by Ben Miller
“Hi, there,” Toussant greeted, smiling.
Jack turned his focus to Toussant and returned the smile. “Hi. Are you the store owner?”
Toussant smiled proudly. “Owner and photographer.”
Jack nodded. “Then you must be Shawn Toussant,” he announced confidently, his smile fading.
Toussant appeared surprised. “Yes,” he said with a lift in his voice, almost like a question.
Just as represented in Hollywood, Jack reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and brought out his badge, flipping it open in one agile move. “I’m Special Agent Jackson Byrne of the FBI.” Toussant looked at the badge, actually taking a moment to inspect it. Like you would be able to spot a fake, Jack thought, but did not say aloud. Toussant turned his attention back to Jack, who flipped his badge closed and placed it back into his pocket. He didn’t speak for a few seconds, hoping Toussant might say or do something the least bit incriminating.
“OK…” Toussant said unsteadily. “What can I do for you, Special Agent…sir.” Jack thought that he wanted to complete the phrase, but had forgotten his name. It happened all the time.
“Byrne. Is it OK if I ask you a few questions?” Jack let his stiff demeanor soften a bit.
“Sure,” Toussant replied.
“Are you expecting any clients?”
Toussant looked down at his appointment book in front of him. “Not until 3:30 today.”
“Oh, I don’t plan on taking that long,” Jack said, his smile returning.
“OK. Should we sit down?” Toussant gestured toward the area behind Jack, a section of the room opposite the counter. This area obviously served as Toussant’s studio. Two beautifully upholstered arm chairs sat at an obtuse angle to one another, a warm lavender backdrop behind them. Opposite the chairs stood a tripod, barren at the top—Jack assumed that Toussant chose to not leave his (likely expensive) camera out in the open—and several light stands, none of which were currently turned on. Neatly leaning against the opposite wall lay a stack of screens of various shapes and sizes.
“Sure,” Jack replied. He turned his back on Toussant and walked over to take his seat in the far chair, positioned with its back toward the corner of the entire room, so that he could see the whole room from his vantage point. He shifted his position in the chair a couple of times, trying to find a comfortable spot in the lumpy cushion. For such a fine-looking chair, Jack found it surprisingly uncomfortable. Toussant sat himself in the other chair and looked at Jack expectantly. Jack noticed Toussant’s calm demeanor, hardly that of a criminal sitting down to talk with the FBI.
“I am investigating a series of crimes over the last several weeks, and I’m hoping that you can help me,” Jack began.
“Um, OK. I’m happy to help if I can.” Toussant remained upbeat, as if he felt excitement over assisting the FBI in an investigation.
“Can I ask… Where were you on Saturday?”
“This past Saturday?”
“Yes,” Jack confirmed.
“I had a wedding. I spent the morning at the bride’s house, taking photos of her getting ready with her bridesmaids. The ceremony was at St. Luke’s, just over in Montclair, and the reception was at a hotel downtown.”
Montclair was about ten miles southwest of Lake Ridge, and a good sixty miles east of Front Royal. “So what time did you get to the bride’s house, and what time did you leave the reception?”
Toussant tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. Apparently this position helped his memory function. “I got to the bride’s house around…10:30 that morning, and I left the reception around 8:30 or 8:45 that night.”
“Were there any breaks during the day, a gap between the ceremony and the reception?” Jack knew it would take at least two hours round trip to get from Montclair to Front Royal. His suspicion that Toussant had direct involvement with Danielle Coulter’s murder on Saturday began to fade quickly.
“Yeah, but I was working the whole time. We had about an hour and a half between the ceremony and the reception, and that’s when I took the formal wedding photos.”
Jack nodded. Toussant had not been in Front Royal on Saturday. He would later make sure to obtain more information to verify this alibi, but he knew that too many people could confirm it to make it false. No one makes up a fake alibi that involves a couple hundred people.
“What happened on Saturday?” Toussant asked.
Jack found this a very reasonable question, but he did not want to answer it yet. “I’m sorry, I’ll get to that. Tell me a little more about your business. When did you open?”
