Cutting Edge (27 page)

Hooper interrupted, “We already have it. It was in the evidence Steve sent yesterday.”

“He didn’t tell me—”

“He didn’t know. It was a handwritten letter folded into Ms. Ballard’s journal that began ‘Dear Anya’ and signed ‘M.’ Whoever wrote that letter, Dr. Vigo says wrote the fourth BLF letter. And moreover, whoever wrote that letter also wrote the suicide note. And it definitely wasn’t Anya Ballard.”

“Is the letter ‘M’ wrote important?”

“Possibly.” He handed her a copy of the letter. “We dusted the original for prints. We have a few partials from two different individuals, but they’re pretty degraded. Quantico is working on enhancing them, but it’ll take time.”

Nora read the letter. It was undated, but based on the content it was given to Anya around the time Maggie left Rose College last December.

Dear Anya
,
How could you choose him over our cause? I’m
very
disappointed in you. Don’t you
care
anymore? Don’t you want to be part of the solution? Your boyfriend yaks it up like he cares about the cause, but he’s part of the problem. He’s Establishment. He’s never done
anything
to help. You know it. He talks and talks and likes everyone to think he’s this big, noble Progressive Environmentalist who cares about the earth and animals that the Industrial Complex is killing so the masses have soap and makeup to disguise their ugly hearts.
Fuck you both
!

“M” had crossed out that last line, but Nora noticed that while the text started out small and tight, it grew bigger and tilted more to the right — retaining the same tightness but with sharper points and more pressure on the pen. The letter continued with smaller script, but still with the heavy-pressured rightward slant.

I’m sorry. Anya, I love you. I wish you were my sister. You know about mine. I can’t even talk to her. I wish we could be friends again, friends like before. I’m going to miss you, but I have to go. I hope someday we can do everything we planned. Don’t listen to that jerk. He’ll be screwing around with another student soon enough, then you’ll see him like I do. A walking penis. He was in his office for a long time with that whore Ashley Corman on Monday. I’ll bet they weren’t talking about midterms. Ask him. I
dare
you. Or would you rather be ignorant and used?
We can do so much to
really
change the world and
make a
real
difference.
We
can
do
it
, Anya. Believe. I’m the only one who understands how you feel. Remember when you cried in my arms when that mama bear was killed by an SUV? She was just protecting her bear cubs. You cried and I told you we’d fix it. We’d make it right. And we did, didn’t we?
He
wouldn’t do that for you
.
I’ll be thinking about you. We have more to do. You promised. Call me
.
M

“She’s certifiable,” Duke said.

“Maybe,” Nora muttered.

“What’s wrong?” Hooper said. “Does something stand out in the letter?”

“First,” she said, “her sister. We need to find her sister. Maybe that’s where Maggie’s hiding out. Rachel’s at Rose College, we need that warrant ASAP.”

“I’ll call the U.S. attorney myself,” Hooper said. Nora smiled. Hooper had connections that most FBI agents didn’t have.

“What else?” Duke said. “You look worried.”

“I’m very concerned. Look at the writing. She’s like a tightly wound clock ready to break. She’s impulsive and angry. She’s young, which is why she’s been able to get away with it. Parents and teachers tend to let young people get away with erratic behavior thinking they’ll grow out of it. I don’t think she’d be able to hold down a job for long. I doubt she has much control over her outbursts, though she is able to rein herself back in. Like a three-year-old who pushes down a kid and takes their toy. They’ll give it right back when they’re told to, but they were unable to control the impulse to take it in the first place. That’s learned behavior, to resist taking what we want when we want it. I don’t think our Maggie has control over that.”

Hooper said, “I’ll put out some feelers about that bear story. She mentions they ‘fixed’ it. Sounds like something that might be an unsolved crime.”

What would people like her mother do under those circumstances? She said, “If the identity of the driver who hit the bear was made public, that’s who they targeted.”

“You don’t think they killed him?” Hooper asked.

“Not Anya, if we’re to believe what Leif Cole said about her. If she was truly that upset when she thought that Jonah Payne had been killed by accident, then she couldn’t have participated in cold-blooded murder. But that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t destroy property he cares about. Like the offending SUV.”

