Unless you’re a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist… That wouldn’t hold water; Jessica was none of these. Pointing out the cruelty of America’s stockyards would only be seen as a condemnation of Patricia’s own attitude towards animals. A personal love of animals was out of the question; after all, weren’t there thousands of human rights atrocities that paled in comparison to the plight of lesser mammals, fowls and fish?
“I do what I do,” Jessica said. “Whatever anyone else does, their decisions, their lives – not my business.”
“How much you care is up to you.” Malik’s mother finished off her wine. “You’re as involved with your cause as you want to be.”
Jessica reached for her water, brought it to her lips, unwilling to take the bait.
“You’ve spoken to my husband already. I suppose he’s doing OK?”
“He seems to be doing fine.”
“Did he apologize?”
Shit. “No, he didn’t.”
“We were both wrong about Clarence,” she said. A little too cool, little too matter of fact. “And we were both wrong about Glen Roberts. I think we owe you an apology.”
Jessica set her plate aside, plastic-wear stuck in her left hand. “What’s past is past –”
“What happened to Clarence is a tragedy…” Malik’s mother interrupted. “I won’t deny that I’m thoroughly… disgusted with what he was up to. What him and Glen Roberts were up to… And I’m sorry about that. And I’m sorry about what happened, Jessica, but… are you sorry?”
“Am I sorry for what?”
“Malik tells me you’ve been making quite a name for yourself at the Observer. Going all private eye. Digging around, helping your boss connect the dots. Was that your idea?”
“Was what my idea?”
“To have the paper mention your sexual harassment suit in that article about Clarence and Glen?”
“It wasn’t a suit –”
“Your skin is thin, and I see right through you.” She brought the wine glass to her lips. “I know a thing or two about how people make good on bad situations. I know what comes next. I know you think you’ve secured your place with us. Left us blinded by your righteous victory. Absolved yourself of all accountability. But the only reason you are here is because someone out there is reading your darkest thoughts. Granting your most evil wishes. Behind every great man there is a great woman. Behind you, all I see is a man who calls himself Angry Jonny… Though I might be inclined to think differently if you were to tell me you were sorry for what happened to our friend.”
Jessica was stunned. Not just at what she was hearing; she was appalled for thinking she could have waltzed back into the good graces of this family without giving something in return. She thought about how good she had felt, just minutes ago. She thought about the angle of the sun, the laughter of children in the yard, the taste of hush puppies. Hated herself for those few seconds of bliss.
She casually stood up, and marched over to Malik. Broke into his conversation. “Malik, I need you to take me home.”
“Jessica,” Malik was still stuck between laughter and a spoonful of barbeque. “What’s going –”
“Something’s come up, I just need to go. I’ll be out front.”
Jessica left him to the confused stares of his guests. Knowing this wouldn’t play well, Malik ordered around by his own date, in his own house. She didn’t care. Cut through the kitchen, living room, and burst out the front door, seething. Took a swing at the air. Stalked to the silver outback and planted herself against it.
The alarm went off, lights flashing.
Malik was already running out the front door, silencing the car with his remote.
“It was mom, wasn’t it?” he asked, stalking towards her. “What did she say?”
“Who gives shit what she said?” Jessica walked away from him, down the driveway. “Can we go?”
“You know how she is.”
“That’s your defense, you know how she is?” Jessica couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Crossed her arms and stared out at the cordoned property of Jason Castle. “Fucking unreasonable, that’s what she is.”
“Yes, I know.” Malik came to her, still clutching a soiled napkin. “Of course she’s unreasonable.”
“Damn right! I say up, she says down. I say fast, she says slow –”
“Jessica –”
“What made you think anything had changed?”
Malik tossed the napkin aside. “Jessica, my mom doesn’t do arguments any more. She spent years trying to bring cops to justice in New York, and her side always lost. And they always lost because arguments and ideas never made a difference. I know she doesn’t make any sense sometimes. I know she picks a position, then ignores everything else that contradicts it. But you’ve got to understand, she’s got a busted leg, her job was taken –”
Jessica had stopped listening halfway through.
