Freezing Read online

  Angie approached. Eric abruptly stepped back from his huddle with Scott. She didn’t appear offended by this nor did she ask about the recording equipment on the floor. She held up a sheet of paper.

  ‘With the help of Health and Human Services, I’ve got a list of battered women’s shelters in the metro area. It’s recommended that we go in person so we can show ID, otherwise, forget it.’

  Just then, Mark got off the phone and called them all into the office.

  ‘The Lab confirms that King worked for the Bureau doing trace evidence and photography for seven years. He was loaned to the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on a nine-month agreement in ’ninety-six, going into ’ninety-seven. Official title: forensic expert. He resigned from the Lab in nineteen ninety-nine, stating personal reasons.’

  Eric interrupted: ‘Nothing precipitated it?’

  Mark shook his head. ‘Nothing disciplinary in his file. The only thing that stands out was a psych debriefing after the UN mission that came back with a recommendation for further appointments. He never made them but he wasn’t required to, either. Speaking of his file, there’s no explanation for why it isn’t in the Bureau’s General Records because it’s there in the Lab’s database at the Administration level.’

  Scott responded thoughtfully. ‘That’s smart. He doctored it so anyone who knew him from the Lab would find his records as expected but he’s not in the system that the rest of us use when we’re checking a name against government employee lists. Did the Lab think he had the tech skills to do that?’

  ‘The Director of the Lab didn’t know King well – came on just before he resigned, but said King was known as a jack of all trades. He’d been in the Bureau long enough to gain some working knowledge of everything. Blood spatter, geology, entomology, forensic accounting, you name it.’

  ‘They got an address for him?’

  ‘Same one we’ve got crime scene officers at right now.’

  Angie looked at Scott. ‘Are we going to have a problem taking Steelie and Jayne over there?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. What I want you to do is keep on the shelters, and see if we can find out where this guy frequented besides his house and the airport. Mark, see if you can get on to whoever was the director of the Lab while King was working there. We need leads on friends, anything on what he was planning to do when he resigned. We need some hidey hole he might be at right now, nursing his wounds from last night.’

  The team broke up.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jayne’s mental review of possible signs of violent tendencies on Gene’s part had quickly run back to Rwanda. But the only thing she could think of was metaphorical violence.

  Steelie said, ‘I remember when Gerrit called Gene combative, particularly in regard to you.’

  Jayne was staring at the tabletop. ‘He didn’t miss a thing. For whatever reason, Gerrit had my relationship with Gene down pat.’ A movement caught her eye and she glanced at the door. Scott was standing there, watching her.

  She started to get up. ‘Scott, I—’

  He launched into the room. ‘Whatever you have to say about King is going on tape.’ The case he was carrying hit the tabletop with a thud.

  Jayne froze, half standing, half sitting.

  He spoke again, less roughly. ‘So just hold that thought and we’ll get to it on tape. OK?’

  She nodded and sat down.

  Steelie was eyeing the contents of the case he’d now opened. ‘What’s the deal, Scott? I’m getting the feeling you’re about to read Jayne her rights.’

  He continued to busily pull out equipment as he replied. ‘She’s not a suspect.’

  He set up a microphone on a stand in the middle of the table. ‘Neither are you, for that matter. You’re material witnesses. I’m recording this because I need it to be available for the whole team. You’re going to give us background on the suspect. You’re not under oath.’

  He yanked tangled wires free and bent down to plug into the sockets on the table’s edge. He caught Jayne’s eye. ‘But it would be helpful if you told the truth.’

  He turned on the recorder, pulled over a legal pad, and looked squarely at her. ‘Who is Gerrit?’

  Jayne opened her mouth, closed it, then started again. ‘Gerrit? Aren’t we supposed to be talking about Gene?’

  ‘Yeah and it sounds like this Gerrit is a mutual friend of you and King so I’ll want to talk to him.’ He dropped his eyes to the pad, jotted something on it and added, ‘For background.’

