Carol O’Connell - Find Me

She sighed. It might be hours instead of minutes before she got back on the road. But now she realized that Chicago Homicide had not surrendered gracefully-not at all. She had already guessed that Kronewald had a bigger stake in this than one dead body found in his hometown.

“Back off,” said Mallory. Every pair of eyes was on her as she spoke to the FBI agent. “The trooper stays, and that’s not negotiable. You’re outnumbered here. So play nice.”

“Well, math isn’t my strong point,” said the fed. He turned his smile on the crime-scene technicians. They did not smile back. “I count-”

“They’re civilians-no weapons,” said Mallory. “I misspoke. I should’ve said you were outgunned.” Turning to the technicians, she said to them, ordered them, “Wait by the helicopter.”

The four men turned around and walked toward the far side of the lot until the startled fed found his voice and yelled, “Just stop right there!” He turned to Mallory, his voice strained but calmer when he said, “I need to see your badge. I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

The detective pulled a black wallet from the pocket of her jeans, opened it and held up her gold shield, as if it were a talisman for warding off fools. Cops were dirt to this man, and she knew that, but the fed already had his little smile in place for settling minor turf wars with local cops ranking higher than a trooper. He leaned down for a closer look at her badge and ID card so that he could use her name in a sentence and win her heart- she knew this drill too well.

“A New York detective?” He held up his own badge and the card that identified him as Special Agent Bradley Cadwaller of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Mine trumps yours, Detective Mallory.”

“Not in the real world,” she said. “You’re from the Freak Squad, right?” This was the only scenario that would resolve the odd problem of a middle-aged FBI agent who made rookie errors. Before he could confirm or deny that he was with the Behavioral Science Unit, she rolled over the first words out of his mouth. “They don’t let you out much, do they? No, your people just want to look at photographs of the crime scene.” She waved one hand at the green Ford. “Nothing like the real thing. Too bad you’ve forgotten every crime-scene protocol. I can’t believe you landed that damn helicopter in the parking lot. And don’t e ver forget that Hoffman saved your ass before you could blow the evidence away.”

The crime-scene technicians were smiling again. They were enjoying this-a lot. She wondered how long they had been riding with this man. It took a while to break down the tight chain of FBI command, even among the civilian employees. They must have been traveling with him for longer than the time it took to snatch one body part-maybe months. Kronewald might find that useful.

She turned away from the agent and called out to his technicians, “You can come back now.” One of the techs gave her a mock salute as he stepped forward with the others. The federal agent was speechless for all the passing seconds it took to understand that he was not in charge anymore.

When the senior technician stood beside her, Mallory issued her last orders of the day. “The trooper will observe and take notes. Make sure you give him a complete inventory of everything you take.” With that, she returned to the diner, knowing that the FBI agent would follow her inside.

A folded newspaper hit the gas station’s door with the crack of distant gunfire, and the drive-by artist pedaled away to make deliveries to other doors. The mechanic opened his copy of the Chicago Tribune and shook his head. “Amazing. It never made the papers.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Riker. “Amazing. I need to know how much you figured out.”

“So you’re on damage control, right?”

“That’s my job today.” And that was no lie. “So… baby bones.”

“Yeah, well, the dispatcher says to the rookie, ‘You found a baby, too?’ And the kid tells her no, just some real small bones, a kid’s hand. And that’s when the dispatcher shut him down.” The mechanic grinned. “Don’t t ake much to make a connection with the federal body snatchers.”

“The feds took everything?”

“You mean last night’s murder? How would I know?”

“You know how this works,” said Riker. “I ask the questions and you talk.”

“Well, I’m talking about the old cases-cold cases-those missing kids. The damn grave-robbing FBI made off with their bones. I know there’s real hard feelings between the cops and the feds around here, and it’s been going on for a long time.”

Without thanks, the FBI agent accepted coffee from the waitress, then cut short her cheerful speech on how the first cup was always free. He waved Sally off to the other side of the diner, then fiddled with the knot in his tie and turned a smile on Mallory. “Call me Brad.”

She preferred the man’s s u rname, Cadwaller. It vaguely reminded her of a species of fish.

“I’ll call you Kathy,” he said.

“You’ll call me Mallory,” she said, correcting him, “or Detective.”

“Is this a feminist thing, the use of-”

“It’s a cop thing,” she said. “More like a superstition. If a fed gets close enough to your case to use your first name, it’s considered bad luck.” She did not hate all feds. There were New York agents, a few, who would not be shot on sight if she found them at one of her crime scenes. It was the Freak Squad that offended her most, and this man was certainly a profiler, a witch doctor without the credential of a Ph.D. “Now tell me who’s in charge of your operation.”

“I am.” Agent Cadwaller polished a spoon with his napkin, the better to see his reflection in the stainless steel, and now he smoothed back his hair. “I’m in charge.”

Mallory thought otherwise, and she took him for a poseur. The FBI would never let the Behavioral Science Unit run an investigation. Cadwaller’s people were an embarrassment best kept in the basement. It was surprising that they had allowed this man in the outside world long enough to alienate an entire forensics team. But she had already guessed that the case was large, and field agents would be spread thin.

“And you’re a New York cop,” he said. “So we know this isn’t your case.”

Mallory was annoyed by this statement of the obvious, and he would have to pay for that as well as other sins: his smirk, his arrogance, his lies. “Cadwaller, you know how many bodies we’re talking about?” Detective Kronewald had not mentioned more bodies. Cagey old bastard, he had given her nothing to work with beyond the skeletal hand left in place of the one that was cut away from Linden’s body. But now she could make more sense of a frantic rookie’s ramblings on the police scanner last night- the lines and the circle carved into the dead man’s flesh. “The serial killer who murdered Gerald Linden was a-”

“Hold it,” he said. “No one’s calling the Linden murder as a serial.”

“Really? Well, let me clear that up for you. I know you’ll never be allowed near that body. But maybe you’ll get to look at the photographs. ”

His smile was smug, and he took some satisfaction in saying, “I’ve seen the body.”

“Good. Then you saw the number carved into Linden’s face.” She was bluffing with only the description of two lines and a circle on the dead man’s forehead, but now Cadwaller’s e yes were rounding, and she knew he had never seen that corpse.

“It was a large number.” Mallory leaned back and regarded him through half-closed eyes, as if this subject might be boring to her. “The first cop on the scene took one look at that body and figured it for a serial killing,” she lied. “He was fresh out of the academy, and twenty Chicago detectives agreed with him. But you’re not sure yet? And they put you in charge?”