Daly glanced around the cramped office and then lifted his briefcase onto his lap and withdrew a pad of paper, a tape recorder and a file folder. Jessie narrowed her eyes at the recorder. So, this was going to be official. He set the case on the floor and then arranged the other things on Jessie’s desk, raising his eyes in question when he began to move a photo of her niece. Jessie shrugged. She was determined not to make this any easier for him.
He clicked the button on the recorder and said, “This is Officer Sean Daly. For the purpose of accuracy and records, please state your name.”
Jessie spoke in a clear voice, “Jessica Bishop.”
“Do you know Mark Taylor?”
“Yes.”
Daly looked like he expected her to say more and he waited a few seconds. She was familiar with the tactic. People liked to fill silences and he thought she would jump in with more information without being asked. She quirked an eyebrow. Nice try.
“When did you first meet the subject?”
Jessie thought for a moment. There was a file in the cabinet with the information, but unless he asked, she wasn’t going to mention it. “I don’t have the exact date right now, but it was approximately two years ago.”
Once again, he waited and when she didn’t elaborate, a trace of a smile played around his lips. “And under what circumstances did you meet?”
“I was working a case and he called the precinct with some information pertinent to my case. I agreed to meet with him.”
He didn’t wait this time, but just jumped in with another question. “What was your first impression of the man?”
Jessie looked towards the window, recalling how nervous Taylor had appeared. The meeting took place at a fast food restaurant in the River North area. He had given her a general description of himself and what he was wearing so she spotted him before he saw her. He had been standing at one end of the front counter, a cup of coffee in front of him and a couple of open creamers. Her first impression was that he was taller than she expected. Her next impression had to do with how well his jeans fit.
Jessie glanced at Daly and hoped she wasn’t blushing. Taylor had been too modest when describing his looks. Brown hair and a bit over six feet tall made him sound average. But more than his looks, she had been struck by how expressive his face had been. She recalled thinking he would be terrible at poker. “My first impression was the guy couldn’t lie his way out of a parking ticket.”
Daly tilted his head and leaned forward. “What made you think that?”
Smiling, Jessie looked down at the desktop before raising her head to meet the agent’s eyes. “Have you met Mark Taylor? If you had, you wouldn’t have to ask. Every emotion he feels zips across his face.”
“No, I’ve never met the man.” His tone hinted that he never wanted to.
Jessie’s smile hardened. “Well, it’s your loss.” The words surprised her even as she spoke them, but she realized it was the truth. “He’s a bit different, I’ll grant you that, but I no more believe him capable of helping al-Qaeda than he is of flying to Mars by flapping his arms.”
“What do you mean about different?” Daly picked up the note pad and pen. He finally looked interested.
Jessie wanted to bite her tongue. Despite her best efforts, she had done just what she had vowed not to do. She had offered more than was necessary to answer the question. “I mean that he would call me with information. Like he had heard a mini-mart was going to be robbed. He thought one of the robbers had a gun he might use. When I would ask how he came by the information, he gave vague answers.”
His pen flew across the paper and without looking up, he asked, “And, was he right?”
“That’s the thing. He usually was.” It still bugged her that Mark never told her the truth about his sources. One look at his face and she knew he was lying, and he knew that she knew. He had always squirmed and looked embarrassed, but even so, he never came clean.
“Taylor tipped the police to criminal activities and was evasive on how he came by his information. Didn’t that make you suspicious?” Daly shook his head, as though talking to an idiot.
Jessie leaned forward, no longer concerned with keeping her mouth shut. This guy just pissed her off. “Do you take me for some wet-behind-the-ears rookie?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Of course it made me suspicious and I questioned him and looked into his background. There was absolutely nothing that raised red flags. No known criminal contacts, no drugs, no arrests, no priors period, unless you count some parking tickets in college. He was a successful photographer with dozens of professional references.” Leaning back, she crossed her arms. “But you should know that already.”
Daly’s lips thinned and his face flushed as he narrowed his eyes. “You better believe we’ve checked his business contacts.” He moved to the edge of his seat and smirked. “Now we’re checking his personal contacts. Which led us to you, Ms. Bishop.”
She played it cool. “Really?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
He ignored her comment and flipped through some papers in the file. “Our investigation turned up that you and Taylor had a relationship. Is that correct?”
Jessie chuckled and stood. Crossing her arms, she moved to the window and sat against the ledge. “Wow, you guys certainly do your homework.”
“We’re very thorough.” He threw her a smug look and then fiddled with the tape recorder. Jessie knew moving around would make the recording come out less clear, but she didn’t care.
She countered his look with one of her own. “I would hardly count a few months as a relationship.” Jessie plucked a dead leaf off of a plant on the ledge beside her. No matter how hard she tried, the plant never thrived.
“You’ve only been seeing each other for a few months?” He sounded surprised and Jessie felt a measure of satisfaction. She knew the agent was only doing his job, but being the subject of an investigation was new to her, and she didn’t like the idea of someone going around questioning her friends behind her back. The irony that she did the same thing when she investigated a case didn’t make it any easier to accept.
“Yes. And I’m surprised we even made it that far because the first date was pretty much a disaster.” Except for the kiss. Jessie didn’t think Daly needed to know that detail. Before Mark had rushed off, he had dropped a kiss on her lips. It had been unexpected, but not unwelcome. “We saw each other several times afterwards, but it wasn’t serious.” Not yet anyway. There hadn’t been enough time. She cleared the lump in her throat.
“At any point when you were with him, did he mention going to Afghanistan in August of 1999?”
Jessie moved back to her chair and sat. “Yes.” She leaned to the side and tossed the dead leaf into the trash can beside her desk.
Daly didn’t even try to hide his irritation this time. He motioned with his hand, circling it in a keep going motion. “And…”
She shrugged. “He showed me some pictures he took. They were amazing.” Jessie recalled the poverty in the photographs and even more, the stark despair in the women’s eyes. That was all she could see of them, covered head to toe in their garments.
Daly leaned forward. “Did you see any pictures of what might have been training camps?”
Confused, she leaned back in her chair. “No. Just shacks with women and children. There were some landscapes too. Those were stunning also, but Mark won’t admit this, or maybe he doesn’t know, but what he does best is candid photos.” Jessie bit her lip. She didn’t have a creative bone in her body, but even she had realized how mesmerizing the photos were. It was as if the women were allowing a brief glimpse into their souls. They had trusted Mark enough to lower their defenses.
“Candid photos? Like snapshots?”
Jessie rolled her eyes. This guy knew even less about photography than she did. “Well, sure. I guess you could call them snapshots. Just like you could call the Mona Lisa ‘some painting’. What Mark did was art.”