Fragmented (3 page)
Authors: George Fong
3
Yolo County
,
California
Monday –
FBI Special
Agent Jack Paris watched the temperature display in his Bureau car climb. It was a typical summer morning in the
Central Valley
, sweltering and getting worse. He slid two fingers under his collar and gave it a gentle yank. Sweat had formed a moist ring around his neck, making him not only uncomfortable but irritable as well. Chatter came over the Bureau radio. Already, there was a silent alarm going off at the Bank of America in
South Sacramento
. Two FBI agents were sent to respond. Too early in the morning to be legit. Jack turned down the volume but kept an ear tuned to the communication with dispatch, waiting for the agents to confirm a false alarm, just in case. Traffic was light but he found himself maneuvering around slow-moving cars crawling in the left lane. He cranked the air conditioner and held an arm in front of the vent, letting the cold air flow up his sleeve.
He made his way off the freeway and down several surface streets, eventually pulling his Crown Vic up to the gate of the Sacramento Field Office. Jack waved his photo ID badge across the Hirsch keypad—an electronic card reader—as he punched in his private code. Several seconds passed before green lights flashed. The 3,000-pound black, steel gate lumbered open. A
security guard on
the other side stood at attention.
Jack found an open space, exited, and entered the building. More keypads, double-locks and man-traps. He made his way to the squad bay and fell into his chair, greeted only by the glowing red bulb of his telephone message indicator. Jack Paris hated messages. They were mostly electronic packets of bad news. His eyes drifted away from the phone, to the right, resting on a copy of
The Investigator,
a monthly newsletter about things happening throughout the Bureau. It was opened to a page with the heading “Anniversaries.” Jack glanced nonchalantly through the rows of credential photos filling the page, each with the employee’s name, years of service and their current office assignment. There, just above center, was Jack’s picture. Someone—presumably whoever left the newsletter for Jack to see—had given the photo a make-over by penciling in Groucho Marx glasses along with the standard comedy mustache and an Alfred E. Neumann missing front tooth. Classy. Below the photo: Jack Paris, Twenty Years,
Sacramento
.
He studied the picture. With a Caucasian father and Asian mother, Jack didn’t look like your typical agent. He took on his father’s height at six feet and his strong jaw line. From his mother, her olive skin. He also inherited a good part of her tenacity. From the day he first became an agent with the FBI, he never thought of himself as different in any way. Agents were all the same, everyone equally abused by the Bureau. Today, however, he looked at the photo and finally saw a difference, but in a good way. He recognized his heritage from both sides and what it brought to his life as an agent. He was an amalgam of his parents. What they had ingrained in his character stared clearly back at him, even if it had taken twenty years to see it.
“Nice, eh?” The question came from behind him, steep in a
Boston
accent. Jack craned back and found Special Agent Sean Patrick Dooley, or Dools as he preferred, puffing his chest out, proclaiming himself king of the cartoon doodle.
Jack pointed at the drawing. “Nice artwork.”
“Congratulations,” Dools said.
“For what?”
“Twenty years. That’s a big accomplishment.”
“I guess.”
“Your ex can now start collecting your retirement benefits.”
“We’re separated, not divorced.”
“Yet,” Dools added.
Jack stretched forward and tapped at a photo on the bottom right. It was Dools’. They were classmates at
Quantico
, both reaching the twenty-year mark together, both ending up in
Sacramento
, Jack by choice, Dools not so much.
“Speak for yourself.” Dools was recently divorced.
“Touché.”
Dools stuck out a hand, rocked it from side to side. “Not one of my best.” He reached around and tapped a pudgy finger just to the right of Jack’s. He laughed. “Look at that. Dale Cortavin.”
Jack had slouched back in his chair, his eyes zeroed in on Cortavin’s photo.
“Yup,” Dools said with bite in his tone. “Cortavin with twenty and already an SAC.” As in Special Agent in Charge.
“You got twenty,” Jack said, reminding him that in the eyes of seniority they were all equal.
“Yeah, but I never aspired to rise to the top.”
“You mean like a turd in a punch bowl?”
Dools pressed his finger on Cortavin’s photo like he could smash the smile off his face. “Yep.” Then he shook his head. “A real piece of shit.”
Jack remained silent.
“You know I’m referring to Cortavin?” Dools said.
Jack nodded.
“You got to be a dick to be an SAC.”
Jack knew Dools was just blowing off steam.
“Cortavin,” Dools continued, “thinks he’s the best thing that came to the Bureau since J. Edgar, himself.”
“Don’t think much of him, do you?”
