by Blake Pierce
She’d done some really brilliant work. She’d also made some really outrageous mistakes. And she was a long way from learning how to obey orders, but he’d only known a handful of even seasoned agents with such powerful intuitions.
One of those was himself.
As Jake stooped below the spinning propeller blades and climbed up into the helicopter, he saw the four-man forensic team trotting across the tarmac. Then the forensics guys climbed into the chopper, which took to the air.
It seemed silly to be thinking of Riley Sweeney right now. Quantico was a huge base, and even though she was at the FBI Academy, their paths weren’t likely to cross again.
Jake opened the folder to read over the police report.
*
After the helicopter cleared the Appalachian mountain ranges, it passed over rolling meadows dotted with Black Angus cattle. As the chopper descended, Jake could see where police vehicles had blocked off a stretch of gravel road to keep onlookers away from the crime scene.
The helicopter set down in grassy pasture. Jake and the forensics team climbed out of the vehicle and headed over toward a small group of uniformed people and several official vehicles.
The cops and the medical examiner’s team were standing on both sides of a barbed wire fence that ran along the road at the edge of the pasture. Jake could see what looked like a snarled bundle of wire hanging from a fencepost.
A short, sturdy-looking man of about Jake’s height and build stepped forward to greet him.
“I’m Graham Messenger, the chief of police here in Dighton,” he said, shaking hands with Jake. “We’ve had ourselves a couple of pretty awful incidents, at least for these parts. Let me show you.”
The chief led the way to a fence post and, sure enough, a weird bundle was hanging from the post, all held together with duct tape and barbed wire. Again Jake was able spot a face and hands indicating that the bundle was actually a human being.
Messenger said, “I guess you already know about Alice Gibson, the earlier victim over near Hyland. This looks like the same damn thing all over again. The victim this time is Hope Nelson.”
Crivaro said, “Was she reported missing before the body was found?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Messenger said, pointing pointed toward a stunned-looking middle-aged man standing near one of the vehicles. “Hope was married to Mason Nelson over there—the town mayor. She was working in their local farm supply store last night, but she didn’t come home when Mason expected. He called me in the middle of the night about it, sounding pretty alarmed.”
The police chief shrugged guiltily.
“Well, I’m kind of used to folks going missing for a spell, then turning up again. I told Mason I’d look into in today if she didn’t turn up. I had no idea …”
Messenger’s voice trailed off. Then he sighed and shook his head and added …
“The Nelsons own a lot of property in Dighton. They’ve always been good, respectable folks. Poor Hope didn’t deserve this. But then, I don’t reckon anybody does.”
Another man stepped toward them. He had a long, aged face, white hair, and a bushy old-fashioned mustache. Chief Messenger introduced him as Hamish Cross, the county’s chief medical examiner. Chewing on a weed, Cross seemed relaxed and mildly curious about what was going on.
He asked Jake, “Ever seen anything like this before?”
Jake didn’t reply. The answer, of course, was no.
Jake stooped down beside the bundle and examined it closely.
He said to Cross, “I assume you worked on the earlier murder.”
Cross nodded and stooped down beside Jake and twirled the weed in his mouth.
“That I did,” Cross said. “And this one’s pretty near identical. She didn’t die here, that much is certain. She was abducted, bound up first with duct tape and then with barbed wire, and bled slowly to death. Either that or she suffocated first. Bound up tight like that, she’d hardly have been able to breathe at all. All that happened somewhere else—there’s no sign of bleeding here.”
Jake could see that the face and hands were almost as white as paper, and they glistened in the late morning sunlight like pieces of china. The woman simply didn’t look real to Jake, but more like some kind of sick, grotesque sculpture.
A few flies had gathered around the body. They kept landing, roaming around, then flying away again. They looked like they didn’t know what to do with this mysterious object.
Jake rose to his feet and asked Chief Messenger, “Who found the body?”
As if in reply, Jake heard a man’s voice calling out …
“What the hell’s going on here? How much longer is this going to take?”
Jake turned and saw a longhaired man with a scraggly beard coming toward them. He looked wild-eyed with anger, and his voice was shaking and shrill.
He yelled, “When the hell are you taking this—this thing away? This is a huge inconvenience. I’ve had to keep my cattle in an overgrazed pasture because of all this. I’ve got lots of work to do today. How much longer is this going to take?”
Jake turned to Hamish Cross and said quietly …
“You can take the body away any time now.”
Cross nodded and gave orders to his team. Then he led the angry man away and spoke to him quietly, apparently calming him down.
Chief Messenger explained to Jake …
“That’s Guy Dafoe, who owns this property. He’s an organic farmer—our local hippie, I guess you might say. He hasn’t been around for very long. It turns out this area is good for raising grass-fed organic beef. Organic farming’s been a real boost to the local economy.”
