The Serpent's Kiss Page 10

  The reporters started shouting questions, but Gray’s face turned the color of moldy cheese. Suddenly he said, “We’re clearing the area! This is a crime scene! I want everybody here but essential Bureau personnel to clear the area. Samuelson, Tittaglio, Johannsen. Get them the hell out of here. Get everybody the hell out of here!”

  The three FBI agents began coordinating the movement of everybody away from the body of Frank McMillan. Mary Linzey scanned the crowd, looking for someone, anyone, who might be able to give her a clue as to what had just happened. She looked for Roger Kandling, who had been so forthcoming about Derek Stillwater, but he was nowhere in sight. Then her gaze landed on another agent she had occasionally dealt with, Simona Toreanno. Toreanno, in a gray pantsuit, seemed to be wandering aimlessly away from the site of the shooting, her expression shocked.

  Mary ran over and tapped her on the arm.

  “Agent Toreanno. Simona.”

  Toreanno turned. She was relatively young for an FBI agent, in her mid-thirties, with dark curly hair she wore to her shoulders, an oval face with large brown almond-shaped eyes, long black eyelashes and a dash of ruby lipstick on her full mouth. Her eyes were filled with tears.

  “What?”

  Mary held up her hands. “I don’t have a camera or tape recorder on me, Simona. I’m not taping. This is off the record. Who’s Frank McMillan?”

  Simona blinked and shook her head. She seemed to take in the crowd with a little more focus, looking for somebody.

  “Who’s Frank McMillan, Simona? Who was he?”

  “FBI,” Simona whispered. “One of ours.”

  37

  1:35 p.m.

  JILL CHURCH STOOD IN the hallway outside Rebecca Harrington’s bedroom watching the Ferndale Police Department’s crime scene technician work the room. She wasn’t happy. She had called in a Bureau tech, who hadn’t shown up yet. Trying to control the scene—as Stillwater had suggested—wasn’t really all that easy a thing to do. It wasn’t actually the Bureau’s jurisdiction, though she could argue—and had been arguing—that because this was directly tied into the terrorist attacks that day, it was her jurisdiction. The problem was she couldn’t get corroboration for it. Who was she going to refer the Ferndale cops to? Matt Gray?

  “Anything interesting?” she asked the technician, a Latino who looked about twelve-years-old. He’d been introduced as Officer Gomez. He wore a navy blue windbreaker, faded jeans and hiking boots. Wire-rimmed glasses perched on a blunt, broad nose, and his face was pitted with acne scars. Spiky black hair jutted off the top of his head like a hedge.

  “Like what?” he asked, crawling around the floor with a pair of tweezers in his hand.

  “Physical evidence,” Jill said. “Some indication of who might have done this.” Her money was on the husband, Bill Harrington.

  “You mentioned the ex-husband,” Gomez said. “Right?” He looked up at her, light flashing off his glasses.

  “Yes.”

  Detective Bezinski, standing next to Jill, said, “Don’t get distracted by the case, Joe. Just get the evidence.”

  “Where’s the ex-husband live?” Gomez asked.

  “Birmingham,” Jill answered.

  Bezinski rolled his eyes. “Oh, jeeze. Look, Agent Church. One case at a time, all right? Or Joe’s gonna want to get a warrant for the ex-husband’s house and run that scene and spend the rest of the day comparing his lint collection to try to tie the ex to this scene.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Jill asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong with that. But we got a scene here to process first. Let’s do it.”

  “We are doing it,” Jill said, exasperated. She was starting to understand Stillwater’s impatience. Homicide cops didn’t spend much time preventing crimes. They came in after someone was already dead and they methodically tried not only to solve the case—if it needed solving—but to build a case to take to court. Unless they were dealing with a serial killer or somebody ready to flee the country, they could take their time.

  When you had someone like The Serpent threatening to kill a bunch of people every four hours, you didn’t have time to waste.

  “I’m going to look around some more,” Jill said.

  “Hey, don’t contaminate anything,” Gomez called.

