You Can’t Stop Me

Chapter Four

Though he’d never admit it, not under threat of torture or death even, Jeff Ferguson loved his older sister.

She’d just helped him with his sixth-grade math homework — he felt a grudging respect for Jessica and her ability to do the kind of complex story problems that a calculator couldn’t dent.

Like everything with Jessica, her aid came at a price. Jeff would be taking his sister’s shift doing the dishes every other night. That meant dishes duty for a solid week.

Jeff’s dad, the town marshal, would call this cheating. But it wasn’t like Jessica had just filled in the answers for Jeff — she’d shown him, as they went along, how to solve the complicated problems. In fact, he had done the last two on his own, Jess watching over his shoulder.

Blond and blue-eyed, the pair could have been clones of their mother, a successful real estate agent here in Placida, Florida. Jessica was in the eighth grade, but seemed older than that to Jeff.

Sometimes, though, she seemed really immature to him. She texted constantly during various stupid shows that she and her clique of girlfriends found “awesome,” always about girls their age or a little older and a lot richer. Jeff had agreed to make sure Jess didn’t get busted by Mom for texting when she was supposed to be doing homework — that was the second half of his payment for the math boost.

Even in the family room, where he sat curled on the floor in stocking feet with his math book, Jeff could detect the wafting aroma of spaghetti and meatballs, a family favorite. The tomato sauce would mean extra scrubbing when he did the dishes tonight, but why complain? He was guaranteed an A on his math homework, and he loved spaghetti.

Then he heard the sound of trouble — Mom’s heels clicking in the hallway.

“Jess,” he hissed, voice low.

His sister, eyes glued to the family room’s big TV, didn’t hear him, or those clicking heels either.

“Jess,” he tried again, struggling to keeping it low enough to avoid their mother’s radar-like hearing, but loud enough to snap his sister out of her texting trance.

Still no response.

Panicking now, knowing that if he slipped up in his guard duty, Jess would make his life eternally miserable, the boy did the only thing he could think of: he hurled his pen at his sister’s noggin.

After the pen careened off her skull, she spun on him, her eyes wide with homicidal rage.

Making a terrified face, he pointed violently toward the hallway, and Jess’s expression melted immediately. She fumbled for, and got, his pen, tossed it back, hid the offending phone under a pillow, and turned down the TV to a more reasonable volume. She also managed to pick up a history book and appear to be enthralled.

The whole series of actions seemed to Jeff like a great baseball play — Evan Longoria, his favorite player, diving to his left to stop a hot grounder, then rising, stepping on third, and throwing to first to complete a double-play.

Mom strode in — slender, blond, blue-eyed, wearing the slacks and blouse she’d worn to work — and moved immediately to Jeff’s side. She tousled his hair and gave him a huge smile that he couldn’t help but return.

Jess smiled at her mother too, but to her brother it seemed forced.

“What are you reading, dear?” Mom asked her.

Holding up the book dutifully, Jessica answered, “American History.”

Mom didn’t miss a beat, glancing at the screen and saying, “Like the invention of lip gloss?”

Jessica, her mouth moving, couldn’t find words.

Trying extra hard not to laugh as his sister got busted, Jeff buried himself in his math book and did his best to look both busy and completely disinterested in Jessica’s fate.

“Let’s turn off the TV,” Mom said, “and get ready for dinner.”

Jessica didn’t argue, simply used the remote.

Mom asked Jeff, “How was your day?”

He shrugged.

“Did they teach you brain surgery or anything?”

“Mom,” he said, drawing out the last letter.

Jessica fell into line behind their mother, who led the way out of the family room, Jeff trailing. Mom was making her usual left turn to the kitchen, Jess about to head over to the stairs to the bathroom, Jeff ready to head down the hall to wash his hands when the front door opened.

Jeff at first thought it was his father, but this figure was skinnier, and maybe not as old, and held a pistol, which Jeff’s dad would never do in the house.

The man’s entrance was so sudden, Jeff was more surprised than afraid, stunned to see the stranger step inside and close the door behind him, as casual as if this were Jeff’s father.

Mom, however, seemed to instantly see that something was very wrong and moved between the intruder and her kids.

Looking past his mother, Jeff watched in silent horror as the stranger brought the pistol up and pointed it at her.

“No,” Mom said, holding up a hand like the crossing guard at school, and the man fired the gun.

Orange and yellow flame and sparks erupted from the barrel like the sparklers last Fourth of July...

Mom took an involuntarily step back, her other hand coming up as if to protect herself, but it was too late. A tiny pink misty cloud hovered as she teetered.

Jessica screamed — it was shrill and almost fake-sounding.

“Mom!” Jeff shouted, his voice barely a whisper in his own head as his ears rang from the roar of the pistol in the enclosed space.

Frozen, Jeff watched as the stranger with the gun swivelled toward Jessica. Down on the floor, Mom had stopped moving, her eyes open, staring but not seeing.

Another loud pop turned Jessica’s scream into a gurgle, as she made a slow pirouette, her shirt blossoming crimson as she held out her hand to her brother, then sagged to her knees, then fell onto her side.

As the stranger turned in his direction, Jeff ducked into the bathroom and slammed the door. He managed to push in the knob lock and twist it, but knew the killer wouldn’t need long to get through. Only one thing to do — the bathroom had a window overlooking the fenced-in backyard. Jeff’s only chance.

He heard two more pops and dove into the tub. Peeking, he saw holes in the door, around the knob...

...but for now the barrier held.

The boy climbed up onto the toilet, stretched to unlock the window. Though seldom used, the mechanism worked fine. Lifting the window, though, proved harder — stiff in its tracks, the thing did not want to move...

Jeff glanced toward the door just as two more bullets punched through. They barely missed him, thunking into the wall beside him, cracking wall tiles like eggs. Blinking at sweat, heart pounding, Jeff gave a mighty tug, and the window moved just enough. He grabbed the frame and swung through feet first, kicking out the screen, even as he heard the bathroom door splinter open.

He flew through the opening, his back scraping the bottom of the frame, and dropped into dusk that was almost darkness, landing with a jolt on the grass, a good six feet below, his stockinged feet stinging. He rolled and came up running, his legs hurting, his back burning, as he half sprinted, half limped around the corner of his home. Not home free, however — the backyard was enclosed by a six-foot wooden privacy fence.

He hoped the bathroom window was too small for the killer to get out — if so, that would give the boy more time. More time to do what, he didn’t know. He had no idea why this was happening or what was really going on. His mom and sister were dead; despite all the gunfire and blood, that tragedy seemed abstract to the child, though he did sense he was next on the stranger’s list. Why he was next, he had no idea.

That was the extent of his mental processing of what had happened to bring him to this moment. And now that moment, and the moments tumbling thereafter, were all that concerned him.

If he tried to get to the neighbors, could he make it? From the fenced-in backyard, he could get into the garage, and out onto the driveway. Dad’s shed, back here, led nowhere, a dead end. But the fence between the house and its freestanding garage had a gate — through there, Jeff could get to the street and the neighbors.

As he neared that gate, however, Jeff heard the back door swing open, nearby, and light poured out. If the boy went through, he would walk into the stranger’s path. In any case, the killer would turn toward the fenced-in yard and come through, looking.

Jeff figured if he ducked into the shed, he could at least hide in there long enough for the killer to go in to check the garage. Then the boy could make a run for the gate and the neighbors.

That seemed his best chance.

He slid open the shed door as quietly as he could, then squeezed into the hot, musty-smelling metal structure and just as carefully closed the door. Dad’s lawn mower shared space with a roto-tiller, a weed-whacker, and some garden tools inside the dark, cramped space.

He prayed that his father was on his way home from work. His father was a marshal. His father had a gun. Again sweat ran into his eyes, and he rubbed them furiously, trying to get them to stop burning, but they only burned worse.

Straining to hear any sound beyond the door of the shed, Jeff wondered if maybe the killer had gone. Other than the pounding of his own heart, he heard nothing. Maybe the killer had given up and gone away...

Jeff allowed his eyes to slowly scan the walls of the shed, and they came to rest on his mother’s gardening shears — the ones Mom used to clip off flowers. She kept them very sharp, he knew. He reached across, trying to not make the slightest noise, and plucked them off the wall.

If the killer was still out there, maybe Jeff could stab him or poke out an eye or something. His father said a man had to defend himself.

And Jeff intended to try.

He listened for what seemed like a very long time and heard nothing — not the garage, not the gate; even the shed door didn’t open.

Moments became minutes, and he was sure the killer must be gone...

Carefully, Jeff cracked the shed door and looked out. Darkness had taken over the yard, normally such a friendly playground for him and his sister over the years, now barely visible in blue shadows.

But he could not make out anything except his house beyond. None of the shadows seemed to be a person.

He allowed himself a brief relieved exhale, then continued to slide the door open ever so slowly, still being careful to be quiet about it...

His eyes quickly scanned the yard as the opening grew, but he saw nothing, no one. He finally allowed hot tears of grief and fear to run down his cheeks. For a moment, he wondered if he’d dreamt the whole thing, maybe this was a nightmare, maybe he was napping in his room, and Mom and Jess were downstairs right now.

Taking one tentative step, he felt moist grass bleed up through his socks — Mom kept the grass watered and green. The wetness felt cool and almost soothing. The threat was gone. The nightmare might be real, but it was over.

Still, he listened with the ears of a rabbit, the shears in one gripped hand, ready to protect him. No sound, not even crickets or night birds or wind.

Even his footsteps were silent. He took another, then another. He was into the yard now, and there was no stranger. He turned toward the gate, took one quick step to start running the short distance, but his second step hung in the air, foot wriggling there, as something, someone, grabbed him by his head of hair... felt like it was being pulled out by its roots!

He howled, but a hand clamped over his mouth and his protest was swallowed. He kicked and fought, but nothing did any good, his captor far stronger. Bringing up the shears, trying to jab them at the arm holding him, Jeff found no target, the stranger throwing the child to the grass. The stranger simply muscled the shears away with one hand and cuffed him with the other, knocking Jeff into a whimpering pile.

The fight was out of the boy. Defenseless, he squeezed his eyes shut as the stranger lifted him and carried him back into the house. Jeff wanted to scream, but nothing would come out — nothing was left. Once inside, the stranger tossed the child like a doll into the hallway and Jeff plopped next to the bloody corpse of his sister.

Not just a bad dream after all.

Looking up, finally, he could see the barrel of the pistol, a big black eye staring at him, inviting him, forcing him, to stare back.

Another Fourth of July flash, and the nightmare was over.

Taking a step back, the man who thought of himself as the Messenger wiped sweat from his forehead with a sleeve. Wasn’t supposed to be this hard. His message should be easier to deliver.

The Messenger felt admiration for the boy. He had fought back. He’d had spirit. A pity such a strong child had to be sacrificed; but nothing was free, not in this life, at least. And he had a job to do. A message to get across.

He gazed down at the woman. Pretty, and the spitting image of her two kids. His eyes fell to her left hand. To the wedding ring on the fourth finger.

This wouldn’t be the first ring he had taken. In the beginning he hadn’t taken any, but he’d thought he could get his point across better if he began taking them, and something in him liked having souvenirs of his efforts.

Still, for all its obviousness, no one seemed to be deciphering his message.

Maybe it was time to start making the message more clear. More emphatic. Without really thinking about it, he withdrew from his pocket the garden shears the boy had tried to use on him.

Maybe this brave boy had been sent to deliver a message to the Messenger.

Perhaps it was time for him to spell the message out. Hadn’t his own marriage been severed?

Just taking the ring was not a strong enough sign. He understood that now. He bent down, as if proposing, and took the woman’s hand in his. It was still warm. Placing the fourth finger between the blades of the shears, he squeezed.

It took more effort than he had expected, but in the end, the finger crunched and snapped like a thick twig, the ring and finger coming off as one, the blood spill minimal since the heart no longer pumped.

He found a plastic sandwich bag in the kitchen, slipped his prize inside and put the shears back in his pants pocket. He had a new trophy, in the ring finger... and a new tool. Despite the trouble he’d gone through, and the sacrifice of a brave child, this message had been successfully delivered.

If only someone out there could understand. Only then could he stop.

Chapter Five

The day began as uneventfully as any of Carmen’s, or yours, for that matter. But this seemingly routine day at the office would mark the real start of Carmen Garcia’s life, which, coincidentally, was what the eventual cost of her big break might be.

