“I guess we just keep looking,” Barbara said, sighing. “This sucks.”
“This is how most investigations go,” Janea said, shrugging. “At least this time we know the perp is here at the con. I’ve done three of these investigations and never gotten so much as a sniff.”
“We’re doing better than I’d hoped, frankly,” Greg said. “We’ve narrowed it down to no more than two or three dozen suspects because we know the necromancer is somewhere here in the hotel. That’s better than the millions we started with on Friday. Just legwork after the con will get us to the suspect relatively quickly. It would be nice, though, if we could narrow it down more. If worse comes to absolutely worst we could call in and see about locking the whole con down and doing DNA tests on all the males with brown hair. The ACLU would scream bloody murder, though, and it would be all over the press. We also would have a hard time showing probable cause, come to think of it.”
“Did you get in touch with the Bureau about Goldberg?” Barb asked.
“Yes, I did,” Greg said. “You’re correct; Goldberg is a pen name. They’re trying to track down her actual identity through her employer in Charlotte but since she’s not a suspect that might be hard if they get sticky. And they’re a newspaper; newspapers almost always get their back up when we ask them for information. I also asked about back-up. But with the weather the team couldn’t make it up. They’re stuck in Roanoke. The Bureau’s dispatching a helicopter to move them if we have to have help, though. It should be up there by sometime this afternoon.”
“I hope we can close this up quietly,” Janea said, looking out the window. “I was talking to the con-chair and one of the off-duty cops that’s working the con says even the sheriff’s department’s shut down until the snow stops. The stuff is coming down faster than they can plow it.”
“This is crazy,” Greg said, shaking his head. “Why’d this happen now? This is more snow than this area gets in three years!”
“That’s why they can’t keep up,” Janea said, shrugging. “This is, like, Buffalo snow.”
“So if anything happens we’re on our own?” Barbara asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Looks that way,” Greg said. “If it seriously starts getting nuts we can call in the HRT from Roanoke. But they’re going to be twenty minutes, maybe a half hour, away rather than five minutes. No way they can bring in a chopper in this. And even four-wheel drives are going to find it tough.”
“A lot can happen in a half an hour,” Barb said, shaking her head. “I hate doing this bits-and-pieces thing. I feel like I’m wrestling with fog.”
“You just keep tapping away until you find your suspect,” Greg said, shrugging. “There’s no other way to do it.”
“Well, there is,” Janea said, thoughtfully. “But it’s a bit of a risk.”
“What?” Greg asked, frowning.
“We push instead of pull.”
Chapter Fourteen
Hi, Mandy,” Barbara said, as she finally tracked the woman down. “Could I talk to you, privately?”
“Sure,” Mandy said.
Barb led her around the corner to a stairwell and cleared her throat.
“I don’t want you to think I’m a nut or something,” Barbara said. “And you can’t talk about this, okay?”
“Okay,” Mandy said. “But it’s okay if you’re a nut. We’re all nuts.”
“Well, this is serious and very real,” Barb said. “I’m not just a homemaker. I’m a consultant with the FBI. There’s been a series of serial killings and they think that the killer is here at the con.”
“Really?” Mandy said, her eyes wide.
“Really,” Barbara replied. “You can probably guess what kind of consultant.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mandy said, totally absorbed.
“I know that he’s here, somewhere,” Barb said. “I’m just not sure who it is. But I know you’re… sensitive. Pay careful attention to your creep-meter. We’d really like to find him before he kills again.”
“Is he going to attack someone at the con?” Mandy asked.
“No, we don’t think so. He seems to be picking out his victims from fen, though. So keep your eyes, all your eyes, open. And don’t tell anybody, okay? And be careful.”
“Okay,” Mandy said. “You be careful, too. Like I said, guys like that like women like you and me.”
“It won’t come to that,” Barb assured her.
“Well, I told the biggest gossip in the LARPers about it,” Janea said, grinning. They’d met in the women’s room to discuss their upcoming strategy. “Swearing her to secrecy, of course.”
“I talked with Larry,” Greg said. “He’s going to have it all over the con. Which means it will make the papers. My career is toast.”
“And I spoke to Mandy,” Barbara said. “Which means I think I’ve got you both beat.”
“The director is going to kill me,” Greg moaned.
“Yeah, but all we have to do now is look for somebody who’s running,” Barb said. “This guy has always struck at weak victims and tried to hide. He’s not a stand-up fighter, he’s a backstabber. There’s no place to hide, here.”
“And it’s going to be hard to run,” Janea pointed out, gesturing out the window. The snow was still coming down, hard, and the forecast had been updated for up to thirty inches. “HRT’s on standby, right?”
“Last I heard,” Greg admitted. “Cell phone coverage is getting spotty.” He reached into his computer bag and pulled out a set of short-range radios. “I brought these along just in case. I guess I’m glad I did. They’re encrypted so we can talk privately.”
“Great,” Barbara said, unconsciously checking her piece then taking the radio. “Let’s hope he…” She paused and grabbed at her head. “I think he just heard.”
“Strong?” Janea asked. “Yes, it is, I even got a twinge of it that time.”
“Angry,” Barb said, her face white. “Fearful, too. But very very angry. He never thought anyone would get this close. He’s… damn, it’s gone.”
“Cloaking,” Janea said. “He’s going to ground. Or running.”
“I’ll take the west entrances,” Greg said. “Barbara, you go east. Janea, take the lobby, that will have the most people around.”
“He knows who the Hunters are,” Janea pointed out as she stood up. “Be careful. The hunter can become the hunted.”
“Hi, Barb,” Timson said as he walked down the corridor. He looked at the woman, puzzled. “You waiting for someone?”
Barbara was standing where two corridors joined near the west doors to the hotel. From her position she could see anyone approaching the doors and a bit of the parking lot. So far nobody had gone outside except a couple of hard-core smokers.
“Just watching the snow,” Barb said, smiling. “I’m a bit conned out.”
“It can get to you, especially at first,” Timson said. “Taking some time for yourself is important. Drink, eat, sleep, game, that’s the ticket.”
“Where are you going?” Barbara asked, lightly.
“I’ve got an important meeting,” Timson said, his eyes wide in mock anticipation. “An informant among the werewolves that’s going to give us the location of their secret meeting. That way the Hunters can combine with the vampires and swoop down and wipe them out in one fell swoop! Bit of silliness, but it’s fun if you get into it.”