Eleven (39 page)

Jack turned to face me. He held his pool cue in his left hand. The reflection in his eyes, the downward arch of his brows, and his tightened lips told me he only needed one reason to send me home.

I took a sip of my drink as if it would provide some courage to speak up to him. “I was just commenting.”

“I’m not your buddy, Kid. I’m the team leader. Your mentoring agent.”

“I just thought—”

 I gestured toward the drinks and the billiard table.

“You thought wrong.”

We stood there by the table, me sipping on the Manhattan and Jack eating the olives from his martini.

Jack broke the silence with, “Your turn again.”

I didn’t move. “Is there something I’ve done wrong? Something you don’t approve of? I’d like you to be straight enough to tell it to my face.”

Jack watched me, and even though I had asked part of me feared hearing something about my job performance. I couldn’t handle being told I was a failure at the one thing I had wanted to do with my life, the thing that had cost my marriage.

“You have one great weakness.”

I prepared myself to hear about how I had a temper and needed to learn self-control. I expected to hear how I tended to overreact. I took a sip of my drink to appear as if what he had to say wouldn’t affect me at all.

“You’re too positive.”

The glass stayed at my lips.

“You think we catch all the bad guys, that we can stop the evil in the world.”

I slowly lowered the glass. “If you don’t think that way why bother—”

“You believe in hope even when there is none.”

With Jack’s last words, I sensed the sadness which emanated from both his eyes and body energy. I realized at that moment, despite the tough exterior, he cared more than he calculated worth the risk.

I drained the rest of my drink, took my shot and rid the surface of a few more striped balls.

Jack took his turn and cleared the table of the solids with the exception of the black ball. “Right corner pocket.” He lined up the shot and drew the cue stick back.

Smack! Thunk.

“Looks like you won.” I fished out my wallet; not even a buck was in there. “I’ll have to get it for you.”

“You make a bet and don’t have the money to pay up?”

“Figured I would have won against an old guy like you.” The words came out, and I wished I had swallowed them, but I noticed the hint of a smile on Jack’s lips. “I’ll have it for you in the morning.”

“Not a problem, Kid.”

“I’m going to call it a night. I’m sure we have a lot ahead of us.” I turned to leave.

“Hmm.”

I stopped walking. “What does Hmm mean anyway? It’s not even a word.”

Jack’s eyes aligned with mine. “It can mean a lot of things.”

“Like what? What does it mean now?”

“It means you hear something you don’t like and you clam up. You’re like a kid.”

“And that drives me too. I’m twenty-nine. I’m not a child. I’m not in need of another father.”

“Never said you were.”

“You act like it sometimes. Don’t take this call, don’t take that one.” I knew by a glaze that passed over Jack’s eyes I might have gone too far, but I was tired and feeling relaxed from the drink. “And I have a name.”

I swear the corner of his mouth tweaked upward, even though a full smile never formed.

“You call Paige and Zachery by their names. You call Nadia, Nadia. Me, while I’m either Kid or Slingshot—which I resent by the way because I scored well over the acceptable percentage on the gun range.”

“I’ve told you before, a name is earned.”

“We’re not some Indian tribe. We’re individuals doing a job. It’s a career, nothing more.”

“Hmm.”

I raised my hands in the air. “Night.”

“Kid.”

I let out a moan, turned around. “What?”

“This isn’t like TV.” He chalked the end of his pool cue as if he were completely unaware that I was questioning everything in life.

I had a woman in my room who loved me, yet I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about her. I had a wife who I did love, but she had called to end our marriage and disconnected her cell phone. And to top off the metaphorical sundae, I had a boss who viewed me as too positive and inexperienced to deserve a name. I could punch something. “Not like TV?”

“We’re not best friends just because we’re on the same team. First and foremost this is a job. I need to know I can trust the people on my team.”

“And you don’t trust me?”

“I’m not saying that, Kid. But we mind each other’s personal space and respect it. Do you have a problem with that?”

I said nothing.

“Good. Then, I’ll see you in the morning. You better have my twenty.”

 “Not like TV,” I mumbled Jack’s words as I entered the hotel room.

“Brandon?” Paige’s voice called out from the darkness.

I flipped the light on.

“Oh, thanks for blinding me!”

“What are you—”

“Don’t ask me what I’m still doing here.” She shimmied to a seated position on the bed. “I’ll help save you from yourself. I’m not quite sure why.”

I didn’t say anything. I tossed the contents of my pockets on the dresser.

“Where were you?”

“Just downstairs.” I took off my shirt and sat on the edge of the bed beside her.

She moved behind me, scooping her arms around me. Her fingers interwove in my chest hair. She sniffed the air. “You smell like whiskey.”

“There’s a good reason for that.”

