The Redeemer

by Dan Padavona

  He popped four ibuprofen in the parking lot. The stitches stretched and burned when he climbed out of his van, the wound tightening after the long drive. Under the late day sun, it was impossible to see beyond the windows, but Gardy felt Weber watching him as he climbed the steps. Gardy did his best not to limp.

  Candice, Weber’s administrative assistant, blew into Gardy’s office the moment he sat down.

  “Deputy Director Weber wishes to see you. Now.”

  Gardy sighed and straightened the stack of paperwork Candice had left him and slid it to the corner. He felt tempted to sweep the mess into the garbage can.

  The wound screamed at him, and he stood in the doorway and took a composing breath as he willed the pain away. Then he continued down the hallway to Weber’s office, nodding at passing agents as if he didn’t have a worry in the world.

  Weber didn’t look up when Gardy knocked, only motioned toward a chair as he jotted information on a form.

  “How’s the leg, Agent Gardy?”

  “Better.”

  “Not good enough for field work. Let it heal and you’ll be back in no time.”

  “Sir, if I may. Agent Bell is alone at Fair Haven Beach. There’s no reason I can’t catch the next flight to Miami and be there to watch her back.”

  “You’re not fit to work, and Agent Bell is a big girl. She can handle a murder case on her own.”

  “Two attempts on her life in the last twenty-four hours. Why is she even allowed in the field?”

  Weber groaned and leaned his elbows on his desk. After rubbing his eyes, he tapped his pen on the desk.

  “Perhaps I was too hasty sending Agent Bell to Florida alone. You understand my desire to act before Logan Wolf pulls another vanishing act.”

  “You’re certain Wolf is in Florida?”

  “That can’t be a serious question. The killer’s M.O. matches Wolf’s, and a traffic camera in Fair Haven Beach caught a man who resembled Wolf two hours before the murder.”

  As much as Gardy wanted to implicate Logan Wolf, Weber’s shifting eyes belied him.

  “All the more reason to send backup to Florida.”

  “Agreed. I’ll send Agent Flanagan.”

  “Flanagan?” Gardy sat forward and squinted at Weber. “He’s a junior agent. You can’t send him to a case this big.”

  “Agent Flanagan has proved himself and won’t be a junior agent for long. You didn’t protest when I put Flanagan on duty to watch Agent Bell’s apartment, so why complain now?”

  “That’s different.”

  “How so? If Logan Wolf appeared, Agent Flanagan would have apprehended him.”

  Gardy bit his lip. Weber had sent Flanagan to spy on them at Blackwater Lake, and he didn’t trust the junior agent. Time for Plan B.

  “You’re right. Bell can handle the case on her own. With my injury, Agent Flanagan should slide into my role. I have paperwork to catch up on, anyhow.”

  “That’s a sudden change of heart.”

  “Now that I think about it, Deputy Director Weber, my leg is bothering me. All this sitting around isn’t good for the healing process. I’ll take you up on your offer and accept the sick leave.”

  Weber narrowed his eyes.

  “Strange the pain increased so suddenly.”

  “I should take a week off. Rest up and make sure the wound heals. I don’t want the injury to linger for months because I rushed back into service.”

  “All right, Agent Gardy. I’ll have Candice give you the paperwork.”

  Gardy pushed up from his chair, limping to play up the pain.

  “I better not find out you flew to Florida, Agent Gardy. Lying about an injury and claiming sick leave could mean your job.”

  Gardy grabbed his keys and took the elevator down to the ground floor. Throwing looks over his shoulder, he ensured nobody followed as he unlocked his van and pulled himself into the driver seat. As he pointed the vehicle toward the DC suburbs, he dialed Bell. She sounded harried when she answered.

  “Someone’s following me, Gardy.”

  At that moment, he checked his mirror and noticed a black SUV trailing him, staying several car lengths back.

  “That makes two of us. You get a look at the guy?”

  “I’ve seen Logan Wolf enough times to recognize him.”

  “Wolf is there? I figured he’d flee by now.”

