Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan) (7 page)

If he had been having any sort of inappropriate relationship with the victim, the downloaded images from her optic chip would certainly reveal it. Ronnie hoped it wasn’t the case. She truly didn’t want to see pictures of the Polo-League dude doing it. Especially not through the eyes of the woman being done. Talk about voyeurism to the extreme.

Some of the death row inmates she’d trained on had liked to provide extra-special images for the investigators. Frankly, she could have gone her whole life without getting a close-up and personal view of some sick rapist and murderer jacking off. Telling herself it was all part of the job hadn’t made it any less disgusting.

Williams returned to the meeting a few minutes later. The hair at his temples appeared damp, as if he’d left to splash some bracing water on his face, trying to get himself under control.

“So are we going under the assumption that this was terrorist related?” the FBI agent asked. “Because of the location, the timing, the, uh, dismembering?”

That wasn’t a bad conclusion, and Ronnie imagined every one of them had at least considered it. But there was one big flaw in the theory.

Phineas Tate cleared his throat and tipped his index fingers up, tapping them together. Everyone fell silent, brought to attention as easily as if a shot had been fired. He was apparently going to mention the flaw. She’d expect nothing less.

“Your suggestions has merit,” Tate said with kind, intelligent approval that probably made the agent’s day. “However, there is one more piece of the puzzle regarding these events. If the person who perpetrated his atrocity did, indeed, attempt to hide the evidence of his crime by removing part of the victim’s remains, we must make an obvious assumption.”

The room was deadly still, quiet enough to hear the hum of the wireless fax machine silently spitting out papers on the desk and the sound of Daniels cracking his knuckles. Then Tate continued. “The perpetrator must have known Miss Carr was part of the Optic Evidence Program.”

So far so good.

“And therefore must have been someone who knew her.”

“Not necessarily,” Ronnie murmured before she could think better of it.

Tate continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I suspect Miss Carr violated her security clearance and told someone the truth of her situation and was subsequently killed by him. The brutality hints at a personal rage, so I would assume you should be looking at an angry lover or boyfriend.”

Ronnie was about to shoot holes in the theory, despite how much she admired Tate. There was another possibility—a viable one. Someone with high security clearance, or someone involved in the O.E.P. itself, could easily have known about Leanne Carr’s involvement. Why that person would have killed her she couldn’t say, but it was possible. And it was much too early in the game to rule anything out.

She didn’t have the chance to speak. Before she could even open her mouth, Jack Williams launched back in his chair and rose to his feet. His voice shaking and his eyes bright, he exclaimed, “Leanne was a professional to her very core. A loyal, honest, hard-working young woman who would never have violated her security responsibilities. I simply will not allow you to disparage her character in such a way.”

Everyone in the room fell silent, staring at the man whose face practically glowed with passionate indignation. Without another word, Williams thrust his chair out of the way and stalked out of the room, not sparing a look at any of them.

Daniels scratched something on his hand-held. “Think he doth protest too much?”

Yes, he did. Either Mr. Williams was one great, understanding and sentimental boss. Or he had a personal connection with his secretary.

Either way, when she finally began to dig through Leanne Carr’s visual memories, Ronnie was going to find out.

Taking the head had been a mistake. A definite misfire.

Foolish
.

It had seemed such a smart idea during the planning stages of this whole thing. And those planning stages had been so thorough, precisely timed, ingeniously designed. The location—perfect. The scheduling—impeccable. The brutality—well, disturbing. But necessary.

Everything was supposed to point to one of two things: a vicious psychopath, or a terrorist. Someone mad with rage and mental disease who had brutalized a victim as so many killers had done throughout history. Or a ruthless, driven fanatic committing the ultimate crime in order to “show” America that no matter how complacent they became, how confident they were in their security, no one was safe. No one immune. Even the president of the United States, just a few hundred yards away, could be gotten to.

Apparently the message hadn’t been clear enough.

How could the authorities be so damned tunnel-visioned? The dismemberment should have been something a blind person could see. The viciousness should have indicated insanity. A headless victim should have instantly brought to mind the public executions of kidnapped foreigners in acts dating back more than a decade.

This was supposed to look like a terrorist act or, at the very least, the work of an angry, deranged, disgruntled person who’d wanted to make a brutal statement about his hatred of America.

But it sounded as though law enforcement, in their infinite wisdom, had focused on the one thing he’d hoped they wouldn’t even be seriously considering yet: that the killer had known about the O.E.P. device. And therefore known the victim.

“Damn.”

Leaving it would have been the wise course of action. Better to have let them find the thing and try to make something of it. They would not have succeeded. Having been so careful, so patient, so methodical…no, the authorities would have found nothing they could use to figure out who had been responsible for what had happened in the basement of the White House on Independence Day.

