Season of the Harvest

by Michael R. Hicks

  “But if she was making that much, what was the motive for stealing something?” Jack asked.

  Richards sighed in resignation, as if Jack were a complete idiot. “Greed, Dawson. You could give the moon to some people and they’d still try to steal the stars if they could reach them.”

  “Did New Horizons know what happened to her after she left?”

  “They told me that she just disappeared,” Richards said. “Poof. They hired an army of private investigators to find her, but she was just gone. Ironically, one of Perrault’s neighbors called the cops because she hadn’t seen Perrault for days, and the good doctor always told her when she was going on vacation.”

  “Did the PIs find anything?” Jack asked.

  “Not a goddamn thing to follow up on,” Richards told him bluntly. “All that was missing for certain was Perrault’s laptop, which she took with her everywhere, and her cat. The only other oddity that popped up was that there wasn’t a single photograph of her in the house. None of the neighbors saw her after the day she left the LRU campus. Her car was still in the garage, and there weren’t any obvious signs that she’d packed in a hurry to flee. She also didn’t have a security service, so there weren’t any records of when she might have entered the house that day. And after she left, there was no trail from her credit cards, ATMs, phone, or her known computer accounts. No hits on her passport or airline ticketing. Nothing. She just dropped off the grid. And she has no known surviving family: she was an only child and her parents died in a car wreck when she was in college. We’re still trying to find any friends or extended family, but so far the only thing we’ve got is the EDS web site.”

  “She had tons of money,” Jack mused, “so it wouldn’t have been impossible for her to disappear, and there are ways she could maintain a presence on the web – assuming what’s on the EDS site is really from her – and not be easily traced. But if she did a disappearing act, she must have prepared it in advance: that’s not the sort of thing you could manage at the drop of a hat. It also seems a little extreme for the trouble she was in with the company. It’s not like she’d committed murder, after all. At least, not then,” he added darkly.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Richards told him. “One of the New Horizons reps told me that the technology involved in the theft she was accused of was potentially worth billions. They weren’t just going to let her walk away with it. Hang on,” he said suddenly. In the background, he barked some orders at someone as if he or she were a complete idiot. Then he came back on.

  “Stupid idiot people,” Richards growled. “We’re still trying to track down Kempf. She’s on vacation in Italy, and we’ve got the Legal Attaché in Rome yammering at the Italians to scour the countryside for her. Apparently she refuses to take a cell phone when she travels, and the only other way to contact her is to leave a message with her travel agent, who gets a call from her once every few days to check if she’s gotten any messages. Idiot. And speaking of traveling, are you up for a drive?”

  Glancing at his watch, Jack grimaced. It was just after midnight. He’d been awake since five a.m. and felt completely exhausted. “Sure,” he lied.

  “Good. Because if you manage not to kill yourself in a car wreck on the way to Quantico, maybe you can sweet-talk your lab analyst friend down there into letting you look at what we’re sending back. There’s certainly plenty of blood for her to sample before the rest of the forensics and ballistics people can touch anything. The plane should be arriving at Washington National in two hours. Even if you take a nice little nap and a shower, you shouldn’t have any trouble beating the team couriering the evidence down to the lab.”

  Jack’s “lab analyst friend” was Jerri Tanaka, Ph.D., who worked in the FBI’s DNA Analysis Unit that specialized in characterizing nuclear DNA from blood or other body fluids. The unit was part of the state of the art FBI Laboratory facility located at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia, about a forty minute drive from Jack’s home.

  Jack had met Jerri while he was at the FBI Academy, which was in the same compound as the lab. They’d developed a friendship while he’d been in training that had become more serious after he graduated and received his badge. They’d had a brief love affair, but Jack had found that he simply wasn’t ready for another relationship yet. Jerri had been very understanding, and they had remained friends after breaking off the romantic part of their relationship. She had never been as close to him as Sheldon, but she and Jack had stayed in touch and made sure to visit one another when she happened to be at headquarters, or when he went down to Quantico. It was one small bit of good fortune in a terrible situation, because Jerri would almost certainly be one of the first to have her latex-gloved hands on whatever the plane was bringing back from Lincoln.

  “That’s another one I owe you, Richards,” Jack told him. “Just think of the damage this must be doing to your reputation.”

  “Yeah, right,” Richards told him. “Don’t worry: I’m sure my standing as the Bureau’s number one asshole is still locked in, Dawson, although I’ll put it at risk one more time before you can kiss my ass goodbye. One of my people just showed me something interesting. It turns out that the old lady who lived next to Perrault had a recent photo of her that she was willing to fork over. One nice thing about hardcopy prints: they can’t be deleted from a database. Too bad the old lady had no idea where Perrault ran off to. Check your email.”

  With that, he hung up.

  Jack shook his head, idly wondering at what must have happened in Richards’ life for him to turn out so surly. Then he hit the check mail button on his laptop, and was rewarded with a happy beep that announced incoming new mail. It was from one of the special agents in Lincoln, and the subject line read “Dr. Naomi Perrault.”

