‘Was that the first one on Eric’s list?’
‘No, the second. The technicians at the first place were busy all week.’
Jayne shook her head. ‘I can’t believe there’s this much call for people who do private bug detection.’
‘Well, I spoke to one of the principals at Jeppsen. He seemed nice enough.’
Jayne heard the phone ring inside and darted in ahead of Carol. She listened to the deep, Midwestern-accented voice rumble down the phone line. ‘This is Bill Ledbetter from Wisconsin. I’m Amy’s father. You wrote my wife and me an email about Amy around a week ago.’
Jayne placed Amy. She’d gone missing while on her way home from the Dairy Queen several years earlier. ‘Hello, Mr Ledbetter. Nice to have a voice to go with an email. What can I do for you?’
‘Well, we’ve been thinking over what you said about Amy being alive but maybe not knowing who she is. I gotta admit, that hadn’t occurred to us. We know she’s alive. Plus, the cops up here already used Amy’s hairbrush to see if she had . . . passed away and they didn’t get any matches.’
‘You mean, they tried to do a DNA match?’
‘They sure did. Right at the beginning.’
‘I see.’ Jayne knew that whenever DNA was involved, many people tended to see things in black-and-white, even though DNA doesn’t always lead to a match even when it should. Often, a failure to find a DNA match only proves that DNA isn’t in any system at the point a search is run. Jayne knew it would have been difficult for a detective to look the Ledbetters in the eye, explain that, and then watch hope borne of certainty yield to fear borne of uncertainty.
Mr Ledbetter said, ‘When we got your email, we thought we’d like to go ahead and do a profile at your organization, just for the hospitals.’
‘Well, Mr Ledbetter, when we make up a forensic profile of a missing person, the police will automatically compare it to all unidentified persons. The FBI keeps one big file for everyone, alive or not.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure. And it makes sense, since how we identify people doesn’t really change that much either way.’
Jayne heard two female voices shouting in the background on Bill Ledbetter’s end.
His voice became somewhat muffled as he covered the phone’s mouthpiece. ‘Melissa! Becca! Please keep it down. I’m talking long distance.’
Then a young girl’s voice. ‘But, Da-ad! She took my hair band.’
‘OK. I’ll be off the phone in a minute.’ Then he was back with Jayne. ‘Sorry about that. Well, let me talk to my wife, and then I guess the main thing we were wondering was if we had to come out there to do the profile?’
‘Not at all. We can talk to you about Amy over the phone and we can tell you what kind of other documents we’d need. You can send these to us in the mail and when we’re done, we’ll send the originals back.’
When they hung up, Jayne pictured Bill Ledbetter’s world. He was still being a parent while dealing with something that no parent could expect and prepare for. It’s always the same, she thought. We’re all the same. She heard Carol greeting someone and went forward to Reception, where Carol said the two men from Jeppsen, Inc. were waiting on the front steps. Jayne summoned Steelie and they all went outside.
Lex Jeppsen was a big man who introduced himself to Agency 32/1 as the ‘brains’, while his partner, Michael Eagen, was the ‘hands’ of their bug sweeping operation. They had been in business for three years, since leaving the FBI in search of better pay and more flexibility. They asked how the Agency found them and Jayne mentioned Scott Houston and Eric Ramos. Lex and Michael laughed and asked how ‘those two sonsabitches’ were doing. Then they asked Jayne, Carol, and Steelie to stay in Reception while they worked.
They all trooped inside. Lex first used a machine, holding it a few inches out over the walls, while Michael took apart the telephone on Carol’s desk. Eventually, Lex asked if they had a key to the cage surrounding the generator outside. Jayne gave him the key and listened to him whistle as he went out the back door again.
When they returned, Michael was smiling and holding an object. Jayne and Steelie exchanged a worried glance and they all stood.
Lex began. ‘First question: you have three phone lines here?’
‘Yes,’ replied Jayne.
‘You get any wrong numbers or hang ups in the past couple of months?’
She shook her head.
‘How long you been in this building?’
‘About a year.’
Lex looked at his colleague, who shook his head and said, ‘Hasn’t been there that long.’
Steelie interrupted. ‘Can I just ask if that’s a listening device or what?’
‘Indeed it is,’ replied Michael. ‘RF transmitter, just like what was found at the apartment.’
‘Where was it?’
‘On the one phone line outside but within the cage for the generator.’
Jayne said, ‘Well, we just got the generator.’
Lex answered. ‘It could predate it but we’ll check it out.’
‘When we find this type of wiretap at a business, it’s usually at corporate headquarters or an office were corporate secrets are discussed.’ Lex paused to look around the modest room, taking in the aloe plant in the corner. ‘You’re running a charity here?’
Carol nodded.
Lex continued: ‘You got a competitor? Or have any proprietary methodology – something not patented?’
Steelie said, ‘Competition’s a bit thin on the ground in our line of work.’
He looked around the room again. ‘What is it you do here?’
‘Forensic profiles of missing persons.’
Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘You do anything to piss off the cops?’
Jayne refrained from offering up the possibility that Steelie drove over a policeman’s foot on Friday night. ‘What we do complements law enforcement. And we have contacts with LAPD. If they want anything, they just ask.’
Michael shrugged and started to pack up his gear. ‘Might not be LAPD. Could be any cops anywhere, if I’m correct in assuming your profiles go national.’
‘Or if you’re dealing with data on missing persons,’ resumed Lex. ‘It could be someone who wants to get stuff for identity theft while the owner’s AWOL. Whatever it turns out to be, we know your outside line was tapped and whoever did it didn’t need to gain entry to put it on. They’ll know you’ve disabled it. We want to come back and sweep in a month’s time.’
He had been filling out some boxes on a clipboard. ‘Here’s the invoice for this location. Payment address at the bottom.’ He ripped off a carbon copy and gave Jayne the top sheet. ‘Now, about the apartment location. Carol here said that the tap in the Ziploc bag was found on the outside phone line under the stairs?’
Jayne nodded.
‘But you had it swept?’
‘Eric and Scott said there wasn’t anything inside the apartment.’
‘Good.’ Lex turned the Ziploc around in his hands and passed it to Michael. ‘Listen, this tap from your place is identical to the one we found here so our opinion is that whatever you’re dealing with is related to your work somehow as it’s unlikely a Peeping Tom wants to hear your work calls. And it’s someone nearby or a person who can get near to you. This little sucker isn’t going to be useful for anyone at a great distance. You could consider getting more security for your property.’
Michael added, ‘Alarming the building isn’t enough when people don’t need access to plant a device.’
Steelie’s voice was flat. ‘I think we’re getting that picture.’
Michael gathered up his briefcases and held up the bag with the tap in it. ‘You guys want these or you want me to take ’em?’