“No, but I know his life was interrupted a couple of times. No surprises, then?”
“Just one. Our computer expert, the undersheriff from Bidwell County, David Hayes. He’s more than an expert. He’s a superb hacker. He was hired by the government to help break some coding used by a white collar crime team.” Josie passed around her report on the team, then reached for Tosca who was waiting patiently for access to her lap.
“Hacker?” said Harold. “That’s ominous. Means he doesn’t mind going to the dark side.”
“Well, he didn’t.” Josie looked at him curiously. “Go to the dark side.”
“He did,” Harold rose abruptly, his hands extended like he was on the verge of making a speech. We couldn’t take our eyes off of him. Then snapped his pencil in half. “He did go to the dark side. Or the government wouldn’t have enlisted him. I’ll bet my supper they offered him some kind of plea for his assistance and that’s why he doesn’t have some kind of a record.”
“But he’s good?” Unnerved by Harold’s tension, I made another note. “He’ll be able to do whatever we need him to do?”
“Oh, yes. He’s goddamn good. You can bet on that.”
“So, about the autopsy report. That was your bailiwick, Harold. Did something jump out at you?”
“No. Except there wasn’t a trace of any kind of drug in the baby’s body. The killer didn’t even have enough compassion to put the little girl asleep before he put her in the arms of Reaching Woman. Cruel son of a bitch,” he said softly. “The Suter kid’s death was pretty clear-cut. A handgun at close range. Hollow point bullets. Can’t get any deadlier than that.”
“Do you think Suter showing up took the bastard by surprise?” Sam asked.
Harold began to pace as he jingled some coins in his pocket. “No, I don’t. Why would Suter be there if someone didn’t coax him to come? Or threaten him. Merilee Suter said Brent got a phone call before he left and he seemed excited. I want to know who called him. And why.”
“Any recommendations, Harold? For proceeding?”
“None.”
“Keith, you haven’t said a word. Did you learn anything new at the Suters?”
“Like why anyone would want to kill Brent? No, the only thing that’s changed is that no one in the family is holding anything back. So that leaves all of us racking our brains for a motive.”
He glanced at Dorothy and then at the report in his hands. “Under the ‘suggestions for proceeding’ category that Lottie keeps prodding us to come up with. Our first job should be to find the crime scene.”
“It’s the Garden of Eden,” I blurted.
“Only Brent. He was killed there. I’m talking about the baby. Not the one in the Garden of Eden. The one before that. The Blue Light Baby. Were there others? Killed by a different method? Dorothy has done a lot of investigation. There were no reports of a pregnant woman missing around Kansas. Did he snatch the mother from another state? Did he cross state lines? If so, it’s a federal crime and we can call in some really heavy guns whenever we wish.”
“No. That’s not going to happen.” I slapped his report down on the table. “We can do this. Local investigation is more effective. We can tap sources that are closed to the KBI. We know our own communities. Every person. Every rock and tree.”
“Okay, then where is the mother? Is she alive or is she dead? Is she the only one? How can we find a killer if we can’t even find the mother?”
No one said a word.
He spread his fingers wide apart and studied them as though there were an answer there somewhere. “I went to the Suters’ to see if I could learn something about their son that might help us. Pat and Ernie hung on every word I said. Trying to reassure them sucked.” He punched his fist into his palm. “I’m not putting any of you down, but we’re simply not getting anywhere.”
I looked around at their faces. Clearly everyone agreed with my husband. I drew a deep breath. I had to act fast. Just two more days before the total task force would gather. We couldn’t bring this attitude into the meeting.
“Okay, point taken, Keith. But if we aren’t true believers in our ability to find this killer you can bet no one else will be either.”
There was a subtle sigh of relief that I wasn’t offended. “Anyone else care to share your reservations with the group?”
No one spoke.
“Okay, I want to meet with each of you individually. Keith, you first.” They started shoving back their chairs.
He waited in our bedroom. His shoulders were squared and his strong legs braced. We were both spoiling for a fight. My fists were clenched against my thighs. I tore right into him. “What’s up, Keith? ‘Not getting anywhere?’ Seriously? You haven’t even given me a week? Were you expecting clues sprinkled like bread crumbs? You knew when you were deputized this was going to be hard.”
“The Suters is ‘what’s up.’” He looked at me with his troubling sharp-eyed way. Willing me to understand. “We’ve got to get up to speed fast. That family is broken. They will never be the same. I’m going to find the bastard that did this if it’s the last thing I do. By whatever means it takes.”
Whatever more he had to say I didn’t want to hear it. I knew that look; unswerving, barely controlled tension pulsing at the base of his rock-hard jaw, teeth clamped. I knew what he meant by “whatever means it takes.” He intended to step outside the law if it was necessary. The law as it is written, that is.
He is a very moral man with a strong sense of right and wrong. Thank God he is a thinker too. If it weren’t for his compassion he would be unbearable and a righteous zealot. Keith’s as fair as they come, but he has an unwavering sense of justice. And to him natural law as it is written on the human heart trumped the regulations written on paper.
