Fear No Evil

Chapter 18

Los Angeles

Mahoney and I touched down in LAX around ten that evening, local time. We had spent the flight learning about the latest law enforcement victim to be found with a white envelope marked CONFESSION.

According to his personnel files, the deceased, FBI Special Agent Mason White, was a fourteen-year veteran of the Bureau with a solid record and a reputation outside work as a devoted husband and father of three kids. The pictures we pulled up on social media depicted thirty-nine-year-old White as a model citizen, loving hubby, and doting dad to his nine-year-old son and five-year-old twin daughters. White was born and raised in Provo, Utah, and had played offensive line on the Brigham Young football team before applying to the Bureau.

According to officers on the scene, White’s wife had returned home from a visit to San Diego, first stopping to drop off the kids with her parents in Pasadena. She’d entered the house around noon to find her husband dead, lashed naked to a chair, the sealed confession on a table beside him.

She’d become hysterical and called her husband’s FBI boss, Patrick Loughlin, instead of 911. Loughlin, the supervising special agent of the FBI’s LA office, had heard about the FBI’s investigation of Hingham. He ordered agents to White’s house and had them seal the crime scene pending our arrival.

Loughlin was waiting at the gate when Mahoney and I came off our flight. To be honest, with his flattened nose and callused hands, he looked more like a street heavy than a supervising special agent. An East Boston native, Loughlin had been a Boston patrol cop who’d gotten his college and law degrees at night. He’d been the oldest recruit in Ned’s FBI Academy class at Quantico, but despite his age, he’d won both the physical and academic awards at graduation.

“Frickin’ LA traffic’s a nightmare,” Loughlin said, his Boston accent still thick. “If we went by car, it’d be two hours. We’ll take the chopper. Perk of the job, huh?”

Minutes later, we were flying in an FBI helicopter over the Staples Center and then the Hollywood Hills before sweeping out over the San Fernando Valley, which glimmered with millions of lights.

“You knew Special Agent White well,” I said.

“A Boy Scout if ever there was one,” Loughlin said. “A Mormon, for frick’s sake. I got no idea what he’s done to confess to.”

“You haven’t read it?” Mahoney said.

“This is your case, Ned,” Loughlin said, holding up his palms. “I learned to respect jurisdictional boundaries my first day on the job as a cop, walking a beat around Fenway at a hundred fricking degrees in the—”

The pilot put the chopper in a tight, downward spiral then landed in the cul-de-sac right in front of White’s property. The LA media had gotten wind of the case. There were several satellite trucks parked back down the road and reporters standing at the barricades.

Many of them seemed to recognize Loughlin as he exited because they ran forward in a crouch beneath the rotor wash. When he stood up, they began yelling questions at him, wondering why the FBI was there instead of local law enforcement.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Loughlin shouted back. “An FBI agent is the victim. Use your brains for once, will ya? You have them, don’t ya?”

Then he walked away, leaving the reporters slack-jawed. We followed him up the driveway as he griped, “Worst part of the frickin’ job, talking to reporters. Not one of those bozos knows how to listen. But can they talk! Just like hens, always squawking.”

I was barely listening, too impressed by Special Agent White’s home. And the grounds too were beautiful, even at night.

“Did you know he lived this way, Pat?” Mahoney asked.

“Honestly, I didn’t,” Loughlin said. “But I did hear more than once that the wife’s family has a lot of dough.”

I asked, “Where is she? The wife?”

“Under protection at her parents’ place in Pasadena. Poor thing was ripped apart when we spoke.”

“We’ll need to talk with her.”

“First thing in the a.m. Tonight, I want you both to see White in situ before we put him on ice pending autopsy.”

An agent at the door gave us blue booties, latex gloves, and hairnets before we entered. The furnishings were high end. You could see it within two steps. No money had been spared building or decorating this house.

“I could afford the bathroom in this place,” Loughlin said. “Maybe a closet too. That’s about it, though.”

The agent led us into the great-room area where Mason White was still tied to a ladder-back chair. A sheet had been laid over his lap.

But the first thing I saw was White’s bulging eyes and the wire garrote cinched so tight around his neck, it had cut arteries. The room reeked of blood and other body fluids expelled as he died.

“He’s a big boy,” I said, circling the corpse. “Look at the neck on him. Have to be someone awful strong to do that to a former offensive lineman. And what’s that wound low on the left side of his torso?”

An FBI forensics tech said, “A puncture. Looks like it was done with, like, a thin knitting needle.”

“Or a hypodermic dart from a high-powered air gun,” I said. “Look at the bruising around it.”

The tech stepped forward and peered at the bruise and hole. “Might explain it too.”

Mahoney said, “Has the scene been photographed?”

“Yes, but not processed,” the tech said.

Mahoney picked up the envelope marked CONFESSION / FBI EYES ONLY.

“I think we qualify,” Loughlin said.

Ned nodded, cut the flap with the blade of his pocketknife, and extracted four handwritten pages. The three of us studied them.

I wasn’t two paragraphs down page one when Loughlin said, “Jesus H. Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Is this for frickin’ real? A Mormon assassin?”