The Bubble Gum Thief (17 page)

“Thank you, sir. But I will be fine.” Her words didn’t sound convincing, even to Dagny.

On the way out of the office, Fabee grabbed Dagny’s forearm and pulled her aside. He wasn’t happy and his voice showed it. “I got copies of your notes and the security footage. You got anything else?”

“Just the bullet that killed the dog.”

“That goes in the file. Drop the bullet off at my house tonight.” He scribbled his address on the back of his business card, grabbed her hand, placed the card in her palm, and closed her fingers over it. “Don’t lose that.” He must have meant for the gesture to seem tough or strong or authoritative. He must have meant for it to remind her that he was in charge of the case. But whatever he meant, it just seemed creepy.

Fabee lived forty-five minutes out of the city, in a redbrick farm house on five acres of land, surrounded on all sides by thick woods. Its genuine seclusion easily beat Dagny’s faux seclusion on her quarter-acre lot in Del Ray, and she felt a tinge of envy as she turned into Fabee’s private gravel drive. Not that the property was well kept. The grass was overgrown and the paint on the shutters was peeling. A chain on the front porch swing was broken, so the seat hung to the ground. One of the gutters had slipped from the roof.

Dagny grabbed the FedEx box from the passenger seat and climbed out of her Prius. Walking to the front door, she passed two windows. Peering through one of them into the living room, she saw four folding chairs, a card table, and little else. She walked past the front door, toward the two windows on the other side of the porch. One of them looked a little different from the other—crisper, cleaner. Fabee had recently replaced the window and hadn’t taken the care to match the new one to the others. He hadn’t even removed the sticker from the windowpane. Dagny figured that Fabee lived here alone, because no woman would have stood for mismatched windows, peeling paint, and folding chairs. But then again, she’d also noticed a wedding ring on his hand.

Dagny walked back to the front door and rang the bell. Fabee answered with his sleeves rolled up and a chopping knife in his left hand. “Makin’ chili,” he said, motioning for her to follow him over a scuffed tile floor to the kitchen. Dishes were piled high in the sink. The wallpaper was peeling above the stove. Fabee wielded his knife at a chopping board, slicing through a jalapeño and picking out the seeds. “That my bullet?” he asked, nodding toward the box in Dagny’s hand.

“Yes.”

“Set it on the table.”

The kitchen table was covered with stacks of paper, two and three feet high. Dagny set the box on top of one of the piles.

“Is this all related to the case?” she asked.

“It is.”

“What is it all?”

“Witness statements. Measurements. Photographs. Calendars and e-mails from the victims’ computers.”

“All from the sixth crime?”

“Mostly.”

Dagny saw an e-mail from Mike’s account on the top of one of the stacks. She wanted to thumb through the stack to see if any had been exchanged between Mike and Candice. She wanted to do a lot of things she wasn’t allowed to do. “Anything promising in there?”

Fabee ignored the question. “I know the place is a mess. Wife and the girls are in Texas. Things are a little rough. Trying to make everything work. Me being here, and then always on the road. Sometimes...” He didn’t finish the thought. “Everything is hard except when I’m working, Dagny. But when I’m working, it’s all fine. I guess you’re that way, too.”

“Yes.”

“Misery can wait,” he said. “Misery can wait.” Fabee tossed the sliced jalapeño into a pot, then leaned against the counter.
“When our man stabbed Michael, it wasn’t just one quick jab and done. He stuck the knife in his gut”—Fabee mimed the action with his own knife—“and yanked it slowly up to his heart, then wiggled the blade around in a circle a few times. Man, he wiggled that thing around for at least ten seconds and then held Michael’s body up by the blade and watched the life flow out of him. Maybe took another twenty seconds. And when he was done, he didn’t just pull the knife out—he shoved Michael’s body until it fell away from the knife, and his face hit against the rail on the way down. Knocked a couple of teeth loose.”

Dagny could feel Fabee’s eyes move over her, waiting for her to break. She’d figured out that she could avoid this by biting down on the sides of her tongue just hard enough to hurt a little. After a moment, she said calmly, “I’m aware that murder is ugly.”