“What did I hear you say when you walked in? You mumbled something.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Her hands stopped moving. “If I asked, it does.”

“I ran into Jack down there. We played a game of pool. What is that man’s problem anyway?”

“We’ve been through this. He’s seen a lot—”

“And it gives him an excuse to make everyone around him miserable.”

“Jack cares too much about other people. That’s his problem.” Paige retracted her arms and slid back until she rested against the wall.

“Cares too much?” I laughed.

Paige never smiled. “His mother is in her eighties, boarded up in some nursing home. She’s losing her mind to Alzheimer’s. He spends as much time with her as he can, which as you can see with this job, isn’t much.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Maybe if you actually talked to the guy.”

“I try to, but he either seals up or grunts. He kind of reminds me of that sow at the pig farm.”

Paige smiled. “He’s not that bad.”

“You’re not with us when we try communicating.”

“He’s just not trusting with new people.”

“I wish he’d get over it.”

“And he saw a lot of horrible things during his time with the Special Forces.”

“You know what he just said to me?”

Paige studied my lips when I spoke. “It’s not like on TV.”

She let out a small laugh. “Not like on TV?”

“Yeah, as in we’re not all best friends, connected by the job. And I mean as if he had to say the job isn’t like on TV. The horror we’ve seen in the last week speaks for itself.” Her smile was contagious. I leaned into her and kissed her lips. Afterward I pulled back. “Do you think I’m too positive?”

Paige attempted to cover an outburst of laughter with a hand.

“It’s not funny.”

“No, you being too positive, that is funny.” Our eyes locked, and her expression turned serious. I found mine responding in the same manner. Her eyes went to my lips, then mine to hers. I kissed her again. We made love and at some point afterward, Paige fell asleep. I didn’t think I would.

CHAPTER 38

Morning came too soon, and it felt like I had just fallen asleep when the alarm sounded at seven. I swept a hand across the side of the bed Paige had been on to find it empty. I strained to see if light came from the crack beneath the bathroom door. It was dark and I didn’t hear anything. She must have slipped out and gone back to her own room.

I got up, showered, and met everyone at Jack’s room where he had ordered in room service for breakfast. He figured with the privacy of the room it would be a good place to discuss where we were with the case.

“We’ve tried going about this the traditional way,” he said, pausing to put a forkful of scrambled eggs in his mouth. After swallowing, he continued. “Bingham is an organized killer, and we expect no less from his followers.”

Zachery sat on the arm of the sofa, balancing a plate on his lap. Paige sipped back on a cup of coffee.

I said, “Bingham’s followers seem to desire involvement in the investigation. Look at Royster. He dropped off the pictures of me to the prison and the hotel. He knew it was going to come back to him. Heck, he was armed and ready for us.”

Paige lowered her coffee cup. “He even said to his CSI buddies that he wanted to know how fast the FBI worked.”

“And he wasn’t afraid of getting caught. He felt he deserved to die for the murder, or murders, he had been involved in. And then the unsub we’re looking for was blatant enough to go into your home, Pending.”

I stood up from where I was on the sofa. “I agree and wonder if they’re acting on their own, or from direction somehow.”

“One thing’s for certain, our unsub loves the cat-and-mouse game. They have narcissistic qualities like Bingham and believe they’re untouchable.” Jack placed his plate on the nightstand beside the bed where he was sitting. .

“They won’t be remorseful either,” Paige said. “We also need to figure out how Bingham communicates with them. The prison warden hasn’t contacted us so no new mail. It has to be another way.”

“Twitter hasn’t been active since his message from Wednesday, that’s five days ago now.”

“We’ve got to be overlooking how they communicate. Or maybe the unsub is acting on their own now.” Jack looked at Paige. “We need a background check pulled on all the prison guards.”

She got up from where she sat at the table. “I’ll get right on it.” She dialed on her cell phone. “Nadia…”

Jack turned to me and Zachery while Paige spoke on the phone. “We know a stressor for Bingham sprung from his childhood. He saw others who didn’t live up to daddy’s
standards and felt inclined to punish them as his father did him. We need to figure out what motivates our unsub.”

Paige hung up the cell and sat back on the chair folding her legs beneath her. “She’ll have the backgrounds for us as soon as possible.”

Jack nodded. “We know there was something special about Anna Knowles. She started the entire cycle. What was it about her?”

Jack’s question sat in the air as if it was rhetorical, and at this point it might as well have been because none of us had the answer. Jack continued. “We’ve visited the family of the victims—”

“There is one person we haven’t spoken to,” I said.

Everyone looked at me, and for a moment I wondered if I should have kept quiet. Maybe what I had to say wasn’t relevant.

“Speak, Pending.”

