Black Friday (10 page)

T
here wasn’t much to go on, yet Maggie made note of everything. Small details that appeared insignificant at first glance, could end up breaking a case. Despite the grainy black-and-white video she might find something. Except A.D. Kunze expected more than something. He expected her to supply a conclusive profile, one irrefutable enough he could use for a search warrant. He made it sound like she should have names, addresses and social security numbers just by examining the black-and-white, three-second delayed movements of these young homicide bombers.

Unfortunately he wasn’t the only one. Television and movies had turned profiling into a sort of magic act that had people believing with a few clues and a wave of the hand, you could pull the rabbit out of the hat, so to speak. Even Kunze insisted there was a scientific formula—which was almost as bad as magic—that if a suspect showed certain characteristics or traits—characteristic number one, two and five from a theoretical psychological profiling chart—then, of course, the suspect fit a specific category. Organized, disorganized. Anger, vengeance. Ritualistic, chaotic. Two out of three and voilà, just look for the nearest sociopathic narcissist with a speech impediment dressed in a double-breasted navy blue suit. If only it were that easy.

Maggie had a premed background, a bachelor’s degree in criminal psychology and a master’s in behavioral psychology. Early in her career she had earned a forensic fellowship at Quantico. Yet, even she believed profiling was more about observation than anything else. The trick—if there was one—was seeing what others missed, taking account of what may appear obvious to others. And just as important as paying attention to what was left behind, you needed to pay attention to what was absent.

Notably absent in this case so far? Hours had passed and no one had taken credit for the attack. Not even a suicide note or video…yet. Already it didn’t quite fit into a mass killing category like Virginia Tech or Columbine High School. Also absent was that none of these young men looked nervous or anxious. None of them seemed to fit the profile of a homicide bomber or a mass murderer.

“Is this the one?” Yarden asked.

He had been waiting on her almost to the point of being annoying. Ordinarily she’d rather be left alone to run through each tape, over and over as many times as necessary until she was sure no detail had gone unnoticed. But this was Yarden’s territory. Actually his mastery of the control panel and ability to follow instructions were saving them valuable time.

“Yes. If you could rewind it from when we first see him.”

It was the track on the corner monitor from the third-floor camera in what Yarden had marked as NW1. This would be the third time Maggie had asked to see this particular track.

There had to be something here that she was missing. What was she not seeing?

Yarden began the tape, fingers ready to freeze-frame or zoom in. But Maggie let it play. She wanted to examine Bomber #1, focusing only on him, picking him out of the distant crowd then watching as he got closer and closer.

His head didn’t swivel or dart around. His hands stayed by his side in a comfortable, easy stride. There was nothing to indicate he was nervous or anxious. He didn’t glance around, worried about being followed. He didn’t look around for cameras, didn’t even seem to care whether or not one caught him on film.

He wore a jacket, jeans, tennis shoes, a baseball cap. Nothing sagged, bulged or flapped over to hide any weapons or to disguise his appearance. Nor was there anything to indicate he belonged to a gang. No backward cap, no special hand signals, no T-shirt with a message. He appeared to be dressed in regular street clothes.

Maggie guessed his age at somewhere between eighteen and twenty-six. Like the others he was undeniably Caucasian. Light-colored hair curled over the collar of his jacket but not over his ears. Sideburns were long but trimmed, and on the morning after Thanksgiving, Maggie couldn’t help but notice he had taken time to shave. Was that something a twenty-year-old took time out to do, especially if he knew he was going to the mall to blow himself up?

Maybe it meant nothing. She knew homicide bombers often followed their daily routine even on the day of their deaths. They didn’t want to alarm or tip off family members or friends. Still, she wrote it down in her small notebook.

She wasn’t used to jotting things down. Never had a problem keeping it all in her head. Writing stuff down, that was her partner, R.J. Tully. He scratched out notes about everything and on anything that was available: a napkin, a dry cleaning receipt, a ticket stub. Maggie had been content to commit details to memory until A.D. Raymond Kunze came along. Now it seemed important to keep a record of her thought process. He couldn’t sideswipe her if there was documentation. Suddenly she was becoming one of those bureaucrats she hated, concerned about covering her ass. Was it that, or did she simply not want Kunze to win, to break her spirit?