A tall, reedy brunette in faded jeans and an Ozomatli T-shirt, hair tucked up in a loose bun, Carmen tightrope-walked to her cubicle, towering triple mocha latte clutched in a death grip in one hand, stack of folders tucked precariously under her opposite shoulder.

Her doe’s brown eyes gave her an earnest, innocent look that belied an ambition to get to the top of the television news game, her high cheekbones and heart-shaped face aiding in that effort.

So many piles of papers covered her desk that Carmen could only wonder if she were personally responsible for the death of an Amazon rain forest. She dropped the wad of folders onto the dead trees, flopped into her chair, slid her purse off her shoulder onto the floor, and sipped the hot latte with the passion of a true addict.

Carmen had climbed aboard a plane the day after graduating summa cum laude from the television production school of Columbia College in Chicago, and moved here to LA, where she’d gotten a job as a production assistant with Crime Seen!, a first-year reality-crime show for the faltering UBC network.

The United Broadcasting Company had run sixth in a six-network race for so long, they were threatening to get lapped, the network such an industry joke that Carmen knew getting a job there might hurt her résumé more than help it.

But Crime Seen! had sounded interesting... in addition to being the first and, yes, only show to look past her lack of experience and make her a job offer.

So UBC it had been. At least United was an over-the-air network, and not cable. Even a sinking ship in the broadcast ocean carried more prestige for your average rat than cable — not much of a rationalization, she knew, a sinking ship being a sinking ship whether the Titanic or a tugboat...

Now, nine months later, she found herself enjoying working on the show. This was in part, of course, because Crime Seen! was UBC’s surprise ratings winner.

In one season, the series — which brought coverage of interesting local crimes to a national audience — had led to the capture of over a dozen felons in half a dozen states. No small feat in only twenty-one airings since last August.

Two wife beaters, three armed robbers, four burglars, two scam artists, two serial drunk drivers, and three murderers had been apprehended thanks to Crime Seen! The show was moving from hit series to national phenomenon, and now — with two weeks to go before the season finale (airing live as a ratings grabber) — everyone was busting their butt, following the example of their boss.

J.C. Harrow was not your typical celebrity host. Coming up on six years ago, the former Iowa sheriff turned criminalist had become a tragic American hero when — on the very day he saved the life of the President — his wife and teenage son were brutally murdered. The case made national headlines when the criminalist, briefly a suspect, launched his own investigation into the deaths of his family.

Even though the killer’s trail went cold, Harrow’s search for his family’s murderer continued to fascinate the public, generating an acclaim that led to UBC approaching him to host Crime Seen! At fifty, Harrow possessed the charisma and rugged good looks of a natural TV star with his piercing blue eyes and a wavy shock of dark brown hair just now going gray at the temples.

Being on prime-time television kept his family’s case alive, but through the first twenty-one episodes of Crime Seen!, Harrow had not once mentioned the tragedy on air. Instead, he and the show’s staff had tracked down other felons, often with Harrow there to capture their arrests on camera. To UBC, it was reality show heaven.

As for Harrow, well, Carmen couldn’t exactly say what he was getting out of it.

She cleared a small space for her morning’s monster latte, turned on the computer, and shifted the piles of paper as the machine booted up. As usual, show-runner Nicole Strickland had funneled all the fan mail to production assistant Carmen, whose inbox was jammed.

The e-mails ran the gamut from “love the show,” to “hate the show,” from “screw Harrow,” to “I want to screw Harrow.” Suggestions how to make the show better ranged from showcasing more sexually oriented crimes to actually gunning down suspects on air. Some wanted signed pictures from Harrow or a segment host, of whom there were four: Angela Batten, Steven Wall, Carlos Moreno, and Shayla Ross.

Naturally, each host had his or her own strengths and weaknesses, though Carmen felt the only advantage they had over her was experience. True, former network White House correspondent Moreno brought an undeniable gravitas to each story, but the others were local news veterans plucked from obscurity more for their looks and camera ease than any journalistic chops.

For the next four hours, Carmen dealt with the e-mails until yet another paper pile had grown, this one outgoing mail, mostly cheap black-and-white photo reprints of on-air personalities with stamped autographs. Requests for Harrow’s pictures made up a considerable pile of their own.

Those requests went to Harrow’s desk, where he actually signed each photo and often enclosed a note himself. Whether two requests or two hundred, each day their star personally dealt with his own fan mail. She liked that about him.

With a Diet Coke and a salad a co-worker brought her from the commissary, the production assistant worked through lunch. She was back on the Internet doing research into various crimes around the country when something about a small town in Florida caught her eye.

The wife and two kids of the town marshal of Placida had been murdered.

Everybody on the staff looked sideways when the family of a cop got killed — their relationship with Harrow made that natural. But, as they’d all learned over the past six months, these types of crimes, while uncommon, were not unheard of.

Still, for the next hour, she dug into everything she could find about Placida, Florida, and the crime. She printed dozens of documents, gathered them into another pile — working on her second rain forest — then started at the top and began studying, instead of just swiftly scanning.

Placida was a Gulf Coast town of less than a thousand souls. Maybe fifty miles south of Sarasota and just north of Ft. Myers, the hamlet lay on a jut of land out into Charlotte Harbor. Local law was a town marshal and three part-timers. For any real trouble, the Charlotte County sheriff handled it.

The median age of the citizenry was just a hiccup short of sixty. The average income was twenty-five thousand dollars above the national average because 71.2 percent of the population had white-collar jobs. Placida was a classic bedroom community — or anyway it was until the night town marshal Ray Ferguson came home to find his family murdered near their kitchen.

The murders took place back in September, not long after Crime Seen! first aired. When Carmen went to start an electronic file on the case, she noticed one already existed. She opened it and read it quickly: in early October, segment host Shayla Ross had done a cursory study of the case, then abandoned it as a dead end.

The dirtiest little secret about Crime Seen! was the mandate to choose crimes that had enough threads for their team to follow. Cold cases were avoided, as were crimes where no suspects were on the horizon. TV viewers wanted closure, and soon.

As Carmen pored over material from the case, she could not shake the feeling that some important detail had been overlooked. Something small and insignificant to Shayla and the investigators, but enough to set off a tiny if mournful alarm in the back of Carmen’s mind, a foghorn on a faraway shore.

She stopped, rubbed her eyes, shook her head, then rose, stretched, and walked to the break room for a soda — maybe a little distance would shake something loose. She fished change out of her pocket, got a Diet Coke from the vending machine, and tapped lacquered nails against the lid as she mentally riffled through thousands of bits of information she’d read about the Ferguson murders.

At the end of his shift, Ray Ferguson had come home in a well-tended Placida neighborhood. Though he didn’t make nearly as much money as the other members of the community, his real-estate agent wife, Stella, did. The Fergusons had two kids, a boy, Jeff, eleven, and a girl, Jessica, fourteen.

Like Harrow’s wife and son, mother and children had been shot in the chest. Unlike Harrow’s family, each was only shot once. Also unlike her boss’s case, these victims were shot in one room, apparently executed in turn — Harrow’s wife and son with a .357, the Fergusons with a nine millimeter (though in the latter case the efficient assassin had gathered up his shell casings).

A gruesome touch set the Ferguson killings apart, however — the fourth finger of Stella Ferguson’s left hand had been cut off, post-mortem. Forensics indicated a gardening tool had been used.

As at the Harrow home, no fingerprints were found, the only piece of evidence (if that) turning up on the Fergusons’ driveway: a leaf from a corn plant. As far as the investigators were concerned, that leaf might have come from anywhere. But Illinois farm kid Carmen discerned a clue.

Some quick work on the Internet garnered Carmen more — seemed Florida produced more corn than she’d have thought, nearly one hundred thousand acres in all. But compared to the twelve million acres harvested in Harrow’s home state, that wasn’t much...

And a particular photo at the Placida News website sealed her suspicions — it showed a transparent plastic evidence bag with that single corn plant leaf inside.

Rural kid Carmen recognized the difference between a sweet corn plant and a field corn plant. Charlotte County, Florida, home to Placida, was on the northern edge of the highest-producing area for sweet corn in Florida. Virtually no field corn was grown in the northern half of the state. The state’s small field corn crop, produced in the southern end, centered on the ocean side, not the gulf.

Why, in a county that grew exclusively sweet corn, was Carmen looking at the leaf of field-corn plant?

She couldn’t answer that question yet, but she knew one thing: city kid Shayla, formerly of Boston, would never ask it.

Carmen needed help, and she knew precisely who to ask. But she would do more than just ask — this was her shot — this was her chance...

The PA found Harrow, back in his office after lunch, dutifully signing publicity photos. She knocked on the jamb of the open door, then smiled when Harrow looked up.

“Got a minute, boss?”

Carmen knew that many TV stars made outrageous demands for their offices, turning them into virtual apartments. Harrow’s was quite the opposite. A glance would make any visitor think Harrow was nothing more than your average corporate attorney. Furnishings were nice enough but not extravagant, bookshelves filled with research material, his desk a mahogany island mid-room, piled with papers that marked this a workplace and not a showplace. Two leather chairs sat opposite him.

Harrow tossed his Sharpie aside and smiled. “I can spare a minute just to avoid the writer’s cramp.” He nodded to a chair.

Carmen sat on its edge. “Around the fourth or fifth episode, we were in a production meeting where you mentioned a DCI case you worked involving the specificity of plant DNA.”

Harrow gave her a sideways look. “That’s not a question.”

“No. It’s a preamble.”

Wearing half a frown and half a smile, he said, “Fourth or fifth episode. How do you remember stuff like that?”

She shrugged. “You never know when ‘stuff’ will come in handy — like today.”

“Today, huh? What are you up to, today?”

She told Harrow what she’d found so far. No places, no dates, just the circumstances. She connected no dots, however, between the Ferguson and Harrow murders.

“So,” he said, softly, eyes tight, “this was Shayla’s story...”

“Yes, sir. And she thought it was a dead end.”

“‘Sir,’ yet. I am in trouble.” He shifted in his leather chair. “And you went in on your own, and maybe found something?”

“I think so, but I need that plant expert you told us about last year to verify my theory.”

Harrow studied her for a long moment. Carmen might have been a slide under the criminalist’s microscope.

“Then,” he said, “once you’ve found out you’re right, you’ll hand all the information over to Shayla — correct?”

Carmen sat silently for a moment. This was her opening, and she knew it.

“If this pans out,” she said, “I’m hoping you’ll make me the reporter who covers the story.”

After a long silence, Harrow said, “You know I can’t promise you anything.”

“If you tell me you’ll try, that’s all I ask.”

She could tell he was intrigued; but was he also irritated?

Giving away nothing, he said, “And why do you think this nearly eight-month-old case is so important that it merits you a promotion from PA all the way to on-air personality?”

“It’s a juicy murder case we can feature on the live show.”

“We’ve had those before.”

“Not ones that might be related to your case, as well.”

And there it was: out in the open.

She said, “You heard the circumstances. You can see the similarities. And the link back to Iowa, or anyway the heartland, if that plant is what I think it is.”

Harrow’s eyes held hers. Was he trembling? If so, was it with anger? Had she gone too far?

He said, “You think that would influence my decision?”

She stared right back at him. “Frankly, yes.”

He began to protest, but Carmen cut him off. “J.C., I know you’re not like most people in this business...”

“And yet,” Harrow said, exasperated, “you’re trying to blackmail me.”

“I don’t consider it that.” She risked a tiny smile. “Maybe... manipulate you, a little?”

He just looked at her.

She gestured, and her nervousness showed. “J.C., you’ve told me a dozen times you believe in my potential. I’m just asking for the chance to prove you right.”

Was that a smile? Small, barely discernible, but... a smile?

She sat forward. “Give me the name of the man at that seed company, and I’ll follow the lead wherever it goes. I’ll give you the info, all the info, and you can decide who deserves the story — Shayla or me. Is that blackmail?”

He considered that, then asked, “Why didn’t you just ask me for the name of my plant guy? Make up a reason, or just not go into what you’d found?”

“I owed you more than that.”

Harrow grunted a laugh. “Call Settler Seed in Dekalb, Illinois — your old stamping grounds. The man you want is Dr. Brent Caldwell. Tell him I sent you. See what you can get, and be back here within twenty-four hours.”

She burned with pleasure, pride, enthusiasm, and outright glee, but remained coolly professional as she said, “Yes, sir.”

Rising slowly, forcing herself to move deliberately, she eased toward the door.

