The Nature of the Beast

by GM Ford

“To warn him not to use the Witness Protection identities you got for him?”If she was surprised, she didn’t let on. “Hypothetically,” was as far as she was willing to go.

  “This technical support of yours, “ Craig began. “What did it consist of?”

  “Viable identities…documentation…client research…” She hesitated again.

  Craig was on it in an instant. “I remind you that your end of our agreement was to be both truthful and inclusive. If you expect us to honor our commitment, I’d suggest you live up to yours.” An air of menace crept into the room. Spearbeck put a paternal hand on her arm. She shook it off.

  “Once I found them, I made virtual visits to the people he wanted researched,” she said.

  “Virtual?”

  “I installed Trojan codes onto their computers,” she said.

  “To what end?”

  “So I could control the computer cameras.”

  “The computer cameras?”

  The woman nodded. “Audio too. Then I re-routed the feeds to him and turned the little green lights off.” She sat back in her chair with an ‘easy as could be’ look on her face. “Most people leave their computers open,” she said. “You’d be surprised how much you can learn about people just by watching their day-to-day lives. Gives my clients a nice little edge,” she added with a smirk.

  Audrey worked to keep her jaw from dropping onto the table. She made a mental note to stow her laptop in a closet when she wasn’t using it and then swore another more heartfelt oath to never carry it into the bathroom with her again. The idea of such an easily accomplished intrusion into her private space sent a shiver rolling down her spine.

  “Anything else?” Jackson Craig asked.

  “I provided software that would tap him into the City of Chicago surveillance camera system.” She checked the shine on her fingernails. “What can I say? He’s got a thing about cameras. He thinks they’re spying on him.” She looked around the table. “Which of course, they are.”

  Audrey was incredulous. “You can do that?”

  The woman looked smug. “Piece of cake since they went wireless.”

  It went on for the better part of two hours before Craig finally sat back in his chair. “What did you imagine he did for a living?” he asked.

  The woman mulled it over. “Never really thought about it,” she said. She held up a cautionary finger. “You’ve got to understand,” she began, “ He’s not the sort of client I’d generally do business with. Given a choice, I wouldn’t get within a mile of somebody like him. Way too flaky for me.”

  “But?”

  “But, he saved my life. Technically, we were both on the hook for a murder. I mean…what was I going to do? Turn him down?”

  The interview was losing momentum. Craig sat forward in his chair. Audrey put a hand on his arm. The woman sensed the tension.

  “Besides,” she said. “Whatever he had going on was personal not professional.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “All he wanted was the Witness Protection people.”

  Again the stress level began to rise. Audrey sought to calm things down.

  “What can you tell us that might help us find him?”

  The woman thought about it. “Up until about a month ago, he always contacted me through the University of Chicago Computing Center.”

  “Do you have a record of these communications?”

  “On the Florida hard drives,” she said.

  “Which are where?” Audrey asked.

  “The bottom of Biscayne Bay,” the woman said.

  “What else?”

  She didn’t have to think about it. “That puppy’s got the weirdest sexual vibe on the planet,” she said.

  “Explain.”

  She made a self-disparaging face and nearly blushed. “I’m a cougar,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve been doing it for a long time. I’ve come on to a lot of young men and I can usually tell if they’re married or if they’re gay of if they’re just not interested.” She paused again. “I’ve come on to him a couple of times.”

  “And?”

  “He not only turned me down…” She suddenly seemed at a loss for words.

  “Gay?” Audrey asked.

  “Beyond gay, something else,” the woman said.

  Audrey frowned. “What’s beyond gay?”

  “You’d have to ask him,” the woman said.

  “What happened when he turned you down?”

  “It really pissed him off,” she said. “It was like he wanted to kill me just for asking him.”

  Another look, longer this time, passed between Craig and Williams.

  “Anything else?” Craig asked.

  “Somebody told Mr. Spearbeck a young boy was missing.”

  “And if there is?”

  “You think they’re together?”

  “And if we do?”

  “Then you better hurry.” For the first time in the interview, she allowed her veil of nonchalance to slip. “Last time I saw him…” She hesitated. “He looked to me like he was coming apart at the seams,” she said.

  35

  A flash of white out on the road tugged at his eye. He checked his watch. Since he was a little boy, he’d known the route by heart. It took Harriet Lopresi about seven minutes to get from the mailbox at the far end of the road to his box, give or take thirty seconds, depending upon how much mail she carried on any given day.

  Michael was playing his hiding game again. He couldn’t find the kid, so he figured he’d lock the gate on his way out and worry about it later. He zipped his jacket and started toward the road. He punched the code into the gate, listened for the sharp click and then pulled it open.

  The boy was quick. He’d secreted himself in the shrubbery near the gate. He darted through the opening and ran up the driveway as fast as he was able.

  He wanted to catch the boy before he got to the road, but didn’t want to appear threatening, so he merely quickened his pace. Michael stood in the spot where the driveway met the road, hopping up and down, waiting for the Postal Service Jeep.

  He paused for a moment, bent at the waist and slipped the knife from his boot and slid it up his sleeve. Just in case. No telling what the kid was going to say.

