Unsolved, Page 4

  Traffic is light this time of night. Alexandria is dark and sleepy and the highway’s nearly empty, so the entire trip takes less than twenty minutes. Books pulls his car up to the curb and kills the engine. When he does, four men emerge from the car in front of him, getting out almost in sync.

  The guy who came from the back seat on the driver’s side is the leader, Special Agent Lee Homer from the FBI’s tactical operations unit at Quantico.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Homer says.

  Books hadn’t been sure either until he drove here. He is filled with dread; his stomach has been in knots all day, and he’s had a throbbing pain in his shoulders since he woke up this morning. When he was an agent, he’d had to make some tough decisions, do some things that felt wrong, but he’d always told himself he was doing it for the greater good. What he’s about to do now—he’s not so sure there’s a greater good behind it.

  This may be the worst thing he’s ever done. And it may change his life forever.

  Special Agent Homer hands Books a Kevlar vest. Books doesn’t bother to protest.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Books says.

  11

  A QUIET residential street in Lincolnia, Virginia, at midnight. The brick three-story condo building fits right in. The perfunctory waist-high metal gate, unlocked, is more for delineating boundaries than for security. The front door of the building, however, is a security door that you can access only if you’re buzzed in or have a key.

  Books has a key. His stomach churning, he slips the key into the lock. I can’t believe I’m doing this, he thinks as he pushes the door open.

  Agents of the FBI’s tactical operations unit file in, one after the other, and take the stairs to the second floor, Books following.

  Faintly, from above, there is music, probably on the third floor. Someone is still awake at this hour. Not terribly surprising.

  The team members step noiselessly down the hallway. They appear to be walking casually, as if there is nothing unusual about their presence here, but Books knows they are moving on the balls of their feet, minimizing the sound of their footfalls. Anyone who is sleeping will not be awakened. Anyone who sneaks a glance through a peephole—well, that person might have some questions.

  It was a risk they had to take. There had been debate about when to do the op. Daytime made some sense, but two of the people living in this building work from home, so the decision was made to try to sneak in during the wee hours.

  These tac-ops guys are pros. He saw them break the window of a corrupt governor’s campaign office in the middle of the night, move in, hide electronic surveillance devices, clean up the mess, replace the window, and go without leaving a trace of the operation. He watched them open a supposedly impenetrable safe-deposit box without a key in the span of sixty seconds. The greatest safecrackers and cat burglars in the world work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He’s always known this, but it’s somewhat unsettling now that he thinks about it as a civilian.

  But those skills aren’t needed to access the condo on the second floor any more than they were needed for the front door because Books has a key for the condo too. He opens the door while one of the tac agents holds the trigger of a repressor to freeze the alarm system.

  And then they are inside, all of them. The security alarm remains quiet.

  The door closes. The condo is completely dark; the windows are covered by drapes that block any outside light.

  They will move to an interior room, away from the front door, before turning on an overhead light. They don’t want the glow from the light bleeding into the hallway.

  Flashlights go on. The beams illuminate a small kitchen, a living room. He follows the agents into one of the two bedrooms. There, one of the agents flips on a light.

  Books squints for a moment. Then his eyes open fully.

  There’s a part of him, if he’s honest with himself, that is not surprised at what he sees.

  “Oh no,” he whispers. “Oh no, Emmy.”

  12

  INSIDE THE bedroom that Emmy uses as an office, the tac officers are all business. One agent photographs every single document in the room, wherever it is—on the desk, on the walls, in the file cabinets, on the floor—taking care to leave them just as they were found. Another uses a portable hard drive to download the contents of Emmy’s computers. A third installs the first of several eavesdropping devices, this one inside a carbon monoxide detector.

  Books can’t take his eyes off the walls; a cold shiver runs through him.

  One wall is lined with copies of dozens of letters addressed to Emmy, some handwritten, some typed:

  Catch me if you can, Emmy. If you do, I’ll show you what I do with their internal organs.

