Friday
October 24, 2008
8 miles outside of Asheville
8:04 a.m.
Agent Jiang drove up to the hotel entrance, and I stepped out of the lobby to meet her. Ralph had told me he was going to send someone to pick me up. Great choice.
“Good morning, Dr. Bowers,” she said as I slid into the passenger seat beside her.
“Just call me Pat. I’ve never gotten used to the doctor part anyway.”
“Hmm. I would have thought you’d be proud of that.” She pulled out of the parking lot and merged into traffic. “First FBI agent in history to earn a PhD in Environmental Criminology.”
“So they say. I still prefer Pat.”
“OK, then, Pat. Sleep all right?”
“Actually, no,” I said. “Not so good.”
Why do you do that? Why can’t you just carry on a normal conversation like everyone else? Years of taking college classes at night and over the Internet while serving on the force had helped me earn a handful of degrees at a young age while simultaneously working in the field, but hadn’t helped so much with my people skills.
She glanced over at me. “You’re always honest, aren’t you Dr… . um, Pat?”
“I suppose so. At least I try to be.”
“So, let me guess,” she continued. “You’re in the business of uncovering the truth. It’s tough enough the way it is. You’d hate to make your job even harder by hiding yourself. You don’t wear masks, because you know how hard it is peeling them off other people. If you let people see you clearly, maybe they’ll take off their masks for you and make your job a little easier.”
I blinked. “Yeah. I guess so.”
She smiled.
Oh.
“So, Ralph’s new partner is a profiler,” I said. “I better watch what I say.”
She pursed her lips. “Ralph told me about your history with profilers. Don’t worry; I won’t hold it against you. I’m not petty.” She gestured to a cup of coffee in the passenger-side cup holder. “For you.”
“Thanks.” I might have meant for the coffee or for the truce, I didn’t clarify. I grabbed the cup and sniffed at the aroma drifting from the slit in the lid. Nice. Kenyan. I smelled it again. Probably from the Nyeri Highlands. I took a sip. Yes, definitely a SL28 cultivar from the volcanic slopes of the Kingongo Ridge. And somehow she’d guessed right-cream and honey, no sugar. Oh, I could get used to this.
“You chose wisely,” I said.
“Mountain Java Roasters. It’s in Asheville,” she replied. “Ralph said you’re picky about your coffee.”
“Ralph told you a lot.”
“Ralph told me enough.”
She was quiet then, and I wished I could think of something else to say to fill the space growing between us, but nothing came to mind.
We drove past a huge stone hotel nestled up against the mountains, and she said, “That’s the Stratford Hotel. Built entirely out of rocks from that mountain behind it. Six-hundred-and-fifty rooms. Four-and-a-half-foot-thick walls. Seven presidents have stayed there, lots of movie stars. Huge enclosed atrium with hanging gardens, pools, fountains. Even its own indoor whitewater river. Each of the main fireplaces can hold sixteen-foot-long logs.”
“And you know all this… how?”
“I took the trolley tour around town my second day here,” she said.
I smiled. “Gotcha.” The Stratford Hotel looked like a fortress. A world-class golf course lay at its base.
“And by the way, if I call you Pat, you need to call me Lien-hua.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Beyond that, Lien-hua didn’t push the small talk. Whether it was intuition or just politeness, I couldn’t tell. Either way I was thankful. It gave me a chance to think through my agenda for the day. I hoped to grab some files at the federal building and then spend the rest of the day visiting the sites of the crimes in this series. Over the years I’ve found that location and timing of a crime are two of the most important and overlooked aspects of an investigation. Site visits are vital to crime reconstruction.
We pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the federal building, and she turned to me. “It was Mindy,” she said evenly, still gripping the steering wheel with both hands, the muscles in her slim arms growing tight and tense. “The girl on the mountain. Mindy Travelca. We confirmed it last night. She was nineteen.”
I nodded slowly. At least now I knew what to call her. At least now she had a name.
As I followed Lien-hua into the federal building I thought of Mindy’s father being interviewed on TV, the tears wavering in his eyes. And the only thing I could think of to be thankful for was that I didn’t have to be the one to tell him the news.