“I already told you I don’t work for you,” Felicity spat angrily while remaining fully engaged in a “stare down” confrontation with a young, overly groomed, FBI agent.
The sun had been up for almost an hour now, and we had only just finished shooting the exterior of the motel, the parking lot, and Wentworth’s car when he had stopped us and quickly displayed his badge.
“That is not an issue,” he replied, his own gaze not wavering from the face of the petite redhead in front of him.
“It is for me.”
“Get over it.”
“All right then, who’s going to pay for the flash cards?”
“You’ll get them back when we’re finished,” he told her.
“Yeah, right,” she snipped.
Ben walked over to where we were standing, coming within earshot just in time to catch my wife’s adamant commentary. “What’s goin’ on here?” he asked. “Pay for what?”
“Flash memory cards,” I explained. “The FBI wants us to hand over the crime scene photos. We were just…”
“Bullshit!” my friend interjected without letting me finish. Even though his voice climbed a pair of notches in volume, he was still maintaining far more composure than I was used to seeing from him when dealing with most federal law enforcement. He shook his head and looked over at my wife. “Felicity, you got the film or whatever it is with ya’?”
“Aye,” she replied, not taking her heated stare off the agent.
“Givit here,” my friend said, holding out his hand and gesturing with a wag of his fingers.
She reached into her pocket and extracted the two compact flash cards then dropped them into Ben’s palm.
“That all of it?”
“Detective Storm,” the agent spoke up.
“Just a minute,” he snapped in return. “Felicity?”
“Yes, that’s all of it,” she replied. “Rowan, give him the log.”
I handed over the small notebook but kept my mouth shut.
Ben stepped back and scanned the activity on the parking lot then yelled, “Yo! Harrison. Over here.”
Across the way, a tousle of blonde hair poked up from beneath a trunk lid. The young woman was turned away from us and was wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words “CRIME SCENE UNIT” across the back. She turned around, and with a confused expression creasing her face, she pointed at herself and mouthed the word “me.”
“Yeah, you,” Ben yelled. “C’mere.”
“Detective Storm,” the FBI agent started in again. “You need to consider…”
“Fuck that,” he spat. “What I need ta’ consider is that I called ya’ in as a courtesy since the stiff is a federal judge. Other than that, it’s still a homicide that falls under local jurisdiction, and right now Major Case is gonna handle it. You wanna help, great. You wanna take over, fuck off.”
“Yes, sir?” the young woman spoke up at Ben’s side, interrupting before the agent could respond.
He turned to her immediately. “Yeah, look, Harrison…”
“Detective Storm!” the agent demanded.
Ben glared back and held up a finger as he declared, “I’m talkin’ ta’ Harrison right now.”
“Huddleston, sir,” the woman offered.
My friend looked back to the woman, creased his brow, shook his head, and then said, “What?”
“My name is Huddleston, sir. Not Harrison.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever,” he replied with a dismissive wave. “I need ya’ ta’ take these to Murv. Tell ‘im to bag ‘em and process ‘em.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied as he handed the cards and log to her.
“…And stop callin’ me sir. You’re makin’ me feel old.”
As she hurried off we heard her reply, “Yes, sir.”
“Now,” Ben continued, turning back to the FBI agent. “You were sayin’?”
“Detective Storm, we assumed that since you called us, we could count on your cooperation.”
My friend planted his hands on his hips and gave a quick nod. “Cooperation, yeah. Rollin’ over and playin’ dead, fuck no. Once we get the pictures processed out, you want copies, no problem.
“Now if you wanna go in there right now and make your own scrapbook, have at it, but ya’ better get a move on before the coroner pulls the body.”
“Detective,” the agent attempted to reason with him, “As you said, you are dealing with a federal judge here. Hammond Wentworth is a very influential individual, and there are circumstances here that should remain confidential.”
“Listen, Agent…?”
“Drew.”
“Agent Drew, what ya’ got here ain’t circumstances, it’s a DEAD federal judge. He’s not gonna influence anybody anymore.”
“There is still the matter of how and where he was found,” Drew objected.
Ben was starting to get angry now. “This ain’t like sweepin’ another vice bust under the rug. This is a homicide.”
“I’m aware of that, but I’ve been in there. I know what the situation is. Those photographs could be very embarrassing…”
“Is that all you’re worried about?” Ben snapped.
“No, not entirely, but they are definitely an issue.”
“Well, don’t get all worked up about it,” my friend replied, sarcasm dripping from his words. “I’ll make sure we wait a few days before we put ‘em out on the fuckin’ internet, now why don’tcha go chase a terrorist or somethin’.”
“Thanks for not handin’ over the pictures to the Feebs,” Ben said to Felicity.
“Aye, no problem,” she replied. “I wasn’t about to.”
“Where’s Constance anyway?” I asked. “She wouldn’t have dreamed of getting pushy like that.”
I was referring to Constance Mandalay, an FBI special agent we had worked with several times in the past. Upon our first encounter, she had been much like Agent Drew. In fact, she was even worse. Within the course of that first investigation, however, she had done a complete about-face. She went from being a hard-nosed femme fatale out to prove herself to being a good and trusted friend. And in Ben’s case, ever since his divorce, she had become something even more.
“Talked to her last night. She’s still in D.C. Will be till the end of the week prob’ly.” He let out a harrumph before saying, “Yeah, I’d sure as hell rather be workin’ with her on this. But even if she was here right now, they’d most likely assign someone else.”
“So that means you two are still seeing each other then?” Felicity asked.
“Off and on, yeah,” he shrugged. “Right now. Kinda on. She’s been in D.C. for damn near a month though, so it makes it kinda hard.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged again. “Nothin’ ta’ be sorry ‘bout.”