She stepped out into the road, eyes scanning the sidewalk across from Malik’s house.
From behind her, she heard Malik calling out her name.
Jessica pulled a three-sixty, taking in every car parked along the street.
“What, what is it?” Malik asked.
“Check it out. All your parent’s friends. Parked all the way up and down, except here.” She pointed to the bright red curb in front of the Castle residence.
“Yeah, that’s a fire lane…”
“But look…” Jessica walked down the street, came to rest at a fire hydrant stationed well past the house. “There’s where the red curb begins…” She pointed a few feet to the right of the hydrant. “And it keeps going. Keeps going on, and on…” She followed the red paint, which led all the way past Jason Castle’s house. “That doesn’t add up. No fire lane is that long. All they need is room to access the hydrant…”
Jessica retraced her steps, noticing a sudden irregularity in the red paint as she approached the hydrant. “Malik, don’t you get it?”
“No…” Malik glanced up and down the street. “Get what?”
“Look, all the civilians at your party saw the red zone, and avoided it.”
“It’s always been there.”
“Far as you can remember?”
“Well… I guess I never thought about –”
“Who would? Nobody would park in a red zone, or think twice when they saw one. Castle didn’t want anyone parking in front of his house. Or wanted to know when someone was. He spray-painted his own curb…” Jessica reached down, dragged her finger along the rough surface. “He had a can of spray paint. It was his, the same spray can that Angry Jonny used to leave his calling card on his wall. Maybe the wire he used to tie Castle came from the same place.”
“Jessica –”
“Angry Jonny’s letter stated that he wasn’t a boy scout. He wasn’t prepared. He took the necessary materials from Castle’s house to do his dirty work. After he was done, he ditched them. Then, with Davenport, he found duct tape in the kitchen, maybe a charcoal briquette, and used that. He never brings his own tools.”
Malik wasn’t ready to bite. “Cops say the same weapon was used at both scenes.”
“Could mean the tool that did the cutting is some kind of common, household instrument.”
“Look, I know you been batting a thousand so far –”
“Objects, tools, items used in a crime. Those are the key pieces of evidence that get your average criminal caught. Angry Jonny is screwing with his MO just enough to keep the cops off his ass, while letting the rest of us know he’s the same one behind every attack.”
“There’s one thing you haven’t thought of,” Malik said.
“What’s that?”
“Maybe Angry Jonny never intended to do any of it. It may look like a master plan to us, but nobody’s stopped to consider that it was all just improvised on the spot. Maybe what he did to Clarence is just a trick. An unrelated person chosen to make it seem like he actually knows what he’s doing.”
“
Unless it’s all supposed to seem random.”
“Could he really be that smart?”
Jessica’s cell put an end to the speculation.
She checked the number, answered the call. “Hey, Chaucer. I just found something –”
She paused, listened. Nodded. Hung up.
“What was that?” Malik asked.
“I need to pick up my computer,” Jessica said. “Then I need to get to the Center for Human Genetics building at Pantheon.”
“Wait, why there?” Malik asked, trying to keep up as Jessica strode to the car. “What about this, this breakthrough?”
“It’ll still be there…” Jessica knocked on the passenger’s side door. “Come on, all is forgiven.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I could kiss that mother of yours for sending me out of that party.” Jessica hopped into her seat. “Turns out I couldn’t have stayed if I wanted to.”
“I really do worry about you, Jessica.”
“Nothing to worry about.”
“Says you. But I’m not sure how happy Angry Jonny’s going to be when he finds out you’ve been the leading snoop behind all those articles at the Observer.”
“Who’s going to tell him, you?”
“Who says I’d need to tell him anything? Maybe he already knows.”
In her excitement, Jessica almost told him about the original letter sent by Angry Jonny. Channeled her energy into three loud slaps against the dashboard. “Let’s move it. I got a date with a computer geek.”
“Fine, whatever,” Malik said glumly. He backed out of the driveway, tires lifting onto the fire lane that wasn’t. “You just keep on doing what you do, Jessica Kincaid.”
