ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS BOOK 1 (29 page)

Baldwin sat in silence for a moment. Accident. Blood. Gun. Head. None of the words added up, and he shook his head, trying to sort them out.

“Wait a minute. Are you saying Grimes shot himself, or was shot by someone else?” Baldwin was up off the couch. This was bad. Very, very bad.

“No, sir, he shot himself. We’re in the bar of the hotel that Mr. Grimes was staying in. It’s absolute pandemonium here. Apparently he’d been in the bar drinking for a couple of hours and just lost it. Started yelling and throwing his arms around, the gun went off right next to his right temple. I’m willing to bet that our M.E. will find a way to call it an accident, but I’ll tell you for true, he shot himself. Now, are you coming up here to claim the body, or what?”

“Whoa, man, slow down. I need something from you first, then I’ll decide what to do. Did Grimes have anything with him? Files, his briefcase? Anything?”

He could hear the man asking the question to the room. He came back on the line.

“Yeah, there’s a file that was sitting on the bar next to him, a manila folder with what looks like crime scene photos. And there was a picture on the bar, a real pretty little thing. Oh…” He got silent for a few moments.

“The picture of the girl on the bar is definitely the same girl from the crime scene photos. There’s also a plastic bag in the file, looks like it’s got a note and a pushpin in it.”

“Read me the note, please.”

Baldwin listened as the man recited the first few lines of “The Flea.” Dammit, Grimes.

“Tell me, does the picture have an identification with it? Is there a name or anything?”

“Yeah, there’s a picture here, looks like an official school photo, you know, with the border along the bottom? Ah…damn, man, she’s a student here in town. Goes to UNC–Asheville. There’s a hand-written name on the back of the photo. Noelle Pazia, 2004. Damn, guess I have a dead body on my hands. Where do you think he left her?”

Baldwin realized the officer thought Grimes had committed the murder, then killed himself. “Whoa, no, Grimes didn’t kill her. I believe that’s the identity of a body found in Louisville, Kentucky. You’re looking at the crime scene photos that were sent to Grimes from the Louisville police. We’re operating under the assumption that the murder was perpetrated by the Southern Strangler. Which means I need to get the Louisville team up to speed on this. I need you to fax that information you’ve got in front of you to me immediately. Send it to this number—615-555-9897. And where are they taking Grimes?”

“He was declared here at the scene. Been transported to our M.E. Is there a family that we need to notify?”

“I’m going to call my boss. His name is Garrett Woods. He’ll call you and get everything worked out. Damn. Grimes was a good man. You take care of him, okay?”

“Will do, sir.”

They hung up and Baldwin sank into the sofa. Shit. What the hell had happened? He knew Grimes was tense and not holding up great. This was his fault, if he had stayed there maybe he would have been able to stop his suicide. He heard the phone ring and the fax tones kick in. He went into the office and watched as the photo of Noelle Pazia scrolled out of the fax machine. He looked in her eyes and for a moment thought he understood what Grimes had done. He’d been there himself once, too. But this girl, she was so full of innocence and hope and it spilled out of her eyes like a waterfall of goodness. And he was just looking at a fax, he couldn’t imagine what the real thing looked like.

Not strangled, her hands weren’t cut off. If it were the Strangler, he’d taken some kind of pity on this girl and hadn’t ravaged her like the others. Baldwin didn’t totally understand, but he could see that she was just so innocent that she might have just turned the killer off. Maybe that was it. He’d already taken her, but when he saw her he couldn’t go through with it. Hell, he’d never know. These killers did what they wanted no matter what. Profiling them was almost a joke, you just never knew what they were going to do or say anymore. Okay, man, pull yourself together. He needed to focus, there was a lot that needed to get done. He started making a list as he dialed the number for the field office in Louisville. A woman answered the phone and he asked to speak to the SAIC.

“That’s me, Special Agent in Charge Eleanor Walker. How can I help you?”

Baldwin identified himself. “I’ve got an ID for you on your brunette. Her name’s Noelle Pazia and she’s a student at UNC–Asheville. He took her and no one missed her right away. The killing is being attributed to the Southern Strangler, though the information I’m getting doesn’t match up with his MO. Am I correct in that information?”

