“Thanks for the tip. Where do you get this from? You’re too young to be reading about men and romance.”
“Oh, Mom. We aren’t living in the Middle Ages.”
“Keep this up, and I will be putting you into a convent until you’re eighteen.”
“I’m just saying. If you are interested, you should let him know. I think he’s a hunk.”
Silver exhaled noisily. “Noted. Now get over here and make yourself useful.”
~ ~ ~
The next morning, after two hours of being grilled by the psychiatrist, Silver had convinced him that she wasn’t going to swallow her pistol or go on a shooting rampage in a mall. She’d been involved in a shooting once before, seven years earlier, when she was working in Organized Crime, and had gone through the same post-shooting counseling then.
Certified as fit for duty, she returned to her office and sat gingerly in her chair. It was a good thing the bullet had hit the top of her buttock because if it had been any lower she would have been standing for a week.
Among the stack of messages there was one from Eric. She would ignore that one for the time being. She hurriedly returned the rest of the calls in the half hour she had before her meeting with Seth.
Richard had picked her up in the morning, which was way above the call of duty, but he had insisted, and Kennedy seemed quite taken with the idea, so she didn’t fight it. Kennedy had given her a knowing look when Richard had moved around the car to open their doors, and Silver had silently cursed her for her insistence that he was hunky – though she had to admit he was.
Her intercom buzzed to shatter her daydream. She punched the button.
“Yes?”
“We still on for eleven forty-five?” Seth’s voice sounded tinny on the crummy speaker.
“You bet. In my office.”
“Be there in a few.”
Seth ambled in five minutes later with a milk crate filled with files and documents, his notebook computer precariously balanced on top of the pile. He set it down on the floor next to her circular meeting table and pulled up a chair. She rounded her desk and took a seat.
“So what do you have?”
“Well, I first did a search for fires that in any way matched our perp’s MO. Going back ten years. Turns out there are a lot of fires. Tens of thousands. So that didn’t really help.”
“Did you narrow it down to fires where a parent and offspring were involved?”
Seth nodded. “Yes. That dropped the number to hundreds.”
“I really believe the way he’s killing has symbolism for him – there has to be a deeper connected meaning. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“That’s why I started with the fire. It’s the most obvious – I mean, if he’s being literal, that is. If he’s twisting the meaning and obscuring it, or if it’s more indirect…then we’re kind of screwed.”
“I know, Seth. But we don’t really have much else. Unless you believe, as Sam does, that this is all an elaborate ruse to cloak the actions of a terrorist cell or something.”
“This doesn’t really seem like a hit team, does it?” Seth asked.
“Not really. Which brings us back to what you’ve found.”
“There are roughly three hundred house fires that sort of match up, where only a parent and child were killed. But if we further refine the search, we see that there are only nine that really fit the exact description of a parent killed by fire…and a child killed by smoke inhalation.”
“Nine? Well, that’s promising.”
“Of the nine, six would appear to have no match that I can see. But I brought all nine so you can look them over. Let’s see what you think.”
Seth ducked down to his cache of folders for a moment then reappeared and spread out photocopies of nine newspaper articles in front of her.
“Can we cut to the chase and just go to the ones you like? Your top three?”
“Humor me.”
Silver squirmed in her seat, reminding herself that it would be a few days before her wound was really healing. It was tender and starting to itch. She resisted an urge to scratch at the sutures and, as she began reading the first article, made a mental note to check for infection.
Ten minutes later she leaned back and asked, “Which one do you want to start with?”
“Might as well go with the one in Pennsylvania. Six years ago. Stanley Erickson and Sheryl. Father and daughter. He was fifty-one, she was twenty-three, living at home after a brief marriage that didn’t go well. Wife, Louise, was out of town visiting her sister. The fire started in the master bedroom from a cigarette, and because of the age of the house quickly spread and trapped the daughter in her room. The firemen fought the flames for a half an hour but couldn’t get to her. She’d covered herself with a wet blanket, which avoided the worst of the burning, but not the smoke. Survivors were the wife, and two sons, Ralph and Henry, now thirty-one and thirty-four. Ralph is a warehouse manager for an industrial supply company, and Henry is a private detective, after spending ten years on the Pittsburg police force. His discharge was controversial – he was implicated in several incidences of unprovoked violence while on the beat, although no charges were ever filed. Reading between the lines, it looks like he was invited to leave before he was forced to. Since then he’s had a website development company that went nowhere, and now has a private security and investigation company.”
“Interesting. With that background, he would more than have the skills and knowledge of forensics to be our man. And the history of violence is a flag. Hmmm. What about Ralph?”
“Married, two kids. No record.”
“All right, who’s next?”
Seth slid a file to her. “Brooklyn.”
“Ah.”
“Here’s the police report. What’s the most striking is the suicide note. I mean, she was obviously disturbed, but the circumstances…I actually remember reading about this when it happened. It was just so tragic and, well, such a sign of the times…”
“I know what you mean. Multiple sclerosis, at the end of her rope. Give me a quick tour of the high notes, would you?” Silver asked.