On the video Bomber #1 crossed right below the camera. Not even a glance in its direction. Did he even know it was there? A clean-cut, good-looking, college-aged guy with his entire future ahead of him. Nice clothes, athletic physique, an air of confidence. She wanted him to look up, just for a second so she could see his eyes. So that she might be able to get a glimpse of why he did this? But she already knew. She had already seen this series three times before and each time she had willed his eyes to glance up. Come on, just one glance. And each time Bomber #1 simply walked on by.

R
ebecca was gone.

Patrick’s first reaction was that she’d been taken against her will. Could that paramedic psycho have followed them?

Damn!
He knew he should never have left her alone. He had been so sure the guy wouldn’t dare try anything here in the crowded hotel ballroom where triage sites with cots, IVs and real medics lined up one after another. Narrow paths would make it difficult to drag anyone from the room without notice. Or so Patrick thought. What if the guy managed to get to Rebecca and drug her?

Stupid! How could he be so stupid?

“You looking for your girlfriend?”

Patrick spun around. It was the old man who had been on the triage cot next to Rebecca. His silver hair sprouted up out of the gauze that now wrapped his head.

“Have you seen her?”

“Yep. She left.”

“By herself?”

Was it possible the guy was confused?

“As far as I could tell.” He scratched at the gauze.

“She just got up and left.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. Pulled the needle from her arm.” He pointed at the IV left on the cot.

“Did you see where she went?”

The man pointed a crooked finger. Patrick had to turn and look over his shoulder. There was an exit clear across the ballroom. That didn’t make sense. The closest exit was right behind her where Patrick had gone. She watched him leave. If she was looking for him why would she head in the opposite direction?

“Are you sure?”

“Hey, I may have gotten knocked in the head but there’s nothing wrong with my eyesight.”

“Sorry. It’s just…”

“I know, I know,” he nodded. “You’re worried about her. She didn’t look so good. A little glassy-eyed, if you ask me.”

Patrick pulled out his cell phone. No text messages. No voice messages. No missed calls. He didn’t know Dixon’s iPhone number and Rebecca didn’t have a cell phone of her own. What was she thinking? Was she still in shock? Maybe she didn’t know what she was doing.

He thanked the old man and headed for the exit. If she was disoriented, she couldn’t have gotten far.

The exit opened to a common area. A table and folding chairs had been set up. Two blue uniformed paramedics controlled the flow of the chaos. Patrick could barely see the lobby through the crowd. To his right he saw a bank of elevators and down the hall to the left, another exit. This one probably to the outside.

Patrick stood looking from one area to the other. Which way did Rebecca go? He couldn’t imagine her fighting her way through the crowd. She hated crowds and after what she’d just been through? But she wasn’t herself. Maybe still in shock. He’d learned how physically debilitating shock could be from his Fire Science classes. If she wandered outside she might not realize how cold it was.

He headed for the exit. Just as he pushed out the door he saw a man in a uniform coming from the parking lot, headed for Patrick.

“You. Wait a minute. Whatya think you’re doing?”

N
ick leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands over his face, his fingertips digging at the blur of fatigue. He didn’t need to look at his watch. The bristle on his jaw told him it was late. His stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten since earlier in the day. He had a headache. The room was too warm and too dark. The glare from the computer monitors had sucked the liquid from his eyes. And of course it didn’t help matters that Maggie O’Dell sat next to him, so close he could smell the scent of her, causing his mind to reel slightly off track—was it shampoo? Lotion? Perfume?

They must have already looked at several miles’ worth of tape, trying to find the three young men and track their paths. They followed them through the mall as best they could, accessing the appropriate camera view and going backward. To get to the third floor, each of the young men had to come up one of the escalators. To come into the mall, they had to enter through one of the entrances. And so the reasoning took them, step by step, camera by camera, segment by segment. It was tedious and now Maggie wanted to go back through certain segments over and over again.