  It was Jill’s turn to roll her eyes. She checked the next bedroom. It was set up as a guest room, a queen-sized bed made up with a blue and maroon-checked comforter, an empty dresser with a few nicknacks scattered across the top, and not much else. On two walls were the kind of paintings bought at starving artist sales that sold by the foot. They were fine, nothing wrong with them, but they lacked some sort of spark that would make them remarkable. One was a seascape. The other a painting of a birch forest along a stream in the winter.

  Jill went through the closet and found a few dresses that seemed decidedly unfashionable, a couple pillows and folded blankets. As she’d thought, it was a guest room.

  The next bedroom had been converted to a sitting room/office. There was a computer desk, a filing cabinet, a rocking chair and a TV set and portable stereo system. Next to the rocking chair was a basket of yarn, knitting needles and a partially completed sweater. Rebecca Harrington liked to knit to relax, she thought. She wondered why she did it up here instead of the living room, pondering the juxtaposition of the office and the knitting area.

  Jill sat down at the computer and punched the power on, waiting for it to boot up. Idly she fingered through the disk holders. Rebecca Harrington apparently was some sort of research coordinator at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute downtown Detroit. All of the disks seemed to be articles related to clinical trials that were ongoing.

  Once the Windows desktop appeared, she found the Microsoft Outlook icon and clicked on it. She started with the calendar. Interestingly, Rebecca had planned on being at the Breakfast Club that morning. There it was, listed at 8:00. The rest of the day also listed meetings and deadlines. Looked like Rebecca missed all of them.

  Jill’s phone buzzed. She clicked on it. It was Eleanor Mancuso, the Bureau evidence technician she had called. Eleanor sounded breathless. “Jill? It’s Eleanor. I’m turning around. I won’t be in. Have you heard?”

  “Heard what?” Jill’s heart sank, thinking The Serpent had struck again.

  “There was a big shooting down at Wayne State. They were triangulating the cell signal and it targeted Frank McMillan. Then all hell broke loose and Frank got shot to pieces and a Detroit cop got killed and two others—Detroit Fire Department, I think—got wounded in the crossfire. I’m going back.”

  “Eleanor ... Frank? Why did it triangulate on Frank?”

  “I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “I don’t know. But he’s dead. They’re saying he might have been The Serpent. Can you believe that?”

  Jill sat with the phone in her lap, thinking about it. Can you believe that?

  Jill had worked closely with Frank McMillan on anti-terror initiatives in Michigan, though not recently. She had largely been side-lined since her abortive sexual harassment suit against Matt Gray. Not sidelined in any way that could be used in a court, as her attorney had told her. Nothing obvious. But moved into liaison roles and support positions, rather than operational or investigative roles. Otherwise, her attorney had said, it was largely a case of his word against hers. The threat of the lawsuit had backed Gray off, but it hadn’t helped her career much.

  McMillan would have had the inside knowledge to understand how the various law enforcement groups would interact in this type of a crisis. He would have been able to plot something as elaborate as this.

  But she didn’t think he could manufacture sarin gas. Frank had a legal background and a law enforcement background, not a chemistry or science background.

  Even assuming he was capable of going bad and committing mass murder, she didn’t think McMillan had the technical expertise. Like most FBI agents, Frank hated terrorists. Like most FBI agents, he had known many people who died in terrorist att
acks—at Oklahoma City, at the World Trade Towers, at the Pentagon, at a number of embassies around the world. He didn’t give terrorists noble, but misguided motives. He called them what they were—thugs, murderers and criminals. He had once given a talk on terrorism—at Wayne State, she remembered—on how terrorists could cloak their actions in moral imperatives and reasoning, but that’s all it was. A cloak. Something to mask that they liked violence. They liked chaos.

  And he had quoted Lenin: “The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize.”

  Eleanor had said: Can you believe it?

  No, she couldn’t.

  Bezinski stuck his head in the door. “Find anything?”

  Jill was staring into space, her mind grabbing at an elusive memory, something else Frank McMillan had said in passing.

