by Ellie Marney
People stare at them as they move out of the motor pool and head for the elevator.
“Where are we going?” Emma’s shocked to realize her voice comes out as a whisper.
Martino presses the button in slow motion. “I’ve been ordered to take you up to see the Section Chief.”
“Do we have to do that now?” Bell’s voice is rough, and more curt than Emma has ever heard it before.
“I’m sorry, but yeah.”
“Don’t you think—”
“Travis.” Emma touches his arm. “Let’s just get it over with.”
His jaw grinds, but after a pause he nods. His face is so tight that the skin over his cheekbones is shiny. This must’ve been the way he looked when his father died, Emma thinks, and it feels wrong to be staring at him. She drops her gaze and it makes her wonder, how does she look?
They enter the elevator. Martino leans back against the wall as the doors close and the car rises.
“Cooper said…” He pauses after invoking the man’s name, shakes it off. “He asked me to look out for you. I’ll be with you when you see Raymond. It’ll be okay.”
Emma reflects that people always say things will be okay when everything is completely fucked. She has no confidence that Martino’s presence can unfuck this situation. She barely knows the man.
They get out of the elevator, walk to Raymond’s office, tap to enter.
Raymond is sitting at his stupid desk. His expression is glum and his face does seem a little more gray than usual, she’ll give him that.
“Thank you for coming in.” Raymond touches near items—his pen, a letter opener, a stapler—to straighten them. He doesn’t meet their eyes after the initial greeting. “This is a sad day. A terrible day. It’s unfortunate that you were involved in the circumstances around Special Agent Cooper’s death.”
It still feels surreal to hear those words connected in a sentence. Special Agent Cooper’s death. Emma tries to find balance.
“Ed Cooper was a fine man, and a fine agent,” Raymond goes on. “His family has been contacted, and they’re making the arrangements. The funeral will be held as soon as the body is released by the medical examiner.”
And now, with reeling intensity, it comes to her. Westfall and his crew are—maybe right this minute—collecting evidence from Cooper’s body, adding it to the file about the Butcher. Photos are being taken, like those stark pictures of disconnected body parts that Emma saw in Glenn Neilsen’s office. The idea blindsides her. She hopes Raymond can hurry this along before she succumbs to the urge to be sick.
After straightening his desk, Raymond now straightens his shoulders, steeples his fingers in front. “I am taking full operational control of the Berryville Butcher case. Agent Martino, I’ve spoken on the phone to Agent Carter about how this is to be handled. He’ll be briefing you shortly. If you have any queries, you can address them to Agent Carter or myself.”
“Yessir,” Martino says.
“Now. As to the matter of you young people…”
Here it comes, Emma thinks.
“I’ve determined that, at this time, the juvenile offender interview project that Agent Cooper initiated is to be closed down. It’s been two weeks since your arrival, and until the Butcher case can be successfully resolved, the interviews are simply added workload for the staff—”
“Excuse me, sir?” Bell steps forward, face haggard. “Lewis and I have been working independently on the interviews, so it’s not—”
“Mr. Bell, I’ll thank you to be quiet and listen. While the interviews have been… a very interesting and informative side project, they’re not priority one, and as such—”
“You got the lead on the Butcher case because of Simon Gutmunsson,” Emma says dully. “If we hadn’t interviewed Gutmunsson—”
“If you hadn’t interviewed Gutmunsson, Ed Cooper might still be alive right now,” Raymond snaps.
Emma feels like she’s been slapped across the face.
“I have a plan for Gutmunsson.” Raymond’s brows come together. “But I’m not going to pander to a teenage homicidal maniac.”
Martino perks up. “Sir? We can keep pursuing the connection between Gutmunsson and the Butcher, if you think that might be useful.”
“I do,” Raymond says. “I do want to pursue that connection, and I plan to hold Simon Gutmunsson’s feet to the fire to do it. But I don’t want these young people involved in it.”
“He won’t talk to you.” It’s like Emma can’t help herself. “Simon won’t talk to you. You can hold his feet to the fire—you can stand him in the middle of the goddamn fire, if it amuses you. It won’t make any difference.”
