Freezing Read online

  Eric momentarily turned his head from monitoring a television screen. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Anything happening?’

  ‘Nope. All quiet on the western front.’

  ‘Got my breakfast?’

  ‘Your latte’s right here.’ Eric waved a packet of instant Maxwell House coffee.

  Scott turned into the bathroom. It was too small for an adult to close the door and still be comfortable, so he left it open; he and his partner had been on enough long stakeouts to get over privacy issues. But the toilet’s holding pan had been filling inexorably, as the surveillance had only been broken by bathroom breaks or naps.

  ‘Would ya close the lid on that nuclear power plant, already?’ Eric called out.

  Scott flushed the toilet and popped his head out of the bathroom doorway, already lathering his face with shaving cream. ‘Worried it’s going to curl your hair, darlin’?’

  ‘It’s interfering with the reception on this show I’m watching. Seems to have frozen the image for the past three minutes. Wait, make that six hours.’

  Scott finished washing up. He emerged feeling like he’d woken up properly but nonetheless decided to make coffee to go with some energy bars.

  He sat down next to Eric at the monitoring station. ‘Nothing on the audio either?’

  Planting the listening device had been a quick operation that hadn’t afforded any examination of the van itself because some joyriding teenagers had chosen that moment to park in Prickly Pear Close to smoke marijuana, car windows open, listening to music in the dark. The teenagers had stayed until 4.30 a.m., by which time Scott had deemed it too close to daylight for them to try for an undetected examination of the van without knowing the sleep patterns of the street’s inhabitants. They would try again that night.

  ‘Just that same hum,’ replied Eric. He turned a dial on the audio receiver next to the video screen. A medium pitch, uninterrupted hum became more audible.

  ‘No fluctuation whatsoever?’

  Eric shook his head and turned the volume dial down to its previous position.

  ‘And no sign of anyone? Not even the homeowners?’ Scott moved on to a second energy bar.

  ‘No, but it’s summer in Phoenix. If they didn’t get out before eight in the morning, they know better than to come out now.’

  Eric pushed himself up from his seat in front of the monitoring station and made a note in the log they were keeping of their hours in the hot seat. Scott moved into the chair, downing the last of the coffee, his eyes already glued to the screen.

  Eric walked to the bedroom but halted before closing the accordion door. ‘You made the bed for me. I’m so touched.’

  Scott held up his middle finger in Eric’s direction without looking at him.

  ‘OK, I’m set for nineteen hundred hours unless a party starts,’ Eric said.

  Scott settled into the chair, preparing for the challenge of maintaining a high energy level. He was always surprised that it was hard to sustain energy on a stakeout even though in terms of physical activity, it wasn’t all that different to his usual job behind a desk; sit at a screen of some sort all day, get up every now and then. There were fewer phone calls on a stakeout. Maybe that was it. He contemplated calling Jayne. He told himself it would just be to ascertain if she’d arranged to have the Agency checked for bugs.

  He knew he wouldn’t call. It was one thing to think while watching the surveillance screen but it was something else to talk with an outsider while on stakeout. Especially with this case. They didn’t even have confirmation this was the right van so they were still hunting those body parts. This just got him thinking about Jayne again.

  He smiled to himself, remembering when they’d first met at Quantico. Her confident belief that inefficient processes could actually be improved had struck him as naïve yet liberating, coming as it did on the heels of his months of study of how a bureaucracy fights crime. Her face and body had displayed the last traces of youthful roundedness, as though her figure represented a tightrope between gullibility and mistrust and she was still working out on which side she would dismount.

  Now, she looked like she’d tried both sides and found each problematic, deciding that perhaps it was easier to negotiate the tightrope, arms out to the side, inadvertently keeping people away as she waved and balanced. Scott knew his interpretation was self-serving since he felt on a tightrope himself and he hadn’t met anyone else along it, besides Jayne. He’d known for a long time that he wanted to take hold of her but he hadn’t known if that was for the sake of her balance or his. That uncertainty had been at the heart of why he’d never tried to move things to what other people called the ‘next level’.

