by Fritz Galt
Jake was so mad that he purposely stomped on a pile of ginkgo seeds on his walk home from the bus.
The stench was predictably overwhelming, and he had to jog the final block to get away from the stink bomb he had created.
He entered through his front door. Amber’s keys to her apartment gained her access from the back. He was avoiding her, he knew. And he didn’t like it.
Fighting the odor on the bottoms of his shoes, he fussed around by the front door before even turning on the lights. There was no way to know if Amber was home, but a warm chocolate smell emanated from downstairs.
Maybe she was baking brownies to share as a peace offering.
One way or another, he’d need to interrogate her over how the facts leaked to NPR. Doing so over chocolate chip cookies or whatever she was baking down there might make the conversation go more smoothly.
He shut the curtains and turned on various lights. His journey took him to his kitchen, where the smell from downstairs was even stronger. That didn’t mean she would cook him dinner, too.
He checked his fridge. The thought of shrimp fried rice from Trader Joe’s seemed appealing, but the dessert-like smells made it hard to concentrate on making himself dinner.
He heard cookie sheets rattling downstairs behind the closed door. Amber must be in full baker’s mode.
The chocolate aroma was turning deeper and richer. It almost had a burnt smell.
Jake threw the plastic bag of frozen rice onto the counter and read the instructions. Unfortunately, the microwave instructions were more complicated than the stovetop instructions. So he pulled out his frying pan, sending several pot lids scattering on the floor.
He had just set the pan on the stove, turned on the front burner, and added a tablespoon of olive oil and the frozen shrimp when he noticed smoke seeping under the door that led downstairs.
A moment later the smoke detector went off in Amber’s apartment, and he heard her curse.
A minute after that, the shrill beeping was still alerting the neighborhood. With the old rowhouses side-by-side, it would be only a matter of time before someone called the fire department.
He opened the door to downstairs.
“Can I help?” he yelled.
“Jeez yes!” came the reply.
“Open a window,” he suggested.
“This is underground,” she said. “There are no windows.”
Fighting the blue tint that threatened to leave a layer of slime on everything in his apartment, Jake climbed down the stairs to her space.
What he saw was an open oven with burnt brownies and an apartment filled with smoke.
“You don’t have the oven vent on,” he said, and reached through the smoke for the button above the stove.
The vent turned on and he pumped it to the highest fan speed.
The fan roared, but nothing happened.
“I don’t think it’s connected to a vent,” Amber said. “It’s just a fan. You’re blowing smoke all over the place.”
Jake checked the venting setup. There was no air duct running out of her kitchen.
“This isn’t going to vent anything,” he concluded.
Amber was waving a wet towel at the smoke detector to no avail.
They looked at each other, with blame being cast in both directions. Just then another smoke alarm went off. It was coming from above.
Jake’s smoke detector was going off.
He had forgotten his shrimp, and Amber’s smoke was still drifting up the staircase.
“Open your door for fresh air,” he told her before hauling himself upstairs.
She had tears in her eyes as she turned away to respond to his order.
Jake found his apartment filled with a stinking concoction of burnt shrimp and brownies. And his alarm was so piercing, he had to cover his ears.
He reached for the stove and turned off the burner. In the same movement, he grabbed a towel and began throwing it at the smoke detector.
The front doorbell rang.
Smoke billowed up from downstairs and turned his apartment a deep blue. It looked like he was hallucinating.
The doorbell wouldn’t stop.
“It’s okay,” he yelled at the door. “I’m home. I’m taking care of it.”
He turned on his kitchen vent, but that, too, was just for show. The highest fan speed sounded like a Boeing 787 taking off.
Amber came coughing up the stairs.
Jake flapped his towel at the smoke detector, but the thing wouldn’t shut up.
So he made a desperate lunge for the front door to let in air. He yanked the door open, and there stood a woman holding a loaf of bread.
Jake couldn’t process anything.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m your neighbor.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m dealing with a recalcitrant smoke detector.”
“Smells like there’s smoke,” she said, helpfully.
“Yeah. Dealing with that, too.”
“I’ll let you go,” she said. “Call if you need me. I’m just next door.”
He sized up the petite woman, perhaps forty, perhaps single.
“Thanks for the bread,” he said, and shut the door.
Amber was standing on a stool removing the cover of the smoke detector.
Finally his alarm fell silent.
Coughing and weeping, she held the battery out to him.
Her alarm had already stopped.
“You may want to get better ventilation in our house,” she said.
Humorous as her understatement was, he was in no mood for joking.
He stood there with a warm loaf of bread in his hands. “Care to join me for dinner?”
The homemade rosemary bread was fat and round with a crunchy crust. Together with butter, it could make a filling meal in itself. But the dinner fell flat.
“Can you come clean on this?” Amber began.
“What?” Jake said. “About the smoke?”
