laboratory analysis and document examiners. Looking for fingerprints, hoping for DNA on the postage stamps that were always peel and stick, tracking down the post offices, interviewing the postal workers there, rushing off to the locations mentioned on the cards looking for clues. The text and address were printed out from a computer somewhere and attached to the card with clear tape. Yes, we checked both sides of that tape for trace and impression evidence, too.
I had known some truly disgusting assholes in my career, but whoever sent these postcards after Jessica Robertson’s death was the worst I had ever known. It hadn’t been enough to torture, rape, and murder her. This killer, maybe because the victim was an FBI agent, was prolonging the horror by taunting and torturing the family as well.
I thought about the man I had met the day before, who had confessed to the crimes. I could imagine him doing something like this, and I hated him with fresh hate.
“You’ve still been getting these?” I asked, stupidly, holding them in my hand, not bothering to look at them individually.
“I know I was supposed to send them to you as soon as I got them, Brigid. But it wasn’t doing you any good, was it?”
“No. We were useless.”
“And once Elena left, and there was no one around to cry, I sort of started to look forward to them.” Zach stared at me as if asking if I could understand how he felt. I said I did. That encouraged him. “This way, I got to pretending that they really were from Jessica.”
“When did you get the last one?” I asked.
He riffled through the cards and pulled one out, showed me the postmark. “This one. A couple of months ago.”
“They…” I stopped, timing that to Floyd Lynch’s movements, knowing he would have mailed it more than a month before getting caught.
Zach shushed me. “I love you, Brigid,” he said.
“I love you, too, Zach,” I said. It was one of those knee-jerk moments when they say it and you say it and nobody knows what it actually means. But it can’t hurt.
“Now get the hell out of here and leave me alone,” he said in his toughest guy voice, holding out his hand to take the cards back from me.
After mentioning the mashed potatoes looked pretty good, I told him I’d check in with him in the morning and take care of any paperwork to release Jessica from the medical examiner. I also asked if he wouldn’t mind my taking the postcards.
Apparently after seeing Jessica’s body they weren’t so important to him anymore, and he gave them up. I put them into the side pocket of my tote bag, handling them with the same respect as if they were from Jessica after all.
I certainly didn’t prefer to be alone, but couldn’t face Carlo just yet, couldn’t pretend. On my way out of the hotel I called Sigmund on his cell phone to go out for a drink. He would know how it felt to be with Zach and Jessica after all that time, and I could hear about how the insanity tests were going.
“They’re not going at all,” he said when I asked him. “Morrison said no need, insanity’s not even on the table, and if any assessment needs to be done he’ll call in someone local. He apologized for the miscommunication.”
“He just sent you packing?”
“It was his call, after all. He was very polite, and quite embarrassed. I didn’t know that Agent Coleman hadn’t cleared it with him. As a matter of fact, I inadvertently mentioned that you had attended the expedition yesterday, and Morrison was annoyed by that, too. Apparently he doesn’t want you in the picture either, so Coleman violated protocol on that count as well. She may be in some trouble.”
“I hate Morrison.”
“So you’ve often said.”
“You could get involved anyway. You’ve got the clout.”
“That was always one of your problems: you never played your assigned position, always running into left field.” Sigmund never watches sports but can speak it.
“Still, you want to get together?”
“I’m sorry, Stinger, I should have made it clear, I’m not there. I got home an hour ago. It’s seven thirty here. But let me know if I can help you out.”
Nice to see you, too, Sig. We said good-bye without any of those empty promises of keeping in touch.
More reluctantly I called the Bureau office and got Coleman. I was surprised at her eagerness to meet me, which was expressed as, “Agent