Except that I tried to
All the MPD theories about the killer seemed to be going nowhere, or at least Bree thought so. The facial image from the video had no match in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database. The voiceprint had been contracted out to the same agency that worked with the Bureau on Osama bin Laden’s recordings after 9?11. So far, no luck there either, but it was too soon to expect much.
Also, the killer hadn’t identified himself with any jihad or cell. And no one had stepped up with information about him after seeing-on repeated news broadcasts-still pictures made by spectators of the murder.
Bree shared every shred of information with the Feds, but she also continued her own investigation. That meant sixteen-hour days for her.
On Thursday evening, I stopped by her office, hoping to coax her out for a bite to eat. The MPD’s Violent Crimes Unit is fairly inconspicuous, located behind an ordinary-looking strip mall in Southeast. There’s more than enough parking, though, which some cops joke is the real reason everybody wants to work there. It just could be.
I found Bree’s cube empty. The computer was still on, with a yellow sticky note on the monitor that said
“You looking for Bree?” The detective from the next cubicle gestured with his half-eaten sub. “Try the conference room. Down that hallway to your left. She’s been camping out in there.”
When I entered the room, Bree was sitting with her feet up and a remote in one hand, scratching her head with the other. The killer’s video was playing on the television. Open files, pages of notes, and crime-scene photos were spread out everywhere. And still, just seeing her there turned me on more than I cared to admit.
“Hey, you. What time is it?” she called when she spotted me hovering across the room.
I closed the door before kissing her hello a couple of times. “Dinnertime, break time. You hungry?”
“Starved, actually. Just watch this with me a few more times? I’m going cross-eyed in here by myself.”
I was happy to help out and then not terribly surprised when “a few more times” became dozens of viewings, and dinner at Kinkead’s turned into take-out empanadas from around the corner.
The grisly murder tape from the Riverwalk never got any easier to watch. Neither did hearing my name spoken on it. I compensated by lasering in on the killer. Maybe there was some nuance of his speech or behavior, something nobody had noticed yet. I knew this exercise wasn’t about giant leaps right now; it was about making small connections. Like Tess Olsen being a crime writer. Or maybe even the Hallmark greeting cards I’d noticed in the apartment. The killer’s need for an audience.
So it surprised us both a few minutes later when we found something important, something that might be huge.
Chapter 20
IT STARTED OUT as a barely discernible flash, something almost subliminal in the static just before the second half of the tape began. Bree and I had been staring so much at what the killer wanted us to see, we hadn’t really looked anywhere else.
“Hold it a second,” I said.
I picked up the remote and rewound the tape a bit, then froze it.
“There,” I said to Bree. “See it?”
It was almost nothing. More like the suggestion of an image, almost too fast for the human eye or even the slow-motion feature on the VCR. A ghost is what it was. A clue.
“This tape’s been used before,” I said.
Bree was already putting on her shoes, which were size-ten black flats. “You know anyone at the Cyber Unit over at the Bureau?” she blurted out.
The police department relied heavily on the FBI for video-forensics assistance. I knew a few names over there, but it was now nine o’clock at night. That didn’t seem to matter to Bree, who was up out of her seat and pacing.
She finally picked up the phone herself. “Let me try Wendy Timmerman. She works late.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Wendy Timmerman works late? Someone’s been paying attention.”
Wendy was ostensibly an office manager for the department, but she was also something of a secret weapon for anyone who wanted to bend the rules a little without breaking the law. She knew everyone, and everyone, it seemed, owed her one kind of favor or another.
Plus, she had no life. She practically lived at her desk.
Sure enough, Wendy talked for a couple of minutes to Bree, then called back with a name and number.
“Jeffery Antrim,” Bree said, hanging up. “Lives over in Adams Morgan. Supposed to be a genius at this stuff. I guess he moonlights out of his apartment, but Wendy said bring him a six-pack, and we’ll be admitted to his lair in a flash. Hey-remind me to send Wendy some flowers.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “She’ll call you when she wants a favor. It’ll be more than some flowers.”
Chapter 21
AS WENDY TIMMERMAN had suggested we should, we stopped at a convenience store on our way over to the Adams Morgan neighborhood. We sneaked a couple of tantalizing kisses in the store, then in the car, but now we were on our way again, back to business, damn it. Jeffery Antrim, who seemed closer to Damon’s age than my own, was friendly enough and let us right in when I showed him the beer. I had my doubts about the “boy genius” label until I saw his home setup. The small apartment-laboratory, “lair,” whatever-barely had room for furniture. I wondered if any of the expensive equipment, piled everywhere, had been pilfered from the Bureau.
We sat on mismatched kitchen chairs for a few hours, drinking the second six-pack we’d brought, while Jeffery worked in the other room. Sooner than I expected, he called us in to look at what he had found.
“Here’s the scoopy-doopy-doo. There wasn’t much more than shadow images on the underlying track. So I captured everything I could. Then digitized it. I’m assuming you won’t mind a composite of deinterlaced frames?”
“I guess it depends,” Bree said.
“On what?”
“On what the hell you just said, Jeffery. You speak English? Or maybe Spanish? My Spanish is serviceable.”
Jeffery smiled at Bree. “Well, here you go. Take a look for yourselves. I can always break it back down if you want.” He tapped out a few more commands. “It’s printing now, but you can see it here. Take a good look at this.”
We leaned close to watch one of the small monitors in a tower of gadgetry stacked on his desk.
The image was indeed shadowy, more dark than light, but still discernible. In fact, it was immediately familiar to both of us.
“Holy shit,” Bree said under her breath. “Suddenly, it all becomes clear as mud.”
“Isn’t that
The Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq was some years old now but was still a sore spot in a lot of Washington circles, and elsewhere, of course. Apparently with the Riverwalk killer as well.
The image was either a still photo or a news-video capture. It didn’t really matter which at this point. Whatever details were unclear, I could pretty much fill in from memory. A female American soldier stood in a wide cell-lined corridor. On the floor at her feet was a hooded, naked Iraqi prisoner.