  Gardy’s pulse quickened. Bell without backup and Logan Wolf stalking her. He needed to get to Florida.

  “Wolf didn’t kill Christina, Gardy. I know you think he murdered his sister and wife, but it doesn’t add up.”

  “So someone else murdered Christina Wolf? How many serial killers can one village hold?”

  “Wolf blames me, but I’m sure the profile I gave him is correct. And what do you mean, someone is following you?”

  “Maybe I caught your conspiracy flu,” Gardy said, adjusting the mirror. “But there’s a black SUV seven cars behind me. He’s been there since I hit the interstate.”

  “Be careful, Gardy. You don’t know if it’s the sniper.”

  “Well, he can’t line up a shot while driving seventy outside of DC. And I doubt TSA will let him board with a rifle.”

  “Don’t tell me Weber allowed you to fly to Florida.”

  “Of course not. I’m injured and can’t do my job. It’s best for everyone I take a week of sick leave.”

  Bell snickered.

  “Nicely played.”

  Gardy swerved into the passing lane and shot past a pickup truck. A moment later, the black SUV executed a pass and kept pace.

  “I thought so, but Weber is on to me. Which explains my tail. But I’m stopping at the San Giovanni estate before I beg, borrow, or steal a ticket at the airport.”

  “The estate? Why are you stopping there?”

  “Something you said. San Giovanni found dirt on a politician but didn’t bring it to the committee.”

  “How would the mother know?”

  “She might not, but I bet the mother remembers where San Giovanni kept her files.”

  He told Bell he hadn’t identified the box’s sender in Bealton, but he left out Tammy Bell suggesting he’d make a fine husband for Scarlett. Gardy couldn’t deny his heart beat faster when Bell entered the room, but there was no future in pursuing a fellow agent, especially one who didn’t show the slightest interest in him.

  Gardy frowned.

  “I don’t get it. A serial killer murders Christina Wolf after a sniper shoots at us and someone places a bomb under your vehicle.”

  “The events are related, Gardy. I haven’t connected the dots, but I will.”

  When Gardy took the exit ramp, the mysterious SUV disappeared.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Bell didn’t recall the last time she felt this lost on a case.

  She kept her briefing vague for the Fair Haven Beach PD, and by the time she finished, she hadn’t conveyed new knowledge. Now she bristled under the stare of Detective Larrabee.

  Seated behind her desk and irritably rocking in her chair, Larrabee ordered Bell to close her office door.

  “You’re holding out on me, Agent Bell.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You danced around that briefing, and you don’t buy half the theories you put forth.”

  Beneath the desk, Bell dug her nails into her thighs. She couldn’t lie to Larrabee, nor could she tell her the truth. Before Bell opened her mouth to reply, Larrabee reached inside her desk and slid a photograph in front of Bell. A picture of Logan Wolf.

  “Your own people say this man murdered Christina Wolf. Turns out he’s my vic’s brother, and if that isn’t enough, he’s a fugitive and the most renown serial killer in the United States. But you don’t believe he did it.”

  “Did someone at the FBI call you?”

  “I have my sources. Answer the question.”

  Bell picked up the picture and studied it. Wolf was younger then, an agent with the BAU. A flicker of hope still burned in those da
rk chasms for eyes. She could continue to lie to Larrabee, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. By this time next week, she’d either be dead or out of a job.

  “Yes, Logan Wolf is the victim’s brother, but he didn’t kill her.”

  “Explain your reasoning, Agent Bell, and it better be good.”

  Larrabee’s face remained unreadable as Bell detailed Wolf’s background and her theories about the serial killer. Why he killed. Her belief he never murdered his wife. It occurred to Bell Larrabee was the first person besides Gardy she’d confided in about Wolf’s innocence in 2013. When Bell finished, Larrabee turned a pen over and over on the desk, eyes unblinking.

  “Now that’s the briefing I expected when I requested FBI assistance. If you’d given me anything half that good, we’d already have the perpetrator behind bars.”

  “I don’t understand the murder, Detective.”

