“He did that because your little game was starting to come apart,” Cam said. “You could do that shit with impunity as long as no one suspected cops were making hits. Now that we know, ‘your game,’ as you call it, is over. And we will find each one of you. You taught us how, remember?”
“In your dreams, Lieutenant. Remember, what I did was pattern analysis of real data, which may or may not exist anymore. Wherever I can intrude, I can alter, remember? All we have to do now is nothing.”
“ You were the one who lit this vigilante fuse-back at the hotel when we had dinner. Why’d you do that?”
“The challenge, of course. Plus, if you let me into your investigation, I could control it.”
“And it was you who gave me Kenny Cox? Why? He was one of you.”
“Because you were already onto him, weren’t you? Our theory was that if I gave you Cox, we might still hide the other layer.”
“But now we know.”
She smiled. “That’s just a new game, Lieutenant. My tigers and I are ready if you are. And we don’t have to be in Charlotte, North Carolina, to play. Those aren’t my only assets. In the meantime, listen to me. Do you want Mary Ellen Goode back alive?”
“Of course.”
“Then you need to suffer some important memory lapses. It’s as simple as that. We don’t want you dead. We don’t kill police. First, you must promise to forget everything you know, and then we will tell you where to find her.”
He stared at her. Was Mary Ellen already dead? Were the Computer Crimes guys right? And besides, did this woman really believe that he’d promise to do that, get Mary Ellen back, and then hold to the promise? She’d been working around law enforcement long enough to know that cops would say anything to get a hostage out. He shrugged. “Okay, deal,” he said. “So where is she?”
She laughed. “Not so fast. Do you know that the Bureau has requested a warrant for your arrest?”
He shook his head. “Based on what?”
“Based on a chain of circumstantial evidence, Lieutenant, evidence that stains both the Manceford County Sheriffs Office and you. It was one of your people who botched the arrest that precipitated this whole thing. And then you personally become a black hole.”
“What’s that mean?”
“James Marlor died after you visited him. White Eye Mitchell died while you watched. Sergeant Cox died while you watched. All three explanations of how they died have come from you, essentially uncorroborated. You visited the grounds and house of Judge Bellamy when she was under police protection. You were there when someone fired a bigbore rifle into her house. You are the sole beneficiary of her estate, which is more than substantial. Everywhere they turn, there you are, sucking their interest in.”
“And I can explain each of those-” Cam began, but she cut him off.
“You can try, Lieutenant, but the Bureau has built a case based on everything I’ve already mentioned, plus the ‘clincher,’ as they term it.”
“What’s that?”
“Some very interesting and directly incriminating data from your own phone records.”
“Not possible.”
“The pay phones. You’ve been calling them, too.”
“But that’s bullshit-never have.”
“Telephone company records say that you have. At least now they do. Would you like to verify that?”
She put the cell phone down and shifted the gun to her other hand. “Look,” she said. “The government is convinced that there really is a death squad of sheriff’s officers in this state. Right now, they think that you’re part of it. After all, you are perfectly positioned to help such an effort.”
He just stared at her.
“I’m sorry to tell you that I have helped them form that impression and, and, I can enrich that impression. Plus, I can do that from wherever I want to.”
He didn’t know what to say. What had she said before? If she could intrude, she could alter? And she’d just erased his own computer, with his acquiescence. Or had she-could she have put something in there, too?
“And what about the federal death squad?”
“What incentive does the government have to pursue that theory?” she scoffed. “None.”
“But Kenny said-”
“That’s what you said Sergeant Cox said, Lieutenant. And even that was ambiguous and spoken in a dying delirium. You said so yourself.”
He sat back in his chair. The room suddenly seemed uncommonly warm.
“So you sent Annie the E-mail?”
“From inside your office, yes. From your computer, actually.”
“And you planted that bomb?”
“No. The man with me planted the bomb; while I was inside with your judge, gaining access to her home computer, and from that, the judicial network.”
“Fuck that- you killed Annie Bellamy.”
“She killed herself, Lieutenant. And didn’t I overhear you tell her to come over once everyone left? Maybe you killed her, Lieutenant.”
He felt a wave of cold rage sweep through him. He could take her. Scream at her like that big cat and leap across the room, bat that pea-shooter out of her hands and then take her lying little head right off. If he attacked her the shepherds would join in. One of them would get her. She read the sudden murderous blaze in his eyes and raised the cell phone.
“If I press send, she dies,” she said calmly. He sank down in his chair. “Back to your part of the deal, Lieutenant. Here it is in a nutshelclass="underline" You must not testify. That’s the long and the short of it. When we’re convinced that you are honoring your agreement, we will release your pretty little park ranger.”
“How long will that take?”
She didn’t answer him. He recalled what Computer Crimes had said about the video images. “I think you’re lying,” he said. “I think she’s already dead.”
“Shall I hit the ‘send’ button, then?” she asked. “Although it’s not as if there will be a big boom heard halfway across town.”
He hesitated. She lowered the phone. “For our part, the executions will stop. We will even leave the feral cats alone. You simply refuse to testify.”
“McLain won’t buy that,” he said. “The Bureau will pursue this forever.”
“We’ll take our chances with McLain,” she said. “We might know him and what he will do with this better than you do, if their E-mail is any indication. They’ve been arguing with the ATF ever since the bombing as to the true nature of what’s been going on, but even they can’t ignore the fact that everything continues to point back to you. But if you go silent, and we go silent, they have every incentive to quit looking, don’t they, not to mention that’s what Washington wants, too.”
Cam thought she was wrong about that, but this wasn’t the time to argue. “So the real deal is, I take a dive, Mary Ellen goes free, and you guys get away with it?”
“What we did was mete out justice, Lieutenant-justice as propagated by the old gods, not the politically correct ones. And besides, it won’t be that obvious, this ‘dive’ of yours. Remember, you are the evidence. If you don’t talk, everyone’s case goes dim.”
“What about what I’ve already told them?”
“If necessary, you recant. You’re no longer sure. Those were stressful situations-you may have been mistaken.”
He wasn’t sure of what to say. He’d sat right here in this house and debriefed Bobby Lee and the DA, so in a sense, he’d already testified. But she might not know that. Or did she? Had they gone back to their offices and put it all into a computer report? Which she could have read? On the other hand, what was to stop the sheriff from reopening the whole thing once they got Mary Ellen back? They had some candidates. He decided that he needed to play along right now.
“Even if they didn’t come after me,” he said, “I’ll still have to get out. Retire.”
“Yes, you probably will, but that’s better than being shot with a hunting rifle through your kitchen window one night, isn’t it? You were a military sniper scout? You know how easy that would be to do, yes?”