Джеймс Паттерсон - Unsolved

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“I’m going alone,” he says. “And I promise you this—that’s the last time anybody jumps me.”

111

BOOKS AND I drive our separate cars to the ER in Huntington, where they clean the wound on his head, stitch him up, and give him some pain meds. He doesn’t like it, but even he concedes it was the right decision.

Afterward, we split up, Books heading out for his evening of surveillance, me heading for my evening of research. I return to Hoover to find Rabbit and Pully looking like two kids cramming for an exam, moving from their telephones to their computers, papers all over their cubicles.

They are doing so many things at once. Monitoring hits on license-plate readers and cameras in every direction from Annandale, Virginia. Doing background checks on our various suspects. Searching for Dodge Caravan registrations and trying to tie them, in any way, to Petty or Lieutenant Wagner.

And I’m going to add at least one new assignment—searching for registrations for Chevy Impalas, which Books thinks is the car Petty was driving.

But at least I can help now too.

“Have you guys eaten today?” I ask.

“No” and “No time” are the answers I get, nearly in unison, from Rabbit and Pully.

“You need to. This may take days, guys. You barely slept last night. You have to eat and you have to sleep or you’ll fall apart.”

Rabbit throws off her headset and sits back in her chair. She blinks her bloodshot eyes as if it’s the first time today she’s looked at anything but a screen. Pully stands and moans, his palms on his back, stretching like an old man even though he’s barely old enough to drink.

“Listen, guys,” I say. “It’s almost seven now. You’ve been at this all day. You’ve exhausted nearly everything you can find in terms of data. And any human intelligence—those people aren’t getting back to you tonight, so there’s no point in waiting for them. Let me take it from here.”

“No way,” says Rabbit. “The guy who blew up a homeless shelter is mine. I’ll stay up for a year if that’s what it takes.”

“She’s serious,” Pully says. “Remember, you’re talking to someone whose idea of fun is organizing protest rallies and volunteering at soup kitchens.”

“A little volunteering would do you good, Pully,” she shoots back. “Get out in the real world instead of sitting home playing Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Dungeons and Dragons?” He laughs. “I think I was born the year that went out of style.”

“Okay, people, listen,” I say, reclaiming their attention. “Last I checked, I’m your boss. And you’re supposed to listen to your boss. I know I read that somewhere.”

“I think it’s in the manual,” says Pully.

“Right, so go home. Have a meal, get a decent night’s sleep. Return in the morning and all those people will begin calling you back, and the pieces will start fitting together.” I clap my hands. “Really, guys. What was your plan? Pull an all-nighter? You’d be hallucinating by dawn.”

“And what about our fearless leader?” asks Rabbit, who is warming up to the idea of food and a bed despite herself.

“I haven’t spent all day cooped up like you two,” I say. “And anyway, I have a few things to take care of, then I’ll go home too.”

They drag their feet a bit, but it helps when your boss is pushing you out.

When they’re gone, I sit down in front of the computer. When Citizen David started his bombing spree, Rabbit began collecting raw data from around the bombing sites—CCTV-camera footage, license-plate readers, tollway cameras. Then she took the raw data and put it into a useful format so we could play with it—perform cross-references, run pattern analyses, dump it into algorithms, isolate various characteristics.

Are Darwin and Citizen David the same person? Books could be right. I admit, it never would have occurred to me.

We know this much from the bulk data around the sites that Citizen David bombed: No single vehicle with the same license plate was captured at all of the locations—Connecticut, Florida, and Alabama—during the relevant times. We would’ve picked that up immediately. But maybe Petty drove his Chevy Impala to one of the bombing sites. We never had a reason to focus on this particular make and model of vehicle before.

So it’s a long shot, but it could be a home run. If, that is, Petty is Darwin. And if Darwin is Citizen David. And if Petty was driving a Chevy Impala, as Books believes but isn’t sure. A long shot, yes. But that’s what data girls like me look for.

I glance at the time. It’s now exactly seven o’clock. If Books is right about her regimented, seven-to-seven schedule, Elizabeth Ashland will be leaving for the day right now.

I go onto the data drive on my computer, the W drive. The bulk data—all the information assembled from all the sources from all three of Citizen David’s bombing sites—is in, appropriately, the bulk-data folder. The folder is pass-code protected.

I type in the pass code and pull up the bulk-data file.

“Wait a second,” I say aloud, though I’m alone.

This isn’t the bulk-data file. Not the raw data, anyway.

This has been edited.

Edited by whom?

I think it through. The members of our data team—Pully, Rabbit, and I—have access to the raw data. We have the pass code. Who else does?

Supervisors in our chain of command. The director, of course, as well as the assistant directors and…

Does Elizabeth Ashland, a special assistant director, qualify for clearance?

I pull up the clearance manual. Yep. She sure does.

Elizabeth has access to our raw data.

112

HE RUNS through his house removing everything that could incriminate him. In his upstairs bedroom, the materials he used for the scar: the makeup pencil he used to draw the outline of the scar, the rigid collodion scarring liquid, the powder, the lip gloss to give the scar a bit of a shine. The gray wig, of course. He puts it all in a grocery bag.

He looks in the mirror and forces himself to take a deep breath. Things didn’t go well today. But it could have been worse.

You have to trust your plan, he reminds himself. They can’t tie anything to you. Even if they suspect you. Even if they’re sure it’s you.

It all leads to Lieutenant Wagner. Everything. Every murder was committed in a city that Wagner was visiting. The Taser, the watch, both found at Wagner’s house. And of course, Wagner has now fled! Only a guilty man would flee!

They’ll never find Wagner’s body, buried at that deserted power plant. Sure, the drive to the storage shed was compromised, thanks to that damn police barricade, but the trip to the abandoned power plant was pristine. Nobody could possibly know that he buried Wagner there. Nobody was going to be looking at the power plant.

They won’t find the duplicate Dodge Caravan either, the one he used for all his travel, all the murders, the one he customized just like Wagner’s. It’s several towns away, in a private rented garage paid for in cash. And even if they did find it, it’s just a vehicle. It may be souped up exactly like Wagner’s, but so what? They can’t tie it to him. It’s been wiped clean. It’s not registered to him. The license plates have been removed. There’s no connection to him.

The duplicate wheelchair he used? Now, that could be a problem. It’s one thing for the FBI to find a dime-a-dozen Dodge Caravan in some private garage. It’s quite another for them to find a wheelchair that’s not only the same make and model as Wagner’s but has the same American-flag decal and RANGERS LEAD THE WAY sticker on the shroud.