“If someone hurt my wife, or my kids...you bet I’d want in on the case. I’d want blood. But they wouldn’t let me, and thank God for that. I couldn’t take working a personal case like that, and I’m a coldhearted prick, not a nice girl like you. The Professor may be buddies with the president, but he’s done you no favor. I’m going to do you the best favor anyone could. I’m going to do my best to give you nothing on this case. Nothing. You have my word on that, Dagny Gray.”

Driving away from Fabee’s home, she no longer envied its deep seclusion. It seemed like a lonely way to live.

March 18—Arlington, Virginia

When Dagny pulled into the Professor’s driveway at a quarter past six, Victor Walton was pacing on the porch, hands stuffed in the pockets of his oversize suit pants.

“Hey,” she yelled, running around to the Prius’s hatchback. “Help me bring this stuff inside.”

Victor shuffled toward the car, then tripped over his own feet and fell to the pavement. “Look, I’m not sure about this,” he said.

“Not sure about what?” She grabbed his hand and helped him up, then handed him a large bag from the Apple Store.

“I’m not sure if you really want me to work with you on this.” His voice cracked as he said it.

“Of course I do.” Dagny lifted two more bags from the back of her car and closed the door.

“I’m just an accountant. I don’t know what to do.”

“When in doubt, just follow my lead.” Dagny jogged up to the front door and rang the bell. Victor scurried behind. “Did you bring your gun?” Dagny asked.

“What? No.” He rolled his eyes, then sighed. “Are you serious?”

“I brought an extra.”

“Do I really need a gun?”

“An agent always carries his gun.”

Mrs. McDougal answered the door and greeted Dagny with a warm, motherly hug. “Good to see you, dear.” The gesture was meant to be comforting, but it only reminded Dagny that she was operating within a personal tragedy. When they broke their embrace, Victor walked over to Mrs. McDougal and gave her a hug, too. “Mrs. McDougal, I’m Victor Walton Jr. It’s nice to meet you.”

Mrs. McDougal seemed to be taken aback by the unexpected embrace. “Nice to meet
you
.” She laughed nervously.

After breaking the hug, Victor followed Dagny on a serpentine path through the house to the Professor’s study. “Cool room,” Victor observed when they entered. He ran his fingers across the spines of the Professor’s book collection. “The rest of the place is a bit of a dump, but this room is stunning.”

A stern, severe voice boomed from the back of the room. “I’d like to think the rest of our home is nice as well.” The Professor walked over to Dagny and gave her a hug. It felt like the first hug the Professor had ever given—not a trinket handed out casually, but something held in reserve for special people in extraordinary circumstances. In the short time she had spent with the Professor, Dagny sensed that certain emotions—rage, anger, and envy, for example—came easily to him, but affection and compassion did not.

“How are you doing, Dagny?” he whispered in her ear.

“Hanging in there,” she replied, which was about right.

When Dagny withdrew from the embrace, Victor was waiting. He threw his arms around the Professor, squeezing him tight, and patting his back. “I just want to say that I’m honored that you picked me.”

The Professor stood still, with his hands at his side, building into a slow simmer. His face grew red and his body began to shake. The Professor threw his arms up to break Victor’s embrace. “Special Agent Walton, for some reason you won Dagny’s lottery. I can tell you that you wouldn’t have been my first choice.”

“I know, sir. In fact, if Agent Gray would like a do-over—”

“Sorry, Walton, but you’re stuck.” The Professor eyed Dagny’s gift bags. “What goodies did you bring?”

They spent the next hour setting up and testing the Professor’s new computer system. It violated protocol, but Dagny liked to use her Mac, since the Bureau’s computer system was hopelessly out-of-date and unreliable. Bringing the Professor off the Bureau grid with her would give their investigation a little privacy, just in case Fabee had prying eyes.

Dagny helped the Professor create a Gmail account, then filled in the POP settings in the mail application so messages would automatically download to his hard drive. They practiced initiating videoconference calls. She showed him how to save images to iPhoto, the computer’s photograph-management software. He begged her to teach him how to use the iTunes music store, but she demurred. They had a flight to catch.

