Steven James - The Pawn

We pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the federal building, and she turned to me. “It was Mindy,” she said evenly, still gripping the steering wheel with both hands, the muscles in her slim arms growing tight and tense. “The girl on the mountain. Mindy Travelca. We confirmed it last night. She was nineteen.”

I nodded slowly. At least now I knew what to call her. At least now she had a name.

As I followed Lien-hua into the federal building I thought of Mindy’s father being interviewed on TV, the tears wavering in his eyes. And the only thing I could think of to be thankful for was that I didn’t have to be the one to tell him the news.

Alice McMichaelson groaned, rolled over, and looked at the clock.

6:27

Good. She still had another hour to sleep before-

Wait a minute. She blinked at the clock. Looked again.

8:27.

What? That can’t be right.

She rubbed her eyes, snatched her glasses off the end table beside the bed, and slid them on.

8:27.

Blinked.

8:28.

Oh no. Not today.

“Jacob,” she yelled. “We’re late. Get up. Brenda!”

“I’m up, Mom!” Brenda’s perky voice sang from the kitchen. “I’ve been up like forever.”

“Well, you could have woken me up too!” Only after saying it did she realize how ridiculous it sounded, having your eight-year-old daughter wake you up for work.

Alice jumped out of bed and shook her head. She’d never been great at getting up in the morning anyway, and since Garrett had left her to be with that other woman it had only gotten worse. Trouble sleeping. Bad dreams. And now waking up late for her second day on the job at the bank. Not good.

The law office thing just hadn’t been going anywhere. The pay at the bank was better and so were the hours. She could spend more time with the kids. Also, she’d started taking business classes, and the bank gave her Mondays off to go back to school-but none of that would matter now if she showed up late and lost her job.

Alice decided to go without a shower, tossed off her nightgown, and yanked open her underwear drawer. “Jacob, are you up?”

“Yeah,” came the sleepy reply from across the hall.

“You don’t sound like it.”

The creak of his bed.

“I’m up.”

Clinking of a spoon and a cereal bowl from the kitchen. “Are we gonna be late for school, Mom?” Brenda had her mouth full.

“I’ll write you a note.”

“Oh,” said Brenda. “OK. I don’t want to miss library time.”

Alice pulled on some stockings. “Are you getting dressed, Jacob?”

“Yeah, Mom! I’m up, OK?”

“OK, OK.”

Alice flew to the closet, grabbed a dress, slipped it on. Shoes. Which shoes? It doesn’t matter. Just hurry. Anything. Black. No. Brown pumps. OK.

She stepped into the bathroom, held a washcloth under the faucet, rubbed it across her face, smeared on some lipstick. “Get your backpacks, kids. We need to go.”

Then back to the dresser. Hair is a mess. A mess! OK, where is it? She scanned the dresser. Where is that brush?

“Brenda, did you take my hairbrush?”

“No, Mom.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Alice shoved her jewelry box aside, opened up the top drawer to see if she’d tossed it in there, scanned the floor. Nothing.

8:39.

Err. “We need to get going, Jacob,” she called, but really she was yelling at herself. She glanced into the hallway. Brenda had wandered down the hall and was standing at attention with her pink backpack on. She’d probably been up since six. Jacob, on the other hand, would sleep until noon if he could get away with it.

Alice stomped into the bathroom. She had to brush her hair. Counter. Shelves. No brush. “Are you ready, Jake?”

“I didn’t get any breakfast.”

“Grab a granola bar or something. We need to get going. Does everybody have their homework?”

“What about our lunches?” asked Brenda.

Lunches!

“I’ll, um-” Alice grabbed her purse, pulled out a few bills. Passed them around. “Here. Buy a hot lunch today.”

Jake eyed the money. “Can I get pizza?”

“Whatever.” Alice scooted into Brenda’s room and used her daughter’s brush to calm down her hair. It still didn’t look good, but it would have to do. She’d find her brush later, no big deal.

She shooed the kids toward the door, grabbed the car keys, and herded everyone into the car, hoping she could make it to her desk before anyone noticed she was late.

The main FBI field office for North Carolina is located in Charlotte. Normally that’s where Ralph would have set up his base of operations, but in this case, because of the proximity of the crimes, he’d set up shop here at the satellite office in Asheville.

Even in the days when I used to live in the area and work as a wilderness guide, Asheville reminded me a little of Boulder, Colorado-only on a smaller scale and flavored with the music and culture of Appalachia. Just like Boulder, there’s an artsy downtown district complete with exotic import shops, dance studios and arts centers, roaming bohemian hippies, indoor rock-climbing gyms, quaint coffee shops selling organic blends, and vegetarian restaurants staffed by women who don’t believe in shaving any part of their bodies. And out along the streets you’ll find scores of weathered Jeeps and Land Rovers topped off with kayaks, skis, or mountain bikes depending on the season.

But here in Asheville you also find bearded musicians playing mountain dulcimers, banjos, and fiddles on the street corners at twilight, a large population of retirees, and high-steepled brick churches perched on nearly every street corner. Over the last twenty years the town has become a cultural melting pot where both ends of the spectrum-the religious fundamentalists and the social progressives-meet. Makes for an interesting mix at times.

“Asheville has more art galleries per capita than any other city in North America,” Lien-hua told me as we passed through the security checkpoint of the Veach-Baley Federal Complex. “And one of the top independent bookstores in the world.”

Apparently, it had been a very informative trolley tour.

Ralph had taken over a conference room just down the hall from the senator’s office on the first floor. Lien-hua and I walked in, and I looked around.

I saw that Ralph had brought in half a dozen computers, communication stations, bulletin boards, and dry erase boards. I felt right at home.

The pictures of the previous five victims were posted neatly on the wall. These weren’t the crime scene photos, these were the smiling, posed pictures where each victim looks airbrushed and radiant and full of life. Yearbook photos, family vacations, things like that. These are the pictures we use with the media. And thankfully these are the pictures people end up remembering. Rather than the ones etched in my mind. The ones I can’t seem to forget.

I placed my computer bag on an empty desk and stared at the photos of the dead girls.

Victim number one, Patty Henderson, twenty-three, smiled slyly out of the corner of her mouth. She was blonde, blue-eyed, had perfect teeth, and looked like she was still in her teens.

Victim number two, Jamie McNaab, eighteen, was sitting on a paint-splattered wooden stool and holding a paintbrush. Jamie had a playful, girlish face and coy smile. A can of paint lay on the floor next to her. You could tell she was in a studio. The photographer had probably taken pictures of hundreds of smiling teenage girls posing beside those cans of paint.

Make sure we check on this photographer. There might be some kind of link through the studio. Maybe someone who works there or the place that processed the film or something.