Sam sighed heavily. “Forgive me, Special Agent, but I’m not in the mood to be politically correct right now. Where are they?”
“I have no idea. They haven’t been on the radar for years.” He looked at his watch. “I need to get to another meeting. Please excuse me. Jordan? You have to prepare the 9:00 p.m. Stevens briefing.”
The younger agent rose without saying a word.
“Am I invited to this powwow?” Fletcher asked.
Overtly polite, Thurber said, “Of course. You’re a part of the task force, Detective. By all means, join Special Agent Blake.”
So Thurber’s rancor was directed at Sam, and by association, Xander, the civilians on his turf. They were usurping his role in what was becoming a very big, convoluted and soon-to-be media-driven case. Sam mentally set her jaw.
Get used to it, buster. I’m here to see this through to the end.
“Great, I’ll be there in a minute. Just need to ask Dr. Baldwin something.”
“Fine.” Thurber shot Sam a perturbed look as he stalked out the door. Blake followed him. Fletcher gave Sam a smile, and wound his finger around his ear, indicating either Thurber or this case was completely loco. She couldn’t disagree.
Fletcher waited until Thurber and Blake were out in the hall, then said to Baldwin, “Yesterday morning I caught a case, and then your people took it over. Oscar Rivera?”
“From the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Yes. What do you want to know?”
“Seems convenient you were here in town while all this shook out. No chance you were already here, working on that case, were you?”
“What makes you think that?” Baldwin asked.
“Awful lot of energy to murder a kid who might be involved in some drug running. It seems more sophisticated than that. Thought you might know more. My boss said your people mentioned it might be a serial.”
Baldwin nodded. “Yes, and that’s as much as I can tell you right now.”
“Ah. Gotcha.”
Blake stuck her head in the door. “Hey, Detective, you coming? Chop-chop.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Fletcher said. He shook Baldwin’s hand, nodded at Sam and Xander and took off.
Once it was just the three of them, Sam said, “Another serial?”
Baldwin nodded. “Someone’s been drowning young men across the country. It’s not related to this case at all. So let’s talk about Matcliff.”
“All right. There’s more going on than Thurber told us, isn’t there?”
“There is. We need to figure out why a man you say is a stranger reached out to you instead of his own agency. Maybe he was worried about being prosecuted, maybe there’s something more nefarious at play. But my number-one question right now aligns with Rob’s. Why you? Why did Douglas Matcliff choose you to get the ball rolling on all of this? Why didn’t he just come to us?”
She watched him for a moment. “So you didn’t have anything to do with pulling me into this?”
He shook his head. “I swear I didn’t. It’s a complete coincidence of timing, that’s all. Though this is a good example of how you’d work with us, if you chose to come on board.”
She shook her head, not trusting her voice. Xander was sitting to her right. He reached over with his left hand and gently touched her arm. She was grateful for it; she’d been feeling very alone for the past half hour.
Baldwin nodded once. “All right. Let’s focus on the facts. You didn’t recognize the name Timothy Savage. Does Doug Matcliff ring a bell at all?”
“If it did, I would have said something. I can’t imagine where I’d cross his path. A marine, an FBI agent? Baldwin, you and your people are the only ones I’ve worked with from the agency, and I don’t know any marines.”
“We need to go through all of your files, all your old cases, everything and anything that might give us a clue as to how he knew about you.”
She relaxed a bit, seeing he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on her. “That’s a good plan. Maybe there’s something in Nashville that I just haven’t thought of. There’s another strange thing I’ve been wondering about. Everyone who knew Matcliff as Timothy Savage in Lynchburg said he had a son, Henry. Henry is the one listed as the primary heir in the will. We can’t find him, but there was a young man hanging around the edges while we were there. He came to the funeral home where I posted the body, and followed us to the cabin in the woods. We need to put our hands on him. He may have at least some of the answers we’re looking for.”
“We’ll add it to the ever-growing list of things we need to do,” Baldwin said.
“There’s a detective down in Lynchburg named June Davidson. I can’t tell you for sure that he’s on our side, but he’s the only person we’ve met so far who seems to know anything about Matcliff’s recent years. We need to talk to him first.” She looked at her watch. It was nearly 8:00 p.m. “Maybe he can tell us how Ellie Scarron is doing.”
Sam’s stomach growled, loud enough they all heard.