The chief’s cellphone rang and he took the call. He listened for a moment, then said to Jake …
“This is Dave Tallhamer, the sheriff over in Hyland. You may have heard there’s a suspect in custody for the first murder—Philip Cardin. He’s the victim’s ex-husband, and a bad sort who didn’t have an alibi at the time. Tallhamer thought he had him dead to rights. But I guess this new murder changes things, doesn’t it? Dave wants to know if he should let the guy go.”
Jake thought for a moment, then said …
“Not until I’ve had a chance to talk to him.”
Chief Messenger squinted curiously and said, “Uh, doesn’t being locked in a jail cell when this woman was killed pretty much let him off the hook?”
Jake suppressed a sigh of impatience.
He repeated simply, “I’ll want to talk to him.”
Messenger nodded and got back on the phone with the sheriff.
Jake didn’t want to go into any kind of explanation right now. The truth was, he knew nothing at all about the suspect currently in custody, or even why he was a suspect. For all Jake knew, Philip Cardin might have a partner who committed this new murder, or else …
God knows what might be going on.
At this point in an investigation, there were always thousands of questions and no answers. Jake hoped that would change before too long.
While Messenger kept talking on the phone, Jake walked over to the victim’s husband, who was leaning against a police car staring off into space.
Jake said, “Mr. Nelson, I’m very sorry for your loss. I’m Special Agent Jake Crivaro, and I’m here to help bring your wife’s killer to justice.”
Nelson nodded only slightly, as if he were barely aware that he’d been spoken to.
Jake said in a firm voice, “Mr. Nelson, do you have any idea who might have done this? Or why?”
Nelson looked at him with a dazed expression.
“What?” he said. Then he repeated, “No, no, no.”
Jake knew that there was no point in asking the man any more questions, at least not right now. He was clearly in a deep state of shock. That was hardly surprising. Not only was his wife dead, but the way she had died was especially grotesque.
Jake headed back over toward the crime scene, where his forensics team was already hard at work.
; He looked all around, noting how isolated the place seemed to be. At least there wasn’t a crowd of gawkers hanging around …
And so far no sign of the media.
But right then he heard the sound of another helicopter. He looked around and saw that a TV news helicopter was descending toward the meadow.
Jake sighed deeply and thought …
This case is going to be tough.
CHAPTER SIX
Riley felt a sharp tingle of expectation when the speaker stepped in front of the 200 or so recruits. The man looked like he belonged to a different era, with his thin lapels and his skinny black tie and his buzz haircut. He reminded Riley of photos she’d seen of 1960s astronauts. As he shuffled through a few notecards, then looked out over his audience, she waited for his words of welcome and praise.
Academy Director Lane Swanson began much as she had expected …
“I know that you’ve all been working hard to prepare for this day.”
He added with a half-smile …
“Well, let me tell you right now—you’re not prepared. None of you.”
An audible sigh passed through the auditorium and Swanson paused to let his words sink in.
Then he continued, “That’s what this 20-week program is about—getting you as prepared as you can get for life in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And part of that preparedness is learning the limits of preparedness, how to deal with the unexpected, learning to think on your feet. Always remember—the FBI Academy is called the ‘West Point for Law Enforcement’ with good reason. Our standards are high. Not all of you are going to get through this. But those of you who do will be as prepared as you can hope to be for the tasks that await you.”
Riley hung on his every word as Swanson spoke about the Academy’s standards of fostering safety, esprit de corps, uniformity, accountability, and discipline. Then he went on to talk about the rigorous curriculum—courses in everything from law and ethics to interrogation and evidence collection.
Riley felt more and more anxious at every word as the truth sank in …
I’m not a summer intern anymore.
The summer program seemed like some kind of teenage day camp in comparison to what she was now facing.
Was she hopelessly out of her depth?
Was this a bad idea?
For one thing, she felt like a kid as she looked around at all the other seated recruits. Scarcely anyone here was her age. She sensed by the faces around her that almost everybody here already had at least that much experience under their belts, and some of them considerably more. Most were over the age of 23, and some looked like they were verging on the maximum recruitment age of 37.
She knew that they came from all kinds of backgrounds and work fields. Many had been police officers, and many others had served in the military. Others had worked as teachers, lawyers, scientists, business people, and at many other occupations at one time or another. But they all had one thing in common—a powerful commitment to spend the rest of their lives serving in law enforcement.
Only a few were here fresh out of the intern program. John Welch, who was sitting a couple of rows ahead of her, was one of them. Like Riley, he had been given a waiver to the rule that all recruits had to have at least three years of full-time law enforcement experience to enter the Academy.
Swanson finished his speech …
“I look forward to shaking the hands of those of you who make the grade here at Quantico. On that day, you’ll be sworn into service by FBI Director Bill Cormack himself. Good luck to all of you.”
Then he added with a stern chuckle, “And now—get to work!”
An instructor took Swanson’s place at the podium and began to call out the names of recruits—“NATs,” they were called, meaning “New Agents in Training.” As the NATs answered to their names, the instructor assigned them smaller groups that would be taking their classes together.