Dools shook a finger at Cortavin’s photo. “From the words of Senator Lloyd Bentsen, ‘He’s no Jack Kennedy.’”
That made Jack smile.
“You speak to Emily lately?” Dools asked.
The smile evaporated.
“You tell her about that job offer?”
Jack looked away.
“You should.”
His response was polite. “Back off.”
Dools opened his mouth but stopped short, deciding it was best not to venture forward in this conversation. He gave Jack two pats on the back, turned and walked down the hall to the file room
.
Jack looked back at the telephone.
Lots of messages.
He took a deep breath and, with his notebook in hand, started cycling through a weekend’s worth of calls.
“You have . . . ten . . . new messages and . . . twelve . . . old messages,” the automated system informed him.
Jack didn’t wait for instructions, punching in the proper codes. He began logging those that were important and dumping the rest into the electronic trash can.
One message caught his attention. “Jack, this is Ray Sizemore out of
Seattle
. I was told to call you specifically.” There was a pause and the sound of shuffling papers. “I’ve got an old homicide that goes back about fifteen years. I may have new information pointing at a suspect in your territory. Give me a call and let’s talk.”
Jack cycled through the rest. Messages from defense counselors wanting time to cut a deal for their clients, news reporters wanting an interview. Jack jotted their numbers but already decided he had more important things to do. He came to the last message and a familiar voice.
“Jack, Border Collins.”
There was a long silence as if Collins was hoping Jack would pick up the line.
“The Board met today. They’d like you to come in for a second interview.”
Jack took a deep breath and held still.
“They were thinking this Friday, around
. Listen, Jack, I know leaving the Bureau is a tough choice to make. It was hard for me, too. But you’ll get use to it. I think you’re going to be a great addition to our staff. Give me a call.”
The message stopped and Jack let the call soak in. He looked back over at
The Investigator
, pulled it closer and stared at his twenty-year photo. Too many years had passed unnoticed, and somewhere during that time, he’d lost what he’d wanted most. His home life. The twenty gave him an out. The ability to start a new career and maybe find a way back to Emily. The job offer made him anxious and nervous at the same time. Maybe Dools was right. Maybe he should tell Emily. Twenty years was a long time, maybe long enough to now make a change. He knew he had to do something. He just didn’t know what. Jack reached over and pressed a button on the keypad, hearing an automated response:
“Message Saved.”
Right now he needed coffee. Jack wandered to the kitchen, waited for a pot to brew, filled his office mug with what looked more like brown water and returned to his desk. He dialed Agent Sizemore, who he had heard good things about. The phone rang once before Sizemore answered. With a quick greeting, Jack opened up a fresh page in his notebook. “You said in your message you’re working on a cold case?”
“An old one that’s been sitting on the shelf for a while. Let me tell you what I got.” Sizemore sucked in a breath, like this was going to take a while. Jack’s curiosity was piqued.
“A little over fourteen years ago King County Sheriff’s responded to a suspicious activity report at an abandoned church in a town outside of
Renton
. Neighbors kept seeing a van coming and going. Thought it had to do with drugs. Every once in a while they overheard strange noises late at night. The van stopped coming and the noise went away. The neighbors talked, decided to call the cops, you get the idea. When the locals got out there and went inside, they found a girl who had been reported missing.”
“Dead?” Jack knew the answer but had to ask.
“Deputies found her body in a crawl space. She was fifteen-years-old. Based on the decomp, forensics estimated she’d been dead for a week by the time they arrived. They found her tied up, gagged and abandoned. The pathologist said she most likely died from dehydration. Whoever did this left her to die a slow death.”
“I remember reading about that one. Hard to forget a case like that.”
“It stayed in the news for months. Renton PD was able to I.D. the vic. Grace Holloway. Came up as an MP out of Seattle, Capitol Hill District, originally classified as a runaway. County ran an all out search for her killer without any luck. The crime scene yielded some evidence but it never panned out to much of anything.”
“
“That’s the good news,” Sizemore said with a bit more enthusiasm. “Luckily, the crime scene analysts took everything at the time of the search—paper bags, water glasses, old clothing. They had no idea if they were related. The stuff was worthless fifteen years ago, but recently they were able to pull the
“And?”
“They got a hit.”
Jack smiled.
“Three months ago, I pulled the evidence and sent all the swabs to our DNA lab. They came back today with a hit in CODIS. The guy is a fine, upstanding citizen in your territory. Alvin Franklin Cooper. Get this, Jack, according to his criminal history, Mr. Cooper was convicted five years ago for torching his house with his wife and eight-year-old daughter sleeping inside. Burned to death while the asshole watched. It looks like killing is a hobby for Mr. Cooper.”