Dead Wrong (17 page)

Spring brought the migrating birds through the Delmarva coast, and this morning he’d seen from the deck off his apartment a flock of shorebirds. He knew that in another month or so, the shoreline all along the bay would be dense with birds stopping to refuel on their way from South America to the Arctic. He’d heard about the staggering number of birds that would pass through the area, but in all the years he’d lived there, he’d never been around to witness the phenomenon himself.
Maybe this year,
he thought idly. God knows he had nothing else planned for the next few months.

His cell phone began to ring just as he was about to leave the beach.

“How’s it going?” Miranda Cahill asked cheerfully.

“It’s going,” he responded. “What’s up?”

“Remember we talked about the Jenny Green killing? I said I’d follow up?”

“You find anything?”

“Well, I’d asked to have some reports sent to me, and I just finished reviewing them. The case is still open, by the way, and the suspect I’d interviewed who’d given me the weird vibes was a guy by the name of Curt Gibbons.”

“Anything on him in the computer?”

“No, nothing. I put his name through every data bank I could find, but there were no hits. I tried tracking him through the social security number he gave us—nothing. The address he gave us? He’s long gone. The only thing I could find was a mention that he’d made of the school he’d graduated from. Lake Grove High in Lake Grove, Ohio. But there’s no current record of him anywhere. Strange, huh?”

“Well, you know, people disappear for different reasons.” He thought of Mara’s husband. “I think we both know that a person who doesn’t want to be found can devise any number of ways to cover his tracks.”

“Most people don’t just evaporate unless they are running from something, though.” Miranda paused, then added, “Makes you wonder what this guy left behind, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe he’s dead.”

“Maybe. Maybe I read way too much into him. Maybe he’s off the radar because he’s living a clean and quiet life someplace with a wife and a houseful of kids.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“I guess. Well, I just wanted to pass that along to you. I wanted you to know that I did follow up,” she told him. “Just in case you were wondering.”

“I appreciate that. Thanks, Miranda.”

“That’s another call coming in. Gotta run. . . . Sorry I couldn’t come up with something better on this guy.” And she was gone.

Aidan slid his phone back into his pocket and continued to stare out at the ocean, his curiosity piqued.

He remembered Miranda talking about this suspect at the time she’d interviewed him. Curt Gibbons clearly had gotten under her skin. Funny that now he seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Aidan wandered back to his apartment, thinking about all the ways in which a person could disappear if he wanted to badly enough, and all the reasons one might want to do so. Most of them weren’t good.

He grabbed a cold bottle of beer from the refrigerator and went out onto his deck. From there he could see the ocean and the boats—fishing boats most likely, at this time of the year—and he tried to divert his attention to something other than Curt Gibbons. Finally, accepting that he wasn’t going to stop thinking about it until he did something about it, he went back into the apartment and dialed information.

“Operator, I’d like the number for the Lake Grove Police Department in Lake Grove, Ohio.” Aidan paced from the kitchen to the deck then back again. When the operator returned with the number, he wrote it on the back of an envelope.

“Yes, thank you,” he said. “Go ahead and connect me.”

The phone was answered on the second ring. “Lake Grove PD.”

“Good morning. This is Special Agent Aidan Shields.” Well, he was, technically, still a special agent.

“FBI?”

“Yes, sir.” Always be polite with the locals, Mancini told them. You never know who is on the other end of that phone. “Is your chief available? I’d like to speak with him.”

“No, I’m sorry, he’s out today. But Lieutenant Forbes is here. Would you like to speak with him?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

It was several long minutes until the lieutenant picked up.

“Forbes. What can I help you with?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. Shields here, FBI. We’re following up on some leads on a case, and we’re trying to locate an individual who once lived in Lake Grove. Guy named Curt Gibbons. Graduate of the local high school.”

“Name doesn’t ring a bell. How old is this Gibbons?”

“I’m not sure. Mid-thirties, maybe.”

“It would help, you know, to have a little information. . . .”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just thought maybe you’d have known him.”

“Me? No, I’m not from around here. I’m still getting to know the people who live here now.”

“Well, maybe you can look through your records and see if the name pops up.”

“Sure. I can do that.”

“Let me give you a number so that you can call me back.” Aidan recited the number of his mobile phone.

“We’ll run it through and give you a call back as soon as we have something.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. We appreciate your help.” Aidan disconnected, wondering if Lieutenant Forbes had tossed the phone message into the chief’s “While you were out” bin or into the trash can.

Twenty minutes later, he knew.

“Aidan Shields?” a familiar voice asked.

“Yes.”

“Hold for John Mancini.”

Well, at least he knew that Forbes had taken his call seriously.

“Shields,” his boss greeted him pleasantly. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, thanks. How was the honeymoon?”

“Over way too soon,” he replied. “Say, I just got back to the office and heard you’re back on the job. I hadn’t recalled that you’d reactivated.”

“Ah, well . . .”

“I just got a call from the Lake Grove, Ohio, Police Department, wanting to confirm that Special Agent Aidan Shields was in fact one of the good guys. Of course, I thought I’d give you a call myself, one, to welcome you back, and two, to find out what we had going in Lake Grove, Ohio, since I don’t seem to recall a case in that vicinity.”

