Ralph worked at briefing Margaret while I slipped off by myself to get some work done on the revised geo profile. We had twice as much work to do now. The case had split in half: we had the Jonestown angle and the yellow ribbon guy. It’s supposed to get easier the more you work on these things, not harder.
I eliminated Alexis and Bethanie from the equation and reworked the numbers. The results weren’t bipolar this time. New hot spots appeared, much more focused. New names floated to the top of the tip list.
And Grolin’s was one of them. He moved up from 113 to 8.
I tried to remind myself that my role in this case was to help focus the investigation, not nab one specific suspect, but it didn’t really help. I wanted to get this guy. When he brought my daughter into it, he made it personal. Her life might be in danger. I hated to think what he might do to Tessa if he ever got his hands on her.
Also I wasn’t too happy that he tried to blow me up.
In addition, we still had no leads on where the rest of Jolene’s body might be. I was almost afraid to find out. I decided to follow up on the possibility that someone on the team was the copycat killer. I brought up the names of everyone who had access to the case files and medical examiner reports and found sixty-two names. Wonderful.
Ralph stalked over to my desk.
“How’s Margaret doing?” I asked.
“Shell-shocked, but I didn’t say so,” said Ralph.
“Gotcha.”
He shook his head. “She told me she’s going to take care of investigating this cult.”
“What?” I said. I noticed Lien-hua coming over to join us.
“Yeah, it was kind of strange. When I told her about the tape and the connection to Bethanie and the governor, she said we would need someone running point on that part of the investigation and she wanted to do it. Told me she wants us to focus on bringing Grolin in.”
“Doesn’t that seem a little odd to you?” asked Lien-hua.
He shrugged. “I dunno. Pat?”
“Hard to say. She might want some distance from the guy who put the body in her trunk. Maybe this will help her deal with it. Maybe it just seems like the right political move. Who knows.”
“In any case,” Ralph continued, “she mentioned that earlier this afternoon Brent interviewed Grolin’s girlfriend, a nurse named”-he consulted his notepad-“Vanessa Mueller. Brent said she was acting suspicious, really jumpy. Vanessa said she has no idea where Grolin is, but Brent’s been following her all afternoon just in case.”
“So that’s where he’s been all day,” I said.
“Yeah. So here’s what I’m thinking. Tomorrow we can work with Margaret and see where this whole Jonestown angle takes us, but if there’s any chance we can bring Grolin in now, I think that’s where we should focus our efforts.”
“Agreed,” I said. “He’s the immediate threat, especially if he’s going to go after the woman with the red hair.”
“That reminds me,” said Lien-hua, “I talked to Brent earlier. They’re still working on those prints. We should have them in sometime tomorrow.”
“That might not be soon enough,” said Ralph. “Since we don’t know who the next victim is yet, I think we should stake out the girlfriend’s place tonight. See if Grolin shows up.”
“Good call,” I said.
Ralph scratched at the late-day stubble on his chin. “Only problem is, Wallace’s men are stretched thin-there’s a music festival just outside of town tonight, and the Network of Concerned Evangelicals doesn’t like the bands. They’ve announced they’re going to protest and-”
“I could do it,” said Agent Lien-hua.
“Huh?”
“The stakeout.”
“You’re not here to sit around on stakeouts.”
“Um, I could work the stakeout with Agent Jiang,” I said.
He looked at me quizzically. “Neither are you.”
“No, it’s all right,” I said. “It’ll give me a quiet place to think things through. Besides, I had a nap this afternoon. I’ll be fine.”
He still looked hesitant, but then he yawned. He’d been going nonstop all day. Just the mention of a stakeout seemed to make him more tired. “Well, I guess that’ll work.”
“Good,” I said.
“All right. Take nine to midnight-that way you can still get a little sleep later on. I’ll get Wallace to find someone for the late shift. After all, you are driving to Charlotte tomorrow morning.”
I nodded.
“Coordinate it all with Tucker,” he said. “You want mic patches?” Ralph was always trying out the military’s new toys. The high-tech mic patches came from some of his friends in the army. Special ops. Each patch is nearly transparent and the size of a plastic strip bandage. You wear it just beneath your ear; it works as both a transmitter and a receiver. It also emits a long-range homing beacon. Very sleek, high-end stuff. Problem is, the digital router automatically records everything you say. And I wasn’t sure I wanted that on this particular stakeout.
“Naw, twentieth-century walkie-talkies,” I said, “if that’s OK by you?”
He shrugged. “Fine with me.” Yawned again. “I need some sleep.”
“Go play some video games,” I said.
His eyes lit up. “Yeah. I could do that.” He nodded. “All right. So Tucker can run point from here, and we’ll notify the police department to have a couple cars on standby in case anything goes down.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll see you two tomorrow,” he muttered and walked off.
We had just under an hour before we needed to be at the stakeout. Lien-hua went to change and clean up. I called Tessa and left a message that I’d see her in the morning. Then I did a little more work analyzing the abduction locations, and before I knew it Lien-hua had returned and I was climbing into her car to head to Vanessa Mueller’s house.