If I Should Die

TWENTY-EIGHT

As soon as Noah landed the Cessna, Lucy turned on her phone. She had a text message from Sean that gave her chills.

She said to Noah, “Deputy Weddle is dead. Murdered in his home.”

By the time Lucy managed to get Sean on the phone, she and Noah were in a taxi heading to FBI Headquarters in Albany. “We just landed,” Lucy told Sean. “I got your message about Weddle. I’m putting you on speaker so Noah can listen. What happened?”

“At first glance, it looked like he was attacked in the shower. But Patrick convinced Dillard to let him observe the on-scene investigation, and he’s been keeping me updated. There were no defensive cuts on his forearms. At one point, he was bound with duct tape to a chair in his bedroom. They have a potential witness. Weddle’s next-door neighbor saw a man and a woman walking away from Weddle’s house Friday evening. The only reason she noticed them was that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She thought it was tacky.”

“No description?”

“No—it was almost dark. They walked two doors down from Weddle’s and got into a dark truck.”

Noah asked, “Do they have an estimated time of death?”

“The deputy coroner is the same idiot Lucy and I dealt with at the mine. He’s not making any speculations. Patrick said the water messes with the timeline, but Weddle arrived home at six last night; he could have been killed anytime after.”

“What water?” Lucy asked.

“After being tortured, the killers moved Weddle to the shower, where they slit his throat.”

“To destroy evidence,” Lucy said. “If the killers suspect their hair or blood or saliva might have gotten on the victim, the best way to contaminate it would be to drench it in bleach or water.”

“The body looked like it was exsanguinated. There was blood all over the bathroom—ceiling and walls. Some had been washed away by the water. The floor and hall were drenched.”

Sean continued, “Dillard is tied up at Weddle’s house, and Patrick and I are about to head to the prison to talk to Swain.”

Noah said, “Can you send me Dillard’s contact information? I’m going to want to talk to him.”

“Sending it to your phone.”

“Anything on Jimmy Benson?” Lucy asked. “Did they find his body?”

“No word yet,” Sean said. “Weddle’s murder is the big news, but I’ll remind Dillard to call when he hears back from the divers.”

Noah said, “Ask if he pulled Benson’s cell phone records yet.”

“Damn, I should have thought of it.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” Noah said, making Sean laugh.

Lucy relaxed. She had hoped that Noah and Sean could become, if not best buddies, at least friendly. Sometimes she felt as though she was walking on eggshells between her boyfriend and her trainer.

“How’s my plane?” Sean asked.

“Still working. Keep me in the loop.”

“You do the same.” Sean hung up.

Noah drove into FBI Headquarters, showed the security guard his credentials, then parked. When they entered the building, they were greeted by ASAC Brian Candela himself.

Candela was in his midforties, with a conservative haircut and impeccable dark gray suit, even though it was Saturday. Lucy felt underdressed in her jeans and thin white sweater, even though she wore a blazer with it. Noah wasn’t in a suit and tie, though he still looked sharp in khakis and a button-down shirt.

“Noah Armstrong?” Candela extended his hand. “Good to finally meet you.”

“Finally?” Noah shook Candela’s hand.

“You’re Noah Armstrong, lieutenant, one of the original Ravens.”

“You did your homework.”

Candela shook his head. “My son is a Raven. Just finished training at Fort Dix. You’re a legend among the recruits.”

Noah laughed. Lucy glanced at him, startled. Had she heard Noah laugh before? She grinned.

“I doubt that, but I did write one of the manuals they’re forced to study.” He introduced Lucy. “Lucy Kincaid, agent-in-training. She’s working with me until she heads to Quantico in August.”

Candela sobered immediately. “Ms. Kincaid, thank you for coming. As I’m sure you know, learning Agent Sheffield is dead has been tough on all of us, even though we didn’t expect to find her alive.” He gestured for them to follow. “Everyone is in the conference room.”

Lucy hesitated. “Mr. Candela, I need to show you something first.” She handed him the photograph of Jon Callahan and the blonde who may in fact be Agent Sheffield.

“Where did you get this?”

“The uncle of Jon Callahan,” she gestured to the man in the picture, “gave it to Sean Rogan, the private investigator. We think the woman he’s with is Agent Sheffield, but since it’s only her in profile, we weren’t certain.”

“Who is this Callahan?”

Noah said, “He’s an attorney in Montreal who lives in Spruce Lake and owns a lot property in and around town. He may have been involved with Paul Swain’s criminal activity, though when I ran him, he came up clean.”