Dagny had reserved a compact car, but that didn’t prevent the rental-car agent from trying to push an upgrade. It took three clear refusals to end the sales pitch, and only then did the clerk admit that they were out of compact cars and that Dagny would get the upgrade for free. She refused the insurance, too, until Victor’s hectoring insistence wore her down. “Always get the insurance,” he argued. “Especially if you can get it reimbursed.”

On the drive into downtown Cincinnati, Dagny relayed most of the important details of the case to Victor. She left out
the
most important detail—her relationship with Michael Brodsky—because she couldn’t discuss it while maintaining composure.

At District One headquarters, they hopped out of the car and bounded toward the steps. Dagny handed Victor his Glock and an underarm holster. “You need to look like an agent, Walton.” She noticed that his sleeves were flapping in the wind. “Why are
your suits so big? They make you look small. Hand-me-downs from your dad?”

“My dad? No, these are my suits.”

“Were they on sale or something?”

“They used to fit. I lost about thirty-five pounds in training.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I was a little pudgy.”

The familiar face of Lieutenant Ronald Beamer met them at the door. He wore a warm, sad expression and gave Dagny a big hug. The top of his bare scalp came up to her chin. “Dagny, I’m so sorry,” Lieutenant Beamer said. “My condolences.” It was her third hug of the day, and it wasn’t motherly or fatherly like the first two. It was the hug of a brother. Law enforcement stuck together in times of tragedy, regardless of rank or affiliation.

When Beamer let go of Dagny, Victor threw his arms around the lieutenant for a big bear hug. “I’m Victor Walton.” Victor’s body towered over and seemed to engulf Beamer’s.

Squirming, Beamer stuck his head out from under Victor’s arm and looked at Dagny. “This your partner?”

“Apprentice,” she replied.

They retired to the conference room, where Dagny explained that she’d been given permission to work the case, but that Fabee had frozen her out. Beamer told her that the case had gone “completely federal,” and that five or six agents had arrived with Chuck Wells, the local Special Agent in Charge, to lift the Cincinnati Police Department’s file the day before. Wells was keeping Beamer in the loop since he knew he’d have to work with him in the future. The other agents weren’t local—Fabee preferred to use “his men.”

Beamer told her that they’d searched Adams’s home, but hadn’t found anything incriminating. Adams wasn’t there when the search began; when he returned home around noon the next day, the Feds were still picking apart the house. Adams cursed Dagny’s name and ran off—presumably, that’s when he’d left
the angry message on her phone. He returned with his lawyer and two receipts—one from a gas station, another from a liquor store—that indicated purchases in Columbus on the afternoon of the fifteenth, around the time of the murder in Georgetown. Adams also produced a credit card bill that suggested he was in Cincinnati on February 1, and not in Chula Vista, killing a dog. “I don’t think Adams is a serious suspect right now,” Beamer explained. “Besides, he’s too lazy to pull off so mething like this.”

Victor scribbled notes on a legal pad. Luckily, the lieutenant didn’t seem to mind. When they finished, Beamer wished them luck and walked them to the door.

Once outside, Dagny collared Victor. “Listen, you’ve got to stop hugging people. It’s really, really awkward.”

“Hey, I thought it was strange too, but you said to follow your lead!” Victor protested. “I don’t want to hug these people. And why is everyone hugging you? And why did Officer Beamer offer you condolences?”

Dagny ignored his questions. “Another thing, don’t take notes when we talk to people like Beamer. Notes are for suspects and witnesses. The last thing Beamer wants is a record of him helping us.” She grabbed the loose arm of his suit jacket and pulled him toward the rented Impala.

Dagny wanted to head straight to see Chesley Waxton, but Victor insisted that they eat lunch. They stopped at Camp Washington Chili, a diner on the west side of town. Victor ordered a “four way”—chili over spaghetti with onions and two inches of shredded cheddar. It had to be nearly 800 calories and 44 grams of fat. Dagny asked for a cup of vegetable soup. “I can’t believe you’re not having the chili,” Walton said. “You can’t come to Cincinnati and not eat the chili.”