Fate of the Union

Eight

Sitting outside Bryson Security in his Prius, heat on and engine running — which defeated the purpose of having a Prius at all — Joe Reeder steamed like a tin lizzie radiator about to blow. He had suffered both injury and insult, the aches of the brawl’s aftermath followed by the affront of bystander status in his own case.

DC homicide detective Pete Woods, who Reeder had called to the scene, was finally buying into the probability of a staged “suicide” for Chris Bryson. That should have been cause for celebration; instead, Reeder boiled and brooded out here while Woods pursued the investigation inside the strip mall office.

Woods seemed even younger than Bishop had promised, somewhere barely north of thirty — short dark hair, steel-framed glasses, unimpressed green eyes, five ten, slender. His ensemble had a collegiate look — gray trench coat, maroon sweater barely showing the pale red-and-blue plaid shirt with navy tie, navy chinos. He struck Reeder as a refugee from a boy band back in daughter Amy’s middle-school days.

“I can’t allow a private citizen into an active crime scene,” Woods had said. “That includes you, Mr. Reeder. Sorry.”

“You’re here because I called you,” Reeder reminded him, with the fake calm he’d long ago learned to affect, “and one of the crimes committed here was an assault upon my person.”

“Changes nothing.”

“Well, something’s changed anyway. Now you don’t think Chris killed himself.”

The boy detective raised a forefinger. “I don’t necessarily think Mr. Bryson took his own life. You can wait outside or in your car. I’ll have someone take your statement in a while.”

Woods disappeared inside, leaving a uniformed officer to guard the door in case Reeder decided to storm the fortress.

That was when he’d phoned Rogers.

When she pulled into the lot, Reeder played traffic cop, directing her to a place several storefronts down from his Prius, away from Bryson Security, where the cop on guard looked on in confusion — his orders had apparently not included stopping Reeder from leaving his car and going over to another.

He got in and slammed the door behind him, saying, “The bastard won’t let me in.”

She was just unbuckling her seat belt. “Which bastard would that be?”

“The Doogie Howser detective.”

“Who?”

Before her time.

He said, “That punk kid from DC Homicide.”

“Take a breath. Take two. Remember who you are — the hard-to-read, unflappable Joe Reeder.”

“Shit,” he said, but he took the breaths.

“Isn’t that better?” she asked. “Now tell me what the hell is going on.”

He filled her in about getting jumped at Chris’s office.

“Shoulda had the guy,” he muttered.

“Shoulda coulda woulda,” she said. “Then, what? You called Woods and he finally buys your theory?”

He grunted a laugh. “That Chris was murdered is a ‘theory’ like climate change or evolution. But yes, he pretty much buys it now.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Patiently, she asked, “What makes him a bastard? Assuming his parents were married.”

Reeder frowned. “He’s a bastard because he won’t let me into that office to, you know, help with the investigation. You know the investigation I mean — the one I started?”

“I do. Must I ask you to take two more deep breaths?”

“No. No, I’m fine. Peachy fuckin’ keen.”

“Is that a real expression?”

“Minus the middle word it is.” He looked right at her. She was cool, calm, and collected — to invoke another old phrase everybody had forgotten but dinosaurs like him and his late friend Chris. He’d like to think part of her poise and self-confidence came from working with him. But he knew she was a natural.

“I need you,” Reeder said, “to pull rank and get me in there, so I can help find whatever my attacker was looking for.”

“Or,” she said, “if Woods finds it first, to make sure he knows what he’s found?”

“Right, only I don’t think that kid could find a bee in a hive.”

She shook her head. “Joe, that’s what’s called a crime scene. And, thanks to you, it’s part of an active homicide investigation.”

“Exactly, which is why I need in.”

“No,” she said.

He knew enough not to try to run roughshod over her. His back, where he slammed into the desk, nagged him. “You wouldn’t have any naproxen, would you?”

She got him a couple from her purse. He took them down without water. He prescribed himself several more deep breaths, unbidden.

Then he said to her, “You’re right.”

“Don’t play me, Joe. I’m one of the few people on this planet who can read you.”

He managed a wry smile. “Guess I’m too good a teacher.”

“If you’re fishing for an apple, forget it. The naproxen is all you get, and that includes sympathy. Now, tell me, in detail, what the hell happened here. Back it up all the way.”