The sound of Harrow’s voice stopped her. “Carmen?”

Turning, she said, “Yes?”

“The killer cut off Mrs. Ferguson’s finger. My wife didn’t suffer that... indignity.”

“No.”

“But her killer did take her wedding ring.”

“Mrs. Ferguson’s killer did too — he just took the finger along with it.”

A deep crease formed between Harrow’s eyes. “Why, do you suppose?”

“If it’s the same killer... and I think it is... he’s devolving.”

“And if he’s devolving...”

“He’ll accelerate. There’ll be more killings. Soon.”

He was nodding, slowly. Then he said, “Get back to it.”

And she did.

Chapter Six

Shortly before the special live-broadcast season finale of Crime Seen! went on air, Dennis Byrnes — early forties, close-clipped black hair, languid gray-green eyes, five o’clock shadow, thousand-dollar Armani suit (charcoal) — surveyed his kingdom.

During a broadcast, the control room was surprisingly silent but for the piped-in studio sounds, even though a dozen technicians hovered over control boards and personal monitors, the audio world sequestered in a booth off at right. The near silence was punctuated by commands from director Stu Phillips, who perched stoically in the center of the back of three tiered rows — the eye of the storm. In his late fifties, Phillips had been at both NBC and CBS, where his fortunes had fallen in favor of younger men, and thanks to the competition’s shortsightedness, UBC had snagged a real pro.

Byrnes liked to brag that “UBC is a young network, but we don’t put up with ageism,” though he neglected to mention that he could get away with paying older pros like Phillips half, or less, of what the big boys had.

Behind the director, show-runner Nicole Strickland leaned against the back window wall, her arms folded, her mouth a tight, thin, straight line. The slenderly shapely, striking woman’s tousled red hair vied for attention with her green eyes. This evening she wore a sharply cut, cream-colored Dolce & Gabbana suit with matching Jimmy Choos. Byrnes relished having a beautiful woman as his hatchet man.

Also against the back wall, in the center where an aisle cut down the three tiers of techs, stood Byrnes himself, with a perfect view of the large plasma screen (labeled: PROGRAM) above the bank of similar oversized monitors, whose screens were sectioned into eight windows reporting individual camera shots, remote feeds, and cued-up prerecorded material. The PROGRAM flat-screen reflected the finished product going out over the airwaves.

Crime Seen! had saved two very juicy cases for the finale, and Byrnes would be shocked if this were not the highest-rated episode of the season. He watched with half-lidded eyes as Carlos Moreno demonstrated that two young girls had not been kidnapped, as their mother had reported, but were murdered by her and buried on a piece of farmland owned by the mother’s parents. Footage of her arrest — not seven hours before — was the capper.

In the second segment, Angela Batten outed the CEO of an insurance company that for years had been defrauding its policyholders by substituting new language in renewal documents — just the sort of story of corporate greed getting busted that tapped into Main Street America’s rage against Wall Street. Few in the viewing audience were aware that Crime Seen! itself came to them courtesy of the big oil corporation that was UBC’s Big Daddy.

Byrnes knew these two juicy and very different stories would each be front-page fodder on tomorrow’s USA Today, with Crime Seen! getting plenty of play. He was neither psychic nor overconfident — just this morning, the network prez had been interviewed for both stories.

Finally all that remained was J.C. Harrow’s season farewell, which, as scripted, was a laundry list of the miscreants the show had helped bust, all wrapped up in Harrow’s rugged, Midwestern “I’m a victim too, but I’m getting back at ’em” persona.

With pleasure if not affection, Byrnes regarded his unlikely, ruggedly photogenic star on the monitor, where Harrow could be seen casting a film noir shadow against a brick backdrop with a single barred window — cheesy but effective.

The former lawman sported a navy blue blazer that looked unpretentious, although it was no off-the-rack number, worn over a lighter blue button-down dress shirt, open at the collar; his jeans were faded, worn — Everyman attire that Wardrobe had slaved over.

Piercing blue eyes stared out at America as Harrow said, “My colleagues in the booth are going to have to forgive me for breaking from script...”

Byrnes, paying half-attention before, suddenly stood as straight as an exclamation mark, and was heeding his star’s every word, every pause, every gesture.

“...but some late-breaking news has changed the circumstances of tonight’s live broadcast.”

Byrnes snapped at the director, “What the hell?”

Phillips, in a headset, his eyes blinking a Morse code SOS, glanced back helplessly at his boss.

Byres leaned so far forward at the top of the aisle, he had all his weight on the toes of his four-hundred-dollar Bruno Magli loafers. He might have been a diver preparing for a double gainer.

“You all know that, for almost six years, I’ve been searching for the person or persons who killed my family.”

In the booth, the director couldn’t help himself, and told his cameraman to push in closer on their host.

“Recently, a member of the Crime Seen! staff found what she thought might be a clue tying another crime to the deaths of my wife and son. This is the first new evidence that’s been turned up in the case in many, many months.”

Byrnes yelled, “Did you know about this? Did any of you know about this?”

The director shook his head, but his attention was on the drama unfolding before them all. Those involved in technical aspects of the broadcast ignored their big boss; others, just standing observing — like show runner, Nicole Strickland, now edging away from the network exec — merely shook their heads and melted into anything handy.

“Next season,” Harrow was saying, “we will be following this clue, and working hard to uncover other evidence, in a concerted, focused effort to track down the killer or killers of my family...”

Byrnes said, “Great idea, Nicole, bringing in a live audience for this episode.”

“And we’ll be doing it right on this show. You will be with us every step of the way — helping us track down the murderer of my wife and my son.”

Gasps from the studio audience interrupted the star.

Picking up, Harrow said, “UBC has pledged to buy us the equipment we need, and to pay for the finest crime-scene team I can put together to investigate this case — a veritable superstar task force of criminologists and crime fighters.”

Byrnes threw his hands up. “UBC pledged what?”

“We’ll start assembling the team, and investigating, as soon as the show ends tonight... and we will work as long as we have to. Join us in September when we start Crime Seen!, season two, by bringing you up to date on our progress on this case over the weeks ahead.”

His eyes narrowing, Harrow added, “Finally, a special message to one person — the killer of my family. I’m coming for you... and I’m coming soon.”

Then the credits were rolling, which often signaled the control room getting rowdy, but right now it was like church — in more ways than one, because several people were praying.

The screen faded to black as the show went off the air.

Byrnes said to Nicole, “Get him. Now.”

She nodded, cell at the ready, turning away, speaking quietly; then, cupping the phone, she said, “He’ll be in his office. He says... he’s expecting you.”

“No shit.”

Soon the exec was moving down the corridor, which would normally be filled with staffers quickly finishing up and getting the hell out. With the season over, the network had arranged a wrap party at the newest swank LA bistro, El Viñedo, to which they should all be on their way.

But Byrnes found the hall lined with cast and crew.

As his gaze swept over them, their eyes either found something very interesting in the carpeting to focus on or turned toward lead reporter Carlos Moreno.

Byrnes’s frown withered his staff the way sunlight did vampires. “What’s this about?”

But Moreno, six feet tall with short spiky black hair, was impervious to the exec’s gaze. His eyes locked unblinkingly on Byrnes’s. “We’re here to support our boss,” he said.

Byrnes never flinched. “That’s very gratifying, Carlos... since I am your boss.”

“We support J.C.”

A few nervous nods backed up that claim.

“All right, duly noted,” the network president said, keeping his tone even, nonconfrontational. It was a union town, after all. “I’ll see you all at El Viñedo.”

People peeled off the wall and headed down the hall and around the corner — hostages released after a siege — though Moreno stood firm.

Byrnes met the man’s gaze. “You don’t think I should fire J.C.’s ass?”

“Nope.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Give him what he wants. He’s an accidental genius. He didn’t mean to, but he just handed you and me and all of us the biggest potential ratings winner in history. If he’d come to you first, you—”

“But he didn’t come to me.”

“Dennis! So what? He isn’t your standard TV whore. You were well aware when you hired him that J.C. took this show hoping to find his family’s killer.”

“And here I thought it was the truckload of money we backed up and dumped at his feet.”

The reporter rolled his eyes. “Right, Dennis. Money. That’s what makes J.C. Harrow tick.”

Byrnes frowned, but had no response ready before the reporter gave him a little salute and ambled off down the hall.

The exec strode down the corridor to the dark-wood door with the name J.C. HARROW in banker-like gold lettering. For a split second, Byrnes considered knocking, then decided screw it, and went in.

Behind his desk, J.C. Harrow appeared as relaxed and confident as a man who had just scored his biggest success, and not committed career suicide on national television.

Byrnes didn’t bother to sit down, just strode up to the desk and gave his star a cold, confrontational glare.

“I just want to know one thing,” Byrnes said.

Harrow did not take the bait. He just waited silently, leaning back in his chair, his expression not quite smiling, but certainly self-contained.

“Why did you piss it all away on a whim, J.C.? You could have come to me, we might have put something together, instead you skyjack the airwaves. Weren’t we good to you?”

For a long time, Harrow said nothing, then, “That’s more than one thing, Dennis. If you want an answer to any of those questions, pull up a chair and sit down.”

Byrnes had a moment — a moment where he had to choose between losing it entirely, going off like a geyser, or behaving like a grown-up.

So he pulled up a chair, crossed his legs, folded his hands, and (goddamnit!) smiled at his star. “Please, J.C. Enlighten me.”

“UBC has been great,” Harrow said. “The money is generous, and I like the work. But, Dennis — I didn’t piss anything away.”

“Nothing but your career and your starring gig on the number-one-rated show on this network.”

“Explain,” Harrow said, not at all confrontational.

Byrnes shook his head. “Can you really think there’s any reason I’m here other than to fire your ass?”

“You wouldn’t need to be here, if firing me was all you had in mind. Or anyway, you wouldn’t still be here.”

Byrnes had no response to that.

Harrow shrugged, rocking slightly in his chair. “Anyway, why would you fire me?... I may be a relative novice in this business, but I know enough to be sure of one thing — I just guaranteed to double your ratings in the fall.”

Byrnes sat forward, seething but in control. “You go on the air and commit my network to unknown, enormous expenses, you rewrite — off script and on air — the format of our top show, and you wonder why would I fire you? Do you think when word gets out any network would ever trust you in front of a camera again?”

“Maybe not a live camera,” Harrow said, with a puckishness unusual for the ex-cop. “Anyway, Dennis, I don’t think you’ll let the word get out. You know that I wouldn’t take as much blame for this as you would — for allowing it to happen. I’m not where the buck stops.”

“That sounds uncomfortably like extortion.”

“Dennis, much as I like you, I’m not much for taking lessons in morality and business ethics from television executives.”

“...Maybe there are circumstances where I’d consider putting you back on the air... but I’m not paying for some ‘superstar’ private forensics team or any other wild-eyed ideas...”

Harrow sat back again, shrugged. “You can take me off the air, Dennis, but I’ll have another network signing me up for a new show by end of workday tomorrow... on my terms, right down to the ‘superstar’ forensics team.”

Byrnes started a sigh somewhere around his toes, and finally it emerged. “Why didn’t you come to me with this idea?”

“And have you say no? And hold me to my contract? I do apologize for the tactics, but they were necessary. Your priority is the show — mine is finding my family’s killer. I believe I came up with a way that serves both our interests.”

Byrnes shook his head. “I can’t believe you would commercialize the murders of your own family...”

Harrow’s laugh was a bitter thing. “Give me a goddamn break, Dennis. You’ve been commercializing my family’s death since day one of this show. And I’ve been letting you do it, because it’s a relatively harmless means to an end that is everything to me.”

For the first time he could remember, Byrnes found himself in a room with someone he could not stare down, facing someone who wasn’t afraid of him. Like any jungle predator, Byrnes could smell fear and pounce. Only this time, the fear he sensed in this room was his own.

“You played me for a fool tonight,” Byrnes said.

Harrow shrugged. “I know, Dennis. And if that means you have to let me go, to save face, and let the chips fall wherever the hell, well then... no hard feelings. You’re doing what you have to do. Like I am.”

The star rose, and came around to extend his hand toward his seated boss. “Whatever you decide, I owe you for the platform you’ve provided me. Thank you.”

Stunned, Byrnes took the proffered hand, shook it, and said, “I’m not going to fire you, J.C.,” the words almost a surprise to himself as they came out. Without letting go of his star’s hand, he said, “But ever screw with me again, J.C., and I will end you in this business. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“I do have to say this, though.”