  Larrabee rocked back in her chair and set her heel on a drawer.

  “What’s the confusion?”

  “This serial killer struck without emotion. The cut across Christina Wolf’s throat is too perfect, too precise. It more resembles a contract hit than the act of a deranged murderer. And yet the unknown subject displayed characteristics of typical serial killers.”

  “Such as?”

  “He didn’t storm inside at the first opportunity and execute Christina Wolf. Instead, he stalked her. Watched her from the closet, maybe sipped from the wine bottle.” Bell shook her head. “It’s as if he switched midstream from lunacy to a paint-by-numbers murder.”

  “It’s difficult for me to accept the killer isn’t Logan Wolf when the method of killing matches his.”

  “This sounds crazy, Detective, but the killer wanted us to think Wolf murdered his sister.”

  The theory hung in the air as silence blanketed the room. Bell expected Larrabee to snatch her phone and dial the BAU to complain about the rogue field agent sitting across from her. Instead, she examined Bell the way she might an interesting piece of art she hadn’t figured out.

  “Two serial killers in Fair Haven Beach. I hope you’re wrong, Agent Bell.”

  An Internet search returned five liquor stores in the village. One stuck out to Bell. D’Angelo’s catered to discerning connoisseurs, people who appreciated fine wines. On her way to D’Angelo’s, Bell phoned her mother and suggested her parents visit Helen, their friend in Fredericksburg. Tammy Bell listed all the reasons they shouldn’t go, but Bell persisted until she agreed. Good. One less thing to worry about in case another package arrived.

  The shopkeeper, an Italian man with black, slicked hair and a pencil-thin mustache, recognized Logan Wolf from the picture Bell showed him.

  “An interesting man,” the shopkeeper said, smiling. “And he knows his wines. He purchased our finest bottle of Merlot, paid with large bills, and told me to keep the change. It was a generous tip.”

  He estimated Wolf visited around one o’clock. Wolf’s sister hadn’t taken the house keys from the realtor until noon, so that meant Wolf already knew her plans. He must have followed her for days.

  Calling up a map on her phone, Bell studied the terrain around the beach house. Like Miami, Fair Haven Beach was pancake-flat along the coast. Palms blocked the view from the nearest neighborhood. Nowhere to stake out the beach house without drawing attention.

  Bell stopped at a surf shop three blocks from the ocean and purchased a beach hat, a new pair of sunglasses, a lounge chair, and a swim dress. To complete the disguise, she plucked a Dan Brown paperback off the counter. The teen boy working the desk took one look at Bell and agreed when she asked to use the changing room.

  Bell cursed herself for not remembering sunscreen as she danced over the hot sand. The beach was empty except for a fisherman casting a line a hundred yards down the coast. Keeping the beach house in view, she walked until the two-story home appeared toy-like. Then she set her chair where the tide clawed at the sand. She raised her binoculars.

  Perfect. She had a clear view of the deck door and the flapping crime scene tape. If the killer returned to relive the crime, she’d see.

  A man approached from behind. Alone.

  Bell opened the book and hid the binoculars inside her bag. She heard him stomp through the shallows, the gulls scattering.

  False alarm. A woman shouted from further up the beach, and the man, obviously her husband, rushed to meet her.

  The day grew late. Shadows lengthened and played tricks on Bell, fooling her into believing the killer had returned to the beach house.

  At six o’clock, she began to feel foolish. She’d lose the sun soon, and the burn across her shoulders would leave her wishing for a sweatshirt.

  But as she lowered the binoculars, a man rounded the beach house and ducked beneath the deck.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  How can a mansion be a tomb?

  That question rolled around in Gardy’s mind as he walked the desolate halls of the San Giovanni estate. Footsteps announced Joelle’s presence upstairs, but San Giovanni’s daughter hid inside her room and didn’t show her face. Pots clanged in the kitchen as the cook prepared dinner, the echoes lonely.