“Don’t avoid the subject.”
She was right. This was a conversation they needed to have.
“Can you admit what you’re thinking?” she asked.
“Why is this about me?” he said.
“I think you think I’m the leak.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Then who does?”
What hurt was that she was telling the truth. Somewhere inside him, he did suspect that she was, or could be, the one who tipped NPR off that the FBI was opening an investigation into Bill Frost’s death. He wouldn’t be a good investigator unless he allowed it might be true.
“Then who suspects me,” she said, hanging onto her butter knife until he answered.
“Don’t wave that in my face.”
“I’m not waving it at anything.”
“I’m not blaming you,” he told her. “It’s just that my boss is on my back.”
“So your nasty boss thinks I am the leak.”
“She thinks you might be. She’s the suspicious type.”
“So what about you? Do you think I’m the leak?”
He hesitated. “No… Of course not.”
“You’re a good investigator, Jake, but you’re a lousy liar. You do think I might be the leak. Admit it.”
“No… I…”
“Shut up, Jake,” she snapped. “Relationships are built on trust. You go to sleep with somebody and you have to trust that they’re not going to slit your throat or steal your stuff. They’re in your house. They’re in your life and in your body. You have to trust them. It has to be a hundred percent. Unreserved. Unqualified. Unconditional. Trust, Jake.”
“I do trust you,” he began to protest.
“I’m thinking now we don’t have it. I’m not even sure you know your own mind.”
She stood up and stared at him, waiting for a response.
What was he supposed to say?
“I’m going downstairs,” she said. “And I’m staying downstairs.”
“There’s no need…�
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“I want you to think about this. Search your soul on this, Jake. Because when it comes to us there’s a lot at stake here.”
He looked on horrified as her face collapsed into a mask of sorrow and rage and she fled downstairs.
That night, Jake woke up mid-snore. His phone was ringing.
It was a call from Supriya Rao, a lab tech at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico.
He cleared his throat. “Did you get all the…uh, evidence?”
The young technician reported that they had taken possession of the body and physical evidence from the scene of the incident, personal effects from the victim’s hotel room, and the DNA that Jake had taken from the victim’s brother in McLean, Virginia.
“We’ll get you results by noon.”
“What was in the physical evidence?” Jake asked.
“I haven’t looked into it yet,” she said. “I’ve examined only the personal effects from the hotel room. There was a backpack with clothes. A toilet kit. And receipts, presumably for an expense report.”
“No computer? No notes?”
“I’m looking at the evidence bag right here. I guess he traveled light.”
Jake thanked Supriya and hung up.
“Sorry about that,” he said, and rolled over.
But Amber wasn’t in bed. She wasn’t sleeping with him that night. As he had predicted, their professional lives had driven them apart.
Part Two
Out of Office
Chapter 5
Thursday
The next morning, Jake was still trying to fit a new, generic blade onto his Schick razor handle when his phone rang.
It was Bonnie Lakewood calling from Salt Lake City.
Jake did a quick calculation. “Isn’t it 4:30 in the morning there?”
“Jake, there was another invasion of Bill Frost’s home.”
“Did you get it on tape?”
“Better than that,” she said with a note of triumph in her voice. “You may want to come down here for this.”
“Come to Hurricane?”
“That’s right. We caught the man.”
Jake wanted to tell Amber that he had a change of plans, but didn’t want to go downstairs and confront her in her smoky apartment.
Instead he left a note on his kitchen counter that said he would be out of town that day.
Then he called the FBI travel desk and asked them to book him on the next flight to Salt Lake City.
“We have a 9:15 a.m. nonstop out of DCA,” the travel specialist said.
“Book it.”
He had little time to prepare, so he pulled his overnight suitcase down and threw in a pair of socks, boxers, and a change of clothes. In anticipation of ski season-type weather in Utah, he threw in a casual wool sweater.
Then he took a Lyft to Reagan National Airport and hustled toward the large, airy terminal.
He was short on time and needed to skirt security. So he went to the TSA PreCheck line and flashed his badge. The sleepy agent studied the gold-colored eagle and shield with its blocky FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION lettering, and waved him through.
The metal detector beeped at him, and he was forced to show his concealed carry permit and the form he would show United that he was traveling with a firearm on his person.
“Flying domestically?” the TSA agent asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Make sure you inform the captain.”
“I will.”
The TSA agent motioned with her chin for him to proceed.
There was a convenience store selling newspapers just before his gate, so Jake paused for a minute to flip through the national papers in search of any more leaks or coverage of the Russia/NPR story.
It was a good day when his investigation didn’t appear in the news.
He stepped onto his flight relieved to know that he wasn’t leaving a public relations mess behind.
Salt Lake City International Airport couldn’t have been more convenient to the city, and to the state’s two major interstate highways.