  Opening it up, Jack felt his breath catch in his throat. It showed what must have been Perrault’s neighbor, a kindly-looking woman in her seventies wearing an outrageous floral print dress, arm-in-arm with a much younger woman, Perrault, who was holding a clearly displeased white cat. Perrault was beautiful, with lush brunette hair tied back in a ponytail that fell over her left shoulder like a silken waterfall. Her flawless skin was light, but not pale, and clearly was only exposed to the damaging rays of the sun with great care. She was smiling shyly, her full lips parted to reveal perfect teeth. A body-hugging sleeveless white top showed off her bust and cleavage in a tastefully pleasant way, and revealed shoulders and arms that were trim and toned from regular exercise.

  But what captivated him were Perrault’s eyes, which echoed the smile formed by her lips with perhaps just a hint of innocent mischief: one was a deep, almond brown, while the other was a bright azure blue. He had never seen anyone with eyes like that before, and he had a hard time tearing his gaze away from them.

  “Talk about deadly beauty,” Jack muttered, his brain conflicted between the exotic-looking woman in the visual image before him and the near-certainty that she had somehow been involved in Sheldon’s murder. “Shit.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  With the image of Perrault’s face still haunting his thoughts, Jack checked his weapons, strapped them on, and donned a light rain jacket. After sliding his phone and badge into the inside pockets, he went to the door to the garage, not looking forward to the drive that lay ahead of him.

  He heard a sudden pattering on the wood floor behind him, and turned to see Alexander trotting after him, chirruping in the way that Siberian cats often did. He held his favorite stuffed toy mouse, its tail and ears long since chewed off, in his mouth: Jack had taught him to play fetch, and he hadn’t gotten any play time today.

  Crazy cat, Jack thought, kneeling down to scratch Alexander in his favorite spot right above his tail, eliciting a deep purr. You should’ve been born a dog. “Sorry, boy,” he said, “no fetch today, and no walks, either.” He kept Alexander as an inside cat, but would take him out morning and evening for a walk, putting a chest harness and leash on him. Alexander accepted the indignity with amazin
gly good humor, but Jack suspected that was only because several of the neighbors always seemed to be out and about, conveniently laden with cat treats. “Try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

  Alexander’s green eyes promised no such thing, and Jack just sighed in resignation as he gave him one final pat on the head before heading into the garage, locking the door behind him.

  After sliding into the seat of his battered but well-maintained Land Rover Defender, he pulled the door shut as the garage door opener hummed, raising the roll-up door to reveal the dark downpour in the rear-view mirror.

  I should call Jerri, he thought, sensing the phone’s weight in his jacket, and let her know that I’m coming down. Hell, I should call Clement and tell him what I’ve been up to. I hate sneaking around behind his back.

  After a moment’s reflection, he discarded the idea. Clement would crush Jack’s testicles in a garlic press for sticking his nose into the case without authorization, and Richards would take the squashed remains and deep fry them for getting him into trouble with Clement. Okay, just call Jerri, then.

  He was reaching into his jacket for the phone when it chimed, alerting him to new voice mail. Pulling it out, he saw that there was a message from Jerri. She must have tried to call him during his last conversation with Richards. He hit the play button.

  “Jack, this is Jerri,” she said before biting back a sob. Jack knew that she was like a precision machine at work in the lab, flawless and unflappable. But she was also a woman of extraordinary emotional depth, and was extremely sensitive to the feelings of others, especially Jack. “The watch center called me in, but wouldn’t say why. I just found out now after getting to the lab. God, I’m so sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry. You know we’ll do everything we can here for Sheldon.” She paused for a moment, trying to stifle more sobs. “Call me. Let me know that you’re okay. I...”

  I love you, Jack knew she wanted to say, and his gut twisted with guilt. He knew she had loved him, and still did. Jerri was a wonderful woman, and he knew that had his own past been different, they would probably have been very happy together. But the past was what it was, and he couldn’t change it, any more than he could change the emptiness he still felt in his heart that she simply hadn’t been able to fill.

  “Just call me when you can,” she finished in a weak voice before hanging up.

  He knew he should call her back, but this was too important: he didn’t want to tip her off that he planned to come down to the lab or she’d tell him not to. If she’d wanted him there, she would have invited him when she called. He knew that she would be doing the right thing, the professional thing, by not letting him get involved. He hoped that if he just showed up down there, she’d at least let him observe. She might be angry with him, but Jack doubted she would turn him away. He felt like he was using her, taking advantage of their relationship, and it twisted the knife of guilt a bit deeper.

  “Fuck it,” he cursed, starting up the Defender and backing out into the rain, the garage door rolling closed behind him.

  Winding his way out of his neighborhood, he got onto the Capital Beltway, heading west toward I-95. He had to keep his speed down because of the rain, and was thankful that there wasn’t too much traffic at this wretched time of night. He’d had enough tragedy for one day, and didn’t need any idiots on the beltway to make it worse. His Defender, which he’d bought after Emily’s death, had already weathered two accidents on the beltway. The tough SUV had come through with little more than a few dings and scratches, while the other cars had ended up as lumps of misshapen metal. Fortunately, no one had been seriously injured, but the accidents had put to rest any guilt Jack had felt at spending so much on a vehicle.