“I’m on it.”

“Can I keep this?” She held up the letter.

“Sure, it’s a copy.”

She stared at it again and frowned. “There’s something familiar here. I’m wondering if we’ve seen similar letters come through our squad. The use of the word ‘Establishment’ stands out. That’s a clear anarchist statement. But ‘Industrial Complex’ sounds out of place, almost like she felt like she had to put it there to sound like she knew what she was talking about.”

“You don’t think she’s a true anarchist?”

“She is. She believes in her cause, but her cause is not solely extreme environmental activism. It’s more focused.”

“You can tell that by this letter?” Duke asked.

“Some,” she said. “And thirty-seven years of experience, on both sides of the law.”

“I’m going to have Jason work on finding out about that case and seeing if there was any retaliation,” Hooper said. “Duke.”

There was a silent exchange between them, and Hooper left.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“You aren’t blind to the fact that something’s going on here. You heard the profiler yesterday state that the last letter was focused on
you
. Then his opinion today about the suicide note. I was in that conversation. Three handwriting experts confirmed that whoever wrote this” — he tapped the letter from ‘M’ in her hand — “wrote the fourth letter, which specifically mentioned cases
you worked.”

“You and Hooper spoke to Dr. Vigo about my case? Without me?”

“You were at the morgue. Why is it so hard for you to accept help?”

Duke was challenging her. She was completely out of her element, psychopaths and revenge. “I don’t have any problem accepting help. I have my entire squad hunting down pieces of this puzzle, and I let you come on board as a consultant. So don’t tell me I don’t accept help.”

“Let me rephrase it. You don’t want anyone singling you out for special consideration. You don’t want personal protection. But you’ve got it. Hooper and I agree that this woman has some reason in her head for not liking you. Until we find her, we need to be cautious.”

Nora didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. “Let’s be logical about this. If someone had a vendetta against me, they’d come after me, right? Personally. I don’t know Maggie O’Dell, I’ve never met her. Why would she come after me?”

“Why would they go after the driver of an SUV because he accidentally hit a bear? He certainly didn’t do it on purpose, his car was probably totaled and he’s lucky to be alive if he hit the poor animal with any speed. And why would this woman kill Jonah Payne? There’s no logical reason. And her friends — she probably killed those three college students, kids she knew, a girl she said she loved like a sister. So don’t think for a minute that you’re not at risk!”

Nora was taken aback by Duke’s passionate anger in getting his point across. She pulled at her hair, never feeling so out of sorts. “It doesn’t make sense. It has to make sense!”

Duke firmly rubbed her arm. “I’m not a shrink, but I know people pretty well. Some of them just aren’t very nice. Maybe this game she’s playing is as much psychological as it is physical.”

“I don’t have any personal connection with the people she’s suspected of killing.”

“Maybe they’re not connected to one another, but connected to the killer,” Duke mused.

She looked at him. “I was thinking that earlier, but Jonah Payne is the odd man out. The only possible angle is to Leif Cole because of their public disagreements over biotechnology, but that’s really stretching it, don’t you think?”

“Let’s put Anya Ballard and her friends aside for a minute. And Russ—” Duke swallowed uneasily.

She said, “He had information that the killer needed.

But why not leave Dr. Payne’s body in Lake Tahoe? Why transport it to his lab?”

“I don’t know. The theatrics?”

Nora considered. “But it draws attention to BLF.”

“And they’re dead.”

“Maybe the killer worried about them saying something.”

“This Maggie O’Dell, we don’t know where she is. Maybe Dr. Vigo’s wrong about there being only four cell members,” Duke said. “Maybe Maggie and her partner are the two we need to be looking for. Maybe it’s Maggie and her sister.”

“She says she doesn’t talk to her,” Nora pointed out.

“Maybe a boyfriend? A mentor?”

Nora considered. “Scott Edwards was her boyfriend, according to Professor Cole. He probably knew more about her than anyone. If Scott Edwards’s truck was really in Tahoe, then that confirms there had to be two people — one to drive the truck with Payne’s body and one to drive Dr. Payne’s Jeep back to Butcher-Payne.”