  “What’s wrong?” Bezinski asked.

  Jill held up her hand, cocking her head. Thinking. Trying to snag the memory. Bezinski waited patiently.

  Suddenly Jill sat upright. “That can’t be a coincidence!” she said.

  Bezinski stepped into the room. “I don’t really much believe in coincidences. At least not in a criminal investigation. What’s up?”

  Jill jumped to her feet, unsure of what to do next, of where to go.

  “What’s going on, Church?”

  She looked at Bezinski. He didn’t know about Frank McMillan. He didn’t know about the shooting incident in the city. He didn’t know about the terrorism scenarios that the Special Working Group of the Wayne State University Center for Biological and Chemical Terrorism Research had written.

  So he sure as hell wouldn’t be able to connect the dots the way Jill did when she remembered Frank McMillan slipping into his coat about two years ago and saying, “I’m heading over to Wayne. I’m consulting with this Center for Biological and Chemical Terrorism Research group over there.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Jill had teased him.

  McMillan had shrugged. “They work out scenarios for various attacks and then develop training programs and response plans for public health and emergency medical teams. I go in and tell them how we’d respond in any given situation.”

  Bezinski was trying to get her attention. “Agent Church? Jill? What’s going on?”

  Jill stared at him. “I’ve ... I’ve got to...”

  Bezinski waited.

  “I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to hook up with...”

  Bezinski said, “Who?”

  Jill took a deep breath. “This guy from Homeland Security. I think he was on to something. I’ve got to get going.”

  38

  1:52 p.m.

  DEREK SAT SPRAWLED OVER two chairs in what passed for the interrogation room at the Birmingham Police Department. Overall, he thought Birmingham had just about the nicest interrogation room he had ever been in. The entire department seemed more set up as a tourist bureau than real law enforcement. Derek figured that was part of their charter—don’t scare the locals with anything gritty.

  He had ignominiously taken his pants off, propped up his leg and demanded an ice pack, which was now resting on his knee. They had stuck him in here and disappeared, probably to make phone calls to the FBI and whoever else they felt inclined to consult with.

  Derek was trying to be patient. He reminded himself that he had been fighting this assignment in the first place. If he were to be completely consistent, he should be happy getting sidelined so he could fly to Mexico in pursuit of the terrorist calling himself The Fallen. Instead, he felt the weight of sixty-some college kids whose lives he had been unable to save.

  Thinking that way did no good. His thoughts kept returning to William Harrington’s house. He was fairly confident that William Harrington was The Serpent. The booby-trap in the office, the murdered ex-wife, the overall skill set. A biochemist with a background in chemical terrorism scenarios and an ax to grind. He’d gone off his nut. Now all Derek had to do was either prove it—or convince somebody else, like Jill Church or Matt Gray, that they had to do something about it.

  Derek picked up the ice pack and studied his knee. It was swelling, although he hoped the ice pack would help cut that down. It also throbbed and he had made the mistake of putting his full weight on it shortly after being dragged from the police car. He wasn’t entirely sure he would be able to walk for a while. What he really needed was ice, rest, and some Percocet.

  There was a knock at the door, then it opened and Jill Church walked in. She paused for a moment to take in his leg and the fact he was sitting there in his white Jockey underwear. Her expression was grim, lines radiating out from her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She seemed to have aged a few years in the last hour.

  “You’ve looked better,” she said.

  He cocked his head. “I’ve already been detained. What are you going to do, drag me back to the city and turn me in to Gray for assault?”

  She shook her head. “As hard as this is to believe, Stillwater, things have gone totally to hell since you stole my car.”

  “Borrowed. I borrowed your car,” he said. “What do you want, Church?”

  “I’m getting you out of here. Come on.”

  He shook his head. “That might be a problem.”

  Hands on her hips, she stepped closer to him. Her voice was a menacing hiss. “Stillwater, I’m not in the mood. One of our agents was killed in the city. They suspect he might be The Serpent. Everything’s gone to shit and I think it’s all a diversion. Now is not the time for you to be an asshole.”