Raymond’s eyes narrow. “Young lady, do you think you have a special relationship with this boy? Because I’d be looking very carefully at yourself if you think that to be the case.”
All the blood that left Emma’s face rushes back into her cheeks. Her forehead feels hot.
“Simon Gutmunsson is just another teenage pervert whose mommy didn’t raise him right.” Raymond’s expression has a malicious cast. “If he talks to you, it’s because something about you is pulling his chain, don’t you agree, Agent Martino?”
Bell takes a step. “Sir—”
“Travis.” Emma has to hold his arm tightly.
Martino seems confused, looking back and forth between Raymond and Emma. “I… I couldn’t say, sir. It’s a little out of my lane.”
“It’s a little out of your lane. Well, yes, I imagine it is.” Raymond’s sneer takes on a more acceptable professional aspect. “Now, I’m sorry if you’re disappointed about the outcome of the interview project, Miss Lewis. You and Mr. Bell will be paid for an extra week, since the project was concluded early, and you’ll be provided with a reference for your work. I think the bureau has been very generous in this matter.”
Emma doesn’t ask about the offer to join the program, the prospective scholarship, the credits toward her college course.… None of that applies now that Cooper is dead. She wonders briefly if Cooper was even authorized to make those initial promises, then dismisses that thought. If Cooper were alive, he would’ve kept those promises come hell or high water. He would’ve made a point of it.
“I expect you’ll both need to make arrangements for packing up your accommodations and organizing transport back to your respective homes,” Raymond continues. “But your identification will no longer be valid on base after the weekend, so remember to hand in your lanyards at Behavioral Science. The United States government thanks you for your service. Now, Mr. Martino, could you escort these young people down to the offices? Then get your briefing on the phone with Agent Carter, and I’ll expect to see you back here at nineteen hundred hours. Dismissed.”
And that’s it. No more or less than what she was expecting. Emma finds she is still holding on to Bell’s arm. He shakes her off, turns around, and walks out. She follows, with Martino on her heels.
As they approach the elevators, the man comes level with her. “Miss Lewis—”
“Leave it,” Emma says.
“No, wait.” Martino gets between her and Bell, hits the elevator button. “Let’s talk.”
Martino waits until they’re all in the elevator car before rubbing a hand across his mustache. “Okay, I didn’t know the score with Raymond, but now I do. He’s obviously got some kind of beef with you two.”
“You think?” Bell steps closer.
“Settle down, son.” Martino puts a palm up. “Ed Cooper said you’ve both been contributing to the Butcher case. And he told me to look out for you, so I’m doing it. I have to sell the candy to Raymond, so I won’t be able to share any information officially. But you have a phone in your office now. I’ll keep in touch.”
Bell blinks. “It won’t matter after this weekend. We’ll be off the base.”
“Then we’ll have to work fast,” Martino says grimly. “Raymond seems like he’s gonna go off on his high horse, and that’ll keep him distracted. Either w
ay, if you’ve got input on the case, I want it. If I’m out of the office, get my contact off Betty and call me. I want to catch this bastard. Now more than ever.”
“Okay,” Bell says stiffly. “Thank you.”
“Cooper said you were worth it.” Martino looks at them, then looks away. Emma remembers Cooper was his colleague, maybe even his friend.
When they get to basement level and emerge into the bunker corridor, Martino splits off for Behavioral Science. Bell walks to the door of the Cool Room, Emma following. Bell’s hand closes on the doorknob. He can’t seem to turn it, though.
Emma watches his back, feeling the energy pulsing out of him. “You’re going to have to open the door eventually.”
“Cooper—” Bell starts.
“I know.”
Bell’s shoulders tense under his black T-shirt, then he twists the knob and pushes inside. He walks slowly to the desk. Emma closes the door, resting back on it. She straightens up again when Bell makes a muffled noise. He sweeps the papers on the desk onto the floor, where they fall in a tented, fluttering arch.