Yarden was much more patient than Nick. He caught himself sighing a couple of times but didn’t even garner a glance from Maggie. She was in another zone. And Yarden was busy proving himself a master of the control panel, his long fingers never tiring, his mind sharp, his patience admirable. Never once did he grumble or question or hesitate. He was the quintessential follower, eager to please, jumping at the next request. And although Nick was technically Yarden’s superior the little man beamed at Maggie, looking to her first for each instruction no matter whether Nick had given the last. Truthfully, Nick couldn’t blame him. There was an easy calm about Maggie, a presence that entered every room with her. One that said, “I know this is tough but we’ll handle it together.”

Nick remembered feeling that way four years ago when she stepped into the chaos a serial killer had left behind in Platte City, Nebraska. As sheriff Nick was supposed to have jurisdiction over the case. He was supposed to have control. He could still conjure up that sense of being overwhelmed, the panic he tried to keep at a low boil somewhere deep inside himself. Even then, Maggie’s presence had reassured him, settled the boil to simmer, made him believe everything would be okay. So he understood Yarden being attentive to Maggie’s every word, her every command, her every move. Nick was too, but for a slightly different reason. When was it that his true feelings for her had come to the surface? When had it finally hit him? Really hit him? Before he canceled his wedding to Jill? Or had that simply been the excuse that led him to the real conclusion?

As he watched Maggie, now he wondered why it had taken him so long.

“Stop it right here.” Maggie interrupted Nick’s thoughts, pointing to a monitor in the upper corner that had caught her attention. “Can you zoom in on his baseball cap?”

Yarden obeyed instantly.

“What is that?” She pushed her chair back and stood for a better view, tapping the screen with her index finger. “We’ve been focused on finding a front shot but what’s that on the side of his cap? It’s a logo, isn’t it?”

Yarden moved forward, careful to keep from leaning too close.

She’d been taking notes, pages of them in her miniature notebook. As Nick swiveled and stood to take a closer look at the monitor, he glanced down at the notebook before he glanced up. In a brief glimpse, all he caught was the word PROFILE at the top of the page.

“Oh, I know what that is. It’s the Golden Gophers,” Yarden said, beaming like a school kid answering the tough question for his favorite teacher.

“College team,” Nick explained to Maggie.

“Right. University of Minnesota,” she said without missing a beat. Nick was impressed. Yarden even more enamored. “Looks like he’s wearing a letterman jacket, too,” she added. “Jerry, doesn’t that look like the university’s insignia? It’s an
M,
isn’t it?”

Yarden was already punching keys and zooming in on the guy’s upper left chest where Maggie had been pointing.

“Minnesota fan,” Nick said.

“Or he’s a student,” Maggie countered.

The phone on the wall rang.

It startled all three of them. Yarden looked at it as though he’d never seen it before. He glanced at Maggie, then Nick.

“Must be the guys upstairs,” he said, but still didn’t move to answer the phone like he didn’t want to be reminded of what was upstairs.

At first Nick thought Yarden was waiting for someone to instruct him once again or to give him permission to answer it. However, one good look at Yarden’s face and Nick could tell the apprehension was dread, not uncertainty.

The phone must have rung a dozen times before Yarden pushed himself out of the chair and reached for it.

“Security.” A pause and then he added, “This is Jerry. Jerry Yarden.”

Nick tried not to watch, but it was impossible to look away. Yarden’s entire face crunched together like a man waiting for something or someone to hit him. He nodded and swallowed hard a couple of times, his Adam’s apple bobbing above his collar.

By the time he returned the phone’s receiver to the wall Yarden had lost all color in his face.

“Security thinks they have another bomber,” he said in almost a whisper.

“You’re kidding?” Nick asked. “Where?”

“In the southwest parking lot.” The Adam’s apple bobbed again. “They wanna see you and me upstairs.”

Maggie’s cell phone started ringing. A couple seconds later, Nick’s started ringing, too.