“Have you spoken to him about Victoria?”

“No,” Lucy said. “The situation in Spruce Lake is a bit difficult right now.”

Candela nodded. “I’ll let you tell the entire group. Wait here a second, I’m going to run this to the computer lab and get them started on facial recognition. I’m fairly certain it’s her, but I need to confirm it. Then I can get a warrant to interview Callahan.”

He walked down the hall. Noah said to Lucy, “Why are you nervous?”

She hadn’t realized her nerves were showing. “I haven’t briefed a room of FBI agents before. And the situation is tragic.”

“You’ve held your own many times in far tenser situations. You’re going to do fine.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She hoped he was right.

Candela returned. “We should have a confirmation shortly,” he said. “Follow me, please.” He led them down a long, gray corridor livened up by large posters of the scenic areas in the region.

Lucy had prepared herself for being questioned, but she wasn’t quite prepared for the dozen people sitting around the high-gloss wood table. Some had Starbucks coffee cups, others small Styrofoam cups or water bottles. A young agent sat in the back with an elaborate computer system that would make Sean salivate, and a man and woman stood in the back talking quietly. When Candela stepped in, the woman approached.

Candela said, “This is Elizabeth Hart, our SAC. Ms. Hart, Noah Armstrong and Lucy Kincaid from D.C.”

“Thank you both for coming. This is a highly sensitive situation, as you’re aware, and I’m hoping that you have information that will help us find out what happened to Agent Sheffield.” Hart motioned for Lucy and Noah to sit near the front of the conference room, where a projection screen had been pulled down in front of half a white board.

Lucy couldn’t help but look at the wall of fifty-seven fallen agents on the far side of the room. Every FBI office in the country had the same wall—it didn’t matter where the agent served, anyone who died in the line of duty had his or her picture put on the Wall of Heroes in all fifty-six regional FBI offices, Quantico, and FBI national headquarters.

Would Victoria Sheffield be the next agent to grace the wall? It was a sobering thought.

Hart stood in the back while Candela took charge of the meeting. He introduced everyone to Lucy and Noah, including Supervisory Special Agent Marty Strong, who’d been Sheffield’s boss, and Supervisory Special Agent Dale Martinelli, who’d been the liaison with the joint task force that had taken down Paul Swain six years ago.

Candela said, “Based on what Ms. Kincaid told me yesterday, we believe the body she found in the Kelley Mine was Agent Sheffield. I’ve brought you all up to speed with what I know. Ms. Kincaid, have there been new developments since yesterday afternoon?”

Lucy didn’t expect to be put on the spot so quickly. She said, “We learned only a few minutes before we arrived that the deputy we suspected of being on the take was tortured and murdered in his home.”

Her announcement was met with silence, then three people asked questions simultaneously. Candela cut them off.

“Chris, what’s the situation with local law enforcement in St. Lawrence County?” Candela asked one of the other agents.

“Good relations with the Sheriff’s Department,” the agent said. “I spoke with the assistant sheriff this morning because the sheriff is out of town, and he assured me that they would be available to us. This was before they found out about their deputy being killed,” he added with a glance at Lucy.

“How certain are you that he was a bad cop?” Candela asked her.

“Very certain.” Lucy relayed the information they had, including the GPS tracking of his vehicle. She added, “He most likely went back to destroy evidence, but I collected some that I hope helps.”

Lucy took the sealed brown paper bag from her backpack. “Because blow flies have a very specific life cycle that’s impacted severely by the environment, I collected three maggots I found near where the body had been.”

“I think Ms. Kincaid should go back to the beginning,” Marty Strong said. “How certain are you that the body you found was actually dead?”

“I was an assistant forensic pathologist for the D.C. Medical Examiner; I know a dead body when I see one.” She sounded defensive, but she wasn’t expecting to walk into a quasi-hostile environment. She tried to remember that these people were grieving for their colleague. “The next day, when I realized the local cops weren’t taking me seriously, we went down to the mine to photograph the scene.”

“Yet you collected evidence.”

“As I explained, the life cycle—”

“You’re not an agent yet,” Strong said. “What qualifies you in evidence collection?”

Noah rose from his seat, hands on the table. “If you feel the need to inspect Ms. Kincaid’s credentials, talk to me after this meeting. For now, let her get through the facts of the case before you jump down her throat.” He looked around the table before sitting down.

Lucy appreciated the support, but it intimidated her as well. She’d been questioning her decisions the entire flight here.

