James had an older sister, Rosa, who was murdered by a serial killer when James was twelve. He decided what his path would be the day they buried her. The fact of this is the only real evidence I have of James’s humanity.
In most ways, James and I grate against each other, two positive poles repelling, a zero attractant. There is one exception: he shares the ability I have, to peer into the minds of those who murder for pleasure.
“Because someone’s dead and someone with the power to do so has ordered us to deal with it,” I answer him.
He frowns. “This is out of our jurisdiction. It’s not our job to be here.”
I glance at AD Jones. He’s glaring at James with a mix of resignation and mild disbelief.
“Stop whining,” Callie tells James, “or you’re not invited to my wedding.”
He sneers. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”
“I can see how you might not consider it to be one, but”—and at this Callie smiles—“your mother would be very disappointed. We had a wonderful talk on the phone, Damien, and she’s looking forward to meeting the people you work with.”
James scowls at her. “Don’t call me that.”
I hide a smile and allow myself some secret satisfaction at Callie’s end run around James. I’ve never met his mother, but I know he visits Rosa’s grave with her every year on Rosa’s birthday, so in theory they are close.
“You want to brief us here?” Alan asks, cutting through the banter.
“Hold that thought,” AD Jones says. He turns to me. “Remember what I said. Keep me in the loop.”
“Yes, sir.”
One nod and he walks away without another word.
“We have a car waiting over there,” I say. “Let’s get inside and fire up the heater and then I’ll brief you.”
It’s a big Crown Vic, a little battered but serviceable. Alan takes the driver’s position, with me riding shotgun. James and Callie squeeze into the back.
“Heat, please,” Callie says, rubbing her arms and giving off an overdramatic shiver.
Alan starts the car and puts the heater on high. The big engine rumbles on idle as the heated air blasts out from the vents like wind from the mouth of a cave.
“How’s that?” Alan asks.
“Hmmmm,” Callie purrs. “So much better.”
Alan gestures to me. “Floor is yours, then.”
WHEN I FINISH TALKING, EVERYONE is silent, thinking. James looks out the window in the back. Callie, next to him, taps her front teeth with a red-painted fingernail.
“Pretty theatrical,” she says after a moment. “Killing that poor woman mid-flight.”
“A little too theatrical,” Alan replies.
“Yes,” I muse, “but he pulled it off. He killed her on the plane—”
“Her?” Alan snorts.
I frown. “Legally, yes. It says ‘female’ on her driver’s license. What’s the problem?”
He reaches his hands up, grips the steering wheel on either side, and squeezes, once. Blows air out of his mouth, a noisy sigh.
“Look,” he says, “I don’t like transsexuals. I think it’s unnatural.” He shrugs. “I can’t help it. I dealt with a few tranny murders when I worked in the LAPD, and I did my job and I felt for the families—a person is a person—but it doesn’t change the truth. They disgust me on some level. Sometimes it slips out.”
I gape at my friend, shocked. Absolutely, one hundred percent poleaxed. Am I really hearing this from Alan? Outside of an interrogation room, Alan is the calmest, fairest, most tolerant person I know. At least I’ve always thought so.
“My, my, my, where have those clay feet been hiding?” Callie asks, echoing my own thoughts.
“He’s a homophobe,” James says, the venom in his voice surprising me. “Right? You don’t like fags, do you, Alan?”
Alan rotates in his seat so he can look at James. “I’m not a fan of seeing guys kiss, but no, I’m not a homophobe. I don’t care who you screw. There’s a big difference between that and cutting off your breasts or chopping off your cock.” He scowls. “This is my ‘thing,’ okay? I’m not saying it’s right or that it makes sense, and frankly, I don’t want a bunch of crap about it. Elaina’s given me a piece of her mind on the subject already, and it just doesn’t seem to change. It won’t affect how I do my job.”
“Tell us the truth,” Callie says, her voice solicitous. “Was it a woman you picked up one time? Lots of tongue-kissing and then you reached down and found sticks and berries?”
Alan groans. “Fuck this. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You’re right,” I say. “You shouldn’t have. If you let that kind of comment slip around the family…”
He nods, chastened. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Not homophobic, huh?” James says.
I glance at him, surprised. His face is angry. He’s not letting this go.
“I already said I wasn’t.”
“Bullshit.”
Alan looks ready to get angry, but sighs instead.
“Fine. Don’t take my word for it. Doesn’t make it less true.”
James stares at Alan. He’s scowling and shaking. I have no idea what’s going on here.
“Really? Then tell me…” He stops, hesitating, breathing deeply, in and out. “Then tell me what you think about this: I’m gay.”
Silence fills the car. I can hear the heater blowing and the sounds of breathing.
“Oh boy,” Callie says. She mimes eating from a bag of popcorn. “Go on, don’t stop now, honey-love.”
For myself, I’m speechless.
James, gay?
It’s not the revelation itself that shocks me. It’s the fact that he’s revealing anything at all. It’s just too personal. It would be as disconcerting if James told me what his favorite flavor of ice cream was.
I am, on some level, surprised at how well he’s managed to hide it. We’ve dealt with gay victims before. He’s never let the slightest hint or opinion slip.
