Say Goodbye

ELEVEN

“SO TO RECAP, YOU HAVE MET WITH A POTENTIAL INFORMANT, processed a potential piece of evidence, and received two disturbing phone calls on your cell phone, both of which appear to have originated from our own call desk.”

“According to GBI Special Agent Lynn Stoudt,” Kimberly interjected, “caller ID on a cell phone is meaningless, thanks to ‘spoofing.’ You go to the right website, and for a ten-dollar fee, have access to a toll-free number where you supply the destination phone number and the caller ID number of your choice. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and any seven-year-old with a laptop can do it.”

“Hardly an encouraging thought.”

“Now that we know what’s going on, our own tech services department can probably set up a system for tracing the original call-”

“More resources,” Supervisory Special Agent Larry Baima countered, “for a case that isn’t a case.”

“Well it’s something!”

“Yes. It’s a mess. For God’s sake, Kimberly, how do you manage to get yourself into these situations?”

Baima sighed heavily. Given that it was a rhetorical question, Kimberly did the smart thing and shut up. In truth, she and Baima respected each other enormously. Which was good, because another supe probably would’ve written her up by now.

“One more time,” Baima said. “What precisely do you know?”

“GBI Special Agent Martignetti believes an unknown predator has been picking off high-risk victims-prostitutes, drug addicts, runaways, the like. He has a list of nine girls ‘unaccounted for,’ plus he has received, from an unknown source, the driver’s licenses for six of the girls. Enter Delilah Rose and her story of a fellow hooker, Ginny Jones, last seen three months ago in the company of a john named Dinchara with a fetish for arachnids. Delilah claims to have recovered a ring belonging to Ginny on the floor of Dinchara’s SUV. I have traced the ring to Tommy Mark Evans, who graduated in oh-six from Alpharetta High School. Also listed as a classmate: Virginia Jones.

“Adding to the puzzle, we have two phone calls, both placed to my cell phone from an unknown number. First call, I personally believe, was the caller testing out the system, to ensure it would work for the middle-of-the-night main event. At this time, however, I cannot substantiate that claim.”

“But the caller was a male? Not Delilah Rose?”

She hesitated. “According to Special Agent Stoudt, the same websites that provide caller ID spoofing also provide optional voice scrambling to make the caller sound like a member of the opposite sex. Sort of an upgrade feature. Given that…Hell, I’m not sure what to be sure of anymore.”

Baima pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hate the Internet.”

“Yet it brought us eBay and Amazon.com.”

“I still hate the Internet.”

Kimberly didn’t argue with him. “At the end of the day,” she ventured, “I’m guessing the caller was Delilah Rose simply because I gave her my phone number at our last meeting. Maybe this was her way of trying to prove her case.”

“You could say that.” Baima had listened to the tape of the phone call twice already this morning, when Kimberly had brought it straight to his attention. Needless to say, it wasn’t a great way to start the day.

“So,” Baima said briskly, “we have a man-an unidentified subject-sexually assaulting, then torturing a female until she fulfills the UNSUB’s demand for a name, at which point she is killed. The woman provides Ginny Jones’s name, claiming to be Ginny’s mother. Can you substantiate that claim?”

“Just submitted a request to Missing Persons,” Kimberly assured him. She hesitated again, then confessed, “But I didn’t have a first name, just a general description and the last name Jones. That’s going to take some processing.”

Another dubious look from her supervisor. “Moving right along then, your impression of the audio,” he pressed. “Genuine, fake, real-time, taped? There are numerous possibilities. Give it your best shot.”

Kimberly tried to sound more certain this time. “I think it was genuine. Not sure of timeline.”

“Explain.”

“The sounds over the phone…If this is a tape, then whoever made it knew exactly what violence and murder sound like. It’s too real to be a script.”

Baima granted her a short nod of acknowledgment, a supervisory agent’s way of giving a special agent just enough rope to hang herself with.

“Timeline?” he prodded.

“Last night, it felt live. This morning, however…I’m thinking recorded.”

