Miranda, Emert, Thornton, and I were huddled around a table of stale cookies and stale coffee at the ORPD. I had come straight from the KPD lab, so Miranda had caught a ride with Thornton. Strictly speaking, there was no compelling reason for her to be here, but it had become important to find things to occupy Miranda’s time and energy. Her three burned fingertips were getting worse—they’d progressed from blisters to open, oozing wounds, wrapped in gauze, and she couldn’t do the delicate reconstruction the North Knoxville skeleton required.
She also couldn’t shake her fear for Garcia. Somehow, despite the best precautions of the ICU staff, he’d picked up an infection, and his condition seemed more perilous than ever. He was unable to eat or drink anything, and his GI tract was racked with cramps and bloody diarrhea as the lining of his gut sloughed off. In the weeks or months to come, the lining might slowly regenerate, but it might not. His bone marrow was virtually destroyed, and the search was on for a matching marrow donor, but the prospects weren’t good. Even if a donor could be found, Garcia might not be robust enough to survive the transplant.
“The pool guy was carrying no identification,” said Emert. “No wallet, no credit card, no car keys, nothing. Some loose change in his right hip pocket, a pack of chewing gum in his left pocket.” He paused. “But he had this in his shirt pocket.” The detective slid a ziplock bag toward the center of the table. It contained a small, rectangular piece of white paper, stained with dirty water and smeared ink. Emert flipped it over to reveal the other side. Thornton, Miranda, and I leaned in to see. There, despite the smearing, four words remained legible: “I know your secret.”
“Damn,” I said.
“Interesting,” said Thornton.
“Creepy,” said Miranda. “These notes are like a modern-day version of those snitch reports Oak Ridgers sent back during the Manhattan Project. Only now, instead of sending them to Acme Whatchamacallit—”
“Credit,” Thornton supplied. “Acme Credit Corporation.”
“Right. Whatever,” she said. “Only instead of going to Acme, these are going straight to the people being spied on.” She frowned. “You know what else this makes me think of? Y’all know those REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY signs on the interstate? The ones with the 800 number you’re supposed to call—800-something-TIPS—if you spy something fishy?”
“800-492-TIPS,” said Thornton.
“It worries me that you know that,” she said. “My point is, imagine you’re driving along I-40 and suddenly your cell phone rings and a voice whispers in your ear, ‘I see what you’re doing.’ That’s what these notes make me think of. This whole spying and snitching thing is creeping me out.”
“Spoken like a woman with a guilty conscience,” I said. I was only teasing, so I was surprised when she turned red. A thought occurred to me, and I glanced at Thornton to see if he was blushing, too, but the FBI agent’s face was a study in nonchalance. Or was he feigning nonchalance, so as not to embarrass Miranda further? I couldn’t tell, and I realized it wasn’t any of my business if they had kissed and made up, ideologically or otherwise. I turned again to Emert. “So how do you figure out who our modern John Doe is?”
“Well, yet again, we’ve come up empty-handed on missing-person reports in Oak Ridge,” he said. “Nothing remotely similar in Knoxville or surrounding counties, either. We’re checking NCIC”—the National Crime Information Center—“to see if there’s anybody elsewhere in the country who fits the description. But NCIC has its shortcomings.” He looked at Thornton. “No offense.”
“None taken,” said Thornton. “NCIC is the Bureau’s creation, not mine. We know it’s not perfect—if a missing-person report lists someone’s age as thirty-seven, and a cop plugs in thirty-to-thirty-five in the age range, the system won’t connect those two dots. But if the cop follows up with a second search, for ages thirty-six-to-forty, he’ll get the report he needs to see. Nothing’s perfect, but it’s a help.”
“Sure,” said Emert. “Anyhow. We’re running the guy’s fingerprints through the state’s automated fingerprint identification system, and the Bureau’s AFIS, too. So if he’s been arrested and printed, we might get lucky enough to ID him that way. Other thing we’re doing is running a picture of him in the Oak Ridger this afternoon.”
I was surprised to hear that. The dead man’s face—open-mouthed and glassy-eyed, the skin beginning to soften and slough off—was strong stuff for a small-town newspaper. “I’m guessing subscribers will be calling for the editor’s head when they see that photo,” I said.
“Not a photo,” he said. “We had an artist do a sketch. Not a perfect likeness, but maybe more recognizable—and less gruesome—than the photos. Surely somebody will be able to tell us who this guy was.”