None Shall Sleep

by Ellie Marney

  “Then let’s ask.”

  “Okay. Let’s ask.” Bell waits a beat. “Cooper will probably be fine with expanding the study, so long as we keep the receipts.”

  Emma side-eyes him, snorts.

  They pull the Dodge into the Quantico parking lot at nine that evening, and Emma feels pummeled after the drive. She and Bell trudge their weary way toward the buildings, splitting off at the doors to Jefferson—Bell’s dormitory is in the next wing along. They shake hands before they separate, like they’re business partners.

  Emma leans against the wall of the elevator as it travels up, only straightening when two male trainees get in on the floor before her own.

  Her room is warm inside, the air stagnant. She lurches into the shower, stuffing Bell’s T-shirt into her laundry hamper. While she’s washing, his idea to interview the cops who arrested kids like McMurtry strikes her again. It’s a good idea. After she gets out, towels off, and puts on the terry cloth robe she brought from home, she sits on top of the comforter on her bed with the McMurtry file.

  The idea plucks at her. She checks the time—twenty-one thirty—and figures it’s worth a shot. She calls Cooper at the office number on his card.

  “Agent Cooper? It’s Emma Lewis. We just got back from Beckley.”

  “Was there a problem?”

  “No problem.” She’s not sure how to start, plunges in anyway. “Bell and I were talking in the car on the way back. We were thinking it might be useful to expand the study. We were hoping to talk to the arresting officers for each—”

  “Miss Lewis?”

  “Yes?”

  “You were asked to interview the subject, complete a report, and hand that report in at oh nine hundred on Sunday. I’d like you to do that. Just that, and nothing more.”

  He hangs up. She stares at the bleating receiver in her hand.

  “Well, fuck you very much, Special Agent Cooper,” she mutters.

  She’ll have to tell Bell that she didn’t even get to the part about keeping the receipts.

  CHAPTER SIX

  After leaving Jefferson, Travis Bell is halfway to his room when he realizes he still has the interview questionnaire pages in his satchel.

  He doesn’t know if they’re important. Emma’s words come back to him: Maybe it even feeds into something they need to know about Pennsylvania. Does he take the McMurtry questionnaire back to his dorm? The question stumps him for a moment and his brain is tired, so he falls back on the most reliable method he knows for figuring out problems, which is to consider what his father would say.

  The answer comes quickly.

  Think about it like a chain of evidence—the FBI would want the paperwork. And you don’t know if it’s important; you’re not an agent. Better to give it to a superior.

  Bell sighs and turns around.

  Jefferson has a hollow, echoing quiet at night. Only instinct guides his way from the elevator through the gerbil-run basement corridors to the Behavioral Science offices, where he finds the reception desk unattended. This is another problem. He needs to hand over the questionnaire, but he’s not allowed in the offices. Cooper was very specific about it.

  Bell chews his lip and looks around, hoping for a solution to arrive from the air. His fatigue is deep in the bone now. Leave the papers on the reception desk? No, bad idea. Fuck.

  He spends a minute thinking. Half that minute is taken up with thoughts of Emma Lewis. He’s never met anyone so guarded. He’s not stupid—he knows where her reserve is coming from—but he has to watch her cues all the time: the flare of her nostrils, the changes in her posture. He thinks of the dreamy expression she gets when she’s considering something. Then the expression she gets when she’s steeling herself, like when they talked to McMurtry.

  Bell yanks the questionnaire folder out of his satchel and pushes forward. If Emma Lewis can talk to McMurtry, he can walk through an office door.

  The inside of Behavioral Science is all low ceilings, crummy carpet, and cubicle hallways. Not as impressive as he imagined. Bell hears the sound of someone hanging up a phone farther ahead, then a muffled question, answered by an unfamiliar voice.

  “We dusted the letter, and the envelope, then we fumed it. The envelope had multiple prints, but if anyone other than the subject touched the letter, they’re not showing up. Should we run the other prints?”

  “You’d only turn up the staff at the hospital, maybe the external mailman.” Cooper’s voice, clearer now. Bingo. “Plus the mailman here in Jefferson.”