  The Jeep stopped at the mailbox. Harriet Lopresi pushed her head out the window. “This must be Michael,” she cooed.

  The boy scowled up at her, wondering how this strange woman knew his name.

  “I wanna go home,” Michael said. “I want my mom.”

  He lengthened his stride, nearly jogging now as he sought to close the distance.

  “Pooh honey,” Harriet Lopresi raised her eyes from the boy to the approaching man.

  He slid the knife down into the palm of his hand. He checked the road and found it empty. He folded his arms across his chest.

  Instead of registering horror, her watery gaze asked how much the boy knew, whether he’d been told about the car accident that claimed his parents, whether he understood about death…she wanted to be sure before she said anything.

  “He won’t take me home,” the boy said.

  “Pooh honey,” she repeated. “It’ll be all right.”

  “No,” the boy said. “I want my mom and dad.”

  Harriet turned away The better to wipe a tear from her eye as she fussed with the mound of mail until she found today’s collection of utility bills and hunting catalogues, bent in two, bound by a rubber band and handed them out the window.

  Michael stepped quickly forward. “Take me with you,” he implored. “Please. Please. Take me with you.”

  “Boohoo honey,” Harriet said again.

  “My name is Michael Browning. I live at…” He recited his address and phone number, as children are taught to do. When Harriet continued to coo, Michael grabbed the mail in both hands and ran off down the driveway without another word.

  The man stepped up close to the Jeep. Her cheap lilac perfume wafted from the window like nerve gas. He allowed
the knife to fall the rest of the way into his hand.

  “Poor little guy,” she said. “He doesn’t know does he?”

  “No,” the man stammered. “He thinks I stole him.”

  “Of course he does. What else would he think?”

  He raised his right arm, as if scratching his head. The knife slid back up his sleeve.

  “You’re doing a wonderful thing here,” Harriet assured him.

  He waved her off, thanked her for her concern and started off after Michael who, by this time, had slowed to a walk. He pulled the newspaper from the plastic tube and watched from the corner of his eye as Harriet Lopresi swung the Jeep in a wide arc and started back the other way. She tooted the horn twice and waved on her way back toward town. He smiled and waved too. That was what they did.

  Michael was waiting at the gate. He held the mail pressed against his chest.

  The man pushed the red button again. A buzz was followed by the loud snap of the lock. They walked through the gate and into the yard together.

  “Tomorrow we’ll start your lessons,” he said as they walked along.

  “What lessons?” Michael asked.

  “Learning to please.”

  “I say please,” the boy protested.

  The man smiled.

  36

  “He spends his time alone. Has no friends. Only interacts with people when he has to. Probably buys everything over the internet so he doesn’t have to go out. He’s an excellent tactician if you give him enough lead time but very unthinking if you don’t. He can focus obsessively on something as long as he has a plan to follow. We’re having trouble getting ahead of him because he’s not ahead of himself. He has no idea what he’s going to do next. He just makes it up as he goes along and, to make matters worse, it sounds as if he may be having a nervous breakdown, or something similar.”

  Bobby chuckled. “Nowadays it’s ‘a major depressive episode’,” he said.

  “There’s no profile for somebody with his kind of background,” Craig said. “Kidnapped as a child. Trained to be assassin. Sounds like some goddamn grade D Hong Kong martial arts movie.”

  When Bobby didn’t comment, Craig continued. “Which is why we need to get the public involved in this. Create a hue and cry. That’s our best chance here.”

  “What do we have?” Bobby Duggan asked pointedly.

  “We’ve got a decent composite of the suspect and a good idea of where he’s headed.”

  “Which is?”

  “Chicago. It’s what he knows. Where he’s most comfortable. We need to get the Chicago PD involved. Concentrate our efforts on the Chicago area.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

  “Is there a problem?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Not a problem, but you know, we’ve called in quite a few favors on this one already. We’ve called in resources from seven separate agencies. We’ve closed down a suburban airport. Interrupted traffic on a major Interstate highway system. It’s not like we’re going to give up on this thing, but I don’t know how many more times I can call for the cavalry and expect immediate action.”

  Craig held up a restraining hand. He understood. If he kept talking, the discussion would undoubtedly morph into talk of line items and budget codes.

  Bobby tried to look nonchalant and Southern. “Where’s your partner?” he asked.

  “Getting the composite out on the wire.”

  He made a man to man face, “I take it that Special Agent Williams is working out for you?” he said.

  Craig didn’t hesitate. “She’s a gem,” he replied. “She’s smart, intuitive, knows when to be soft, when to be hard. She’s going to be a formidable agent with a little more seasoning.” Craig wasn’t sure where Bobby was heading with this.

  “What about your end?” he asked.

  Bobby Duggan was about to detail NSA’s failure to turn up any useful data when, he suddenly held up a finger, indicating that he had a message arriving in his ear.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I’ll inquire. Thank you.”

  He sighed. “Emelda Fowles’ parents are downstairs. They’re asking for you.”

  Jackson Craig winced.

  “I can get Public Relations to handle it,” Bobby volunteered.

  “No,” Craig said. “This is on me. I’ll do it.”

  “Fourth Floor. Room 432.”

