The days dragged past.
He got it in his head that his food was being drugged and stopped eating. He took to sleeping on the floor of his bathroom with the door locked. The white walls reminded him of the cell, and it humiliated him to admit how safe it made him feel. He was desperate to know what was happening and how Ogden’s disappearance was being investigated, but he resisted the urge to type his name into a search engine. By now, the NSA’s computers would have added “Damon Ogden” to their index of keywords and would be scanning Internet traffic worldwide. If Ogden’s name started popping up in searches originating from a coffee shop in Northern Virginia, that would change the focus of the investigation immediately. All of Gibson’s misdirection would be for naught. So in the evenings, he was reduced to watching the local news and reading the papers, hoping for any mention of Ogden’s disappearance.
On Thursday, almost a week after taking Ogden, Gibson found a brief article in the Washington Post Metro section about a missing Vienna, Virginia, man named Damon Ogden. It was short on specifics and more interesting for what it left out than for what it included. No mention of Ogden’s employer. No suspicions of foul play. Only that his car had been found at an airport near Dulles. The low-key story was a long way from the breathless coverage a missing CIA officer would get splashed across cable news networks. Obviously, the CIA was playing the disappearance close to the vest and weren’t ready to involve the media in any meaningful way. Gibson couldn’t decide if that was a good sign or not. He just had to wait and wonder if he’d pulled it off. Wait for them to come at him . . . then he would know.
As it turned out, he had to wait only one more day. Friday afternoon after the lunch rush, Toby whistled sharply over the throb of the dishwasher. He did not look happy.
“That policeman is back.”
Gibson snapped to attention. “What does he want?”
“He ordered pie, but that’s not what he came for.”
“Great.”
Gibson frowned, hoping it concealed his delight. The appearance of Detective Bachmann represented the best-case scenario. The CIA would handle the bulk of the investigation internally, but they would need help sorting through secondary leads. For those, Langley would tap the FBI for assistance. Then there were the mutts. The leads that no one expected to pan out but that needed to be chased down anyway. Those would be tasked to local PDs. Gibson had expected that he’d wind up in one of those three baskets. It was inevitable, given his history with Ogden. The only question had been which basket. And now he had his answer.
Gibson found the detective sitting in a booth, enjoying a slice of apple pie. He took a seat opposite. Bachmann ignored him and continued savoring his pie. Gibson waited patiently for the games to begin and thought over what he thought he knew.
If he were a serious suspect, the CIA wouldn’t have farmed him out to local police. They’d have either come at him a lot harder or, more than likely, not at all. They’d have sat back, set up surveillance, and waited and watched. They wouldn’t have sent a cop to tip their hand for nothing. At this stage, the likeliest scenario was that the timing of Gibson’s release and Ogden’s disappearance had been noted. One of hundreds of leads, names, and angles to be sifted through, interviewed, and eliminated. Jim Bachmann had drawn that thankless task.
It made sense. Bachmann would have been tapped because he’d interviewed Gibson after his arrest. That gave the detective a pretext for this friendly chat over pie. He would lead with the house fire, starting in the past, but Bachmann was here for Ogden and would work the conversation around to the present. Gibson figured that his best bet was to play irritated and harassed but ultimately be helpful. And when Bachmann finally asked him about last weekend, Gibson would use it as a chance to lay out his alibi.
Bachmann made a satisfied noise and tapped the pie meaningfully. “I never order pie. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Don’t you have any current cases?”
“I could have been enjoying pie all this time.”
“Well, you have your whole life ahead of you.”
“I do, don’t I? That’s a comforting thought,” Bachmann said. “Gives me a reason to stop in regularly.” He took another bite and pointed the fork in Gibson’s direction. “You don’t look so good.”
“Been sick. Haven’t been sleeping.”
“Mhmm,” Bachmann said noncommittally. “Any closer to telling me where you were the night your ex-wife’s house went up?”
“I know where I wasn’t.”
“Be nice if it worked like that.”
“Wouldn’t it,” Gibson agreed.
“How about lately?” asked Bachmann.
That didn’t take long. “What about it?”
“A neighbor told your ex-wife that she saw a man matching your description on her front porch.”
“What are you implying? That I zipped out to Seattle so I could lurk around my ex-wife’s porch?”
“Did you?” Bachmann asked.
“This is pretty damned thin.”
“Then you won’t mind accounting for your whereabouts?” No mention of when, baiting Gibson to see if natural defensiveness would cause him to slip up and fill in that blank for Bachmann. A nice move.
Gibson spread his hands questioningly. “Where I was when?”
“Let’s start with this past weekend. A show of good faith. Go a long way to keeping that resisting-arrest charge in my drawer.”
Gibson sighed and cast his eyes down in defeat. “When?”
“Start with Friday.”
Gibson took a breath, slowing himself. He didn’t want to sound too eager. “I worked all day.”
“Then what did you do?”
Gibson walked the detective through his entire alibi. Kept going right into Tuesday, but Bachmann cut him off. Gibson sat there while Bachmann finished scribbling notes. Bachmann took him through it again, asking questions, clarifying details. Gibson couldn’t tell if the detective bought his story, which irritated him. That was all right. Being irritated fit the profile.
“What are you trying to pin on me now?” Gibson asked.
Bachmann studied him over the table. “You got something you want to tell me? Now would be the time. While I can still help you.”
“I didn’t burn the house down,” Gibson said, intentionally misunderstanding the lifeline Bachmann was throwing him.
“All right. Have it your way.”
“Have what my way?”
Bachmann stood and put his card on the table. “In case you think of anything.” Then he pointed at the pie. “Get that for me.”