That was time-consuming, and thankfully, Sara would be heading up that part of the process.
Meanwhile, I could log into the Federal Digital Database and review phone records to study the GPS locations, where calls were made and received, and comb through credit card receipts to find where the victims shopped, ate out, bought gas, and so on to identify their travel patterns.
From working the Basque case over the last ten months, I’d done some of this already, but it was time to take it to the next level.
Cassidy offered to follow up on the lock I’d picked in the tunnel beneath the water treatment plant to see if he could figure out where it might have been purchased. “Maybe we can dig up something on Basque — a credit card, a check — who knows. I’ll see what I can do.”
We spent the rest of the briefing analyzing what we knew, then split up job responsibilities and Ralph brought the meeting to a close.
Traffic was not kind to me and I didn’t get back to the hospital until six.
26
When I entered Lien-hua’s room, I noticed that the pile of cards and the number of flowers had continued to grow. She told me that Tessa had stepped outside for a minute. “Don’t worry, the officer from the hallway joined her.”
“Did she say she was going to get some fresh air by any chance?” It was the euphemism Tessa used when she was really heading out to grab a smoke.
“Yes. That’s how she put it. Smoking, huh?”
“Yup.”
Well, I could address that later.
Lien-hua shifted in the bed. “Remember when I was in the hospital in San Diego last year and Margaret brought me a card?”
“Yes.” FBI Director Margaret Wellington had been the head of the NCAVC at the time. “And then she suspended you for some ridiculous little—”
“Well…” Lien-hua pointed to an impressive bouquet in the corner of the room. It looked almost as nice as the one Brineesha and Tessa had brought by earlier.
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope. The note said she knew I liked flower arranging and that she hoped this was done well enough for me to enjoy. And it is.”
Margaret was not exactly known for her sentimentality, and a gesture like that from her was nothing short of extraordinary.
The two of us had a long and patchy history together. Six years ago, when I’d brought up some missing evidence in a case to the Bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility, things had pointed back to her. As it ended up, she wasn’t censured but was shuffled off to serve a stint at the Resident Agency in Asheville, North Carolina — an assignment she definitely did not consider to be an upwardly mobile one.
However, her fortunes had turned and over the last few years she’d moved steadily up the ranks. Last year, after Director Rodale resigned, the Senate approved Margaret as the Bureau’s Director, and now she was enjoying the office she’d been aspiring to ever since I first met her.
Over the years I’ve noticed that to a lot of people, power is as addictive as any drug is. Once they’ve snorted it, once it gets into their system, it’s the hardest habit of all to kick. Lately, it appeared that being FBI Director wasn’t even enough power for Margaret. It was no secret that she was eyeing politics, and I had a feeling I knew who would be running in next year’s congressional election for Virginia’s first-district seat.
“So,” I said, referring back to the flowers, “word has definitely gotten around about your quirk.”
“I suppose it has. And I’m starting to think that there’s more to Margaret than meets the eye.”
I said, “Did I ever tell you that she mentioned to me one time that she volunteers at a shelter for battered women on the weekends?”
Lien-hua was quiet. “That’s something I didn’t know.”
Last summer a serial killer had left a DVD in the trunk of Margaret’s car that contained footage of seven of his victims — some in the process of being killed. But that wasn’t all it contained. There was also footage someone had filmed of her asleep in her own bed — video that was taken from inside her bedroom.
That night, the man who’d murdered those other women had been killed and we never found out for certain if he was the one who’d invaded her privacy, snuck into her bedroom, and filmed her as she slept.
Most people didn’t know about it, how much it had affected her.
While Tessa was out of the room, I took the opportunity to recap the NCAVC meeting to Lien-hua. She listened intently and then suggested I add her own home and travel patterns to the geographic mix. “Remember? Victimology? I’m one of those now. Let’s see if we can find out where Basque’s life might have intersected with mine, or mine with any of the other known victims’.”
It made me feel a little uncomfortable talking about her in these terms, but she was right — she was a victim.
“I’ll add the data when I get home.”
A moment passed. “Pat, I have to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
“Catching him, putting him away, are you trying to find Basque for revenge or for justice?”
It wasn’t an easy question to answer. “Sometimes those two reasons converge, you know that.”
“You need to be objective about this, Pat, or Ralph might remove you from this case.”
Many times on television shows as soon as a killer threatens a detective, he’s removed from the case so things don’t get “personal.” It might be a useful screenwriter’s device, but it’s not the reality of life on the streets. If it were, criminals could evade capture by simply intimidating the people investigating them so that different officers or agents would have to be continually assigned to their case, and it would slow down the investigation.
“Ralph wouldn’t do that.”
“He could. If you’re not approaching things impartially.”
“That’s the last thing I would want to do.”
“Why on earth would you say that?”
“Anger sharpens my focus.”
“No”—she was drifting into profiler mode—“if you get too emotionally involved in a case, it’ll skew your judgment.”
“There’s a saying in India,” I said. “‘A mind that is all logic is like a knife that is all blade.’”
She looked at me quizzically. “Talk me through that.”
“The harder you grip a blade, the tighter you squeeze it, the more you’ll bleed. You need something other than the blade to hold on to or you’ll never be able to wield the knife properly.”
“So you’re saying you need emotion.”
“I think so, yes. And passion. You need to care. And I care about you enough to pursue both justice and revenge. Whichever one, whatever it takes, I want it to be personal. That’ll make me angry enough to catch him.”
“Catch him.”
“Yes.”
“Or kill him?”
I was quiet.
“So the fable isn’t true,” she said. “About the hare being faster because it’s running for its life. You’re saying the hound can be more motivated when he has enough anger to drive him.”
I didn’t correct her.
Her eyes showed a mixture of understanding and concern.
Tessa returned to the room smelling of cigarette smoke and carrying takeout from a vegetarian Indian restaurant across the street from the hospital. “I figured we could use some real food.”
“Did you get enough fresh air?” I asked her somewhat pointedly.
“Um…” The look on her face told me she knew she was busted.
“No more of that.”
“Right.”
She must have known just as well as I did that this would come up again, but for now it was a step in the right direction, and at least that was something.