The Dead Man

born at age eighteen, fully formed. It was a professional resume, stripped of any personal references to family, faith, friends, or a cold murder case.

I followed the prompts to the dream project videos, entering my ID and password to verify that I was authorized to view these materials, clicking the box promising not to copy or otherwise disclose the videos without the prior written consent of the project director or use them for any other purpose other than the use for which they were intended.

The next page was a search page. I entered Tom Delaney's name. A message appeared stating zero matches found. I tried Regina Blair's name and got the same result. I scrolled back to the search page and selected the option to view a list of research subjects to make certain that Delaney's and Blair's names were both included and that I had spelled them correctly. There were ten pages of names, twenty-five names to a page. Delaney's and Blair's names were missing but another name on the third page caught my eye. Walter Enoch.

Chapter Sixteen

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble: 'Tinker to Evers to Chance.'

Franklin Pierce Adam's poem about the famous Chicago Cubs infielders and their ability to turn the double play was one of my favorites, these final lines sticking with me. The poem reminded me how round the world was, how one thing inevitably led to another, and that very little in baseball or life happened by chance.

I substituted the names, making it Delaney to Blair to Enoch, wondering whether their deaths were inevitable the moment they volunteered for the dream project or whether their shared fate was nothing more than serendipity, the circle widening from Walter Enoch to capture Wendy and me. The first line of the poem echoed in my head as I stared at Walter's name on my computer screen.

These are the saddest of possible words.

My cell phone rang before I could open Enoch's video. I recognized the number displayed on my screen even though I hadn't received a call from the FBI's Kansas City regional office since I left the Bureau.

'Jack, it's Ammara.'

A sharp flutter of shakes swept through my neck and head.

'What's up?'

'We'd like you to come in.'

The FBI gives answers over the phone but asks questions in person. Invitations made in the first-person plural come from people who give orders to agents like Ammara. I could ask her who wanted to talk to me and why but I knew her answers wouldn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

It was an article of faith in the Bureau that Wendy had stolen the drug ring's money. A few hard-liners suspected that she had reached out to me before her death and that I had covered for her, maybe even helping her hide the money. They were waiting for me to buy a car, boat, or house I couldn't afford on my disability payments. It had been less than seventy-two hours since Ammara had promised to tell me what she could. Her call reconfirmed that the Bureau had convicted Wendy and named me as an unindicted coconspirator.

'I don't have any wheels. I loaned my car to Lucy Trent.'

'We'll send someone. Are you at home?'

'No. I'm at the Harper Institute of the Mind.'

'Why? Have you lost yours?'

Ammara's sense of humor made this easier on our friendship but not a lot easier.

'I'm considering the option.'

'Wait until we're done with you. I'll have a car there in ten minutes.'

I didn't know when I would get back to the computer. Tom Delaney's and Regina Blair's video files were gone. I was certain that Anthony Corliss and Maggie Brennan would have an explanation for what happened to their files and that it might even be true.

Not willing to take a chance with Walter Enoch's file, I downloaded it to the desktop and again to the flash drive I carried on my key ring. My exercise in belt-andsuspenders backup reminded me that tics and obsessive- compulsive disorder sometimes ran together, which wasn't always a bad thing.

'Where you headed?' Leonard asked before I could clear his desk.

'Out.'

He nodded, his grin locked in place as if a plastic surgeon had hit a nerve, leaving his face happily paralyzed.

'Out. Got it. Will you be back in time for your lunch with Sherry?'

I glanced at my watch. She was expecting me in an hour. 'Tell her not to wait up.'

'She'll be pissed, big time, if you don't show.'

'Promises, promises.'

Turnover was a fact of life in any FBI office. In the months I'd been gone, many of the agents I'd worked with had been reassigned to other parts of the country. Intergovernmental task forces staffed by FBI agents and personnel from other law enforcement agencies that worked out of the regional office had been shut down, restaffed, or replaced by other task forces, introducing another wave of new faces. Support staff had undergone normal attrition. All the personnel changes made the place feel foreign even if the walls were familiar.

Knowing that I couldn't go anywhere without an escort confirmed that I was an outsider.

The regional office sat on high ground on the southwest edge of downtown. Ammara led me to a conference room from which I could see the squiggly steel sculptures atop Bartle Hall and, east of them, the reflective glass walls of the Sprint Center where Garth Brooks had performed for eight straight nights when it opened. In between was the Power amp; Light entertainment district, the heart of Kansas City's revitalized downtown.

She introduced me to the people who had issued my invitation.

'James Kent and Everett Dolan, say hello to Jack Davis.'

Hands were shaken, smiles exchanged, all of them cold. Everyone stood.

'Agents Kent and Dolan are from DC,' Ammara explained. 'They're following up on Wendy's case.'

She didn't have to give me their resumes. I'd known guys like them. Kent and Dolan were lifers. Their hair was a gray brush cut, their guts were soft, and their eyes were hard. They were tailors, first cousins to the guys who followed behind the elephants at the circus, carrying shovels. Their job was to wrap up the loose ends the FBI couldn't stand to leave hanging, especially when the threads were wrapped around their own people.

'Sorry about your loss,' Dolan said.

I nodded. 'What can I do for you?'

'Have a seat.'

'I'm good.'

Kent tossed Wendy's envelope onto the table, the plastic evidence bag sliding across the smooth surface. 'How many other letters did you receive from your daughter after she disappeared?'

'None. And I didn't receive this one either.'

'But you did hear from her before she died.' It was Dolan again.

I'd gone through this when Wendy disappeared and again after she died. These two were no better or worse than their predecessors but repetition hadn't dulled the ache.

'About three months after she disappeared, I got an e-mail from her. Out of the blue. It was one of those electronic birthday cards. I traced it back to a computer at the New York City Public Library. I went to New York and found her just after she overdosed. She died in my arms. You know all that because it's in the file and I'm betting you guys can read. So what do you want?'

'You talk to any of her friends when you were in New York?'

This time it was Kent. If I closed my eyes, I couldn't tell them apart.

'No. All I did was bring her home. I didn't know she had any friends. If she did, they didn't come to the funeral.'

'She ever mention someone named Jessie Mercado?' Kent asked.

'She never mentioned anyone. She just died. That's all.'

Dolan and Kent looked at each other, then at Ammara, then at me. Ammara broke the silence.