  Scott repeated his question, directing it at Steelie. ‘So, who is Gerrit?’

  Steelie calmly replied, ‘He was the UN Tribunal’s lead criminal investigator for the sites we exhumed in Kigali in ’ninety-six, when we worked with Gene.’

  ‘Surname?’

  ‘Leuven.’

  ‘Seconded or . . .’

  ‘Seconded.’

  ‘One year or two?’

  ‘He was into his second year.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Government of the Netherlands. Politie.’

  ‘Do you know his current title?’

  She looked to Jayne, who replied, ‘Chief of Police.’

  ‘You’ve got contact information for him?’

  Jayne nodded and pulled her bag from the chair next to her. She dug around for her cell phone while Scott pushed the legal pad toward her, a fresh page uppermost. She wrote down Gerrit’s email and direct telephone numbers as stored in her phone, then pushed the pad back across the table. ‘He continued working with Gene after we left.’

  Scott turned to the next page of the pad. ‘You stated that you saw King last week?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Which day, what time?’

  So much had transpired since that night, Jayne had to think for a second. She felt the pause made it seem like she had something to hide so she met Scott’s gaze directly. ‘Wednesday evening. I picked him up around seven and he left my place at about eleven.’

  She saw his pupils dilate and the start of a frown in the moment before he looked down at his pad. It felt like an entire minute passed before he looked up from his pad.

  ‘So, did he contact you for the meet?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a meet. It was just dinner. He contacted me – us, really. Sent an email to the Agency on Tuesday and—’

  ‘Meaning last Tuesday, the day before you met?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So you were in regular contact?’

  ‘No—’ She threw her hands up. ‘You don’t understand.’ She looked to Steelie.

  Steelie’s tone sounded conversational compared to Jayne’s. ‘Scott, we hadn’t heard from him since we worked with him in Rwanda. This was a one-off.’

  ‘Uh-huh. So you get this email out of the blue. What did he say?’

  ‘Just that he was flying into LA the next day and could we meet up,’ replied Steelie.

  ‘Just Jayne or both of you?’

  ‘Both of us.’

  ‘But you didn’t attend the meet, Steelie?’

  ‘Gene was never my favorite person. Even before you alleged he was a serial killer.’ Steelie gave him a thin smile.

  He made a note. ‘OK, we’ll get to that.’ He looked to Jayne again. ‘How many more emails did you have from him?’

  ‘I wrote back, said I’d be meeting him, then he just wrote one more time to tell me that he’d be staying at the Omni and what time I could pick him up.’

  ‘That’s it? Nothing about what he was doing in LA?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you’re sure he said he was flying in the next day, the Wednesday?’

  ‘Yes, positive.’

  ‘Flying in from . . .?’

  ‘I presumed DC because that’s where he used to live.’

  Scott tapped his pen against the pad. ‘We’ll need to see the email traffic between his account and yours, track his account.’

  Jayne bit back the words I’m not lying. ‘Fine. We can get
into the Agency account from here.’

  ‘Have you had any more emails from him since you met?’

  ‘No . . .’ Jayne paused, remembering the message she’d sent Gene on the day the half-empty filing cabinet had depressed her. She realized that Scott would probably see that message now.

  ‘You sound unsure.’

  Jayne noticed Steelie looking at her curiously, so mustered herself. ‘I’m sure. He hasn’t written again.’

  The door opened and they all looked up.

  Mark Wilson walked in and addressed Scott. ‘You want this now?’

  Scott nodded and turned off the tape recorder.

  ‘There’s almost nothing on this guy. Two people say they were friends of his when he worked at the Lab but they haven’t been in touch since. They understood he was resigning to take care of his mother down here, who was getting sick; one of them thought it was Alzheimer’s—’

  Jayne cut in. ‘That’s right. He told me she died a few years ago, after living with Alzheimer’s.’ She looked at Scott but he only indicated that Mark should continue.

