Humpty Dumpty: The killer wants us to put him back together again (Book 1 of the Nursery Rhyme Murders Series) (14 page)

She closed her eyes and drifted back off to sleep in seconds.

CHAPTER 9

Had was tired. Oh, so very, very tired.

But he was done. He’d finished it. It had taken three of those five hour energy drinks to make it through the night, but Had was proud of what he’d accomplished.

And who the hell managed to make it through five hours on one of those little thingies? They should call them five-hour-energy-for-people-who-are-already-insomniacs. False advertising at its worst.

Regardless, all of the through-the-night coding had been worth it. Sure, he was a little punch-drunk now, but he was young. He could take it.

The results of his work meant they could hit the ground running as soon as they got back to Quantico. There would be no futzing around. Had now was in possession of all of the collated data they needed to start bringing in suspects.

As he was gulping down the last of his energy drinks, there was a knock on the door. Room service. Perfect. He was starving.

Turned out it wasn’t room service. It was Coop, looking focused and determined. Come to think of it, that’s how she looked a majority of the time, so this morning wasn’t all that different.

“We need to get down to the station to pick up Joshua.”

Okay, that wasn’t what Had was expecting to hear. “What?”

“He snuck out last night after we got here. Drank half the alcohol in the county from all accounts… and ended up in the drunk tank.” There was a slight hiccup in her speech right before she mentioned the drunk tank. Almost like she was about to say something else but changed her mind.

“Aw, man. I’m sorry, Coop,” Had apologized. “I should’ve been watching out for him”

“How could you have? You were busy sleeping.”

“Well, actually…” Had ushered Agent Cooper into the room.

She took in the pristine condition of the bed and the empty energy drink containers in the blink of an eye. “Had, did you stay up all night?”

He grinned at her. “Yep.”

“Um, Had… Is there a
reason
you stayed up all night? I thought we’d talked about you getting more sleep.”

“Sure, well, yeah… but check this out.” Had pulled his laptop toward him and called up the program that he’d named Load and Lockup. Punching a few keys, Had displayed a map of the U.S. with dots showing the location of the body parts they’d found to date. The old ones from 13 years earlier were in yellow, the new ones in red.

“What did you do here?” Coop asked.

“I wrote a program!” he answered, jazzed to show her all the features of his new creation. He started to cross-reference the transportation data when Coop stopped him.

“You know there’s already a program that we use for this, right?”

Had felt his excitement deflate like a water balloon into which someone had poked a pin. The elation he had felt drained away with excruciating slowness, trailing a trickle of his liquefied pride behind it.

“Oh,” was all he could manage, after a long moment of awkward silence.

“Had, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no. It’s my fault. I should’ve checked.” He shook his head in self-mockery. “It makes sense. Of course you already have a program.”

“There was no way you could’ve known,” Coop soothed, patting his shoulder.

“I could’ve asked,” Had fired back. “Or better yet, stopped to think about the fact that the FBI, one of the greatest law enforcement agencies in the world, might have some rocking software. Stupid.”

“No. Not stupid,” she corrected him, her tone more direct this time. “Sweet. Enthusiastic. Forward-thinking. Some of the very reasons I brought you in to begin with.”

“I just… You said we needed to look for the links, so I thought…” He stopped, shook off his disappointment and grinned up at his boss. “Hey, no biggie, right? It’s only a night’s sleep.”

“Right.” Coop looked over his shoulder at the computer. “Besides, now we don’t have to wait until we get back to Quantico.”

Had was sure she was just trying to make him feel better at this point. It was his guess that she had a similar program she could pull up on her laptop in a moment’s notice. But the fact that she was working so hard to make him feel better was something. In fact, it actually did kinda make him feel better.

“Well, since we’re here, let me show you what else I found.” Had brought up the overlay of the transportation routes he’d been studying last night. “I looked at flight plans, commercial and industrial. There were some common links, but it didn’t account for everything we’d found. Some more significant commonalities with train lines, too, but look at this…” He took down everything but the trucking routes. “Bingo.”

“Wow,” Agent Cooper breathed. “There are a bunch of matches. Going all the way back to the earliest cases.”