Harrow was returning to his chair as Byrnes said, “Do you have any idea what you’re proposing, how much a production like this would cost?”

“Actually, yes,” Harrow said. “That’s frankly part of why I sprang it on you the way I did. Dennis, it was an ambush — I make no pretense otherwise.”

Byrnes was unprepared for what happened next. Harrow handed him a fat spiral-bound document — a budget proposal.

The exec began flipping through the pages — the numbers were large, but actually less than he might have anticipated. Still, tomorrow the UBC board would be giving the exec the kind of bad time he’d just given Harrow.

After another endless sigh, Byrnes said, “All right, J.C. — we’ll do it your way. You’ll get your toys. I’ll even go to bat for you with the board. I’ll tell them you told me your plan ahead of time, and take the heat that should be yours.”

Harrow frowned, confused. “Why would you do that, Dennis?”

“Because I back my people. We’re a team. We’re a family... and I’m Daddy.”

He waved the budget at the host.

“But if this half-assed scheme fails, and ratings fall? It’s your ass, and your whole crew’s.”

Harrow’s mouth made the thinnest line of a smile. “Sounds like ‘Daddy’ is strict.”

“Daddy spanks, yes. And Daddy also has chores for you. We’ll do things your way, J.C., just as you’ve requested.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You do things your way, hire who you want within these budget parameters... but you will also be available for any and all publicity we deem necessary.”

Harrow’s face tightened. “You know I find that distasteful. My contract—”

“Screw your contract. This is another unpleasant means to an end that you’re going to have to put up with.”

“Any and all publicity,” Harrow said hollowly.

“Any and all — if this is going to work for both of us, I’ve got to be able to pump the ratings as much as possible.”

Harrow sat silently for several long seconds. Then he shrugged. “You’re right, Dennis.”

“All right, then.” Byrnes slapped his thighs. “If we’re going to do this, let’s make Crime Seen! a bigger hit than it is already.”

The exec rose and moved toward the door, and Harrow said, “There’s one more thing, Dennis.”

Turning back, the network president said, “Don’t you think you’ve been greedy enough?”

“Not a matter of greed,” Harrow said. “But I want a new segment host.”

“Why?”

“I need to reward the talented PA who found the clue that set this in motion.”

Byrnes smirked. “Funny, you want to reward him — I’d just as soon throttle him.”

“It’s a her,” Harrow said. “Carmen Garcia.”

The exec frowned. “Isn’t she Nicole’s mail girl?”

“Yes.”

Byrnes closed his eyes. “Brother — Nicole’s going to love that.”

“Why, Dennis, are you suddenly afraid of Nicole?”

“...I have to ask, J.C. — is this personal?”

Harrow looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Jesus, man. Don’t make me pull teeth — are you sleeping with her?”

His eyes narrow, Harrow said, “Christ, Dennis — she’s young enough to be my daughter.”

Shrugging, Byrnes said, “Which in Hollywood is a plus.”

Harrow shook his head glumly. “You’ve been out here too long. You think everybody is an amoral scumbag.”

“Hollywood gets to us all, J.C. Just tonight, for example, you screwed me over...”

Harrow had no response to that.

Byrnes threw up his hands. “All right. I’m tired. You win. I’m going home and see my wife and two daughters, who are just fine, thanks so much for asking. I’ll let Nicole know that you have a new segment host.”

“Thanks, Dennis.”

“You’re welcome, J.C.” He beamed at his star. “Screw me again, and you’ll find out just how amoral a scumbag I can be.”

Chapter Seven

The room was stuffy, the weather warm for May, the humidity heavy, the smell of rain hanging in the still air as the Messenger (as the killer thought of himself) found the spot on the videotape and cued up the ending of Crime Seen! yet again. He had not prayed in years, but he did now. Maybe, finally, someone was getting the goddamned message!

“Recently, a member of the Crime Seen! staff found what she thought might be a clue tying another crime to the deaths of my wife and son.”

Watching in his living room, the Messenger smiled.

“Next season,” Harrow was saying, “we will be following this clue, and working hard to uncover other evidence, in a concerted, focused effort to track down the killer or killers of my family...”

About damn time, the Messenger thought.

“And we’ll be doing it right on this show. You will be with us every step of the way — helping us track down the murderer of my wife and my son.”

He took in Harrow’s words like clues that each needed close examination, and he wondered if it was possible that after all this time, the dumb shit-kicker he’d transformed from a retired county sheriff into a national celebrity was finally, finally getting a clue himself.

If so, maybe there was even more work to be done than he had planned on.

That was all right. He had been waiting years for someone to raise the stakes, and, thus far, no one had. He had sent message after message over the last ten years, and, until now, no one had discerned their meaning.

It wasn’t as if Harrow had been the first. Far from it. By August of 2002, the Messenger had already delivered two other communications without anyone understanding what he was up to; and since Harrow’s family, there had been more.

Many more.

He wound the tape back slightly.

Harrow said, “You will be with us every step of the way — helping us track down the murderer of my wife and my son.”

If you’re smart enough, he thought, going back to his plans for his next message. If you can read the writing on the wall...

Chapter Eight

First thing Saturday morning, J.C. Harrow was on UBC’s small corporate jet, heading to Waco, Texas.

He hadn’t slept well. On some level, he supposed, he had won, but Byrnes had been right to liken what his host had done last night to hijacking the show and blackmailing the network. Had he gone to the exec with his “catch a serial killer” road-trip concept, Harrow might have been embraced as a visionary... or rejected out of hand.

And he had not been experienced enough in the business of show to calculate the odds. Just going for it, on live television, seemed the best way to acquire the wherewithal to track down the bastard who had stolen Ellen and David’s lives.

So he had stooped to commandeering his own program, and putting the man who’d hired him in a hell of a spot with the network. Now, on the Cessna, he sat with the other three passenger seats unoccupied, the two pilots his only company. He didn’t mind the solitude — it helped him get the bad taste out of his mouth, over how he’d gotten here; and he could study the files of the team he hoped to assemble — hard copy in manila folders, not his laptop. He was no Luddite, but he preferred the Old School approach; he still chose a morning paper over a news website.

When he got to Waco, he learned from his PD contact that Laurene Chase — the best forensics investigator in central Texas and maybe the entire state — was working a crime scene; he would not be able to talk to her until the next day. That was disappointing, but he was okay with it — he was still prepping, and one thing that TV and law enforcement had in common was that solid preparation was key to success.

After a solo dinner, Harrow spent the evening in his room going over the files. The names he was considering were all people he knew personally, professionally, or by reputation. They were not in every case the number-one person in their fields, but all were eminently qualified and, more importantly, were people Harrow felt he could work well with, and trust.

He started with a baker’s dozen files; when he was finished, he had a smaller stack, and began to make a list on a yellow pad.

Laurene Chase was at the top. In descending order came Michael Pall, a DNA scientist with the Oklahoma State Crime Lab; chemist Chris Anderson from Meridian, Mississippi; Billy Choi, a tool mark and firearms examiner from New York; and computer forensics whiz Jenny Blake, Casper, Wyoming.

The taller stack of files had other strong possibilities, and he would not be distraught if he had to return there. In any case, he would have a better chance of making this work with a dependable number two who would keep her head when all about them, especially her emotionally invested boss, might be losing theirs.

The biggest liability would be if he was unable to assemble the right team — and the chemistry between team members was something that could not be predicted. A second major liability was himself — no police department anywhere would dream of assigning a crime scene analyst to investigate the murder of his own family.

He’d already heard from Carmen that this morning’s media outlets were rife with editorials and interviews with experts condemning his participation — on MSNBC, a retired LA detective turned bestselling author said, “I’ve heard of having a fool for a client, but this is ridiculous.”

Beyond any ethical or practical concerns, having such an emotionally involved crime scene analyst on the team was one thing; having that analyst head up the team was another. It could easily be a recipe for disaster... which was why his choice for a second in command was key.

The first name on his list.

Laurene Chase.

By mid-morning Sunday, Harrow found himself leaning against a rented Lexus at the far end of the parking lot of Our Savior Baptist Church on the northeast side of Waco. He blew out a ribbon of smoke from his second cigarette. The sun was bright but pleasant, the temperature in the mid-seventies, Harrow enjoying a breeze. Spring in Texas included the scent of flowers Detective Harrow couldn’t identify, though the evidence was pleasing enough.

These days, Harrow was smoking again, but out of a sort of half-assed respect to his late wife, he tried to keep the habit at bay. He wore a navy blue polo, jeans, and black Rockys, the cop shoes he seemed to have worn every day of his adult life.

As the congregation emptied out of the brick church down wide cement stairs, Harrow stubbed the cigarette out under his toe, then stood a little straighter, searching for his friend. This was a mostly African-American congregation, dressed in Sunday best and proud of it, parading past the pastor after a brief exchange, then mingling with other worshipers below a while before slowly dispersing to their cars.

Harrow liked black churches — right now, there were smiles and laughs and loud talk and hugs and backs getting slapped. Predominantly white churches he’d attended since childhood had always seemed stiff and vaguely guilt ridden. And at this kind of church, the women, older ones anyway, wore hats! What the hell ever happened to white women in hats?

Last out was a tall, slim, milk-chocolate woman in a fitted gray business suit and open-collared pink dress shirt under a gray vest. Her long black hair was battened down in tight cornrows, and she wore tiny silver hoop earrings that caught sunlight and glinted. That same sunlight made the woman squint, but her oval, black-framed glasses took up the battle, tinting darker against the brightness. When she glanced toward Harrow, she added a wide smile to her ensemble.

She started toward him, and he met her halfway, next to a silver Toyota Camry that would prove to be hers.

As she neared, her smile turned sly, and she said, “Not too often do we get a real, live TV star out here in the boonies.”

“Waco’s hardly the boonies, Laurene.”

“Maybe not. But I sure didn’t expect to see a Hollywood type like you turning up at a church.”

“Outside a church. Wouldn’t want to risk lightning.” He grinned and extended a hand. “Good to see you. Really good.”

She knocked the hand aside and gave him a big, warm hug. She smelled better than the flowers in the breeze.

“Been too long,” Laurene said. “When was the last time, anyway?”

He thought for a moment. “Probably that IAI conference in Dallas.”

They were both members of the International Association for Identification, an organization made up of some seven thousand forensic investigators, examiners, techs, and analysts worldwide.

“Doesn’t that seem like a lifetime ago,” she said.

“Laurene, I’m sorry about Patty.”

“I know you are. I got your flowers and the card. Meant a lot, J.C.”

Laurene’s life partner, Patty Moore, had passed away not quite a year ago from cervical cancer.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t make it down here,” Harrow said.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I know you’re a busy guy.”

Harrow glanced around. “Can I take you for Sunday lunch or brunch or something?”

“Sure. And I know just the place.”

They walked two blocks to a Popeye’s Fried Chicken. She knew Harrow was a sucker for the onion rings. They shared a big basket of them and some hot wings and laughed about the prospect that food like this would kill them before some bad guy did. Seated at their little table by a window, the view obscured by restaurant adverts, they wiped off their fingers with paper napkins, and the talk turned serious, as if a switch had been thrown.

“I should have got down here,” he said, hardly able to meet her eyes.

“You didn’t know Patty that well.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What you wrote? On the card? It really did mean a lot, J.C. Hell...” She sighed, and her eyebrows flicked upward. “You understand loss better than most. But you know how it is — you shake it off, and get on with it.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“I, uh, checked up on you, kid. I know.”

“You know.”

He nodded. “I know. I know you went back to work less than two months ago.”

“Come on, J.C. I needed time.”

“Time to grieve.”

“Right.”

“I need you to level with me, Laurene.”

“Why?”

“We’ll get to that... if you level.”

Laurene seemed to stare out the window, though she was really looking at a poster advertising buffalo shrimp. “I got to where I could barely get out of bed, J.C. Clinical depression, the medics call it. Damn near lost my job.”

“Funny. I almost lost mine the other day.”

The dark eyes sparkled. “You? How does a TV Guide cover boy almost lose his job?”

“Haven’t you been watching the show?”

Her half smile added up to a whole smirk. “Right, I’m gonna watch some jive-ass reality show, after I been out on the street all day and all night, busting bad guys in the flesh.”

“Oh... well... I can under—”

“J.C.!” Her laugher was sharp, little knife jabs of glee. “You can’t tell when I’m playin’ you? There is not a week goes by when I don’t time-delay your ass. Me skipping commercials doesn’t offend you, does it?”