“Why would they bring the Jeep back?”

“I don’t know. Theatrics, as you said. I don’t see how they could possibly think that we wouldn’t have been able to figure out that his death wasn’t an accident.”

“Our overcrowded prisons are a testament to the fact that criminals aren’t always smart.”

“This one killed five people that we know of,” Nora pointed out. She didn’t know what to think. Her head spun as she processed all the information she’d received in a short period of time. She called upon her classes in criminal psychology. “Females rarely use knives to kill.”

“But I haven’t heard of any other cases where the killer lets their victims bleed to death. Maybe you have. I remember a girlfriend of Sean’s in high school who used to cut herself. She had scars all up and down her arms. She never left the house wearing anything but long sleeves.”

Maybe … maybe Duke was on to something. Nora was well-versed in the psychology of “cutting” behavior. “O’Dell left around Christmas and there were no more BLF attacks. What was she doing during the nine months before she allegedly came back?”

“Good question. When we find out exactly who she is, maybe we’ll know.”

“So O’Dell leaves, everything is back to normal. She returns … why?”

“To finish her revenge.”

“Why leave at all? Just because her roommate was having an affair with her professor?”

“Maybe there was another reason we don’t know yet.”

“She was angry with Anya. Very angry. But it would be easy to manipulate her old anarchist cell into arson, especially when there were animals in jeopardy. So she’s mad, throws a tantrum, leaves, returns, everyone is friends again as they plan to ‘rescue’ the ducks. But Maggie has murder in mind, and gets her boyfriend Scott to help her.”

“And genetic testing is Professor Cole’s big voodoo doll,” Duke said. “It makes the entire situation high-profile.”

“But it still doesn’t explain why she felt the need for the big show, other than for the platform.”

“Maybe we won’t know until we find her. Or maybe it was to get you on the case.”

Duke stared at her, worry wrinkling his forehead. She understood why he and Dr. Vigo thought that Maggie O’Dell had some personal issue with her, but Nora wasn’t quite ready to buy into that idea. It could be, but the woman was on the edge. She could have fixated on Nora simply because she’d put domestic terrorists in prison.

“I want to follow up with Leif Cole, show him this letter, and see if he has any idea of who Maggie O’Dell is or where she lives. Maybe something came to him overnight.” She turned, but Duke didn’t follow. “I thought you were my personal bodyguard.” She didn’t mean for it to sound so snide. She tried to smile, but it wasn’t natural.

He tensed. Maybe this was better, she thought. After last night … she didn’t know what to think. This situation was foreign to her. When she did have a relationship, it was always on her terms, at her pace, and someone not connected to law enforcement. Someone not connected to
her
. She didn’t like the intermingling of her personal and professional life.

Maybe that’s why it had never worked out with anyone. Nora only
had
a professional life.

“I know what you’re doing, Nora.”

He stepped toward her. The way he looked at her, with such intensity, made her nervous and jittery. Butterflies fluttered and she remembered how amazing she felt making love to Duke. She didn’t want these feelings. She didn’t want to care about anyone this much.

Her voice cracked as she said, “I’m not doing anything, Duke. I’m tired, I have a lot of work to do, and I don’t like being watched.”

“Get used to it.”

She bristled. He sounded so confident, as if he had a right to her. Maybe after last night she’d given him that impression. Maybe last night she’d
wanted
him to have that impression. But today, she didn’t know anymore. She was confused, upset about Dr. Vigo’s analysis, worried about her job, her team, and now a pending relationship. Something had to give.

“Duke, about last night—”

“Don’t. I’m not going to believe you.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“I do. You’re trying to backpedal. You’re trying to ignore your feelings so that you can do your job and not think about yourself. I’m here, I’m staying, and you are going to have to address your feelings and think about yourself for a change.”

That Duke understood her so well unnerved her, so she steeled herself and snapped, “I can’t believe how arrogant you are!”

He smiled, as if he found her anger amusing. “It runs in the Rogan blood.”