Jake donned his aviator sunglasses and jumped into his Hertz rental, a small blue sedan with California plates.
After five minutes heading east on I-80 toward downtown Salt Lake City, he immediately turned off for the long southward haul on I-15 to Hurricane.
Never having been to the state, he looked around with the eyes of a tourist.
It was sunny, but the sky looked a deeper blue than he had ever seen on the East Coast. He attributed it to the fresh air.
He was disappointed not to see any ski slopes. Instead, modern buildings dominated the skyline, making the place look like any other American city.
He also looked in vain for the Great Salt Lake, the inland sea that had attracted Brigham Young and his migrating Mormon pioneers. He saw no beach, no masts, not even the glint of sunlight on water. He would never have imagined that he was driving past the largest salt lake in the Western Hemisphere.
After Provo, the interstate went from a tangle of overpasses and ramps to a simple straightaway down a mountain valley.
Four hours later and the sun already lingering on the southwestern horizon, he found Bonnie Lakewood and two more agents waiting for him along the imaginatively named N100E Street in the sleepy, flat town of Hurricane.
There were no curbs or sidewalks in the frontier town, so he nosed his rental onto the gravel right up to what might have been a front lawn, but looked more like native scrub. Maybe the famed environmentalist had intended it to remain that way.
He tromped across fallen leaves toward the group. From the way neighboring single-story houses huddled under the spreading branches of shade trees, he figured the sun could get plenty hot in the summertime. The place had more in common with the deserts of Arizona than the Rockies.
Bonnie Lakewood was the special agent in the pants suit, with a short blonde ponytail and square shoulders. Tall with graceful movements, she shook his hand firmly, He could imagine her in her element on Utah’s fabled ski slopes.
“Thanks for meeting me here,” he said, his eyes locking on hers directly. “I wanted to take a look at the house in the daylight.”
She seemed all business and went straight to logistics. “We have the suspect held in local police custody. You can interview him shortly. After that, we have some rooms up on Brian Head to spend the night.”
“Perfect.” As if he knew what “Brian Head” was.
“Now, hand me your car keys. You won’t need that burro from here on out.”
Jake reluctantly turned over the rental car keys.
“Agent Fields will take it back to SLC.”
He turned his attention to Bill Frost’s house. The FBI had marked the front door with yellow-and-black police tape.
Bonnie led the small group in.
What looked like a typical ranch house from the street turned out to be a treasure trove of memorabilia. The scientific explorer had turned the living room into a museum of statues and stuffed animals. The dining room had become a laboratory for dissection. And what might have been a family room was now a business office in immaculate condition, save the papers strewn on the floor.
Every man’s home gave an insight into the occupant’s personality, and some places just plain gave Jake the creeps. Bill Frost’s home had none of the pride that his brother’s mansion had in McLean. Jake would never have associated the two as members of the same family. Whereas Cal’s house displayed things, this one catalogued them. And whereas Cal’s place emphasized the grandeur of nature, Bill’s emphasized all the disease and decay that he had encountered.
The blotchy hides, mangled wings, and physiological mutations spoke of either a perverse mind, or a concerned environmentalist. Take, for example, the two-headed goat. Or the stuffed emperor penguin whose broken flippers were still trapped in a net.
But it was Bill Frost’s files that interested Jake most, and after lingering among the specimens for several minutes, he zeroed in on the office.
He stepped over the scattered papers and went straight for the “M” drawer. The guy had studied every country from Mali to Mozambique. Research inside the folders included academic papers, newspaper clippings, scientific journal articles, and printouts of government-funded studies. The topics ranged from the illegal activities of poachers to the failed policies of governments around the world. Taken in its entirety, the house and file cabinets drew a picture of a broken and pillaged world, with mankind as the central villain.
Between Moldova and Montenegro, where there should have been a folder for Mongolia, or possibly Monaco, there was a conspicuous, two-inch gap.
“Did your team take any of the files?” he asked Bonnie.
“We left everything as is,” she said.
“So nobody took the Mongolia file?” He wanted to make sure.
“Nobody from the FBI or police.”
“Did you find the file in the possession of the suspect that you caught in this house?”
She seemed impatient with the cross-examination. “We found nothing on him. But to be clear, we didn’t catch him in the house. Our hidden camera was on a motion detector, and it recorded the housebreaking while simultaneously alerting the local sheriff. By the time the police arrived, the suspect had left the premises. However, a quick review of the video recording told them who to look for. The intruder was a local man that the police knew by sight, and they picked him up at his house in the middle of the night.”
That was all important information.
“And he had no manila folder?”
Bonnie crossed her arms.
Jake backed off and reconsidered. “Clearly there’s space where a file might have been,” he said. “If Bill Frost had taken the Mongolia file on his trip, it wasn’t among the evidence found in his possession or in his hotel room.”