Now he laughed, embarrassed. “No. Not at all. Did you, uh... catch the show the other night?”

“Yeah, I saw it. This is how they do the ratings now? Send the star door to door?”

He leaned in. “Now I know you’re playing me, because, if you did see that show, you must already know why I’m here.” He locked eyes with her, and nothing jokey remained in her expression. “Laurene, I need a second-in-command. A second I can trust not to bullshit me, and let me know when I’m out of line.”

She sipped Diet Coke through a straw; her eyes were not on his now. She was thinking.

“You know what I’m asking, Laurene.”

She sighed. Shrugged. “J.C., I have a job. A job I haven’t been back to for long, and probably shouldn’t risk.”

“I don’t want you to risk anything, Laurene. But with your background and abilities, you could work anywhere. You’re damned good at what you do. But you are also underappreciated and underpaid.”

“It’s ’cause I’m a local girl. But I like helping out where I grew up.”

“I’m not asking you to leave Waco forever. But I am offering you a raise.”

She stretched her arm across the table and put a finger to his lips. “I’m not worried about the money, Handsome. Long as there’s health. I learned the hard way what happens when you don’t have that kinda coverage.”

“UBC treats its people well, far as perks go. They have a deserved rep for underpaying the help, but I will set your salary.”

“Suppose I don’t care about coming back to Waco.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, does this gig have legs? Will it last past this one case?”

Harrow shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose if we’re successful, anything is possible. But with the TV exposure you’ll have, a lot of new possibilities are going to open up.”

“Right. Maybe I’ll star in Foxy Brown Part Two.”

He laughed. “Hey, I would pay to see that.”

She laughed too, then got very silent, wheels turning.

Finally, she said, “If I can wrangle a leave of absence, you’ll guarantee good PR for the Waco PD? Give them some kind of love on the air?”

“Hell,” Harrow said, “I can probably get them a screen thank you in the credits every week.”

This was the kind of request Dennis Byrnes would love — the kind that didn’t cost a damn thing.

She thought a while longer. Then: “All right, Sweet Talker. I’ll hit up my boss. If they don’t put up too big a fuss, I’ll do it. What are we talking, nine months?”

“That’s the maximum, unless we decide to take this concept onto a second case. But I’m not thinking in those terms, Laurene. This isn’t about televison, not really.”

Quietly she said, “I know what it’s about.”

“Thanks, Laurene,” Harrow said. “You’re a lifesaver.”

Laurene smiled and shook her head. “You want saved, you saw where the church was... Notice you didn’t come in. Let me guess — last time you set foot in church was at the funeral. Right?”

“God and I,” Harrow said, “are not on speaking terms.”

“I been there. But God didn’t do this.”

“He didn’t prevent it.”

“No. No. But it was some sick monster that did this, J.C. And we need to find him, so he doesn’t do it to anybody else.”

“Amen,” Harrow said.

From his hotel room in Oklahoma City, Harrow called Michael Pall. The scientist seemed pleased to hear from the lawman turned TV star, and agreed to meet him in the hotel bar for a drink later that evening.

Harrow was already seated in a leatherette booth when Pall came in around seven. Only five-six, the middle-aged Pall was no Superman, but did resemble an aging Clark Kent with his black-frame glasses and thick comma of dark, dangling hair.

Then Harrow shook hands with the guy, and began to wonder if Pall — however short he might be — might be Superman, at that. He had a vice-like grip, and Harrow used a ploy taught to him by another cop buddy back in rookie days. When confronted with a death-grip hand-shaker, the cop had told Harrow, just extend your forefinger. This made it impossible for the other man to crush your hand. Harrow didn’t know all the physics of it, but damned if it didn’t work.

“Damn, it’s good to see you, J.C. — how long’s it been?”

“Something like ten years.”

“So why do you look just the same?”

“It’s a good thing Oklahoma pays you to go after the truth, Michael — ’cause you don’t lie for shit.”

“Isn’t that, J.C. — I just don’t have much imagination. Just the facts, ma’am, like they used to say on Dragnet.”

“Watch it, buddy — you’re betraying both our ages.”

They smiled and got settled into the booth.

Though Pall said little, his résumé spoke volumes. For one thing, he’d been part of the team that brought peace to families by identifying victims in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. And, although it never played into the trial, he also had developed evidence that implicated Timothy McVeigh. He was slightly older than Harrow.

They ordered drinks and made small talk for a few minutes. Finally Pall asked, “Are you gonna tell me why?”

“Why what?” Harrow asked.

Pall looked at Harrow over the top of his glasses.

Harrow said, “You know about the show.”

“I live in Oklahoma, J.C., not a cave.”

“You follow it?”

“I saw Friday’s episode. You think it’s a good idea, J.C., investigating something so close to you?”

“It’s a good idea if I surround myself with the right people.”

“Have you eaten? I could eat.”

Pall called a waiter over and ordered salad, steamed vegetables, and a small rare filet.

Harrow said, “Make it two.”

When the waiter was gone, Harrow said, “Michael...” No one called Pall “Mike” that Harrow knew of. “...have you thought about retirement?”

Pall studied Harrow. “And here I thought you came to offer me a job.”

“You’ve got your time in, and qualify for a full pension. You’re single, at least as far as I know, which means you’d be free to travel. I’m here to offer you a chance to do a little moonlighting.”

“How many months you guaranteeing?”

“Nine. But it will mean more money than two full years at your current job. And there’s a possibility — just a possibility — that we might keep the team together, if we’re successful.”

“The team? Or the ‘act’? This sounds like show business to me, not law enforcement.”

“You know me better than that, Michael. This will be professional all the way.”

“Who else do you have?”

“My second is lined up — Laurene Chase.”

“Oh. Well. That’s a very good start. Here’s our food!”

They ate.

They had a drink after. They had another drink, and after Pall finished his, he asked, “When do you need an answer?”

“The sooner, the better,” Harrow said. “You’re my first choice in this position — but I have other names I can go to.”

“I’m the first you’ve approached?”

“In this slot, yes. Only other team member signed on is Laurene. We go to work June first.”

“I’ll let you know,” Pall said.

When Harrow left the meeting, he had no idea which way the scientist was leaning. Pall was a lot of things, but easy to read was not one of them.

The next stop took Harrow to Shaw and Associates, a commercial crime lab in Meridian, Mississippi. Sixty-five, with white hair and an easygoing smile that spoke of confidence and success, Gerald Shaw had left public life for the private sector over twenty years ago. Now, his crime lab was the most respected of its kind in the nation, if not the world.

After small talk over a cup of coffee, Harrow got to the point and asked for the loan of chemist Chris Anderson.

“Loan?” Shaw asked, arching a black eyebrow that seemed stark next to the white swooping over his forehead.

“We’ll pay him,” Harrow said, holding up a palm. “You can take him off salary and even bennies, while he’s with us.”

“Well, doesn’t that sound like a sweet little deal,” Shaw said genially. “And just who’s gonna cover his workload?”

Harrow had known Shaw was a sharp businessman, and was prepared for the haggling. “We’ll pay for a sub. If you have any expenses lining up a sub, we’ll pay that, too.”

Shaw grinned sleepily. “Well, that does sound a little sweeter. But it’s up to the boy himself. If Chris wants to go, fine — you got yourself a deal.”

Born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Chris Anderson had played basketball in high school well enough to make All-State, but not to get a scholarship. His grades, though, had been another matter — exceptional in math and science, Anderson had earned a full ride at the University of Alabama right there in his hometown. He took his first trip north to attend graduate school at the University of California-Berkeley, probably the nation’s best chemistry grad school.

Tall, with blond bangs, Anderson had the playful brown eyes and wide smile of a boy-band singer. Not yet thirty, he was something of a prodigy in the forensics field — Shaw paid the young man double what he could have made in public law enforcement.

After Harrow outlined the plan, Anderson — who had never watched Crime Seen! — turned to Shaw. “Mr. Gerald, how do you feel about this?”

A hand settled on Anderson’s shoulder. “Might be a good idea, Chris. I’ve known J.C. for years. He’s a good man, and it’d get you out of the lab for a while. Some field work would be good experience for you.”

The young man considered that. “And my job would be here when I got back?”

“You bet, son,” Shaw said. “Whenever you want it.”

Turning his fresh face to Harrow, Anderson said, “Well, then, sir — when do I start?”

Two days later, in New York City, Harrow found himself in a rundown Brooklyn tenement building, standing in a dark hallway in front of apartment 406.

He knocked and waited.

Nothing.

He was just getting ready to leave when the door swung slowly open and he found himself staring at a bleary-eyed young man wearing only a bed sheet wrapped around him like a sarong. The son of an Asian father and Caucasian mother, Billy Choi was an ex-New York cop and former Golden Gloves boxer. Harrow had run into the criminalist at various IAI functions, where they’d shared war stories over drinks, even teaming up for conference role-playing sessions.

“J.C.,” Choi said, rubbing the sand from his eyes, his normally swept-back jet-black hair a bird’s nest. From the lack of surprise, the guy might have seen Harrow five minutes ago.

“I come in?” Harrow asked.

Choi stepped out of the way, gestured with one hostly hand, and Harrow entered. To call the place a rathole would have been an insult to rats, the young man’s housecleaning skills limited to hiding the real mess beneath empty pizza boxes and dirty dishes.

“Is it helpful in your work, Billy?”

“Is what?”

“Living at a crime scene?”

“Pretty funny, J.C. When I wake up, I might laugh.”

“Mind a question?”

“Hit me.”

“Can you play nice with others?”

Shrugging, Choi said, “Not according to the NYPD. Gross insubordination, they call it.”

Harrow gave him a long hard look. “They also call it striking a superior officer.”

“Nothing superior about him,” Choi said.

“Oh?”

“Well, maybe. As in King Asshole.”

“Ah.”

“J.C., I just hit him. You’d’ve killed his ass.”

But Harrow merely looked at the young ex-officer. “No, I wouldn’t.”

Choi could not take Harrow’s gaze, and his eyes dropped to the floor. “Yeah, man, I know — I screwed up royal.”

“Question stands. Can you play nicely with others?”

“Does it matter?”

“Might. You watch my show?”

“I’ve seen it. Hey, nice gig, bro.”

“You see Friday’s show?”

“What’s today?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no,’” Harrow said, and brought him up to speed.

“I’m in,” Choi said.

Harrow shook his head. “Answer the question first.”

“I can play well with others,” Choi said, a kid forced to recite in front of the class.

“No bullshit, Billy — I’ve got the second chance you’ve been looking for. But if you screw me over, you won’t be able to land mall cop.”

“No bullshit, sensei,” Choi said, earnestly. “I promise ya, J.C. You give me the chance, I’ll be a right guy. No more screwin’ up.”

“And you would walk away from all this?” Harrow asked, gesturing around the dire apartment.

Billy grinned. “For you I would, J.C.”

Harrow was halfway down the crummy corridor of Billy’s building when his cell chirped. The caller ID said it was Pall.

“Michael,” Harrow said. “Good to hear from you.”

“Thought you should know,” Pall said, “I put my papers in this morning — end of the month’s my last day.”

“You heading for a beach, or coming aboard?”

“Send me an airline ticket. If it’s to Hawaii, I’ll head for the beach.”

“And if it’s to LA?”

“Then I’ll come work for you.”

In Casper, Wyoming, at the state crime lab, Harrow met up with the last candidate on his Dream Team list — Jenny Blake.

A petite blonde with blue eyes, Blake was painfully shy, and Harrow was well aware that her limited social skills could hamper her in the over-the-top world of television.

That limitation aside, the twenty-five-year-old had tremendous computer skills. As a teenager, she had used those skills to lure child predators to her foster parents’ house in Casper, Wyoming, before calling the local police. Her legend spread to the Wyoming state crime lab, where a friend had passed the story on to Harrow. After college, Blake joined that same Wyoming crime lab.

Of all the potential members of the team, the shy Blake would likely be the hardest to convince to join up.

Their mutual friend introduced the pair over coffee in the crime lab’s breakroom, then excused herself.

Harrow laid out his pitch with quiet intensity and what he felt was sincere eloquence... and Jenny Blake turned him down cold.

Her shyness made her tremendously uneasy about the whole television aspect of the job, but having been raised in foster care, she had as much empathy for a parent who had lost a child as she did for the children who were preyed upon by adults.