Toussant seemed a little annoyed that Jack evaded his previous question, but he remained cool. “Uh… I got the lease on this place about eight months ago, in October last year. It needed some renovations, which I mostly did myself. I opened in January.”
“Uh-huh. And what had you done before that?”
“I’ve been a professional photographer for the last thirteen years, but I just worked out of my home. Business had been pretty good, but I wanted it to grow more, to include some studio work.”
“And do you have any employees here, or any business partners?”
Toussant shook his head. “No. My wife helps out on the weekends with big events. She worked the wedding with me this past Saturday. She’s never had any formal training, but she’s a pretty great photographer in her own right. But as far as employees, none. And no investors or partners. Just me.”
Jack nodded again. For the first time, he began to think that this Family Snapshot angle might turn out to be a dead end. However, he felt that he had developed enough rapport with Toussant to ask a couple more questions. “How did you come up with the name for your studio?”
Toussant opened his mouth reflexively to answer, and then shut it. He had not expected this question. “Uh… It was actually my neighbor’s idea. I was going to call it ‘Toussant Photography,’ you know, something real straight-forward.”
“Your neighbor?” Jack had driven by Toussant’s house this morning. Had he driven by the home of the Playground Predator as well?
“Yeah. I was in here working on my renovations one afternoon—I hadn’t been in more than a few weeks—when one of the docs from next door stopped in to welcome me to the neighborhood.”
A light went off in Jack’s head, but he didn’t yet know what it illuminated. “Your neighbor here?” He jerked his thumb toward the wall behind him, the wall separating Family Snapshot from the doctors’ office next door. “One of the allergists?”
“Yeah. To be honest I’m not sure which one. He came over, we chatted for a while, and he asked me about the name of my place. When I told him, he didn’t like it. I mean, I couldn’t care less what he thought, you know? But when he suggested Family Snapshot, I kind of loved it. So, I used it.”
“Did he say why? Why he liked that name better?” Jack’s speech became pressured.
“No. He left shortly after that. But every time I ran into him during the renovation, he would just look at me, point, and say ‘Family Snapshot. Think about it.’ When I put the sign in, he came by and looked at me with this… pride, like he had accomplished something. He didn’t say anything, he just smiled. Proudly. It seemed a little weird at the time, actually.”
Jack stood up quickly. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Toussant,” he said, then began moving quickly toward the front door.
“Sure. Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Toussant asked, but Jack did not answer. He had already passed through the front door.
70
“Yep,” Dante McClendon said aloud, despite sitting alone in the small dark room. He spent so much time alone on the job that he didn’t feel the need to defend the fact that he sometimes talked to himself. He held the photo up to the video screen in front of him, comparing the two one final time. “Yep, that’s him.”
Dante had worked as the security guard for the Hilltop Shopping plaza—a misnomer in his mind, as it sat on a mere swell on an ot
herwise flat stretch of road—for the past three years. He had never taken his job too seriously—just seriously enough, his father would have said—until two months ago. That’s when the man who introduced himself as Randall approached him with an odd proposition. Randall said that he worked at one of the shops in Hilltop—Dante couldn’t remember which one—and he needed help finding some former customers who owed him money. Debt collection agencies would only waste his time and money, he said. He offered Dante a deal almost too good to be true: man the security cameras at Hilltop during all business hours, even on the days that Dante wasn’t scheduled to work. Randall would supply Dante with five numbered photographs of these offenders. If he ever saw any of these five people, Dante needed to call Randall right away. In return, Randall paid him $500 per week, plus a bonus of $5000 if he ever fingered one of the debtors. If he identified all five in the next year, Randall offered an additional “job-completion bonus” of $10,000. Seeing that the weekly $500 cash—under the table, no taxes—would basically double Dante’s current earnings, not to mention the bonuses—up to $35,000, Dante had done the math!— he jumped on the deal right away.
Since then he devoted himself to this task. Every Friday Randall dropped off an envelope filled with $500 cash, just as promised. Then last week Dante spotted a woman in one of the photographs. He called Randall right away, but he didn’t answer. He left a voicemail, as instructed, along with the time, exact location, and the number “2,” which identified the woman from the numbered photographs. He didn’t receive a return phone call from Randall, but the next day an envelope awaited him at work with $5000 in it. Since then Dante set himself to Randall’s task with even more diligence.
