Freezing

TWENTY-THREE

Tripper understood the catalysts for the physical sensations breaking over his body like waves. One part was nerves and the other anger, but the zing brought on by the thought of that idiot Wayne’s sedan going to a police yard before he’d ensured it was clean was fear, pure fear. He clenched and unclenched his fingers. He knew he had to control fear. He must repeat in his mind that there was nothing to fear as long as he wasn’t Gene King.

Sure, that was King’s license plate on the car but he was Tripper full-time now. Indeed, he’d planned this day; it had just arrived sooner than he’d planned. That made him angry again. Who were the cops to dictate when he made The Transition? Which meant the real question was, did he leave anything of Tripper’s in that car? Zing. No! Control the fear. Clench, unclench.

‘You sure you want me to take Peachtree?’

Tripper looked up to see the taxi driver eyeing him in the rearview mirror. ‘Yes.’

‘The parkway will get you there in half the time.’

‘I said I don’t like that route.’

The driver shrugged. ‘It’s your dollar.’ His eyes went back to watching the traffic ahead of them and he turned up the AM radio.

Tripper refocused. The taxi was working. It kept him off both the streets and the public transit system while the cops might be searching for Gene King during the crucial hours before he completed The Transition. They’d only search hard for him if they knew he’d impersonated a cop, and they’d only know about the assault if that bitch he’d pulled over had reported it already. In case she had, he had done three things: ran until he put distance between him and the hospital, given his house a wide berth, and waited several hours before hailing a taxi. There would have been no point in getting a taxi near the hospital, and at a time of night when the driver would remember him if questioned by the cops later. And he wouldn’t take a taxi to the house. No, he was going to the storage unit.

The Transition Plan called for this, naturally, but it was supposed to be late at night when the front office was unattended and he could enter with his access code. But current circumstances dictated that he go during business hours when the gate was already open. He might be seen but would draw little attention to himself and his code would never be used, so it could never be tracked.

He would ask to be dropped off several blocks before the taxi reached the storage place, so the driver would have no idea of his destination. Then he would walk. Now that he’d discarded the uniform’s shirt, he knew he was unremarkable in a white t-shirt and dark pants. If anything, he looked like a waiter who’d just come off of a night shift.

Tripper dug his fingers down into his right sock and felt the money he’d hidden there when he’d dressed in the uniform at the beginning of the night. He was surprised to find the cash damp with sweat. He didn’t remember sweating. As he sat up straight again, he heard a police siren start up behind the taxi. It took extraordinary effort to not whip around in the seat as he watched the driver’s eyes looking in the rearview mirror to something behind Tripper’s head.

Scott was looking from Jayne to Steelie. ‘Yeah, Eugene Frederick King. What’s wrong with you?’

Jayne couldn’t tear her eyes from the screen and absently asked, ‘What?’

‘You know this guy? Steelie?’

Steelie replied, ‘Yeah, we do. You should know him too. Gene was one of you guys, a Fibbie.’

He looked at Mark, who was shaking his head.

Scott insisted, ‘Not according to what we know about him. You sure about that?’

She nodded. ‘He was FBI ten years ago, anyway. A criminalist in the DC Lab. Worked for the UN with us in Rwanda. And Jayne can tell you where he works now; he’s not a janitor, that’s for sure.’

Mark gaped at Jayne. ‘You’re in touch with King now?’

‘I saw Gene last week but I’m not—’

‘Everything stops.’ Scott pushed back his chair roughly as he stood up. ‘Right now.’

Everyone watched him as he brought both hands to his face as though in prayer. Then he pointed at Mark. ‘Find out why he’s not in our system and go straight to the Director of the Lab to get anything they have. Find out who worked with him and talk to them ASAP.’

Mark nodded, jerked his chair back and headed for the door, which banged shut behind him.

Scott looked at Jayne, then rubbed his lips hard with his fingers. ‘You have some explaining to do.’

‘But . . . I hardly know him.’

‘Let me be the judge of that.’ His voice had taken on a harsh edge. ‘I need to pick up some equipment. Wait here.’ He left the room.

Scott stood just outside the door of the briefing room, his hand still on the latch, thoughts and images colliding in his head. Jayne calling King – their suspect – ‘Gene’. She knew him. She fucking knew this bastard. He envisioned King and Jayne together, the two of them – friends? This morphed into a vision of Jayne in danger, so he pushed it out to focus on King again. A former FBI lab rat; how could they have missed that? Was he such a smooth operator that he’d wiped his own Government record and if so, who were they dealing with? This was no longer a janitor who’d ‘just been lucky’ to get away with murder all this time. And if King had been in LA last week, then that tallied with their belief that he was the one who had been driving the van when those body parts fell out. Could it be coincidence that he had seen Jayne that same week or had King known she was involved in the case? What had she revealed? He needed to know how she’d been involved with this sick fuck. Anger and disgust made Scott tense up, so he pushed off from the door and strode down the hall.