“Patricia Jarvis, fifty-seven, married, one child – Rachel, age thirty-four. Husband Howard, now…sixty, I believe. They were unable to continue making the mortgage payment after the 2008 crash, so the bank foreclosed. She was on a cocktail of medications for pain and complications from the MS, and decided the bank wasn’t going to get her house – not while she was alive. So a week before it was going to take possession, she got two five gallon cans of gasoline and doused the place, after leaving a note in the car. Perhaps even more tragic than her death was that of her daughter. She lived only a few blocks away, and her mother’s last act was to call her and tell her that she loved her before she lit the place up. So, sensing something wrong, Rachel raced over, but by the time she arrived, the fire was well under way. She battled her way in before the fire department got there, but got trapped inside by a collapsing beam as she was trying to get up the stairs from the basement access door. When they put out the blaze, Patricia was dead from the fire, and Rachel had died from smoke inhalation.”
“And where was Howard?” Silver asked.
“He arrived at the scene an hour later – he was on the train coming from the city. The report says he found the suicide note, and then he collapsed. They had to sedate him – he tried to run into the wreckage.”
“I can understand why. Poor bastard. Wife, daughter…”
“Yeah.”
Silver read through the file more carefully. “Do we like him as the killer? A sixty-year-old man?”
“Doesn’t fit any of the profiles, does it? Plus, let’s face it, he’s getting along in years to be going on a killing spree. I mean, anything’s possible, but usually when you see older folks in a murder, it’s with a gun, not decapitation,” Seth reasoned.
“What do we know about him?”
“He was in the military at the end of the Vietnam wa
r. Honorable discharge. Engineering degree. Worked as a civil engineer for two companies – last one, for twenty-two years. Retired.”
“A Vietnam vet turned engineer? I’m warming to this for the methodical angle because of the engineering thing, and the military record is interesting, even if it’s ancient history – although his age makes him unlikely. I mean, nothing’s impossible, but the fire happened almost four years ago. So why start now?” Silver read the article again, then put it aside. “What else do we have?”
“The Michigan case. Nine years ago. Father and son. Michael Everin and Scott, ages forty-three and nineteen. An electrical fire. The flames got Dad, smoke got the kid. That left one surviving older son, now thirty-two, and an estranged wife who went on to re-marry. Interesting thing there is that the kid has a record. Aggravated assault, possession of a concealed handgun. Served five years. Two fights while incarcerated. Added six months to his sentence, which was still shortened due to no priors. You can see his prison record – there’s some speculation that he was taken in by a white supremacist gang while inside, but who knows for sure? He’s kept his nose clean since release – that’s about all we know.”
“How long has he been out?”
“Just over three years.”
“We know where he’s living?”
“New Jersey.”
“Really? That’s pretty close to home. And what does he do for a living?”
“Looks like construction, although that’s probably just a catch-all. He’s had a few other types of jobs – four months as a security guard, three as kitchen staff at an Italian restaurant. Currently unemployed. Although, wait a minute. In his prison records, it also notes that he was a kind of wiz with anything electronic or mechanical. So that could explain how he’s gotten past all the locks and alarms if he’s our killer.”
“Perhaps. Anything connecting him to the financial industry? Any reasons to be pissed off at it?”
“Not really. I mean, some of the Aryan Nation rhetoric is anti-Semitic, which includes anti-banking sentiment, but that’s a slender reed. No, so far, the best bet looks like the old guy.”
“Which is to say our odds don’t look particularly good.”
“No argument. But this was your hunch…”
They went through the rest, and half an hour later Silver was left feeling exasperated.
“I think we should pay a visit to all the possibles. Can’t hurt. Get some teams to question everyone. And keep looking for other articles that might tie in – you know the drill. Especially decapitations. Those aren’t common,” she observed.
“I’m already on it. Same search – going back ten years. Should have results coming in by tomorrow, if we’re lucky. This is a tremendous amount of data to sift through.”
“Seth, I just had another thought, and you aren’t going to like it. We’re limiting the search to the U.S., right? What if our killer isn’t from here? I mean, assuming my hunch isn’t completely wrong in the first place…what if he’s foreign?”
“Then our search wouldn’t turn up anything. We don’t have the records access to do a global search along the same lines.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. I guess we better hope that our killer was made in the U.S.A..”
“That’s the assumption we’ve been working under.”
“Then let’s not go off on any tangents. Have agents do preliminary interviews, and be sensitive to any tells.”
“Will do, boss. Is there anything else? How are you doing after the shooting?”
“You know. All in a day’s work. Speaking of which, who’s running the investigation on the guy who tried to turn off my lights yesterday?”
“Brett wanted to supervise it himself. He’s taking it personally. I hear he’s got Heron running lead on it.”
“Do me a favor. Keep an ear to the ground, and let me know if you hear anything, okay? I’m supposed to stay clear of it, but that doesn’t mean I have to be in the dark.”