Once he had retrieved a kid’s 4-H calf that had “strayed” into his neighbor’s pasture. He blatantly drove into the man’s farmstead without so much as a wave to the astonished farmer, loaded the calf onto the pickup, and drove right back out. Wordless confrontation. No need to involve the law.
We’ve both sworn the same oaths. Bound to the same standard. I intended to adhere to it and play by the book. He wouldn’t hesitate to burn the book if it was necessary.
I splayed my fingers across my face and closed my eyes against the memory of the many, many incidents when he’d decided there was ‘no need to involve the law.’ Justice was clear-cut.
I pretended I misunderstood his intentions. “Of course. We will all do whatever it takes to find this monster. We all will do our best. Did you think we wouldn’t?”
Barely able to contain my fury I turned and headed for the stairs.
He called after me. “Lottie, I owe the group an apology. I was out of line to challenge you during a meeting.”
“Sorry won’t restore the damage your doubts did.”
“I’ll do what I can do to make…”
I paused on the landing. “Harold is next. We need to keep things moving.”
Chapter Twelve
Harold came up to the loft five minutes later. His face was red like he had been outdoors during the time I talked with Keith.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked bluntly. “Something is. You looked like you wanted to say more during the meeting.”
“Keith has a point, Lottie. This whole investigation is a bunch of crap.”
I stiffened. Him too?
“This whole setup is a farce.” Harold didn’t take his eyes off my face. “You don’t have a thing to work with. I want to know who is responsible and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. At warp speed.”
It’s hard to look professional when you’ve been slapped down hard. Even Ferguson had commented on the lack of resources at the first meeting. “No one, I mean no one, would block us from catching this monster.”
“Would Dimon?”
“
No way. I know that man.”
Harold walked to the window and jingled the coins in his pocket while he stared at the snow. Drew out a quarter and tossed it into the air. Caught it and repeated this action a couple of times before he returned to the table, braced his arms and leaned forward while he gazed at me intently.
“We’re talking about a son of a bitch who freezes little babies to death. You’ve been thrown into a major atypical case without one bit of training. You don’t know a goddamn thing about crime scene investigation. Or interrogation. Or even conducting a decent law enforcement meeting.”
“What was wrong with the meeting?”
“It was far too informal. Too much discussion. All those written reports weren’t necessary. Don’t encourage hunches and impressions. Emphasize hard evidence. Anything else will screw you up. Task force meetings can’t be show and tell. You have to lead.”
I felt for a strand of loose hair straying from my French roll and tucked it back while I organized my rebuttal. “The whole point of creating a regional center, Harold, is because no one, and I mean virtually no one on the local level, has had any training out here. Not in investigation or interrogation techniques. And I conduct perfectly adequate meetings when I’m dealing with issues I know something about.”
“That’s just it. You don’t know what you are doing. In fact, even I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m glad the whole team wasn’t here today.”
I said nothing while my mind raced. Keith, Harold, how many others thought this regional team wasn’t up to the job?
“No offense intended.” He paused long enough to look at me to see how I was taking it, then didn’t bother to soften his words. “But case in point, much as I love this setting it’s not even remotely appropriate.”
“But we have more equipment than anywhere else in the county except for the historical society.”
“That may be, but no one is going to take a meeting seriously that takes place around the kitchen table like we are discussing a killer over a hand of bridge.”
“Harold, driving clear to Hays is a waste of time. The facilities there are terrible. The equipment here at Fienes’ farm is far superior.”
“Then let’s bring the sheriff’s office up to snuff right away and bypass the state.”
“Seriously?”
“You bet. I’m going to call in a few chips.”
“We need to let everyone know you were trained at Quantico and were a regional agent in charge.”
“No, don’t. Not yet. There’s something funny going on. It’s almost as though someone wants you to fall flat on your face.”
My stomach lurched. Dimon and I quarreled a lot but he was a good man. A decent human being. Certainly, I knew he wanted the regional facility under state control. Would love to see me back in my ivory tower. Where I belonged. Writing academic papers.
Dimon would put finding the Ghost Baby Killer first. Above everything else. I took a deep breath. First how? Was he actually working the crime from Topeka? Had the regional center been cut off and disposed of like an unseemly growth?
I put my suspicions aside and focused on Harold. I had to proceed as though everything was up to me. “What do you have in mind?”
“Postpone the team meeting until Friday. In the meantime, you need to figure out the next step for everyone on this task force. While you are taking care of that I’ll import a team of experts who specialize in setting up technology systems. They’ll work around the clock. Where will the new regional building be located?”
“About a half mile from the sheriff’s office. Right on the outskirts of town. But for now, there is a huge room in back of Sam’s office. We use it for storage. Some old evidence files. Old artifacts from the local museum. Banners for the harvest parade. Stuff like that. It’s drafty with no heat. We could use it for whatever you have in mind.”
“In short, you live in a very peaceful no-event county.”
“Yes, until recent years, and then all hell broke loose.”