  I wish the rest of the cops were as smart as you and could STOP ME

  IM BETTER THAN GRAM IN EVERY WAY IM SMARTER AND STRONGER AND YOULL NEVER CATCH ME AND ONE DAY I WILL COME FOR YOU AND I WONT KILL YOU UNTIL YOU BEG ME TO

  On another wall, there are poster boards filled with notes in Emmy’s handwriting. One of them, titled “How to Make It Look Accidental,” has bullet points noting ways to subdue victims and stage evidence and plan escape routes. Another one lists victims’ characteristics, not just race and gender and age but also sexual preference, marital status, education, political ideology, group affiliations, criminal history, social media posts, voter registration records, driving records, military service, professional background, credit ratings, pets, allergies, hair color, weight, height—

  Yet another wall is filled with newspaper articles: Suicides and drownings. Overdoses and electrocutions. Deaths determined to be due to accidental causes. The cases come from around the country, from Atlanta, Charleston, Dallas, New Orleans.

  He stops on that last one. New Orleans. Someone named Nora Connolley, who apparently died recently after a fall in the shower.

  New Orleans, where Emmy is right now. She told Books she was going to visit some college friends.

  Books brings a hand to his face. Emmy has gone rogue again.

  Another chase through thousands of cases across the nation. Another exhaustive, and exhausting, daily probe of incidents around the country—the overwhelming majority of which are noncriminal, accidental, just plain old bad luck—in search of that tiny hint that will reveal a pattern of brilliant, diabolical criminality.

  He thought she was done with this. That the days of obsessively scouring the web and police databases and breaking-news e-mail blasts were behind her, that she had finally come to understand that she was not the country’s supercop, that she didn’t have to solve every problem in every jurisdiction in every state in the union. That for once, she was going to think about herself, about getting better, about moving on.

  And to think about them, Emmy and Books, a couple with a future together.

  Books blinks out of his trance and looks around at the agents. They continue their work, rifling through more drawers and taking more photos and planting more eavesdropping devices. They are here to find out if Emmy has been leaking confidential information on a high-profile case. They are trying to determine if she has betrayed the FBI.

  Books doesn’t believe she has. Never did. The only reason he agreed to work this investigation into Emmy—the only reason—was he was sure that she’d be cleared of any wrongdoing, that the Bureau was wrong. Emmy would never betray the job, the work to which she is so devoted.

  But apparently, she’s willing to betray everything and everybody to accomplish that work.

  His phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out and sees who’s calling. Speak of the devil.

  “This is Emmy calling me,” he says to Agent Homer.

  The agent looks up at him with a question on his face. Books nods. Everyone stops moving.

  His chest burning, he answers the call with “Hey there.”

  “Hey, hope I didn’t wake you. Whatcha up to?” The connection’s not good; Emmy sounds distant.

  What am I
up to? he thinks. I’m searching through your apartment, finding out that you’ve been lying to me.

  “Getting ready for bed,” he says. So now he is lying too. “How’s N’awlins?” he asks.

  “Fun. We’re having a good time. Just wanted to say good night and love you.”

  He could press Emmy for more information. The names of the friends she claims to be visiting. The restaurant or bar or hotel she’s calling from. The places they’ve gone. But he can’t bring himself to do it. He can’t bear to hear even one more lie from his fiancée.

  Instead, with four federal agents watching, feeling as if his insides are being ripped out, he says to the only woman he has ever loved, to the fiancée that he thought he understood so well: “Love you too.”

  He means those words. He’s never meant them more. But saying them under these circumstances…he feels like he is lying again.

  “Are we still good for tomorrow?” she asks.

  That word again, good. For his homeless friend Petty, good meant a warm, safe place to sleep. What does good mean for Books? A woman he dearly loves but who cannot love him back?

  “Yeah, sure, of course,” he hears himself say. “We’re always good.”

