by Tom Fowler
I understood what Gloria said, even if it came out sounding like psychobabble. “I’ll do my best,” I said as I lay back down. True to form, Gloria snored about fifteen seconds after her head hit the pillow. I remained awake for a while, turning the nightmare over in my head. I thought people who rushed to assign meaning to their every dream were idiots, but this must signify something.
As I drifted off to sleep, I gained no insights as to its potential meaning.
* * *
The next morning, I poured a cup of coffee and considered the breakfast options in the fridge when I heard a knock at the door. Gloria made it halfway down the stairs in her small nightgown, then dashed back up when she heard the rapping. I watched her disappear around the corner before I went to the door and looked through the peephole. Rich stood on the step. I rolled my eyes and opened the door. “Back for another try, Ambassador?” I said.
“I’m here on my own this time.” Rich sniffed the air. “You making coffee?” he said, and walked in past me.
“Sure . . . come on in.” I used my most sarcastic tone.
“Thanks,” Rich said amiably as he went to the kitchen. I closed the door and followed him. Gloria joined us a moment later, wearing a track suit I’d never seen before. “Hello, Gloria.”
“Good morning, Rich.”
I snagged my coffee mug before Rich could get his hands on it. He opened the cupboard, took out another, and fixed a cup for himself. Even if I filled the water reservoir with vinegar, my brew would still taste better than the swill in the BPD’s pots.
“So, what’s for breakfast?” Rich said, sipping his black coffee and sitting at the kitchen table.
“Maybe some bacon in your honor,” I said.
“You’re still angry about the other night. I get it. I probably would be, too. But I told you, I’m here on my own. I want to know how the case is going.”
“What case?”
“Oh, please. Like you’re not investigating Samantha’s murder. The circles under your eyes tell me you haven’t been sleeping well. All things considered, it’s not a surprise.”
“You’re here to help me?” I said. Gloria busied herself with preparing coffee for herself while Rich and I bantered. The right balance of too much sugar and too much cream was delicate.
“If I can. Why don’t we discuss it over breakfast?”
“I hope your advice is worth the meal,” I said.
“Isn’t it always?”
“I shopped at Harris Teeter.”
“I’ll bring my A game, then,” said Rich.
* * *
As promised, I made bacon but of the turkey variety. Rich sniffed it while it cooked, and his look told me he knew it did not come from the flesh of swine. In addition to the faux hog, I toasted three whole wheat bagels, put butter and cream cheese out with them, and set out a plate of scrambled eggs. Everyone took a bagel and some meat; Gloria eschewed the eggs while Rich and I helped ourselves.
After we all ate enough to slay the worst of our morning hunger, Rich spoke up. “How’s the case coming along?”
“Not so great,” I said. I filled him in on what I’d discovered so far, whom I talked to, and the issues with what I found in my poached IRC records. I needed to go back and check my results.
“It’s an old case,” Rich said when I finished.
“I could have heard the same from anyone at the precinct house without having to cook a good breakfast,” I said.
“It complicates things, but it doesn’t make them impossible.”
“Thanks for the pep talk. By the way, never go into coaching.”
“You’re looking for some great insight to unlock everything for you,” Rich said. “I don’t have one.”
“What the hell are you doing here, then?” Gloria took in a sharp breath. I glanced at her. Rich paid her no mind and stayed above the verbal jabs I threw at him.
“Telling you what I would do.”
“Which is?” I said.
“I’d go see the FBI.”
“The FBI?”
“Yes,” said Rich. “You have some information now, and you don’t have to tell them how you got it. Take it, plus what you need from the case file, and see if they can help.”
“Like your boy Hess helped the first time?” I said. “I could’ve gotten as much from the goddamn janitor.”
“A zealous FBI agent—yes, like Hess—could look into things on his own. Also, it sounds like you need service provider records. You’ll probably tell me you can hack the ISPs, and maybe you can. But you don’t want Samantha’s murderer getting off on a technicality because you couldn’t be bothered to do things the right way. Use the proper channels.”
I entertained no intention of seeing Samantha’s killer in a courtroom, and I also didn’t plan to tell Rich of my intentions. He probably suspected it, though he remained quiet. “I hadn’t considered going back to the FBI,” I said with the most diplomacy I could summon.
“I didn’t think you would. It might turn out they can’t do much for you, but you never know until you try.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll get some information ready and see what they can do for me. Thanks.” Waiting on the FBI would also allow me to pay some attention to Ruby’s case again, which would placate Rollins.
“Agent Hess will be expecting you again,” Rich said.
“I’ll make sure to see him today, then.”
“He’s expecting you after lunch. I told him it would take you some time to get everything together.”
I nodded. “All right. Thanks, Rich.”
Rich nodded. When he finished his breakfast, he said, “So was it worth the price of admission?”
“I think I want a refund on the bagel,” I said.
* * *
After Rich left, I went back into the office. Everything long since finished running. I pored over the data. IRC still provided a veneer of anonymity, but I saw many legitimate email addresses behind the handles. I dumped the raw text output into Excel, sorted by email address, and highlighted the ones I judged valid.
