“ Maybe your first impulse is right, Dr. Keyes,” Jessica offered while pacing the operations room. “Perhaps if we can target someone at the state pen as possibly out for revenge against Judge DeCampe,” suggested Jessica, easing her tone, “then you can do some psyche work on him.”
J. T, added, “We're also looking at inmates in the Texas penal system as well.”
Keyes nodded. “I'm open to anything you suggest. I only want to help.”
Lew Clemmens, who like the other Quantico people on board had moved to D.C. to be on call, burst into the room, waving a printout over his head, saying, “I have the last of the judge's decisions for the past year. Maybe we can sort out the worst cases and the worst threats she'd ever received and work from there. I can pull off the court records from the file numbers and cross-reference with the words verbal threat now.”
“ How long will it take, Lew?”
“ Less than an hour, and we'll have some targets,” he replied.
“ Run your program,” said Jessica.
“ Already done. It's running solo as we speak.”
They ordered in Chinese food and were soon looking over Lew's results. Most of those who threatened the judge in die past year-on the record-were behind bars, serving jail terms, many facing the chair, and some had already passed on via that route. She handled the worst cases; she'd known and worked with Dr. Morrissey back in Houston, Texas, who only a year before had been targeted and murdered by one of his own psychiatric patients, a killer who had been released to a halfway house against Judge DeCampe's ruling, thanks to a weak parole board and an over-crowded prison system.
“ I'm out of here for a couple of hours,” Keyes told them. “Have a meeting I have to attend, but I'll try to get back before sunset, OK?”
Exhausted, Jessica waved her off, and then she herself stepped back from the case long enough to find the women's room. Once there, Jessica popped some pain pills and threw water in her face.
When she returned to the ops room, it was to a jubilant Lew Clemmens. “I think we're onto something here, Jess.” He handed her a prison profile of a man named Lester Goddard. Goddard had repeatedly threatened Judge DeCampe, and his threats had been vehement and filled with rage and gore; details informed her as to exactly how he meant to kill and mutilate her entire family, starting with the pets, running through the children, and working his way up to her: “The blood of your loved ones dripping from the knife I use on you, bitch!”
“ We've got to run this creep down, then. Make him sweat,” J. T. said.
“ Where is he incarcerated?” asked Jessica.
“ Huntsville, outside of Houston, Texas.”
“ So who do we know in Texas?”
I came back for the Moo Goo Gai Pan,” said Shannon Keyes as she reentered the operations room that had been set aside for the task force, where the others stood about a conference table littered with paper ware and plastic cups and forks and chopsticks. “I'm Keyes,” she told Clemmens, taking his hand and vigorously shaking it. “Dr. Shannon Keyes, FBI field office shrink and profiler, previously of the Chicago Field Office, prior to that, the Chicago Police Department,” she introduced herself. “All my apologies for being blunt, Mr. Clemmens, is it? But Goddard is not your man.”
“ Why?” asked a confused J. T.
“ More important, how did you learn of our interest in Goddard?” asked Jessica.
“ FBI's a small family. Word gets around fast.”
'Too fast. There's a goddamn leak in my task force.”
“ I'm on your task force now, remember?”
The two women stared hard at one another.
“ All right, tell me why you think Goddard is a wild hair to chase?”
Richard Sharpe had been sitting quietly in a comer, reviewing what little they knew of Goddard. He introduced himself to Keyes and asked, “Is this your belief because Goddard is in a Huntsville, Texas, prison cell, over half a continent away?” Jessica had already made contact with people in Texas who might help uncover any plot on the part of this man Goddard to wreak havoc in the life of the judge.
“ No, because he's a blowhard. Anyone who makes that many threats and makes them that loud and loutishly… well, we who are in the business of predicting who will and who will not deliver on threats, suffice to say, first one dismissed is the Goddard type.”
“ How can you predict he hasn't paid someone to abduct and kill her?” asked Jessica.
Keyes dipped into the Chinese food and, building a plateful, she complained that she loved Chinese too much- especially the dumplings-before answering Jessica. “Goddard is what we call a stalemate threat. He makes threats like most of us make plans for the day. He loves to hear the sound of his own voice. He much prefers the threat itself to the actual carrying out of the threat.”
Sharpe asked, “We're wasting our time with pursuing this Goddard?”
“ Let me see. How can I put this more clearly? Goddard's full of shit; he's not your man,” Keyes firmly said. “He's what's known as a loudmouth, for lack of a technical term. Likes the sound of his own threats, he knows they're hot air, and so should we.”
“ How can you know he hasn't acted on his threat to harm DeCampe?” asked Jessica.
“ Aside from his being incarcerated on death row, you mean?”
Jessica clenched her teeth before saying, “Yes, aside from that little problem.”
“ He's too over the top; he's venting his spleen. Look, I make my living by reading threats and dangerous situations. I worked with the Secret Service for six years. No one who reads threats as often as I do would take Goddard seriously. Be much more wary of the single sustained curse like threat. I make my living predicting when words of menace might become actions of menace.”
“ Are you saying Goddard is harmless?” asked Sharpe. “I've made my reputation on such cases in Great Britain, and I can tell you, I'd pay attention, a lot of attention to this fellow, indeed.”
“ Not at all. I'm sure he would cut DeCampe's throat if he found himself in a locked room or dark alley with the judge,” countered Keyes.
“ Whoa up there,” said Clemmens. “You're contradicting yourself, Dr. Keyes.”
“ I'm saying that given the opportunity that maybe… maybe he'd act on his threats, but he's not going to carry on a long-term vendetta or stalk against her, nor plan out a complicated move that would involve a third party.”
Jessica looked Keyes square in the eye and asked, “How can you be sure of that? That he's not involved in her disappearance?”
“ He doesn't know a damn thing about her; hasn't bothered to find out, for one thing. A real threat is the enemy who knows your every like, dislike, whim, and collectible.”
“ I don't get your point.”
“ He says he's going to kill her pets and her children.”
“ Yeah?”
“ Been my experience that the real threat-the guy who acts on his fantasy to harm another person-isn't into mental anguish so much as physical anguish for his victim. A real threat focuses on her physical pain; besides, she doesn't have any children living at home. Goddard assumes much because he's really just reacting to a verdict he dislikes. You'd be wasting time zeroing in on him as your prime suspect, but being on death row and having threatened the now missing judge, you might persuade him to talk about who else he might know who might have harmed her, but even there it's problematic, since you have so little to bargain with. His life is already forfeit but…”
Jessica nodded and said, “But to a man in prison certain privileges that seem small and insignificant to you and me, well… he might just bargain his brains out for.” Jessica grudgingly admitted to herself that Keyes's outward appearance hid a keen, analytical mind. The woman was very on, very good. Jessica began to warm toward the FBI shrink.
A phone had been ringing for some time, and Jessica grabbed it up, barking, “Ops room, Coran! What can I do for you?”
Jessica had been sitting on the edge of the conference table, but now she pushed off it, asking, “When? Where? Are they… is he in custody? Meet you in interrogation.” She hung up and said, “We just got a break. Keep your fingers crossed.”
