Take the Fourth (30 page)

With that the President lifted from his center chair and made his way to the door with Scott in tow. The Oval Office was his place of business, he immediately walked in and the door was shut just as Scott entered.

“Please tell me Scott, you, you had nothing to do with this.”

“Not one iota.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, remember a few months ago when we watched the rest of the Georgetown game?”

“Yes, certain words were spoken.”

“Yes, indeed they were, so I ask you one more time.”

“Jonathan, I would not jeopardize this or any future presidency.”

“Don’t fucking call me Jonathan in this office, you got that, in here you address me as Mr. President, and I’d be goddamn spitting nails if, if…”

“Mr. President, just for the record, if I had done anything, wait, hear me out, would you really want the answers? Would you really want to be involved?”

 . . .

Chapter 45
 

A
rmed with a bit more knowledge, each of the officers locked a few pins and went about their way. Lynch was still dumbfounded with the amount of data one could obtain. His first marker was a well known supermarket chain of the south located just outside of Macon. He hit their database with ease and pulled out over three thousand people who were registered for one of those money savings bar code cards. It’s these cards that entice the shopper with extra savings and all one needs to do is supply their name, address, and a phone number in order to reap the rewards of a preferred customer. This of course, tracks each individual’s buying power, their complaint ratios, their coupon use, along with the typical what and when they buy. The feds had already pulled the same data and were crossing checking the already fore-mentioned data; Lynch was just playing in his new sandbox. He then pared down the number by gender and age—two hundred twenty-six, the same exact number the feds received. He then did a side-bar query and found seventy-eight percent of the card holders were women. “No surprise there,” he thought. He then dragged the men’s names into the lower left-hand box and applied the filter for their buying habits with the itemized list of buying goods that some hot-shot PhD holder back in Washington cooked up for child molesters. The list had everything from Cap’n Crunch and Sugar Puffs to Jello, KY Jelly, children’s Robitussin, to M & M’s and Tootsie Rolls. It wasn’t surprising that almost ninety-five percent of the males in this group had purchased at least one of these items at one time or another. Lynch pared down the list of males even more by eliminating fatherhood and still over sixty-five percent of the males were on the list. He then started to check items manually; anything with high sugar content was his first order of business. He was able to do so in groups like cereal and candy and still his numbers were rather high. Then he sat back and questioned his methodology. He realized he was on a spiral downward picking and choosing the right combination of items that a typical pedophile would buy—the permutations were almost endless. He needed a new plan of attack—just what exactly was he looking for… . just a name is all he wanted, a name linked to a limp. Once he had a name he then could drill down to the nitty-gritty and pick apart the life of a soulless sicko.

He started over.

Lynch realized the marker was because a man who fit the description was seen in this location/store, so he just had to find the real name of Mr. Limpy. The name just might be in the list of three thousand or so people who carried those cards, more specifically the two hundred and twenty six males between the ages of thirty-five and fifty who carried the store’s savings card. Now he was getting the hang of it. He cross checked these individuals with the medical files, then he did the same against the in-store pharmacy’s database. No hits. He did the same against the registered sex offenders even though this had already been done by the feds. Still no hits. He pulled the credit and debit card files. Again, he pared down the number by gender and age, the list was a bit larger this time, over five hundred give or take. Within seconds he found three individuals that had medical records for leg injuries. Now he was getting somewhere. He clicked on the names and dragged them to the lower left-hand box as he was told. Now he had three names to work with, “so let the games begin,” raced through his mind with the inflection of a sports commentator.

He read their medical records. Two of the men had recent injuries, within the past two months. The other had a hip replacement and at an early age, thirty-four. The date of his surgery was nineteen months ago placing him well within the range of the abductions which had a witness. For now he put the first two men on the back burner and concentrated his efforts on Mr. Hippy, a.k.a. Brian Sheldon. Almost on command Lynch had a screen full of data at his finger tips, everything from Brian’s brokerage accounts to his Food and Wine subscription. It told a story of a one half the member of a DINK household—married, spouse has a great job, no rug rats. It seemed pretty straight laced, with the one exception of a mistress account from a bank in California, probably not for his mistress if he even had one, just a tidy sum tucked away from the old ball and chain for rainy days or after the divorce, whichever came first. The more he read on Mr. Sheldon, the more he seemed consumed with money and more importantly, not with children, meaning he had a little snip snip just three weeks ago. Like Brian’s sperm, he was dead in the water on this so called suspect so Lynch moved on. After bringing up information on the other two men with battered legs he needed to look elsewhere. The supermarket pin had nothing more to offer. The next pin was a Home Depot store which he had locked earlier. Before he clicked the pin he got up from the table and walked out of the room. He was back with coffee in hand and then picked up his yellow pad. He glanced at it again and reread the notes from yesterday. “Damn it… . son of a…,” he said under his breath. He never did a follow up on Terry Farnsworth, Lindsay Newenburg’s ex. He had a new tool, he had a new suspect, he then entered him into the prompt and was just about to hit return when… .