  “We got one piece of trace in the envelope—a single hair, plucked not cut. The bulb was still attached. Same kind as the ones we have on file.”

  “He would’ve put that in there. He knows we look. It’s like when a cat leaves you a present of a half-chewed mouse on the doorstep, just reminding you they’re still around.”

  “Linda analyzed the handwriting. Same deal.”

  “Thanks for coming down to tell me in person, Gerry.”

  Bell isn’t sure why his feet slow as he comes closer. He sees a white man in a plaid shirt and brown trousers standing at the door to what must be Cooper’s office. The man—Gerry—is overweight, about midsixties, drooping in the face like a hound.

  Cooper asks another question, but it’s muffled.

  “Eh.” Gerry pushes up gold-rimmed glasses with the same hand holding a burning cigarette. The cigarette smoke eddies up in a bobbing ribbon. “Glenn’s still going through the trace from the underwear. It’s your basic mess. I’m glad the bodies weren’t found in a river, but I wish they hadn’t been found in a Pennsylvania garbage dump. I’ll have a full report by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Pennsylvania. Bell is suddenly very aware of what he’s listening to, where he is. There’s a corkboard on the cinder block wall immediately to his left. Four photos shine out from the board. All four faces are smiling, hopeful, young—horrifically young. The crime scene photos tacked beside them are more horrific.

  He jerks back, looks down at the folder in his hands. Takes three steps closer to Cooper’s office and clears his throat.

  Gerry turns. “Hello. Help you with something?”

  “I’ve got, uh…” Bell squeezes the cardboard folder.

  Through the door of the office, he sees Cooper stand up from his chair. Cooper’s office is compact, brown-walled, covered in newspaper clippings and a drift of notes, like the den of some forest animal. Cooper’s holding a piece of paper sandwiched in plastic film. The writing on the paper is an elegant, smooth-flowing script in what appears to be green felt-tipped pen.

  Cooper is frowning. “What are you doing here, Mr. Bell?”

  “The questionnaire pages.” Bell holds the folder up. “From Beckley? I wasn’t sure what to do with them, and I figured you might not want me to take them back to my dorm—”

  “Keep them.” Cooper gives him an assessing look, seems to realize he needs to be more prescriptive. “Hang on to them, complete the report, hand it all in Sunday.”

  “Okay. I mean, uh, yes, sir.”

  “And Mr. Bell?”

  “Sir?”

  The plastic-sealed paper in Cooper’s hand is a letter. It’s written on butcher paper, delicately frayed at the edges as though it’s been torn off a larger piece. Cooper opens a drawer in his desk, slips the letter inside, closes the drawer.

  “I believe we had an arrangement,” Cooper says, “about you and Miss Lewis not entering Behavioral Science.”

  “We did, yes, sir. I mean, we do. I’m sorry, I just wasn’t sure what to do with the questionnaire.”

  “Go easy on him, Ed.” Gerry is grinning.

  Cooper gives him a look, looks back at Bell. “It’s fine. Just… go on to your dorm now.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bell bobs his head. “Good night, sir.”

  As he pivots and heads back down the cubicle hallway, he hears Gerry say, in a quiet tone, “Good Lord, they just seem to get younger and younger.” Cooper replies, but Bell is too far away to hear now. He escape
s out the office door into reception, then heads straight for the outside of Jefferson. He no longer thinks about Emma’s face, but the faces of the kids in the photos on the wall in Behavioral Science.

  After Bell and Gerry leave the offices, Cooper gets the letter out of his drawer. Handling it carefully by the corners like it’s poisonous, he reads it through again. The letter says:

  Dear Agent Cooper,

  Well, here we are again after another eventful month. You really need to start answering your correspondence. Or maybe you just didn’t have an opportunity to reply to my last letter before our new friend delivered another surprise—he’s speeding up a little, isn’t he? And I did warn you that one body wouldn’t be enough.

  What do you think will happen next? It’s a bit like Christmas, isn’t it? You can shake the pretty boxes, but you just don’t know what will be inside.