“That’s the information we have. The fact that the girl is from Asheville would tell me that it’s the Strangler, but the absence of violence disturbed me, too. We’ve got an initial cause of death from the medical examiner up here—looks like she suffocated. High levels of histamine in her system, petechial hemorrhaging—he’s calling it SAA, sudden asphyxic asthma. She had a fatal, massive asthma attack. We’ll get as much evidence as we can gather, get it to Quantico ASAP.”

An asthma attack. Now, that was interesting. Maybe she died before he could kill her. That would explain why her body wasn’t interfered with.

“I appreciate that, Agent Walker. Right now, all I know is what you know. I’m working a lead here in Nashville and I’ve just been informed that we’ve lost an agent. I’m kind of up to my ears right now.”

“Please tell me it wasn’t Jerry Grimes?”

“You know him?”

“I do. There’s been some rumors flying this afternoon. I talked with him earlier, sent him the crime scene photos of our Jane Doe, now ID’d as Noelle Pazia. He sounded drunk. Did he have an accident?”

Baldwin wasn’t about to divulge the nature of Grimes’s “accident.” “You could say that. Things are a bit uncertain right now.”

“Damn shame. Hate to lose one of the good guys.”

Baldwin deflated. Grimes’s death was going to haunt him.

“You’re right. He was one of the good guys.”

“In the meantime, I wish there was more information that you could give me, Agent Baldwin. We’ve got our own missing girl, and this one
has
been missed. Ivy Tanner Clark. Her father is Tanner Clark, the horse magnate. And he’s making a fuss so loud I’m surprised you haven’t heard it down there in Nashville.”

Baldwin sat down hard. Shit. “Okay, there’s something you need to do. We’ve just realized that the killer is leaving poems when he kidnaps a girl. You need to look in Ivy Clark’s car, go through her personal effects. See if he’s left a note.”

“I haven’t seen that information in the files.” She sounded pissed, and Baldwin decided to head her off at the pass.

“We haven’t been holding back, we’ve only known about the poems for a couple of days. Do me a favor and get on it, see if there is one, okay? Get back to me as soon as you know.” He rattled off his cell phone number and clicked off his phone.

He ran his hands through his hair and made the call he’d been dreading. He dialed his boss’s number, heart in his throat. Garrett was not going to be happy with this call.

He answered on the first ring.

“I know already,” he barked. “You didn’t see it coming?”

“Well, maybe I did, but I certainly didn’t think it was going to come down to this.”

Garrett’s voice softened. “You’re going to have to let it go. I should have requested Grimes be pulled from the case sooner than I did.”

“Sooner. What do you mean, sooner?”

“I talked to Grimes a couple of hours ago. Told him to drop everything and get his ass to D.C. They convened a disciplinary hearing in his honor.”

“A disciplinary hearing?” He thought for a moment.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Nope. I did a little checking. Turns out Grimes has been doing a little off-the-record chatting with a certain news producer for one of the cable networks in New York. The producer was his son. Grimes was the leak. We talked to the kid, he denied talking to his dad at all. Refuses to release the name of his source for the information. But a quick check of Grimes’s phone records refuted his claim. They’ve been talking regularly for the entire duration of the case.”

“My, you’ve been busy.”

“Yeah, and for what? A dead agent? Grimes wasn’t going to be part of the FBI anymore regardless. So this one is on me, Baldwin. There’s more than just this, in case you’re wondering. His whole life was falling apart. With Grimes’s death, there are several open issues that don’t have to be addressed. That’s all you need to know about that. Just keep moving forward. Don’t look back.”

Baldwin filled him in on the Jake Buckley scenario. Garrett concurred that they needed to have a conversation with Mr. Buckley, and fast. As they were hanging up, Garrett stopped him.

“Keep on it, Baldwin. You’re getting close.”

Taylor had just hung up the phone with Quinn Buckley when Lincoln and Marcus appeared in her office door.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Lincoln came in and sat down heavily. Marcus lounged in the doorway. “We’ve got good news and bad news. Just got out of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation offices. The DNA sample from Lucy Johnson’s rape doesn’t match the earlier exemplars from the Rainman cases. The sample from her doesn’t match any known offender in the system, either.”

Lincoln flipped open a file folder and consulted his notes.

“We talked with the man Lucy has the restraining order against, Edward Hunt? He is a former cop, retired from Metro last year, went to work for a top-dog security firm here in town. Runs their entire operation, makes a ton more than he did on Metro’s payroll. Anyway, he and Lucy used to be an item, but he broke up with her. Seems Miss Lucy is quite the psycho, at least in his opinion.”