“Hey Lynch, Jim Warner is here to see you.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“The prosthetic sex offender you just wanted rounded up.”

“Boy, my boys are good,” saying like a proud father in the war room.

“He came under his own accord.”

“Set him up, I’ll be right there,” saying as if he was a little deflated in front of the guys.

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and filed out of the war room, everybody except Josh.

 . . .

Chapter 46
 

A
t the same time everyone else was finding out today’s events so too was Jorja. She too was already in the office and logged onto the network. She immediately got a high priority popup on her desktop that hid all her open applications. The time was 7:07. It was marked Carson Residence. Each congressman, be it senator, or representative, judge, and political well doers, if they live in Washington or the surrounding area, was logged into a special 911 directory. They didn’t have to compete with the daily crime rate of D.C. and be waited on by close to minimum wage, barely trained operators—it was just another added perk to being an elected official.

Jorja’s heart skipped a beat when she read “Carson Residence”. The message contained the entire 911 transcript from this morning’s call that ended only three minutes ago. It also contained a direct link to the actual call. She clicked on the link and turned up her volume.

“911 operator, please state the emergency.”

“Yes… . uh, uh . .this is… this is… Robin.”

“You are calling from the Carson’s residence?”

“Yes… . Mrs… Mrs… Carson is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes… . there’s lots of blood… . she isn’t moving.”

“I’m sending officers to the scene now… Robin do you understand, do you or anyone else need medical attention?

“Uh… . uh.”

“Robin… . Robin are you still there?”

That was the extent of the call. She replayed it. Again. Again. She heard Robin’s all too familiar voice. She heard her say Mrs. Carson is dead. Aunt Gracie is dead. She tried to gather her composure. Her mind was caught between personal and business; caught in a conundrum. She hadn’t envisioned this scenario before… she was always planning, always preparing for the future but this caught her off guard. For a few minutes she collected herself, then she went to the alert system and punched in the distribution list simply entitled “now”. This list contained her go-to-guys in the event of a crisis situation. Four names total… her messages read—“if you’re in the office, my office now”. Within thirty seconds both Tom and Bill were in Jorja’s office.

“I need you two to keep me covered, keep me posted,” knowing all too well they each received the 911 transcripts.

“Where are you going?”

“Where do you think… . I’m going over there.”

“Is that such a good idea?”

“I need to, you know that… I have to see my uncle… see if he’s okay… he’s all I got left.”

With that she was out the door and just about to pass Greg.

“Sorry, I was in the server room.”

“I need you to do the digging, find out everything… everything you can,” and with that she was in the elevator heading down. Her mind was now in full gear. Thinking. Remembering. Thinking. She was thinking on the best route with morning traffic, remembering the last time she truly saw her aunt happy, she was thinking about the 911 call, thinking about her daily agenda, remembering if she had any important meetings scheduled, thinking about the what if’s, what if there is another crisis today, what if her uncle was dead too, what if… Before she knew it she was already in the car and in route when her phone rang. It was Greg.

“Yes?”

“Listening to the D.C. finest in blue’s play by play, crime scene squad, coroner, and detectives are in route. There are two bodies.”

“Uncle Floyd,” with a shuttle in her voice?

“No, he’s alive and okay, found downstairs in his study… second victim is a John Doe at the moment. Appears to be in bed with Grace. They were both shot… that’s all I have but I’m working on a timeline for you.”

Click. Thinking. Remembering. Thinking.

On the drive over she started to tear up. She remembered her aunt Grace’s face plain as day, she remembered helping to stuff the turkey on her big island in the kitchen, she remembered sleeping over, waking up early and walking in the gardens to pick flowers for the kitchen table. She remembered her aunt’s voice as she used to sing Ray Charles’ Georgia, to her. She remembered all the good times, mostly because there were rarely any bad times with her aunt. She remembered her aunt as being the only female that was there for her, when she had her first period, had her first kiss, even when she lost her virginity to her long time college boyfriend, Jay Simpson. When she remembered that fact she had to dry her cheeks and laugh a bit, only now did she get the irony of being inundated with Simpsons quotes from Greg.