Kimberly leaned forward, trying to explain herself. “The second batch of IDs Sal received belong to three roommates who all disappeared, one by one. Coupled with what I heard on the phone, I think that may be how this subject operates-part of his MO is to have each victim choose the next victim, someone close to her. Given the fact that Ginny Jones disappeared three months ago, then what we heard must have occurred prior to December.”

“Ginny’s mother was abducted first. She gives up her daughter, who is taken second,” Baima stated.

“It’s a theory.”

“Well, theories are fun, Special Agent Quincy, but in case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty busy these days. To open a case, federal agents require evidence and-here’s a thought-jurisdiction.”

“I have a recording of the phone call-” Kimberly started.

“Not admissible as evidence, as you cannot substantiate the source, nor establish chain of custody if it is a tape, which you believe it may be.”

“The ring-”

“Also issues with chain of custody.”

“The information provided by Delilah Rose-”

“Saddest excuse for a three-oh-two I’ve ever read in my life,” Baima intoned. “Strike three, you’re out.”

Kimberly scowled. “Come on, you heard that call. We can’t walk away. A woman died begging for her life. How can you-”

“We’re not.”

Kimberly eyed her supervisor skeptically. “We’re not?”

“No, we’re kicking it to GBI, where a case like this belongs. You said Special Agent Martignetti started things. Let Martignetti work missing persons and track down hookers. Better yet, maybe he can come up with a crime scene, or, heaven forbid, a body. One way or another, this is more GBI’s jurisdiction than ours.”

“But Delilah won’t talk to Martignetti-”

“Maybe no one has asked her nicely enough. Until we have evidence of crossing state lines, this isn’t an FBI case. Period. You have eighteen open files on your desk right now. Here’s a thought: Pick one and close it.”

Kimberly scowled, chewing her lower lip. “And if GBI wants to set up a tap on my cell phone?”

Baima gave her a look. “Think hard about all the calls you get and from what sources. You’re opening the door on each and every one. I’d find a better way to cooperate.”

“Point taken.”

Kimberly rose briskly, careful not to let the triumph show on her face.

At the last minute, her supervisor stopped her. “How you feelin’?”

“Fine.”

“Your workload is pretty high, Kimberly. While you’re still feeling so well, it might be the time to start planning ahead.”

“Is that an order?”

“Call it a friendly suggestion.”

“Once again, I live to serve.”

Now Baima did roll his eyes. Kimberly took that as her cue to leave. Her supervisor had granted her permission to find a better way to cooperate with the state. Surely that included delivering Tommy Mark Evans.

Kimberly’s father had entered the Bureau after a brief stint with the Chicago PD. He’d been old-school FBI, in the days when G-men wore dark suits, obeyed all things Hoover, and lived by the mandate Never Embarrass the Bureau.

Truthfully, Kimberly had been too young to remember her father’s time in the field, but she liked to picture him in a somber black suit, his dark eyes unreadable as he stood across from some petty gangster, breaking the suspect’s alibi with a mere arch of his eyebrow.

After his workaholic ways imploded his marriage, Quincy had gotten into profiling, transferring to what was then called the Behavorial Science Unit at Quantico. In theory, he’d moved into the field of research in order to spend more time with his daughters. In reality, he had traveled more than ever, working over a hundred cases a year, each one more shockingly violent and twisted than the last.

He never talked about his work. Not when he’d been with a field office and certainly not once he started profiling. Instead, Kimberly had taken it upon herself to become immersed in her father’s world, sneaking into his study late at night, flipping through his homicide textbooks, glancing at manila folders filled with crime scene photographs, diagrams of blood spatter, reports from coroners’ offices filled with phrases like “petechial hemorrhages,” “defensive wounds,” and “postmortem mutilation.”

Kimberly had been an FBI agent for only four years, but in many ways she had been studying violent crime her whole life. First, under the mistaken impression that if she could understand her father’s work, then she could understand the man. Second, as a victim herself, trying to wade through the emotional morass that came with knowing her mother died a long, brutal death, fighting for her life inch by inch, as she crawled across the hardwood floors of her elegant Philadelphia town house.

