Ransom X
Chapter 26 Visiting Team
Legacy met Agent Wagner at the door of his apartment. There were no visible signs of her having been on the road, nor of her having worked 36 out of the past 40 hours. Legacy marveled at the visual of her coming through the door. She was the first woman in his house in years; he hadn’t been aware that the inside of his place was more like a crypt than an apartment until someone crossed the threshold and entered. Something about her enthusiasm breathed life into the place for a moment.
Chess peered through the crack in her bedroom door to get a glimpse of Wagner as she walked side by side with her father to the study. Legacy said in a loud voice, “Goodnight, Chess,” as he passed her room. It forced her to retreat before replying. “Goodnight, dad.”
The study was wall-to-wall videotapes, pictures, and copies of official testimonies. Every part of the walls was covered with documents from the case. Video stills covered the windows like a collage made in a manner that only Legacy’s subconscious could decipher, if there was any order at all. Anything that might catch his eye and bring the facts of the case into convergence, bring the walls crashing in, was posted on the four walls. Five girls surrounded his living area and the bed was made, buried under the paperwork of the investigation.
“I guess you do bring it home.” Her tone was the same as his daughter just before calling him a “freakazoid.”
Legacy stopped short, for a moment. What had surprised Wagner? He didn’t see anything odd in the room – it was all connected and laid out based on the competitive relationship between fact which followed a radial pattern around the pictures, and theory which climbed the walls and ended up on the ceiling looking down on the hard facts. It was chronological, working in clockwise fashion around the room beginning at magnetic north. It seemed pretty obvious to Legacy. It seemed that having a partner was going to be hard work.
“All of the victims were on local TV. Four days before their abduction. This one,” he pointed to Missy, “was interviewed on her prom queen victory while practicing to ride a motorcycle in the resulting parade.”
“Sure that’s not national?” Wagner quipped.
“And Carla filled in for the weather girl - Brit was live on scene of a fire. Tracy was interviewed at a protest against habitat destruction in the Bay area.” Legacy looked up from his notes. “All local TV news.”
Legacy let it sink in. All of the hours Wagner’s team had spent trying to find a thread to tie the victims to their abductors, and there was nothing. No more contact that a roulette ball to the eventual cup that it lands in. This pack grabbed an image off a screen then hunted it to extinction. Legacy went on to explain the technical details that made it possible to get all the channels in the country on satellite. There were over two thousand pre-digital, forty-foot dishes that could be hacked in order to do the job. Most of them were sold in the late seventies, and tracking down their owners would be near impossible.
“Anyway, Blue would have covered his tracks so well on this purchase, we’ll never pin him to it.” Legacy said distractedly.
“You give him too much respect.” Wagner added.
Legacy’s head snapped up, nothing she could have said would have offended him more. “Contempt” there was edgy restraint in his voice, “it’s not respect.” He pointed to a picture that hung on the wall right beside the door, like a sentry, he had to pass every time he left the room. It was Blue. His eyes burned into the image, Wagner had to snap him out of it.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He swung his gaze onto her face. It fit so well with the pictures of pretty women around the room, Legacy looked at the crest of her forehead as it sloped down into apologetic green eyes. He almost blushed as he remembered “3am”. Lovely.
It was a joke that he’d heard when he was in basic training. The human mind finds the beauty in anything around 3am. It was the best time to threaten the life of a prisoner who had a fear of death – even a miserable existence has merit at 3am. Happy memories of his former life were hard to come by. Wagner reached out and touched him on the shoulder.
“I meant that you understand his capabilities better than anyone.” Wagner brushed invisible lint from his shirt.
Legacy took the awkward silence. Wait, did he really just think that silence was awkward? He’d have to come back to that thought. He took the break to add to her education.
“In the world of interrogation, knowing a person is more of a deductive process than additive. I learned what a person won’t do a lot quicker than I get to know what they will – I know Blue wouldn’t leave a trail, but I can’t tell you what he did to cover it up. He is all about input, nothing escapes him. Does that make sense?” Legacy was actively soliciting response in the conversation – it must be 3am. He ran up against something she’d said earlier, on the phone she’d claimed that he was ’just trying to impress her.’ Was he? Was that possible?
“It makes perfect sense.” Wagner added in reassurance. He looked at her a moment then realized that she was responding to what he had said aloud and not what he had been thinking subsequently.
“They’ll move on their next victim in seven days. All of the previous girls were on TV between seven and eleven thirty PM eastern time, four days before their abduction.”
“With a thousand local channels out there, what do you think our chances are choosing the same one they do?” Wagner asked.
Legacy didn’t have an answer, at this point he knew who the Vinyl Men wouldn’t choose, not who they would. Predicting the negative was a particularly frustrating brand of certainty.
“It gets worse,” he confided. “I can’t verify that Laura was on TV before her abduction. We could be chasing around a system that they’ve already abandoned.”