  ‘King’s friends only ever socialized with him at their local bar in DC or at professional conferences. He used to have a DC-area code cell phone. I called it and also checked with the phone company. He dumped the number four years ago.’

  ‘When his mother died?’

  ‘Around the same time, yeah.’

  ‘Find out if it was before or after and by how much time.’

  ‘You want me to check on the Alzheimer’s business?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Scott flipped back to another sheet on his pad, ripped it off and handed it to Mark. ‘And get a hold of this guy in Holland; get him out of bed if you have to. He was the lead investigator when King was working with Jayne and Steelie in Rwanda. He may have worked with King even longer than they did. Find out if anything happened out there. And his name’s pronounced Herrit.’

  Mark nodded and left the room.

  Jayne opened her mouth to speak but Scott was already restarting the tape recorder.

  ‘OK, let’s go back to Wednesday night. Did you ask for King at the desk inside the Omni?’

  ‘No, he said he’d meet me where the taxis pull in.’

  ‘Did you see him come out of the hotel, through the doors?’

  ‘No . . .’ Jayne felt sudden surprise. ‘I was scanning the area but he spotted me first and met me at the truck.’

  ‘What was your impression of him?’

  ‘Like, his behavior or what?’ Jayne knew she sounded distracted.

  Scott frowned at her. ‘Are you getting tired?’

  Jayne shook her head. In fact, her brain was busy fast-forwarding her memories of that night, now alerted to how much she’d taken for granted with Gene’s visit to LA and how little she’d actually learned from him.

  Scott sounded more solicitous. ‘Just think back to the first moment you saw him. Close your eyes if that helps.’

  Jayne dutifully followed this direction. She thought back to Gene jumping in the passenger side of the truck, the hug he gave her once in the cab. ‘I didn’t recognize him at first; he looked older than I’d expected even though we’re all older. His skin seemed grayer and it was as though his cheeks were being pulled down by gravity but he was energetic, lively, funny, and it was . . . nicer to see him than I’d expected.’ She opened her eyes and shrugged.

  ‘Good. OK. Was he clean shaven? Moustache? Beard?’

  ‘No. No facial hair.’

  ‘What was he wearing?’

  ‘All beige. A zip-up windbreaker, golf shirt, slacks. I don’t remember his shoes. No logos.’

  ‘So he got in the truck. It’s about seven p.m. and then what?’

  ‘I drove to Little Tokyo.’

  ‘His choice or yours?’

  ‘Mine, because it was close.’

  ‘He pick the restaurant?’

  ‘No, I’d suggested we see what looked good once we got there.’

  ‘During the drive, what did you talk about?’

  ‘Let’s see . . . he explained that he’d left the Bureau years ago, didn’t miss it, and now worked for an electronics company that was expanding to the West Coast and he was the advance guard.’

  ‘Which company?’ Scott had drawn a line out from his notes and was circling something three times, the ink sitting in a groove on the paper.

  ‘I don’t know. Didn’t ask.’

  ‘And he didn’t volunteer? At any point in the evening? Give you his business card?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he say where he was based?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you park and walk into Little Tokyo. Where’d you eat?’

  ‘Um, I didn’t notice the name. We had stopped in front of it and the host just handed us a menu.’

  ‘He stopped or you stopped?’

  ‘I don’t remember; we just stopped. No, wait. I stopped because he’d said something that pissed me off and I couldn’t walk and respond at the same time.’

  Scott’s mouth twitched into a tiny grin and then he became serious again. ‘You were arguing?’

  ‘No. He just made a typical Gene statement, sounding supercilious and sure of his facts as he questioned the likelihood that the Agency could make a difference. He was basically saying that our efforts to link up mispers with unidentifieds was just a drop in the bucket.’

  Steelie cut in, leaning towards her. ‘You never told me this.’

  Jayne gave her a quelling look. ‘There was no point getting you riled up as well.’

  Steelie’s protest was cut off by Scott’s follow-up question for Jayne. ‘Why did that bother you so much that you stopped walking?’