Of course, neither had Alan.
“Why are you telling us this now?” Alan asks.
“I don’t know!” James snarls. “Stop stalling. Answer the fucking question.”
Alan gives James a long once-over. The slightest smile tugs at his lips. “Then I’d say…I still don’t like you.”
Callie snorts and begins to giggle. She sounds ridiculous.
Some of the anger drains away from James’s face. He scrutinizes Alan, looking for deception.
“And that’s all you’d have to say?”
“That’s it.”
Something happens that rocks me. Alan reaches his arm out over the seat and places a hand on James’s shoulder. It’s a gentle gesture, full of reassurance. What shocks me though is James’s reaction. No twitch or flinch or turning away. I see a hint of something else, a kind of…what?
Relief, I realize, amazed. It’s relief. What Alan thinks matters to him.
“Really, son,” Alan says again, his voice as gentle as the gesture.
The moment hangs. James shrugs off the hand. “Fine,” he replies. He glares at Callie and me. “I don’t want to hear anything more about it, okay?”
I hold my fingers up in the “scout’s honor” salute. Callie nods, but slides herself across the seat, putting as much space between her and James as possible.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, suspicious.
“Don’t worry, honey-love,” she says, “I have no problem with you being gay, really I don’t. But I’m getting married soon, and, well—they say those gay cooties can be catching. Better safe than sorry.”
I manage to keep the smile off my face. James gives her a speculative look before sighing and saying: “You’re an idiot.”
Again, there’s a certain relief there. Callie is treating him the same as ever and this annoyance is comforting to James in the wake of his revelation.
What about me? I wonder. What did he expect from me?
I glance his
way, but James is staring out the window again. He seems relaxed.
I realize he wasn’t worried about how I’d react. James knew I’d accept him.
This makes me feel good.
“Now that we’ve gotten the Jerry Springer moment out of the way,” Callie says, “can we get back to the business at hand? Let’s not forget our priority: planning my wedding.”
“What does the business at hand have to do with that?” I ask, bemused.
Callie rolls her eyes at me. “Well, it looks like we have to catch a killer first. So, chop-chop.”
I grin at her. She’s not actually worried about her wedding. This is Callie’s way; she lives to lift the somber, to light the dark.
“Let’s head to Dulles,” I say. “They’re holding the plane for us. We can talk on the way.”
Alan gets the car moving and I reflect that this is the thing about life that’s so different from death. Life is in motion. It’s always happening, always going somewhere, forcing its way through the cracks, moment-opportune or not. Alan’s unexpected ugliness regarding transsexuals, James’s sudden reveal, good or bad, both mean alive, and the often uncomfortableness of living is always preferable to the always tidy peacefulness of dead.
5
IT TOOK US ABOUT FORTY-FIVE MINUTES TO NAVIGATE OUR way to the airport. A local cop who’d been waiting got our car hurried through a security checkpoint and pointed us in the right direction. It’s after midnight now, but like all international airports, Dulles lives off the clock. As Alan drives, I can see planes taking off, jumping from a sea of light into the night sky.
The plane Lisa was killed on had been moved to a maintenance hangar. The hangar is large, made of metal and concrete, which means it’s cold. The temperature is continuing to drop and I realize I’m really not dressed for this weather.
Lights are on in the hangar, big and bright. The late hour and the stark utility of the place combine with the cold to create a feeling of solitude.
“Guess we’re supposed to just drive right in,” Alan mutters, and does so.
“Who’s that?” Callie asks as we pull up.
We’re being met by a blonde woman I’ve never seen before. She’s about my age, and she’s wearing a black jacket, black slacks, and a white shirt. Simple, but it fits her too well to be off-the-rack. She’s neither tall nor short, about five-five, pretty without being beautiful. Her face, which is a study in blankness, frames intelligent blue eyes.
“Smells like an exec to me,” Alan mutters.
She walks right up to me as I get out of the car. “Agent Barrett?”
“Yes? And you are?”
“Rachael Hinson. I work for the Director.”
“Okay.”
“You have the plane for up to twenty-four hours,” she says, skipping any preamble. “No one will be allowed in this hangar until then. You won’t be bothered.” She points to a rolling cart near us. “Forensic field kits are there, including cameras, evidence bags, and the file created by the police before we took over. I’ll be supervising.”
I thought this might be coming.
“No,” I say, keeping my voice mild.
Hinson turns to me with a frown. “I’m sorry?”
“I said no, Agent Hinson. This is my investigation. My team and I will be the only ones on that plane.”
She steps close to me, very close, using her height advantage to try and intimidate me. It’s a smart move, but an old move, and I’m unfazed.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to insist,” she says, glaring down at me with those blue eyes.
She’s fairly scary looking, I’ll give her that.
“Call the Director,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because he’s the one who can resolve this. This isn’t a power play, Hinson. Okay, maybe it is a little. But the truth is, you’ll just be in the way, and your motives for being there would be a distraction. We don’t need someone looking over our shoulders right now.”
