out of city hall rather than out of the police department, as was customary in a city without its own federal field office.
“She wants our successes to be associated solely with her,” said Tom. “She sees this tragedy as her ticket to the state house.”
“If our killer knew he was responsible for that,” added Norm, “he’d turn himself in today.”
Their offices were limited to the second floor. They had an entire bullpen and its adjoining four offices to themselves. According to the signage, this area was regularly used by the Community Relations Office. The Community Relations Office workers had been displaced somewhere else. Perhaps to the police department.
Tom led Esme into the conference room. On the large cherrywood table—all the furniture in the entire building being made of 33-year-old cherry—were stacks and stacks of crime scene reports, lab analyses, evidentiary samples, etc. Almost the entire surface of the table was covered.
“Do you need anything? Juice? Danish?”
Esme shook her head.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.
He closed the door.
She started with the shoe boxes. They were bright orange. The police had conscientiously stuffed each in a plastic bag. She picked up the one labeled Atlanta, placed it on her lap, and carefully removed its contents. Inside the box was the note Tom had e-mailed:
IF THERE WAS STILL A GOD, HE WOULD HAVE STOPPED ME.
—GALILEO
The paper was standard twenty-pound bond, the kind you’d find at any office supply store. No foolscap, no insignia. The typeface was standard too: Courier New. The list of possible suspects narrowed down to anyone who had access to a PC and a printer.
Great.
It was the contents of the note that were revelatory. Esme already had several nascent theories, but she needed more data. She put the first shoe box aside and grabbed the second one. This was the unknown. With anxious anticipation, she un-bagged the orange box and opened its lid.
Inside was a flash drive.
“Tom!” she called. “I need a computer!”
In the bullpen, the FBI task force was working what few leads they had. Norm was updating the psych profile, adding the latest murders to his mix of educated conjecture and professional supposition. Daryl Hewes handled logistics; thanks to his wizardry at obfuscation, the task force always covered its ass both fiscally and legally. Anna and Hector Jackson (no relation) were reviewing for the sixth time the videotape from Walmart. Others were at the police station with Lilly Toro, getting her fitted for a bulletproof vest.
Tom was on the phone with Darcy Parr’s mother.
“Your daughter, Mrs. Parr, was a tremendous young woman.” He gazed out the tinted window. Amarillo city hall overlooked an oblong fountain. Right now the water appeared clear, and even from the second floor Tom could peer through its surface to its ceramic base, which was dotted with pennies. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Tom felt someone’s shadow on the back of his neck. He turned to look. It was Esme. She offered his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. He nodded. She walked over to Daryl.
“One minute,” he said. He typed up another clause on his laptop, perused it, deleted it, then gazed up at Esme through thick black glasses. “I’m just working on your per diem forms and your liability documents. You would think we’d have basic boilerplate language I could adjust to suit these circumstances but it seems the suits continue to lack any semblance of foresight.” He scratched at his curly blond pouf, retyped the clause he deleted, and gazed back up at Esme. “Was there something you needed in the interim?”
It took Daryl five minutes to work his magic and find Esme a laptop of her own, five more to link it into their network. She didn’t ask where he’d acquired the computer. She didn’t want to know. She just thanked him, signed his per diem and the liability documents, and then kindly asked him to close the door on his way out.
Then she plugged in the sniper’s flash drive. It contained one file. A movie. Two minutes and twenty-four seconds long.
She pressed Play.
First: a black screen. Underneath it: a scratching noise, the sound of a needle tracking across an old record. Esme upped the volume on the laptop.
White letters slowly bloomed to life out of the black backdrop:
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be