banter. But this guy, he seemed like he was concentrating more, if that makes sense. Like it was super-serious to him. And he didn’t really seem like he was part of the group, I guess you’d say. Like he was this outsider who’d come around and listen really closely and leave.”
This could be helpful. I need to get this video footage in front of Tom.
“Is there a DVD player around here?” I ask. “Maybe we’d hear Michelle come in.”
“Yeah, there’s one here in Louise’s office.”
Tom leads me into one of the administrative offices, a spacious one, neatly arranged, the walls lined with photos of family and diplomas and certificates. In the corner is a television and a DVD player. “I’ve never used this, but how hard can it be?” he says.
I hand him the DVD of the surveillance footage, and he puts it in. The TV screen goes from black to…fuzz.
“Hang on.” Tom tries buttons on the DVD player. He picks up one remote, points it, and pushes buttons. He changes channels. He changes the source. He puts down the remote and tries another one. “This will do it, I think.” But no, it doesn’t.
I sigh. “Is there another DVD player around?”
Tom thinks for a moment. “Maybe the assistant director’s office.” We try that. The door’s locked, so Tom has to retrieve the master keys and open it. No TV inside, no DVD player.
Ultimately, he tries every administrative office, including Payroll and HR. No functioning DVD player, at least not one we can make work.
It’s now three forty. We are way beyond the time I wanted to leave. I need to go. “Tom, wasn’t there a DVD player in that conference room up on the second floor where I was talking yesterday?”
“Oh yeah, there is,” he says. “And I’ve used that one. I can use that one. C’mon.” We pass through the administrative offices and go back to reception.
Tom looks out the front door. “Still no Michelle,” he says. “I just…don’t know where she’d be.”
124
BOOKS MEETS with the bomb squad and SWAT team a block from the location in downtown Huntington. The SWAT team is dispatched to the rooftops of the adjacent buildings. The bomb squad will keep its distance but stand ready to respond on Books’s command.
The agents fan out around the Meredith Court and Gardens. Books enters the lobby with several agents. Two of them will secure the area and make sure the elevator service is cut after Books reaches the seventh floor. Two others will secure the underground parking garage. The rest will go with him.
They show the lobby clerk their badges and explain the situation. The man, young and wet behind the ears, nods his head in compliance and can barely speak. The assistant manager comes into the lobby. After more conversation, he hands Books a key that will open unit 719 and probably all the others too.
Books and four agents—one of them Hendricks—take the elevator up to the seventh floor. “We’re here,” Books says into the collar of his coat. “Bring the elevator down to the ground floor and kill it.”
“Roger that,” he hears through his earpiece.
The agents hold their weapons out but low as they jog along the tattered carpeting and past the gray walls toward the southeast corner, unit 719.
They spread out, two to a side, flanking the door. Books pushes the buzzer and waits. The agents have their weapons up now, stern expressions, masses of bundled energy.
Books pushes the buzzer again. “Mary Ann Stoddard!” he calls out. He pushes it again. “Mary Ann Stoddard! This is the FBI! Open up!”
Nothing.
Books nods at one of the agents, who takes the key, places it firmly in the lock, and turns it. The door opens but is caught by a chain.
The agents look at one another, catching the significance. You couldn’t put the chain on the door from the outside.
Someone’s inside that apartment.
“Mary Ann Stoddard!” Books calls out again, this time through a partially opened door.
He waits, trying to hear inside over the pounding of his pulse.
Finally he steps back and kicks the door, popping the chain. The agents swarm inside, weapons aimed at the various corners of vulnerability, sweeping the front room.
Nothing. A dingy open room with old furniture and a large window facing east. A kitchenette with coffee cups in the sink and the smell of something fried in the air.
Next to it, a closed door—must be the single bedroom.
“Mary Ann Stoddard!” Books calls out.
He hears something inside the room, glass breaking.
“South,” Books