“You’re really going back to the FBI?” Gloria said from the doorway. I didn’t hear her approach. She walked into the office and sat in one of my guest chairs.
“I hope it’s a good idea,” I said.
“It’s an unexpected idea.”
“How so?”
“They didn’t seem like much help before,” she said. “Why are you so willing to work with them again?”
She posed a valid question. “I have more information now. They have resources I don’t have and couldn’t easily get, even with my usual methods. I’d rather not hack the feds. Working with them allows me to avoid it. They’re good at catching killers, even across state lines. We don’t know Samantha’s killer was a local. And I’ve never worked with them before.” If I said all this to convince myself, it was effective.
“What do you think they’ll do?”
“Get user info from ISPs and email providers I couldn’t acquire without a lot of effort.”
“You could get it, though.”
“Yes,” I acknowledged. “It would take a while and be very illegal. This way is easier.”
“What if they shut you out of the case?” Gloria said.
I’d failed to consider it. Gloria chose her questions well. The FBI and local cops created tenuous relationships turning on issues of jurisdiction and access. Why would they play ball with a PI? Rich may have gotten on great with Agent Hess, but he could still shut me out if he thought it best for his case. “I don’t know,” I said. I felt Hess understood me and the case well enough not to do it, but at the end of the day, he was a fed, and I was a PI. “I hope it doesn’t happen.”
“It may be better than the alternative.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they share their information with you, and their suspect ends up dead, they’re going to come looking for you.”
“No doubt,” I said.
Gloria sucked
in a breath and stared at me with warm eyes. “I love you, C.T., and I don’t want to see you go to jail.”
“I’m not going to jail.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because I would get an alibi,” I said.
“Someone would lie for you?”
“Basically. Don’t worry; I wouldn’t ask you to do it. I wouldn’t want to put you in such a position.”
Gloria regarded me with a mischievous smile. “I can think of some other positions I’d rather you put me in.”
Her comment compelled me to smile. “After my meeting with Agent Hess,” I promised.
“Hurry back,” Gloria said. She stood and walked out of the room.
I watched her hips sway as she left. Once she cleared the door, I resumed work. I printed the Excel dump of my IRC data. The assembled pages rolled up could swat a baseball an impressive distance. I put them in a large manila envelope. I added the ME’s and detective’s report, along with a few photos and newspaper clippings. For the first time, I typed my own notes, based on my conversation with Ted Pembroke and Greg Elliot, and printed them out.
The envelope had a nice heft to it. I hoped it held enough to get the FBI to help me find Samantha’s killer.
Chapter 16
I rewarded myself for my hard work in the morning with a homemade omelet. I would have rewarded Gloria, too, but she left for a tennis lesson. I downed my mug of coffee and took a shower before my meeting with Agent Hess. To enhance my chances of making a good impression, I shaved off the scraggly stubble I’d accrued over the last two or three days. I thought about wearing a suit but opted for a nice pair of khakis and a Polo.
When I arrived, Hess sat in a meeting. I busied myself watching the news in the waiting room. I trusted their coffee machine about as far as I could flick it with a finger. If the BPD brewed dreadful coffee, I figured the FBI’s to be one step away from being declared toxic by the CDC. I used the hot water to make a cup of tea. Watching my water darken to a nice brown proved more exciting than the news, which consisted of two people yelling at each other despite the large overlap in their opinions. How did people watch this every day?
A moment after I finished my tea, Agent Hess fetched me from the waiting room. “Ready when you are,” he said. I followed him into his office and sat in the same uncomfortable guest chair as last time. “Rich told me you’ve been banging away at this, so I figured it might be worth a second look. What do you have?”
I dropped the manila envelope on his desk. It landed with an impressive thud. “It’s a lot from the BPD’s case file, plus some notes I made of interviews I’ve done, all the online stuff the BPD found, and some IRC information on people with handles similar to Rondel.”
“Similar how?”
“My girlfriend got me to watch The Fellowship of the Ring with her.” Hess gave me a funny look. “I’ve seen it a bunch of times,” I clarified. Keeping my geek cred mattered. “I wanted to work on my sister’s case file, but I figured a break from it couldn’t hurt. Anyway, we got to the scene when Arwen brings Frodo to Rivendell, and they meet Elrond.”
“Rondel,” said Hess with a nod.
“I didn’t see it sooner. It might not have made a difference considering thirteen years have passed, but I still wish I’d recognized it. I anagrammed the character names from the series and then tried to find anyone using those handles. You have the results of several hours of work.”
Hess lifted the folder and tested its weight. “Rich told me I’m better off not asking you too many questions about how you gather your intel.”
“I think it would be better for both of us,” I said.
“Here’s the deal,” Hess said, going into full agent mode. “We don’t take shortcuts at the FBI. We work with US attorneys and federal judges, and they make sure we cross every T and dot every fucking I. I’ll look at what you have here, and I’ll do my best to spin it into something I can act on. If your information is good, and I can sell it well enough, we can get a warrant.”