“Yep. And check this out.” He clicked on a button, which took them to a page that listed the trucking companies that matched the routes they were looking at. Another click brought up all their current employees of record, and cross-referenced any priors.

A dozen names were left, highlighted in red.

“Wait a minute. Did you…?” She leaned in closer, peering at the screen. “This is better than the software we use.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

“Come on, Had. That’s not really my style. This is great work.” She pointed at the name in red. “You may have just saved us two to three days here.” Coop gave him a pat on the shoulder before she headed back out of the room.

Had felt a glow of pride begin at his neck and work its way up to the crown of his head. His software, that he’d coded in one night, was better than the FBI’s. He wasn’t sure he bought it one hundred percent, but man it felt good.

Time to get dressed for the day. He picked up his luggage from the floor and pulled out a blue button-up shirt and a tie. And, let’s see… ah, yes. The raw denim jeans. The ones he’d been told made his butt look good. Okay, it had been his mama, but still…

Glancing down at the readout on the screen, he thought through what the next few days would bring. Part of it would be some intense conversations with these men, their names covered in digital red.

This was going to be fun.

* * *

In prison.

Agent Cooper had thrown Joshua in prison.

Okay, she hadn’t actually thrown him in the cell, but she had denied knowing him to the cops, which amounted to the same thing. She may have thought he was so far gone that he wouldn’t know what she did, but he remembered. It was a hazy, warped view of the incident, but it was also the only thing that made sense, considering all the facts.

He was in a jail cell that smelled of alcohol fumes, stale cigarette smoke and piss, with what appeared to be a transgendered prostitute and a frat boy. The college kid must have thought that he had more in common with Joshua than the hooker, because he’d tried several times to strike up a conversation. But after Joshua implied that the only reason the frat guy was in there because he’d tried to take their other cellmate for a “date”, the young man pretty much left him alone.

There was no way for him to know what time it was. There had been even less sleep last night than normal, so his usual wake up time of four to four-thirty couldn’t be calculated. He didn’t own a watch. There was no window to the outside, so he couldn’t gauge by the brightness of the sun. He was just trapped in here with a woman-slash-man-of-the-evening and a rich kid with an expensive haircut wearing Abercrombie & Fitch.

Asshole.

Joshua glanced down at his hands. They were starting to shake. Not a good sign. Bad things were ahead if he didn’t get out of here and find a drink. Fast.

The outer door to the cell area opened with a clang that went straight through Joshua’s head. Well, straight through couldn’t be accurate. If it had gone straight through, there wouldn’t be those nasty echoes still bouncing around inside. He groaned.

“Good morning, Joshua.” Coop’s voice was too loud, too bright, too fake for him to take sitting down. So he stood.

That was a mistake.

He sat back down again. “Is it? I don’t see that it’s either good or a morning from where I sit.”

“I’m here to get you out.”

“Don’t bother,” Joshua responded. “I’m quite enjoying my stay here at
Casa Encarcerado.
The beds are soft, the food’s amazing, and the company’s positively scintillating.”

“Oh, they have Johnny Walker Red in there, do they?” She held up a tiny bottle and waved it back and forth from the opposite side of the bars. Dammit. It had to be Johnny Walker. How did she know? Coop continued, “I can see that you’re starting to shake. And is that sweat beading up on your brow?”

He wiped at his forehead, appalled to find that there was indeed a sheen of moisture there. “That’s just my passion for this lovely young thing rearing its ugly head.” Pointing at the prostitute, Joshua winked at Agent Cooper and licked his lips. “Join us, why don’t you?”

At that, Coop dropped the false niceties and went back to her more direct tone of voice. “That’s it. I’m done.”

“Done? Is that so?” Joshua grinned at her, in spite of the answering shot of pain it caused in his skull. “You feel up to taking Humpty head on by yourself?”

“No,” she answered. “Not even a little bit. But I’m not alone. I’ve got Had.”

“Yeah, that’s a good one. He’ll just
talk
the killer to death.”

Coop let out a long sigh. “You punched him, Joshua. You stole his wallet. He worships you and you piss all over him.”