As she waited breathlessly for her name to be called, Riley remembered how tedious things had been when she’d gotten here yesterday. After she’d checked in, she’d stood in line after line, filled out forms, bought a uniform, and gotten her dorm room assignment.
Today was already turning out to be a lot different.
She felt a pang as she heard John Welch’s name called out for a group that she wasn’t chosen for. It might help, she thought, to have a friend close at hand to lean on and commiserate with during the tough weeks to come. On the other hand, she thought …
Maybe it’s just as well.
Given her somewhat confusing feelings about John, his presence might prove to be a distraction.
Riley was finally relieved, though, to find herself in the same group as Francine Dow, the roommate she’d been assigned yesterday. Frankie, as she preferred to be called, was older than Riley, perhaps almost 30—a high-spirited redhead whose ruddy features hinted that she’d already experienced a lot in life.
Riley and Frankie hadn’t gotten to know each other at all to speak of. They’d had time yesterday for little except getting unpacked and settled in their little dorm room together, and they’d gone their separate ways for breakfast.
Finally, Riley’s group of NATs was summoned together in the hallway by Agent Marty Glick, the group instructor. Glick looked like he was in his thirties. He was tall and had the muscular build of a football player, and he wore a serious, no-nonsense expression.
He said to the group …
“You’ve got a big day ahead. But before we get started, there’s something I want to show you.”
Glick led them into the main entrance lobby, an enormous room with an FBI seal in the middle of its marble floor an enormous bronze badge on one wall with a black band across it. Riley had passed through here when she’d arrived, and she knew that it was called the Hall of Honor. It was a solemn place where martyred FBI Agents were memorialized.
Glick led them to a wall with two displays of portraits and names. Between the displays was a framed plaque that read …
National Academy Graduates who were killed in the line of duty
as the direct result of an adversarial action.
Small gasps passed through the group as they viewed the shrine. Glick didn’t say anything for a moment, just allowed the emotional impact of the display sink in.
Finally he said, almost in a whisper …
“Don’t let them down.”
As he led the group of NATs away to start their day’s activities, Riley glanced back over her shoulder at the portraits on the wall. She couldn’t help but wonder …
Will my picture be there someday?
Of course there was no way to know. All she knew for sure was that the coming days would bring challenges she’d never faced before in her life. She felt staggered by a new sense of responsibility toward those martyred agents.
I can’t let them down, she thought.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jake steered the hastily-borrowed vehicle along a web of gravel roads from Dighton toward the town of Hyland. Chief Messenger had loaned him the car so Jake could get on his way before the media helicopter landed.
He had no idea what to expect at Hyland, but he was grateful to have escaped the invaders. He hated being besieged by reporters pummeling him with questions he couldn’t answer. There was little the media relished more than sensational murders in bucolic, out-of-the-way places. The fact that the victim was a mayor’s wife surely made the story all the more irresistible to them.
He drove with his window open, enjoying the fresh country air. Messenger had marked up a map for him, and Jake was enjoying the slow tour of country roads. The man he was on his way to interview wasn’t going anywhere before he got there.
Of course the suspect in the Hyland jail might have nothing to do with either of the two murders. He’d been incarcerated at the time of the second victim’s death.
Not that that proves his innocence, Jake thought.
There was always a possibility that a team of two or more killers wa
s at work. Hope Nelson could had been taken by a copycat imitating Alice Gibson’s murder.
Nothing like that would surprise Jake. He’d worked on stranger cases in his long career.
As Jake pulled into Hyland, the first thing he noticed was how little and sleepy the town looked—much smaller than Dighton, with its population of about a thousand. The sign he’d just passed indicated that only a couple of hundred people lived here.
Barely big enough to be incorporated, Jake thought.
The police station was just another storefront on the short business street. As he parked along the curb, Jake saw an obese uniformed man leaning against in the doorjamb, looking like he had nothing else to do.
Jake got out of the car. As he walked toward the station, he noticed that the big cop was staring at someone directly across the street. It was a man wearing a white medical jacket, standing there with his arms crossed. Jake got the odd impression that the two had been standing there staring at each other silently for quite a long time.
What’s this all about? he wondered.
He walked up to the uniformed man in the doorway and showed him his badge. The man introduced himself as Sheriff David Tallhamer. He was chewing on a wad of tobacco.
He said to Jake in a bored tone, “Come on in, let me introduce you to our house guest—Phil Cardin’s his name.”
As Tallhamer led the way inside, Jake glanced back and saw that the white-coated man wasn’t budging from his spot.
Once in the station, Tallhamer introduced Jake to a deputy who was sitting with his feet up on a desk reading a newspaper. The deputy nodded at Jake and kept right on reading his paper.
The little office seemed saturated with a weird feeling of ennui. If Jake hadn’t known it already, he wouldn’t have guessed that these two jaded cops had been dealing with a grisly murder case.
Tallhamer led Jake through a door in the back of the office that led into the jail. The jail was comprised of just two cells facing each other across a narrow corridor. Both cells were occupied at the moment.