  ‘Because it’s the sort of armchair quarterback statement you might expect from a disinterested person, not a forensic scientist – or any kind of scientist.’

  ‘Right.’ Scott almost smiled again. ‘So you set him straight. How did he respond?’

  ‘He kind of backed off and we went into the restaurant.’

  ‘Which you don’t know the name of.’

  ‘Look, I can describe it.’

  ‘Later.’ Scott consulted his notes. ‘During dinner, did you learn anything about where he lived or his activities, if he had a rental car or some form of transportation?’

  ‘No. We were reminiscing.’

  ‘And how long did you stay there?’

  ‘About an hour and a half. Something like that.’

  ‘King paid for dinner?’

  Jayne had a ray of hope that Scott could be jealous, wanting to know if this had actually been a date. ‘Yes, he paid.’ She tried to see his expression but his whole face was tilted down to his pad.

  ‘Credit card?’

  She deflated. He was just trying to find out if there was a financial paper trail the FBI could follow to investigate Gene. ‘Cash.’

  ‘Then you went to your place?’

  ‘No, first we went to the Agency.’

  Both Steelie and Scott’s heads snapped toward Jayne. Scott held up his hand to stop Steelie from interrupting again. ‘Was that his suggestion?’

  Jayne nodded, beginning to see how strange it appeared. She wondered what Gene had actually been doing, if indeed he was the person responsible for the freeway body parts. She sat still and tried to think of anything he might have seen or could have discerned about the case while in her office.

  ‘Jayne?’ Scott sounded impatient.

  ‘Yes. Yes, OK? He asked to see it.’

  ‘And that seemed normal to you, at, what, eight at night?’

  She couldn’t help but sound defensive. ‘We’d been talking about some similarities between our work in Rwanda and what the Agency does now. It was a relatively natural request in the context of the evening.’

  ‘Fine. You went to the Agency. What did you do there?’

  Jayne rubbed her forehead. ‘I showed him around. We weren’t there very long.’

  ‘Did you show him anything in particular? Any case f
iles, photographs, notes—’

  She glared at him. ‘No. I think you know me better than that. And I didn’t say anything about consulting on an FBI case, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t mention the freeway body parts and he sure as hell didn’t ask.’

  ‘Did he show an interest in anything in particular?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘He seemed interested in the All Coroners Bulletin.’

  Steelie’s sharp intake of breath was audible. ‘You turned on my computer in the lab?’

  Jayne rolled her eyes. ‘Of course not.’ Then she took on an assertive tone, aiming to clarify these issues for the last time. ‘Look, I didn’t open anything, use any passwords in front of him, didn’t let him see the alarm keycode—’ She stopped abruptly. Oh, shit.

  ‘What?’ Scott leaned forward. ‘You’ve remembered something. The alarm system?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I just thought of something, a connection. I mean, Gene’s the one anomalous person who’s been at the Agency as well as my apartment.’ Her assertive tone had been replaced with something higher pitched.

  ‘So what?’

  ‘The bugging. The taps on the phones, dammit!’ Her voice was rising. ‘He said he was in ‘electronics’, maybe that’s what he meant. He’s been in both locations and I let him in myself! For Christ’s sake, I let him in.’

  She tried to stand up but the legs of her chair tangled with the strap of her bag, pulling it upside down to the floor. She bent over to untangle the mess, gave up and stepped over it, only to be confronted by Gene’s face on the projection screen when she looked up. No! She made an about-face, directly into Scott, who’d come around the table.

  He stopped her short by gripping her by the shoulders. She looked everywhere but into his eyes as she felt despair come over her. Gene had manipulated her with ease, she’d possibly compromised Scott’s case and maybe even Agency 32/1 itself. What have I done?

  She was aware that Scott was telling Steelie to turn off the tape recorder. She watched Steelie follow the instructions. Oh, God, Steelie; I’m sorry.