Skill Set (6 page)

Isaac looked around the room, before following his boss to the door.
“Can you get access to pictures from the scene?” he asked, as they both entered the hallway.

“
Sure,
” Foxhound nods. “Expect them on your desk ASAP,” he added. “Oh, and in the meantime, go home and take a shower. . .”

“
Huh?
” Isaac mumbled, confused.

“
You look a mess,
” his superior explained. “Wash and change, and I’ll meet you back at headquarters.”

An hour later, Rose was in his small office. He was freshly showered and wearing his trusty combination of jeans and a T-shirt. The initial police report was on his desk, complete with photographs from the scene and he was flicking through them. As he examined the pictures and reads the text from the maid’s statement, he makes notes on a small pad to his right. The maid, had received a call from Emma Soto at around eight in the evening, shortly after the defense secretary got home. She had asked the maid to arrive a little earlier the next morning, to prepare breakfast. “Why would she do that?” Rose wondered. “If you’re planning to take your own life, why would she be worried about breakfast?” Was it possible the urge to kill herself came on suddenly? It was possible, but didn’t seem plausible. The other fact the maid revealed was Soto had been raised a Catholic and, apparently, still followed the faith. If that was the case, would her religious conviction have allowed her to consider taking her own life?

As these thoughts circled in Isaac Rose
’s mind, he descended into a silence that was almost meditative. But it did not last long. The sound of his cell phone disrupted him and he snatched it from his pocket.

“
Hello?
” he barked.

“
Oh, umm, hi,
” the startled reply mumbled. “
It
’
s me,...ah
…
Daniel.
”

“
Dan,
” Rose made himself speak pleasantly. “Sorry man, I didn’t mean to snap. Just got a lot on my mind right now.”

“
Yeah, I bet,
” Daniel sympathetically sighs. “
I can
’t believe Ms. Soto’s gone. It just doesn’t seem real, you know? Neither of us thinks she killed herself. . .I mean, Frankie. . .”

“
Hmm,
”
Isaac agreed.

“
I guess...umm,
” he faltered. “I guess that means she was the leak in the department.”

Rose was quiet for several seconds. He didn
’t want to reveal too much to the two young men. However, he was quick to quash the assumption. “
Maybe, maybe not,
”
he muttered.
“
We still don
’t know.”

“
Oh,
” Dan said, surprised. “I thought the CIA’s discovery had pretty much sealed the case.”
With a bemused shake of his head, Isaac asks,
“What are you talking about?”

“
Didn
’t that agent guy send you an email?”
Dropping the pen he still held in his free hand, Isaac clutched the mouse of his computer and fiercely shook it from side to side. The blank screen dissolved into his confidential email and he founds two new messages. One is from an
‘
Agent Baines
’, from the Oval Office:

“Apparently, Ms. Soto had a relationship with some Afghan national. It was brief, but after her lover went back to his own country, he was killed by fire from one of our choppers.”

The sound of Daniel
’s voice played in the background, while Isaac read the file that Baines had sent. It shows a photograph of Emma Soto and a Muslim gentleman sitting outside a coffee shop. Hardly anything incriminating. In fact, it was impossible to tell how intimate the pair was; they could have been friends or brand new acquaintances for all an observer could tell.

“How do we know they were together?”
Isaac asked.

“
Umm, I don
’t know,”
Daniel mumbled.

Rose continued to read, paying little attention to the sound of the young computer expert in his ear. The evidence consisted of nothing more than a few phone calls and one late night rendezvous. An agent reported seeing Soto leaving the home of Samit Kaba at three in the morning. It certainly looked like a clandestine tryst, and the agent had assumed it was nothing more than that. However, Rose was not in the habit of taking things at face value. And the knowledge of this relationship posed more questions than it answered. If the security forces were aware of
it, then why was she still approved for her position in the cabinet?

As he gradually scanned to the bottom of the document, he founds a postscript that he guessed was added by Baines himself:
‘Relationship was fleeting and Kaba’s death seemed not to affect Soto. In discussions about the man, Soto didn’t try to deny an association with him, and it was decided it was no cause for concern.’

The next file centered on Kaba and the surveillance that was carried out on him when he began seeing the then-Senator Soto. There were no affiliations with any radical group; no crimes committed here or in any other country; he was a PhD student, who made it quite clear he intended to return to his country on completion of his studies. Nothing to raise any flags and, despite Soto being ten years Kaba
’s senior, nothing to raise any eyebrows either.

“Dan, have you got anything else?” Isaac asks, taking his gaze from the screen and focusing on the phone.

“From the CIA guy?”

“No, with your own investigation. Did you turn anything else up?” he explains.

“
Oh, no, we
’re still working on it, though.”

“Do me a favor will you? See if you can match the location of the second hack with the location of the first.”

“
Okay,
” Daniel agreed. “
I
’ll try.”

“Great, I’ll speak to you later,” he responded, before ending the call. Settling back into his chair, he stared at the wall ahead of him.

A light tap at the door was followed by its opening. Rose hears the noise, but doesn
’t lift his head until he can see the movement of the man in his peripheral vision. He knew it was Foxhound.

“So what do you think?” the man asked, shutting the door behind him and walking to Isaac’
s desk.

“What do you think?”
Isaac echoed..