“Jenny, this isn’t about television,” he told her. “That’s only a means to an end. Thanks to the network, we can afford the best people in their fields — like you.”

“I’m happy here,” she said.

“I just need to borrow you for a while. Jenny, this person, these persons...”

“Unsub,” she said.

“Yes, this unknown subject killed my wife and my son. David had a great future in front of him, and it was taken from him, stolen from him, and... we believe this unsub has killed many others, young people like my son, children too. And this is my chance to stop him.”

“Here,” she said. She was handing him a napkin.

“What?”

“You’re crying.”

He didn’t realize. He dried his eyes.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

Chapter Nine

Harrow had seldom set foot in the conference room used by the top UBC execs and, for that matter, the board itself. You could have played touch football in here, if it weren’t for the long narrow table of dark polished wood bisecting the space. The walls were beige and blank, lacking even framed posters bragging of hit shows, not that UBC had many. Tables in a back corner held shining stainless steel urns of coffee, orange juice, ice water; and offered baskets of breakfast pastries, fresh fruit, and yogurt cups on ice.

At the front of the room, behind Harrow, was a mammoth plasma screen that could display one huge image or dozens of smaller ones. Just behind Harrow at his left was a cameraman capturing his every move, and at his right, a female audio guy’s boom was a sword of Damocles over his head. Two more cameramen were positioned on either side of the table — not directly across from each other, of course — and a male sound guy with a boom was catching the talk at the table.

Way at the back, near the craft service area, stood network president Dennis Byrnes in a light gray Brooks Brothers, black shirt, and charcoal tie, arms Superman-style at his waist; next to him, of course, was Nicole Strickland, arms folded across the admirable shelf of her breasts, like a bodyguard in Donna Karan.

Harrow turned his attention to the people seated at the table. Nearest were the five forensics experts that made up his dream team; farther down were Carmen Garcia and a contingent of top production personnel.

They were chatting among themselves, the ones already acquainted taking the lead. One thing law enforcement professionals and TV/film people had in common was an affinity for taking advantage of any free food and drink on deck, and this group was no exception.

“All right, everyone,” Harrow said, loud, firm, but not unfriendly, and the group settled down. “I’ll start with my thanks to all of you for walking away from other work, at short notice, to be part of this innovative, and likely history-making investigation.”

He gestured toward the back of the room.

“I also want to introduce you to the two people who have made this possible — network president Dennis Byrnes and our executive producer, Nicole Strickland.”

Polite applause rang in the room, like friendly fire, the faces of the new people turning toward the execs.

Harrow gestured. “Would you like to join me, Dennis?”

The cameraman closest to the execs swung his attention their way, as did the boom operator.

Byrnes smiled and shook his head and raised a palm. “No, J.C. I’d just like to say that UBC — from Nicole and me to every member of the board — is behind the Killer TV team all the way.”

Some curious frowns appeared, and the faces turned toward Harrow again.

“That’s how our remote segment is labeled,” Harrow told them, his embarrassment showing through. “Killer TV... we’re a kind of show within the show. It may be a little undignified, but Dennis tells me it’s tested well...”

“Certainly has,” the exec affirmed.

“...and of course that’s the be-all-and-end-all in television.” Harrow gave up a wry smile. “And, anyway, it’s a small concession, considering the financial support the network’s providing.”

Nicole spoke up, her alto a musical, lovely thing (at least when she wasn’t berating or firing somebody): “You’ll all receive directories of the numbers back here at home base, including mine. While I’d appreciate you staying, whenever possible, within the chain of command... I have five assistants, who would also appreciate you helping justify their salaries...”

A few polite laughs.

“...do not hesitate to call me directly, if there is a matter of urgency. Six o’clock Friday night comes promptly at six o’clock every Friday night... meaning we do not stand on ceremony. We don’t have that luxury.”

“And now,” Byrnes said, “we’re going to do our job, which is to get out of your way and let you do yours.”

The execs made their exit to one last nice round of applause, the enthusiasm of which may have been influenced by relief to see them go.

Harrow took the seat at the head of the long, narrow table. “Now that the two two-hundred-pound gorillas are gone, we should start by acknowledging the four-hundred-pound gorilla still in the room.”

No one said anything, but their eyes were on him like magnets on metal.

“I’m heading up an investigation into a crime in which I carry an enormous emotional stake. It breaks a rule so basic, hardly anybody bothers formulating it as a rule.”

Kind smiles.

“So here is your fallback, people. If the need arises, Plan B is to remove me from the case, and Laurene Chase will take over as lead investigator. Laurene?”

Nearest him at right, she stood, and nodded at him, and then at everyone around her.

Harrow went on: “I can be replaced at the network’s whim... no, no! No argument there, that was a basic part of the agreement to fund our efforts. And I can be removed at Laurene’s directive.”

Laurene said, “The man speaks the truth.”

Harrow said, “If you have concerns that you don’t feel comfortable expressing to me, I understand — you won’t be going behind my back, because we’ll just call it part of that chain of command Ms. Strickland mentioned. Go straight to Laurene.”

Billy Choi said, “Laurene, fire J.C.’s ass, would you?”

Everybody laughed. Harrow gave Choi a tiny look that said, Thank you, for breaking the ice.

“The second thing,” Harrow said, “is that we’re going to be on camera pretty much every second we’re working. You will not be followed into restaurants, your hotel rooms, or restrooms. And your free time, what little there’ll be of it, will be your own. Everything else is fair game...” He looked right at the camera. “...unless either Laurene or I say otherwise.”

Harrow rose and walked deeper into the room, his camera- and soundman following. “I want to start by introducing you to the crew who’ll be keeping us company. There will be others, but these five on camera and sound are among the best in the business, as some of you already know... and they’re the ones who’ll be trailing us the most.”

As he made introductions, those seated at the table craned when necessary to take in their electronic shadows.

“First, sneaking up behind me, is a thirty-year veteran in the business, including ten years at UBC — Maury Hathaway.”

Maury peeked out from behind the shoulder-held camera, and smiled and nodded, and people said, “Hi,” “Hey, Maury,” and the like. The husky Hathaway wore khaki cargo pants and an open-front button-down shirt over a Grateful Dead T-shirt, his blond hair graying around the longish edges.

“Working sound for Maury is Nancy Hughes.”

A slender young woman, blonde hair tied in a loose ponytail, dipped her boom to them and gave them a toothy smile. She wore jeans and a loose white T-shirt.

“Across the way is Tim Ingram.”

A wiry black guy who looked barely out of his teens gave the group a boom bob and a wave. He wore a brown T-shirt with a white silkscreen of some hip-hop star not on Harrow’s radar.

“Down and across from me, that’s Leon Arroyo.”

Cameraman Arroyo’s smile was huge, his teeth very white. A light-skinned Hispanic with wavy black hair and a full beard, Arroyo wore baggy shorts and a multicolored rayon shirt that looked slept in.

“Down at the far end of the table — close to the food, you’ll note — is Phil Dingle.”

Dingle, a spade-bearded, affable, not quite heavyset six-footer in a black shirt and chinos, came out from behind his eyepiece to grin and say hey. “You won’t know I’m here,” he said.

Harrow moved down the table. “Our lead investigative reporter and segment host is Carmen Garcia. She found the clue that jump-started the investigation.”

The group turned to her, and she gave them a megawatt smile and a crisp nod. The Ozomatli T-shirt and jeans were gone, replaced by a designer suit that cost probably ten times her old weekly salary.

The tousle-haired, well-scrubbed Midwestern girl had been replaced by a stylishly coiffed California female with flawless makeup and freshly lacquered nails.

The willowy brunette rose and said, “I’m not going to lie to you — this is the biggest job I’ve had in broadcasting, and I owe J.C. a debt of thanks for believing in me. I’ll have some production assistants, who aren’t here today, who you’ll meet later. But to echo Nicole — we can’t stand on ceremony. Come to me with anything. Anything.”

She introduced the newcomers to two Avid editors, three post-production sound editors/mixers, and three writers, who would be accompanying them all the way.

“We are doing more than investigating,” Carmen said. “We are creating a segment for a weekly reality show. Some of what we do will go out live, but many of our interviews will be edited along the way, and ready for air.”

Laurene said, “Ms. Garcia—”

“Carmen.”

“Carmen — our job has to be finding, and stopping, this killer, or killers. That’s our primary concern.”

“It’s a concern we all share. But you’re also the stars of our show. And the show pays the freight. You saw how positive the network president was about what we’re doing. J.C., would you care to tell us all why Mr. Byrnes is our biggest fan now?”

Harrow, who had made his way back to the head of the conference room table (his camera and audio shadows too), was just taking his seat.

“Glad to, Carmen. And if your dignity was bruised by Killer TV, I’m here to tell you we’re largely underwritten by toilet paper, among other enthusiastic sponsors.”

A mix of laughter and groans greeted that.

Harrow was saying, “We are making a lot of money for UBC, or at least right now we are. If we don’t deliver, the financial plug could get pulled.”

Carmen picked up (and all eyes followed): “You’ll take time out for interviews, sometimes in advance of air, sometimes live, and you’ll be giving a certain amount of your time over to working with our writers, who’ll make your expert findings and opinions user-friendly to laymen.”

Billy Choi said, “We’ll be scripted?”

“You will at times read off teleprompters, yes. And when you speak ‘off the cuff,’ it will be on approved subjects, and within parameters approved by UBC Legal.”

“Don’t tell me we’re gonna travel with lawyers?”

Harrow said, “Not yet, Billy. I talked Byrnes out of that. But if we overstep, intentionally or not, that could come.”

An uncomfortable silence draped the room.

“All right,” Harrow said. “Some of you know each other, by reputation anyway. But I don’t believe anyone here but me is familiar with all of you. So I’m going to ask you each to introduce yourself and give us a little backstory... as they call it in the TV game.”

Without prompting, Harrow’s second-in-command — sleek in a lavender silk blouse and black slacks — rose and cast a cool, professional smile on her colleagues, her cornrows of ebony hair shimmering. “Laurene Chase, chief crime scene investigator, Waco PD. Currently on leave of absence.”

Next to Laurene, the short, short-haired, bespectacled, broad-shouldered Michael Pall rose. He appeared vaguely nerdy in a nice but clearly off-the-rack blue suit with blue and red striped tie. He gave his name, tagging on only, “DNA scientist, Oklahoma State Crime Lab.”

Billy Choi pointed a finger and fired it, gunlike, at Pall saying, “Federal Building — ’95. Helped put McVeigh away. Nice job, man.”

Pall tried not to react, but a smile flickered.

Next to him sat Chris Anderson, the improbably handsome Beach Boy of a chemist and lab tech from Meridian, Mississippi. He half rose, and introduced himself in his soft southern accent, but when he mentioned the Shaw and Associates lab, the other forensics experts sat up a little.

Across from Anderson sat Jenny Blake, her blue eyes studying the tabletop as her fingers fiddled with a ballpoint pen.

“Jenny Blake, computer stuff,” she said, not rising, without really looking at anyone at the table.

Harrow barely nodded at the next-in-line criminalist when Choi popped up and said, “Billy Choi, crime scene analyst, tool mark and firearms examiner formerly of the Big Apple, now of sunny Los Angeles and...” He turned straight to the nearest camera. “...breakout star of Crime Seen! on You Bee Cee. Book ’em, Danno!”

This goofy performance cracked up the whole team, even Jenny and Harrow. It was just the tension break they needed, and once again the team leader sent Choi a little appreciative smile and nod.

As the Book ’em, Danno laughter subsided, Harrow patted the air and said, “All right, all right... let’s get down to it.”

Anderson sat forward, his intensity undercut by his Southern drawl. “Where do we start, Mr. Harrow?”

“It’s J.C, Chris.”

“Yes, sir.”

Everyone laughed.

“And you all know the basics already — so let’s start with our new evidence. Carmen, you found it — care to walk us through?”

Carmen was ready with a remote. The massive screen behind Harrow came alive and showed the evidence bag that held the single leaf.

She said, “This corn leaf was found in the driveway of a home in Placida, Florida. Stella Ferguson and her two children were shot in their home in a manner very similar to J.C.’s family.”

He felt eyes flick toward him, but remained neutral.

“Stella’s husband, Ray, was town marshal of Placida.”

This news narrowed the eyes of the other forensics experts, and their attention was rapt as she went on to explain the circumstances — including the severed wedding-ring finger — and how the case had gone cold, until she’d spotted the leaf.

Laurene asked, “How did you even know to look at that leaf? Even the state investigators missed it.”

