I doubt he was frightened. He might have been amused or more excited and aroused, and I imagine him running nimbly back to the MIT campus along the railroad tracks to watch me show up with Marino, to watch Lucy land her helicopter and Benton climb out. What fanfare and reward for a sadistic narcissist and I feel certain he’d been watching me for days as he premeditated Gail Shipton’s murder, gathering intelligence about her, stalking, fantasizing what a superhero he would be when he created more terror and drama and in the process eliminated what he wrongly rationalized was a problem for Double S, assuming he rationalizes or reasons or has any logic at all.
The killer didn’t need to be asked to murder Gail Shipton nor would he have been, Benton has said repeatedly over recent hours. On his own this deluded, violent individual took care of someone who in his mind was a thorn in Lombardi’s side. When this rogue killer showed up or was summoned to Double S this morning, it’s possible he expected to get praised and rewarded as he devoured cupcakes on the soundproof sunporch. But that’s not how it worked out for him or for any of them, Benton theorized not long before Granby wrapped his arm around him and told him condescendingly to go home and enjoy the rest of his life.
The killer is rapidly decompensating. He may have become psychotic, Benton explained as the bodies were pouched and carried like black cocoons out to my truck. Lombardi was the intended target but his murder wasn’t planned. His assistant Caminska was personal but not as much. And the third victim, who we believe is Haley Swanson, was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Swanson took the commuter train to Concord to meet with Lombardi because suddenly there was, to say the least, an unexpected PR dilemma, Benton did his best to impress upon his FBI colleagues. The killer is someone Lombardi knew but murdering Gail Shipton wasn’t in Double S’s plans or best interest. It wasn’t necessary and would only bring unwanted attention and public scrutiny, which is the last thing organized criminals want or need. In fact, Lombardi may have been enraged when he found out the news.
Crisis management is what Benton called what may have gone on early this morning. It’s likely the killer was castigated and berated for the reckless thing he’d done, and Benton could well imagine this person driving off stung and belittled and then returning on foot to slaughter Lombardi and whoever else was inside this building. But Granby hasn’t listened and not because he doesn’t care. He cares, all right, because he can’t possibly solve the cases honestly.
He damn well knows what he assumes we don’t, the falsified DNA, the tampering in CODIS. He has to be frantically aware that DNA recovered in the cases here in Massachusetts or some place else won’t come back to Martin Lagos who isn’t leaving biological evidence anywhere. He’s nothing but a string of numbers in a database, a stain that couldn’t have been left by him on a pair of Sally Carson’s cotton panties.
“The blood card from her autopsy in Virginia will have to be reanalyzed but we can’t mention this to anyone right now. It will have to wait until it’s safe to address,” I say to Benton as I go through my scene case, doing a last-minute inventory.
I pick up envelopes and containers I’ve labeled and sealed, evidence from three people savagely killed, each of their tracheas cut all the way through like a vacuum cleaner hose.
“That’s how we undo the tampering and show Sally Carson’s profile was changed to Martin Lagos’s,” I explain. “We can straighten this out but the timing is imperative and right now we really don’t know who to trust but absolutely not the head of your labs in Quantico. I worry she’s in thick with Granby.”
“Someone is,” Benton says.
“Maybe that’s how she got the job, a big step up to go from the director of the Virginia labs to the director of the national ones. She took over last summer about the same time Granby took over the Boston division and some months and two murders later a DNA profile is corrupted in CODIS. It had to be someone who has access and knows how to alter data.”
“The Bureau will blame it on lab contamination or a computer entry error.” Benton stands near the front door, his eyes on me, the two of us alone and ignored inside the front office. “But it won’t even get that far publicly. It will go away silently.”
“We’ll see about that.” I continue checking evidence, making sure what I collected is accounted for as we head out into the night. “I suspect your boss knew back in April who murdered Klara Hembree, that her killer is someone in thick with Double S and that’s why Granby ended up here so he could be in Lombardi’s backyard.”
“Klara Hembree is key to figuring it out. In her case there may have been a motive,” Benton says. “But obviously doing something as drastic as tampering with CODIS didn’t become necessary until Sally Carson and Julianne Goulet were murdered.”
“Because they weren’t supposed to be,” I say angrily. “Because the person doing it is worse than a loose cannon. He’s a contagion on its way to causing a plague. I’m surprised someone didn’t take him out by now.”
“It may have been too late for that. I suspect what we’re dealing with has very deep roots.”
“As deep as deep gets.” I can’t disguise the outrage I feel.
“You might want to put this on.”
Benton holds out my coat and I see the love he has for me. I see it in his eyes, and I see the shadow of disgust and indignation that feel like sickness. Granby may as well have kicked him in the gut, and I saw it happen and it bothers Benton that I did. It bothers him terribly as if I will think less of him and that only makes me hell-bent and angrier.
“The fresh air is what I need.” I want to breathe clean air, pleasant-smelling, bracing air, and I need to think clearly. “The cold will feel good right about now.” I don’t put my coat on yet.
Adrenaline has banished fatigue and I’ve gone from being hungry to not feeling it anymore, and I send a text message to Bryce. I tell him Dr. Adams needs to return to the CFC immediately to confirm identifications.
“Already on his way,” he answers before I’ve finished typing that I’m going to be tied up for a while.
“Gavin’s only called about ten million times,” my chief of staff fires back about the Boston Globe reporter who’s a close friend of his and therefore gets preferential treatment that I’ve given up quibbling about.
Gavin Connors is a fine journalist who goes to concerts and sporting events with Bryce and Ethan, they cook together, and when needed he takes care of their Scottish Fold cat named Shaw. I will have quite the story for Gavin Connors but it needs to wait until I’m sure what it is and am ready to hand it off in a way that won’t be traceable, and I have no doubt Barbara Fairbanks will blast it everywhere next. The news will be too sensational for the government to bury, and I let Bryce know that when I’m back we’ll deal with the media, and I’ll want to hear all about the interview with Marino’s possible replacement.
“I rescheduled. Are U surprised?”
“Good thinking. Don’t want visitors at CFC right now. Nobody comes in without my permission, including FBI.” I type with my thumbs, standing near the kitchen where blood has dried from bright red to a dark unpolished ruby like lights dimming before they burn out.
I sense Benton’s tension and preoccupation as he waits for me, checking his phone, rolling through messages and going back and forth with Lucy who is rocketing through the cyberspace and databases of Double S’s tower server.
She has very little time and I give it but a few hours before she’s backed up every byte of information. When the FBI arrives at the CFC and demands the computer there will be no sign we so much as plugged it in. My labs are jammed with a huge backlog of cases, I’ll suggest if necessary. We didn’t get around to it yet will be the implication. This is what the likes of Granby has reduced us to. Working against the FBI, working against our own people because we don’t know who our people are anymore.