“Okay,” the sheriff said. “We have two possibles, based on Ms. Bawa’s research. Neither of those men has been injured lately, by the way.”
“The cell was supposedly limited to seven members,” Cam said. “We have two possibles, plus Kenny and Marlor. That leaves three unaccounted for. One of them could be the injured party. Jay-Kay, did your search go after that data, too? Line-of-duty injuries, medical leaves?”
“It did and it didn’t,” she repliled. “Medical information is in a more privileged category than time, leave, and attendance records, but I believe the state office in charge or medical insurance is going to help me with that.”
“Do they know that?” the sheriff asked.
Jay-Kay just smiled. The sheriff didn’t pursue the matter.
“Back to this mirror business,” Cam said. “Let’s assume Kenny was telling the truth.”
“Why start now?” the sheriff asked grumpily.
“Deathbed confession?” Cam suggested. “He had nothing to gain from lying. He swore they didn’t do the bombing at Annie’s house. And then he said, ‘Tell McLain: Look in the mirror.’” He turned to McLain, who was staring absently at the floor. “What do you think he meant, Special Agent?” he asked.
McLain looked up at him suddenly. “What did you just say?”
“I said, ‘What do you-’”
“No-the sergeant’s words.”
“Tell McLain-”
“Yes,” he said. “That makes more sense. Earlier you said tell ‘them.’ Damn, damn, damn!”
Bobby Lee leaned forward. “There’s a second cell?”
“And?” McLain said, a sick look in his face.
“And this one’s federal,” Bobby Lee replied. McLain nodded slowly.
“This isn’t news, is it?” asked Cam from his position near the window. “You already suspected this, didn’t you?”
McLain hesitated and then nodded again.
“Which is why you went radio-silent on us all of a sudden.”
“I had the same problem the sheriff here did,” McLain said. “I didn’t know whom I could trust. Those agents at the meeting today? They’re here from Washington on temporary duty. After you told me about the bombing, I got our Professional Standards people into it.”
“When I was doing a Web scan for James Marlor connections for your office,” Jay-Kay said to McLain, “they told me not to bother with federal connections, that he wasn’t in any of the various nationwide criminal databases or even AFIS. Said they’d already looked. I never did verify that.”
McLain groaned. “He’d have to be in AFIS,” he said. “He’d been in the service. Everyone in the military gets fingerprinted.”
“In your searches, Jay-Kay, did you stay exclusively in the state system?” Cam asked.
She nodded.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Mary Ellen said.
McLain ignored her. Cam thought the special agent looked as if he were facing bureaucratic execution, and maybe he was. Vigilantes in a sheriffs office was one thing, but in the Bureau? “This thing is worse than I thought,” McLain said. “Here’s what I suggest: Jay-Kay, can you let Ranger Goode stay here with you? I don’t think she should go back to Triboro right now.”
“Why would she be any safer here in Charlotte?” Cam asked.
“Because you lost Sergeant Cox,” McLain said. “People are going to be pissed. And they saw her come in with you.”
“Why would I be in any danger at all?” Mary Ellen asked.
“You probably aren’t, Miss Goode,” McLain said. “But until the sheriff and I get a better fix on who’s involved in this mess, I’d prefer to have you nearby. Sheriff Baggett, are we agreed on that?”
“Absolutely,” Bobby Lee replied. “You obviously think the two cells knew about each other?”
“Yes,” McLain said. “And that would be a lethal combination, wouldn’t it. What I really wonder about is whether or not any of our people did this cat-dancing thing. I’m visualizing the people in our office, and I can’t think of anyone.”
“It might not involve your people,” Cam pointed out. “It could be ATF, DEA, CIA, you know, any of them.”
The meeting broke up, with Mary Ellen agreeing to stay there at Jay-Kay’s apartment while Cam and the sheriff went back to Triboro. McLain promised to be in touch the following morning with a proposed plan of action.
59
The next day was taken up with meetings and more meetings as Cam attended to the administrative consequences of a deputy’s death under extraordinary circumstances. McLain did not call with his plan of action, and the sheriff said that DA Klein had told him to wait for the feds to take the lead. Cam talked to Mary Ellen once at midday to make sure she was okay, and he found out that she had been spending some time with Jay-Kay as that wizard pried the lids off of several supposedly secure state data systems.
At the end of the day, Cam stationed himself outside Bobby Lee’s office and waited. The sheriff finally called him in at 6:30.
“Where are we?” Cam asked without ceremony.
“Have you had a nice day, Lieutenant?” Bobby Lee asked. “Because I’ve just had a wonderful day. Want to hear about my wonderful day?”
Cam sat down. “Show you mine if you’ll show me yours,” he said.
The sheriff actually cracked a smile. “JFC,” he said, which was about as close to real swearing as Bobby Lee ever came. “It’s been alphabet soup, by the hour: FBI, SBI, ATF, ADA, ME, IA, and so on. By my count, the only one missing was the CIA. How’d you do?”
“About the same,” Cam told him. “Spent a lot of time on rumor control. McLain never did call?”
“He did not. Some anally oriented individuals from the Hoover Building in Washington did call, however. I think I’m ready to start my own vigilante cell.” He paused and then became more serious. “How’re people taking all this?”
“Inquiring minds want to know WTF,” Cam said. “And I’m getting some cold shoulders. As in ‘You were there at the end. Where’s our guy?’”
The sheriff got up and went to the single window in his office. The lights out in the parking lot were on, and yet there were still many personal vehicles parked there.
“I can tell you that you did the right thing,” he said. “But that’ll be small comfort the next time you go into Frank’s Place. Kenny Cox drew some serious water around here. Despite what he’d been doing.”
“Maybe because of what he was doing,” Cam said. “I really may not be able to stay on after this.”
Bobby Lee gave him a strange look. “You may be right about that, Lieutenant. You came back. Kenny Cox didn’t. People’re gonna remember that.”
They were interrupted by a call. The sheriff picked up the phone and identified himself. He listened for a long minute, wrote something down, said, “Okay,” and then hung up.
“That was the ops center,” he announced. “Apparently nine-one-one got a call advising me to check my E-mail. Said if we liked the fry-baby videos, we’d love this one.”
Cam felt a chill as the sheriff went over to his computer, opened his E-mail, looked at it for a moment, and then initiated a download. Cam came around behind him to watch. It was a video, and the sequence was the same as before: a black screen, followed by the chair materializing out of the darkness.
“Oh shit,” Cam said softly.
The figure in the chair wore a hood, as before. The humming sound came rumbling over the computer’s speakers, making one of them buzz. Then came the electronically distorted voice.
“All rise,” it began, repeating the mocking introduction to a court session. The humming got louder, then diminished slightly. “Tell the lieutenant he has something of ours, and we want it back.”
“What the hell?” Bobby Lee said. “Is he talking about you?”
Sure sounded like it, Cam thought. And the voice was saying “We” now, instead of “I,” he noticed.
“The lieutenant has a face that belongs to us. He didn’t earn it. We want it back. We’ll trade. This face for our face.”
With that, a robed and gloved hand descended over the back of the chair and lifted the hood from the face of a clearly terrified Mary Ellen Goode.