The Outsider

by Anthony Franze

  Lauren’s eyes twinkled with excitement. “Are you daft?”

  Gray looked at her, confused.

  “Are you kidding me? ‘Kora Matsu.’ Think about it, Gray. Korematsu.”

  Gray recalled something Keir had said on New Year’s Eve when they were working on the Filstein opinion.

  The chief never cites Cutler’s decisions. I think he’d rather cite Korematsu than one of Cutler’s cases.

  It was Korematsu v. United States, the notorious case where the court upheld Japanese American internment.

  “I’m an idiot,” Gray said. It was so obvious now. “Kora Matsu” wasn’t a reference to the victim’s name, it was to a Supreme Court case.

  “I agree, you’re an idiot,” Lauren said, a hint of playfulness. She then turned serious. “You need to call that agent and tell her. Do you still have her number?”

  “Yeah, I have her personal cell in my phone. And she gave me her card.”

  “Do you think it will get the other agents to focus on the Supreme Court?”

  Gray shrugged. “Milstein said they’ve got tunnel vision on the Whitlock suspect.”

  “They should be focusing on the court, not wasting their time on that.”

  “I’ll call her,” Gray said. “Anyone ever tell you you’re sexy when you’re ordering people around?”

  “Call her. Now!”

  CHAPTER 54

  Milstein received both a call and a text from Grayson. The messages said he had some additional information. Milstein would get back with him later. Cartwright was right, she needed to focus on Kevin Dugan, and close loose ends on the Whitlock case before chasing more leads on the Supreme Court front. Tomorrow was the fifth. The perp had broken the pattern for December, killing Ben Freeman on Christmas rather than the fifth of December. But, unlike everyone else on the task force, she was still assuming the fifth meant something to the killer.

  She started by reviewing Agent Simmons’s report on John Whitlock’s prison visitor logs to see if they held any clues to help locate Whitlock. In two years, Whitlock had only one visitor. The log listed only “L. Smith.” Simmons tried to track the person down, but Smith was the most common surname in North America. Hayfield Correctional didn’t make copies of visitors’ IDs, but they did record all visits. Milstein sent an e-mail to the prison’s law enforcement liaison and requested the footage. Who knows how long it would take the corrections bureaucrat to send it.

  Next, she needed to finish reviewing the Kevin Dugan lawsuit file, including watching the recording of Dugan’s deposition. She’d had the tech guys track down an old VCR and set it up in her office. For the next few hours, as office lights went out and the halls grew quiet, Milstein watched the first of two tapes, fast-forwarding the long segments of irrelevant questions. By the end of the tape, the plaintiff’s lawyer had questioned Kevin Dugan for nearly a full day yet had only gotten through Dugan’s personal and professional background. No wonder civil cases lasted so damned long. Milstein chewed on a chocolate bar as she shoved the rectangular second tape into the clunky old machine. Ten minutes in, and the lawyer was finally getting to the relevant stuff. What Dugan discovered when he found Ken Tanaka with the Whitlock sisters. The video was framed on only Dugan, who hunched over a conference room table. The plaintiff’s lawyer asked questions off screen, and Dugan’s lawyer would occasionally bark an objection.

  “And you arrived at the storage unit?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “She was sitting there, the younger one.”

  “Susie?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you say sitting there, you mean—”

  “I mean she was sitting on a stained mattress on the floor of the unit. Her hair was chopped up. And she was in shock. Her little stockings were torn.” His voice broke. “There was dried blood on her thigh.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “No. She didn’t cry. She was catatonic.”

  “And what about her sister, Kimberley?”

  “I didn’t see her at first, and then…” his voice caught again.

  “You wanna take a break?”

  “No, let’s get this over with.”

  “You said you didn’t see Kimberley at first.”

  “Yeah, so I started looking about the unit. It was small, filled with junk. Then I saw the large duffel bag.”