“Yep, yep, yep,” Dante said aloud again. “That’s number one, comin’ out the photographer’s place.” He grabbed his cell phone and dialed Randall’s number. Had he had any idea about the chain of events that phone call would spark, he probably would not have dialed. Probably not. It was $5000, after all.
71
Jack pushed through the glass door with “Lake Ridge Pediatric Allergy Specialists” painted neatly across the top. Underneath it read, it italics: “Specializing in Asthma, Allergies, and Immunology. J.R. Franklin, MD and F.A. Panigrahy, MD.” When the door opened, Jack heard a pleasant two-tone chime go off from inside the office. He let the door swing closed behind him as he approached the front desk.
“Good afternoon!” The bubbly receptionist April greeted Jack from behind the desk. Her enthusiasm for sitting in a swivel chair all day took Jack aback.
“Hi.” Jack put both of his palms on top of the reception counter and looked the receptionist square in the eye. “Is Dr. Franklin in?”
April shook her head demonstratively. “He’s not in today. If you tell me your name and the nature of your business, I can pass on a message. I will tell you, though, that we do not accept solicitors, and Dr. Franklin frowns upon meeting with pharmaceutical reps. Now, Dr. Panigrahy, on the other hand…”
Jack interrupted her by pulling his badge out of his suit pocket. “I’m Jack Byrne, FBI. Do you know where Dr. Franklin is?”
April looked at his badge and then up at Jack’s face with a ray of recognition. “You’re Jonah’s father!”
“Yes.” Jack forced a smile. He realized that, despite his enormous sense of urgency, he may need to utilize some patience with this pleasant but seemingly somewhat ditzy young woman. “Is Dr. Panigrahy in?”
“He is, but he’s with a patient right now. Would you like to wait for him?”
Jack thought for a second. “I would. Do you know where Dr. Franklin is?” he repeated.
April shook her head. “He’s off this week. He called in yesterday morning and said he was taking the week off. Made for a lot of work for me, having to call all of his patients to reschedule. I’m not sure where he is.” She leaned forward in her chair, lowered her voice a little. “He’s been calling off a lot lately, to be honest with you, Mr. Byrne.”
Jack could feel the puzzle pieces coming together. He could begin to see the image. His gut knew what it would show, but it remained a bit fuzzy in his mind. “Is that right?” he replied, looking around the room.
“Yep,” April answered. “You can have a seat right here and I’ll let Dr. Panigrahy’s nurse know that you’re waiting to see him.” April spun around in her chair and got up, proceeding through a door to the hallway on the right.
Jack nodded, but didn’t move. He continued to survey the room, thinking that within those four walls he might find the right lens to sharpen his focus on his mental image. Several framed posters hung on the wall around the waiting room and reception area. Jack could easily divide them into two categories: about half of them depicted beautifully painted landscapes, the other half offered information about various disease processes, such as a poster with “ASTHMA” printed across the top and an artist’s rendering of the inside of an asthmatic’s lungs. On the wall behind April hung various certificates in plain black frames. A few personal photographs also joined the decorations on this wall. Jack recognized J.R. with a handsome Indian man—presumably Dr. Panigrahy—their arms over each other’s shoulders, each holding an end of a plaque in the middle of them. To the left was a photo of a large Indian family, with the same Indian man in the middle with an attractive Indian woman. On the right was a photo of J.R. with a woman and two small girls, all wearing Mickey Mouse ears and standing in front of the Magic Kingdom. Their beaming smiles exuded glee, an emotion Jack never saw in J.R. back in high school.
April came back from the exam room hallway. “Dr. Panigrahy will be with you in a few moments. Again, you’re welcome to take a seat over here.” She indicated the waiting room with her hand as she walked back behind the desk and sat in her chair.
Again Jack ignored her offer. He pointed to that photo on the far right. “Is that Dr. Franklin? And his family?”
April looked over her shoulder at the photo, then back at Jack. Her bottom lip curled out in an obvious frown. “Yeah.”
Her response surprised Jack. “Why the sad face?”