So typical of Mancini to take this approach. Throw it out there and make you explain yourself. Aidan had been here before. Everyone on Mancini’s team had been there before.

Aidan explained the conversation with Miranda Cahill and his own personal curiosity about the whereabouts of Curt Gibbons.

“You think Gibbons has something to do with the case that Cahill’s on?”

“I don’t really know, but Cahill and I got to talking about how that crime scene six years ago reminded us both a little of the case she’s working. She mentioned this one suspect who had set off a little alarm somewhere, and when she went to follow up—just to see what he’s up to today—she found that he’s nowhere to be found. It just made me a little curious, that’s all.”

“So you called the local PD and identified yourself as an FBI agent to satisfy your curiosity?”

“Yes.”

“You know it’s a federal crime to pass yourself off as an FBI agent.”

“Right.” Aidan drained the bottle and stepped out onto the deck. Fog was closing in off the ocean. He watched it while he waited to see just where Mancini was going with this conversation.

“So as I see it, what we have here is an opportunity to let you make an honest man of yourself. Or we can send you to the federal penitentiary of your choice,” Mancini offered in his typical dry manner. “Go ahead, Shields. You make the call.”

“I don’t know, John.”

“What don’t you know?”

“I won’t pass the physical.”

“You mean today?”

“I mean ever.”

“Hmm. . . . Are you certain about that?”

“Maximum medical improvement will not be sufficient to pass the physical.”

“Well, then, I guess it’s jail time for you, mister.”

Aidan waited, knowing that John Mancini would never deliver a real threat in so light a manner.

“Unless, of course . . .” Mancini continued.

“Unless?”

“Unless I could persuade you to do a little background work for us on this. Nothing that would put you in the line of fire while you’re still medically unable to perform full duties, but there are ways in which you could serve the Bureau.” Mancini paused. “You interested?”

“Keep talking.”

“I’m intrigued that both you and Agent Cahill were reminded of the same crime scene. I’d like to have that followed up, but as you know, since 9/11, we’ve lost so many of our people to the antiterrorist unit that I just don’t have the manpower to track down every one of those little things that nag at the back of your mind. But, as you also know, I greatly believe in the importance of those nagging little jolts to the memory. Intuition. Or whatever you want to call it. Many a case has been solved because an agent has followed up on his or her instincts, even when, on the surface, the connection appeared very tenuous. I’ve always felt that both you and Agent Cahill have very strong instincts.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That I’d like you to continue along in this vein. See what you can find on this“—Mancini shuffled some papers—”Curt Gibbons. And anything else you can dig up that could relate to this case.”

“Okay.”

“Glad to have you back. In any capacity. We’ve missed you.” Mancini paused. “You’re a hard man to replace.”

“Thanks. Oh. And about the Lake Grove PD—”

“Yes?”

“What exactly did you tell them?”

“I told them you were our guy and the Bureau would appreciate their full cooperation,” Mancini said, then, before he hung up, added, “Keep in touch, Shields.”

“Sure thing,” Aidan said with a nod, even though he knew that the line had gone dead. “Sure thing . . .”

Sandra Styler unsnapped her black robe and hung it on a hook on the back of the door leading from her office into Courtroom B1 on the second floor of the Avon County Courthouse. She’d had a full schedule and wanted nothing more than to kick off her shoes, let down her hair, and have a drink. Or two.

It had been a really long day, and not a particularly pleasant one.

Judge Styler did not understand adults who did things that hurt children and thus had neither patience nor sympathy nor the inclination to listen to excuses. There simply was no excuse for abusing a child. Having been a victim of abuse herself—though she’d kept this fact to herself—she was particularly single-minded when cases involving child abuse came before her. She’d had two such cases that day and as a result was leaving for home with an unrelenting headache and a bad attitude.

She took the long way home, around the lake, where she pulled over for a moment to watch a heron wading in the shallows. The large bird appeared to move in slow motion as it strode purposefully, its long neck stretched out as it searched the waters for dinner. The bird was beautiful, graceful, elegant—just observing it calmed her. There had been no beauty, grace, or elegance in her day.

Driving on past the lake, she swerved to avoid hitting a biker who had seemed to have come out of the blue. She cursed softly, her momentary calm shattered, and she stepped on the gas, anxious now to get home. Home, it appeared, was the only place she’d find any real peace that day.

The Mercedes convertible—her gift to herself on her fiftieth birthday a few years back—wound its way through the quiet neighborhood of executive-style homes. The judge’s house was at the far end of the development, on the largest lot that had been available when she’d had the house built. The house was the first she’d purchased on her own, and she’d put into it everything she’d ever wanted in a home. She figured she deserved it, after her divorce from that miserable weasel she’d married less than ten years ago. The marriage hadn’t lasted long, and she’d been more than happy to wash her hands of the whole thing after she’d seen her husband, Peter, seated in a cozy little booth in a nearby restaurant with one of their neighbors from the town house complex where they lived.

Within months, she was on her own and in the market for a new place to live. This time, she decided, she would please no one except herself. And the lovely red-brick house on almost an acre of rolling countryside pleased her very much.