He told her everything — a very brief rundown on the Benjamin meeting, then sending Christopher and Beth Bryson off to parts unknown, his arrival here to see if Chris’s laptop was in his office, the fight in the dark. Even the license number of the Nissan that had apparently been the intruder’s ride.

When he was done, she sat thinking, as expressionless as a bisque baby. Then a touch of Mona Lisa smile came to her lips.

“What?” he asked.

“Strikes me what we need here is a little interdepartmental assistance.”

“That might get you in, but what about me?”

Now Mona Lisa was smirking a little. “You’re a consultant to the Special Situations Task Force, remember? Don’t tell me you forgot to mention that to Detective Woods?”

He grinned at her. “Slipped my elderly mind.”

Getting her cell from a peacoat pocket, she silenced Reeder with a raised forefinger, then punched in a number and waited.

After a moment, she said, “Miggie? I need a couple of things... Yes, you can expect another bag of free-trade Sumatran, you pirate. What I need is the security footage from the Skyway Farer for Tuesday night... Right, that’s the motel where Chris Bryson died.”

She listened for the computer guru’s response, which was brief, then said, “The other thing is more immediate — run a plate for me: Kentucky, 440 RHW... I can wait.” She dropped cell-in-hand to her lap and asked Reeder, “Where’s the box of evidence Mrs. Bryson gave you? And the home computer?”

“All in my trunk.”

She gave him her keys. “Move it all to mine. I’ll take it to the lab.”

“Won’t that piss off your about-to-be-interdepartmental pal, Detective Woods?”

She shrugged. “Valuable life lesson for him — shouldn’t have jumped to a conclusion and jettisoned the evidence.”

Reeder wasn’t even out of the car before she got the return call. But he stayed on task, breath pluming as he went to the Prius and gathered from its trunk the box of bagged clothing and other effects, on top of which he piled the smallish computer tower. Then he lugged the box back to her Ford and put it in her trunk.

Again in the rider’s seat, shut in from the cold, he handed the keys back to Rogers, already off the cell.

“Make me happy,” he said.

“Well, of course retrieving that security footage is going to take some time.”

“Of course. And the Nissan?”

“A rental. Avis. Picked up at their Dulles location. Cash transaction, but Miggie’s got a photo ID and the rental form.”

She showed Reeder the photo on her phone: guy in his thirties, brown-haired, long-nosed, sharp-chinned, somewhat blurry for an official photo. Had the guy moved on purpose a little, in front of the DMV camera?

“Name?” Reeder prompted.

“Henry Patrick.”

He glanced at her. “As in, Patrick Henry backward?”

“As in.”

“Funny.” Reeder frowned at the photo on the phone. “This character even looks a little like Patrick Henry.”

“I guess it’s an honor, then.”

“What is?”

“Getting your ass kicked by a founding father.”

He smirked at her. “Well, he had the honor of getting kicked in the balls by a guy who saved a president. Still, let’s get Miggie on facial recognition.”

“Already in process.”

Down at Bryson’s office, the uniformed officer on guard was eyeballing them.

Reeder said, “How thrilled do you figure Woods will be with your offer of Uncle Sam’s help?”

“Not at all. He’ll know immediately you called me in. We’re the brave duo who saved the Chief Justice, remember?”

“Vaguely.”

She opened her door and cold blasted them. “You better just hang back and let me do the talking.”

“You’re the boss. I’m just a consultant.”

Reeder stayed in the car as she walked over to the Bryson Security storefront. She showed her ID to the cop on the door and Woods came out to see what was up.

With the engine running and the heat going, Reeder couldn’t make out anything they were saying. Rogers’s back was mostly to him. The young detective threw the occasional glare Reeder’s way, mostly listening to the FBI agent on his doorstep, his posture — lowered head, hunched shoulders, crossed arms — purely defensive. Reeder didn’t need to see the guy’s micro-expressions to know this wasn’t going well. Clusters of gestures came quickly, defensive, aggressive.

Not good indicators.

The longer Rogers spoke, however, her posture firm but casual, expression pleasantly businesslike when Reeder caught glimpses of it, the more the young detective seemed to settle down. Hands went to his waist, chin came up, a looseness came in. Then he would nod now and then. Gesture clusters slowed, became more amicable.

Whatever Rogers was saying was having a positive effect.

FBI agent and homicide cop spoke another few minutes, then shook hands. Reeder waited to be waved over, but instead Rogers came over to him, moving neither fast nor slow. Woods stayed behind and was speaking to the uniformed cop.