  His previous girlfriends – the ‘lightweights’ as Eric had referred to them – had been easy to pick up so they’d be easy to let go, with the idea of Jayne always in the background and never put to the test. Now that he was around her again, he was even more aware of the reality of his attraction to her. He had no intention of leaving things to his imagination forever. Ever since she’d backed into him on her stairs Friday night, he’d been thinking about the inward curve of her waist and the outward curves above and below . . . he knew he’d have to save that train of thought for after the stakeout. There was no way he could watch the screen, listen to the audio feed, and think those particular thoughts of Jayne all at the same time.

  When Jayne heard Carol come in the Agency’s front door, she intercepted her and indicated that they should have a word outside. Out in the parking lot, she asked, ‘Did you find a pay phone that actually worked?’

  Carol replied, ‘Third time lucky. The city still comes through on phones even if it can’t keep up the phone books. Someone from Jeppsen, Inc. will be here shortly.’

  ‘Was that the first one on Eric’s list?’

  ‘No, the second. The technicians at the first place were busy all week.’

  Jayne shook her head. ‘I can’t believe there’s this much call for people who do private bug detection.’

  ‘Well, I spoke to one of the principals at Jeppsen. He seemed nice enough.’

  Jayne heard the phone ring inside and darted in ahead of Carol. She listened to the deep, Midwestern-accented voice rumble down the phone line. ‘This is Bill Ledbetter from Wisconsin. I’m Amy’s father. You wrote my wife and me an email about Amy around a week ago.’

  Jayne placed Amy. She’d gone missing while on her way home from the Dairy Queen several years earlier. ‘Hello, Mr Ledbetter. Nice to have a voice to go with an email. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Well, we’ve been thinking over what you said about Amy being alive but maybe not knowing who she is. I gotta admit, that hadn’t occurred to us. We know she’s alive. Plus, the cops up here already used Amy’s hairbrush to see if she had . . . passed away and they didn’t get any matches.’

  ‘You mean, they tried to do a DNA match?’

  ‘They sure did. Right at the beginning.’

  ‘I see.’ Jayne knew that whenever DNA was involved, many people tended to see things in black-and-white, even though DNA doesn’t always lead to a match even when it should. Often, a failure to find a DNA match only proves that DNA isn’t in any system at the point a search is run. Jayne knew it would have been difficult for a detective to look the Ledbetters in the eye, explain that, and then watch hope borne of certainty yield to fear borne of uncertainty.

  Mr Ledbetter said, ‘When we got your email, we thought we’d like to go ahead and do a profile at your organization, just for the hospitals.’

  ‘Well, Mr Ledbetter, when we make up a forensic profile of a missing person, the police will automatically compare it to all unidentified persons. The FBI keeps one big file for everyone, alive or not.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. And it makes sense, since how we identify people doesn’t really change that much either way.’

  Jayne heard two female voices shouting in the background on Bill Ledbetter’s end.

  His voice became
somewhat muffled as he covered the phone’s mouthpiece. ‘Melissa! Becca! Please keep it down. I’m talking long distance.’

  Then a young girl’s voice. ‘But, Da-ad! She took my hair band.’

  ‘OK. I’ll be off the phone in a minute.’ Then he was back with Jayne. ‘Sorry about that. Well, let me talk to my wife, and then I guess the main thing we were wondering was if we had to come out there to do the profile?’

  ‘Not at all. We can talk to you about Amy over the phone and we can tell you what kind of other documents we’d need. You can send these to us in the mail and when we’re done, we’ll send the originals back.’

  When they hung up, Jayne pictured Bill Ledbetter’s world. He was still being a parent while dealing with something that no parent could expect and prepare for. It’s always the same, she thought. We’re all the same. She heard Carol greeting someone and went forward to Reception, where Carol said the two men from Jeppsen, Inc. were waiting on the front steps. Jayne summoned Steelie and they all went outside.

