After this, they told Isaiah to drive his van around the back to a sign indicating the prison wood shop, where he could take possession of the body. Once at the wood shop, he requested the extra coffin, telling them he'd pay for it, and telling them that it was meant for himself. The shop foreman readily obliged, saying he couldn't take any money from any father of Jimmy Lee's. This made Isaiah proud to know that his son had still managed to make friends here, even as a death row inmate.
They had carried Jimmy Lee down on a stretcher to the wood shop, just like as if he were a side of beef, and they lifted him from the gurney and into the pine wood box that'd been awaiting him, throwing his arms and legs in last. The men in the shop loaded Jimmy's coffin into the van, and then they loaded the one meant for his bride, the judge who'd sent him to the electric chair so many years before. Jimmy Lee meant to travel into eternity with his chief accuser.
Once the two coffins and his boy's body were loaded, the old man solemnly thanked all involved and waved a good Iowa wave to the incarcerated men, wishing them all good luck. Moments later, the wood shop's loading platform door ratcheted down and came to a metallic, screeching halt, leaving Isaiah once again alone. But he was hardly alone. Jimmy Lee's body might be in the coffin inside the black van, alongside the pine box awaiting the judge, but in point of fact, Jimmy Lee himself was inside Isaiah now.
'Taking you home, boy,” muttered Isaiah as he stepped from the loading dock and down the stairs. “Home to your Lord and Maker, son.”
Isaiah snatched open the van door and climbed behind the steering wheel. He turned the engine over and switched on the radio, which was playing a Gordon Lightfoot song. The words wafted through the cab of the van: “If you could read my mind, love… what a tale my thoughts would tell.”
It was Isaiah's favorite song of all time, but now, with Jimmy Lee actually crawling around in his head, the song made more sense for Isaiah Purdy than ever it did before.
Her interrogations for twelve hours had netted little save heartburn and mental heat stroke. No one knew anything, and Jessica's team's usual sources on the street, from paid snitches to prostitutes, had nothing to barter. It was as if Judge DeCampe had literally vanished from the planet, like one of those weird alien abductions that Whitley Streiber had been writing about for two decades.
Poof, and she was gone.
“ We're not getting anywhere this direction,” Jessica confided to J. T., who had stood around making time with Dr. Shannon Keyes, an FBI psychiatrist on standby should they need any psyche evaluations done or any psychiatric advice on a given individual as they processed suspects called in for questioning. Only Jessica and Santiva knew the complete truth of the situation, that Keyes was Kim Desinor's replacement, at least for now.
“ I fear whoever has her, he's an amateur at this and just lucked out, leaving us nothing,” Jessica told J. T. and Keyes.
A cop's worst fear was the crime scene that left not a single trace of victim or assailant-exactly what faced them now. Either the perpetrator had planned his every move, rehearsed his every line, or it was a crime of opportunity, a random violence. Hard to tell at this point which. While they leaned toward the judge's having been a victim of a carefully crafted stalking attack, they had zero suspects who posed an immediate threat to the judge before the abduction. Court records were being pored over, some by Lew Clemmens and his supercomputer, some by other members of the team, including Richard Sharpe.
In the meantime, Jessica had put out a general call to locate anyone who had ever made the remotest threat against Judge Maureen DeCampe, and anyone capable of acting on such a threat, and anyone available to act on his or her threats.
“ It's just remotely possible that some guy she put away arranged for all this,” suggested Keyes. “Being incarcerated nowadays doesn't stop a person from being violent on the outside, not if he's got contacts.”
Jessica looked across at Keyes, a beautiful ash blonde with an hourglass figure and penetrating gray eyes. Keyes had come up through FBI ranks via the Chicago field office, and by all accounts, she had seen a great deal in her capacity as a profiler there. She had been instrumental in capturing the infamous serial killer who called himself Doctor O, when she was just a fledgling police officer with the Chicago Police Department.
“ Then we need to scrutinize everyone she ever put away who's still alive,” offered J. T., looking mesmerized by Dr. Keyes, who normally worked with the Washington Field Bureau of the FBI these days.
“ And perhaps interview a few people around them,” added Jessica. “And that's going to take a great deal of time, and time, I fear, is the scarcest commodity we have right now.”
“ Certainly likely that time is the scarcest thing DeCampe has,” added J. T. “What other choice have we?” asked Keyes. J. T. agreed with Keyes next, saying, “Yeah, guess we don't have any other choice, Jess.
“ Jessica tried to ignore J. T., going to Keyes and saying, “You're the expert on the way the mind works, Dr. Keyes. What do you think the abductor wants? You've had time to review what we have. Any conclusions?”
“ She's only just arrived, Jess.” J. T. gave Jessica a fleeting grimace. “Cut her some slack.”
“ You think the killer's going to cut DeCampe slack, J. T.?”
“ Why're you assuming the abductor is going to kill her?” asked Keyes.
“ Are you kidding? We believe he has her buried alive somewhere.”
“ I see…”
“ Maybe your first impulse is right, Dr. Keyes,” Jessica offered while pacing the operations room. “Perhaps if we can target someone at the state pen as possibly out for revenge against Judge DeCampe,” suggested Jessica, easing her tone, “then you can do some psyche work on him.”
J. T, added, “We're also looking at inmates in the Texas penal system as well.”
Keyes nodded. “I'm open to anything you suggest. I only want to help.”
Lew Clemmens, who like the other Quantico people on board had moved to D.C. to be on call, burst into the room, waving a printout over his head, saying, “I have the last of the judge's decisions for the past year. Maybe we can sort out the worst cases and the worst threats she'd ever received and work from there. I can pull off the court records from the file numbers and cross-reference with the words verbal threat now.”
“ How long will it take, Lew?”
“ Less than an hour, and we'll have some targets,” he replied.
“ Run your program,” said Jessica.
“ Already done. It's running solo as we speak.”
They ordered in Chinese food and were soon looking over Lew's results. Most of those who threatened the judge in die past year-on the record-were behind bars, serving jail terms, many facing the chair, and some had already passed on via that route. She handled the worst cases; she'd known and worked with Dr. Morrissey back in Houston, Texas, who only a year before had been targeted and murdered by one of his own psychiatric patients, a killer who had been released to a halfway house against Judge DeCampe's ruling, thanks to a weak parole board and an over-crowded prison system.
“ I'm out of here for a couple of hours,” Keyes told them. “Have a meeting I have to attend, but I'll try to get back before sunset, OK?”
Exhausted, Jessica waved her off, and then she herself stepped back from the case long enough to find the women's room. Once there, Jessica popped some pain pills and threw water in her face.