If there had been something, better to have taken the chance of a random, miniscule bit of information being discovered on the chip than to have the entire investigation focused on the stupid, cursed device implanted in Leanne Carr’s brain. And on who might have known about it. He’d wanted to cast a wide net of suspicion. Instead, that net might have landed on a much smaller school of fish—those who knew about the O.E.P. So their suspect pool would be greatly minimized…and he would be on it.

The situation wasn’t completely unsalvageable, however. Not at all. There could be a way to fix this, to redirect attention to its proper place. The authorities could be directed back toward random terrorism and violence if they believed the chip hadn’t been intentionally taken. That should move the focus away from a personal connection between victim and predator.

Away from the truth
.

Leanne’s pretty head would simply have to be found.

-#-

Though a lot of things had changed since Ronnie had joined the D.C.P.D. nearly a decade ago, some things about police work remained the same. Witness interviews were one of them. Sure, the ultimate witness would be Leanne Carr—when the O.E.P. device was found. But in the meantime, there were, oh, about fifty-five thousand people who could have seen something important yesterday.

Needle, meet haystack.

She and Daniels were tasked with winnowing down the list and heading up that part of the investigation…probably so they’d get out of Kilgore’s hair and he didn’t have to be reminded that the minute the victim’s head turned up, a lowly D.C. detective would be calling the shots. Ronnie didn’t mind—getting away from the bigwigs and their pissing match was just fine by her.

First up on her to-interview list was Jack Williams, head of the Phoenix Group. He seemed like the person who’d been closest to the victim and she wanted to talk to him now, before he was able to learn even more inside information about the investigation. She still couldn’t believe Kilgore had let him stay for the briefing.

Politely asking the man for a few minutes of his time, she wasn’t at all surprised when he insisted he was too busy right now and asked that they talk later this afternoon, over at his own office. Although it was a pain in the ass, and meant she and Daniels would have to leave the site and go through security again when they returned, she wanted to play nice with this guy for now, so she and her partner agreed.

They took the intervening few hours to start talking to witnesses on-site. They certainly didn’t manage to talk to fifty-five thousand people. Or even fifty-five. But they did hit about a half-dozen, which, in a case this major, wasn’t too bad. And from those six—the ones who interacted most often with Leanne Carr—they’d gotten some decent information about their victim.

The young woman had been pretty, well-liked, prompt and hard-working. Though she worked at the Phoenix Group’s offices a few blocks further up on Pennsylvania Avenue, she visited the site almost daily. Apparently her boss was an eyes-on kind of guy and she was his looking glass. She’d delivered messages, met with suppliers, interacted with the project managers and carried reports back and forth. A couple of the younger men commented that, though she didn’t wear a ring, she must have been involved with someone, since she never responded to any of their come-ons.

Ronnie wasn’t too concerned about that, knowing that if Leanne were seeing anyone, she’d find out as soon as she examined the downloads in the woman’s computer—hopefully tonight. She’d gotten word that the victim’s hard drive had been taken to a special lab back at the precinct, and Ronnie would be heading over later. She wouldn’t be able to see Leanne’s murder, and thereby identify her killer—not without that damned elusive chip in her head—but she could definitely learn more about the life Leanne had led before that
final
day.

Finally, as it drew closer to their appointment time with Williams, they left Patriot Square and drove the short distance down Pennsylvania Avenue. They could easily have walked it, however, swarms of people still milled about. They were even hotter and crankier than they had been this morning, and Ronnie didn’t want to march through them in uniform and on a mission. Still, she was glad to see them. Obviously, if rumors of the atrocity committed in the basement of the White House had gotten out, they would have scattered in the wind by now. So somebody was doing a pretty good job of keeping a lid on the story.

At the impressively constructed Phoenix Group building, they were shown in by a quiet receptionist whose swollen face and reddened eyes said she’d heard the news about Leanne. Probably all her co-workers had by now. Ronnie only hoped they hadn’t heard anything beyond, “She’s dead.” Hearing she’d been cut into rump-roast-sized chunks would probably have been seriously bad for morale.

“Thank you for coming down here to talk to me,” Jack Williams said as they were escorted into his office, which was about the size of her entire apartment. “I realize it must have been an inconvenience.”

Daniels shrugged, “Nah, not a problem. We prefer to get away from the crime scene when we’re doing interviews and wanted to see the victim’s work area. Plus we’ll get to talk to some of her co-workers on the way out.”

Hmm. Not entirely accurate—Ronnie sure would have preferred not to have to sidetrack off-site for one interview, today of all days, knowing they’d have to go back to Patriot Square to conduct many more. She’d much rather have stayed on site, so she could be nearby if and when the final part of Leanne Carr was located.