  Derek couldn’t stop his grin. He waved at his knee. “Uh, the problem is I don’t think I can support my weight. I need a crutch or something. And, um, I might need help getting my pants on.”

  She glared at him, then turned and stomped out of the interrogation room, leaving the door open.

  Derek felt unreasonably merry. “And if you could get a sandwich or something?” he called after her. “I’m hungry.”

  39

  2:06 p.m.

  DEREK HOBBLED OUT OF the interrogation room using a cane one of the cops had found for him. He found a uniformed cop studying his GO Packs, which had been taken from Jill’s car and delivered to the Birmingham Police Department. The cop had blond hair so white it seemed practically transparent. His eyes were a glacial blue, his skin the color of bone. Derek wondered briefly if he was an albino.

  Derek moved to the table and unzipped the packs.

  Jill, behind him, said, “We don’t have time for this.”

  “Yes, we do,” he said. He glanced up at the albino cop. “Everything had better be here.”

  “It is,” the cop said. His badge said Officer Blackburn. “Here’s your phone. That’s an Iridium, right?”

  Derek took it from him, checked the charge, and clipped it to his belt. “Yes.”

  “I couldn’t access it.”

  “That’s right,” Derek said. “You couldn’t. It’s password protected.”

  Blackburn reached into the bag and pulled out a device about the size of a Magic Marker, with a double cartridge. “Sir...” The cop suddenly looked a little nervous. “We were wondering... What is this, sir?”

  Derek took it from him and held it up. It read:

  Pralidoxime chloride injector

  For use in nerve agent poisoning only

  “You have problems reading?” He placed it carefully back into the duffel bag. “It’s an atropine injector. If you get exposed to nerve gas like VX or sarin, you can give yourself an injection with this.”

  “Does it work?” He licked his lips.

  “Yes, it works. Hope you never have to test it.”

  Derek made sure everything was there, then looked at Jill. “Will you carry these, please?”

  She grudgingly hefted the GO Packs with a grunt and led the way out of the Birmingham Police station. Michael was pacing nervously in front of his Honda. A gust of chill wind blew the hair off his forehead, and he crossed his arms over his chest to stay warm.

  Derek froze, leaning his weight on the
cane. “Jesus Christ!”

  Jill turned to look at him. “What?”

  Slowly Derek turned back to Jill, reluctantly taking his gaze off Michael. “Is that your son?”

  “Yes. That’s Michael. It’s a long story. He wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t stolen my car.”

  “Borrowed.”

  Derek shuffled after Jill, eyes fixed on Michael.

  Jill threw the bags into the back of the Honda and turned once again to Derek. “Derek, this is my son, Michael Church. Michael, this is Agent Derek Stillwater. He’s a troubleshooter for the Department of Homeland Security.”

  Derek shifted the cane to his left hand and held out his right hand. “Hello, Michael. I knew your father. You look just like him.”

  40

  2:07 p.m.

  AGENT MATT GRAY WAS back in his office on the 26th floor of the Patrick McNamara Federal Office Building on Michigan Avenue. He had changed out of his bloody shirt, but kept the Army boots on. He paced back and forth in front of the window overlooking downtown Detroit, the river and Windsor, Ontario beyond.

  Two other agents sat at a round conference table, watching him. Gray said, “What’s the lab say about the phone?”

  Agent Simona Toreanno said, “No fingerprints, but they’re otherwise working on it.”

  Gray stopped his pacing and looked at his two top agents. “I would like to know why Frank McMillan would be behind these attacks. Ideas?”

  Simona Toreanno’s face grew red. “It was a set-up. There’s no way Frank was The Serpent.”

  Gray skewered her with his flat gaze. “Then how do you explain him having the phone in his duffel bag?”

  “The Serpent put it there,” she said.

  Gray jabbed at her with his index finger. “Right! Sure, Toreanno. The Serpent slipped into the area with the highest concentration of cops and agents looking for him, snuck inside the biocontainment tent and dropped it in Frank’s duffel bag. Why? Why take the risk?”