Good Morning, Killer

administrative division got rid of the oak and installed workstations covered in charcoal acoustical felt arranged in “pods” like alien seedlings, and we were all supposed to sit in front of our computer screens and germinate, nothing to look at except the constellation of pushpins on our mini bulletin boards, also covered in charcoal acoustical felt, where the messages we posted were only to ourselves.

This reduced the sound level to a few shuffles and the occasional belly laugh, and chopped up the social space into a confusing stew. Once sight lines were cut off nothing was clear. You couldn’t just look up from your desk and with one sweep register the current pecking order, or instantly see who was making it with whom. The new kids, like Jason Ripley, didn’t seem to have the time or imagination to fool around anyway. My pod was occupied by raw rookies with fast agendas who considered me an old fart even though I had only ten years in. Naturally, I distrusted them, too. In the new configuration, our time-honored FBI paranoia grew like a fungus in the dark.

I had not been back to the office since I met Andrew in the parking lot and gone straight to the M&Ms. I found myself moving through the darkened space with customary informality, like unlocking the front door and walking into your living room after a long trip. The collection of plastic trolls on my work surface was reassuringly in place, chair stowed. The in box had acquired three days’ worth of debris, the cartons of court papers and files I pulled for the ninety-day file review as untended as before. The stress I had been feeling about the review seemed remote as I zigzagged through the charcoal matrix toward the executive suite, where the lights were still on.

Special Agent in Charge Robert Galloway, originally from New York, was an expert on organized crime who brought a rock-solid street savvy to the fluid complexities of LA. For a long time he sat up there on the seventeenth floor with his dead cigars and trademark turtlenecks, steering the field office through terrorist threats and internal scandals like a captain in a season of squalls, until his wife, an elite mountain climber, left him for another elite mountain climber, and he sank into a terrible depression.

How do I know? I once saw him in his car, in the far reaches of the garage, sobbing.

After a while he seemed to regain some balance, joked about taking “herbal supplements,” which I guess meant antidepressants, but still, he could be irritable, and irrational, and susceptible to scrutiny, more sensitive than ever about the Bureau “looking stupid” in the media, which is why he’d come up with this “new politics” idea. He also had a seventeen-year-old daughter devastated by the divorce who, rumor was, had been arrested DUI.

I found him in the corner office with the soft carpeting and real furniture, behind an old-fashioned four-legged desk. A bookcase held his New York City horror show collection of Statues of Liberty, bound Playbills, NYPD mugs, a whip, a miniature guillotine, a human skull, a severed finger, possibly real, a dusty centennial quart of Guinness ale, a black wig and a replica of Poe’s cottage in the Bronx. The walls were taken up with celebrity photos: Galloway (a younger man) with the mayor, senator and Bobby Kennedy; Galloway on the tracks in front of a subway car, inspecting the remains of a jumper; signed cast photos from TV cop shows shot in New York; a plastic box containing yellowed memorabilia from the opening of Mickey Mantle’s restaurant, including a champagne glass with giddy lettering—Spavinaw, Okla! — and a matchbook signed by the legend himself.

“Glad you could make it.” He looked at his watch, a chrome Rolex. “What’d you do, take the bus?”

“Fog. It’s bad. Don’t go anyplace.”

“Where do I have to go?” shrugged Galloway.

Self-pity was now the norm. I learned to ignore it. If you attempted to commiserate about the state of his emotions, he would savage you.

“Got an alert from HQ. It’s come to their attention about the situation in Santa Monica. High visibility, especially if it goes south. They wanted us to be aware that they got three hits on VICAP, which might link Juliana Meyer-Murphy to three other missing juveniles. In each of these cases — Georgetown; South Beach, Florida; and Austin, Texas — you have a teenage girl disappearing from a youth-oriented area like the Third Street Promenade.” I had become distracted by a young woman I had never seen before who was sitting in the visitor’s chair.

“Ana Grey, meet Kelsey Owen.”

She looked like part of Galloway’s quirky collection. Bureau folks wear suits. Black, brown, navy. Kelsey Owen went for ethnic — long, tiered Mexican skirts and oversized sweaters. Once, even a straw sun hat. She was late twenties, nice skin, long curly dark hair like a folksinger’s and just chunky enough to appear nonthreatening.

We shook hands.

“Kelsey is over at NSD,” Galloway explained. “But she wants to get into the Crimes Against Children Unit.”

“You’re a new agent?”

She nodded. “This is my second year. I just love it.”

“Isn’t that great?” Galloway jabbed the unlit cigar. “Enthusiasm!”

I gave him a sardonic flick of the eyes. Enthusiasm? What the hell did he think was going on over at the command post, twenty-four/seven?

He gave me the printout from headquarters, including photographs of the other victims, aged fourteen to sixteen. They all resembled one another: dark, shoulder-length hair and smooth, hopeful faces. The others were still missing; only the girl from South Beach had been recovered alive.

“Kelsey is a trained psychotherapist. I think we should pay more attention to the psychology of the offender.”

“We do. It’s called criminal investigative analysis.”

It used to be called profiling, but the term sounded too much like racial profiling, so they figured out a way to make it incomprehensible altogether. After completing several hundred hours of advanced instruction at Quantico, I was selected to be a profile coordinator. I learned how to analyze a suspect by age, profession, marital status, sexual history, style of attack, IQ, social adjustment, appearance and grooming habits and a host of other factors in order to come up with a hypothetical portrait. Profiling is not about whether the guy was potty-trained too early. It’s a working description that narrows the field.

As soon as we had a couple of freaking facts, of course I was going to look at the psychology of the offender! I was groping for it now.

“I’m talking the causes of why things go sour,” Galloway went on. “We don’t pay enough attention to what happens in relationships.”

Relationships? This was not Galloway-speak. “Kelsey can provide some insights.”

“I really want to do what you do,” Kelsey said.

“I’ve been doing it ten years,” I replied darkly.

“I hope to learn from you,” she swooned, “and not make the same mistakes you made.”

Just the kind of insight I needed.

Galloway tapped the unlit cigar in a clean ashtray. “What’s the status over there?”

“You mean the Santa Monica kidnapping?”

“No, the Lakers game. Jesus Christ, Ana, don’t give me a lot of shit.”

Irritable.

“All the mechanisms are in place but no new ransom calls. We’re developing two suspects: one is the mom’s ex-boyfriend, the other a white male seen with Juliana on the Promenade. With the information we have right now, we believe the suspect may be a drug dealer from Arizona, which doesn’t rule out the unsubs from the east—” “Is this a high-risk victim?” interrupted Kelsey Owen. “Is she known to use drugs or prostitute herself on the street?”

I gritted my teeth. Why me?

“No, she is not high-risk, and yes, we know all about the victimology. These are questions we have asked, and continue to ask, since Day One. Believe me, we are living with it night and day.” I realized from Galloway’s narrowing expression I had better put the brakes on my Inner Bitch.

“The Santa Monica police are developing the lead on Arizona,” I said flatly and finally. “It’ll all be up on Rapid Start. Do you know how to access Rapid Start?”

“I’ll find out,” Kelsey promised brightly.

I gave her a worn-out smile; that’s what it’s like up here in the stratosphere.