Marcus chimed in. “From what Hunt says, they’d had a pretty rough time of it from the get-go. He wanted to break it off, she was desperate to keep him around. Long story short, she cornered him in a bar off Old Hickory, they had a few drinks, he went home with her and they had a farewell fling. Officially broke up, he actually started seeing someone new. According to Hunt, Lucy started stalking him, wouldn’t leave him alone. He filed a restraining order against her, she responded by filing a TRO of her own. It’s a bunch of crap, basically. Lucy came forward and said she’d been raped, Betsy answered the call. Lucy managed to make it seem like it was the Rainman. There’s been enough info in the news that she was very convincing.”

Marcus finally came in the office and sat down, looking discouraged. “Who knows whose DNA she had in her system. Hunt gladly volunteered a DNA sample, we’ve taken it and gotten it to the TBI. It’s in the works. We’ve been chasing a phantom.”

Lincoln tossed the file to Taylor. “I think you should bust her for filing a false report. Hunt seems like a standup guy, just wants Lucy to leave him alone. We’re ready to go talk to her, confront her with Hunt’s statement. If you want us to get a warrant sworn out against her, we will.”

“Do it,” Taylor said, furious. “She wasted countless man-hours for her own personal vendetta. You guys have been off chasing your tails because of her story, not to mention all the time and effort Betsy’s crew put in. Jesus, and the TBI…yeah, go haul her ass in. We don’t need this kind of crap. Maybe that will take some of the media attention off the ‘mystery’ victim as well. They can make hay out of this Lucy, for all I care.”

“Will do, LT.” Lincoln gave her a smile. “How’s the Strangler coming along?”

She groaned. “It’s coming. I’m on my way to meet Agent Baldwin right now.”

Marcus leaned back in his chair. “You know, Taylor, about ‘Agent Baldwin’?” He used his fingers to make quotation marks as he said the name. “You don’t have to do that, you know. No one’s going to care…”

She shot him a look, and he didn’t finish his sentence, just grinned and got out of the chair, clearing his throat. “C’mon, Lincoln, we need to go get a warrant for Lucy Johnson.”

Taylor stopped him. “Hey, you guys put together a statement for the press once she’s under arrest so they know we’re moving forward. They’ll be staking out night court anyway, it’d serve her right to get filmed while she’s being booked.”

They left, Lincoln whistling a ditty, Marcus with his head held high. They’d done a good job ferreting out Lucy Johnson’s bullshit, and they knew it. Taylor watched their backs, running a hand through her hair. Agent Baldwin. She was utterly transparent. So much for that. She stood, gathering her papers. Time to get out of here. She left the office and exited the building, stopping on the stairwell to light a cigarette. As she stowed the lighter in her pocket, she saw Fitz ambling up to her.

“LT, glad I caught you.”

“What’s up, Fitz? I’m on my way out.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.” He stepped in beside her.

“Just got finished talking with Julia Page. Word on the street is that Terrence Norton is taking over the drug trade for the entire east side, but it’s going to take more than a few conversations with informants to get the whole story. We’re going to need a full-blown investigation, undercovers, the whole works. It’s not something that I can get cleared up overnight, unfortunately.”

They reached her truck and Taylor leaned against it, smoking the last of her Camel, thinking.

“Fitz, let’s get this out of our hands. Talk to Julia, tell her we need to turn the whole thing over to the TBI. Homicide can’t be responsible for running a drug sting. Let them take the lead, if we need to task out of Metro I’ll have them talk to Price. Interagency cooperation, and all that bullshit. That sound good to you?”

“Sounds great to me. We’ll have to deal with Terrence Norton on our own side of the fence soon enough.”

She patted him on the arm. “I’m going home, work on some more stuff with the Strangler. Oh, by the way, Marcus and Lincoln—”

“Yeah, I know. No connection to the real Rainman. Wish we could have tied that up in a nice tidy bow for Betsy. We still waiting on her DNA results?”

“Yes, I haven’t gotten word back whether it’s a match or not.”

“If I hear something I’ll give you a call. Try and get some rest, we’ll tackle it again tomorrow.” He gave her a pat on the rump, a wink, and moseyed away.