  Lex Jeppsen was a big man who introduced himself to Agency 32/1 as the ‘brains’, while his partner, Michael Eagen, was the ‘hands’ of their bug sweeping operation. They had been in business for three years, since leaving the FBI in search of better pay and more flexibility. They asked how the Agency found them and Jayne mentioned Scott Houston and Eric Ramos. Lex and Michael laughed and asked how ‘those two sonsabitches’ were doing. Then they asked Jayne, Carol, and Steelie to stay in Reception while they worked.

  They all trooped inside. Lex first used a machine, holding it a few inches out over the walls, while Michael took apart the telephone on Carol’s desk. Eventually, Lex asked if they had a key to the cage surrounding the generator outside. Jayne gave him the key and listened to him whistle as he went out the back door again.

  When they returned, Michael was smiling and holding an object. Jayne and Steelie exchanged a worried glance and they all stood.

  Lex began. ‘First question: you have three phone lines here?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Jayne.

  ‘You get any wrong numbers or hang ups in the past couple of months?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘How long you been in this building?’

  ‘About a year.’

  Lex looked at his colleague, who shook his head and said, ‘Hasn’t been there that long.’

  Steelie interrupted. ‘Can I just ask if that’s a listening device or what?’

  ‘Indeed it is,’ replied Michael. ‘RF transmitter, just like what was found at the apartment.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘On the one phone line outside but within the cage for the generator.’

  Jayne said, ‘Well, we just got the generator.’

  Lex answered. ‘It could predate it but we’ll check it out.’

  ‘When we find this type of wiretap at a business, it’s usually at corporate headquarters or an office were corporate secrets are discussed.’ Lex paused to look around the modest room, taking in the aloe plant in the corner. ‘You’re running a charity here?’

  Carol nodded.

  Lex continued: ‘You got a competitor? Or have any proprietary methodology – something not patented?’

  Steelie said, ‘Competition’s a bit thin on the ground in our line of work.’

  He looked around the room again. ‘What is it you do here?’

  ‘Forensic profiles of missing persons.’

  Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘You do anything to piss off the cops?’

  Jayne refrained from offering up the possibility that Steelie drove over a policeman’s foot on Friday night. ‘What we do complements law enforcement. And we have contacts with LAPD. If they want anything, they just ask.’

  Michael shrugged and started to pack up his gear. ‘Might not be LAPD. Could be any cops anywhere, if I’m correct in assuming your profiles go national.’

  ‘Or if you’re dealing with data on missing persons,’ resumed Lex. ‘It could be someone who wants to get stuff for identity theft while the owner’s AWOL. Whatever it turns out to be, we know your outside line was tapped and whoever did it didn’t need to gain entry to put it on. They’ll know you’ve disabled it. We want to come back and sweep in a month’s time.’

  He had been filling out some boxes on a clipboard. ‘Here’s the invoice for this location. Payment address at the bottom.’ He ripped off a carbon copy and gave Jayne the top sheet. ‘Now, about the apartment location. Carol here said that the tap in the Ziploc bag was found on the outside phone line under the stairs?’

  Jayne nodded.

  ‘But you had it swept?’

  ‘Eric and Scott said there wasn’t anything inside the apartment.’

  ‘Good.’ Lex turned the Ziploc around in his hands and passed it to Michael. ‘Listen, this tap from your place is identical to the one we found here so our opinion is that whatever you’re dealing with is related to your work somehow as it’s unlikely a Peeping Tom wants to hear your work calls. And it’s someone nearby or a person who can get near to you. This little sucker isn’t going to be useful for anyone at a great distance. You could consider getting more security for your property.’

  Michael added, ‘Alarming the building isn’t enough when people don’t need access to plant a device.’

  Steelie’s voice was flat. ‘I think we’re getting that picture.’

  Michael gathered up his briefcases and held up the bag with the tap in it. ‘You guys want these or you want me to take ’em?’