“I think Soto is looking like a better suspect,” he sighs.

“
Yeah,
”
Isaac nods.
“But maybe that’s what someone wants us to think.”

“What do you mean?”

Swiveling slightly in his chair, Rose faced Foxhound.
“Her relationship, whatever it was, with this guy didn’t ring any alarm bells then. And now, suddenly it seems relevant for the CIA.”

“
Hindsight
’s a wonderful thing,” Foxhound shrugged.

“
It
’s also convenient,”
Rose muttered.

“Does everything have to be more complicated than it appears?”
Foxhound grinned.

“
No,
” Isaac bluntly replied. “But this is all being wrapped up a little too neatly, don’t you think. All that’s missing is the bow on top of the package.”

Foxhound leaned forward, staring into Isaac
’
s eyes.
“So, what do you want to do?”

“I want to go back to her apartment, take a proper look around. And then I want to speak to the ME.” Isaac explains, getting out of his seat and bending to reach down into a desk drawer. Opening the top drawer, he removed his Glock and slid it into the back of his jeans’
waistband.

Foxhound nodded, knowing that it would be hard to stop Rose once he was convinced about something and, more importantly, realizing from experience the man
’s instincts are often right on the money. “All right,” he agreed. “I hired you, I’d be an idiot not to let you get out there and do your thing. But do me a favor,” he added with a warning glare. “
Don
’t go out of your way to make waves.”

Isaac shrugged.
“What will be, will be,” he comments. “
I
’ll try not to disappoint you.”

“
Just don
’t get me thrown out of my job,” Foxhound grumbled.

Isaac sauntered to the door and walked silently away from his superior.

One police officer still guarded the main entrance of the apartment building, but was now the only police presence. Recognizing Isaac from earlier in the morning, the policeman stepped aside and allowed him access without question or delay.

Rose spent a few moments in the lobby, eyeing the desk that still remained unmanned. He made a mental note to ask about the guard on duty the night before, and made his way upstairs.

Emma Soto
’s downstairs neighbor had been away, according to the preliminary police report. Her apartment was on the top floor, so she had no other neighbor in close proximity. And nobody else in the building reported hearing or seeing anything unusual. In fact, Emma Soto seemed to always be pretty much unnoticed. She was always quiet, kept to herself and had, apparently, only been living in the building for four months.

Her apartment door was now closed, two strips of police tape positioned diagonally across the frame and forming a large
‘
x
’. Paying little attention to the ‘
crime scene do
not cross’
s
logan, Isaac grabbed the door handle and twisted it. Once the door was open, he ripped the tape down.

With the soft scuffing of his shoes on the carpet the only sound in the apartment, he crossed the threshold. He began by making a more thorough search of the living room. Careful not to touch anything with his bare hands, he pried up the couch cushions with his hand covered by his pocket handkerchief. He knows he
’s unlikely to find whatever was being searched for, but hopes he might find some trace left behind by the person who was searching. He does not believe the messy living room was caused by Soto. And even if it was, she certainly didn’t do it in a fit of frustrated rage.

Finding nothing, he focused his attention on the coffee table and the magazines. In and of themselves, they struck him as out of place: Cosmopolitan, Life, New Yorker and Vogue. Everyone knew that peoples
’ tastes can be eclectic, but it didn’t seem like the reading material of just one person. However, the files were clear that she lived alone and had been alone ever since she moved in.

Eventually, he strolled back through the bedroom, finding it exactly as it was with the exception of Soto
’s body and the bottle of sleeping pills, both of which had gone down to the lab. Unable to avoid touching the drinking glass, he did so carefully on one edge with his finger and thumb. Gently, he swung it around to the light, twisting it around and examining the surface for smudges or marks of any kind. He can find nothing, no finger prints at all; not even an impression from the lips that had supposedly drank from it. He wonders whether the police and CSI bothered to look at it; it seems as if they did not.

Shaking his head, he replaced the glass, before turning his attention to the bed. It was
neatly made with the exception of Emma Soto’s imprint on the duvet. A single strand of hair was visible on her pillow, which he lifted with a pair of tweezers attached to his Swiss army knife. Again he turned to the plentiful light that streamed through the spacious windows. It certainly looked like Soto’s; it was the right shade and approximate length. However, he took a small plastic bag from his pocket and stored the hair for analysis.

His last stop was the connecting bathroom. There was a shower stall and a corner bath on one side. On the other was a double sink a towel rod and a full length mirror. All was pristine white, however there were a couple of tiny dots of red on the edge of one of the sinks. They had not been tagged by the CSI team, so again Rose assumed it was another oversight by the investigators. Like everything else he
’d seen and read made it clear the officers in charge of the case saw it as an open and shut case; the investigation, if it could be called one, was a mere formality.

Isaac wasn
’t viewing it in the same way; Emma Soto’s death, no matter what it’s cause, was far from a run of the mill case. Before leaving, he opened a kitchen cabinet, removed a box of Q-tips and used one to mop up what he believed was blood. The cotton swab then went into another small bag and was quickly sealed.

He didn
’t know at the time what he was going to do with this evidence. It was clearly of no interest to the investigating officers. However, he was willing to carry out his own test if necessary. One way or another, he was determined to get to the truth.