  13

  I SWAT at my smartphone on the nightstand of my hotel room, but the sound of harp strings won’t stop. My head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds as I lift it off the pillow and try to bring the clock into focus; strips of sunlight glare at me through the blinds.

  I hit Accept. Words come through the receiver. “Hello? Emmy Dockery? Hello?”

  I try to speak into the phone, but all that comes out is a gravelly growl. I clear my throat and try again.

  “My name is Nadia Jacobius,” she says. “I’m a reporter with the Times-Picayune.”

  But…who knows I’m here? I haven’t exactly advertised my visit. I don’t advertise anything about my whereabouts these days.

  I blink, give myself a moment to wake up.

  “Would you care to comment on your investigation into Nora Connolley’s death? Is this another serial killer you’re chasing?”

  “I…don’t talk to reporters,” I manage.

  “Don’t hang up. I know you don’t talk to reporters. I get that. But just listen, okay? No harm in listening, is there?”

  I can’t fault the logic in that.

  “I know you’re here to investigate her death. I know you think this is the work of a serial killer. Let me help you get it out to the world. Shouldn’t the public know that another Graham is on the loose?”

  I sit up in bed. Yes, of course, when the time is right, everybody should know about him. When the time is right, I will shout it from the mountaintops. But the time isn’t right. I have no profile of this guy. What can I tell people right now? If you live in a single-story house with easy access from a garage that’s close to public transportation, watch out? It’s too vague, too early. All that will do is tip him off that I’m investigating him. All that will do is risk the lives of other cops. I convinced Joe Halsted to open an investigation into Laura Berg’s death and suddenly he had a heart attack. I can’t let the same thing happen to Robert Crescenzo down here in New Orleans.

  “Background only,” I say.

  “Okay, background.”

  “Hold your story,” I say. “Because there’s nothing to report right now.”

  “I have twenty paragraphs already.”

  “But no details, I’ll bet. You couldn’t. Because I don’t have any details. You’ll endanger lives.”

  “How’s that? How could I possibly be endangering people by telling them there’s a serial killer on the loose?”

  I can’t give her more. Not even on background.

  “I’m running the story with or without you,” she says. “I’m giving you the chance to control it. Wouldn’t it be—”

  “Hold it,” I say, “and I’ll give you an exclusive when there are details to report. When the moment comes, I’ll go to you and you only.”

  A pause. She’s considering the hook I’ve thrown her.

  “How long are we talking? Weeks? Months?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Another pause.

  “No chance you’ll tell me anything on the record right now?”

  “No chance,” I say. “So do we have a deal?”

  A loud exhale through the phone. “No promises,” she says.

  14

  THE FLIGHT back from New Orleans is nice, if nice includes being in the middle seat in the back row of a packed plane between an overweight lawyer who eats spicy peanuts and spreads colorful legal briefs across his tray and onto mine on one side and an elderly woman who is pleasant enough but begins snoring the moment the airplane takes off and who apparently ate a lot of garlic recently on the other.

  I have notes and research in my lap, but my eyes glaze over and I think of Books, our short phone call last night. I lied about my reason for going to New Orleans, and then I lied again last night about the fun I was having with my unnamed college friends.

  The guilt, I can handle. I can tell myself that I’m protecting Books by keeping him from worrying about me, that once I have enough to get the Bureau to officially investigate, I’ll explain what I did and why I chose not to tell him.

  But it’s not the guilt that swims through my stomach. It’s the feeling that I’m screwing things up with Books, that by withholding anything from him for whatever reason, I’m laying the first bricks in a wall between us. I can justify my actions all I want, but the truth is I am keeping a secret from Books, and it doesn’t matter why.

  Lord knows, he deserves better than this, better than me.

