by I.B. Holder
Chapter 35 His Call
It was time for the second call, although Legacy didn’t know it yet. Wagner entered the office. A telltale sweat ring on the outer curve of her ear told Legacy that she’d been on the phone most of the afternoon. “Never mind” he thought, as he shifted his eyes back toward the desk, where written transcripts of all of the videos were laid out haphazardly. He scanned several threads at once, but he kept coming back to one place in the tape.
Legacy’s proximity alert went off. He looked up and was face to face with Wagner.
Inches away from him, a frown came to her lips.
Wagner leaned over to his desk phone, picked it up and put it to his ear. “I had the call transferred to your line.”
Agent Tanner was on the line. “Hello, Tanner here.”
Legacy replied, “This is Legacy.”
“Agent Wagner contacted me.”
“Good.”
An inevitable war of male declaratives was cut short when Wagner joined the conversation and guided them to a topic, to the topic. Tanner had received an email through an alumni website purporting to have a prom queen from his high school class on video at Camp Sex. The “camp” was described as a two-week military style course in which young ladies learn basic sex training. The men all wore uniforms and ski masks.
“It was almost six months ago, I deleted the email, but I recognized the girl, she sat next to me in history.” Tanner thought for a moment, “Her name was Darci.”
Wagner cut in, “As soon as you have a contact number for her or her family call my cell.”
Tanner replied, “Will do, agent.”
Wagner put down the receiver then held up one finger for a moment of silent appreciation, then began. “That fits the profile. This could be our girl. But wait there’s more. I got into thinking about Blue and his faulty equipment.”
She paced in front of the desk, almost strutting.
“Little boy Blue has got a personal problem. But, if our boy were as thorough as you say he is, he wouldn’t leave a paper trail. Where does that lead us? I found three ED clinics that have had fires that destroyed records in the last four years.”
Legacy replied, “That’s a lot less calls.”
Wagner said “We’ve got a lead on Darci, now we might be able to pin down an area that Blue considers home territory. Good day.”
Wagner pushed her fingers together in an interlocking pose, it was like she’d just finished a virtuoso performance at Lincoln Center and awaited the appreciation of the gallery.
“And?” Legacy had obviously thought that it was just the first movement.
“What do you mean and? That’s it.”
“We haven’t gotten into Blue’s head, and for that matter Laura’s head – what you did is good, but trails have a habit of going cold around this group, I won’t feel comfortable until we’re a step in front of them. I keep coming back to the fact that Laura’s trying to tell us something.” Legacy responded.
“I’m yours all night long-”
Legacy looked up, and in the deeply uncomfortable pause that followed, he wondered if Tyke was right and he really was completely irresistible to women. Wagner’s cheeks went red, then her blood ran from her exterior like the tide sweeping back leaving an impression on the sand, and then her face went suddenly pale. “I meant- “ She stumbled “that we should start with dinner first, early, I’ll cook.” Legacy raised an eyebrow as she backed into the corner. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
“You’re asking me to dinner, then you’re mine all night long? How could I get the wrong impression?” Wagner couldn’t hide her amusement nor could she easily suppress a laugh. Luckily for anyone in earshot a laugh rang out. The quality was so pure and so genuine that Legacy wished for a moment he had it on tape, the tone was no less inspiring nor less rare than those beautiful oases of music in his collection.
Wagner looked at his towering frame, his short cropped hair that tucked down around his temples, giving his face an angular symmetric feel. “I am not attracted to you whatsoever.” She added like it was part of a punch line of another hilarious joke. Her laughter was infectious; it brought a smile to Legacy’s face.
“Your smile needs practice.” Legacy met her eyes for a few uncomfortable moments, then she searched for something to say and found only name that could kill the mood.
“I have to drop my temporary assignment papers by Bailey’s office.”
Legacy watched Wagner move for the door, stumbling halfway there and sending a rolling chair scuttling along the floor in her search for balance. “First time walking.” She explained, re-tucking her shirt, smoothing it around her hips, and backing toward the door.
Wagner was deceiving him, that much was obvious.
Legacy could tell something was wrong, but fortunately for Wagner, the earlier conversation with Tyke had brought a series of emotional connections into his mind that threw off his normal ability to peel off the layers and understand the real meaning behind off-hand remarks. Because of Tyke, he thought the display of nervousness could be a discomfort due to the proximity of his overpowering, newly reported charisma.
The thought made him shake his head in an effort to clear the image from his mind, like an etch-a-sketch. It didn’t work, he was going to have to try not to look her in the eyes and analyze her anymore. He wasn’t sure exactly why, but perhaps it was out of respect, or perhaps he knew, even then, that he didn’t want to know. There were only a few people that he gave that kind of privacy to, his deceased wife, his daughter, his tax preparer, and anyone who he counted as a friend, a vastly under-populated category, he admitted internally. That must be where Wagner fit in.
He reached across his desk to the phone. He had to call Chess and let her know that there’d be company for dinner. Legacy dialed knowing that three calls in one day was a personal record, but he also couldn’t contain a little excitement, he knew the trail was getting warm.
Legacy remembered once explaining to Wilkes the kind of logic his mind formulated to figure out what would happen next with a given criminal fixed to a certain crime. He explained that reading behavior is like doing one of those thousand piece puzzles without the benefit of knowing what the picture looks like when complete. That was why Legacy liked the cold cases where he could coax the pieces into place by geometry alone, over time. With the crisis of holding the worlds most powerful law enforcement division up for some kind of perverse, naked ransom – he knew that taking the case called him far from his operational comfort. He couldn’t wait for the connections, striving for perfection was something he’d have to put aside. He was going to have to force some of the pieces together and make them stick.