“I understand.”
“You say you have a lot of information from IRC?”
I nodded. “I dumped it into Excel so it’s easier to read.”
“So I might need to go poking around ISPs?” Hess said.
“You might.”
“I’ll have to be a pretty good salesman, then. Let me take a look at this. Give me a day or two to read it all over and see how good your intel is. I’ll let you know either way but I hope I can do something with it.”
Were I the type to believe in regrets, I would’ve harbored some at coming here. Still, I couldn’t just snatch the folder off Hess’ desk and storm out in twin fits of disappointment and pique. I managed to say, “I hope so, too.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
We shook hands. “Thanks,” I said.
I walked back to my car. When my parents told me the truth about what happened, I couldn’t have imagined giving Samantha’s case to anyone else, even Rich. Now I handed what I knew to a virtual stranger based on my cousin’s recommendation. Was this the right thing? I could hack the ISPs and email providers to get the information I needed, but the tactic ran the risk of detection. I couldn’t do much for Samantha if I got busted for hacking Verizon. The FBI represented the safer route.
This numbered among the few times in my life I had opted for the safer route. I felt uneasy as I got back into my car and drove away.
* * *
At home, I doffed the khakis and polo in favor of a T-shirt and running shorts. This combination of cases left me sedentary: either I spent time in the office working on Samantha’s murder, or I sat in my car watching Ruby take strangers into motel rooms. Neither was good for my long-term cardiovascular health. I decided to climb back on the wagon with some laps around Federal Hill Park.
I arrived too late for the lunchtime runners but too early for the dinnertime crowd. A couple people walked dogs, and the only jogger I saw had at least twenty years on me and wore them well. I kept a good pace, using the downtime to think about my dual cases. I didn’t care for working two at once, even if I took up the second one out of love for my sister.
It got me thinking about not talking to my parents since they dropped the Samantha bombshell on me. To their credit, they stopped calling. I wondered if Rich gave them updates. If he did, they knew I carried what I learned to the FBI. Still, I needed to call them at some point. I would remain mad at them for a while, but I couldn’t punish them with silence forever. As difficult as it had been for me to bury my sister, how much greater was the ordeal for them to inter their first child, especially knowing she didn’t die of natural causes?
I looked out from the park, down Federal Hill, and across the Baltimore Harbor. Afternoon sun glistened off the water and reflected off the windows of the National Aquarium and the Rusty Scupper. I loved the fact I could walk to either of those places if I wanted. Parking was bad enough where I lived without having to deal with lots and garages near the harbor.
My workout app told me I ran 4.3 miles. I counted it as a victory and headed home. Gloria remained away. I went upstairs, took a much-needed shower, and changed into a pair of jeans and the Polo I wore to visit the FBI. No sooner did I walk back downstairs than Rollins called. “You have time for me now?” he said, his tone sharp.
“Don’t I always?”
“Unless you’re preoccupied, which you have been recently.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “I have been.”
“We need to talk about the Ruby case.”
“OK. I want to bring you up to speed on a few things.”
“I’ll come by.”
“I need to make a phone call first,” I said.
“An important one?”
“Yes, and I don’t know how long it’ll take. Want to meet me for dinner?”
“Pick a place,” said Rollins, annoyance in his voice again.
I saw it on my run, so it lingered on my brain. “How about the Rusty Scupper?”
“I’ll see you there in an hour,” Rollins said and hung up.
An hour should be plenty of time to talk to my parents, presuming it didn’t take me most of the time to overcome the sense of dread.
* * *
I stared at my phone. I rarely experience trouble talking to anyone, but I could think of no way to open this conversation. On some level, I still felt pissed at my parents and thought they should apologize. On another level, I knew I didn’t handle the situation in the best way possible, and I realized they’d been carrying a lot of pain for the last thirteen years.
After another minute of unproductive staring, I called their house line. I hoped my father would answer and breathed a small sigh of relief when he did. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, son.” His voice perked up. “How are you?”
“I’m all right, I guess. How are you and Mom?”
“We were worried about you . . . the way you stormed out of here and then wouldn’t answer your phone. Rich said you were angry.”
“A mild word for it,” I said. I heard the edge in my own voice.
“You understand we did it to protect you,” my father said.
“I’d rather not talk about it, Dad. I think you made the wrong call, but I also know what you and Mom have had to live with every day since Samantha died. It couldn’t have been easy.”
“It hasn’t been,” he said in a small voice.
“I called to say I’ve been looking into her . . . into what happened to Samantha.” Mentioning her murder out loud to my father still felt weird. “It’s a cold case file, so I didn’t have much to go on. I may have turned up a lead, though.”
“Are you still looking into it?”
“I gave it to the FBI. Rich suggested it. We’ll see what they’re able to do.”
“Sounds promising.” He paused. So did I. We didn’t fill in the conversational gap until my father continued a few seconds later. “You think they’ll be able to do something with it?”