We were standing next to my friend’s Chevrolet van, keeping out of the way while waiting for the medical examiner to clear the scene. The vehicle was in far better shape than it looked from the outside, and he went to great pains to keep it that way. The side door was presently locked in the open position, and Felicity was perched just inside on the floorboard, putting away her camera equipment.
After a brief quiet I switched the subject. “So, you were right, Ben. Something’s definitely off kilter in there.”
“You go Twilight Zone?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, but that didn’t keep me from feeling some things. Felicity too.”
“Yeah, I keep forgettin’ that you get all freakazoid on me now, too,” he said, looking over at my wife.
“Once, Ben. Just one time,” she stressed without looking away from the task at hand.
“That’s enough for me,” he replied. “So whatcha get?”
“There was definitely sex involved,” I offered.
“Well yeah,” he grunted. “That was kinda obvious. Wentworth, or somebody, shot his wad all over the floor looked like.”
“There’s more than that,” Felicity interjected, looking up. “It’s something palpable… Still.”
I knew what she was implying with that last word, even if Ben didn’t.
“I hate to tell you two this, but if ya’ walk in any one of these rooms, it just plain smells like sex. That’s nothin’ new. They don’t rent rooms by the hour here for corporate conferences if ya’ know what I mean.”
“Aye, but this is different,” my wife added.
“Different how?” he asked.
“Intensity. Urgency.” Felicity shook her head.
He shrugged. “Okay. But like I said, that’s all kinda obvious just from lookin’ at the scene. Got anything else?”
“Fear,” I offered. “Or lack thereof, I should say.”
“Come again?”
“From the looks of things, he was executed, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s how it looks.”
“Well, if someone had me bound, blindfolded, and a gun in my mouth, I’d be terrified,” I offered.
“Join the club,” he said.
“That’s just it, Ben,” Felicity told him. “There was no fear in that room. Only arousal.”
“How do ya’…” He shook his head as he caught himself and allowed the rest of the sentence to fade away. “Forget it. So there was no fear, eh?”
“None,” I confirmed.
“And that tells us what?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I answered with a shrug.
“Yeah, well no offense, but I think ya’ know what I’m gonna say ta’ that.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. It doesn’t help.”
“Ding-ding,” he returned. “Give the man a cigar.”
“Well, there did seem to be something physical that was a bit odd,” I offered.
“What’s that?”
“Some kind of lacerations on his torso.”
“Whaddaya mean ‘some kind of lacerations’?”
“Felicity had a better look than I did,” I replied.
He looked over at her and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Whatcha got?”
“I can’t be sure,” she replied with a shake of her head. “There’s quite a bit of blood obscuring it, but there definitely seemed to be a pattern to the lacerations.”
“What kinda pattern?”
“Sectional. Almost like a checkerboard from what I could see. I took a couple of shots, but I don’t think they’ll show much. Once he’s cleaned up, I suspect it will be a bit more pronounced.”
“Okay. I’ll give the coroner a heads up. So what do YOU two think it means?”
“Maybe that he was tortured?” she said with a shrug. “Although, honestly, they really looked superficial. But like I said. There was a lot of blood obscuring them.”
“Same here,” I offered. “Just not sure. But it did seem a bit strange to me, so take that for what it’s worth.”
“With you?” he harrumphed. “If YOU think somethin’s strange, it’s usually not good.”
“Sorry.”
My friend reached up and smoothed back his hair then stood there massaging his neck in silence. Finally he said, “The number seven mean anything to you two?”
“Most consider seven to be a lucky number,” Felicity offered.
“Reward, money, payoff,” I ticked off some of the possibilities then added, “There are seven days in a week.”
“There are seven continents,” my wife continued. “Seven seas, the dance of the seven veils, seven deadly sins… Some prophecies speak of seven archangels.”
I nodded and continued her thread. “They also mention the seven plagues, the seven seals, and…”
“Okay, okay,” he interrupted, holding up a hand and waving me off. “It’s probably just the luck thing. That’s what I kinda figured anyway.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Desk clerk said Wentworth specifically requested room seven,” he replied.
“Was it him or his companion making the request?”
“Dunno at this point.” He shook his head. “The clerk said he’s the only one that came in, but we’re thinkin’ it coulda been whoever he was with.”
“Sounds like a setup to me,” I offered. “That sort of thing would fit with a contract killing. Right?”
“Yeah, way ahead of ya’ on that one, Row,” he replied. “Problem is the clerk didn’t see anyone in or outta the place.”
“So she didn’t see whoever he was with leaving either?”
“Nope. Matter of fact, she says she can’t remember seein’ anybody else in the car at all when he checked in, and he pulled up right out front. Big help, huh?”
“Well, he had to have been here with someone.”
“No shit,” my friend huffed, an overtone of halfway jovial sarcasm in his voice. “I think we kinda established that already.”
“Just thinking out loud, Ben.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Guess we all are. Anyway, we’re gonna shake down some of the local hoo… uh, working girls, and see what we can find out.”
“Let me ask you something,” Felicity interjected.
He glanced over at my wife. “What? ‘Working girls’ is out too?”
She ignored the sardonic query and launched into a question of her own. “I’ve been wondering this ever since you called, and what you just said reminded me of it. How did the body get found at such an odd hour? I mean there wouldn’t be any maid service this time of night, and if he hadn’t checked out…”
“Clerk heard the shot and called nine-one-one.”
“So the killer didn’t have very long to get away,” she mused.
“Somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes, best guess,” he explained. “She hesitated to make the call for something like five to ten minutes, she’s not for sure. Then response for a unit was right at six minutes.”
“Not much time,” I mused.
My friend grunted then reached up to massage his neck as he said, “Yeah, well, apparently it was enough.”