“He slows down,” Lien-hua said, “as he approaches the light.”
“Yes, as he approaches,” I said. “But it turns green while he’s at least thirty meters away. So why would he slow down on an empty street as he approached a light that just turned green?”
“It could be almost anything.” Ralph put an edge to his words, and it was clear he didn’t think this was significant at all. “He could have been distracted, on the phone, fiddling with the radio…” A stretch of thoughtful silence, then he mumbled the same thing I’d been thinking, “Or he wanted to get caught on camera.”
“That’s what I’m wondering,” I said. “Everything else so far has been set up to make us look in one direction while missing the obvious facts in another. They switched the plates and it looks like they wanted us to notice-but not right away.”
“Who would even guess that we would check this?” Lien-hua asked. “The traffic cams?”
“Someone who thinks like Pat,” Cheyenne said.
“But why?” Ralph asked. “Why would-”
My phone rang and my caller ID told me it was Missy Schuel, the lawyer.
Her timing couldn’t have been worse. I hated to step away from this conversation, but this was one phone call I couldn’t afford to miss.
It rang again.
“Hold that thought,” I told my friends. “I’ll be right back.”
I slipped into the hallway and answered my cell.
23
“Pat Bowers here.”
“Dr. Bowers, Missy Schuel. I received your message. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to your sooner, but my daughter threw up this morning, and I had to take her out of daycare.”
Of all the excuses to not return a call, taking care of your sick child had to rank near the top of the list, but it seemed oddly forthcoming for a lawyer to share that with a potential client.
“Is she all right?”
“Yes. Thank you for asking. She’s with a friend.” A brief transitional pause, presumably meant to bridge the conversation from personal matters to business. “Normally I’m not able to see new clients on such short notice, but I had a cancellation at 12:50. I can meet with you then for perhaps fifty minutes. It’s my only opening until the seventeenth.”
I glanced at my watch.
12:20.
Not gonna happen.
I knew that Missy Schuel’s office was in downtown DC, at least a thirty minute drive from NCAVC, so even if I left immediately and sped all the way there, I’d barely make it, and considering how much Missy and I needed to discuss, I couldn’t think of any way I’d make it back to Quantico in time for my 2:00 class. “There’s nothing else? You’re sure?”
“Dr. Bowers, I can meet with you at 12:50.” No irritation in her voice, just professional formality. “Otherwise, I’ll be glad to give you the names and numbers of other lawyers I would recommend. Which would you prefer?”
“Are they as good as you are?”
“No.” A simple, frank assessment that impressed me.
I thought of Ralph’s list of all the agencies involved in this investigation, all the people on the case. They can get by for a couple of hours without you, Pat. Don’t mess around here. Do what’s best for Tessa.
“I’ll be there at 12:50.”
“All right. My office is located at 1213 11th St. NW. Park at the liquor store across the street. They don’t mind.”
“The liquor store?”
“I don’t have any parking here at my office, so I tell my clients to use their lot. Just don’t linger or they’ll think you’re there for a drug deal.”
My confidence in Ms. Schuel was beginning to falter.
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you soon, Agent Bowers.”
“Hang on. I told you I was a doctor; I didn’t say anything about being an agent.”
“I looked you up. I don’t like surprises.” And that was all.
We ended the call, and I hurried back to the conference room and collected my things, leaving my laptop for the team to use. “I need to go.”
Lien-hua gave me a look of concern. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” I gestured toward the hallway. “Can I talk to you a moment?” As we left I noticed Cheyenne watching us curiously, but when she saw me look her way she focused on the computer monitor again.
When Lien-hua and I were alone in the hall, I said, “Could you do me a favor? Are you heading back to the Academy?”
A pause. “I can.”
“Could you take my 2:00 class?” I could hear that my voice was urgent, rushed. “Just thirty minutes maybe. We’re supposed to do a walk-around of the body farm.”
“Pat, what’s going on?”
Go on, lay it out. Then move.
“It’s Tessa’s father. We found him last month, and he’s trying to take her away from me. He’s suing for custody. I need to meet with a lawyer, and it can’t wait.”
There. On the table.
“I’ll take the whole class period. Go.”
“Thanks, I owe-oh man. Cheyenne. She rode here with me. She’ll need a ride back to the Academy.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll give her a lift.”
“You sure?”
“If we’re going to be working together, we’ll need to get to know each other.”
Unintended consequences.
Without thinking about it, I squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Thank you.” Touching her felt both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Different tones of the past.
I was about to pull my hand away, but she put her hand on it and her fingers curled around mine, ever so slightly, but they did. “You don’t have to thank me. Now get going.”
Then the moment disappeared. She returned to the conference room and I jogged to the parking lot, my thoughts flying ahead to my meeting with Missy Schuel.
24
So, according to Tessa’s dad, Julia Rasmussen was someone he’d met when he lived in DC six years ago. Apparently, she was the one who introduced him to sculpting.
She was a sculptress.
How nice.
“Will you be seeing her while you’re in the city?” Tessa asked.
He was slow in answering. “Tomorrow. Yes.” He gestured toward a sculpture about twenty feet away. “Well, here we are.”
Tessa stared at the figure Paul was walking toward: four-feet tall, made out of some kind of plastic resin. The sculpture’s feet were fins that slowly morphed into thickly muscled, hairy legs and then changed into a naked torso and neck, then a face of a girl with a tragically sad smile but optimistic eyes.
It had an explanatory plaque. Of course.
Paul was beaming. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
Julia, huh?
The sculptress.
“It’s… interesting.”
“What does it say to you?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“It says she couldn’t decide what to make-a frog, a gorilla, or Shirley Temple.”
He looked at her oddly.
“I’m sorry, I mean, okay, how about this: it’s the history of life on this planet, from fish to ape to man, moving inexorably toward happiness. But our race hasn’t reached it yet-we’re still dragged down by our animal nature, and that’s why her face is so downcast. She’s hopeful, optimistic, but has yet to reach enlightenment.”
He blinked. Glanced at the plaque. Looked again at Tessa.
“No, I haven’t seen it before,” she said.
“That’s extraordinary.”
“Yeah, but it’s not honest.”
“Not honest?”
“The sculpture. About life. It assumes natural selection always moves toward happiness, which is imposing a value judgment on it, which is illogical. And who’s to say animals aren’t happier than we are? Not too many of them commit suicide. Besides, a lot of people think we’re shaped by the hand of God, not simply natural processes. Mom believed that. I do too.”
A pause. “You’ve thought about this before.”
“Yeah.” She considered telling him that Patrick had told her more than once that truth is not afraid of scrutiny. But she held her tongue.