She got in, bringing another momentary burst of cold with her. But her small smile had warmth.

Reeder said, “You turned him around, didn’t you?”

“Somewhat. I wouldn’t expect him to ask you for a signed photo.”

“I can live with that, Patti. Where are we?”

“Well, Detective Woods knows he fumbled the ball, and at this point in his baby career, misreading the murder of an ex — Secret Service agent as suicide would hardly speed him on an upward path. If we — that’s me and my consultant — can help him save face, he’s up for some interdepartmental love.”

“Patti, I always said you were cute.”

“He didn’t ask for a date. And you’ll need to tread very lightly. You made him look incompetent. Save his bacon, though, and that all changes.”

“Can we get inside?”

“Yes.”

“Carte blanche?”

“Hardly. Now that this is a crime scene related to a murder, he’s called for a CSI crew. When they show, we go. Should have fifteen minutes.”

“We’ll make that work,” he said, and got out of the car.

So did Rogers.

As they walked over, he said, “Took a while selling him.”

“I had to remind Detective Woods that our lab is both better and faster than his. I also said the Bryson family had turned his evidence box over to you, and retrieving it without a stink would be... problematic.”

“We don’t have to give it back?”

“Not till the FBI lab has processed everything.”

At the door, a blank-faced Woods stopped them with a traffic-cop palm. But he tipped how pissed off he was by keeping his eyes on Rogers and never Reeder.

“Anything you find,” Woods reminded her, “we share.”

“I’m known for playing nice,” she said.

Reeder said, “We’re not looking for credit, Detective — we’re after a killer.”

Woods nodded at that, but still did not meet Reeder’s eyes.

Rogers handed Reeder latex gloves; she had a pair for herself, and they put them on before she led the way inside. As she paused in the outer office to get the layout, Reeder said to her, “Chris wouldn’t keep anything out here. Big window on the street, no computer, no filing cabinet or even closet.”

“Still,” she said, “I should check the receptionist’s desk.”

“Do that. See you inside.”

He entered the inner office. A chair was overturned from the fight, and papers were scattered on the floor — obviously the work of the intruder, not the cops. Everything else seemed undisturbed. Reeder must have surprised the guy early in his search.

Rogers came in. “Nothing but some office supplies in that desk and not much of that.”

“Receptionist worked a few half days a week,” Reeder said. “Mostly Chris operated by appointment.”

“Okay,” Rogers said, hands on her hips, peacoat hanging open. “Here’s the haystack. We looking for any needle in particular?”

“The needle that got him killed.”

“Thanks for narrowing it.”

“The only thing we know we’re looking for is his laptop, but it’s doubtful it’s here. I figure his killers took that with them at the motel. But it’s possible he left it behind... Take the file cabinet.”

Rogers nodded and began going through the old-fashioned metal four-drawer file in one corner while Reeder took the desk. She started with the bottom drawer and said, “Bingo.”

He looked over and she was holding up a bottle of bourbon by its neck.

“Heavy drinker, your friend?” she asked.

“Not really. That’s probably as much a joke as anything. Typical Chris. Cliché from old detective novels.”

“I know,” she said with a little smile. “I’ve read Chandler, too, remember?”

“Listen, don’t spend a lot of our limited time now on the files themselves. That stuff probably dates back, and this is likely something very recent. So be on the lookout for a flash drive or something, hidden away in there. Riffle the pages, don’t study them.”

“Right,” she said. “Woods and his boys can go through this stuff thoroughly later. We’ll keep looking for the needle.”

Reeder checked a closet, found more work supplies, no laptop, then went through the desk and its drawers, no laptop there either. Then he stood in the middle of the area where not long ago he’d fought with that intruder.

He was studying the desk like it was a museum exhibit.

“Hey!” Rogers asked. “Tick tick tick — what, have you given up?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

“We’re doing this wrong.”

She came over. “How so?”

“Chris was a careful guy. Cautious.”

“Not cautious enough, obviously.”

Reeder glanced at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “Your point?”

He rubbed his chin. “It’s just that... even if he ran? Chris wouldn’t have left our needle just lying around. Not stuffed in a file folder, or taped under a desk drawer.”

“If the needle is something on his computer,” she said, “maybe he backed it up to the cloud. I can put Miggie on that.”

“Do that,” Reeder said. “But...”

“But?”

“He might have been dinosaur enough not to like the ethereal nature of the cloud. Might not’ve trusted something that insubstantial with his secret.”