  There was a long silence. Even the lawyer didn’t seem to want to ask. “And what was in the bag?”

  “I unzipped it and she was in there. I saw her tiny head. Then her neck, it was bruised. Then I realized that it wasn’t attached to her body, that he’d dismembered her.”

  “And then what did—”

  Milstein’s phone rang and she fumbled for the remote to pause the video.

  “Hey, Scott, what’s up?”

  “I hate it when you’re right,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Check your e-mail.”

  Milstein tapped on her keyboard and saw the e-mail from Aaron Dowell.

  They’d found Kevin Dugan. And he was dead.

  CHAPTER 55

  When his office phone rang at 11:30 p.m., Gray snatched up the receiver.

  “I found something,” Lauren said.

  “Hey, where’ve you been? You never texted me after your doctor’s appointment. I called and sent you texts and have been a little worried and—”

  “Did you not hear me? I said I found something.”

  “Found what? What are you talking about?”

  “About the murders. I mean, I found something important. We need to set up a meeting with the FBI agent.”

  “She hasn’t gotten back to me yet. What is it?”

  “Can you come over?”

  “Now?” Gray said. “Yeah, sure. Are you gonna keep me in suspense?”

  “I’ll explain everything when you get here. Also, can you bring me one of my work files?”

  “Sure. Where is it, your office?”

  “No, I left it in my locker in the court’s gym.”

  “I can’t go in the women’s locker room.”

  “It’s late. It’s not like anyone will be in there.”

  Gray took down the locker number and combination.

  “It’s a file, it has Filstein written on the cover,” Lauren said.

  “Got it, I’ll go get it and be over in about a half hour. I hope this is some type of seduction game and when I get there you’re gonna be naked on the—” The line clicked off.

  Lauren normally would have liked the banter, but she seemed stressed out. Gray understood; he knew how playing detective could suck you in. It had landed him cuffed on the ground in a basement filled with sex toys.

  After retrieving her work file from the ladies’ locker room—and it was true, ladies’ restrooms and facilities really are nicer—he tucked the file in his sports bag, one of those nylon drawstring backpacks. It was late and he wasn’t planning on working any more tonight, so he left his papers in his office.

  Gray drove on autopilot, his mind shuffling through the events of late. He was hopeful that Lauren really had found something, though he was annoyed he’d been pulled back into it all. He’d already spent too many hours speculating pointlessly about the crimes. Wondering if someone in the building could be involved. And yet his thoughts still skipped back to who? His co-clerks? Milstein seemed to have crossed them off the list. Martin, his supervisor from the marshal’s office? But the man who attacked the chief in the garage was tall, strong. Fast. Nothing like Martin. One of the clerks from other chambers? Someone angry about one of the court’s rulings? A nut? He thought about the homeless guy, Vincent. He was an imposing figure. But with his scraggly beard and soiled clothes, Vincent wouldn’t have made it past the front security checkpoints. Besides, the feds must’ve already checked out the court fanatics.

  At just past midnight, Gray pulled into a space in front of Lauren’s row house apartment. The porch light was off. He didn’t have
a key, but she’d hear the doorbell. He grabbed the backpack and walked to the door. He rang the bell and waited. When she didn’t answer, he turned the knob. It was unlocked. She must have seen his car. He stepped inside and called her name.

  Her cat came meowing past him and he clicked on the light. The cat must have stepped in something since there appeared to be prints on the hardwood. He then got a sickening feeling. The prints were crimson.

  He reached down and put a finger in the liquid. His chest heaved and his face grew hot.

  “Lauren!”

  No answer.

  He ran down the narrow hallway to her bedroom. He slapped on the light. The last thing he remembered before the crushing blow on his head was a man in a ski mask.

  CHAPTER 56

  Gray remembered waking up on the floor. Looking for Lauren, but finding only a pool of blood. He must have called Agent Milstein because he remembered being in the back of a sedan and was now at the FBI field office. He didn’t know what time it was, but he was tired, jittery, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He’d refused to go to the hospital.

