Work stations were set up throughout the sprawling conference room. I counted twenty-two people present, either tapping at computers, making phone calls, conferring in small groups, or poring over crime scene photos that’d been spread across the tables. I recognized some of the officers and agents; most of them I did not.
Lien-hua and Margaret were standing beside a few hastily arranged rows of folding chairs facing a large screen with a 2-D map of the city projected onto it, the locations of the crimes pinpointed with glowing red dots. A nearby eight-foot table strewn with papers, half-empty coffee cups, and two laptop computers lay just to Margaret’s left.
My eyes met Lien-hua’s, and neither of us were in a hurry to look away.
For a moment I thought of Cheyenne’s comment last evening that she would be in class all day, then call me tonight, and a curl of confusion wandered through me again.
Lien-hua.
Cheyenne.
Pat, don’t do this to yourself! Last night you Margaret dialed her gaze in my direction. “There you are.” Her words were full of her characteristic charm, but I sensed more antagonism than usual. “There’s a lot to cover.” She gestured toward the chairs. “Let’s get started.”
Often, agents in charge of task forces such as this will hold command level meetings and then have the lieutenants, detectives, and so on brief everyone else. However, it wasn’t unheard of to bring everyone together, and I knew that Margaret liked saving time and making sure her people were on the same page, so I wasn’t surprised when she paced toward the center of the room and called for everyone to gather for the briefing.
As the task force members left their work stations and began assembling in the chairs, Lien-hua gave me a furtive glance. “Good morning, Agent Bowers.”
“Good morning, Agent Jiang.”
“How’s the arm?”
“It hurts. But it’ll be okay.”
“I’m sorry for the first part, thankful for the second,” she said, then, “I enjoyed our briefing last night.”
I blinked. “Our briefing?”
“Yes. On the deck.”
“Oh. Yes. Our briefing. Perhaps tonight we can go a little more in-depth. About the subject matter.”
“Hm… I’ll be sure to prepare my notes.”
Oh, man.
Easy, Pat.
Lien-hua took a seat, and I pulled up a chair beside her.
Margaret waited until everyone was seated, then said, “All right, let’s begin.”
The door to the hallway wisped open, and Lieutenant Doehring and Agent Cassidy snuck in and grabbed chairs near Tielman. When I glanced at Doehring, he shook his head, answering my unspoken question about the crowd outside.
No one who resembled the suspects, Basque, Adkins, or Lebreau.
“Now,” Margaret announced, “in addition to the luggage claim tag, Mollie’s laptop was recovered inside the vehicle out front, and our cybercrime team is currently analyzing it. Already, they’ve found a two-minute-fifty-one-second video of Rusty Mahan’s death, recorded sometime after midnight on Wednesday morning. I’ve seen the footage.” She paused, then added somberly, “He did not die well.”
The room fell silent.
Though it was not something I wanted to see, I knew I needed to watch that footage as soon as this briefing was over. For now, I opened my laptop so I could look up Chelsea Traye’s and Nick Trichek’s home addresses.
Margaret went on, “So far we have a suspect list of 758 names. However, none of the DNA or prints found at the scenes match any of them.”
I found the addresses-Chelsea lived near Reagan National Airport, Nick near the zoo-neither address was in the hot zone. As I thought of Nick, I remembered him finger-typing on his phone with his left hand. The killer had used his left hand to open the door, press the elevator buttons.
He tried using his phone in the hotel’s control center.
Was he taking video?
Once again I caught myself assuming way too much and tried to slide the thoughts aside.
Margaret took some time to summarize various forensic aspects of the case, most of which I was already familiar with, and at last she nodded toward Lien-hua. “Agent Jiang has been working on the psychological profile of the killers.” She gestured toward the front. “Please.”
Margaret took a seat, Lien-hua rose. “Thank you.”
Carrying a remote control, she went to the front and addressed the group. “We have two unknown suspects. One male, one female. Both Caucasian, age uncertain, but based on an analysis of their posture, stride length, and the partial facials in the video footage we have, they’re most likely late-twenties to mid-thirties. Because of the level of complexity and sophistication of these crimes, I would lean toward the higher number.”
She tapped the remote to change the image on the screen to a bullet-point summary of her profile of the killers. “The killers’ actions and crime scene behavior show that they are experienced perpetrators, but the flagrant nature of their acts might indicate that they do not have any recent criminal convictions in their records.”
“That they do not?” someone asked.
“As a general rule, serving time makes you careful,” she explained. “Getting away with crimes makes you careless.”
True.
“The killers are intimately familiar with the DC Metro area, including traffic camera locations, and they’re forensically aware and adaptive to our investigative approach. The staged crime scenes and strategic misdirection techniques indicate possible law enforcement, forensic, or military training.”
That was a troubling thought. I clicked to the suspect list and noted the current or former law enforcement and military personnel whose names appeared on it.
Six out of the 758. Two ex-cops, four ex-military.
No one I knew.
Lien-hua went on. “Considering the deliberate shock factor of the crimes-the chimpanzee attack, filming Rusty Mahan’s death and then leaving the video for us to find, dismembering Mollie Fischer-all of these actions point to a motive beyond that of hatred, anger, greed, or malice.”
“It’s a game,” Anderson said, cutting in almost before she could finish her sentence. “They’re doing it for fun. Mocking us.”
Despite my best efforts to remain objective, I had a feeling he was right.
“Taunting the authorities,” she said. “Yes, I agree. So far we find no apparent sexual sadism directed toward the victims, nevertheless there are clearly sadistic tendencies in both perpetrators. They will closely monitor news coverage of the crimes, possibly try to insert themselves into the investigation, perhaps as hotline volunteers, vigil organizers, or community watch coordinators. One will be more dominant-almost certainly the male, but both are narcissistic and have pathologically high self-esteem.”
“Wait a minute,” an officer in the second row said. “Did you just say high self-esteem? Don’t you mean low self-esteem?”
“Esteem incorporates love and respect,” she replied, “but the only people whom these killers esteem, value, or love is themselves. They seek only their own pleasure, care only about their own future. Contrary to popular belief, it’s almost unheard of for a person to commit a criminal act because he has low self-esteem or ‘doesn’t feel good enough about himself.’ People who kill, steal, rape… or even break the speed limit… do so because they place their own desires and needs above those of other people.”
Hmm. Good point.
“Low other-esteem,” the officer said poignantly.
Lien-hua nodded, and as she went on, the email from Bryan Tait, WXTN’s president, arrived in the online drop box. The work hours for Nick and Chelsea coincided with the crimes-they’d arrived at the primate center on Tuesday at 7:29 to film their remote and at 3:44 on Wednesday afternoon at the Lincoln Towers.
Of course they did, Pat. It’s their job. To report on-site.
During an investigation you should never do what I caught myself doing now: associating a name with a crime before it’s solved. Once you start down that road, you’ll begin to conveniently find all sorts of evidence to prove yourself right. It’s just human nature.
Still-Lien-hua finished, and Margaret turned to me. She had a slight gleam in her eye, and that’s never a good sign.
“Agent Bowers.” She was well aware of how much I hate giving briefings, and even before she went on, I had a feeling what she was going to say. “Anything to add? I’d love to get your perspective on this case.”
Great.
“Great,” I said flatly.
As Lien-hua sat down, I took the floor, set my cell phone on the table beside me, and turned on the 3-D hologram projector.