Rogers frowned in thought. “So something tangible, then. A physical object. We’re back to a flash drive.”

“Yes. Anyway, if we were to find a possible needle too easily, it might be a red herring he planted, or even a booby trap.”

“You mean, don’t drink the bourbon.”

His eyebrows rose and fell. “If those CSIs get here too soon, I might do that anyway.”

Reeder stepped back, tried to see the desk through his murdered friend’s eyes.

The surface was relatively sparse. No monitor — Chris used the missing laptop. A cup held some pens, an open space the likely laptop home, a mouse and mouse pad, a notepad, framed pictures of Beth and Christopher, Scotch tape dispenser, Post-it notes, glasses case. Normal stuff, the same things everybody else had on their desk.

“Have a look inside the mouse,” he said, “and look behind the photographs.”

She started on that while he picked up the glasses case.

“This might be it,” he said.

She glanced at him, curious.

“Chris has worn contacts for years,” he told her. “I don’t remember him ever to wear glasses.”

“Maybe they’re reading glasses.”

“I don’t think so. He wore graduated contacts. This would be a spare pair, for if he left his contacts in too long.”

She shrugged and began taking the picture frames apart.

Almost to himself, he said, “I don’t think Chris would leave his glasses case on top of his desk. It’d be tucked away in a drawer. Five bucks says there’s a flash drive in here.”

“You’re on.”

He opened the case and looked down at a pair of wire-frame glasses.

Rogers glanced over. “Glasses in a glasses case, huh? What will they think of next?”

“How long have we been here?”

“A good ten minutes. We’ll have company soon.”

“Shit.”

“I’m an old-fashioned girl. I’ll take the five in cash, or you can use PayPal, if dinosaurs know how to do that.”

He removed the glasses from the case, studied its plush cloth lining. Felt along the inside with his latex-covered fingers. A tiny rectangular lump in the liner.

He slowly peeled back the cloth to reveal a SIM card.

She was looking at it and then him with big eyes. “So you don’t owe me five dollars.”

“Digital photos,” he said, freeing the SIM card.

“But of what?”

“Let’s go find out.”

He was on his way when she was there beside him, touching his arm. “Joe, we’re taking this to Woods. Double-cross him now and later there’ll be hell to pay.”

He paused, then nodded.

Outside, they showed Woods their discovery.

He held out a hand, also gloved in latex. “I’ll take that, thank you.”

Reeder closed a fist over the SIM card. “Why don’t we all look at them together?”

Woods glared at him.

Reeder smiled sweetly. “You know — one big happy law enforcement family?”

“Somebody,” the young cop said, “should let some of that hot air out of you.”

“Now, Detective Woods,” Rogers said, “we’re operating on good faith. Your CSIs... where are they, by the way?... might or might not have found this. Also, we could have tucked that little gem away and walked out of here, taking along credit for ourselves and leaving any blame behind for you.”

Woods thought he was looking back at Rogers blankly, but Reeder read one micro-expression after another, starting with anger but winding up with apprehension.

Reeder said, his tone devoid of sarcasm, “Derailing a promising career, this early on, would be a damn shame.”

The CSI van was pulling in.

“Give me a few moments,” Woods said, and went to deal with the techs.

Reeder and Rogers returned to the front seat of her car and she got the motor and heater going again. A minute or so later, her cell rang.

She was talking to her computer guy and, from the start of the conversation, looked unhappy.

She was asking, “Is that even possible?”

Her face tightened into a scowl as she listened, then she thanked Miggie, cursing as she clicked off.

She whirled to Reeder. “That photo ID?”

“Yeah?”

“Want to guess who Henry Patrick is?”

“No.”

“Patrick Henry.”

He frowned. “Either way it’s an alias.”

“That’s not what I mean. The photo is Patrick Henry.”

“A photo of Patrick Henry from the 1700s? Are Bill and Ted in it?”

The old film reference was lost on her, apparently.

She said, “Somebody took an oil painting image of Patrick Henry, changed the hair a little, and digitally tweaked the thing into looking like a photo.”

“That can be done?”

“I can’t do it, you can’t do it, but some people can, and Miggie says it’s not even that hard.”

She was shaking her head, but Reeder was thinking.

Finally he said, “Why Patrick Henry do you suppose?”

“Why not Patrick Henry?”

“It’s a lot of trouble to go to for an alias — I mean, it’s an FU joke, granted, but was it supposed to signify something? If anybody figured it out.”