Sam would be put out over having his office disrupted. It was like pulling hen’s teeth to get him to agree to any change.
“I need your permission to make this official. You’re the regional director. I can’t just waltz in and make county property into a tech paradise unless you say so.” Having made his case, Harold stood in total silence watching my face.
I was not unnerved. I had used silence as a tool plenty of times myself.
But I needed a ten-minute break to think. The key word was “county property.” People donated stuff all the time, I reasoned, and we didn’t need to get the commissioners’ permission to put small stuff to use. A microwave here, an office chair there. The last time the office had been painted both the supplies and labor were kicked in by the local lumber yard. The same reasoning should apply to a large contribution to a regional setup.
My gut took over. No one had the authority to take this investigation away from me, and letting Harold intervene to this extent could be viewed as a sign of weakness. Or intelligence. Hard telling. People skew facts to support their opinions.
A gust of wind rattled the window. I shivered. Face it, face it, face it. As Harold pointed out, we were up against a stone-cold monster who froze little babies to death. I didn’t have enough expertise. Or equipment
I’m not a fool. My job was to catch a killer by whatever means possible.
Besides, Harold was FBI, KBI, a by-the-book man at heart—retired or not—and I could only screw up so much before he blew the whistle on me. I trusted him, but bottom line, he would do the right thing. Make a call to Dimon. Put a stop to too much blundering. I didn’t know whether to be furious or grateful. I could only go on one thing right now. He made sense. He was telling me the appearance of ineptness would so affect the troop’s cooperation that he didn’t dare let it go any further. The kitchen table approach was impossibly amateurish.
“Okay. Set up any and everything you think is necessary at the sheriff’s office.”
“And Sam? Can you square this with Sam?”
“I can tickle him into it. It will take some talking.”
He smiled.
“I want the men to know more about your credentials, Harold. You can certainly take a more active role at meetings.”
He shook his head. “No way. It’s imperative that I stay in the background. I have already been tagged as FBI. Everyone knows Josie. She’s a rising star in the forensic field. But the good ol’ boys out here think she’s too fancy to be taken seriously. Lucky for us, I’m just known as a harmless little old worker drone who’s become a criminal justice professor after I retired.”
Surprised, I looked at him. You mean he wasn’t? Just who was this man?
“The team I have in mind will oversee the physical remodeling of the room so it’s comfortable and functional.”
“Oh, no way in hell. You can be in charge of technology installation, but that’s where I draw the line. I want wood laminate floors that won’t absorb spills. Enamel paint that’s stain-proof.” My list went on. It included a decent coffee pot.
“Done,” he grinned. “Then you are going to get some fast training on running a law enforcement meeting.”
“No. I’m not giving an inch on that. I want written reports that include hunches and impressions. Facts are only a small part of any story.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I’m telling you, it’s unprofessional and a waste of time. You need an iron fist. Order. Hierarchy.”
“I agree on hierarchy and order. But I’m not giving one inch on the composition of reports. Just the facts, ma’am, are what I relay to Dimon. And look where that’s gotten him! The most important information is that Merilee Suter is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and we don’t know why for sure. But that’s an observation. A hunch. Not a fact. So Dimon doesn’t want to hear it. We think the call Brent got had to do wit
h his old girlfriend. But we don’t know that for a fact. It’s based on intuition. So Dimon doesn’t want to hear that either.”
He listened.
I was just getting started. “And don’t tell me how reports should go. I don’t care how they’re done back East. I blended historical research techniques with criminal databases to solve the Herbert Swenson case. A cold case. Dead over fifty years. My format stays. History plus mystery.”
He said nothing.
“But the farm goes. Point taken.”
“Okay.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “Facts, and hunches, and impressions, and old wives’ tales. All thrown into the same pot.”
“And gossip and family myths. We’ll sort it out later.”
“Okay.”
“Think about it, Harold. I’m not sprinkling fairy dust. It’s no different than a tip line when a police station is working a major crime. You sort through a lot of junk. Crank calls.”
“I said okay. You win. Call a meeting of the team for Friday morning. By that time Sam and you won’t believe what can be installed for communications. It will make what you have now on a par with smoke signals.”
“In the meantime, I want Josie to keep on checking up on the team members. I know she doesn’t like Dr. Ferguson.”
“I’m going to check him out as far as I can go. The military can be damned funny when it comes to releasing information. But he’s not the one that concerns me. I want to know more about our boy genius before we turn him loose.
“David Hayes?”
“Yes. Our computer expert.”
“And when do we start to work? On the building?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll be there. And so will David.”
“That’s not necessary.’
I shot him a look. I had picked up a few tricks from Dorothy.
***
That evening I left everyone to their own devices. I went down to the basement and slipped a martial arts training disc into the media player. I did some basic stretches and flexed my shoulders and went into a few preliminary punches. Back straight, fists up, I lifted my right knee and snapped off a quick kick. I alternated legs executing jump-snap kicks, then paused long enough to wipe the sweat from my brow.
Fractured Families Page 12