  The room wasn’t like in the movies—no grimy table, no one-way mirror. The facility was clean. Professional. Like he was a middle manager awaiting colleagues for a sales meeting in a room filled with pressed-wood furniture. He wore an oversized T-shirt and sweats they’d given him. They’d taken his clothes and run some type of test on his hands, standard forensics, he presumed. His backpack was on the table. Its drawstrings were open, and someone must have looked inside. Or maybe Gray had opened it. He wasn’t thinking clearly. Everything was a haze.

  Several agents had rotated in and out of the room. They each asked variations of the same questions. When was the last time you saw Lauren? Why were you at her house so late? What exactly is your relationship with her? You know anyone who would have a reason to hurt her? You two having any problems?

  He understood they had to ask, but all he knew, the only thing he could focus on, was the pool of blood.

  The door swung open and there stood Agent Milstein and a stocky guy. He thought he had been the driver that night he first met Milstein after the Anton Troy execution. Milstein’s partner? Both sat down across from Gray.

  Milstein looked at him. “You okay?”

  What a stupid question. “Why are you wasting time here? You need to be out looking for her!” He choked back a sob.

  Milstein didn’t flinch, but her partner shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “There are dozens of agents looking for her, Grayson. An entire task force. But you may have information that helps us find her, even if you don’t know you do.”

  “Was it him?” Gray asked.

  Milstein hesitated. “We don’t know. But you said he took her after midnight, so it’s January 5, which seems to be an important date to the killer.”

  “She told me she’d found something,” Gray said. “She asked me to come over after work to talk about it.”

  “Do you know what it was? What she’d found?”

  “No. But earlier today, we made another connection between one of the murders and a Supreme Court case. That’s why I called you.” Gray told her about the killer’s reference to Korematsu v. United States at the convenience store murder. “I thought you said that you were close to finding the guy?” Gray said.

  Milstein and her partner exchanged a glance. Milstein said, “We’ve had some setbacks.” She wouldn’t say what.

  They spent another hour or so asking Gray questions. It was going nowhere, so he asked if he could leave. He was exhausted, his head throbbed from where the man in the ski mask had hit him.

  “I’ll get someone to drive you,” Milstein said.

  “Please find her,” Gray said.

  CHAPTER 57

  Gray couldn’t be alone right now. He had the agent drop him off at Sam’s place. It was just past four in the morning, and Sam answered the door groggy and annoyed, but her expression softened when she got a look at him. And he told her everything.

  “It sounds like they’ve cleared everyone you work with. Does the court have any stalkers or creeps bugging the justices? Crazies pissed about the court’s decisions?”

  “Just anyone who cares about health care, abortion, campaign finance, gay rights, gun control, among others.”

  They talked until dawn. Gray was too upset, and Sam too loyal, to sleep, but at some point he dozed off. He awoke to the patter of rain. Sam had thrown a blanket over him.

  “Morning,” Sam said. She sat at the kitchen counter in the open loft. She was sipping coffee, and asked if he wanted a cup.

  “That would be great.” He stretched out his arms, glancing out the large rain-spattered windows into the gray sky.

  Sam carried over a mug, and nudged her chin toward the television. The sound was muted, but a correspondent stood in front of the Supreme Court building, the marble stairs and portico cropped behind him. The screen then flashed to an image of Lauren. He felt a blow to the chest at the sight of her. Even in her court ID photo that they used, she had an imposing beauty.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised at the media frenzy. No law clerk from the Supreme Court had ever been the victim of foul play. And Lauren was a young, beautiful woman, the type of “pretty white girl” who fed media cycles, so it was going to get ugly. Especially since they had no body. Could she be alive? The media attention also meant that it was inevitable word would leak connecting a single perpetrator to Dupont Underground, the Franklin fire, the chief’s attack, the convenience store, the former FBI agent, and now Lauren.

