The Innocent

Chapter





46


AFTER DROPPING JULIE OFF, Robie navigated traffic until he arrived at Donnelly’s about twenty-five minutes later. The bodies were gone but the street was filled with police cars, forensics vans, and Bureau sedans. Smack in the middle of the sidewalk was a mobile FBI command post that had probably been dropped off last night.

On the other side of the wooden police barriers was an army of reporters. Media trucks with communication masts raised to the sky lined the street behind the jostling journalists. Robie flashed his creds and was passed through the barriers as the reporters with deadlines and a never-ending news cycle to service screamed questions at him.

Vance met him out front. She seemed hassled and harried. As he looked around at the chaos of the First Amendment slamming head-on into the right of the government to solve the murders of several of its citizens, Robie could hardly blame her.

“Got everything under control?” he asked.

“Don’t make me shoot you.”

He followed her into Donnelly’s, where federal techs and FBI agents in dark blue windbreakers were working the crime scene hard. Evidence markers were placed throughout denoting the position of victims. Colored pieces of plastic with numbers on them, they seemed grossly inadequate to symbolize the death or wounding of a human being.

“What’s the latest?” Robie asked.

“Two more of the victims died last night at the hospital,” she said grimly. “That makes the total count six. And chances are we might lose more.”

“You said DHS and MPD were hassling you?”

“That’s quieted down now actually. They pulled up their tents and went home.”

“Good to know.”

She glanced sharply at him. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

He held up his hands. “I don’t have that kind of pull. If the FBI can’t move the mountain, don’t expect little DCIS to do it.”

“Right,” she said, looking unconvinced.

“Any clues?”

“Black SUV was found abandoned about a mile from here. It had bullet pocks on it. You were right, it was heavily armored.”

“Who was the owner?”

“The U.S. government.”

So I was right, thought Robie. And Blue Man was wrong. This did not make him feel any better. In fact, it made him feel worse.

“Which part?”

“Secret Service.”

Robie stared blankly at her.

“It went missing from one of their motor pools.”

“How? Those places are monitored twenty-four/seven.”

“We’re running that down now.”

“That is not good if they have someone on the inside. They protect the president.”

“Thanks, Robie. I wasn’t aware of that,” she snapped.

“What does the Secret Service say?” he asked, ignoring her tone.

“They’re concerned. And they’ve tightened up security even more.”

“Anything else?”

“MP-5 casings all over the street. Hope we find a gun we can match them to.”

“No one saw anything? No faces?”

“We’ve been canvassing the area all night and day. Nothing so far.”

“Are we sure we were the targets? Not someone else in the restaurant or on the street?”

“We’re not sure about that. We’re profiling all victims and all persons who were in the restaurant last night. Maybe we get lucky and one of them provides a motive for this level of carnage.”

“But if we were the target?” said Robie. He thought, If I was the target.

Vance shook her head. “Why would they waste time taking us out? Just because we were investigating the bus blowing up or Jane Wind’s murder? They kill us, other investigators take our place, and the case goes on. And like you said before, killing Feds brings a lot of extra grief. I just don’t see it.”

“Latest on Rick Wind?”

“They’re doing the posts today. I asked for a rush on the results.”

“The bus?”

“Just going through the bodies—or body parts, rather—will take a long time. We’re transporting the remains to an FBI evidence facility. We’ll comb it to see if we can find what caused the blast. We’ve called in ATF to assist. Those guys are the best. They can usually find the detonation source. But it’ll take time.”

Robie cleared his throat and asked the question that had been hammering in his gut for too long now. “Any surveillance cameras in the area? They might show what happened. Give your guys a shortcut.”

“There were some. We’re collecting those now. Don’t know what they’ll show, but they might give us something to go on.”

“Where are you collecting them?” he asked.

“The mobile command post outside. We should have them all there later today or tonight. We wanted to make sure we were thorough in gathering them all. One I know is from an ATM, and another was posted on the corner of a building, but its sight line might be obstructed. And I’ve been told there are others.”

Robie nodded, thinking how he was going to phrase it. “I know that technically I’m not deployed on the bus case, but since it seems the two cases might be connected, you mind if I go over it too?”

She thought about this for a few moments. “Never turn down a fresh pair of eyes.”

Vance signed off on some documents handed to her by a tech while Robie glanced through the window at the portable command center.

If I show up on one of those videos? Or Julie does?

“Penny for your thoughts.”

He turned to see Vance watching him.

“So what can I do to help?” he said, ignoring her question.

“You can noodle all this. And we can follow a few leads down.”

“What are they?”

“Wind’s employment at DCIS, for one. You’re of course uniquely positioned to follow up on that. And then there’s her husband. Was there something in her background that led to his death?”

“From the condition of the body, he was killed before her.”

“Which leads me to believe the reason might lie with Rick Wind,” said Vance. “Anything else you know about him?’

“He was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan while in the military,” said Robie.

“So was everybody in uniform the last ten years.”

“He apparently left the military with a clean record. His wife, in her capacity with DCIS, also visited Iraq and Afghanistan on several ocassions.”

“At the same time as her husband?”

“No, afterwards.”

“You said Wind left the Army clean, but could there be something else? How long was he in the Middle East? Was he wounded or captured? Or did he have a change of heart?”

“You want to know if he was turned somehow? Became an enemy of his own country?”

“Yeah, I would.”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“I don’t know the answer.”

“They cut out his tongue.”

“I was there, Agent Vance.”

“I did some research on the computer last night.”

“That can be dangerous.”

“And I also emailed some of our Middle East experts. Islamic fundamentalists sometimes cut out the tongues of people who they believe have betrayed them.”

“Yeah, they do.”

“That could be the case here.”

“We need to know a lot more before we can confirm something like that.”

“Tongues cut out, a bus blown up. This is starting to look like international terrorism, Robie.”

“Why the bus?”

“Mass casualties. Throws the country into a tizzy.”

“Maybe.”

“Rick Wind was somehow involved. He got cold feet. They took care of him. And then killed his wife because they were afraid he might have told her something.”

“His ex-wife. And she works for DCIS. If he had told her something she would have told us. And I can tell you that she didn’t.”

“Maybe she never got the chance.”

“Maybe she didn’t.”

“It’s a workable theory.”

Robie scratched his cheek. “I guess.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“That’s because I’m not.”