“You got it.”
Chapter 13
Silver entered the doctor’s offices and waited patiently while she finished with a patient. When the receptionist called for her to go into the doctor’s office fifteen minutes later, she was pleasantly surprised at not having to wait longer.
“Silver Cassidy. Long time no see. Come in and have a seat. I only have a few minutes until my next patient, but please, sit.” Dr. Thelma Weiss was a large, friendly, open-looking woman with a ready smile and kind eyes. Her office was warm and informal, with overstuffed furniture that had a country living-room feel to it. Silver had spent countless hours there with Kennedy and was reminded again of its tranquility, which she knew was designed to put the patients at ease and make them feel at home. Apparently it worked. “You sounded agitated on the phone. Care to explain more?”
“Sure. As I said, my ex is suing for custody of Kennedy. As part of that, I suspect he’s going to drag everyone he can into this, fishing for negatives that will establish that she would be better off with him. I figured I would beat him to the punch and ask you what a formal assessment would say,” Silver began.
The doctor leaned back in her chair and took a sip of tea. “Well, I hope this doesn’t come down to having to take sides. I don’t really know the father…”
“I think it will be more a matter of your impressions of Kennedy.”
“Yes, well, I’d have to be truthful, obviously.”
Silver didn’t like the way this was starting. “Of course.”
“Kennedy has a kind of obsessive compulsive disorder that is brought about by an inability to process stress in an appropriate manner. She was deeply disturbed. What we worked out was that it was directly related to separation anxiety – not in the traditional sense, but anxiety brought about by having her parents split up and her going from living in a two parent home to a single parent home.”
“That was a difficult time for everyone. But we’re past it now, right?”
“Well, yes and no. We’ve channeled her stress into a more normalized response mechanism, so she’s no longer pulling her hair and eyelashes out. But I suspect it’s still latent at some level. She did say that she wishes she had more time with you – I remember the last few sessions that was a big topic. From her standpoint, she feels like she only sees you for a few hours at night. It probably is exaggerated, but to hear her talk, she spends the day in school, then the afternoon into the evening at daycare, with only a sliver of time at night, where you eat, and then she plays on the computer or does schoolwork.”
Silver bristled. “Like with most single parents, it’s hard to juggle a career and raise a kid…”
“I understand. But that isn’t my place to judge. I’m sure you’re doing the best you can. I can only work with what she told me, and try to help her come up with coping mechanisms.”
“Half the households in the country have single parents fighting the same battles. It’s not like it’s unique to me.”
“No, but for your daughter, the important thing isn’t what everyone else does. It’s how she perceives her reality, which she views as being precarious because her family stability was suddenly upended.”
“Because her father was screwing everything in a skirt.”
“Look, Silver. I’m not the enemy here. I’m not questioning whether your marriage was a good one or not, or who did what to whom. I’m just telling you that your child has had a very rough emotional time of it, and that’s what my report will have to say. I can’t lie.”
“I’m not asking you to. But he’s going to try to make it sound like a life with him and his new trophy wife-to-be would be better for Kennedy than being with her own mom.”
The doctor regarded Silver over her bifocals. “Honest question for you. How many waking hours a week do you think you spend with Kennedy? Counting weekends?”
Silver thought about it. “She’s with her dad at least one day a week on weekends, so that’s not really fair.”
“Does he usually pick her
up the night before and drop her off the next night? Or does he only get her for the day?”
“I try to accommodate him. Lately, he’s been getting her the night before. Eric says it’s easier to plan things in the morning if she’s already with him, and she seems to enjoy her sleepovers…”
“Let’s break it down. How many waking hours?”
“We have breakfast every morning…”
“She gets herself ready when she wakes up?”
“Yes. She has her little routine while I’m doing Yoga for half an hour. She’s been very insistent about being independent for about a year now.”
“So then you have breakfast, and…you take her to school? How long total together?”
“At least an hour.”
“Fine. Then you get her from daycare at…”
“I try to be there by five – five thirty.”
“She said she’s often there until after it closes. What time is that?”
“Oh, please. That was then – I had a case I was working that was demanding a lot out of me,” Silver insisted.
“Right. And do you have a case that’s demanding a lot out of you now?”
Silver bristled. “It’s been a rough couple of months.”
“You’re with the FBI. Would it be fair to say you often have cases that place demands on you?”
“Doctor. All jobs have their responsibilities. This one as much as any.”
“No question. In fact, I’d imagine being a special agent would be more demanding than, say, being a schoolteacher or working in an office. So what time does daycare close?”
“Officially? Six is when the doors close.”
“And do you ever leave her there longer? She seemed to make it sound like that was the case on a routine basis.”
“I try not to.”
“Silver, I’m sure you try as hard as you can. So let’s say you pick her up, on a regular basis, at, what, six o’clock? What time do you have her in bed?”
“Her cutoff time to be asleep is nine o’clock. She’s a cranky kid if she doesn’t get adequate sleep.”
Silver Justice Page 14