  He was halfway to the ramp for I-95 South when he saw the exit for Van Dorn Street, and it suddenly struck him that Sheldon’s condo was only a mile and a half away. He and Sheldon had long ago exchanged keys (and, in Sheldon’s case, the code for his condo’s security system) so they could check on each other’s places when business trips took them off somewhere. Sheldon usually told Jack not to bother checking his place, since if anything went seriously wrong the condo management would take care of it. Jack hadn’t been there since before Sheldon had left on his most recent assignment.

  Jack vacillated over whether he should go there. The Bureau had probably already sent a team to look for leads in Sheldon’s murder, or would be as soon as they could get a search warrant. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea for Jack to drop by while his fellow agents were going through the place.

  On the other hand, he did have a legitimate reason to be there: he was the executor of Sheldon’s will, and was going to have to face that unpleasant duty sooner or later. But that would be a thin excuse to Clement if other agents found him wandering around Sheldon’s place. Jack could hardly claim he didn’t know Sheldon’s condo would be searched, but he doubted Clement would bust his ass over it.

  His indecision almost made him miss the exit, and he had to stomp on the brakes and swerve to make it. Still going too fast, he had to wrestle the Defender through the tight loop that took him back over the beltway to the intersection with Van Dorn.

  “Okay,” he breathed, his system pumped full of adrenaline from nearly rolling over in the turn, “I’m awake now.”

  From there, he drove north the short distance to Sheldon’s condo, and pulled into an empty parking space near where Sheldon usually parked. Jack took a quick look around, but couldn’t see his friend’s car. Sheldon generally left it here when he went on trips out of town.

  More importantly, there weren’t any FBI or police vehicles here. Yet.

  Darting through the rain, he entered the lobby area that was empty except for a bored-looking young woman behind the counter. He waved to her as he walked across the lobby, but she didn’t bother looking up.

  Jack moved on to the elevators, punching the “up” button. One of the elevators opened immediately, and Jack got in and pushed the button for the tenth floor. Once there, he headed down the hallway to Sheldon’s place.

  He felt a chill as he turned the key in the lock and opened the door: the security system remained silent. It should have been beeping urgently, warning him that he only had thirty seconds to enter the code before the alert center and the front desk were notified of a possible break-in. Sheldon always set it, even if he was just running out for a few minutes. Jack had once joked that he thought Sheldon was paranoid. However, after his friend had finished explaining how much some of the computer equipment he had in his back room was worth, Jack never joked about it again.

  The condo had an entryway vestibule that blocked the view to most of the darkened living room area. Jack felt stark naked as he stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the hallway. The hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end and he felt gooseflesh break out on his arms.

  Something’s not right.

  He quickly stepped through the door, out of the light, and eased the door closed, careful not to let it latch in case he needed to make a fast exit. He drew his Glock and crouched down in one corner of the vestibule. Aiming the gun into the living room, he let his eyes adjust to the darkness while he listened intently for the sound of any potential threats.

  The first thing he noticed was the smell, a strange jumble of odors in the apartment. It was coming from the kitchen, which was immediately to his left. It was as if someone had taken the kitchen’s contents and mixed them together on the kitchen floor.

  There was something else, too, very faint among the other scents, but still distinguishable, that he couldn’t quite place. It was like nothing he’d ever smelled before, an unpleasant cross between ammonia and burning hemp that would have been nauseating had it been any stronger.

  He waited a full minute, listening intently as he fought to keep his own breathing as quiet as possible. All he could hear was the faint noise of cars going by on the street beyond the parking lot, ten floors below. There was no sound from the adjoining condos, or from the units
above and below: everyone in this part of the building seemed to be asleep.

  Staying low, he reached around the wall to the right, feeling for the light switch in the living room while his eyes and weapon remained fixed on the living room area. His finger tensed on the trigger as he flipped on the lights and saw what lay before him.

  “Holy shit,” he breathed. The living room looked like a tornado had ripped through it. Every piece of furniture had been upended and torn apart, the stuffing from the chairs and sofa mounded in white, fluffy piles.

  As he continued to scan the room over the sights of his gun for any threats, he further considered the scene. This is a fully-occupied condo building, he thought. Whoever did this couldn’t have made a lot of noise, or someone would’ve called building security or the cops.

  After a moment, he had the chilling realization that the living room furniture bore more than a passing resemblance to Sheldon’s body at the murder scene. The sofa and chairs hadn’t merely been torn apart: they had been very methodically dissected. The fabric had been ripped or cut along the seams and folded beside the bone-like frames, and the stuffing was piled carefully, with no loose fibers scattered about. It was all neat and orderly. Precisely cut to pieces. Just like Sheldon, he thought grimly.

  Changing position in the vestibule, he aimed the gun toward the hallway that led to the kitchen, bathroom, and the two bedrooms. He noticed that all the vent registers had been unscrewed from the walls and set aside, exposing the ducts. Whoever had searched this place had been thorough, indeed.

  From what he could see with only the living room lights on, the kitchen was just as much of a mess as the living room. The contents of every single container from the refrigerator, freezer, and cabinets had been emptied onto the floor. The empty boxes, jars, and cans were stacked neatly along one wall.