The Bubble Gum Thief (16 page)

Her legs carried her along the Potomac into the District, and over the M Street Bridge into Georgetown. When she got to Mike’s house, it was cordoned off by crime-scene tape. She had been to hundreds of crime scenes. There was a key in her pocket that opened the door to this one, but she couldn’t use it.

Two agents emerged from the house and walked over to a dark-blue sedan. Carl Milton and Dave Bourner—she’d worked with them before. Carl was pushing his thick fingers through his dark-brown hair and laughing, while Dave was nodding his head and taking drags off a cigarette butt. A robin landed on the top of the sedan, and the men turned toward it. The bird toddled
around the car top in circles, like a drunken man stumbling out of a saloon. Carl stopped laughing, and Dave flicked the last bit of his cigarette to the ground and tilted his head, mesmerized by the robin. The bird danced on the roof of the sedan for three full minutes, and the agents watched in silence. Finally, the bird flew off, and Dave pulled out another cigarette.

Dagny turned and ran. She didn’t count her footsteps or blare her iPod. Instead, she let herself hear the hum of traffic, the murmur of overlapping conversation, the deafening blasts of the planes leaving Reagan National, the rattle of the Metro cars rolling above on elevated rails. Everything before had seemed jumbled, but now all was clear. The rest of her life would be for grieving. Right now, there was work to do.

March 17—Arlington, Virginia

“Media attention. A celebrity death. Political interest. Six crimes, spread across the country, it seems. I think it’s safe to say that this will be heavily manned.”

“A wise man once said that we’d be better off with just a small handful of people on cases like this.”

“You already convinced me, Dagny.” Traffic had come to an abrupt stop, and the Professor slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting the black Cadillac in front of them. He undid his seat belt, reached to the backseat for a stack of folders, and handed them to Dagny. “You might as well look at these now.”

They were her classmates’ files. “Why?”

“Because you need a partner, and I can’t run around like I used to.”

“That’s why we’ll use the webcams.”

“Not good enough. You have to partner with someone if I’m going to sell this thing.”

“We could try to sell it with just me first...”

The Professor sighed. “Dagny,
I
need you to have a partner.
I
want someone with you. It’s not negotiable.”

Dagny thumbed through the files. Brent Davis was the logical choice. He was smart and confident, polished and professional. But Dagny didn’t want an equal—she wanted a body. If the Professor insisted that she have a partner, she was determined to pick the least intrusive partner she could. And that, she determined, was Opie.

Special Agent Victor Walton Jr. was barely twenty-five years old. After three years at Deloitte & Touche, he’d signed up with the Bureau. Although he’d scored exceptionally well on each of the nine academic exams administered during the seventeen-week New Agent’s Training Unit course, he’d fared less admirably on the physical tests. He also failed to score above 40 percent on any of the three shotgun tests, even though new agents were required to exceed 80 percent on two of them. In the past, the Bureau had strictly enforced its training standards, but in recent years, it had relaxed its policies for specialized candidates. In the wake of Enron and WorldCom, the Bureau had a particular need for forensic accounting expertise, and Walton’s future assignments would likely involve calculators, not guns.

Brent Davis would have been a partner; Walton would be a potted plant. She closed the files.

“You’ve chosen?” The Professor changed lanes in front of the Holocaust Museum; the abrupt movement sent the files from Dagny’s lap to the floor.

“Yes,” she replied, gathering the loose pages and returning them to their folders.

The Professor issued a disapproving “hmmm.”

After a few more reckless maneuvers, he turned down a ramp and headed under the concrete blight known as the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The DC field office, where Dagny worked, was only blocks away, but she’d been to headquarters only a few times, and had met the director just once, as part of a group accepting his congratulations after her class completed its training.

The Professor took his reserved space underneath the building, as well as a good part of the space next to it. “Now listen to me, Dagny,” he said. “I was easy to play because I wanted to be played. The Director is not going to be easy. I’ll do the talking, but he will probably ask you questions. You have to hold it together. You can’t go in there like this.”