  A memory: Walking along F Street after work, the air warm and breezy, the two of us side by side, our arms grazing, our conversation pleasant but stilted (Books is not exactly a smooth talker), and I’m wondering if this makes sense for me, if this by-the-book, no-frills agent is my type of guy. The broad shoulders, the kind eyes; yes, that definitely works, but the whole just-the-facts-ma’am routine, which for him is not a routine, doesn’t feel like my speed.

  And he’s being polite, keeping the conversation on me, asking me about my family, about my twin sister, Marta, when we see it unfold right before our eyes: a young kid comes seemingly out of nowhere, swipes the handbag from an older woman walking toward us, and then starts to rocket off, angling between pedestrians, his snatch-and-grab complete.

  Books turns as if to shield me, and I’m still in shock, watching this happen, the whole thing spanning two or three seconds, the woman so stunned and scared that she hasn’t made a sound, and then Books tackles the young thief, using some kind of takedown he probably learned at Quantico, his movements so quick and decisive and his voice so commanding that the kid doesn’t make a move after Books subdues him. He puts his hand lightly on the kid’s chest as he lies flat on the sidewalk, looks him square in the eye, and starts talking to him. What’s your name? Why did you do this? Don’t you know you could have hurt somebody?

  They stay like that for a good ten minutes, Books and the boy. The woman recovers her purse, and the other pedestrians give them a wide berth. A street cop finally shows up, but by the time he gets there, the boy is on his feet, still engaged in conversation with Books. It turns out he has a story that isn’t all that surprising under the circumstances—no father, a mother in rehab, two younger siblings.

  The cop goes without making an arrest. The boy shakes the woman’s hand and apologizes. Then he surprises Books with a hug before walking away.

  Books turns to me. Rough start to our first date, he says.

  But all I can think is I could love this man…

  On the plane, I feel my head loll forward, and I jerk awake. This is when I’m sleepiest, when I can’t work, when I don’t have access to my research, which is why I have insomnia at home. It’s hard to sleep when you know somebody’s out there planning his next murder, and your laptop is right next to you, waiting for you to find that tiny morsel, that one de
tail that will break it all open. But the moment my research is unavailable, the overwhelming sleep deprivation takes hold. I go to a movie for relaxation and I’m asleep in five minutes. I wait in a doctor’s office and find myself quickly floating away.

  So I don’t fight it. I close my eyes and lean back against the headrest, my arms tight to my sides on this small seat with the lawyer’s papers spilling around me. I let sleep take me and tell myself that Books will understand when I explain what I’ve been doing.

  15

  “SO SHE’S off on another one of her investigations.” FBI director William Moriarty plays with his gold-framed reading glasses as he sits at the head of the walnut table. He utters the last word like it’s dirty.

  Books, sitting to Moriarty’s left, feels the need to come to Emmy’s defense. He isn’t happy about what she’s doing either, but for a different reason—because these investigations are slowly driving Emmy mad. Moriarty’s making it sound like Emmy’s doing something innocuous but silly or perhaps harmful. He must have forgotten that Emmy more or less single-handedly stopped a serial killer who would probably still be committing his atrocious acts if Emmy hadn’t discovered his crimes and then found him.

  But this is not the time to pick a fight.

  “So what in sweet Christ are we supposed to do about that?” Moriarty asks.

  “We don’t do anything,” Books says. “Is she violating protocol? We told her—the, uh, Bureau told her that she couldn’t do her own investigations in the name of the FBI. She can’t claim to be speaking on behalf of the Bureau. But as long as she isn’t doing that, she’s just doing personal stuff on her own time. Some people do yoga. Some climb mountains. Emmy hunts for serial killers.”

  “I have to disagree with you, Books.” This from Assistant Director Dwight Ross, the agent running the operation that includes Emmy, the operation on which Emmy is suspected of leaking secrets. Books has been through doors with Ross, has seen him up close and in action, and his view of Ross is the same as his view of many people he encountered at the Bureau—he overvalues his own importance and takes himself too seriously, but at the end of the day, he is doing the job for the right reasons.