There was a piece of advice Jessica was confident she could follow.
Chapter 25: Black Hats.
On the fourth floor of Pantheon’s Center for Human Genetics, amongst a carpeted stretch of cubicles, in a corner alcove looking out over a cemented path leading to the football stadium, sat a gentleman by the name of Benjamin Morris.
He was somewhere in his late twenties. His short, sturdy body was comprised entirely of ovals; an aerodynamic snowman topped with a brainy noggin of dense, close-cut curls. Face a gleeful display of all-knowing confidence, olive skin with an incorrigible smile. He was an alert, intelligent sort that seemed to know a little bit about a lot of things. Brown eyes sparkling, arms folded over his plaid-patterned shirt.
Benjamin stared at the screen. Brought a finger aside his nose, then leaned over Jessica’s laptop and cut loose with a barrage of emphatic keystrokes.
Jessica had been watching him go to work for a good twenty minutes.
Chaucer had been there for none of them.
“OK, so maybe if Mr. Disney Owens has done that, then…” Benjamin opened up a few folders, digging deeper into her hard drive. “Then we can… where are you, you son of a bitch?”
“So, what do you do here, exactly?” Jessica asked, wary of the physical her computer was undergoing. “Gene splicing? Cloning?”
“I wish. I’m just a guy that keeps the machines happy.”
“Doesn’t sound very spectacular.”
“Son of a bitch!” Benjamin back tracked, muttering darkly. “All right, you bastard, let’s see if this won’t change your mind.” He opened up Microsoft notepad, and began to punch a long line of code. This seemed to please him. “So where do you work?”
“The Prescott. F and B department.”
“I hear they have a fantastic duck confit.”
“I hear the same.”
“You ever been to Tracy’s over in Carrboro?” Before getting an answer, Benjamin went off. “They serve this amazing prosciutto. It’s phenomenal. Make it themselves, salt it, wash it, the whole nine. You can’t even get it in the summer months, because they do it up old school. In the winter, when the climate’s just right…”
Jessica had to smile, even as his epic dissertation on dry-cured ham slowly drew him away from the task at hand. It took a special breed to pull off such a brazen display of know-it-all without eventually getting punched in the face. She glanced out the window, pleased to find he didn’t need her full attention to keep talking.
The Timber Bowl had been open since two that afternoon, but as evening set in, the flow of eager patriots had become a thick, nearly unmanageable procession. Jessica watched from above, excited children tugging at their parent’s sleeves, leading the way along the concrete path. She continued to nod absently in time with the pleasant drone of her own personal restaurant critic.
Even when Chaucer finally showed, imposing figure covering the cubical entrance, Benjamin didn’t let it slow him down. “– and no nitrates. All of the stuff at Tracy’s is locally raised, and –”
“Benjamin!” Chaucer waved his hands over his head. “The girl’s a vegetarian.”
“That’s cool. Tracy’s also has an amazing roasted vegetable –”
“Sorry to have left you so long with this crazy person, Jessica.” Chaucer turned to Benjamin. “Have you got anything for us?”
“No.”
“You’re not good for a whole lot, are you, Benjamin?”
“No. No, I am not.”
“So no good?” Jessica asked, disappointed.
“Sorry. My black hats provided me with some login credentials to another user on the same server. I tried to log in to the school's UNIX system. Used a stack buffer overflow exploit to gain root access to the system, blank the password of the compromised account. Then, using trace-route I was able to narrow the IP down to Germany...” It looked as though Benjamin was going to continue on in this fashion, when Jessica’s Gmail account reloaded and Benjamin interrupted himself. “My, aren’t you a popular girl?”
Again, there was her in-box; crammed with the pending friend requests of her repentant classmates. “Yeah, people are nuts about me.”
“You seem nuts about them… Also seems like you’ve got another one.”
“Great, another passive apology.”
“No, I mean you’ve got another one from Disney Owens.”
Benjamin respectfully rolled his chair out of the way and let Jessica take over.