Carmen’s grin was not terribly professional, if very winning. “Hey, I’m a farm kid. You use what you know. And I knew that leaf was wrong... but that was all I had for sure. I took it to J.C., and he was able to hook me up with the right expert — Dr. Brent Caldwell at Settler Seed.”

Slack-jawed, Choi asked Harrow, “You knew lookin’ at the leaf what seed company made it?”

Before Harrow could explain, the DNA scientist, Pall, did it for him: “No, but he knew that Settler Seed would have DNA samples from every plant put out by every commercial seed company in the world. Naturally, they have samples from every plant they manufacture; but also samples from every competitor’s plant. They need to make sure that they don’t infringe on someone else’s patent and, likewise, to make sure the competition isn’t infringing on theirs.”

Choi said, “Chess club, right? Captain?”

Pall frowned. “Chess club, yes. Captain, yes, but not of chess club — wrestling team.”

Choi held up his palms in mock surrender.

Anderson said to Carmen, “Very nice thinkin’, Miz Garcia. But what d’yall find out?”

“As it happens, this particular leaf came from Settler itself — field corn KS1422, which is sold exclusively in Kansas and is, as I said, field corn not sweet corn, which is the type grown in that part of Florida.”

Choi said, “I know there’s sweet corn and popcorn, but what the hell is field corn?”

Everybody gave Choi a look.

“What?” he asked, injured. “Where I come from, corn’s in a can or frozen or frickin’ microwavable.”

Harrow held up a palm. “Billy, you’re doing exactly what I expect from you, and everybody on the forensics team.”

“I am?”

Harrow’s eyes traveled around the table. “I don’t expect any of you to know everything. God knows, I don’t. And if you don’t know, for God’s sake, say so. Screw your ego — we have a killer to catch.”

Laurene said, “J.C. is right — we’re all going to have holes in our game that the others of us’ll need to fill.”

Harrow asked, “How many people saw that corn leaf and saw nothing but a leaf, until Carmen came along and saw something different?”

Choi opened his hands and said to Carmen, “So? Enlighten the ignorant.”

“Field corn,” she said, “is grown for uses other than human consumption — animal feed, some plastics, biofuels such as ethanol, although it’s used as fuel in bio-gas plants in Europe, where it generates power.”

“Thanks,” Choi said. He said to the others, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Carmen said, “Anyway, the point is, this is a type of field corn sold exclusively in Kansas.”

“The question that comes to mind is,” Anderson said, “how does a leaf from a corn plant grown in Kansas wind up in a cul-de-sac in Florida... a state where they only grow sweet corn?”

“That,” Harrow said, “is what we’re to find out.”

Pall said, “If the killer left that leaf behind — whether accidentally or on purpose — it’s a reasonable assumption that his area of operations extends beyond Florida.”

“Yes,” Laurene said. “It extends to the Midwest, where we have a similar crime, in another corn-growing state — Iowa.”

Choi said, “How do we know the Florida victim didn’t have an Uncle Silas from Kansas who walked that leaf in? Helluva leaf of faith, guys. Sure you want to make it?”

Carmen said, “I’ve already researched the families of the victims, and of the neighbors, and there’s no Kansas tie. Trust me. None.”

“Okay,” Harrow said, shaken a little by Choi’s valid undermining of their clue. “Anybody think this lead is too thin to be worth taking?”

No one did. Thank God.

“All right, then,” Harrow said with a sigh. “Jenny?”

Jenny looked up quickly, a rabbit who’d heard the bark of a nearby dog.

“Use those computer skills to find me a link between my case and the Ferguson murders in Florida.”

She nodded and reached down for the briefcase that held her laptop.

“Also, check for similar crimes, particularly in the Midwest. The Florida case slipped through our fingers for a while, so maybe there are more.”

Jenny was already getting out her computer. She gave Harrow another quick nod and turned to her keyboard and monitor, focusing on her task.

“Laurene,” Harrow said, “as our chief crime scene analyst, I want you on a plane to Placida today. Find out what else they missed.”

Laurene nodded, asked, “When was this murder?”

“September,” Carmen said.

“Not what you’d call a fresh trail.”

“Billy,” Harrow said, ignoring that, “you and Carmen will go with Laurene — I want you two to interview the cops and any potential witnesses. Treat them right — they worked hard on the case. They’ll look at you as poachers, so play nice.”

Choi crossed his heart. “My best behavior, boss.”

“Now I can sleep better, hearing that. Oh, and see what you can get on the guns too.”

Choi nodded.

Pall asked, “What about us?”

“Michael, you and Chris do lab analysis of the evidence from both the Iowa and Florida cases. Make sure nothing else has been missed.”

Anderson’s expression was lazy, but his eyes were not. “Where is the evidence?”

“In your lab.”

“We got a lab?”

“Sure.”

“You’re not talkin’ about a retriever are you?”

“No, Chris. A fully pimped-out crime lab.”

“Here at this TV studio?”

Harrow shook his head. “Outside.”

Chapter Ten

The forensics team, the camera crew, and Carmen and her little army all followed Harrow out, paraded down the hall and through double doors into the bright LA morning sunshine. The smog had rolled back to cast a brighter light for the occasion.

Parked before them were a semi-trailer rig and two tour buses, each vehicle bearing Crime Seen! Killer TV, and UBC logos.

“Am I seeing things?” Pall asked, staring wide-eyed, hands on hips, tie flapping a little in the breeze, seeming very Clark Kent to Harrow. Mini Clark Kent...

“Not a mirage, Michael,” Harrow said to the DNA expert, and led the team to the semi-trailer first. “And there’ll be a makeup/wardrobe motor home, and a satellite uplink truck joining the wagon train, when we head out.”

Though they stood on the driver’s side of the trailer, their attention was on the drone of a motor, just out of sight.

“The motors you hear,” Harrow said, “are the air conditioner and refrigeration unit for the crime lab that takes up the trailer’s front three-quarters.”

The whole team seemed dumbfounded, and were exchanging colorful reactions, the TV crew catching it all.

Toward the front of the trailer, three metal stairs hung down. Harrow climbed them, pulled open the door, and led the team inside the white-walled world, neat work stations set up on either side: a fingerprint hood, a drying closet, a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer, an AFIS, NIBIN, CODIS station, and a water tank to catch bullets fired for testing also lined the walls. Three long tables ran down the middle, one a regular work table, another a backlit table with bulbs under the surface, a third holding a Kodak MP3 evidence camera in its stand.

The team looked around in wonder. Most came from state crime labs that weren’t nearly this up to date.

Anderson asked, “Who the heck’s footin’ the bill for all this?”

“UBC and our sponsors,” Harrow said. “And much of the equipment here was provided by the manufacturers in exchange for a mention in the end credits.

Choi said, “The way they squeeze the credits down these days? What good’s that kind of unreadable plug do them?”

Carmen said, “We provide the companies with footage of you ‘stars’ using the equipment, and it becomes part of their promo package when they go out to state and local crime labs around the country, and the world.”

Shaking his head, Pall said, “Weird way to stop a killer.”

“That’s entertainment,” Laurene said. She swivelled to lock eyes with Harrow. “Which brings us to something else, J.C.”

Harrow felt the camera move in on him as he said, “What?”

Ignoring Hathaway and his video eye, Laurene asked, “How long is this season supposed to last again?”

“Twenty-two weeks,” Harrow reminded her.

“And what happens if we haven’t found the guy?”

Harrow didn’t duck her gaze. “We keep looking.”

“Can we be cancelled?”

“Any TV show can be cancelled. But we’ve got at least twenty-two weeks, guaranteed, and even if we aren’t finished then, we should be able to keep going. As long as, well, we’ve been...”

“Entertaining?”

“I was going to say ‘make compelling viewing.’ I believe we’ll be allowed to keep up the search — too much of an embarrassment to the network not to. On the other hand, I don’t figure we’ll need more time than we’ve been given.”

“Cool,” Choi said. “But what happens if we nail our guy in, oh, two weeks?”

After all these years of looking for his family’s killer, and now finally having one clue that might be a genuine lead, Harrow had never contemplated the possibility that the case might now come down quickly.

“That would be great,” he said. “Sooner the better.”

Laurene asked, “Oh? And how’s the network going to feel about that?”

“Well, they’d be thrilled, I’d think.”

“Really? They promote something as a season-long serial only to have it wind up in two weeks? Wouldn’t that cut into their profits?”

Harrow finally saw where Laurene was headed, and the truth was, he didn’t know the answer. “Maury, turn off the camera.”

Hathaway’s head peeked around the edge of the camera. “J.C., this is good stuff.”

“You know the rules, Maury. When I say ‘cut,’ you cut. I won’t abuse the privilege. Shut it down and kill the sound too.”

Hathaway did as he was told. So did Hughes.

Choi asked, “You want them out while we talk?”

“No,” Harrow said. “Anyway, it’s Maury I want to talk to.”

“Me?” Hathaway asked, setting the camera on a nearby table. “What did I do?”

“Nothing. I just want an expert opinion.”

“I’m no expert,” the heavyset cameraman insisted. “I never saw CSI in my life. I don’t even watch television. I make it.”

That got chuckles all around, but uneasiness was in the air.

“Maury, do you think the network would ask us to withhold evidence, to... parcel it out, time its release, for dramatic effect? Just to keep the show going?”

Hathaway’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped — not a typical reaction from a seasoned vet like him. “Hell, I never thought of that.”

“Me neither,” Harrow admitted. “And what’s more, I haven’t been here long enough to know the answer. Maury, you’ve been at UBC for ten years. You know everything and everyone — what do you think?”

The cameraman took a long silent moment, glanced at Hughes, who seemed similarly flummoxed. Finally, he said, “Nicole never would pull anything like that. Not that she’s honest, but I don’t think she’s got the power or the cojones to go that far.”

The team looked relieved, if somewhat skeptical.

Harrow asked, “What about Byrnes?”

“Him I’m not so sure,” Hathaway said. “I mean, the guy is all about the bottom line. But his reputation — and my experience with him? He’s honest, as far as it goes.”

“What does that mean, Maury?”

“It means — it’s Hollywood.”

This did not ease Harrow’s concerns.

Laurene asked, “So, if we have misgivings about the networks and its priorities — what’s the impact on how we proceed?”

“We handle all the evidence ourselves,” Harrow said, “or at private labs we trust, like Chris’s employer, Shaw and Associates.”

Choi was frowning, his expression close to pissed off. “Would these UBC SOB’s tamper with evidence?”

Harrow shook his head. “I don’t believe they would, Billy. But it will be better if we can keep the situation from arising. I believe we can address any attempt to have us hold back evidence—”

“Like for sweeps week?” Choi said, only half kidding.

“Like for sweeps week,” Harrow said. “We can head that off by getting the lawyers involved. Obstruction of justice trumps ratings, every time.”

Laurene seemed satisfied with Harrow’s take on the network situation. “Okay,” she said. “Then I have another question, J.C.”

“I’m not surprised,” Harrow said patiently.

“If... when... we catch this killer — who has jurisdiction?”

“We’ll see about that when we know more,” Harrow said. “Let’s catch the bastard first, then we’ll worry about who gets to try him. Certainly we’ll be cooperating with state and local, and sharing any glory.”

Shaking his head, Pall said, “Nobody’s ever attempted anything like this before, J.C. But you know as well as any of us... if you were this asshole’s lawyer? You would say you couldn’t get a fair trial anywhere in the United States.”

All eyes were on Harrow.

Pall went on: “A top-rated TV show used its hunt for him as a ratings boost? Think there’ll be twelve licensed drivers anywhere in the country that won’t be prejudiced against this guy once we do catch him?”

Harrow put up his hands in surrender. “I’m the first to admit I haven’t thought of everything involved here. Maybe I got blinded by finally seeing a pinpoint of light, after years of darkness.”

And as far as the network and Dennis Byrnes were concerned, Harrow had known when he signed on that he was inking a deal with the devil. Now, he just hoped he wouldn’t get tripped up by the fine print.

“First, let’s find the guy,” he told them. “Let’s stop him and expose him, and trust that matters like jurisdiction and fair trials don’t trip us up.”

Laurene said, “These are dark waters, J.C. Choppy too.”

“I know. But I couldn’t ask for a better crew to help make the voyage.”

Choi grunted a laugh. “Good thing I know how to swim.”

Harrow said, “Just so you don’t jump overboard on me, Billy... Maury, turn the camera back on, and let’s get down to work.”