  “They mention my name?” Gray asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Should he go to work? He fished out his phone to see if there’d been any word from the court about how to proceed. The battery was dead. The iPhone was one of the greatest inventions of his generation, so why couldn’t his goddamned battery hold a charge? He decided that he’d probably be expected to come into the office.

  “I should go home and get cleaned up.” He still had on the oversized shirt and sweats the agents had given him. He was tired, grief draining the energy from him.

  “You want me to come with you?” Sam had a concerned look on her face. “I’m not sure you should be alone.”

  He stood and gave her a long hug. “I’ll be okay. I should go.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Dora Baxter bent down and tied her running shoe, foot propped on one of the wet steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She pulled the laces tight, stretching her calf. She was tired, but only a little more to go. Her morning jog from her office at Main Justice to the foot of giant Abe Lincoln and then across the Mall to the Supreme Court building—exactly 4.8 miles—was getting harder every day. She wasn’t getting any younger. If her mother didn’t remind her of that, her aching joints would. Her mom didn’t understand. Success in this town, particularly for a woman, required focus and discipline. You had to be twice as good as them to get half as much.

  The day the Senate confirmed her nomination as solicitor general her mother said it was time to think about her personal life—meet someone, have some kids, have a life. What Mom didn’t understand was that this was her life, and she liked it just fine, thank you very much. Besides, none of her married friends seemed all that happy. And the ones with kids, oy—all they seemed to be able to talk about was their spawn. They’d lost themselves. Even secretly seeing that sycophant Peter Wall, the latest in a long line of mistakes, had been better than turning out like her mother. Living someone else’s dream.

  She ran along the gravel path that bordered the reflecting pool, which was rippling from rain that had started up again. The breeze and drizzle felt good on her face as she made her way down the route lined with trees and overweight squirrels—the damn tourists couldn’t resist feeding the fearless rodents. Thankfully, the rain had deterred most of the tourists this morning with only a hearty few up early wandering in their disposable rain ponchos.

  She jogged around the World War II Memorial and then up t
he incline, her thoughts meandering. It had been a bizarre week. The media was buzzing that the Dupont Underground murders had a connection to the Supreme Court, though none of her sources knew what it was all about. But just that morning she’d gotten a security briefing e-mail stating that a Supreme Court law clerk was missing. Not to be insensitive, but Dora’s main concern was the effect the drama would have on her cases still pending at the high court. The president himself had called her about the Filstein case. The outcome of the case could mean the difference between Dora being nominated for the next seat on the Supreme Court or simply left to move on to private practice at the end of the president’s term. She needed the case decided. She needed to win. If she knew the high court—and she damn well did—the justices wouldn’t let anything derail their case schedule.

  She stopped at the crosswalk, jogging in place. Cars whipped down the winding lane heading into the heart of downtown, tires hissing from the rain. She was so tired. Push yourself, Dora. They were her father’s words that always whispered in her ear—from the days on the soccer field, the high school debate team, studying for the SATs. Dad always pushed himself, which probably contributed to his fatal heart attack when Dora was a high school senior. Probably the reason she pushed herself, some notion that he was watching.

  When the traffic signal changed, she jogged into the crosswalk.

  She didn’t feel the initial impact, just the disoriented feeling of flight. Then she was on the street. She tried to get up; her brain made the command, but her body wouldn’t oblige. She was frozen on the blacktop. It was getting harder to breathe, and she heard her heartbeat in her ears. Her eyes shifted to the car that had stopped on the street. She realized that she’d been hit. The driver’s door swung open and he stepped out of the car. Dora tried to lift her arm, but it didn’t move.

  You’re not going to die. Push yourself, Dora.

  The driver just stood there watching her on the ground from the distance. It was then that Dora noticed that the driver was wearing a ski mask. The driver hurried back into the silver sports car. The last thing Dora ever saw was the rear of the car speeding at her in reverse.