“Bell.”
Another sweep of his hand, and a box of pens splits and scatters. He kicks over one of the stacks of file boxes close to the desk—a waterfall of paper spills out—and shoves the desk chair aside. When he grips the desk itself, like he wants to tip it over, she crosses her arms and raises her voice.
“Travis, stop. Stop this right now.”
He turns and throws his hands up, everything about him harsh and bleak. “Well, what the fuck d’you expect me to do?”
Emma plants her feet, buries her own anger deep. “I expect you to act like a professional. If you want to beat the shit out of something, go take it out on the punching bag. Don’t wreck the office—we did good work here. All of us.”
Bell covers his face with his hands. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re off the case.”
“No, we’re not. Didn’t you hear Martino? He’s going to share information.”
“What good will that do against the goddamn section chief?”
“I don’t know, but it’s something. And do you really think Raymond’s going to waltz into St. Elizabeths and get Simon to play ball? That’s not how Simon works. But regardless of what Raymond does with Simon Gutmunsson, something will happen. It might happen soon. The bureau is angry about Cooper’s murder—they’re not going to put the Butcher on the back burner now.”
Bell’s next word comes out like a groan. “Cooper—”
“I know it hurts. I feel it, too.” A tearing pain. She swallows hard, controls the urge to break down, to just sit here and collapse. Cooper would not approve. “Listen—you’re wasting your energy, and we might need that energy. Cooper would be telling us to use our advantages. He’d be telling us to get ahold of ourselves.”
“He was good at that.” Bell shakes his head at the floor. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Emma sighs, walks to where the two spare foldout chairs are propped.
“I just can’t… I can’t get my mind around it.”
She takes one of the chairs and opens it out, sinks down on it, her legs watery. “I know.”
Bell lets out a deep exhale, like he’s exhausted, and slumps back with his butt on the desk. “What Raymond said to you—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Emma drops her gaze. “And I don’t trust him. At all. But I think we can rely on Martino, and there’s Howard Carter, and the other names Cooper gave us. And I think we could talk to Westfall and his people if we needed to.”
In the quiet of the gray office, Bell steadies himself with his hands on the desk. “Question?”
“Sure.”
He hesitates before launching in. “Emma, why are you still here? I get why you joined the unit, but why are you hanging on, after everything? I swear to god, I’ve been trying to figure it out, but I just…”
Emma knows this question is important. For the longest time she didn’t know the answer, and even now, she’s still parsing it out.
“Travis…” She closes her eyes. “Travis, why do you think I cut my hair?”
“You used to have long hair?”
Emma nods.
“I bet it was real pretty,” Bell says gently. “Did you cut it after Huxton?”
She nods again. She’s opened her eyes, but she’s looking at her hands.
“You fought him, didn’t you? A physical fight.”
“Yes,” she says. Her throat feels thick, her tongue wooden.
Bell pauses. “Did your hair get… tangled up?”
She takes a breath. “Yes. He grabbed it, and I nearly didn’t… I nearly didn’t get away.” She exhales slowly and completely, pulling her sanity back on a fine string. “You think this stuff is over, and eventually you’ll forget. But for a year after, every time my hair caught on something, I’d get… I’d have a reaction. Then I buzzed it off and I felt better.”
Bell nods steadily. “If you do something, you feel better.”
“Yeah. So I think I joined this unit to save prospective victims, but also to save myself.”
“Emma—”
“I think a part of me is still in Daniel Huxton’s basement. I don’t know how to get out of it, and I thought if I…” She presses her lips. “I don’t know if it’s worked out quite the way I imagined.” She snorts, but it comes out more like a sob, quickly swallowed. “What about you? Why did you join this unit?”
“I guess…” Bell looks as if he’s had all his pillars of faith stripped away. “I guess I’m trying to be like my dad. But he ended up dead. Just like Cooper.”
“Then you have to be smarter than both of them,” Emma says softly.
“Cooper said we’d have to deal with people like Raymond. He said we’d have to deal with petty bullshit and stupidity, right?”