“What do you mean?”

He reached up to her cheek and brushed away a tear. She hadn’t realized that she was crying. “Ready?”

“Okay.”

They flashed electronic badges at the security desk, then walked down several long stretches of hallway until they came to the Director’s waiting room. A receptionist offered them a seat. Twelve chairs lined opposite walls. The only one that was occupied was taken by a lanky man in a navy suit. His long, thin face was red and peeling with sunburn, and his dusty-brown hair was peppered with grey specks, cropped trim and neat. The man rose from his chair, grabbed the Professor’s hand, and whispered in his ear loud enough for Dagny to hear, “Fuck you.” The man pulled back from the Professor and flashed a smile, while still shaking the Professor’s hand. Then he broke free from the hold and grabbed Dagny’s hand with his right hand while clasping her arm with his left. “I’m Justin Fabee, Dagny. It’s nice to meet you. I wish it had been under other circumstances. I’ve very sorry about your loss.” He spoke in a soft Texas drawl.

“Thank you.”

“You both did a nice job at the start of the case. I’d like to commend you on that.” When he wasn’t cursing in the Professor’s ear, Fabee had a real dignity and charm. No wonder he had risen so quickly.

The FBI had eighteen assistant directors. Three headed the field offices in New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. The rest headed divisions at FBI headquarters. Fabee was the head
of the Criminal Investigative Division, which was one of the better assistant director positions, since other divisions included the IT Services Division, the Laboratory Division, and the Human Resources Division. Fabee was in his early forties, young for an Assistant Director in Charge. Only the director and four executive assistant directors were higher on the Bureau’s organizational chart.

The Professor and Fabee took seats at opposite sides of the waiting room and simultaneously lowered their heads, silently rehearsing what they’d say to the Director. Dagny just tried to keep from falling apart. Clasping her hands, she stared down at the carpet, looking past its surface until it was a blur. She slowed her breathing, inhaling deeply, then exhaling slowly, and counting to four before reversing the flow. After a few minutes, she felt calm.

She held that calm when the Director came. He was a short, stocky man with wire-rimmed glasses and a growing bald spot on the top of his head. A cartoonist would have drawn his face with nothing but circles. His forehead gleamed with perspiration. Although the Director was not the prototypical Hoover man, he was regarded as uncommonly fair-minded, and only moderately prone to political capitulation. That was about the best the Bureau could do.

The Director grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose, then put the handkerchief away and extended his hand to the Professor. “Timothy, it’s good to see you.” It didn’t sound as if he meant it.

“You’re looking well,” the Professor replied, and Dagny
knew
he didn’t mean it.

The Director nodded at Fabee, then turned to Dagny. “It is nice to meet you, Special Agent Gray.”

She shook his hand. “My pleasure, sir.”

The Director led them into the big, dreary room that was his office. The carpet was a bland cream color, as were the draperies
that covered the windows on the left side. Three chairs faced the Director’s desk. The wall behind was covered by dark wood cabinets with glass doors. Under the cabinets, a long Formica countertop had been modified to hold a computer. A maroon leather couch rested against the wall by the entrance to the room. The right wall was lined with more shelves, an American flag, and a tall reading table. Aside from a few framed government plaques, the walls were bare.

The Director took his seat behind the desk; the others sat down in the chairs arranged before it. “Now, Timothy, I assume you’re here to give your ideas about the Whitman murder?”

It bothered Dagny that he was calling it the
Whitman
murder.

The Professor began in a cool, deliberate tone. “As you know, Dagny and I started looking at this case prior to the murder. We located the third crime—the dog killing—and Dagny flew to Cincinnati and talked to the police about the bank robbery. We’d like to continue looking at the case, with the Bureau’s permission, of course. We wouldn’t do anything to interfere with Justin’s investigation, and in fact, would provide him any information we uncovered.”