  ‘You can have them,’ answered Jayne.

  As soon as the two men had left the building, Steelie said, ‘We’re going to have to tell Scott and Eric.’

  ‘That we inadvertently gave their case some exposure? Absolutely,’ agreed Jayne.

  ‘You couldn’t have known,’ said Carol.

  Steelie was matter of fact. ‘That doesn’t matter. Those two agents are in the middle of a homicide investigation and they passed an ID over what turns out was an open line.’

  Jayne pulled out her cell. When she got Scott’s voicemail, she left a message simply asking him to call, without referring to the bugging, intending to explain more fully when they spoke.

  At eight minutes past seven on Monday night, Eric had again taken his position in front of the surveillance screen in the camper. Scott was in the bathroom when Eric said, ‘Someone’s coming to the party.’

  Scott emerged from the bathroom quickly, tucking in his shirt. He saw Eric turn up the volume on the audio feed and press Record on both the video and audio screens. On the video screen, a tall man dressed in sweat pants was doing something at the back of the van. The audio relayed the sound of a key being inserted into a lock.

  ‘Which house did he come from?’ Scott asked quietly.

  ‘Garage of fifteen-oh-one.’

  On the screen, the man pulled a thick metal chain from between the rear door handles, opened the doors, and jumped in. The doors closed before they could see the interior of the van and then they heard the sound of a padlock being closed.

  Eric put on a headset to focus on the audio while Scott tried to monitor both stations. The video screen remained static. The sound of someone moving around. Another lock being turned, then a hydraulic sound. A voice came through, somewhat muffled. Scott glanced sharply at his partner, brow furrowed. Eric shook his head. He hadn’t understood the words either.

  The audio feed hummed, then the sound of locks again. The man emerged from the rear of the van and suddenly bent down by the corner of the rear bumper. Scott couldn’t see what the man was doing until he twisted to look under the van. Something narrow and dark was dangling down from the van to the ground. It hadn’t been visible on the surveillance screen before because the bumper camouflaged it.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ asked Scott, pointing at the screen.

  ‘He’s not saying anything,’ Eric said, his voice slightly raised.

  Scott leaned in closer to the screen but that didn’t help. The man replaced
the chain through the van’s door handles, locked the padlock, and walked back to the garage. His gait was unhurried and he didn’t look around. As soon as he was out of the frame, Scott said, ‘What did he say when he was inside?’

  ‘It sounded like “Good for my pincers”.’ Eric looked at him.

  ‘Go over that again until you can confirm it.’ Scott sounded edgy. He noticed Eric’s expression and lightened his tone. ‘And make it make sense.’

  Eric smiled grimly and rewound the audio.

  Scott sat at the monitoring station and used another screen to run the video back. He enhanced the image until it was just pixels and then zoomed it back out again, considering and rejecting conclusions as he did so. Suddenly, he pushed away from the counter, swiveled in his seat to a cabinet behind him and pulled out a file. Inside were eight sheets of smooth fax paper stapled together. He flipped the pages over one by one, quickly scanning the top of each sheet. When he got to the final sheet, he swore.

  Eric had turned around to look at him and now pulled off the headset. ‘What?’

  ‘This fax from Phoenix PD?’ Scott waved the sheets in the air. ‘It’s got pages one through eight of a nine page document.’

  Eric groaned. ‘That fucking fax machine.’

  Scott was up and trying to pace in the tiny camper.

  Eric asked, ‘What do you think was on page nine?’

  ‘How about, “Yeah, we’ve got your gold van out here and guess what? It’s got an electrical extension cord running out its back end and into fifteen-oh-one”?’ He threw the papers on to the monitoring station, pulled his chair up next to Eric, and sat down again. Eric stared at the screen. ‘You’re probably right about that being an extension cord. Who lives in fifteen-oh-one again?’ He picked up the papers. ‘The Spicers. Sally and Frank.’ He put them back on the counter. ‘About the fax. I should have checked it when I grabbed it on Friday.’