Had Bethie died in a state of terror, feeling caught, helpless, trapped? Or had she felt outraged to have fought so hard and still lost the war? Or perhaps by then her pain had been so great, she’d been merely grateful. Mandy had died the year before. Maybe in those final moments, Bethie was thinking how nice it would be to see her daughter again.

Kimberly didn’t know. Kimberly would never know.

And in the hours after midnight, her thoughts often took her to dark places where other people, normal people, God willing, never had to go.

In the end, she and her father rarely spoke of their jobs, because it wasn’t their jobs they had in common. Kimberly worked for the post-9/11 Bureau, operating out of a beautiful office compound in the middle of a serenely landscaped industrial park. Average age was thirty-five. Females comprised a quarter of the workforce. Men thought nothing of wearing pastel shirts.

Instead, Kimberly and her father shared something deeper, more poignant. They understood what it was like to strive so hard to save a stranger’s life while living each day knowing they had failed the ones they loved.

Mostly, they understood the importance of always moving forward, because if you stood in one place too long, you risked getting crushed by the boulder weight of regret.

A little after eleven a.m., Kimberly headed to her car. She’d already checked the Georgia Navigator for latest traffic news, and according to the website, GA 400 was clear. Alpharetta lay just twenty-five miles north of the Atlanta Field Office, and Kimberly made good time.

This late in the season, football was done. Instead, Coach Urey was teaching gym class to a bunch of gawky ninth graders who were a mess of arms, legs, and interesting body piercings. When Kimberly finally found the gym, Urey didn’t need to see her creds to talk. Her mere presence was enough for him to take a much-needed break.

She warmed him up with the usual prattle-how was football season, what did he think of the new high school, seemed to be a great group of kids.

Urey, who was about as wide as he was tall, with the requisite buzz cut and beer gut, took it all in stride. Should’ve made it to state this year. Kids really had the heart. But it was a young team, made some mistakes. By gawd they’d get ’em next year.

They walked down a hallway as they spoke. Urey offered her water. She declined. His gaze fell to her stomach, and she could see him mentally wrestling-was the woman pregnant, not pregnant, were FBI agents even allowed to be pregnant. Finally, he did the sensible thing and said nothing at all.

“So I’m trying to track down one of your former players,” she started out casually as they turned a corner in the vast hallway of lockers. “Nothing alarming. I’m just cleaning up odds and ends from another case and have some property to return to him.”

“Property?”

“Class ring. It has the football emblem on it with his jersey number. That’s how I knew to come here.”

“Oh sure, the kids load up their rings with everything. Hell, if I’d had all those choices in my day…”

Kimberly nodded her head in sympathy, as Urey re-trod the same ground Mac had already walked down. Apparently, men did take their class rings seriously. War medals, and all that.

“Do you know his name?” Urey asked now. “Or tell me his jersey number. I can probably fill in the rest. Not that I spend too much time with these kids.”

“Ring owner graduated in oh-six,” Kimberly supplied. “If I understand the symbols correctly, he played quarterback. Jersey number eighty-six.”

Urey stopped walking. For one moment, under the fluorescent lights, his face appeared gray. Then he collected himself, squaring his shoulders resiliently.

“I’m sorry, Special Agent Quincy. If you’d phoned ahead, I coulda saved you a trip. Ring belonged to Tommy Mark Evans. Fine kid. One of the best QBs I ever had. Great arm, but also solid. Held up under pressure. He graduated magna cum laude and got himself a football scholarship to Penn State.”

“He’s out of town?” Kimberly asked in confusion. “Going to college in Pennsylvania?”

But Urey shook his head. “Not anymore. Tommy came home for Christmas last year. Guess he went for a drive. Nobody really knows. But apparently he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Took two bullets to the brain, tap, tap on the forehead. Parents still haven’t recovered. You just don’t expect a strong, handsome kid like that to suddenly wind up dead.”