Jessica got on her knees, face inches away from the screen. The subject line read, CLOSING IN.
She opened it, found the same poetic fragments as before.
They have possible match for clothes.
Looking to compare DNA sample.
They are looking to debunk alibi.
It’s going to be Dinah.
“Chaucer, come have a look at this.” She tilted the screen to let him get a better look. “What do you think?”
Chaucer scratched his head. “Benjamin, can you give us a moment?”
Benjamin nodded politely and disappeared down the hallway.
Chaucer asked Jessica to forward him the email. “Dinah was at the bar opening the night Angry Jonny went after Davenport, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Anybody other than Eli got her back?”
“She’s got a credit card statement. Says she settled up at two-thirty that morning.”
Chaucer didn’t look any less concerned. “Do you know where she is right now?”
“Said she was going to be at the fireworks with Eli.”
“I almost forgot it was Independence Day…”
A light went off in Jessica’s head.
Circuit overload burning the bulb right out.
She gently closed her laptop. Stood up, felt her knees pop.
“What is it?” Chaucer asked.
“I was wrong…” Jessica pulled out her copy of Angry Jonny’s most recent letter. “I mean, I might have been right, but maybe this wasn’t just about how he operates.”
Chaucer took the paper out of her hands. Read the last sentence out loud. “You are all unprepared for the revolution, a celebration of us.”
Jessica slapped herself across the face, furious with her own tunnel vision. “
Not us. I thought maybe Angry Jonny meant him and me, but the letter’s all in caps. So the message –”
“– The message could just as easily read, a celebration of US.”
“As in the U.S. A celebration of U.S.”
“The fireworks.”
Benjamin returned, leaning against the cubical entrance. “Hey... When did it get so dark?”
She turned around, glanced out the window.
The sun had all but vanished.
Chapter 26: In Plain Sight.
Jessica and Chaucer jostled their way through the north entrance and scanned the crowd.
The stands were bulging at the seams, lit up like Broadway. Sequined clothes, glow bracelets and shimmering plastic trinkets had the whole swarm looking like a collection of patriotic ravers. Down on the gridiron, Pantheon’s band campers were setting up their instruments. Whites of their nervous eyes visible from every angle.
The stadium had been built into an oblong valley; the east, north and west entryways led onto a thirty-foot-wide walkway that encircled three fourths of the stadium like an incomplete, concrete halo.
Vendors had been setting up their stands since midday. Cramped, mildewed tents serving up hot dogs, hamburgers, French fries and cotton candy, greatest hits of American cuisine. And it seemed every last hungry American was gathered at every last one; thick, unapologetic bodies clogging traffic up and down the promenade.
“This isn’t going to work, is it?” Chaucer asked.
“We can do this…” Jessica tried Dinah’s phone one last time. Straight to voicemail. “We’ve come here every year for the past three years. She never goes down into the seats.”
“Wanna split up?
“You go left, I’ll go right.”
“I still think we should call the detectives.”
“And what am I going to say to them? I think Angry Jonny’s going to attack one person out of thousands in the middle of a crowded stadium?”
“If he hasn’t already,” Chaucer replied, motioning for her to lower her voice. “Let me call them. I know how to handle the cops. You just get Dinah and meet me right back on this spot.”
“Do what you have to do.”
Jessica dipped in and out of the current. Tried to keep her eyes level, an exercise in sensory overload. Surrounded by Uncle Sam beards glued beneath star-spangled top hats. Innumerable lady liberties, reaching from beneath bed sheets to hold up poster boards of protesting health-care reform. Patriots of all sizes were suited up in revolutionary garb and powdered wigs. Portly, bearded men walking lockstep in a chain gang, placards demanding an end to white slavery. Next to the men’s room, a man in a crumpled suit sat bound and gagged to a wheelchair in yet another piece of performance art. A cockade hat covered his face, painted carmine red. Cardboard sign on his lap spelling out his grievance in black magic marker: HELD HOSTAGE BY BIG GOVERNMENT.