  He got to his feet and left the room. As he made his way to the elevator, Jackson Craig tried to recall the last time he’d seen Imelda’s parents, Octavio and Jovanna Madrigal. A birthday party at Gil and Emelda’s house, he thought, although he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember whose birthday was being celebrated. In those days, Craig was invited to everything. For Gil and Emelda, the idea of Jackson Craig being alone in LA on any special occasion was unthinkable. As far as they were concerned, he was part of the family. Uncle Jack. If he said no the first time they asked him, they kept asking until he either left town or changed his mind.

  He took a deep breath before pulling open the door. Octavio Madrigal looked ancient. The man Jackson Craig remembered as razor thin and peacock proud now seemed shrunken and teetering on the verge of collapse. Jovanna Madrigal was turned away from the door, strangling the life out of a lace hankie, trying to hide the anguish of what surely had to be the worst moment of her life.

  The old man got to his feet as Jackson Craig entered the room.

  “They said you were gone,” Octavio said. Over his shoulder, his wife shuddered violently and kept her face averted.

  “I’m here now,” Jackson Craig said. He crossed the room in long strides and took the old man into his arms. They wordlessly embraced.

  Octavio Madrigal had started in East L.A. , sweeping mini-mart parking lots by hand. Forty years and three strong sons had parlayed his efforts into a successful janitorial business that employed over a hundred people, a lifetime of struggle and hard work that, at this moment, with his daughter dead and two of his beloved grandchildren missing, counted for nothing. Octavio Madrigal’s American dream had faded to black.

  The old man separated himself from the embrace. “How could this happen?” he wanted to know. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll find whoever did this,” Jackson Craig promised.

  The old man took Craig’s measure and instantly believed him. His shiny black eyes were hard as rivets. He composed himself, found a sliver of his former dignity and used it straighten his spine. “The children,” he said. “What of the children?”

  “Rebecca’s fine,” Craig said. He checked his watch. “She’ll be here in Los Angeles later this afternoon. I’ll see to it that you have immediate clearance to her.”

  “Michael?”

  “We’re working on it,” was all he could think to say. “I swear…no matter what, I’ll find your grandson.”

  The manly oaths proved more than Jovanna Madrigal could bear. She turned in the seat, her eyes running over onto her cheeks.

  “Will any of your promises bring my daughter back,” she demanded. “They said we shouldn’t take her out of the box. That we shouldn’t even see her.” Her face begged Craig to tell her they were wrong. That she should wash her daughter’s body, that she should dress her and lay her out for all to see one final time.

  “Remember her as she was,” Jackson Craig said.

  His mind’s ear could still hear Herman Waldrip telling him the same thing. He could see Gilbert and Emelda, lying dead, the tree, the yards of silver duct tape, Gilbert’s staring ‘eyes’, all of it sewn into the folds of his memory forever, as if seeing them that one last time was somehow a part of the healing process and a solace about to be denied Octavio and Jovanna Madrigal.

  “I’m sorry,” Jackson Craig whispered.

  “What do we do?” Jovanna Madrigal wailed.

  “Bury your daughter.”

  A painful and protracted silence was interrupted by a gentle knock on the door. Daniel Rosen’s secretary Marlene poked her head into the room. “Special Agen
t Craig, could I speak with you for a moment please?” Jackson Craig excused himself and stepped out into the hall.

  “We have an emergency communication for you,” she said.

  “From whom?”

  “A sheriff Jennifer Parsons.”

  “I have her number,” Craig said. “Tell her I’ll get right back to her.”

  “She says it’s a matter of life and death.”

  Craig raised an eyebrow.

  “Very insistent,” Marlene added. “Very upset.”

  Craig was torn. He excused himself and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind himself. “Find out where they’re taking Rebecca Fowles. We need to get Mr. and Mrs. Madrigal there and back. Celebrity treatment. Anything they want.”

  “I understand.”

  “Make my apologies,” he said before stalking off down the hall.

  He made it all the way to the end of the corridor before he found the South Dakota number. It rang three times. “Sterling County Sheriff,” the voice said.

  “Sheriff Parsons.”

  Turned out to be a ‘no preambles’ kind of day.

  “My father’s missing,” she said immediately. “He’s not at home. I been up there. His bed hasn’t been slept in. He’s not answering his phone. His car’s gone too.”

  “Give me the tag number,” Craig said. She read it to him.

  “The state trooper was certain it was your dad who came by last night?”

  “The state trooper was sure it was his car that came by,” she corrected. “He didn’t stop to talk with the trooper and I’m telling you Special Agent Craig…” She nearly lost her composure. “…I’m tellin’ you that’s not like my dad. He really misses being on the job. Any chance he gets to shoot the breeze about police work, he takes it. He’ll talk your damn ear off.”

  “I’ll get the tag number out,” Jackson Craig promised.

  37

  She’d already cried. The sound of the door drew her bloodshot eyes his way. One side of her face was scraped raw and beginning to scab over. Her right arm was in a sling, her left a mass of tape and plastic tubes.

  “Hey,” he said as he crossed to the bedside.

  She studied his face for a moment. “I remember you,” she said.