That stopped Joshua, at least for a second. But he got his voice back a moment later. “He shouldn’t.”

“Oh, I agree,” the agent said. “But you need to tell him yourself. In person.”

“Whatever.”

“I came to get you out, you self-obsessed bastard, but if you think I’m going to beg, you’re going to be in there for a very long time.”

She turned on her heel and walked back to the entrance. Joshua held out for all of two steps. It was Johnny Walker Red she was carrying off, after all.

“Wait.”

Pivoting, Coop speared him with a look that could have eaten through stainless steel. Maybe he should’ve just let her walk away.

The ride back to the airport was going to be an interesting one.

* * *

Sariah liked music. Really she did.

But Indian techno? Not so much.

She had been all for just calling the cab company, bringing in the first driver who was available. But Had pulled out his cell and dialed for what’s-his-name before she had a second to contest the decision.

“Shawty’s headin’ back to her crib? My heart be breakin’, yo.” The driver waggled his eyebrows at her in the rear-view mirror. Kebab, was that his name?

“Yeah, sucks to be you,” Joshua muttered, staring out the window. They were the first words he’d spoken since she pulled him out of his cell that morning.

“Y’all have been so bitchin’. Imma text my cuz, let him know how much y’all be ballin’.” He proceeded to whip out his Sidekick, slide out the keyboard and start typing.

To Sariah’s surprise, they managed to stay on the road and even avoid other cars as the cab driver continued to type out his text. How he managed to do that without once lifting up his head to look, she had no idea.

“Oooo, dawg!” The driver… Kashif, that was his name… brightened up all of the sudden, as a new song blared out from the speakers. Sariah couldn’t tell the difference between it and the last one that had been playing. “This my jam, homey!”

Kashif began to gyrate, moving his head, his arms and his hips, all while staying seated and keeping the car from swerving. It was a real talent. The dancing was a mix of the styles Sariah had seen when her roommate back in college had forced her to watch the Bollywood film
Bride & Prejudice…
and hip-hop.

They weren’t styles that mixed together well.

The dancing was bad enough, but that wasn’t the end of it. It only took a few more seconds into the song before their cab driver started to free-style rap.

The BAU be bitchin’

My balls they be itchin’

To get in

Yo’ kitchen

Mama, you make me sweat. Hunh!

On the last guttural exclamation, Kashif grabbed his crotch, making eye contact with Sariah through the mirror. Well, if nothing else, this cab ride would make for some amazing stories down the line.

She watched as Joshua pulled out the earplugs he’d been using on the plane and scrunched down as far as he could in his seat. Had, on the other hand, was bouncing along to the rhythm, nodding his head with his eyes closed.

At least someone was having fun.

* * *

The flight to Richmond International Airport in Virginia was notable to Joshua for one fact and one fact alone.

They let him drink before the flight took off. Before they’d taxied down the runway, he’d put away two rum and Cokes. Well, the rum part, anyway. He’d given the Cokes to Had, who seemed content to spend every one of their flights getting to know everyone around him.

That, combined with the fact that there was no one on his aisle, meant that he was able to drift off to sleep. Fitful, booze colored sleep, but sleep nonetheless. At this stage in his downward spiral into oblivion, there really wasn’t any other kind.

They were greeted outside the airport by a friend of a friend of Bilal, courtesy of a quick text that Had sent out, over both Joshua and Coop’s protests. The friend of a friend ended up being, shockingly enough, Polish. Micha, a grizzled old man who looked to be in his late 70s, early 80s, talked to Had about the old country while Joshua did what he could to tune the conversation out.

“We’ve got this Polish place up in the U.P. in Michigan that has the best food. It’s called Legs Inn,” Had mentioned. Joshua was surprised to see Agent Cooper perk up at the topic change. It seemed that Coop liked Polish food. Who knew?

“Ah, Legs. I know this place. My brother’s ex-wife’s sister is waitress at this place.”

“You know it?” Had almost leapt out of his seat in excitement. “They have the best pierogi at that restaurant.”

“And the smoked whitefish spread?” The man kissed his fingers in appreciation.