“You mean of a lawsuit?”
“Yes.”
“If there were only one victim, I’d say the odds were slim. But because there are so many victims, the odds are much higher. We already have our lawyers gearing up for it, just to be safe.”
Her mouth had gone dry. Their work was hard enough without throwing a bunch of lawyers into the mix. She took the water bottle from her purse and had a drink.
“There’s another problem with Lancaster,” he said.
The words caught her by surprise. She didn’t date men with problems, and she wondered what J. T. had unearthed in Jon’s past.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“I called the Broward County Sheriff’s Office this morning, and had an off-the-record conversation with Jon’s former boss, Sheriff Dempsey. I asked Dempsey if he believed Jon might be involved with these abductions.”
“What did he say?”
“Dempsey didn’t think Jon was capable of doing such a thing.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Jon worked for the sheriff’s department for fifteen years. I asked Dempsey if there were any blemishes on Jon’s résumé.”
“Were there?”
“That’s the interesting part. After Jon became a detective, he was accused of breaking the rules during several investigations. These accusations came from attorneys whose clients Jon had busted. The accusations were formally reviewed by the sheriff’s department, and Jon was cleared of any impropriety.”
Lawyers were paid to get their clients off, and she wanted to ask J. T. why he was bringing this up. She bit her tongue and waited for him to continue.
“Sheriff Dempsey confided that he believed that Jon had broken the rules during these investigations, but had cleaned up his transgressions,” he said. “The sheriff said, and I quote, ‘Jon is a master at covering his tracks.’”
Jon often talked about his cases as a police officer, and he was rightfully proud of his record while on the force. Not once had he mentioned tampering with or destroying evidence, which was what J. T. was inferring that Jon had done as a detective.
“Did Sheriff Dempsey offer any proof?” she asked.
“No, he didn’t. But he seemed convinced of it.”
“I don’t think we should judge Jon based upon what his ex-boss thinks he may have done. Jon has been fighting the good fight a long time, and the world is a better place because of it.”
“Are you in love with him?”
It was a fair question, one that she’d asked herself when they’d dated. Jon wasn’t her type, yet she’d found herself drawn to him.
“I don’t think love is the right word,” she said.
“Then what?”
“I admire him.”
The answer caught J. T. off guard, and he gingerly touched his stomach. From his desk drawer he removed a box of antacids, popped two tablets into his mouth, vigorously chewed, and then washed them down with a glass of water.
“So what do you want me to do?” she said.
“The way I see it, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “Your investigation is stalled, and more women are disappearing. The only person who can help you is also capable of ruining your career. That’s a no-win situation.”
“I know it is,” she said.
“I’d like to offer my opinion, but I don’t know enough about Lancaster to do that,” he said. “The decision rests squarely on your shoulders. It’s your call.”
The FBI usually stood behind its agents, but there were always exceptions, and she supposed this was what happened when people were made to work in a climate of fear. “I need to think about this. I’ll call you later,” she said.
“I’ll be here,” he said.
She hit a command on her keyboard, and the screen went dark.
Chapter 15
Leaving the Jayhawk, Lancaster drove to the county medical examiner’s office on North Forty-Sixth Street. It was a depressing place, the soulless brick building sitting on earth so brown that it looked scorched.
He spent a half hour waiting in line to claim his brother’s body, and another half hour arranging for Logan to be transported home to Fort Lauderdale after the medical examiner performed an autopsy. The process was draining, and he went outside to the parking lot and sat in his car for a while.
He’d discovered the music of Jimmy Buffett after getting out of the navy, and had been a fan ever since. He listened to the steel drum happiness of Buffett’s classic song “Volcano” on his car’s CD player, and gradually started to feel better.
He was having a hard time accepting that Logan was dead. It wasn’t easy having your brother in prison for twenty-five years, and he’d convinced himself that someday, when he and Logan were old men, they’d reunite, and become friends again. Maybe it was a fantasy, but it had made the situation a lot easier to accept.
His cell phone vibrated on the passenger seat. He flipped it over and saw a strange number with an 813 area code. He was in no mood to talk and let it go into voice mail.
A minute later the same person called again.
Then they called again.
Pissed off, he answered it.
“Jon, is that you?” a female voice asked.
“Who is this?”
“Lauren Gamble with the Tampa Bay Times.”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Are you okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”
He asked himself why Gamble was calling. Had she heard about Logan’s murder, and figured out they were brothers? He hadn’t seen any reporters milling around the Jayhawk last night, and told himself to stop being paranoid and talk to her.
“My sinuses are bothering me,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I’m in Gainesville working on a story about yesterday’s kidnapping,” Gamble said. “There are some eerie similarities with the victim’s background and Elsie Tanner’s.”
“Like what?”
“The victim’s name is Audrey Sipos, and she’s a thirty-year-old nurse practitioner who lives in a remote area several miles outside of town. My GPS couldn’t locate the address, so I had to ask directions.”
“Just like Elsie’s place.”
“Correct. Sipos left work yesterday and went to the mall to do some shopping. Her kidnapper abducted her about a half hour after she returned home. The timeline is similar to Elsie visiting the Citrus Park Mall.”
“This is very helpful. Good job.”
“There’s more. Sipos works at Shands Hospital, which is part of the University of Florida. Every person I spoke with at the hospital told me how compassionate Sipos is, and how she always went out of her way to help patients and their families.”
“Another Good Samaritan.”
“That’s right. Sipos studied nursing at UF, and was a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. I visited the sorority this morning, and discovered that there’s an award named after her.”
“What did she do?”
“She saved a sorority sister who was being raped by a guy who picked her up in a bar. This happened when Sipos was a sophomore.”
The last three kidnapping victims had made it their mission to help people, and he wondered if that were the case with the previous victims as well.
“Did you share this information with the Gainesville police?” he asked.
“Not yet. I wanted to call you first.”
“I appreciate that. But you should tell the police what you’ve learned. It might help their investigation.”
“I’ll call them after we hang up. Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk to you about your work with Team Adam. It will help me with my story.”
The conversation had taken a bad turn. He didn’t want Gamble’s story to be about him, and why he’d chosen to join Team Adam after retiring from the police force. That wasn’t anybody’s business, and he planned to keep it that way.