She cocked her head. “Political maybe? Henry was the give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death revolutionary guy, right?”

“He was more than a revolutionary,” Reeder said. “Twice governor of Virginia. We’re in Virginia right now. Is it a state thing, then? Or a national thing? Some of what he said was considered outright treason — is this about somebody being a traitor? He was also a wealthy plantation owner — an anti-rich message? Something racial?”

“Or just,” she said, “a dumb joke. You might be overthinking it, Joe.”

“Maybe. But put your friend Miggie on it, anyway.”

“He’s probably already ahead of us, but I will.”

Fifteen minutes later, Reeder, Rogers, and Woods were seated in a corner booth at a Denny’s, having coffee. The Homicide man was using a tablet to run through the photos.

The detective found the file and they crowded around the screen looking at seven thumbnail photos.

“We’ll start at the top,” the detective said, clicking on the first photo.

They stared at a black plastic cube on a table. And it stared right back at them.

Rogers asked, “Anyone know what we’re looking at?” Reeder said, “Looks like a Rubik’s Cube in basic black.”

“A what?” Woods asked.

“Never mind. Suffice to say none of us know what that is or why Chris Bryson had a picture of it.”

Second photo.

Nondescript gray cement-block building with dirty windows, no signage. Parking lot in foreground, no cars.

“Anybody?” the detective asked.

Rogers said, “Just an anonymous building.”

Reeder, still studying the image, said, “So far, seems like random pictures.”

Third photo.

Well-dressed African American man in his thirties, formal-looking pose.

Reeder asked, “Could his name be ‘Sink’?”

“No,” Rogers said, sitting up. “That’s Michael Balsin, congressional aide. My team is investigating his murder.”

Woods perked. “Murder? When?”

“September. Two in the back of the head. No robbery, no clues, no apparent motive.”

Reeder met Rogers’s eyes with urgency. “What the hell is a vic of yours doing on Chris Bryson’s SIM card?”

“No idea... but it’s not like it’s a surveillance photo, which you might expect from an investigator like Bryson.” She nodded at the screen. “That’s the photo that ran with Balsin’s obit.”

Photo four.

Blond guy, blue eyes, double chin, dark-framed glasses.

“Pattern’s forming,” Rogers said, frowning. “That’s the obit picture for Harvey Carroll — an accountant. Our victim number two, double-tapped just like Balsin — in his home, no witnesses, no robbery.”

Reeder felt that familiar combination of excitement and unease — the former because a pattern was indeed forming, unease because a brutal killer or killers had been revealed.

Photo five.

Latina, black hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones.

“Carolina Uribe,” Rogers said, “a librarian, also double-tapped — our third victim. Died early November.”

“Jesus,” Reeder whispered.

Photo six.

Middle-aged white man with a receding hairline and an ugly cardigan.

“William Robertson,” Rogers said. “Supervisor in the shop at Dunnelin Machine. Victim number four.”

“A series of serial-killing victims,” Woods said, quietly astonished, “on a SIM card Bryson hid away?”

“Maybe,” Rogers said, “maybe not. The similarity of method got these killings onto our radar. We’ve been looking at them as a possible serial, yes. But the MO is execution style.”

“Contract killer style,” Reeder said. “And somehow, Chris got on a similar track. What do we think the building and the black cube might have to do with it?”

“No idea,” Rogers said, shaking her head, shrugging.

They now all knew more, yet felt like they knew less.

Photo seven.

Blond man in his thirties, walking down a street. Shot from some distance.

Reeder and Woods turned to Rogers, but she said, “Not one of ours. Not yet anyway.”

“Maybe this is Sink,” Reeder said.

Woods frowned and almost snapped, “You said that before — who the hell is Sink?”

Reeder arched an eyebrow at him. “When you talked to Beth Bryson, she never mentioned Sink?”

Woods shrugged. “I don’t remember that coming up...” Then the young detective’s eyes tensed. “Wait. Damn. I do remember. She said her husband told her he shouldn’t have looked into ‘sink.’ You think it’s a name, Mr. Reeder?” He nodded to the tablet. “You think that’s him?”

“You got me,” Reeder admitted. “Could be anybody. Might be the guy I wrestled with tonight, back at Bryson’s office. In the dark.”

“Or,” Rogers said, “could be the next victim.”

A waitress came over with coffee. “Refills anyone? Anybody work up an appetite yet?”