After they hung up, Amaia was convinced she saw a smile hiding behind Johnson’s bushy mustache.
Special Agent Stella Tucker used her ballpoint pen to underline the names of each locality the Rescue Me administrator dictated over the phone. She was comparing them with the list of Nelson’s leave requests she’d obtained from HR.
“Brooksville, Oklahoma; Texas, in a crossroads near Alvord; Miami, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana,” she recapped. “And you’re sure, absolutely sure, that Nelson was at every one of those places?”
“We make up our teams from volunteers in the vicinity, but if necessary, we’ll move people all the way across the country. Nelson just put in for New Orleans. Our team leader there is Michael Meigs, a great guy, firefighter from Boston.”
“Right, Detective Nelson’s personnel officer told me he’d left for there, but we do need to consult with him. It’s not terribly pressing,” she lied. “And if he’s doing urgent rescue work, we don’t want to bother him. I just wanted to confirm he actually is in New Orleans.”
“Well, I won’t know until I can talk with the chief. I can confirm that Nelson accepted the invitation, but something could have come up. I can give you Meigs’s number. The last we heard, they were in Kenner at the fire station at Armstrong Airport. They were scheduled to move from there to Charity Hospital.”
Tucker thanked the administrator and took down the team leader’s number. She hung up and tried to reach him.
“The number you have dialed is not in service at this time.”
“Goddamn hurricane,” she muttered.
Tucker drew circles around Cape May, New Jersey, and Killeen, Texas, on the map. She had no confirmation Nelson had been in those locations in February and March. He was still on the Galveston police force at the time, as he had been in December when the Andrews family was killed. Dupree had mentioned needing to talk to the Galveston police chief; if she contacted Galveston, there’d be a risk that someone would pass it up the line and the chief would tell Dupree. Tucker was pretty sure the Galveston force would wonder what was up if the FBI called twice in the same day, but it was equally risky not to give it a try.
She knew the others’ opinion of her, but she didn’t care. She’d learned long ago that the only unforgiveable errors she’d ever made had come from failing to follow her own convictions. She was intelligent, which had given her insight into two things early on: first, an institution like the FBI wasn’t particularly willing to mentor a woman, especially an African American; second, the only way to ever change that was by showing results.
Agent Tucker tried Meigs’s number again but ended the call as soon as she heard the recorded message. She stared at the office telephone for several seconds as if it were an alien object.
Emerson watched her, his hands hovering above the keyboard. In the months he’d worked for Tucker, he’d learned to be especially vigilant during her moments of inaction, for that capable, ambitious woman never slowed down except to weigh the facts before taking action. She would sit motionless for several seconds, scarcely blinking as she looked about the room, her gaze jumping sightlessly from one random object to another. And when she came back, she’d have decided what to do.
Finally, she looked up. Emerson took that opportunity to speak. “Agent Tucker, I have the photos of the Nelson family that Salazar requested. Most are from the school yearbooks or official records. They’re not high res, but . . .”
Tucker came over and Emerson pushed back his swivel chair to give her a better view. She took the mouse and clicked one by one on the photos he’d attached to the draft email. Emerson had already spent some time studying them.
Mrs. Nelson was good looking, maybe a bit too striking to fit Lenx’s profile, and the boys strongly resembled the mother. The girl was different. She was a bit sullen; she didn’t look comfortable being photographed.
Tucker released the mouse, turned, and perched on the edge of the desk to look at Emerson. He waited for her instructions the way a cat pauses in expectation of a bowl of cream.
“I talked with the coordinator of the rescue organization and compared his information with the HR list of Nelson’s leave requests since last April. They matched from April in Brooksville to three days ago in Miami. He was in Galveston when the Andrews family died, and I’m pretty certain he’s in New Orleans now.”
“He’s our man.”
“That’s what I think. I’m trying to contact Chief Meigs, their team leader in New Orleans, for more info, but we haven’t linked Nelson to Cape May in February or Killeen in March.”
Emerson took the bait. “Nelson was with the Galveston police department then. I could call their admin offices and ask.” He checked his watch. “It’s Sunday. I don’t know if they’re staffed on weekends.”
She didn’t answer, so there would be no record of her telling Emerson to make a call that might overlap with Dupree’s. She turned back to the desk, giving him room while he tapped the number.
Emerson was grinning when he hung up soon afterward. “He took leave on those dates to go out with the rescue team.”
Agent Tucker leaned over the desk, a fist under her chin. She was looking in Emerson’s direction but not at him. Her eyes were far away as she made one of her almost interminable pauses for reflection. “What do you think—does Mrs. Nelson go to bed early?”
Emerson said nothing. That was another thing he’d learned: a question from Tucker didn’t necessarily mean she was expecting an answer. He rose and put on his jacket. He hesitated a moment, looking at the unsent email with the attached images. He hadn’t added the new information about Nelson’s leave requests.
Tucker was already at the door. She looked back and answered as if Emerson had asked about the email out loud. “Everything in its time. Let’s get to work.”
After she turned away, he sent it anyway, just as it was.
Amaia logged on and the symbol immediately filled the screen:
She found herself speculating if it might be an N followed by an E. The truncated line could be an L.
“Looks like a kid wrote it,” she heard from behind her. She looked around to see Detective Bull carrying two paper cups.
“I took a coffee break; thought you might like one.” He held it out.
Amaia gave him a grateful smile, accepted it, and picked up on his comment. “You said it looked like a child’s writing?” She gestured to the chair next to hers.
The detective settled there with a smile, pleased to contribute. “I have a six-year-old boy and a girl who’s ten. That’s how they write. They never use capital letters.”
Amaia looked at the marks in a different light. Maybe they were, in fact, made by a child.
“But maybe it’s from some adult who writes a lot with a pen or pencil.”
Amaia turned to him with renewed interest. “Explain that.”
“Addison’s handwriting was really good from the start. But Liam, the little fella, well, let’s just say it’s not so easy for him. Your handwriting reflects your personality, and my little guy has a lot of that. But Liam’s teacher doesn’t think the way I do, so she’s always marking up Liam’s work with comments about his handwriting and the way he holds his pencil.”