“Aw.” April took in a deep breath and blew it up into her face, as if trying to dry her eyes. She spun around in her chair and pointed at the photo, to the younger of the two girls. “She… um… passed away recently.”
All of the blood drained out of Jack’s face. “What? When?”
“Oh… about eight months ago now. She had a sudden asthma attack and just stopped breathing. Dr. Franklin tried to resuscitate her, and they tried for hours at the hospital, but… she died. It was horrible.” April’s voice began to crack with that last sentence. “What an awful, tragic irony, huh? The asthma specialist’s daughter dies from an asthma attack.”
Jack nodded, speechless.
April shook her head as she grabbed a tissue from the cardboard dispenser on her desk. She dabbed the moist corners of her eyes. “Poor little Lily…”
72
Reilly broke into a light jog from his previous brisk walk. Harringer had called him moments before: Jack had broken the case. He had a very strong suspicion on a suspect. He had a home address. Reilly ran across the Quantico complex to get to his car. Harringer would call local police in Lake Ridge and Prince William County to organize local support. Jack was en route to the suspect’s house. Harringer wanted Reilly to assist in the local inspection of the suspect’s house, hopefully leading to an apprehension.
Assist.
He knew he didn’t have time to get upset. But Fucking Jack Byrne! Or Jackson Fucking Byrne, in the words of Amy Coulter. Reilly has lived and breathed this case for the last ten days; Jack jumps on it for thirty hours and he’s got it solved. While he wanted nothing more than to catch this killer, he wanted to solve the case. Not Jack the fucking superstar, who days earlier had gracefully bowed out of his job in the Bureau to become a fucking politician. What the fuck.
In his haste to get to the scene, and distracted by his anger, Reilly didn’t call Corinne to update her on the information.
When it briefly crossed his mind as he climbed into the driver’s seat, he decided against it. A part of him wanted to hold out hope that Jack had made a mistake, that his lead would turn into nothing. Another part of him, perhaps the more prudent part, didn’t want Corinne to see him so spiteful. Little did he know at the time—but would later find out—that, if he did express his feelings to Corinne, she would share his disdain for the thunder-stealing Jackson Byrne.
73
Jack rolled two small pieces of stone around in the palm of his hand. He crouched on the curb beside his car, parked across the street from J.R Franklin’s house. Harringer had told him to wait for Reilly and the local PD to show up before proceeding into the house. He had tried to sit in his car but couldn’t; he had too much energy. He wanted to pace, but he didn’t want Franklin to spot him, to tip him off in any way. So he crouched, sifting loose pieces of gravel in his hands.
James, he thought, recalling his difficulty in remembering Franklin’s first name last week when he and Vicki talked about him. “James Randall Franklin” his medical school diploma had read on the office wall. He never remembered calling him James. All he could remember was J.R. Had he always been a sociopath? Jack didn’t know. Jack always found him weird and a little aloof, but not crazy. Perhaps the death of a child can break someone, just totally shatter them into something else entirely.
He didn’t know the answer, but he became acutely aware that the escalating tension in his body wouldn’t allow him to crouch here any longer. He stood up and strode across the street. He placed his right hand on his hip, checking to ensure that his sidearm still rested there, though he clearly remembered putting it there moments before. Force of habit.
The Franklin home, a large, two-story wood-framed Colonial replete with columns in the front porch and a clichéd white picket fence across the front, sat about twenty yards back from the street. The yard and landscaping held promise, but it appeared in a state of disrepair: the grass looked as if it hadn’t been mowed all spring, the hedges had shabby green haphazard sprouts in all directions, weeds outnumbered the flowers in the mulch-less flower beds inside the fence. A detached garage sat at the end of the driveway to the right of the house. Jack peered back the driveway and did not see any cars there. In order to gather information about possible escape modes for Franklin, he wanted to go back and look inside the garage, to see if any cars sat in there. If he did, though, he would risk getting spotted from the house, perhaps tipping off Franklin to go running out the front door. He decided to approach the front door, but keep his eyes peeled and ears pricked for any car engines starting up. He thought he could move fast enough off of the front porch to stop a car coming down the driveway.