But Mark’s intentional nonchalance put off a vibe and it was exactly the one that was called for in this situation. He was telling Williams that they hadn’t come here at his request, that Leanne’s boss did not have the upper hand in this situation. Seeing the slight narrowing of Williams’s eyes, her partner’s strategy had been absolutely perfect.

As so often happened, Daniels had managed to surprise her.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable.” Williams waved a hand toward two chairs, standing across from his broad, immaculately clean desk. The desk’s highly-glossed surface bore nothing but a single engraved pen in a stand, a blotter, and a framed photograph, turned slightly out so a smiling Jack Williams and an attractive middle-aged woman standing on the deck of a yacht could be displayed and commented on.

Ronnie did her part. “Your wife?”

He smiled fondly. “Yes. My best friend and partner. She’s the one who urged me to go after this contract, even though my company was one of the newest in the running.”

Obviously the Phoenix Group was now set for life with all the work going on in D.C. Ronnie had checked before coming over—Williams’s company had the contracts to rebuild every federal building damaged or destroyed in the attacks.

“She will be devastated when I tell her about Leanne, who’s like a daughter to both of us. She’s been to our home many times, we even had hopes that she might someday date our son.”

Uh huh. That’s what the married-man-who’s-trying-to-hide-an-affair would say. Williams might be uttering all the right words and displaying the right amount of shocked grief, but Ronnie wasn’t buying it until she had definite proof of the real relationship between boss and victim.

“Can you tell us what you recall about the day of the murder? When you last spoke to Ms. Carr, where you last saw her?” Ronnie asked.

Williams nodded, his brow drawing down in a frown as he considered the questions.

“Normally, with it being a federal holiday, the offices would have been closed. However, because of the events of the day, I had my key people come in at nine a.m. All of them had special passes to attend the ceremony, but I wanted a final run-through of all the preparations and contingency plans, and I wanted everyone here to put out fires until as close to the two p.m. starting time as possible.”

“Including you?” asked Daniels.

“I was here until about eleven-ten. As one of the organizers, I had to be out on the mall by noon. There are plenty of people who saw me.”

Interesting that he’d offer an alibi for himself when they hadn’t asked for one. Also interesting to imagine trying to round up those “people” and ask them to account for anybody in that mad crush of humanity. Sure, he’d bet any number of people had seen him…but every minute of the afternoon? Highly unlikely.

“I stopped in to say goodbye to Leanne at around eleven. I congratulated her on a job well done and told her not to stay at work so long that she missed the opening ceremonies.”

“What was she doing?”

Sounding admiring, he continued, “She was in her office, handling things as she always did—with efficiency and courtesy. A transport vehicle had hit one of the concrete barrier walls by mistake that morning and she immediately got on that, arranging for its repair. When I left, I was walking by her office and heard her on the phone trying to get clearance for a mixer truck to cut down Constitution Avenue through the throngs of people.” His eyes misted. “She was not the type to take no for an answer. Tenacious, stubborn, that young woman would leave no stone unturned to finish a job.”

“Was Leanne dating anybody?” she asked.

Williams frowned. “To be honest, I’m not sure.” He looked like there was more he could say, but wasn’t sure he should.

“You know she is an implantee,” Ronnie said, pushing the man a little. “We have her downloads of the days and weeks before her death. If she was involved with
anyone
, I’ll find out.”

She didn’t threaten, didn’t dangle the possibility that Williams, himself, might like to just come clean now rather than be outed by irrefutable proof. Though, if it were true, and Williams had been having an affair with his assistant, Ronnie would rather know in advance so she could prepare herself to be assaulted by the visual evidence of it.

“Well, if that’s the case, you’ll probably be far better than I to determine who she might have been involved with. The truth is, I think there might have been someone but she never spoke about it. I, er…”

“Yes?”

“I had the feeling it might have been someone she wasn’t supposed to be seeing.”

“Like, somebody who was married?” asked Daniels.

“No, I don’t think she’d do that. Perhaps just someone others would consider unsuitable.” The man’s frown deepened and he crossed his arms protectively over his chest. “I hate having to speculate about her private life like this. Bad enough how horribly she died.”

“I understand that,” Ronnie said. “But it could be pertinent to our investigation.”

“Well, you’ll soon know better than I. As I said, she never revealed anything. She was a bit private about that sort of thing. A little old-fashioned, if you will.”

Okay, Williams seemed to be sticking to his story. And considering he knew she’d find out, she began to back off on her suspicion that he was the young woman’s mystery lover.

“What about family?” her partner asked.

Williams uncrossed his arms and dropped them onto his armrests, visibly relaxing a little. Ronnie made a mental note of his mood change, wondering whether his slight belligerence had been about him protecting his own reputation, or a friend’s. 

Shaking his head mournfully, he explained, “She was an only child, both parents are deceased. Her father was actually working at the American History Museum on
that
day.”