  The grandmother, Alessia San Giovanni, looked strikingly similar to her daughter, though the lines in her face dug deeper than when Gardy last saw her a month ago. She wore a black dinner dress to match the pitch of her hair, and her heels tapped the glistening floor as she led Gardy past the dining room and kitchen toward the study.

  “Lana kept a laptop in her bedroom, but she did most of her work in the study,” Alessia said, hands clasped at her waist.

  “As long as you understand this isn’t an official visit,” said Gardy, his eyes drawn to the impressionist paintings lining the corridor. “Technically, I shouldn’t be here.”

  Alessia glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

  “Agent Gardy, you and Agent Bell are the only people Lana trusted in her final days, so I wouldn’t let anyone near her computer but you. I can’t promise you’ll find anything useful. Lana remained secretive, even with her family, but she shared her access codes with me.”

  The study was the mansion’s most impressive room. Stretching two stories along the back of the house, the glass ceiling offered unobstructed views of the sky. Long windows took up most of the back wall. One could lounge on the sofa and watch the sun rise.

  It took a minute for the computer to reboot, then Alessia slipped a note card of passwords in front of Gardy.

  “I’ll leave you to it, Agent Gardy. Find my daughter’s killer.”

  Alessia shut the door, and Gardy felt tiny inside the cavernous room. He began his search, stepping through file folders and sub-folders, until he discovered the work files for the corruption task force. From his pocket, he removed a list of cases the task force took public. Gardy checked off each case until he found a file that didn’t link to any known cases.

  Ewing.

  Senator Chet Ewing, Gardy thought to himself as he double-clicked the file. Random characters filled the window, eliciting a curse from Gardy. San Giovanni had encrypted the file. This would take longer than expected. Checking the time, he realized he only had ninety minutes to drive to Dulles and catch his flight to Florida.

  “What did you have on Ewing?” Gardy muttered, picking up the phone.

  He called Harold’s direct line at the BAU, relieved the technical analyst hadn’t left for the day.

  “I’m sending you a file, Harold. How fast can you decrypt a document?”

  “Depends on the encryption strength,” said Harold, calling up a terminal window on his workstation. “Uh, aren’t you on sick leave?”

  “As far as Weber knows.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “Like Belinda Carlisle.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind, just break the code before I miss my flight.”

  Harold typed away at his keyboard.

  “Going somewhere, Agent Gardy?”

  “I’m thinking someplace warm a
nd tropical.”

  Harold issued a nervous snicker. The technical analyst knew Weber had eyes everywhere inside the BAU.

  “Cracked it. Give me a harder challenge next time.”

  “You’re a genius, Harold.”

  “I trust you’ll remember who stuck their neck out for you come Christmas. The decrypted file is headed your way.”

  Harold’s email popped up, and Gardy sent the file to his iPad.

  “I’m heading to Dulles now. Thanks a million, Harold.”

  The list of cancellations didn’t affect Gardy’s flight to Miami, but a delay at the TSA checkpoint left him hobbling for the gate before the plane took off. He sent Bell a message and promised details on the Ewing file, but she didn’t answer.

  Night spread toward the runway as the flight crew prepared for takeoff. The cabin lights shut off, and the interior became dark. When the plane climbed to cruising altitude, Gardy removed the iPad from his seat compartment and called up the file.

  Halfway through the document, he feared for Bell’s life.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gun in hand, Bell crept along the tall grass and dunes. She’d read Gardy’s message and knew San Giovanni had dirt on Senator Ewing. It must have been big since the information got San Giovanni murdered. But why was Bell in the cross-hairs?

  The pitched roof of the beach house jutted above the sand. The rest of the home hid from her sight. Digging the phone out of her pocket, she dialed Larrabee. The detective would be there in fifteen minutes.

  But Bell didn’t have fifteen minutes. Full dark raced across the ocean and cloaked the intruder. He might be anywhere in the dark. Even right behind her.

  She ducked low and ran to the palms, cursing the narrow trunks that did little to conceal her presence as she placed her back against a tree. Then she spun off the tree and sprinted to the wall, keeping her head below the first-floor windows.