“Well, we spoke to the A.W.O.L. wife of McCartney, Anna’s husband and interrogated the son, but didn’t they also have a daughter? Maybe she remembers something about her mother or Bingham? She’s older than Reggie.”

“She was only a year when her mother was murdered,” Zachery said.

“Yeah, but it sounded to me like Bingham was a family friend long after. Keith Knowles didn’t express anything like Bingham had disappeared. Besides to do so would attract attention. We also know there were more victims in Sarasota after Anna and he didn’t move to Salt Lick until ’86.”

“Oh my God, Brandon. The guy tortured and murdered his friend’s wife and hung around for Sunday mass and family dinner.” Paige’s face paled.

“Yeah.” The room held a tangible silence for a few seconds. “And he must have come across innocent because the police never questioned him at length. It tells me he kept a low profile and didn’t stand out.”

“The perfect malignant narcissist,” Zachery said. He got up and put his plate on the table.

Paige straightened her legs out beneath her and dialed a number on her phone. “Nadia…yes, I know you’re working on it. I have something I need right now. I’ll hold on the line.” She glanced around the room at us as if to say,
you’ll see
. She turned to face out the window and spoke lower. Minutes later, she hung up. “Amanda Knowles is the daughter’s name. Her background check comes up spotless, and she lives right here in Sarasota. She’s a teacher at a local theological school.”

Jack looked to Paige and me. “I want you two to go and see what she remembers about Bingham. Maybe he slipped up with her and mentioned something he shouldn’t have, like another name or at least something we could go on.” Jack pulled a pack of cigarettes off the nightstand and lit up.

“Isn’t it a non-smoking ro—”

His glare silenced me.

 “I always get the job when a woman’s involved. It’s almost like Jack admits males and females don’t communicate properly.”

“I think it’s just Jack that doesn’t communicate properly with either sex.”

“Leave it to you to say that.”

We had dropped Jack and Zachery off at the car rental for another set of wheels. With us headed different directions, it was needed. They were going to the police station to ask more questions of Reggie Knowles. Paige and I were en route to the Bible College where Amanda Knowles worked as a theological scholar. According to the file, she had never married, wasn’t living with anyone, and rented a bungalow in the east end which wasn’t far from her father’s house.

I looked over at Paige from the passenger seat. “I still question whether this is a good use of our time. It just seems there’s something else we could be focused on right now.”

“Hey, this was your idea. Besides we’re still waiting on the church list from Nadia. It should be coming through soon, hopefully. At least I hope so or Jack’s going to do a backflip.” Paige glanced from the road to me. “But we’ll have you back to him before you know it. Don’t worry.”

I smiled and faced out the window.

“So I guess we’re not even going to talk about last night.”

I turned back to her. “What about it?” Her eyes narrowed but opened fully when I smiled at her. “It was great.”

Paige returned the smile. “It was.”

“Then what else is there to talk about?”

She bobbed her head side to side. I watched as her expression changed from one of light-heartedness to a serious nature. “Maybe talking about where we go from here wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Her arm rested on the window ledge, and she put a hand to her forehead. She pulled into the driveway of the college at a fast speed causing the Cruze to heave over the one-inch curb.

I didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anything to say. We had a case that deserved our focus. I had a marriage that had crumbled apart, but still held out a faint hope of reconciling. When Paige showed up in my room last night, she knew the risks and that there would be no promises.

 “This is a non-denominational Bible college. Our purpose here is to unite people of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds to Jesus Christ and to produce Spirit-filled disciples.” The woman behind the front counter spoke as if rhyming off the contents to an information brochure. Her nametag said Maureen, and she couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. Her dark hair flowed in wild curls over her shoulders.

I glanced at the brochure that I had pulled from a plastic display holder.

“You will find all of this in there.” She pointed at the pamphlet. Her smile showcased teeth. “What can I help you with today?”

It only took a five minute greeting and brief orientation to come back around to why we were there.

Paige held up her creds. “We need to speak with Amanda Knowles. We understand that she’s—”

“Yes.” Maureen smiled. I wondered if the expression ever changed. She probably scowled when she went home. At the very least her smiling muscles would be sore. “She’s teaching her class right now but—,” she looked at the computer monitor on her desk, “—another thirty minutes and she’ll be available. Would you like to wait?”

Paige nodded.

“You can take a seat over there, and I will let her know.”

Paige and I walked to a bank of about ten chairs. “She didn’t even blink when you showed her your creds.”

“Weird wasn’t it? I’m used to some sort of reaction.”

“I think the lady just smiles to get through her day. Can you imagine manning that front desk?”

We both looked back at Maureen, who sat there watching us. She smiled and gave us a little wave.

“I’d shoot myself.”