  I have an idea of what comes next, but you probably won’t like it. And I don’t imagine you’ll do anything about it until you’re pushed. But I’m right here, Agent Cooper. Ready and waiting.

  You’re waiting, too, aren’t you? Enjoy sitting on your hands before the next bodies pop up. Two more weeks! Or maybe sooner. The time will fly by, I’m sure. It really is like Christmas.

  Best,

  Simon

  P.S. Don’t bother to check for fingerprints. The envelope will be dirty but the letter is all me.

  Cooper sets the letter away from him on the desk, steeples his fingers in front of his mouth, and stares at the letter for a long time.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Okay,” Cooper says. “Change of plan.”

  With some consideration of the matter, Emma realizes it’s Wednesday. She woke just before dawn and chased away the sour aftertaste of her dreams on the running path that Quantico students refer to as the Yellow Brick Road, slapping around obstacles that she didn’t want to engage with and generally pissing off people struggling over rope ladders and trudging through mud pits. Now she feels lighter, elevated after her run.

  The same could not be said for Cooper. She’s prepared to put aside baleful thoughts about his treatment of her on the phone last night—the man looks heavier today, like the world is weighing on him.

  Bell’s been restacking file boxes in their basement office, getting McMurtry’s stuff out of the way. Now he comes, dusting off his hands, to sit at the desk.

  “So what’s the change?” he asks.

  Cooper fidgets with the folder in his hands. “Sounds like the session with McMurtry went well, so I’m adding another subject to the interview roster. And I want you to interview him next.”

  “Why is he next?” Emma asks. “Is he an easy subject?”

  Cooper is blank-faced. “None of them are easy. This one is the hardest.”

  He tosses the folder on the desktop.

  Emma reads the label. “Simon Gutmunsson.”

  Bell’s expression changes fast. He pushes back from the desk, out of his chair. “I can’t do that.”

  Emma stares at him. “What?”

  Bell speaks only to Cooper. “You know I can’t do that. Why did you even pull that file?”

  “He falls within the bounds of the—”

  “You said he didn’t fit the parameters of the project. You said we wouldn’t be dealing with him.” Bell’s voice is sharp, his face a stone mask. Emma hasn’t seen him like this before.

  “He started when he was fifteen,” Cooper says carefully. “He fits the—”

  “You said he doesn’t fit the parameters. This is bullshit and you know it.”

  “We need him.”

  “You won’t get him,” Bell says. “Not from me.”

  Bell walks out. The door of the gray office room smacks against the wall before slowly swinging back again. The click of the latch closing is a dramatic punctuation. Emma is dumbstruck.

  “He’ll come back,” Cooper says into the silence.

  Emma stares. “What is going on? What’s wrong with Bell?”

  “Gutmunsson is…” Cooper sighs and sits down, loosening his jacket. “Simon Gutmunsson was arrested for a series of murders between 1978 and 1980 in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. During the arrest, there was a standoff, and unfortunately one of the Marshals on the scene was attacked. He died later in the hospital.”

  Emma feels a great cog turning. “Gutmunsson killed Bell’s father.”

  “Yes.”

  “He told me it happened, but not how. That’s—” She rolls it over in her mind, both the information and what Cooper has done with it. “That’s cruel.”

  “It’s necessary.” Cooper maintains his stolid calm. “Bell knows we need this interview.”

  “Well, you clearly didn’t tell him that when he came on board.” She narrows her eyes at Cooper. “And if it’s so necessary, why wasn’t Gutmunsson on the list before?”

  “He wasn’t on the list before because I didn’t have the permissions before.”

  Emma gets up from her chair because the need to move is strong. She wants a little distance from Cooper, too, so she can see him through a wider lens. “Why is Gutmunsson the hardest subject?”

  “You don’t know anything about the case?”

  Emma thinks. If Gutmunsson was arrested in 1980, that was the year after Huxton. She spent most of that year between her parents’ house and her therapist’s office, in the daily grind of recovery. There are whole months of that year she doesn’t even remember.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I suggest you read the file.” For the first time, there’s a flicker of disturbance in Cooper’s expression. “Gutmunsson is a difficult subject because he’s smart. His parents had him IQ-tested at fourteen—he was in the ninety-eighth percentile then. Now… I don’t know how you’d measure him now.”

