His wives were surprisingly similar. He’d fathered the same number of children, of the same sexes and in the same birth order. He’d glided from a job as an unimpressive office administrator to that of a faceless adjustor at a reinsurance firm. Discreet, formal, and obliging, he was a man of few words, but discriminating and educated.
But what most amazed people was the fact that Martin Lenx hadn’t altered his appearance in the least. He continued to wear his hair razor cut and extremely short. He presented himself in the same correct but inexpensive business attire, the same boring ties, even the same style of horn-rimmed glasses. He’d continued attending Lutheran religious services and participating in church activities. He’d even bought and then replaced the same make and model of car.
Director Wilson turned off the video. “Well, Agent Salazar, you’ll have plenty of time to watch yourself on television. They’ll be talking about you for months: the agent who arrested the most elusive serial killer in recent history. You have plenty to be proud of.”
“Thank you, sir, but I was just doing my job.”
“Modesty doesn’t become you, my dear. Your name will go down in the FBI annals as one of our best agents, the survivor of a point-blank gunshot who arrested a serial murderer of families.” He winked. “And all under my command!”
She inhaled—even though deep breaths were still a bit painful—and nodded without comment.
Director Wilson hadn’t finished. “When I was informed of your audacious analysis of the case, I told Dupree, ‘Brilliance is no excuse for insolence.’”
“I didn’t intend to be insolent.”
“Don’t deny it, Salazar. You can’t help it; you just are. But you certainly had the appropriate teacher. What can you tell us about Agent Dupree?”
Amaia nodded slowly, putting her thoughts in order. It was important to keep her narrative straight because she’d already given her version a dozen times, both verbally and in writing, and she’d probably have to do so at least as many times more. “The last time I saw him, Agent Johnson, Detective Charbou, and I were leaving for New Orleans on his orders, because the operations center had reported a crime that matched the modus operandi of Martin Lenx. Agent Dupree was recovering from a heart attack, and Detective Bull stayed with him. A few hours earlier, we’d located the place where girls who had been abducted during the storm were being kept. The girls weren’t there, but the evidence we found suggested that a certain Dominic Darrel was involved in their abduction. We believe that Darrel, a go-between, probably took them to Baton Rouge to turn them over. Dupree may have told Detective Bull to follow that trail after we left for New Orleans.”
Wilson made a curious gesture as if he were rolling up wool thread in a ball. “Right, yeah, sure, I know all that. Just as you said in your report, same as what Johnson stated. We don’t have a statement from Detective Charbou, because it’s been impossible to locate him. Things in New Orleans are still pretty complicated, and communication is down much of the time. But I suspect that if we could contact him, he’d say the same thing.”
Amaia looked down for a moment, trying not to remember Charbou declaring he was setting off on his own to serve his city.
Wilson consulted the case file. “Dupree suffered some kind of heart seizure. Can’t be exactly sure what kind, of course, because we don’t have the medical report or any way to get in touch with the doctors who treated him. Charity Hospital was completely evacuated only days after he was there. But even though Dupree had been admitted to the hospital while assigned to investigate the Composer, he decided to go to the swamp,” he read from the report, “‘because the boy Jacob Emerit heard the abductors mention the place.’”
“That was Special Agent Dupree’s call.”
Johnson raised his good hand, asking to be recognized. “The hospital was minimally staffed. They had only about fifteen hours of diesel for the generators. There were no surgeons, and the pharmacy was empty except for a few sedatives and some aspirin. Agent Tucker had just informed us of Brad Nelson’s arrest in Florida. We thought the case was closed, and we were trapped in a city that had reverted to the Stone Age. Dupree thought we should pursue the case that had been thrust upon us.”
“Right!” Verdon’s voice thundered from his place by the window. They’d almost forgotten he was there. “Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans catastrophe turned into a perfect alibi. No doubt about that! Oh, hold on, excuse me, rewind. Did I say ‘alibi’? I meant ‘justification.’”
He slowly and deliberately approached the director’s desk, letting the silence hang in the air. He stood next to Wilson. “Agent Dupree disappeared, and he’s still missing. Can you explain that?”
“Um, well,” Amaia said hesitantly, looking at Johnson. “We don’t have to remind you how complicated things are down there right now. We had to risk our lives to get out of New Orleans, and Agent Johnson was shot on our way back. Agent Dupree was seriously ill when we left him with Detective Bull and the medicine man in the swamp, the best qualified caretaker we could find.”
“And Dupree said he’d return to New Orleans when he recovered,” the director prompted them.
“Once it was safe to travel again,” Johnson replied. “With all due respect, I don’t think those conditions have been met. You have no idea what it’s like. The city’s getting worse with every passing hour. The place is sheer misery. They keep finding bodies, people who were trapped in their homes when the water rose and others who died of thirst up on the highway overpasses. There’s no water, no food, the temperature stays close to a hundred degrees, and snipers are shooting at whatever they want.” He indicated his shoulder. “New Orleans is hell on earth right now.”
“Confirming exactly what I said,” Verdon recapped. “The perfect alibi.”
Johnson’s sharp sigh filled the office. But an FBI agent wounded on duty could probably expect to be allowed a bit of leeway.
Verdon looked away.
Wilson took up the thread. “The same ‘justification’ you offered for not getting in contact, not calling for backup, not informing us of your newly discovered suspicions . . .”
Amaia was fed up. These people were at it again with the ridiculous rhetorical games they enjoyed so much, and she’d had enough. She didn’t see what they were getting at. They themselves had been intent on drawing up an “official version.”
“Are you suggesting our procedures were irregular? Because if you are—”
“Again, with all due respect, Directors,” Johnson interrupted her. “There was no proof. We had nothing: No crime scene analysis, no comparative prints, no ballistic evidence, we couldn’t compare physical traits, voices, or handwriting, and we had no witnesses and absolutely no technical support. The bodies of his most recent victims are rotting away even now at crime scenes nobody’s been able to examine. The technical evidence available to us led Agent Tucker to arrest Nelson, and we lost all communication after that. Assistant Inspector Salazar got to Lenx purely by following her instincts as an investigator; she—and she alone—was the one who tracked him down. She’s already reported that the first time she knew for sure Davis was our man was when she got to his house and met his family. Up to that point, there was nothing solid to report. Just as she was speaking with the wife and kids, Lenx arrived, intending to murder them. Thank God Salazar was there, because otherwise, Lenx would be just as invisible today as he was for the last eighteen years.”