Your turn.”

  He shakes his head and gives a halfhearted shrug. “I got nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I haven’t had time,” he shoots back defensively. “Whenever we’re home, Jane has me running around getting ready for the kitchen remodel. When I do have a free moment, the last thing I want to think about is researching something for Plane Talk. Sorry.”

  “That’s fine,” I say, pushing back in my seat. The cabin of the Gulfstream is silent again, so I pick absently at the sewn leather seam on the arm of my chair. Jimmy reclines again, but only halfway. He pulls a worn paperback copy of Lone Survivor from his portfolio briefcase and opens to the bookmark.

  “Can I run something by you?” I ask.

  “What?” His eyes are still tracing across the page word by word.

  “It’s about Leonardo.” That gets his attention and he looks up from his book.

  “What about him?”

  “Well, El Paso got me thinking that maybe we should put out a nationwide request for information. With the victim in West Virginia, we now have two cases linked to Leonardo that are a decade apart; maybe there are others. We don’t have DNA from either case, so there’s nothing that would have linked them together except MO and shine. It was just dumb luck that we responded to the Fairmont case; dumb luck twice, actually. First, we were wrapping up another case in Maryland when the body was found. Second, Fairmont is just ten or fifteen miles from the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services facility outside of Clarksburg. It’s just unfortunate that the victim was the niece of one of the records specialists at the facility.”

  Jimmy moves his seat back to the full upright position and drops Lone Survivor back into his briefcase. “Do you think we can describe the MO well enough without delving into shine?”

  “We can try. How many bodies are posed with the feet pointing south and the arms extended to the east and west? That’s going to sear itself into the mind of every investigator who worked the case.”

  “Without a doubt,” Jimmy agrees. “We’ve seen our share of body dumps, most of which are fast and crude. A posed body is pretty rare.”

  “Then there’s the circle he walked around both victims,” I continue. “It wasn’t a casual stroll, either; he was heel-to-toe the whole way and somehow ended up making a near-perfect circle. I think we can articulate that much, at least, without breaking from the tracking narrative.”

  “That would explain why we named him Leonardo,” Jimmy summarizes, “even without the rest of the details. That detective from Fairmont PD—”

  “Bobby Graham.”

  “He’s not going to leave us alone until we give him something. Maybe a good RFI that explains the Vitruvian Man element will do the trick.” Jimmy churns it over a moment and then nods. “I like it.” He reaches into his briefcase and pulls out his notepad and a new pen. Setting them on the table, he says, “Let’s get started.”

  “What, now?”

  “You said you were bored.” He gives me a penetrating, Vulcan-mind-meld stare as he taps the pen lightly on the table. “The more we do now, the sooner it’s out there.”

  “Okay,” I say with a sigh. “Let’s do it.”

  * * *

  Two and a half hours later Betsy rolls to a stop in the open bay of Hangar 7. As Les shuts the plane down, Marty opens the front hatch and lowers the steps. He gives a slight bow and a sweep of his arm as we exit. “Thanks for flying FB-1 airways,” he says with his typical grin. Someone once referred to the FBI as FB-1 and he thought it was hysterical; he’s never let it go.

  “Marty, set the chocks,” Les calls from the cockpit.

  The copilot sends a silent salute toward the cockpit and follows us down the stairs. Retrieving the yellow wheel chocks, he goes about the task of placing them on either side of each wheel.

  It’s a quarter after nine, but the light is on in Diane’s office and two figures stand on the balcony outside her door. As Jimmy and I make our way across the hangar floor, one of the figures hurries down the steps and rushes toward us.

  When she’s fifteen feet away, Heather breaks into a run and throws herself into my arms. Her legs wrap around my waist and she presses her lips to mine as h
er fingers run through my hair from bottom to top. When she finally comes up for air, she says just four words: “I love my letters.”

  As her lips find mine again, I see Jimmy out of the corner of my eye. His mouth is open and he’s staring in apparent shock or disgust—maybe a little of both—and shaking his head back and forth. After a minute he turns his back on us and makes for the stairs.

  I was going to throw my go-bag into the office, but Heather’s left hand has found its way inside my shirt and she’s working her way up to my chest.

  “Get a room,” Jimmy calls from the balcony. He’s leaning on the rail next to Diane and they’re both grinning like two possums hanging from the same branch.

  We make it to the parking lot.

  We make it to my car.

  We make it—well, we make it a good night.

  Tomorrow I’m buying more stationery.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Office—September 4, 11:47 A.M.

  Hangar 7 is located at the south end of Bellingham International Airport, near the general aviation hangars, but separate. It’s one of the larger hangars and has a parking lot accessible from the street. The hangar itself is built to the standards of an intelligence community SCIF—Special Compartment Information Facility—which means it has cipher locks on its heavy-gauge steel doors, an alarm system, a white-noise generator, and other features used to deny access to unauthorized individuals and prevent electronic surveillance.

  The main hangar area is occupied by Betsy, but at the back is a two-story office complex, built shortly after we took possession of the facility. The upper floor houses three offices, the largest of which is in the middle; that’s Diane’s. Jimmy and I don’t really need offices, but we have them just the same. I’m on the left of Diane, Jimmy’s on the right.

  On the lower level to the left is a large man-cave, technically designated as an employee break room. In the middle is a kitchen, and on the right is a glass-walled conference room.