Chapter Eleven

The motel room was dark, the flimsy, filmy curtains pulled tight against the fading afternoon sun as the Messenger kicked back on the bed, thin pillows piled behind his head as he watched the national news on UBC.

Outside, what passed for rush hour in Socorro, New Mexico, was under way, which meant maybe ten cars on the street, not five. Still, with only nine thousand souls, Socorro was still way bigger than his own hometown.

Made him wonder — if the rights of people could be so blatantly trampled on in a little town like his, with no repercussions, how could people’s rights ever be protected in a town twenty-five times the size? Or in a really big city, like New York or Chicago? Possibilities for corruption there were mind-boggling.

That thought only served to reinforce why his work was so important — why he needed to keep leaving messages around the country, until someone was smart and capable enough to understand their importance.

Sad that he’d had to go the way he had, but he needed help, and the normal routes for gaining assistance had paid him no heed. The messages he was delivering seemed the only reasonable way to recruit the help he so desperately required.

On the tube-television screen, Carlos Moreno was doing a satellite interview with J.C. Harrow, host of Crime Seen!

“Has anything like this ever been attempted, J.C.?”

Outdoors in what seemed to be Southern countryside, Harrow — in a corny Robert Stack-style trenchcoat — said, “No, Carlos, this is a first. We’ve assembled some of the best forensics talent in the nation, and tonight we’ll share some of the exciting work we’ve been doing, while Crime Seen! has been away.”

The Messenger farted with his lips over the rest of the interview, and laughed out loud at how uneasy stately anchor Jackson Blair seemed, when he was forced to close the broadcast with a blatant plug: “Be sure to stay with UBC tonight for the season premiere of Crime Seen! with J.C. Harrow and his crack criminalists, as they close in on the murderer of the host’s family, nearly seven years ago.”

If Harrow and his team of “crack criminalists” were “closing in on the killer,” it was news to the Messenger, who had seen no sign of them.

No one had come to his hometown, no one had approached him on his travels to deliver his messages, and no one was anywhere near him now, unless they were being good and goddamn secretive about it. As if to prove the point, he got off the bed, walked to the window, and peeked between the thin curtains.

He sure as hell didn’t see Harrow out there, or any “crack criminalists,” or even criminalists on crack, much less any of those dopey-looking buses and trucks that had been featured all summer in those ridiculous commercials promoting the show like it was the second goddamn coming.

What he did see was fading sun, a sky turning purple, and headlights starting to snap on in passing cars as darkness descended on Socorro like a soothing blanket. Any sense of comfort in this community, however, was a false one; this was a night that would wake this town up forever.

Though thus far no one seemed to be getting his messages — well, they received them, but they didn’t get them — he still held out hope. He would continue his quest until someone acknowledged his messages and did something to right the wrong.

He’d thought Harrow might be that man. But as the summer passed with nothing but ludicrous publicity for the show’s Killer TV segment, it seemed more and more likely that Harrow couldn’t make out the messages either. The former sheriff might be sincere in trying to find the Messenger, but was clearly being used by the television network in a cheap, sleazy, distasteful stunt for money and ratings.

Still, Harrow had come the closest of anyone, so far at least, and the Messenger realized that a personalized refresher might be just what was needed to jump-start the ex-sheriff, and nudge him in the right direction. He wondered if Harrow might have other family, to help make that point — brothers, sisters, father, mother...?

There had to be some appropriate target on the map that would send a more pointed message to the UBC superstar. Research, investigation, would be needed, though that would have to wait...

First, he had already devised a message for delivery here in New Mexico.

He returned to the bed and picked up the copy of TV Guide — with Harrow and his team’s picture on it — that had been tented over the .357 Magnum. The six-shot Smith and Wesson pistol had been utilized twice before, sending previous messages.

Each message delivered had become an indelible memory, not memories he cherished at all, rather burdens to bear. One such memory bubbled up as he watched another in the seemingly endless parade of Crime Seen! spots that rolled across the small faded screen.

August, six years ago. A house, bigger than his own, sat on a hill in Iowa, off Highway 30, back in the sticks between Ames and Nevada, the owner a retired Story County sheriff, living there with his wife and son. The home had belonged to J.C. Harrow, the man he had made a star — devil his due, Harrow had saved the President’s life in a crazy coincidence that had, weirdly, served both the Messenger and his future nemesis.

Harrow’s fame had been an unseen outcome of that particular message. You couldn’t always know the ways in which your actions might impact the world. Making presidential hero Harrow a major celebrity, by having his family murdered the same day, had been one such instance.

As he checked the load in his revolver, and his backup in his speed-loader, he frowned, mildly surprised that — despite how many messages he’d delivered — each one remained distinct in his mind.

He took no pleasure in reliving these events, but he owed it to those who conveyed his messages for him not to forget their sacrifice. Without them, he would be nothing; without them, no point could be made.

The key, he knew, was that each delivery was cataloged in his mind by the gun he’d used. That was why, at the beginning, he had not needed to take souvenirs to help him remember and keep straight the calls he made. He was not, after all, some FedEx man with a computer to keep track.

But with each specific gun, he could look at it and remember each message just as he had delivered it, despite a certain sameness that had quickly crept in. That house in Iowa wasn’t so much different from the one he would visit tonight in New Mexico.

Both were two-story family homes, away from town, the Iowa one on a hill, this one down in a valley. The houses, except for their age (Iowa being older), were very similar, as were the families inside. Though retired Sheriff Harrow had only the one child, this family had two. And like Harrow, this man — George Reid — was a civil servant, the lead accountant for Socorro County.

And the Messenger knew all too well how much trouble accountants could cause.

Even now, the .357 pressing against his side as he drove to deliver the Socorro message, he could feel the similarities between the two messages weaving within him, a reflection on a past delivery and a briefing for the upcoming one.

In Iowa, he parked one road north of his target, and left the nondescript Chevy sitting by the side of the road as he took off cross-country, making his way through the neighbor’s cornfield that stood between him and the back of Harrow’s house.

In New Mexico, he killed the headlights and turned into the Reids’ long driveway, coasted out of view from the road, killed the engine, climbed out of the car.

The Iowa breeze was warm, the sun bright, as the Messenger made his way through corn taller than him, careful to guard his face and hands from the slash of stalks, the air smelling like a summer Sunday from back when life was good.

Tonight the breeze in the Rio Grande Valley was cool, blowing gently from the Cibola National Forest to the west, hinting of a late-season forest fire. Darkness had settled in, but a bright moon and a million stars made it easy to navigate the gravel drive.

When he got to the edge of the cornfield, he’d peeked out at the back of the house — shut up tight, air conditioner humming. No other sounds, movement. He expected a barking dog, a passing car, something, anything; but nothing — nothing but the steady beat of his own heart.

The drive here was lined with Mexican pinyon trees, providing plenty of cover as he made his way. The night was a calming cloak, the lights of the house visible through the trees.

He’d moved around the Harrow house to the east, using the cornfield for cover till he was behind the garage, where he could step out, without anyone seeing him.

Here, the garage was attached to the house, one door open on the empty space of George Reid’s SUV, the other door closed, the wife’s car obviously within as usual.

He’d felt the sweat beading his brow and trickling down his back, but it was just the August heat, not nerves. He was just a postman on his rounds, delivering bad news. Internally, he was so cool, it was as if he already stood within the air-conditioned walls of Harrow’s house.

On this New Mexican night, he was so experienced at his mission that he didn’t even feel warm, despite wearing black jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and black Reeboks. Even the stocking cap didn’t seem to generate any heat on his forehead. He was far cooler than he’d been in Iowa, and dressed differently.

At Harrow’s, he’d straightened his narrow black tie, and glanced again toward the house, where he saw no movement through curtained windows. He carried a pair of Watchtower pamphlets and wore the plain dark suit suitable to a Jehovah’s Witness. This, he felt, was a perfect disguise. Even if he knocked on the wrong door, no one ever remembered the earnest anonymous face of a Witness thrusting the Watchtower at them; and very seldom was anyone rude enough to slam the door in a religious face. Usually he could easily get in the door, selling one message before switching to his real one.

This message he would deliver without guile. He had scouted this house, just as he had all the others, and knew there was a weakness here that had not come up at the Harrow home, which was why he’d needed the subterfuge there.

He had eyed the Harrow house as he moved down a fence line beyond the garage until he was halfway down the drive. Then he strode back up the driveway as if coming from the road. Now, he wanted them to see his approach, the Jehovah’s Witness coming to the house to spread The Word.

This time, he entered the open garage and walked up to the door that led into the house, a mudroom just beyond, kitchen, living room. Basement was probably empty and, if he hadn’t completed delivery of the message by the time he’d reached the living room, he would most likely find the children in their respective bedrooms, up a short flight of stairs.

At the Harrow house, he’d knocked on the door and been met by Harrow’s pretty brunette wife in her Iowa State T-shirt, her smile wide, her lips the same color red as the shirt.

When he gave her the fictional name and shoved the Watchtower at her, she looked down, and that was her last mistake. When he pushed her inside, she’d been too startled even to scream, although her smile did disappear.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

“Delivering a message.”

“What?”

The gun emerged from his jacket pocket of its own volition and answered her question, tearing through her blouse and knocking the air from her, like a shove. Even over the explosion, he heard her make the whooshing sound, then he shot her a second time, which dropped her onto her back. Dead.

He liked that she hadn’t suffered.

Then the high school kid had appeared, from over left, having come the long way around from the kitchen, and tried to get the drop on the Messenger, a butcher knife raised menacingly.

The young man lost his chance, though, when he paused to whimper at the sight of his late mother on the floor, and never saw the first slug that the gun sent him, knocking him backward a step. He barely looked up before the gun issued a second shot that hit him in the chest, and raised a pink, puffy mist as if his soul were leaving his body.

Testing the knob of the garage door, he could only hope tonight’s message would be as easy to deliver.

The door whispered open, and he stepped into the dark, vacant mudroom. Bleach tickled his nostrils as he crept through to the kitchen door, edged with light; he paused to listen before he opened it. On the other side, he could hear the sound of water running, and the clatter of dishes. Someone washing up after dinner.

The knob twisted slowly in his hand, each second bringing him closer to his delivery, yet feeling no urge to rush. Thinking back to when he’d watched sports on TV, a lifetime ago, he recalled the athletes who spoke of not trying to do too much — about letting the game come to them. This was like that — the game would come to him.

Then it really did, the knob slipping from his grasp as someone opened the door.

Framed in angelic light, the twelve-year-old boy was a five-foot replica of his blond father. His blue eyes widened with shock as he saw the Messenger.

Saw the Messenger and the barrel of the revolver whose snout bore a black hole big enough to swallow the boy up — and it did. The shot hit the child in the chest, knocking him back slightly before he slumped to the floor. His mother, still at the sink, up to her elbows in dishwater, spun when she heard the report, flicking water and suds.

Agape, she seemed to scream but either it was silent or inaudible over the second shot, which struck her in the sternum and shook her as if she were the child, a naughty child, and she slid down the counter as if carried by overflow from the sink.

One more shot to each party as he crossed the room ended any doubt about whether their wounds were fatal, and he was on to the family room. He found the stunned daughter sitting on the carpet, staring blankly at the wall that separated her from the kitchen as if she had seen through it and understood why her mother and brother weren’t coming in. On a large flat-screen TV against the far wall, a happy cartoon child with pastel hair was dancing and singing.

Slowly, she turned toward the Messenger, her wide, uncomprehending eyes settling on the big revolver; her eyes tightened just a little, as if she were trying to make out something in a haze. She didn’t scream, didn’t raise a hand, just sat there numbly as the killer raised the gun and squeezed the trigger.

Two in the chest straightened her this way and that and then she sank slowly to her left, tipping in slow motion, her eyes still on the gun, but no light in them now, glassy, as dead as the dolls on a nearby shelf.

As dead as the eyes of his own child.

When the little girl settled onto the floor, her lifeless hand stretched toward the kitchen and her mother, and — despite the open eyes — she seemed to be napping peacefully he walked out.

A terrible thing, but it had to be done.

Justice could not prevail without the sacrifice of innocents. If he had learned anything in this life, it was that.

In the kitchen, he withdrew the compact garden shears, knelt prayerfully, and, in one crunching, almost bloodless stroke, removed the mother’s wedding ring and the finger it adorned. This time he had brought his own plastic baggie, and needn’t steal one from the deceased homemaker.