She told them everything she’d told Candela yesterday. She explained how the body was positioned, why she believed that the body had been naturally frozen in the mine, and how she determined, because of the clothes she wore, that the victim had been killed elsewhere. It took her more than twenty minutes, with only a few questions for clarification.

Everyone was staring at her. She glanced at Noah. He gave her a barely perceptible nod.

“It was the flower that suggested that the killer showed remorse. Someone placed a flower on her chest. I found it on the floor.”

“Now she’s a profiler,” Marty Strong mumbled.

“Actually,” Lucy said clearly before Noah could admonish the agent, “I have a master’s in criminal psychology, and my brother is Dr. Dillon Kincaid, a renowned forensic psychiatrist who consults for the FBI and other agencies. I do appreciate the fact that everyone in this room has far more experience in the field than I do. But one thing I know better than most people is how killers think.”

She walked to the white board and picked up a marker. She was hardly an artist, but she drew the body as best she could. “She was flat on her back. Her arms were crossed like this.” She marked the drawing. “Crossed at the wrists. No one dies naturally that way.” She drew the flower between the victim’s hands.

As Lucy looked at her crude drawing, she had an epiphany. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before, but it was clear now.

“Whoever put her body here felt a deep remorse. Not only did he have a religious upbringing, but he probably considers himself religious. He laid her out as if in a coffin because he couldn’t give her a proper burial. He went to the mine to visit her corpse, to pray and ask forgiveness for his crimes. She was his Snow White, but unlike the fairy tale, true love wouldn’t bring her back.”

Lucy’s skin tingled painfully, as if a million ants were trailing up her body. She could barely stop herself from shaking the imaginary bugs from her skin. She was being watched, and worse, she had lost herself in her analysis, forgetting where she was, forgetting that she was standing in front of her future colleagues. She was the freak show. There was no doubt in her mind that they would find out exactly who she was, if they didn’t already know what happened to her seven years ago.

Normal was so foreign to her she didn’t even know what it meant anymore. All she knew was that it wasn’t her.

She put down the marker and faced the room, even though she wanted to bolt. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done—to stand there and be stared at.

Noah spoke, and Lucy quietly returned to her seat. He took her hand under the table and squeezed it, then let go. The gesture stunned her, and she didn’t know how to respond.

He’s just giving you a nonverbal pep talk.

She must have looked terrified for Noah to be so bold.

“Remember,” he said, “besides Agent Sheffield, there was another victim to get out of the mine—the private investigator working the vandalism case was seriously injured when he fell down the mine shaft while pursuing an arsonist. As you all know, the rules of triage demand that we help the living before we deal with the dead.”

Candela nodded. “I’m satisfied at this point, and we have a lot to get through so we can find out who killed Agent Sheffield.” He motioned to the female agent sitting at the computer. “Tara has prepared a detailed list of all Agent Sheffield’s electronic contacts up until her silence on January second.” Papers were passed around. “And Agent Strong is handing out a list of key dates in the investigation.”

Strong avoided looking at Lucy and said, “We now believe that she called her parents under extreme duress. There was no reason for her to cancel her vacation. When I last saw her, she was heading home to pack and catch an early morning flight. However, she never boarded the plane and we haven’t found her car. Her personal car didn’t have GPS installed—it was a 1995 dark blue Nissan Pathfinder.”

Lucy was thankful that the focus had shifted from her and to the papers in front of them. Her stomach was so twisted she was in physical pain. She whispered to Noah, “I’m going to find the ladies’ room.”

He nodded, catching her eye. “You did good,” he mouthed.

She didn’t know why his praise didn’t make her feel better, though she knew he was sincere. She excused herself and stepped out of the room. She leaned against the wall and took a deep breath.

The door opened behind her. She straightened, feeling sheepish to be caught in a state of near panic.

It was the SAC, Elizabeth Hart. She was tall and stately. Not pretty in the traditional sense, but what Lucy thought of as a handsome woman.

“I knew Victoria must have been dead,” Hart said. “But I think they all were holding out hope. You understand this is a shock. Not simply because of where she was found, but because none of us knew what she was doing there. We’ve gone through all her records, emails, notes—she had no contact in Spruce Lake.”

“Maybe it was personal,” Lucy said.

“I saw the photo you brought. She looked happy.”

“I gather she didn’t mention if she was involved with Jon Callahan.”

Hart shook her head. “Why hide it?”

That was a good question, and Lucy didn’t have an answer.