P Deutermann - The Cat Dancers

“Yes and no,” he said. “The sheriff knows everything I know, and I debriefed my guys on the MCAT. That’s good enough for the Kenny Cox problem, but not for the federal problem.”

“If there is one.”

“Has to be,” Cam said. “Why else would those guys have been trying to take me out? Or take Mary Ellen hostage?”

“I think this kidnapping is about getting you neutralized, not dead. Until the bomb, this was a case of James Marlor getting revenge, with some help from inside the Sheriff’s Office. The bomb changed everything. I think it was a mistake.”

“A mistake? A C-four bomb in a car? That had to be deliberate.”

“I think the bomb was supposed to go off and scare the judge into quitting the bench. What they didn’t count on was that she would decide to get in the car. That’s why they sent the first, fake bomb-to make sure she understood she was in real danger and to make her stay in the house. Once she was killed, they realized they had exposed themselves, unnecessarily. Then you came along telling everyone this had to be someone else, not James Marlor.”

“You’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” Cam said.

She was looking at him with that coolly superior expression he’d seen before when she was talking to lesser mortals. Without even looking at the keyboard, she was entering a phone number on her cell phone.

Her cell phone.

A sudden cold thought hit him. There wasn’t going to be any phone call. “They” were sitting right in front of him.

She smiled when she saw the comprehension dawn in his eyes.

“You’re here for the pictures, aren’t you?” he asked.

She smiled again. “Full marks, Lieutenant.” He started to get up, but she raised the cell phone and told him to sit back down. He remembered the video, the cell phone in Mary Ellen’s lap. He sat back down. She extracted a silenced semiautomatic from her briefcase.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“This is just to keep our meeting polite-you know, more for my protection than to harm you.”

Cam looked over at the dogs, wondering if he could spin them into action. But she had a gun and could shoot both of them before he could get something productive going. He looked back at her.

“You’ve been part of this little gang all along?”

“For some time,” she said. “I’m their eyes and ears.”

“How? And why, for crying out loud?”

“How? I danced with a big cat, just like the others, of course. That’s the only way in. I even have a face.”

He remembered the eyes he’d thought he’d recognized. Hers. “And the ‘why’?”

“One, because the people they kill richly deserve it. You heard the real me in the hallway that day. Heads on stakes and all that. And because it’s a dangerous, fast, and incredibly exciting game, Lieutenant. I think I told you that once-excitement is what I live for.”

“Oh right, you’re the thrill junkie. But you people have to know we have copies of those pictures, and the Sheriff’s Office definitely does not consider this shit a game. We’ve already lost one cop, and if we lose another one, all you guys are going to get dead.”

“First, you’d have to find us.”

“We already know-”

She leaned forward. “What you know is nothing, except what I’ve revealed to you. Do you suppose I just might have pointed you at the wrong people? Besides, we didn’t cause Sergeant Cox’s death. He did that. He already had two faces. That’s more than anyone else. He got greedy, and the cat finally won. That happens.”

“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.”