Fabee forced a smile. “Now, Timothy, I’m very appreciative of the work that you and Dagny have done. But if you’re proposing a parallel investigation of some kind, I’m afraid I’ll have to register my objection. I don’t think it would be possible for you to continue to look at this without interfering on some level. I mean, what do you envision—two teams at each crime scene, two sets of witness interviews?”

Blowing his nose again, the Director shook his head. “I’m inclined to agree with Justin. Parallel investigations? Is that what you want?”

“Two agents, that’s all. Dagny and another. Going to crime scenes, talking to witnesses. But not interfering. We won’t run the tests. We’ll take second dibs on the witnesses. We’ll be off to
the side. Just another set of eyes on the situation, that’s all. We wouldn’t compete with Justin’s investigation. We’d supplement it.”

The director leaned back in his chair and removed his glasses, then polished the lenses with the same handkerchief he’d used for his nose. Fabee leaned forward and spoke softly. “I don’t mean to bring up something unpleasant, but there is the matter of SA Gray’s conflict of interest. I mean, she is a potential witness,” he whispered, as if Dagny couldn’t hear him. “Ancillary, at that,” he added.

The Professor edged toward the front of his seat and spoke as softly as Fabee. “Since it appears that Ms. Whitman was the primary target, it’s likely that Dagny’s connection to this case is coincidental.” Dagny wondered if he really believed it.

“Nevertheless,” Fabee barked, before continuing more calmly, “I think her personal stake in the resolution of the case could influence her judgment.”

The director tapped his fingers on his desktop. “Timothy, regardless of the conflict, you haven’t really given me a compelling reason to allow your request.”

The Professor shrugged. “Maybe we should call the president and see what he thinks.” He glanced at the Director’s phone. “The number is four-five-six, one-four—”

“I know the damn number!” The Director pushed the phone a few inches away. “Really, Tim? You want to spend your capital on
this
?”

The Professor leaned back in his chair. For a second, Dagny thought he was going to put his feet on the Director’s desk. “Yes.”

Fabee clenched his teeth so tightly Dagny thought they might shatter. The Professor and the Director locked eyes, and neither seemed willing to look away.

“Alright, then,” the Director said, breaking the standoff. He took out his handkerchief again and blew his nose. “Allergies. I blame the cherry blossoms. I really do. Send them back to Japan,
I say. It’d solve some of the traffic problems, too. People with their cameras on the side of the Parkway, for Christ’s sake.”

He grabbed a pen from his desk drawer and began to scribble notes on a lined yellow pad. “First,” he said to the Professor, “you defer to Assistant Director Fabee at every turn. He will not interfere with your work, but he can impose some timing and logistical restraints. You are to let him know your movements. Second, you are not to pester the actual investigation. Information
may
be shared with you, but we are not under any obligation to do so. Third, you are to report any substantial findings from your investigation to Assistant Director Fabee, or his designee, each day. Fourth, should Assistant Director Fabee request your assistance on any matter, unlikely as that may be, you are to render the requested assistance. Should a dispute arise, I shall arbitrate, but you know that I don’t want to have to do that. And if a dispute were to arise, I’m sure the president wouldn’t be happy about that, regardless of any past histories. And fifth, stay off the Whitman murder. You can look at anything before or after, but not Whitman. The last thing I want is some vigorous cross-examination about a personal conflict of interest messing up a trial. Is this understood?”

“Absolutely,” the Professor responded. It was the best they could hope for.

“Yes, sir,” Fabee added, without much enthusiasm.

The Director shifted his gaze to Dagny. “Special Agent Gray, I know that you are going through a difficult time. I do not believe that you should be working this case, but I will defer to Timothy’s judgment for the time being. If, at any time, you feel you cannot work on this case, for whatever reason, I encourage you to exercise proper judgment and recuse yourself. Under the circumstances, we’d be more than happy to grant you an extended paid leave.”