  “So he’s an intelligent, manipulative predator. What else?”

  “He communicates with me.” Cooper drops that into the conversation like he’s uncomfortable with it. “I was the second unit agent on the case. But I can’t be the one to go see him—give him what he wants and he just keeps taking. He’s incarcerated at St. Elizabeths, in DC. I’ll drive you both up there. I can brief you further on the way.”

  “You can’t ask Bell to do this.” Why it’s really obvious to her and not to Cooper, Emma can’t imagine. “That would be like asking me to interview Huxton.”

  “Huxton is dead.” Cooper says it like a full stop. Now he’s not expressionless. Now he’s showing some intensity. “And we are waging a war here, Miss Lewis. These offices are the primary line of defense. Every day I keep fighting.”

  “I get that, but—”

  “So please understand me when I say this. Huxton is dead—we can’t learn anything more from him now. But Gutmunsson is alive. Something he might say, something he might allow to slip out, could form the basis of another insight, another piece of the puzzle. Bell knows that. He knows we need that.”

  Emma uncrosses her arms. Cooper seems more human to her suddenly, but she also knows this is part of the theater of leadership—to rally, to marshal the troops and press on. For a moment, Emma wonders what it is about Simon Gutmunsson, specifically, that’s so important. What it is about him that breaks Cooper’s diamond-hard control. But then the moment is over, and she has to answer his question.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. I won’t speak for Bell, though. I’ll talk with him about it, if you want, but it’s his call.”

  Cooper visibly relaxes. “Thank you.”

  She starts toward the exit. “I’d better go find him.”

  “Miss Lewis?” When she looks back, Cooper has pushed to his feet. “I know you think asking Bell to interview Gutmunsson is a bad idea. But at this stage, I’ll take every single scrap of evidence and information and understanding that I can. Everything. And if Huxton was alive, you’d best believe I’d be asking you to saddle up, no question.”

  Emma holds his eyes for as long as she can. Then she breaks for the door.

  She searches fo
r Bell in all the places she can think of, before remembering the place she should’ve searched first.

  The Quantico training gym is a vast, high-ceilinged space with FIDELITY BRAVERY INTEGRITY stamped large on one wall. Blue mats are rolled up and the sprung wooden floors are buffed to a basketball-court gloss. On the far side, Bell is pummeling one of the heavy bags, the chain suspending it creaking with the strain.

  Emma watches at a distance for a moment. Bell’s in sweatpants, running shoes, and a white tank that contrasts sharply with his skin. It’s a shock, seeing him wearing something other than formal attire. Sweat shakes off his dark hair as he punches. He has excellent muscle development, and Emma waits for that awareness to pass through her before she approaches.

  She keeps her voice measured. “That was a shitty thing for Cooper to do, and you have every right to be angry. But I have to complete this interview. And I don’t want to do it without you.”

  Bell lands one last punch that rocks the bag before turning to face her. His eyes are blazing. “He’s a snake. You don’t know anything about this guy, do you?”

  She’s not sure, for a moment, whether he’s referring to Cooper or Gutmunsson. She shakes her head.

  Bell tugs his boxing gloves off with his teeth, breathing hard. He has a small USMS tattoo on his right bicep. “Three different states. Eleven murders, including my dad. Except for my dad, all of them were posed crime scenes—the Artist, they used to call him.”

  The contempt in his sneer is like acid. Emma finds male anger hard to handle, but this from Bell is of a slightly different flavor: inward-looking, and full of grief.

  She tries to refocus. “I don’t know any of this stuff, Bell. That’s why I need your perspective.”

  He picks at his hand wraps. “Cooper can brief you.”

  “Cooper only tells me what he wants me to hear.”

  “Then go through the archives.”

  “I need more.”

  “Goddammit, Emma!”

  He pivots and gives her his back, rests his forehead against the bag, holding the straps up high like a man readying himself to be whipped. The thought makes her wince. She steps closer, puts a hand on his shoulder—hot with fever, damp with sweat.