Jayne fought the nausea, repeatedly swallowing the saliva that was welling up in her mouth. She stared unseeing, her mind skittering over the night she’d met Gene in LA, recasting him as a murderer, hardly able to believe it, then fully rejecting it. He’s an alleged murderer only, she told herself, and then felt her stomach twist. I spent an evening with him; he was in my apartment. I let him touch me! Was he sizing me up the whole time? No, no. This is just an allegation. They need proof. I need proof. Jesus, do I have some proof and don’t even know it? What is Scott thinking? What is he . . . what must he think of me? It’s over, isn’t it? It’s over between us and it had barely even started.

Steelie watched Jayne and could imagine what she was thinking. Steelie herself had no trouble casting Gene as a killer, but she couldn’t imagine him being creative enough to spend an evening weaving whatever false stories he’d told Jayne about his life. She also couldn’t see him taking a janitorial job unless there was some benefit to him beyond the paycheck. Most of all, she had trouble picturing him pursuing any endeavor where he couldn’t get right in front of any kudos that might come his way for being a part of it.

Scott signed out the recording equipment from the supply room and then walked to Mark and Angie’s office, holding the case in both hands. He put it down at the doorway and gestured with his head to Eric. Eric left Angie’s desk, where she was on the phone with a list in front of her. Mark was across from her, also on the phone, a hand over his free ear as he listened to the instrument.

Eric stepped into the hallway and kept his voice low. ‘Mark told us. They know King?’

Scott nodded, his lips tightly compressed.

Eric registered the case on the floor. ‘You’re going to interview them?’

‘Jayne saw him just last week.’

‘Christ.’

‘She could have told him something. Inadvertently, of course.’

Eric’s eyes widened and he dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘You are not thinking that, man.’

Scott gave a tense shrug.

‘Let me do the interview,’ Eric almost pleaded.

‘No. I know they might be the best lead we have on where this asshole is right now – I’ll have my kid gloves on.’

‘That’s not the reason to wear them, Scott. This is Jayne and Steelie. Look, if King is Tripper, he’s leading a double life and there’s no way in hell he told Jayne. If she knows anything useful, she won’t realize it. She doesn’t know Tripper; she knows King.’ Eric paused and watched Scott closely. ‘Don’t do an interview. Just ask questions. And make it clear they’re not suspects.’

Angie approached. Eric abruptly stepped back from his huddle with Scott. She didn’t appear offended by this nor did she ask about the recording equipment on the floor. She held up a sheet of paper.

‘With the help of Health and Human Services, I’ve got a list of battered women’s shelters in the metro area. It’s recommended that we go in person so we can show ID, otherwise, forget it.’

Just then, Mark got off the phone and called them all into the office.

‘The Lab confirms that King worked for the Bureau doing trace evidence and photography for seven years. He was loaned to the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on a nine-month agreement in ’ninety-six, going into ’ninety-seven. Official title: forensic expert. He resigned from the Lab in nineteen ninety-nine, stating personal reasons.’

Eric interrupted: ‘Nothing precipitated it?’

Mark shook his head. ‘Nothing disciplinary in his file. The only thing that stands out was a psych debriefing after the UN mission that came back with a recommendation for further appointments. He never made them but he wasn’t required to, either. Speaking of his file, there’s no explanation for why it isn’t in the Bureau’s General Records because it’s there in the Lab’s database at the Administration level.’

Scott responded thoughtfully. ‘That’s smart. He doctored it so anyone who knew him from the Lab would find his records as expected but he’s not in the system that the rest of us use when we’re checking a name against government employee lists. Did the Lab think he had the tech skills to do that?’

‘The Director of the Lab didn’t know King well – came on just before he resigned, but said King was known as a jack of all trades. He’d been in the Bureau long enough to gain some working knowledge of everything. Blood spatter, geology, entomology, forensic accounting, you name it.’

‘They got an address for him?’

‘Same one we’ve got crime scene officers at right now.’

Angie looked at Scott. ‘Are we going to have a problem taking Steelie and Jayne over there?’

‘I don’t know yet. What I want you to do is keep on the shelters, and see if we can find out where this guy frequented besides his house and the airport. Mark, see if you can get on to whoever was the director of the Lab while King was working there. We need leads on friends, anything on what he was planning to do when he resigned. We need some hidey hole he might be at right now, nursing his wounds from last night.’

The team broke up.