She doesn’t so much step back as shift her weight onto her right leg. I can see her considering what I’m saying, weighing whatever directive she’d been given regarding keeping an eye on us against the wisdom of bugging the Director. She’s not worried, she’s thinking it through. Hinson is used to exercising her own discretion.
“Look,” I say, to help her along, “You know I’m not here just because the Director ordered me to be.”
“Functionally, you are.”
“Functionally, but not actually. I’m here because the congressman’s wife asked for me.”
The smallest of smiles ghosts her lips, a slight softening of that all-business blankness. It’s a smile of respect, an appreciation of my not-so-subtle name-dropping.
“Fine, Agent Barrett,” she says, stepping back now. She reaches into her inside jacket pocket, giving me a glimpse of a weapon held by an under-the-armpit shoulder holster. She produces a simple white business card and gives it to me. The card says: Hinson in black type, followed by a phone number and e-mail address. Nothing else.
I glance at her. “We’re into brevity, I see.”
She shrugs. “I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve handed that card out. Please call if you need anything. You can reach me twenty-four seven.”
She turns and walks off without another word, pumps clacking against the cold gray concrete of the hangar.
Round one to me, but I remember AD Jones’s warning and I’m sure now he was right to give it.
“Hm,” Alan rumbles, “how do you describe someone like that? Scary? Tough? Both?”
“Describe her as she lives to be,” I murmur.
“Which is?”
“Useful. Useful is her higher power. Now let’s check out our crime scene.”
“I’VE NEVER BEEN ON A totally empty plane before,” Callie says. “It’s odd.”
“Too quiet,” Alan observes.
They’re right. Under normal circumstances, planes have their own noise, a kind of murmuring crowd sound. This one is a tomb.
“What is this, a seven twenty-seven?” Alan asks.
“This is a seven thirty-seven eight hundred,” James replies. “Medium-sized, narrow body, seats one hundred sixty-two passengers in a two-class layout—which is what this plane has. It’s one hundred twenty-nine feet long with a wingspan of a hundred twelve feet. It weighs ninety-one thousand pounds empty, can travel over three thousand nautical miles fully loaded, and has a cruising speed of roughly mach point seven.”
Alan rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Encyclopedia Brown.”
“Where was she seated?” I ask.
Alan consults the file. “Twenty F. Window seat.”
I frown. “One question to ask: How did he ensure he had a seat next to her? That requires prior knowledge of her seating arrangements. We need to find out how she booked her flight.”
“There are too many variables here,” James says.
I glance at him. “Meaning?”
“Look, the way he killed her required that she have a window seat.” He pulls the file from Alan’s hands and removes a photograph. “He left her leaning up against the window, with a blanket pulled over her, like she was asleep. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if she was sitting in the middle seat, much less an aisle.”
“So?”
“My point is, there’s various ways he could have found out what her seating assignment was. He could have bribed someone, or hacked into the system. From there, he could have requested the seat next to hers, or talked the person who was originally supposed to sit there into giving it up to him, any of a number of things. But post nine eleven, there’s virtually no way he could have guaranteed she’d have gotten a window seat. No way to plan or arrange that.”
I understand now what James is saying. “Killing her on the plane wasn’t a given.”
He nods. “Right.”
It’s a tiny thing, but, as always, it is a piece of the overall puzzle, a part of seeing the man who did this.
H
e started out with the decision to kill Lisa Reid, not the decision to kill her on a plane. He stalked her, watched her, gathered information about her life. He found out she was going on a trip, found out somehow that she had gotten a window seat, and only then planned and arranged killing her here. If events hadn’t fallen into place the way he needed them to, he would have killed her somewhere else.
“Location interested him,” I murmur, “but it was an aside, a novelty, a ‘see what I can do.’ She was the most important factor, not the location. Lisa was the key.”
“Wait,” Callie says. “There’s another possibility, yes?”
“Which is?”
“That it was a random killing. Perhaps the location was the key factor for him. He got himself a middle seat and planned to kill whoever was unlucky enough to be sitting next to him, and that just happened to be Lisa. Maybe he has a problem with this airline, or air travel in general. I’ve wanted to kill off an obnoxious fellow passenger myself once or twice.”
“Possible and definitely disturbing,” I allow, “but unlikely. The fact that it was Lisa Reid—transgendered person and offspring of a congressional family?” I shake my head. “That’s not a coincidence. He likes planning and control. Victim choice would be an integral part of that. I could be wrong, but…this doesn’t feel random to me.”
Callie considers this, nods in agreement. “Point taken.”
We move down the single aisle. The 737-800 has the classic seating arrangement, rows of three seats on either side. The air is cool but not cold yet. Airplanes hold heat well. We arrive at 20F.
“How far did their Crime Scene Unit get, Callie?” I ask.
She flips through the file. “Full photographs, with good coverage both before and after removal of the body. They collected her luggage, which is down there in the hangar. That’s about it.”
“Someone jumped on this one fast,” Alan observes.
I take a moment and look. Nothing fancy, nothing psychic. This is it, right here, the place where one human being murdered another. A life ended in that seat by the window. If you believe in the soul, and I do, this is the location where the essence of the who of Lisa Reid disappeared forever.