The Stranger You Seek - By Amanda Kyle Williams Page 0,62
and stairs. Cameras at the entrances and exits are pointed in two directions—at the driver and down, to record the rear of the vehicle and plate numbers. All those tapes would be carefully examined. However, there were dozens of other ways to get into and out of Hartsfield-Jackson. MARTA trains ran directly into the airport, and of course there were taxicabs and shuttle buses.
We were hopeful about something else, though. Inside, the Hartsfield-Jackson terminals are like a Vegas casino, Rauser said. No place to hide. The tapes from several cameras and locations inside and out of the airport were at APD, and Rauser had a couple of cops going over them, following my route from the gate to the exit, studying the crowds milling around me. Anything of interest would come to Rauser’s attention.
I was beginning to think about the piles of mail that would be waiting at my office and the voice messages. I still had not even delivered the tapes I’d confiscated from Roy Echeverria in Denver to the rightful owners. I so did not want to do that looking like I’d been in an automobile accident. Bribing Neil into tucking in his shirttail and delivering the tapes seemed like a good idea. Old-fashioned chocolate cake from Southern Sweets usually broke him down.
“Hey, you,” Rauser said from behind me. I spun away from the notes on my hospital room wall. “Let’s sit down and talk for a minute before I take you home, okay?”
Uh-oh. Nowhere in my memory had Rauser ever uttered those words. He was standing in the door looking massively serious. “So you know what the political climate’s like here, right? These cases are attracting a lot of attention and everybody’s upset and worried.”
“About me?” I asked, and felt myself sinking. I’d always felt a little outside the circle anyway. It didn’t take much to make me feel even more outside. It suddenly occurred to me perhaps that’s why I’d agreed to get involved at all—my own insecurities. Was I trying to patch up my own ego, prove at last to myself and everyone else that I wasn’t really the fraud I felt like deep down? “This is what the chief wanted to see you about?”
“Here’s the thing,” Rauser said. “Television journalist over at Channel Eleven got some background on you. Personnel records from the FBI, information about the rehab center you checked in to.”
Oh boy!
“File just showed up on the reporter’s car,” Rauser said. “It was enough to make them start digging.”
“What do you mean just showed up? Who made it show up? Those records are confidential.”
Rauser was silent for a few seconds and I knew there must be more. “Listen, Keye, Channel Eleven put together this, well, this goddamn report about the investigation and the individuals involved. They got an on-camera interview with Dan. He talked about your marriage and your drinking.”
“Dan?” I repeated, and the fiery hot sting of betrayal burned my eyes.
“If it helps at all, it’s not just you they’re slicing up,” Rauser said. “I look like a goddamned idiot. Channel Eleven was decent enough to send us a preview so we’d have time to patch together a response before the shit hits the fan. I gotta tell you that what I saw isn’t good. The chief’s pretty hot about it.” He poked at my pillow with his fingers. “We need you to not have a visible presence at all, but I could still use your advice … unofficially.”
I was silent, sensing another shoe was about to drop.
“The chief hired Jacob Dobbs to be the public face of the task force.” Rauser waited, just letting that hang in the air. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. “He the one you told me about at the Bureau?”
“Yes. He’s the one.” I made a quick sweep of the room to be sure I had all my things.
A woman in pink scrubs bustled through the door with white roses, a couple dozen of them, long-legged and stunning against dark green foliage. “I’m so glad I caught you,” she exclaimed, in the high sunshiny voice that volunteers use on the sick and injured. She looked like a blonde cupcake with pink icing. “Aren’t these gorgeous? Somebody must love you.”
She set them on the table, beamed at Rauser and me. When neither of us smiled, her smile fizzled and she left the room. I felt like I’d just kicked a puppy. “What exactly does no visible presence mean?” I asked Rauser, and plucked the card