It took her just over an hour to reach her uncle’s house and there was already a circus parked in his driveway. She saw the coroner’s car and Bobby’s town car. There were no additional phone calls. She was just about to call for a much needed status report when she saw her Uncle from behind the window. She flashed her badge and walked around the uniformed officer and into the much too familiar hallway. Again she flashed her credentials to yet another uniformed officer but this time she was denied. The door to the study was closed and she knew Uncle Floyd was being questioned. She turned back towards the hallway to find someone in charge and she spotted Bobby in the living room sitting patiently as he always does.

“Bobby.”

He stood up to meet Jorja. “Jorja, what’s going on? They told me to sit tight and don’t leave.”

“Did they question you yet?”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

“No, I have no idea what’s happening… . I was supposed to take Mr. Carson to the Westinghouse for an eight thirty meeting.”

“What time did you bring him back last night?”

“Pretty early… I’d say right before twelve, he wanted to get a good night’s sleep for this meeting, he didn’t want to leave last night’s dinner too early but he had to.”

“Who was the meeting with today?”

“Don’t know, but like I said it seemed important… can you tell me what happened… is he okay?”

“Aunt Gracie… my Aunt Gracie,” as she took a long pause as to not really believing what she was about to say, “was found dead this morning.”

Bobby sat back down and Jorja grasped his shoulder in a very loving way. She left Bobby to his memories, for he had known Grace and Floyd for the better part of ten years now and they treated him like family, as they did with all their help. With that, Jorja went to seek out the person in charge when her phone chirped.

‘What have you got?”

“Just speculation at the moment, nothing solid, but police reports and rumors are saying T.O.D. was between eleven and one.”

“I just learned that Bobby, the driver, dropped Uncle Floyd off at just before twelve which makes him a prime suspect.”

“Jesus… you think he did something like this?’

“No, no way in hell but… .”

“But what?”

“I’m thinking… . do you know if he called anyone yet?”

“Hold on… . no outgoing calls, a few incoming… . same for his cell.”

“Gotta run,” and Jorja punched in a new number, as she was listening to the ringing in her blue tooth adapter, she heard a phone ring from her other ear.

“Calling someone?”

As Jorja spun around she saw Eric Riedal, the owner of the last question and Mr. Carson’s confidant, one of his best friends, and most important at this time, his lawyer.

Jorja clicked cancel on her cell and Eric’s phone stopped ringing.

“No one in particular… . they won’t let me in.”

“Come with me.”

Even though Jorja’s credentials are top notch, there are certain situations which they are out of their realm… . criminal investigation in the downtown District of Columbia is one of them unless they involved Homeland Security or terrorists in one shape or another. Murder was simply a crime so it was bestowed upon Eric’s credentials to get them past the door of the study, where a simple remark was all that was needed. “Yes, I’m Mr. Carson’s lawyer.”

Upon just glancing at Jorja, Floyd began to tear up once again. No words were spoken and a much needed hug was granted. He hugged her tight and still didn’t say a word. Jorja herself was beginning to tear as she glanced at a picture of her aunt on the desk. Then she broke the silence and the hug.

“You okay?”

“Your Aunt Gracie is dead, that’s all I know… . there was another body bag, another… another, someone else with her… . I don’ t know.”

“We’ll figure it out, just for now be calm.”

“What have you told them,” asked Eric?

“Nothing much, just that I came home around twelve and fell asleep in the study, woke up to cars pulling in my driveway.”

“Not to alarm you but they are putting the time of death somewhere between eleven and one which means you might have been home at the time this happened,” mentioned Jorja.

“So I’m the prime suspect?”

“Probably so, did they do anything to you while they questioned you?”

“They swabbed me for gunshot residue and took a DNA swab, that was about it. Right now I’m sure the D.A. is fielding the evidence to see if they have enough to hold me.”

“Exactly where is your gun?”

“Locked in the gun safe.”

“Speaking of which,” said a man with papers in his hand standing in the doorway of the study, “we have a warrant to search the premises for that very gun. We understand that it is a nine millimeter.”

Eric spoke up, “Papers please,” read them and nodded. With that, Floyd Carson unlocked his gun safe, and handed the man a box containing his handgun, a nine millimeter.

 . . .