As Camy parked in the small, tree-lined lot in front of the building, Tasker’s pulse began to rise and he felt a film of sweat forming on his forehead. He just stared at the building, thinking how the occupants had nearly ruined his life just a few weeks before. He’d never been a fan of the FBI, but now he had real anxiety about even going inside.
Camy looked over at him in the passenger seat. “Good Lord, Billy. You look like that kid from The Omen when they tried to take him into a church.” She smiled, but it had no effect on him. “Don’t worry. I want to keep our part in this case as low-key as you do. I think it’s important you come with us when we talk to the profiler. Jimmy says she’s a friend of his.”
Tasker just nodded silently.
“C’mon, relax.” She reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder. “What’re they going to do, arrest you?”
“They tried that once.”
“Believe me. No one is even gonna recognize you.”
Tasker sucked in some air for a good sigh. When he first became a cop, he never thought he’d be afraid of the FBI. In the academy, he had even thought about joining the storied outfit. It wasn’t until after he worked the streets that he realized how they operated. While most of the agents were generally good guys, the politics of the agency left him wondering how anything ever got done. He looked up at the plain building. “You think Lail is parked in the back yet? I don’t want to wait.” Tasker had sent the young FBI agent with his own building pass ahead so he could walk them through the front door.
“Billy, you need to move past all this. I bet most people inside don’t even know who you are. They’re so wrapped up in politics and media they couldn’t care less what we do.”
He nodded and followed Camy slowly from the car, his anxiety staying steady. He’d purposely left his gun in the car. He didn’t know how he might react if he saw the wrong person or someone said something insulting. They entered the small waiting area with the receptionist behind a thick sheet of ballistic glass. No Jimmy Lail.
“May I help you?” asked the middle-aged woman at the desk.
Camy stepped up and showed her ID. “Agent Lail is taking us to see someone in behavioral science.”
The woman smiled, looking at Camy’s credentials. “And you, sir?”
Tasker looked up, “What?”
“Identification?”
Tasker stepped to the glass and held up his FDLE credentials.
The woman looked up and copied down his name, then cut her eyes to him with more interest. “Oh, Mr. Tasker, I didn’t recognize you.”
The tone said it all. Tasker felt heat surge through his body. He looked at Camy, who just shrugged, then sat in one of the small plastic chairs facing the receptionist.
After several minutes, Jimmy Lail stuck his head out the door. “Yo, peeps, ready to talk to the shrink?”
They followed him to the elevator, then up to the third floor. Tasker felt several sets of eyes on him during the short trip, and he didn’t think he was imagining it, either. Camy gave him a reassuring look once in a while. Jimmy Lail, typically, was oblivious. Tasker noticed that no one really acknowledged the FBI agent, either.
After clearing another security point, Jimmy led them into a small set of offices with one shared window in the common conference room. Stacks of magazines and papers sat on the floor and several of the desks. A poster for the movie The Silence of the Lambs hung on the main open wall. A woman in a precise business suit, about thirty-five, with her hair pulled back, walked out to greet the visitors.
“Hi, Jimmy, these must be the people you told me about.” She held out her hand limply, reminding Tasker of an old-time school marm. “I’m Alice Quills, FBI agent and Ph.D.”
Camy giggled at the self-introduction as she took her hand. “I’m Camy Parks, ATF agent and B.A.”
Agent Quills was visibly annoyed, so she turned her attention to Tasker and extended her hand again.
“Bill Tasker, FDLE.” He reached for her hand as she suddenly withdrew it.
“Oh my, the Bill Tasker.”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“I’m sorry, I just meant that I’ve already been involved in two of your cases.”
“Which two?”
“I profiled the Stinger seller at Jim’s request.” She looked at Jimmy Lail with something approaching lust. “And I actually profiled your case. I mean the case where you were charged.”
“I was never charged.”
“You know what I mean. The case…”
“The one where I was framed?” Tasker kept her gaze so she couldn’t weasel out of a response.
“The Alpha National Bank robbery case.”
Good recovery, thought Tasker. He felt his senses returning to normal. Maybe this was the kind of therapy he needed.
Agent Quills said, “Jim tells me you are interested in my profiling of the cruise-ship bombing from a couple of years ago.”
Camy said, “I didn’t know that case was ever profiled.”
“Oh yes, right after it happened. Then I did an update a year later.”
“Why didn’t I know about it?”
“It was for the case agent.”
Camy narrowed her eyes. “I am the case agent.”
“The FBI case agent.” The woman took a stern tone with Camy. Watching her look at Jimmy Lail, Tasker wondered if she had a thing for the white shadow.
Camy came right back at her. “There was no FBI case agent. I tried, but the Bureau wouldn’t work the case with me.”
“I can’t be sure, but I thought someone in counterterror asked me to look at it. It doesn’t really matter, if you’ve got a suspect.” She looked around at the three agents’ faces and continued. “Shall we get down to business?”
Agent Quills pulled out some notes as they all sat around a cluttered round conference table. “My profile said that the person responsible for the bombing was a male, twenty-one to fifty-nine, white or possibly foreign-born, with a persecution complex resulting in a need to act out.” She looked around the table. “That sound like your suspect?”
Jimmy Lail said, “On the money, honey.”
Camy and Tasker exchanged looks. Then Camy said, “It sounds like every suspect I’ve ever arrested. Is that really all your profile consists of?”
“Profiling is not an exact science, nor is it easy.”
Camy said, “I’ll agree with the not-exact part.”
Tasker stepped in to keep it from going nuclear. “Can you tell us more about the motivation?”
“Not really. People who commit violent acts like this generally are acting on some type of urge or need to feel control. They’re simply acting out on immature emotions.”
Tasker said, “So our thirty-year-old suspect, who is white, fits your profile?”
Agent Quills replied, “To a T.”
“But so do I, and so does Agent Lail here.”
“Except for the psychological component.”
Tasker nodded, asking, “Would that component be readily apparent?”
“Only to a counselor or therapist working with the subject.”
“So how does this profile help a cop looking for the suspect in a case?”
“The profile matched your suspect, didn’t it?” She seemed quite satisfied.
“But it didn’t help us identify him.”
“But he matches it.”
“Yes, but it didn’t help find him.”
“Mr. Tasker, I could play word games here with you all day, but everyone knows you’d never accept anything anyone from the Bureau offered you in the way of assistance, so, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
Now Camy piped up. “Like creating profiles for the gangs in Overtown. Let me help. Black male, twelve to sixty, doesn’t like the police.”
Agent Quills stood up and turned to Jimmy Lail. “Jim, perhaps you should show your friends the door. I’m sure they have some little crime to solve.” With that, she turned and marched into one of the small offices and shut the door.