“Yeah. But he said we’d have to learn to manage it.”
A long silence as they both just sit there, trying to work out how the hell they’re going to do that.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Donald Raymond has always considered himself an intelligent man.
Right now, he’s sitting at his desk with all the paperwork from Ed Cooper’s death in front of him, plus the file from the Butcher case. He had to go into his study last night at home so he could read through it and look at the pictures—his wife won’t have this kind of stuff in the house. But he’s examined it all, and he’s got the photocopies and document analysis from the correspondence between Simon Gutmunsson and the Butcher. He thinks he’s found a thread in there that he can build on.
He’s signing the message of condolence for Ed Cooper’s brother when the call comes through from Mike Martino. “Hey, Mike. How’re things working out?”
“It’s going well.” Martino’s voice sounds thin through the phone connection. “But I’m using the phone in Scott’s office, so I don’t have much time.”
Raymond’s expression is long-suffering, knowing, as he does, that it’s an FBI agent’s prerogative to boss people around. “Fine. Out with it.”
“Okay, seems like Gutmunsson first communicated with the Butcher via the personal ads in the Washington Post—Gutmunsson has pretty much unfettered access to newspapers. He says the Butcher was the one who made initial contact, using the ‘Artist’ and ‘Siegfried’ thing. They arranged the Georgetown U system through the personals, so they could communicate privately. About four letter exchanges in all, including the most recent one, I gather.”
Raymond finds this information exciting. “That’s good, Mike. Great work. Okay, here’s what I want you to do for me. You’re gonna get Gutmunsson to write a personal ad.”
“Today?”
“Right now. Obviously the Butcher is wise to the fact that we’ve tapped the mail, so it’ll make sense for Gutmunsson to go back to personals. Get a pen, I’m gonna dictate a couple of things I want Gutmunsson to include in the ad.”
Once Raymond gives him the details, Martino’s voice takes on a different tone. “
Uh, he may not want to do that, sir. I mean, Gutmunsson’s crazy, but he’s got a sense of self-preservation—”
“Mike, I really don’t give a shit if Simon Gutmunsson is worried about his own hide. He wasn’t worried when Ed Cooper was bleeding out on the linoleum at the Fairfax hospital. Gutmunsson needs to learn to do as he’s told. He’s tender about the sister, right?”
“Uh, right.”
“So come down hard on that. Hell, if you think it’ll work, start soft and tell him I can get visitor access for his sister at St. Elizabeths.” Raymond eases back in his chair, swaps the phone receiver to his other hand. “Arrange to get the ad in the Post by this afternoon. I want it on the newsstands by Sunday morning.”
“Yessir.” No more complaints from Martino now.
“And when you’re done on the phone, tell Dr. Scott to call me direct. She and I are gonna have words.”
“If you try to organize a sting here in the asylum, she’ll fight you,” Martino warns. “She’s pretty tough.”
“I’m tougher,” Raymond reminds him. “You let me handle Scott. Just get me that personal ad and get it out by tomorrow.”
“Copy that, sir.”
“Outstanding. Keep up the good work, Mike. Call me when it’s done.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Emma sweated out her grief hangover on the Saturday morning run, and with every thump of her feet, it felt as if she was running farther away from Quantico. Now, showered and dressed and back in the Cool Room, she pulls out the case files again. There must be a link between the victims somewhere. How is the killer choosing them? How is he finding them?
She can’t stare at the photos and expect a miracle anymore. If miracles were real, Cooper would still be here.
By the time Bell arrives, ragged and smelling of gun smoke, Emma has been poring through victim histories for three hours, and the names of the dead are echoing through her skull: Kimberley Berger, Carol Lambton, Lamar Davis, Mark Spiegel, Sienna Ramirez, Brian Barnes, Donna Williams.… Each of them was beautiful, each of them special. And Emma can see herself reflected in their personal histories. The intensity of being a teenager, the quest for self-direction, the need for individual control—she sees it all there in the files, bouncing back at her like she’s standing in some ghastly fun-house hall of mirrors.